I caught the scent of water and remembered that a small stream ran from the pool where I had bathed my feet. Suppose I used that for my roadway, would it confuse my trail? What knowledge I had of such matters came only from tapes I had scanned for my amusement. And such hunting reminiscences, compiled from a man’s point of view, might be very faulty indeed when applied to my present plight.
However, I could see no better answer, and waded into the stream to follow its course. But I had not gained much distance when a loud clamor from the place where I had lain sounded real menace. And I guessed the worst. The hounds had picked up my scent and, by some frown of fortune, had decided I was the better sport.
It was sheer panic which led to my downfall. I ceased to think. Like the plains animal that had fled, I ran, intent only upon leaving behind me that pack. And the rigors of my traveling had sapped my strength, so that though I strained to cover the ground, I knew that I could not draw far enough ahead. I leaped a -wall, ran across a field and—
There was no longer ground under my pounding feet. I was in the air … falling . .. falling …
XII
SAND FLEW UP about me, my body jarred against the earth with a force which both drove the air from my burning lungs and dazed me. Then I heard, if dimly, the wild chorus of the hounds, and struggled to rise. My vision was blurred, but slowly it cleared enough to show me that I was imprisoned in a steep-walled pit A man with fingers and toes to cling to the irregularities of those walls might have climbed out. For four paws with blunt nails it was an impossibility.
I threw back my head and howled. And that cry, rendered more resonant by the earthen funnel which held me, brought silence for a moment or two to the slavering pack now ringing the opening above. Excited by the chase though they were, none ventured to leap down and join me, but took out their hatred in their cries.
Then some of them were brushed roughly aside and I saw, from the angle at which I must hold my head, men looking down at me. The first shouted in open amazement and the others stared wide-eyed. One of them raised a crossbow and I wondered if I could possibly dodge any shot, penned as I was. But he who stood beside the archer struck down the weapon with an angry order.
For a time I lay panting while the hounds and one of the men kept watch; the others had gone. Then there was a thud, and a mass of cords landed on and about me. I jumped to my feet, which was just what they wanted. For the net was jerked tight in an instant and I found myself helplessly entangled in its folds, being hoisted out of the pit.
The hounds leaped for me, to be beaten off by their masters as I was dumped, net and all, into a farm cart. So bound, I was transported to a farm and pitched into a dark shed.
About me the smell of animals, the acrid stench of man was thick. I panted, my lolling tongue and mouth ash-dry. Water—just a few drops to lick— But no one came near the shed as the hours wore away.
The shock of my landing in the pit remained in aches throughout my body, but the need for water became an all-demanding obsession. At last I tried feebly to use mind touch, of which I had been afraid, lest superstition lead to my instant death.
There were minds about me, yes. But though I tried with all my failing energy to implant in one of them my need for water, my harmlessness, there were none I could hold long enough to make my wants known.
I fell into an apathetic state, unable to keep fighting a lost battle. And so they may even have thought me dead when they did come at last, how much later I had no means of telling, save that it was dark outside when they pulled out the net and slung the package which held me into a cart once more. We passed a small pond and the smell of water roused me enough to whine, to raise my head. Then a blow sent me into unconsciousness.
Day now, bright sun hurt my eyes. And my ears were deafened by a clamor of shouts which I could not understand. The cart stopped and two men stood by its lowered tailboard, looking in at me.
“Water-” I tried to shape the word, but what came from my gaping jaws was a hoarse and despairing whine. One of the men leaned closer and when he spoke it was in the dialect of Yrjar which, very long ago, I too had spoken.
“Barsk—ten tokens—”
“Ten scale tokens?” exploded the other. “When, counterman, do you ever see a barsk here? And a live one—”
“Barely so,” the first commented. “I will say perhaps he remains so until sundown. And that hide—it is cut-Even cured I could get nothing for it as fur.”
“Twenty—”
“Ten.”
Their voices became a drone, they wavered behind a misty curtain which now dropped before my eyes. I was very willing to drift into a beckoning dark which promised comfort and no more torment.
But I was roused to life again as the net was pulled from the cart and I was carried into a darker place, where the stink of ill-kept animals was ripe and heavy. Once before—my memory was like a spark to be extinguished forever-once before I had smelled just that stench. When? How?
Iron grip about my throat, hurting, choking- Feebly I tried to snap, to pull away. But instead that pressure impelled me into a small dark place, and then left me in cramped confines as a lid was slammed down. Two holes in the side gave small eyes of light, very little air. There was some straw, evil-smelling, for I was not the first captive to bide there. And the smell was not only of other bodies, but of minds also, filled with fear and hate, thickened by despair.
I tried to curl up my aching body, pillowed my head on my forefoot, seeking what small relief there could be in retreating from memory, from thought, from all around me. So I existed, or lingered; I did not live.
There was no water. Sometimes I thought or dreamed dimly of water, of how I had walked down those streams with the wavelets curling about my legs, sleeking my fur. And then it seemed that it had all been only a dream and there had never existed any world beyond this stifling box. There was no time, only an eternity of torture.
A snap overhead, the box top was raised to let in air and light. I think I tried to lift my head, but something heavy struck across my neck, pinning me to the noisome floor. And I could not see who stood surveying me.
“—near dead. You would offer that to my lord?”
“A barsk. When do you see a barsk alive hereabouts, Freesh?”
“Alive? Near dead, as I have said. And the hide— that is worth nothing either. You ask fifty tokens? You are fit for the Valley if you hold to that, fellow.”
The pressure was gone from my neck, an instant later the lid slammed down to leave me once more in a prison. “Near dead—near dead—near dead—” The words buzzed in my ears. “Barsk—near dead—”
A barsk was an animal. I was not an animal, I was a man—a man! They must know, must let me out. I was a man not an animal. That life spark which had flickered close to extinction in me a moment earlier flared up again. I tried to brace my weakened body against the walls of the box, to attempt to fight my way to freedom. It was no use. Muscles twitched, but there was no strength left in me.
“A man—a man!” I could produce no sound but a faint whine. But my thoughts shrieked to the world outside the box. “A man dies here—not an animal but a man!”
And with lightning swiftness a thought, clear and forceful, locked with mine. I clung to it as one loosed from a ship’s hull in space flight during repairs would cling to his lifeline.
“Aid—for a man who dies-”
“Where?” came the demand so clearly that its very force brought answering energy to my mind.
“In a box—in a barsk body—a man not an animal—” I tried to hold that lifeline of thought which seemed to slip through the hold of my mind, as though the gloves of a ship-space line were greased and could not hold. “A man—not an animal!”