The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

as the other reported his meeting in the marsh.
    “McNeil—chap with brown hair, brown eyes, a right eyebrow which quirks up toward his hairline when he smiles?”
    “Brown hair and eyes, okay—and he didn’t smile any.”
    “Chip broken off a front tooth—upper right?”
    Ross shut his eyes to visualize the stranger. Yes, there had been a small break on a front tooth. He nodded.
    “That’s McNeil. Not that you didn’t do right not to bring him here without being sure. What made you so watchful? Kurt?”
    Again Ross nodded. “And what you said about the Reds’ planting someone here to wait for us.”
    Ashe scratched the bristles on his chin. “Never underrate them—we don’t dare do that. But the man you met is McNeil, and we’d better get him here. Can you bring him?”
    “I think he’s able to get about, in spite of that leg. From his story he’s been stirring around.”
    Ashe bit absent-mindedly into a piece of hare and swore mildly when he burned his tongue. “Odd that Cassca didn’t tell us about him. Unless she thought there was no use causing trouble by admitting they had driven him away. You going now?”
    Ross moved around the fire. “Might as well. He didn’t look too comfortable. And I’ll bet he’s hungry.”
    He took the direct route back to the marsh, but this time no thread of smoke spiraled into the air. Ross hesitated. That shelter on the small island was surely the place where McNeil had holed up. Should he try to work his way out to it now? Or had something happened to the man while he was gone?
    Again that sixth sense of impending disaster, which is perhaps bred into some men, alerted Ross. Why he turned suddenly and backed against a bushy willow, he could not have explained. However, because he did so the loop of hide rope meant for his throat hit his shoulder harmlessly. It fell to the ground, and he stamped one boot down on it. Then it was the work of seconds to grasp it and give it a quick jerk. The surprised man who held the other end was brought sprawling into the open.
    Ross had seen that round face before. “Lal of the town of Nodren.” He found words to greet the ropeman even as his knee came up against the fellow’s jaw, jarring Lal so that he dropped a flint knife. Ross kicked it into the willows. “What do you hunt here, Lal?”
    “Traders!” The voice was weak, but it held heat.
    The tribesman did not try to struggle against Ross’s hold, and Ross, gripping him by the nape of the neck, moved through a screen of brush to a hollow. Luckily there was no water cupped there, for McNeil lay in the bottom of that dip, his arms tied tightly behind him and his ankles lashed together with no thought for the pain of his burned leg.
    CHAPTER 7
    Ross whirled the rope which had been meant to bring him down around Lal. He lashed the tribesman’s arms tight to his body before he knelt to cut loose his fellow time traveler. Lal now huddled against the far wall of the cup, fear in every line of his small body. So apparent was this fear that Ross felt no satisfaction at turning the tables on him. Instead he felt increasingly uneasy.
    “What is this all about?” he asked McNeil as he stripped off his bonds and helped him up.
    McNeil massaged his wrists, took a step or two, and grimaced with pain. “Our friend seeks to be an obedient servant of Lurgha.”
    Ross picked up his bow. “The tribe is out to hunt us?”
    “Lurgha has ordered—out of thin air again—that any traders who escaped are to be brought in and introduced to him personally at the sacrifice for the enrichment of the fields!”
    The old, old gift of blood and life at the spring sowing. Ross recalled grisly details from his cram lessons. Any wandering stranger or enemy tribesman taken in a raid before that day would meet such a fate. On unlucky years when people were not available a deer or wolf might serve. But the best sacrifice of all was a man. So Lurgha had decreed—from the air—that traders were his meat? What of Ashe? Let any hunter from the village track him down.
    “We have to move fast,” Ross told McNeil as he took up the rope which made a leading cord for Lal. Ashe would want to question the tribesman about this second order from Lurgha.
    Impatient as Ross was, he had to mend his pace to accommodate McNeil. The man from the hill post was close to the end of his strength. He had started off bravely enough, but now he wavered. Ross sent Lal ahead with a sharp push, ordering him to stay