The Clan of the Cats

II

But when Milo stood up, he nearly fell again. Seeing him so unsteady, Dik and Djim half-led, half-carried him up to the bank of the little stream. With his charge seated against the thick bole of an elderly oak, Dik mindspoke his clansmen to gather squaw-wood, brought steel and stone and tinder from out his beltpouch and soon had the dry stuff smoking quickly.

For some time, they had been hearing, now and again, the howling of wolves, but such was not an unusual sound either upon high plains or mountains. In the dead of a hard winter such as this, the packs often joined into superpacks and hunted almost constantly, day and night, small game or big, resting only on those rare occasions that their bellies had a modest quantity of food to work upon.

However, the howls of this pack were becoming louder, and that meant nearer! Now and again, gusts of wind bore the excited yelping of wolves on a flesh trail … and no man in the party had the slightest doubt about just whose trail those gaunt grey demons were on.

Once, long ago, Milo had faced a big wolfpack, while afoot, in open country. He had come out of it alive and whole, but more than half the score or so of warriors he had started with had not been so lucky, and even those who lived had carried scars of that fearsome battle to their graves.

Milo forced himself erect and set himself to control the shakiness of his legs. “Dik, Djim, the rest of you, this is no fit place to try to fight off Wind knows how many wolves. And we number too few, even were the conditions ideal.

“Now, true, we could each climb a tree and rope ourselves into it, but we could very easily freeze to death, so exposed this coming night, or die of hunger or thirst before those stubborn devils left.

“Djim, you say that the hill ahead is steep. How steep?” The intuitive tracker sensed his embryonic plan and shook his shaggy blond head. “Not that steep, Uncle Milo. We won’t be able to go up as easily as a cat, and the wolves will have even more trouble, but they and we will be able to climb it.”

“Then how about the rocks on the summit, Djim?”

The tracker closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow in concentration, then opened them with an incisive nod of his head. “Yes, Uncle Milo, the rocks are all overgrown with vines, but there are places that are almost sheer for seven or eight feet or more near the very top. And the top looks to have a depression in the center, so it may offer some protection from the winds.”

The way was steep, very steep, and might have been deadly treacherous in better, warmer weather, but now, at least, the jumbled blackish rocks were frozen into place and only a few shifted under the weights of the climbing men. The sounds from behind spurred their straining muscles to further efforts. The wolves had reached the stream now, and were fanning out to find the place where the men had come out of the swift-flowing water.

Milo alone recognized the rocks up which they frantically scrambled for what they were—much-weathered shards of old asphalt. A hundred years ago this had no doubt been part of a road leading to the hilltop, but fivescore freezing winters and as many scorching summers had buckled and cracked it. Then, undercut by erosion, the easy, manmade gradient had given way, the fill had washed down to the base of the hillock and left behind the heavier chunks of paving.

Milo led the way, knowing that any rock that would bear his weight would certainly not give under the lighter men who followed him. As he pulled himself over the rim, he heard the triumphant signaling howl of a wolf, a wolf that had sniffed out their trail. Now bare seconds were precious as rubies.

Djim Linsee was the next to clamber onto the level ground, and he and Milo grasped the arms of each of the others as they came into reach and pulled them up by main strength, bidding them run for the stone ruin—for such Milo could see it to be—some eighty yards across the tiny mesa. But even as they raised the last man, Dik Esmith, the first of the wolves ran snarling to the foot of the incline, there to rear on his hind legs and voice his savage view-halloo.

Djim snatched up a piece of loose stone as big as his two fists and hurled it with all his wiry strength and with deadly accuracy. His narrow skull shattered, the big dog-wolf fell without even a whimper, to lie twitching below them. But his last howl had been heard and understood. An increasing chorus of wolf-sounds told Milo and Djim of the grey death coming on as fast as the hunger-driven beasts could run.

