First he was conscious of his body being jerked roughly, roughly enough to send pain shooting through it to the bursting agony in his head. Then he came out of the blackness, trying weakly to hold his thoughts together. The end to that fight came when he fell again, struck painfully against solid rock and rolled. A kick in the ribs brought him to a racking stop. He must have been carried and thrown down. And the sickening stench in his nostrils told him by whom. He lay limply, not daring to open his eyes. As long as they deemed him senseless he might be safe for a while.
He was bound, his wrists behind the small of his back, his ankles together. Already his hands were numb and the bonds had cut his flesh. He could only listen and try to guess at what his captors were doing. They appeared to be settling down. He heard the grunt one gave, the scratching of nails across tough hide. Then, through rank body smell, he caught the scent of smoke and dared to peek beneath half-open lids.
Yes, they had kindled a fire, a fire which they were feeding with handfuls of a coarse grass they pulled up from where it grew along the sides of the valley. One came into the full light of the flames and flung down an armload of the water plants, still alive enough to attempt to writhe away from the heat.
But these were speedily seized upon and the red bulbs at their centers squeezed between yellowed fangs with snorts of satisfaction. Sucked dry, the plants were tossed on the fire. Fors swallowed with a bruised throat—his turn next?
But one of the Beast Things turned with inhuman swiftness and sprang to the wall behind it, clutching up something which wriggled and squeaked shrilly. It came back holding a squirming captive in each paw and batted the small bodies against a convenient rock until they were limp and still. The hunter’s success aroused the envy of its fellows and they all pawed among the rocks of the valley, a few successfully.
Fors heard swift movement in the loose rocks somewhere behind him, as if small, agile things were speeding away to safety. The slowest of the hunters had returned to the fire grumbling and empty-handed. When the catch was laid out on the stone Fors saw it clearly for the first time—lizards! They resembled those he had seen all his life hiding among rocky places—and yet there was something odd about the shape of the heads—But before he could guess what it was the bodies had been slung over the flames to broil.
There were four Beast Things busy there. Either the whole clan had not after all ventured into the Blow-Up or else the party had split. But these four were bad enough. For the first time he was able to see them clearly.
They were probably no taller than he but their emaciated bodies perched on stick legs made them seem to top him. The grayish skin which was stretched tight over their sharp bones was deep grained, almost scaly, and their bodies were bare save for strips of filthy tattered stuff worn about their loins. But their faces—!
Fors forced himself to study, to study and file in memory what he saw. He tried to view those masks of borrow with detachment. In general outline they were remotely human. But the eyes deep set in bone-rimmed pits, the elongated jaws above which the nose was only two slits-jaws equipped with a hunting beast’s fangs—sharp fangs never fully covered by thin vestiges of lips—those were not human. They were—he recoiled from the picture formed in his mind—they were rats!
Fors shivered and could not control the trembling of his aching body. Then he tensed. Something was climbing down the slope behind him, not with the light patter of the lizards but with the assured tread of one who knows he has nothing to fear and is coming to meet friends. A moment later Fors felt a jar, then soft fur against him. The steps went on.