“Well, then, half a day-but a man can cover a good number of miles even in a half day. And it seems that we cannot be stopped, we two—”
Fors thought back over the wild activity of the past days. He had lost accurate count of time long since. There was no way of knowing how many days it had been since he had left the Eyrie. But there was a certain point of truth in what Arskane had just said-they had not yet been stopped-in spite of Beast Things, and Lizard folk, and the Plainsmen. Even fire or the Blow-Up land had not proved barriers-
“Do you remember what once I said to you, brother-back there when we stood on the field of the flying machines? Never again must man come to warfare with his own kind-for if he does, then shall man vanish utterly from the earth. The Old Ones began it with their wicked rain of death from the sky-if we continue-then are we lost and damned!”
“I remember.”
“Now it lies in my mind,” the big man continued slowly, “that we have been shown certain things, you and I, shown these things that we may in turn show others. These Plainsmen ride to war with my people-yet in them, too, is the thirst for the knowledge that the Old Ones in their stupid waste threw away. They breed seekers such as the man Marphy-with whom I find it in my heart to wish friendship. There is also you, who are mountain bred-yet you feel no hatred for me or for Marphy of the Plains. In all tribes we find men of good will—”
Fors licked his lips. “And if such men of good will could sit down together in common council—”
Arskane’s battered face lit up. “My own thoughts spoken from your lips, brother! We must rid this land of war or we shall in the end eat each other up and what was begun long and long ago with the eggs of death laid by our fathers from the sky shall end in swords and spears running sticky red-leaving the land to the Beast Things. And that foulness I shall not believe!”
“Cantrul said that his people must fight or die—”
“So? Well, there are different kinds of warfare. In the desert my people fought each day, but their enemies were sand and heat, the barren land itself. And if we had not lost the ancient learning perhaps we might even have tamed the burning mountains! Yes, man must fight or he becomes a soft nothing-but let him fight to build instead of to destroy. I would see my people trading wares and learning with those born in tents, sitting at council fires with the men of the mountain clans. Now is the time we must act to save that dream. For if the people of the tents march south in war they shall light such a fire as we or no living man may put out again. And in that fire we shall be as the trees and grass of the fields-utterly consumed.”
Fors’ answer was a grim stretch of ash-powdered skin which in no way resembled a smile. “We be but two, Arskane, and doubtless I am proclaimed outlaw, if the men of the Eyrie have noted my flight at all. My chance the Beast Things when they burned my city records. And you—?”