Nick ran his hands along the handlebars of the
motorbike. To leave it here would be like closing the door yet
tighter on any chance of return. But Stroud was right, he could not
take it through the rough country ahead and it would be worthless
anyway when the gas was exhausted. He wheeled it to the back of the
shelter and there concealed it as best he could.
They had waited until close to dawn of the next day before
preparing for their trek back to what the English party considered
their best haven of safety. But the night had not been an easy one.
They had taken guard duty by turns, alert for any sky sign to prove
the hunters’ return, or any noise at ground level to suggest
they were watched.
There had been a moon and the night was cloudless. And the light
had drawn strange shadows, to look upon which stirred the
imagination, Nick believed, in a manner that did not allay
uneasiness.
He had not been helped to confidence when, during his watch, an
hour after midnight, the furred shape of Jeremiah flowed past him
into the open just beyond his reach. Out there the big cat sat
down, his tail stretched out straight behind him, his attitude one
of listening. Then, without warning, the tail lashed from side to
side, and there was a low growl. The sound never arose to that
squall meaning a challenge, but kept on a low note, while the tail
beat the sandy soil.
Nick wanted to use the flashlight he had taken from his
saddlebags. But, though he longed to see what had so affected the
cat, he did not want to run the risk of drawing the attention of
what might be prowling out there.
He could hear nothing at all except what were, as far as he
could tell, normal noises of the night. What Jeremiah could see, or
hear, remained lost to his less efficient senses.
The cat cowered to the ground, tail still. He no longer growled.
Across the sky something large and dark moved silently. There was a
slow, single flap of wings, and it was gone. Jeremiah streaked
back, leaping Nick’s knees to reach the interior of the
shelter.
But the sound that followed his return—Was it laughter? Not
loud, hardly above an evil chuckle, it sounded. And it seemed to
Nick to come out of the air, not from ground level. That flying
thing? Nick drew on logic, reason—though logic and reason from the
past had little to do with this world. How much was real, how much
imagination?
Now that it was morning and they were preparing to leave, he
found disbelief easier.
“Too bad you’re havin’ to leave your fine big
bike.” Mrs. Clapp was inducing Jeremiah to enter a woven
basket, a form of imprisonment he was protesting. The cat turned
his head suddenly and seized her hand between his jaws, though he
did not apply the pressure of a true bite.
“Now, now, would you be left here, old man?” She
scratched behind Jeremiah’s ears. “Get in with no more
fuss about it. It is me who’ll have the carryin’ as you
well know. An’ when have I ever made it the worse for
you?”
She closed the lid, fastened it with quick efficiency.
“Yes.” She spoke to Nick again. “A fine big
bike an’ one that cost you a good penny too, if I have eyes
in m’ head to guess. This country’s not for
ridin’ though—less’n we get ourselves some of the white
ones—”
“White ones?” He slung his saddlebags together over
his shoulder and turned his back on the bike, trying to put it out
of mind.
“Them what belong to the People. Ah, a fine proud sight
they are, ridin’ on their white ones. Horses those are, or
enough like horses to give ’em the name. We’ve seen
’em twice at their ridin’, always between the
goin’ of the sun an’ the comin’ of dark. A fine
sight.” She reached for a small pack to one side, but Nick
had his hand on it before her fingers closed on its carrying
loop.
“You have enough to look after with Jeremiah,” he
said.
Mrs. Clapp chuckled. “That I have. A big old man he is—ten
years about. No . . . ” Her round eyes showed a trace of
distress. “Thirty years back—that’s how you said it
now, didn’t you? Thirty years—that I can’t believe
somehow. Ninety-five that would make me, an’ I’m no
granny in front of a fire. An’ Jeremiah—by rights he’d
be long gone. But he’s here an’ I’m as spry as
ever. So I ain’t goin’ to believe in your thirty
years.”
“Why should you?” Nick returned. “It’s a
time that does not hold here, that’s certain. I read
something once—does time pass us, or do we pass it? And we can add
to that now—how fast or slow?”
“Slow, I’ll speak up for the slow!” She
smiled. “Ah, now, hand me over m’ collectin’
tote. I’ll just have that handy. It’s a good lot of
things to fill the stomach snug, like you can find just
marchin’ along. Drop ’em into a stew an’
you’ll be smackin’ your lips an’ passin’ up
your bowl for more.”
She slung the woven grass band supporting what was a cross
between a basket and a tote bag made of reeds, over her stooped
shoulder. And, with Jeremiah’s basket firmly in hand, trotted
out, Nick following.
They all carried by shoulder bands, or knapsack fashion, similar
bags. And Nick noted each also kept close to hand the iron defense,
either in the form of one of the small tools from the jeep, or, in
the case of Stroud, a small knife, blade bared.
Linda had Lung on a leash again. The Peke kept close to his
mistress, but he held his head high, turning it from side to side
as if he were defining and cataloging the various scents of the
land.
The Run’s bank was their road. And along it they went in
an order that apparently was customary to them, Hadlett and Stroud
to the fore, then Mrs. Clapp and Jean Richards, with Linda, Crocker
and Lady Diana playing rear guard. Nick joined the latter.
