"Haiyeeee!" Kickaha shouted, turning to scream at the Half-Horses, wishing his hands were not tied and he had a weapon to shake at them. He could not hear his own defiance, but he hoped that the Half-Horses would see his open mouth and his grin and know that he was mocking them.
By now, the centaurs were within a hundred and fifty yards of their quarry. They were frenzied in their efforts to catch up; their great dark broad-cheekboned faces were twisted in agony.
They could not close swiftly enough, and they knew it. By the time their quarry had shot across the right shoulder of the herd at an angle, they would still be fifty or so yards behind. And by the time they reached the front of the herd, their quarry would be too far ahead. And after that, they would slowly lose ground before the buffalo, and before they could get to the other side, they would go down under the shelving brows and curving horns and cutting hooves.
Despite this, the Half-Horses galloped on. An unblooded, a juvenile whose headband was innocent of scalp or feather, had managed to get ahead of the others. He left the others behind at such a rate that Kickaha's eyes widened. He had never seen so swift a Half-Horse before, and he had seen many. The unblooded came on and on, his face twisted with an effort so intense that Kickaha would not have been surprised to see the muscles of the face tear loose.
The Half-Horse's arm came back, and then forward, and the lance flew ahead of him, arcing down, and suddenly Kickaha saw that what he had thought would be impossible was happening.
The lance was going to strike the hind quarters or the legs of his stallion. It was coming down in a curve that would fly over the Tishquetmoac riders behind him and would plunge into some part of his horse.
He pulled the reins to direct the stallion to the left, but the stallion pulled its head to one side and slowed down just a trifle. Then he felt a slight shock, and he knew that the lance had sunk into its flesh.
Then the horse was going over, its front legs crumpling, the back still driving and sending the rump into the air. The neck shot away from before him, and he was soaring through the air.
Kickaha did not know how he did it. Something took over in him as it had done before, and he did not fall or slide into the ground. He landed running on his feet with the black-and-brown wall of the herd to his left. Behind him, so close that he could hear it even above the rumble-roar of the herd, was the thunk of horses' hooves. Then the sound was all around him, and he could no longer stay upright because of his momentum, and he went into the grass on his face and slid.
A shadow swooped over him; it was that of a horse and rider as the horse jumped him. Then all seven were past him; he saw Anana looking back over her shoulder just before the advancing herd cut her — cut all the Tishquetmoac, too — from his sight.
There was nothing they could do for him. To delay even a second meant death for them under the hooves of the buffalo or the spears of the Half-Horses. He would have done the same if he had been on his horse and she had fallen off hers.
Surely the Half-Horses must have been yelling in triumph now. The stallion of Kickaha was dead, a lance projecting from its rump and its neck broken. Their greatest enemy, the trickster who had so often given them the slip when they knew they had him, even he could not now escape. Not unless he were to throw himself under the hooves of the titans thundering not ten feet away!
This thought may have struck them, because they swept toward him with the unblooded who had thrown the lance trying to cut him off. The others had thrown their lances and tomahawks and clubs and knives away and were charging with bare hands. They wanted to take him alive.
Kickaha did not hesitate. He had gotten up as soon as he was able and now he ran toward the herd. The flanks of the beasts swelled before him; they were six feet high at the shoulder and running as if time itself were behind them and threatening to make them extinct like their brothers on Earth.
Kickaha ran toward them, seeing out of the corner of his eyes the young unblooded galloping in. Kickaha gave a savage yell and leaped upward, his hands held before him. His foot struck a massive shoulder and he grabbed a shag of fur. He kicked upward and slipped and fell forward and was on his stomach on the back of a bull!
He was looking down the steep valley formed by the right and left sides of two buffalo. He was going up and down swiftly, was getting sick, and also was slowly sliding backward.
After loosing his hold on the tuft of hair, he grabbed another one to his right and managed to work himself around so that his legs straddled the back of the beast. The hump was in front of him; he was hanging onto the hair of it.
