The Hunter on Arena by Rose Estes Page A

absence of strength in his body, but somehow it failed to concern him.
     He squinted upward.
    “Batta Flor, don’t you recognize me?” The voice spoke, the lips opening and shutting in a comic manner, and then slowly, the
     words themselves filtered through and took shape inside his mind. He grunted and lay back, closing his eyes with a sigh. His
     hand thumped against the ground, too heavy to hold upright.
    Small hands seized his shoulders and shook him; a flea trying to move a boulder. He ignored them and began to drift back into
     the comfortable, muzzy darkness that had held him for so long.
    But the voice turned insistent, and the hands on his body refused to relinquish him to sleep, tugging and pulling,yanking him this way and that, forcing his head upright, even prying his eyelids open and yelling into his face. What did
     they want of him? Why would they not let him be?
    The thing would not go away and now it was joined by a second creature who yapped and yipped in a most annoying manner. The
     sounds were muted, muffled as though they came from far away, but it was hard to ignore them, knowing they were there. The
     smaller creature seized hold of his hand, sinking its double rows of spiked teeth into his tough, dark skin and began to pull.
     Batta Flor could see the dots of blood welling between the beast’s teeth. He could see the bright, red trickles of blood as
     they matted his thick fur and dripped onto the ground. Some part of his mind that was still functioning recoiled in anticipation
     of the pain, but there was none. He felt no pain. He felt nothing.
    The… girl, yes, that was what she was! His mind wrapped itself sluggishly around the word. The girl stared in horror at the
     blood and tried to pull the beast away without success. Tears began to course down her cheeks.
    It was this that stirred him at last, the depth of the girl’s distress. Somehow he had to let her know that it didn’t matter,
     that he was not hurt.
    He sat up slowly, and closing his fingers around the muzzle of the yapping creature, brought pressure to bear at the base
     of its jaws. A startled look filled the beast’s eyes and its jaws popped open. Batta Flor extracted his hand and examined
     it casually, inspecting the damage calmly as though it had happened to someone else. Blood still dripped from the neat row
     of punctures, but his skin was quite thick, and as there was no pain, he felt noconcern. He shrugged and tried to smile to reassure the girl, but she did not appear to be comforted at all. Instead, she
     cried all the harder and buried her face against his chest.
    Batta Flor looked down at her, taking note of her neaving shoulders, feeling the warm moisture of her tears as they seeped
     through his fur and onto his chest. He knew that he should do something, the same portion of his brain that told him about
     the pain urged him to respond to the girl’s distress. But he could not think of what it was that he was supposed to do and
     so he did nothing, merely let her cry until there were no tears left.
    After a time, the girl sat down next to him. She tucked her hand into his and rested her head on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,
     Batta Flor. We’ll get out of here, wherever here is. I’ll think of a way somehow and I’ll get us home, the three of us. And
     I’ll get your ear fixed, too. That must be what’s wrong—why you’re acting like this and why you don’t feel the pain. Don’t
     worry, I’ll take care of us.”
    Batta Flor heard the words. They buzzed around inside his head like flocks of stingers. Some of them bore meaning, others
     were merely sounds. Worry? What was there to worry about? The girl droned on, speaking to him earnestly, reassuringly, patting
     his arm from time to time and looking up at him with worried eyes. After a while, Batta Flor lost interest in the girl and
     her words and stared ahead with empty eyes, thinking and feeling nothing.

10

    Sweat poured off Braldt’s body as