I surveyed the Ladies’ Tower. The lower door would be night-barred on the inner side—Then I thought of Thaney. If she had issued forth secretly from there, might she not have left it unlatched, ready for her return? However, upon that I could not depend. There was the outer wall of the Keep that stood on the far side. Were I to gain that, it could well follow that, from the higher surface, I could leap to the window of my mother’s apartment, which fronted in that direction. At the moment, I could see no other way.
Yet to gain the top of the wall I must go through the outer guardroom, up stairs meant to aid defenders to reach the parapet in times of siege. Now there was an unnatural quiet about the courtyard itself that I found disturbing.
To pass the way I must go, I needs must skirt both the stable and the run where the hunting hounds were kenneled. Knowing how strong animal odors were to me, I could not but believe that both horses and hounds would scent in turn the pard who slunk past. All I needed to bring about discovery would be such a sudden clamor in the night.
I could not remain where I was, though. So, my belly fur brushing the stones, I began a stealthy swing toward my chosen goal. I was never to reach even the edge of the stable.
A clamor of hound cries broke the still of the night as if ripping apart the sky itself. Into the moonlight burst the foremost of the pack that my uncle boasted would be ready to face even a snow cat at bay. They continued to give tongue, yet they did not close in upon me. But the fear and anger born of their charge filled me, driving out the man, giving full freedom to the beast.
I leaped, claws extended. The hounds yelped, crowded back. Now the horses within the stable must have caught my scent, for they seemed to go mad, their wild whinnies rising. Men were shouting, pouring into the courtyard. A crossbow bolt whistled by me.
The hounds were between me and the Gate. If I did not win past them, I would be shot. There were not enough shadows to give me cover and the hounds would nose me out of any hiding place. The largest, the pack leader, Fearfang, was between me now and the Youths’ Tower.
He alone of the bristling, snarling dogs seemed prepared to carry the fight to me. He paced, his eyes shining redly in the limited light, his lips lifted in a continuous snarl, though he uttered no sound. The animal in me knew that, while the others were made prudent by fear, this hound wanted only battle.
I gathered my feet under me. My tail twitched. Then I jumped, my bound lifting me over the pacing threat of the hound. Nor did I halt then, but went through the Gate in great leaps, heading for the open, which to the beast side of me was the only promise of escape.
The hounds, heartened by my retreat, gave tongue loudly. I knew that Fearfang must be in the lead. Also, there was more shouting now. Over my head arched a flaming fire arrow, to strike in the stubble of a field and provide a torch that already was lighting the chaff about it.
The arrow was my answer as to whether or not I had entered what was meant to be a trap. Someone had loosed the hounds, had prepared the arrow and others like it now streaking through the sky to strike about me. Not only was I betrayed as a shape-changer, but, in addition, I would be hunted. Were I to die during such a hunt, he who planned the action could plead that he had taken me for truly being the wild animal whose guise I wore. And I knew in my heart that Maughus meant to make completely sure of me.
For an interval I fled blindly, my only thought to keep ahead of hounds and hunters. That there would be hunters I had no doubt at all now. Then once more my mind brought under control the frightened beast. It was needful that I get away from those who hunted me, yes, find some shelter where I could wait until the day destroyed my ensorcellment. But that I could not do by purposeless flight.
I had never ridden on any hunt. The peculiar reaction of both mounts and hounds had kept me from learning the skill that was considered so much a part of a man’s training. Thus I had no knowledge to guide me now—unless—
Unless I allowed, deliberately allowed, full rise to the part of me that was pard, not man! Dared I do so? I was reluctant, yet the fear of death may present one with bitter but unescapable choices. I tried now to submerge the man in the animal, discovering it frighteningly easy to do.
What followed then was as if I was a distant spectator of my own actions. The queer separation within me was hard to define for anyone who had not experienced it. Yet it existed, and, I think, did save me from what Maughus intended.
My speed had well outstripped any riders, though I could hear their cries, even the sound of a rallying horn. If any fire arrows now fell, they landed well behind, just as I was slipping from the fields.
I dug claws into soft bark and climbed into the first of the more massive trees. But that in itself was no refuge. The hounds need only gather below and they would have me trapped, to be held for the arrival of their masters. Many of the trees were giants—their lower limbs wide enough for me to pace cautiously. From the first such I made a desperate leap to the next, catching hold of a second limb, then scrambling to walk and climb for a second airborne advance.
Four trees did I so use to break my trail. However, there was no further way offered from the fifth. All I could do was jump as wide as possible, landing in brush that broke under my weight, to my discomfiture.
The strip of woodland, while narrow, ran far to the north, reaching into the hill region usually avoided by the Clan people. That it had other inhabitants, I well knew, and some of them could be summoned by my hunters to give news of my going. Others were such as I had no wish to meet either as a beast or man. If I might only find someplace to lie up until dawn I was sure that my escape would be assured. Beyond that point I did not now try to look.
The clamor of the hounds had grown fainter. Perhaps they were baffled by my expedient of taking to the trees. They might well be doing sentry duty under the one I had first climbed. I did not run wildly now, but slowed to a steady pace.
From my right came the sound of running water, perhaps the same stream that had drawn me on my first venture with the belt. Water, too, could be used to cover my trail. I veered off from the direction I had been traveling and came out upon the stream bank. Here the moon shone fully. To my cat’s eyes, all was near and clear as it might be for a man at midday.
I pushed into the water, involuntarily hissing as it washed about my legs nigh shoulder-high, disliking the sensation of wet fur. But I trotted on against its current upstream. I do not know how far I so journeyed before I reached a sprawl of rocks with many wide crevices that appealed to the animal part of me as adequate for concealment. The moon was riding down the sky now. In so much I had won. I need only stay here until the morning and—
However, all my wariness, my stratagems, had been for naught. There was a flash of wings in the air over me. Then the same wings were buffeting my head, my shoulders. Pain lanced my body, as a great hawk used beak and talons on my back just above my loins. I threw myself down to roll upon the ground, beat up at the bird, still so shaken by the sudden attack that I did not know how to counter successfully.
Though I lashed out, squalling as any infuriated cat might, the hawk had achieved its purpose. I watched it rise, my last frenzied leap falling far short as the bird spiraled upward. In its talons hung the belt, swinging limply, its buckle still clasped, but the hide of its making clawed and torn in two.
I crouched upon the stone. The gashes the bird had left in my back during its ruthless attack smarted with pain. Worse was the fear that, with the belt torn so from my possession, I had been exiled to beast form. If I only knew more of shape-changing! And why had the hawk—?
The bird could not have been any servant of Maughus’s. No normal predator could have been trained for such a purpose. No—the creature was either one of the unknown and to be feared aliens of the forest—or—A sudden thought made me growl. Ursilla?