He started to pull up, but suddenly saw that he was not entirely in the clear. An old bull, lumbering among the dust to the rear, had veered wide of the herd and was outside Yorgh. It panted up alongside, and the hunter's wolly lost its head and tried to run with the kromp.
Yorgh gripped the point of the rough, battle-chipped horn that suddenly appeared beside his ribs, and leaned his weight upon it in hopes of guiding the bigger animal past. Then he caught a fleeting glimpse of a dense clump of scrub growth thrusting out from the vegetation screening the brook.
Before he could shift his weight, his wolly swerved to the right. Yorgh found himself supported in the air by only a one-handed grip on the kromp's horn.
He let his feet bounce against the ground once, reaching for the horn with his other hand. Then the bull tossed his heavy head, and the man sailed high into the air.
Time hung motionless for an instant, during which there floated to his ears the irritable sounds made by the kromp as it blundered at full speed through the brush.
Then Yorgh crashed into the dense thicket on his back, with a ripping and tearing of cloth and a loud yell as some thorny shrub raked his ribs. He thudded straight through to the ground, but with his speed fortunately reduced.
"By Kloto, by Lax, and by the seldom-seen Atropo of legend!" he swore. "And if The World has any more moons, by them too! I had done better to stand squarely in their path!"
He wiped blood from his left cheek and wriggled about until he thought all his clothing was free. The dark red tunic was shredded, and the heavier wool of his pants was gashed and torn.
He loosed a pronged burr from his beard, pulled out a long splinter lodged in the back of his right thigh, and squirmed through the undergrowth on hands and knees until he came to an open swath trampled straight through the hundred-foot clump.