Rudy took a deep breath, something seldom advisable in the vicinity of large numbers of wild dooic. Okay, man, it's your game, he thought grimly and hefted his sword, prepared to sell his life dearly.

Several paces in front of him, Ingold didn't even turn his head. 'Gently, Rudy. Never fight if you can pass unseen.' As he came close, the dooic seemed to forget why they were standing in the roadway. Some began looking aimlessly at the sky, the ground, and each other; others wandered off the road, scratching for vermin or picking among the skimpy brush for lizards to eat. Ingold, Rudy, and Che wound their way among them, but the only assault was olfactory.

'Always take the easiest way out,' Ingold counselled pleasantly, scratching the burrow's ears as they left the subhumans behind them. 'It saves wear and tear on the nerves.'

Rudy glanced back at the scattering Neanderthals, who had returned to the usual primate occupations of hunting bugs and picking lice. 'Yuck!' he said succinctly.

Ingold raised his brows, amused. 'Oh, come, Rudy. Barring rather crude table manners, they aren't the worst company I can think of. I once travelled through the northern part of the desert with a band of dooic for nearly a month, and though they weren't particularly elegant company, they did take care that I came to no harm.'

'You travelled with those things?

'Oh, yes,' Ingold assured him. This was back when I was village spellweaver for a little town in Gettlesand. It was hundreds of miles from their usual runs, but they evidently knew I was a wizard, for when the single water source in the midst of their territory went bad, they came south and carried me off one night to go there and make it good again.'