The Jargoon Pard (Witch World Series (High Hallack Cycle)) (10 page)

My mind picture of Thaney as I last saw her faded. There was another now, so sharply etched in my mind that I might be viewing her again just as I had watched her in the moonlight, all crystal and life, holding her basket of flowers on high. Witch Girl—Moon Singer—Yet she was of the Star Tower, firm closed against me.

The river flowed below. I went down upon an out-thrust bar of sand that near divided the stream at that point, dropping my muzzle into the water's coolness, drinking deep. Perhaps it was the assuaging of a thirst, I had not realized I had, that banished all fancies to the back of my mind, alerted me to the necessity of living by the hour that was present, not in the past, or anticipating what might be a darksome future.

Once more I fished and found that Fortune favored me with two scaled bodies that I devoured eagerly, leaving not even an edge of spiky fin for any scavenger. The life about me was that of the normal forest world. I sensed no enemy, neither hunter, nor of the Power.

Jutting from the earth at an angle, I found a rock that was shelter from the heat of the sun. Beneath that I lay down, though I feared to sleep, lest I return into the dream Ursilla had spun for my entrapment. If Kethan so feared, the pard's body was oblivious to such dangers. It is natural for any cat, large or small, to sleep more hours than a man. And I could not escape the needs of my present shape.

I roused again near twilight. Probably the beast instincts acted as a goad to drive me out of a slumber, mercifully this time untroubled by dreams. But, as I raised my head and gazed about, I was aware of danger.

What the danger was, or from whence it came, I could not determine. I only knew that my heart beat faster, my lips wrinkled back in a noiseless snarl that was the reaction of the pard. It was only after a moment or two of seeking to identify by my natural sense what threatened me now that I knew the peril was not of the natural world, but stemmed from another plane of existence. Ursilla! The conclusion that she had traced me, was about to resume the struggle between us, followed the recognition instantly.

My unplanned reaction was flight. I was out of my half cave, on the move with the wide bounds of a feline, before I had more than realized what might be the matter. In the open, came speedily the knowledge that I was not the only quarry who chose to run.

Paying no attention to me, who by nature was their enemy, two of the small forest deer matched my speed, drew away, their eyes showing the whites of fear. Before them, at a hard run, pounded three of the wolves who are so rarely seen by men of the Clans that they are near legend. Smaller things rustled in the shrubs and tall grass that bordered the river at this point, showing furred rumps now and then as they fled.

I was startled when I understood that I alone was not the hunted, and my conviction that this was some play of Ursilla's was shaken. However, the terror that kept me in flight mounted when I tried to pause, until fear was commander in my mind, sending me headlong in a senseless race with all the rest.

There were sometimes hunts, out in the open, where men gathered with beaters to scare up the animals, drive them witless with fright toward waiting marksmen. To my Kethan mind, this present assault upon my nerves bore a distinct relation to that. Yet there came no sound of horn, no brazen clamor behind me. Nor would such have sent me headlong in this fashion.

We
were
being hunted. Only the hound that coursed us was a thing out of the Dark, the mere emanation of which was enough to start this stampede. When I settled upon that explanation it seemed to me a certain measure of my panic departed and I was able to regain a little control over my reactions to what drove us.

I began, not to slacken speed, for that I soon discovered I was not able to do, but rather to edge toward the right as I went. For I noted an oddity about this fleeing company, they ran along a single path across country—as if they must keep to a foreordained road.

More and more I angled right, until I had reached what I thought was the very edge of the fugitives’ way. There I gathered all my strength for one great leap—not ahead—but to the side—

My pard body arched through the air. Then—

I could not command my muscles. Falling, my full panic was reborn, to fill my whole mind, drive out intelligence, leave only the beast's fear. In a second, I would dash against the earth.

But—

Something closed about me. I lunged, twisted, to find myself tight prisoner, wound about by sticky cords. I was netted!

