“Loose that—” He motioned to the wedging about the base of the cage. Roane saw what he meant and began to fight at it bare-handed. “I will cover.”
He stayed behind the parapet, watching the head of the stair up which she had come. She was able to loose the wedges at last. Imfry glanced over his shoulder.
“Can you push it over—that way—here—” He joined her, set his good shoulder against the bulk of the cage #nd shoved, she lending her weight to his.
The heavy mass of metal swayed, inclined forward, toppled to slam against the outer parapet, and then overbalanced, to fall. There was a clanging crash. The wall under them vibrated as it caught at the end of the chain length. Roane divined his purpose. They had now a way down outside, if, one-handed, he could take it. And it seemed he would try. For he edged his arm well free of the sling.
“Down!” he ordered.
She fingered the chain nearest her, drawn taut by the weight of the cage, though it swayed. The links were large. She- thought she could fit fingers into them. But could it be descended one-handed?
“Can you-”
“Get down!” he repeated.
There was movement at the head of the stair. He had brought out the weapon, shot at that shadow, to be answered by a cry.
Roane waited no longer. She started down that improvised ladder, and later her feet struck the cage, so that she must climb over it. When there were no more holds, she dropped, using her space training for the best landing she could make.
It was not a light one. She would bear way more than one bruise. She turned. Surely some one of the garrison would be waiting here. But while there was a milling about, shouts and shots around the angle of the wall (the gate being hidden from sight here), as yet there were no soldiers.
““Ware—I am going to drop—” She heard Imfry overhead, saw him holding to the cage, his feet moving as if he were trying to kick away from the wall. Then he let go.
She ran toward him as he made no move. Stunned? Broken bones? The ordeal of that descent with a wound might have been enough to— She pulled at his body, trying to roll him over, knowing they must get away.
Men were coming—out of the village. That weapon—did Imfry , still have it? She tore at the front of his tunic, trying to find it. But there was nothing and the strangers were upon them.
She aimed a blow, had her hand caught in a tight grip.
“Friends!”
The man who had her arm pulled her up and away from the Colonel. Two others were at the side of the fallen man, lifting him between them. Then Roane’s guide drew her along at a half-running pace, while the two carrying Imfry matched that as well as they could. They were past the houses, into a clot of shadowed shrubbery before she fairly caught her breath. She heard the stamp of duocorn hoofs against the turf and they came into a clearing where four men were mounted, holding on checking reins animals manifestly fresh and ready for the trail.
“Ride!” ordered the man with Roane.
The duocorns wheeled under spurring, pounded off to the south. But the men in her party pushed back into the shadows.
“Haffner knows these trails. He will lead them a good chase,” commented one of Imfry’s bearers with satisfaction.
“He had better,” said his fellow. “We shall need all the time we can win. Help with the Colonel, he’s bleeding bad. Needs looking to as soon as we can get him hid.”
14
The medic kit! There was the slim chance that its drugs might not aid one born on Clio. But if they could—
“Please.” Roane moved in the grip of the man who had pulled her into this temporary safety. “I have that which will aid him. Let me—”
“Well enough. But we cannot remain here. There is a chance they may not be misled by that false trail. To the hound hut, Mattine.”
Dawn was well upon them, but it appeared that these men knew what they were about. Even burdened with the Colonel they melted into the brush with fluid ease, while Roane’s guide drew her through openings she herself could not distinguish.
This was not quite one of those hidden brush-and-tree-walled roads, rather a slot in the earth along which they trotted. Roane could hear the heavy breathing of the two carrying Imfry as she followed on their heels and the other man served as a rear guard.
That journey seemed very long, though it could not have been so in either time or distance. Then the bearers halted, and the man behind Roane wriggled through what again appeared a thick wall of brush. Roane tried to get a good look at Imfry.
His head lay against one of his bearers, and his eyes were closed. There was a sticky patch on his shirt.
“Let me—I can help him—” She tried to edge closer, but the man who supported Imfry hunched his shoulder as a barrier.
“Not yet!” His whisper was fierce. “Quiet!”
She huddled, listening. There were sounds. Noises which came, she thought, more from animal than human throats. Then she did catch a voice.
“Ha, Brighttooth, Rampage, Roarer—down—sit! And you, Shrew, Surenose—quiet! Eat, drink, and be quiet!”
The brush screen trembled as their guide returned. All three men wore their hoods pulled well about their faces, so Roane saw little of them save the thrust of their chins. But there was an air of authority in this man.
“Take these.” He had some strips of material in his hands.
From them—Roane’s nose wrinkled in disgust—steamed a nauseating stench. The last thing she wanted to do was touch those rags. But she was given no choice. One of the men supporting Imfry accepted three of the strips, hung one about his own neck and draped one on his fellow and one over the Colonel, while the fourth was thrown in her direction. Reluctantly, her hand shrinking from contamination as she took it, she picked it up.
“Our key to the kennels. I do not think we shall be disturbed there. At least not for a while. Now—before they cast in this direction, let us move!”
They pushed out into a cleared space. There stood a tall fence made of stakes set firmly in the ground, tops sharpened into points. Tall as those were, Roane caught sight of a roof pitch beyond. There was a gate not too far away and their guide went directly to it, drawing a bar which was weighty enough to lock a keep.
Those carrying Imfry crossed the open at a shambling run, as if they were putting forth their best effort to get their burden quickly into hiding, and Roane trailed them. The gate slammed behind her and she heard the bar thud into place, so fastened by the man who had led them. But her eyes were for what lay within.
Direhounds! Like the duocorns, they were not native to Clio but had been imported. And she did not know any planet, save perhaps one of the inner worlds supporting an exotic zoo, which allowed the import of LoM direhounds. Deceptively they were not large, nor ferocious to look at, though the odor given off by their spotted hides could choke one. Their maned heads were down as they tore at chunks of meat.
As the human party moved toward the hut in the center of the pen, two swung around, making no sound, their black lips wrinkling back to bare the double rows of green-scummed fangs. And there was a hot and terrible hate in their eyes.
One took a step and then a second, moving to intercept the men, who had halted, visibly bracing themselves. Then those fringed ears, which had been flattened to narrow skulls as the creatures sniffed the air, went up as if they had caught a familiar sound or their noses some usual scent. Roane held closer to her that rag she had so disdained. It was indeed a key here.
The leading direhound gave a last sniff, turned away to a clay-smeared chunk of meat, its companion copying its action. The men moved on, though it was very hard for Roane not to turn and walk backward as they passed among the gorging animals, the sensation that they would be attacked from the rear so weighed on her.
“The door—open the door—” one of Imfry’s supporters ordered.
She edged past the men, still watching the direhounds with small, distrustful side glances, to push. The door opened readily and they entered into darkness and the stench of the animals, even worse in these confined quarters. Involuntarily she snapped on the beamer.
Along one side of the small room hung joints of meat, blackened and evil-smelling. Above those was a series of narrow shelves on which crowded stoppered containers. From spikes driven into the other walls dangled whips, leashes, collars, and muzzles massive enough to imprison a direhound’s fangs.