The legs in turn were covered with high-legginged boots not unlike those worn as a protection against the thorn shrubs by the settlers. The corselet was doubled in thickness at the waist by another strip of scaled hide serving as a belt, supporting several pocket pouches decorated with designs made by small red, gold, and blue beads, and the ornamented sheath of a knife close to a sword in length, while in his six-digit hands the hunter carried a weapon Storm already knew. It was longer than any Terran bow he had seen, but it was a bow.
Dress, armour, and ornament were combined in one last article of apparel, a wide collar extending to shoulder point on either side, and almost to the waist in front, fashioned entirely of polished yoris fangs. If those had all been taken by this one Norbie, with only a bow and a knife as weapons, then the hunter would have to be respected in any company of fighting men in the galaxy!
Dort dropped his hands to his saddle horn as the native signed a reply. Then he stiffened as the Norbie set arrow shaft to bowstring with a speed that startled the Terran.
“Look out for your cat!”
Storm hissed Surra’s call. She arose out of the masking grass and came to him, the arrow trained upon her unrelentingly. Dort was trying frantic sign-talk. But Storm had his own method of reassurance. Swinging from the saddle pad, the Terran motioned and Surra moved closer, rubbing with feline affection against his legs. Storm went down on one knee and the cat set her forepaws on his shoulders, touching her nose lightly to his cheek.
3
Storm heard a bird-trill and glanced up to meet the astonished yellow eyes of the Norbie, their vertical pupils expanding visibly. The native spoke again in his thin, sharp twitter, a surprising sound to come from the throat of that large body as his fingers flicked a question at Dort.
“Call in that eagle of yours, too, if you can, Storm. You’re rnakin’ a big impression and that can be good for us –”
The Terran scratched Surra under the jaw and behind the ears and then stood up. Spreading his feet a little apart and tensing his shoulders for the shock of Baku’s landing weight, he whistled.
Wide wings beat the air as Baku dropped in a series of spectacular turns. But when those powerful talons gripped Storm’s shoulder they did not pierce flesh. Under the merciless beams of the Arzor noon sun the blue-black plumage had a metallic sheen, and the patch of bright yellow feathers about the cruel blue-grey curve of the beak stood out as if freshly daubed with paint.
“Saaaa –” The Terran’s warning alerted both cat and bird. Feathered head and furred one moved to his signal, and two pairs of predatory, glittering eyes regarded the Norbie with intelligent interest.
That’s done it!” Dort was relieved. “But keep ‘em under control when we go into the camp.”
Storm nodded, staring at the spot where the native had stood only seconds earlier. The Terran prided himself on his own scoutcraft and ability to become a part of the landscape, but this Norbie was better than the best he had ever seen.
“Camp’s down on the river bank.” Dort came out of the saddle. “We walk in. Also –” He drew his stun rod from its holster and fired the ready charge into the air. “You don’t enter with a loaded rod, it’s not considered manners –”
Once more Storm followed the settler’s direction. Baku took off into the sky and Surra paced a yard or so before them, the tip of her tail twitching now and then to betray her interest in her surroundings. There was the scent of strange cooking and stranger living smells, as well as small sounds, coming up slope.
A Norbie camp was not pitched on formal lines. Lengths of kalma wood, easily shaped when wet and iron stiff when dried, had been bent by each householder to form the framework for a hemisphere tent. The hides stretched over that frame were piebald mixtures patched together from the fruits of the individual family’s hunting. Blues of frawn pelts were joined by clever lacing to the silver-yellow scales of young yoris skins, banded in turn with the red fur of river rodents. The largest tent had a complete border about its base and door flap of jewel-bright bird skins set in a pattern of vivid colour.
Storm could see no women as they came down to the cluster of tents. But before each of the dwellings stood Norbie males, young and old, each armed. The scout who had met them on the trail was waiting at the flap of the bird-trimmed lodge.
As if unaware of the silent audience, the off-world men threaded their way to that tent and Dort halted before the chieftain. Storm stood quietly a little behind him, allowing none of his interest in his surroundings to show. Silently he counted some twenty of the rounded tents, and he knew that each housed a full family, which could number up to fifteen or more natives, since a man married into his wife’s clan and joined her family as a younger son until the number of his children increased to make him the head of his own family. Judging by Norbie standards this was a town of some size – of the zamle totem – for a stylized representation of that bird of prey was painted on the name shield before the chieftain’s lodge.
“Storm” – Dort spoke softly as his hand signed a greeting to the impassive natives – “call in that bird of yours again. These are-”
“Zamle clansmen,” the Terran nodded. “So they’ll be favourably impressed by my bird totem?” Again he whistled to summon Baku, bracing himself for the bird’s landing. But this time matters were not to go on smoothly. For, as the eagle came, she screamed a challenge in a way unlike her usual manner. And she did not come to Storm, but threw her body back, presenting her ready talons to the tent as if that hide and fur erection were an enemy.
Storm, startled, hurried forward. Baku had grounded now, walking across the open space before the Norbie chieftain in a crouch, her feathers standing up, wings trailing half open on either side of her black body. She was in a red rage, though the Terran could not see what had aroused her. That is – he did not, until a streak of living green burst from the tent in reply to the eagle’s scream of challenge. Luckily Storm got there first, catching Baku by the legs before she could strike at her attacker.
Screeching in a frenzy the eagle beat her wings, tried to turn her talons on her handler, while Storm exerted all his strength of shoulder and arm to keep her fast, striving at the same time to enforce his mental control as well as the grip of his hands. The Norbie chief had caught up his own feathered champion and was engaged in a similar battle until one of his clansmen flung a small net over the angry zamle. When the green bird had been bundled back into the tent and Baku had been calmed, Storm tossed her onto his riding pad, confining her with jesses so she could not leave that perch until he freed her.
Breathing hard he turned to find the Norbie chief beside him, intent on the eagle. The native’s fingers flew and Dort translated.
“Krotag wants to know if this bird is your totem.”
“It is.” Storm nodded, hoping that that gesture meant the same on Arzor as it had on Terra.
“Storm!” Dort’s excitement broke through the control he had kept on his voice. “Do you have a wound scar you can show in a hurry? Scars mean something here. That will prove you’re a warrior according to their standards – as well as a man with a real fightin’ totem. The chief may even accept you as an equal.”
If scars would help, the Terran was only too willing to oblige. He jerked at the loosely looped lacing of his shirt, pulling the silky material down to bare his left shoulder and display a ragged white line that marked his meeting with a too alert sentry on a planet whose sun was only a faint star in the Arzor night heavens.
“I am a warrior and my fighting totem has saved my life –” He spoke directly to the Norbie chieftain, as if the other understood and did not need Dort’s translation by finger. The other answered in his twittering speech as he moved his hands. Dort grinned.