“Running water.” Lady Diana looked down into the
Run. “That has more than one use here, young man. You drink,
you wash, and it can be a barrier for some of the Dark
Ones.”
Crocker grunted. “Except you never know with a new type
whether it’s water-shy or not.”
“There’s that of course,” Lady Diana agreed.
“But here everything’s really a matter of luck or
chance. We’ve had more than our share of luck so far. There
have been very difficult times—”
Again Crocker had an addition. “That’s one way to
see it. I’d say we’ve just squeaked through, more than
once. I’d thought we’d used up all our luck when we walked
away from the crash.”
“What is that?” Nick had been only half
listening, more intent upon the land around them than the
conversation. He was staring with stark amazement at what lay half
on the bank, half in the Run on the opposite side of the water.
A boat, canted over a little so its lower deck was awash on one
side. But such a boat! And how had it come into the Run, which was
manifestly too narrow and shallow to give it water room?
Now that they were closer he could see that it had been nearly
gutted by fire, which had eaten in places into the great stern wheel
that had been its method of propulsion. But how had it come
here—and when?
He had seen a cruising sternwheeler on the Ohio River that took
passengers for nostalgic rides during the summer. One such caught
now in time?
“It’s too big for this stream—” He protested
against the evidence his eyes supplied.
“Not in flood time.” Lady Diana carried a stout
staff and with this she pointed to evidence, higher up the bank
they traveled, that some time in the past there had indeed been a
far greater rush of water here.
“We went over that coming down the first time,”
Crocker supplied. “Looks as if there had been an explosion.
Hadlett said those things often blew up if they were pushed too
hard. If there were any survivors”—the pilot
shrugged—“they must have gone off. It’s been here for
some time.”
“This stream must join a larger one farther south.”
Lady Diana nodded. “It drains the lake and flows southeast.
If they came through and were lost, they could have turned into it,
hunting—” she shook her head. “Panic came, and they
pushed the engines harder all the time—then the end
here.”
“Those were in use,” Nick had no desire to view the
charred hulk closer, “more than one hundred years
ago.”
“We’ve seen stranger than that.” Lady Diana
strode along at an even pace Nick was trying hard to match.
“Overseas.” She did not enlarge upon her statement and
Nick did not ask questions.
About a mile beyond the wreck of the sternwheeler, their party
turned aside from the riverbank, to shortly after climb a rise
overlooking fields. There Nick had his second shock of the
morning.
For there were lines bisecting this open land. They were
straggling and in some places nearly gone, but this had been walled
once, with fieldstone divisions into recognizable fields! And down
the slope, directly before them was evidence of a road, drifted
with soil, overgrown by grass, yet still a road that had once run
straight between those deserted fields.
Stroud’s arm swung up. In instantaneous answer the whole
party dropped, flattened themselves in the shrubs growing here.
From across the fields came another band of wanderers.
There were horses, undersized when compared to those Nick
knew—some bearing riders, others running loose, herded along by the
same riders. Behind them crawled an object so totally beyond his
experience that he could not put name to it. On a platform to which
had been hitched a massive team—if you could refer to some twenty
straining animals as a “team”—was a domed construction.
The vehicle was awkward, yet it did cover ground, a guard of
horsemen around it reining in their restive mounts to keep pace
with the lumbering wagon.
The band had turned into the road, avoiding the walled fields
which would be an obstruction it could not hope to overcome. Nick
was thankful the whole caravan was heading away. He marked the bows
and lances that equipped the horsemen, who presented so barbaric a
sight he could not believe they would make comfortable fellow
travelers.
“Mongols.” Lady Diana lay shoulder to shoulder with
him. “True Mongols—a clan or family perhaps.”
“You mean,” Nick demanded, “the people of
Genghis Khan—here?”
The sternwheeler had been a shock. But a Mongol party was almost
as severe a dislocation of logic as the strange animals of the
wood. And they had not the awesome feeling of the forest to cloak
them with the air of being where they belonged.
“That is a yurt—one of their traveling houses,” Lady
Diana continued.
He glanced around. Her weatherbeaten, strong-featured face was
alive with interest.
“Here the past comes alive.” She seemed to be
talking to herself. “Perhaps those warriors down there really
did ride with the Great Khan. If we could talk to them—”
“Get a lance through us if we tried it,” Crocker
replied. “If I remember rightly they had a talent as bowmen,
too.”
“They were good enough,” Lady Diana agreed,
“to wipe out half the chivalry of Europe. And they could have
mastered the whole continent if they had pressed on.”
“I’d rather,” Nick commented, “see the
last of them now.”
But they had to lie in their hastily found hiding places (which
perhaps would be no shelter at all should one of the horsemen
choose to come scouting) for some time until the Mongols passed out
of sight. How many more remnants of the past had been caught
here?
“Those fields, the road—” Nick strained to see how
far he could trace that highway. “Who built those?”
“Who knows?” Crocker answered. “There are a
lot of such places. We’ve seen a complete castle. And there
are the cities of the People.”
“Cities?” Nick remembered mention of those before.
“The ones the flyers bomb?”
“Not bomb.” Crocker sounded exasperated. “They
fly over and hover and shoot rays down. Not that that seems to
accomplish anything. But it’s not bombing as we know it. I
can testify to that.”
