As you have been the
hunter, so shall you now be the hunted."
Those shadows were growing as plants might issue from the packed soil of
the camping ground. When his hands were shoulder high, Tau held them
steady. Now on either side of his tautly held body crouched one of the
black-and-white lions with which Lumbrilo had identified his own brand
of magic throughout the year.
Lumbrilo's "lion" had been larger than life, more intelligent, more
dangerous, subtly different from the normal animal it counterfeited. So
now were these. And both of them raised their heads to gaze intently
into the medic's face.
"Hunt well, brothers in fur," he said slowly, almost caressingly. "Him
whom you hunt shall grant you sport in the going."
"Stop it!" A man leaped from the shadows behind the witch doctor.
Firelight made plain his off-world dress, and he swung up a blaster,
aiming at the nearest of the waiting beasts. That flash struck true, but
it neither killed nor even singed the fine fur of the animal's pelt.
As the blaster's aim was swung from beast to man, Dane fired first.
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