There was laughter in the stands.
She drew herself up another inch, desperately.
The heavy bar turned again, slowly, four or five inches.
Cornhair’s own efforts forced it to turn.
Then Cornhair slipped from the cylinder, and fell to the sand.
She heard cries of mirth.
She ran about the arena, and tried, again and again, at different points, to scramble to safety.
Each time the railing, like a smoothed log, spun slowly, reacting to her desperate grasp.
Her nails dug into the wood.
The railing again turned, and, again, she fell to the sand.
She stood up, and looked to the box.
She realized then that the railings had been designed to prevent escape from the arena, by animals, and, it seemed, slaves.
“No!” she cried. “No, please, no, Mistress!”
But even as she cried out, she saw the scarf flutter from the hand of Lady Delia.
29
There are many varieties of dogs, or what we have, for convenience, tended to speak of as dogs, from various worlds, rather as we have spoken of “horses,” “pigs,” and such.
Cornhair, then, did not know, really, what lay behind the vertical door.
She was familiar, of course, with the savage, or half-trained, “dogs” from the Herul camp. She knew she might be torn to pieces if she left the camp, but there was not much to fear when one remained within the assigned perimeter, usually within the circle of wagons, and the dogs had been fed within the week. Indeed, even Heruls would be in jeopardy if such creatures grew lean and impatient. Sometimes she knew that prisoners were run naked for the dogs.
She watched the dog gate, waiting for it to lift.
“Just one dog, at first, Cornhair,” called Lady Delia. “We do not want it to feel challenged, that it must act in haste. We want to see it circle you, and frighten you, and harry you. If you run, it will pursue you and bring you down, instantly. So do not run, not right away. To be sure, you will run soon enough, if you have the opportunity. Then you will be dragged down. Then, when the dog has you, we will release the other dogs and watch them fight over you.”
Cornhair, of course, knew enough not to run, not immediately, unless shelter might be reached. Even the Herul dogs were not likely to attack an immobile target, not immediately. Too, if one did not move, one might have somewhat longer to live. Stillness can confer invisibility, of a sort. Visual predators are particularly sensitive to movement, but may fail to notice the rabbit, paralyzed with fear. This behavior seems to have been favored, at least in the case of the rabbit. To be sure, if detected, it flees, instantly, darting away, with its sudden, difficult-to-predict changes of direction, and such. A Serian oolun can starve to death before a plate of dead crawlers, but, if one should move, the oolun strikes. The dog sees but not with the acuity of the hawk. It hears well, but not as well as the vi-cat. It does inhabit a world rich with scent, and may locate prey which the hawk does not see and the vi-cat does not hear.
Cornhair stood very quietly, in the sand, rather to one side of the arena.
The vertical door had lifted only a foot, when a snarling shape, eager, squirming, impatient, on its belly, thrusting up on the bottom of the door with its shoulders, scratched its way onto the sand. Its fur was flattened back, where it had scrambled under the door.
A small sound of fear, and dismay, escaped Cornhair, quite inadvertently.
Across the sand she saw the head of the beast instantly turn toward her, and the large, pointed ears rise, and turn toward her, like eyes.
It was similar to the Herul dogs, as large, as quick and agile, but it was more heavily furred, particularly about the head.
About its neck was a heavy leather collar, probably to protect it against competitive feeders, should the division of the prize be contested.
Dogs are trained for many purposes, war, herding, tracking, guarding, game location, game retrieval, pit fighting, torodont baiting, warning, message bearing, and such. These animals, or their sort, Cornhair had gathered had been bred for, and trained for, the hunting and killing of men.
The stands were quiet, and expectant. Many of the women leaned forward.
The beast padded toward Cornhair, some yards across the sand.
Cornhair knew she must not run, but it is one thing to know that, and another not to run.
The beast stopped, and looked about itself.
It was alone, save for Cornhair.
Doubtless it welcomed this intelligence.
It padded softly toward her, another three or four yards.
“She is afraid,” said a voice in the stands.
“See her tremble,” said another.
“She cannot run, even if she wished,” said another voice. “She is too frightened.”
“She is pretty, is she not?” said a voice.
“Just wait,” said another voice.
There was laughter.
“You may move, if you wish,” called a woman.
There was more laughter.
Cornhair’s collar had been removed. She recalled that it was not to have been soiled, and that one would not wish to risk injuring the jaws of a fine animal.
Cornhair lifted her hand, timidly, to her throat.
The beast growled, and padded a step closer.
It had not circled Cornhair.
It had not feinted toward her, snapped, bitten and drawn back, to bite again.
Perhaps Lady Delia was not really used to such dogs. Perhaps she did not know their training, their dispositions. Perhaps this was the first time she had purchased, or rented, such beasts. Perhaps a smaller animal might have circled, circumspectly, considering the prey, assessing it, or harried it, testing its reflexes, seeing if it would threaten or strike back, perhaps trying to stimulate it to flight, when the leaping, the seizing and clawing, the bite through the back of the neck, would be facilitated, but this animal, crouching down, only watched Cornhair, who backed away a yard or so, which interval the beast closed immediately, crawling forward its yard or so.
It was not clear why the dog, which was a large, trained animal, weighing perhaps three or four times what Cornhair weighed, did not rush upon her, knocking her from her feet, sprawling her to the sand, and then seizing an arm or leg, shaking her, dragging her about, and then, having tasted blood, working its way, grip by shifting grip, to the throat. Certainly it would have been hungry enough. Its keepers would have seen to that. Our speculation is that it was unaccustomed to prey of the sort constituted by such as Cornhair. It had been trained on, and was habituated to, larger, stronger, more fearsome prey, prey which might resist, and fight, prey on which more than one dog at a time would be likely to be loosed, prisoners of war, criminals, and such, uniformly, men. Cornhair, on the other hand, was much different. Her entire form and demeanor was unfamiliar. She was slight, slender, small, and soft.
The eyes of the beast were on Cornhair.
They blinked, and then they were on her, again.
Slave girls seldom figured in arena sports, save as prizes to be bestowed on victors. Whereas free women might be slain, slave girls, as they were domestic animals, were no more likely to be slain than other domestic animals. They had value. They would merely change hands. Too, of course, there were better things to do with slave girls than feed them to dogs. That option, of course, was always at a Master’s disposal, should a girl prove a poor slave.
The beast had not yet attacked. But it was, of course, quite hungry. That, as we noticed earlier, had been seen to.
Had there been more than one dog on the sand, say, two or three, this delay, most likely, would not have taken place. Each beast would have been apprehensive that the other might first seize the prey, and then stand over it, to defend it. Too, it was not as though several had attacked at once and a frenzy had ensued, in which each, with tearing, bloody jaws, must fight for its share of the common spoils.
“Why does it not attack?” queried a woman in the stands.