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Keep away from us lest Lurgha's wrath fall upon us also." Lurgha was the local storm god, Ross recalled. The sound of thunder and fire coming out of the sky at night the bomb! Perhaps the very method of attack on the post would defeat Ashe's attempt to learn anything from these neighbors.
Cassca moved beneath the arch. "Or does it in some strange way, Assha?" "Perhaps it does. Only tell me." She turned slowly and pointed over her right shoulder. "From that way he came, Assha. Well did I watch, knowing that I was the Mother's and that even Lurgha's thunderbolts could not eat me up. Does knowing that make Lurgha smaller in your eyes, Assha?
Thus he is no kin to the mother, for she is of the light and of good things, of the new grain, and the newborn lambs for your flocks, of the maids who wed with men and bring forth sons to lift their fathers' spears, daughters to spin by the hearth and sow the yellow grain in the furrows. Lurgha's quarrel lies with us, Lal, not with Nodren nor with you. And we take upon us that quarrel."
"If the Reds have done their work efficiently, and there's no reason to suppose otherwise, then there is no use in contacting either Dorhta's town or Munga's. The same announcement concerning the Wrath of Lurgha was probably made there to their good purpose, not ours." "Cassca didn't seem to be overly impressed with Lurgha's curse, not as much as the man was."
"We go, and again thanks be to you, Cassca." He turned back the way they had come, and Ross fell in beside him as the woman watched them out of sight. "That bird of Lurgha's " said Ross, once they were out of sight of Cassca and Lal, "could it have been a plane?" "Sounds like it," snapped his companion.
Evidence found today suggests that the Beaker folk simply went on about their business in spite of a change in customers," Webb returned. "Unless they were pushed into violence." Ashe handed his empty mug to Ross. "Don't forget Lurgha's Wrath. From now on our enemies might take a very dim view of any Beaker trade posts near their property." Webb shook his head slowly.
"Nodren said it was a hum and there was the dark shadow of Lurgha's bird between him and the stars. Then came the smiting of the hill with thunder and lightning, and Nodren fled, for the Wrath of Lurgha is a fearsome thing. Now do the people come to the Great Mother's Place with many fine offerings that she may stand between them and that Wrath."
A shining disk hung about her neck on a thong, and another decorated the woven belt of her cloth tunic. Her hair was bound in a thread net fastened with jet pins. "I greet Cassca, who is the First Sower." There was a formal note in Ashe's voice. "But why should Cassca hide from Assha?" "There has been death on your hill, Assha " she sniffed "you smell of it now Lurgha's death.
It was the Wrath of Lurgha which smote the place on the hill, first the thunder of his fist meeting the earth, and then the fire which he breathed upon those whom he would slay " "And this you saw with your own eyes, Lal?" The shaggy head shook an emphatic negative. "Assha knows that Lal is no chief who can stand and look upon the wonders of Lurgha's might and keep his eyes in his head.
"I don't see why not," Ross broke in. "These people couldn't possibly know what it was Lurgha's bird magic " Ashe shook his head. "They must have the interference-with-history worry as much as we have. Anything of our own time has to be hidden or disguised in such a way that the native who may stumble upon it will never know it is man-made. Our sub is a whale to all appearances.
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