The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their
heads and half bare breasts, covered their garments--and swiftly they
began to change! Their features grew indistinct--merged! The
glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow,
grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the
soldiers glinted for a moment--and then were covered by the swift
growth!
Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps,
swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds
that lay behind us--and already beginning to take on their gleam of
ancient viridescence!
The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to
my senses.
"Olaf's right," he gasped. "This _is_ hell! I'm sick." And he was,
frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from
their nightmare; piled into the _coria_, wheeled, raced away.
"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we passed--the Silent Ones
watch over us!"
Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants.
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