That Sander heard nothing did not mean that the alarm was false. Now he reslung his weapons in his belt and turned to the wall on which hung the shelves. They might be used as a ladder, allowing him to peer out one of the high windows.
Sander swiftly cleared the remaining containers from the shelves he selected and tested the anchorage of the boards by swinging his full weight upon them. Though the wood creaked protestingly, they held firm. He scrambled up, to crouch perilously on the narrow top plank. Struggling to retain his balance, he reached farther overhead and caught at either side of the narrow window opening.
These had been covered, sealed against the air, by pieces of glass, a refinement that surprised him. Had glass, the most fragile of inheritances from the Before Time, actually existed in this rubble in pieces large enough to be salvaged?
Sander brought his face as close as he could to that surface. As he tried to peer outside he discovered that the glass was not perfectly clear, for it carried bubbles and distortions within it. Yet those imperfections did not prevent a good sight of the clearing immediately before the house.
The darkness of the storm was past. By the angle of the pale sunlight that struck full against the door, he judged it was late afternoon. But it was not time that interested him—rather what might be prowling out there.
A wide expanse lay clear immediately before the door. The brush, which formed the first rank of the wood's growth, stood some distance away. On the ground was a light scuff of snow and that was not unmarked!
The snow must have fallen near the end of the storm. Already it began to melt under the direct rays of the sun, especially around the edges of numerous tracks. Through the bubbled glass Sander could not make out any clearly defined print, but they were larger than those made by any animal he knew.
Shapeless as they seemed, there was something about their general proportions—Sander would not allow himself to speculate. Nor could he even be certain that more than one creature had left its signature there. A single unknown thing might have scented them, plodded back and forth for a space.
Sander shifted on his narrow perch. He could see where those tracks had emerged from the wood, but no sign they had returned thither. Was the creature prowling around the back of the house now?
At that moment the silence inside and out was broken by a high, wailing cry, startling Sander so he almost tumbled from his spy post. He heard from below the answering growl of Rhin, the hissing of both fishers, then a soft call from Fanyi:
"What was that?"
"I do not know." Sander twisted his body around, striving to see further both right and left. "There is something prowling outside. But I have not yet sighted it."
His last word had hardly left his lips before a bulk shuffled into the sun, coming from the left as it had just completed another circuit of the house.
The thing halted before the door, its out-thrust head nearly on a level with the window from which he viewed it. What was it? Animal—? Yet it walked upright. And now that Sander studied it more closely, he thought that its covering of matted and filthy-looking skin was not part of its own hide, but rather clothing of a sort.
Clothing? This was a man?
Sander swallowed. The thing was as huge as the forest female had been. Its head, hunched almost against its shoulders suggesting that its neck must be very short indeed, had an upstanding crest of stiffened hair, the ends of which flopped over to half conceal small eyes. Now it impatiently raised a vast clawed hand, or paw, to push the hair away.
They had felt no kinship with the forest people, and this was an even greater travesty of the human shape. The legs were short and thick, supporting a massive trunk. In contrast, the arms were very long, the fingertips scraping the ground when the creature allowed them to dangle earthward.
Its jaw was more a muzzle than the lower part of a true face, and a straggle of beard waggled from the point of it. Altogether the thing was a nightmare such as a child awaken from screaming for comfort.
Now it shuffled forward, planting one wide fist against the barred door, plainly exerting pressure. Sander heard the grind of the wood against the bar. Whether that would hold—?
He dropped hastily from his perch. The creature outside now aimed blows against the door, and the bar might or might not continue to hold, while the snarling of the koyot and the fishers grew into a wild crescendo. It was plain that they had reason to fear the attacker.
"It is—" Sander gave the girl a quick explanation of what he had seen. "Have you heard of such before?"
"Yes, from a Trader," she returned promptly. "He said that these haunt the lands of the north and are eaters of men. You see, smith, here is one of their tales indeed proven true."
The crashing against the door was steady. The bar might hold, but would the pins that supported it prove as stout? For them to be caught within—As far as he had seen, the thing carried no weapons, but with those mighty hands what more would it need?
No wonder the builders of this place had set it above that floor bolt-hole. Sander crossed quickly to that, jerking the wooden latch he had inserted with such care. As he levered up the round top, the whole house began to tremble under the assault from without.