Of the Snow Cat and What Chanced in the Haunted Ruin

My struggles were to no avail. Such writhing only drew about me more tightly the cords of the trap into which I had fallen. And, where the bonds crossed my hurts, they stung like living fire until I screamed aloud my pard's squall of pain and terror.

What held me so was part of a web. Fighting to think clearly, to overcome my witless fear by human senses, I could perceive a resemblance, in the now torn strings wrapping me around, to the small webs one finds in the early morning spread in lacy patterns, pearled with dew, in garden and field.

What kind of creature could weave this—a web large enough to hold securely a plunging, fighting pard? That was a chill thought as my struggles grew less, my Kethan mind gaining control.

No man of my own people had ever ventured far into the forest or the hills beyond. Our knowledge of the forbidden country was limited to a handful of second-hand impressions and stories. There were strange creatures aplenty to be seen or met therein, that most men were united in believing. And few of them were ready to welcome my kind—save as prey.

My fighting against the web had tethered me to a tall standing rock. This, I now saw in the light of day, bore deeply incised carvings, which were so old and timeworn that it was difficult to distinguish any real pattern from their curves and lines.

A second such pillar reared some feet away, and it was between the two that the web had been anchored. My struggles had ripped the lines into streamers that had caught about me and the pillar against which I now half hung. Very thin and fragile the threads looked, but I could testify as to their strength.

As I tried to keep control, ceasing my plunging, examining them as best I could, I sensed something else.

Just as I had known that the Star Tower held no evil within its protective barriers, in fact, could be a refuge of sort against the Shadow, here was that reversed. From the pillar beside me came an emanation of cold, of a deadly chill to turn a man's heart and mind into frozen ice. The evil in the chill encased me in a loathsome effluence, as if I now sank slowly into the slime of a pestilent bog.

At first the evil was disembodied, a cloud without form or person. But the more it lapped around me, the more aware I became that it was in some way almost tangible.

And that I would face that —
thing
—and soon.

Shudders I could not control shook my body now. In spite of my furred skin I was naked to the freezing force of whatever Dark Thing had so entrapped me. There was nothing I might do, save wait helplessly for it to come—to—

Movement!

I tried to screw my head farther around, to see more plainly what I had only glimpsed from the corner of one eye. This was an effort, but I managed to achieve a twisted angle of my head that gave me a wide range of vision.

The two pillars between which I was prisoner were backed by a tumble of rocks. No—not
rocks!
They were, in spite of the erosion of time, too carefully shaped. There had once been a building there—the pillars mounting guard before it.

Now the ancient blocks had fallen in upon each other in a heap. No grass had rooted about them, though the cracks were filled with a bleached looking earth. In fact, there was no vegetation within a wide area about the ruin. And in the middle of the rock pile gaped a dark hole.

There was a flicker of movement again within that. At last I had traced the evil to its source. The weaver of this web rested therein, viewing me with an avid pleasure that struck at my reason. I was prey!

Out of the hole, moved by stiff jerks, came a segmented leg. Upheld at the end of that a claw stretched wide enough to perhaps tear the throat out of my pard body. And, through the leg was covered by a hard encasing substance not unlike that of an insect carapace, yet at each joint of the segments there sprouted a tuft of course gray-white hair.

The claw closed upon one of the cords of the web that was still anchored to the pillar, applied a vigorous shaking that I tried to resist. That must have informed the lurking hunter that its trap did indeed enclose some living thing.

Leg and claw instantly snapped back into the hole. But that I had won no more than a very short respite I well knew. My neck ached at the stiff position of my head. Still I must face whatever might come at me from the lair.

The hole, the longer I stared into it, was not entirely black. There were small yellow points of light, very dim —but still there. I counted eight set in two rows.
Eyes!
Eyes surveying me, making sure I was safely a prisoner.

Beyond, the sound of the fleeing animals had died away. It seemed to me that I hung in a moment of utter silence—waiting—Then out of the hole came once more the leg—or arm—and then a second such! Beyond those only the eyes were visible, the rest of the creature lying deeper within the den.

