e fire-sharpened point of the spear went deep.

Throgs were mute, or at least none of them had ever uttered a vocal
sound to be reported by Terrans. This one did not cry out. But he
staggered forward, forelimbs up, clawed digits pulling at the wooden pin
transfixing his throat just under the mandible-equipped jaw, holding his
head at an unnatural angle. Without seeming to notice the others of his
kind, the Throg came on at a shambling run, straight at Shann as if he
could actually see through the dark and had marked down the Terran for
personal vengeance. There was something so uncanny about that forward
dash that Shann retreated. As his hand groped for the knife at his belt
his boot heel caught in a tangle of weed and he struggled for balance.
The wounded Throg, still pulling at the spear shaft protruding above the
swelling barrel of his chest, pounded on.

Shann sprawled backward and was caught in the elastic embrace of a bush,
so he did not strike the ground. He fought the grip of prickly branches
and kicked to gain solid earth under his feet. Then again he heard that
piercing wail from the camp, as chilling as it had been the first time.
Spurred by that, he won free. But he could not turn his back on the
wounded Throg, keeping rather a sidewise retreat.

Already the alien had reached the dark beyond the rim of the camp. His
progress now was marked by the crashing through low brush. Two of the
Throgs back on the firing line started up after their leader. Shann
caught a whiff of their odor as the wounded alien advanced with the
single-mindedness of a robot.

It would be best to head for the river. Tall grass twisted about the
Terran's legs as he began to run. In spite of the gloom, he hesitated to
cross that open space. At night Warlock's peculiar vegetation displayed
a very alien attribute--ten ... twenty varieties of grass, plant, and
tree emitted a wan phosphorescence, varying in degree, but affording
each an aura of light. And the path before Shann now was dotted by
splotches of that radiance, not as brilliant as the chemical-born flames
the attackers had kindled in the camp, but as quick to betray the unwary
who passed within their dim circles. And there had never been any reason
to believe that Throg powers of sight were less than human; there was
perhaps some evidence to the contrary. Shann crouched, charting the
clumps ahead for a zigzag course which would take him to at least
momentary safety in the river