The falcon wheeled, banking like a plane, and rushed in again. No
egg had hatched these birds! I knew who had shaped these slapping
pinions! Over one corner of my cloak I saw Narayan pull his pistol-like
electrorod, and screamed warning. "Drop it--quick!" The birds could
turn gunfire as easily as could Evarin himself, and if the falcon drew
one drop of my blood, then I was lost forever, slave to whoever had
flown the bird. I thrust upward with the knife, dodging between the
bird's wings. Men leaped toward us, knives out and ready. The bird
screamed wildly, flew upward a little ways, and hung watching us with
those curiously intelligent eyes. Another falcon and another winged
across the road, and a thin, uncanny screeing echoed in the icy air.
I heard the jingle of little bells. Three birds, golden-trapped and
green-trapped and harnessed in royal purple, swung above us; three
pairs of unwinking jewel-eyes hung motionless in a row. Beyond them
the darkening red sun made a line of blackening trees and silhouetted
three figures, a horse, motionless against the background of red sky.
Evarin--Idris--and Karamy, intent on the falcon-play, three traitors
baiting the one who had escaped their hands.
The falcons poised--swept inward in massed attack. They darted between
my knife and Narayan's. Behind me a bestial scream rang out and I
knew one of the falcons, at least, had drawn blood--that one of the
men behind us was not--ours! Turning and stumbling, the stricken man
ran blindly through the clearing, down the road--halfway to those
silhouetted figures he reeled, tripping across the body of a man who
lay beneath his feet. Narayan gave a gasping, retching sound, and I
whirled in time to see him jerk out his electrorod, spasmodically, and
fire shot after wild shot at the stumbling figure that had been our
man. "Fire--" he panted to me, "Don't let him--he wouldn't want to get
to--them--"
I struck the weapon down. "Idiot!" I said savagely, "Some hunting they
_must_ have!" Narayan began protesting, and I wrenched the rod
from his hand. The man was far beyond firing range now. At Narayan's
convulsed face I nearly swore aloud. This weak fool would ruin
everything! I said hastily, "Don't waste your fire! We can take care of
_them_ later--" I waved a quick hand at the three on the ridge.
"There is no help for those caught by Evarin's birds."
Narayan breathed hard, bracing himself in the road. I beckoned the
others close. "Don't fire on the birds," I cautioned, tensely; "It
only energizes them; they drain the energy from your fire! Use knives;
cut their wings--_look out!_" The falcons, like chain-lightning,
traced thin orbits down in a slapping confusion of wings and darting
beaks. I backed away from the purple-harnessed birds, flicking up my
cloak, beating at the flapping wings. Our men, standing in a closed
circle back to back, fought them off with knives and with the ends of
their cloaks thrown up, swatting them off; and three times I heard
the inhuman scream, three times I heard the lurching footsteps as a
man--not human any more--broke from us and ran blindly to the distant
ridge. I heard Narayan shouting, whirled swiftly to face him--he ran
to me, beating back the green-trapped bird that darted in and out on
swift agile wings. The screeing of the falcons, the flapping of cloaks,
the panting of men hard-pressed, gave the whole scene a nightmare
unrealness in which the only real thing was Narayan, fighting at my
side. His gasp of inhuman effort made me whirl, by instinct, flinging
up my cloak to protect my back, my knife thrust out to cover his
throat. He raked a long gash across the down-turned head of the falcon,
was rewarded with an unbirdlike scream of agony and the spasmodic
open-and-shut of the razor talons. They raked out--clawing. They
furrowed a slash in the Dreamer's arm. The razor beak darted in, ready
to cut. I threw myself forward, unprotected, off balance, ready to
strike.
At the last minute talons and beak turned aside--drew back--darted
swiftly, straight at me. And my knife was turned aside, guarding
Narayan!
But Narayan jerked aside. His knife fell in the road, and his arm
shot out--grabbed the bird behind the head, twisting convulsively so
the stabbing needle of a beak could not reach him. The darting head
lunged, pecking at the cloak that wrapped his forearm; thrown forward,
I stumbled against Narayan, carried by my own momentum, and we fell in
a tangle of cloaks and knives and thrashing legs and wings, asprawl in
the road. The deadly talons raked my face and his, but Narayan hung on
grimly, holding the deadly beak away. I thrust with the knife again
and again; thin yellow blood spurted in great gushes, splattering us
both with burning venom; I snatched the wounded bird from the Dreamer's
weakening hands twisted till I heard the lithe neck snap in my fingers.
The bird slumped, whatever had given it life--gone!
And high on the ridge the dwarfed figure of Idris threw up his
hands--fell--collapsed across the pommel of his saddle!
Narayan's breath went out limply in a long sigh as we untangled our
twisted bodies. Our eyes met as we mopped away the blood. We grinned
spontaneously. I liked this man! Almost I wished I need not send him
back to tranced dream--what a waste!