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Asaki discovered a cave before sundown, located not too far from a mountain stream. The Ranger sniffed the air before that dark opening as the Hunter pilot shed his equipment and crept forward on his hands and knees, his head up and his nostrils expanding as he, too, tested the scent from the cave mouth. Scent? It was closer to a stench, and one ripe enough to turn the stomach of an off-worlder.
"I want you to see whether there is trickery in this. Trickery I can fight, for that there are weapons. But if Lumbrilo truly controls forces for which there is no name, then perhaps we must patch up an uneasy peace or go down in defeat. And, off-worlder, I come from a line of warriors we do not drink defeat easily!" "That I also believe," Tau returned quietly.
This I tell you: hunting magic is part of our lives and it has at its core some of those unexplainable happenings which you have acknowledged do exist. I have used powers I can neither explain nor understand as part of my work. In the jungle and on the grasslands an off-worlder must guard his life with a stass belt if he goes unarmed.
Lumbrilo turned away and then looked back over his shoulder. "The strength you depend upon may become a broken staff, off-worlder. Remember my words in the time when shadows become substance, and substance the thinnest of shadows!" "You are truly a man of power!" Tau shook his head in answer to that outburst from Asaki. "Not so, sir. Your Lumbrilo is a man of power.
Jason felt a justified pride that he could walk this planet under his own power. The natives, adapted to the deadliness and heavy gravity since birth, were still his superiors, but he was the only off-worlder who could stand the dangers of Pyrrus. His gun whined out of his power holster into his waiting hand as he searched for some target to use his talents on.
Then Tau sighed and began to breathe deeply. Dane glanced up, amazed, at the captain. "He's asleep!" Jellico knelt and his hand went to test heart beat, then to touch the medic's worn and dirty face. "Best thing for him," he said briskly. "He's had it." It took some time to get the facts of their triumph sorted out. Two of the off-worlder poachers were dead.
As the land seduced the senses and bewitched the off-worlder, so did the sea have its enchantment to pull one from duty. Ross resolutely skimmed by a forest of weaving, waving lace which varied from a green which was almost black to a pale tint he could not truly identify.
"There is precedent for a clan to give countenance to an off-worlder, and others have adopted our customs; our Earl Klaes and his family even use the clan-prefixes offered them by Shona." He paused, turning to Dana and smiling. "Dana Manfredi." Dana was startled to hear herself addressed, but she responded quickly. "Yes, Chief Killian?" "Will you accept Alanna's countenance?"
It might be easy, now that he had established mental contact with this off-worlder, for the other to pick up a thought as vivid as that. But luckily Raf obediently turned into the side passage with the six mermen who were to attack at this particular point. The way grew narrower until they crept on hands and knees between rough walls which were not of the same construction as the larger tunnels.
Three red bodies were flat and still on the gravel as the off-worlder leaned back against a rock breathing heavily. As Rynch sighted him, he stooped to recover the needler he had dropped, lurched away from the rock towards the water, and so blundered straight into another Jumalan trap.
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