Daybreak—2250 A.D.

13. RING OF FIRE

“I am Fors of the Puma Clan, of the tribe of the Eyrie in the mountains which smoke.” Because his hands were bound he did not give the salute of a free man to the commander of many tents. But neither did he hang his head nor show that he thought himself not the full equal of any in that company.

“Of this Eyrie I have never heard. And only far-riding scouts have ever seen the mountains which smoke. If you are not of the blood of the dark ones, why do you run with one of them?”

“We are battle comrades, he and I. Together we have fought the Beast Things and together we crossed the Blow-Up land—”

But at those words all three of the leaders before him looked incredulous and he of the white robe laughed, his mockery echoed a moment later by the High Chief, to be taken up by the whole company until the jeering roar was a thunder in the night.

“Now do we know that the tongue which lies within your jaws is a crooked one. For in the memory of men— our fathers, and fathers’ fathers, and their fathers before them, no men have crossed a Blow-Up land and lived to boast of it. Such territory is accursed and death comes horribly to those who venture into it. Speak true now, woodsrunner, or we shall deem you as twisted as a Beast One, fit only to cough out your life upon the point of a lance—and that speedily!”

Fors had clipped his rebel tongue between his teeth and so held it until the heat of his first anger died. When he had control of ftimself he answered steadily.

“Call me what you will, Chief. But, by whatever gods you own, will I swear that I speak the full truth. Perhaps in the years since our fathers’ fathers’ fathers went into the Blow-Up and perished, there has been a lessening of the evil blight—”

“You call yourself of the mountains,” interrupted the White Robe. “I have heard of men from the mountain who venture forth into the empty lands to regain lost knowledge. These are sworn to the truth and speak no warped tales. If you be of their breed show us now the star which such wear upon them as the sign of their calling. Then shall we make you welcome under custom and law—”

“I am of the mountains,” repeated Fors grimly. “But I am not a Star Man.”

“Only outlaws and evil livers wander far from their clan brothers.” It was the Black Robe who made that suggestion.

“And those are without protection of the law, meat for any man’s ax. These men are not worth the trifling over—”

Now—now he must try his one and only argument. Fors looked straight at the Chief and interrupted him with the old, old formula his father had taught him years before.

“By the flame, by the water, by the flesh, by the tent right, do we now claim refuge under the banner of this clan—we have eaten your meat and broken our thirsting here this hour!”

There was a sudden silence in the large tent. All the buzz of whispering from neighbor to neighbor was stilled and when one of the guards shifted his stance so that his sword hilt struck against another’s the sound was like the call to battle.

The High Chief had thrust his thumbs between his wide belt and his middle and now he drummed on the leather with his finger tips, a tattoo of impatence. But the Black Robe moved forward a step reluctantly and gestured to the guard. So a knife flashed and the hide thongs fell from their cramped arms. Fors rubbed his wrists. He had won the first engagement but—

“From the hour of the lighting of the fires on this night until the proper hour you are guests.” The Chief repeated those words as if they were bitter enough to twist his mouth. “Against custom we have no appeal. But be assured, when the time of grace is done, we shall have a reckoning with you—”

Fors dared now to smile. “We ask only for what is ours by the rights of your own custom, Chieftain and Captain of many tents.” He made with his two hands the proper salute.

The High Chiefs eyes were narrowed as he waved forward his two companions.

“And under custom these two be your guardians, strangers. You are in their care this night.”

So they went forth from the council tent free in their persons, passing through the crowd to another hide-walled enclosure of smaller size. On the dark skins of which it was made various symbols were painted. Fors could make them out with the aid of the firelight. Some he knew well. The twin snakes coiled about a staff—that was the universal sign of the healer. And those balancing scales—those meant the equalizing of justice. The men of the Eyrie used both of those emblems too. The round ball with a flower of flames crowding out of its top was new but Arskane gave an exclamation of surprise as he stopped to point at a pair of outstretched wings supporting a pointed object between them.

“That—that is the sign of the Old Ones who were flying men. It is the chief sign of my own clan!”

And at those words of his the black-robed Plainsman turned quickly to demand with some fierceness:

“What know you of flying men, you creeper in the dirt?”

