It screamed again. Farree needed no other warning, and he flew with all the speed he could summon. That thing also had great clawed feet. Those talons now flexed as if ready to close on prey and as it was fast overtaking him, a third cry sounded almost in his ears.
Chapter Eight
He was over the cliff top now, streaking at the highest speed he could muster to elude that flying thing. Its body twisted and turned as lithely as that of a snake, matching speed with him, but keeping a little above on a parallel course, while from its open jaws flashed what could have been a tongue of flame. Still, though it hovered above him, giving every indication that if it wished it could attack, it remained two lengths of its own long body behind. Why it hesitated to pull him down was a growing puzzle.
Farree's head jerked up and a lock of his hair flopped across his forehead in answer to what did reach him.
He was meeting a stream of thought which wriggled back and forth as did the body from which it sprung, its message now clear, now snapped just short of fading out with the speed of a breath.
"Darthor, Darthor!" The words burst from him. The stab of memory did not come so sharply this time.
He no longer strove to flee and at the same time somehow keep eye on what had been a menace. Had been—? Of a surety it was so.
"Darthor, varge!" Surging in beat, his own wings carried him higher, brought him around in a glide to face the monster.
The creature cut speed. It veered to the north, though it still kept its large orange eyes fastened upon Farree.
"Darthor, varge!" He shouted as one who has mastered a captive horror from some unknown world and impressed his will upon it.
It squawked, lashing the tail which was a good third of its body length. A shaft of what certainly looked like real fire shot again from between its jaws. It did not spiral away from him, only altered its line of flight so that it flew tandem with him, matching its speed to his.
Farree switched from voice to mind send. "Darthor, servant one, hunting lies not in my shadow." The words came to him in curious formal fashion as he thought them slowly and with the emphasis of one who would be obeyed. A dim picture hung behind that voiceless speech, Darthor a-wing after something which fled in frenzy, while behind him was one who was also winged, who carried a glittering rod in one hand. Himself! No, that could not be– Not him, but one who was his like, before whom Darthor flew as a hunter. Yet Farree's first fear was not quite appeased. He was no master of this creature. Still why did he know it and fear its coming?
For the moment he could do nothing. Darthor was flying in odd spurts even as a land-running thing might give sudden leaps, and always it kept its eyes on Farree. There was a sly sullenness in that gaze, as if the hold he had on it, keeping it from the leap which would tear him from the sky, was only tenuous, that at one moment or the next he might lose that unsteady control.
They were in sight of the edge of the cup valley now. Shadows had crept from the heights to reach out toward the ship. Farree headed toward that mound where he had first trod the earth of this world.
An air-splitting shriek which seemed able to rend the rocks themselves startled him. Even as his feet met the mound he looked up. That creature who had accompanied him was lashing its tail, its whole slender body, back and forth through the air. It would attempt to fly in Farree's wake only to be hurled, actually hurled, back in the air, wings beating fenziedly, other shrieks following the first.
There was rage in every assault it made from the edge of the cliff top. Its clawed forefeet reached out as if to tear the air itself into shreds. Farree was aware of movement beside him. Vorlund came to a stop, his stunner unleashed and ready for firing.
"No!" Farree cried out, striking at the other's stiffened arm as he took aim.
"Darthor—guard—" He fitted together the small scraps of knowledge which he had. "It fears—you!"
Saying that he knew he spoke the truth. The air creature was centering that yellow-eyed stare on Vorlund while lashes of the seeming flame burst from between its jaws. There was rage in it which was as strong a weapon as the one the spacer now held.
"It cannot come here." That also was true Farree knew. There was no billowing haze to present a wall and yet there existed a barrier, unseen, unfelt by Farree in his flight—only set against other things. At that moment there was released from the squirming, flapping thing another kind of attack.
Vorlund cried out. Though the stunner wavered in his hold, he did not drop it even as he fell to his knees. Farree had been on the edge of that blow delivered mind to mind. But not from Darthor—that creature had only released what was being fed to it.
"Fragon, Shadow commander, I name names." The pain in Farree's locked mind nearly sent him sprawling beside Vorlund. "Name names," he thought again. There was a mad whirl of color in his head, but he still held to what was blanking out, or attempting to black out his mind, as a blindfold might have cut off his sight.
"Fragon, Fragon—" He chanted that sing-song aloud as well as holding firmly to what he directed toward the flyer.
"Fragon," he repeated. Then he was chanting: "By the sky hold, by the throne, by the green, and by silver worn, I do call the name—thy name!"
The thing on the cliff top writhed, spinning as if some great fingers had closed upon it to wring it like a rag. It was screaming again. But pain had arisen to blot out what it had been transmitting. Vorlund was shaking, his face strained unnaturally, but he was rising, though the stunner now lay in the thick green growth about their feet.
A new power possessed Farree. He felt a surge of such strength as he had never known. His wings spread wide and he held clenched fists above his head.
"Take your Shadow one, Fragon!" His thought had somehow grown louder, more demanding also. "Take the Darthor, Fragon. There is no meat for its rending here!"
Abruptly the fading turmoil the creature broadcast ceased. It still hung aloft there, its head lower than its coils of body. Farree knew, even without being able to see at this distance, that it was closely observing them, still a tool for another, but one who was wary, angered, yet not ready as yet to take the lead into battle. Then the creature whirled in the air and the steady beat of its wings carried it northward where a thickening haze cloaked height after height, hiding well what might await them there.
Farree caught at Vorlund's shoulder, steadied the taller spacer who leaned forward to catch up the stunner, only to slap it deep into its holster. Then he looked straight at Farree.
"What was it? It would have killed—"
Farree shook his head slowly, rubbing one hand across his forehead where the cessation of that confrontation had ended for him in a dull headache and a mistiness of thought.
He knew—knew what and why? He was unable to sort it out now. There had been contact and now there was emptiness, total withdrawal.
"I—don't know—" he quavered. Within both his mind and his body there was a sickening churning. Pain, which might have been there during the attack but which he had not noticed there, bit deep.
"You named it," Vorlund countered. "There was a second name also—Fragon—"
Farree shivered and then heard another voice, speaking, not intruding into the place of growing torment in his mind.
"A mighty mental power is this Fragon." Zoror came up behind them. Now he looked directly at Farree. "So, little brother, your mind barrier still holds?" He reached out one hand and gently pulled Farree's fingers away from his pain-wrinkled forehead, pressing his own to Farree's head in their place.