“Before this meat goes into any pot, it will have to be taken. And the hunting of it is going to cost them sore. These are truly the Beast Things of which you have spoken, comrade?”
“I believe so. And they are reputed to be crafty—”
“Then must we, too, be sly. Now, since we cannot go down—let us see what may lie above us.”
Fors watched the pigeons wheeling about the ruins. The floor under their feet was white with bird droppings.
“We have no wings—”
“No—but I am bred of a race which once flew,” Arskane answered with a sort of quiet humor coloring his tone. “We shall find a way out of here that offal below cannot follow. Let us now seek it.”
They passed out of one hall into another, looking into the rooms along the way. Here were only decaying sticks of furniture and bones. In the third hall were more of the shaft doors—all closed. Then, in the far end of one back hall, Arskane pushed open a last door and they came upon stairs which led both up and down.
Lura brushed past them and went down, fading away with her customary skill and noiselessness. They squatted down in the shadows to wait for her report.
Arskane’s face showed a grayish tinge which was not born of the lack of light. The struggle up that ladder and with the door had left its marks on him. He grunted and settled his bad shoulder gingerly against the wall. Fors edged forward. Now that they were quiet his ears could work for him. He heard the pattering which was Lura on her way, the trickle of powdered rubble which her paws had disturbed somewhere.
There was no sign hereabout that the Beast Things had used this stair. But—Lura had stopped! Fors closed his eyes, blanking out his own thoughts, trying as he never had before to catch the emanations of the big cat’s mind. She was not in any danger but she was baffled. The path before her was closed in such a manner that she could not win through. And when her brown head appeared again above the top step Fors knew that they could not escape by that route. He said as much to Arskane.