The Carpet People

shall we do?’
    He patted her absently but went on staring at theruined hut. Then he climbed along up the mound of wreckage, and prodded about.
    So silent was the crowd that every sound he made echoed. There was a clink as he picked up the pot that had miraculously escaped destruction, and looked at it as though he had never seen its design before, turning it this way and that in the firelight. He raised it above his head and smashed it on the ground.
    Then he raised his fist above him and swore. He cursed by the hairs, by the dark caverns of Underlay, by the demons of the Floor, by the Weft and by the Warp. He bellowed the Unutterable Words and swore the oath of Retwatshud the Frugal, that cracked bone, or so it was said, although Pismire claimed that this was superstition.
    Curses circled up in the evening hairs and the night creatures of the Carpet listened. Oath was laid upon oath in a towering pillar vibrating terror.
    When he had finished the air trembled. He flopped down on the wreckage and sat with his head in his hands, and no one dared approach. There were sidelong glances, and one or two people shook themselves and hurried away.
    Snibril dismounted and wandered over to where Pismire was standing gloomily wrapped in his goatskin cloak.
    ‘He shouldn’t have said the Unutterable Words,’said Pismire, more or less to himself, ‘It’s all superstition, of course, but that’s not to say it isn’t real. Oh, hello. I see you survived.’
    ‘What did this?’
    ‘It used to be called Fray,’ said Pismire
    ‘I thought that was just an old story.’
    ‘Doesn’t mean it was untrue. I’m sure it was Fray. The changes in air pressure to begin with . . . the animals sensed it . . . just like it said in the . . . ’ He stopped. ‘Just like I read somewhere,’ he said awkwardly.
    He glanced past Snibril and brightened up.
    ‘You’ve got a horse, I see.’
    ‘I think it’s been hurt.’
    Pismire walked to the horse and examined it carefully. ‘It’s Dumii, of course,’ he said. ‘Someone fetch my herb box. Something’s attacked him, see, here. Not deep but it should be dressed. A magnificent beast. Magnificent. No rider?’
    ‘We rode up the road a way but we didn’t see anyone.’
    Pismire stroked the sleek coat. ‘If you sold all the village and its people into slavery you might just be able to buy a horse like this. Whoever he belonged to, he ran away some time ago. He’s been living wild for days.’
    ‘The Dumii don’t let anyone keep slaves any more,’ said Snibril.
    ‘It’s worth a lot is what I was trying to say,’ said Pismire.
    He hummed distractedly to himself as he examined the hooves.
    ‘Wherever he came from, someone must have been riding him.’
    He let one leg go and paused to stare up at the hairs. ‘Something scared him. Not Fray. Something days ago. It wasn’t bandits, because they would have taken the horse too. And they don’t leave claw marks. A snarg could have made that if it was three times its normal size. Oh, dear. And there are such,’ he said.
    The cry came.
    To Snibril it seemed as though the night had grown a mouth and a voice. It came from the hairs just beyond the broken stockade, a mocking screech that split the darkness. The horse reared.
    A fire had already been lit at the break in the wall, and some hunters ran towards it, spears ready.
    They stopped.
    On the further side there was a mounted shape in the darkness, and two pairs of eyes. One was a sullen red, one pair shimmered green. They stared unblinking over the flames at the villagers.
    Glurk snatched a spear from one of the gaping men and pushed his way forward.
    ‘Nothing but a snarg,’ he growled, and threw. The spear struck something, but the green eyes only grew brighter. There was a deep, menacing rumble from an unseen throat.
    ‘Be off! Go back to your lair!’
    Pismire ran forward with a blazing stick in his hand, and hurled it at the eyes.
    They blinked and were gone. With them went the spell. Cries went up and, ashamed of their fear, the hunters surged forward. ‘Stop!’ shouted Pismire. ‘Idiots! You’ll chase out into the dark after that, with your bone spears? That was a black snarg. Not like the brown ones you get around here! You know the stories? They’re from the furthest Corners! From the Unswept Regions!’
    From the north, from the white cliff of the Woodwall itself, came again the cry of a snarg. This time it did not die away, but stopped abruptly.
    Pismire stared