But he knew that a wolf pack, if hungry enough, would tackle even a ferocious jann- pard and chevy it to death. First one snarling wolf would attack, only to be driven back. While it retreated, another wolf would attack. And then another. As they backed away, still others would leap and bite until the prey fell exhausted.
Lan cautiously entered the dense thicket, holding his torches high above his head. His eyes adjusted to the flickering light. He counted on the wolves' eyes taking even longer to adapt. In that short time, he had to attack and, with luck, so would the pack' s prey.
" I' m going to rescue you," he shouted. " Don' t worry. I' ll help you get free of the wolves." He crashed through low tangle of heavily thorned brush until he came to a small clearing. Voicing a wordless scream, he momentarily distracted the circling wolves. A savage lunge with his knife disemboweled one careless enough to turn and attack without first studying its intended victim. His torches were knocked from his hand by the leap of another; then he heard the soul- chilling howl of pain and anguish. The wolf had set itself on fire. As it ran from the clearing, it emitted sparks like some child' s unsupervised fireworks.
The other wolves milled about, the thrust of their attack now parried. Lan charged another wolf, one easily waist high. Because he held a retrieved torch in front of his body, he forced the animal to circle directly into his blade. Others seemed disinclined to press the attack now that their prey had an ally.
" Are you all right?" Lan bellowed to his still hidden companion in arms against the wolf pack.
" Damn, it is such a sorry state I am in! And you, you fool! Watch how you use that torch. You are sure to set me afire!"
" Don' t worry about that, worry about the wolves."
" Pah! These animals are nothing. But what if you set fire to my legs? How should I fight something as terrible as that?"
" Just roll around on the ground, dunce!" Lan had little time to argue. These wolves proved themselves more determined than any he had encountered on his own world. Either they were starved or, as their harsh yellow eyes hinted, they possessed more than a rudimentary intelligence. It was nothing less than a miracle that anyone fended these creatures off, and here his companion had nothing better to do than complain about the careless use of his torch. " Easy for you to say, you stupid human." Lan Martak stopped dead. A quick toss of the torch ignited still another wolf and sent it screeching into the night, a living funeral pyre. The last statement from the rescued party struck him as being so peculiar that Lan felt he must investigate immediately. He turned, facing the voice. As the torch flickered out its dull light, he saw revealed a huge hairy- legged spider, cowering away from the flames.
" Get away from me with that torch, I say! You will do me grievous harm if you get too careless." The spider seemed to be the source of the voice. Lan wondered if he had somehow become embroiled in a nightmare and no longer separated reality from dream.
He mentally checked all the clues assailing his senses. The torch crackled and popped brightly in his hand, and warmed him. Hot resins from the wood seeped forth and dripped painfully onto his flesh. The smell of the burning wood and charred wolf- flesh told him he received the very spoor expected. His mouth felt as dry as a boll of cotton from fear and adrenaline. His boots squished from dampness- if this were a dream, why didn' t he simply wish them dry?
" Are you all right?" he asked lamely.
" Of course I am," declared the spider indignantly. " I am quite able to take care of myself. Not that it matters," came the voice, self- pitying now. " I am nothing. Nothing!"
Lan imagined salty tears welling at the corners of huge, unseen eyes. Deciding his back was too vulnerable, he circled to his right, holding the torch in front of his body for protection. A largetrunked tree soon pressed, rough and reassuring, into his spine. To his immediate right loomed a tangle of iron- grey berries, the thorns on the bush dripping poisonous ichor. His left flank remained open as was the area directly before him. Only when his defense seemed adequate did Lan allow suspicious eyes to scan the monstrous spider squatting in front of him.
Had he been at home, he would have thought someone played a joke on him by constructing this overlarge spider with the matted fur legs and lumpy body. He wasn' t at home; this wasn' t a joke.
" Who are you?" he asked, barely able to trust his voice.
" I am Krek- k' with- kridike," came the voice again. " You may call me Krek. Humans never get the second syllable out properly." An odd chitinous clicking noise echoed from the dancing shadows surrounding the spider.
" What manner of beast are you? I' ve never seen a spider so huge before."
" Indeed." The spider sniffed. " You must be one of the provincials from this world. Little wonder you have never seen a mountain arachnid from the upper fastness of the Egrii Mountains."
The spider jumped forward with startling speed. The hairy ropes on each side of the central mass that Lan ascribed to tree roots stiffened to lift the creature upward. He took a deep breath as he studied the towering beast. It was easily half again as tall as he, and Lan measured as a giant among the lowlanders. The hairy legs spanned a full five paces, and the body suspended at the juncture of those copper- wire- studded appendages weighed at least as much as Lan.
To fight such a beast would be foolhardy. Besides, he had rescued it from the wolves. It should be grateful.
" Either set fire to my legs"- a visible shudder rippled through the creature at the mention-" or hold the torch away. There. Thank you. I see now that you are indeed human." Again the odd sigh. " Long have I fled your kind on this world. No longer. I am so weary. Come. Kill me."
" I mean you no harm. Didn' t I risk my life to save you from the wolves?"
" You humans seldom do things with logic. Why not save me from them for your own perverse killing pleasures? Straying so far from my web has worn down my will to survive."
Lan planted the butt end of the torch in the ground and moved away from the sputtering fire. Sparks flew everywhere now, and he began to share Krek' s fear of being set on fire. He sank to the ground, crosslegged, and gave the spider his closest scrutiny. It was even more repulsive than Lan had anticipated. The huge mandibles snapped noisily, in a menacing manner. The man had a momentary vision of being neatly clipped in half by those powerful death scythes. The only feature of the spider' s " face" that softened the fierceness proved to be the eyes. They were an odd dun color, as limpid as the eyes of a maiden in love and as far- focused.
" Why did you leave your web in the first place? I can' t see you being native to this world. There isn' t a lump of muck large enough to call a mountain, much less the lofty spires that must be your domain."
" Ah, you are another traveller along the Cenotaph Road." For a moment, the self- pity evaporated and Krek talked with some animation. " I left my lovely web seeking adventure. Nothing ever seemed to happen. Just hang around all day, dangling at the end of a sticky strand, waiting for some ugly humans to caravan by. They would either pay the tribute due me or:"
A resounding clack of huge mandibles graphically showed the alternative to tribute. Lan' s hand moved to his sheathed knife with an instinctive jerk.
" But I frightened you! I am sorry. You humans are so fragile. Why, the last one I encountered on this miserable, wet, soggy ball of mud hardly struggled at all in my hunting web before he was entangled so badly he hanged himself. A pity. And it was such a tiny web. I was casting forth for a wild boar or a roe, perhaps, nothing more. But along he gallops on that silly four- legged beast you humans are wont to sit astraddle and that was it. Whish! All caught up and quite dead before I could rescue him."