10
Gray daylight was spreading slowly over the snowy, forested hills before the young ezwal stopped to rest. For this purpose, he chose a cranny under an overhanging ledge, out of the snow and sheltered from the bitter wind. During the long hours of the night, he had fought the unaccustomed cold by the continuous activity of running, and his magnificent body machine had circulated adequate heat to his extremities. But now he huddled with his limbs against his body, and it was not until he had wanned the surface of the surrounding wall of rock that he became comfortable enough to doze.
Some indefinite time later, a timid thought touched his mind, partly fear, partly curiosity, mostly stupidity. For a moment, in that half-wakened state, it seemed to be his own awareness.
It took an instant to reject those characteristics; they so very definitely did not apply to him. Startled when he realized that it was an alien mental intrusion, the ezwal opened his eyes .
A deer nibbled at a few sparse tufts of brown grass it had uncovered on a slope a short distance away. It kept rolling its eyes, half turning its head; and its thought pattern remained the same dull composite of hunger urge and alertness to danger.
Food? With hungry eyes, the ezwal studied the creature and evaluated his chance of making a kill. There was much snow between, of varying depth and solidity; most of the impetus for the attack would have to come from his initial spring. Carefully the ezwal drew his legs under him, dug first one clawed foot, then another into the hard ground, and tensed himself for the charge.
The flesh was edible; that was all. He swallowed hastily, to get the taste of it out of his mouth. Several times he plunged his mouth into a bank of snow and let the chill wetness of it cleanse the blood taste and the blood feel out of him. He was distastefully rinsing his mouth in this fashion, once again, when a sound floated on the still air.
Animal yelping!
The sound was far away, but a faint overtone of thought came with it: human thought, human purpose. With a thrill of concern, the ezwal guessed that these were the bloodhounds, and this was the hunt—for him.
He leaped to a ridge for a better view. He stretched upward on his rear legs and angled his neck. From that height he could see his footprints in the distance of the valley he had spanned the evening before. The route he had followed stood out in the snow; it was unmistakable—too straight, too easy to follow. It shook his confidence; and he was about to leap down, and away, when a shadow flitted across the snow.
The ezwal froze. A moment later an air machine passed by less than a quarter of a mile to his right and settled down in the valley a mile away, near his back trail. An opening appeared in its side. From the opening sprang five dogs. Swiftly they plunged in all directions; and their eagerness was plainly audible in the excited yelps they gave. Even as the ezwal watched, one of them found his trail and bayed. A minute later the five beasts were heading toward him across the snow.
The ezwal had the impulse to run directly away from that menace. Instead, after one mental flip of fear, he began to follow the rocky ridge up into the higher mountains, away from the rising sun. The going was not easy. Where it was not covered with snow, the ground was rough; and, as he stumbled along—now running, now slowed to a walk, now cautiously leaping a dangerous crevice—he had the unhappy feeling that the bloodhounds were racing straight at him. Or that at any moment their human masters would soar overhead and blast him from this precarious height. In his mind's eye, he visualized a second airship picking up other dogs farther back on the trail and bringing them forward to a new, closer point on his trail.
Abruptly he turned from the ridge and swiftly plunged down the steep slope. Again changing his direction, he cut across a narrow valley toward a farther ridge, automatically avoiding the easiest course, instinctively hiding his footprints wherever possible. He did not, however, make an obsession of concealment. There were times, then, when the baying of the dogs faded into vast distance or was lost in the reach of snow-filled valleys. But always the sound returned. And each time he felt spurred to drive his tiring body to new effort. When at last the reddish sun began to sink between two distant, craggy peaks and the long shadows grew darker, the ezwal guessed wearily that for this day he was now safe.
He had been planning for the moment. In great leaps, and with all his reserve strength, he bounded across a range of hills, at right angles to the course he had been pursuing—and, at a distance of several hundred yards, headed back the way he had been coming all these hours.
