His fingers trailed over the stones of the ground; then touched something hard, but a moment’s feeling about showed it to be the end of a complete keg, and useless for his purposes. A little farther, he encountered a barrel hoop, but it was complete and roundly harmless. It was not until the third try, that he found something useful.
It was a chunk of what was probably kindling wood to one Dilbian size, a length of split, dried log about four inches thick and about two and a half feet long. It was better than nothing and John’s hand closed gratefully about it, taking it with him.
He was three-quarters of the way to the far end of the inn, now. A little farther, and perhaps he would not need the chunk of kindling after all. A little farther…
He had backed clear to a point level with the end of the inn, and its front side was less than thirty yards away. One quick dash and he would be safe. John froze and sniffed silently. He listened.
Silence held the night.
John turned his head slowly from right to left, scanning the darkness behind him and the darkness between him and the inn. Over the rushing of the waters far below he could hear, through the bones of his inner ear, the creak of his tense neck muscles moving in the ringing silence of the waiting hush.
Nothing could be seen. Nothing moved. End of round three, whispered his brain. Beginning of round four. Seconds out of their corners. Still holding the club, he got up on his toes and knuckles like a sprinter about to start.
There was a sudden movement. A rearing up in the darkness before him. He tried to dodge, felt his feet slipping in the loose gravel and rock, struck out with the club and felt it connect…
And something indescribably hard smashed down onto his head, sending him swirling down and away, into starshot blackness.
CHAPTER 6
John opened his eyes to bright sunlight.
Dilbia’s sun, just above the snow-gilt peaks of the mountain horizon, was shining its first clear rays of the day directly into his eyes. He blinked sleepily, and started to roll over onto his side, turning his back to the penetrating dazzle of the light—
—and grabbed with every ounce of strength he could summon at the rough trunk of a stubby tree growing sideways out of the granite rock beside him.
For a long second, he hung there sweating. Then he wriggled back a ways, but without releasing his grip on the little tree, until he felt himself firmly wedged in among the rocks around him. Then—but still not letting go of the tree—he risked another look.
He lay on a narrow ridge several hundred feet above a mountain river and eternity. The water was far below. How far, he did not take the time or trouble to estimate. It was far enough.
He turned over and looked up. Just above him, a slight overhang came to an end, than there was about fifteen feet of jagged rock cliffside, then a steep slope, and some small sweaty distance beyond that, the haven that was the edge of the inn’s backyard. A bit of rusty hoop overhanging the edge identified it as such.
Swallowing a little convulsively, John relaxed his grip on the tree.
He was wide awake now, and in condition to notice a number of scrapes and gouges. There was one plowed groove that started up from his wrist and almost made it to his elbow. For a second John almost regretted not being back comfortably asleep again. Then he remembered the gorge below and was glad he was not. He looked up at the cliff face above him once more, and began to pick out a route by which he could ascend it.
He found it easily enough. The climb was not one which called for mountaineering experience, though John had that, along with other sports qualifications. But, thought John as he climbed, it was not exactly what everybody would pick for exercise before breakfast.
He made it up over the lip of the yard and lay there for a second, panting. In the daylight, the yard looked very small and ordinary. It was hard to believe that it had been the lengthy and dangerous arena where he skulked and fought for his life the night before. John got to his feet, brushed himself off, and limped around to the front of the inn, where some commotion seemed to be in process, and stumbled upon a scene that made him blink.
The entire populace of the inn, guests and help alike, were drawn up in the road before it. They stood in fairly orderly ranks before an open space in which a grizzled and lean old Dilbian sat on a bench placed on top of a table. Between this individual and the crowd—among which John recognized the inkeeperess in a clean apron—were John’s three tormentors of the night before, looking hangdog between two large Dilbians carrying axes over their shoulders. What, from its stained and gouged appearance looked ominously like a chopping block, was in position a little in front of the prisoners.
Across from the prisoners, the Hill Bluffer was windmilling his arms and orating in tones of outrage.
“The mail!” he was roaring, as John tottered around the corner of the inn into the full sight of everybody. “The mail is sacred. Anyone laying hands upon the mail in transit—”
At that moment, he caught sight of John; and broke off. The total assemblage, including the judge, turned and stared at John as he limped forward into their midst.
“There!” burst out the inkeeperess. “Didn’t I say it? The poor little fellow—probably frightened out of his wits. Been up a tree all this time, no doubt. No reason at all for chopping three poor men who’re just having a friendly drink. But, that’s it for you, a man can’t get beyond his middle years but he has to be playing judge at every opportunity. And every man who ever wore a mail pouch ranting and raving as if there wasn’t anything in the world but letters—much good letters do anyone, anyway. And those who can’t wait to waste their good time standing around at a trial and an execution not much better. Poor little Shorty.” She swooped down on John, fluttering her apron at him. “Now you just get right inside there and have your morning beer. Men!”
John let himself be herded inside. In addition to all his other aches and pains, he had just discovered himself to be the possessor of a walking hangover. And the Dilbian beer was at present the quickest—and only—cure for that.
Later, after John had drunk his breakfast and washed off a certain amount of dried blood, he and the Hill Bluffer got under way again. The long-legged Dilbian had fizzed and popped with the effervescence of throttled outrage for the first fifteen minutes or so following John’s return. But on being shut up by the inkeeperess, he had lapsed into a thoughtful silence, and he continued to be silent during the first few hours of their trip.
Meanwhile, thanks to a generally good physical condition and possibly in some measure to the beer and the food concentrates, John was recovering rapidly. Their way from Brittle Rock led through the highlands toward Knobby Gorge, the Bluffer had informed John, earlier. After that they would begin the gradual descent down the far, forested side of the Cold Mountains to Sour Ford and the Hollows. The Hollows was clan-country for the Streamside Terror, and their hope was to catch up with him before he reached it.
The first part of the day’s trailing after they left Brittle Rock led by narrow mountainside paths and across swinging suspension bridges over deep cuts in the rock that ended, far below, in rushing currents of white water. The Hill Bluffer trod this way for the first couple of hours, not merely with the casualness of someone well-used to it, but with the actual absent-mindedness of a person in deep thought.
“Hey!” said John, finally, when for the fifth time that morning the Hill Bluffer had shown signs of intending to walk off the path on to several hundred feet of thin air.