Dane lingered to give Dallith a hand, noting that Aratak was falling farther and farther behind. A fine fighting group we make, he thought, strung out all over this hillside. He raised his head to shout at Cliff-Climber to wait.
Dallith gave a strangled gasp; for an instant he wondered if she had picked up his fear, but at that same moment the Mekhar hissed sharply, throwing himself down behind a boulder and gesturing with his arm for the others to take cover.
Dane half pulled Dallith, then Rianna, into the shadow of a huge rock nearby and flattened himself against its side. Aratak had thrown himself flat. There was no cover nearby in which he could hide but, motionless, he blended into the rocky slope like another rock.
Above them Dane saw Cliff-Climber go up the side of his boulder quickly and quietly and crouch, more catlike than ever, at the top. They certainly gave him the right name, he thought. At Dane's side Dallith gave a low moan, and above him he saw the lion-man stiffen. Whatever it is, it's coming, Dane knew.
He saw it, then. A proto-feline, like the Mekhar. Dane remembered the cat-man he had killed—or failed to kill—and his hand lightened about his sword hilt. He tensed, ready to draw.
There was a sudden peculiar change in Dallith's breathing, but before he could analyze or understand it, he saw Cliff-Climber leap to his feet, to stand atop the rock, silhouetted against the sky, in plain view of the newcomer.
That crazy Mekhar! He's going to challenge him to single combat!
The other cat-man had not stopped at the sight of Cliff-Climber, but came straight down the slope toward the Mekhar. And then, insanely, Cliff-Climber turned toward them and waved.
"It's all right," he called down to them, and there was joy in his voice. "He wears the topknot of my clan. He is one of my kindred!" He leaped down from the rock and ran toward the other, calling out to him what sounded like a ritual greeting.
"Hearth-sharer and Hunt-helper—"
Dallith came to her feet, screaming. "No! No! Cliff-Climber, no, no, it's—" She gripped Dane's arm, her nails digging painfully into his forearm. "Stop him! Help him! It's a trick, a trap—" Suddenly she bent to the ground and fitted a stone quickly to her sling.
Confused, Dane looked up the hill, to see Cliff-Climber bound up to the other Mekhar with every evidence of joy and trust—and to see the sun glint on the razor-steel of tipped claws that flashed for Cliff-Climber's unguarded throat.
Then Dane was shouting and his sword was out, and dirt and small stones were sliding out from under his feet as he charged recklessly up the hill, expecting any moment to fall and skewer himself on his own sword. Above him he saw Cliff-Climber reel back, blood spurting from a wound in his throat, and then, staggering, close with his attacker.
From below came a deep, rumbling bellow that could only have been Aratak. Dane shouted again, and fought for balance on the treacherous slope.
The two great cats rolled down the hill toward him, locked together in a death-struggle, both covered in blood: red blood streaming from Cliff-Climber's throat, smearing his opponent's claws; Cliff-Climber's own claws raking down for eyes, entrails. But Cliff-Climber was weakening, and as Dane came panting past the boulder where the Mekhar had crouched, Cliff-Climber gave a sudden convulsive shudder and lay still, blood still gurgling from his torn throat.
The other proto-feline crouched over the body, raised his eyes to glare at Dane. One of Cliff-Climber's hands was still entangled in his mane at the throat—No! Startled, Dane saw that the dead Mekhar's claws were still sunk deep in his killer's throat, frozen there in a death-grip.
At least he gave as good as he got, Dane thought. He took the bastard with him!
And then, incredibly, the cat-man gripped Cliff-Climber's dead arm with both hands, and leaned back. Dane saw the Mekhar's stiffening claws pull through the neck of the other. Blood welled out briefly, then stopped. The cat-man rose, apparently unwounded, and stood facing Dane, crouched in a fighting stance, as the Earthman ran toward him.
Something hit the Hunter on the shoulder and spun him around. One of Dallith's sling stones, Dane realized. And from behind came such a crashing and sliding of rock as could only be Aratak forcing his great bulk up the slope.
