The Iron Breed (33 page)

His certainty that something was coming almost convinced Furtig that the other knew what he was talking about. But how that action of tongue to cube could bring anything—

The stranger was busy at the door. He had pulled some litter together, was striving to force into place rusty metal rods as a bar lock. Even if that worked, it could not save them for long, but any action helped. Furtig went to aid him.

“This should slow them—a little—” the stranger said as they finished as well as they could. He turned then and padded across the room to stand beneath the wall grill high overhead. “Where does that lead? You were behind it when you signaled—”

“There is a tunnel there. But the opening is too narrow.”

The stranger had kept one of the pieces of metal, too short to be a part of their barrier. Now he struck that against the wall in a rasping blow. It did not leave more than a streak of rust to mark its passage. There was no beating their way through that wall.

He strode back and forth across the cell, his tail lashing, uttering small growls, which now and then approached the fury of battle yowls. Furtig knew the same fear of being trapped. He flexed his fingers, tested the strength of his claw fastenings. In his throat rumbled an answering growl. Then the stranger came to a halt before him, those blue eyes upon Furtig's weapons.

“Be ready to cut the net with those.” His words had the force of an order.

“The net?”

“They toss nets to entangle one from a distance. That was how they brought me down. They must have taken your comrade in the same fashion. He was already here when they dragged me in. It is only because they were awaiting their Elders that they did not kill us at once. They spoke among themselves much, but who can understand their vile chittering? One or two made signs—there was something they wished to learn. And their suggestion”—the hair on his tail was bushed now—“was that they would have a painful way of asking. Die in battle when they come, warrior, or face what is worse.”

The Rattons were trying to force the door now. How long would the barrier hold?

Furtig tensed, ready to face the inpour when the weight of those outside would break through. Foskatt pulled himself up, one hand closing upon the caller, raising it to his ear. His eyes glowed.

“It comes! Gammage is right! The rumblers will serve us! Stand ready—”

Then Furtig caught it also, a vibration creeping through the stone flooring, echoing dully from the walls about them. It was unlike anything he had experienced before, though it carried some tones of storm thunder. It grew louder, outside the door, and once more the enemy squealed in ragged chorus.

“Stand back—away—” Foskatt's husky whisper barely reached Furtig. The stranger could not have heard it, but, so warned, Furtig sprang, grasped the other's arm, and pulled him to one side. The stranger rounded on him with a cry of rage, until he saw Foskatt's warning gesture.

As if some supreme effort supplied strength, Foskatt was sitting up, the caller now at his mouth, his tongue ready, extended as if he awaited some signal.

Then—there was a squealing from the Rattons which became a hysterical screeching. These were not battle cries but rather a response to fear, to a terrible, overpowering fear.

Something struck against the wall with a force that certainly the Rattons could not exert. Thudding blows followed, so close on one another that the noise became continuous. The door broke, pushed in, but that was not all. Around its frame ran cracks in the wall itself; small chunks flaked off.

Together Furtig and the stranger backed away. No Ratton had sprung through the opening. The prisoners could see only a solid, dark surface there, as if another wall had been erected beyond. Still those ponderous blows fell, more of the wall broke away.

Yet Foskatt, showing no signs of fear, watched this as if it were what he expected. Then he spoke, raising his voice so they could hear over the sounds of that pounding.

“This is one of the Demons' servants from the old days. It obeys my will through this.” He indicated the caller. “When it breaks through to us we must be ready to mount on top. And it will carry us out of this evil den. But we must be swift, for these servants have a limit on their period of service. When this”—again he brought the caller their notice—“ceases to buzz, these servants die, and we cannot again awaken them. Nor do we ever know how long that life will last.”

There was a sharp crash. Through the wall broke what looked to be a long black arm. It swept around, clearing the hole. Instantly, at its appearance, Foskatt thrust his tongue into the opening in the cube. The arm stopped its sweeping, was still, as if pointing directly to them. Behind it they could see the dark bulk of the nimbler, solid as a wall.

