Laintal Ay wiped his forehead and made another approach to the captive.
It brought its long head down so as to look him levelly in the eye. It was blowing softly. He was aware of the horns pointing at him, and made coaxing noises, poised to jump aside. The great beast shook its ears against the base of its horns and turned away.
Laintal Ay controlled his breathing and moved forward again. Ever since he and Oyre had made love by the pool, her beauty had sung in his eddre. The promise of more loving hung above him like an unreachable bough. He must prove himself by that imaginary great deed she required. He woke every morning to feel himself smothered in dreams of her flesh, as if buried under dogthrush blossom. If he could ride and tame the kaidaw, she would be his.
But the kaidaw continued to resist all human advances. It stood waiting as he approached. Its hamstrings twitched. At the last possible moment, it bucked away from his outstretched hand, to prance off, showing him its horns over one shoulder.
He had slept in the stockade with it on the previous night—or dozed fitfully, afraid of being trampled under its hoofs. Still the beast would not accept food or drink from him, and shied away from every approach. The performance had been repeated a hundred times.
Finally, Laintal Ay gave up. Leaving Dathka to slumber, he returned to Oldorando to try a new approach.
Three hours later, as the Hour-Whistler sounded, a curiously deformed phagor approached the enclosure. It dragged itself through the fence with awkward movements, so that gouts of wet yellow fur were torn out by the thorns, to remain hanging among the twigs like dead birds.
With a dragging gait, the oddity approached the kaidaw.
It was hot inside the skin, and it stank. Laintal Ay had a cloth tied round his face, with a sprig of raige against his nostrils. He had made two Borlienian slaves dig up the three-day-old corpse and skin it. Raynil Layan had soaked the skin in brine to remove some of its unpleasant associations. Oyre accompanied him back to the enclosure and stood with Dathka, waiting to see what happened next.
The kaidaw put its head low and breathed a soft question. Its dead mistress’s saddle, complete with flamboyant stirrups, was still strapped about its girth. As soon as Laintal Ay reached the puzzled beast, he set one foot high in the near stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. He was mounted at last, positioned in front of the animal’s single low hump.
Phagors rode without reins, crouching over the necks of their mounts or holding the harsh frizzled hair growing along the ridge of their necks. Laintal Ay clutched the hair tightly, awaiting the next move. From the corner of his eye, he could see other villagers, strolling across the Voral bridge, coming to join Oyre and Dathka and watch the proceedings.
The kaidaw stood in silence, head still low, as if weighing its new burden. Then, slowly, it began an absurd movement, arching its neck inward, bringing its head round until its eyes, from an upside-down position, could look up and regard the rider. Its gaze met Laintal Ay’s.
The animal remained in its extraordinary position but began to tremble.
The trembling was an intense vibration, seemingly originating at its heart and working outwards, much like an earthquake on a small planet. Yet still its eyeballs glared fixedly at the being on its back, and it was bereft of voluntary movement. Laintal Ay also stayed motionless, vibrating with the kaidaw. He remained looking down into its twisted face, on which—so he afterwards reflected—he read a look of intense pain.
When it did finally move, the kaidaw shot upwards like a released spring. In one continuous movement, it came erect and jumped high in the air, arching its spine like a cat’s and curling its clumsy legs beneath its belly. This was the legendary spring jump of the kaidaw, experienced at first hand. The jump took it clear over the stockade fence. It did not even brush the uppermost sprigs of thorn.
As it fell, it snapped its skull down between its forelegs and thrust its horns upwards, so that it struck the ground neck first. One of the horns was immediately driven through its heart. It fell heavily on its side and kicked twice. Laintal Ay flung himself free and sprawled among the clover.
Even before he climbed shakily to his feet, he knew that the kaidaw was dead.
He pulled the stinking phagor skin from his body. He whirled it round his head and flung it away. It fell into a sapling’s branches and dangled there. He cursed in frustration, feeling a terrible heat inside his head. Never had the enmity between man and phagor been more clearly demonstrated than in the self-destruction of this kaidaw.
He took a pace towards Oyre, who was running to him. He saw the villagers behind, and bands of colour. The colours rose, took wing, became the sky. He floated towards them.
For six days, Laintal Ay lay in a fever. His body was lapped in a flamelike rash. Old Rol Sakil came and applied goosegrease to his skin. Oyre sat by him. Aoz Roon came and looked down at him without speaking. Aoz Roon had Dol with him, made heavy with child, and would not let her stay. He departed stroking his beard, as if remembering something.
On the seventh day, Laintal Ay put on his hoxneys again and returned to the veldt, full of new plans.
The fence they had built already looked more natural, dappled all over with green shoots. Beyond the enclosure, herds of hoxneys grazed among the bright- coloured pastures.
“I am not going to be beaten,” Laintal Ay said to Dathka. “If we can’t ride kaidaws, we can ride hoxneys. They are not adversaries, like kaidaws—their blood is as red as ours. See if we can’t capture one between us.”
Both of them were wearing hoxney skins. They picked out a white-and-brown- striped animal and approached it on hands and knees. It was resting. At the last moment, it got up and walked away disgustedly.
They tried approaching it from different sides, while the rest of the herd watched the game. Once, Dathka got near enough to touch the animal’s coat. It showed its teeth and fled.
They brought up the rope taken from the gillot and tried to lasso the animals. They ran about the plain for several hours, chasing hoxneys.
They climbed young trees, lying in wait in the branches with the lasso ready. The hoxneys came sportingly near, pushing each other and whinneying, but none ventured under the bough.
By dusk, both men were exhausted and short-tempered. The nearby carcass of the kaidaw was being stripped by several scholarly-looking vultures, whose clerical garb contrasted with the gobbets of golden meat they were swallowing. Now sabre- tongues arrived, driving the birds away and quarrelling over the feast among themselves. Soon it would be dark.
The two retired to the comparative safety of their enclosure, ate pancakes and goose eggs with salt, and went to sleep.
Dathka was the first to waken in the morning. He gasped and propped himself on one elbow, hardly able to believe his eyes.
In the cool dawn light, colour had scarcely returned to the world. Grey mist lay in strata, completely screening the old hamlet from their sight. The world lay in a succulent grey-green mist, characteristic of a Batalixian sunrise in these days. Even the four hoxneys now grazing contentedly in the stockade appeared as little more than pewter imitations of hoxneys.
He woke Laintal Ay with a prodding boot. Together, they crawled on their bellies over the wet grass and through the protecting barrier of thorns. When they were beyond the barricade, they stood up quietly, beaming at each other, clasping each other’s shoulders in an attempt to keep from laughing.
No doubt the hoxneys had sought shelter from the sabre-tongues. Now they were in deeper trouble.