If Kickaha believed only a little in what had happened, the Half-Horse youth who had thought he had Kickaha in his hands believed it not at all.
He raced alongside the bull on which Kickaha was seated, and his eyes were wide and his mouth worked. His arms were extended in front of him as if he still thought he would scoop Kickaha up in them.
Kickaha did not want to let loose of his hold, insecure though it was, but he knew that the Half-Horse would recover in a moment. Then he would pull a knife or tomahawk from the belt around the lower part of his human torso, and he would throw it at Kickaha. If he missed, he had weapons in reserve.
Kickaha brought his legs up so that he was squatting on top of the spine of the great bull, his feet together, one hand clenching buffalo hair. He turned slowly, managing to balance himself despite the up-and-down jarring movement. Then he launched himself outward and onto the back of the next buffalo, which was running shoulder to shoulder with the animal he had just left.
Something dark rotated over his right shoulder. It struck the hump of a buffalo nearby and bounced up and fell between two animals. It was a tomahawk.
Kickaha pulled himself up again, this time more swiftly, and he got his feet under him and jumped. One foot slipped as he left the back, but he was so close to the other that he grabbed fur with both hands. He hung there while his toes just touched the ground whenever the beast came down in its galloping motion. Then he let himself slide down a little, pushed against the ground, and swung himself upward. He got one leg over the back and came up and was astride it.
The young Half-Horse was still keeping pace with him. The others had dropped back a little; perhaps they thought he had fallen down between the buffalo and so was ground into shreds. If so, they must have been shocked to see him rise from the supposed dead, the Trickster, slippery, cunning, many-turning, the enemy who mocked them from within death's mouth.
The unblooded must have been driven a little crazy when he saw Kickaha. Suddenly, his great body, four hooves flying, soared up and he was momentarily standing on the back of a buffalo at the edge of the herd. He sprang forward to the next one, onto its hump, like a mountain goat skipping on moving mountains.
Now it was Kickaha's turn to be amazed and dismayed. The Half-Horse held a knife in his hand, and he grinned at Kickaha as if to say, "At last, you are going to die, Kickaha! And I, I will be sung of throughout the halls and tepees of the Nations of the prairies and the mountains, by men and Half-Horses everywhere!"
Some such thoughts must have been in that huge head. And he would have become the most famous of all dwellers on and about the Plains, if he had succeeded. Trickster-killer he would have been named.
He Who Skipped Over Mad Buffalo To Cut Kickaha's Throat.
But on the third hump, a hoof slipped and he plunged on over the hump and fell down between two buffalo, his back legs flying and tail straight up. And that was the end of him, though Kickaha could not see what the buffalo hooves were doing.
Still, the attempt had been magnificent and had almost succeeded, and Kickaha honored him even if he was a Half-Horse. Then he began to think again about surviving.
XI
Some of the centaurs had drawn up even with him and began loosing arrows at Kickaha.
Before the first shaft was released, he had slipped over to one side of the buffalo on which he was mounted, hanging on with both hands to for, one leg bent as a
hook over the back. His position was insecure, because the rough gallop loosened his grip a little with every jolt, and the beast next to him was so close that he was in danger of being smashed.
Shafts passed over him; something touched the foot sticking up in the air. A tomahawk bounced off the top of the buffalo's head. Suddenly, the bull began coughing, and Kickaha wondered if his lungs had been penetrated by an arrow. The bull began to slow down, stumbled a little, recovered, and went on again.
Kickaha reached out for the next beast, grabbed a fistful of fur, released the other hand, clutched more fur, let loose with the right leg, and his body swung down. Like a trick horse rider, he struck the ground with both feet; his legs and body swung up, and he hooked his left leg over the back just behind the hump.
Behind him, the buffalo he had just left fell, slid, stopped, on its side, kicking, two arrows sticking from it. Then the beasts behind it jumped, but the third one tripped, and there was a pile-up of at least ten mammoth bodies kicking, struggling, goring, and then dying as even more crashed into them and over them and on them.