“We must get on it—quick!” Foskatt tried to rise but his weakened body failed him.

Furtig, at his side, turned to face the stranger.

“Help me!” He made that an order. The other hesitated. He had been heading for the break in the wall. But now he turned back, though it was plain he came reluctantly.

Together they raised Foskatt, though their handling must have been a torment, for he let out a small mewling cry at their touch. Then he was silent as they somehow got him through the broken door, raised him to the back of the boxlike thing.

It had more than one of those jutting arms, all of them quiet now. And it was among their roots that they settled their burden. How the thing had arrived they could not determine, for they could see no legs.

But that it had come with ruthless determination was plain by the crushed bodies of the Rattons lying here and there.

Once on top, Furtig looked to Foskatt. How did they now bring to life this Demon nimbler? Would it indeed carry them on?

“Brother!” Furtig bent over his tribesman. “What do we now?”

But Foskatt lay with closed eyes, and did not answer. The stranger growled.

“He cannot tell you. Perhaps he is near death. At least we are free of that hole. So—I shall make the most of such freedom.”

Before Furtig could hinder him, he jumped from the top of the servant and ran in long leaping bounds into the dimness beyond. But, greatly as he was tempted to follow, the old belief that one ought not to desert a tribesman held Furtig where he was.

He could hear distant squealing. More Rattons must be gathering ahead. Now he no longer believed that the stranger had made the best choice. He could well be heading into new captivity.

As would happen to them unless—Furtig pried at Foskatt's hold on the caller. Tongue tip had gone in there, and the servant had come. Again tongue tip, and the rumbler had stopped beating down the wall. Therefore the caller ordered it. If that were so, why could Furtig not command it now?

He brought it close to his mouth. How had Foskatt done it? By some pressure like the sign language? Furtig knew no code. All he was sure of was that he wanted to get the rumbler away from here, back to Gammage, if that was where it had come from.

Well, he could only try. Gingerly, not knowing whether the caller might punish a stranger without learning for attempting to use it, Furtig inserted his tongue and tried to press. A sharp tingling sensation followed, but he held steady.

There was an answering vibration in the box on which he crouched. The arms pulled back from the wall, and the thing began to move.

Furtig caught at Foskatt lest he be shaken loose as the rumbler trundled back from the wall and slewed around, so that the arms now pointed toward the broken door of the room.

They did not move fast, no faster than a walk, but the rumbler never paused. And Furtig knew a new feeling of power. He had commanded this thing! It might not take them to Gammage as he wished it to do, but at least it was bearing them away from the Ratton prison, and he believed that those slinkers would not dare to attack again as long as Foskatt and he rode this servant.

Foskatt's warning of the uncertain life span of the Demons' servants remained. But Furtig would not worry about that now. He was willing to take what good fortune was offered in the present.

They slid away from the light of the Ratton-held chambers. But now the rumbler provided light of its own. For two of those arms extended before it bore on their ends small circles of radiance.

This was not a natural passage like the cave ways; the Demons had built these walls. Furtig and the wounded Foskatt rumbled past other doorways, twice taking angled turns into new ways. It would seem that for all the sky-reaching heights of the lairs aboveground, there was a matching spread of passages beneath the surface.

Furtig's ears pricked. They had not outrun, probably could not outrun, pursuit. Behind he heard the high-voiced battle cries of the Rattons. At least he was well above their heads on the box and so had that small advantage.

Hurriedly he used Foskatt's own belt to anchor him to the arms of the rumbler, leaving himself free for any defense tactics needed. With the claws on his hands, he hunched to wait.

Strange smells here. Not only those natural to underground places, but others he could not set name to. Then the nimbler halted in front of what seemed a blank wall, and Furtig speedily lost what small confidence had carried him this far. They were going to be trapped; all this servant of Gammage had bought them was a little time.

