I had forgotten also how much wider the world is to a man on foot than it is to a horseman. One would see a mark in the distance and reckon ten minutes as the time needed to reach it. Half an hour later it would seem scarcely nearer. The monotony of the trudging was worse than the fatigue; my muscles accustomed themselves to the strain sooner than my mind did.
We were nearly three days getting to the pass that crossed the Burning Lands. We avoided towns and villages, where travelers at this season would excite interest, but did stay one night at an isolated farm. I told a story of a pilgrimage imposed by the Seer on account of an unwitting act of impiety toward the Spirits. They accepted this but expressed surprise that a dwarf should be my servant. Hans accounted for it by telling them he was not dwarf but polymuf, with marks on his body beneath his clothes. It must have cost him dearly in pride to do so.
The second night we found a deserted hut and slept there. And in the afternoon of the third day we came to the dead landscape lying under the hills of the Burning Lands, where snow gave way to black rock and steaming pools. We took off our snowshoes and started on the last mile or two leading to the pass.
I had thought winter might have chilled the black sand underfoot and made our crossing easier, but it seemed to have had no effect on it. We had each brought three extra pairs of boots, changing them as they got too hot, but we scorched our feet all the same. We crossed, however, and soaked our legs in a tepid pool while our last pairs of boots cooled off. They had suffered badly; and we still had something like two hundred miles of rough and wintry country to travel.
At least it no longer mattered who saw us. We found a village before nightfall, a primitive place but with a cobbler who, for gold, sat up all night and had new boots ready for us in the morning. Hans shook his head over the workmanship—they were poor objects by our Winchester standards—but they would serve.
So we went north, taking much the same route as we had taken under Greene’s command when the peddler guided us. But that had been in spring and on horseback. Now we plodded over fields of snow, wearily through a barren world. We saw few animals, rabbits or an occasional hare, its ears pricked in silhouette against the white skyline, slinking foxes, ermine, once a wild boar. I would have welcomed a change from the dried meat we had brought with us. Given a horse and spear I could have run it down easily. I thought of the Sten gun, which would have killed it more easily still, and put my hand to where it hung at my belt. But though we had brought several magazines of bullets, I would not use it. We must make do with the rations we had.
At last we reached the river whose valley we had followed before. Fresh blizzards sprang up soon after, but we found shelter in a village. We stayed two days, in a stinking hut with stinking savages, taking turns to sleep at night in case one of them seized an opportunity to cut our throats. Though I doubt if there was any real danger of it. They were a cowed lot, undernourished and of poor physique, and they seemed to regard us with fear. All the same I was glad when we could go on.
The river was frozen and there were marks on the fresh snow that covered it, showing where animals had crossed. Some of the prints were very large, much bigger than those of a man, and made, I realized when I studied them, by some creature that walked upright as a man does. Whatever it may have been, we did not see it.
Although the snow had stopped, the wind remained strong and a little west of north. It blew in our faces on the valley floor and we went up onto higher ground where pine trees covering the ridge offered some protection. It was from these trees, in mid-afternoon, that the attack came.
I was not looking that way and my first awareness arose from Hans’ cry of alarm. We were some ten yards apart—he had stopped to tighten a strap on his snowshoes while I plodded on—and I looked back to see long dark shapes racing down the slope toward him. I barely had time to recognize them as huge dogs, a dozen or more, before they reached him. The leader leaped in a great arc, covering many feet of intervening space. Hans put up his arms in defense, but the beast’s weight smashed him to the ground.
Others were on him as he fell. They had swept down from the trees in silence but now they gave savage tongue. Half of them were mauling Hans and the rest ran on toward me. I lifted the Sten gun, not bothering to aim, and fired at them. One fell; at once the others turned tail.
Those attacking Hans retreated also. I went to him and helped him to rise. He was bleeding heavily from bites on the arms, which he had used to protect his face and throat from their teeth. I let go my support of him and he moaned and fell. I saw then that blood was also gushing from his right leg.
I tore up a linen shirt from my pack and set to work to bind up the wounds. That in the leg was the ugliest, a long tear exposing bloody muscle and sinew. It was plain that, tough as he was, he would not be able to stand, let alone walk.
I looked up the snow slope to the line of trees. Shapes skulked there, watchful. One howled, and others followed suit. Their presence being known, there was no need for silence.
We had been told of these creatures by the peddler. They were polyhounds who hunted in packs and, like the building rats, showed signs of more intelligence than a beast should have. A troop of horse such as we then were would be unlikely to encounter them, the peddler said. They watched for people traveling alone or in small groups.
Probably they had been silently tracking us for some time, and had attacked when they could surprise us separated from one another. It was a further indication, both of their cunning and their ferocity, that although the Sten gun had caused an immediate retreat they had not gone far.
They were still much too near for comfort. I got Hans to take a hold round my neck and staggered, carrying him on my back, down toward the valley floor. When we had covered twenty or thirty yards, he said:
“They are coming after us.”
I set him down and fired at them again, and again they retreated into the line of trees. This happened several times, and I scored a hit on one of them at least; it limped away howling and dripping blood on the snow. But the time came when they did not go back as far as the trees. Instead they moved out and round, making a great circle which had us as its center. I tasted fear in my throat, understanding what had happened: by trial and error they had estimated the Sten gun’s range and taken up positions outside it.
The valley was white and empty, apart from us and the surrounding polyhounds. From time to time there were bursts of howling; but their silences were more chilling still. I remembered something else the peddler had said: although hunger might sometimes drive them to attack by day, they were reckoned far more dangerous by night. Already the afternoon was fading into dusk.
I carried Hans, and rested, and carried him again. The polyhounds kept pace and distance, moving when we moved and stopping when we stopped. Progress was arduous, and painfully slow. Hans said at last:
“Sire, you must leave me and go on.”
We had covered scarcely a quarter of a mile. I said, panting:
“It is true, I might find help. There was a village where the river forked—do you remember? It cannot be more than a few miles north. I could bring men back with me.”
Hans looked up from where he crouched in the snow.
“Yes. I will be all right till then.”
I handed him the gun. He tried to refuse it, but I said:
“They know we can wound or kill them from a distance. Therefore they will keep clear of both of us while it is light. But after that you may need to hold them off for a time. I will return as quickly as I can.”