Robert Silverberg: The Hunters of Cutwold

Knowing that Marya Llewellyn had some strange way of sensing direction didn’t alter his plans any. He had intended from the first, whatever Murdoch’s suspicions were, to lead the party sooner or later to the Nurillins. Brannon had been around; he never deluded himself with false hopes. Murdoch had hired him to lead them there, and Murdoch would not settle for less.

The nine tourists said little as they proceeded. They were lost in the strangeness of Cutwold.

Cutwold—or Caveer V, as the starcharts called it—was a warm, almost tropical world, heavily forested, heavily inhabited by life of all sorts. Once in its history it had spawned an intelligent species, the Nurillins. But they had been too gentle for Cutwold, and when Brannon had discovered them they were in the final throes before race extinction, with perhaps ten generations remaining to them if they kept out of man’s way.

The forest was speaking, now. Crying abuse at the man who led ten others on a mission of murder.

The giant frogs, those cynical toothy amphibians half the size of a man, were honking scornfully from either side of the path. Further back originated the deep moaning bellow of the groundsnakes, and Brannon heard also the endless yipping of the little blue dogs that raged through the forest in murderous packs. He sensed nervousness spreading over his charges as night approached.

Above, Caveer, the golden-green sun that Brannon, in a forgotten past, had said was the loveliest he had ever seen, was dropping toward the horizon. Jonquil, first of the identical featureless moons of Cutwold, glimmered palely in the still-blue sky; Daffodil yet lay hidden in the nestling clouds of day, but soon would break forth and with its sister spiral across the night sky.

Then was the time of fear, in the forest—when the moons were bright.

Brannon plodded methodically forward through the darkening forest, dragging his ten charges along as if they were tied to his back. Somewhere ahead lay the refuge of the unsuspecting Nurillins; somewhere ahead lay a soft-eyed alien girl who had spoken kindly to him once long ago, and who now would receive her reward.

Karris’ accusing words burned his soul.

Judas. Judas.

It wasn’t so, Brannon protested silently. It wasn’t so. If they only could see why he was doing this—

They couldn’t. To them he was a Judas, and Judas he would remain.

He stopped, suddenly. His jungle-sensitive ears, aided by the vague blur of a foresight in his mind, picked up the sound of feet drumming against forest soil. Hundreds of feet.

“What’s the trouble?” Murdoch asked.

“Pack of wild dogs coming this way,” said Brannon. “Let’s pull into a tight circle and wait them out.”

“No!” Mrs. Marshall gasped suddenly. “No!”

Her ascetic-faced husband turned to her, skin drawn so tight over his face he looked mummified. He slapped her, once; a white blotch appeared on her face, rapidly turning red. “Keep quiet,” he said.

“That goes for all of you,” snapped Brannon. “They won’t bother us if they have some other quarry. Stay still, try not to move—and if any of you lose your heads and fire into the pack, you won’t live to fire a second time.”

He listened, tensely. First came the thump- thump of some large beast, then the pat- pat -pat of dogs, hundreds of them, in fierce pursuit.

“Here they come,” Brannon said.

The quarry came first, bursting out of the thick wall of vegetation that hemmed in the pathway on both sides. It was a Cutwold bull, eleven feet through the withers, a monster of a taurine with yellow curved horns two feet long jutting from its skull.

Now the bubbly slaver of fear covered its fierce jaws, and the thick black hide was slashed in a dozen places, blood oozing out steadily. The vanguard of the attacking force rode with the bull: two small blue dogs who clung to the animal’s hind legs, snapping furiously, hoping to slice through the hamstring tendon and bring the bull crashing to the ground.

The pack is hungry tonight, Brannon thought.

He had only a moment’s glimpse of the bull; then it was gone, blasting its way through the yielding underbrush, and only the sound of its snorting bleats of terror remained. But then came the pursuers.

Brannon had learned to fear the blue dogs of Cutwold more than the poison-trees or the velvet snakes or any of the other deadly jungle creatures he knew. The dogs were built low to the ground; they were whippet-like creatures whose claws could rend even the armor-thick leather of the giant bull, whose teeth bit the toughest meat, whose appetites never reached satiety. They burst into the clearing and streamed across the road so fast one dog appeared to melt into its successor, forming an unending lake of blue, a blur broken only by the glinting of their red eyes and snapping teeth.

Brannon remained quite still, standing with his group. The women were frozen, fearstruck; Napoli was staring at the dog horde with keen interest, but the other men appeared uneasy. Brannon counted minutes: one, two, three…

The numbers of dogs thinned until it was possible to see daylight between them. Off in the distance a cry of chilling intensity resounded: the bull had been brought to earth. Good, Brannon thought. The dogs would feed tonight, and for a while at least would keep away.

One last dog burst through the trampled brush. And paused.

And turned inquisitively, guided by who knew what mad impulse, to sniff at the clustered huddle of human beings standing silently in the jungle path.

It bared its teeth. It drew near. The rest of the pack was out of sight, almost inaudible. Suddenly Clyde Llewellyn lowered his heavy-cycle gun and sent three bullets smashing through the dog’s body and skull, even as Brannon reached out to prevent it.

The dog fell. Savagely Brannon smashed Llewellyn to the ground with one backhanded swipe. “You idiot! Want to kill us all?”

The mildness vanished from the little man’s face as he picked himself up. He started to go for his gun; Brannon tensed, but this time it was Murdoch who caught hold of Llewellyn. He shook him twice, slapped him.

“We’ve got to get moving now,” Brannon said. “The dogs are blood-crazy tonight. They’ll be back here any minute, as soon as the wind drifts the scent to them.” He pointed up the road. “Go on! Start running, and don’t stop!”

“What about you?” Murdoch asked.

“I’ll back you up. Get going.”

He watched as they ran ahead. As they passed out of sight, Brannon lifted the dead dog and heaved it as far in the opposite direction as he could. The yipping grew louder; the pack was returning.

They came a moment later, muzzles coated with red, smelling new blood. Brannon crouched beside the thick trunk of a quaa-tree, waiting. The dogs paused in the clearing, sniffed the air, and, ignoring Brannon, set off toward their dead companion.

Brannon turned and ran up ahead, rejoining the others.

They were waiting for him.

“The dogs are off our trail,” he said. He looked at the sullen-faced Llewellyn. A bruise was starting to swell on the side of his face. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you down as you deserved,” Brannon told him.

“Don’t talk like that to my clients,” said Murdoch.

“Your client nearly got us all killed. I specifically told you all to hold fire.”

“I didn’t like the looks of that dog,” said Llewellyn. “He looked dangerous.”

“One dog isn’t half as dangerous as a pack. And one live dog won’t draw a pack; a dead one will, when the blood gets into the air.”

“Is the whole trip going to be like this?” Mrs. Rhawn asked suddenly. “Dangerous?”