Fur Magic (6 page)

And what about the black crows and the Changer, who could change animals, and tried to make man, or had made him, and who was finally beaten because he could not change or move mountains?

The ache in Cory's head grew worse. The brightness of the moon hurt eyes that could not turn away. He shut his eyes and tried to put all his strength into a desire to awaken from this dream. Only—how could you
make
yourself wake up? Usually a bad dream broke of itself and you found yourself lying in bed, with your heart pounding, your hands wet, and your stomach twisted inside you. He felt as scared and unhappy now, only he was not truly Cory but a beaver and a prisoner.

The raft on which he was tied continued to whirl along, and he felt rather than saw that two of the minks swam, one on either side, giving it a steer now and then, keeping it steadily moving. Then he heard a distant roaring and beaver mind told Cory that it was bad water—a fall, or perhaps a rapid.

His raft turned in the water as the minks shoved it out of the current. A little while later it was in the shallows, bumping around stones while the war party scraped, tugged, and lifted at it.

“You”—a mink head twisted on a slender neck was held
closer to his so that he could see the glinting merciless eyes of the warrior—“walk. Stop—we kill!”

The sounds were so gabbled and ill-pronounced, it was as if the mink spoke beaver but not well. But Cory felt the freedom as the cords that had held him to the raft were loosened. Then they boosted him to his hind feet, leaving his tail still fast to his neck. The line about his forepaws was grasped at the other end by the mink who had hissed the order and warning, and a sharp pull at that started him on.

It was a rough way, and twice Cory lost footing and fell among the rocks. Both times he was prodded to his feet again by his own spear in the hands of a mink; once he was beaten on the haunches by a club. Somehow he got on, but he no longer tried to think. There was only one thing left, to watch the barely marked trail and try to keep walking it.

They had left the riverbank, but the roar from that direction grew louder. Then they turned again, and Cory, struggling to keep alert, believed that they now paralleled the water. Twice they rested, not for his sake, he knew, but because two of their own company had leaf-and-mud-plastered wounds.

The second time they pulled off the trail, Cory saw that he was not the only captive. Ahead was another wounded, bound with ropes—an otter. But that animal seemed hardly able to move, and two of the minks pushed and shoved him along.

At last they returned to the riverbank and the minks brought up the raft to which Cory was once more tied. By that time he was so tired that when afloat on the water he fell into a state that was neither sleep nor a faint, but a combination of the two.

A
series of wild screams and cries rang in Cory's ears. He tried to move, but he could only turn his aching head a little. And when he did that, he looked into the narrowed eyes of a mink swimming beside the raft to which he was bound. Those eyes were ringed with red paint, which added to the hatred in them.

Beyond the mink's head, he caught sight of a river-bank where there were more of the furred warriors slipping now into the water to head for the incoming party. Then the raft under Cory gave a leap forward as if hurled by the push of a new energy, bumped out of the water up and down over gravel and stones, adding to the aches in his helpless body.

So, still bound, Cory was towed on into the mink village. It was no small gathering place, as his Yellow Shell memories told him that of a beaver clan would be, but a number of lodges.

Sheets of bark had been set up on end, bound together with saplings, all made into cone shapes, not unlike the tepees Cory remembered from the pictures of the Plains Indian
villages of his human past. To the front of most of these were planted poles from which dangled strips of fur, strings of teeth, a feather or two. No two of them were alike and perhaps, Cory thought, they stood for the owner of that particular lodge.

But he was not given time to see much, for a flood of minks—squaws and cubs—closed about him. Armed with sticks, clods of hard earth, they struck at him, all the time keeping up that horrible squalling until he was deafened as well as bruised by their blows. But finally the minks of the war party, perhaps fearing that their captive might be too battered before they were ready to deal with him themselves, closed about the raft and drove off his tormentors.

