United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Out in the open he would be too good a target for whatever or whoever might be standing within the deep-welled frames. The silence was shattered by a boom. Travis jumped, slewed half around, knife in hand. Boom-boom ... a second heavy beat-beat ... then a clangor with a swelling echo. Kaydessa flung back her head and called, her voice rising up as if tunneled by the valley walls.
He was going to make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into these mountains. "What is it?" Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge. "This was cut by someone, a long time ago," Travis half whispered and then wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers could hear him when perhaps a thousand years or more lay between the chipping of that stone and this day.
"If our plan works, we can catch part of the Reds here. But we still have their ship to take, and for that we need help which we may find at the towers. Or at least we can be on guard there if they return with Kaydessa on that path." Lupe dropped down lightly from an upper ledge. He was grinning. "That woman is one who thinks. She runs from the ship first as a rabbit with a wolf at her heels.
Together the coyotes turned and loped along the now level way of the ledge, disappearing around a curve fitted to the mountain side while Travis and Kaydessa followed. They heard it before they saw its source a waterfall. Probably not a large one, but high. Rounding the curve, they came into a fine mist of spray where sunlight made rainbows of color across a filmy veil of water.
"If you are a man of power such powers," he said slowly, "then you may walk alone where those who talk with spirits go into the mountains." He then spoke over his shoulder in his native tongue, and one of the women reached behind her into a hut, brought out a skin bag and a horn cup. Kaydessa took the cup from her and held it while the other woman poured a white liquid from the bag to fill it.
Before dark they must discover a protected camp site. They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration tablets. But the coyotes could locate water. "Come!" Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of him so that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once again to the influence of the enemy.
Hulagur dropped the end of the lariat, and Kaydessa swung around, loosening the loop so that the rope fell to Travis' feet. The Apache stepped free of it, turned and passed between two of the horsemen to gather up the bow he had dropped.
Hulagur not only did not understand, he was also impatient. He jerked at the rope with such sudden force that Travis was almost thrown. Then Kaydessa dragged as fiercely on the lariat in the other direction and burst into a soaring harangue which drew the rest of the men closer. Travis flexed his upper arms, and the slack gained by Kaydessa's action made the lariat give again.
Never do those others come far into the mountains. Their flyer does not lift well here, and they do not trust traveling on horseback. They were greatly angered to come so far in to reach Kaydessa, though they could not have been too close, or you would not have escaped at all. Yes, strong bait." "Such bait as perhaps the knowledge that there were strangers across the mountains?"
He dared not lead the enemy to that secret, so he must travel west or hole up somewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessa was no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyond its beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin, just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things.
Word Of The Day