"Get a torch!" he ordered Fanyi. She had warned him of the limited life her own light might have, and he had no wish to be caught in some dark run below.
The girl ran to the fire, snatched up a long piece of wood, and thrust one end into the flames. Silken fur swept past Sander's arm. The fishers were already flowing into the opening. Rhin—could Rhin make it? Stripped of his burdens, Sander hoped so. The koyot trotted to the smith's side, dropped his head to sniff into the opening.
Then he turned his rump to the hole, cautiously backed in. As the outer door cracked down its middle, Rhin disappeared as if he had fallen. A moment later he yelped reassuringly from below. Sander tossed down the bags Fanyi handed to him, held the torch while the girl swung onto that patched ladder.
After she was well down, Sander wriggled the cover back halfway over the hold, leaving but a narrow space to squeeze through. He lowered the torch to her reaching hand, lying belly-flat to accomplish that exchange, then sought the ladder himself.
Partway down, he tugged at the metal cover, making a last great effort at the sound of wood breaking aloft. In the flame of the torch he could see now a metal bar fastened to the underside, a crude piece of work that must have been added long after the Before Days. With a last frantic lunge he sent that across, locking the lid above his head into place.
They had descended to a large round tunnel, he discovered. There was no sign of the fishers, but Rhin waited. The koyot whined softly, plainly liking none of this place, now and then noisily sniffing the ill-smelling air.
If they were to advance from here, the koyot must drop to his haunches and crawl. Fanyi had stuck the torch upright in a ring set roughly into the wall. Now she was busy knotting their gear into back packs, since it was plain Rhin could not transport it along these confined ways. Sander hoped desperately that the tunnel grew no smaller or the koyot could not force a way through it.
"Look!" Fanyi pointed with her chin as her hands flew to tighten knots.
The piece of wood she had brought from the house was nearly consumed. But, leaning against the wall under the hoop that held it, were a number of better-constructed torches, their heads round balls of fiber soaked in what Sander's nose told him must be fish oil.
It would seem by these preparations that the builders of the house had foreseen emergencies when it would be necessary for them to take to these underground ways. Was the presence of the beast now above the reason why they had left their well-wrought shelter?
Sander lighted one of the torches and divided the rest, giving half to the girl. Then, bending his head a little, he started down the tunnel, hearing the complaining whines of Rhin as the koyot edged along with Fanyi behind him.
There was no way of telling how long that stretch of tunnel was nor even in what direction it ran. Part of it had collapsed, been redug, and shored up. Finally they came to a hole hacked in one side and struggled through it into a much larger way, one in which Rhin could stand upright. The floor of this was banded by two long rails of metal that came out of the dark on one side and vanished into it again on the other. The fugitives paused, Sander unsure whether to turn right or left.
"Aeeeeheee!" Fanyi gave her summoning call to the fishers, and she was straightway answered from their left.
"That way." It was plain she had full confidence in her companions. "They have ranged on and now believe they are heading out—"
The smith could only hope her confidence was well placed. Torch in hand and held at the best angle to show them the uneven footing, he turned left.
There seemed to be no end to this way under the Before City. Though Sander was almost sure that the thing that had besieged the house could never squeeze its bulk through the opening in the floor, even if it could tear loose the lock on the lid, he kept listening intently for any hint they were being pursued.
His torch picked out trickles of slimy moisture down the walls of the larger tunnel. Yet it seemed quite intact otherwise, with no fall of roof or sides to threaten them. Then the light picked up a mass that nearly choked it.
As Sander drew nearer, he saw that this was not composed of any slippage of the wall, rather it was rusting metal that filled the opening top to bottom, leaving only narrow passages on either side. Those the fishers had undoubtedly been able to venture through. And he and Fanyi could undoubtedly do so also, but he doubted if Rhin could force a way.
Handing the torch to the girl, Sander shrugged out of his pack and brought from that his tool bag. He chose the heaviest of his hammers and went to face the rusty mass.
Under the first of his blows the metal crumpled, some of it merely crumbs of rust. Whether it could be treated so, to open a passage, he could not be sure, but he would try. In spite of the chill damp his exertions brought the sweat running so heavily that he had to stop and strip off his shirt as well as his hide jacket. And his back and arms, having foregone the discipline of daily work for too long, ached.
