Norton, Andre - Breed to come

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BREED TO COME

An Ace Book, by arrangement with

Viking Press, Inc.

This Ace printing: February 1980

There was a light breeze, just enough to whisper

through the leaves.. Furtig lay belly down on the

broad limb of the tree, hunter-fashion, but his claws

were still in his belt loop, not strapped on. No sniff of

that breeze brought any useful scent to his expanded

nostrils. He had climbed the tree not for a base from

which to make a good capture-leap, but to see what

lay beyond. However, now he knew that he must

climb higher still. The leaves were too thick a screen

here.

He moved with sinuous grace. Though his ancestors

had hunted on four legs, Furtig now went on two,

save when time pressed and he had to take to a fast

run. And he was very much at home in the treetops.

For those ancestors had also been climbers, just as

their active curiosity had led them into exploration.

Now he drew up from his perch into smaller branches,

on which he balanced with inborn skill.

At last he gained a crotch, and there he faced

Printed in U.S.A.

BREED TO COME

through an opening what he had come to see. He had

chosen a tree on a small hill, and the expanse before

him was clear.

The first nips of frost had struck the country,

though by day a gentle warmth returned. Tall grass

rippled between him and those distant, monstrous

shadows. The grass was brown, and it would not be

long before the cold season. But first came the Trials

of Skill.

Furtig's black lips pulled tight, and he opened his

mouth on a soundless battle snarl. The white curve of

tearing fangs showed their pointed tips. His ears flat-

tened in folds against' his rounded skull, the furred

ridge along his back lifted, and the hair on his tail

puffed.

To those who had known his ancestors, he would be

a grotesque sight; for a body once well fitted to the

needs of its owner had altered in ways strange to na-

ture. Rounded forepaws had split into stubby fingers,

awkward enough but able to accomplish much more

in the way of handling. His body was still largely

furred, but there were places where the fur had

thinned to a light down. There was more dome to his

skull, just as the brain beneath was different, dealing

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with thoughts and conceptions earlier unknown. In

fact it was that brain which had altered most of all.

Feline, Furtig's ancestors had been. But Furtig was

something which those who had known those felines

could not have accurately named.

His people did not measure time more than by cer-

tain rites of their own, such as the bi-yearly Trials of

Skill when a warrior gave the best evidence of his prow-

ess so that the females could pick a mate. One noted

BREED TO COME

the coming of winter cold, and the return of spring,

summer's heat when one drowsed through the days

and hunted by night. But the People did not try to

count one year apart from the rest.

Though it was said that Gammage did things none

other of the People thought of doing. Gammage—

Furtig studied the bulk of buildings on the other

side of the fields, lairs of the Demons. Yet Gammage

feared no Demon. If all the stories were true, Gam-

mage lived yonder in the heart of the lost Demon

world. It was the custom for first-rite warriors to

speak of "going to Gammage." And once in a long

while one would. Not that any returned—which ar-

gued that the Demons still had their traps at work,

even though no Demon had been seen for generations.

Furtig had seen pictures of them. It was part of the

regular scout training to be taught to recognize the

enemy. And, while a youngling could be shown one of

the Barkers, a Tusked One, or even a vile Ration in

the flesh, he had to depend solely upon such repre-

sentations of Demons for identification.

Long ago the Demons had gone from their lairs,

though they had left foul traces of their existence be-

hind them. The stinking sickness, the coughing death,

the eaten-skin ills—these had fallen on the People too

in the past, for once they had been imprisoned in the

Demons' lairs. Only a small handful of them had

escaped.

The memory of such deaths had kept them away

from the lairs for many lifetimes. Gammage had been

the first to dare to return to live in the Demons' forsak-

en shells. And that was because his thirst for knowl-

edge had taken him there. Gammage came of a

BREED TO COME

strange line differing yet again from many of the Peo-

ple.

Absently Furtig brought his hand to his mouth,

licked the fur on it clean of an itch-causing leaf smear.

He was of Gammage's own clan line, and they were

noted for their boldness of curiosity and their dif-

ferences in body. In fact they were not too well re-

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garded. Once more his lips wrinkled, his tail twitched

a little. Warriors of his family did not find it easy to

take a mate, not even when they won in the Trials.

Their restlessness of spirit, their habit of questioning

old ways, of exploring, was not favored by any pru-

dent cave mother who wished security for future

younglings.

Such would look in the opposite direction when

Gammage's kin padded by. And Gammage himself,

awesome as he was, had little repute nowadays.

Though the clans were willing enough to accept the

infrequent, but always surprising, gifts which he had

sent from the lairs in times past.

The hunting claws, which clicked softly as Furtig

shifted his weight, were one of Gammage's first gifts

to his people. They were made of a shining metal

which did not dull, break, or flake with the passing of

years as did the shards of metal found elsewhere. Set

in a band which slipped over the hand, they snapped

snugly just above the wrist, projecting well beyond

the stubby fingers with tearing, curved hooks, like the

claws one grew, but far more formidable and danger-

ous. And they were used just as one used one's natu-

ral defenses. A single well-placed blow could kill one

of the deer or wild cows Furtig's people hunted for

their staple food.

BREED TO COME

In war with one's kind they were forbidden. But

they could be worn to face the Barkers, as those knew

only too well. And with the Rattons—one used all

and any weapons against those evil things. While with

the Tusked Ones there were no quarrels, because of a

truce.