Something was happening ahead. He could not see what it was because he was hanging on the side of the buffalo, his view blocked by tails, rumps, and legs. But the beasts were slowing down and were also turning to the left.
The buffalo on the right bellowed as if mortally hurt. And so it was. It staggered off, fortunately away from Kickaha, otherwise it would have smashed him if it had fallen against him. It collapsed, blood running from a large hole in its hump.
Kickaha became aware of two things: one, the thunder of the stampede had lessened so much that he could hear individual animals nearby as they cried out or bellowed; two, in addition to the other odors, there was now that of burned flesh and hair.
The beast on the other side fell away, and then that carrying Kickaha was alone. It charged on, passing the carcasses of just-killed buffalo. It bounded over a cow with its great head half cut off. And when it came down, the shock tore Kickaha's grip loose. He fell off and rolled over and over and came up on his feet, ready for he knew not what.
The world seesawed about him, then straightened out. He was gasping for breath, shaking, sweaty, bloody, filthy with buffalo dung and foam and dirt. But he was ready to jump this way or that, depending upon the situation. There were dead buffalo everywhere. There were also dead Half-Horses here and there. The living in the herd were racing off to the left now; the torrent of millions of tons of flesh and hooves roared by and away.
A crash sounded, so unexpectedly and loudly that he jumped. It was as if a thousand large ships had simultaneously smashed into a reef. Something had killed all of the beasts in a line a mile across, killed them one after the other within six or seven seconds. And those behind the line stumbled over these, and those behind rammed them and went hoof-over-hoof.
Abruptly, the stampede had stopped. Those animals fortunate enough to stop in time stood stupidly about, wheezing for air. Those buried in the huge mounds of carcasses, but still living, bellowed; they were the only ones with enough motive to voice any emotion. The others were laboring to run their breaths down.
Kickaha saw the cause of the dead and of the halted stampede. To his left, a quarter of a mile away and about twenty feet up, was an aircraft. It was needle-shaped, wingless; its lower part was white with black arabesques, its upper part was transparent covering. Five silhouettes were within the covering.
It was chasing after a Tishquetmoac who was trying to escape on his horse. Chasing was the wrong word. The craft moved swiftly enough but leisurely and made no effort to get immediately behind the horse. A bright white beam shot out from the cylinder mounted on the nose of the craft. Its end touched the rump of the horse which fell. The Tishquetmoac man threw himself out and, though he rolled heavily, he came up and onto his feet.
Kickaha looked around on alt sides. Anana was a quarter of a mile away in the other direction. Several Tishquetmoac stood near her. A couple lay on the ground as if dead; one was caught beneath his horse. All the horses were dead, apparently rayed down by the craft.
Also dead were all the Half-Horses.
The Bellers had killed the horses to keep the party from escaping. They might not even know that the man and woman they were looking for were in this group. They might have spotted the chase and swung over for a look and decided to save the chased because they might have some information. On the' other hand, both Anana and Kickaha were lighter skinned than the Tishquetmoac in the party. The Tishquetmoac did, however, vary somewhat in darkness; a small minority were not so heavily pigmented. So the Bellers would have decided to check them out. Or... there were many possibilities. None mattered now. The important thing was that he and Anana were, seemingly, helpless. They could not get away. And the weapons of the Bellers were overwhelming.
Kickaha did not just give up, although he was so tired that he almost felt like it. He thought, and while he was thinking, he heard a pound of hooves and a harsh rasping breathing. He launched himself forward and at an angle on the theory that he might evade whatever was attacking him — if he were being attacked.
A lance shot by him and then slid along the ground. A bellow sounded behind him; he whirled to see a Half-Horse advancing on him. The centaur was badly wounded; his hindquarters were burned, his tail was half charred off, and his back legs could scarcely move. But he was determined to get Kickaha before he died. He held a long heavy knife in his left hand.
