The Highway curved between great looming walls of cragged old rock, a
shadow tunnel with the wind yowling far overhead and the sun a disc of
blood. Men's footfalls echoed from the cracked paving blocks to boom
hollowly off time-gnawed cliffs and ring faintly in the ice. It was
cold, their breath smoked from them and they shivered and cursed and
stamped their feet.
Donovan walked beside Helena, who was riding Wocha. His eyes narrowed
against the searching wind, looking ahead and around, looking for the
side track where the ambush waited. Drogobych was very near.
Something moved up on the ridge, a flapping black thing which was
instantly lost to sight. The Arzunians were watching.
There--up ahead--the solitary tree they had spoken of, growing out
between age-crumbled fragments of the road. The highway swung west
around a pinnacle of rock, but here there was a branch road running
straight south into a narrow ravine. _All I have to do is suggest we
take it. They won't know till too late that it leads up a blind canyon._
Helena leaned over toward him, so that the long wind-whipped hair blew
against his cheek. "Which way should we go?" she asked. One hand rested
on his shoulder.
He didn't slacken his stride, but his voice was low under the whine of
bitter air: "To the right, Helena, and on the double. The Arzunians are
waiting up the other road, but Drogobych is just beyond that crag."
"Basil! How do you know--"
Wocha's long hairy ears cocked attentively, and the little eyes under
the heavy bone ridges were suddenly sharp on his master.
"They wanted me to mislead you. I didn't say anything before for fear
they'd be listening, somehow."
_Because I hadn't decided_, he thought grayly. _Because Valduma is mad,
and I love her._
Helena turned and lifted her arm, voice ringing out to rattle in
jeering echoes: "Column right! Forward--charge!"
Wocha broke into a trot, the ground booming and shivering under his
huge feet. Donovan paced beside, drawing his sword and swinging it
naked in one hand, his eyes turned to the canyon and the rocks above
it. The humans fell into a jogging run.
They swept past the ambush road, and suddenly Valduma was on the ridge
above them, tall and slim and beautiful, the hair like a blowing flame
under her helmet. "Basil!" she screamed. "Basil, you triple traitor--"
The others were there with her, men of Drogobych standing on the
heights and howling their fury. They had chains in their hands, and
suddenly the air was thick with flying links.
One of them smashed against Donovan and curled itself snake-like around
his waist. He dropped his sword and tugged at the cold iron, feeling
the breath strained out of him, cursing with the pain of it. Wocha
reached down a hand and peeled the chain off, snapping it in two and
hurling it back at the Arzunians. It whipped in the air, lashing itself
across his face, and he bellowed.
The men of Sol were weltering in a fight with the flying chains,
beating them off, stamping the writhing lengths underfoot, yelling
as the things cracked against their heads. "Forward!" cried Helena.
"Charge--get out of here--forward, Empire!"
A chain whistled viciously for her face. She struck at it with her
sword, tangling it on the blade, metal clashing on metal. Takahashi
had his blaster out, its few remaining charges thundering to fuse the
missiles. Other flames roared at the Arzunians, driving them back,
forcing them to drop control of the chains to defend their lives.
"Run! Forward!"
The column shouted and plunged down the highway. Valduma was suddenly
before them, her face distorted in fury, stabbing a spear at Donovan's
breast. The man parried the thrust and hewed at her--she was gone, and
the Terrans rushed ahead.
The rocks groaned. Donovan saw them shuddering above him, saw the first
hail of gravel and heard the huge grinding of strata. "They're trying
to bury us!" he yelled. "We've got to get clear!"
Wocha stooped, snatched him up under one arm, and galloped. A boulder
whizzed by his head, smashing against the farther wall and spraying him
with hot chips of stone. Now the boom of the landslide filled their
world, rolling and roaring between the high cliffs. Cracks zigzagged
across the worn black heights, the crags shivered and toppled, dust
boiled across the road.
"Basil!"
Donovan saw Valduma again, dancing and leaping between the boulders,
raising a scream of wrath and laughter. Morzach was there, standing on
a jut of rock, watching the hillside fall.
