"All of you, leave him alone!" cried Nsharra. She put out her hands pleadingly and said, "Please go, Eric Nelson!"
Nelson saw that there were tears on her cheeks. He watched Tark padding toward him, his great body all one coiled and fluid motion. He watched the filtered sunlight gleam on Tark's teeth.
The smell of his own blood rose hot in his nostrils.
Quite suddenly Nelson turned and ran. As though that were a signal, a burst of sound broke from behind him — the stamp and squeal of Hatha, the tiger's echoing roar, a long wolf-howl. They were answered all through the Hall of Clans.
And Nelson, as he ran, heard with the noise the great ringing shout of Tark's mind.
"Clam of the Brotherhood! Send Clan-call forth that Asha the wolf is outlaw!"
Through the glittering corridors and dusty vaulted halls they drove him, out of the building, out into the forested streets of Vruun. With hoof and fang and claw they drove him and always the word ran ahead of him like wildfire:
"Asha the wolf is outlaw - outlaw!"
And he ran, he who was both wolf and man, both Asha and Eric Nelson. He ran along the broad forest ways between the bubble buildings, though the glittering city, and there was no shelter for him.
The eagles swooped and screamed above him. The gray pack loped behind him and, if he tried to dart aside, Hatha's Clan were there with plunging hoofs to bar the way. And everywhere the striped and silent bodies of the Clawed Ones flowed in the shadows, laughing at him.