CHAPTER 5
He might have said yes, but that didn't mean, Ross discovered, that hewas to be shipped off at once to early Britain. Ashe's "tomorrow" provedto be several days later. The cover was that of a Beaker trader, andRoss's impersonation was checked again and again by experts, making surethat the last detail was correct and that no suspicion of a tribesman,no mistake on Ross's part would betray him.
The Beaker people were an excellent choice for infiltration. They werenot a closely knit clan, suspicious of strangers and alert to anydeviation from the norm, as more race-conscious tribes might be. Forthey lived by trade, leaving to Ross's own time the mark of theirfar-flung "empire" in the beakers found in graves scattered in clustersof a handful or so from the Rhineland to Spain, and from the Balkans toBritain.
They did not depend only upon the taboo of the trade road for theirsafety, for the Beakermen were master bowmen. A roving people, theypushed into new territory to establish posts, living amicably amongpeoples with far different customs--the Downs farmers, horse herders,shore-side fisherfolk.
With Ashe, Ross passed a last inspection. Their hair had not grown longenough to require braiding, but they did have enough to hold it backfrom their faces with hide headbands. The kilt-tunics of coarsematerial, duplicating samples brought from the past, were harsh to theskin and poorly fitting. But the workmanship of their link-and-platebronze belts, the sleek bow guards strapped to their wrists, and thebows themselves approached fine art. Ashe's round cloak was the blue ofa master trader, and he wore wealth in a necklace of polished wolf'steeth alternating with amber beads. Ross's more modest position in thetribe was indicated not only by his red-brown cloak, but by the factthat his personal jewelry consisted only of a copper bracelet and acloak pin with a jet head.
He had no idea how the time transition was to be made, nor how one mightstep from the polar regions of the Western Hemisphere to the island ofBritain lying off the Eastern. And it was a complicated business as hediscovered.
The transition itself was a fairly simple, though disturbing, process.One walked a short corridor and stood for an instant on a plate whilethe light centered there curled about in a solid core, shutting one offfrom floor and wall. Ross gasped for breath as the air was sucked out ofhis lungs. He experienced a moment of deathly sickness with thesensation of being lost in nothingness. Then he breathed again andlooked through the dying wall of light to where Ashe waited.
Quick and easy as the trip through time had been, the journey to Britainwas something else. There could be only one transfer point if the secretwas to be preserved. But men from that point must be moved swiftly andsecretly to their appointed stations. Ross, knowing the strict rulesconcerning the transportation of objects from one time to another,wondered how that travel could be effected. After all, they could notspend months, or even years, getting across continents and seas.
The answer was ingenious. Three days after they had stepped through thebarrier of time at the outpost, Ross and Ashe balanced on the roundedback of a whale. It was a whale which would deceive anyone who did nottest its hide with a harpoon, and whalers with harpoons large enough totrouble such a monster were yet well in the future.
Ashe slid a dugout into the water, and Ross climbed into that unsteadycraft, holding it against the side of the disguised sub until hispartner joined him. The day, misty and drizzling, made the shore theyaimed for a half-seen line across the water. With a shiver born of morethan cold, Ross dipped his paddle and helped Ashe send their crude boattoward that half-hidden strip of land.
There was no real dawn; the sky lightened somewhat, but the drizzlecontinued. Green patches showed among the winter-denuded trees back fromthe beach, but the countryside facing them gave an impression of untamedwilderness. Ross knew from his briefing that the whole of Britain was asyet only sparsely settled. The first wave of hunter-fishers to establishvillages had been joined by other invaders who built massive tombs andhad an elaborate religion. Small village-forts had been linked from hillto hill by trackways. There were "factories," which turned out in bulksuch fine flint weapons and tools that a thriving industry was in fulloperation, not yet having been superseded by the metal imported by theBeaker merchants. Bronze was still so rare and costly that only the headman of a village could hope to own one of the long daggers. Even thearrowheads in Ross's quiver were chipped of flint.
They drew the dugout well up onto the shore and ran it into a shallowdepression in the bank, heaping stones and brush about for itsconcealment. Then Ashe intently surveyed the surrounding country,seeking a landmark.
"Inland from here...." Ashe used the language of the Beakermen, and Rossknew that from now on he must not only live as a trader, but also thinkas one. All other memories must be buried under the false one he hadlearned; he must be interested in the present rate of exchange and thechance for profit. The two men were on their way to Outpost Gog, whereAshe's first partner, the redoubtable Sanford, was playing his role sowell.