But Arskane was smiling proudly, his battered face alight, his head high.

“We of my tribe are sprung from flying men who came to rest in the deserts of the south after a great battle had struck most of their machines from the air and blasted from the earth the field from which they had flown. That is our sign.” He touched almost lovingly the tip of the outstretched wing. “Around his neck now does Nath-al-sal, our High Chief, still wear such as that made of the Old One’s shining metal, as it came from the hand of his father, and his father’s father, and so back to the first and greatest of the flying men who came forth from the belly of the dead machine on the day they found refuge in our valley of the little river!”

As he talked the outrage faded from the Black Bobe’s face. He was a sadly puzzled man now.

“So does all knowledge come—in bits and patches,” he said slowly. “Come within.”

But it seemed to Fors that the law man of the Plains-people had lost much of his hosility. And he even held aside the door flap with his own hands as if they were in truth honored guests instead of prisoners, reprieved but for a space.

Once inside they stared about them with frank curiosity. A long table made of polished boards set on stakes pounded into the earth ran down the center and on it in orderly piles were things Fors recognized fiom his few visits to the Star House. A stone hollowed for the grinding and bruising of herbs used in medicines, its pestle lying across it, together with rows of boxes and jars—that was the healer’s property. And the dried bundles of twigs and leaves, hanging in ordered lines from the cord along the ridge pole, were his also.

But the books of parchment with protecting covers of thin wood, the ink horn and the pens laid ready, those were the tools of the law man. The records of the tribe were in his keeping, all the customs and history. Each book bore the sign of a clan carved on its cover, each was the storehouse of information about that family.

Arskane stabbed a finger at a piece of smoothed hide held taut in a wooden stretcher.

“The wide river?”

“Yes. You know of it, too?” The law man pushed aside a pile of books and brought the hide under the hanging lantern where oil-soaked tow burned to give light.

“This part—that is as I have seen it with my own two eyes.” The southerner traced a curved line of blue paint which meandered across the sheet. “My tribe crossed right here. It took us four weeks to build the rafts. And two were swept away by the current so that we never saw those on them again. We lost twenty sheep in the flood as well. But here— my brother scouted north and he found another curve so—” Arskane corrected the line with his finger. “Also—when the mountains of our land poured out fire and shook the world around them the bitter sea waters came in here and here, and no more is it now land —only water—”

The law man frowned over his map. “So. Well, we have lived for ten tens of years along the great river and know this of its waters—many times it changes its bed and wanders to suit its will. There are the marks of the Old Ones’ work at many places along it, they must have tried to hold it to its course. But that mystery we have lost—along with so much else—”

“If you have ridden from the banks of the great river you have come far,” Fors observed. “What brought your tribe into these eastern lands?”

“Whatever takes the Plainspeople east or west? We have the wish to see new places born in us. North and south have we gone—from the edges of the great forests where the snows make a net to catch the feet of our horses and only the wild creatures may live fat in winter—to the swamp lands where scaled things hide in the rivers to pull down the unwary drinker—we have seen the land. Two seasons ago our High Chief died and his lance fell into the hand of Cantrul who has always been a seeker of far lands. So now do we walk new trails and open the world for the wonder of our children. Behold—”

He unhooked the lamp from its supporting cord and pulled Fors with him to the other end of the tent. There were maps, maps and pictures, pictures vivid enough to make the mountaineer gasp with wonder. They had in them the very magic with which the Old Ones had made their world live for one another.

“Here—this was made in the north—in winter when a man must walk with hide webs beneath his feet so that he sinks not into the snow to be swallowed as in quicksands. And here—look you—this is one of the forest people—they lay paint upon their faces and wear the hides of beasts upon their bodies but they walk in pride and say that they are a very ancient people who once owned all this land. And here and here—” He flipped over the framed parchment squares, the records of their travels set down in bright color.

“This—” Fors drew a deep breath— “this is greater treasure than the Star House holds. Could Jarl and the rest but look upon these!”

The law man ran his fingers along the smooth frame of the map he held.

