Players of Gor

14 The Urts; How Nim Nim Was Made Welcome in the Pack; The Warrior's Pace

"There!" squealed the small creature. "There! There! The people! Nim Nim escape! Nim Nim free!"

We had emerged through a cut between two rocky outcroppings and ascended a small hill. It was near the tenth Ahn, the Gorean noon. We had left the city, emerging well beyond the walls early this morning. We were naked. The lower portion of my body was covered with dirt and blood from our trek though the brush. it, too, had been cut from the stones and sides of the narrow sewers through which we had made our way. "Nim Nim good urt," he had told me. "Urts find way!"

"Strip, enter the cubicle of the bathing cisterns," had said our jailer, five of his fellows, armed, behind him, before dawn. "Wash your stinking bodies, then emerge."

Our chains, in this area below the prison, had been removed.

"Why?" I asked.

"Obey," he had said.

I was puzzled about this. The luxury of baths is seldom permitted to Gorean prisoners, whether they are of the male or female sort. To be sure, a girl will usually be scrubbed up and made presentable before she is brought up for sale.

Perhaps they had something special in mind for us.

I saw the menacing movement of weapons.

We stripped.

"Leave your clothing here," said the jailer. "Enter the cubicle of the bathing cisterns."

We were prodded with the points of spears through a heavy wooden door.

"Wash well," called a man, laughing.

"We would not wish your stink to offend the crowds," laughed another man.

Immediately I thought of the baiting pit, and the screaming, betting, enthusiastic crowds there. But Nim Nim had told me that it was something far worse than this which they had planned for me.

"Have pity on poor sleen," laughed a man.

"You would not want to make them sick, would you?" asked another. That was, I suppose, very funny. The sleen is one of the least fastidious of Gorean animals. I commonly makes the tarsk, usually thought of as a filthy animal, seem like an epicure. I thought again, of course, from these comments, of the baiting pit in the courtyard.

The heavy door of the cubicle of the bathing cistern closed behind us. I heard it locked. It was very dark inside. there was a light coming from somewhere high above, through some sort of narrow, shuttered aperture.

"It is hard to see," I said.

"Nim Nim see," said the small beast, clutching at my wrist with both if its hands. I began to pull me through the room. Once my foot splashed into the shallow concave approach to a cistern. there was a smell in the place. This area, I suspected, was probably more in the nature of a sump beneath the prison than a bath. In a few moments my eyes could make out things reasonably well. The eyes of the urt people, I gathered, adjusted very quickly to darkness. This may be an adaptive specialization, having to do with the fact that urt packs are often active at night.

"Here, here," said the small creature, eagerly. It pulled me to a grating in the floor. "Nim Nim not strong enough!"

I fixed my hands about the bars of the grating. I pulled at it. It seemed very solidly anchored in the cement. It did pull up a bit at one edge. It was extremely heavy. I was not surprised that the small creature could not move it. I wondered if many men could have moved it.

"Pull! Pull!" said Nim Nim.

"I cannot move it," I said.

"Pull! "Pull!" said Nim Nim.

I crouched down, getting my legs under me. Then, largely using the force of my legs, pushing up with them, I pulled against the bars. The side which had lifted before a bit, no, a little at a time, to my elation, with small sounds of loosening, breaking mortar, rose upward. The mortar, perhaps, in years of drainage here, if the area did function largely as a sump for the prison, might have been loosened.

"See! See!" whispered Nim Nim.

I thrust the heavy;grating, loose now, to the side.

Nim Nim scuttled into the dark, circular crevice. In a moment, half sickened by the stench, my body moving against the slimy sides of the opening, I followed him.

We stood now, in the neighborhood of noon, on a small hill, some pasangs from the walls of Brundisium. We had emerged through rocky outcroppings below. There was muchs tone in this area. It could have been quarried. Much of this tone, in its great surrounding, irregular alignments, seemed almost to form the cerrated ridge of some vast, ancient, natural bowl, now muchly crumbled and weathered. These outcroppings, with their breaks and opening, encircled an area perhaps more than two pasangs in width. Guided by Nim Nim, who had sometimes ridden upon my back, and other times upon my shoulders, I had come to this place. Now he had leaped down from my shoulders. "Nim Nim safe now!" he cried, pointing downward into the shallow, muchly encircled valley below. In that broad, sweeping, concave area I could see what Nim Nim called the «people». Never before had I seen an urt pack that huge. I must have contained for or five thousand animals.

