"Andre Norton - Warlock Trilogy - Storm over Warlock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Shann reached the count of one hundred. Twice a blaster bolt singed ground within distance close enough
to make him wince, but most of the fire carried well above his head. All of his spears were gone, save for
one he had kept, hoping for a last good target. One of the Throgs who appeared to be directing the fire of
the others was facing Shann’s position. And on pure chance that he might knock out that leader, Shann
chose him for his victim.

The Terran had no illusions concerning his own marksmanship. The most he could hope for, he thought,
was to have the primitive weapon thud home painfully on the other’s armored hide. Perhaps, if he were
very lucky, he could knock the other from his clawed feet. But that chance which hovers over any
battlefield turned in Shann’s favor. At just the right moment the Throg stretched his head up from the usual
hunched position where the carapace extended over his wide shoulders to protect one of the alien’s few
vulnerable spots, the soft underside of his throat. And the fire-sharpened point of the spear went deep.

Throgs were mute, or at least none of them had ever uttered a vocal sound to be reported by Terrans. This
one did not cry out. But he staggered forward, forelimbs up, clawed digits pulling at the wooden pin
transfixing his throat just under the mandible-equipped jaw, holding his head at an unnatural angle.
Without seeming to notice the others of his kind, the Throg came on at a shambling run, straight at Shann
as if he could actually see through the dark and had marked down the Terran for personal vengeance. There
was something so uncanny about that forward dash that Shann retreated. As his hand groped for the knife
at his belt his boot heel caught in a tangle of weed and he struggled for balance. The wounded Throg, still
pulling at the spear shaft protruding above the swelling barrel of his chest, pounded on.

Shann sprawled backward and was caught in the elastic embrace of a bush, so he did not strike the ground.
He fought the grip of prickly branches and kicked to gain solid earth under his feet. Then again he heard
that piercing wail from the camp, as chilling as it had been the first time. Spurred by that, he won free. But
he could not turn his back on the wounded Throg, keeping instead to a sidewise retreat.

Already the alien had reached the dark beyond the rim of the camp. His progress now was marked by the
crashing through low brush. Two of the Throgs back on the firing line started up after their leader. Shann
caught a whiff of their odor as the wounded alien advanced with the single-mindedness of a robot.

It would be best to head for the river. Tall grass twisted about the Terran’s legs as he began to run. In spite
of the gloom, he hesitated to cross that open space. At night Warlock’s peculiar vegetation displayed a very
alien attribute—ten . . . twenty varieties of grass, plant, and tree emitted wan phosphorescence, varying in
degree, but affording each an aura of light. And the path before Shann now was dotted by splotches of that
radiance, not as brilliant as the chemical-born flames the attackers had kindled in the camp, but as quick to
betray the unwary who passed within their dim circles. And there had never been any reason to believe that
Throg powers of sight were less than human; there was perhaps some evidence to the contrary. Shann
crouched, charting the clumps ahead for a zigzag course which would take him to at least momentary
safety in the river bed.

Perhaps a mile downstream was the transport the Terrans had cobbled together no earlier than this
afternoon, a raft Thorvald had professed to believe would support them to the sea which lay some fifty
Terran miles to the west. But now he had to cover that mile.

The wolverines? Thorvald? There was one lure which might draw the animals on to the rendezvous. Taggi
had brought down a “deer” just before they had left the raft. And instead of allowing both beasts to feast at
leisure, Shann had lashed the carcass to the shaky platform of wood and brush, putting it out to swing in
the current, though still moored to the bank.