My group was thrust to one side of the passage, and the other group to the other side. We were aligned in our groups, close to the wall, side by side, facing outward. I could feel the rock behind me with my bound hands. The others, too, the lieutenant, Gito, the pit master, the officer of Treve, the black-tunicked men, drew to the side, to one side or the other, leaving only the leader of the strangers, clutching the blanket, and the two animals in the center of the passage.
“Beware,” said the pit master. “Where sleen are concerned, there is always danger.”
“Do you think I do not know that the pits of Treve are renowned for the reliability of their hunters?” said the leader of the strangers.
“You cannot always depend upon sleen,” said the pit master.
“Hi, hi,” said the leader of the strangers, slapping his thigh, calling the animals to him.
“Be careful,” said the lieutenant.
“Here,” said the leader of the strangers, crouching down, thrusting the blanket to the snouts of the beasts. “Here, take scent, take scent.”
The two animals, eagerly, tails lashing, thrust their snouts into the wadded blanket.
The larger animal then, as had the smaller, earlier, in its excitement, loosed its urine. This is apparently a behavior selected for in the evolution of the sleen. I do not think that it is simply a device to clear the bladder prior to strenuous activity, for example, to avoid discomfort in the chase. I think, rather, it ahs to do, at least in part, with the common prey of the sleen in the wild, which is usually the tabuk, a single-horned antelopelike creature. A filled bladder, gored, releases wastes into the ventral cavity, with considerable danger of infection. If the bladder is cleared prior to the wound the chance of infection is considerably reduced. Over thousands of generations of sleen this behavior has, I suspect, been selected for, as it contributes to the survival of the animal, and its consequent capacity, obviously, thereafter, to replicate itself.
“Scent! Hunt!” said the leader of the strangers. “Scent! Hunt!”
the blanket was literally torn from the grasp of the leader of the strangers, who then stood up, watching the sleen. They began to scratch at it, and seized parts of it in their jaws, ripping it. At one point it fluttered, shaken, in the passage, like a flag.
“Scent! Hunt! Scent! Hunt!” urged the leader of the strangers.
The two beasts looked up from the blanket, it torn in shreds beneath their paws.
“They are beauties,” said the leader of the strangers, “beauties.”
“It is done,” said the officer of Treve angrily. “They have taken the scent.”
“Watch them!” said a man.
I had never seen sleen hunt in a situation such as this. I had seen them, in a little demonstration which had been staged for my benefit, one I was never likely to forget, seek out and rip apart particular pieces of meat, pieces of meat which had been given particular names. The smaller of the two sleen was one which had been imprinted with my own scent and name. I knew a given command could set it upon me. Both of these sleen had also been imprinted, I knew, with the scent, and some name, or signal, associated with the peasant, and could be set upon him. On the other hand, the pit master had not volunteered the appropriate signals to the leader of the strangers. This was not surprising, of course, given the pit master’s obvious reservations concerning the intentions of the black-tunicked men. One does not need such signals, of course, when one has at one’s disposal an article of such utility as the quarry’s robes, or tunic, or blanket.
“Scent! Hunt!” said the leader of the strangers.
“I do not understand,” said a man.
“Surely they have the scent now,” said another.
The sleen had not left the area. The larger one snarled, menacingly.
“Scent! Hunt!” cried the leader of the strangers.
The larger sleen turned in a circle, as though confused. Then it ran down the corridor for a few yards.
“It is hunting!” cried a man.
But then the animal stopped, and turned about.
“It is coming back,” said a man.
The large sleen thrust past the leader of the strangers and ran a few paces down the corridor behind us. In this it was accompanied by the smaller animal. Then they turned about, together, and returned. They went again to the shreds of the blanket. Then they lifted their snouts into the air, and then they put them to the floor of the corridor.
“What is wrong with them?” asked the lieutenant.
“They seem confused,” said the pit master.
“They are stupid animals. Said a man.
“Scent! Hunt!” said the leader of the strangers.
The two sleen now turned about, then they crouched down, their bellies no more than an inch or so from the floor. I heard a very low growl from one of them. Their tails moved back and forth. I saw their ears lie back, against their heads.
“What is wrong with them?” said another.
The eyes of the first sleen, the larger, the more aggressive, fixed on the leader of the strangers. He stepped back.
The larger sleen snarled. There was no mistaking the menace in that sound.
I could now detect a rumble in the throat of the smaller animal. It, too, seemed to regard the leader of the strangers.
“Something is wrong,” said a man.
The leader of the strangers too another step back and drew his blade. He held the hilt with two hands.
Then the larger sleen, scarcely lifting its belly from the floor, crawled quickly forward a foot or two, snarling, and stopped. His companion, to his right, did the same.
I knew little or nothing of sleen, but the intent, the agitation the excitement of the animals, was evident.
Again the two sleen, first the larger, then the smaller, approached, and stopped.
“Draw,” said the leader of the strangers.
But before blades could leave their sheaths the first animal scrambled forward, snarling, charging, its hind feet scratching and slipping, spattering urine back, just for an instant, on the floor of the passage. The second animal was at its shoulder, scarcely a fang’s breadth behind. The leader of the strangers struck wildly down at the first animal, slashing its jaw and the side of its face, turned to orient its jaws to its pray, cutting into it, with his blade, and the force of its charge struck him back and the beast, shoulders hunched, was on him, he on his back, screaming, the other beast now, too, at his body, seizing it in its jaws, tearing it toward itself in its frenzy. The lieutenant and some five of the black-tunicked men, shouting, kicking, crying out with horror, crowded about the intent animals, cutting down at them with blades, trying to stab into those active, twisting bodies. The larger beast lifted its head from the leader of the strangers, its jaws flooded with blood, part of the body in its grip, it bleeding itself from the stroke of the leader’s blade. The smaller animal continued to feed, being struck with stroke after stroke. Neither animal, in its excitement seemed to be aware of, or even to feel, the attack of the other men. Again and again the blades cut and stabbed at them. One man cried out in pain, wounded, by the thrust of another. Then, suddenly the larger animal, snarling, turned about with blurring speed, caught another man in its jaws, shaking him. A blade then found its heart, and in its death throes, not releasing its new prey, it rolled and shook, and half of it fell free to the side. The smaller animal continued to feed until its vertebrae, at the base of the skull, had been severed.
When it became clear that the animals wee dead the men stopped hacking and thrusting at their bodies. Then they drew back, almost as though in shock, their reddened blades lowered. They were breathing heavily, with their exertion. Blood was about, and the parts of two men. I drew back even more, trying not to let it, in its flow, touch me. I understood for the firs time now, clearly, that there was a certain pitch in this part of the passage. This could be determined from the path taken by the blood. Some of it now, tricking, running here and there, was better than twenty yards down the passage. One could see the reflection of the lamps in it. I did not look at the pieces of the leader of the strangers, or of his fellow, caught by the larger beast. The two sleen were masses of blood and hacked fur. Two paws, even, had been cut away, one supposed after the animals had died, the hacking, frenziedly irrationally, prolonged.