She pulled back on his hand and said, “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t get hysterical. I think I saw something behind a bush. It might be nothing, then again it could be the gworl. Don’t look over there! You’ll give us away!”
He spoke too late, for she had jerked her head around. She gasped and moved close to him. “They . . . they!”
He looked in the direction of her pointing finger and saw two dark, squat figures shamble from behind the bush. Each carried a long, wide, curved blade of steel in its hand. They waved the knives and shouted something in hoarse rasping voices. They wore no clothes over their dark furry bodies, but broad belts around their waists supported by scabbards from which protruded knife-handles.
Wolff said, “Don’t panic. I don’t think they can run very fast on those short bent legs. Where’s a good place to get away from them, someplace they can’t follow us?”
“Across the sea,” she said in a shaking voice. “I don’t think they could find us if we got far enough ahead of them. We can go on a histoikhthys.”
She was referring to one of the huge molluscs that abounded in the sea. These had bodies covered with paper-thin but tough shells shaped like a racing yacht’s hull. A slender but strong rod of cartilage
projected vertically from the back of each, and a triangular sail of flesh, so thin it was transparent, grew from the cartilage mast. The angle of the sail was controlled by muscular movement, and the force of the wind on the sail, plus expulsion of a jet of water, enabled the creature to move slightly in a wind or a calm. The merpeople and the sentients who lived on the beach often hitched rides on these creatures, steering them by pressure on exposed nerve centers.
“You think the gworl will have to use a boat?” he said. “If so, they’ll be out of luck unless they make one. I’ve never seen any kind of sea craft here.”
Wolff looked behind him frequently. The gworl were coming at a faster pace, their bodies rolling like those of drunken sailors at every step. Wolff and the girl came to a stream which was about seventy feet broad and, at the deepest, rose to their waists. The water was cool but not chilling, clear, with slivery fish darting back and forth in it. When they reached the other side, they hid behind a large cornucopia tree. The girl urged him to continue, but he said, “They’ll be at a disadvantage when they’re in the middle of the stream.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
He did not reply. After placing the horn behind the tree, he looked around until he found a stone. It was half the size of his head, round, and rough enough to be held firmly in his hand. He hefted one of the fallen cornucopias. Though huge, it was hollow and weighed no more than twenty pounds. By then, the two gworl were on the bank of the opposite side of the stream. It was then that he discovered a weakness of the hideous creatures. They walked back and forth along the bank, shook their knives in fury, and growled so loudly in their throaty language that he could hear them from his hiding place. Finally, one of them stuck a broad splayed foot in the water. He withdrew it almost immediately, shook it as a cat shakes a wet paw, and said something to the other gworl. That one rasped back, then screamed at him.
The gworl with the wet foot shouted back, but he stepped into the water and reluctantly waded through it. Wolff watched him and also noted that the other was going to hang back until the creature had passed the middle of the stream; then he picked up the cornucopia in one hand, the stone in the other, and ran toward the stream. Behind him, the girl screamed. Wolff cursed because it gave the gworl notice that he was coming.
The gworl paused, the water up to its waist, yelled at Wolff and brandished the knife. Wolff reserved his breath, for he did not want to waste his wind. He sped toward the edge of the water, while the gworl resumed his progress to the same bank. The gworl on the opposite edge had frozen at Wolff’s appearance; now he had plunged into the stream to help the other. This action fell in with Wolff’s plans. He only hoped that he could deal with the first before the second reached the middle.