"Riders are coming from the south!" Nick Sloan shouted suddenly. "Get ready!"
Chapter V
WOLF HATRED
Nelson and the others raised their weapons as a dull clatter of many hoofs grew swiftly louder.
"Wait!" cried Shan Kar. "They are my own people from Anshan! Do not shoot!"
In the moonlight, Nelson presently made out a band of horsemen galloping toward them from the south. They wore armor much like that of their recent attackers, skullcap helmets and breastplates of metal. Swords gleamed in the moon. For a moment, Nelson thought that the new-come horsemen would ride right onto them.
But they pulled up sharply. A burly, bearlike warrior tumbled from his steed and strode toward San Kar with noisy greetings. Shan Kar, after brief colloquy, called to Eric Nelson and the others.
"Hoik and these warriors came out to escort us to Anshan. But we mustn't delay. The scouts of the Winged Ones will have the whole Brotherhood down on us if we do."
Nelson heard the warriors exchanging fierce exultant words. Their dialect was not Tibetan but so much akin to that ancient tongue that he could catch most of the phrases.
"— Kree's son himself and the Hairy One!" the bearlike Hoik was shouting. "We'll make the Brotherhood squirm now!"