These questions seethed and swirled through my restless brain in a turmoil of confusion. It might well prove wise to delay our break until the next night, but I had already given the signal to Ergon, and it was too late to change the plans now.
At length, as the night wore on and the council remained undismissed, I resolved to try it, for better or for worse, for I could wait no longer. At any time the greater moons would begin to rise, followed by the gigantic, luminous orb of mighty Jupiter itself. Night would become as bright as day, and the chances of our making a successful escape from the encampment of the Horde would lessen dramatically.
I had surreptitiously practiced unlocking my slave collar with the aid of Glypto’s bit of wire, and was confident that I could repeat the action in a trice. The locks were old and primitive, for the Yathoon do not work metals, and our shackles were plunder taken in a raid long ago, or so it seemed from their condition. I fished out the bit of wire Glypto had given me and inserted it into the lock, bending it this way and that to conform to the configuration of the lock’s interior mechanism. A few moments later the lock sprang open with a click of metal which seemed startlingly loud to me, in my tense and jumpy mood.
I waited for an endless moment, holding my breath in suspense, to see if one of the Yathoon should come hither to investigate the sound, but this did not happen. Busy with their discussions, the arthropod chieftains had disregarded the odd noise as being merely one of the numberless small sounds of the night.
Loosening the gem-hilted dagger under my tunic, I crept under the tent-flap and slithered into the drainage ditch that ringed the tent of Borak.
And I froze motionless
Not ten feet from where I lay, one of the guards o f Borak’s retinue stood; staring up at the sky, leaning on a sear.
Had the insect-man heard the rustle of the tent fabric as I wormed under it, or the sound I had made, slithering into the ditch? Heart thumping painfully, mouth dry with tension, I lay motionless, waiting for discovery.
The guard made a weird sight, staring up at the sky where as yet only the smaller of the moons were aloft. Dim shafts of multi-colored moonlight drew highlights from the crablike shell of oily chitin which encased his many-jointed, attenuated limbs. The faint light flashed and glittered in the huge bulging eyes of the uncanny creature. These eyes were swollen globular patches made up of ink-black, mirror-bright crystals. He looked like some fantastic statue of glimmering metal, some alien god or demon, as he stood motionless, bathed in the dim flickering rays of the colored moons.
Following his fixed, unswerving gaze, I stared aloft but could see nothing in the skies above which might have attracted his attention. Perhaps the nearness of the Jalathadar had prompted the wary Borak to warn the guards to be on the alert for a reappearance of the flying ship.
At any rate I lay there, sweating, my guts knotted with suspense, waiting for him to move, wondering if he was going to stand there all night long.
Armed with the poignard Glypto had given me, I suppose I could have leaped upon him and struck him down. But the Yathoon are not easily slain with a small blade, for their greasy chitin protects their vulnerable organs like a suit of armor; and surely the sounds of the struggle as we thrashed about would have been heard by the chieftains within the tent.
Then, all of a sudden, without the slightest warning, the guard turned and stalked away in the opposite direction, leaving me limp and gasping with relief. ,
I scrambled to my feet and darted through the trampled grasses to the inky shadow of the next tent, and began making my way as swiftly and as silently as I could to the collapsible pens where the riding thaptors were housed.
I had carefully marked the location of the pens in my mind when the Horde made camp earlier that evening, memorizing landmarks so that I could easily find them in the dark. Staying in the dense shadow of the tents as much as I could, I unobtrusively made my way through the camp. Half a dozen times I stopped short and froze motionlessly in the shadow as a Yathoon stalked by. Their huge multiple eyes give them uncanny night vision, as they gather much more light than do our organs of sight, but luckily none of them saw me.
After an interminable time I managed to reach the thaptor pens without being detected. The restive bird-horses, uneasy and alarmed because of the unusual activity in the camp, capered and trotted about, clashing their parrot beaks and hissing like steam whistles. In the uproar it seemed unlikely our getaway would arouse attention.
Crouching in the thick grasses, I peered about, searching for my friends. Had they managed to escape from the tents of Gorpak, or had they been seized during the attempt?
A hand closed upon my foot and I almost jumped out of my skin. Jerking around, I saw Ergon’s froglike face glowering at me from a nest hollowed in the grasses.
“Jandar! We had almost given you up! I was about to send Glypto to see what had become of you―”
“An unexpected war council in Borak’s tent,” I whispered. “Occasioned by the appearance of the Jalathadar this afternoon; did you see the ship as it passed over our line of march?”
“I did,” he grunted, “but failed to recognize it. Your lady knew it at once, though.”
“Where is she?”
He waved one hand. “Yonder, hiding by the water trough. Think you the Jalathadar will double back, giving us a chance to attract her attention?”
“There’s a chance, at least. The fact that the Horde is camped here must have given Haakon cause to wonder if we might not have been taken prisoner. But we’ll see―the problem now is to get out of the camp!”
“While waiting all this cursed time for you to come, I got five of the thaptors saddled up; they are tethered yonder by the trough. I have been devilishly worried that some capok would come ambling by and wonder why five beasts are still saddled up, but thus far nothing had chanced. Let us be gone from this cursed place before we are discovered … “
“I say amen to that,” I replied in English, not bothering to translate. We wormed our way over to the trough, where my Princess lay, with Zamara near and little Glypto crouched trembling in the shadow of a bale of dried grasses. Exchanging urgent whispers, we climbed through the fence and mounted the saddled thaptors. They didn’t like the idea of being mounted, and were unhappy about wearing saddles, and squawked and clacked their beaks and made quite an uproar. But luckily no one came to investigate the noise, as this is the usual behavior of thaptors, who have never been thoroughly domesticated anyway.
Now how do we get out of here, Jandar?” Ergon growled.
“We unlatch the gates and ride out, leaving the pens open behind us,” I said swiftly. “That way all the thaptors will bolt for freedom and the Yathoon will be too busy trying to round them up to notice us making our getaway. So, at least, we may hope!”
Unbelievably it was even simpler than it sounds. The moment I tripped the latch and the gates swung open, sixty tense, nervous, squawking, quarrelsome thaptors made a frantic burst for freedom. We merely rode along in the midst of the herd. With unerring accuracy they stampeded towards the perimeter of the camp, where rude earthworks had been built up to encircle and thus protect the encampment. Each time the Yathoon Horde makes camp they go through the routine of digging drainage ditches and setting up earthworks and erecting the pens, even if they only plan to spend the night before packing up and moving on. I believe, in this respect, they unknowingly emulate the ancient Roman legions.
Guards sprang up in front of us along the rampart, waving their arms and uttering harsh cries, trying to divert the stampede. But the wild thaptors refused to be diverted, and the guards vanished in a whirl of dust as the thaptors simply ran them down, trampling them underfoot. Then the earthworks rose before us, a rampart of packed earth about six feet high. The thaptors rose up and soared leaping over the ramparts in one smooth wave that was beautiful to see.