They had gone swiftly. Two weeks and half a thousand miles of the wildest mountains on Earth lay behind them. They were still climbing as the fifteenth day gathered toward the explosive climax of sunset.
Eric Nelson looked back down the shoulder of the great gray mountain and saw the little line of heavily-laden pack-ponies crawling up the trail after him like a disjointed hairy snake.
Ahead of them the treeless slope they climbed went up to a ridge against the sky like a springboard into infinity. Against the glory of fusing colors that fired the western heavens, Shan Kar and his mount loomed bigger than life.
Shan Kar stopped suddenly, pointed skyward and uttered a yell.
"Now what?" exclaimed Nick Sloan, riding beside Nelson. "Do you suppose he's sighted his valley? He said we would tonight."
"No, something's wrong!" Eric Nelson said quickly. He spurred forward, his tired shaggy pony manfully responding.
They reached Shan Kar at the very crest of the ridge. From here they looked westward toward another and parallel gigantic mountain range. Its highest, northern peaks were snow-capped and beyond it was a dim stupendous vista of still other ranges.
Between this next great rampart and the one on whose crest they stood yawned a deep gorge, wooded thickly with fir and poplar and larch. Shadows were already deepening in the forests down there.
This was the mountain wilderness that stretched between the southeastern Kunlun Ranges and Koko Nor. And it was still one of the least-known parts of Earth.
Warplanes had flown over this mountainous no-man's-land in the last few years. A few explorers like Hedin had, at great peril, toiled across sectors of it. But most of it was as little-known as when the French missionaries, Hue and Gabet, had trudged through it a hundred years before. There was little here to tempt exploration, and there were hostile Tibetan and Mongol tribes to discourage it. "Your guns!" Shan Kar was shouting as Nelson and Sloan rode up. "Shoot them, quickly!"
He was pointing skyward. Bewildered, Eric Nelson looked up. There was nothing in the fire-shot heavens but two eagles planning down a thousand feet above the ridge.
"There's nothing up there—" Nelson began puzzledly, when Shan Kar interrupted.
"The eagles! Kill them or our danger is great!" It hit Nelson in the face. It brought back all the uncanny memory of Nsharra and her weird animal companions—a memory he had deliberately sought to rationalize and forget during the two weeks' trek.
Shan Kar was in deadly earnest. His black eyes glared hatred and fear at the two black winged shapes swooping in smooth circles through the sunset.
"Cursed native superstitions!" Nick Sloan grunted. "But I suppose we have to humor him."
Sloan had unslung his rifle from his saddle. He aimed at the lowest of the two black-winged shapes and fired. There was a horrid, shrill scream across the heavens. It did not come from the eagle that was suddenly plummeting earthward with crumpled wings.
It came from the other great bird and, as it screamed, it was swiftly hurtling upward and westward in flight.
"The other!" cried Shan Kar. "He must not get away!"
Sloan fired again, and again. But the second eagle was already a receding dot against the sunset.
Shan Kar clenched his fists, staring after it. "He'll take word to L'Lan. But maybe—"
He started in a run toward the spot farther down the ridge where the first eagle had fallen.
"What the—?" Sloan exclaimed, lowering his rifle. "Is he crazy?"
"Native superstition of some kind," Eric Nelson said but was coldly conscious that he did not believe it himself.
The two eagles, in their purposeful reconnoitering of the pack-train, had been too uncannily reminiscent of Nsharra's strangely purposeful horse and wolf and eagle.
Li Kin and the Cockney had come up. Lefty Wister's pinched red face was glistening with alarm.
"What happened? And what's the bloody native doing down there?"
They could see that Shan Kar, farther down the ridge, had reached the fallen eagle. Nelson and the others followed hastily.
The eagle was not dead. Its wing had been broken by Sloan's bullet and it had been flopping away across the rocky ridge in evident effort to escape when Shan Kar stopped it.
