But if Nature had provided Big-Tusk with a fine armory she had not been niggardly with the rebel’s defensive equipment. True, he had nothing outstanding in the way of teeth or claws, had not the extra limbs possessed by so many of his fellow New People. His brain may have been a little more nimble — but at this stage of the fight that counted for nothing. What saved his life was his hairless skin.
Time after time the chief sought to pull him within striking distance, time after time he pulled away. His slippery hide was crisscrossed with a score of scratches, many of them deep but none immediately serious. And all the time he himself was scratching and pummeling with both hands and feet, biting and gouging.
It seemed that Big-Tusk was tiring, but he was tiring too. And the other had learned that it was useless to try to grab a handful of fur, that he must try to take his enemy in an unbreakable embrace. Once he succeeded, No-Fur was pulled closer and closer to the slavering fangs, felt the foul breath of the other in his face, knew that it was a matter of heartbeats before his throat was torn out. He screamed, threw up his legs and lunged viciously at Big-Tusk’s belly. He felt his feet sink into the soft flesh, but the chief grunted and did not relax his pressure. Worse — the failure of his desperate counterattack had brought No-Fur even closer to death.
With one arm, his right, he pushed desperately against the other’s chest. He tried to bring his knees up in a crippling blow, but they were held in a vicelike grip by Big-Tusk’s heavily muscled legs. With his free, left arm he flailed viciously and desperately, but he might have been beating against the Barrier itself.
The People, now that the issue of the battle was decided, were yelling encouragement to the victor. No-Fur heard among the cheers the voice of his mate, No-Tail. The little, cold corner of his brain in which reason was still enthroned told him that he couldn’t blame her. If she were vociferous in his support, she could expect only death at the hands of the triumphant chief. But he forgot that he had offered her insult and humiliation, remembered only that she was his mate. And the bitterness of it kept him fighting when others would have relinquished their hold on a life already forfeit.
The edge of his hand came down hard just where Big-Tusk’s thick neck joined his shoulder. He was barely conscious that the other winced, that a little whimper of pain followed the blow. Then, high and shrill, he heard Wesel.
“Again! Again! That is his weak spot!”
Blindly groping, he searched for the same place. And Big-Tusk was afraid, of that there was no doubt. His head twisted, trying to cover his vulnerability. Again he whimpered, and No-Fur knew that the battle was his. His thin, strong fingers with their sharp nails dug and gouged. There was no fur here, and the flesh was soft. He felt the warm blood welling beneath his hand as the chief screamed dreadfully. Then the iron grip was abruptly relaxed. Before Big-Tusk could use hands or feet to cast his enemy from him No-Fur had twisted and, each hand clutching skin and fur, had buried his teeth in the other’s neck. They found the jugular. Almost at once the chief’s last, desperate struggles ceased.
No-Fur drank long and satisfyingly.
Then, the blood still clinging to his muzzle, he wearily surveyed the People.
“I am chief,” he said.
“You are the chief!” came back the answering chorus.
“And Wesel is my mate.”
This time there was hesitation on the part of the People. The new chief heard mutters of “The feast… Big-Tusk is old and tough Are we to be cheated—?”
“Wesel is my mate,” he repeated. Then — “There is your feast—”
At the height of his power he was to remember No-Tail’s stricken eyes, the dreadful feeling that by his words he had put himself outside all custom, all law.
“Above the Law,” whispered Wesel.
He steeled his heart.
“There is your feast,” he said again.
It was Big-Ears who, snatching a spear from one of the guards, with one swift blow dispatched the cringing No-Tail.
“I am your mate,” said Wesel.
No-Fur took her in his arms. They rubbed noses. It wasn’t the old chief’s blood that made her shudder ever so slightly. It was the feel of the disgusting, hairless body against her own.
Already the People were carving and dividing the two corpses and wrangling over an even division of the succulent spoils.
There was one among the New People who, had her differences from the racial stock been only psychological, would have been slaughtered long since. Her three eyes notwithstanding, the imprudent exercise of her gift would have brought certain doom. But, like her sisters in more highly civilized communities, she was careful to tell those who came to her only that which they desired to hear. Even then, she exercised restraint. Experience had taught her that foreknowledge of coming events on the part of the participants often resulted in entirely unforeseen results. This annoyed her. Better misfortune on the main stream of time than well-being on one of its branches.
To this Three-Eyes came No-Fur and Wesel.
Before the chief could ask his questions the seeress raised one emaciated hand.
“You are Shrick,” she said. “So your mother called you. Shrick, the Giant Killer.”
“But—”
“Wait. You came to ask me about your war against Tekka’s people. Continue with your plans. You will win. You will then fight the Tribe of Sterret the Old. Again you will win. You will be Lord of the Outside. And then—”
“And then?”
“The Giants will know of the People. Many, but not all, of the People will die. You will fight the Giants. And the last of the Giants you will kill, but he will plunge the world into—Oh, if I could make you see! But we have no words.”
“What—?”
“No, you cannot know. You will never know till the end is upon you. But this I can tell you. The People are doomed. Nothing you or they can do will save them. But you will kill those who will kill us, and that is good.”
Again No-Fur pleaded for enlightenment. Abruptly, his pleas became threats. He was fast lashing himself into one of his dreaded fits of blind fury. But Three-Eyes was oblivious of his presence. Her two outer eyes were tight shut and that strange, dreaded inner one was staring at something, something outside the limits of the cave, outside the framework of things as they are.
Deep in his throat the chief growled.
He raised the fine spear that was the symbol of his office and buried it deep in the old female’s body. The inner eye shut and the two outer ones flickered open for the last time.
“I am spared the End—” she said.
Outside the little cavern the faithful Big-Ears was waiting.
“Three-Eyes is dead,” said his master. “Take what you want, and give the rest to the People—”
For a little there was silence.
Then — “I am glad you killed her,” said Wesel. “She frightened me. I got inside her head — and I was lost!” Her voice had a hysterical edge. “I was lost! It was mad, mad. What Was was a place, a PLACE, and Now, and What Will Be. And I saw the End.”
“What did you see?”
“A great light, far brighter than the Giants’ lights Inside. And heat, stronger than the heat of the floors of the Far Outside caves and tunnels. And the People gasping and dying and the great light bursting into our world and eating them up—”
“But the Giants?”
“I did not see. I was lost. All I saw was the End.”