Like the wolf and
the fox he cringed down, hugging the earth. But it was no longer
with the whimpering fear of the pup. His muscles were drawn tight,
and with a snarl he bared his fangs when one of the owls swooped
so low that he felt the beat of its wings. Neewa responded with a
sniff that a little later in his life would have been the defiant
WHOOF of his mother. Bear-like he was standing up. And it was upon
him that one of the shadows descended--a monstrous feathered bolt
straight out of darkness.
Six feet away Miki's blazing eyes saw his comrade smothered under
a gray mass, and for a moment or two he was held appalled and
lifeless by the thunderous beat of the gargantuan wings. No sound
came from Neewa. Flung on his back, he was digging his claws into
feathers so thick and soft that they seemed to have no heart or
flesh. He felt upon him the presence of the Thing that was death.
The beat of the wings was like the beat of clubs: they drove the
breath out of his body, they blinded his senses, yet he continued
to tear fiercely with his claws into a fleshless breast.
In his first savage swoop Oohoomisew, whose great wings measured
five feet from tip to tip, had missed his death-grip by the
fraction of an inch.
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