“The cities,” Lady Diana mused, “they are
different. Our own cities sprawl. You ride for miles through
gradually thickening masses of little box houses swallowing up the
country, you see less and less open. These cities are not like that
at all, they have no environs, no suburbs, they are just there—in
the open.”
“All towers,” murmured Crocker, “and such
colors as you wouldn’t think people could use in buildings.
No smoke—all light and color. But if Hadlett’s
right—they’re traps. And traps can be attractive—we’re
in no mind to prove that.”
“Traps?”
“We believe,” Lady Diana explained, “that the
Herald comes from one. And that can be the source of energy or
whatever it is that draws us—all of us—from our own world. Whatever
governs our coming has been going on for a long time.”
“We saw a Roman cohort. If that wasn’t one of
their dream spinnings,” Crocker said. “You
can’t be sure of what is real and what isn’t, not here
with the People around.”
Stroud rose to his feet, and the rest came out of hiding. They
used what cover was available to cross the road where the ruts left
by the yurt and the hoofprints were deep set, coming into the
fields. At the edge of a small copse they laid down their packs to
rest and eat.
“That’s an orchard over there.” The Vicar
pointed to another stand of trees a field away. “Apples, I
believe—perhaps early ones.”
He glanced at Stroud inquiringly. It was apparent that, on the
march at least, the Warden was in command.
Stroud squinted into the sun. “We’ve got to make the
farm before dusk. And with them around”—he glanced in the
direction the horsemen had vanished—“it’s a risk to
stop.”
“Not too big a one,” the Vicar answered.
“We’ll be under cover of the trees.”
“The wall”—Lady Diana stood, measuring the distance
ahead as if this was something she knew well how to do—“runs
along to the trees. And it grows higher all the way.”
“We could do with some fruit.” Mrs. Clapp patted her
harvest tote as if she already felt it lumpy with plunder.
“All right,” Stroud decided. “We set guards
though an’—”
“I am afraid that we shall do nothing now,” Hadlett
cut in. “Look there.”
As usual Stroud had steered them to cover. If they kept near to
ground level they would escape sighting from any distance.
Bearing down from the same general direction that the Mongols
had come was a second party. These were on foot and Nick
could see they moved with the caution of those who expected either
ambush or attack. They were in uniform and some had rifles, though
the majority were not so armed. Their clothing was a dull, earth
brown, ill fitting, and he could not identify them.
“The Chinese,” Hadlett said softly.
Those in the woods watched the cautious advance, as the
newcomers went along the same route as the Mongols. Nick wondered
if they were in pursuit of the former band. If so, he was not sure
of their chances when or if they did catch up. Somehow those rifles
looked less efficient than the bows of the horsemen who in their
time, as Lady Diana had observed, had accounted for armored
knights.
“The whole country,” commented Crocker, “is
getting a little too crowded.”
“Yes. And what is the reason for all this activity?”
Hadlett added.
“It’s got a nasty kind o’ smell to it,”
Stroud broke in. “The sooner we get under cover, I’d
say, the better. Maybe there’s a huntin’ party
out.”
They spent no time in a fruit harvest. As soon as the Chinese
squad was well gone, they broke from the copse and traveled at a
jogging pace along the protection of a wall, pushing to reach a
ridge about a mile and a half away. Nick thought that most of them
could make that effort without difficulty, but he wondered about
Mrs. Clapp and the Vicar. He saw Jean fall in beside the older
woman and take Jeremiah’s basket, to carry herself.
There was a straggling growth of vegetation in the fields,
resembling self-sown grain, though its like was new to Nick, for
the ripe heads were red with protuberant seeds or grains. It also
possessed narrow leaves studded on the edges with tiny hooks that
caught at their clothing with amazing strength so they had to
constantly jerk free.
Nick swallowed. He was thirsty, but he had no time to drink from
his canteen. The need for speed was so manifest in the attitude of
the others that he kept steadily on. Linda had taken Lung up to
carry him, though the Peke had walked most of the morning.
Luckily the rise of the ridge was a gradual one, but it taxed
their strength after that trot across the open. Stroud signaled a
rest. There was plenty of cover and from here one could see some
distance.
“More drifters!” Jean and Linda were on either side
of Nick, and the English girl indicated at a distance too far to
see details of clothing or accouterments, another band of
travelers.
Stroud and Crocker, Nick noted, had flopped over, shading their
eyes against the sun, studying not the country beyond but the sky
above.
“No sign of ’em,” the Warden said.
“Not yet. But there’s too much movement. If a big
hunt was on—”
“We stay flat an’ under cover until dusk,”
Stroud decided. “Yes, that’s pushin’ it,”
he added at an exclamation from Lady Diana. “But I
don’t see how else we can do it—’less we spend the
night right here.”
“How far are we,” Nick ventured to ask, “from
your place?”
“About three miles straight. But keepin’ under cover
adds to that. We’ve seen more drifters today than we have in
weeks before—”
“And now we see something else!” the Vicar
interrupted. “The Herald—we are not too far from the
city.”
