Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 10.djvu/114

114 from the mouth of the creature as well.

Kogar shook his head, bewildered. Indeed these were oddly different animals.

Suddenly the creatures were close enough for Kogar to hear the sounds they made. Weird, unintelligible sounds.

"I'm for going back, Wolf!" one creature said. Or, at least that was the way the strange noises sounded to Kogar. His thick brows knit uncomprehendingly at these strange noises. They were communicating, of course, just as dogs communicate by whining, or birds by chirping. Nevertheless, it made Kogar uneasy.

Kogar growled softly in his throat. They were close enough now.

His eyes measuring the distance with deadly certainty, Kogar lifted the sharpened stone again, bringing it back behind his head, his muscles tightening like steel webbing.

Kogar was counting on surprise to hold them motionless long enough to hurl the stone. With most animals it worked that way.

Now, suddenly, thick lips flattened against his teeth in a snarl, Kogar rose from behind the boulder. So intent were the strange creatures that for an instant they didn't see him. And in that instant Kogar hurled the stone with terrible force.

It caught one of the strange creatures squarely between the eyes, and from the sound it made, Kogar knew he'd crushed in its skull. Red, warm, delicious blood spurted forth from the wound as the creature toppled over dead.

Kogar yelled wildly now, and it had the frightening effect he wanted.

The other creature—the one with the stick in its mouth—was momentarily rooted with terror as it watched its companion fall. Then, on Kogar's shrill whoop, it suddenly turned—the cloud stick falling to the ground—and dashed madly in the opposite direction, straight toward the boulder behind which Merena waited.

The creature was less than five paces from Merena's boulder, when she rose, whooping just as Kogar had, but more shrilly.

The effect of this was just as the cunning Kogar had planned. The creature halted abruptly in terror, and in that split second, while it turned its head right and left seeking escape, Merena threw her pointed stone with incredible force and magnificent accuracy.

Kogar was forced to grunt in admiration at Merena's skill, as the second strange creature shrieked once and fell to the ground. Blood gushed from its head, just as it had from the other.

OGAR and Merena dragged the bodies of the two slain animals together, then, and with fierce exultation began to tear ravenously. This was flesh, warm and fine.

But the creatures were indeed strange. They had shells of dry flesh covering their bodies. Bloodless flesh, so it seemed. But these shells came away readily. Kogar examined them as they stripped them off.

The shells were the odd coverings Kogar had noticed at first. And they had many pouches. It was in one of these pouches, that Merena found the glittering thing that had puffed orange spurts.

The glittering thing lay in the same pouch as a packet of the cloud sticks. While Merena munched on the cloud sticks dubiously, Kogar toyed with the glittering thing. Suddenly it spurted orange. Kogar noted with astonishment that the orange held heat.

Gingerly, Kogar touched his finger to the orange heat, and brought it away with a sharp growl. He had never been