“In all the tribe perhaps ten of our youth look upon these with any stir in their hearts or minds. The rest— they care nothing for the records, for making a map of the way our feet have gone that day. To eat and to war, to ride and hunt, to raise a son after them to do likewise—that is the desire of the tribe. But always—always there are a few who still strive to go back along the old roads, to try to find again what was lost in the days of disaster. Bits and pieces we discover, a thread here and a tattered scrap there, and we try to weave it whole.”

“If Marphy spoke now the full truth,” the harsher voice of the healer broke in, “he would say that it was because he was born a seeker of knowledge that all this”—he waved at the array—“came to be. He it was who started making these and he trains those of like mind to see and set down what they have seen. All this has been done since he became keeper of the records.”

The law man looked confused and then he smiled almost shyly. “Have I not said that it is in our blood to be ever hunting what lies beyond? In me it has taken this turn. In you, Fanyer, it also works so that you make your messes out of leaves and grass, and if you dared you would cut us open just to see what lies beneath our skins.”

“Perhaps, perhaps. Dearly would I like to know what lies beneath the skins of these two that they have crossed the Blow-Up land and yet show no signs of the burning sickness—”

“I thought,” retorted Arskane quickly, “that was the story you did not believe.”

Fanyer considered him through narrowed eyes, almost, Fors thought, as if he did have the southerner opened for examination.

“So—maybe I do not believe it. But if it is true, then this is the greatest wonder I have yet heard of. Tell me, how did this thing happen?”

Arskane laughed. “Very well, we shall tell our tale. And we swear that it is a true one. But half of the tale belongs to each of us and so we tell it together.”

And as the oil lamp sputtered overhead, guards and prisoners sat on the round cushions and talked and listened. When Fors spoke the last word. Marphy stretched and shook himself as if he had been swimming in deep water.

“That is the truth, I think,” he commented quietly. “And it is a brave story, fit to make a song for the singing about night fires.”

“Tell me,” Fanyer rounded abruptly upon Fors, “you who were lessoned for knowledge seeking, what was the thing which amazed you most in this journey of yours?”

Fors did not even have to consider his answer. “That the Beast Things are venturing forth from their dens into the open country. For, by all our observations, they have not done so before in the memory of men. And this may mean danger to come—”

Marphy looked to Fanyer and their eyes locked. Then the man of medical knowledge got to his feet and went purposefully out into the night. It was Arskane who broke the short silence with a question of his own.

“Recorder of the past, why did your young men hunt us down? Why do you march to war against my people? What has passed between our tribes that this is so?”

Marphy cleared his throat, almost as if he wished for time.

“Why? Why? Even the Old Ones never answered that. As you can see in the tumbled stones of their cities. Your people march north seeking a home, mine march east and south for the same reason. We are different in custom, in speech, in bearing. And man seems to fear this difference. Young blood is hot, there is a quarrel, a killing, from the spilled blood springs war. But chiefly the reason is this, I think. My people are rovers and they do not understand those who would build and root in one place within the borders of a land they call their own. Now we hear that a town is rising in the river bend one day’s journey to the south. And that town is being settled by men of your blood. So now the tribe is uneasy and a little afraid of what they do not know. There are many among them who say that we must stamp out what may be a threat to us in time to come—”

Arskane wiped the palms of his hands across the tattered remnant of his garment, as if he had found those palms suddenly and betrayingly damp.

“In no way is my tribe any threat against the future of yours. We ask only for land in which to plant our seed and to provide grazing for our sheep. Perhaps we may be lucky to find a bank of clay to give us the material we need for our potters’ craft. We are indifferent hunters —coming from a land where there is but little game. We have arts in our hands which might well serve others beside ourselves.”

“True, true.” Marphy nodded. “This desire for war with the stranger is our curse—perhaps the same one which was laid upon the Old Ones for their sins. But it will take greater than either of us to make a peace now —the war drums have sounded, the lances are ready—”

“And there, for once, you speak the full truth, oh, weaver of legends!”

It was the High Chief who came to the table. Laid aside were his feather helmet and cloak of office. In the guise of a simple warrior he could walk the camp unnoted.

“You forget this—a tribe which breeds not warriors to hold its lances will be swallowed up. The lion preys upon the bull—if it can escape the horns. The wolves run in packs to the kill. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten—that is the law upheld better than all other laws.”

