these might, in one night of carnage, be avenged. It is that which I am, now thought the beast, the most recent in a line of progenitors, one required for life, who gives life but is to be destroyed by the life it gives, who is doomed to be servitor to ungrateful seed, who will be feared and hated because of the scepter which must be borne, and which he, alone, can bear, he doomed to be protector, defense and shield, tyrant, lover, king, victim.
The Pons, shrieking, fled toward the gate.
The beast, in all its terribleness, had reared up on its hind legs, more then than forty feet in height, clawing at the dark sky, roaring in fury, and pain, understanding what it was, and what had been done to it, and what it could now do, if it wished.
The beast stood there then, a moment later, very quietly, eyeing the gate.
This stillness in it, somehow, seemed even more menacing than its rage of a moment earlier.
It was not a simple beast, of course. It was a beast, but, too, it had a mind capable of firmness of purpose, capable of planning, of attention to detail.
This made it additionally terrifying.
The gate shut. The bars were put in place. Only the small figure of the eyeless one was left outside the palings. He had fallen, twice, trying to flee toward the gate. It had been shut before he could reach it.
The beast walked toward the gate. The small eyeless one, sensing its approach, backed against the palings.
“Where is the rifle?” asked Brenner.
The eyeless one looked up toward the beast. “It was destroyed,” he said.
“Good,” said Brenner.
“I saw it done before I was given this body.”
“That was their mistake,” said Brenner.
“It is their way,” said the eyeless one.
“A mistake,” said Brenner.
“They are at your mercy, like infants,” said the eyeless one.
Brenner could see torches within the palings, and the faces of some of the Pons through the gate.
“What are you going to do?” asked the eyeless one.
Brenner did not respond to this but went to the palings at the left of the gate and, with his shoulder, pressing against them, snapped several, and forced others, rupturing the dirt in which they had been planted, from the ground. He then moved to his right, toward the gate and then past it, and, carefully, putting his head to one side, with his teeth, drew up some four or five palings. He dropped them, one by one, like sticks, outside the former perimeter of the fence. Pons drew back from those parts of the fence. Brenner then went to the gate itself and, with the huge prehensile paws of the form of life which he now shared, or had become, with its nature, its instincts, and its memories, seized the gate. Then, with a growl, he reared up, yanking the gate from the fence and, turning, hurled it a hundred feet behind him, across the clearing. He then entered through the hole where the gate had been. Pons shrank back before him, toward the village clearing.
The eyeless one, feeling his way about the palings, groping his way, followed the sounds, the tiny sounds of the retreating Pons, the soft, exultant, anticipatory growls of the beast, in effect, herding them before it.
Brenner sat down, at the edge of the village clearing. He could see the small, open-sided shelter where the git cage had been. He could see the hut he had shared with Rodriguez. He surveyed the Pons.
“Where are you?” called the eyeless one.
“I am here,” said Brenner.
The eyeless one came to him, and put his hands out, feeling the beast.
“What are you going to do?” asked the eyeless one.
“I am going to kill them,” said Brenner. “I am going to kill them all.”
The Pons shrank back, further,
“If I should miss one or two,” said Brenner, “others in the forest will finish the work. I will not kill you.”
“You will not do this,” said the eyeless one.
“Who can stop me?” asked Brenner.
“One who is your equal,” said the eyeless one.
“He was old,” said Brenner. “He would not have been my equal. And I killed him.”
“There is another.”
“Bring him forth then,” said Brenner. “We shall adjudicate the matter.”
“He is here,” said the eyeless one.
“Where?” said Brenner. He knew there could be no other. Could their sense of smell not inform them of that.
“You,” said the eyeless one.
“You are mad,” said Brenner, licking at his fur, on the left shoulder.
“Surely you understand,” said the eyeless one.
“No,” said Brenner.
“You