Tuan eyed the man contemptuously, then kicked him in the ribs. Agila cried out, and fell on his side.
“For your ending,” purred Tuan, “we shall devise something interesting and novel. Perhaps we shall be able to outdo Kohharin himself,” he added, in reference to an ancient and legendary king mentioned in The Book, whose name had become renowned for the ingenuity of the torments which he had of old inflicted upon his enemies.
Then Tuan turned to survey the two naked women. “Of you, I know nothing, and will be charitable,” he said. “Your bodies will be sold in Ahour, perhaps to a pleasure-house, and it shall be your fate to open your thighs to men that are not of your choosing!”
Brant growled and bristled at those words. Tuan turned his head and looked at him, and at Harbin.
“As for you, f’yagha, you have befouled the treasure of my princely ancestors with your eyes and your outworlder touch. As well, you abetted this dog in his flight, and aided him with your wits, your guns, and your water. His fate shall be your fate, while the world lasts!”
Then he strode away to confer with one or two of the other men of his band, leaving his prisoners alone with their thoughts. And bitter, lonely thoughts they were… .
The outlaw chieftain inspected their garments and gear idly, finding little that pleased him save their guns. Energy weapons were prized possessions among the People, as Brant knew very well. After all, in leaner times, he had run guns to the native princelings, himself.
The “morning” wore on. Under close guard, the captives were left bound and helpless. Brant surreptitiously tested his bonds, but they were too tough, and too cunningly tied, for even his burly strength to loosen, much less to snap.
He watched Tuan carefully. Even though the chieftain had been the keeper of the pale gold dish with its engraved ancient map, he was obviously as puzzled and impressed at discovering this subterranean cavern world as had been the members of Brant’s party. Obviously, to him the dish had simply been a precious relic of the past, an heirloom, a family treasure, nothing more.
He measured Tuan’s warriors with thoughtful eyes. They were a lean and hungry band of ruffians, men without a clan, hardened by the lifelong struggle to survive in the hostile wilderness of desert Mars, and probably accustomed to every crime he could think of, and a few more that he couldn’t.
They were hard riders, excellent trackers, and, as he knew from the brief battle at the mouth of the cave, dangerous and veteran warriors. They were also heavily armed. About half of the fourteen were armed with laser rifles, the others with power guns, and all of them had knives—the long-bladed, heavy, deadly Martian knives they called s’zouks. As efficient and dangerous a weapon, in skilled and practiced hands, as had been the bowie knives on the American frontier.
And he had no doubt that all of these desert wolves were well practiced in using them. …
Even if he had been able to get his hands loose, they were too wary to be taken by surprise, and there were too many of them for him to hope to fight, with even the slightest chances of success.
He also noticed—with bitter amusement—that their bristling store of weaponry had newly been augmented by the twin laser rifles which Doc Harbin and his native scout had held when Brant and the women first encountered them, as well as Brant’s own pair of power pistols, and even the long knife Agila had carried in his boot.
What was needed here—he thought wryly—was some sort of a diversion to distract the outlaws just long enough for the five prisoners to struggle to their feet (for the outlaws had not bound their captives’ ankles, for some reason, perhaps being short of ropes). Then, with any luck, they could all hightail it into the depths of the fungus-forest, and, with a little more luck, find places to hide in whatever sort of terrain might lie on the far side of the grove.
Once safe, at least relatively, they could in time chew through each other’s bonds and be off. Although off to where, Brant had no idea. A diversion… .
Brant uttered a mirthless chuckle. Well, the sudden appearance of a hungry dinosaur about the height of a two-story building would be adequate! A charging herd of woolly mammoths would come in handy. Brant would even have settled for a hunting-pack of sabertooth tigers, if any were available.
He rather doubted that they were, though. He had yet to see any wildlife bigger than a couple of outsized dragonflies, and these seemed harmless enough.
He leaned back as comfortably as he could, and closed his eyes, resting himself and conserving his strength for whatever opportunity, to make a break for it might, but probably would not, occur.
When he opened his eyes again it was because the sea breeze had wafted to his nostrils the scent of burning fungus-stalks. Tuan and his band had started a bonfire, touching off the dry, fibrous stuff even as Brant had earlier, with a touch of needle-beam. The stuff burned like tinder.
Brant narrowed his eyes. The desert warriors were rigging a makeshift spit over the fire, using their metal spears. As they did so, they grinned and chuckled among themselves, for all the world like a passel of Apaches about to scalp a few White Eyes. They glanced occasionally at their captives, and the expression in their eyes was cruel and gloating.
Brant shot a glance at Agila. The lean rogue was wide-eyed and panting in fear, and Brant didn’t blame him.
The outlaws obviously intended to roast the poor bastard over a slow fire, Brant grimly guessed. And his stomach-muscles knotted in sympathy.
For he and Will Harbin would probably be second course, once Agila had died screaming, burned to a crisp, as the saying goes. The women would be sold into slavery in the slave markets of the nearest city of the People, once the chieftain had led his band back up the stony stair to the surface.
Time was running out, although it would take Agila hours to die, if Tuan and his warriors did the job properly, and in those interminable, grisly hours before it was his and Doc’s turn for the torture, anything at all might happen.
Brant rather wished he had been a religious man, for if so, he could have prayed right then and there, without cowardly hypocrisy. Because if anybody ever needed a miracle to happen, it was him and his companions… .
Jesting obscenely among themselves, the outlaws strolled over to where Agila crouched in terror, and lifted him to his feet, and began to truss him to one of the spear-shafts. These lances were of metal, of course, not wood, for wood is virtually unknown on the Desert World. The heat of the metal shaft along his back, shoulders and buttocks would add a certain extra something to Agila’s agony, once they began to turn him slowly over on the makeshift spit over the roaring fire.
Brant looked at his companions. Suoli lay huddled facedown in the moss, blubbering hysterically, her entire body shaking convulsively as she sobbed and shuddered.
Will Harbin’s face was grave but composed, and the older man’s eyes were closed and his lips moved slightly in prayer, perhaps.
Then he looked at Zuarra, seated beside him on the moss with her ankles crossed tailor-fashion. She held herself proudly, her spine as straight as an arrow. Her eyes were stony, her lips tight, her expression aloof.
God, she was a brave woman, Brant thought. He had never known a braver!
She turned to meet his gaze, her eyes calm and level and unfaltering. Their eyes locked.
And in that moment he realized that he loved her, and she read it in his face and smiled.
20 The Flying Boy
The outlaws lifted the spear to which Agila was securely bound onto the supports they had rigged over the bonfire for their makeshift spit. As the heat smote him—face, breast, belly and thighs—he squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his lips together tightly, screwing up his face, and letting no sound escape him.