"Hold!" called a voice, authoritatively.

I turned suddenly, swiftly about.

"Good trick! Good trick!" cried Nim Nim. "Nim Nim good urt! No pit for Bosk! Worse! Much worse! Nim Nim help! Nim Nim help!"

I felt sick. I remembered his words in the cell. I had not immediately understood, I had then supposed that he meant to help me escape, as indeed, clearly, later, seemed to be the intent of his words. Now I understood that it had been no accident he had been put in with me. He had been, from the geginning, the partisan of my enemies.

"Nim Nim help?" he cried, delightedly. "Nim Nim help! Nim Nim good urt! Now Nim Nim free!"

"Kneel, Bosk of Port Kar," said Flaminius. I knelt. With Flaminius were the jailer, and his other fellows. Several had set crossbows trained on me. More importantly, one held the leashes of three snarling sleen.

"He looks well, naked and on his knees, Bosk of Port Kar, before men of Brundisium," said the jailer.

"Are you of Brundisium?" I asked Flaminius.

"I am in the fee of Brundisium," he said. "But I am of Ar."

I did not understand the sort of triumph which seemed to characterize the voice of the jailer. The alliances of Brundisium were with Ar, not with Tyros or Cos. I measured the distance between myself and the jailer. I wondered how long it would take to break his neck. I did not think I could reach him before the quarrels of crossbows would lodge themselves in my body. I was not a female, joyfully, rightfully, on her knees before men. The accent of Flaminius, now that I thought of it, did have traces within it which suggested Ar. To be sure, these things are sometimes difficult to determine with accuracy. It was certainly not obviously an accent of Ar. If he was of Ar, he had probably been out of the city for year.

"I thought you were to have had a bath," smiled Flaminius. "Instead it seems you are in desperate need of one."

I did not respond to him.

"Did you enjoy your trip, crawling through the slime sewers of Brundisium?" he asked.

I did not speak.

"To be sure, your journey in the open air and sun has doubtless removed some of the stink from you."

Several of the men behind him laughed.

"Even now, men are repairing the various gratings which we loosened or removed for your convenience, as well as narrowing several of the conduits."

I regarded him.

"Oh, yes," he said, "this has all been well planned."

"Would it not have been simpler to slay me in the prison?" I asked.

"Simpler, yes," said Flaminius, "but far less amusing."

"I see," I said.

"The arrangements in your cell, its location, and so on, were intended to encourage you to be apprehensive, and to think about escape."

"I do not think I needed much encouragement," I said.

"Apparently not," he said. "We noticed, of course, that you did not use your bedding. That was clever of you. Without something of that sort it is harder, of course, to set sleen on your trail."

"I thought you might intend to use me in the baiting pit," I said.

"Of course," said Flaminius. "Indeed, it was intended that you should fear that. ON the other hand, it did not seem politically expedient, at least at this time, to have Bosk of Port Kar, that being a city theoretically neutral to Brundisium, publicly slaughtered in one of our baiting pits."

"I would suppose not," I admitted. Some of the men of Brundisium, several functionaries and soldiers, for example, and guards in the prison, were familiar with my identity. Under such circumstances it would surely be difficult to conceal it from a crowd attending a public spectacle.

"Accordingly, we arranged your escape," said Flaminius, "risking nothing, of course."

"Nothing?" I asked.

"Of course not," said Flaminius. "How do you think we followed you so discreetly, allowing you your lead of better than an Ahn, until, at our pleasure, we chose to close the gap and apprehend you here?"

I looked down at the urt pack in the valley below. "I was brought here, deliberately, of course," I said.

"Of course," said Flaminius. "But even if you had not chosen to follow our little friend's advice in this matter, we could have apprehended you easily anywhere in the vicinity, and then brought you here, as we wished."

"The sleen," I said.

"Certainly," he said. "Look." He signaled to one of the men standing by the fellow with the sleen. He drew forth from a sack the ragged tunic I had worn in the cell.