They came to one lodge set a little apart from the rest and sharp teeth cut speedily through those cords that kept Cory on the raft, though not his other bonds. He was pushed, rolled inside, and then his captors dropped the door flap and left him in the dusk of the interior. For it was not yet dawn and very little light entered. Perhaps not for Cory eyes, but for Yellow Shell it was enough to see that he was not alone, that another securely tied captive lay on the other side of the bark-walled shelter.

It was the otter, his fur bedabbled with blood, his eyes closed. So limp and unmoving was he that Cory thought perhaps he was already dead; though why the minks would leave him here in this way if that were so, he could not tell.

Yellow Shell memories frightened Cory; he tried to push them out of his mind. He did not
want
to think about what minks did to their captives; he wanted to get out of here, and as soon as he could. But all his pulling and twisting only made those hide ropes cut the more sharply into his flesh,
sawing through fur to the skin underneath. He had been very skilfully roped; nowhere was he able to bend his head to get at the cords with teeth that could sever them in a moment, for the loop tying head to tail stopped that. To try was to choke himself.

After several moments of such struggling Cory lay still, looking about him in the tepee to see what might be put to his use.

Around the sides, except near the door opening, dried grass lay in heaps as if to serve as beds. But the two prisoners had been dumped well away from them. Some pouches or bags of skin hung from the upper walls, far above the reach of his head. There was nothing else—except the otter.

Cory turned his head as far as he could, to watch the other captive. He saw that the otter's eyes were now open, and fixed on him. The otter's mouth opened and clicked shut twice. The Yellow Shell part of Cory's mind knew that signal.

“Enemy—danger—”

Such a warning was not needed. Both the boy and beaver parts of him knew that minks and danger went together. But the otter was not yet finished.

As with Yellow Shell, the otter's forepaws had been lashed tightly to his sides, but he could still flex his claws and those nearest the beaver now moved—in a pattern Yellow Shell also knew. Finger talk was always used by tribes that were friendly but whose speech was too different for either to mouth.

“Mink and—other—”

Other? What did the otter mean by that?

Yellow Shell's paws had been so tightly tied they were
numb; he could hardly flex them now. But he was able to give a small sideways jerk expressing the wish to know more.

“Crows come—with orders—” The otter strained, but the effort was so great that he lay panting and visibly weakened when he was done.

Crows? Cory thought back to the river where he had watched the crow and so had been easily captured by the minks. The Changer? A crow, or crows, carrying orders to the minks? The Yellow Shell part of him was almost as frightened as Cory had been when he first found himself in this strange world.

And, Yellow Shell's fears warned, if this was some matter of the Changer, it was worse than just minks at war. There was even more need to get out of here. Cory looked at the otter again. That animal lay with his eyes closed, as if the energy he had used to sign-talk had completely exhausted him.

Cory tried to squirm towards the otter, but the way his neck and tail were tied prevented him, and his faint hope of having the otter chew through his bonds was gone. If the otter could roll to him—? But he could see that a second loop about the otter's hind feet, lashed to a stake driven into the ground, kept him tight.

The beaver's struggles had brought his shoulder against a lump on the ground, painful under him. He twisted his head as far as he could and saw that the lump was his own shell box. He wondered why his captors had not taken it from him. Then he remembered what it held—the small coal. He had fire, if the coal were still alive. And there was the dried grass
of the beds. Could he make use of that? No, said the beaver part of him. But Cory's mind said yes to a desperate plan. Only how could he open the box with his forepaws tied?

Cory began to wriggle, trying to lift his shoulder under which the box lay. For long minutes he was unsuccessful; the box moved when he did, remaining stubbornly under his body in spite of all his efforts. Then it gave a little as he tried harder to raise his weight from it. He did not know how long he would have before the minks might burst in. And every time that fearful thought made him move faster, the box seemed to slide back farther under him.

At last it was free of his shoulder. Now began the strain to turn his head far enough, to roll so that he could reach the box with his chisel teeth. Again that seemed impossible, and so hard was the task that he could hardly believe he had succeeded when he did get the shell between his teeth and held it there firmly. Now to reach the bedding at his left. To move caused agony in his tail, or else choked his throat. He could only do it by inches. But at last, with the shell box between his teeth, his nose nudged against the heap of dried grass.

