Doomstalker by Glen Cook Page B

them. Not counting a low shaft upward into the eye.”
    “Why use bows, then?”
    “Enough hits will slow them down. It will be stragglers mostly, that we get. The old, the lame, the stupid, the young that get confused or courageous or foolish.” She looked at Marika with meaning. “You stay outside me. Understand? Away from the herd. Use your bow if you like. Though that will be difficult while running. Most important, make plenty of noise. Feint at them when I do. It is our task to keep them running.” As an afterthought, “There are some advantages to hunting in the forests. The trees do keep them scattered.”
    Skiljan had to speak loudly to be heard over the kropek. Marika kept averting her gaze from the brown line. So many of them!
    The tenor of the rumble changed. The herd began moving faster. Faintly, over the roar, Marika heard the ululation of meth hunting.
    “Ready,” Skiljan said. “Just after the leaders come abreast of us. And do what I told you. I will not carry you home.”
    “Yes, Dam.” All those venturesome thoughts she had had back at the packstead had abandoned her. Right now she wanted nothing more than to slink off with Kublin, Zambi, and the males.
    She was scared.
    Pobuda gave her a knowing look.
    The roar of hooves became deafening. The approaching herd looked like a surge in the surface of the earth, green becoming sudden brown. Lean, tall figures loped along the near flank, screaming, occasionally stabbing with javelins.
    “Now,” Skiljan said, and dashed toward the herd.
    Marika followed, wondering why she was doing such a foolish thing.
    The Degnan rushed from the woods shrieking. Arrows arced in among the herd leaders, who put on more speed. Skiljan darted in, jabbed a male with her javelin. Marika made no effort to follow. At twenty feet she was as close as ever she wanted to be. The eyes of the ugly beasts held no fear. They seemed possessed of an evil, mocking intelligence. For a moment Marika feared that the kropek had plans of their own for today.
    Distance fled. With speed came quick weariness. The meth who had been running the herd fell away, their hunting speed temporarily spent. They trotted while they regained their breath. The kropek seemed incapable of tiring.
    There was endurance and endurance, though. Meth could move at the quick trot indefinitely, though they were capable of only a mile at hunting speed.
    A male feinted toward Skiljan. Pobuda and Gerrien were there instantly, ready to slip between it and the herd if it gave them room. It moved back, ran hip to shoulder with another evil-eyed brute. Marika shuddered, imagining what would become of someone unlucky enough to fall in their path.
    Another male feinted. Again huntresses darted in. Again the beast faded back.
    Marika tried launching an arrow. She narrowly missed one of the huntresses. Her shaft fell with no power behind it, vanished in the boil of kropek. She decided not to try again.
    Her lungs began to burn, her calves to ache. And she was growing angry with these beasts who refused to line up and die.
    A third male feinted. And she thought, Come out of there, you! Come out here where I can —
    It wheeled and charged her, nearly falling making so sudden a turn.
    She did not stop running, but neither did she try to evade its angry, angling charge. She froze mentally, unable to think what to do.
    Pobuda flung past, leaping over the kropek. She planted her javelin in its shoulder as she leapt. A second later Gerrien was on the beast’s opposite flank, planting her own javelin as the kropek staggered and tried to turn after Pobuda. It tried to turn on Gerrien, then. Barlog jabbed it in the rear. It sprang forward, ran farther from the herd.
    Then it halted and swung around, right into Marika. She had no choice but to jump up, over, as a big, wide mouth filled with grinding teeth rose to greet her.
    She leapt high enough. Just barely high enough. Her toes brushed its snout.
    “Keep running!” Skiljan