Arash-Felloren

by Roger Taylor

  Several times as the evening passed, the hooded figure at the Pitside turned and looked up at him.

  Then it was the last contest. The realization struck Pinnatte like a winding blow, dragging his soaring spirit back to his body leaning against the parapet wall. He wanted to cry out in pain. This should not stop. Such a thing should be without end. This was the true way. But he needed no animal instinct to know that amongst his own, he must be as they were, that to be too different was to risk finding himself in the centre of an arena even more savage than that below. He looked round at Rinter and the other spectators lining the balcony like a cautious predator… pack leader, but fearful of the pack. Then, suddenly, a cold wave of profound bitterness and hatred swept through him. It seemed to come from beyond him and it was unlike anything he had ever known. He became the merest speck of dust borne along by forces which were as uncomprehending of him as he was of them. Yet too, there was humanity here – foaming rage and a blood-streaked lust for vengeance that reached back through times beyond his comprehension, to roots that vanished terrifyingly into the great heat of making.

  Or was it re-making?

  The vision faltered and, almost tragic in character, the faintest hint of bewilderment seeped into it before, abruptly, it was gone – torn away as though by a jealous hand. Pinnatte felt his own hand tightening about the edge of the wall to steady himself.

  ‘You sure you’re all right?’

  Rinter’s voice was garbled and distant. Somehow Pinnatte managed to smile and nod, though he did not trust himself to speak.

  ‘You just looked a bit odd,’ Rinter advised him paternally. ‘It’s probably too much excitement. You can get very involved at times – it’s happened to me before now. And it’s been quite a night.’

  Pinnatte nodded again and forced out an uncertain, ‘Yes.’

  The very utterance of the word brought him fully back to the present. Maybe Rinter was right. Maybe he had just let the excitement of the night get the better of him. But he knew that was untrue. Something very strange had just happened. Something he would have to think about. But later. Now he must see what the culmination of this night was to be. He leaned forward.

  The Judges were sharing the announcement this time, sometimes speaking together, sometimes alternately. It was a bizarre duet. Pinnatte watched the two men fixedly, patiently waiting for them to be gone. He heard the words, but paid them no heed.

  This time, three dogs were to be pitted against one – ‘a very special animal, brought to us by an honoured supporter of the Loose Pits who wishes to remain anonymous.’

  ‘It’s the Kyrosdyn,’ Rinter hissed. ‘I told you so. They’ve brought something up from the caves. Now this will be a sight to see.’

  Pinnatte did not respond. His gaze moved to the hooded figure below. She was leaning against the Pitside wall in the same posture that he was. Then, for a heart-stopping moment, she reached up and took hold of her hood. Pull it back, let me see your face, he willed desperately.

  As if toying with him, the woman moved her hood back a little, then slowly brought it forward again. Pinnatte drove his fingernails into his palm. His mouth was dry and his breathing shallow.

  Then his frustration seemed to fill the hall and the atmosphere became like that before the breaking of a violent thunderstorm. Pinnatte felt omniscient, as though any movement he made now might sweep aside the entire crowd.

  Be silent, he thought viciously as he looked again at the Judges.

  At the same time, the two men ended their peroration.

  The Master raised his staff and brought it down heavily, twice. It did not make the sharp crack that it had made when he had done this earlier to silence the crowd, but more a sound like a muffled funeral drum. It echoed ominously about the hall.

  As it faded, the doors opened in the side of the arena and three dogs emerged. They were larger than anything that had appeared in the arena that night, being perhaps half the height of a tall man. And their strength was demonstrated by the size of the two leashmen who restrained each one. At their appearance, the storm broke and a tumult of cheering and whistling filled the hall. In reply, the three dogs began a frantic barking, tugging at their leashes and rising up on their hind legs.

  Pinnatte bared his teeth. Bay as much as you like – you are doomed. The thought filled him – possessed him – as though it were not his, and, for an instant he had the feeling of someone else looking out through his eyes. At the same time, a twisting spiral of fear wormed deep inside him.

