“He is like the savages of the barrens,” said a man.
“He is a beast,” said the leader of the strangers. “He has the cunning of a beast. He has the stealth of a beast. He has the savagery of the beast.”
One of the men murmured assent.
“He is not human,” said the leader of the strangers. “We are hunting something which is not human.”
“Captain,” said the lieutenant.
“Yes,” said the leader of the strangers.
“Emmerich had a bow, and quarrels. They were not with the body.”
“I know,” said the leader of the strangers, irritably.
“I think we may then assume,” said the lieutenant, “that the prisoner is in possession of, or has access to, a missile weapon.”
“I think that is a fair assumption,” said the leader of the strangers.
The black-tunicked men exchanged glances.
Gito whimpered.
As the two guards had been slain, and the other man, he who had been missing, had been found strangled in the corridor, there were left of the strangers, other than their leader, his lieutenant and Gito, just seven men.
“He is not human,” said the leader of the strangers. “He is a beast, a mad and dangerous beast.”
“Let him then be hunted as a beast,” said the lieutenant.
“You have changed your position on the matter then?” said the leader.
“Yes, Captain.”
“You have two sleen available?” asked the captain of the pit master.
“Yes,”
“Hunters?”
“Yes,”
“They are similar beasts, similarly agile and aggressive?”
“Yes,” said the pit master. “It is unlikely that one could far outdistance the other.”
There would be then time only for one shot with the bow.
“Have them here in the morning, ready to hunt,” said the leader of the strangers.
“As you wish,” said the pit master.
“Set a double guard, four men, in two pairs,” said the leader of the strangers.
“Yes, Captain,” said the lieutenant.
“It seems he was indeed here,” said a man to Gito.
“Yes,” said Gito, looking about himself, “yes.”
“Why did he come here?”
“He came to bid me farewell,” said Gito.
“Why?” asked the man.
“I am his friend,” said Gito.
“I see,” said the man.
“Secure the slaves,” said the leader of the strangers.
“Slaves, prepare to be secured,” said a man.
We, those of us who had been freed earlier in the alarm to accompany the men, there were six of us, quickly hurried to the wall and knelt there, close to it, facing it. We were aligned now, spatially, with the others, as we had been before the alarm. I felt by bound wrists pulled up and inspected. They were still well tied. I then, in a moment, felt the ankle ring snapped shut about my ankle. I was then again fastened to the wall. When we were all secured, the men left us, and we lay down, or reclined, frightened, as we might.
“The sleen will finish him, in the morning,” said a man.
“Yes,” said another.
I saw Gito across the way. I did not think he would sleep. I did not think I would sleep either. But, in a few moments, despite my fear, my aching arms, the hardness of the stone, I had lost consciousness.
37
I did not want to be touched by the animals. I feared them terribly. One must have been fifteen feet in length, and the other close to twenty. I could not have begun to put my arms about one. The leg just above the paw in the larger animal must have been some six inches in thickness. They were leashed, the leashes going to rings on huge leather collars, four to five inches in width, an inch or two in thickness. I dreaded even that they might rub against me, those huge bodies, with their glossy, oily fur. It was easy to see how men might not be able to control such beasts. Their tongues lolled out now. They seemed passive enough, at the moment. Their breath was heavy, a sort of panting, as they padded along with us, but it was regular, and showed no signs of particular excitement. Perhaps they were merely being exercised. Their heads, broad at the back, tended to taper toward the snout, rather like those of vipers. The length of their body, too, with its six legs, tended to suggest a furred serpent, or reptile. Such things are mammalian or mammalianlike, however, in the sense of giving live birth and suckling the young.
Two of the black-tunicked men clung to each leash. Again the black-tunicked men did not wish pit guards present. Once again they had been dismissed. Even with two men on a leash I did not think they would be able to hold the animals if they should be determined to go their won way. But, to be sure, these were hunting sleen, and not intended to hunt on the leash, but rather only when unleashed.
I cried out a little as one of the beasts brushed past me. I had felt its ribs, like iron bands beneath the smooth, rippling muscles, sheathed in the oily pelt. Even in that brief, smooth touch I had sensed a considerable force, like a wave in the sea. But such beasts are not only powerful. They are extremely agile as well, and can easily top a thirty-foot wall. Over a short distance they can outrun fleet game. Their front claws, used in burrowing, can tear through heavy doors. Sometimes it takes ten spears to kill one.
“We will loose them here,” said the leader of the strangers.
We stopped.
We were at the intersection of several passages, at a point we had reached last night, and a point we were sure the prisoner had occupied at least once, for it was here that the extinguished lamps had ended.
The beasts looked about, puzzled.
This was surely not their pen.
In our group were the leader of the strangers, his lieutenant, Gito, his seven men, the pit master, the officer of Treve, and ten slaves, in two groups of five each. The members of each group were tied together by the neck, presumably not merely to control us, as a coffle chain might, but to keep us together, making our disposition as a shield, or wall, more effective. The two groups might precede the men, forming a double wall in the passage, or, if the men wished, one group might precede and the other follow, in this fashion providing protection for both the front and rear. I was in the second group as I had been seventh in the slave line, my position there determined by my height. Both groups, however, at this point, were muchly together. As before, we were unclothed. Our hands, too, as before, were tied behind our backs.
“Bring the sack forward,” said the leader of the strangers.
It was done.
This was the sack which contained the blanket which had been taken from the prisoner’s cell yesterday morning. It was sealed, and the seal, with its dangling string, had not been broken.
“Loose the sleen,” said the leader of the strangers.
The heavy collars were removed from the throats of the two sleen. There is a difference in custom here with various sorts of sleen, which might be remarked. War sleen, watch sleen, fighting sleen, and such, when freed, would normally retain the collars, which are often plated and spiked, for the protection of the throat. With hunting sleen, on the other hand, the collars are usually removed. There are two views on this matter. One view is that the collar might jeopardize the hunt, for example, that it might be caught in a branch, or be somehow utilized to restrain the animal before it has located its quarry. The other is that the removal of the collar returns the beast to its state of natural savagery, that it removes from it any inhibitions which might have resulted from its familiarity with human beings. Certainly it is difficult to recollar a hunting sleen until it has made its kill, until it has been pacified, sated with the predestinated blood and meat. The two views, of course, are not mutually exclusive.
When the collars were removed the behavior of the two animals were significantly altered. They seemed to become a great deal more restless.
Usually, of course, such things hunt in the open.
One urinated in the passageway. Its urine has an unusually strong odor. In the wild, urine and feces are used to mark territories.
The head of the larger animal moved from side to side. The smaller animal began to make a tiny, excited, anticipatory noises. I had heard such noises before meat had been thrown to them. Saliva fell from the jaws of the larger animal. It moved between the men to put its head against the thigh of the pit master. It was only he, one supposes, of those in the corridor, it recognized.