Storm Over Warlock

had them in hold. The wolverines pressed close to Shann until the musky scent of their fur, their an

" Shann

o help control the raft's voyaging. The current carried them along, but there was a n

demanded more sharply when t

ain in his tone. He added a moment later, with some of his usual firmness, "We m

ow that we are here,

have brought a hound here just on chance that they might miss one of us in the initi

ust blast down T

t which was Thorvald's

d a live Terran

hy

e the camp

ew enough of Survey procedure to guess the rea

tler tra

al. And the Throgs can't give that. If they don't take her, t

early due? When we intercept their calls they're

to set down here on schedule, her captain will call in the patrol escort ... then exit one Throg base. But if the beetle-heads can trick the ship in and take her, then they'll have a clear five or six more months here to consolidate their own position. After that it would take more than just one p

to capture us in order t

etty jobs. I'd hoped we'd covered our trail well. But we had to risk that attack on the camp.... I needed the map case!" Again Thorvald might have bee

n of ghostly radiance they could see each other's faces. Thorvald's was bleak, hard, his eyes on the

t is it anyway?" Hound suggested Terran dog, but he couldn't stretch his im

e hounds cannot be controlled from a flyer, and the beetle-heads never take kindly to foot slogging. So we won't have to expect any speedy chase. If it slips its masters in rough country, we can try to ambush it." In the dim light Thorvald was frowning. "I flew over the territory ahead on two sweeps, and it is a queer mixture. If we can reach the rough country bordering the sea, we'll

e effects of the Throg's dumdum

Which they will hesitate to do with a cruiser near at hand. Our own danger spot now is the section we should strike soon after dawn tomorrow if the rate of this current is what I have timed it. T

now and going on only at

could reach the foothills in about forty hours, maybe less. And we have to stay with the

s. The prospect certainly didn't seem anywhere near as simple as it had the night before when Thorvald had planned this escape. But then the Survey off

d dream, a dream so detailed and so deeply impressed in a picture on his mind that he

hose eyeholes issued and returned flying things while its sharply protruding lower jaw was lapped by water. In color that skull had been a violent clash of blood-red and purple. Shann blinked again at the riverbank,

p, curled up beyond, the pole still clasped in his hands. A flat map case was slung by a strap about his neck, its thin envelope b

e hollows in his cheeks, sending into high relief those bone ridges beneath his eye sockets, giving him a faint resemblance

st present an even more disreputable appearance. He leaned forward cautiously t

of what now lay beyond the rising banks of the cut. That grass which had been so thick in the meadowlands around the camp had thinned into separate clumps, pale lavender in color. And the scrawniness of stem and blade suggested dehydration and

iting. They had to reach those distant mountains, mountains whose feet on the other side were rest

k, persisted. Not only was it a definite feature of the landscape somewhere in the wild places of this world, but it was also ne

officer's shoulder in warning. Feeling that touch Thorvald shifted, one hand striking out blindly in a

easy!" Sh

ed. He looked up, but not

Utgard...." Then his eyes did focus and h

desert," Sha

faded expanse of the waste spreading from the river cut. He stared at the

d Thorvald could satisfy their hunger with a handful of concentrates from the survival kit. But those dry tablets could not serve the animals. Shann

ke the silence abruptly. "If we don't, they

map skin, again as if he had been drawn back from some dis

real urgency of the situation must have penetr

nn said, recalling an incident of a few days earlier. "Rocks here, too, li

are time for such hunting. But there would be no arguing with hungry wolv

y looking rocks to unroof some odd underwater dwellings. The fish with the rudimentary legs were present and not agile enough even in their native element to avoid well-clawed paws which scooped them neatly out of the river shallows. There was also a sleek furred creature wit

pushing through the parched ground like flayed fingers, their puffed redness in contrast to the usual amethystine coloring of Warlock's growing th

untains. The officer turned as Shann urged the wolverines to the raft, and when he ju

d," he told the younger man. "Well have

hy

aking stabs at it with a nervous finger tip. "Here we have to leave. This is all rough ground.

not distinguishable from the air. Yet Thorvald had planned this journey as if he had already explored their escape route and that it was as open and easy as a stroll down Tyr's main transport way. Why was it so

if he was, his outer shell of unconcern remained uncracked. Before their first day together had ended, the younger Terran had learned that to Thorvald he was only another tool, to be used by the Survey officer in some project which the

to capture a Terran-to get that set of maps from the plundered camp? When he had first talked of that raid, his promised loot had been supplies to fill their daily needs; there had been no mention

howdown, coming prematurely, would only end in his own discomfiture. He smiled wryly now, remembering his emotions when he had first seen Ragnar Thorvald mo

e asked suddenly, "do they have mar

le absently, as he so often did in answer to Shann's questi

mountain with the flying things about its eye sockets. And that, too, was odd; dream impressions usually faded w

ha

ld's complete

about it?" That dema

tood there right in front of it. There were birds-or thi

e, his eyes alive, avid, as if he would pul

e did not add his other impression, that he was

with a visible reluctance. "Nothing else? No cavern

head. "Just the

ieve that, but Shann's expression must ha

"No, your skull doesn't appear on any of our maps, and so probabl

hann never fini

rrying with it a fine shifting of sand which coasted down into the water as a gr

les of land stretching behind them, but yet carrying that long ululati

und's o

t. Shann, chilled in spite of the sun's heat, followed his