There was no concealment, no hunting for cover by that colorful
figure below. As the Mongols, he was mounted. But he did not
bestride any rough-coated half-pony. The animal bore a general
resemblance to a horse right enough, save that its legs were longer
and thinner. And its white coat had about it a halo of light such
as had been cast by the hair of the Green Man in the forest.
Mounted on this creature, which skimmed the ground at so swift a
pace as made Nick stare, was a man, or at least a humanoid. His
clothing was as dazzling as the brilliant coat of his steed, a kind
of patchwork of bright colors centering in a stiff and sleeveless
tabard that flared out over his hips as if boned. Under that were
breeches such as the Green Man had worn. And on his head was a
four-cornered cap, the points of which projected.
Unlike the forest man, his hair was short, sleeked to his head.
And what little showed was very dark. On his face, a line of hair,
as fine as if it had been drawn on with a delicately handled brush,
crossed his upper lip, to bracket either end of his mouth.
There was purpose in the way he rode, in the wide,
ground-covering strides of his horse. And then, watching their
going more carefully, Nick perceived what he had not at first
sighted. The “horse” was not hooved, but had clawed
paws not unlike those of a hound.
And—they did not touch the surface of the ground over which it
passed. The thing galloped as if it followed some invisible pathway
some inches above the foundation. It did not swerve or even appear
to leap as it came to one of the walls about the fields. Instead it
simply rose higher in the air, crossing the obstruction, climbing a
little more with each pace, heading for the ridge some distance
away.
Up and up, always well above the ground now. The paws worked
evenly, without effort. It was gaining altitude steadily, ready to
cross the ridge. Now Nick heard a whining hum—from the rider?
No, that came from overhead.
“Hunter!” Stroud warned.
They cowered within their cover as there appeared, as suddenly
as if the sky parted to drop it through, a flyer. This was like the
saucer they had witnessed in battle beside the lake, but very much
smaller. And from its bubble top a ray of light shot
groundward.
Nick felt a choking sensation. He could not move, was rooted to
the ground on which he lay. There was a tingling close to pain
through his body.
The ray held steadily on the climbing-horse thing and its rider.
But neither looked up to their attacker. Nor did the gallop of the
beast fail. The ray increased in intensity. Nick heard a whimper
from Lung, a growl from the cat basket. Yet neither animal
protested more loudly.
However, the beam was centered on the rider, strengthening until
Nick had to glance away from that searing brightness. When he dared
look again it was to see the rider slowly descending on the other
side of the ridge. Whatever weapon the flyer used had no effect on
the Herald. He continued to speed on, completely disregarding the
attack as if the alien had no existence.
Yet the saucer followed, training the beam on the Herald, as if
by the persistence of its power it could eventually win. When both
were well gone, the Herald only a spot of color rapidly
disappearing into the distance, the saucer relentlessly in his
wake, Nick discovered that he felt better. He hunched up to watch
the strange hunt go out of sight.
“A hunter, but it didn’t get him,” Crocker
said. “And he’s heading for the city. Defense, not
attack—”
“What do you mean?” Nick wanted to know.
“Just that. The hunters try to break down the cities, but
the cities never retaliate. They don’t let off ack-ack, never
send a bolt back. It’s as if they don’t care, as if the
hunters can’t touch them, and so they needn’t bother to
fight. You saw the Herald—he never even looked up to see who or
what was strafing him! If we only had a defense like
that—”
“We can accept their offer,” the Vicar said quietly,
“You know that, Barry.”
“No!” The pilot’s return was violent.
“I’m me, Barry Crocker, and I’m going to stay me.
Even if I have to run and hide all over this country!”
“What happens if one accepts a Herald’s
offer?” pushed Nick. “You said that one
changes—how?”
Crocker did not allow the Vicar to answer. He scowled at
Nick.
“You just change. We saw it in Rita.” And he closed
his mouth as if he could not be forced to add to that.
“You see,” Hadlett answered slowly, gently, as if
there was some emotion here he feared to awaken fully, “there
was another one of us once, Barry’s fiancée. She met the
Herald before we understood, and she accepted what he offered. Then
she came to us to urge us to do likewise—”
“She was better dead!” Crocker pushed away from
them.
“But what happened to her?” Nick persisted. “I
think we, Linda and I, have a right to know—if the same choice
should be offered to us.”
“It will be,” Lady Diana replied sharply. “But
the boy’s right, Adrian. Give him the truth.”
“There were”—the Vicar hesitated as if he found
giving that truth a difficult, almost painful matter—“certain
physical changes. Perhaps those could be accepted. But there were
mental, emotional ones also. To our belief, Rita—the Rita who
returned to us—was no longer human. Men have an inborn fear of
death that very few of us are able to overcome, we shrink from even
the thought. This change is like a kind of death. For the one who
accepts it crosses a division between our life and another. There
is no return. We have in us such an aversion to what they become
that we cannot stand their presence near us. I am trying to find
the proper words, but in reality this change must be faced to be
fully understood.”
The Vicar met Nick’s eyes, but all the rest, save Linda,
looked away, almost as if they were afraid, or ashamed of what he
said. The Lady Diana spoke again, a rough note in her voice:
“Well, Stroud, do we sit here much longer?”
