Urts on Gor

The urt is a horned rodent
Most are small, though some are rather large
The urt is a loathsome, horned Gorean rodent; some are quite large, the size of wolves or ponies, but most are very small, tiny enough to be held in the palm of one hand.
Nomads

Eyes darting back and forth like an urt
In fury, his eyes darting back and forth like those of an urt, he bit into the bread and gulped it down. "The chamber will be flooded for this," he said.
Outlaw

Scurrying
He threw down the whip and tried to run, scurrying like an urt, but everywhere he turned, the chain of haggard, violent men confined him, and as the chain closed, Ost fell quivering to his knees.
Outlaw

Eyes set obliquely in skull
His eyes, like those of an urt, one of the small horned rodents of Gor, were set obliquely in his skull.
Outlaw

silken, blazing-eyed urt scampering along wall
I heard the guard calling out from near the stairs. "The prisoner is in Nine Corridor."
I strode back to him, stepping aside not to brush against a wet, silken, blazing-eyed urt scampering along the edge of the corridor wall.
Assassin

Disappear into small crevices
Startled by the light an urt scurried from my path disappearing through a small crevice in the wall. It had been nibbling at the scrapings of dried gruel caked in a tin pan near the prisoner's foot.
I could smell wet straw in the place, and the excrement of urts and a human being.
Assassin

I rose and found a torch rack in the room and set the torch in the rack. As I did so I saw four or five urts run for various small crevices in the stone.
I returned to the prisoner.
Assassin

Fat and sleek
Three rows of needlelike white teeth
Two horns - tusks, flat crescents, curve from the jaw
Another two horns extend out over the eyes
Long hairless tail
It was a giant urt, fat, sleek and white; it bared its three rows of needlelike white teeth at me and squealed in anger; two horns, tusks like flat crescents curved from its jaw; another two horns, similar to the first, modifications of the bony tissue forming the upper ridge of the eye socket, protruded over those gleaming eyes that seemed to feast themselves upon me, as if waiting the permission of the keeper to hurl itself on its feeding trough. Its fat body trembled with anticipation.
The whip cracked again, and another command was uttered, and the animal, its long hairless tail lashing in frustration, slunk into another tunnel. An iron gate, consisting of bars, fell behind it.
Outlaw

"Kill!" cried the man in wrist straps, pointing the whip in my direction, and unleashing the urt, which charged viciously toward me.
Its ratlike scamper was incomprehensibly swift and almost before I could set myself for its charge it had crossed the cylinder roof in two or three bounds and pounced to seize me in its bared fangs.
My blade entered the roof of its mouth pushing its head up and away from my throat. The squeal must have carried to the walls of Tharna. Its neck twisted and the blade was wrenched from my grasp. My arms encircled its neck and my face was pressed into its glossy white fur. The blade was shaken from its mouth and clattered on the roof. I clung to the neck to avoid the snapping jaws, those three rows of sharp, frenzied white lacerating teeth that sought to bury themselves in my flesh.
It rolled on the roof trying to tear me from its neck; it leaped and bounded, and twisted and shook itself. The man with wrist straps had picked up the sword and with this, and his whip, circled us, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
I tried to turn the animal as well as I could to keep its scrambling body between myself and the man with wrist straps.
Blood from the animal's mouth ran down its fur and my arm. I could feel it splattered on the side of my face and in my hair.
Then I turned so that it was my body that was exposed to the blow of the sword carried by the man in wrist straps. I heard his grunt of satisfaction as he rushed forward. An instant before I knew the blade must fall I released my grip on the animal's neck and slipped under its belly. It reached for me with a whiplike motion of its furred neck and I felt the long sharp white teeth rake my arm but at the same time I heard another squeal of pain and the grunt of horror from the man in wrist straps.
I rolled from under the animal and turned to see it facing the man with wrist straps. One ear had been slashed away from its head and the fur on its left side was soaked with spurting blood. It now had its eyes fixed on the man with the sword, he who had struck this new blow.
I heard his terrified command, the feeble cracking of that whip held in an arm almost paralyzed with fear, his abrupt almost noiseless scream.
The urt was over him, its haunches high, its shoulders almost level with the roof, gnawing.
Outlaw

Somewhere I heard the squealing and thrashing of two of the giant urts fighting in the water, among the floating garbarge.
Raiders

