Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/116174
and waiting against the sand, the blue aura of the night glimmering on the hackled guard hairs along his back. To do the thing he must always do. The anger climbed into his throat, growing to a tortured whine and gurgle. This time he would give the jackal a thing to remember. The momentum of the dog's unexpected onslaught sent the jackal off his feet, shrieking and rolling. In unrelenting, practiced and fluid motion, the dog pressed the advantage, snarling, slashing, pressuring the jackal to the sand with his body weight and fury. With the slice of a canine, he cut a deep, reddening, three-inch gash through the hide and into the ropy muscle along the jackal's spine. Another into its hindquarter as it struggled vainly to right itself under the smothering attack. Sensing the damage and relying on his dominion, the dog allowed brief quarter. He did not wish to spend himself further. Fighting, any fighting outside the battle for prey, was depleting, and dangerous. There was always the chance of injury; even the teeth of a spring-hare could be dreadful when it was pressed for existence. Delivering injury tht could, under the unending vileness of the flies and ticks, foster the debilitating fester of disease or infection. Bringing the inability S P O R T I to hunt. Even death. It was foolish to risk that unnecessarily. Besides, he expected the jackal to scramble, turn tail and run, as always it did. Then he could relish the chase, know that his duty was done. The dog could not know that this time he would be wrong, mortally wrong. That this time he would invite the risk, and not avoid it. That, would nature have allowed, he should have been the wiser to have heeded the mystic, deviant warning his sixth-sense was attempting as he watched the intruder approach. For now on the turntable of utter surprise, the jackal staggered up crazed and slashing of its own, attacking rather than retreating. Its yellow eyes glazed with hate, rage and pain, skeins of bloody, frothy saliva dripping from its jaws, it charged recklessly and cruelly. Snapping and snarling, it came like a buzzsaw, teeth popping wrathfully as its jaws clacked together. Startled momentarily by the fact and ferocity of the assault, the dog jerked rearward, tumbling over himself to reestablish the tactical advantage of a working distance. Unhesitant, the jackal would not allow it, was upon him, cutting, slicing. Twirling, coming up deftly on skillful feet, the dog momentarily escaped the onslaught, righting himself. There was no lee now. He was past the surprise and his authority had been fronted. He would kill this interloper. Hurling himself against the jackal, he knocked the smaller animal once again to the ground, cutting and slashing viciously, and with effect, but suffering cuts to his ruff and head as well. Using his weight to push the jackal against the sand, to keep it off-balance and struggling, the dog pressed for its throat, seeking the jugular. Missing the mark, a canine tooth tore the jackal's chest open, blood gushing, then continued to rip open its belly, spilling green stomach offal and glistening coils of intestine. Incensed, the jackal fought sadistically, raking with four feet at the dog's vulnerable underbelly, ripping and grabbing with its foaming jaws. Briefly, the dog was forced to relent, retreating slightly. The jackal did not. On it came, its guts dragging the sand, lips wrinkled in evil rage over stabbing, clicking teeth. Once again, the dog threw himself against it, bowling the smaller animal for the third time to the sand. But this time, rather than pressing to pin the jackal against the ground, he danced sideways, and with a deft roll of his shoulder and a N G C 97 L A S S I C S