Thorinn's weariness took him: he went quietly up to the doorway and looked in. The hut was empty except for some mats in one corner. When he had made sure of this, Thorinn stood still and listened. The tree was full of faint movements, but none seemed near or threatening. He sat down on the mats, removed his pack and leaned against the wall, sword in hand. After a time he caught himself dozing and sat up with a start. The night was still. He closed his eyes, merely to rest them. He came awake with his heart pounding, knowing that he must not move. Outside in the greenlight, something gray and misshapen drifted down and disappeared beyond the half-wall of the hut; Thorinn felt the faint thump when it landed. It was like a man, but there was something wrong with it. He glimpsed another one falling, then heard low, grunting voices. He reached for his pack and put his arms through the loops, trying not to make a sound, but by ill luck the corner of the pack scraped against the floor. Instantly a gray form was in the doorway, another peering over the wall. Thorinn turned, dived over the opposite wall into the darkness. Something caught his leg as he went over, bringing him down hard against the platform, and he struck his head a blow that made it ring. When he tried to get up, he found his leg still held fast. The platform rustled and shook all around him. He glimpsed another gray shape and smelled its rank odor; then something struck him a harder blow on the cheekbone, and he drifted away into blackness.
When he came to himself, he could not at first remember what had happened. He was hanging in midair while a rough gray wall moved by jerks past his face. He was uncomfortable, and tried to move his limbs to ease them, but could not. His face hurt; one eye would not open. Jerk; up he went again. His arms were behind him, bent over a stick that came out under his armpit on either side, and his wrists were tied to his ankles. Voices were muttering somewhere overhead. Jerk; a dark leafy twig passed, and the gray wall became a tree-trunk, lumpy, scarred, fissured, and immense. It swung around, this way and that. Thorinn craned his head back. He saw now that a cord, attached to him somewhere behind, rose over the edge of a giant limb just above. A gray face with luminous green eyes peered down at him briefly, and was gone. Up he went again, swinging. The stick that protruded under his arm touched the tree-trunk and caught; he revolved slowly until his body was pointing out away from the tree. More voices. He rose another span and stopped; now the stick was caught under the limb. After a moment something gray and supple came over the edge of the limb and dropped toward him. He had barely time to flinch before the thing was on his back. Its legs clasped him around the hips; its arms appeared over his shoulders and pushed him away from the tree. The arms were gray and hairy; the hands were like a man's. Thorinn fell into despair, for now he knew he had been captured by demons.
He revolved again as the demon freed one end of the stick. The other end was still caught, and he swung slowly around that, then the demon freed it in turn, and he rose, swinging inward until his head struck the limb and he checked again. Then the demon leaped off his back, and in a moment he began to rise, scraping his face and chest against the wrinkled bark. Two of the creatures stood above, pulling on the cord, and others hung from the openings in the tangle nearby. They were smaller than men, their arms grotesquely long, legs short. When they had brought him within reach, two demons seized him and pulled him up level with them; the cord, meanwhile, had disappeared into a dark hole above, and they thrust him up headfirst into it. The cord tightened, he rose, and a dark passage swallowed him. He swung as he went up, first this way, then that. The wall of the passage, when he bumped it with his head or feet, seemed dry and yielding. After a time a faint glow appeared; it was less than the nightlight outside, but he could see the two demons who pulled him up out of the passage, and beyond them a deep chamber. The demons lifted him and propped him carelessly against a wall. His head and feet touched the wall, but his knees hung clear of the floor, and he realized that besides the stick under his arms, there was another set crosswise to it. It occurred to him for the first time that his pack was gone, and the box with it; whether his wallet and sword were there he could not tell.
Such light as there was came from dimly luminous patches on walls and floor, as if sky-moss had been rubbed there. In the gloom, the demons came and went. The chamber was immensely tall; although his open eye was uppermost, Thorinn could not see the top. The demons went up and down with great swiftness, using cords that hung from the upper part of the chamber and poles that stood across it. In going up, they sometimes leaped from one pole to the next, but most often climbed the cords, so lightly that they hardly seemed to touch. In coming down, they used the poles, leaping head downward from one to another until they reached the last, when they swung around and dropped to the floor. None came near Thorinn.
He tried to break or loosen the cords around his wrists, without success. Then he thought that if he could work his way upward along the one stick, the other stick, being attached to the first, would move downward along his back, and he might get some freedom for his arms. But although he was able to grip the stick between his thighs, he could not move his legs enough to accomplish anything. After a time there was a stir above, and a swarm of demons dropped into view. Three of these were females, as large as Thorinn, a head or more taller than the other demons, and he realized dimly that the others must be their young. The females crowded close around him, muttering and grunting; they took turns fingering his garments, tugging at his belt, prodding him. Their eyes were big and green. Two or three of the small demons dived down the hole in the floor, followed after a moment by the rest. Two of the big females turned, sprang up, and were lost to view in the gloom; the third went across the chamber and, hanging by one hand from some protuberance, took something out of a sack there and began to eat it.
The strain on Thorinn's shoulders and hips grew painful. He tried to ease it by flexing his body, but his legs were drawn back so tightly that he could hardly move. The female demon finished whatever she was eating and took another piece. Thorinn found that he could push outward with his feet against the wall; it meant pulling his arms even tighter against the stick, but anything was better than lying still, and he did it again and again, rocking farther out each time, until he overbalanced and fell on his face. Now he was entirely helpless; the most he could do was rock from side to side a little. The muscles of his legs and buttocks began to cramp.
After a long time the demon came back and lifted him by the stick, propping him against the wall again. She had something round in her hand; she took a bite of it, and bright juice ran down her chin. She held the thing out; its pungent smell made Thorinn swallow. He opened his dry mouth. Quickly, with her other hand, she thrust a wad of dirt and trash into his mouth. Thorinn spat it out—dry leaves, filth—and spat, and spat. Across the room the demon was grunting in a slow rhythm, and he realized at length that the creature was laughing.