Sloan stepped forward, his eyes searching the shadows for Nelson and the girl. "Sorry it has to end this way, Nelson. You always were a fool in some ways. I hope—"
Nelson, almost dully, had watched him step forward. His last card, his hope of setting Shan Kar against Sloan by means of the thought-record, had failed him.
But had it? There was still a thin chance left if he could make it. Sloan stepped between the platinum pillars.
For a heartbeat, as the solemn thought-voice of the ancients automatically spoke to him, Sloan looked startled. That was the moment when Nelson charged him.
The submachine-gun blasted over his head with a fiery breath and voice of thunder as he hit Sloan low and brought him down. They rolled together over the Cavern floor, toward the shaking curtain of cold light, Van Voss running after them to get in a burst that would not hit Sloan.
"This for Barin!" raged a wild wolf-thought and, as he rolled, Nelson glimpsed Tark's great body at the Dutchman's throat.
Sloan was battering him with his knee as he strove to tear loose his heavy gun and bang it against Nelson's skull. Abruptly then Sloan quit that and pulled the trigger. Flame and hot lead plowed along Nelson's forearm — and Sloan instantly wrenched free.
Sloan jumped to his feet, on the edge of the cleft of cold fire, standing magnified to giant proportions by the curtain of shaking light behind him as he swiftly leveled his gun at Nelson.
"This time there won't be any—"
A slim, flying thing of metal flashed past Nelson's head from behind him — a flung sword. It struck Sloan, not point foremost as had been intended, but flatly. The impact knocked him backward.
His foot clawed the edge of the cleft, he staggered and toppled backward still gripping the submachine-gun, then vanished into that blaze of radiant light.
A scream came out of that glory of cold fire — a scream that made Nelson feel sick.
He forced himself to turn around. Van Voss lay staring up with pale empty eyes at the Cavern roof, his throat torn out. Tark's fangs showed red in the shaking glare and there was madness in the wolf's eyes.
"Hoik, listen!"
Shan Kar, sitting in the dust between the pillars with blood streaming from his breast, had uttered that whispered call.
And Shan Kar, he knew now, was the one who, with dying strength, had flung the sword and toppled Nick Sloan into the most terrible of deaths. The Humanite's face was a gray mask. Hoik, who had stood stunned by the swift turn of events, came toward him. Nelson, gripping his bleeding arm, went too.
"Hoik, listen to the record of the ancients — then let the others listen too," Shan Kar whispered. "Let the war end, the Brotherhood be restored. I sinned when I tried to break it."
Hoik looked up with sudden awe, as the man died. Nelson knew that he too now was hearing that solemn voice.
"You who shall come after us, take warning!"
It was dawn when Nelson came with Nsharra out of the Cavern. L'Lan lay before them in the rising sun, a valley half blackened and blasted by fire. The bubble-domes of Vruun glittered amid smoking ashes.
"But all the valley east of the river was untouched by fire," Nsharra said. "It is enough until the forests grow again."
The Humanites were gone — their warriors, led by Hoik, had gone back to Anshan. And they had gone silently and heavily.
It was not only because their leader was dead, their outland mercenaries and weapons lost, their campaign a failure. It was because the whole basis of their ambition for human supremacy had been swept away by the revelation of the ancients.
For Hoik had obeyed the dying command of Shan Kar and had brought the Humanites, one by one, into the Cavern to hear that mighty message of the ancients. And they had listened in sick silence.
"We know that we are guilty of wrong," Hoik had said, in parting. "But we will strive to redress the wrong. Anshan shall be a city of the Brotherhood as of old."
"The past is done," Nsharra had answered. "Let there be peace now in L'Lan."
The Humanites had so gone — but the Clans were waiting. Down on the slopes below the Cavern they waited — the packs of the Hairy Ones, the hot-eyed tiger Clan, the wild-maned brothers of Hatha. And overhead against the sunrise swung the hosts of the Winged Ones.
Hatha and Tark, Quorr and Ei, were waiting on the ledge outside the Cavern. Nelson heard their thought-cry.
"Nsharra, you are Guardian of the Brotherhood now!"
The girl looked at Nelson. "You can go from L'Lan with clear conscience now, Eric Nelson. You redeemed any guilt that was yours in bringing death to our valley."
Nelson said slowly, "I don't want to go, Nsharra. I've found something here that I never found in the outer world."
Her eyes were doubtful and at the same time glad. "Could you, a man of the different outer world, be happy here where there is Brotherhood of man and beast?"
"Nsharra, I learned what that Brotherhood can be when I ran in the body of Asha!" he told her.
He had learned, yes! He knew now that the ancient way of life that held in L'Lan was not really strange, that it was the outer world of rigid caste, of men-masters and enslaved beasts, that was really strange.
He would never again, Nelson knew, be at home in that world. He would suffer and endure with every driven beast in it, and the magic of L'Lan would tug in memory at his heart until it broke,
"I want to stay, to help keep L'Lan as it is and prevent the outer world from ever breaking in upon it!" he told her. "And I want to stay with you, Nsharra!"
Her eyes searched his face. "I want you to stay," she said.
Then, as incredulous hope and joy sang up in his heart, she turned and sent her thought and her voice ringing out.
"Clan-leaders, will you accept Eric Nelson into our Brotherhood?"
Tark's green eyes flashed bright as the great wolf strode forward. "He fought shoulder to shoulder with me! For the Clan of the Hairy Ones, I acclaim him brother!"
Up from the wolf-packs crashed the pack yell and the greeting thought.
"Hai-ooo, brother!"
Ei's thought came coolly, swiftly. "Tark says well. The Winged Ones accept him!"
"And my Clan," said Hatha. "I saw him fight in Anshan!"
Nsharra looked down at the tiger. Quorr wrinkled his terrible face.
"He nearly killed some of us once," growled Quorr's thought. "But he has bled for Vruun. Blood pays back blood! We accept him!"
Nsharra grasped Nelson's hand. "Now let us go down to Vruun, Clan-brothers!"
They went down the hill, in the rising sunlight, down toward the blackened forest and the forlorn city that would live again. And as they went the Brotherhood was all about them and over their heads was a thunder of wings.
THE END
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