In her den, full of deer meat and languidly laving her kittens with her wide red tongue, having to hold the squirming bundles of soft fur down with her good forepaw, the Hunter had heard the wolves afar off, long before the less sensitive ears of the two-legs could have been aware of the huge pack.

But the Hunter knew herself to be safe, even should the pack ascend the hill. Even with an injured forepaw, the big cat realized that she was more than a match for any one wolf, and no more then one wolf at a time could crawl into the narrow, winding passage that led to this den. Too, her eyes were better adapted to the near-total darkness that prevailed beyond the first couple of turns of the passage.

Three winters ago, she and her now-dead mate had lazily taken turns at killing wolves starved or crazed enough to enter the confines of that passage. As many had they killed as she had claws on her forepaws, and as fast as the cats’ mighty buffets crushed skulls or snapped necks, as fast as their long fangs tore out throats, so last did others of the pack drag out their dead or dying fellows to tear them apart in an orgy of lupine cannibalism.

At last, though, the edges of their hunger slightly dulled by their grisly repast, the pack had trotted off to seek out less dangerous prey. And the Hunter, gently swishing her long, thick tail and watching the kittens’ wobbling stalks and bumbling leaps at the tailtip with a critical maternal eye, knew that she was still capable of defending herself and her young from any number of wolves.

The building that was now become but ruin had been fashioned of bricks and rough-hewn blocks of granite. Milo could see no clues as to what had caused the collapse of the structure, but he was not really looking. Djim and another extraordinarily agile man had somehow gotten atop the almost smooth, almost vertical eight-foot-plus wall and Milo was now using his prodigious strength to lift the other four, one by one, holding them at arm’s length over his head, that those above might drag them up.

The wolfpack was howling and yelping below the hill. A few had already scrabbled up the difficult ascent and were even now racing flat out toward the ruin, howling back the message that the quarry were in sight. The last Horseclansman raised and safe on high. Milo stepped back a couple of paces and leaped upward, his arms stretched upward toward the hands that reached for him. But his legs failed to deliver their usual power and even collapsed under him as he fell back, sending him tumbling down to the very foot of the ruin.

Only fifty feet distant was the nearest wolf—its red tongue lolling over its cruel white fangs, short spurts of mist jetting from its nostrils, and pure murder shining from yellow eyes.

Milo fought back onto his feet and retraced his way to the foot of the sheer wall. Even as he reached it and grasped the joined belts the Horseclansmen had lowered, he could hear the claws of the big wolf clicking on exposed surfaces of the ruin. The animal’s panting sounded unbelievably loud and Milo even imagined that he could feel the hot, dank breath on the back of his neck.

As the Horseclansmen drew him up, he freed his right hand and drew his saber, for he sensed himself rising very slowly, too slowly. His head and shoulders already were above the upper edge of the ruin when the wolf arrived where he had been. Without any discernible pause, the ravenous beast jumped high, jaws agape.

The wolf’s first jump missed, but then so did the swing of Milo’s saber. On the second jump, the slavering jaws brushed Milo’s bootsole, but his keen-edged saber took off most of one furry ear, and with the surprised yelp of a kicked dog, the wolf fell back. The determined animal essayed one more leap, but by then Milo’s legs were disappearing over the top edge of the ruin.

They were safe for the moment, but as more and more grey shapes debouched onto the mesa, it became more and ever more clear that their situation was distinctly unenviable.

The wall up which they had come was the lowest side of the tower, so they were at least safe from wolves, so long as they stayed on high. However, although the tower top was slightly concave, the floor was only bare inches below the jagged rim, offering no trace of protection from wind, which, judging from the rime of ice and lack of snow, must be vicious and biting here, so high.

Nor was there anything burnable. While each man carried a few ounces of fatty pemmican in his belt pouch, none had more than enough for one full day. Moreover, none of them had brought water bottles, knowing that they could slake their thirst with snow, but this eyrie was bare of snow.

