The pain in my loins was subsiding to a drumlike ache that made me nearly vomit, and my eyes were full of sparks. He had me by the hair, long as his own; I think he was getting ready to break my neck once we should slow sufficiently; he was past caring who or what I was. With his other arm he had both of mine pinned fast to my sides. I had lost the two knives, I guess when he punched me. I remembered how he had crashed heavily on the left knee and caught it between mine as we fell, squeezing till I heard the bones grind. Distik grunted and his hand slackened on my hair. I went under it and had him by the throat. My teeth met through the skin, and his blood ran in my mouth. I was fighting mad by this time, and the salt of it gladdened me.

He tried to shake me off, and loosened his other arm around me, grabbing to wrench my head back. Just then we tumbled into a soft mound of snow. I released his throat and hit him on the side of the jaw with all my might, and felt teeth snap under the blow. He bellowed, on his side in the snow mound, and I sprang from him and fell back deadweight on his ribs. The breath went from him in a bloody gust, and he curled together on himself, crowing for it, and done.

I stood up, shivering with hate-lust and triumph, and stared along the slope toward the cave.

It was to be an hour of surprises. I had not anticipated what I saw. Three of them were coming down to me, making set brutal faces, metal ready in their hands, as they would go to finish off a bear in a trap.

I thought, This is too obvious. Ettook can’t let them take me three to a boy; it shows too much how badly he wants me broken. But Ettook never stirred and the braves came on.

I glanced around quickly, trying to see a knife, Distik’s or mine, in the snow, but there was nothing.

I should have been anxious, but I was too eager to fight; the last bout had sharpened my appetite for it.

Distik had continued lying prone and gasping. I hauled him onto his back and he threshed about, attempting to ward me off. Around his neck hung a great ivory tooth, long as my hand, and perfect save where the hole was pierced for the thong to go through. He found it in some back cave years before and wore it for luck. Seeing his luck had deserted him, it was almost fitting I should rip it off his neck, and perhaps he agreed for he did not offer to stop me. In my grasp the tooth looked nearly as good as a dagger.

The warriors were biding their time approaching me, for the slope was slippery from our fall, and someone had maneuvered ahead of the rest. I saw his squinty eye and recognized Fid’s father, Jork. Then I took the slope at a run, going up to meet him.