They're heading for the brook, Yorgh thought. If they don't cross, but swing and follow it down to the creek and the camp-- He reached his grazing wolly in three bounds and vaulted into the saddle. The animal protested bleatingly at the impact. As Yorgh grabbed the end of the guide rope he saw the frenzied kromps swerve away from the glint of water and turn parallel to the brook. "Can't gain fast enough to ride ahead," he muttered. "Why in the name of the Three Moons do they act so scary, when every other thing on The World is scared of them?" Reaching down from the saddle, he pulled up a handful of the long grass already turning brown from the summer rays of The Star. When he held it over the fire, it flared into ashes too quickly. With one hand, Yorgh tore loose the cloak rolled at the back of his saddle; with the other he unslung the spear hanging down beside his mount's first pair of shoulders. The cloak took fire and burned well as he forced the reluctant wolly into a dash for the brook. With fifty yards to spare, he crossed in front of the kromp herd and rode ahead of it. Occasional branches of trees growing along the brook whipped across his chest or face, but Yorgh hardly felt them. He was trying to judge how long his cloak would last. He slowed the wolly, which now displayed commendable willingness to run. The kromp leading the side of the charge nearest the brook was a young bull whose rear pair of horns had not yet grown to sweep out and forward around the smaller pair. Yorgh hoped that he might not be as stubborn as an older specimen. He held the flaming cloak out on the head of his spear as the animals came up with him. The young bull snarled at him, almost like a ponadu. Kromps did not bleat like the loppas and wollies they resembled in many other ways. Too mean, decided Yorgh. He doesn't like this, though! The young bull edged away from the flame. A branch snapped across Yorgh's leading shoulder, and he almost lost his grip on the spear. Then he missed the rustle of the bushes, and realized that the herd had swerved very slightly away from the brook. He waved his disintegrating cloak before the eyes of the young bull again, and was sure the direction of the charge shifted a bit more. The kromp rolled reddened eyes at him and snarled again. Seeing that the last shreds of the cloak were slipping from the spearhead, Yorgh wiped them off across the muzzle of the beast, and let the kromp have a smart jab behind the second pair of legs as it passed him. He started to pull up, but suddenly saw that he was not entirely in the clear. An old bull, lumbering among the dust to the rear, had veered wide of the herd and was outside Yorgh. It panted up alongside, and the hunter's wolly lost its head and tried to run with the kromp.