They took Revel to the top of a hill just behind Ewyo's mansion. He was stripped to the buff, but on his feet were stout sandals of horsehide in triple thickness, so that he could run well and give them a good hunt. On the crest they untied him, and he stood naked in a ring of the horsed gentry, rubbing his wrists and glaring at them. Beside him were Jerran and the mutilated Dawvys, who both wore their customary shirts and trousers.

Running his eyes over the squirachy, Revel saw with a strange thrill of horror the Lady Nirea, on a deep-chested roan stallion, as cool and distant as the moon ... and as beautiful, he thought bitterly. Well, but hadn't he had her? He, a rucker born had loved this woman of the gentry! Let her watch him die—small compensation that would be!

He bowed to her. "May you be in at the death," he said clearly, and had the satisfaction of seeing her face go white.

"Give the Mink his fangs," said Ewyo. The burly squire was all in scarlet silk and purple velvet, with white calfskin boots on his thick legs. At his command, Rosk threw the tall rebel a belt with two holsters, in which were thrust two short iron daggers. "By rights you should go without, Mink," said Ewyo, "but it's more sport to chivvy a fox with a bite in him. Now, you have till the count of three hundred."

"Five hundred is customary," interrupted Nirea.

"Three is plenty for the savior of the ruck. Hold your tongue, Lady." He leaned over his steed's head. "Three hundred, Mink, and then we come after you. Your course is down this hill and straight away toward the sea. Don't try to escape the straight, either, because the hills are rimmed with guards who'll blow your guts out if you cross the line; and some thousands of your slimy kin are clustered on those hills to watch their hero die." He nodded to the woman beside him, a blonde wench with vicious amber eyes. "Begin the count, Jann."

The blonde said loudly, "One, two, three—" and at the third word Revel was off, running like a slim brown stag down the slope of the hill. Behind him came Dawvys and Jerran. The little man cried, "Don't wait, Revel lad. Save yourself if you can. Remember you're the Mink!"

"I wish to Orbs I wasn't," he growled, and hit the bottom, skimmed over a patch of raw rocks and struck the green beyond. As he ran he buckled the belt around his waist, with a knife hanging on each hip. He had not expected these, and though Ewyo thought he'd lose only a hound or two, Revel intended to take at least a pair of squires with him into the unknown....

He was a fine runner. By the time Lady Jann had counted two hundred and fifty, he was half a mile down the straight, which was a belt of land some quarter of a mile wide and twenty long, ending above the sea on a cliff's edge. As the squire had said, he would not be able to break off the straight, for guards and packed mobs lined it and a naked man would be far too conspicuous heading toward them.

Now he thought of his two comrades in ill fortune. Neither of them was a runner of any caliber. Should he wait and help them?

Selfishness said no—and unselfishness said no, for wasn't his first duty to the ruck, not to his friends? Didn't he owe it to humanity to save himself? And besides, he was a lusty young buck, and didn't want to die.

But he glanced back, slowed, waited till the two had come panting up to him, and thrusting an arm around each waist, ran them forward with him, ignoring their protests.

They came to a coppice of elms, grown thick with brambles and cluttered with deadwood. It covered perhaps an acre. Revel ploughed into it, cursing as the thorns stabbed his naked hide. Too late he realized he should have skirted it. In the rare quarter-seconds when the branches were not snapping or the brush whipping noisily aside from their progress, he could hear the faint barking of the great hounds; even, he thought, the whoops of the excited gentry as they started down the hill on their fiery stallions. He pictured Nirea, her slate-hued eyes gleaming, her creamy skin aflush as she leaned forward eagerly for the first sight of the Mink. Damn her!

Abruptly the earth slanted off to the right, so that Revel, who was still pushing Dawvys and Jerran, went headlong into a patch of nettles, losing his balance at the unexpected dip and shoving both companions down on their faces. Dawvys rolled, yelping at the pain of scratches on fresh wounds, then vanished with a howl. Revel crouched, staring, unbelieving. In a moment the head of the plump rucker came up out of the earth.

"What in Orbs' names—"

"It's a pit," said Dawvys. "It was covered with trash." His eyes were wide and frightened. "Go on, Revel. I can't run another step."

The Mink thought swiftly. Dawvys was right, he could run no longer. Quickly Revel shoved the man's head down, threw several branches and bushes across the mouth of the pit, began to disguise it, talking as he worked.

"Lie down and be very still, old fellow. Jerran and I will make enough of a trail for the hounds to follow, and only bad luck will discover you to them. If we escape, we'll come back tonight for you." The pit was camouflaged, looked like a mound of trash beside the trail. Revel murmured a good-bye, and went plunging on through the coppice to the other side, Jerran following him nimbly with the strength of second wind.

Now they could truly run, for Jerran, though forty-two, was no antique; and Revel had the thews of a woods lion. The way before them was smooth, grass cropped close by the sheep of Ewyo, gently rolling mounds one after another so that skimming down one slope gave them impetus to dash up the next. A faint cheer came to them from the left. The ruck was on their side.

Perhaps if I die well enough, thought Revel, my death may spark a revolt, and so count for something. He felt at the hilt of the iron daggers. Just give me Ewyo, he prayed to whatever higher powers there might be; just let me have one thrust at Ewyo the Squire!

From the crest of the highest hill he looked back, as Jerran sucked for breath. The gentry were just topping a rise some half mile behind. Not bad! But the dogs were much closer. They had gone through the coppice without discovering Dawvys; now, with any luck, they never would.

Revel ran on. His feet thudded on rock, slithered on grass, shuffled through the mire of a narrow swampland. Here trees slashed at him, there a woodchuck sprang out of his path and made him stumble with sudden panic. His chest labored, drawing in air; his legs pumped and ached. Then he came to a river.