Husbanding their bare dozen arrows against greater need, the Horseclansmen used their heavy-bladed dirks to work loose jagged chunks of granite and weather-worn bricks, then they and Milo spent the rest of the waning daylight teaching the wolves to keep a respectable distance from the tower.

Horseclansmen were ever prone to gambling, they would wager on anything, and Uncle Milo was asked to bear witness to numerous bets while the supply of missiles lasted—cattle, weapons, old bits of gaudy loot, even women and horses. At least a dozen wolves were either killed outright or so badly crippled that they could not flee or fight off the packmates that savaged them and devoured their sometimes living flesh.

The night was terrible. Rolling pebbles in their mouths to allay their thirst, the nomads laced their hoods tightly and drew the woolen blizzard masks up over lips and vulnerable noses. In the very center of the concavity, they huddled together for warmth, frequently changing position that all might have equal time in the warmer, centermost position.

Not that sleep was easy, for the wolves paced and howled snuffled and barked and yelped throughout the long, dark night. Wolf after wolf set himself at the sheer walls, jumping and falling back to jump again until exhaustion claimed him. The pack seemed driven mad by the smell of so much manflesh and blood, so near, yet so unattainable to them.

Light came at last, but there was no visible sun and no cessation of the biting wind. The signs were unmistakable that a blizzard was building up. Milo knew that were he and his men to survive the coming weather, they must get off this exposed pinnacle and into shelter of some kind. But how?

The wolves paced the length and breadth of the little mesa. They numbered at least threescore, possibly more—grey wolves and those of a dirty brown color, with here and there a black one. Milo could almost feel pity for the canines, for they were obviously starving, with ribracks clearly visible beneath the dull, matted coats.

The pack had lost their fear of hurled stones in the night and once more were ranging close about the tower. But the men discovered that there were few loose rocks remaining on the rims; only in the center, where their combined body heat had thawed the rubble to a degree, could they ply up broken bricks and shards of grey granite.

With the supply of rocks decreasing, Milo awarded such as were available to the four most accurate hunters—Dik, Djim, and the tracker’s two younger brothers, fiery-haired twins called Bili and Bahb. Milo and the other Horseclansmen set themselves and their dirks to worrying loose more of the bits and pieces of old masonry littering the center of the tower.

Milo thrust his dirk blade under a brick that looked to be almost whole … and felt his blade ring on metal! He set the other men to working upon the same area, and slowly a pitted, red-brown iron ring was exposed. Shortly, they had cleared the two-foot-square trapdoor in which the ring was set.

One of the Horseclansmen took a grip upon the ring and heaved, then grasped it afresh with both hands, gritted his teeth and strained until the throbbing veins bulged in his forehead, but the rust-streaked door never budged.

“Wait,” counseled Milo. “There may be a catch of some kind holding it shut.” His dirk blade proved too wide for the crack at the edge closest to the ring; so too was the blade of his skinning knife. But the blade of the small dagger he habitually carried in his boot top slipped easily in. Even with the center of the ring, the blade encountered an obstruction; while pushing the knife against the unseen object. Milo noted that the ring turned a millimeter or so. Maintaining knife pressure, he gripped the ring in his other hand and twisted it right, then left, then right again. At the last twist, the obstruction was gone, and the blade slid easily from corner to corner of the door.

“Try it now.”

The Horseclansman heaved. There was momentary resistance, then, with an unearthly squeal and a shower of rust, the door rose jerkily upward to disclose the first treads of what looked to Milo like a steel stairway, covered with dust and cobwebs.

When the nomad’s belts were once more formed into a makeshift belt and knotted to the back of his own belt, Milo gingerly set foot to the ancient stairs, saber slung on his back and big dirk ready in his hand. As the Horseclansmen watched, all huddled about the opening into the unknown, Milo disappeared into the darkness, only the ring of his bootsoles on the metal telling them that he was still descending.

