lacerating brambles, with beast tracks through it. Behind them the chase

trailed out and scattered, with Uya ever at their heels. Eudena kept the

first place, running light and with her breath easy, for Ugh-lomi

carried the Fire Stone in his hand.

It told on his pace--not at first, but after a time. His footsteps

behind her suddenly grew remote. Glancing over her shoulder as they

crossed another open space, Eudena saw that Ugh-lomi was many yards

behind her, and Uya close upon him, with antler already raised in the

air to strike him down. Wau and the others were but just emerging from

the shadow of the woods.

Seeing Ugh-lomi in peril, Eudena ran sideways, looking back, threw up

her arms and cried aloud, just as the antler flew. And young Ugh-lomi,

expecting this and understanding her cry, ducked his head, so that the

missile merely struck his scalp lightly, making but a trivial wound, and

flew over him. He turned forthwith, the quartzite Fire Stone in both

hands, and hurled it straight at Uya's body as he ran loose from the

throw. Uya shouted, but could not dodge it. It took him under the ribs,

heavy and flat, and he reeled and went down without a cry. Ugh-lomi

caught up the antler--one tine of it was tipped with his own blood--and

came running on again with a red trickle just coming out of his hair.

Uya rolled over twice, and lay a moment before he got up, and then he

did not run fast. The colour of his face was changed. Wau overtook him,

and then others, and he coughed and laboured in his breath. But he kept

Tales of Space and Time