"Hume--" Vye was startled at the sound of his own voice, so thready and weak, and by the fact that he found it difficult to speak at all.
The other's head turned; now the eyes were on him and there was a spark of awareness in them.
"Wass?" The whisper was as strained as his own had been.
"In there." Vye's hand lifted from Hume's chest indicating the valley.
"Not good." Hume blinked again. "How bad?" His attention was not for his own hurt; his eyes searched Vye. And the latter glanced down at his side.
By some chance, perhaps because of his struggle with Peake, Wass' beam had not struck true, the main core of the bolt passing between his arm and his side, burning both. How deeply he could not tell, in fact he did not want to find out. It was enough that the tablets had banished the pain now.
"Seared a little," he said. "You've a bad cut on your head."
Vye moved, then relaxed quickly into his former position. "Not now," he evaded, knowing that neither of them would be able to take that climb.
"Beam on?" Hume repeated Vye's thoughts of moments before. "Patrol coming?"
Yes, eventually the Patrol would come--but when? Hours--days? Time was their enemy now. He did not have to say any of that, they both knew.
"Needler--" Hume's head had turned in the other direction; now his hand pointed waveringly to the weapon in the dust.
"They won't be back," Vye stated the obvious. Those others had been caught in the trap, the odds on their return without aid were very high.
"Needler!" Hume repeated more firmly, and tried to sit up, falling back with a sharp intake of breath.
Vye edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of his boot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up to where he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his knee Hume spoke again:
But Hume's eyes had closed again. "Trouble--maybe...." His voice trailed off. Vye rested his hand on the stock of the needler.
That beast wail--as they had heard it in the valley! Somewhere from the wood. Vye brought the needler around, so that the sights pointed in that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothing he could do.
A scream, filled with all the agony of a man in torment, caught up on the echoes of that other cry. Vye sighted a wild waving of bushes. A figure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands and knees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Again the beast's cry, and a shouting!