Something hot rose in Fors’ throat and he snapped out an answer to that which was born of this new emotion.

“The paws of the Beast Things are against all of us— in just that manner, oh Captain of the Tents. And they are no lightly considered enemy. Lead your lances against them—if war you must!”

Surprise came first into Cantrul’s eyes and then the flush of anger stained his brown cheekbones. His hand moved instinctively to the hilt of his short sword. Fors’ hands remained on his knees. The scabbard at his belt was empty and he could not accept any challenge the Plainsman might offer.

“Our lances move when they will and where they will, stranger. If they wish to clean out a nest of mud-hut-dwelling vermin—”

Arskane made no move, but his one unswollen eye calmly measured the High Chief with a control Fors admired. Cantrul wanted an answer—preferably a hot one. When it did not come he turned to Fors with a harsh question.

“You say that the Beast Things march?”

“No,” Fors corrected him. “I say that for the first time in our knowledge they are coming fearlessly out of then-burrows in the cities to roam the open lands. And they are cunning fighters with powers we have not yet fully gauged. They are not men as are we—even if their sires’ sires’ sires were of our breed. So they may be greater than we—or lesser. How can we yet know? But this is true-as we of the Eyrie, who have warred against them during generations of city looting, can say—they are enemies to mankind. My father died under their fangs. I, myself, have lain in their bonds. They are no common enemy to be dismissed without fear, Plainsman.”

“There is this, remember.” Marphy broke the short silence. “When these two fled across the Blow-Up land a pack of the creatures sniffed their trail. If we march south without taking care we may find ourselves with an enemy behind as well as before—to be caught between two fires—”

Cantrul’s fingers drummed out a battle rhythm on his belt, a sharp furrow cut between his thin brows. “We have scouts out.”

“True. You are a leader old in war knowledge. What is needful has been ordered. Forgive me—I grow old, and conning records sometimes gives one a weary view of life. Man makes so many mistakes—sometimes it appears that never shall he learn—”

“In war he learns or dies! It is plain that the Old Ones did not or could not learn—well, they are gone, are they not? And we live—the tribe is strong. I think that you worry too much, both of you—Fanyer, too. We ride prepared and there is nothing that—”

But his words were drowned in such a thunder of sound that it seemed a, storm had broken directly above the tent in which they stood. And through the general uproar came the shouts of men and the higher screaming of frightened women and children.

Those in the tent were across it in an instant, elbowing each other to be first at the door flap. The Plainsmen pushed out as Arskane pulled Fors back. As they hesitated they saw the wild stampede of horses pound down the center lane of the camp, threading around the fires with so little room that tents were going down under their hoofs. Behind, across the horizon, was a wavering wall of golden light.

Arskane’s hand closed about Fors’ wrist with almost bone-crashing pressure as he dragged the slighted mountaineer back into the tent.

“That is fire! Fire running through the prairie grass!” He had to shout the words in order to be heard over the tumult outside. “Our chance—”

But Fors had already grasped that. He broke out of the other’s grip and ran down the length of the table looking for a weapon. A small spear was all he could see to snatch up. Arskane took the pestle of the herb grinder as Fors used the point of the spear to rip through the far wall of the tent.

Outside they headed away from the chieftain’s enclosure, running and dodging among the tents, joining other running men in the shadows. In the stirred-up ant hill of the camp it was ridiculously easy to get away without notice. But the sky behind was growing steadily brighter and they knew they must get out of the camp quickly.

“It’s sweeping around.” Fors pointed out the swing of that ghastly parody of daylight. East and west the fire made a giant mouth open and ready to engulf the camp. There were fewer men running now and order was developing out of the first confusion.

They rounded the last of the tents and were out in the open, looking out for clumps of bushes or trees among which they could take cover. Then Fors caught a glimpse of something which brought him up short. A glare of yellow showed before them where it should not be—reflection—but how? A moment later Arskane verified his suspicion.

“It’s a ring of fire!”

Fors’ hunter’s instincts began to work as those tongues of flame lapped skyward.

“Downhill!” He threw the order over his shoulder.

He could see a trampled trail marked by many hoofs, hoofs of horses led to water. Downhill was water!

Downhill they ran.