The cry rose from a thousand throats. "Yes! Save him! Save him!"
Norvis tried to push his way through the crowd and shut the girl up. The crowd gave way, but not rapidly enough.
"Once before," she went on, "the people of Gelusar rallied against evil and drove off the Earthmen! Tonight, we must rally and cleanse ourselves of the last vestige of evil!"
There was more cheering. Norvis jabbed viciously to the right and left with his elbows and finally got through to her. The thing might get out of hand. He wanted to rescue Kris, but not quite this way.
But before he could say anything, Ganz had taken his sister's hand.
"Marja," he said softly, "you're magnificent! You reminded me of Father up there!"
"It wasn't Father I was thinking of," she said. "It was Kris. I didn't know if you'd make it or not, and I wasn't going to let him die."
Norvis stepped back and let some of the tenseness seep out of him. It was too late. Events would have to move, of their own accord for a while, until they could be brought back under control.
Ganz turned and looked at him. "On to the Temple?"
"On to the Temple," Norvis said. "Where else?"
Ganz lifted his head and shouted through cupped hands to the men on the ship. "Hoy! Hoy, aboard ship! Get your weapons out! Down and off! The people of Gelusar are with us! Let's march!"
Chapter XVIII
The acolytes and priests at the Great Temple of Light were not unprepared for what was to come. They had heard the rumors that had flitted through the city in the last hour or two since the Elder Grandfather had been found dead, and they remembered all too well what had happened to the School of Divine Law.
The doors of the Temple were barred; there were men on the roofs and stationed in the towers, armed with rifles, and there were men on the lower floors armed with great knives, ready to defend the Temple against any onslaught.
Nor were the priests the only ones who were prepared to fight for the Holy Ground. Citizens from everywhere who had heard of the uprising gathered in the Square of Holy Light. They had not heard Grandfather Kiv's fulfilled curse on himself; they knew only that the Temple was under attack.
When the mob surged into the Square, they met armed resistance. Hands locked together, the townsfolk blocked the way. Peych-knives swung, rifles coughed from the roofs. Men dropped, bleeding and dying.
And still the invaders of the Square swarmed in through the three streets that led to it. Those who were in front were pressed ever onward by the relentless masses behind. Within fifteen minutes, the Square was slippery with blood, and the dead and dying were stumbling blocks for those who still fought— and as yet the Temple had not been touched.
Norvis, Ganz, and Marja were elsewhere. Norvis had finally persuaded the young hotheads that a frontal attack on the Temple, although it would be useful as a diversion, would not be the most direct way of releasing Kris. While the battle raged in the Square, the crews from the ships worked their way around to the rear of the Temple.
"Let's keep it quiet, men," Ganz said. "We'll come up from behind. They'll never know what hit them."
At the rear of the Temple was a narrow street, the same one down which Norvis had fled not too long before. It was watched by the priests; there was no chance of simply walking up that alleyway and taking the Temple easily. But Norvis had a plan.
A block to the rear of the Temple, he pointed to a two-story business building. It was dark, but in the gloom they could see a sign that read:
MEGIL & peMEGIL
FINE POTTERY
AND DISHWARE
"The back of this building faces on the rear of the Temple," Norvis said. "Ganz, you take a group to the roof and get the priests' minds off the alleyway below. You'll be one floor above them, so you'll have an advantage. They'll have to look up to shoot, so they won't be watching us.
"The rest of us will get through the window at the rear of the pottery shop and take the rear doors of the Temple. Get it?"
"Got it."
"Good. Let's go."
With the butt of a rifle, Norvis smashed in the door of the shop and the men surged in. Dishes and vases were scattered as the crewmen of the three ships plunged into the blackness of the pottery shop.
One of the men struck a torch and held it aloft. He pointed toward the back of the store. "There's the stair to the top!"
The torchlight glittered on broken fragments of blue and red and gold and green glazeware that lay in shards on the floor.
"Watch that torch!" Ganz said. "Put it out before we get to the top, or they'll spot us! Vyothin men, come with me! The rest of you follow Norvis peKrin!"
Ganz headed for the stairway, followed by the crew of the Vyothin.
"The rest of you come this way!" Norvis said. "And watch that pottery! Do you want to wake up the whole neighborhood?"
The men laughed, relaxing a little. The battle that still surged back and forth in the Square of Holy Light would drown out any noise that the crewmen could possibly make.
Norvis led them to the rear window. It was shuttered, and Norvis slid the bolt. "Now be quiet. I mean it this time. If the priests suspect we're down here, we're lost. They know by now that we're in this building, but since there's no door, they won't be looking down here unless we're too noisy. So shut up."
He eased the shutter open a crack and looked up.
"What's going on?" someone said.
Norvis jerked his head around. "Marja! What in the name of Darkness are you doing here? Get back! This is men's work!"
Marja said a single sharp, vulgar word. "If you think I'm going to stand around and do nothing, you're wrong. You can tell Ganz what to do, but you'll not keep me from Kris!"
Norvis wavered for a moment. He could order the men to take her back, but that would only create confusion. He cursed softly, then said: "All right. You stay. I'll treat you like a man—but you'd better obey like a man. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Old One," she said crisply.
By this time, Ganz and his men had reached the roof. There was a rattle of rifle fire, which was immediately returned from the roof of the Temple. Then, for a moment, there was silence.
Norvis gritted his teeth at the stupidity of Ganz's men and Ganz himself. The dumb sons of deests had all fired at the same time, a broadside into the priestly ranks. It had undoubtedly been effective— but now they had to stop and reload, giving the priests a breather that staggered fire would have averted.
Oh, well. Some men could reload faster than others. It would even itself out shortly.
The men behind him were growing impatient, but there was nothing Norvis could do but wait. Soon, the fire from the roof of the pottery shop began to form into a staggered pattern. And then Norvis heard an odd sound. It was a regular thump! thump! thump! that echoed around the streets that led to the front of the Temple.
It was drowned out for a moment by a loud, clarion ring from the Temple gong as a bullet struck it.
Then Norvis recognized the thumps. The mob at the front was battering at the door. He'd have to move fast.
He turned to Marja and whispered, "You and I will go first. We'll jump out of the window and run across the alley to the rear door of the Temple. If your brother keeps up the good work, no priest will dare lean over and try to shoot us. Don't try to get inside yet, though. Wait till I tell you." Then he flung open the shutter. "Let's go."
They leaped and ran. Not a shot was fired downward until long after Norvis and Marja were safe beneath the wall.