Another sling stone cracked on the rock behind the Hunter, and for a moment he hesitated, gripping Cliff-Climber's body as if to carry it away. But as Dane came into striking range the creature wheeled and leaped away up the slope, moving at a speed Dane could not match. He paused on the crest, and a great boulder came loose from its bed and clattered down, forcing Aratak to leap out of its way; then he vanished over the brow of the hill.
Dane clambered stolidly on, cresting the hill. But, as he had halfway expected, Cliff-Climber's killer was nowhere in sight.
He vanished just the way the other one did. And he climbed that slope with his throat torn out.
That probably means the one I killed isn't dead either....
He turned back down the slope. Dallith crouched by Cliff-Climber's body. He thought for a moment that she was weeping, but she turned a white tearless face up to him.
"That was a Hunter?"
"That," he said grimly, "was a Hunter, God help us all."
Rianna bent by Cliff-Climber's blood-smeared corpse. Tears were falling on his matted fur as she gently closed the staring yellow eyes.
"His captain wished him an honorable escape, or a bloody and honorable death," she whispered. "Well, he got it. He got it. Rest in peace, friend."
Dane looked down at the body of their dead ally, and his thoughts were grim. "Do you want all the glory?" Cliff-Climber had asked, and instead he'd got all the death, the first to die, running headlong toward death. "It should have been me," Dane said aloud.
But there was no time to mourn, not even time to bury their dead friend.
On this hillside, if that Hunter has any little pals around, we'd be sitting ducks, Dane thought, and grimly gave orders to move on. Rianna protested, sobbing, and he said gently, "We can't do him any good by getting ourselves killed along with him, Rianna. Let's hope that Hunter's caught the bag limit for one day, and doesn't come back for seconds."
Aratak added, taking Rianna gently by the arm and leading her away, "He is one with all wisdom now, Rianna—or else he is dust returning to dust. Either way, your duty now is to us, as ours is to you. Come, my child."
She let the huge saurian lead her away, but she was still shaken with sobs. Dane, too, felt saddened. He had not realized how deeply the Mekhar had grown into a part of their group. It was not only the gap he made in their line of defense; it was Cliff-Climber himself he knew he would miss. His courage, his cheerfulness under pressure—even his insuppressible arrogance, his sharp, offhand insults.
One gone. Four to go, and they were beginning to know what the Hunters were like—and the picture wasn't pretty.
Can those damned things be killed at all?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The worst of the Hunt, Dane thought, was the way one tended to lose track of time.
He was not sure whether it was the fifth or the sixth day of the Hunt. Time seemed to melt into endless stretches, endlessly braced against attack and kill. They were endlessly alert for the sudden appearance of someone—or something—on slaughter bent. But since the death of Cliff-Climber—was it three or four or even five days ago?—they had met no other Hunters, or at least had been attacked by none. Once indeed Dallith had brought them all to a halt, with a harsh warning; they had taken cover in the underbrush, and far away they had heard the clash of steel and something, a far-off dying scream somewhere. Crouching there, hidden against the growing red moonlight—or rather, world-light from the gibbous Hunters' World above—they waited for attack; but there was nothing, and after a long time Dallith went limp and let her sling fall to the ground.
"It's gone," she said. "Really gone."
"Dead?" Rianna asked.
Dallith sighed and said, "How do I know?"
Now, by daylight, Dane could see that the Hunt was telli
ng on her, perhaps, worst of all. They were all sunburned and dusty with exposure, but under her tan Dallith looked every day a little more pale and drawn; every day her dark eyes sunk more deeply into her face. Rianna sometimes cried with weariness; Dallith neither wept nor complained, but every day she seemed more wasted and haggard.
She needs rest, Dane thought, and uninterrupted sleep, and freedom from fear.
We all do, but Dallith worst of all. She seems able to feel those damned things even in her sleep, and it's probably kept us all alive this long.
They sat resting in the lee of the far range of hills they had seen that first night, beneath the ruins of the city. It stood far up on the top of the bluff, and the worn and eroded cliffsides leading up to it were strewn with dark cave-mouths and long ruined stairs and passageways.
Rianna, looking up at the buildings, said, "I'd like to explore them someday. Under better conditions."