Nick ran his hands along the handlebars of the
motorbike. To leave it here would be like closing the door yet
tighter on any chance of return. But Stroud was right, he could not
take it through the rough country ahead and it would be worthless
anyway when the gas was exhausted. He wheeled it to the back of the
shelter and there concealed it as best he could.
They had waited until close to dawn of the next day before
preparing for their trek back to what the English party considered
their best haven of safety. But the night had not been an easy one.
They had taken guard duty by turns, alert for any sky sign to prove
the hunters’ return, or any noise at ground level to suggest
they were watched.
There had been a moon and the night was cloudless. And the light
had drawn strange shadows, to look upon which stirred the
imagination, Nick believed, in a manner that did not allay
uneasiness.
He had not been helped to confidence when, during his watch, an
hour after midnight, the furred shape of Jeremiah flowed past him
into the open just beyond his reach. Out there the big cat sat
down, his tail stretched out straight behind him, his attitude one
of listening. Then, without warning, the tail lashed from side to
side, and there was a low growl. The sound never arose to that
squall meaning a challenge, but kept on a low note, while the tail
beat the sandy soil.
Nick wanted to use the flashlight he had taken from his
saddlebags. But, though he longed to see what had so affected the
cat, he did not want to run the risk of drawing the attention of
what might be prowling out there.
He could hear nothing at all except what were, as far as he
could tell, normal noises of the night. What Jeremiah could see, or
hear, remained lost to his less efficient senses.
The cat cowered to the ground, tail still. He no longer growled.
Across the sky something large and dark moved silently. There was a
slow, single flap of wings, and it was gone. Jeremiah streaked
back, leaping Nick’s knees to reach the interior of the
shelter.
But the sound that followed his return—Was it laughter? Not
loud, hardly above an evil chuckle, it sounded. And it seemed to
Nick to come out of the air, not from ground level. That flying
thing? Nick drew on logic, reason—though logic and reason from the
past had little to do with this world. How much was real, how much
imagination?
Now that it was morning and they were preparing to leave, he
found disbelief easier.
“Too bad you’re havin’ to leave your fine big
bike.” Mrs. Clapp was inducing Jeremiah to enter a woven
basket, a form of imprisonment he was protesting. The cat turned
his head suddenly and seized her hand between his jaws, though he
did not apply the pressure of a true bite.
“Now, now, would you be left here, old man?” She
scratched behind Jeremiah’s ears. “Get in with no more
fuss about it. It is me who’ll have the carryin’ as you
well know. An’ when have I ever made it the worse for
you?”
She closed the lid, fastened it with quick efficiency.
“Yes.” She spoke to Nick again. “A fine big
bike an’ one that cost you a good penny too, if I have eyes
in m’ head to guess. This country’s not for
ridin’ though—less’n we get ourselves some of the white
ones—”
“White ones?” He slung his saddlebags together over
his shoulder and turned his back on the bike, trying to put it out
of mind.
“Them what belong to the People. Ah, a fine proud sight
they are, ridin’ on their white ones. Horses those are, or
enough like horses to give ’em the name. We’ve seen
’em twice at their ridin’, always between the
goin’ of the sun an’ the comin’ of dark. A fine
sight.” She reached for a small pack to one side, but Nick
had his hand on it before her fingers closed on its carrying
loop.
“You have enough to look after with Jeremiah,” he
said.
Mrs. Clapp chuckled. “That I have. A big old man he is—ten
years about. No . . . ” Her round eyes showed a trace of
distress. “Thirty years back—that’s how you said it
now, didn’t you? Thirty years—that I can’t believe
somehow. Ninety-five that would make me, an’ I’m no
granny in front of a fire. An’ Jeremiah—by rights he’d
be long gone. But he’s here an’ I’m as spry as
ever. So I ain’t goin’ to believe in your thirty
years.”
“Why should you?” Nick returned. “It’s a
time that does not hold here, that’s certain. I read
something once—does time pass us, or do we pass it? And we can add
to that now—how fast or slow?”
“Slow, I’ll speak up for the slow!” She
smiled. “Ah, now, hand me over m’ collectin’
tote. I’ll just have that handy. It’s a good lot of
things to fill the stomach snug, like you can find just
marchin’ along. Drop ’em into a stew an’
you’ll be smackin’ your lips an’ passin’ up
your bowl for more.”
She slung the woven grass band supporting what was a cross
between a basket and a tote bag made of reeds, over her stooped
shoulder. And, with Jeremiah’s basket firmly in hand, trotted
out, Nick following.
They all carried by shoulder bands, or knapsack fashion, similar
bags. And Nick noted each also kept close to hand the iron defense,
either in the form of one of the small tools from the jeep, or, in
the case of Stroud, a small knife, blade bared.
Linda had Lung on a leash again. The Peke kept close to his
mistress, but he held his head high, turning it from side to side
as if he were defining and cataloging the various scents of the
land.
The Run’s bank was their road. And along it they went in
an order that apparently was customary to them, Hadlett and Stroud
to the fore, then Mrs. Clapp and Jean Richards, with Linda, Crocker
and Lady Diana playing rear guard. Nick joined the latter.