A sudden intensification of the hot lancing pain in her left foreleg awakened the Hunter, that and a thirst that was raging. Arising, she hobbled across the high-ceilinged, airy den to lap avidly at the pool in one corner—a pool that never froze even in the worst of winters and that never had been dry even in the most arid of summers.

Her thirst quenched in the crackling-cold water, the Hunter hobbled back to her guard post by the mouth of the tunnel. Lying down once more, for she seemed utterly devoid of energy, she licked at her swollen, throbbing left foreleg. Even the gentle touch of her tongue sent bolts of burning agony through every fiber of her being … and, of course, that was when she heard the first wolf enter the tunnel.

The Hunter had been aware that the two-legs were upon the high, flat place, where birds nested in warmer times, and where she and her now-dead mate had right often sunned themselves. But because she did know the place so well, she knew that there was no danger of the two-legs getting from there to the den. And if the wolves could find a way to get to the two-legs and wanted to eat them, they were more than welcome. As for her, she had nearly gagged at the foul stench of that two-leg she had so easily killed on the preceding day.

When the clawclicks and shufflings told her that the lupine invader was past the first turn of the passage, she entered it herself, puffing as little weight as possible upon her strangely huge and very tender left foreleg.

They met between the first turn and the second, in a section too low-ceilinged for either to stand fully erect. The Hunter knew that she possessed the deadly advantage here, for with only toothy jaws for weapons, the wolf could only lunge for her throat, whereas a single blow of her claw studded forepaw could smash the life from him as quickly as she had killed that two-leg. But she reckoned without her disability.

Sensing more than seeing the location of the wolf head, she lashed out with her sound paw … but this suddenly transferred the full weight of her head and fore-quarters onto the hot, swollen left foreleg. Squalling with pain, she stumbled, and her buffet failed to strike home; the bared claws only raked the wolf s head and mask, and before she could recover, his crushing jaws had closed upon her one good foreleg, eyeteeth stabbing, carnassials scissoring flesh and cracking bone.

But before the wolf could raise his bloody head, the Hunter had closed, had sunk her own huge fangs into the sinewy neck and crushed the lupine spine.

As the wolf’s jaws relaxed in death, the Hunter slowly backed down the tunnel, dragging her two useless forepaws, growling deep in her throat as the waves of pain washed over her. Weak and growing weaker she tumbled the two-foot drop from tunnel mouth to den floor.

Two of the kittens, trailed by the third, bounced merrily over to her, but a growled command sent them scurrying back into a far, dark corner. The Hunter knew that she and they were doomed now. She might have enough strength remaining to kill with her fangs the next wolf that came out of the tunnel. But there would be another behind him, and another and another, and the one she proved too weak to kill would kill her. Then the pack would be at the helpless kittens, ripping the little bodies to shreds, eating them alive.

Deciding to guard her young as long as possible, the Hunter painfully dragged herself across the den and took her death-stand before them.

The steel staircase was spiral, and though it trembled and creaked and crackled under his weight, Milo made it safely to the bottom. Untying the belts from his own, he mindspoke the men above him.

“The stairs will hold you, but don’t come down yet. This room seems small. See if that door will open wider, then get back from it. It’s dark as pitch down here.”

The hinges screamed like a damned soul, but finally the Horseclansmen got the trapdoor almost flat on the roof. In the increased light, Milo could see that the chamber was, indeed, small, a bit smaller than the roof above. Every surface was covered with a century of dust and hung with a hundred years worth of cobwebs. But he could spot no droppings of any kind, so apparently no animal or bird had ever gained access to it.

It took him a moment to remember just what the dust-shrouded object sitting on a shelf at waist level was: it was a gasoline lantern.

“I wonder …” Brushing away the dust and cobwebs, he could see that the artifact was not rusted, being finished in chrome or stainless steel; the glass was intact and there was even a filament still in place. Lifting the object, he shook it beside his ear. It sloshed almost full, and if that liquid was gasoline …

Finding the handle of the air pump, he tried it. The shaft moved smoothly in the tube. Now if he’d just had a match.