"Not I," Dane said. "If we get off this damned moon alive, I've had enough of it for two or three lifetimes."
"You don't understand," Rianna said. "If the Hunt has taken place here for centuries, the Hunters may even have built this city—"
"Or, more likely, hunted down and killed off whatever did build it," Aratak suggested, "and when all their Prey were dead, could not stop hunting...."
"Stranger things have happened, " Dane said, thinking of Earth's history and the long insanity of the Crusades.
Aratak seemed the least touched by the days of toil and fear, but Dane could see that even he looked weary. He was smeared with gray mud from head to foot—early in the Hunt they had realized that in the long midnight-to-dawn stretches, when they camped in the open, Aratak's habit of glowing blue while he slept could lead the Hunters down on them; and they had adapted this method of controlling his indiscreet luminescence. Fortunately Aratak enjoyed mud, but he had admitted that there was a big difference between the pleasant warmth of wet mud and the wearing of dried mud. Now he scratched absentmindedly at the grayish smears and said, "I think with pleasure of the bathing pools of the Game Preserve. I hope there will be water somewhere in the ruins. The Voice of the Egg, may his wisdom endure forever, once remarked that a banquet was pleasant in hunger, but that the truly wise man, unless he was starving, would refuse a banquet for a bath. Alas, I have verified all too many of his divinely wise sayings in adversity of late."
"I envy your philosophy, friend," Dane said, and hauled himself wearily to his feet. "I think we'll have to go into the ruins to find water; we have food for a day or so, but we need drinking water and you need a bath."
"I thought you were worried about being trapped there," Rianna said.
"I am. But between sunset and midnight we might risk it. The moon—oh hell, it's a moon to us now—the world up there is giving enough light now so that we can probably find our way around well enough for that. But we should be well away by midnight. I suspect the Hunters take a great deal of pleasure in playing hide-and-seek in there, if any of the Prey think it might be a good place to hide."
Rianna looked up at the sky. "Near sunset. Thank goodness."
Dallith nodded grimly. "But we're overdue for an attack. I suspect they like to attack just before sunset because then their Prey are tired from a day of running, and are ready to let their guard down."
"I suspect you're right," Dane said, "which means it's the best time to keep our guard at top pitch. Well—let's go. I'd like to reach the ruins just after sunset—and avoid having to fight our way inside."
Days of traveling, on the alert for attack, had perfected the best lineup, but every time they formed for march Dane still missed Cliff-Climber's alertness. Now, as they crested the brow of a small hill, Dane saw a stirring in the underbrush beneath them, and the flash of brownish-gold. A Mekhar—or one of the catlike things they had fought twice now. He gestured to the others behind him. They halted, falling into their defensive formation; Rianna knelt and planted the butt of her spear against a boulder behind her; Aratak and Dane took up positions to either side. Dallith leaped to the top of the rock, her sling ready.
The lion-man looked out at them for a moment, then turned and ran, melting away into the underbrush. Dane gave a sigh of relief and lowered his blade.
"I don't think that was a Hunter," Dallith said, behind him. "He seemed too frightened. I think he was Prey. Like ourselves."
"We can't be sure of that," Dane said. Damn near anything, he thought, would be frightened at the sight of that five-foot club of Aratak's. Even a Hunter might prefer easier prey. The knob at the club's end was nearly twice the size of Dane's head.
Dallith jumped down from the rock. "It didn't feel like that thing that killed poor Cliff-Climber," she insisted. "It felt"—she hesitated, groping for words—"a little like Cliff himself. Only not so brave."
"Probably one of the Mekhars—the ones he called common thieves," Dane said, and felt in himself a curious mixed reaction: on the one hand a desire to find the poor scared Mekhar, who was, after all, of Cliff-Climber's kind if not of his class; on the other a strange aversion to association with someone Cliff-Climber had evidently felt beneath him. "But we could use a Mekhar's eyes and ears now," he said, "if only to give you a rest, Dallith."
Rianna let her spear drop. "I've no reason to love the Mekhars," she said grimly; "they brought us here. As far as I'm concerned, the Hunters can have them, and welcome. They're all pretty much of a kind, as far as I'm concerned."
