I had no idea of the width of the Wise Woman’s knowledge. But I had a hearty respect for what she might do. That she might accomplish such an act as this could not be denied. Now I was not even sure that the bird had been a true hawk. It was well known that those dealing with the Power could summon divers strange servants. While such an act had never occurred in the past when I had lived with Ursilla, I dared not judge this to be outside her range of talent.
If Ursilla had the belt! Sorely shaken and not a little afraid, I looked about me, and, choosing the largest of the crevices, I crept inside.
Catlike, I licked the moisture from my fur, strove to put healing tongue to the scratches my attacker had left. But few of them could I reach. Then I lay full length, my head resting on my forepaws. The night and the chase had been long, my body ached for sleep. Rest—I could no longer deny it.
I think I half-expected to wake and find myself ringed with the hunters. But I hoped that I would rouse in the form of a man. When the sun reached well into my hiding place and I opened my eyes, it was to know the full truth. I was still a pard. Knowing that, I realized fear to the full, the fear that had first touched me when I had seen the bird wing off with the torn belt. I was trapped in this form without the key to shape-changing.
Also, I awoke with the deep hunger of the animal, the absolute need to fill an aching belly. Once more, if I were to survive, I must let instinct overbear human reason. That instinct led me to the streamside.
Fish swam there. Sighting them, saliva filled my mouth, drooled a little from between my jaws. I hunched down, poised a paw. A swift movement, then a fish flopped beside me, leaving me absurdly pleased at the result of my untried skill. My fangs snapped and I gulped down mouthfuls, hardly tasting what I ate.
The stream dwellers had fled, there would be no more caught here. I padded along past the rocks, made another try—and missed. But the third landed me an unwary catch twice the size of the first. Having finished it off, I sat up on my haunches to look around.
Where I might now be, except well into the forest land, I had no idea. Nor was I even sure in which direction the Keep lay. I could backtrail downstream and seek to return the way I had come. Only I had no doubt that were I to do so I would meet with Maughus and the hounds. Until those from the Keep had given up the hunt, I would not dare go back. Yet I must know whether it was Ursilla’s creature that had taken the belt, leaving me more securely a prisoner than if I lay behind bolted and barred doors and stone walls.
Also, those in the woodlands who had friendship with the Clan people would certainly be alerted to give knowledge if they saw me. I knew that a pard was a beast seldom if ever found this far north—being more truly native to the southwest Waste. At this very moment there could be spying eyes upon me—
The thought of that drove me once more back to the rocks and the crevice. I hated to skulk within as if fear ruled me. However, prudence is sometimes a weapon when others fail. Let me, now that I was fed, lie up for the day and set out by night. The great cats are mainly creatures of the dark, and perhaps, with shadows about me, the fact that I was not one of those known to hunt in the woods would not be so easy to perceive.
My thoughts continued to worry away at me, so I got little sleep that day. I watched two of the small forest deer splash across the stream. The pard part of me responded with a message of meat, while the man noted their graceful trot and wished them well.
The man still alive in me—
That was the thought, which haunted me with dark and lingering dread. If I remained caught within the beast, how long might that man live? For perhaps the appetites and the desires of the pard would grow stronger and stronger with time, until there was no Kethan to be remembered or to control, only the cat to be hunted and slain if his enemies could encompass that.
Ursilla would know—she would rescue me—if I could reach her. There might be a fearsome price to pay for the bargain. And—
The other thought arose then. Would it ever be well to pay such a price? Might it not be better to remain a pard than yield wholly to Ursilla and my mother, lose all command of my own destiny, held by their reins as if I were one of the plodding, heavy-footed horses that had no other life in this world than to haul the wains, their years lived out in the harness put upon them by uncaring men?
I could not utterly suppress the sense of excitement and freedom that was returning now that the chase was well behind me. To be a prisoner—no! My pard side denied that. Better death than to be caught in Ursilla’s net. Still—if I could gain the belt—without any bargain?
To dream of that was foolish indeed. I knew I was no match for Ursilla—a trained Wise Woman. How could I dare to think that I might win in any contest between us?
A Wise Woman—
I raised my head from my paws, causing a twitch of pain in the talon slashes by my sudden movement.
There was more than one Wise Woman in Arvon. And there were others too—the Voices—the many who had mastery of one part of the Power or another. There were those right here in the forest who might not be well disposed toward all humankind, but who might be tricked or wheedled into sharing some part of their knowledge.
That was a wild thought, one that had little hope of ever becoming a plan I could put into action. Yet it began to fill my mind, and the excitement born of the belt fed its growing.
8
Of the Maid in the Forest and the Star Tower
By twilight I had slept a little and my hunger was once more awake. Though I ranged along the stream for some distance trying my fishing skill again, I had no luck. Either my first successes were due to some fleeting pity from Fortune, or else the fish had been warned by them, though the latter hardly seemed likely in such a short time. Eat I must, and food that might have sustained me in my true form—berries, cresses and the like—would not suffice now. I must have meat, and the pard was fast taking command, induced by hunger into attempting a true hunt.
I was still padding along the riverbank when a rank smell alerted my animal senses. It was meat—on the hoof and not too distant. As they had during my escape from the Keep, the set of beast instincts claimed me. I was now all pard and not man.
Two bounds carried me to the top of a ridge of stone. A light breeze blew toward me, bearing a heavy reek from my destined prey. My eyes, better adjusted to this twilight than human ones would be, marked well what snorted, grunted, snuffled and rooted below. A family of wild pigs, a fearsomely tusked boar in command, was moving toward the stream.
Even the pard hesitated to challenge such a formidable opponent. The boars were noteworthy as one of the greatest perils of the forest, rightly feared by even those who would dare to tree a snow cat. Their tusks were wickedly sharp, and the creatures had a sly cunning that they used well when trailed. It was known that they sometimes doubled back to set an ambush for any hunter foolish enough to track them in their own territory.
Surprise would be my best weapon. I crept along the stone, flowing forward in that silence native to the feline species when they find need to employ it.
Though the younger pigs, even the sow, looked to be better eating, I knew that the boar must be my quarry, since with him disabled or dead, the greatest danger would be gone. My muscles tensed for the leap.
The sow, with her piglets and two half-grown older offspring, had snorted on a length ahead. The boar was tearing up the ground with his tusks as if he dug for some delicacy he had sniffed lying below the surface.
I sprang, giving voice to no cry. And I landed true, the weight of my body bearing the rank-smelling animal under me to the ground. My jaws made a single, sharp snap, and I delivered a blow with one paw, putting into it all the force I could summon. The boar lay still, his neck broken, dead in an instant.