Free The Sound of His Horn by Sarban Page B

Another faint shot or two followed, and suddenly the dogs sounded much closer to us. They were driving up our ride, and now I recognised the voices of the boar-hounds, the savage brutes that had flown at the bars of their kennel in rage when we looked at them. I still had my eyes on the tree-tops and was listening for the rush of wings, when the forester nudged me and pointed down the glade.
    A figure had come into sight, running hard over the shock grass: a human figure, but fantastically decked. It came on, running for dear life, and the unseen hounds clamoured close behind; there was no mistaking their intention to rend and kill now. The figure held my gaze; it was a tall, long-limbed girl, her head and features concealed by a brilliantly coloured beaked mask, which yet allowed her dark hair to stream out behind. To see her racing up the glade was as astounding as if you had seen one of the bird-headed goddesses of Old Egypt suddenly break from carven stillness into panic flight. A gorget of glossy gold and scarlet feathers covered her breasts; down her arms were fastened pinion feathers of chestnut and iridescent green, and from her waist behind swept out long, curving tail-feathers of brown and gold. These adornments and the yellow shoes she had on her feet were her only dress.
    There was none of the tameness of the stag about her; she was terrified and she ran with a speed I could scarcely have bettered myself in the days when I was in training. I saw the desperation in the effort she was making as she tore past our butt and I knew she could not keep up that pace for another hundred yards. She passed beyond my line of vision and then I heard our sportsman fire.
    Horrified, I was about to jump up on to the earthwork, but the forester, who had already raised himself so that he could see up the glade, exclaimed in a low voice, "Missed! Here comes the other!"
    I looked back and saw another 'bird' running up, this one in white feathers, with a high golden crest and a short, up-cocked fan-tail. She was plumper than the first, not making so good a pace and beginning to show distress, but she made a spurt as the cruel clamour of the dogs swelled out anew behind her, and she swerved very near our butt.
    I heaved myself up in the instant that the sportsman fired, and saw something that looked like a web of fine, brilliant yellow filaments--something like the tail of a comet--sweep through the air towards her. The girl bounded and screamed; the web seemed to open out, spreading as if it were carried forward by a great number of small projectiles about its rim, as a circular cast-net is spread, in the throwing, by the little lead weights at its edge. The 'bird' whirled about, slapping at her bare flesh as though stung, and, in doing so, entangled her arms in those fine filaments; she staggered and struggled, evidently smarting from the impact of the projectiles; ran on again a few yards, but with difficulty, for the filaments seemed to be viscous and, though so fine, exceedingly strong; they wrapped about her thighs and knees.
    Our forester in charge now blew a cheery note on his little silver horn, and the young keeper slipped his baboon-boys. With loud, yelping cries they bounded down from the butt and raced towards the struggling girl. At the new terror she made the most desperate effort to run on and succeeded in breaking the trammelling threads about her legs, but the boys in a few yards were upon her. They threw her and whisked their net about her, subdued her struggles and rolled her tight and helpless in the meshes.
    The guest was now helped out of the butt and the foresters prepared to pursue the first 'bird', whom we could see labouring up between the thinly growing trees towards the head of the valley, her reds and golds conspicuous against the cool green. The keeper called up his baboon-boys for the chase, and another handed the guest his gun, but our sportsman had had enough: he was not built to trot after such a