Live on garbage in canals
The giant urts, silken and blazing-eyed, living mostly on the garbage in the canals, are not stranger to bodies, both living and dead, found cast into their waters.
"To the urts!" laughed Surbus.
I looked upon him, Surbus, slaver, pirate, thief, murderer. This man was totally evil. I felt nothing but hatred, and an ugly, irrepressible disgust of him.
Raiders

Already I could see the sleek, wet muzzles of urts, eyes like ovals of blazing copper, streaking through the dark waters toward the bag.
Raiders

Must surface frequently to breathe
Yet, if it had been a tharlarion or a Vosk turtle, it might well have broken the surface for air. It did not. This reasoning also led me to suppose that it would not be likely to be anything like a water sleen or a giant urt from the canals of Port Kar These two, even before the tharlarion or the turtle, would by now, presumably, have surfaced to breathe.
Nomads

White furred bodies
Here one is 60 pounds, another is 75 - 80 pounds
Behind the man, in the stern, lay the bloody, white-furred bodies of two canal urts. One would have weighed about sixty pounds, and the other, I speculate, about seventy-five or eighty pounds.
Savages

The canal urts commonly strike prey at the surface, not from beneath the water
I saw the girl swimming in the canal, the rope on her neck, amidst the garbage. It is less expensive and more efficient to use a girl for this type of work than, say, a side of tarsk. The girl moves in the water, which tends to attract the urts and, if no mishap occurs, may be used again and again. Some hunters use a live verr but this is less effective as the animal, squealing, and terrified, is difficult to drive from the side of the boat. The slave girl, on the other hand, can be reasoned with. She knows that if she is not cooperative she will be simply bound hand and foot and thrown alive to the urts. This modality of hunting, incidentally, is not as dangerous to the girl as it might sound, for very few urts make their strike from beneath the surface. The urt, being an air-breathing mammal, commonly makes its strike at the surface itself, approaching the quarry with its snout and eyes above the water, its ears laid back against the sides of its long, triangular head. To be sure, sometimes the urt surfaces near the girl and approaches her with great rapidity. Thus, in such a situation, she may not have time to return to the boat. In such a case, of course, the girl must depend for her life on the steady hand and keen eye, the swiftness, the strength and timing, the skill, of the urt hunter, her master. Sometimes, incidentally, a master will rent his girl to an urt hunter, this being regarded as useful in her discipline.
Savages

I saw the silken head of an urt in the canal, a few feet from the boat It was a large urt, some forty pounds in weight. They live on garbage cast into the canals, and on bound slaves who have not been pleasing.
I looked back at the house of Samos. The slim, blond-haired girl would have been branded by now. We had not heard her scream for she, when it was done, would have been below, far away, in the pens.
Beasts

Canal urts are web footed
I heard an arrow flash into the water near me and heard a high-pitched pain squeal from one of the web-footed canal urts. Then there was the sound of biting and tearing and thrashing in the water, as other urts attacked the injured one.
Raiders

Broad furred throat
I felt my leg then caught in the jaws of an urt, like triple bands of steel, set with needles, and was dragged beneath the surface. I thrust my thumbs in its ears and tore it's head back from my leg. The mouth kept reaching for me, head turned to the side, trying for the throat. I let it free and as it snapped at me I knocked it jaws up and slipped behind it, my left arm locked about its broad, furred throat. I got the knife from between my teeth and, with it, sometimes half out of the water, sometimes beneath it, thrashing and twisting, thrust the blade a dozen times into its hide.
"It's dead!" cried Clitus.
Raiders

I could see the shining eyes of urts, their noses and heads dividing the torchlit waters silently, their pointed, silken ears laid back against the sides of their heads.
Raiders

Tiny, silken field urts
The girls were as quiet as tiny, silken field urts in the presence of forest panthers, being conducted in their cage between the ranks of the soldiers. In a few Ehn we were more than a pasang down the road.
Savages

Forest urts, about the size of tiny dogs, captured in the Northern Forest
In the forests, this afternoon, Thurnock and Rim, who were familiar with such matters, the first as a peasant, and catch, returned to the Tesephone, in a cage, covered with canvas, carried on the back of Thurnock, had been six, rather large forest urts, about the size of tiny dogs. This evening, after the evening meal, we had opened the cage into the lower hold. They had scurried from the cage, dropping down to the sand, scampering off into the darkness.
Hunters