"Clever," I said.

Outside the entrance to the cubicle of the bathing cisterns, before being prodded within by the spears of our keepers, Nim Nim and I had been forced to strip. We had then been herded into the darkness and the door closed and locked behind us. It had all seemed very natural. I now realized that it had been part of the plan of Flaminius. After the door had been closed behind us the clothing, or at least mine, had doubtless been taken down to the sleen pens. Then it was only necessary, later, to pick up our trail outside the city, at the termination of one of the conduits, where it would empty into one of ht long, half-dry drainage ditches about a half pasang outside the walls.

"Look," grinned Flaminius, and he signaled again to the fellow who held the rags I had worn.

He held them near the sleen. Instantly, furiously, snarling, they seized the garment, tugging and tearing at it.

"Enough!" said Flaminius.

The fellow freed the garment from the sleen, shouting at them, half tearing it away from them. Even though he was their keeper and they were doubtless trained to obey him, and perhaps only him, it was not easy for him to regain the garment.

Flaminius then took the garment, and looked at me. "Behold, Bosk of Port Kar," he laughed, "naked and kneeling before us, outwitted, terrified into the desire for escape, then led to believe his escape was successful, then his hopes dashed, now realizing how he was never out of our grasp. Behold the stupid, outwitted fool!"

I was silent.

"Are you not curious as to your fate?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

Flaminius then threw me the garment he had taken from the sleen keeper. It was in shreds, little more than dangling tatters, from the teeth of the ravaging, contesting sleen. "Put it on," he said. "No, do not rise. Draw it on as you kneel."

The men laughed at me as I knelt before them then, a few dangling tatters about my neck and body. The sleen eyed me eagerly.

"Would not the stroke of the sword be quicker?" I asked.

"Yes, but not as amusing," said Flaminius.

"Perhaps you should draw back, that you not be injured in the charge of the sleen," I suggested.

"Remain kneeling," he warned me.

"I am somewhat mystified about many things," I said. "Perhaps this is an opportune moment to request an explanation. May I inquire, accordingly, what might be your interest in me, or that of your party? Why, for example, was the fellow named Babinius sent against me in Port Kar? What was the point of that? Similarly, why should there have been an interest in Brundisium in my apprehension? Who, or what, IN Brundisium, has this interest in me, and why?"

"You would like me to respond to your questions, would you not?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I do no choose to do so," he said.

I clenched my fists. Those with him laughed.

"But do not think that we are not capable of acts of incredible kindness, or that mercy is beyond our ken," he said.

"Oh?" I said.

"We are willing to permit you a choice of fates," he said. "And we are willing to give you a certain amount of time, to agonize over them."

"I do not understand," I said.

"Surely you do not think it is an accident that we used our little friend here in our plans? Surely you do not think it is a mere coincidence that you have been brought to this place?"

"I suppose not," I said. I shuddered.

Nim Nim Leaped up and down gleefully. "Nim Nim help. Nim Nim good urt!" he squealed.

"Go, little urt," said Flaminius, kindly. "Run to your people."

"Nim Nim smart!" it cried. "Nim Nim trick pretty Bosk!"

"Hurry home, little urt," said Flaminius, kindly.

Nim Nim looked up at me with his ovoid eyes, set in that small, elongated face. "Worse than pit," he said to me, "worse, far worse. Nim Nim help. Nim Nim trick pretty Bosk. Too bad, pretty Bosk!"

"Hurry, hurry," urged Flaminius.

Nim Nim scampered down the grassy slope toward the huge urt pack in the distance. Flaminius laughed. So, too, did some of the others. The laughter was not pleasant.

"You will now turn about, slowly, on your knees," said Flaminius to me. "You will then rise slowly and slowly descend the hill. You will go tot he edge of the urt pack. We will remain, for a time, here on the hill. You will be under our observation at all times. If you should attempt to run or move to one side, as though thinking of skirting the pack, we will immediately release the sleen. You must, then, if you wish, enter the urt pack. If you do not wish to do this we will, after a time, release the sleen, and they will set upon you wherever they find you. Is this all clear?"

"Yes," I said.

