"Asha, look out!" Nelson sent his warning thought as he saw the dog-wolf's staggering opponent drop sword and whip out a dagger.
Even as he flung himself off Hatha into the shallow water to help he saw the dagger rip the dog-wolf's ribs. And then the Humanite sprawled in the water, his throat a pumping red gash.
Asha staggered, slipped. Fading flare of green eyes shone up at Nelson as he reached the wolf. He heard the dying thought
"Good hunting, broth—"
"They flee!" came the wild, raging thought-cry of Quorr. "Kill, before they escape!"
The Humanites, what was left of those who had landed, were wildly pushing their rafts back into the river, back into the deeper water.
Nelson heard Nick Sloan's cool sharp voice cut in across the din, from the rafts farther out.
"Pull back! That's enough!"
The fighters of the Clans, blood-mad, were balked, could not follow into that deeper water. But as the fight momentarily slackened thus, past Nelson pushed Kree.
The Guardian stood outlined in the suddenly brighter glow of distant firelight, his hand raised as his voice rolled out onto the river.
"Men of Anshan, will you destroy all L'Lan in blood and fire? Wrath of the ancients, wrath of the Cavern, fall upon you if you follow this road farther!"
"Kree, get back!" yelled Nelson, leaping forward.
He was too late. The burst of submachine-gun fire that came from out there on the rafts was brutally, contemptuously short. Kree clutched his breast and went down in the water. And Nelson heard Nick Sloan's voice from out there.
"Good shooting, Piet!"
A mad cry, a cry that was a thought and a howl and a scream of fury, went through the Clans.
"The Guardian is slain!"
Nelson, turning to drag Kree's body ashore, felt his heart check as he saw why the firelight was suddenly brighter now. The forest between them and their firebreak was a wall of flame, marching southward toward them.
"Our backfire has jumped the gap while we fought here!" he cried. "We can't stop it now — Vruun is doomed!"
Chapter XVI
THE CAVERN OF CREATION
Nelson now realized with tragic clarity the simple and effective strategy that Nick Sloan had used. Seeing them building a defense against the sweep of fire, Sloan had callously sent Humanite warriors in to a landing he knew could not succeed to draw them away from their fight against the flames.
And the strategy had worked. The fire had overrun their line of defense and was now moving on the wings of the wind toward Vruun.
"We can't hold that fire now!" Nelson cried. "It will be into Vruun in an hour. Pull back!"
Retreat was a lesson the Clans had never learned. Wild with battle-excitement, they would have refused to retreat now had it not been for the wall of flame sweeping toward them.
Tark sent out his thought-cry. "Back to Vruun, Clan-brothers! We must get all out of the city before the fire reaches it!"
From out in the river a submachine-gun started hammering at them as they drew back from the water.
A stallion crashed down, a tiger screamed in rage and pain. Nelson, having lifted Kree's body across the back of Hatha, led the way through the forest.
Great scorching winds howled and whooped about them and flung blinding smoke to impede their way. The steady crackling of the sky-high wall of flame behind them had grown to an ominous roar.
Nelson felt rage and hatred equal to those of the Clans about him as he stumbled with them through the smoke toward Vruun. He knew that Nick Sloan would coolly bring his forces on down the river just behind the fire, following it in complete safety. And Sloan could wait, smiling, while the people of Vruun died amid the flaming trees.
"Hurry!" cried Nelson. "Hurry!"
The southern edges of the city were crowded. All those who had been left behind had come there to watch the doom that rolled toward them down the reddened sky — the females, the old, the very young. The winding forest-avenues were choked with them.
As the returning Clans swept into Vruun, scorched and bloody and raging with defeat, from all sides the anxious question came.
"What word? Is the fire stopped?"
Then they saw Hatha and the burden he carried and it seemed to Nelson that the whole city gave one great cry of woe and was silent. Nsharra was waiting for them outside the Hall of Clans, and Nelson saw from her face that word of Kree's death had reached her.
She flung her mantle on the grass. She said to Nelson, "Lay my father here under the trees."
As he did so, he heard the thought of the Clan-leaders to Nsharra. "You inherit the Guardianship now!"
She took the weight of duty on her slim shoulders. "What is the word?"
Nelson told her rapidly. "You must get every living thing out of Vruun," he finished. "The fire will be in these forest-streets in less than an hour."
Nsharra showed no sign of fear. She turned to the leaders.
"Lead your Clans to the northern hills, up beneath the mountains!"
Quorr growled. "Let the females and the young go. We stay to fight!"
"Fight what?" Nelson demanded. "The flames?"
He whirled and pointed to the southern sky. Crimson and cruel it lowered over them and already the flickering glare was lighting the streets of Vruun.
"Will your Clan pull that down with their claws, Quorr?"
Tark's thought was furious. "But to run away like cubs, with our tails between our legs-!"
"So that you'll live to fight later!" Nelson told him. "When the ashes cool the Clans can come down from the hills and attack the Humanites again!"
"He is right, Tark!" Nsharra supported. "Go now and spread the word!"
Nelson heard the cry go out by voice and thought. "North to the hills and tarry not, my brothers!"
And they went, out through the streets of the doomed city under the reddened sky.
Mothers drove their children ahead of them — wolf-cub and tiger-cub and human. Mares with their foals went by. Broad pinions of the Winged Ones beat northward through the fiery gloom. Moving out, moving out, even as the Clans had fled from the forest! And fear went with them on the bitter air and the eyries were empty save for the drifting smoke.
Watching this, Eric Nelson came to a desperate decision. He told Nsharra, "Sloan and Van Voss are the backbone of the whole Humanite campaign. If I could get those two and their weapons out of the way the Brotherhood would have a fighting chance later on!"
She looked at him, white-faced. "I know what you are thinking — that you must stop them because you helped bring them here!"
Nelson did not deny it.
"But it's impossible!" she cried. "You can't get near them. They won't come on until the fire has swept us out of Vruun and out of the forest!"
Nelson said swiftly, "But when the fire has cleared the way for him Sloan will make for the Cavern of Creation! I know him — it's the platinum there he's after, first and last."
He caught her arm. "You must show me how to get into the Cavern, Nsharra! I'll wait there for them — I've a few bullets left and those two won't get out again if I can help it!"
Nsharra looked at him with wide dark eyes. Then she said, "Come, I'll show you the way."
The streets, the forest-ways, were almost empty now. The last stragglers were disappearing northward through the trees. It was none too soon. Ash was falling like snow and the wind was hot. The Clan-leaders came racing back, their eyes burning with the anger and the shame of flight. Hatha had brought a mount for Nelson.
"Is the city cleared?" Nsharra cried.
Tark's quick thought answered. "It is cleared."