Forest urts described as size of cats
Furred
Snared in Northern Forest
She had, thrust in her belt, the binding fiber she had used for snares. We always took it with us, of course, when we moved. Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plummaged birds.
Captive

Forest urts are nocturnal
From through the trees, on the other side of the camp, came what I took to be the sound of a bird, the hook-billed, night-crying fleer, which preys on nocturnal forest urts. The cry was repeated three times.
Slave Girl

When something strikes the web the tremor is transmitted by means of this line to the spider. Interestingly the movement of the web in the air, as it is stirred by wind, does not activate the spider; similarly if the prey which strikes the web is too small, and thus not worth showing itself for, or too large, and thus beyond its prey range, and perhaps dangerous, it does not reveal itself. On the other hand, should a bird, such as a mindar or parrot, or a small animal, such as a leaf urt or tiny tarsk, become entangled in the net the spider swiftly emerges. It is fully capable of taking such prey.
Explorers

There were small birds about, and I saw a scurrying brush urt, even a lovely, yellowish Tabuk fawn. I crossed two tiny streams.
Captive

Brush urts tend to use game trails
"We know that she had a fire," said the first. "One supposes she was cooking. If she was cooking, she must have caught birds or meat."
"At the edge of the thicket to the northeast, days ago," said the second man, "we found the bones of brush urts!"
"yes," said the first man, "and nearby, in this thicket, there is a small game trail."
"It is hard to hunt in a Ka-la-na thicket," said the second man.
"More importantly," said the first man, "brush urts tend to use such trails."
"Yes!" said the second.
"Sooner or later, it seems likely, does it not," asked the first, "that she will come to the trail, to hunt, or set a snare, or see if one is sprung."
"There may be other trails," pointed out the second man. "If we do not catch her now," said the first man, spreading his hands, "we will catch her tomorrow, or the day after."
Captive

In the canopy level of the jungle
Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on.
Explorers

Living on the ground level (Floor) of the jungles of Schendi
In the level of the emergents there live primarily birds, in particular parrots, long-billed fleers, and needle-tailed lits. Monkeys and tree urts, and snakes and insects, however, can also be found in this highest level. In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, Warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on. In the lower portion of the canopies, too, can be found heavier birds, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the umbrella bird. Guernon monkeys, too, usually inhabit this level. In the ground zone, and on the ground itself, are certain birds, some flighted, like the hook-billed gort, which preys largely on rodents, such as ground urts, and the insectivorous whistling finch, and some unflighted, like the grub borer and lang gim.
Explorers

In the lower branches of the “ground zone” may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man. On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts. Several varieties of tarsk, large and small, also inhabit this zone. More than six varieties of anteater are also found here, and more than twenty kinds of small, fleet, single-horned tabuk.
Explorers

Also living in the jungles of Schendi, but up in the tree level
In the level of the emergents there live primarily birds, in particular parrots, long-billed fleers, and needle-tailed lits. Monkeys and tree urts, and snakes and insects, however, can also be found in this highest level.
Explorers

Inside the stockade, given the feast of the village, the column would widen, spreading to cover in its crowded millions every square inch of earth, scouring each stick, each piece of straw, hunting for each drop of grease, for each flake of flesh, even if it be no more than what might adhere to the shed hair of a hut urt.
Explorers

Small port urts scamper up the mooring ropes to board ships
The urt shields were still fastened to the mooring ropes, circular plates, preventing small port urts from boarding the ship.
Hunters

Blazing coppery eyes
Long haired ship urt
I screamed and thrashed; I could tell my ankle was bleeding, from the feeling of the wound and the wetness about my shin and on the wood. I tried with my right foot to press against the wound, to stanch the flow of blood. I saw the blazing, coppery eyes of the long-haired ship urt on the other side of the mesh. I had let the shin of my left foot rest against the mesh.
"Let me out!" I screamed. "Let me out!"
Sometimes an urt manages to force its way through the mesh, or between one of the vertical cage lids, one at each end of the cage, and the cage. The girl then, chained as she is, is at its mercy.
Slave Girl

That scent, I knew, a distillation of a hundred flowers, nurtured like a priceless wine, was a secret guarded by the perfumers of Ar. It contained as well the separated oil of the Thentis needle tree; an extract from the glands of the Cartius river urt;
Marauders

