eath in his face as Ross
called upon the last few rags of his strength, tearing loose from the
other's slackened hold. He scrambled to one knee. Ennar was also on his
knees, crouching like a four-legged beast ready to spring. Ross risked
everything on a last gamble. Clasping his hands together, he raised them
as high as he could and brought them down on the nape of the other's
neck. Ennar sprawled forward face-down in the dust where seconds later
Ross joined him.

CHAPTER 16

Murdock lay on his back, gazing up at the laced hides which stretched to
make the tent roofing. Having been battered just enough to feel all one
aching bruise, Ross had lost interest in the future. Only the present
mattered, and it was a dark one. He might have fought Ennar to a
standstill, but in the eyes of the horsemen he had also been beaten, and
he had not impressed them as he had hoped. That he still lived was a
minor wonder, but he deduced that he continued to breathe only because
they wanted to exchange him for the reward offered by the aliens from
out of time, an unpleasant prospect to contemplate.

His wrists were lashed over his head to a peg driven deeply into the
ground; his ankles were bound to another. He could turn his head from
side to side, but any further movement was impossible. He ate only bits
of food dropped into his mouth by a dirty-fingered slave, a cowed hunter
captured from a tribe overwhelmed in the migration of the horsemen.

"Ho--taker of axes!" A toe jarred into his ribs, and Ross bit back the
grunt of pain which answered that rude bid for his attention. He saw in
the dim light Ennar's face and was savagely glad to note the
discolorations about the right eye and along the jaw line, the
signatures left by his own skinned knuckles.

"Ho--warrior!" Ross returned hoarsely, trying to lade that title with
all the scorn he could summon.

Ennar's hand, holding a knife, swung into his limited range of vision.
"To clip a sharp tongue is a good thing!" The young tribesman grinned as
he knelt down beside the helpless prisoner.

Ross knew a thrill of fear worse than any pain. Ennar might be about to
do just what he hinted! Instead, the knife swung up and Ross felt the
sawing at the cords about his wrists, enduring the pain in the raw
gouges they had cut in his flesh with gratitude that it was not
mutilation which had brought Ennar to him. He knew that his arms were
free, but to draw them down from over his head was