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!
10
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 secondhand 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, though 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.