Dumarest spun, dodging the horns, conscious of the feet, feeling the slam as one hit the side of his thigh. His left hand fell to grip the beast's left horn, the lift of the head carrying him up as he threw his right leg over the back. As the thing reared he sent the point of his knife deep into an eye, twisting, thrusting, cursing as the width of the blade jammed against the orbital bone.

A moment wasted as he fought to free the steel then he was in the air, turning, twisting from the rake of the clawed hands which had swept him from his perch to hurl him far and hard against the dirt.

Roaring, the creature tore the knife from its eye and flung it after its attacker.

Dumarest watched it, saw the gleam of reflected light as it turned, the plume of dirt as it hit to skid to rest a score of yards from where he lay. To reach it would take time and yet without it he was helpless. To finish the job; to blind the creature so as to lock it in a cage of darkness while he left the range of its natural weapons-in that was his only safety.

He coughed and spat and ignored the blood, the pain which rasped his lungs with jagged glass. Beneath him the dirt quivered to the pound of feet as the beast rushed toward him, to kick and stamp until nothing was left, but a bloody smear. Dumarest rolled, scooped up a handful of dirt, threw it as he rose to fill the remaining eye with grit. He gained a moment as an inner lid cleansed the orb, and when next he rose the knife was again in his hand.

"Hold!"

He ignored the shout and the command, concentrating on the beast, the death rearing on clawed feet, turning now to spot him, the blood-smeared face a grotesque mask of bestial ferocity.

It would see him and attack, lowering the head to bring the horns into play as it had before. The trick was to stay on the blind side, to avoid the lash of the foot, to send the point of the knife up and hard to ruin the remaining eye.