“Running water.” Lady Diana looked down into the
Run. “That has more than one use here, young man. You drink,
you wash, and it can be a barrier for some of the Dark
Ones.”
Crocker grunted. “Except you never know with a new type
whether it’s water-shy or not.”
“There’s that of course,” Lady Diana agreed.
“But here everything’s really a matter of luck or
chance. We’ve had more than our share of luck so far. There
have been very difficult times—”
Again Crocker had an addition. “That’s one way to
see it. I’d say we’ve just squeaked through, more than
once. I’d thought we’d used up all our luck when we walked
away from the crash.”
“What is that?” Nick had been only half
listening, more intent upon the land around them than the
conversation. He was staring with stark amazement at what lay half
on the bank, half in the Run on the opposite side of the water.
A boat, canted over a little so its lower deck was awash on one
side. But such a boat! And how had it come into the Run, which was
manifestly too narrow and shallow to give it water room?
Now that they were closer he could see that it had been nearly
gutted by fire, which had eaten in places into the great stern wheel
that had been its method of propulsion. But how had it come
here—and when?
He had seen a cruising sternwheeler on the Ohio River that took
passengers for nostalgic rides during the summer. One such caught
now in time?
“It’s too big for this stream—” He protested
against the evidence his eyes supplied.
“Not in flood time.” Lady Diana carried a stout
staff and with this she pointed to evidence, higher up the bank
they traveled, that some time in the past there had indeed been a
far greater rush of water here.
“We went over that coming down the first time,”
Crocker supplied. “Looks as if there had been an explosion.
Hadlett said those things often blew up if they were pushed too
hard. If there were any survivors”—the pilot
shrugged—“they must have gone off. It’s been here for
some time.”
“This stream must join a larger one farther south.”
Lady Diana nodded. “It drains the lake and flows southeast.
If they came through and were lost, they could have turned into it,
hunting—” she shook her head. “Panic came, and they
pushed the engines harder all the time—then the end
here.”
“Those were in use,” Nick had no desire to view the
charred hulk closer, “more than one hundred years
ago.”
“We’ve seen stranger than that.” Lady Diana
strode along at an even pace Nick was trying hard to match.
“Overseas.” She did not enlarge upon her statement and
Nick did not ask questions.
About a mile beyond the wreck of the sternwheeler, their party
turned aside from the riverbank, to shortly after climb a rise
overlooking fields. There Nick had his second shock of the
morning.
For there were lines bisecting this open land. They were
straggling and in some places nearly gone, but this had been walled
once, with fieldstone divisions into recognizable fields! And down
the slope, directly before them was evidence of a road, drifted
with soil, overgrown by grass, yet still a road that had once run
straight between those deserted fields.
Stroud’s arm swung up. In instantaneous answer the whole
party dropped, flattened themselves in the shrubs growing here.
From across the fields came another band of wanderers.
There were horses, undersized when compared to those Nick
knew—some bearing riders, others running loose, herded along by the
same riders. Behind them crawled an object so totally beyond his
experience that he could not put name to it. On a platform to which
had been hitched a massive team—if you could refer to some twenty
straining animals as a “team”—was a domed construction.
The vehicle was awkward, yet it did cover ground, a guard of
horsemen around it reining in their restive mounts to keep pace
with the lumbering wagon.
The band had turned into the road, avoiding the walled fields
which would be an obstruction it could not hope to overcome. Nick
was thankful the whole caravan was heading away. He marked the bows
and lances that equipped the horsemen, who presented so barbaric a
sight he could not believe they would make comfortable fellow
travelers.
“Mongols.” Lady Diana lay shoulder to shoulder with
him. “True Mongols—a clan or family perhaps.”
“You mean,” Nick demanded, “the people of
Genghis Khan—here?”
The sternwheeler had been a shock. But a Mongol party was almost
as severe a dislocation of logic as the strange animals of the
wood. And they had not the awesome feeling of the forest to cloak
them with the air of being where they belonged.
“That is a yurt—one of their traveling houses,” Lady
Diana continued.
He glanced around. Her weatherbeaten, strong-featured face was
alive with interest.
“Here the past comes alive.” She seemed to be
talking to herself. “Perhaps those warriors down there really
did ride with the Great Khan. If we could talk to them—”
“Get a lance through us if we tried it,” Crocker
replied. “If I remember rightly they had a talent as bowmen,
too.”
“They were good enough,” Lady Diana agreed,
“to wipe out half the chivalry of Europe. And they could have
mastered the whole continent if they had pressed on.”
“I’d rather,” Nick commented, “see the
last of them now.”
But they had to lie in their hastily found hiding places (which
perhaps would be no shelter at all should one of the horsemen
choose to come scouting) for some time until the Mongols passed out
of sight. How many more remnants of the past had been caught
here?
“Those fields, the road—” Nick strained to see how
far he could trace that highway. “Who built those?”
“Who knows?” Crocker answered. “There are a
lot of such places. We’ve seen a complete castle. And there
are the cities of the People.”
“Cities?” Nick remembered mention of those before.
“The ones the flyers bomb?”
“Not bomb.” Crocker sounded exasperated. “They
fly over and hover and shoot rays down. Not that that seems to
accomplish anything. But it’s not bombing as we know it. I
can testify to that.”