His hair, long and black beneath the band of blue and yellow silk, was combed and glossy. It reminded me of the groomed, shining pelt of a pet urt.
Outlaw

In desperate times, tiny urts in the city sold as food
Here, sold for a silver apiece in Ar
It was Ar's misfortune, at this most critical time in its long history, to be in the hands of the bleakest of all castes of men, the Initiates, skilled only in ritual, mythology, and superstition. Worse, from the reports of deserters, it became clear that the city was starving and that water was running short. Some of the defenders were opening the veins of surviving tarns, to drink the blood. The tiny urt, a common rodent of Gorean cities, was bringing a silver tarn disc in the markets. Disease had broken out. Groups of looters from Ar itself prowled the streets. In the camp of Pa-Kur we expected the city to fall any day, any hour. Yet, indomitably, Ar refused to surrender.
Tarnsman

Snared in the forest for survival
She had, thrust in her belt, the binding fiber she had used for snares. We always took it with us, of course, when we moved. Over her shoulder she had two small, furred animals, hideous forest urts, about the size of cats, in her left hand she carried four small, green-and-yellow-plummaged birds.
Captive

"We know that she had a fire," said the first. "One supposes she was cooking. If she was cooking, she must have caught birds or meat."
"At the edge of the thicket to the northeast, days ago," said the second man, "we found the bones of brush urts!"
"yes," said the first man, "and nearby, in this thicket, there is a small game trail."
"It is hard to hunt in a Ka-la-na thicket," said the second man.
"More importantly," said the first man, "brush urts tend to use such trails."
"Yes!" said the second.
"Sooner or later, it seems likely, does it not," asked the first, "that she will come to the trail, to hunt, or set a snare, or see if one is sprung."
"There may be other trails," pointed out the second man. "If we do not catch her now," said the first man, spreading his hands, "we will catch her tomorrow, or the day after."
Captive

Physicians performing research on urts
Flaminius looked at me. He was drunk, and perhaps that is why he was willing to speak to me, only of the black caste. There were tears in his eyes.
"I had," he said, "shortly before the fire developed a strain of urts resistant to the Dar-kosis organism; a serum cultured from their blood was injected in other animals, which subsequently we were unable to infect. It was tentative, only a beginning, but I had hoped I had hoped very much."
Assassin

An extract from glands of Cartius rover urt used by perfumers
That scent, I knew, a distillation of a hundred flowers, nurtured like a priceless wine, was a secret guarded by the perfumers of Ar. It contained as well the separated oil of the Thentis needle tree; an extract from the glands of the Cartius river urt;
Marauders

Giant urts used to flush escapees from tunnels
Some Silver Masks were discovered even in the sewers beneath the city and these were driven by giant, leashed urts through the long tubes until they crowded the wire capture nets set at the openings of the sewers.
Outlaw

Certain large urts are domesticated, bred especially for attacking & killing
Certain forms of large, domesticated urt, incidentally, should be excepted from these remarks. They are especially bred for attacking and killing. Such animals, however, are inferior to sleen for such purposes. They also lack the tracking capabilities of the sleen. Similarly they lack its intelligence.

Urt shields on ships keep port urts from boarding
The urt shields were still fastened to the mooring ropes, circular plates, preventing small port urts from boarding the ship. The urts which had been placed in the lower hold, before making landfall in Lydius, those which had figured in my interrogation of the panther girls, Tana and Ela, had been removed the following morning. Thurnock and Rim, with snares and nets, and by the light of the tharlarion oil lamps, had captured them. As we coasted the shores pasangs above Lydius, we had thrown them overboard. They had splashed beneath the water and then, in a moment, their snouts and sleek heads had poked upward, shining and dripping, and then, they, all six of them, noses like compass needles, smelling the land, had turned in the water and tails whipping, leaving snakelike curves in the water, had sped toward the distant forests.
Hunters

“What shall be done with you?” asked Boots. “Shall you be sold for sleen feed? Shall we contrive exquisite tortures for you, say, cutting off bits of your body and cooking them, and forcing you to eat them, until from the loss of blood and tissue, you die, or should we bind you and sew you in a sack, your head exposed, with rabid urts, or shall we merely cut your throat swiftly, in disgust, and be done with it?”
Players