It was some ten yards broad, with a swift current. He said to Jerran, "If we can make headway against that current, land up-stream on the other side, we may have a chance."

The runty yellow man shook his head. "Look up," he gasped. Above them soared a score of globes, plainly marking their position for the gentry.

"The filthy schemers," growled Revel. "The foul cheats! They call this a game, yet 'tis as easy for them as it would be to shoot at us in a small sealed room!" He bent down. "Get on my back, little one." Jerran climbed on, and Revel grasped his legs, told him to hang tight around his neck, and leaped into the river.

Only thirty feet across, it was yet quite deep, and Revel sank like a dropped rock. When the water above his head was so opaque that he could not distinguish anything save a dull mirky lightness, he struck out downstream. For a full minute he swam with the current, then began to rise, Jerran clinging weakly to his neck. The Mink thanked his Orbs—no, not them, but whatever brought him luck—that he was one of the few ruckers who had taught himself to swim....

He had gone farther by swimming than he might have running, for the current was like a demon with a thousand legs, all speeding it on and carrying him with it. His head lifted clear of the waters in the center of the stream, and Jerran behind him broke into coughs and gurgles. Revel looked for globes, and saw them upriver, lifting and falling uncertainly. He said, "Take a breath!" did so himself, and sank again. This time he stayed under for the space he could have counted fifty, then rose again near the far bank.

He was among trees, birch and poplar and evergreen, that grew to the water's brink. He struggled ashore, carrying a limp Jerran, and fell with his burden beneath a single giant oak, which sheltered him from the buttoned, all-seeing sky.

"Rest a while, Jerran. We've put plenty of distance behind us."

Yet when he stood up and gave his friend a hand, five minutes later, he could already hear the baying of hounds.

A touch of panic threaded down his spine—not the panic that flared and died when a woodchuck startled him, but the panic of any hunted creature who, do what he may, still hears the pursuers close behind him. The sound of the howls told him the dogs had crossed the river. He looked up, but saw no orbs. No dog scents a man two miles off. Who had betrayed them? Or were the gentry presuming that they must have crossed?

He broke trail for Jerran through a section that a great bear would have found hard going, all vines and tough saplings and snake holes that sunk beneath his sandaled feet. His body was by this time a hatched network of pain and scarlet stripes, oozing blood.

He had expected the mass of impeding vegetation to be a thin patch at best, but it went on and on, and the trees thinned so that the sky was open above them. It was a matter of time only till the globes spotted him. The hounds were louder. Once he heard the shout of a man, thin and high in the distance.

At last he was on solid, uncluttered ground again. He looked down at his skin, wondering if it would ever be smooth and whole again. His body had been gouged, gashed, torn, disfigured.

"Va-yoo hallo! Va-yoo hallo-lo-lo-lo-lo!" The terrible cry rang behind him, and turning, he saw two horsemen cresting a hill to the side of the patch of bad ground.

Then it dawned on him how they had been followed; for behind the stallioned squires rose the hills, which bordered the straight hunting course, and on them showed small dots of color, the keen-eyed watchers of the gentry. No matter where he ran on this long narrow coursing ground, there would be eyes upon him.

At least the ravening dogs were not nearby. He picked up Jerran, tucked him under one arm, and dashed for the shelter of the evergreen woods before him. The hoofs of the horses pounded behind. He dodged in among the pines, and the mournful call lifted—"Gone to earth! Go-ho-hon to earth!"

"Damn you, put me down!" rasped Jerran. "Am I a child, to be carted like this?" Revel dropped him. They skittered from tree to tree, and then a charging horse was on them, and Jerran was rolling aside, bleating with fear of the hoofs, while Revel turned and stood foursquare in the path. As the stallion all but touched him, he jumped aside, jumped back, so that the head of the beast passed him but the rider was struck and clutched and hurled from his saddle, losing his trumpet-gun as he fell. The Mink was sitting astride him before he could bounce up, and two ruthless hands took him by the throat and tore out his jugular. The second rider at that instant drew rein behind them, and lifted his own gun for a quick shot.

Jerran hurled a rock. It took the squire on the head, spilled him out of his saddle, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

"Two guns, by Orbs!" crowed Revel, gathering them up. "And two horses!" He put a foot into the stirrup of the second one, but it shied madly at the touch of a bloody, naked man; dashed forward, startling the other, and together they vanished among the trees. "Hell!" said Jerran, taking one of the guns; "nothing gained but two bullets, Mink."

"Two bullets is two more slain squires. Come on!"

The evergreens gave out shortly, and they were in a valley channeled by sluggish rivulets and grown with noxious weeds and clumps of coarse grass. Some distance away, a priest walked slowly, head bent, his double scalp lock flopping down over the radiant blue-green robe. Above him, apparently in communion with him, hung a golden globe.

Revel shifted his gun up and took aim at the orb. He must risk a shot, rather than a god's exposure of his whereabouts. The priest looked up, saw him, yipped in surprise, and the orb shot up ten feet just as Revel fired.

One bullet wasted. Jerran fired as the echoes of the Mink's shot racketed away, and the priest crumpled in on himself, a glittering sack of dead meat.

"You fool!" said Revel, with a brief, pithy anger. "The man I could have stabbed or broken in two. The sphere is beyond us now." It was slanting up an invisible incline, faster than he had ever seen one travel before. "Come on," he snarled. "We've got to travel!" He threw away the useless gun and ran for his life.

Behind him, to left and then to right, rose the calls. Hoofs thundered, dogs baying out afresh as they sighted their quarry, and the valley filled with sound and horses, dogs and men. Over and over the calls rang, and the air above the fugitives was filled with watching gods. Revel ran as he had never believed he could run, and the calls, the calls, the calls beat upon his eardrums....