What he was going to do now was very dangerous. To loose fire where he and the otter lay so helpless—But Cory's desperation was greater now than Yellow Shell's shrinking, and he would not allow himself to think of anything beyond trying to do this.

Those strong teeth, meant for the felling of trees, crunched together on the shell, and he smelled the smouldering coal inside. Then, with all the force he could muster, Cory spat the broken box and the coal in it on to the grass, saw it catch with a small spurt of flame. He gave an upward
heave of his hind feet and tail so that the flame could eat at the cord holding so cruelly tight. He could smell singed fur now, feel the burn, had to fight Yellow Shell's fear to hold steady. For while animals knew fire and used it gingerly, they still had greater fear than man of what was to him the most ancient of tools.

Just when he was sure he could no longer stand it, the pressure on his throat was gone and he was able to bend his head forward far enough that his teeth severed in one snap the ties about his forelegs, gave another to cut those holding his hind legs.

He felt the pain of returning circulation, stumbled when he wanted to move fast and easily. But he staggered to the otter, bit through the cord that fastened him to the stake. Then, dragging the smaller animal with him, Yellow Shell reached the rear of the bark tepee. He thrust the bedding away from the wall with great sweeps of his paws, throwing it towards the entrance to make a wall of fire between them and any mink trying to enter.

Luckily the grass did not burn as fast as Yellow Shell had feared it might, but rather smouldered, puffing out smoke that made him cough, hurt his eyes. But teeth and claws were now at work on the rear wall. And before his determined assault the wall split.

What would he find awaiting them outside? Armed minks? But this time he would be ready for them, with punishing tail, claws, teeth. And he, Yellow Shell, was the better of any mink or two or three. Even if they jumped him as a pack, he could give a good account of himself before they pulled him down.

It was the smoke whirling out with them that masked their going. And the nature of the minks was an aid. For they were of the same nature as beaver and otter; they had to be close to water. And, though the village was on the bank of the river, it was still too far from water to suit the furred raiders. As Yellow Shell made for the stream, with the otter he dragged along, he fell into a water-filled cut running between the tepees. How that had been made was a wonder to him as he plunged beneath its surface and struck out in the direction of the river. The minks did not try to control the flow of water as did his own people. They built no dams, or any ditches down which to float the wood, bark, and leaves that meant houses and food. But this cut was the saving of Yellow Shell and the otter now.

The passage was narrow for a beaver, having been made for the lighter bulk of minks. For, while the warriors who had captured him were much larger than any mink of Cory's world, they were still less in size than Yellow Shell. In spite of the tight fit at some parts of the way, the beaver won through and brought the otter with him.

He surfaced to breathe at last, turned the otter around to brace the smaller animal's wounded body against the wall of the ditch while he cut through his bonds. The otter's eyes were open and he was now aware of what went on about him. As soon as the cords fell away, he brought up his forepaws in an urgent signing:

“To the river!”

Yellow Shell needed no urging. He went under water, keeping one forepaw on the otter until that animal gave an impatient wriggle and freed himself from the beaver's hold,
passed him, and slid from the ditch into deeper waters.

Able as the beaver and otter were in the river, yet the minks, too, could follow them there with deadly ease. They would be more wary of attacking either animal in the water, however, where both were more at home than the minks. Yellow Shell noted that while the otter moved quickly at first, he soon lagged, and it was plain that his wounds, which began to bleed again, were slowing him down. One was on the back of his head, proving, Yellow Shell thought, that he must have been struck with a club. The other hurt was on his forepaw, which the otter kept tucked against his chest as if to shield it from even the slight pressure of the water.

A discolouration from blood tinged the water, leaving a trail to be followed by the enemy. Yellow Shell dared not take the time to scout behind to see whether the minks had yet discovered their escape. He could only hope to be on their way in what small time they had left before the hunt started behind. With any luck the burning tepee could hide their escape for a time.