Shan Kar looped a hide thong about the great bird's legs, hobbling it. The eagle, a magnificent creature of glistening black plumage and white-crested head, glared at Shan Kar with wonderful golden eyes, trying to strike with its beak.
Shan Kar grasped the crippled wing of the eagle by the tip and deliberately twisted it, tormenting the great bird.
"What the devil!" flamed Nelson. "Put the thing out of its misery!"
The eagle glanced at him swiftly with a flash of golden eyes. It was as though the bird understood. It brought Nelson creepy memory of the intent, intelligent look in the eyes of Nsharra's beasts—of Tark, the wolf, and Hatha, the stallion!
"Let me alone," Shan Kar said tightly, without turning his gaze from the eagle's eyes. "This is necessary."
"Necessary—to torture a dumb animal?" Nelson snapped.
"He can tell me what I must know," Shan Kar retorted. "And he is no dumb animal. He is one of the Brotherhood, of our enemies."
"Blimey, the man's cracked!" exclaimed Lefty Wister.
Shan Kar disregarded them all. He was staring fixedly into the splendid eyes of the wounded bird.
Nelson almost thought he could hear question and answer, inside his mind. Telepathic questions put by Shan Kar—and stubborn, defiant answer by the crippled eagle!
Could man and beast talk telepathically? His weird dream flashed back into his memory. Shan Kar, eyes narrowing, suddenly twisted the crippled wing again. A spasm of agony shook the eagle.
It turned its head convulsively, looked up at Eric Nelson. In that look, Nelson read tortured pain—and appeal!
His pistol came into his hand and cracked. The head of the eagle became a bloody mess and its wings relaxed in death.
Shan Kar leaped to his feet, his eyes flaming as he faced Nelson. "You should not have done that! I would have made him tell me!"
"Tell you what? What could an eagle tell you?" Sloan demanded incredulously.
Shan Kar made a visible effort to repress his anger. He spoke rapidly, his fierce eyes sweeping them.
"We can't camp here now. We must move on tonight, and move fast. The Brotherhood will be out after us now that the other winged one has taken back word of our coming."
His hands clenched. "I feared it would be so! Nsharra has reached L'Lan before us with warning and they have watchers out—like those two."
"What is this Brotherhood?" Eric Nelson demanded.
"I will explain that later, when we reach L'Lan," answered the other.
Nelson took a step forward. "You will explain now. It's time we got the truth about what faces us in L'Lan."
Nick Sloan, his flat brown face hard and suspicious, harshly seconded Nelson. "That's right, Shan Kar. It seems we're up against more than just a tribal war. Spill it or we'll backtrack out of here."
Shan Kar smiled thinly. "You want the platinum we can pay you. You won't go back to China to be shot."
"Not to China—but we can cross southward over the Kunlun," Sloan spat. "Don't think you have us in your hand. You need us worse than we need you. Talk or we walk out."
Shan Kar eyed them, his mind obviously busy behind the handsome olive mask of his face. Then he shrugged.
"There is not time to tell you everything. We must move fast or we are lost. Also—you would not believe all if I told you."
He hesitated. "This much I will tell you. There are two factions in L'Lan. One is the party of the Humanities, of which I am one of the leaders. The other party is the Brotherhood.
"We Humanities are all men and women as our name implies. We believe in the superiority of humanity to all other forms of life and are ready to fight for it. But the Brotherhood, our enemies, are not all men!"
Sloan stared. "What do you mean? What are those of the Brotherhood who are not men?"
"Beasts!" hissed Shan Kar. "Beasts who assert their equality with men! Yes, in L'Lan the wolf and tiger and eagle claim themselves the equals of humans!"
His black eyes flashed. "And they'll not stop there! The winged ones and the hairy ones and the clawed ones—all the forest clans—will eventually aspire to dominance over man! Is it strange that we Humanities are preparing to crush them before that can happen?"
There was stunned silence for a moment, then Lefty Wister's shrill laughter crowed. "Didn't I tell you the man was cracked? We've come half into Tibet on a wild-goose chase with a crazy native for guide!"