"I wonder what you will choose," said Flaminius.

"I bet he will enter the pack," said one of the men.

"I wager he will wait for the sleen," said another.

"Do not permit us to sway your decision," said Flaminius, "but it has been our usual experience in similar situations, that the individual involved waits until the sleen are almost upon him and then, seemingly almost uncontrollably, runs into the pack.

To be sure, it would probably have been better for him if he had waited for the sleen."

"Sleen are quicker," said one of the men.

"Few have the courage, however, to wait for them," said another.

"What will you do, Bosk of Port Kar?" asked Flaminius.

"I do not know," I said.

"An excellent answer," said Flaminius. "Many men think they know what they will do, but when the moment comes it seems it does not always turn out as they expected. Sometimes he who thinks he is brave learns he is a coward, and sometimes, too, I suppose, he who thought himself a coward learns that he is brave."

I turned away from them, slowly, on my knees, and then rose to my feet.

"Slowly, slowly now," said Flaminius.

I began to walk down the hill, toward the urt pack. Nim had not yet entered it. I supposed he might be waiting to see what I might do.

I went to within a few yards of the edge of the pack. Most of the animals did not pay me any attention. A few regarded me suspiciously. I did not, of course, infringe the perimeter of their group, or approach within a critical distance. I looked back to the crest of that low hill. I could see Flaminius there, and his men, and the sleen. I had a few Ehn, doubtless, before they were released. I was supposed to be spending that time, it seemed, agonizingly pondering which fate I would choose for myself. Needless to say, I was not enthusiastic about either of the obvious alternatives. I looked at the urt pack. I had never seen one so large. I contained a very large number of animals. The smell of it even was oppressive. I looked at he ends of the pack; they extended for about a quarter of a pasang on either side of me. If I were to run for hem the sleen, doubtless, would be immediately freed. They could be upon me in a matter of Ihn. I looked across the pack. It was some tow or three hundred yards across. I did not think that even sleen would be able to make it through them. No, it did not seem likely that even sleen could make it through such a dense thicket of large, vicious creatures. I fingered the tattered garment I wore. Sleen, I knew, are indefatigable hunters, fearless, tenacious trackers, very tenacioius trackers. I looked over to Nim Nim, a few yards form me, much closer to the pack. he was obviously prepared, if I approached him, to dart into the pack.

"Nim Nim safe here!" he called. he pointed to the pack. "The people do not hurt Nim Nim!"

I wondered if somewhere in that vast pack of animals there might be other representatives of the urt people. If there were, however, they were keeping themselves concealed. They do not always stay with the pack, of course, but almost always they remain in its vicinity, seldom gone from it for long. Nim Nim, as I recalled, had been netted in a state orchard.

"Are you sure these are your people?" I asked, curious about the matter. Urts looked much alike from my point of view. To be sure, I supposed one could come to distinguish them individually after a time.

"yes," said Nim Nim proudly. "There is," and he made a whistling sound, "and there is," and there again he made a piping, h issing, whistling noise, pointing out two urts. "and there is," he said, adding in another noise, "our leader!" he had indicated a large, dark-furred, broken-tusked urt, a gigantic creature for this type of animal, with small eyes and a silvered snout.

I did not doubt that Nim Nim knew what he was talking about. This was surely his pack. There could be no doubt about it.

"The people tear Bosk to pieces!" called Nim Nim. "The people do not hurt Nim Nim! Nim Nim is of the people. Nim Nim safe!"

I looked back at the crest of the hill. The sleen had not yet been released.

"Nim Nim tricked pretty Bosk!" he said. "Nim Nim smart! Nim Nim free now! Nim Nim safe!"

I wondered how it was that the urt people could travel with the urt packs. I knew that even strange urts were often torn to pieces when they attempted to approach a new pack. How, then, could the urt people, who were obviously human, or something like human, run with impunity with them? It made no sense. But there must be an explanation, a reason, I thought, some sort of empirical, scientific explanation or reason. Perhaps something had been selected for, somehow, in the recognition and acceptance dispositions of the urt people and the packs. I saw the leader of the pack, he identified as that by Nim Nim, looking at me. I doubted that it could see me too well. Urts tend to be myopic. He had his nose lifted toward me. I saw it twitching and sniffing. Suddenly the hair rose on the back of my neck. "Do not enter the pack!" I called out to Nim Nim. "Don't!"