The rain squished in their hide boots, made sodden strings of theircloaks, plastered their woven caps to their thick mats of hair. Yet Ashebore steadily on across the land with the certainty of one following amarked trail. His self-confidence was rewarded within the first halfmile when they came out upon one of the link trackways, its beatensurface testifying to constant use.
Here Ashe turned eastward, stepping up the pace to a ground-coveringtrot. The peace of the road held--at least by day. By night only themost hardened and desperate outlaws would brave the harmful spiritsroving in the dark.
All the lore that had been pounded into him at the base began to makesome sense to Ross as he followed his guide, sniffing strange wet smellsfrom the brush, the trees, and the damp earth; piecing together in hismind what he had been taught and what he now saw for himself, until itmade a tight pattern.
The track they were following sloped slightly upward, and a change inthe wind brought to them a sour odor, blanking out all normal scents.Ashe halted so suddenly that Ross almost plowed into him. But he wasalerted by the older man's attitude.
Something had been burned! Ross drew in a deep lungful of the smell andthen wished that he had not. It was wood--burned wood--and somethingelse. Since this was not possibly normal, he was prepared for the wayAshe melted into cover in the brush.
They worked their way, sometimes crawling on their bellies, through thewet stands of dead grass, taking full advantage of all cover. Theycrouched at the top of the hill while Ashe parted the prickly branchesof an evergreen bush to make them a window.
The black patch left by the fire, which had come from a ruin above, hadspread downhill on the opposite side of the valley. Charred posts stillstood like lone teeth in a skull to mark what must have once been one ofthe stockade walls of a post. But all they now guarded was a desolationfrom which came that overpowering stench.
"Our post?" Ross asked in a whisper.
Ashe nodded. He was studying the scene with an intent absorption which,Ross knew, would impress every important detail upon his mind. That theplace had been burned was clear from the first. But why and by whom wasa problem vital to the two lurking in the brush.
It took them almost an hour to cross the valley--an hour of hiding,casting about, searching. They had made a complete circle of thedestroyed post and Ashe stood in the shadow of a copse, rubbing clots ofmud from his hands and frowning up at the charred posts.
"They weren't rushed. Or if they were, the attackers covered their trailafterward--" Ross ventured.
The older man shook his head. "Tribesmen would not have muddled a trailif they had won. No, this was no regular attack. There have been nosigns of a war party coming or leaving."
"Then what?" demanded Ross.
"Lightning for one thing--and we'd better hope it was that. Or--"Ashe's blue eyes were very cold and bleak, as cold and bleak as thecountryside about them.
"Or--?" Ross dared to prompt him.
"Or we have made contact with the Reds in the wrong way!"
Ross's han
d instinctively went to the dagger at his belt. Little help adagger would be in an unequal struggle like this! They were only two ina thin web of men strung out through centuries of time with orders toseek out that which did not fit properly into the pattern of the past:to locate the enemy wherever in history or prehistory he had gone toearth. Had the Reds been searching, too, and was this first disastertheir victory?
The time traders had their evidence when they at last ventured into whathad been the heart of Outpost Gog. Ross, inexperienced as he was in suchmatters, could not mistake the signs of the explosion. There was acrater on the crown of the hill, and Ashe stood apart from it, eying thefragments about them--scorched wood, blackened stone.
"The Reds?"
"It must have been. This damage was done by explosives."
It was clear why Outpost Gog could not report the disaster. The attackhad destroyed their one link with the post on this time level; theconcealed communicator had gone up with the blast.
"Eleven--" Ashe's finger tapped on the ornate buckle of his wide belt."We have about ten days to stick it out," he added, "and it seems we maybe able to use them to better advantage than just letting you learn howit feels to walk about some four thousand years before you were born. Wehave to find out--if we can--what happened here and why!"
Ross gazed at the mess. "Dig?" he asked.
"Some digging is indicated."
So they dug. Finally, black with charcoal smudges and sick with theevidences of death they had chanced upon, they collapsed on the cleanestspot they could find.
"They must have hit at night," Ashe said slowly. "Only at that timewould they find everyone here. Men don't trust a night filled withghosts, and our agents conform to local custom as usual. All of the postpeople could be erased with one bomb at night."
