The Time Traders, Andre Norton [positive books to read .txt] 📗

path of his own horse and the balance of his attention for the prisoner.

They headed northeast, with the mountains as a sharp green-and-white goal against the morning sky. Though Ross’s sense of direction was not too acute, he was certain that they were making for the general vicinity of the hidden village, which he believed the ship people had destroyed. He tried to discover something of the nature of the contact which had been made between the aliens and the horsemen.

“How find other chief?” he asked Ennar.

The young man tossed one of his braids back across his shoulder and turned his head to face Ross squarely. “Your chief come our camp. Talk with Foscar⁠—two⁠—four sleeps ago.”

“How talk with Foscar? With hunter talk?”

For the first time Ennar did not appear altogether certain. He scowled and then snapped, “He talk⁠—Foscar, us. We hear right words⁠—not woods creeper talk. He speak to us good.”

Ross was puzzled. How could the alien out of time speak the proper language of a primitive tribe some thousands of years removed from his own era? Were the ship people also familiar with time travel? Did they have their own stations of transfer? Yet their fury with the Reds had been hot. This was a complete mystery.

“This chief⁠—he look like me?”

Again Ennar appeared at a loss. “He wear covering like you.”

“But was he like me?” persisted Ross. He didn’t know what he was trying to learn, only that it seemed important at that moment to press home to at least one of the tribesmen that he was different from the man who had put a price on his head and to whom he was to be sold.

“Not like!” Tulka spoke over his shoulder. “You look like hunter people⁠—hair, eyes⁠—Strange chief no hair on head, eyes not like⁠—”

“You saw him too?” Ross demanded eagerly.

“I saw. I ride to camp⁠—they come so. Stand on rock, call to Foscar. Make magic with fire⁠—it jump up!” He pointed his arm stiffly at a bush before them on the trail. “They point little, little spear⁠—fire come out of the ground and burn. They say burn our camp if we do not give them man. We say⁠—not have man. Then they say many good things for us if we find and bring man⁠—”

“But they are not my people,” Ross cut in. “You see, I have hair, I am not like them. They are bad⁠—”

“You may be taken in war by them⁠—chief’s slave.” Ennar had a reply to that which was logical according to the customs of his own tribe. “They want slave back⁠—it is so.”

“My people strong too, much magic,” Ross pushed. “Take me to bitter water and they pay much⁠—more than stranger chief!”

Both tribesmen were amused. “Where bitter water?” asked Tulka.

Ross jerked his head to the west. “Some sleeps away⁠—”

“Some sleeps!” repeated Ennar jeeringly. “We ride some sleeps, maybe many sleeps where we know not the trails⁠—maybe no people there, maybe no bitter water⁠—all things you say with split tongue so that we not give you back to master. We go this way not even one sleep⁠—find chief, get good things. Why we do hard thing when we can do easy?”

What argument could Ross offer in rebuttal to the simple logic of his captors? For a moment he raged inwardly at his own helplessness. But long ago he had learned that giving away to hot fury was no good unless one did it deliberately to impress, and then only when one had the upper hand. Now Ross had no hand at all.

For the most part they kept to the open, whereas Ross and the other two agents had skulked in wooded areas on their flight through this same territory. So they approached the mountains from a different angle, and though he tried, Ross could pick out no familiar landmarks. If by some miracle he was able to free himself from his captors, he could only head due west and hope to strike the river.

At midday their party made camp in a grove of trees by a spring. The weather was as unseasonably warm as it had been the day before, and flies, brought out of cold-weather hiding, attacked the stamping horses and crawled over Ross. He tried to keep them off with swings of his bound hands, for their bites drew blood.

Having been tumbled from his mount, he remained fastened to a tree with a noose about his neck while the horsemen built a fire and broiled strips of deer meat.

It would seem that Foscar was in no hurry to get on, since after they had eaten, the men continued to lounge at ease, some even dropping off to sleep. When Ross counted faces he learned that Tulka and another had both disappeared, possibly to contact and warn the aliens they were coming.

It was midafternoon before the scouts reappeared, as unobtrusively as they had gone. They went before Foscar with a report which brought the chief over to Ross. “We go. Your chief waits⁠—”

Ross raised his swollen, bitten face and made his usual protest. “Not my chief!”

Foscar shrugged. “He say so. He give good things to get you back under his hand. So⁠—he your chief!”

Once again Ross was boosted on his mount, and bound. But this time the party split into two groups as they rode off. He was with Ennar again, just behind Foscar, with two other guards bringing up the rear. The rest of the men, leading their mounts, melted into the trees. Ross watched that quiet withdrawal speculatively. It argued that Foscar did not trust those he was about to do business with, that he was taking certain precautions of his own. Only Ross could not see how that distrust, which might be only ordinary prudence on Foscar’s part, could in any way be an advantage for him.

They rode at a pace hardly above a walk into a small open meadow narrowing at the east. Then for the first time Ross was able to place himself. They were at the entrance