The next thing to find was water. Here in a tropical country he was going to have to be much more careful than usual about water. He decided that his best bet was to keep right on going, following the herd's trail. Not too far, though. Until he had a better weapon than the staff, he didn't want to spend a night in the forest. He would be better off out on the plain, preferably up in a tree, where nothing could come at him without his noticing it.
As he moved on deeper into the forest, he heard and saw unmistakable signs of abundant wild life. He heard no more of the trumpeting and bellowing of the tuskers. But several times he heard full-throated roars that sounded far too much like a lion's for comfort. Once he heard a sharp grunting noise close by. It broke off in a shrill scream and a violent crashing sound, as though a violent fight were going on. Blade stopped dead and held his staff ready until the crashing died away. It was replaced by a series of contented grumblings and the sound of powerful jaws crunching bones. Whatever had just killed its prey out there in the forest either had not caught his scent or was too busy dismembering its first kill to be interested in another. Very definitely he would be better off out on the plain after darkness fell!
He took more care to tread softly after this, feeling with his staff for a solid footing at each step forward. But still, thorn-covered branches raked his bare calves, exposed roots caught his toes and made him stagger, branches snapped under his weight with cracks that sounded in his cars as loud as gunshots.
He must have scrambled and stumbled a good two miles into the forest by now. When a gap in the forest cover showed him the sky, the sun was still high overhead, but definitely beginning to slide lower. Darkness came quickly in the tropics. He would have to ration his time, to give himself enough for the trek back out of the forest.
Still onward. The heat had been brutal enough out in the open plain, under the sun. Here in the forest there was shade, but there was not a breath of air moving. Sweat poured off Blade; he was as wet as if he had been swimming. Insects attracted by the smell of sweat swarmed around him, forming a whining cloud in front of his eyes and around his head, darting in, nipping and biting. Some of the bites drew blood, and other insects, attracted in turn by the blood, came droning in to add themselves to the swarm. Blade snapped off a branch from a fallen tree and waved it in front of his face with his free hand. That at least kept them out of his eyes, but all the rest of his body still lay open to their attack. His throat was dry and sour with thirst, but right at the moment he would have traded ten gallons of water for a can of insect repellent.
Then suddenly the trail broadened. Blade stopped. Not more than a hundred feet ahead, the trail seemed to come to an end in a wide open space with trees growing close around it. He moved forward even more cautiously than before, taking one step at a time and listening between each step. Nothing for a long time, except the buzz and shrill whine of the insects. Then, coming from the clearing ahead, he heard the sound of something large splashing through water.
If he could have stopped breathing, Blade would have done so. He waited until the sound died away, and then moved forward again. Now he caught the scent of water in the faint breeze that blew down the trail. He took the last few steps, and found himself on the edge of a broad pond.
The pond was circular, roughly a hundred feet in diameter. On three sides trees grew closely around it and overhung it, drooping branches downward until the leaves dangled in the water. On the fourth side, where Blade stood, a broad rim of bare black earth showed the footprints of hundreds of animals. Most of the prints were the circular four-clawed marks of the tuskers, sunk a foot or more into the soft ground.
The water looked clear and clean. Only a few patches of fallen leaves and one or two floating branches dotted its shimmering blue-green surface. On Blade's left, a misshapen tree trunk lay half submerged, sagging downward into the water. Blade shifted his grip on the staff so that he could strike out with one hand, and stepped out onto the open bank.
As he did so, the tree trunk came alive. It writhed backward, bent into a bow, and lifted a head as large as a horse's up from the surface of the pond. The head rose slowly, bobbing and weaving at the end of a neck thicker than Blade's own body, occasionally opening a mouth rimmed with foot-long dagger-pointed teeth.
At the first movement of the snake Blade froze, at the second he began inching back into the cover of the trees. The head swiveled back and forth ten feet above the ground. Green-hued eyes the size of dinner plates scanned the edges of the pond. Then the snake lowered itself down to the ground, and began slowly and steadily to pull itself out of the forest onto the bank.
Blade swore mentally. Against that monster his staff would be about as useful as a Boy Scout knife. As long as it was camped on the edge of the pond, it would be a risky business to try getting water. He could only hope the snake wasn't settling down; for its afternoon nap.
More and more of the mottled black-brown body flowed out of the forest, until there must have been sixty feet of yard-thick snake stretched along the bare earth. The breeze carried its faint musk to Blade. He swallowed, his mouth and throat suddenly drier than even his thirst had made them.
Then from off to his right, near the far end of the earth bank, came the unmistakable sound of a wooden drum. It came in a rapid, staccato rhythm-boom boom boom boom-and then a long rolling brrrrrmmmm. Blade stiffened. So did the snake. Its scales grated on the earth as it heaved its head upright again, once more searching all around it. The drum sound came again. The snake's head swayed, then dropped to the earth, and it began to move. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, it slithered along the bank, past the motionless and silent Blade, and then on to the trail left by the tuskers. In a minute the last few feet of its tail had vanished from sight. Blade heard the scrapings and cracklings it made as it writhed its way through the tangle of smashed undergrowth along the trail, then those too faded away. Silence returned to the pond.
Blade heaved a sigh of relief, but only a small sigh. Somebody lurking in the forest nearby had beaten that drum. He might be as dangerous as the snake. Blade licked dry lips, then decided to take a chance. He was not going to get water or find out anything about his invisible neighbors by clinging to this tree.
Lifting his staff, he stepped slowly out onto the bare earth of the bank. He took two more steps, taking him well clear of the trees. Then he lifted his staff high over his head, and rammed it hard into the soft ground so that it stood upright, quivering slightly. He turned away from it, toward the place where the drums had sounded. Then slowly he raised his arms and spread his hands, palms outward, in a gesture of peace.
A nerve-wracking moment of silence followed. Then there was a faint swish and crackle in the bushes, and six men sprang out of the shadows onto the bank.
CHAPTER THREE
Blade was not particularly surprised. Neither, it seemed, were the six men. They spread out as they reached the bank, forming a curved line that stretched from the water on one side to the edge of the forest on the other. All six were tall, thin, and deep reddish brown in color. They wore wide swatches of dyed animal hide around their waists and fur anklets. All six carried spears as tall as they were, with broad leaf-shaped iron blades nearly two feet long. Blade did not like the look of those spears, nor did he like the way the men were looking at him. He backed away one step, then two, until the staff was in front of him where he could grab it in a hurry.