Loud cries from the trees echoed the hoots of the giant. Sander expected to see the forest things drop from the branches to the rescue of their beleaguered female. Yet they did nothing but keep up their clamor as she stamped about, striving to pluck away her attackers. She loosened Kayi by tearing loose her own flesh still clamped in the fisher’s jaws, flinging the animal from her. But when she sought to reach Kai again, the smaller fisher flashed in once more apparently unharmed by that rough handling.
Suddenly, a fountain of blood burst from the side of the giant’s throat. Kai, worrying away, had severed an artery. The forest woman gave a last hoot and sank forward to her knees, while Kayi returned, to snap and tear at her body. She pawed feebly, trying to reach the creature on her back, and then slumped. Her terrible head came to rest upon a block like a mask of hideous death while a river of blood ran across the stones. The chittering of her people, still hidden in the trees, sank into silence even as she died.
The fishers backed away from the body, as if, since the death of the giant, they found the scent and taste of her torn flesh noisome. Sander waited, expecting that unseen audience in the trees to burst down upon them, clubbing both animals and the helpless prisoners. He and Fanyi might have escaped whatever particularly grisly fate the giant female planned, but they had certainly not won their freedom.
That beat had stopped. Sander was no longer aware of it. But he could hear rustlings and movements in the trees and braced himself for a final attack. When that did not come, he grew even more apprehensive, fearful that they might not be killed at once by the forest creatures, but rather be the victims of some crueler and more prolonged fate.
The fishers crouched by Fanyi, their heads up and turning from side to side as they kept their attention fixed on the trees. Fierce as the animals had shown themselves to be in that surprise attack, Sander thought they would be helpless as Fanyi should the tree men use their nets.
Moments passed. He could no longer even hear movement overhead. The sun beat down hotly in the clearing and the smell of death was strong.
“They are gone.” Fanyi broke the waiting silence.
“What?” Sander tried to raise his head higher to catch a glimpse of what might lie beyond the curtain of the leaves.
“They have gone,” she repeated.
Perhaps they might have for now. But that did not free their captives. The constriction of the ropes binding him was now a torment, as his awareness turned toward his own condition and away from the menace of the giant.
“Lie still,” Fanyi said now. “I have heard of these vines. There is an answer to them also. But be still—let me try to make Kayi understand what must be done.”
He could not move at all now, and his fear took another form—that the continued constriction of the rope would slowly cut his body to pieces, crush his back with the weight of his own pack and its smith tools. There was nothing he could do but be still, whether at her orders or not.
The heat of the sun on his face brought back the pain in his head, and he longed for water, for the easement of his bonds. Kayi had crouched by the girl, muzzle nearly touching Fanyi’s face. They were utterly quiet as they matched stares with one another.
Meanwhile Kai prowled about the clearing, stopping under each tree to gaze upward, as if in search of more prey. Now and then his body, large as it was, was hidden behind some of the blocks. Twice the fisher reared his length against a tree trunk, peering up, his head swinging a little right and then left, as if he sought by scent what he could not see.
Sander looked back to Fanyi and Kayi. The fisher shuffled away from the girl and deliberately dabbed one forepaw and then the other into the pool of blood that had dropped from their dead enemy. With the same care she then scraped her claws into the earth so that loose dust adhered to them.
Thus prepared, she came back to Fanyi and set her filthy claws within the bonds of the net, plainly using her full strength as she strove to tear the mesh.
It was necessary for her to make many trips to recoat her claws against the sticky surface of the ropes. But each time she returned to her task. Sander had some lapses from consciousness. The pain in his head, the steady pressure on his back caused blackouts, and he did not know how long they lasted. He expected the forest creatures to return at any moment, and now he no longer cared. Finally he passed entirely into that dark world which had been lapping at him.
He awoke, choking a little, liquid spewing from his mouth. Then, still not quite aware, he swallowed painfully once and again, as more water was dribbled between his dry lips. But he could breathe, the pain in his back was no longer constant. He shifted and knew that he was free from the net. Fanyi leaned above him, pouring the water a few sips at a time into his mouth.
“We—” His voice sounded fuzzy and far away.
“Can you move?” she demanded. “Try! Can you sit—stand—?”
Her urgency reached him only dimly through the haze that wrapped about him. But obediently the smith dragged himself up to his knees, then, with her tugging at him, lurched to his feet.
The sun no longer baked them so fiercely, but they were still in the clearing and the giant’s body—Sander averted his eyes hastily.
“Come!” Fanyi pulled at him until he staggered a pace or so ahead. Then he stopped, swaying.
“My tools!” The first truly coherent thought struck him. He would not abandon all that belonged to his past.
“Kai brings them!” the girl snapped impatiently. “Come!”
The male fisher was lumbering along, dragging Sander’s pack, jerking at it when it caught against the edge of a block or the branches of a bush. And since Sander doubted if he could stoop to reclaim it and then keep going, he had to be content.
He wavered on, glad to feel strength return as he went, even though the torment of renewed circulation accompanied the motion. His mind began to clear also.
“The tree things—” He strove to find words for his ever-present foreboding.
“They have not returned—I do not know why,” Fanyi admitted. “Unless when the fishers slew their great woman they were so in fear that they will not face Kai or Kayi again. Still they may come hunting. But the furred ones will not let them reach us without warning this time.”
“Where do we go?”
“There is a path,” she replied. “It leads right—eastward. I think we are safer heading for the sea than trying to return through the forest.”
To that he agreed. Fanyi had been carrying his dart thrower, now she pressed it back into his hold.
“This is your weapon; have it ready. We know not what manner of revenge these beast-things may plan.”
He took it eagerly. If she was right and the fishers could warn them of any future attack by the net, then they would have a chance. He had seen no weapons other than the clumsy clubs.
Since he could now walk alone, Fanyi moved a little ahead, her own pack firmly against her shoulders, Kayi bounding with her, while the larger male formed their rear guard. Sander found himself listening.
The beat, which was more vibration than sound, had been silenced. The whole woods was quiet now, too—no more twittering of birds or other hints that any life beside their own had even ventured under this green roof. It was only then that Sander caught, faint and seemingly from very far away, a yelp he knew. Rhin!
But if the koyot trailed them into this deadly tree trap, he might well be netted as they had been! And Sander had no way of warning the animal not to venture here. Or had he?
The smith paused, drew breath deep into his lungs, and then uttered a cry that bore no relation to the whistle that usually summoned Rhin. Instead this was a deep-lunged yowl—the war call of the great mountain cat. Whether Rhin could catch his meaning he did not know—he could only hope.
Both fishers whirled to face him, snarling. Fanyi’s surprise was open. Twice more he sounded that cry, thinking that the desperation which had set him to mimic it had indeed this time produced almost the proper timbre.
“Rhin,” he explained. “He must not come and be caught. That is the cry of an old hill enemy. But perhaps unlike it enough in his ears to be a warning.”