Paul squeezed the trigger.
_Too soon--and too damned quiet._ The clever makers of
twenty-first-century firearms on Earth had cut down the shout of a .30
caliber to a trivial snap. The savage eyes out there might not even
have caught the flash at the muzzle. There ought to have been the
glare and circumstance of a rocket. How could they be panicked by a
silly pop and a spark? Even though--well, one of the dots had
vanished, true enough. Maybe he had killed his first human being.
He glanced westward, wondering how soon the gray must change to
saffron and crimson. The new red moon--there it was. A bloody sliver
of a sword above the far shore of the lake.
And he saw the boats.
They were half a mile out. No others were visible north of them, but
that meant nothing: these might or might not be the lead canoes of
the fleet. The noise of drum boats in the south was constant: those
would stay anchored in hiding, letting their wrath appear to come from
all parts of the world.
The leading boat jumped to clarity in the sights. Forward the bark
roofing reached the gunwale; aft, the sides were open to leave space
for two paddlers. Paul saw the tight mouth of the one on the port
side: she could have been Pakriaa's blood sister. Now it was necessary
to think of Abro Pakriaa's ambassador torn in quarters, head and arms
sent back as a message from the Queen of the World--until the mind of
the student of Christopher Wright rebelled: _Vengeance was one of the
ape's first discoveries._ It became more necessary to think: _Make it
a good head shot--she won't feel it...._
It was not a very good shot. The scream came weakly across the water.
The paddler tumbled, an arm dangling. The starboard paddler seemed not
to understand and labored stupidly, making the canoe lurch to port.
The prow of a following boat rammed it, tore away the matting,
revealed the huddled soldiers who became splashing legs and arms in a
sudden foam. While the land army came on....
Dots that were bald red heads, white specks that were spear blades. A
simple arithmetic: less than a hundred rounds for the rifle; four
hundred soldiers; a heart divided but angry, and the devotion of an
eight-foot giant with a big stick. Against six thousand in the land
army alone. "Pakriaa, it's a single column--the fools! Send your
bowmen out west, catch them on the flank." Pakriaa ran down the knoll.
Paul shot twice at the head of the column. A flurry. No halt. Some of
the boats were no longer sliding north, but driving down on the beach,
forty or fifty, like hornets from a torn nest. _Another mistake--no,
not if it diverts them from the camp._ Pakriaa's hundred on this side
of the knoll were holding firm for an order. Paul's wave was enough:
they spread out in the grass at the edge of the beach, quivering like
waiting cats. The light was changing their bodies from vagueness to
familiar copper, black skirts, white body paint.... Mijok tore a
half-buried rock from the ground and hurled it out to splinter the
nearest boat. But the soldiers would merely swim ashore. "Mijok! Stay
with me!"
The head of that column was less than two hundred yards away. Paul
fired mechanically, seeing life tumble backward and lie still. "Let
them see us now, Pakriaa, Mijok----"
They strode down the south slope of the knoll in plain sight under the
beginning of morning as the bowmen in the meadow released a harsh
flight. The beach on the left became a seething of yells, snarling,
trampling, clash of white stone. _First-light--first-light--and where
in damnation is Ed Spearman with the lifeboat...?_
The column was confused by the many pressing up from behind. A few
dozen spearwomen streamed out toward Pakriaa's archers; a second and
third flight downed most of them--the little men had skill. No
Vestoian bowmen had appeared. "Now, Pakriaa----"
Her one cry brought the spearwomen out of the grass west of the knoll,
skimming forward like red bullets, spears low in the left hand until
they crashed into the column; then weapons rose and plunged and rose.
The Vestoians wore no white paint. Their leaders had caps of green.
Their grass skirts were mere fringes. They died easily. They killed
easily.
Some distance down the column--for it was still a column, still a
rolling machine that could not halt--a tall structure was swaying,
hard to assess in this tortured twilight. A litter? Lantis of Vestoia,
the Queen of the World herself? Paul checked his own running advance
to send two shots at it. Then he and Mijok were surrounded by a
writhing of arms, white-stone, and blood, Mijok raging but bewildered.
Paul saw Pakriaa's spear drive down below naked ribs and withdraw from
what sprawled on the ground. She was untouched. Her lean little body
dripped with sweat, her teeth gleamed in a devil's grin. Two
purple-skirted captains joined her; the three smashed into a cluster
of shrieking souls who only began to understand what was happening.
Arithmetic still ruled. This column might be only one of many pushing
up between lake and hills, bent on reaching Pakriaa's forest before
the omasha soared in from those hills to feed on living and dead.
Mijok brushed through the fighters with his shield and down the line
till he was clear of Pakriaa's white-painted demons. His stick swung,
destroying everything in a half circle before him. He was not confused
now, not even shouting, but saving breath. He worked stolidly, like a
man beating at a swarm of rats.... Pakriaa jumped on a fallen thing to
point at that clumsy framework down the line. "Lantis! That is
Lantis----"
The litter wobbled toward the center of confusion on the shoulders of
six women. Paul fired twice again at it. He had a glimpse of a scrawny
figure with a high green headdress leaping down, snatching a spear,
vanishing in an improvised protective phalanx. He shot into that,
dropping one of the outer soldiers. Mijok saw; he changed the course
of his attack, a bulldozer aiming at a new clump of brush. Pakriaa
screamed in frenzy, without meaning. Her spear was still a part of
her. She was bleeding from a thigh wound; her bright blue skirt had
been torn away; she glittered with sweat and paint and blood, a
dancing devil mindlessly happy. Then she was down once more in the
press, squirming toward the phalanx, and Paul could not shoot.
But it was the toiling giant, Paul thought, who made Lantis break.
Again he saw the snarling face of the Queen of the World and heard her
squeal an order. Before Mijok could cut his way to her the phalanx was
running, sheltered by the mere mass of soldiers. It was necessary to
call Mijok back.
The whole Vestoian army was running. "Pakriaa!" Paul plunged after
her, caught her shoulder. "No pursuit!" Her eyes glazed in mad
rejection; he thought she would bite his wrist. "Turn your soldiers!
Bring them down on the Vestoians from the boats--_the boats_!"
She could understand that. Her order was the shriek of a rusty nail on
glass, and it turned them. It brought them howling down to the beach
to aid what was left of the first hundred. The water was a jumble of
abandoned boats--even the paddlers had struggled ashore to kill and
die.
Mijok ploughed in a second time.... That ended it. Some of the
Vestoians might have glimpsed what he did to the land soldiers. A few
forgot all custom and threw their spears, which Mijok's shield
carelessly turned; then they stared with sickness at their empty
hands and waited for the club. Meanwhile the strengthened crowd of
pygmies worked on till the sand was redder than the sky and there was
no more to be done. "Back!"
Pakriaa screamed "No!" and pointed south. Paul stumbled on something
slippery. He stooped to her, yelling, _"Omasha!_ The sky will be full
of them. Let them fight Lantis. We've lost a hundred already----"