“No. Look within the curve of that bush—to the right—”
Yes, the southerner was right. Against the green, one could see the bestial head. The Beast Things almost always hunted as a pack. It was too much to hope that this time they did not. Fors’ hand dropped to his sword hilt.
“We must go!”
Arskane’s sandals already thudded on the stairs. But before he left the tower Fors saw that gray thing dart forward from under the plane. And two more such lumps detached themselves from the covering of trees along the ruined runway, taking cover among the machines. The pack was closing in.
“We must keep to the open,” Arskane warned. “If we can stay ahead and not allow them to corner us we shall have a fair chance.”
There was another door out of the building, one which gave upon the other half of the field. Here was a maze of tangled wreckage. Shell holes pocked the runways; machines and defense guns had been blasted too. They swung around the sky-pointing muzzle of an anti-aircraft gun. And in the same instant the air was rent with a horrible screech, answered by Lura’s snarl of rage. A thrashing tangle of fighting cat and her prey rolled out almost under their feet.
Arskane swung his club with a sort of detached science. He struck down, hard. Thin, bone-gray arms went wide and limp and Lura was clawing a dead body. A missile from the wreckage grazed Fors’ head sending him spinning against the gun. He stumbled over the body from which came a filthy stench. Then Arskane jerked him to his feet and pulled him under the up-ended nose of a plane.
Still shaking his ringing head Fors allowed his companion to guide him as they turned and dodged. Once he heard the ring of metal as Beast Thing dart struck. Arskane pushed him to the left, the momentum of the southerner’s shove carrying both of them into cover.
“Driving us—” Arskane panted. “They herd us like deer—”
Fors tried to struggle free of the other’s prisoning hand.