All except two of them had been true Beaker traders, including women andchildren. No Beaker trading post was large, and this one was unusuallysmall. The attacker had wiped out some twenty people, eighteen of theminnocent victims.
"How long ago?" Ross wanted to know.
"Maybe two days. And this attack came without any warning, or Sandywould have sent a message. He had no suspicions at all; his last reportswere all routine, which means that if they were on to him--and they musthave been, judging by the results--he was not even aware of it."
"What do we do now?"
Ashe looked at him. "We wash--no--" he corrected himself--"we don't! Wego to Nodren's village. We are frightened, grief-stricken. We have foundour kinsmen dead under strange circumstances. We ask questions of one towhom I am known as an inhabitant of this post."
So, covered with dirt, they walked along the trackway toward theneighboring village with a weariness they did not have to counterfeit.
The dog sighted or perhaps scented them first. It was a rough-coatedbeast, showing its fangs with a wolflike ferocity. But it was smallerthan a wolf, and it barked between its warning snarls. Ashe brought hisbow from beneath the shelter of his cloak and held it ready.
"Ho, one comes to speak with Nodren--Nodren of the Hill!"
Only the dog snapped and snarled. Ashe rubbed his forearm across hisface, the gesture of a weary and heartsick man, smearing the ash andgrime into an awesome mask.
"Who speaks to Nodren--?" There was a different twist to thepronunciation of some words, but Ross was able to understand.
"One who has hunted with him and feasted with him. The one who gave intohis hand the friendship gift of the ever-sharp knife. It is Assha of thetraders----"
"Go far from us, man of ill luck. You who are hunted by the evilspirits." The last was a shrill cry.
Ashe remained where he was, facing into the bushes which hid thetribesman.
"Who speaks for Nodren yet not with the voice of Nodren?" he demanded."This is Assha who asks. We have drunk blood together and faced thewhite wolf and the wild boar in their fury. Nodren lets not others speakfor him, for Nodren is a man and a chief!"
"And you are cursed!" A stone flew through the air, striking a rain pooland spattering mud on Ashe's boots. "Go and take your evil with you!"
"Is it from the hand of Nodren or Nodren's young men that doom came uponthose of my blood? Have war arrows passed between the place of thetraders and the town of Nodren? Is that why you hide in the shadows sothat I, Assha, cannot look upon the face of one who speaks boldly andthrows stones?"
"No war arrows between us, trader. _We_ do not provoke the spirits ofthe hills. No fire comes from the sky at night to eat us up with a noiseof many thunders. Lurgha speaks in such thunders; Lurgha's hand smiteswith such fire. You have the Wrath of Lurgha upon you, trader! Keepaway from us lest Lurgha's wrath fall upon us also."
Lurgha was the local storm god, Ross recalled. The sound of thunder andfire coming out of the sky at night--the bomb! Perhaps the very methodof attack on the post would defeat Ashe's attempt to learn anything fromthese neighbors. The superstitions of the people would lead them to shunboth the site of the post and Ashe himself as cursed and taboo.
"If the Wrath of Lurgha had struck at Assha, would Assha still live towalk upon this road?" Ashe prodded the ground with the tip of hisbowstave. "Yet Assha walks, as you see him; Assha talks, as you hearhim. It is ridiculous to answer him with the nonsense of littlechildren----"
"Spirits so walk and talk to unlucky men," retorted the man in hiding."It may be the spirit of Assha who does so now--"
Ashe made a sudden leap. There was a flurry of action behind the bushscreen and he reappeared, dragging into the gray light of the rainy daya wriggling captive, whom he bumped without ceremony onto the beatenearth of the road.
The man was bearded, wearing his thick mop of black hair in a roundtopknot secured by a hide loop. He wore a skin tunic, now inconsiderable disarray, which was held in place with a woven, tasseledbelt.
"Ho, so it is Lal of the Quick Tongue who speaks so loudly of spiritsand the Wrath of Lurgha!" Ashe studied his captive. "Now, Lal, since youspeak for Nodren--which I believe will greatly surprise him--you willcontinue to tell me of this Wrath of Lurgha from the night skies andwhat has happened to Sanfra, who was my brother, and those others of mykin. I am Assha, and you know of the wrath of Assha and how it ate upTwist-tooth, the outlaw, when he came in with his evil men. The Wrath ofLurgha is hot, but so too is the wrath of Assha." Ashe contorted hisface in such a way that Lal squirmed and looked away. When the tribesmanspoke, all his former authority and bluster had gone.
