Lin Carter - Down to a Sunless Sea by Lin Carter, Ken W. Kelly - Cover Read Free Book Online

opinion. He looked nervous and tense to Brant's eyes, but the big man said nothing.
    Suoli squeaked and fluttered nervously. Brant asked of Zuarra if she thought the riders were scouts of her people. He knew that if the Moon Hawk nation had discovered that the two women staked out to die had been set free by the hand of a f'yagh they might resent the interference enough to come after them. But somehow he doubted it. As did Zuarra.
    "At this season, they are encamped to the north," she said tonelessly, "in regions about Khorahd. Nor are such as Zuarra and Suoli important enough to merit pursuit, O Brant."
    Brant had thought as much, himself. Still and all, it did no harm to ask.
    By moonrise the two riders had left the high ridge and were nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any further sign of them that night, although Harbin, Agila and Brant stood guard, each in turn, while the women slept.
    With dawn, the travelers held a brief council, trying to decide what to do for their own protection. Brant pointed out that now that their camp had been discovered, they were exposed to danger. It would seem that the scouts had ridden back to join a larger force, but whether or not this force was interested in pursuing and attacking them was an unanswerable question.
    No one had any better idea to present, so for the moment they decided to remain in their present camp, simply standing guard day and night against the chance of attack.
    Neither that day nor all that next night, nor the following ilay did the unknown riders show themselves again. The travelers began to relax, seeming to have little enough to fear.
    "Perhaps they were but travelers such as we," suggested Zuarra over a frugal meal, "alert and wary in these untrav-cled regions, but uninterested in attacking us."
    Brant shrugged, saying nothing. But it was true than bandits or raiders would normally have little interest in so small a party as were they. And few native clans would risk the liarthsider power guns with so little to gain. After all, there were only three men, two women and three beasts. . . .
    "Maybe it would be better to break camp under cover of darkness and move farther south," suggested Doc Harbin. Brant thought about it briefly.
    "Maybe, Doc," he grunted. "But we have a secure position here, with our back to the steep cliffs. They can hardly come at us down the cliffs, for their beasts would find them hard to negotiate, and we could fire from below while their hands were busy guiding the beasts down. On the other hand, if they came after us while we were on the run, they would have us at a disadvantage."
    The older man nodded thoughtfully. "And, for that matter, why should they come at us at all, since we have done them no harm?" he said.
    Brant agreed.
    But he noticed the guilty flush that darkened the sullen features of Harbin's guide.
    For some reason, the man seemed afraid, did Agila.
    But . . . why?
    Watching Eyes
    When they rose with dawn and left their tents to scan the ridgeline far above, it was empty. Whoever it had been that had spied upon their camp the night before had evidently moved on. Perhaps they had been mere travelers, after all.
    But somehow Brant doubted it. Pessimist that he was, he had always found that when you anticipate the worst you are seldom surprised. But he said nothing of this to the others.
    They busied themselves with the morning tasks, tending to the lopers, preparing a meal. And they were an oddly uncommunicative group, Brant had to notice. Agila performed his duties in a sullen manner, avoiding all eyes; Zuarra seemed lost in her own thoughts, while little Suoli kept timidly to herself and stayed out of her "sister's" way as much as possible.
    Even Harbin had little enough to say. He became lost in the pleasant occupation of fossil-hunting in the loose shale which lay heaped at the foot of the crumbling cliffs, and that afternoon he kept to his tent, sorting and classifying his finds.
    Taking the lopers, Brant and Agila went