Dane said no more. After all, he thought, it could still have been a Hunter. Dallith might have been wrong.
I'm tired of being Prey, he thought. I'd like to start hunting them down instead. But that was foolish and he knew it. For one thing, they didn't even know if the Hunters could be killed. Anything which could run away with its throat torn out was no ordinary proto-feline. Next time, damn it, I'll cut the head right off and see if the critter's still so frisky!
"Shall we keep moving?" Aratak suggested. "Even if that feline was Prey, it might have a Hunter after it." Slowly they moved on down the slope and began to follow the valley at the bottom, taking the easiest path to avoid tiring themselves, but alert to the possibilities of the place for ambush.
Dane was thinking over the various encounters they had had. "Even if we may be wronging some of our fellow Prey," he said at last, "we have some idea of what sort of creature we should avoid at all costs. Both of the Hunters we've actually faced have been Mekhars—or at least proto-felines, and near enough to the Mekhar type to fool Cliff-Climber into thinking he was one of his own clan. If we avoid anything that looks even slightly like a Mekhar, we ought to be safe."
"I'm still not convinced," Aratak said stubbornly. "Remember the other proto-saurian at the Armory, which did the same kind of disappearing trick which the imitation Mekhar did. I still believe the Hunters are more than one species."
The sun angled downward. Furtive figures sometimes watched them from a distance, and once Dallith said she felt sure that one of the stalkers was near, but no one approached.
"The very fact that we're traveling together may be some protection," Aratak said. "Most of the other Prey might feel that any organized group must be Hunters."
"And the Hunters," Dane said, "are probably picking off the easy ones first. Or the ones they can trick—like poor Cliff-Climber."
Aratak said grimly, "If I'm right, and there are more than one species, then if I were you, Dane, I would be very careful of anything that looks like a man and tries to get too near."
"Damn it," Rianna said suddenly. "I have this feeling that I ought to know the answer. But I can't put my finger on it. It makes my brain itch."
"Save your breath," Dane said gently. "Tell us later. We're within an hour or so of sunset, and then we can rest."
They moved along for some time in silence; suddenly, as she emerged from the lengthening shadow of a rock, Dallith started as if she had been stung, and called softly for them to wait.
They stood still and tense as deer scenting the wind, un
til she spoke. "One of them is very close, and it's stalking... it's on some kind of scent… but I think it's after someone else.... I can feel..."
She stopped as there came a shriek from nearby, then sounds as of metal striking metal. "They're fighting—over there, beyond that pass—"
She pointed ahead where two pillars of stone rose, forming a narrow, gate-like cleft. Dane suddenly whipped out his sword.
"To the devil with this! They're just waiting to kill off some of the other poor suckers before coming after us! They want to kill us off one by one, and we're not cooperating, so they're saving us for last. Let's turn the tables on them if we can—and start by helping that poor devil in there!"
"You're crazy," Rianna said flatly, but Aratak shouldered his giant club and started toward the cleft. "There is wisdom in cooperation," he said. "If we can get there in time to help—and if we can tell Hunter from Hunted." He broke into his lumbering run; Dane hurried after him. Dallith stood frozen a moment, than ran after them and Rianna, reluctantly, brought up the rear.
But as he threaded his way through the cleft Dane's rage began to cool. Maybe this was crazy! His entire being revolted at the thought of standing by, not getting involved, while a fellow creature was done to death almost within earshot; but he was risking Aratak's life as well, and the lives of both the women, to help someone they didn't know, couldn't trust, probably couldn't save anyway; and to kill something which might not even be killable in the first place... We've still got four or five days to go; we should save our strength, he thought.
He thrust through the cleft and stood looking down into a little round natural amphitheater below. Behind him Rianna cried out softly with dismay.
One of the cat-men lay apparently dead, off to one side. Another, brandishing what looked like a European two-handed sword, stood facing a spider-man—one like the survivor of the last Hunt, like the one they had seen feted and honored in the Game Preserve back on the Hunters' World. And now he could tell how that spindly, frail-looking creature had managed to survive, alone, through an entire Hunt.
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