ome from the direction of the village since
the snow had stopped. One had been wearing sealskin boots, of the sort
worn by all Northfolk. The others had worn Southron boots, with ribbed
plastic soles. That puzzled him. None of the village people wore
Southron boots, and as he had been leaving in the early morning, he
had seen Yorn Nazvik's ship, the _Issa_, lift out from the village and
pass overhead, vanishing in the west. Possibly these were deserters.
In any case, they were not good people. He slipped the heavy rifle
from its snow-cover, checked the chamber, and hung the empty cover
around his neck like a scarf. He didn't like the looks of it.

He liked it even less when he saw that the man in sealskin boots had
stopped to examine the tracks he and Brave had made on leaving, and
had then circled the house and come back, to be joined by his
plastic-soled companions. Then they had all put down their packs and
their ice-staffs, and advanced toward the door of the house. They had
stopped there for a moment, and then they had entered, come out again,
gotten their packs and ice-staffs, and gone away, up the slope to the
north.

"Wait, Brave," he said. "Watch."

Then he advanced, careful not to step on any of the tracks until he
reached the doorstep, where it could not be avoided.

"Bold!" he called loudly. "Bold!"

Silence. No welcoming whimper, no padding of feet, inside. He pulled
the latchstring with his left hand and pushed the door open with his
foot, the rifle ready. There was no need for that. What welcomed him,
within, was a sickening stench of burned flesh and hair.

The new lumicon lighted the room brilliantly; his first glance was
enough. The slab that had covered the crypt was thrown aside, along
with the pile of deerskins, and between it and the door was a
shapeless black heap that, in a dimmer light, would not have been
instantly recognizable as the body of Bold. Fighting down an impulse
to rush in, he stood in the door, looking about and reading the story
of what had happened. The four men had entered, knowing that they
would find Bold alone. The one in the lead had had a negatron pistol
drawn, and when Bold had leaped at them, he had been blasted. The
blast had caught the dog from in front--the chest-cavity was literally
exploded, and the neck and head burned and smashed unrecognizably.
Even the brass studs on the leather collar had been melted.

That and the ribbed sole-prints outside meant the sam