'Take care, Hairy One, if you go toward Anshan. Shan Kar and the outlanders have cleared the forest edges of our scouts, and their weapons guard the city well.'

Then she turned to the foal. 'Come, little fleet one. Only a little farther, and then you can rest'

He watched them go, the dappled mare with her flowing mane and tail, a graceful shape of silver in the moonlight, her ink-black foal rocking along beside her. Light feet that had never known the weight of iron shoes, proud high heads that had never bent to the curb and the cutting bit.

Nelson had always liked horses as a man likes them. Treat them well, take pride in them, feed and groom them and occasionally drop the old phrase, 'That horse is almost human!'

But these of Hatha's Clan were different. By whatever unholy alchemy the thing had been done, these horses were human in intelligence. He remembered the bitter pride of the captive Hoofed Ones in Anshan, when he had ridden out with Tark and Lefty and Shan Kar on their ill-starred mission.

He turned slowly to cross the stream but he did it mechanically, because he had been headed that way before. Nelson's mind had been jarred and some gate had opened between it and the subconscious mind of the wolf. He remembered Kree's words, 'Asha's instincts, memories, latent knowledges —'

Memories.

He had been too occupied before with his own terror and his own rage and, after that, the miracle of new and alien sensation. But now a whole spate of memories stored away in Asha's mind broke loose and flooded into Nelson's. They were not the simple memories of an animal but, in their own strange way, as human as his own.

Cubs rolling in the sun-warmed grass, the newness of the world, the lessons, the first hunt, the first kill, the first sight of Vruun's glittering towers, the entering of the young wolf into the full rights of the pack. Little details, tastes and smells and thoughts and dreams. Yes, dreams, akin to those of the boy Eric Nelson lying under his green Ohio trees, half asleep in the summer stillness.

But these were only the ripples on the broad deep river of Asha's mind. Below them ran strong the currents that bound the individual to the Clan and the Clan to the Brotherhood. In the flashing glimpse of Asha's past Nelson saw a whole new way of life, where intelligent beings had adjusted themselves to a society that was at once as simple as Eden and as complex as modern New York.

A society in which the five great clans-man and wolf, horse and tiger and eagle-lived in perfect equality without even thinking about it, just as in Nelson's own world different races of men lived together and accepted it as natural. A society with its own laws, that forbade murder and theft and governed the rights of the hunt, and in which loyalty was freely given. A sort of freemasonry that was in very reality a brotherhood.

They were not perfect, these creatures of the clans. Some of the memory-flashes gave Nelson a jolt of fear and others made him laugh at the spectacle of foolishness. Again he felt contempt because he had seen cowardice or the theft of another's kill. But their very imperfections made them the more human.

When he shut his mental eyes and looked only at their minds, Nelson was forced at last to realize the truth without reservation. The creatures of the Clans were no more beasts than he. Less, he was forced to admit, for he had killed for money, whereas the Brotherhood killed only for food. And he had killed men, whereas the Brotherhood killed only the deer and the rabbit.

Quite suddenly it did not seem strange at all to Nelson that he was trotting on four legs through the forest. The intimate contact with Asha's mind had dissolved that strangeness. It seemed no more to him now than if he had put on a foreign dress. He was at home.

Abruptly a hare bolted in front of him. He caught it in easy bounds and broke its back and fed.

It was then that the gray brothers of the pack came upon him, drifting silently between the trees from the east. He had no wind to warn him and his hunger had betrayed him into carelessness. He started up from his half- eaten kill and would have run, only that the leader, an old gray dog-wolf who lacked an eye, uttered a thought to him.

'Finish your kill, young one. There is not that much haste.'

The old wolf sat down, his tongue lolling out. 'Besides, we have run far, from the hills above Mreela. We would rest.'

Through Asha's eyes, Nelson saw that these were lean and ragged wolves from an outlying tribe that ranged the upper levels. They did not know him, did not know that he was outlaw.

He finished his meal in gulps, crunching down the last sweet bones. Then he licked his lips and waited. The long wailing Hai-oo! of the Clan-call rose across the river and was answered and answered again.

The old wolf told him, 'We go toward Anshan to watch.'

'I, too.'

'Then go with us, young one.'

He could not get away from them without arousing suspicion. He must join them now, and later see what was best to do.

The lean gray shapes rose, ten of them, long-fanged hunters of the barren heights, full of a quivering excitement. Almost, Nelson felt as he ran that he was really Asha, running with his own kind.

But he was not. His kind, Nelson's kind, lay in wait at Anshan with machine-guns and grenades.

When the first light of dawn began to pale in the sky, he and the pack were miles southward. He started to drift away from the upland pack. He would be safer now alone. He must find some place to lie up until it was dark again before he made his attempt to enter Anshan. By night he had one chance in a hundred of succeeding without being shot on sight as a spy from Vruun. By day he had none.

Nelson would have slipped safely away as he planned had not the dawn wind risen and betrayed him.

He was lagging behind the others, watching his chance to slide off into the brush, when from downwind came a sudden barking cry and with it a mental call— 'Ho, brothers! There is a stranger with you!'

The whole of the upland pack turned and faced Nelson, instantly suspicious. Before he could run, wolves were all about him, Wolves from Vruun, whose minds spoke in chorus like one great curse.

'Asha!”

Nelson wheeled and leaped clean over the old dog-wolf, breaking for the shelter of the brush.

Behind him, as it had in Vruun, the mental shout went baying through the trees.

'Asha is outlaw! Drive him, brothers! Drive him from the forest!'

Then the pack was after him in full cry and the call was echoing all across the valley, tossed from one pack to another and picked up and carried on until it burst from the hillsides in a wailing malediction.

'Outlaw!'

Once again Nelson ran, belly-down and straining. Ahead of him lay the open plains around Anshan, and in them lay death. Desperately he swerved and dodged and circled, but the wolves of the Clan drove and drove him without mercy. There was no escape.

The forest began to thin. In the distance between the trees he could see the open flatness of the plain. Far out upon it Anshan burned like a great jewel in its setting of green forest by the river.

He crouched, trapped and desperate, tried to think.

Abruptly, overhead, he heard the whistling thunder of great wings and leaped up snarling. Then he saw that it was Ei and he heard Ei's mind speaking to him with urgent swiftness.

'This way, outlander! You can dodge the pack if you do as I order.'

He could do no worse than obey.

The eagle swooped skyward again, where he could see the movements of the whole pack, and sent his guarded thought down to Nelson.

'Run hard this way, outlander! Now. Into the pool. Swim, swim quickly, upstream. Stay in the water, the wind is with you. Now! Under the overhang of the bank there and crouch still — still!'

Nelson crouched, wet and shivering, half submerged, and heard the pack swing past him and go on. Presently Ei swooped down and perched on a nearby rock. Nelson crawled out where it was drier and lay panting.

'We will wait,' the eagle told him, and composed himself.

Nelson studied the other. Finally he sent a questioning thought. 'I don't understand. Why should you come to help me?'

And Ei answered, 'Nsharra sent me.'

Вы читаете The Valley of Creation
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