There wasn't much chance of Ciaran doing anything. The hunter lay on
top of him with one freckled paw covering most of his face. Ciaran
gasped and rolled his eyes.
They lay in a troughed niche of rough stone. There was black shadow on
them from an overhang, but the blue glare burned beyond it. Even as he
watched it dimmed and flickered and then steadied again.
High up over his head the shining metal monster reached for the roof of
the cavern. It had grown. It had grown enormously, and a mechanism was
taking shape inside it; a maze of delicate rods and crystal prisms, of
wheels and balances and things Ciaran hadn't any name for.
Then he remembered about Mouse, and nothing else mattered.
The hunter lay on him, crushing him to silence. Ciaran's blue eyes
blazed. He'd have killed the hunter then, if there had been any way to
do it. There wasn't. Presently he stopped fighting.