"Millie, you've got to get up that goblin passage!" he cried.
"No good, no good!" the harpies outside screeched. "We know where it goes, we're covering the exit. You can't escape!"
Then why were they telling him this? Easier to nab him at the goblin-tunnel exit. So they must be bluffing.
Then Millie screamed. Dor looked-and spied a huge hairy shape dropping out of the hole. Green eyes looked back at him. "Jumper!" How glad he was to see the big spider again!
"I could not place my lines," the spider chittered. "The lady-man-birds would have spied me on the face of the cliff. So I had to come in this way,"
"But the harpies are watching the exit-"
"They are. But they did not follow me inside, because of the nickelpedes."
"But you-"
"Nickelpedes are pinching bugs. I was hungry anyway. They were delicious."
Naturally a spider would be able to handle big bugs! But the harpies were more formidable. "If we can't use the goblin tunnel-" Dor began.
Jumper fastened a line to Millie, and another to Dor. "I am generating sufficient lines to lower you to the bottom, but you will have to let yourselves down. I suggest you swing and slide so the birds will not be able to catch you readily."
"I can't do that!" Millie protested. "I don't have big arm muscles and things!"
Dor glanced at her. She was half right; she did lack big arm muscles, but she certainly had other things. "I'll carry you again." He flicked his swordpoint, warning back the encroaching harpies.
"You'll need both arms to lower yourself," Jumper pointed out. "I will jump across and string a guideline. That way you can swing from the center of the cleft, not banging the walls. But you will be caught in midair."
"Can't be helped. You'll have to relax the guideline, so we can drop slowly lower. Just be sure that line is tight when we start."
"Yes, that is possible, though difficult. Your two weights will make a great deal of tension."
Dor poked at the witchly face of another harpy. "Millie can watch you, and tell me when it's ready. You wave to her from the far side."
"Correct." Jumper ran to the cliff opening and disappeared. There was an outcry from the harpies outside; they had never seen a jumping spider this size before, and were amazed and frightened.
"He's waving!" Millie cried.
That had been quick! Dor made a last poke at the harpies, whirled, grabbed her with his left arm, and flung himself out over the cliff. Then he remembered: be still had the sword in his right hand. He had forgotten to hang on to the line.
They plummeted toward the bottom of the chasm. Millie screamed and kicked her feet, and her hair smacked Dor's face.
Then, with a wrench, the line drew taut. He didn't need to hold on; Jumper had attached the cable to him, and tied the other end to the center of the trans-chasm cable. Once more the spider's mature foresight had saved him. Now Dor surmised when the attachment had been made; he had been distracted by the encroaching harpies, and had not noticed.
They were swinging down and across the chasm, bouncing slightly. The harpies were milling about, screaming, but not doing anything effective. They saw his waving sword.
Across they swung, grandly, almost colliding with the far wall. Jumper had kept the line short so they would not crash, but it was so close that Dor had to put his feet out and brake against the cliff, momentarily. Then they were swinging back. And forth again, in lessening arcs. As they came to rest, they were suspended about halfway down the depth of the chasm.
The harpies were beginning to organize, trying to catch Dor and Millie in their claws, as they had before.
But Dor had his sword out this time, and that made the difference. He waved it threateningly, and the harpies stayed just clear, screaming imprecations and losing feathers to the flashing tip of his weapon. It was hard for the dirty birds to match velocities with him, because of the swinging and bouncing. They were not, however, about to give up the pursuit.
Jumper, on the far side of the chasm, levered the two in the manner only he could do, and Dor and Millie descended. The rage of the harpies increased as the range increased. "Don't let them get to the bottom!" one cried. "The enemy is there!" That hardly reassured Dor. What good would it be, escaping one menace only to fall into the clutches of another? Well, he would have to worry about that in due course. At least the harpies hadn't thought to cut the trans-chasm cable. Or if they had thought, they had rejected the notion. They didn't want to kill Dor, for then he would certainly be useless to them. And Millie might not taste as good scraped up from the floor of the-but enough of such thoughts!
Now the base of the chasm was close. It was rocky and narrow and curvy, with holes and ridges. There seemed to be no way out, though this was uncertain since it twined out of sight in either direction.
As they swung lower, their orientation shifted, thanks to Jumper's maneuvering of the lines, so that now they were traveling along the cleft rather than across it The harpies became more desperate. "Keep them away from ground!" the oldest and ugliest crone screeched. "Grab them! Snatch them! Lift them up. Drop the girl if you have to, we don't really need her, but save that buck!"
Dor swung his sword in increasingly desperate arcs, keeping them at bay, trying not to sever his own line. A talon lanced into his shoulder from behind, and great foul wings beat about his head. Millie screamed loudly and kicked her feet harder, and her hair formed a golden splay in a passing sunbeam. None of that helped. Dor aimed his sword up and thrust violently over his own head and down behind it. The point jammed into something. There was an ear-shattering scream that momentarily drowned out Millie's racket, and the talon released his shoulder. When he yanked the sword forward there was blood on the tip. He slashed in another circle, slicing feathers off the harpies in front This violence sickened him, as it had when he fought the goblin band, but he kept on.
Suddenly the line dropped. Millie emitted a truly classic Eeeeek! as they fell-but the drop was very short. The mighty muscles and sinews of Dor's legs flexed expertly, breaking his fall, preserving his balance. He still had Millie; now he set her down gently. Her skirt and bodice had separated; Dor stared briefly, not realizing that they were different pieces, and she tucked them together self-consciously. At least she had stopped screaming.
A greenish shape dropped down beside them. "Sorry about that drop," Jumper chittered. "The harpies attacked me, and I had to move."
"Quite all right," Dor said. "You got us out of the harpy caves."
The harpies were still milling in the chasm, but no longer attacking. Jumper had plunged through them by surprise, using his dragline to brake at the last moment so he hadn't been hurt. What a marvelous thing that dragline was!
"Why are the harpies staying clear?" Millie asked.
It was a stupid question that like so many of its kind was not so stupid after all. The harpies were raucous, ugly, and evil-smelling-except for Helen-but not notably cowardly. Why were they afraid of this rocky path?
"One of them said something about the enemy down here," Dor said, remembering.
Millie screamed and pointed. Charging along the crevice-path was a contingent of goblins. No sooner feared than realized!