Short Stories
his drooping ear, his uncounted blows and prodigious wrongs,
and without a sound sprang on the sleeping man.
Leclere awoke to the pang of the fangs in his throat, and, per-
fect animal that he was, he awoke clear-headed and with full
comprehension. He closed on Batard's windpipe with both his
hands, and rolled out of his furs to get his weight uppermost.
But the thousands of Batard's ancestors had clung at the throats
of unnumbered moose and caribou and dragged them down,
and the wisdom of those ancestors was his. When Leclere's
weight came on top of him, he drove his hind legs upwards and
in, and clawed down chest and abdomen, ripping and tearing
through skin and muscle. And when he felt the man's body
wince above him and lift, he worried and shook at the man's
throat. His team-mates closed around in a snarling circle, and
Batard, with failing breath and fading sense, knew that their
jaws were hungry for him. But that did not matter, it was the
man, the man above him, and he ripped and clawed, and shook
and worried, to the last ounce of his strength. But Leclere choked
him with both his hands, till Batard's chest heaved and writhed
for the air denied, and his eyes glazed and set, and his jaws
slowly loosened, and his tongue protruded black and swollen.
"Eh? Bon, you devil!" Leclere gurgled mouth and throat
clogged with his own blood, as he shoved the dizzy dog from
him.
And then Leclere cursed the other dogs off as they fell upon
Batard. They drew back into a wider circle, squatting alertly on
their haunches and licking their chops, the hair on every neck
bristling and erect.
Batard recovered quickly, and at sound of Leclere's voice,
tottered to his feet and swayed weakly back and forth.
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