"Pretty Bosk want to hurt Nim Nim!" he cried. He moved toward the pack.

"Don't go into the pack!" I cried out to him. "I am staying here! I am not approaching! I will not hurt you! Do not enter the pack!"

Nim Nim had been caught in a state orchard. he had been imprisoned in Brundisium. That had been at least six months ago. I remembered the laughter of the men on the hill, as Nim Nim had hurried down to join the pack. Too, I thought of the stately, delicate, golden Priest-Kings in their tunneled recesses and chambers underlying the Sardar Mountains. "Do not enter the pack!" I cried.

Nim Nim darted into the pack.

"No!" I cried. It seemed almost as though he was wading in beasts. Then the animals seemed to draw apart about him and he was left standing as though in a dry pool, an empty place, an isolated, lonely place surrounded by tawny waters, waters which seemed somehow, inexplicably, to have drawn back about him, waters with eyes and teeth, ringing him. I saw that he did not understand what was going on.

"Come out!" I called to him. "Come out, while you can!"

Eyes regarded him on all sides. I saw those narrow, elongated snouts lifted towards him, the nostrils twitching and flaring.

Nim Nim began to utter reassuring noises to the urts. he began to whistle and hiss at them. In this fashion I supposed the urt people might speak with one another. Perhaps, too, some of these were signals used by the urts themselves. Then animals, I could see, were becoming more and more excited. They were now quivering. There was an almost feverish intensity in their reactions.

"Come out!" I called to him.

There was suddenly from one of the urts an angry, intense, shrill, high-pitched, hideous squeal. In an instant, almost like an electric shock, a movement seemed to course through the animals in the circle. Indeed, this tremorlike reaction, like a shock, seemed to move through the entire pack. Its passage's swift route was actually visible in the animals, like a wave spreading along, and registered in, their backs and fur, in their sudden stillness, then in the sudden alertness of them, then in the quivering agitation which seemed to transform the entire pack, hitherto seemingly so tranquil, suddenly into a restless, roiling lake of ugly energy.

"Come out!" I screamed at him.

Another animal in the circle ringing Nim Nim now took up that angry, hideous, ear-splitting squeal, then another, and another. They began to quiver uncontrollably; their eyes bulged in their sockets; their fur erected, with a crackle of static electricity; their ears laid back, flattened, against the sides of their heads. Every animal in that vast pack was now oriented toward that location, that sound. Several of the other animals began to press eagerly toward the sound, some even crawling and scrambling over the backs of others. Every animal in that circle about Nim Nim had now taken up that horrifying squeal. It, too, was now being taken up by the entire pack. It reverberated in the area, striking against the nearby cliffs, the stones and outcroppings, rebounding, resounding, again and again in that natural bowl, torturing the ear, tearing and shocking the air, seeming as though it must frighten and terrify even the clouds themselves, which seemed to flee before it, perhaps even the sky, and a world. I suspected it could be heard in distant Brundisium.

I cupped my hands to my mouth. "Come out!" I screamed.

"I cannot!" he screamed.

The animals then charged, swarming in upon him. He tried to run between them, to reach the edge of the pack. I saw him fall twice, and each time get up. By the time he came near the edge of the back he had lost a foot and a hand. He could not now fall, however, because of the animals pressing about him. Several had their teeth fastened in his body, tearing at him, eating. By the time he was within a few feet of me he had lost half of his face. His head rolled wildly on his shoulders. I was not even sure he was still alive then until I saw his eyes. IN fury I sprang towards him, tearing urts back and;away from him. I caught some by the scruff of the neck and others by the hind legs and hurled them back into the pack. Tearing at him they seemed oblivious of me. I was among them. I caught one and thrusting my arms under its forelegs and clasping my hands together behind its neck, broke its neck. I threw it behind me. Other urts pressed forward, many of them squealing and trying to clamber over their fellows, in order to reach what was now left of Nim Nim. I then, my legs brushing against urts, backed from the pack. I saw, between pressing tawny bodies, parts of Nim Nim being dragged backwards, back into the pack. I now stood, breathing heavily, at the edge of the pack. I trembled. I threw up into the grass.

