The eyes of the man and beast met.
The man dove for the hilt of the blade, emergent from the snow, as the beast, snarling, scrambled over the trembling, shaking body of the expiring horse.
The man threw himself to the snow, scratching within it, and the beast was on him, pawing away the snow, biting at the half-buried back.
“Do not interfere,” said the leader of the Heruls to his fellows.
Their mounts, their sides heaving, blood frozen about the jaws, like threads of ice, their breath like fog bursting from their mouths and nostrils, were now under control.
The vi-cat tore away the back of the man’s coat, shaking it. It seemed puzzled.
The figure rolled to the side in the snow and leapt upon the vi-cat from the side, his arms about its neck, and the cat, enraged, reared up, lifting the man a yard from the snow. The man clung to its neck, his head down, at the base of the animal’s neck, down, away from the massive, turning head, and fangs. The beast sought futilely to reach him with its forepaws, the curved claws, four inches in length, extended, brandished, then flung itself down in the snow, rolling, and one could not see the man, and then one could, as, again and again, he was first submerged in the snow, and then again, body and hair a mass of snow, torn upward into view. The beast, roaring, tried to scrape him away, against the horse, now dead. The beast then stopped, and gasped, startled. It shook its head, and the man was flung to one side and the other. The man, as he could, tightened his grip. He could not slip his arms beneath the forelegs of the beast, and up then, behind the back of the neck, given the size of the beast. In such a way might a smaller animal’s neck be broken. Such things were learned, though with an intended application to men, in the school of Pulendius, on Terennia. Then the beast threw itself to its side in the snow, squirming down, to the frozen soil. Then, slowly, pressing itself against the ice, it, with its mighty bulk, began to turn itself, inch by inch. The man, in his garments, with his own bulk, could not then turn with the animal. He was wedged between the body of the beast and the soil, like cement, and the beast, inch by inch, was turning, moving in the grip of the man, bringing its jaws about, inch by inch, closer to the man’s head.
The vi-cat, gasping in the snow, continued to turn, inch by inch.
The man released the beast’s throat and scrambled to his feet in the snow, and the beast, too, scrambled up.
The beast stood there for a moment, sucking in air, blinking, snow about its eyes, looking for the man.
The man reached to the great sword and had it in his hand, half lifting it as the beast charged, and the man was struck from his feet, the sword lost, and the beast had stopped. Then it backed away, puzzled. It eyed the man, and licked at its own blood.
The man, bleeding, recovered the sword.
He lifted it unsteadily, half to the ready, and the beast was upon him, again, charging and snarling.
A yard of the blade disappeared into the chest of the beast.
A blow from the right paw of the beast smote the man at the side of the head, and he was struck to the side, and the blade, to which he clung, slid sideways in the animal, and, as the man fell to the snow, the blade, still in his grasp, was mostly out of the body.
The beast backed away, a foot or two, which movement slipped the blade further from its body, and, at the same time, drew it away from the hands of the fallen man. Then the beast shook itself, as though it might be shedding water. The blade was flung to the side.
“The Otung is dead,” said one of the Heruls.
The beast returned to the still warm body of the horse, and its feeding. Its own blood mingled with that of the horse. There was little sound then except the breathing of the horses of the Heruls, and the feeding of the vi-cat.
The figure struck down in the snow staggered to its feet. It felt about for the great sword. It had it again in its hands.
Blood was now coming from within the lungs of the vi-cat, and it gushed forth from its mouth and nostrils, and, as it fed, it drank its own blood.
The man staggered toward the vi-cat with the blade raised, but fell into the snow before he could reach it.
The vi-cat died feeding.
“The Otung is dead,” said a Herul.
“He would be worth running for the dogs,” said another.
“He is dead,” said the Herul who had first spoken.
“I do not think so,” said the leader of the Heruls. “Tie him. Put him on the sledge.”
Olar and Varix, who were Basung Vandals, were put in the traces of the sledge, to draw it.
The horse whose leg had been broken was killed, with a blow of the ax of Varix.
In a few moments the three Heruls left the trampled, bloody snow.
They did not bury their fellows, but left them, as was their common wont, for the beasts of the plains.
They cut some meat from the dead horses, for provender on the trip back to the wagons and herds.
They also skinned the vi-cat, for such a pelt was of great value. Indeed, from such a pelt might be fashioned the robe of a king.
CHAPTER 20
“He is awakening,” she said.
“Do not hurt me,” she said.
The blond giant’s hand had grasped her wrist. His brow was wet, from the cloth with which she had wiped it.
He released her wrist.
“Leave,” said a voice, that of a Herul, who was sitting back, in the shadows.
Not speaking, she gathered her pan of warm water, and, with the cloth and sponges, and a whisk of her long skirt, hurried away.
It was a woman of his own species, or seemed so. Heruls kept such, he knew, for labor, and diversion. The giant did not object, as they were females.