Presently, from the comparative safety of a brush-covered elevation, he looked down into a valley, where two ships rested on the ground near each other. Tiny figures of men moved about in the snow, and to one side in the shelter of a bluff the dogs were being fed. The hunters seemed to be camping for the night.
The ezwal did not wait to make sure. As the shadows of approaching night lengthened over that bleak land, he headed down the mountainside. He had to circle wide; the twilight wind was erratic. And so, seeking a windward approach, he came to the top of the bluff.
With glowing eyes, he stared down from his vantage point at ten dogs. They were chained in a bunch, some already asleep in the snow. A horrible, alien smell drifted up from them, and he guessed that as a pack they were dangerous. But if he could kill these dogs, other beasts like them would have to be flown in. And he might have time to lose himself in these miles of forest and mountain.
He would have to be murderously quick, though. The men could tumble out of those ships in seconds and come at him with their irresistible guns.
The thought sent him hurtling down the slope, faster than the snowslide he dislodged.
The first dog saw him. He caught the startled thought as it lunged to its feet, heard its sharp warning yelp and felt the blackness snap into its brain as he dealt it one crushing blow. He whirled; and his jaws swung precisely into the path of the dog that was charging at his neck. Teeth that could dent metal clicked in one ferocious, stabbing bite. Blood gushed into his mouth, stingingly, bitterly unpleasant to his taste. He spat it out with a thin snarl as eight shrieking dogs leaped at him. He met the first with a claw-armored forehand upraised.
The wolfish jaws slashed at the blue-dark, descending arm, ravenous to tear it to bits. But in his swift way, the ezwal avoided the reaching teeth and caught at the neck. And then claws like steel clamps gripped deep into the shoulders; and the dog was flung like a shot from a gun to the end of its chain. The chain snapped from the force of the blow, and the dog slid along in the snow and lay still. Its neck was broken. The ezwal reared around for a plunge at the others—and stopped. The dogs were surging away from him, fear thoughts in their minds. They were beaten—utterly cowed.
He paused there making certain. Men were shouting, lights flashing. But still he explored the thoughts and feelings of the dogs. Finally, there was no doubt. They were terrified of him. This particular group of dogs had ceased to be dangerous to him. They could not, he felt sure, be whipped into following him now.
The ezwal turned to run. A searchlight caught him full in the face, startling him into panicky flight. Whoever was manipulating the light lacked skill, for it lost him almost immediately. When he was already safe beyond another slope, someone belatedly began to fire a flame rifle at the shadows behind him. The explosions lighted the sky.
He slept that night contentedly. At dawn he was on his way. It was midafternoon before he heard the baying of the dogs again. The sound shocked him, for he had tended to fool himself a little, to hope in spite of reason, that by pushing himself to the uttermost limit, he would somehow gain safety in this wasteland. He raced on, a great tiredness in him; not only was he physically exhausted but his will to live was dimmed. For he could not imagine that he would be able successfully to attack this new pack of dogs. However, as darkness settled, he tried. As before, he retraced his steps, cunningly, warily, with every perception keyed to danger. His telepathic mind detected the expected ambush from a safe distance.
He retreat
ed, baffled and anxious, into the darkness. On and on he padded over the snowy ground. The night grew blacker as clouds slowly blotted out the stars; only the dim whiteness of the snow enabled him to see clearly enough to avoid hazards.
It grew colder. Soft flakes began to fall, ever more slantingly as a wind from the north blew lightly at first, then with driving violence.
All through that long night he fought the blizzard and the cold. For in it he divined the safety he had been seeking. Once more his goal was to put distance between himself and his pursuers, with the knowledge that this time his trail was covered by miles of drifting snow.
The first dull light of dawn found the storm abating. But its ragged edges continued gustily. It was a cold, miserable, hungry young ezwal that espied a cavernous opening in a steep slope and wearily started to enter. In the shadows of the entrance, he stopped. A shape was rearing up from the interior, a massive dark creature.