Clearly, as I now understood, the recognition and acceptance disposition of the pack was connected with smell. There must be, in effect, a pack odor. If something had this it would be accepted. If it lacked it, it would not be accepted. Indeed, the lack of the pack odor apparently triggered the attack response. the hideous squeal which was so terrifying, so shrill and piercing, which had such an effect on the other animals, was presumably something like a stranger-in-our-midst signal, a stranger-recognition signal, so to speak. It, too, presumably, was intimately involved in the pack's general response, its defense response, or stranger-rejection response, so to speak. Clearly, it played a role in calling forth the attack response, or in transmitting its message to the other members of the pack.

I looked at the pack. It was now relatively calm. There was no sign of Nim Nim.

I looked back to the men at the crest of the hill. They had not yet released the sleen. Perhaps they wanted me to have a bit more time to think about things, a bit more time to anticipate what might occur to me, before they released the animals.

I looked back at the pack. The matter had to do with odor, I was sure. That would explain why a strange urt, though even of the pack's own species, would be fallen upon and killed if it attempted to join the pack. That explained, too, why Nim Nim had no longer been accepted. In his time in prison, some six months or so, he would have lost the pack odor. The Priest-Kings, I recalled, had recognized who was "of the Nest," and who was not, by means of the Nest odor. This odor is acquired, of course, after time is spent in the nest. Similarly, I supposed, the pack odor would be acquired after some time in the pack. How, I wondered, did the first of the urt people gain admittance to their packs. I suspected it had occurred hundreds of years ago. Some very clever individual, or individuals, must have suspected the mechanisms involved. They might then have considered how they might be circumvented. This secret, in the successive generations, might have been lost to the urt people, or, perhaps, it had been deliberately allowed to vanish in time by the discoverers of the secret, that others could not reveal it, or take advantage of it, to their detriment. Now, I supposed, the urt people, their children and such, would simply grow up with the packs, thinking perhaps that this was just the way things had been, inexplicably, or naturally, from time immemorial. yet is it not likely, I pondered, there would once have been a reason or reasons. Surely it is not always to be assumed that it is a mere inexplicable fact, a simply brute given, something not to be inquired into, that things are as they now are. Might there not be a reason why grass is green, and the sky blue? Might there not be a reason for the movement of the winds and the rotation of the night sky, and a reason, say, why men are as they are, and women as they are?

I suddenly leapt to the beast who's neck I had broken. I looked to the men on the hill. They had not yet released the sleen. I tore away a tusk, breaking it loose, from the side of the jaw of the dead animal. Then, feverishly, with a will, I thrust it through its pelt and, pulling and tearing, using my hands, and teeth, as well, I began to remove its skin. Perhaps they would think I had gone mad. Yet I did not think it would take Flaminius long to grasp my intent.

I looked back wildly back to the crest of the hill. Already the sleen, unleashed, were racing down the grassy slope.

I continued my work.

I tore loose part of the skin. I ran the side of my hand, like a knife, between it and organs and hot fat. I put my foot on the rib cage and, pressing down, then release the pressure, then pressing down, and releasing again, I turned the rib cage, drawing the pelt, rip by rip, away from it. I turned again to see the progress of the sleen. They could be upon me now in by Ihn. I could see their eagerness, their eyes. I tore the pelt mostly away from the animal. I had no time to remove the lolling, dangling head. With my foot, thrusting, I removed most of the remaining body and entrails from the hide, and clutching it, with both hands, wrapping it about my hips, I entered the pack.

Part of the hide was still warm on my skin. It was wet and sticky about me. MY legs and thighs were bloody from it. I wedged between urts. Their fur was warm and oily. I felt their ribs through it, the movement of muscles beneath it. Noses pushed toward me. I pushed on, fighting to make my way through the bodies. Almost at the same instant the sleen reached the pack and plunged toward me. One climbed over the bodies of the closely packed urts, snapping and snarling. Its jaws came within a foot of me, and then it fell between the startled urts, it spinning about then, confused. I kept pushing through the urts, toward the other side of the pack, more than a hundred and fifty yards away. Behind me I suddenly heard again that hideous squeal of an urt, once ore the stranger-recognition signal.