  He was in danger! Something was happening to him that he must fight, or he would be lost for ever.

  Then both sensations were gone, and he was himself again.

  Or was he?

  He drew his hand across his mouth. It was damp – almost as though he had been slavering at the prospect of what was to come.

  And what was to come? He could feel something stirring within him: a cruel, relentless will being drawn towards the focus of the waiting crowd. This time however, wrestling with his desire to stay, he felt also an unsettling urge to turn and flee from this awful place.

  The hooded figure leaning against the Pitside wall moved her head from side to side as if distressed. Her companions turned to her, concerned, but she raised a hand to reassure them – or dismiss them.

  Pinnatte did not notice the incident. His eyes were now fixed on one of the arena doors, and his ears were filled with the baying of the three dogs. He felt as though someone were tightening a hand about his chest.

  Slowly, the door began to swing open. It moved with agonizing slowness, and the tightness about Pinnatte’s chest became unbearable as the door swung inward to its fullest extent, disappearing into a black void.

  Then, it seemed to him that the blackness itself was moving – shifting, changing, drawing itself together and leaking out into the arena. For a moment, Pinnatte could not separate the images he was seeing from the sensations dancing in his mind. It was only a puzzled exclamation from Rinter that brought him back again to the balcony, with the gritty stone parapet wall under his hands. The dark shape became the form of another dog. It was quite large, but still smaller than the three animals frantically barking at it. So anxious were they to attack that they were threatening to drag their leash-holders into the fray. By contrast, the new arrival was being led quietly into the arena by a solitary figure.

  Pinnatte turned to Rinter for the seeing glass, but his companion was peering through it intently, his brow furrowed.

  ‘Well, it’s ugly,’ he declared flatly after a moment. He handed the glass to Pinnatte. His reaction seemed to be shared by most of the crowd and the creature was greeted with a mixture of jeering and incongruously polite applause. ‘It doesn’t seem very enthusiastic. One leashman, and it’s not even pulling. It must think it’s out for its evening walk.’

  Pinnatte steadied his elbow on the parapet wall and focused the glass on the animal. As Rinter had said, it was indeed ugly. A pointed head, wolf-like except for a bulging forehead, jutted forward beneath hulking, muscular shoulders, and a curved back sloped down to rear legs that were shorter than the forelegs. Its eyes appeared to be closed and it had an uncomfortable, loping gait which, even to Pinnatte, did not bode well for its chances in avoiding its three opponents, still less in counter-attacking. Was this incredible night about to peter out in farce and anti-climax?

  Yet there was something odd about this dog. Though it was making no effort to pull at its leash, either to attack or flee, its pointed head was moving slowly from side to side as if it were examining the crowd. It ignored the three dogs almost completely, although once it paused to stare at them briefly. As it did so, it twisted its head slightly to one side then lowered it horizontally, until it almost touched the floor.

  Almost like an obeisance, Pinnatte thought. Yet it was not like any movement he had ever seen a dog do before. In fact, he decided, everything about the animal was unfamiliar. It seemed to havenone of the characteristic movements of a dog.

/>   Then – itwasn’t a dog, he realized. It had the look of one, and perhaps its ancestors had been dogs, but that must have been a long time ago. This was…

  What?

  An abomination!

  As the word came to him, Pinnatte felt again the urge to be away from this place, to set aside everything that had happened this night as a tawdry and shameful aberration. It could not stand against the force that held him there, however – the longing – the lust – to witness, to be part of, another scene of combat. He could feel the hunting fury of the three dogs, the straining to launch themselves at this solitary and silent intruder. Yet, oddly, he could feel nothing of the creature. The cruel will he had sensed before its entrance was gone. It was still, silent and seemingly docile.

  ‘Out for its evening walk.’ Rinter repeated his previous remark. ‘What a flop! I’m having a wager on this one – it doesn’t stand a chance. Look at the odds. They’re tumbling with each step it makes.’

