The equerry looked pained. He turned to Brand. "Sir, he has offered a
challenge. It would be in very bad form to...."
"Bring him!" Brand snapped testily. "If you are afraid, take a
company...."
The officer stiffened. "I am not afraid, sir--though others are!" He
wheeled his sith and trotted toward Telis.
"Get back, Captain," ordered Telis. "My quarrel is not with you!"
"Ride him down!" called Brand.
The officer unsheathed his lance and laid it in rest. Levelling it at
Telis, he dug his booted heels into the sith's flanks and thundered
across the sand, leaning low in the saddle.
Telis stood braced and, just as the animal came abreast of him,
he stepped aside, catching the tip of the lance under his arm and
whirling. The movement of the weapon overbalanced the officer and he
tumbled from the saddle to sprawl in the sand. With a mortified howl
of rage, the man was on his feet and upon Telis, but his fury made him
careless. Telis' sword flashed out and the point found the officer's
sword arm, piercing it neatly and ending the encounter with a flourish.
Telis turned to face the attackers once again. "Now Brand," he taunted,
"will you come out to do your own dying? Or will you send another
lackey to take the steel meant for you?"
Brand's heavy face darkened. For answer he raised his hands to the
buglers.
"Attack!"
The force swept forward like a great tawny wave, shrieking and cursing.
Telis stared aghast. An attack he had been expecting, and even the
possibility of the Maldia finally taking the camp had occurred to him.
But that fifty five hundred roaring madmen would attack one man was
more than he had prepared himself for.
Death seemed a certainty, and a fleeting image of Leslie swept across
his mind. He lifted his futile swords and murmured a prayer to the
Goddess....
* * * * *
It was answered. The rain came like a gift from heaven. From the
nozzles of the camp's pressure hoses there poured a great effluvium of
pure, cold, water. It rose in a graceful curve high into the air and
spilled down to lash the red sand into a morass and spray the attackers.
Telis himself was caught up in the wonder of it. And the effect on the
Maldia's fighting force of Guski was nothing short of miraculous. The
charging savages pulled up, faces lifted to the sky in mute amazement.
Then came fear--shrieking, mad, insensate terror! Rain was falling
where no rain had fallen for ten thousand haads! The Goddess had opened
up the flood gates of heaven and the stuff of the sky was falling down
on a sinful Laurr! Dropping their weapons, they fled out into the
desert--away from the accursed place that the Goddess had chosen to
enchant! And, in their flight, they carried the mounted nobles of the
Maldia, cursing, shouting, trying to regroup their shattered cohorts.
Telis stood in the downpour, his body tingling to the touch of the
precious water. He was thinking not that this trick of Tellurian
technics had saved his life; rather he was thinking of Laurr and what
this could mean to the planet. The deserts could be conquered, the
world could be redeemed!
Presently, the water stopped and a Tellurian from his company ran
forward to shout: "Telis! Look there! Aircraft!"
Telis looked skyward, and the door to the future seemed to slam shut in
his mind. Fully two hundred air-sleds were beating rapidly toward them.
The Maldia again ... more of them?
Telis looked out into the desert. The mounted force had abandoned the
attempt to regroup the demoralized Guski, but it had formed into a
phalanx and was returning to the attack.
Automatically, but without real hope, Telis motioned his men into
extended order. They were caught between two forces, helpless between
the sith-mounted Maldia and the airborne contingent. The irony of it
caught at his breast painfully. It was bitter hard to die just at the
brink of a golden age ... a golden age that would never come now.
Now he could make out Brand's face far to the rear of the mounted
column. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the sleds were almost
upon them, too. Telis braced himself for the attack.
Then, with a roar of jets, the air armada passed low over his head and
began disgorging warriors onto the rapidly narrowing strip of sand
between him and the Maldia. For a moment Telis was stunned by the
strangeness of the maneuvers ... and then his astonished eyes caught
the gleam of the device blazoned on the grounded sleds. It was the
Sword and Atom of the Temple!
With a glad cry he leaped forward to greet the Temple Guardsmen.
Snatched from the brink of disaster, the camp now revelled in a surfeit
of friendly warriors! The Maldia halted in confusion and air-sleds
moved out to cut off their escape.
Telis searched the ranks of the Temple troops for some explanation of
this seeming miracle ... and his eyes found a familiar figure. It was
battered and bandaged but unmistakably ... Gorla!
He caught the priest by the arm and spun him around with a shout. The
familiar round face reddened with pleasure and he threw his free arm
around Telis.
"You've healed, Telis!" he cried. "And in more ways than one!" he added
significantly. "I see you leading the defense instead of the attack!"
"I've been a thick headed fool, Gorla! But you ... how are you here?
I--"
"You thought me meat for those Guski back on the desert that night?"
Telis nodded.