Still, he swung and smashed with a rhythm that speedily returned since he was so used to it. Foot by foot, he cleared a wider passage to the left. Luckily not too much of the obstruction needed to be beaten away. Rhin pushed carefully along behind Fanyi, who held the torch high. Midway through, that brand was exhausted, so she lit a second from the supply she carried.
The metal was very brittle. Sander guessed that constant damp had fed the consuming rust. He studied the wreckage when he paused for breath, trying to guess what it had been. It had, he decided, probably transported men or supplies beneath the surface of the city.
They coughed as the dust from his hammering arose, until Fanyi tore strips from her clothing and tied them over their mouths and around Rhin's muzzle, wetting them from the water supply in their bottle.
The crashing blows of the hammer made Sander's head ring. If the monster had followed them down, it would be in no confusion over which direction it must take to follow them.
There was a final subsidence of a last metal plate and once more they faced the open way. Sander was hungry as well as dry-mouthed with thirst. But any remedy for that state still lay before them. All they could do was to struggle along as quickly as they could.
Not far ahead was a branching of the way. Once more Fanyi sounded her call to the fishers. But this time there came no answer. And though they pushed the torch close to the surface of the ground, they could detect no tracks. Sander turned to Rhin. For the first time the koyot moved out with more assurance than he had shown since they had taken to this underground way.
He lowered his head to sniff along the edge of those rusted shells of rails and to search the ground between them. Then he gave a sharp yelp of command and trotted along the inner of the two ways. Luckily they came to no more of those plugs of metal. But the passage sloped downward, and there were spreading patches of wet upon the walls, signs also that at one time water had risen to a point within a hand's-breadth of the roof.
Sander watched those walls. It could well be that they had been loosened with the passing of the years, that even the small disturbance made by the passing of their own party could bring about a fall, entrapping or killing them all. Under his urging, they made the swiftest passage that they could. Yet that seemed to him to be agonizingly slow, and he listened tensely, not now for the monster that had attacked the house, but rather for any sound of shifting over their heads.
Fanyi called out and pointed ahead. There was a pile of the same rubble as he had seen in the mounds above. And this choked the whole of the way. But over it was a jagged hole in the roof, under which the debris made an unsteady platform.
A head hung in the open, eyes staring down at them. It was plain that the fishers had not hesitated to try that escape route, as dubious as it looked. Kai's head disappeared as Rhin moved forward.
With caution, the koyot placed his forepaws, one after the other, part way up the mound of crumbling stuff, which sent a trickle of gravel and small stones thudding down as he so moved. He stood still, nosing ahead at the next portion of the rise, as if scent could assure him whether or not it would bear his weight.
Sander and Fanyi edged away as Rhin made a slow climb. The koyot panted as he went, his tongue lolling out of his half-open jaws, drool dripping from its tip. He planted each paw with delicate precision.
Up again, and another cascade of finer rubble. Only one more length and his head would be out of that hole. Sander crept to the edge of the mound, held the torch as high as he could to give Rhin all possible help.
Once more gravel rolled, bringing with it that same coarse sand that had slipped under their feet when they crossed the sea-desert. Now Rhin's head and shoulders were out into the opening. His muscles bunched as he lunged up, scrabbling furiously on the edge of the opening with his forepaws.
Sander jumped back to escape the slide the koyot's efforts caused. Now Rhin showed his head once more in the hole, looking downward and uttering a series of barks as if urging the humans to duplicate his feat as soon as possible.
The smith lit a second torch and then a third. These he planted butt down in the pile so they threw full light over that treacherous shifting surface. He shed his pack once more and pulled forth his coil of braided hide rope before he spoke to Fanyi.
"I am going up. When I make it, lash our packs, then stand well clear until I pull those up. After that I will drop the rope. Make it fast to your waist, and take all the time you need for the climb."
With the rope's end tied about his middle, he faced the slope. That last slide of gravel and small stones had luckily uncovered the edges of a few larger rocks that promised more stable footing. He tested the lowest of them as best he could and then cautiously scrambled up on it.
The space was narrow, hardly wide enough to afford room for his toes as he felt above, his hands slipping through loose material twice, before, under the moving stuff, he could locate a firm block. Wriggling carefully along, he managed to reach the second perch. Rhin gazed down, his yelps increased in volume. It was plain he was offering his full encouragement.
