Then—Simmle barked fiercely, once. I squeezed from under my brush shield. A puff of wind upslope had brought me warning. I leaped from the ledge into a lower thicket, wriggled through its spiky grasp. That one war cry from Simmle and then nothing– nothing but the scent and sounds which perhaps a human ear could not have caught, but which to barsk hearing were as loud as a fanfare of horns. I slipped through the cover, heading to camp, dropped to my stomach, and crept under the nearest van.

Malec wavered up the slope from the stream. Yoke and buckets were gone. He stumbled and slipped, one hand pressed to his breast, the other out-flung, fingers moving vainly as if he tried to grasp some support which was not there.

He went to his knees before he reached the circle of the cages, and then sank slowly forward. From between his shoulders, dancing with his heavy gasps of breath, stood the shaft of a crossbow bolt. His hands pushed into the soil, and then his efforts ceased and he fell forward on his face, quiet and spent.

As if his struggle had been a signal, those in the cages burst forth and fled, voiceless and swift. They were gone, hidden perhaps to any man's eye, but not to my nose or ear.

I crept on, though such a mode of travel was hard for my barsk body. There was someone coming up the bank from the river, trying to move quietly, but with little success, from my point of view.

Continuing on under the shadow of the van, I began a circuit of the campfire. Malec had not moved, but his assailant was very cautious. Perhaps the other did not know that the Thassa had been alone save for the animals. I tried to reach Malec through mind-touch. He was still alive, but there was no consciousness to pick up my message.

I reached the end of the van. There were the cages, but I did not know if they were sufficiently high to hide me. Or dared I play a bewildered animal out in the open? As I hesitated, a tan streak ran to my left. Simmle! What was she doing?

She did not pause by Malec, but angled down in the direction of the one who scouted toward the camp. I got to my feet and flashed after her. I still had not seen her quarry when he screamed. A moment later I nearly fell over the furiously fighting tangle of man and venzese. He was crying out, trying to hold snapping jaws from his throat with both hands.

I jumped and tore, and Simmle got the grip she fought for. In those seconds I was more barsk than man, in me boiled a red rage I would not have believed I could house.

There was a shout, something whizzed so close to my shoulder that I felt the burn of its passing. Simmle still worried her victim and now I leaped a second time, striking against her, bearing her to the ground with my weight.

"Loose!" I beamed that thought order at her. "Loose—come!"

Again a bolt struck close. The smell of blood was fuel to my beast rage, but I fought against that emotion.

"Loose—come!" I had opened my jaws to seize upon eyes red and gleaming. She growled as one who warns another from legitimate prey.

"Come!" Again I launched myself against her and this time my plunge sent her sprawling away from the body. She growled, but got to her feet as a bolt struck where she had lain but a second before. She snapped viciously at where it stood quivering in the ground, and bounded with me up the slope.

They continued to shoot after us and I zigzagged, hoping Simmle would follow my example. We came into the camp only a few feet from Malec, who lay just as I had seen him fall. Simmle dipped her head to nose him and then sounded a shuddering howl.

"On!" I urged her. She swung around, showing her teeth as if to launch at me. Then some of the red light dimmed from her eyes and she ran with me, shoulder to shoulder, between the vans to the country beyond.

I had no idea where the other animals had vanished to, though I caught their mingled scent and thought they had taken this same route. I was not even sure how many there were, or of what different species.

"Up!" I ordered Simmle. She had swung around and paused, facing back toward the camp. Her usually sleek hair was rough along the spine, and her head was down between hunched shoulders, stained fangs exposed as her muzzle wrinkled in a snarl. She took a step or two down our back trail. Then she turned again and led me in a wild race in the brush.

We worked our way well up into the heights before we halted and lay panting, watching the camp. There were men there now, kicking at the cages where the doors swung open, thrusting swords into the interiors of the vans as if to hunt out anything which might be hiding there. From Maelen's they tumbled boxes, breaking open their fastenings to find supplies of the meat-and-grain cakes. All in sight seized upon these eagerly, wolfing them down with the greed of men who had missed many meals.

They had dragged Malec's body to one side, bundling it out of the way under one of the vans. Two of the men walked along the line of the kasi where those animals snorted and pulled at their ropes, kicking out at any who approached too near.

The empty cages appeared to fascinate some of the men. They pushed them over as if unable to believe that they were bare of occupants, as if this rough handling would dislodge what must be within.

Into the disordered camp now rode a small party of three. One man supported another in the saddle of his mount, while the third came behind, as if to cover a rear attack. Now it was my turn to snarl. He who was being so tended I had last faced in the border fort. These were Osokun's outlaws who were making themselves free of the camp, and some time recently their leader had met with rough handling. His right arm was bound across his chest and his face was white and drawn. He was a sorry ghost of the cocky lordling who had tried to dictate terms to Free Traders.

The spoiling of the vans continued as the men sorted through the contents of boxes and baskets. Food appeared to be their first concern and they ate hugely, before putting all that was left into saddle bags. Some then went in a southwesterly direction and returned leading riding kasi. A few of the animals limped and all showed signs of hard and too long riding.

But the men were in no hurry to leave the camp. They lifted Osokun from his mount and put him on the divan they pulled from Malen's van. One of the men who had supported him heated water on the fire, busying himself with the tending of his leader's wound. It would seem, however, that Osokun was no longer in command, for the orders of another man set the plunderers to work righting some of the mess they had made. He bent on one knee by the van under which they had rolled Malec's body and made a slow, careful study of their victim. Then, by his orders, the others pulled forth the Thassa and carried him off into the brush.

Beside me I felt Simmle's tense muscles, I heard her almost soundless growl.

"Not yet," I thought to her, "not yet—"

Whether I could hold her, I did not know. But I was considering our plight. Maelen had gone to Yrjar and had said that time was short. She would speed in both going and returning. And from present signs the outlaws were not planning to leave the camp soon.

Instead they were fast restoring to the vans all they had dragged out of them, pitching in the plundered containers, but getting them out of sight. Another man was going around among the empty cages, not only righting them in their original positions, but even latching their doors. When they had done, the officer looked around and nodded. As far as I could see, they were setting up the camp to look undisturbed.

This could mean only one thing. They believed that in Malec they had not gotten all of the Thassa, and they were setting a trap for the others. Did they know of Maelen? Had they perhaps trailed her the day before, and waited now to seize her?