Certain species of urts migrate twice a year
People usually remain indoors when the packs are in the vicinity
“It could be urts,” said a man. “It is near the time of the year for their movements.” Certain species of urts migrate twice a year. At such times, annually, it is usually necessary only to avoid them. People usually remain indoors when pack is in their vicinity. There is little danger from these migrations unless one finds oneself in their direct path. The urt, on the whole, most species of which are quite small, large enough to be lifted in one hand, does not pose much direct threat to human beings. They can destroy Sa-Tarna fields and force their way into granaries. Similarly urts of the sort which live on garbage cast into the canals will often, unhesitantly, attack swimmers.
Certain forms of large, domesticated urt, incidentally, should be excepted from these remarks. They are especially bred for attacking and killing. Such animals, however, are inferior to sleen for such purposes. They also lack the tracking capabilities of the sleen. Similarly they lack its intelligence. There was at least one good additional reason, incidentally, for supposing that whatever might be perplexing the brigands was not urts.
The urts do not make their kills neatly and silently. They normally attack in a pack. It is usually a messy business. There is usually much blood and screaming.
Players

A large urt pack extending a half a pasang
Two or three hundred yards across
Dense thicket of large vicious creatures
I looked at the urt pack. I had never seen one so large. I contained a very large number of animals. The smell of it even was oppressive. I looked at he ends of the pack; they extended for about a quarter of a pasang on either side of me. If I were to run for them the sleen, doubtless, would be immediately freed. They could be upon me in a matter of Ihn. I looked across the pack. It was some two or three hundred yards across. I did not think that even sleen would be able to make it through them. No, it did not seem likely that even sleen could make it through such a dense thicket of large, vicious creatures.
Players

Even strange urts often torn to pieces by an urt pack
I knew that even strange urts were often torn to pieces when they attempted to approach a new pack.
Players

Entering a pack is dangerous to your health
Feverish intensity to the pack, then the attack
Nim Nim darted into the pack.
“No!” I cried. It seemed almost as though he was wading in beasts. Then the animals seemed to draw apart about him and he was left standing as though in a dry pool, an empty place, an isolated, lonely place surrounded by tawny waters, waters which seemed somehow, inexplicably, to have drawn back about him, waters with eyes and teeth, ringing him. I saw that he did not understand what was going on.
“Come out!” I called to him. “Come out, while you can!”
Eyes regarded him on all sides. I saw those narrow, elongated snouts lifted towards him, the nostrils twitching and flaring.
Nim Nim began to utter reassuring noises to the urts. he began to whistle and hiss at them. In this fashion I supposed the urt people might speak with one another. Perhaps, too, some of these were signals used by the urts themselves. Then animals, I could see, were becoming more and more excited. They were now quivering. There was an almost feverish intensity in their reactions.
“Come out!” I called to him.
There was suddenly from one of the urts an angry, intense, shrill, high-pitched, hideous squeal. In an instant, almost like an electric shock, a movement seemed to course through the animals in the circle. Indeed, this tremorlike reaction, like a shock, seemed to move through the entire pack. Its passage’s swift route was actually visible in the animals, like a wave spreading along, and registered in, their backs and fur, in their sudden stillness, then in the sudden alertness of them, then in the quivering agitation which seemed to transform the entire pack, hitherto seemingly so tranquil, suddenly into a restless, roiling lake of ugly energy.
“Come out!” I screamed at him.
Another animal in the circle ringing Nim Nim now took up that angry, hideous, ear-splitting squeal, then another, and another. They began to quiver uncontrollably; their eyes bulged in their sockets; their fur erected, with a crackle of static electricity; their ears laid back, flattened, against the sides of their heads. Every animal in that vast pack was now oriented toward that location, that sound. Several of the other animals began to press eagerly toward the sound, some even crawling and scrambling over the backs of others. Every animal in that circle about Nim Nim had now taken up that horrifying squeal. It, too, was now being taken up by the entire pack. It reverberated in the area, striking against the nearby cliffs, the stones and outcroppings, rebounding, resounding, again and again in that natural bowl, torturing the ear, tearing and shocking the air, seeming as though it must frighten and terrify even the clouds themselves, which seemed to flee before it, perhaps even the sky, and a world. I suspected it could be heard in distant Brundisium.
I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Come out!” I screamed.
“I cannot!” he screamed.
The animals then charged, swarming in upon him. He tried to run between them, to reach the edge of the pack. I saw him fall twice, and each time get up. By the time he came near the edge of the back he had lost a foot and a hand. He could not now fall, however, because of the animals pressing about him. Several had their teeth fastened in his body, tearing at him, eating. By the time he was within a few feet of me he had lost half of his face. His head rolled wildly on his shoulders. I was not even sure he was still alive then until I saw his eyes. In fury I sprang towards him, tearing urts back and ;away from him. I caught some by the scruff of the neck and others by the hind legs and hurled them back into the pack. Tearing at him they seemed oblivious of me. I was among them. I caught one and thrusting my arms under its forelegs and clasping my hands together behind its neck, broke its neck. I threw it behind me. Other urts pressed forward, many of them squealing and trying to clamber over their fellows, in order to reach what was now left of Nim Nim. I then, my legs brushing against urts, backed from the pack. I saw, between pressing tawny bodies, parts of Nim Nim being dragged backwards, back into the pack. I now stood, breathing heavily, at the edge of the pack. I trembled. I threw up into the grass.
Clearly, as I now understood, the recognition and acceptance disposition of the pack was connected with smell. There must be, in effect, a pack odor. If something had this it would be accepted. If it lacked it, it would not be accepted. Indeed, the lack of the pack odor apparently triggered the attack response. the hideous squeal which was so terrifying, so shrill and piercing, which had such an effect on the other animals, was presumably something like a stranger-in-our-midst signal, a stranger-recognition signal, so to speak. It, too, presumably, was intimately involved in the pack’s general response, its defense response, or stranger-rejection response, so to speak. Clearly, it played a role in calling forth the attack response, or in transmitting its message to the other members of the pack.
I looked at the pack. It was now relatively calm. There was no sign of Nim Nim.
Players