“The cities,” Lady Diana mused, “they are
different. Our own cities sprawl. You ride for miles through
gradually thickening masses of little box houses swallowing up the
country, you see less and less open. These cities are not like that
at all, they have no environs, no suburbs, they are just there—in
the open.”
“All towers,” murmured Crocker, “and such
colors as you wouldn’t think people could use in buildings.
No smoke—all light and color. But if Hadlett’s
right—they’re traps. And traps can be attractive—we’re
in no mind to prove that.”
“Traps?”
“We believe,” Lady Diana explained, “that the
Herald comes from one. And that can be the source of energy or
whatever it is that draws us—all of us—from our own world. Whatever
governs our coming has been going on for a long time.”
“We saw a Roman cohort. If that wasn’t one of
their dream spinnings,” Crocker said. “You
can’t be sure of what is real and what isn’t, not here
with the People around.”
Stroud rose to his feet, and the rest came out of hiding. They
used what cover was available to cross the road where the ruts left
by the yurt and the hoofprints were deep set, coming into the
fields. At the edge of a small copse they laid down their packs to
rest and eat.
“That’s an orchard over there.” The Vicar
pointed to another stand of trees a field away. “Apples, I
believe—perhaps early ones.”
He glanced at Stroud inquiringly. It was apparent that, on the
march at least, the Warden was in command.
Stroud squinted into the sun. “We’ve got to make the
farm before dusk. And with them around”—he glanced in the
direction the horsemen had vanished—“it’s a risk to
stop.”
“Not too big a one,” the Vicar answered.
“We’ll be under cover of the trees.”
“The wall”—Lady Diana stood, measuring the distance
ahead as if this was something she knew well how to do—“runs
along to the trees. And it grows higher all the way.”
“We could do with some fruit.” Mrs. Clapp patted her
harvest tote as if she already felt it lumpy with plunder.
“All right,” Stroud decided. “We set guards
though an’—”
“I am afraid that we shall do nothing now,” Hadlett
cut in. “Look there.”
As usual Stroud had steered them to cover. If they kept near to
ground level they would escape sighting from any distance.
Bearing down from the same general direction that the Mongols
had come was a second party. These were on foot and Nick
could see they moved with the caution of those who expected either
ambush or attack. They were in uniform and some had rifles, though
the majority were not so armed. Their clothing was a dull, earth
brown, ill fitting, and he could not identify them.
“The Chinese,” Hadlett said softly.
Those in the woods watched the cautious advance, as the
newcomers went along the same route as the Mongols. Nick wondered
if they were in pursuit of the former band. If so, he was not sure
of their chances when or if they did catch up. Somehow those rifles
looked less efficient than the bows of the horsemen who in their
time, as Lady Diana had observed, had accounted for armored
knights.
“The whole country,” commented Crocker, “is
getting a little too crowded.”
“Yes. And what is the reason for all this activity?”
Hadlett added.
“It’s got a nasty kind o’ smell to it,”
Stroud broke in. “The sooner we get under cover, I’d
say, the better. Maybe there’s a huntin’ party
out.”
They spent no time in a fruit harvest. As soon as the Chinese
squad was well gone, they broke from the copse and traveled at a
jogging pace along the protection of a wall, pushing to reach a
ridge about a mile and a half away. Nick thought that most of them
could make that effort without difficulty, but he wondered about
Mrs. Clapp and the Vicar. He saw Jean fall in beside the older
woman and take Jeremiah’s basket, to carry herself.
There was a straggling growth of vegetation in the fields,
resembling self-sown grain, though its like was new to Nick, for
the ripe heads were red with protuberant seeds or grains. It also
possessed narrow leaves studded on the edges with tiny hooks that
caught at their clothing with amazing strength so they had to
constantly jerk free.
Nick swallowed. He was thirsty, but he had no time to drink from
his canteen. The need for speed was so manifest in the attitude of
the others that he kept steadily on. Linda had taken Lung up to
carry him, though the Peke had walked most of the morning.
Luckily the rise of the ridge was a gradual one, but it taxed
their strength after that trot across the open. Stroud signaled a
rest. There was plenty of cover and from here one could see some
distance.
“More drifters!” Jean and Linda were on either side
of Nick, and the English girl indicated at a distance too far to
see details of clothing or accouterments, another band of
travelers.
Stroud and Crocker, Nick noted, had flopped over, shading their
eyes against the sun, studying not the country beyond but the sky
above.
“No sign of ’em,” the Warden said.
“Not yet. But there’s too much movement. If a big
hunt was on—”
“We stay flat an’ under cover until dusk,”
Stroud decided. “Yes, that’s pushin’ it,”
he added at an exclamation from Lady Diana. “But I
don’t see how else we can do it—’less we spend the
night right here.”
“How far are we,” Nick ventured to ask, “from
your place?”
“About three miles straight. But keepin’ under cover
adds to that. We’ve seen more drifters today than we have in
weeks before—”
“And now we see something else!” the Vicar
interrupted. “The Herald—we are not too far from the
city.”