Wocha burst around the sentinel peak. A line of Arzunians stood barring
the way to Drogobych, the sunlight flaming off their metal. Wocha
dropped Donovan, hefted his ax in both hands, and charged them.
Donovan picked himself up and scrambled in the wake of his slave.
Behind him, the Terrans were streaming from the collapsing dale, out
over open ground to strike the enemy. The rocks bounded and howled,
a man screamed as he was pinned, there were a dozen buried under the
landslide.
Wocha hit the Arzunian line. His ax blazed, shearing off an arm,
whirling up again to crumple a helmet and cleave the skull beneath.
Rearing, he knocked down two of them and trampled them underfoot.
A warrior smote at his flank. Helena, gripping one mighty shoulder,
engaged him with her free hand, her blade whistling around his ears.
They fell away from that pair, and the Terrans attacked them.
* * * * *
Donovan crossed swords with one he knew--Marovech, the laughing
half-devil whose words he had so much enjoyed in earlier days. The
Arzunian grinned at him across a web of flying steel. His blade stabbed
in, past the Ansan's awkward guard, reaching for his guts. Donovan
retreated, abandoning the science he didn't know for a wild whirling
and hacking, his iron battering at the bright weapon before him. Clash
and clang of edged metal, leaping and dancing, Marovech's red hair wild
in the rising wind and his eyes alight with laughter.
Donovan felt his backward step halted, he was against the high stone
pillar and could not run. He braced his feet and hewed out, a scream of
cloven air and outraged steel. Marovech's sword went spinning from his
hand.
It hit the ground and bounced up toward the Arzunian's clutch. Donovan
smote again, and the shock of iron in flesh jarred him where he stood.
Marovech fell in a rush of blood.
For an instant Donovan stood swaying over the Arzunian, looking
stupidly at the blood on his own hands, hearing the clamor of his
heartbeat and sucking a dry gasp into his lungs. Then he picked up the
fallen being's glaive. It was a better weapon.
Turning, he saw that the fight had become a riot, knots of men and
un-men snarling and hacking in a craziness of death. No room or time
here for wizard stunts, it was blood and bone and nerve against its
kind. The Terrans fought without much skill in the use of their archaic
equipment but they had the cold courage blended of training and
desperation. And they knew better how to cooperate. They battled a way
to each other and stood back to back against all comers.
Wocha raged and trampled, smashing with ax and fist and feet and hurled
stones, his war-cry bellowing and shuddering in the hills. An Arzunian
vanished from in front of him and appeared behind with spear poised.
The Donarrian suddenly backed up, catching the assailant and smashing
him under his hind feet while he dueled another from the front.
Helena's arm never rested, she swung to right and left, guarding his
flanks yelling as her blade drove home.
Donovan shook himself and trotted warily over to where a tide of
Arzunians raged about a closely-drawn ring of Impies. The humans were
standing firm, driving each charge back in a rush of blood, heaping the
dead before them. But now spears were beginning to fall out of the sky,
driven by no hand but stabbing for the throats and eyes and bellies of
men. Donovan loped for the sharp edge of the hills, where they toppled
to the open country in which the fight went on.
He scrambled up a rubbled slope and gripped a thin pinnacle to swing
himself higher. She was there.
She stood on a ledge, the heap of spears at her feet, looking down over
the battle and chanting as she sent forth the flying death. He noticed
even then how her hair was a red glory about the fine white loveliness
of her head.
"Valduma," he whispered, as he struck at her.
She was not there, she sat on a higher ledge and jeered at him. "Come
and get me, Basil, darling, darling. Come up here and talk to me!"
He looked at her as Lucifer must have looked back to Heaven. "Let us
go," he said. "Give us a ship and send us home."
"And have you bring our overlords back in?" She laughed aloud.
"They aren't so bad, Valduma. The Empire means peace and justice for
all races."
"Who speaks?" Her scorn flamed at him. "You don't believe that."