r by the back of the neck. He pulled up
with all his strength and the claws of the prowler tore at the rocks as
it climbed.

When it was coming up over the ledge, safe, he rolled back from it and
came to his feet in one swift, wary motion, his eyes on it and his knife
already in his hand. As he did so the water went past below them with a
thunder that deafened. Logs and trees shot past, boulders crashed
together, and things could be seen surging in the brown depths;
shapeless things that had once been woods goats and the battered gray
bulk of a unicorn. He saw it all with a sideward glance, his attention
on the prowler.

It stepped back from the rim of the ledge and looked at him; warily, as
he looked at it. With the wariness was something like question, and
almost disbelief.

The ledge they stood on was narrow but it led out of the canyon and to
the open land beyond. He motioned to the prowler to precede him and,
hesitating a moment, it did so.

They climbed out of the canyon and out onto the grassy slope of the
mountainside. The roar of the water was a distant rumble there and he
stopped. The prowler did the same and they watched each other again,
each of them trying to understand what the thoughts of the other might
be. It was something they could not know--they were too alien to each
other and had been enemies too long.

Then a gust of wind swept across them, bending and rippling the tall
grass, and the prowler swung away to go with it and leave him standing
alone.

His route was such that it diverged gradually from that taken by the
prowler. He went through a grove of trees and emerged into an open glade
on the other side. Up on the ridge to his right he saw something black
for a moment, already far away.

He was thirty feet from the next grove of trees when he saw the gray
shadow waiting silently for his coming within them.

Unicorn!

His crossbow rattled as he jerked back the pistol grip. The unicorn
charged, the underbrush crackling as it tore through it and a vine
whipping like a rope from its lowered horn.

His first arrow went into its chest. It lurched, fatally wounded but
still coming, and he jerked back on the pistol grip for the quick shot
that would stop it.

The rock-frayed bow string broke with a singing sound and the bow ends
snapped harmlessly forward.

He had counted on the bow and its failure came a fraction of a second
too late for him to dodge far enough. His sideward leap was sh