However, there is a way....
I looked back at the pack. The matter had to do with odor, I was sure. That would explain why a strange urt, though even of the pack’s own species, would be fallen upon and killed if it attempted to join the pack. That explained, too, why Nim Nim had no longer been accepted. In his time in prison, some six months or so, he would have lost the pack odor. The Priest-Kings, I recalled, had recognized who was “of the Nest,” and who was not, by means of the Nest odor. This odor is acquired, of course, after time is spent in the nest. Similarly, I supposed, the pack odor would be acquired after some time in the pack. How, I wondered, did the first of the urt people gain admittance to their packs. I suspected it had occurred hundreds of years ago. Some very clever individual, or individuals, must have suspected the mechanisms involved. They might then have considered how they might be circumvented. This secret, in the successive generations, might have been lost to the urt people, or, perhaps, it had been deliberately allowed to vanish in time by the discoverers of the secret, that others could not reveal it, or take advantage of it, to their detriment. Now, I supposed, the urt people, their children and such, would simply grow up with the packs, thinking perhaps that this was just the way things had been, inexplicably, or naturally, from time immemorial. yet is it not likely, I pondered, there would once have been a reason or reasons. Surely it is not always to be assumed that it is a mere inexplicable fact, a simply brute given, something not to be inquired into, that things are as they now are. Might there not be a reason why grass is green, and the sky blue? Might there not be a reason for the movement of the winds and the rotation of the night sky, and a reason, say, why men are as they are, and women as they are?
I suddenly leapt to the beast who’s neck I had broken. I looked to the men on the hill. They had not yet released the sleen. I tore away a tusk, breaking it loose, from the side of the jaw of the dead animal. Then, feverishly, with a will, I thrust it through its pelt and, pulling and tearing, using my hands, and teeth, as well, I began to remove its skin. Perhaps they would think I had gone mad. Yet I did not think it would take Flaminius long to grasp my intent.
I looked back wildly back to the crest of the hill. Already the sleen, unleashed, were racing down the grassy slope.
I continued my work.
I tore loose part of the skin. I ran the side of my hand, like a knife, between it and organs and hot fat. I put my foot on the rib cage and, pressing down, then release the pressure, then pressing down, and releasing again, I turned the rib cage, drawing the pelt, rip by rip, away from it. I turned again to see the progress of the sleen. They could be upon me now in by Ihn. I could see their eagerness, their eyes. I tore the pelt mostly away from the animal. I had no time to remove the lolling, dangling head. With my foot, thrusting, I removed most of the remaining body and entrails from the hide, and clutching it, with both hands, wrapping it about my hips, I entered the pack.
Part of the hide was still warm on my skin. It was wet and sticky about me. MY legs and thighs were bloody from it. I wedged between urts. Their fur was warm and oily. I felt their ribs through it, the movement of muscles beneath it. Noses pushed toward me. I pushed on, fighting to make my way through the bodies. Almost at the same instant the sleen reached the pack and plunged toward me.
One climbed over the bodies of the closely packed urts, snapping and snarling. Its jaws came within a foot of me, and then it fell between the startled urts, it spinning about then, confused. I kept pushing through the urts, toward the other side of the pack, more than a hundred and fifty yards away. Behind me I suddenly heard again that hideous squeal of an urt, once ore the stranger-recognition signal.
