Kill him, Klootz! he sent, even as he tightened his grip on the helpless girl, for he knew what was coming.
The great bull swerved slightly to the left and ran as if to pass just in front of the leader of the enemy. The shaman, fearful of missing his blow, ran a trifle harder. And as his arm went back for a hard cut, he died.
With hardly a break in his stride, the battle-trained morse lashed out in one of his awful, stiff kicks, using his giant left foreleg. The terrible hoof took the priest squarely in the stomach and hurled him, broken-backed and gushing his life blood away, back into the arms of his followers. The morse raced on, and before the first yell of rage and despair had rung out, he was already in the shallows and thundering around the wall of the eastern cliff.
To his delight, Hiero saw that the empty beach stretched for miles into the distance before them. Nobody on foot was going to catch them now, and he urged Klootz on, hoping to make the lead as long as possible. The only obstacle he could see was a small river, whose waters glinted in the late afternoon sun about a half mile off. It did not look particularly wide or deep, and he felt sure that only the middle would require swimming, if indeed any of it would.
He looked back and saw a few black figures on the sand near the cliff, waving their arms and leaping up and down, and he smiled in contempt. Then, as the act of looking back made his memory work, a sudden thought came to him. Gorm! Where was his friend and guide? Had he been slain? Even as he thought this, his mount caught the thought and answered, once again surprising the priest with the realization that he would probably never know just how smart Klootz was.
He (will) follow/track/smell out (later), came from the morse’s mind. He goes (away) not/near water. Having delivered this message, the morse lapsed into silence and once more concentrated on running steadily over the long, white strand toward the rapidly approaching river.
The shrill screech of one of the giant birds came to Hiero and he looked up quickly, wondering if they were going to attack or could be somehow controlled, perhaps by the priests. He could not take time off from his escape to concentrate mentally and probe the bird minds, or indeed any minds at this point. He had not forgotten the lonely skull and the hole in its back where a great beak had almost certainly probed. To his relief, the little flock of remaining birds was circling far above, and even as he watched, they flew out to sea, no doubt heading for some distant island rookery. The interruption of their routine of human sacrifice apparently had confused them and rendered them incapable of further harm.