The sleen is a tenacious tracker, I told myself. It is a tireless, determined, tenacious tracker. Such thoughts had run through my mind earlier, when I had first come to the edge of the pack. They had then seemed provocatively, somehow significantly, but with no full significance which I had then grasped, lurking, prowling, at the borders of my understanding. Now I realized the thought with which my mind must have then been toying, the marvelous, astounding possibility which at that time I had not fully grasped, that possibility which would have seemed then, had I been fully aware of it, so disappointingly remote, yet so intriguing. But had I not acted upon this understanding, immediately, almost instinctively, whose earlier significance only now came fully home to me? I had. What had once been only a hint, a puzzling, intriguing thought which I had scarcely understood, had, in the thicket of circumstances, in the crisis of an instant, become a coercive modality of action, that path upon which one must boldly and irrevocably embark. I had required only the mchanism of my p[passage. Given that, everything, luminously, like the pieces of a puzzle, had fallen into place. Nothing could follow me through the urts. Nothing, not even sleen.

I pressed on. Behind me I heard the intensification and multiplication of the squeals. The sleen is a tenacious tracker. In its way it is an admirable animal. It does not give up; it will not retreat. I turned about to look back. I could see three swarming locations in the pack, almost as though gigantic tawny insects infested the area, clambering about atop each other. I saw a sleen rearing up on its hind legs, its shoulders and head emergent from the hill of swarming, clambering urts. An urt was clutched lifeless in its jaws. It shook it savagely. Then it fell back under the urts, and I could no longer see it. I pushed on. Then I could not move further. Too many urts, seemingly intent upon me, crowded about me. I was ringed. Then it seemed I stood in a clear place, an open place, an empty place, a central place, almost like a dry, lonely pool, separated out from, isolated in the midst of, those tawny bodies. I did not move. Necks craned towards me, noses twitching and sniffing. I did not move.

Through the bodies an urt came pressing towards me. It was a large urt, darkly furred. It had one tusk broken at the side of its jaw. it was about four feet high at the shoulder, extremely large for this type of animal. It had a silvered snout. I recognized it. it was the urt Nim Nim had earlier identified as the leader of the pack. It began to sniff me, its nose moving and twitching.

"Tal, ugly brute," I said, softly.

I turned, keeping it in sight as it circled me, sniffing. Then it had completed its circuit. Those small, myopic eyes peered up at me.

"You are a stinking, ugly brute," I whispered.

It sniffed me again, beginning at my feet and then lifting its head until it seemed, again, to look me in the eyes. When it had lowered its head I had lowered the pelt I grasped, holding it about me, that it might be near its nose. When it had lifted its head I had raised the pelt, too, keeping it muchly between us. It did not seem muchly concerned with the head of the urt which was still, by the skin, attached to the pelt. Its responses in this situation I assumed, I trusted, I hoped, would be activated almost exclusively by smell, and not by the smell of blood, or human, but by the smell of the pelt, by the pack odor.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It had turned away. The animals now returned to their business. Again was the pack tranquil, save where some animals, here and there, fed on sleen.

"Farewell, ugly brute," I said.

I then began, again, to press through the urts, wading through the pack. Once, a few yards before me and to my right, I saw a small, elongated head rise up suddenly, peering at me. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared. Again, then, I could see only the animals. This was the only concrete sign I had to suggest that there might be urt people traveling with the pack.

In a moment or two, now, I had emerged on the other side of the pack. I could see Flaminius, and his men, on the other side of the pack, quite near, now, to its edge. I observed them for a time. I watched while tow or three crossbow quarrels, their energy spent in the distance, looped over the pack and fell short of me. Then they turned about, hurrying back the way they had come. They perhaps had tharlarion somewhere. I then turned, and climbed through the broken, cerrated edges of this natural stone bowl, found myself in the open fields, and began to run, with the long, slow warrior's pace, that pace in which warriors are trained, that pace which may be maintained, even under the weight of weapons, accouterments and a shield, for pasangs.