Dumarest spun, dodging the horns, conscious of the feet, feeling the slam as one hit the side of his thigh. His left hand fell to grip the beast's left horn, the lift of the head carrying him up as he threw his right leg over the back. As the thing reared he sent the point of his knife deep into an eye, twisting, thrusting, cursing as the width of the blade jammed against the orbital bone.
A moment wasted as he fought to free the steel then he was in the air, turning, twisting from the rake of the clawed hands which had swept him from his perch to hurl him far and hard against the dirt.
Roaring, the creature tore the knife from its eye and flung it after its attacker.
Dumarest watched it, saw the gleam of reflected light as it turned, the plume of dirt as it hit to skid to rest a score of yards from where he lay. To reach it would take time and yet without it he was helpless. To finish the job; to blind the creature so as to lock it in a cage of darkness while he left the range of its natural weapons-in that was his only safety.
He coughed and spat and ignored the blood, the pain which rasped his lungs with jagged glass. Beneath him the dirt quivered to the pound of feet as the beast rushed toward him, to kick and stamp until nothing was left, but a bloody smear. Dumarest rolled, scooped up a handful of dirt, threw it as he rose to fill the remaining eye with grit. He gained a moment as an inner lid cleansed the orb, and when next he rose the knife was again in his hand.
'Hold!'
He ignored the shout and the command, concentrating on the beast, the death rearing on clawed feet, turning now to spot him, the blood-smeared face a grotesque mask of bestial ferocity.
It would see him and attack, lowering the head to bring the horns into play as it had before. The trick was to stay on the blind side, to avoid the lash of the foot, to send the point of the knife up and hard to ruin the remaining eye.
'Back, you fool! Back!'
Another shout, again ignored--the snarling creature demanded his entire attention. Dumarest sidled, facing the beast, tasting blood, feeling sweat dew his face, his palm, loosening his grip on the shaft of the knife; small things each of which could bring his end but there was no time to correct them now. He slowed, tempting the animal, showing himself, waiting, every nerve tense for the one, exact moment when he must move with smoothly oiled perfection.
Dirt rose beneath a scraping foot, furrows showing the rake of claws and, on the plated bone of the skull, a patch of reflected lavender moved, to glow again, to vanish as with a blur of movement the head lowered, horns lunging like twin spears as the massive thighs drove the thing at Dumarest.
He darted aside, felt agony tear at his lungs, saw the monstrous head turn vague as his sight became edged with darkness, felt the rasping impact of claws against hip and thigh as, almost too late, he spun to avoid the kick. Even as new pain joined the old, he was reaching, gripping, lifting the blade in a vicious, upward thrust at the far eye-knowing he had missed even as an arm swept around him to tighten, to crush him against the thick torso as, rising, the beast lifted him from his feet.
He dangled helpless, vomiting blood, staring at the blood-smeared mask above him, the jaws which gaped to show the dagger-like fangs, the pointed teeth. Jaws which lowered to his face, fangs which would rip the skin and flesh from the bone and leave nothing but a naked, grinning skull: the badge of the loser-the hallmark of death.
A moment, then he heard the dull and distant thuds, saw the sudden sprouting of feathered tubes in the thing's head and throat, felt the bruising sting as something drove into his neck-and fell into immediate and utter oblivion.
Chapter Two
He rose through layers of ebon chill counting seconds as he waited for the eddy currents to warm his body, for the pulmotor to cease aiding his respiration, for light and the euphoria of resurrection. A dream which dissolved into shattered fragments and the realization that he was not riding low, lying in a casket designed for the transportation of beasts, doped, frozen, ninety percent dead, risking the fifteen percent death rate for the sake of cheap travel.
A dream born of memory and followed by others; a surging tide of faces and places and strangely distorted images which threw him back into time in a series of speeded montages. Silver hair replaced by flaming scarlet, brown, gold ebon streaked with alabaster. A world on which the dead walked to converse with the living-a woman, a doll, a child-Lavinia!
He writhed as a tide of pain washed the images away and left him trembling but awake.
He looked up at a face. It was blurred, the planes and contours oddly vague as if seen through water or through eyes affected by chemical compounds. The face was haloed by the light beyond, rimmed with effulgence, touched with mystery.
Then, even as he looked, the features seemed to firm; the eyes widening to form limpid pools deep-set beneath arching brows, the nose firmly bridged, the cheeks concave, the rounded jaw strongly determined, the mouth wide, sensuous, the lips moist and full. The face was surmounted by a crested mane of hair which shone like oiled jet. An ebon cloud in which shone the sparkle of scintillate gems.
She said, 'Earl Dumarest you are a fool.'
'If so I am a grateful one, my lady. May I know my benefactor?'
'I am Charisse Chetame.'
'Then, my lady, I thank you.'
'For having saved your life?' Her laughter, like her voice, was deep and warm with resonance. 'Please, Earl, don't compound your folly.'
She could be playing a game with rules known only to herself if any such existed. Someone rich, jaded, choosing to amuse herself. One who could decide to terminate her charity-if charity it had been.
Dumarest struggled to sit upright, fighting a sudden nausea, taking deep breaths as he waited for it to pass. The bed was a hospital cot, the room fitted with medical equipment, his body naked beneath a thin sheet which fell as he rose to expose his torso, the scars which traced thin lines over his chest. In the hollows of his elbows small wounds rested puckered mouths in tiny gardens of bruise.
'Intravenous feeding,' she explained, unnecessarily. 'You've been under slowtime. Six weeks subjective.'
Over a normal day he had lain, his metabolism speeded by the drug, healing with accelerated tempo. Even though he'd been fed, his body showed signs of wastage.
'You were cut up pretty badly inside,' she explained casually. 'I had to section the bone and replace quite a large amount of lung tissue. I didn't think you'd object to a couple more scars.' Her hand lifted, a slender finger touching his skin, tracing a path over the pattern of cicatrices. A touch which held more than a professional interest, lingering as if a caress. 'A fighter,' she mused. 'You've worked in the ring and learned the hard way. How often have you killed Earl?'
Too often, but he said nothing, watching her eyes, the set of her lips. She was past her first youth, in her third decade at least, and the name was familiar. Chetame? He remembered the guard.
He said. 'The beast was yours?'
'Is, Earl. It's still alive and the sight has been fully restored. You know what happened, of course?' She didn't wait for him to reply. 'My men had to shoot it with anesthetic darts. One of them hit you. They brought you in together.'
And who had claimed her first attention?
'It was deliberate,' he said, understanding. 'You placed the creature outside to be tormented. Only a fool would have done such a thing without reason and, my lady, I do not take you for a fool.'
'Charisse, Earl, you may call me Charisse. And you are correct. It was necessary for me to discover its tolerance level and also its potential strength. Clients do not take kindly to being supplied with beasts they cannot control. The cage seemed strong enough but, obviously, it was not. And I had underestimated the maniacal fury level by a factor of at least five percent. It could even be ten.'
A mistake-and two guards had died and the child could have joined them. The men standing by had been slow to act or had been ordered to hold their fire. More tests?
'That's why I called you a fool, Earl.' Charisse seemed oblivious to Dumarest's anger. 'To have risked your life