This last bit was even more tricky. Rhin's emergence had broken the edge. In order to reach the crumbling remains, Sander must squirm forward over what looked in the limited light to be a very uncertain bit of surface. He remained where he was for a long moment, trying to breathe evenly, to steady his nerves before he moved out. Though he had never admitted this weakness, Sander had never taken joyfully to any scramble up a height, even when the surface he sought to climb was more hospitable. He did know enough not to look back, to concentrate only on what lay immediately ahead. He could not remain forever where he now was; there was nothing left to do but trust to fortune and his own strength and make this last attempt.
Now he dug both hands into the mass, seeking some better support. His nails tore, and he felt sharp pain in his fingers, ground between moving stones. But at last, he tightened his hold on something that did not shift as he slowly exerted more and more weight.
Sander pulled himself up as the whole surface under him appeared to crack. Somehow he got a firm brace under one knee, used that to push out farther ahead. He was still inches away from the edge, and he feared more than ever to trust any hold.
Rhin's head had swung. Without warning the koyot snapped, his jaws closing on the hide jacket that strained tightly over Sander's shoulders. The fangs in those jaws grazed skin as well as covering, and Sander gave a startled yell.
Rhin's unexpected move brought him up, and he surged, much as the koyot had before him, out, skidding free across the self-encrusted ground under the full light of a large and glowing moon.
After that it was easy enough to jerk up their gear, find a convenient small rock to weight the rope, and drop it once more to Fanyi. With a line lashed about her, and Sander's strength added to hers, her ascent was far easier and speedier than his struggle had been.
Once both were aloft, they had a chance to look about them. To the west rose the lines of a sloping beach. To the east was the plateau that once must have been an island, holding the near vanished city. The tunnel they had followed plainly had once run under the arm of the sea to connect the island with the main continent.
But where they were was certainly too open. That monster had perhaps not followed them into the lower ways. But if it or perhaps its fellows were denned in the city, one such could sight their small party here in the open and be on their trail again.
Sander found his body trembling as he stopped for his pack. His exertions in the tunnel, his hunger, and the tension of that last climb were taking their toll. To reach the one-time shore—to somehow find a shelter there—that he must force his body to do.
At least they could give the packs to Rhin here in the open. Sander fumbled with the rope, packing and lashing the gear. They had the rest of the torches still, but it was better not to light them and so mark themselves to any hostile eyes. They must make the moonlight do.
Stumbling often, Sander walked beside Rhin, Fanyi on the other side of the koyot. The fishers had again vanished. The smith supposed they had headed toward the beach.
He wavered as he walked, trying to control the shaking of his hands, ashamed to display his fatigue to Fanyi.
Luckily the terrain sloped upward gradually. There was no cliff to climb. Once up on the shore, they were ankle-deep in beach sand, faced by a wilderness of rocks, with grass growing among them. Sander lifted his head enough to look for the wood that had masked this same shore to the south where they had left it what seemed a very long time ago.
However, there was no dark line of trees. This land was far more open, though here and there were the same mounds of rubble that had marked the island. It was plain that this city had been a place of great extent, its buildings spreading also to the mainland.
"Let us find some shelter quickly." Fanyi's voice held a note of strain. "I cannot say how far I can now go or how long I can keep my feet."
He was grateful to her at that moment, he did not know how much longer he could keep going either. Yet some inner pride kept him from making the same confession.
In the end they both hooked a hand in the ropes that held Rhin's burden, so that the koyot was more than half supporting them as they reeled into a fairly open space, a hollow where some bushes had rooted.
Snow had fallen here and still lay in small patches, reflecting the moonlight. But the punishing wind had died, and the night was very still. Sander shivered. His fingers were stiff and numb as he fumbled with the knots that fastened their gear, letting it thud to earth. Out from behind one of the hillocks that marked the ruins flashed the fishers. Kai carried a limp body in his mouth, dropping his burden at Fanyi's feet. He had brought in a very large hare.
Rhin, now bare of back, sniffed once at the game, made a low sound in his throat, and trotted off purposefully, intent, Sander knew, on providing his own food. The smith studied this hollow they had chanced upon. At least two of the rubble hills stood between them and the arm of the sea-desert. They could not spend the night without warmth and food.
He knelt to hack at a wiry bush. The dry and sapless growth broke easily under his touch. Moments later he had a small fire ablaze and was able to turn his full attention to skinning and gutting the hare.