The sleen is a tenacious tracker, I told myself. It is a tireless, determined, tenacious tracker. Such thoughts had run through my mind earlier, when I had first come to the edge of the pack. They had then seemed provocatively, somehow significantly, but with no full significance which I had then grasped, lurking, prowling, at the borders of my understanding. Now I realized the thought with which my mind must have then been toying, the marvelous, astounding possibility which at that time I had not fully grasped, that possibility which would have seemed then, had I been fully aware of it, so disappointingly remote, yet so intriguing. But had I not acted upon this understanding, immediately, almost instinctively, whose earlier significance only now came fully home to me? I had. What had once been only a hint, a puzzling, intriguing thought which I had scarcely understood, had, in the thicket of circumstances, in the crisis of an instant, become a coercive modality of action, that path upon which one must boldly and irrevocably embark. I had required only the mechanism of my passage.
Given that, everything, luminously, like the pieces of a puzzle, had fallen into place. Nothing could follow me through the urts. Nothing, not even sleen.
I pressed on. Behind me I heard the intensification and multiplication of the squeals. The sleen is a tenacious tracker. In its way it is an admirable animal. It does not give up; it will not retreat. I turned about to look back. I could see three swarming locations in the pack, almost as though gigantic tawny insects infested the area, clambering about atop each other. I saw a sleen rearing up on its hind legs, its shoulders and head emergent from the hill of swarming, clambering urts. An urt was clutched lifeless in its jaws. It shook it savagely. Then it fell back under the urts, and I could no longer see it. I pushed on. Then I could not move further. Too many urts, seemingly intent upon me, crowded about me. I was ringed. Then it seemed I stood in a clear place, an open place, an empty place, a central place, almost like a dry, lonely pool, separated out from, isolated in the midst of, those tawny bodies. I did not move. Necks craned towards me, noses twitching and sniffing. I did not move.
Through the bodies an urt came pressing towards me. It was a large urt, darkly furred. It had one tusk broken at the side of its jaw. it was about four feet high at the shoulder, extremely large for this type of animal. It had a silvered snout. I recognized it. it was the urt Nim Nim had earlier identified as the leader of the pack. It began to sniff me, its nose moving and twitching.
“Tal, ugly brute,” I said, softly.
I turned, keeping it in sight as it circled me, sniffing. Then it had completed its circuit. Those small, myopic eyes peered up at me.
“You are a stinking, ugly brute,” I whispered.
It sniffed me again, beginning at my feet and then lifting its head until it seemed, again, to look me in the eyes. When it had lowered its head I had lowered the pelt I grasped, holding it about me, that it might be near its nose. When it had lifted its head I had raised the pelt, too, keeping it muchly between us. It did not seem muchly concerned with the head of the urt which was still, by the skin, attached to the pelt. Its responses in this situation I assumed, I trusted, I hoped, would be activated almost exclusively by smell, and not by the smell of blood, or human, but by the smell of the pelt, by the pack odor.
I breathed a sigh of relief. It had turned away. The animals now returned to their business. Again was the pack tranquil, save where some animals, here and there, fed on sleen.
I then began, again, to press through the urts, wading through the pack. Once, a few yards before me and to my right, I saw a small, elongated head rise up suddenly, peering at me. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared. Again, then, I could see only the animals. This was the only concrete sign I had to suggest that there might be urt people traveling with the pack.
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