Then I heard grunting and raised my head, voicing a warning snarl of my own. The sow now faced me, her litter sheltered behind her, rage plain to read in every line of her body.
I snarled again, watching the small, red eyes. Would she attack? While not having the strength of her mate, she was still such a fighter when cornered as to make any attacker think twice. I crouched lower over the body of the boar, readying for a charge if she showed fight.
The young pigs squealed, uttering a thin, ear-troubling sound, and the two older ones pawed the ground. Yet they made no move, seeming to wait for some unheard order from their dam.
When the sow did not rush, I decided she was only on guard for her young. I took hold of the body of my kill, retreated slowly backward, ever watching the sow. She continued to grunt, lowering her head to tear at the trampled soil with her lesser tusks. Though the picture of seething rage, she did not move toward me.
At last she raised her heavy head, gave a final grunt, and whirled with a speed I thought uncommon to her species. Driving her litter before her, flanked by the two older pigs, she had the whole family on the run. I was left to drag my kill to the top of the ridge and there satisfy my hunger, firmly closing my human mind to what I did, allowing the pard full control.
Before I had finished, I heard small rustlings and knew that at a safe distance around me the scavengers, drawn by the scent of my feast, were gathering. When I was gone they would move in to fight and squabble over what remained, until only well-picked bones would lie among the rocks.
I had eaten, now I would drink—but farther on. I had no wish to once more front the sow and her litter. Though I had faced her down once, if I came again and seemed to threaten her piglets, I could well have such a struggle as would mean grave danger. Again Fortune had favored me in that quick, sure kill from which I had come unmarked. There was no reason to exhaust my luck by too frequent testings of it.
The moon was rising slowly. Its reflection did not yet shimmer on the water as I drank deeply and then sat down to lick clean my fur. My hunger and thirst satisfied, my beast nature was lulled. I was ready to think again.
The plan for seeking out some forest Wise One to aid me seemed very thin and difficult to follow. Yet I dared not so soon return to the vicinity of the Keep where I was certain Maughus and his huntsmen waited. Or would my mother and Ursilla bring such pressure to bear that he would have to abandon his plan for ridding himself of the obstacle that I was? There was no way of guessing what passed behind me. It was better to turn all thoughts to what might lie about or before me at this moment.
As I lingered by the stream, my ears and eyes reported what action they could detect. I heard movement among the trees, picked up scents. Huge-winged night moths hovered over the water feeding on smaller winged things that rose from the reeds or stream edge. Now and then another airborne marauder swooped upon the moths to take a victim. About me the land, air, water seethed with life, as I had never been aware of it when I had walked as a man.
Since I still had no other guide, I decided to travel along the stream. There were game trails that came down to the water here and there. Perhaps I might find one that also served men or beings enough like men to be approached. On so slender a hope I must hang for a time.
Though I picked up many scents as I prowled, never was there one that my pard self did not recognize as animal. If I did cross the territory of any of the forest people, such was not made known to me, even by my new, keener senses. At length, I began to despair of ever finding an intelligence of the sort to comprehend my troubles.
It was when my hope had reached the lowest point, was near vanishing indeed, that I heard low singing not born from the rippling water to my left. The notes, rising and falling in a cadence near that of a chant, drew me.
I lifted my head as high as I might, awaking twinges again from the claw wounds on my back, sniffing the night air. Human! There was before me someone of the species I had once been before the curse of the belt imprisoned me. And any human who chose the forest for a place of dwelling should surely be in touch with the Power!
Among the trees I stalked, the chant growing ever louder as I went. I could distinguish words now, but they had no mind-meaning. Still, that they were of the Power was made manifest by the tingling in my hide, the answering excitement they engendered. No man can pass unshaken when some sorcery is at work nearby.
At last I crouched behind a fallen tree, gazing out into a glade where the moon shone clearly upon a pillar of glistening, flashing quartz—gemlike with life-fire beneath its light. For life of a sort coiled and flowed within its length, moving with the constant play of some imprisoned flame.
At the column foot, encircling it, grew a mass of plants, each one crowned with a single silver-white flower, which mirrored in miniature the moon above, under which they opened their petals as if they thirsted for the same light. They gave forth a subtle perfume as fresh as any springtime breeze, though this was the autumn season.
From behind the pillar of cold flame came the singer. She rested against one hip a wide, flat basket into which she dropped bloom heads she snapped from among the flowers. And as she made her choice she chanted.
In the moonlight her body was as white and fair as the harvest she was culling. Her only garment was a belt about her slender waist, from which depended a short fringe of skirt giving forth soft tinklings at her every move. This fringe was fashioned of silvery disks strung on fine chains, a number spaced on each chain.
Between her small, young breasts hung the symbol of the horned moon, appearing carved of the same flaming crystal as the pillar about which she paced. Her long, dark hair was fastened at the nape of her neck with a band of silver, but strands brushed behind her fringed skirt, so long were the locks.
I had never seen her like, even among the forest folk. My pard nose told me she was human as to scent, yet no maid from the Clans would walk alone in the forest rapt in a ceremony of Power, performing some rite in the moonlight. She must be a Wise Woman. Yet, she was as different from Ursilla as the first beams of dawn light are from the dregs of a long and dusty day.
Three times more she wove her path around the pillar, plucking the flower heads until her basket was heaped high. Then she took it in both hands and, standing so she half-faced me, she held her harvest high, her face turned up to the moon as she chanted louder. She might be so giving thanks for what she had garnered.
Had she beauty? I did not know, I could not judge her by the standards of the Keep. But there was that in me which struggled for freedom from my furred curse. In that moment when I looked upon her so, I was all inwardly a man, and a man drawn by the fairest that lies in women.
So great was her Power (her own Power and not that of the Wise Ones) upon me, that, without thinking, I arose and advanced into the moonlight, forgetting the guise I wore and all else. She had lowered the basket, and now she looked straight at me.
There was startlement in her face.
That brought me to myself, would have sent me cowering once more into cover. She steadied her basket once again against her hip. Now her right hand moved in one of the signs that the initiated use for protection, of recognition.
The line she drew so in the air was visible, glowing as brightly as any flame torch for an instant. She spoke aloud as if asking me some question. But her words were strange ones I could not understand.
That I did not reply as she expected appeared to concern her. Once more she drew the sign as if to assure herself that it had been right. Then, as the lines disappeared, she spoke again, this time using the tongue of the Clans and the open land.
“Who are you, night treader?”