The Early Pohl (8 page)

"How dies our Enemy?" he bellowed.

"By the flames of our fire," rolled back the response.

"Where seek we our Enemy?"

"In the woods; in our Tribe; on mountains or plain; wherever he may flee, there we shall go."

Corlos was working himself up to a frenzy. As the echoes of the warriors' shouts died away, he signalled to the musicians. A drum then boomed to accent each syllable, as he shrieked, "Behold our Enemy!" He ripped open the door of the palanquin; four warriors ran up and dragged out the Enemy.

I stared hard, then stepped back a pace and clutched a vine for support. The Enemy, this time, was human. It was a youth, slight, shaking in a hysteria of fear. It was Lurlan, my sworn blood brother!

Lurlan! Except for Clory, I had rather see anyone of the Tribe perish in the flames, even myself, rather than him. Clory clutched my arm, and a tiny whimper escaped her. It was a surprise to her too, it seemed.

I dismissed the thought that I was on ground none too secure myself, and my mind spun as I tried desperately to think of a way of saving Lurlan from the flames. But there was no time for thinking, for in a matter of minutes the fire would be lighted and Lurlan's corpse would roast in its embers.

If he had to die, he would die. Certainly I could never hope to save his life. But—need he die in the horrible agony of the flames?

He did not, I decided agonizedly—and found that while I had been painfully thinking it out, my body's reflexes had come to the same conclusion. My bow was in my hands, and an arrow was notched. I took hasty aim and released the bowstring. The arrow fled from me and cleaved straight to its target—the throat of my blood brother, Lurlan.

Consternation! The entire Tribe was in an uproar. I saw proven then what I had always known—Corlos, though a beast and a braggart, was no coward. He whipped around like a pinked Eater, and peered directly at me, his slightly nearsighted eyes blinking in the smoke of the smaller fires. I could have slain him as easily as I had Lurlan, and he must have realized that. But he stood his ground, though his swarthy face turned pale and he fingered his arrowless bow.

"Keefe!" he bellowed as soon as he identified me. Then he spun back and faced the warriors. "This man has slain the Enemy!" he howled. "He has profaned the Tribe—he is our Enemy! Let us burn him!"

They had every intention of doing it, too. The warriors rose, howling with rage. Though none of them loved Corlos unduly, they were all hogtied with respect for the sacred traditions of the Burning of the Enemy. I had violated them. I was the Enemy.

I plucked at Clory and backed away, as unobtrusively as I could. I had my bow still in my hand; I notched another arrow and held it ready. I wanted them to see that I wasn't going to burn without a fight.

The bush was pretty thick, and within twenty feet we were hidden. Then I slung the bow over my shoulder and made speed with Clory.

"Where are we going, Keefe?" Clory murmured in my ear. She was obviously being as brave as she knew how. I didn't have to tell her that we were in serious trouble. Maybe if her own father hadn't been dead, killed in a raid while unsuccessfully trying to protect her mother, she would have made a fuss about going away with me. But the only person she was really close to in the Blues was myself. She trusted me, and that was a powerful incentive, because her own life might not be entirely safe if we were captured.

I could hear them shouting back in the clearing, howling for my blood. Then Corlos's bullish yowl sounded over the others; I couldn't make out what he said, but it seemed to quiet them.

I set Clory down on the ground and led her along. It was growing late. If the warriors were to raid the Red-and-Brown tribe this night, they must leave soon, too soon to try to capture us—until they returned. That gave us a certain period of grace.

We stood statue-still for a second, listening for sounds of pursuit. There weren't any. Apparently the Tribe had decided to let our punishment wait until the raid had been completed, for I could hear the chant of the warriors resume their deep-voiced promises of catastrophe to the Enemy tribe.

Distantly Corlos's yowl came to me. "So burns the Enemy!" he shouted, over the thin pounding of the drums. "So dies their tribe! Burn, Red-and-Browns! Burn with the House of the Enemy!" And there was a blood-freezing screech from fifty throats, as the warriors echoed, "Burn!"

