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said.
"She may purify Ti-Ra'-Wa so it will be as it once was."
The warriors shuddered involuntarily.
"Why did the Grandmother not come forth when the outlanders first entered the
valley?"
Touch-the-Sky asked. "If I have broken her laws, why has she not expressed her
anger?"
"We have not entered the Cavern of Creation," Little Mountain answered. "Yet."
Touch-the-Sky started to speak, gazed at the stubborn, uneasy faces and
realized the futility of further argument. He raised his rifle to waist level,
but he didn't point it at anyone.
"I am war chief here," he snapped. "You all agreed to it. I have not suffered
and bled for all of you to be balked at last by groundless fears!"
He faced them, his eyes bright, and the warriors shuffled away, cowed by the
force of his fanaticism. "We have gone too far to turn back," he said tightly.
"We will follow through
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden on our path. Even if it leads to the Grandmother
Herself."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The pony galloped across the grasslands toward the forest city. Ryan kept a
close watch for Blood-sniffer, who had slipped on ahead, scouting for guard
outposts or patrols. So far the wolf had brought them safely to within a mile
of the city.
Blood-sniffer appeared a hundred yards ahead, like a wisp of gray smoke blown
on the wind. The wolf tilted its snout skyward and snapped at the air,
signaling the way was clear.
The sun had sunk behind the highest peaks by the time Ryan reached the outer
perimeter of the city. He dismounted, leaving the pony to graze in a stand of
cottonwood trees. He wasn't concerned about the animal wandering away, since
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if he couldn't steal mounts for his friends, one horse wouldn't do him much
good, anyway.
Blood-sniffer joined him and they crept forward, threading their way through
the high grass, taking advantage of every fold, rise and depression of the
ground. Even so, they were almost discovered by a warrior on horseback,
trotting less than an arm's length away.
As man and wolf slipped into the shelter of the first line of massive tree
trunks, the sun disappeared completely. As silent as shadows, they followed
the winding forest ways.
The long avenues were deserted and silent. Only dust and dry leaves blew
lonely on the wind. Ryan detected the acrid odor of cordite, as did
Blood-sniffer, his muzzle wrinkling.
The crystal disks glistened as cold as ice sculptures under the spreading
boughs, and where the open doorways fronted the footpaths, they gaped empty
and lightless.
Lamplight flared in only a few of the trees, but there was no sound of talking
or laughter.
Ryan had been in such an atmosphere before; the city was preparing for war.
Ryan and Blood-sniffer made their way to a small bark lodge, which was
identical to the
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden image Krysty had transmitted to him. Also, as she
had mentally communicated, there was only one sentry, a young man some
distance away. He leaned on his lance, head bowed, either half-asleep, bored
or depressed.
Blood-sniffer dropped into a crouch, belly almost on the ground, but Ryan
touched him and shook his head. He had no doubt the wolf could take down the
man, but he doubted
Blood-sniffer could take him before he raised an outcry.
Ryan drew his panga and stepped out of the shadow of an overhanging branch,
walking quietly, heel to toe. He intended to clamp a hand over the sentry's
mouth and slide the eighteen-inch blade of tooled steel between his third and
fourth ribs. It was an act he had performed many times in the past, and he
could have done it with patches over both eyes.
When he was within six feet of the man, he realized the sentry wasn't a man at
all, but a boy, a stripling maybe fourteen years old, only a few years older
than Dean.
The boy shifted, uttering a sigh of ennui. Ryan swiftly reversed his grip on
the knife and snapped the heavy pommel across the base of the boy's skull,
where it joined with the neck. The thud of impact was muffled, and
consciousness fled his dark eyes with the suddenness of a candle being
extinguished.
Ryan caught the body and lance before they hit the ground. Blood-sniffer
padded up, sniffed briefly at the boy and yawned.
Gathering a fistful of deerskin tunic in one hand and holding the lance in the
other, Ryan dragged both toward the lodge.
The blow to the nerve center at the base of his skull was probably good for
ten minutes of uninterrupted unconsciousness. By the time the boy revived, he
would be trussed up and gagged.
Pushing aside the pelt hanging over the doorway with the lance, Ryan hissed,
"It's me,"
before entering. He didn't want to be clubbed senseless by his friends.
Though everyone was happy to see him alive and apparently whole, there was no
time for a reunion. J.B. bit back a startled curse when Blood-sniffer entered.
"It's that double-crossing wolf!" he said in an angry whisper. "What's it
doing here?"
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
"Helping us," Ryan answered, laying the sentry out on the ground.
Krysty knelt over the boy. "He's alive," she said in a mildly surprised tone.
Ryan grunted. "Tie him up and gag him."
Krysty and Mildred attended to that, tearing strips from the boy's breechclout
to fashion a gag. Mildred quickly knotted the thongs that had previously bound
the friends and hog-
tied the young man, ankles to wrists.
J.B. and Doc eyed Blood-sniffer distrustfully and not a little fearfully.
"Joe's got our blasters," the Armorer said, not removing his gaze from the
wolf. "He's been trying to train his warriors how to use them."
"I know," Ryan replied.
After the sentry was tightly bound and gagged, the six people slipped from the
lodge.
Blood-sniffer followed the odor of gun oil and cordite through the dark
avenues, and they followed at his heels.
The wolf went to the monstrous tree that had served as their guest quarters.
While the humans waited in the underbrush, the animal circled the great trunk,
casting for a scent of guards. After one circuit Blood-sniffer paused before
the archway, looking toward them.
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