The men broke out of cover, raced into the open where they
took refuge behind a chimney of rock half detached from the parent
cliff. Down the slope the bushes were still wildly agitated.
"What was that?" Vye got out between sobbing breaths.
"Maybe a guardian, or a patrol stationed to dispose of any catch.
Probably not alone, either." Hume fingered his ray tube. "And I am
down to one full charge--just one."
Vye turned the knife he held around in his fingers, tried to imagine
how one could face up to one of those tusked monsters with only this
for a weapon. But if that thing had companions, none were coming in
answer to its dying wails. And after it had been quiet for a while
Hume motioned them out of hiding.
"From now on we'll keep to the open, better see trouble like that
before it arrives. And I want to find a place to hole up for the
night."
They trailed along the steep upper slope and in time found a place
where a now dried stream had once formed a falls. The empty
watercourse provided an overhang, not quite a cave, but shelter.
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