The smux reversed himself quickly and hung by two claws at the very edge of that shallow shelf, eyestalks retracted, ready to drop. Farree hunkered down again like one without hope, but he twisted his head around so he could see the smux in action. There was already a greenish bead forming on the foremost claw; the venom was coming.
A man slammed into the room, weapon in hand, and swung that toward Farree just as Toggor loosed his hold on the stone above and leaped for the back of the guard. There was a flash of claws at the man's throat, almost too fast for Farree to catch.
With a sharp cry only half uttered, the man staggered, dropped his stunner to reach for his neck with both hands as he wove back and forth on his feet, his face a grimace of pain and fear. It was Farree's turn to jump, and he caught up the stunner as the guard staggered on past, to bring up against the far wall and fall to his knees, his hand still clutching at the back of his neck. Toggor was already off that struggling body. Farree swung the stunner around and pressed the button. The writhing man straightened with another muffled cry and lay still, while Farree stumbled out of the door, the smux clinging to him, and slammed that shut, thick and heavy though it was.
He thrust the stunner through his belt and reached down for the bar which was almost too much for him to manage. However, at this time he could have accomplished miracles he was sure, as he thrust it home in the slots awaiting it.
Now —
He crouched at the head of the stair looking down. Without knowing how many Guild men were here and where they were stationed, to descend that stair, even armed, was more than he dare try. Down? If there only was a way up!
A dim picture cut into his mind: a section of vaguely outlined wall and on it —
Farree swung around. The smux had left him, was at the foot of that stretch of wall, reaching with its claws for something. Spikes – there were spikes in the wall itself. Not stairs but surely a way to mount the wall. As shadowed as that was Farree thought he could sight the outline of an opening, closed by a trapdoor, perhaps, but if barred it could only be from this side.
The smux was already halfway up the wall, swinging from one clawhold to the next. Farree set about following. He tested each of the rust-covered holds before he put his weight upon it, and, though the rust flaked off on his hands, there was enough solid metal within to support his weight.
Then he was clinging with one hand and both feet as he set his palm against the closed trapdoor in a push. The old wood resisted. Farree, gritting his teeth, tried a second time and felt a fraction of give. That was enough to encourage him. Now he held on with his hands, arching his body so that it pressed against the door. His hump was instantly aflame with pain, but he refused to slack his attack, and at last the barrier lifted enough for him to get one arm and shoulder through the slit. It took but a moment or two then for him to crawl forward and lie in the open air, the smux pulling gently at the long locks of his hair and uttering cheeping noises. His back was bound by a band of agony so that he had to use every fraction of determination to move again and allow the door to fall into place behind him. The top of the tower was covered by a mass of brush and dried grass, and he saw huge bird droppings. It was a nest which might have been well used for more than one season. There were bones too, cracked and splintered, some quite large, which made him wonder about the size of the nest builders if they used such animals as their prey.
A skull rolled under his hand as he got unsteadily to his feet and hoisted himself a little against the parapet to peer down at the main body of the ruins. Below the outer wall were two flitters, doubtless the air transport for those in residence here. He saw two men making their way toward the still-roofed building where he had been taken for interviews. But, for the rest, there was nothing to show that the ruins were at all occupied.
It was a dull day with no direct sunlight, yet he could sight a shadow to the east which suggested that there lay the hills and cliffs the Thassa claimed as their ancient territory. Dry clumps of grass, with here and there a wind-twisted bush, were gray instead of green, and there were a number of outcrops of rock, some large and standing as if to suggest the ruin he was in had had much older neighbors of which only a few wind-chiseled remnants remained.
Temporarily he was safe, but lacking food and water he could not remain where he was indefinitely. Nor could he expect any help – in spite of all his brave imagining of an hour earlier. Toggor scuttled back and forth through the noisome remains of the big nest, the long-dead fronds and branches cracking under his weight, small as that was. Farree caught a flash among the fronds which gleamed even under the dead gray of the sky and pulled out a knife with a stone-set hilt. His find was still in a scabbard – rusted there, perhaps, through long exposure to the weather. He worked at it determinedly until he could draw it, and to his great surprise found the blade dull but still only speckled here and there by corrosion.
This lucky find sent him kicking aside the rest of the mess and searching through what had sunk to the bottom of the nest. There were more bones: three skulls which suggested they had once served animals perhaps the size of Yazz. But there were other things, too: a time-tattered strip of skin on which were set medallions centered with blacked metal and dust-layered stones—perhaps once a belt. There was a goblet of tarnished metal which he thought might be silver. A part of a sword, only the hilt intact, the blade a lace of erosion. He had heard of birds who sought bright things and laid them in their nests, and this seemed to be such a hoard. Among the objects also was a box wedged shut past his opening until he hammered at it with the sword hilt and pried with the point of the knife.
It came open at last, but what Farree found himself looking at was a heaping of thick black powder. If that were the remains of some treasure he could give no name to what it had once been, and threw the box aside in disgust. Some of the powder curled up in a puff to sprinkle over the matted stuff of the nest which he had clawed away in his hunt.
There was an odd scent in the air, and then a tendril of smoke arose from one of the besprinkled branches. A touch of flame followed. Farree jumped back, realizing that the fire would include all of the nest stuff unless he moved quickly. He pushed the branches away as fast as he could from the door which led downwards, knowing that if the worst followed he could retreat. Probably right into the hands of his captors, since surely this mounting fire on the roof of the tower would be sighted by someone!
The stuff was tinder dry and crackled from branch to branch with the running of flame. Where the powder had fallen from the box there were larger bursts of glare – not red or yellow, but violently green – and from this thick coils of greenish smoke began to arise.
Farree squatted by the trapdoor. If he could stand the reflected heat from the burning nest he would be safer there than down in the tower itself. He had pulled aside a number of dried bones while rooting in the mass and these he piled now beside him, breaking them into brittle slivers and short, pointed pieces. If he did not have to withdraw he had ammunition of sorts to pin the hands of those reaching for him, just as he had still the stunner he had taken from the guard.
Thinking of that brief encounter he summoned Toggor to him and induced the smux to run envenomed claws along the points of his longer weapons, poisoning them as an added weapon against any storming his place of refuge.
The heat of the fire was hard to face. Toggor crawled within the breast of Farree's shirt and clung as if this youth's body, hunched together as it now was, plus the distance of the fire, would keep him from the shriveling scorch of the flames.