He measured the trees with an eye to climbing one for refuge. They were glassy and badly shaped, and they were low. He remembered the long whipcord bodies of the weasel-like beasts. He thought they could leap as high as they needed to pull him down. He staggered on, and every time he fell it was harder to get up again. A terrible rage was on him, rage against Yann. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to make a man run for his life on a world where he couldn't run. The cry of the pack came closer. Abruptly, from somewhere ahead of him, rose the challenging voices of other hounds. Trehearne stopped. He was caught now, between two fires. There was no use in going on. He choked on the acrid gorge of fear that filled his throat and cast about for a weapon, something, anything, to hold in his hands, to kill with, at least a little before he was torn apart. It came to him that the yelping of the beasts ahead was stationary. It was irritable. They were not hunting. They were chained. Trehearne sobbed. He began to run again. There was a clearing. He saw it ahead dimly through the starshine and the trees. He strove to reach it, and the pack-cry clamored at his heels. He tripped and pitched headlong and was almost happy, because he had fallen over a tangle of branches left from the breaking and clearing of the crystal trees. He caught one up. It was not long but it was sharp and heavy. It was better than nothing. He plunged forward with it into the edge of the open space, and there the hounds of Kurat bayed him. Swift and undulant, white as frost in the starlight, they came leaping beautifully between the glistening trees. They cried out once, all together, and then they were still, still as arrows in mid-flight, arching toward him through the air. He set his back against a glassy trunk and swung his broken crystal branch. He struck some of them. But there were fangs set like hot irons in his flesh. There was a hut in the center of the clearing. Four of the hunting-beasts were leashed beside it. They were the ones that had answered Kurat's pack. Now they snarled and screamed and fought their leashes. A man, a woman, and a tall boy came out of the hut. The boy started to run toward Trehearne, shouting. The man caught him. He spoke to the boy and made him be still. They stood there, watching. Trehearne killed one of the hounds with his crystal club, and one he crippled. The remaining six boiled around him, a liquid tangle of bodies leaping, flowing, slashing with the white knives of their teeth. The blood ran on Trehearne's body. He swung and swung again, and yelled for help to the man and woman who watched stolidly. They did not move. The boy tried to, and the man cuffed him.