Then the drums rolled up to a bleak crescendo and stopped. I wondered what they had substituted for us in the House of the Enemy. Lurlan's corpse, probably. Well, better than his living body, or ours. I strained my eyes in the direction of the village, and saw the trees weirdly black and orange in the flickering of the burning shack. Then the cries died down and there was no sound we could hear, for a long time.

2
The Glider

I woke up with a start and clutched at my bow. Some sound had awakened me. Voices!

We had slept for hours, much longer than I'd intended. As I looked at Clory I realized that, for there was light to see her sleeping form. Dawn was near.

I rose cautiously without waking her, and peered around for the source of the voices. It was a party of warriors swinging along the trail, not twenty feet away.

Were they pursuing us? I saw they were not. They were pilots, the men who, secure in the speed of our gliders, would fly over the village we were to raid, shooting into the forces of the enemy, dropping blazing torches if they could, causing disorder in a hundred ways. They were on their way to the hill where our gliders were kept, there to launch them and be on their way to the enemy town.

I knew how to pilot a glider, that was one of the things for which I had been indebted to Lurlan. If we could steal one of those ships . . .

The men had passed out of hearing. Quickly I woke Clory and explained to her what I had seen, and the plan I'd made. Most wonderful of seven-year-old girls that she was, she understood immediately and followed me cautiously through the underbrush to the clearing where stood the catapults for the gliders.

We were noiseless—literally—as we wormed our way towards the clearing. We moved slowly, and as we approached we heard the dull "dwang-g-g-g" of the released catapult as the first glider took to the air. We hid under a tree as it soared down the slope of the hill to gain speed, directly overhead. Luckily, the initial effort to gain altitude made it necessary for the pilots to cover a good deal of territory; they couldn't, therefore, wait for each other and proceed to the enemy village
en masse
. If they had, our hopes of escape would have been ruined, for we would have been spotted immediately, and shot down.

I've never stalked an Eater as soundlessly as I led Clory, crawling, to the catapults. The sky was already showing color, and the ground was wet with pre-dawn mist. I heard the catapult drone its fiddle note again—that was the second glider. Two gliders, each carrying two men, were gone; three gliders and eight men, if I'd counted correctly, were left.

A third glider had taken off before we gained the position I wanted, commanding the catapults. I counted the men in the clearing. There were five; I'd made an error before, but it was all to the good—it meant one man less to take care of later.

It seemed hours before the fourth glider was off and the time it took the three men remaining to wind the catapult again was weeks. But finally it was done.

I have said that I am a good marksman. Though I had always had a horror of killing men, the thought of what would happen to Clory and me if I weakened strengthened my resolve; as fast as I could speed the arrows, the three men dropped, one after another, and Glory and I broke for the glider. We fastened ourselves securely and I yanked on the release cable. There was a dizzying surge of motion and the loudest sound I ever heard, as the catapult arm threw us far out and up into the sky. We were free and away!

Clory had never been in the air before—few women or girls had. Her exuberance was unbounded as we skimmed on our way. I felt joyous too. It was a wondrous morning.

Morning is the best time for gliding, because there are all sorts of convection currents caused by the rising of the sun. I pushed over the lever arm to send us down in a flat glide for the river bank. There was a small formation of cliffs there, big enough to send us a needed up-current. We reached it easily, and I spun the glider in a slow spiral as we climbed. We gained hundreds of feet of altitude before I levelled out, and headed in a straight line for the mountains to the North.

The flight was uneventful. Almost automatically I took the lift from every up-draft under a cloud. We weren't going really fast—I've run faster—but we were making steady progress over forests and swamps and rivers. There was only one fly in my ointment. I was tired—had had no sleep to speak of, and I certainly couldn't sleep while we flew. Yet we could land only one way: permanently, since we had no catapult.

My drowsiness grew and grew, as the miles slid by us. I had no particular destination; I steered by my shadow in front of me, cast by the morning sun behind. Though I kept reminding myself to stay awake, I drowsed again and again, each time coming a little closer to falling completely asleep and thus losing control. If only we could have landed for a second . . .

