Lieutenant Erich Obergatz crawled through the grass upon all fours,
leaving a trail of blood behind him after Jane's spear had sent
him crashing to the ground beneath her tree. He made no sound after
the one piercing scream that had acknowledged the severity of his
wound. He was quiet because of a great fear that had crept into
his warped brain that the devil woman would pursue and slay him.
And so he crawled away like some filthy beast of prey, seeking a
thicket where he might lie down and hide.
He thought that he was going to die, but he did not, and with the
coming of the new day he discovered that his wound was superficial.
The rough obsidian-shod spear had entered the muscles of his side
beneath his right arm inflicting a painful, but not a fatal wound.
With the realization of this fact came a renewed desire to put as
much distance as possible between himself and Jane Clayton. And
so he moved on, still going upon all fours because of a persistent
hallucination that in this way he might escape observation. Yet
though he fled his mind still revolved muddily about a central
desire--while he fled from her he still planned to pursue her,
and to his lust of possession was added a desire for revenge. She
should pay for the suffering she had inflicted upon him. She should
pay for rebuffing him, but for some reason which he did not try
to explain to himself he would crawl away and hide.
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