Planet of Adventure Omnibus by Jack Vance Read Free Book Online Page B

forest. Reith turned a last look over his
shoulder. At the far dim edge of vision a set of hurrying black specks had
appeared. He hurried after Traz, who moved with great care, stopping to listen
and smell the air. In a fever of impatience Reith pressed at his back. Traz
speeded his pace, and presently they were almost running over the sodden
leaf-mold. From far behind Reith thought to hear a set of savage boots.
    Traz stopped
short. “Here is the tree.” He pointed up. “Is that what you want?”
    “Yes,” said
Reith with heartfelt relief. “I was afraid it might be gone.”
    Traz climbed
the tree, lowered the seat. Reith snapped open the flap, with drew his
hand-gun, kissed it in rapture, thrust it in his belt.
    “Hurry,” said
Traz anxiously. “I hear the Emblems; they’re not far behind.”
    Reith pulled
forth the survival pack, buckled it on his back. “Let’s go. Now they follow at
their own risk.”
    Traz led the
way around the bog, taking pains to conceal the signs of their passage,
doubling back, swinging across a twenty-foot finger of black muck on a hanging
branch, climbing another tree, letting it bend beneath his weight to carry him
sixty feet away to the opposite side of a dense clump of reeds. Reith followed
each of his ploys. The voices of the Emblem warriors were now clearly audible.
    Traz and
Reith reached the edge of the river, a slow-flowing flood of black-brown water.
Traz found a raft of driftwood, dead lianas, humus, held together by living
reeds. He pushed it off into the stream. Then he and Reith hid in a nearby
clump of reeds. Five minutes passed; four of the Emblem Men came crashing
through the bog along their trail, followed by a dozen more, with catapults at
the ready. They ran to the river’s edge, pointed to the marks where Traz had
dislodged the raft, searched the face of the river. The mass of floating
vegetation had drifted almost two hundred yards downstream and was being
carried by a swirl in the current to the other bank. The Emblems gave cries of
fury, turned and raced at top speed through the murk and tangle, along the bank
toward the drifting raft.
    “Quick,”
whispered Traz. “They won’t be fooled long. We’ll go back along their tracks.”
    Back away
from the river, across the bog and once more into the forest, Traz and Reith
ran, the calls and shouts at first receding to the side, then becoming silent,
then once again raised in a sound of furious exultation. “They’ve picked up our
trail once again,” gasped Traz. “They’ll be coming on leap-horses; we’ll never-”
He stopped short, held up his hand, and Reith became aware of the acrid
half-sweet fetor once again. “The berl,” whispered Traz. “Through here ... Up
this tree.”
    With the
survival pack dangling at his back Reith followed the boy up the oily green
branches of a tree. “Higher,” said Traz. “The beast can lunge high.”
    The berl
appeared: a lithe brown monster with a wicked boar’s-head split by a vast
mouth. From its neck protruded a pair of long arms terminating in great horny
hands which it held above its head. It seemed to be intent on the calls of the
warriors and paid no heed to Traz and Reith other than a single swift glance up
toward them. Reith thought he had never seen such evil in a face before. “Ridiculous.
It’s only a beast...”
    The creature
disappeared through the forest; a moment later the sound of pursuit halted
abruptly. “They smell the berl,” said Traz. “Let’s be off.”
    They climbed
down from the tree, fled to the north. From behind them came yells of horror, a
guttural gnashing roar.
    “We’re safe
from the Emblems,” said Traz in a hollow voice. “Those who live will depart.”
He turned Reith a troubled glance. “When they go back to the camp there will be
no Onmale. What will happen? Will the tribe die?”
    “I don’t
think so,” said Reith. “The magicians will see to that.”
    Presently
they emerged from the forest. The steppe spread