But, though the rumbler had halted, its outthrust arms moved. They were doing nothing Furtig could understand, merely jerking up and down, shining round spots of light on the wall here and there.

There was a dull grating sound. The wall itself split in a wide crack, not such as those arms had beaten in the prison wall, but clean, as if this was a portal meant to behave in this fashion. As soon as the opening was wide enough, the rumbler moved on into a section which was again lighted. Furtig looked back; the wall started to shut even as they passed through. He gave a small sigh of relief as he saw the opening close. At least no Ratton was coming through there!

But the rumbler no longer moved steadfastly; rather it went slower and slower, finally stopping with its arms curled back upon its body. Now it looked—Furtig's woods-wise mind made the quick comparison—like a great black spider dying. When the rumbler ceased to move he lifted the caller to his mouth, readied his tongue. This time there was no tingling response to his probing. It must be as Foskatt had warned—the servant had died, if one might term it so.

There was light here, and they were in another corridor with numerous doors. Furtig hesitated for a long moment and then dropped to the floor. Leaving Foskatt where he was, he went to the nearest opening to look within.

The room was not empty. Most of the floor was covered with metal boxes, firmly based. And there was an acrid smell which made him sneeze and shake his head to banish it from his nostrils. Nothing moved, and his ears, fully alert, could not pick up the slightest sound.

He returned to the rumbler. If that could not carry them farther, and Foskatt could not be transported, what was he to do? When he was the merest youngling, he had learned the importance of memory patterns, of learning the ways of the People's tribal hunting grounds until those became a matter of subconscious recall rather than conscious thinking. But here he had no such pattern as a guide, he had only—

Furtig scrambled up to sit beside Foskatt. There was one thing—If they had in truth been heading toward Gammage's headquarters when this journey began, he could try—He closed his eyes, set about methodically to blank out the thought of what lay immediately around him.

He must use his thoughts as if they were ears, eyes, nose, to point to what he sought. This could be done, had been done many times over, by some individuals among the People. But Furtig had never been forced to try it before.

He had never seen Gammage, but so well was the Ancestor fixed in the mind of all who dwelt in the caves, that he had heard him described many times over. Now he tried to build in his mind a picture of Gammage. And, because the Ancestor was who he was and had been to his tribe a figure of awe and wonder across several generations, doubtless that mind picture was different from the person it represented, being greater than reality.

As he had never tried before, Furtig strove now to think of Gammage, to discover where in the lairs he could find this leader. So far—nothing. Perhaps he was one of those for whom such searching did not work. Each of the People had his own abilities, his own weaknesses. When the People worked together, one could supply what another lacked, but here Furtig had only himself. Gammage—where was Gammage?

It was like picking out the slightest ripple in the grass, hearing a sound so thin and far away that it was not true sound at all but merely the alerting suggestion of it. But a warm flush of triumph heated Furtig. It was true—he had done it! That sense would lead him now. Lead him. He opened his eyes to look at Foskatt.

What of Foskatt? It was plain that the other could not walk, nor could Furtig carry him. He could leave, return later—But perhaps that wall which had opened and closed was not the only entrance. One dared not underrate the tenacity of the Rattons. Long before Furtig could return with help, Foskatt could be captive or dead.

Suppose that somewhere in one of these chambers along this way he could find another of these servants, one which could be activated? It would do no harm to go and look, and it might be their only chance.

Furtig began the search. But he found himself moving slowly, needing to stop now and then to lean against the wall. All of a sudden, now that the excitement of their escape had died, he needed rest. He fed on some of the dried meat from Eu-La's bag. But it was hard to choke down even a few mouthfuls of that without water. And where was he going to find water?

Determinedly Furtig prowled among those metal boxes set in the first chamber, finding nothing useful. Stubbornly he went on to explore the next room.

This was different in that it had tables, long ones, and those tables were crowded with masses of things he did not understand at all. He backed away from one where the brush of his tail had knocked off a large basin. The basin shattered on the floor, and the sound of the crash was magnified a hundred times by echoes.