Nick Sloan's face darkened and he started toward Shan Kar. Eric Nelson intervened hastily.
"Sloan, wait! That platinum was real enough!"
Sloan stopped. "So it was. And we're going to find its source. But we won't find it by listening to crazy talk of wild beasts plotting against men!"
"The beasts of the Brotherhood are not the brute beasts of your outer world!" flared Shan Kar. "They are intelligent, as intelligent as men."
He made a fierce gesture. "I knew you would not believe! It was why I dared not tell you! But you at least should know I speak truth!" He pointed to Nelson.
Nelson felt a queer chill. He did have an uncanny conviction that Shan Kar was speaking the truth. But the impossible couldn't be true. A witch-girl and her pets, a crippled eagle, a queer native's fantastic talk—was he for these to throw away his firm footing on the everyday earth?
"L'Lan the golden where the ancient Brotherhood still lives?" whispered Li Kin, quoting. "So that is what it means?"
Nick Sloan snapped the spell. "This is all moonshine, but we can talk it out later! Right now I want to know what the danger is that you claim threatens us! How far are we now from L'Lan?"
Shan Kar pointed at the great wall of mountains that rose on the other side of the deep wooded gorge.
"The valley L'Lan lies on the other side of those mountains. We are that close! But getting into it will be perilous now."
He hurried on. "There is only one pass into the valley. It leads into it near the city Vruun which is the heart of the Brotherhood. Yet we must pass Vruun to reach Anshan, the city in the south which we Humanities hold.
"I hoped to creep through the pass and past Vruun without detection. But if the Brotherhood's scout gets word back of our coming they'll move to block us at the pass. That is why we must hurry!"
Nelson and Sloan and the other three grasped at least the urgency of the situation. They had, all of them, fought too many battles and made too many forced marches not to understand strategy.
Eric Nelson told Sloan, "We'd better move as he says. We can get him to explain his queer statements later."
Sloan nodded, frowning. "He's either a liar or a superstitious fool. We'll find out later. Right now I smell trouble."
The sun was setting. Darkness came with a swift rush as Shan Kar led their little caravan down into the wooded gorge.
The forest was a dark tangle of fir, scrub oak and poplar. Beneath it, the brush was tindery and crackling from the long dry season. A mountain-stream brawled noisily along in the night somewhere nearby.
Shan Kar knew the trails. He turned southward and they moved after him, their ponies stumbling in the dark, Lefty Wister swearing in a monotonous whine each time his little steed staggered.
A cold wind whined down from the black mountains on their right. The trees stirred mournfully. Eric Nelson had a sudden strongly claustrophobic awareness of the huge ranges that shut them into this wild and forgotten pocket of the globe.
A wolf howled, a long swelling cry that came from somewhere up in the wooded slopes on the west side of the gorge.
Shan Kar turned in his saddle. "Faster!" he rasped.
Nelson was drawn by some instinct to look up and, through the tracery of branches overhead, saw a dark, winged shape plane swiftly above the gorge. It was high, moving in searching loops and curves.
It screamed, an eagle cry echoing thinly down from the night. Almost at once the distant wolf-cry came again.
Shan Kar abruptly reined in his pony. "They know we're coming! I must try to learn what faces us inside L'Lan!"
He had dismounted. Fumbling under his cloak, he brought out something that glinted oddly in the starlight.
Then Nelson glimpsed what it was—the hoop of platinum with the two quartz disks mounted on it, that odd ornament or instrument which had sparked the treasure-lure of their quest.
"What the—!" Sloan exploded harshly. "If there's danger, we've no time to waste here!"
"Wait!" commanded Shan Kar. "Wait and be silent". All depends on whether I can contact my friends!"
He had put the platinum hoop upon his head like a crown. He crouched, his strange headgear glistening vaguely.
Nelson felt incredulous wonder. What was Shan Kar doing with the odd thing? What was it?