His hatchet cleft the face of the nearest foe, and he turned instantly to help the girl. A pair of bodies thrashed about on the ground. Then she stood up, and he heard her dry the knife on some grass. It was over in an instant.
"Not stung?"
"No."
"That was too easy," he said. "I don't like it."
"Why?"
"They don't ambush that easy unless they're in rapport with another group someplace close. We'll have some more of them after us if we don't get away."
They hurried about the unpleasant task of splitting open the once-human skulls to remove the legless parasite-entities that filled the bony hollows where brains belonged. The Oren creatures lived in their stolen homes long after the borrowed body died, and they could signal others to the vicinity. Morgan tossed the globular little creatures in the ditch where they lay squeaking faintly—helpless, once-removed from the body of the host who had long since ceased to exist as a human being.
"Let's go!" he grunted.
"Same way?"
"Yeah."