With that morsel eaten, the wurms immediately quested for more. The drumming of four feet brought the wurms charging.
The tiger and the man ran headlong without glancing back. A huge shadow curled over them where no shadow should be. The cat warrior shouted and shouldered the man sideways.
From the sky crashed a wurm like a meteor striking. Fastest, the biggest wurm had coiled its titanic body in the air, arching like some fantastic stone bridge, then slammed its ring of teeth right in front of the runners. The shock of the creature's strike nearly flicked both men off their feet. Their only luck was that the wurm drove itself ten feet or more into the sand, so the deadly teeth were temporarily buried. Yet they were cut off by a huge stony body, and two lesser wurms plowed up sand in pursuit.
"Run! That way!" panted the tiger.
Without quibbling, the robed man dashed on bare feet around the buried end of the wurm. The cat watched him go, hoping he'd make it. One shrug would free the deadly mouth from the sand.
The tiger, meanwhile, took a shortcut toward safety. Leaping high, the cat man snagged claws into the scaly hide and scrambled upward like a squirrel. The monster was so massive he felt the heat of its body in waves, felt the desert floor quiver from pulsations within its body, even heard gurglings and creakings from inside its gut. Wurms were decadent dragons, so the legends said. Once mighty, long-ago elder wurms had, for cowardice or sloth, been stripped of their wings and memories and magic and cursed to live underground where no one would see them. To escape even a degraded dragon was an impossibility, went the. wisdom, but the cat hoped to get lucky. Reaching the ridge of the great back, he flexed his toes to leap -and tumbled as the wurm ripped its head free of the sand. Flicked off like a fly, the cat instinctively twisted to land on his feet, but the distance was too short. With a grunt, the tiger slammed shoulder-first onto sand and gravel and bounced painfully. Still, the warrior rolled instantly to four feet.
Not in time. Fast as a cobra, the wurm punched its round mouth at the tiger-man. He ducked the onrushing blast of hot stinking air but was clipped across the scalp by flesh hard as a millstone. Stunned, the cat flopped flat as the ominous shadow loomed across the brassy sky.
Sand spattered in the tiger's eyes as the human stranger skidded to a halt just as the wurm buckled low to scoop the staggered cat man into its mouth. Cursing at the hurry, the man dipped a long bony arm and scooped up a fist-sized rock on the run. Chanting "Ain-desh, ain-fore!" he set the rock ablaze as if it were straw and lobbed the flaming wad into the monster's open jaw-an easy target eight feet across.
White-hot, the rock immediately charred flesh. Scorched, the wurm flinched, arching skyward from the searing pain. Not far and not for long, but long enough.
Too stunned to move, the cat man felt bony hands, surprisingly cold and strong, snag his arm.
The magician hissed, "Come! Quickly! Or we're lost!"
Dazed but energized, the tiger dug in clawed toes and sprinted. Groggily he saw the jungle less than a quarter-mile off.
The cat mumbled, "You saved my-"
"Don't talk! Run!"
"No, split!" countered the cat warrior.
Instantly the two fugitives sprang apart, and between them zoomed a stony column as big as a galloping horse. A smaller wurm, only six feet thick, had squirmed past its bigger cousin. The writhing body thumped and thudded along the sand, fifty feet long. It thrashed like a giant inchworm, and as the men split, it rolled completely over like a sausage, rather than turning.
With the vitality of youth and the added incentive of panic, the cat had regained his senses in a flash. Now he lashed out with the only weapon handy. Four black claws, sharp as flint, slashed the wurm's hide. Purple goo welled in the gash, but the wurm only twisted closer to assault the cat man, taking the touch as a promise of living food. The cat man hopped like a frog rather than lose a leg to rippling knife-like teeth.
The smaller wurm was crushed as if by an avalanche. The biggest wurm had rejoined the chase, striking at the biggest target. The tiger and the magician redoubled their running as the huge monster chopped its smaller cousin in half. Wurm blood spattered in an arc like purple rain. The two severed halves of the dying creature twitched, coiled, writhed, and spun in aimless circles. The killer wurm's teeth curved inward to shred and swallow flesh in chunks big as an ox. Gore littered the desert as the dead was consumed by its elder. From jungle treetops, vultures soared upward on long-fingered wings to study their chances of getting food.
Tiger-man and magician, meanwhile, pelting headlong, finally quit the fearsome desert and plunged amidst greenery. A hundred feet into the leafy depths they bulled until they were sure of safety, then both collapsed like puppets with cut strings. On hands and knees in a patch of bright mimosa they hunkered, sobbing for air, drooling with mouths open, thirsty enough to drink a river dry. But safe.
"Jedit Ojanen!"
Furry striped legs surrounded the refugees. Craning tack, still panting, the tiger and stranger beheld three more cat warriors.
Tribal scouts, they wore blue-painted loincloths and blue headbands entwined around their ears to dangle by their whiskers. Each scout bore a stout stabbing spear tipped with a jagged wurm tooth.
Ruko, chief of scouts, pointed his wicked spear for emphasis.
"Jedit, you know our laws! Man-strangers are not allowed in Efrava! You and he are under arrest!"
The two prisoners were marched along at spear point. The path twisted past white-flowered bushes and shingled trunks of palms and teak trees. Sunlight came and went, filtered by the high green canopy. The air was hot but dry. A blue butterfly flitted past. A beetle bored by their ears, busy at some insect task. Underbrush rustled.
"I'll give you credit, Jedit Ojanen," said the chief scout. "I've never seen anyone stand snout to snout with a sand wurm and survive."
"This is a hero's welcome, Ruko?" returned Jedit.
"You know the laws," Ruko insisted. "Best you'd left this smooth-skin ape to be eaten. He's not worth a monox turd, let alone a whole beast and a warrior's life."
"I disagree," said the stranger mildly, and to Jedit, "I'll thank you, hero, for saving my life."
"Did you know of the danger?" asked Jedit. "The sands of the Sukurvia look placid as a pond but prove a busy place to any who dare step there."
"I've seen sand wurms at close range before."
The man's face and voice remained devoid of emotion, seemingly fearless at being captured by armed animal savages. As he walked the jungle path, the magician pulled a milky crystal from a pocket and idly turned it in his bony hands.
Jedit found the man's manner cold and queer, but then he'd never met a human before. Nor had any of his tribe.
Mildly irritated by the man's insolence, young and hotheaded, Jedit said, "You know, for a stranger in dire straits-"
Something clicked in Jedit's mind. To his eyes, the magician suddenly seemed small and frail, harmless as a tiger cub, even in need of protection. The tiger had no way of knowing he'd fallen under the spell of the crystal in the mage's grasp. The three scouts felt the change too and abruptly flipped their spears to their shoulders, as if it were ridiculous to mistrust so scrawny a captive.