The surprise was mutual and intense. The exhausted ezwal took in the dank odor of animal warmth, the musty smell of droppings and the sudden surge of thought feelings that radiated toward him—and he guessed that he had caught the monster sound asleep.
Another bear daring to intrude . . . outrage ... a desperate need to throw off the dullness of long sleep—those were the idea forms from the Kodiak bear. Seeing only a large shape, and that but dimly, the beast came up out of apathy into berserk rage within moments, snarled hideously and charged.
The impact sent the ezwal sliding backward in the snow, but not far. His taloned paws gripped the frozen surface, and in his own solid fashion, he held his ground and bit without mercy into the colossal shoulder that pressed forward against him.
The bear reacted with a roar and a grasping, hugging action that pulled the lighter ezwal almost off his rear legs into an embrace that shocked the breath from his lungs. For a moment, then, the ezwal struggled weakly to break away, feeling himself too weary to fight a death battle with so powerful a beast.
The attempt was a serious mistake. He had already caught from the other its first awareness of the alien thing that it was fighting. A tinge of fear, a foolish amazement, a dumb desire to withdraw and consider the situation. But as the ezwal tried to pull away, the change in the mighty Kodiak was swift. It tightened its grip. With its long jaws, it slashed at the ezwal's body, laying open a painful gash.
The beast growled in awful triumph; and now its thought flow was all rage and savagery and lust to kill. It freed one massive paw and swung with surprising speed.
It was a staggeringly hard blow. The ezwal felt the shock of it in a momentary blackout. For an instant the pain galvanized him out of his weariness and for a brief period he was himself. He bit at the retreating paw, and his movement was so rapid that his teeth closed on it. A twitch of his head severed tendons and crushed bones. Simultaneously, he brought his middle legs into play and raked the bear's belly with long talons, tearing the hide, ripping the stomach wall, gouging deep into the body cavity of the half-ton beast in one cycle of action.
The counterattack was so violent it should have ended the struggle. But the bear was too far gone in rage to recognize the hideous damage it had suffered. Had the ezwal been less weary, he could have escaped at that moment. As it was, the bear uttered a scream and, in the blindness of its pain, knew only enough to repeat its madness. Once more it clutched its smaller antagonist in a desperate embrace. But those great arms had never before held such an engine of destruction.
The ezwal could not react swiftly. But speed was not needed. Tiredly, he brought his middle legs into position. Tiredly, he ripped down. This time, whole masses of the bear's vitals were actually torn from its body.
No bestial fury could sustain it further against such devastation. In a vast, dumb surprise, the bear fell in the snow. Still clutching the ezwal, it gasped bloody foam—and died.
The ezwal lay exhausted in that dead embrace, until finally the bear jerked in an insensate muscular convulsion, and the ponderous forelegs relaxed. The ezwal extricated himself painfully and staggered into the cave.
The unpleasant bear smell inside did not deter him. He licked his wounds clean and curled himself into a warm ball. And slept.
11
He awakened once with the mental impression that there were animals nearby. The impression was sharp enough to include awareness of size. And, though there were many, the size feeling he got was of animals much smaller than the bear.
There was an over-all mental flow of utter bestiality—which reassured him. No danger from human beings so long as such creatures felt safe. He gathered from sounds and mind pictures that they were eating the bear. The ezwal slept again. When he awakened, it was still daylight, and the wolves were mostly gone. The ezwal had a flash of scenes of bones and fur scattered over the snow and the impression that four beasts remained. Two of these were trying to crack a thigh bone. The telepathic picture he had was not clear on what one of the others was doing. But the remaining beast was in the act of sniffing at the entrance of the cave.
The ezwal glided to his feet, fully alert, energy surging into his muscles. At his first awakening he had been too weary to worry about being cornered. Now, strong again, he padded toward the entrance—reached it as the wolf cautiously nosed forward. At a distance of a few feet they looked at each other.
