“He must have been attacked on the other side of the gate,” said a man.
One of the black-tunicked fellows went to the bars of the gate peering though, into the darkness. “Bring a lamp,” he said.
“How did the urt die?” asked a man.
Urts seldom attack their own kind unless their fellow behaves in an erratic fashion, as it might if injured or ill.
“What difference does it make?” asked a man.
“What do you see?’ asked the lieutenant of the fellow by the bars. He now seemed to be gripping them with great tightness. Indeed, he seemed to have pulled himself closely to them, even pressing himself against them. Too, oddly, he seemed taller now, as though he might have stood on his toes.
“What do you see?” asked the lieutenant, again.
“There is a quarrel in the urt!” said a man, suddenly, the beasts, in their feeding, moving about.
“Extinguish the lamps!” cried the lieutenant.
I heard the heavy, vibratory snap of the cable, but did not see the quarrel. It must have been fired from only a foot or so behind the bars of the gate. I did see the lamp move strangely in the hand of the fellow who held it, he who had been summoned to the bars. The other lamp, in the hand of the other fellow, had been dashed from his hand by the lieutenant. “Fire though the gate!” cried the lieutenant, wildly. I heard three bows fire, one after the other. Then I heard a fourth. Urts still squealed and stirred to the side.
“Draw back, reload!” said the lieutenant.
Men must trust past us. Indeed, we fell, or my “cord” did. I was bruised by a weapon as someone went past us.
“Get the slaves across the passage,” said the lieutenant. “Block it!”
The girl next to me cried out with pain. I think she had been grasped by the hair and pulled to her feet. Certainly the cord on my neck, rasping, jerked upward. I cried out in misery. I crouched. The cord was still taut. I must rise. I was subject to the cord. I must be compliant. I scrambled to my feet, in misery, in the crowded darkness, obedient to the imperative of my constraint. The rest of the “cord” rose, too. I then heard another girl cry out with pain, perhaps Fina, kicked, and then that “cord,” too, to the side of us, to our right, was on its feet.
We were frightened. We gasped for breath.
I think they feared that the gate might be lifted in the darkness. That their foe, blade in hand, in the darkness, might come though, either to do them greater injury or slip past them. But I was sure the gate had remained down. Had it risen, I was sure I could have heard it, in its tracks. Too, the urts were quieter now. We could, however, still hear them feeding.
“An interesting stratagem,” said the officer of Treve, in the darkness.
“Excellent Kaissa,” said the pit master.
It was only later that I understood their probable meanings. I was, at the time, confused, sick, afraid, almost unable to stand, waiting there in the darkness, with the others, not knowing if something, an urt, or the prisoner, armed, intent, might suddenly be upon us, perhaps slashing to one side or the other, in some eagerness to get at the men.
But he did not come through the gate in the darkness.
The lifting of the gate, of course, would have marked his position, if only for a moment.
The prisoner had apparently lifted the panels to the urt nest, permitting them access to the walkway, the gate having been raised to permit them, or some at least, into the passageway, the gate then being lowered. It is terribly dangerous, of course, to trap an urt against a barrier, as it will then fight with terrible ferocity. To approach the gate would have trapped them in this fashion, thus making them his allies. But his plan, it seemed, had been even subtler than this. Urts on the other side of the barrier, the men approaching, the corridor dark, necessitating the bringing of light into it, he had apparently, probably with his own body, if not blood, lured urts back, close to the gate. He had then cried out, as though under attack, and, doubtless at the same time, during that seemingly agonized, hideious cry, fired into the urts at point-blank range, thereby killing or wounding one of them, and initiating the feeding frenzy. By the time it had been determined that the victim was another urt the men would have been within range. I was sure now that the one man who had clung, so closely, so stiffly, to the bars, had been struck, though them, with a thrust of the sword, to the heart. It was sure he had not come back with us. The prisoner would then have lifted the crossbow, the quarrel set, and fired again, though the bars, at the man with the lamp, the light illuminating the target. He had killed two men in this fashion and, had the urts behaved differently, might have accomplished the destruction of one r two others. The lieutenant had four men left.
Gratefully, something like a quarter of an Ahn later, kneeling on the floor of the passage, I rubbed my wrists.
“I do not think he will fire on you,” said the pit master. “There are ten slaves, and he will know that there are several, at least. He is limited in his quiver, and he is not likely to use quarrels on slaves.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. But I was not greatly reassured by these worlds. I was more reassured by the fact that I was in a rear group. Yet I had little doubt that he was sincere in his remarks, as he was obviously willing to let Fina be in one of the forward groups. We had now fetched torches and lamps from the passages, whatever was available. Indeed, even the pit master had fetched himself a torch.
“Let us get more men,” said Gito.
“We have taken fee,” said the lieutenant, “as have you.”
“Where is the pit guard?” asked the officer of Treve.
“They have reported in by now, and have not been dismissed,” said the pit master. “I would suppose they are searching for us.”
“Up,” said a man to the slaves, and we rose to our feet.
We were now differently arranged. We were now in five groups of two each, a pair for each of the black-tunicked men, including the lieutenant. Each girl in a pair was tied by the neck to the other with cord. I was with Fecha, on her left, about two feet from her, that much latitude and no more permitted to me by the cord. She had been given a small torch, and I carried a lamp. As we were fastened together we could not well bolt, as coordination in such a matter would be difficult. Too, tied as we were, we constituted, as before, something of a shield, in this case for the one man behind us. We were the forth group. The pair including Fina, the second group, was appropriated by the lieutenant, who seemed aware of her specialness to the pit master. The pit master, with his torch, stayed close to them. The officer of Treve, too, remained in the vicinity of this group. Gito followed the fifth group, several paces behind. This new arrangement, that of five groups, make possible a more diversified deployment of the men, presumably an advantage on the walkway about the urt pool. On the other hand, it would presumably be less effective in blocking passages or in providing a barrier which could be, at a word, a command, raised and lowered, from behind which volley firing might take place.
“Look,” said the man in the lead. He was the second of the two men who had not joined in the attack on the seen earlier. The first was he who had been given the unenviable task of separating the feeding urts. He had, it seemed, lost a great deal of blood. His bow had been set for him by his fellow.
“The gate is open,” said another man.
I did not look at the remains of the man who lay in the passage. The urts had been much at him. It was he who had requested first short earlier.
He had been left where he was, that the urts would be less dangerous, from a heavy feeding.
The other fellow who had died at the gate, who had brought the lamp forward, had been hauled back in the corridor. In this fashion, if the urts pressed on us again, there would be meat to interpose between us and their reawakened appetites.
Had it been deemed useful. I had little doubt that one of more slaves might have been sacrificed, to accomplish the same purpose.
It would have been easy enough to do so, as we were bound, and conveniently at hand, in our neck-cords.