Kickaha ran to the lance, picked it up, and threw it. The Half-Horse yelled with frustration and despair and tried to evade the spear. Handicapped by his crippled legs, he did not move fast enough. He took the lance in his human chest — Kickaha had aimed for the protruding bellows organ below the chest — and fell down. Up he came, struggling to his front legs while the rear refused to move again. He tore the lance out with his right hand, turned it, and, ignoring the spurt of blood from the wound, again cast it. This surprised Kickaha, who was running to push in on the lance and so finish him off.
The arm of the dying centaur was weak. The lance left his hand to fly a few feet and then plunged into the earth before Kickaha's feet. The Half-Horse gave a cry of deep desolation — perhaps he had hoped for glory in song here and a high place in the councils of the dead. But now he knew that if a Half-Horse ever slew Kickaha, he would not be the one.
He fell on his side, dropping the knife as he went down. His front legs kicked several times, his huge fierce face became slack, and the black eyes stared at his enemy.
Kickaha glanced quickly around him, saw that the aircraft was flying a foot above the ground about a quarter of a mile away. Apparently it was corraling several Tishquetmoac who were fleeing on foot. Anana was down. He did not know what had happened to her. Perhaps she was playing possum, which was what he intended to do.
He rubbed some of the centaur's blood over him, lay down in front of him, placed the knife so it was partly hidden under his hip, and then placed the lance point between his chest and arm. Its shaft rose straight up, looking from a distance as if the lance were in his chest, he hoped.
It was a trick born out of desperation and not likely to succeed. But it was the only one he had now, and there was the chance that the Bellers, being nonhuman, might not be on to certain human ruses. In any event, he would try it, and if it didn't work, well, he didn't really expect to live forever.
Which was a lie, he told himself, because he, in common with most men, did expect to live forever. And he had managed to survive so far because he had fought more energetically and cunningly than most.
For what seemed a long time afterward, nothing happened. The wind blew coolly on the blood and sweat. The sweat dried off and the blood dried up. The sun was sinking in the last quarter of the green sky. Kickaha wished that it were dusk, which would increase his chances, but if wishes were horses, he would ride out of here.
A shadow flitted over his eyes. He tensed, thinking it might be that of the aircraft. A harsh cry told him that it was a crow or rave
n, coming to feed. Soon the carrion eaters would be flying in thicker than pepper on a pot roast: crows, ravens, buzzards, giant vultures, even larger condors, hawks, and eagles, some of which would be the mammoth green eagles, Podarge's pets.
And the coyote, the Plains fox, the common wolf, and the dire wolf would be following their noses and running in to the toothsome feast.
And the greater predators, not too proud to eat meat which they had not brought down, would pad in from the tall grass and then roar to frighten away the lesser beasts. The nine hundred pound palely striped Plains lions would attend with much roaring and snarling and scrapping among themselves and slashes and dashes at the smaller beasts and birds.
Kickaha thought of this and began to sweat again. He shooed a crow away by hissing and cursing out of the corner of his mouth. Far away, a wolf howled. A condor sailed overhead and banked slowly as it glided in for a landing, probably on some fallen buffalo.
Then another shadow passed. Through his half-closed eyelids, he saw the aircraft slide silently over him. It dipped its nose and began to sink, but he could not follow it without turning his head. It had been about fifty feet up, which he hoped would be far enough away so that they might still believe the lance had gone into his chest or armpit.
Somebody shouted in the language of the Lords. The voice was downwind, so he could not distinguish many words.
After a silence, several voices came to him, this time from upwind. If the Bellers were still in the craft, then it had moved between him and Anana. He hoped that a Bellers would get out and walk over to examine him; he hoped that the craft would not first fly to a point just above him, where the occupants could lean out and look at him. He knew that the Bellers probably had hand-beamers and that these would be in readiness. In addition, the Bellers left in the craft would be using the larger projectors to cover those outside.
He did not hear the footsteps of the approaching Beller. The fellow had undoubtedly had his beamer on Kickaha, ready to shoot if he thought Kickaha was pretending to be dead or unconscious. Kickaha would not have had a chance.