I suddenly realized that Clory was tugging at the back of my coat. "Keefe!" she was crying urgently. "Look!" I thrust off my sleepiness and turned to her smiling.

But there was a real alarm in her eyes as she pointed out over the forests, and my smile died when I saw what she had seen.

It was another glider and it was flying straight for us.

In my amazement I nearly lost control. One of the other ships from our Tribe—it had to be that. Though it was a mile away or more, between me and the sun, it was much higher than we were and was coming at us impossibly fast, faster than I'd ever seen a glider go.

I had only one course—to flee. Cursing savagely, I dipped our craft until it was just skimming along the surface of the trees, fast as we could go.

But not nearly fast enough. The other glider was catching up with us as easily as we were overtaking the motionless trees ahead.

I wondered briefly how it had attained the altitude that gave it such speed from its initial dive, then turned all my attention to the controls.

Clory was holding to my coat with fervor. I could feel her body shaking with sobs as we both leaned forward, trying to cut down air resistance. I hung on to the controls tightly, fighting with all my energy for an extra foot of altitude, a trifle more speed.

A peak of green whipped up at us—crack! The ship jolted and faltered. I darted a glance below; we'd struck the top of a tree. Our landing skids had been wrecked.

But that had been the last of the tall trees; the land ahead sloped gently down. As far ahead as the eye could see was this gentle slope, the valley of an immense river bed. I tilted the controls and we picked up a few precious feet of speed in the shallow dive.

But our pursuer was faster yet. I glanced behind for a split second and saw it ominously close, close and huge. Much larger than our ship, it seemed . . .

"Clory!" I cried tensely. "Can you fly this for a minute?" She didn't answer, but twined her arms around my neck and grabbed the levers. "Good girl," I muttered, unlimbering my bow. "Just hold them that way for a second."

I twisted under her arms and took careful aim at the plane which followed us. I strained the bowstring back as far as I could and released it.

But Clory moved, just at the wrong moment! The cord struck her arm, the arrow was deflected far to one side. She gasped and winced from the cutting blow of the cord, and she must have jerked involuntarily at the controls.

For the ship's dive became abruptly steep and we spun crazily, whirling rational thoughts from my brain. I clutched at whatever I could reach; it turned out to be the control lever, killing our last chance of keeping to the air. The ship careened and fell off on one wing, diving directly into a giant of a tree—the solid trunk of it, this time. I had time to realize before my face smashed into the hard, rough wood that little Clory had been thrown out of the glider. Then I struck!

I don't know how long I was stunned. I was cut and bleeding and my face felt raw when I came to, lying sprawled on a grassy mound. But no bones seemed to be broken. I leaped to my feet, crying Clory's name. If we could find shelter somewhere! The glider wouldn't dare to make a landing to scout for us. We might yet escape.

Clory did not answer. I dashed madly about, peering into the undergrowth, searching behind every bush. Then I spied her slight, white form lying motionless on the ground. I raced to her, fell to the ground beside her and shook her roughly.

She was unconscious—but not dead. My ear pressed to her heart convinced me of that. I tugged her to a sitting position . . .

And a shadow swept over me. I stared up. It was the other glider. We were seen.

Shaking Clory to bring her back to consciousness wasn't much use, though I tried it. The only thing I could do was to leave her there and run. The pilot of the glider, I hoped, would think she was dead. If I could hide long enough to make him give up hope of shooting me from the air . . .

The glider had whirled away; I could see its tail twist as the pilot banked it in a long curve, planed smoothly back towards us. I gaped no longer. I jumped to my feet and raced for cover.

I don't think I've ever run any faster than I did that dozen yards to shelter, but it seemed slow. Tune passes slowly when you are expecting a five-foot arrow to feather between your shoulder blades.

But I made the cover, which was a long thicket of flower-ferns. Their broad leaves over me were perfect protection.

I knelt and glared up at the glider which was continuing its swooping back and forth. The sun was high now, and pouring into my eyes, so I had difficulty in seeing through the gaps in my roof. But I could see well enough to know that the flier was something out of the ordinary.