The Priest laughed. "By the Goddess! I thought you were going to get up
and give us trouble that night! I suppose I should be thankful for your
wound. You never would have left me otherwise!"
"But, how did you ..." Telis began.
"The Temple takes care of its own, Telis, my friend," said Gorla.
"We were being followed at a distance all the way from Dorliss by a
guardship. Of course, when you threw my transmitter over the side,
they lost us. But you were the one who had to be convinced about these
Tellurians. So I stayed. There were a few bad moments ... once or twice
I thought the Guski had me cold, but the guardship was searching and
it found me before the brutes could finish me off. Since then, we have
been standing by at Dorliss, waiting for the Maldia to move."
"And here you are, thank the Goddess!" breathed Telis.
They stood surrounded by Temple Guardsmen and Tellurians watching the
air-sleds break up the sith-mounted force of the Maldia. The back of
the assault was broken. Riderless animals careened about wildly through
the confusion, and people were pouring out of the camp to greet their
liberators.
"Who led them?" asked Gorla indicating the sullen nobles.
Telis looked around for Prince Brand, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Then his sharp eyes caught a cloud of dust moving rapidly across the
desert. It would be Brand. He alone, of all the Maldia, was cynic
enough and coward enough to throw over the battle-to-death code at the
first sign of opposition.
With an oath, Telis caught at a sith and swung into the saddle.
"There!" he shouted to Gorla, pointing. "If he escapes the Maldia will
form again!" Telis kicked the sith savagely, and the animal plunged
off in pursuit of the fleeing renegade.
At full speed the sith carried Telis out into the desert. For half an
hour, there was no loss or gain, Prince Brand's animal holding its lead
tenaciously. Already, the Prince had turned to see that he was being
followed. But Telis' beast was fresher, and now began to narrow the
distance.
They were well away from the camp when Telis caught up. Riding in, he
cut across the path of Brand's animal, forcing it to break step. Brand
slashed wildly at him but Telis parried and dodged in under the other's
guard. Then, hooking his knee under that of the struggling Prince, he
heaved upward and dislodged him from the saddle so that he tumbled to
the sand.
Telis reined in the sith and leaped to the ground. Brand was already on
his feet, sword in hand, his face contorted with fear and rage. Telis
advanced steadily, hate coursing through him.
* * * * *
If Brand had been a faintheart before, he was not now when his life
depended on his skill and cunning. Even as their swords crossed,
Telis knew that his work was cut out for him. There was no sound but
the clash of steel and the labored breathing of the two men as they
locked in combat. For almost a quarter of an hour they fenced without
appreciable gain on either side. But Telis was younger, and the strain
was beginning to tell on Brand. He knew that he must win quickly or die.
Stepping back, Brand snatched the helmet from his head and threw it
full at Telis' face. Telis' sword made a glittering arc in the sunlight
as it caught the missile and knocked it aside. But for the moment he
left himself unguarded, and Brand lunged in to sink his point into
Telis' naked thigh.
Telis staggered but did not fall; the painful wound stung him, and
Brand, thinking that he had scored a telling blow, launched a furious
attack. Telis backed steadily across the sand, leaving a trail of
blood. He measured the pace carefully and, when Brand paused to catch
his breath, Telis feinted at his head. Brand's blade came jerkily up
to meet the thrust, and Telis stooped, whirled his point under Brand's
guard and lunged with all his force.
The blade sank deep into Brand's chest. Telis stepped back and slipped
it free. The renegade stood for a moment, staring unbelievingly at the
wound in his chest that bubbled a bloody froth. His arms stiffened and
the swords he held dropped noiselessly to the sand. Very deliberately,
he sank to his knees, still staring at the wound, then he pitched
forward into the sand face-downward. He was dead.
Telis sought his sith wearily and mounted. He turned back toward the
camp without another look at Brand. All the fury and excitement of
battle was washed out of him, and he felt very tired.
The gentle movement of the sith's gait helped to steady him. He rode
slowly along, looking out over the wastes of the Great Red Desert,
envisioning the land as it would be one day ... green and fertile,
alive under a sky no longer starkly clear, but laced with clouds that
would bring soft rains and stirring life from the land.
He topped the final rise and before him was the Tellurian camp and
the tall, beautiful projectile of the spaceship. The throngs of mixed
Laurrian and Tellurians were shouting and cheering the end of the
struggle.
Now the future seemed assured. Telis promised himself that the future
of the Tellurians on Laurr would be one with his own. And someday, he
thought, perhaps he would see Terra--or even the stars!
It would be a great task, he reflected, this changing the face and fate
of a dying world. But together the redeemers and the redeemed could
work it out. Telis knew somehow that the thing would be done.
A figure detached itself from the crowd and ran towards him, calling
his name. It was Leslie. With a quickened pace he made his way toward
her. The door to the future opened, and he stepped through without
looking back.