  He made to move away, but Pinnatte, still holding the glass on the creature, took his arm. ‘I don’t know Barran, but it makes no sense that he’d end a night as splendid as this has been, with something that would send everyone away disappointed.’

  Rinter pulled his arm free. ‘Anyone can make a mistake. Maybe the Kyrosdyn are playing some game of their own. Leading him on for some reason.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Pinnatte agreed doubtfully, still peering through the glass. ‘But there’s something strange about this…’

  He stopped. Full in his view, the creature was looking up at him. Its hooded eyes slowly opened and Pinnatte found himself staring into two yellow pits. And into recognition.

  It knew him!

  Without taking its gaze from him, the creature did as it had before, canting its head to one side and lowering it almost to the floor. This time however, it bent its forelegs.

  Thiswas an obeisance!

  Pinnatte could not tear his gaze free – did not want to tear it free. It was fitting that he should be acknowledged thus. All was well.

  The creature opened its mouth and uttered a low, moaning howl. The sound had a strange poignancy and, as it rolled around the hall, Pinnatte was once again looking down the vertiginous span of long-gone times, through endless tortured and unintelligible memories that were not his. Then the creature was once more walking quietly by its leashman and the memories were gone. Pinnatte took a deep breath and finished his advice. ‘Don’t wager on this animal losing. It would be a mistake.’

  Rinter fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t see how. Just look at it. I’d like to try to get the entrance price back, at least.’

  ‘You won’t. You’ll lose,’ Pinnatte said, returning the glass to him. ‘Just watch.’

  Before Rinter could pursue the matter, the Master signalled for the fight to begin and the first wave of wagering was ended.

  At the outset it looked as if Rinter’s judgement was going to be correct. As the leashmen brought the three straining dogs close, the creature made no response other than to continue looking about the hall. When they began to snap at it, it simply jumped away awkwardly, as if surprised. The crowd began to whistle and boo, and there was a frenzy of activity amongst the blues.

  After two such circuits of the arena, the Master gave another signal and the leashes were extended, allowing the animals to come closer. Again however, the creature did not seem to know what was happening and made no effort to defend itself other than by trying to avoid the dogs’ increasingly ferocious charges. Even then, it never once tightened its leash, although the men holding the dogs were having considerable difficulty in keeping their feet. Three or four times the creature was actually knocked over.

  The crowd’s anger grew. As too did Pinnatte’s curiosity. Still he could feel nothing from the strange animal – not even fear. And he had felt a lot of that tonight.

  Then, the Master gave the final signal. The dogs and the creature were separated by only twenty paces and the man holding the creature bent down, unhooked the leash and moved quietly to one side. One of the Clerks spoke to him, but he just shook his head politely and leaned against the wall, his arms folded. The Clerk shrugged his shoulders. The creature sat down and the catcalls from the crowd turned to a cruel laughter.

  At the same time, the three dogs were released. As they shot forward towards the waiting creature, the leashmen, together with the Clerks, ran quickly from the arena.

  Unexpectedly, the three dogs stopped their headlong dash as they reached the creature and began circling it, snarling ferociously, but seemingly uncertain.

  ‘It’s neither running nor fighting. They don’t know what to do,’ Pinnatte said, as much to himself as to Rinter. The crowd became strangely quiet, as if they too did not know how to respond to this behaviour. Nor too, it seemed, did the Master who, for the first time that evening, began to show signs of real activity, moving to the edge of the platform and leaning forward to study the encircling dogs and the silent creature. Even without the seeing glass, Pinnatte could read the uncertainty in his posture.

  Eventually he reached out with his staff to touch the creature, but the creature’s leashman signalled to him and he withdrew it.

  Pinnatte turned from the arena to look once again at the hooded woman. She was leaning forward with her elbows on the Pitside wall. As he looked at her, she lifted one hand slightly and dropped it as though she too were discreetly signalling to someone.