More savagery than had been in the dogs, or even the bear— that was the thought impact. And yet, after one long, toothy snarl, the wolf backed off, turned tail and slunk away. The ezwal read in its thoughts, not fear, but a healthy respect. He recognized in certain overtones, also, a hunger satiation. The wolf with a full stomach had no real interest in worrying a strange creature, larger and more powerful-looking than any three or four wolves.
The ezwal was nervous now. He felt a great urgency to hide all traces of the bear's death. It seemed to him that the scattered bones and tufts of fur and the blood-stained snow, as well as the very considerable animal tramping marks, would be clearly observable from the air.
He was acutely aware that he had slept through most of the day, too exhausted to be concerned. But the ability to be anxious was back in force. He went outside.
There were two wolves near, two more a hundred yards or so distant. The near ones looked at him from rage-filled eyes, but they retreated as he advanced, leaving the bones they had been chewing. Ignoring them, the ezwal buried everything he could find, smoothed over the snow as well as he could. And then backed step by step into the cave, covering his tracks as he went.
He slept all night, peacefully, in the heart of the hillside. The following day he slept fitfully, feeling the pangs of returning hunger. About midafternoon, snow began to fall. As the white drift from the sky thickened, the ezwal ventured from the cave. He had a definite goal. He recalled that he had crossed a frozen stream not far away and remembered other such streams, where he had sensed the presence of life forms under the ice. It was worth investigating.
He broke the ice at a point where the stream ran swiftly below and crouched beside it to wait. Rudimentary thoughts emanated from the water, now near, now far. Twice he saw glinting shapes in the swirling stream and merely observed their quick, jerky movements.
The third time he lowered his right foreleg into the icy water and held it there, and held it, and held it... until the fish was close.
Then he flicked his paw, in a single lightning thrust. Spray and fish came flying out onto the ice. He ate the tidbit with enjoyment. It had a pleasing flavor, unlike the deer.
It required an hour to catch and eat four more of the fish. The success left him still unsatisfied, but the edge was off his hunger. It was getting dark as he returned to the cave.
Thoughtfully he settled himself for the night He was well aware that the overwhelming problems of the past few days were solved—and far better than his expectations. He now had sanctuary from his enemies, adequate shelter—even an unhoped-for source of palatable food. All of these things he had accomplished on his own, as the first real test
of self-reliance in his young life, and he felt sure his mother would have been vastly proud of him, could she have known.
But in spite of all this, he was aware of a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. He had, after all, only secured his own escape; he had done little or nothing to avenge his mother's death.
How many human lives would it take to do that? He decided that there were hardly enough human beings on this planet for the purpose. Certainly there were far too few in this remote part of it; and, on the realistic side, he could see very little chance of getting to the more densely populated areas.
Still, from the minds of his pursuers, he had gathered fleeting glimpses of villages and settlements hereabouts. Eventually it ought to be possible for him to reach one or more of them and achieve at least a partial accounting of vengeance before he was killed.
But not yet. It would be foolish to imagine that the hunt was over. He would do well to expose himself as little as possible for the next several days and thereafter to take advantage of snow flurries to work his way out of the hills.
On the fourth day after that, something happened which changed his plans. As he was moving along the stream bed looking for a likely place to fish, he stepped into a beaver trap with his rearmost left foot.
The snap of the metal jaws made him jump. The instant pain caused him to jerk away violently. It was that reaction which injured his foot severely, for his strength was so great that he ripped the flesh and damaged the tendons.
The ezwal crouched in agony and examined the instrument that had caught him. In a few moments he had analyzed how it worked. He pressed down on the flat ends and lifted out his foot, which was now pulsing with pain. Soon afterward he started on down stream on five legs. He would have liked to go back to the cave and stay till his foot healed. But he dared not.
War Against the Rull Page 9
