To push on was more and more of an effort. The flesh melted from us and sometimes the smallest of acts came as an almost insurmountable burden.
It was on our sixth day after leaving Kynrr’s isle, or so my stumbling thoughts counted, that misfortune struck, as hard as if we had lain between its paws from the start of our journey and now it tired of the game and would put an end to it.
Bialle no longer walked at her steady pace; rather she staggered from side to side, her heavy head but two palms’ height from the rough ground. Now and then she uttered complaints which were like a man’s sigh increased a hundredfold. She needed frequent rests and I would stand panting beside her. Murri I had not seen since that start of this night.
A yowling cry of fear aroused me. That it was Murri in difficulties I had no doubt. But where? By what could he be menaced to bring such a cry from him? For if he were prepared to give battle his voice would not have held that wild appeal.
Bialle bellowed, swung her heavy head, and moved forward at a stagger but I was in front of her, though the treacherous footing slowed me. Then we were on the edge of a slight hollow. Almost this had the general shape and size of one of the algae pools. Out in the depression Murri was struggling, more than half of his body gripped by one of the worst of the land’s traps, a hidden sucking patch which gulped greedily anything unfortunate to come within its borders.
From where Murri flailed, trying to find some firm land, there came puffs of foul stench as if indeed it were the mouth of a living creature and not the ground itself which struggled to engulf him.
I shrugged off my small pack and loosened the coils of rope.
“Murri,” I used the cat sounds as well as my human voice could utter them, “do not struggle—you break the crust all the more. Be ready, take up the rope when it reaches you.”
I fastened the end hurriedly to Bialle and pointed her away from that hidden trap. Then, lying belly down, searching the ground for any mark which might guide me, I wriggled forward, my staff holding a loop made from the other end of the rope. My hands shook from the effort of keeping that above the grip of the sucker pot, and yet close enough to the surface to make sure Murri could reach it.
He had stopped his wild threshing about. However, his fear was as plain as the stench which set us to coughing. My eyes watered and stung from the fumes and I had to keep blinking out the tears which made my vision waver.
“Bialle—Var!” I shouted the herd cry which the yaksen were trained to obey. She gave a second bellow but she was moving, if only at a clumsy, tottering pace.
Now it would depend upon me. I had once seen this type of rescue when on the trail. There was so little time. The sandcat was submerged now nearly to his chin. I angled the staff and it shook back and forth in my hand though I summoned all my strength to hold it straight.
Murri made a sudden desperate twist of his head and a second later the rope snapped taut along the staff. I pulled that back and the rope, shaking free, was still tight and stiff.
Dropping the staff, I edged around so that the part of the rope in my hands was now across my shoulder. It was a struggle to get to my feet without losing grip on that but I made it, though the power of the sucking pulled me backward as if to join me in Murri’s danger.
“Var! Var!” It was more of a breathless cry than a shout of encouragement. But the rope tightened yet more as the yaksen gave her strength so we pulled together.
Though Murri was little more than half grown he was certainly heavier than I. His compact body, even thinned as it was by privation, was still too much for me to draw free by my own. I could only hope that Bialle’s ability to pull, developed as her breed had been used for generations to drag carts along the trails, would provide the extra power we must have.
I slipped to my knees once, skinning my legs on the sharp pebbles, but, by fortune, the shock did not make me lose that hold on the rope. There was no longer in me breath enough to call to the yaksen.
Back! I was being drawn back! I dared not waste time nor effort to look over my shoulder to see how near I now was to surface of which I could be sure.
“Var!” No shout this time but a dry-mouthed whisper. However, as if Bialle could hear that, she gave a sudden lurch ahead and I threw myself into aiding the pull.
For the space of several hard-drawn breaths we kept on. Then the rope was not so taut ahead. It was as if Bialle could no longer maintain the extra effort which had won us so far.
The fumes from the sucking pot were stronger and a racking cough reached my ears from behind. Although—if Mum held the rope in his fangs as I believed, that might endanger all our efforts. Yet the rope was still drawing against my shoulder, chafing through the clothing I wore to erode the skin below.
“Bialle—” I called that beseechingly. I knew that I was very close to the limit of my last surge of strength. The hard traveling of the past days had taken its toll of all of us.
Once more the rope ahead stiffened, there was a forceful pull, and I added to it as I stumbled on. There was a sudden sharp give from behind.
“Murri!” My cry was more a scream. The loosing of that bond had brought me once more to my knees. I must force myself to look back, to accept the fact that our best had not been enough, and all that strength, beauty and lightness of spirit which had been my companion was swallowed up in foulness.
Somehow I made myself make that turn to look.
There was a black blot against the faint glimmer on the ground. Part of it moved feebly from side to side, then eyes opened and were lamps to guide me.
“Murri!” I flung myself toward him, my rope-burned hands catching fur matted with the evil-smelling substance of the trap.
“Brother kin— ” The words were only a rumble in his throat. He was still fighting to rise and I added my strength to his, getting him somehow to his feet. Then we wavered and weaved back well away from that place of death to collapse together.
Just as Murri’s cry for help had urged me on before, now did a low beast moan pull me upright again. There was infinite pain in that—could this whole countryside have been hollowed by such traps and the yaksen now caught in turn? To free her would be impossible.
I crawled to the top of that rise which formed a rim around the sucking pit and saw a large bulk staggering ahead. Praise Essence, she was not caught in one of those fearsome pits.
No, she was not a prisoner. Still this treacherous land had dealt her a death blow. She was struggling to get to her feet as I reached her, but that was impossible, for it was plain that she had broken a foreleg, that some one of those punishing rolling stones had brought her down.
She turned her head to look at me. Yaksen eyes by night did not hold the gleam of those of the cats but I felt her pain and knew her despair. That we could hope to heal her here was beyond possibility.
“Bialle.” I knelt beside her, my hand smoothing the heavy mane fur about her ears, scratching and smoothing as I did when grooming, actions which always relaxed the great creatures. “Bialle, Great One, Strong One. For such as you there is pride. Great One, open wide your heart, let in the essence of the land, of the spirit, be one with the land and with all living things. Pain shall go and that which is truly Bialle shall be free, even as is all life when the time comes—
As I spoke I loosed my knife. Might the spirit of all this land be with me so that I did not falter but would strike true. Though I could not see their glow I knew that her eyes were turned upon me and that she knew what I would do and welcomed it as the kindness of one who had never wished her anything but good.