For a long time thereafter, nothing happened. When something finally did, it seemed to have nothing” to do with him. His first notice of it was a physical one. Far out on the savanna, to the northeast of both the Metz and the silent walls of the village, he heard the squeal of a frightened animal. Hiero had idly wondered earlier at the absence of the larger animals from the vicinity of the village. Earlier, there had been plenty of them about, but only in the middle distance. Now in the dark hours, there seemed to be none at all of either predators or those they hunted. All the life about him was small in size. There were snakes and lizards, rodents and weasels, plus a few foxlike beasts. The cry from far out in the dark was that of something large, something hunted and terrified. He felt for it with his mind and also listened with his ears. Presently, he detected it with both. He could hear, though only faintly, the drum of racing hoofbeats, and in his brain came the panic of a big herbivore of some kind, running at its hardest, running until its heart was bursting. He could feel the direction and knew the animal was coming closer rapidly.
The moon broke through the flying clouds and he now actually saw the chase, etched in black and grays. The figure of a big buck with tall lyrate horns was galloping for its life. Behind it, the hunters came—and they were an amazing sight.
They were bipedal and they were running at a speed the man would not have believed possible. The fastest Mu’aman racer of Luchare’s kingdom would have been left far behind such runners. Hiero knew well what a pace one of the big antelopes could set, and these things were hauling it down!
Straining his eyes, he could see that there were perhaps a half dozen of the pursuers and that they were very thin and tall. Whatever they were, he decided not to try to probe their minds at this time. The hunt was rapidly drawing close to his clump of trees. If they were the elusive minds he had tried to track earlier, and he was quite certain that they were, this did not seem the time to call their attention to him. Then he realized that he was to have little choice in the matter. He saw suddenly that the hunted beast was not trying to reach his area at all! Being a creature of the open, it was attempting to flee to the outer savannas. It was coming toward his trees because it had no choice. The incredible runners were driving it there.
As he watched, Hiero saw the big antelope try repeatedly to check and break away. Each time, one of the tall bipeds increased its own already fantastic speed and closed the gap, forcing the prey back on the track they had chosen for it. Moreover, it was not being herded to the clump of trees, the Metz realized in a hurry. It was being chased specifically to his tree!
Still as a stone, he watched the end. The buck turned at bay, its back to the trunk of his own refuge. He could have dropped a stick on the heaving sides or the lowered horns.
The end came very quickly. One of the shadowy hunters charged straight at the horns and then, with a movement so rapid that the man could hardly follow it, darted away at right angles, no more than the thickness of a knife blade from being impaled on the points. This was all the opportunity needed by the others. At the same incredible pace, another one darted in from the side and merged with the neck of the buck. There was a flash of light, glittering under the moon, and the second killer sped on, hardly seeming to pause.
The antelope shook its head and tried to brace its forelegs. A dark stream was pouring from its throat. With one final shudder, it collapsed, kicked once or twice, and then was still. Hiero thought he had never seen a neater, quicker kill. He looked quickly away from the body to see what the alien bipeds would do next and got another surprise. They had vanished.
One moment there were six tall, lean shapes in a semicircle around his tree; the next, the night was empty. It was as if they had never been. Were it not for the corpse of the antelope, Hiero might have thought he was dreaming.
He waited warily. It hardly seemed likely that a mere accident had caused the strange chase to be led so unerringly to his hiding place. No, something else was coming, and he had better be ready for it.
What came was nothing physical. He simply began to feel a sensation of fear growing in his mind. It was not a thought of any kind, nothing so clear and identifiable. Rather, it was more like a feeling of oppression, a sensation produced when the barometer was dropping and the air was hushed and heavy with the presence of an oncoming storm. Only in this case, he felt afraid!
Something was coming, something was stalking him, and he was helpless to defend himself. The shadows were full of yellow or orange eyes, all piercing the dark and all concentrated on him alone. A whiff of a curious odor came to him on the night wind, musky, fetid, and also vaguely familiar. The scent seemed to heighten the fear, and his hand even loosened the grip on his spear for an instant.
The movement of his hand served as a bracer. His brain cleared, and he realized that he was falling under a spell of a kind he had never before encountered. He, who had hunted all his life, was now being hunted. Worse, he was being treated as if he were already a helpless victim! He rallied himself and began to trace the strange glamour which was falling over him.
It was not his mind that was under attack. That type of assault he could easily guard against, and no warnings of such a thing had occurred. What, then? His body? Save for the acrid and feral odor, he had detected nothing physical at all. Yet he knew beyond the shadow of any doubt that he was the focusing point of a planned attack. The sensation of great fear was still there, but now he had mastered it, and it no longer had the power to make him do anything he did not choose.
The eyes were an illusion, created by fear. He could not actually see them. The bile rising in his mouth and the sweat starting on his skin were also products of fear, the irrational fear which his brain could control, but which seemed to have nothing to do with any ratiocination. Incredible as it appeared, he was under attack on his will by chemical methods aided by a mental assault on his emotions. His eyes narrowed in thought as he began to break down the course of this biological onslaught. At the same time, he mentally apologized to the villagers whom he had thought so stupid. If this was a sample of what they had to live with, he had much maligned them in his previous views on the subject!
Somehow, these runners in the night could take aim at: the deep animal levels of the psyche. The scent, probably a natural weapon, was the second weapon, used to enhance the fear started by concentrated will Intellectual ability was no defense at ail against such an animal barrage. It totally bypassed the brain and struck at the root of feelings, the same basic emotions that made a child cry or a dog salivate. By the time these creatures had got a good hold on the emotional centers of their prey’s inner self, he was doomed. He was literally frightened to death, long before the actual kill took place. The dead buck could probably have been reduced to utter helplessness, had the hunters chosen, so that it would have been able to make no defense at all.
Now, why had they not so chosen? Hiero thought he knew the answer. For the first time since he had felt their presence directed at his own, a grim smile crossed his lips.
The hunters were growing impatient now. He could feel the irritation coming to him almost as a palpable wave. Why did he not come down from his perch and offer his naked throat? The irritation was growing into anger, and Hiero could feel the heat of the frustrated rage rising from below. There would be some action soon. These beings were not patient at all when thwarted. So be it. He had the fear under perfect control now, holding it in easy check even while he examined the effects on his nerves and body chemistry. He was angry himself now, but in a cold state of anger. Somebody was going to get a sharp lesson in very short order.