I thought that I had screamed. Then I knew that the furious challenge had not burst from my throat, but another's. A furred shape flowed fluidly into my very limited range of vision, leaped, not at the hole into which the arms had whipped back at the sound, but to the top of the jumble of blocks that formed my enemy's den.

A snow cat! And a larger one than I had ever seen. The creature was in a snarling rage, its yellow eyes afire, its tail whipping from side to side. The gaze of the eyes fixed upon me and now it growled.

Well did I know the reputation of the giant hill cats. They were highly protective of their hunting territories, fighting to the death often to resist any invasion of the stretches of hill and forest that they considered their own. Save during the mating season, they held no contact with their fellows, walking alone and arrogant in their jealous pride.

That a pard was invading the snow cat's territory was indeed a challenge. However, I was already helplessly the prey of the lurker in the hole, no threat to this newcomer. Why did he then wish to attack?

The cat was a male, at the height of his strength and might, I believed. Under other circumstances, I would have thought him a magnificent sight. But—perhaps death under his swift attack would be easier than that which the lurker had planned for me. Only no one welcomes death gladly.

Then—

I squalled again. Not from the pain of any wound, but from fear that struck me more severely than any rippling of claws. There was a
voice
in my mind!

That the Wise Ones could communicate so among their kind was well known. But they did it only when well trained and provided with certain safeguard barriers, so that such an invasion could be controlled and tempered. No ordinary human possessed such a talent, nor would welcome even the thought of it.

“Do not move!”

Did the lurker so warn me? Or the snow cat? Were the great felines thus able to communicate with their kind, unknown to men?

“Do not move.” Again that command was impressed upon my mind.

The cat! Certainly it was the cat!

He was now pressed belly flat on the stone, inching forward to another block, a little lower, that rested directly above the hole. As he extended a paw to place on it, I saw the stone move a fraction. Quickly, the snow cat drew back. He bent his head, sniffed along the inner edge of the block. Or was he examining closely the way it rested upon its fellows?

Whatever he had discovered, made him crouch down and back. I could see muscles ripple under his hide, the telltale twitch of the dark tip of his silver-white tail. He did not advance now with exploratory stealth, rather he leaped, landing full force upon the suspect block.

It gave under him, crashing down. But so quick was the cat that he was again arching his body into the air in my direction even while the block he had loosened by the weight of his body smashed to earth, sealing the hole, perhaps for good.

One of his forepaws, as he landed, had caught in the sticky cords of the web. He did not fight as I had done so disastrously. Rather he moved with infinite caution, drawing back his paw so the broken portion of web was stretched out. Then, lowering it to earth, he sawed the thread back and forth across a drift of grit that formed the soil around the ruin.

Where my most frenzied struggles had produced nothing but a tighter prison, his delicate handling of his bonds broke the cord, loosed him. I would have followed his action if I could, but I was too tightly caught.

“Be still!” He varied his command, padding back and forth just beyond the tangle of the broken web, studying me and my bonds. Then he turned, was gone like a flash of silver.

I was left to my entrapment. The snow cat had bettered my fate by so much—the hole was sealed and no claws now reached for me. The quick death that had been before me could well now become a slow one of thirst and starvation, or of horror, if scavengers chanced upon me so helpless. I had to face that prospect bleakly.

My forepaws were thickly entangled. The pain where the web strands had fallen upon my scratched back and flanks was gone, but my hindquarters were numbed. I had—

Back into view moved the snow cat. He mouthed the end of a branch splintered and gnawed as if he had freed it from the parent tree by the action of his fangs. The leaves, crushed by being dragged along the ground, gave off a strong, nose-wrinkling odor, acrid enough to make me cough and my eyes tear as the cat approached.

He laid his burden down with care that none of the mangled leaves touch his own hide. Approaching, he eyed me and the tangled cord with an absorbed examination.

