But before the wolf could raise his bloody head, the Hunter had closed, had sunk her own huge fangs into the sinewy neck and crushed the lupine spine.
As the wolf’s jaws relaxed in death, the Hunter slowly backed down the tunnel, dragging her two useless forepaws, growling deep in her throat as the waves of pain washed over her. Weak and growing weaker she tumbled the two-foot drop from tunnel mouth to den floor.
Two of the kittens, trailed by the third, bounced merrily over to her, but a growled command sent them scurrying back into a far, dark corner. The Hunter knew that she and they were doomed now. She might have enough strength remaining to kill with her fangs the next wolf that came out of the tunnel. But there would be another behind him, and another and another, and the one she proved too weak to kill would kill her. Then the pack would be at the helpless kittens, ripping the little bodies to shreds, eating them alive.
Deciding to guard her young as long as possible, the Hunter painfully dragged herself across the den and took her death-stand before them.
The steel staircase was spiral, and though it trembled and creaked and crackled under his weight, Milo made it safely to the bottom. Untying the belts from his own, he mindspoke the men above him.
“The stairs will hold you, but don’t come down yet. This room seems small. See if that door will open wider, then get back from it. It’s dark as pitch down here.”
The hinges screamed like a damned soul, but finally the Horseclansmen got the trapdoor almost flat on the roof. In the increased light, Milo could see that the chamber was, indeed, small, a bit smaller than the roof above. Every surface was covered with a century of dust and hung with a hundred years worth of cobwebs. But he could spot no droppings of any kind, so apparently no animal or bird had ever gained access to it.
It took him a moment to remember just what the dust-shrouded object sitting on a shelf at waist level was: it was a gasoline lantern.
“I wonder …” Brushing away the dust and cobwebs, he could see that the artifact was not rusted, being finished in chrome or stainless steel; the glass was intact and there was even a filament still in place. Lifting the object, he shook it beside his ear. It sloshed almost full, and if that liquid was gasoline …
Finding the handle of the air pump, he tried it. The shaft moved smoothly in the tube. Now if he’d just had a match.
He let his fingers wander the length of the shelf. Near the edge they encountered a small metal cylinder. Not daring to hope, Milo brought his new find into the light. It was badly rusted, and it was all that he could do to coax the screwtop loose.
“Sonofabitch.” He breathed softly. The cylinder was filled with matches, the heads each coated with wax.
With the trapdoor closed and seven bodies gathered in close quarters, the nomads soon ceased to shiver and exclaimed upon the clear, intensely bright light of the lantern. A lighted exploration discovered another, larger lantern, two corroded and useless flashlights, a two-gallon can of lantern fuel, an assortment of rusty machine tools, and a holstered revolver, now just a single lump of rusty metal.
There was one other find. Set in the concrete floor near the foot of the stairs was another trapdoor, about three feet by two. Milo filled and lit the larger lantern, took the smaller for himself, then opened the second trapdoor to disclose more steel stairs, but these looking to be in better condition.
“Dik, Djim, you and the men stay here. I’ll mindcall if I need you or when I find food or water. Leave that thing in the leather holder alone. It was once a dangerous weapon and still might hurt or kill one of you if you tinker with it.”’
The floor at the bottom of the second spiral stairs was also concrete, but it had once been covered with asphalt tile, which cracked and powdered under Milo’s boots. To his left, grown over with plant roots, was a jumble of brick and stone, and Milo guessed that he was probably within the main ruin, whereon the tower sat perched.
Behind and to his right were plain, sound brick walls, still partially covered with remnants of rotted wood panneling. More of the rotted wood framed the door ahead of him, its brass knob pale-green with verdigris. The knob turned stiffly in his hand, but the door remained closed. Setting the light on the stairs, he put both hands to the task. Something popped and the door swung open.
The door led into a small, narrow room, the left side of it lined with closed metal cabinets, the right taken up by a flight of concrete stairs leading down. All of the cabinets proved bare of much that was still usable—a few brass buckles, a handful of metal buttons; perhaps the nails and eyelets could be salvaged from the several pairs of rotting boots by the metal-thrifty clansmen.
As he opened the last cabinet, he jumped back and cursed at unexpected movement, his hand going to the hilt of his dirk. The big brown rat struck the floor running and scuttled down the steps, only to come back up twice as fast, shrieking in terror and streaking directly between Milo’s feet to leap into a hole in the wall.
Thus warned, Mile descended the stairs slowly and carefully, holding the lantern high. It was well that he had done so. The bare concrete of the small room below was littered with nearly two dozen sluggishly writhing rattlesnakes!
“Well” thought Milo, “that answers the food problem.” But none of the vipers lay between the foot of the stairs and the closed door in the facing wall, so he left them alone.
This door was the hardest to open he had encountered, but at last he did so, to find himself faced with a short stretch of corridor and three more doors, one in each wall. He entered and closed the door behind him.
The doors to both left and right were secured with heavy padlocks. Stenciled on the face of the left door was “FALLOUT SHELTER—KEEP OUT—THIS MEANS YOU!” On the face of the right was “PRIVATE SANCTUM OF STATION DIRECTOR—TRESPASSERS WILL BE BRUTALLY VIOLATED!” The door straight ahead was unmarked, but an iron bar at least two inches thick bisected it horizontally, held in U-shaped brackets firmly bolted to the brickwork.
It might well be a door opening to outside. Milo put an ear to it but could hear nothing. Removing the bar, he opened the door a crack, keeping shoulder and foot against it, just in case a wolf should try to come calling.
But stygian darkness lay beyond the door. Darkness and a powerful odor of cat. Milo closed the door and drew his saber, then opened it wide and quickly descended the two steps to the next level, lantern held above his head and eyes rapidly scanning the large, high room.
III
The Hunter tried to raise herself when the two-leg holding in his paw a small, white sun opened a part of the den wall and came in, but she was too weak to do more than growl.
Milo let his saber sag down from the guard position. The big cat was clearly as helpless as the kittens bunched behind her body. One foreleg was grotesquely swollen, obviously infected or abscessed; the other was torn, bleeding, and looked to be broken, as well.
There was a flicker of movement to his right, and he spun just in time to see the slavering jaws and smoldering eyes of a wolf’s head emerge from a hole just above the floor, to two quick strides, he crossed the room and his well-honed saber blade swept up, then down, severing the wolf’s neck cleanly.
But the headless, blood-spouting body still came forth from the hole, and as it tumbled to kick and twitch beside its still-grinning head, another head came into view, this one living and snarling at the man who faced him.
Milo thrust his point between the gaping jaws. Teeth snapped and splintered on the fine steel and the point grated briefly on bone, then sliced free. Milo jerked the steel out, but the dying wolf came with it, and behind him crouched another.
He split the skull of the third wolf, but even as its blood and brains oozed out, another was pushing the body out into the den.