Andre Norton: Sorceress Of The Witch World

It was not quite a howl, nor as sharp as a bark, but somewhat between the two. There followed a sniffing; I felt the puff of a strong breath across my face. My body jerked, not in answer to my own muscles, but because there was a grasp on my jacket close to my throat and I was being dragged along. I willed myself to lie limp, to seem dead.

The dragging stopped. There was another energetic sniffing of my face. Could the creature tell I was not dead? I feared so. I thought I heard movement away. Dared I hope—could I escape?

I raised my heavy lids and light was a pain for a moment or two, I had been so long in the dark. It was bright, sunshine. And for a space I could not adjust to it. Then a shape stood well in my line of vision.

So sure had I been that one of the Gray Ones had dug me out that it took me a long instant to see that one of the man-wolves did not crouch there. Wolf it looked, yes, but wholly animal. Its hide was not the gray of the Shadow’s pack, but rather a creamy white; its prick ears, a long stripe down its backbone which included the full length of its tail, and its four well-muscled legs were light brown.

Most striking of all, it wore a collar, wide band which gave off small flashes of bright, sparkling color as if set, with gems. As I watched it, my eyes now fully open in startlement, it sat on its haunches, its head turned a little from me as if it waited the coming of another. Its well-fanged jaws opened slightly and I could see the bright red of its tongue.

It was an animal, not a half-beast. And it was one who obeyed man or it would not wear that collar. So much did my survey satisfy me. But in Escore one never accepts the unusual as harmless; one is wary if one wants to hold to life or more than life. I did not stir, only slowly I turned my head a fraction at a time, to see what lay about me.

There was a mighty churning of snow, not only of the slide, but also where the animal had apparently dug to free me. It was day, though whether the same day we had come through the pass, I could not tell. Somehow I guessed it was not. The sun was very bright, enough to hurt my eyes, and involuntarily I closed them.

In that glimpse about I had seen no indication that any of our party, save myself, had been dug free. And now, as I braced myself to look again, I heard the animal once more voice its summons (for I was certain it was a summons) to master or companion.

This time a shrill whistle answered, to which the hound, if hound it was, replied with a series of sharp and urgent barks. Its head was turned from me as it gave tongue and I used my remaining rags of strength to push myself up. I had the feeling I wanted to face the whistler on my feet, if I could do so.

The hound did not appear to notice my struggles. It was on its feet now, running away from me, throwing up the loose snow in its going. I got to my knees with what haste I could, then to my feet, where I stood weaving dizzily back and forth, afraid to take a step in the snow lest I tumble again. The hound still floundered away, not looking back.

Now! Balancing with care lest I fall, I turned slowly, striving to discover some small shred of proof that I was not the single survivor of the slide. I swayed and stumbled eagerly to it, falling there to my knees, brushing and digging with my hands to uncover the pack Valmund had shucked moments before the catastrophe had struck.

I think I wept then, my eyes blurred, and I stayed where I was on my knees, lacking the strength to pull up. My hands rested on the pack as if it were an anchor, the only sure anchor left, in a world gone wrong.

So it was that the hound and its master found me. The animal snarled, but I would not have had the energy to raise a weapon even if I had one to hand. I stared blearily up at the man wading through knee-high snow.

He was human as to body. At least I had not been found by one of the nightmare things which roamed the dark places of Escore. But his face was not that of the Old Race. He was dressed in garments of fur unlike any I had seen before, a wide gem-set belt pulling in the loose tunic of bulky fluff about him. A hood, beruffed about the face with a band of long greenish hair like a tattered fringe, had slid back on his head to show his own hair, which was red-yellow, though his brows and lashes were black, and his skin dark brown. So wrong in shade did that hair tint seem that I could believe it a wig colored so in purpose.

His face was broad instead of long and narrow as those of the Old Race, with a flat nose having very large nostrils, and his mouth was thick-lipped to match. He spoke now, a series of slurred words, only a few of which bore slight resemblance to the common speech of the Valley, which in turn was different from what we used in Estcarp.

“Others”—I leaned forward, bearing my weight on my arms braced against the pack—“help—find—others—” I used simple words, spaced them, hoping he would understand. But he stood with one hand reaching to the hound as if to restrain that animal. Measured beside the man I could mark the huge size of the beast.

“Others!” I tried to make him understand. If I had survived that fall, surely the others might. Then I remembered the rope which had linked us together and fumbled to find it. Surely that could be a guide to Kemoc, who had been before me. . . .

But there was nothing, save a tear which had cut into my jacket where the hook must have been pulled out with great force.

“Others!” My voice spiralled up into a scream. I crawled back to the tumbled snow where rocks showed here and there, ripped loose by its sweep. I began to dig, without guide or purpose, hoping that if the stranger did not understand my words, though I used the intonation common in the Valley, he would follow my actions.

His first answer was a quick jerk which nearly brought me over on my back again. The hound had set its teeth into the fabric of my jacket near the shoulder. With those fangs locked it was exerting its strength to pull me back to its master. And at that moment the animal had more strength than I could resist.

But the man made no move to approach me, nor to aid the hound in its efforts. Nor did he speak again, merely stood watching as if this was no affair demanding his interference.

The hound growled in its throat as it pulled me back. And my position was such that I could not have beaten it off, even if I had had a weapon. A final sharp jerk and I sprawled on my side, sliding down and away from where I had tried to dig into the debris of the avalanche.

There was a shrill whistle again. This was answered, not by the hound which stood over me still growling, but by a barking in the distance. Then the man waded down to me, though he did not try to touch me, only waited.

What he waited came: a sled which was a skeleton framework, drawn by two more hounds, their collars made fast to thongs. The hound which had found me stopped growling and wallowed through the snow to the sled, where he took a position slightly to the fore of his fellows as if waiting to be hitched in turn. Then his master reached down and put a firm grasp on my shoulder, pulling me up with surprising ease. I tried to struggle out of his hold.

“No! The—others—” I mouthed straight into his expressionless face. “Find—others—”

I saw his other hand lift, but I was still astounded as it flashed at my jaw. There was a moment of shattering pain as it met flesh and bone and then nothing.

There was an ache running through my whole body. Now and then I was shaken so that the sullen, constant pain became a twinge of real agony. I lay upon something which swayed, dipped, was never still, but which added to my misery by movement. I opened my eyes. Before me, across ground where the sun made a blaze to set tears gathering under lids, ran the three hounds, straps from their collars fastened to the sled on which I now lay. I tried to sit up, to discover that, not only were my wrists and ankles trussed tightly together, but over me was an imprisoning fur robe made fast to the framework of the sled.