"Assha knows that I am as his dog. Let him not turn upon me hisswift-cutting big knife, nor the arrows from his lightning bow. It wasthe Wrath of Lurgha which smote the place on the hill, first the thunderof his fist meeting the earth, and then the fire which he breathed uponthose whom he would slay----"
"And this you saw with your own eyes, Lal?"
The shaggy head shook an emphatic negative. "Assha knows that Lal is nochief who can stand and look upon the wonders of Lurgha's might and keephis eyes in his head. Nodren himself saw this wonder----"
"And if Lurgha came in the night, when all men keep to their homes andleave the outer world to the restless spirits, how did Nodren see hiscoming?"
Lal crouched lower to the ground, his eyes darting to the bushes and thefreedom they promised, then back to Ashe's firmly planted boots.
"I am not a chief, Assha. How could I know in what way or for whatreason Nodren saw the coming of Lurgha----?"
"Fool!" A second voice, that of a woman, spat the word from the brushwhich fringed the roadway. "Speak to Assha with a straight tongue. If heis a spirit, he will know that you do not tell him the truth. And if hehas been spared by Lurgha...." She showed her wonderment with a hiss ofindrawn breath.
So urged, Lal mumbled sullenly, "It is said that there came a messagefor one to witness the Wrath of Lurgha in its descent upon theoutlanders so that Nodren and the men of Nodren would truly know thatthe traders were cursed, and should be put to the spear should theycome here again----"
"This message--how was it brought? Did the voice of Lurgha
sound inNodren's ear alone, or came it by the tongue of some man?"
"Ahee!" Lal lay flat on the ground, his hands over his ears.
"Lal is a fool and fears his own shadow as it skips before him on asunny day!" Out of the bushes stepped a young woman, obviously of someimportance in her own group. Walking with a proud stride, her eyesboldly met Ashe's. A shining disk hung about her neck on a thong, andanother decorated the woven belt of her cloth tunic. Her hair was boundin a thread net fastened with jet pins.
"I greet Cassca, who is the First Sower." There was a formal note inAshe's voice. "But why should Cassca hide from Assha?"
"There has been death on your hill, Assha--" she sniffed--"you smell ofit now--Lurgha's death. Those who come from that hill may well be somewho no longer walk in their bodies." Cassca placed her fingersmomentarily on Ashe's outstretched palm before she nodded. "No spiritare you, Assha, for all know that a spirit is solid to the eye, but notto the touch. So it would seem that you were not burned up by Lurgha,after all."
"This matter of a message from Lurgha--" he prompted.
"It came out of the empty air in the hearing not only of Nodren, butalso of Hangor, Effar, and myself, Cassca. For we stood at that timenear the Old Place...." She made a curious gesture with the fingers ofher right hand. "It will soon be the time of sowing, and though Lurghabrings sun and rain to feed the grain, yet it is in the Great Motherthat the seed lies. Upon her business only women may go into the InnerCircle." She gestured again. "But as we met to make the first sacrificethere came music out of the air such as we have never heard, voicessinging like birds in a strange tongue." Her face assumed an awesomeexpression. "Afterward a voice said that Lurgha was angered with thehill of the men-from-afar and that in the night he would send his Wrathagainst them, and that Nodren must witness this thing so that he couldsee what Lurgha did to those he would punish. So it was done by Nodren.And there was a sound in the air----"
"What kind of a sound?" Ashe asked quietly.
"Nodren said it was a hum and there was the dark shadow of Lurgha's birdbetween him and the stars. Then came the smiting of the hill withthunder and lightning, and Nodren fled, for the Wrath of Lurgha is afearsome thing. Now do the people come to the Great Mother's Place withmany fine offerings that she may stand between them and that Wrath."
"Assha thanks Cassca, who is the handmaiden of the Great Mother. May thesowing prosper and the reaping be good this year!" Ashe said finally,ignoring Lal, who still groveled on the road.
"You go from this place, Assha?" she asked. "For though I stand underthe protecting hand of the Mother and so do not fear, yet there areothers who will raise their spears against you for the honor of Lurgha."
"We go, and again thanks be to you, Cassca."
He turned back the way they had come, and Ross fell in beside him as thewoman watched them out of sight.