gave up and fled for the safety of the woods with the
otter’s deadly shafts urging them on.
No one had approached Jon-Tom’s window during the
fight. Mudge and Roseroar had done all the work and he
felt pretty useless.
“What now? I don’t think they’ll try that again.”
“No, but they’ll bloody well try somethin’ else,”
murmured the otter. “Say, mate, why don’t you ‘ave a go
at ’em with your duar?”
Jon-Tom blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I had,
but it’s hard to think and sing when you’re running.”
“Why make music? To aggravate them?” asked Drom
interestedly.
“Nope. ‘E’s a spellsinger, ‘e is,” said Mudge, “and a
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Alan Dean Poster
right good one, too. When ‘e can control it,” he added by
way of afterthought.
“A spellsinger. I am impressed,” said the unicorn.
Jon-Tom felt a little better, though he wished the golden
stallion would quit staring at him so intensely.
“What do you think they’ll try next?” Jon-Tom asked
the otter.
Mudge eyed the trees. “This bunch bein’ about as
imaginative as a pile o’ cow flop, I’d expect them to try
smokin’ us out. If four legs there is right about the cracks
in the roof lettin’ air in, they’ll be wastin’ their time.”
“Are yo certain theah’s no back way in?”
“None that I was ever able to discover,” Drom told the
tigress.
“Not that you’d fit places where some o1 the rest of us
might,” observed Mudge thoughtfully. He handed his bow
and quiver to Jon-Tom. “I’d better check out the nooks
and crannies, mate. We don’t want some nasty surprises to
show up and stick us in the behind when we ain’t lookin’.”