"Andre Norton - Warlock Trilogy - Storm over Warlock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

shelter, those were important now. And once again, away from the ordered round of the camp where he
had been ruled by the desires and requirements of others, he was thinking, planning in freedom. Later (his
hand went to the butt of his stunner) perhaps later he might just find a way of extracting an accounting
from the beetle-heads, too.

For the present, he would have to keep away from the Throgs, which meant well away from the camp. A
fleck of green showed through the amethyst foliage before himтАФthe lake! Shann wriggled through a last
bush barrier and stood to look out over that surface. A sleek brown head bobbed up. Shann put fingers to
his mouth and whistled. The head turned, black button eyes regarded him, short legs began to churn water.
To his relief the swimmer was obeying his summons.

Taggi came ashore, pausing on the fine gray sand of the verge to shake himself vigorously. Then the
wolverine ran upslope at a clumsy gallop to Shann. With an unknown feeling swelling inside him the
Terran went down on both knees, burying both hands in the coarse brown fur, warming to the uproarious
welcome Taggi gave him.

тАЬTogi?тАЭ Shann asked as if the other could answer. He gazed back to the lake, but TaggiтАЩs mate was
nowhere in sight.

The blunt head under his hand swung around, black button nose pointed north. Shann had never been sure
just how intelligent, as mankind measured intelligence, the wolverines were. He had come to suspect that
Fadakar and the other experts had underrated them and that both beasts understood more than they were
given credit for. Now he followed an experiment of his own, one he had had a chance to try only a few
times before and never at length. Pressing his palm flat on TaggiтАЩs head, Shann thought of Throgs and of
their attack, trying to arouse in the animal a corresponding reaction to his own horror and anger.

And Taggi responded. A mutter became a growl, teeth gleamedтАФthose cruel teeth of a carnivore to whom
they were weapons of aggression. Danger . . . Shann thought тАЬdanger.тАЭ Then he raised his hand, and the
wolverine shuffled off, heading north. The man followed.

They discovered Togi busy in a small cove where a jagged tangle of drift made a mat dating from the last
high-water period. She was finishing a hearty breakfast, the remains of a water rat which she was burying
thriftily against future need after the instincts of her kind. When she was done she came to Shann, inquiry
plain to read in her eyes.

There was water here, and good hunting. But the site was too close to the Throgs. Let one of their
exploring flyers sight them, and the little group was finished. Better cover, thatтАЩs what the three fugitives
must have. Shann scowled, not at Togi, but at the landscape. He was tired and hungry, but he must keep on
going.

A stream fed into the cove from the west, a guide of sorts. With very little knowledge of the countryside,
Shann was inclined to follow that.

Overhead the sun made its usual golden haze of the sky. A flight of vivid green streaks marked a flock of
lake ducks coming for a morning feeding. Lake duck was good eating, but Shann had no time to hunt one
now. Togi started down the bank of the stream, Taggi behind her. Either they had caught his choice subtly
through some undefined mental contact, or they had already picked that road on their own.

ShannтАЩs attention was caught by a piece of the drift. He twisted the length free and had his first weapon of
his own manufacture, a club. Using it to hold back a low sweeping branch, he followed the wolverines.