Yes, the claws were from Gammage. And from time

to time other things came from him, all designed to

lighten the task of living in the Five Caves. So that

the clans were respected and feared. There were ru-

ors that another tribe of the People had settled late-

ly to the north of the lairs, but so far none of Furtig's

people had seen them.

The lairs—Furtig studied those blots on the land-

scape. They formed a long range of mountains. Was

Gammage still there? It had been—he began to count

seasons, tapping them off with a finger—it had been

as many as fingers on his one hand since any word or

gift had come from Gammage. Perhaps the Ancestor

was dead.

Only that was hard to believe. Gammage had al-

ready lived far past the proper span of any ordinary

warrior. Why, it had been Furtig's great-great-grand-

father who had been Gammage's youngling in the last

of the families born before the death of his mate and

his departure for the lairs. It was also true that Gam-

mage's blood lived longer than most. Fuffor, Furtig's

father, had died in a battle with the Barkers, and he

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was then the only one of his years left at the Five

Caves. Nor had he seemed old; his mate had had an-

other pair of younglings that very season, and she was

the fourth mate he had won during the passing of sea-

sons!

BREED TO COME

If it was not that so much of Gammage's blood now

ran in the tribe there might be trouble. Once more

Furtig snarled silently. Tales grew, and dark tales al-

ways grow the faster and stronger. Gammage was in

league with Demons, he used evil learning to prolong

his life. Yet for all such mewling of stories in the dark,

his people were eager enough to welcome one of Gam-

mage's messengers—take what he had to offer.

Only, now that those messengers came no more,

and one heard nothing from those who had gone to

seek Gammage, the stories grew in force. At the last

Trials Furtig's older brother of another birth time

had won. Yet he had not been chosen by any mate.

And so he had joined the far scouts and taken a west-

ern trail-of-seeking from which he had never returned.

Could it be any better for Furtig? Perhaps less—for

he was not the warrior-in-strength that Fughan had

been, being smaller and less powerful, even though his

rivals granted him speed and agility.

He supposed he should be in practice now, using all

those skills for the Trials, not wasting time staring at

the lairs. Yet he found it hard to turn away. And his

mind built strange pictures of what must lie within

those walls. Great had been the knowledge of the De-

mons, though they had used it ill and in a manner

which later brought them to defeat and death.

Furtig remembered hearing his father discuss the

dim history of those days. He had been talking with

one of Gammage's messengers about some discovery

the Ancestor had made. That had been when Gam-

mage had sent his picture of a Demon; they were to

beware any creature who resembled it.

Before they had died, the Demons had gone mad,

BREED TO COME

even as sometimes the Barkers did. They had fallen

upon one another in rage, and were not able to mate

or produce younglings. So without younglings and

with their terrible hatred for one another, they had

come to an end, and the world was the better for their

going.

Gammage had learned this in the lairs, but he also

feared that someday the Demons might return. From

death? Furtig wondered. Great learning they had

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had, but could any living creature die and then live

again? Perhaps the Demons were not rightly living

creatures such as the People, even the Rattons. Some-

day—someday he would go to Gammage to leam

more.

But not today, not until he had proven himself,

shown all the Five Caves that the blood of Gammage

was not to be ill-considered. And he would waste no

more time in spying on the dead lairs of Demons ei-

ther!

Furtig swung out of the tree, dropping lightly. This

was the outpost of a small grove which angled back to

become an arm of the forest country, the hunting ter-

ritory of the Five Caves. Furtig was as at home in its

shade as he was in the caves.

He stopped to tuck his hunting claws more tightly

into his belt so that no small jangle would betray his

passing, and then flitted on, his feet making no sound

on the ground. Since he wanted to make speed he

went to all fours, moving in graceful bounds. The Peo-

ple stood proudly upright when it was a time of cere-

mony, thus proving that the Demons who always

walked so were no greater, but in times of need they

fell back upon ancestral ways.

BREED TO COME

He planned to approach the caves from the north,

but at first his course was west. That would take him

by a small lake, a favorite feeding place of plump

ducks. To return with an addition to the cave food

supplies was always the duty of a warrior.

Suddenly a whiff of rank scent brought Furtig to a

halt, crouching in the bushes. His hand whipped to

his belt, reached for the claws, and he worked his

hands into them with practiced speed.

Barkers! And more than one by the smell. They

were not lone hunters like his own people, but moved

in packs, centering in upon the kill. And one of the

People would be a kill they would enjoy.

Courage was one thing, stupidity another. And

Furtig's people were never stupid. He could remain

where he was and do battle, for he did not doubt that

the Barkers would speedily scent him (in fact he won-

dered fleetingly why they had not already done so).

Or he could seek safety in the only flight left—aloft.

The hunting claws gave him a firm grip as they bit

into tree bark, and he pulled himself up with haste.

He found a branch from which he could view the

ground below. Deep in his throat rumbled a growl he

would not give full voice to, and with flattened ears

and fur lifted on his spine, he watched, eyes aslit in a

fighting face.

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file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20Breed%20to%20Come.tx BREEDTOCOMECopyright©1972byAndreNortonAnAceBook,byarrangementwithVikingPress,Inc.AllRightsReservedThisAceprinting:February1980Therewasalightbreeze,justenoughtowhisperthroughtheleaves..Furtiglaybellydownonthebroadlimbofthetree,...

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Norton, Andre - Breed to come

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