He let his fingers wander the length of the shelf. Near the edge they encountered a small metal cylinder. Not daring to hope, Milo brought his new find into the light. It was badly rusted, and it was all that he could do to coax the screwtop loose.

“Sonofabitch.” He breathed softly. The cylinder was filled with matches, the heads each coated with wax.

With the trapdoor closed and seven bodies gathered in close quarters, the nomads soon ceased to shiver and exclaimed upon the clear, intensely bright light of the lantern. A lighted exploration discovered another, larger lantern, two corroded and useless flashlights, a two-gallon can of lantern fuel, an assortment of rusty machine tools, and a holstered revolver, now just a single lump of rusty metal.

There was one other find. Set in the concrete floor near the foot of the stairs was another trapdoor, about three feet by two. Milo filled and lit the larger lantern, took the smaller for himself, then opened the second trapdoor to disclose more steel stairs, but these looking to be in better condition.

“Dik, Djim, you and the men stay here. I’ll mindcall if I need you or when I find food or water. Leave that thing in the leather holder alone. It was once a dangerous weapon and still might hurt or kill one of you if you tinker with it.”’

The floor at the bottom of the second spiral stairs was also concrete, but it had once been covered with asphalt tile, which cracked and powdered under Milo’s boots. To his left, grown over with plant roots, was a jumble of brick and stone, and Milo guessed that he was probably within the main ruin, whereon the tower sat perched.

Behind and to his right were plain, sound brick walls, still partially covered with remnants of rotted wood panneling. More of the rotted wood framed the door ahead of him, its brass knob pale-green with verdigris. The knob turned stiffly in his hand, but the door remained closed. Setting the light on the stairs, he put both hands to the task. Something popped and the door swung open.

The door led into a small, narrow room, the left side of it lined with closed metal cabinets, the right taken up by a flight of concrete stairs leading down. All of the cabinets proved bare of much that was still usable—a few brass buckles, a handful of metal buttons; perhaps the nails and eyelets could be salvaged from the several pairs of rotting boots by the metal-thrifty clansmen.

As he opened the last cabinet, he jumped back and cursed at unexpected movement, his hand going to the hilt of his dirk. The big brown rat struck the floor running and scuttled down the steps, only to come back up twice as fast, shrieking in terror and streaking directly between Milo’s feet to leap into a hole in the wall.

Thus warned, Mile descended the stairs slowly and carefully, holding the lantern high. It was well that he had done so. The bare concrete of the small room below was littered with nearly two dozen sluggishly writhing rattlesnakes!

“Well” thought Milo, “that answers the food problem.” But none of the vipers lay between the foot of the stairs and the closed door in the facing wall, so he left them alone.

This door was the hardest to open he had encountered, but at last he did so, to find himself faced with a short stretch of corridor and three more doors, one in each wall. He entered and closed the door behind him.

The doors to both left and right were secured with heavy padlocks. Stenciled on the face of the left door was “FALLOUT SHELTER—KEEP OUT—THIS MEANS YOU!” On the face of the right was “PRIVATE SANCTUM OF STATION DIRECTOR—TRESPASSERS WILL BE BRUTALLY VIOLATED!” The door straight ahead was unmarked, but an iron bar at least two inches thick bisected it horizontally, held in U-shaped brackets firmly bolted to the brickwork.

It might well be a door opening to outside. Milo put an ear to it but could hear nothing. Removing the bar, he opened the door a crack, keeping shoulder and foot against it, just in case a wolf should try to come calling.

But stygian darkness lay beyond the door. Darkness and a powerful odor of cat. Milo closed the door and drew his saber, then opened it wide and quickly descended the two steps to the next level, lantern held above his head and eyes rapidly scanning the large, high room.