Far above them, the mist curtain had parted. Jimmy heard the sound of wings beating. A shape appeared. It was a rectangular platform, with flying girls bearing it. Jimmy stared, his brain blurring with astonishment.
"Tama-lookl" Two men and a girl were on the platform. It came with a swoop. The insect on the incline of the treetrunk paused, and turned its face upward to gaze at this new enemy.
It was Toh and Guy, crouching there on the flying platform with the girl Aina. The girls, frightened and confused as they came down, fluttered in disorder. Guy stood up, swaying precariously.
The platform landed on the raft with a thud, which submerged a foot or two under the weight of the girls. Guy was flung down, but he leaped up at once, and Toh with him.
"Swim awayall of youl" The girls were floundering in the water. Guy shouted at Aina, "Get the girls away from hereall of them I'" The brue lay motionless, peering around at the confusion; then it turned and began moving back down the treetrunk.
The girls on the raft were fluttering up. On the roof, Jimmy lay behind Tama. He felt Roc gripping him.
"I can't move," Roc muttered.
"No," said Jimmy. "Lie quietdon't lose your hold!" The brue's head reached the bottom of the tree. Guy and Toh with drawn knives stood confronting it. Suddenly the great insect jumped. Not with a forward rush but with a movement incredibly swift, it flipped its whole length upward, head do\vn, with the forked tail high in the air.
It landed, facing the other way on the raft.
Jimmy saw the water on the raft lashed white, the great jointed body threshing, lunging, with Guy and Toh astride of it, hacking with their knives. Spurts of black fluid came like )ets from its cracked shell, staining the water with ink, reeking in the air with a horrible stench. The screams of the thing were blood-chilling, gruesome. Its head twisted around.
Its long feelers, like the tentacles of an octopus, clutched Toh. He tore at them with his knife. But they lifted his slight body in the air, flung him around, brought him down.
Jimmy was aware that he was screaming a futile warning and trying to crawl with his dangling leg past Roc, who was holding him and shouting, "Don'tyou can't do anything!" Tama was gone! Jimmy saw her go down with a swoop.
Like a thrown missile, she struck the insect's head, just as he was drawing Toh toward it. Her knife, went into its face. The bulging forehead crackedsmashed inward like a broken shell. Tama, lunging, striking, fought to free Toh, and f in a minute had him loose, fluttered upward with him. He was not injured. She dropped him into the water and swooped back.
The brue, with mashed head, its travesty of a face still bearing the semblance of an agonized human look, screamed continuously. Its great body lashed, writhed, squirmed.
But aimlessly now, and with lessening strength. Guy still clutched its middle, hacking, tearing. It was as thick there as a stout man. But he hacked through it. The two segments fell apart, each of them writhing, fighting. Tama went again for its head. Toh came swimming, but she turned and flung him back.
Then Guy was at its throat, stabbinghacking off the clutching feelers. Aina had been shouting, fluttering ten feet overhead, calling to the swimming girls. They shook themselves free of the water, like gathering birds fluttered up into a confused group. All unarmed, they poised; and then, at a word from Aina, plunged down. Wrathful birds, picking, tearing, wrenching at the two lashing segments of the brue.
Clutching its hairy, spindly legs. Twisting them... .
The mangled insect's screams gradually grew less. Then Guy hacked through its throat and they died in a gurgle as its great round head fell and floated off.
Guy ceased his efforts. Toh swam forward again. Guy gasped, "It's over, Tohl All rightwe've killed iti" Then Tama got the girls away. Strange little virgins of this strange planet! Four of them fainted from the shock and horror of it, now that it was over. They were all livid white, and most of them were crying, half-laughing with hysteria.
I need not detail the reunion of Tama and Guy, and Roc's turning from an enemy into a friend, eager to help and to atone for his former treachery. Toh gazed silently at him and said nothing. Guy listened to Jimmy's explanations and glanced questioningly at Tama. Perhaps Guy was jealous.
He need not have been, for Tama flung herself unhesitatingly into his arms.
Roc watched them with his dark, somber gaze. He sat up, bracing himself against the thatch of the sloping roof.
He said quietly, in his precise, careful English: "I want you all to believe in me. For what I have done in the past, Guy Palisse, most truly I am sorry." He offered his hand, palm up in the Mercurian fashion. "Guy, will you accept me?" Guy hesitated.
"I think it would be just," said Tama quietly.
Guy reluctantly smiled. "I'll try. Roc." He laid his hand on the outstretched palm. "It's not easy, at first. We hated each other for a long time, Roc."
"Yes. But that is over now. My country is assailed. I want only to save it. You, an Earthman, are here to help us win, and for that I am really grateful." Guy stared at him, but did not answer.
It was two hours before the girls were rested and ready to fly back. The platform was cleared and washed clean of its stenching litter. Jimmy and Roc were carried down to it. Guy and Toh joined them, and two of the weakened girls. Tama and Aina took their places at the handles.
The platform rose from the Water City, to wing away upon its return journey. Presently they met the Flying Cube, coming to reconnoiter. Grenfell saw the platform, whereupon the Cube landed on the metallic desert. They all boarded it, abandoning the platform.
After encircling the Water City once more, the marches and empty hills behind it, the Flying Cube returned to the Hill City, the Earthmen plunging again into preparations for the coming battle.
News had arrived. Dorrek with his silver ball had retreated with all his forces to the Dark Mountains at the borders of the Cold Country, in the dark, gloomy canyons there.
Grenfell decided not to wait for his advance, but to go and meet him. To cast all into one engagement: the old stratagem, so often used in Earth warsdefense by attack. To keep the fight away from the all too vulnerable Hill City. Defeat Dorrek's forces in one battle, in the wilderness of Dorrek's own choosing. And with his defeat, the menace to the Light Country and to Earth would be ended.
The young men of the Hill City were assembling into an organized army. Nearly a thousand girls were ready volunteers. With Tama's return, they hailed her as their acknovyledged leader.
The Hill City arsenal and workshops were a confusion of activity. The hand weapons, the defensive armaments, bombs and rockets, giant projectors of the deadly heat-rayall were hastily being assembled. Flying platforms were armed; girls were assigned to fly them and armed young men to ride them.
Three day-cycles passed. Dorrek and his barbarians were still in the distant mountains. Little news of them was obtainable, save that they were there. Jimmy's leg had been set by skilled Sfirgeons in the Hill City. He could not walk; but he could tide a flying platform, and he chose it rather than be in the Cube. Roc's strength had fully returned. He had earnestly and faithfully helped in the busy activities of those three days; urged by Tama, the Hill City officials had accepted him.
In the half-light of a gray noonday, led by the Flying Cube, with Tama and her girls winging in orderly formation behind ita group of armored flying platforms among them and on the ground a low queue of young men winding slowly out into the metal desertthis strange army of the Light Country went forth to battle.
XI MOUNTAIN STRONGHOLD "BUT, MTJTA, I do not love him. That's absurd." Rowena gathered the long brown dressing gown more closely around her, pulled her brown braided hair from her face and gazed earnestly at the stolid Cold Country woman.