Instead of passing to the right of a tall outcropping of rock ahead, he turned left. It took him farther from the direction of the spaceship, but there was no help for it. He floundered over a low dune of sand and then was out of it and running on flat ground. He circled to the left of the hill, hearing a howl from the rear.
Must have seen me against the open valley, thought Taranto. They sound closer than I like.
He ran on, scanning the shadowed rocks towering over him for a place to climb. It was a foregone conclusion that the two flankers would be on the lookout for him as he came around the hill.
At last he thought he saw a way up, a sloping ledge leading to a small plateau before the rock reared higher in a sheer cliff. Taranto scrambled over a waist-high boulder and made for the opening. Up he went, on hands and toes. The rock was ridged, but in the wrong direction, and he slipped to hands and knees twice before he was up.
He slowed to a quick walk as he reached the level expanse. It was ten or twelve feet above the valley floor and curved off to the right around the base of the cliff. Taranto was panting by now, but his main reason for slowing was that he wanted to make less noise until he spotted the two Syssokans he expected to meet.
The broad ledge he was following dipped, rose a few feet, and dipped again to less than ten feet above the level ground. Taranto flattened himself suddenly.
The two Syssokans came loping along the shadowy edge of the outcropping, spears at the ready. From around the cliff sounded a call. The first soldier threw back his head to answer. As the howl left his throat, and masked the noise of the Terran's scrambling, Taranto launched himself upon the back of the second.
They went down with a thump upon hard rocks. Taranto, saving his ribs from being caved in by fending himself off from a jagged rock with his forearm, kicked out and caught the downed Syssokan in the belly. As the soldier subsided, the Terran snatched up the spear and rose to face the other one.
It had all gone so fast that the leader was just turning back. Perhaps he thought merely that his companion had fallen, but the stocky silhouette of the spacer disabused him of that idea. He advanced with the point of his spear weaving about menacingly.
"You think you're good with that stick, eh?" growled Taranto. "Well, try this for something different!"