  The creature was on its feet with such suddenness that the entire crowd gasped. Though it scarcely seemed to move, it had hold of one dog’s left foreleg. Pinnatte could see the yellow eyes blazing and, as though a smothering curtain had suddenly been torn away, he could feel the creature’s awful presence. It filled him with both stark terror and soaring elation. So overwhelming was the sensation that he did not hear the sound of the dog’s leg being crushed, or see the violent shake of the creature’s head which tore the limb free and sent it arcing bloodily out of the arena and into the crowd.

  ‘Ye Gods!’ Rinter’s voice mingled with the great roar that went up and the cry of the wounded dog so that Pinnatte felt rather than heard it. As the dog, yelping piteously, hopped away, the creature loped after it, making occasional charges at it, but stopping short so that the dog kept stumbling and having to struggle to its feet.

  Pinnatte was enthralled. He could sense the fear of the one and the rapture of the other. For rapture it was. The creature was feeding off the dog’s terror, he realized. And it was revelling in the crowd’s wild-eyed goading. What kind of an animal was this?

  The other dogs, silenced for a moment by the sudden attack, were keeping their distance and confining themselves to barking, as if that alone might frighten the creature away. But there was a high-pitched quality to the sound that robbed it of any menace.

  More courage than sense, Pinnatte thought. You’d be better advised trying to escape.

  Almost as though his thought had reached the dogs, one of them turned away from its fruitless pursuit and began jumping at the wall of the arena. The creature turned immediately and ran towards it. It lowered its head as it ran and its ungainly gait was suddenly gone. As had happened before, the entire crowd gasped at the speed of the creature. It covered the length of the arena and leapt up to catch the would-be fugitive in mid-air in little more than two heartbeats. As it landed, a single blow from its fore-foot tore open the side of the dog.

  Seeing this, the third dog followed the example of its luckless companion, voided its bowels and, jumping on the creature’s back, cleared the arena wall.

  Uproar filled the hall; cheers and laughter from those members of the crowd who were well away from the frantic dog, cries of panic and terror from those who were not. But, for Pinnatte, rising above it all was the cry of the creature – a bellow of appalling fury at the escape of its prey. It possessed him so totally that, for a moment, he was completely at one with the creature, consumed by its ravening frustration.

  Then, something within him reached out and dashe
d the creature’s will aside; it was an angry dismissal.

  The creature hesitated for a moment, then seized the injured dog by the neck and shook it so savagely that, despite its greater size, the dog was lifted clear of the ground and smashed into the wall. To Pinnatte, the act seemed casual, petulant even. Then the creature was walking over to the remaining survivor, now lying down and whimpering as it licked the bleeding stub. It stopped as it saw the creature approaching and flattened itself along the floor, its ears drawn back, its eyes wide. The creature seized it and dispatched it as contemptuously as it had the other, then it let out another roaring bellow of rage before dropping down at the feet of its leashman. The man had not moved throughout the entire proceedings. As it lay down, Pinnatte felt all contact with it ebb away. The curtain had returned. He folded his arms on the parapet wall and let his head slump forward on to them. He needed darkness for a moment.

  But Rinter was digging him excitedly in the ribs. ‘Don’t go nodding off. There’s another show going on down there.’

  Reluctantly Pinnatte looked up. The Master and the Judges had gone, and the Clerks were removing the remains of the two dogs, but Rinter was directing his attention to the pandemonium on the terraces as the escaped dog dashed to and fro in search of escape. Despite the fact that two such animals had been easily dispatched by the creature, it was not something that anyone would face by choice. Further, it was demented with fear and attacking anything it came near with the appalling efficiency of a trained fighting dog. Bodies were being crushed and trampled underfoot as the crowd swayed this way and that, in belated response to the dog’s frantic twisting and turning. And as much damage was being done by people wildly waving swords and knives about in vain attempts to protect themselves. The whole scene was being cheered on by the crowds watching from the safety of the balconies.

  ‘Perhaps it was just as well we couldn’t afford Pitside tonight, eh?’ Rinter chuckled.