“Danger—” His thought reached me strongly. “Only way—do not move!”

Once more he grasped the branch in his jaws. Making a visible effort, he swung it clear of the ground, brought it around by the strain of his neck muscles, and dropped the length so that it lay with sap-oozing leaves directly across the strands of the web, but not touching me. There followed a puff that looked like steam rising from the cord.

Where the leaves touched the remnants of the web, it withered, blackened, gave off a nasty stench. Now the withering ran out from the actual contact, along the portions in which I was enwrapped. I felt as if my bonds were being burned away. Perhaps that was what was happening, for they fell from my body in tattered, blackened strands.

That I was free, was all that mattered. I lunged away from the pillar. Only I found it hard to move. The numbness in my hindquarters did not lessen. I staggered, would have fallen had the snow cat not moved up so that his shoulder touched mine, his strength kept me on my feet.

That he was no true cat, I had already begun to believe. Yet there was about him, as we moved slowly away from that pocket of evil, no taint such as had hung about the dweller in the ruin and its trap-web. Another Were? Dared I believe that I had found such?

As my companion shouldered and urged me back into the ground across which the wild hunt had pounded, I no longer sensed the compulsion to flee. That the lurker in the ruins had been the primary cause of that panic, driving the forest creatures, I did not believe. I was certain that what had sent such force to snap at one's heels was a harrowing hound of the Shadow.

The snow cat guided and supported me back toward the river. Slowly my hindquarters began to lose their numbness, but that was no favor from Fortune, for the wounds on my back began again to trouble me. The mounting pain of each step became a kind of red torment in my mind, and, at last, I moved in a haze of agony hardly aware of aught that lay around me.

Why I did not drop to the ground in my suffering I did not know. Save that just as I had been driven by some Shadow will earlier, so now I was kept moving by the determination of the snow cat. He did not again speak to me, mind to mind. However, there was a force radiating from him that acted as a goad of sorts.

In sight of the river he halted, his head up to sniff the air. About us were rocks and crevices. Toward one of those he nudged me. I crawled within, so spent that I thought each effort of raising a paw and putting it down once again was the last I could so endure.

There I crouched, my mouth dry, longing for the water of the stream I could hear from my hiding place, yet could not reach. The snow cat stood between me and the outer world, his stance one of he who waits. Through the ground under me I could feel, even as my pain-dulled ears could hear, the thud of trotting hooves. Men—? Hunters from the Keep?

If they saw the snow cat they would be after two trophies instead of one! He must be warned—Only I had not his trick of mind-speech, I could but utter a low growl.

“Not those you fear.” He did not turn his head to look at me, but his message was clear. “Be silent—”

I could see the rider now. There was only one within sight. He rode clad in mail, an ornate battle helm on his head. Mounted on that was what appeared to be a life-size eagle, its wings half upraised as if prepared for flight. The horse he bestrode was not akin to those of the Clan fold, but plainly of the same blood as the ones I had seen pastured by the Star Tower, the hide dappled, the legs longer than normal.

As the rider noted the snow cat, he did not reach for the sword sheathed at his hip. Rather, he raised his gauntleted hand in salute as a man gives greeting to another he knows. Then the cat moved forward, leaping to a rock that brought his fanged head near on a level with the rider's.

Mount reined in, the rider, whose face was too much in the shadow of the helm for me to see clearly, sat easily in the saddle, facing the cat. Though I heard nothing, either with my ears, or my mind, I was certain that they spoke together by some method of their own.

I could see no belt about the body of the cat. If he were of the Werekin, then he needed no such key to change shape. Was he one of the Wereriders? Their territory was supposed to lie to the southeast of the Clan lands, but that would not prevent them from traveling elsewhere.

At length, the rider once more raised his hand to salute the cat. When he moved on, he changed directions, heading back the same way from which he had come. Had he brought some message?

The cat did not watch him go, but returned swiftly to where I lay. As he neared, his mind-speech was imperative.