It drew back, wounded, I believe, but not grievously. It crouched down, watching the man, sucking at its arm. Then it stood on its short hind legs and lifted its two long arms into the air, lifting them and screaming with rage. It then crouched down, fangs bared, to again attack.
I was running down the hillock, slipping and sliding in the snow, my lance in my hand.
The other men, behind me, lifting their weapons and shouting, hurried after me.
The beast turned to look at us, hurrying toward him, shouting, weapons brandished.
I had the feeling, and it startled me, as I ran towards it, that it was considering our distance from it, and the time it would take us to traverse that distance.
I sensed then it was not a simple beast, the degenerate and irrational descendant of survivors of a Kurii ship perhaps crashed generations ago, descendants to whom the discipline and loyalty of the ship codes were meaningless, descendants who had for most practical purposes, save their cunning, reverted to a simplistic animal savagery. The Kur who is only a beast is less dangerous in most situations than the Kur who is more than a beast The first is only terribly dangerous; the second is an incomparable foe.
In the moment that the Kur had turned to regard us the man had hastened to unhitch the snow sleen at the sled. When the Kur turned back suddenly to regard him the snow sleen was free and leaping for its throat.
I was now within a few hundred yards of the Kur.
I saw it fling the dead, bloodied snow sleen, torn and half bitten through, from it.
The man had struck it again when it had seized the snow sleen but the blow, again, had not proved mortal. There was blood about its neck where the blade had cut at the side of the throat.
It seized the lance from the man and broke it in two. The man then began to run towards us.
The Kur flung the pieces of the broken lance to the side. The sleen, fresh-killed meat, lay behind in the snow. The sled, too, was now abandoned. Its supplies of meat and sugar, or whatever edibles it might carry, were now free to the depredations of the Kur.
It did not concern itself with the sleen or the sled, however. It looked at the man.
I knew then it was not an ordinary beast. A simple Kur, hungry, predatory, aggressive, would have presumably seized up the body of the sleen or perhaps meat from the sled and, in the face of the charging red hunters, made away, feeding as it retreated.
It dropped to all fours and began to pursue the man. I knew then it must be a ship Kur.
It was not after meat, but after the man.
He sped past me, and I braced myself, my arm drawn back, lance ready.
'Ho, Beast!' I cried. 'I am ready for you!'
The Kur pulled up short, some twenty yards from me, baring its fangs.
'Come now, and taste my lance!' I cried.
A common Kur then, I think, would have charged. It did not. Behind me I could hear the red hunters, some hundred yards away, and running toward me.
I took another step toward the Kur, threatening it with the lance.
In moments the Kur would be surrounded by a swarm of men, screaming, striking at it, hurling their weapons into its body.
With a last enraged snarl the Kur, not taking its eyes from us, moving sideways and back, moving on all fours, slipped diagonally away from us to our left. We ran toward it but it turned suddenly and reached the body of the sleen first and, dragging it by a hind paw, hunched over, moved swiftly away over the snow-covered tundra.
Before it had turned I had seen that it had worn in its ears two golden rings.
We watched it disappear over the tundra.
'You have saved my life, all of you,' said Ram.
'Are you hurt?' I asked.
'No,' he said.
We clasped hands.
'I thought I would find you in the village of Kadluk and Imnak,' he said.
Imnak had been with us at the wall. Too, I had not gone south.
'Do you have Bazi tea?' asked Akko. 'Do you have sugar?' asked Naartok. The word 'Naartok' in the language of the Innuit means 'Fat Belly'. In many cases there is no particular correspondence between the name and the individual. In Naartok's case, however, the name was not inappropriate. He was a plump, jolly fellow with a weakness for sweets prodigious even among red hunters.
'Yes,' said Ram, 'I have tea and sugars. And I have mirrors, and beads and knives, and many other trade goods.'
This news was welcome indeed. No traders, because of the wall, had come to the north for months.
'We will make a feast for our friend!' cried Kadluk.
'Oh,' moaned Akko, 'it is unfortunate that there is so little meat in the camp, and so our feast will be such a poor one.'
'Also,' said another fellow, 'the women did not know anyone was coming, so they will not have any water boiling.'
It takes some time to get water boiling over an oil lamp, though, to be sure, the flame can be elongated and enlarged by manipulating and trimming the wick moss.
'That is all right,' said Ram.
Actually, of course, the camp was heavy with meat. There had not been so much meat in the camp for years and the women, even now, were busy preparing a splendid feast.
'We are sorry,' said Kadluk, looking down.
'That is all right,' said Ram, cheerfully. 'Even a little piece of meat with friends makes a great feast.'
The red hunters looked at one another slyly.
We turned about and, some men drawing the sled, began to trek back to the camp. Ram, of course, a trader for years, was familiar with the tricks and jokes of red hunters. It had not escaped his notice, for example, that he had been met by almost every male in the village better than two pasangs from the permanent camp. He thus knew both that he was expected and, from the number of men available to meet him, that there must be much food in the camp. Otherwise many men would be out on the ice with their families.
'The beast was after you,' I said.
'It was hungry,' he said.
'It was not after the snow sleen, or the food you were carrying,' I said. 'It was after you, specifically.'
'I find that hard to believe,' said Ram. 'You speak as though it were intelligent.'
'I believe it to be so,' I said. 'Did you not notice the rings in its ears.'
'Of course,' said Rain.
'Surely they are ornaments,' I said.
'It escaped from a master,' speculated Ram. 'Doubtless he placed such ornaments in its ears.'
'It was by its own will, I believe,' I said, 'that those rings were put in its ears.'
'That seems to me unlikely,' said Ram. 'Did you not see how like a beast it was?'
'Do you think,' I said, 'because something does not look like a man that it cannot be intelligent?'
Ram turned white. 'But intelligence,' he said, 'if coupled with such ferocity-'
'It is called a Kur,' I said.
Ablaze with light was the feasting house.
Arlene, naked, the strap of bondage on her throat, head down, knelt before Ram, lifting a plate of boiled meat to him.
He thrust a thumb under her chin and roughly pushed up her chin.
'Who is this pretty little slave?' he asked. 'She looks familiar.'
She looked at him, in terror.
'Oh, yes,' he said. 'She is the one who commanded us at the wall.'
'Yes,' I said.
'You made her your slave,' he said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Is she any good?' he asked.
