Soon afterward, Wutzler came crawling through the huddled pottery.
"Lie still," he whispered.

"Your friends are hemmed in.

You cannot get through." The smell of rancid oil choked them, yet they could breathe without coughing, and could rest their smarting eyes.

In the midst of tumult and combustion, the hollow lay dark as a pool.

Along its rim bristled a scrubby fringe of weeds, black against a rosy cloud.
After a time, something still blacker parted the weeds.