There was no concealment, no hunting for cover by that colorful
figure below. As the Mongols, he was mounted. But he did not
bestride any rough-coated half-pony. The animal bore a general
resemblance to a horse right enough, save that its legs were longer
and thinner. And its white coat had about it a halo of light such
as had been cast by the hair of the Green Man in the forest.
Mounted on this creature, which skimmed the ground at so swift a
pace as made Nick stare, was a man, or at least a humanoid. His
clothing was as dazzling as the brilliant coat of his steed, a kind
of patchwork of bright colors centering in a stiff and sleeveless
tabard that flared out over his hips as if boned. Under that were
breeches such as the Green Man had worn. And on his head was a
four-cornered cap, the points of which projected.
Unlike the forest man, his hair was short, sleeked to his head.
And what little showed was very dark. On his face, a line of hair,
as fine as if it had been drawn on with a delicately handled brush,
crossed his upper lip, to bracket either end of his mouth.
There was purpose in the way he rode, in the wide,
ground-covering strides of his horse. And then, watching their
going more carefully, Nick perceived what he had not at first
sighted. The “horse” was not hooved, but had clawed
paws not unlike those of a hound.
And—they did not touch the surface of the ground over which it
passed. The thing galloped as if it followed some invisible pathway
some inches above the foundation. It did not swerve or even appear
to leap as it came to one of the walls about the fields. Instead it
simply rose higher in the air, crossing the obstruction, climbing a
little more with each pace, heading for the ridge some distance
away.
Up and up, always well above the ground now. The paws worked
evenly, without effort. It was gaining altitude steadily, ready to
cross the ridge. Now Nick heard a whining hum—from the rider?
No, that came from overhead.
“Hunter!” Stroud warned.
They cowered within their cover as there appeared, as suddenly
as if the sky parted to drop it through, a flyer. This was like the
saucer they had witnessed in battle beside the lake, but very much
smaller. And from its bubble top a ray of light shot
groundward.
Nick felt a choking sensation. He could not move, was rooted to
the ground on which he lay. There was a tingling close to pain
through his body.
The ray held steadily on the climbing-horse thing and its rider.
But neither looked up to their attacker. Nor did the gallop of the
beast fail. The ray increased in intensity. Nick heard a whimper
from Lung, a growl from the cat basket. Yet neither animal
protested more loudly.
However, the beam was centered on the rider, strengthening until
Nick had to glance away from that searing brightness. When he dared
look again it was to see the rider slowly descending on the other
side of the ridge. Whatever weapon the flyer used had no effect on
the Herald. He continued to speed on, completely disregarding the
attack as if the alien had no existence.
Yet the saucer followed, training the beam on the Herald, as if
by the persistence of its power it could eventually win. When both
were well gone, the Herald only a spot of color rapidly
disappearing into the distance, the saucer relentlessly in his
wake, Nick discovered that he felt better. He hunched up to watch
the strange hunt go out of sight.
“A hunter, but it didn’t get him,” Crocker
said. “And he’s heading for the city. Defense, not
attack—”
“What do you mean?” Nick wanted to know.
“Just that. The hunters try to break down the cities, but
the cities never retaliate. They don’t let off ack-ack, never
send a bolt back. It’s as if they don’t care, as if the
hunters can’t touch them, and so they needn’t bother to
fight. You saw the Herald—he never even looked up to see who or
what was strafing him! If we only had a defense like
that—”
“We can accept their offer,” the Vicar said quietly,
“You know that, Barry.”
“No!” The pilot’s return was violent.
“I’m me, Barry Crocker, and I’m going to stay me.
Even if I have to run and hide all over this country!”
“What happens if one accepts a Herald’s
offer?” pushed Nick. “You said that one
changes—how?”
Crocker did not allow the Vicar to answer. He scowled at
Nick.
“You just change. We saw it in Rita.” And he closed
his mouth as if he could not be forced to add to that.
“You see,” Hadlett answered slowly, gently, as if
there was some emotion here he feared to awaken fully, “there
was another one of us once, Barry’s fiancée. She met the
Herald before we understood, and she accepted what he offered. Then
she came to us to urge us to do likewise—”
“She was better dead!” Crocker pushed away from
them.
“But what happened to her?” Nick persisted. “I
think we, Linda and I, have a right to know—if the same choice
should be offered to us.”
“It will be,” Lady Diana replied sharply. “But
the boy’s right, Adrian. Give him the truth.”
“There were”—the Vicar hesitated as if he found
giving that truth a difficult, almost painful matter—“certain
physical changes. Perhaps those could be accepted. But there were
mental, emotional ones also. To our belief, Rita—the Rita who
returned to us—was no longer human. Men have an inborn fear of
death that very few of us are able to overcome, we shrink from even
the thought. This change is like a kind of death. For the one who
accepts it crosses a division between our life and another. There
is no return. We have in us such an aversion to what they become
that we cannot stand their presence near us. I am trying to find
the proper words, but in reality this change must be faced to be
fully understood.”
The Vicar met Nick’s eyes, but all the rest, save Linda,
looked away, almost as if they were afraid, or ashamed of what he
said. The Lady Diana spoke again, a rough note in her voice:
“Well, Stroud, do we sit here much longer?”