Neither did Lefty Wister. The Cockney's voice snarled in the dimness beside Nelson. "If that blasted wolf has got others waiting for us in there—"
It seemed pitch-dark beneath the trees at first. Then Nelson's eyes became more accustomed to the deeper obscurity. He looked up and saw tall trunks and graceful boughs against the stars, recognized the outlines of larch and cedar and fir.
The forest smelled dry. The rainless months had parched it so that each twig the horses stepped on snapped and broke. Tark was a darker shadow in the darkness, leading the way between the trees by occasional back-glances of luminous green eyes.
"Why don't we follow the river to Vruun?" Shan Kar demanded. "It would be the clearest way."
"To discovery," Tark's thought retorted harshly. "Quorr's clan are the greatest danger. The Clawed Ones roam those river-brakes by night."
Clawed Ones? He meant the tigers, Nelson realized. His skin crawled at the thought of meeting those striped killers here.
"No more thoughts-speech unless I speak first!" Tark continued peremptorily. "Your danger deepens with each mile we traverse now."
The horses were jumpy as they went on through the forest, up ridges, through brushy valleys. The mare quivered under Nelson.
Excitement? He wondered They must know they were going toward Vruun. Was that why they were so jumpy? It made Nelson feel a sudden pity for them. These were not the dumb beasts of the outer world. These horses were intelligent as men. And to be captured, enslaved, broken from their complete freedom into beasts of burden—
He thrust such thoughts impatiently from his mind. He was letting the influences of this fantastic valley affect him. Animals were animals, no matter if they could speak telepathically and think—
They had been traveling for more than an hour when a yapping wolf-call from west of them was answered by a low coughing roar from the direction of the river. Tark stopped and came back to them. The wolf's eyes glared up at them.
"We must leave the Hoofed Ones here. We can't trust them not to betray us if we pass others of the Clans."
Instantly from the horses came thoughts of passionate protest. "Tark, we thought you took us to Vruun! Are you not going to free us?"
"Brothers, I cannot!" was the wolf's answer. "For the good of the Brotherhood you must remain captive a while longer."
A moment of silence followed and then Eric Nelson heard the slow thought of their reply. "We trust you, Tark. We will obey."
Nelson dismounted. Shan Kar was speaking swiftly to young Diril.
"You'll wait here with the Hoofed Ones. Slit their throats if they try to send a single thought out."
"They will not!" the wolf flared. "Now follow me and move as silently as you can."
They were at the crest of a wooded ridge. The wolf led northward along this crest, pausing often to sniff the wind. Again, they heard wolf-cries from the west but there was no answer this time. Suddenly Tark whirled, his thought urgent.
"One of the Clawed Ones comes this way! Lie still and I will try to turn him back before he winds you!"
Nelson followed Shan Kar's example and crouched in high ferns. He pulled Lefty down after him as the bewildered Cockney drew his gun. Tark bounded ahead. Nelson glimpsed him stopping in a little patch of starlight between two dead trees ahead.
Tark uttered a low, barking call, looking toward the east. Instantly a coughing grunt answered. A minute later, a big striped beast glided into the patch of starlight — a tiger whose size dwarfed Tark. Nelson's mind clearly caught the swift interchange of thought between the two nearby beasts.
"Tark! Tark of the Hairy Ones, free in the forests! All the Clans have thought you dead or prisoner in Anshan!"
"I escaped, Grih! But Barin is still prisoner in Anshan."
"Not for long, Hairy One! The Guardian gathers the Clans! Word has flown through all the valley that war with the Humanites begins!"
The wolf's thoughts raced. "Grih, you can help me! Hasten you to the forest-edge above Anshan and watch if the Humanites trail me!"
Fiercely throbbed the striped beast's answer. "I go at once! If they come I shall send word by Ei's folk! Speed you to Vruun, brother!"
Nelson saw the tiger whirl and melt away in the dark forest, heading southeastward down the wooded slope. He lowered the gun he'd kept leveled as Tark came loping back to them. "There can be no delay now! We must hurry!"
"So Kree gathers the Clans for war?" Shan Kar said fiercely. "So be it! They shall learn their masters when they come against men!"
The wolf made no answer but his eyes flared brilliantly as he turned to lead on.
Nelson, aware of the vital necessity of keeping the way back to the horses clearly in mind, estimated they went nearly a mile more along the forested ridge before Tark stopped. The wolf led them down the slope from the ridge a little. Here was a fire-scarred break in the trees that gave vision downward.
"Vruun!" exclaimed Shan Kar in a taut whisper.
Nelson, startled, perceived in his first glimpse that, in the level forest down below this ridge, there sprawled the big river. And beside the river, on their side of it, glimmered the lights and buildings of the city of the Brotherhood.
"Blimy!" choked Lefty Wister. "Look at that place!"
Nelson realized that he was looking upon a city whose strangeness had no counterpart on Earth.
Chapter VIII
WEIRD CITY
Immeasurably ancient and alien looked Vruun, its glassy bubble-domes and towers brooding beneath the stars. Torchlight spilled from open doors and windows to illuminate vaguely its streets and enlacing forest-ways.
For Vruun, like Anshan, was a city into which the forest came. It was like a Venice, with winding ways of woods instead of canals — woods that were woven into the very texture of the city.
Eric Nelson, crouching with Shan Kar and the Cockney and the great wolf above the city, felt a cold shock of incredulity as he glimpsed the figures that came and went past lighted doorways down there. For those figures were not all human.
He had anticipated that. But anticipation had not tempered the shock of actually seeing it.
"It's a devil's city!" husked Lefty Wister. The little Cockney was shivering. "Look at those animals!"
"Now you understand why we Humanites rebelled and seceded from Vruun!" came Shan Kar's throbbing whisper.
Men and beasts came and went together across those torchlit doorways below. Men and women in silk or warrior dress. And beasts of the Brotherhood, mingling with the humans, jostling them.
Nelson glimpsed a little pack of gray wolves trotting into the city from the south. He saw two great tigers moving out of it that way. And across a shallow ford a half-dozen wild-maned horses came splashing over the river to Vruun.
Men and beasts of the Brotherhood-meeting and mingling in fantastic fraternity in this ancient, alien city! Wings swept across the sky and he saw great eagles gliding down toward the openings high in the glassy towers. He realized then that those towers had been built as eyries for the Winged Ones, that all Vruun, like Anshan, had been built to house this incredible fraternal mingling of species!
"There are too many abroad in Vruun — too many for this late!" Shan Kar was muttering.
"The coming of war has stirred all the Qans," came Tark's answering thought.
The wolf continued quickly. "Jhanon, the prisoner you seek to free, is held in the Hall of the Clans. But the Guardian and the Clan-leaders undoubtedly hold council there tonight."
Nelson glimpsed the distant building at which the wolf was gazing, an enormous pale bubble-structure, shimmering vaguely in the starlight near the center of the forest city.