Stooping, he picked up the sheaf of spears and began to crawl back down
the rocks. Valduma cursed him from the heights.
There was a break in the combat around the hard-pressed Terran ring
as the Arzunians drew back to pant and glare. Donovan ran through and
flung his load clashing at the feet of Takahashi.
"Good work," said the officer. "We need these things. Here, get into
the formation. Here we go again!"
The Arzunians charged in a wedge to gather momentum. Donovan braced
himself and lifted his sword. The Terrans in the inner ring slanted
their spears between the men of the outer defense. For a very long half
minute, they stood waiting.
The enemy hit! Donovan hewed at the nearest, drove the probing sword
back and hammered against the guard. Then the whirl of battle swept his
antagonist away, someone else was there, he traded blows and the howl
of men and metal lifted skyward.
The Terrans had staggered a little from the massive assault, but it
spitted itself on the inner pikes and then swords and axes went to
work. Ha, clang, through the skull and give it to 'em! Hai, Empire!
Ansa, Ansa! Clatter and yell and deep-throated roar, the Arzunians
boiling around the Solar line, leaping and howling and whipping out
of sight--a habit which saved their lives but blunted their attack,
thought Donovan in a moment's pause.
Wocha smashed the last few who had been standing before him, looked
around to the major struggle, and pawed the ground. "Ready, lady?" he
rumbled.
"Aye, ready, Wocha. Let's go!"
The Donarrian backed up to get a long running space. "Hang on tight,"
he warned. "Never mind fighting, lady. All right!"
He broke into a trot, a canter, and then a full gallop. The earth
trembled under his mass. "Hoooo!" he screamed. "Here we come!"
Helena threw both arms around his corded neck. When they hit it was
like a nuclear bomb going off.
In a few seconds of murder, Wocha had strewn the ground with smashed
corpses, whirled, and begun cutting his way into the disordered main
group of the Arzunians. They didn't stand before him. Suddenly they
were gone, all of them, except for the dead.
Donovan looked over the field. The dead were thick, thick. He estimated
that half the little Terran force was slain or out of action. But they
must have taken three or four times their number of Arzunians to the
Black Planet with them. The stony ground was pooled and steaming with
blood. Carrion birds stooped low, screaming.
Helena fell from Wocha's back into Donovan's arms. He comforted her
wild sobbing, holding her to him and murmuring in her ear and kissing
the wet cheeks and lips. "It's over, dear, it's over for now. We drove
them away."
She recovered herself in a while and stood up, straightening her
torn disarray, the mask of command clamping back over her face. To
Takahashi: "How are our casualties?"
He reported. It was much as Donovan had guessed. "But we gave 'em hell
for it, didn't we?"
"How is that?" wondered Cohen. He leaned against Wocha, not showing the
pain that jagged through him as they bandaged his wounded foot except
by an occasional sharp breath. "They're more at home with this cutlery
than we, and they have those damned parapsych talents too."
"They're not quite sane," replied Donovan tonelessly. "Whether you
call it a cultural trait or a madness which has spread to the whole
population, they're a wild bloodthirsty crew, two-legged weasels, and
with a superiority complex which wouldn't have let them be very careful
in dealing with us. No discipline, no real plan of action." He looked
south over the rolling moorland. "Those things count. They may know
better next time."
"Next time? Fifty or sixty men can't defeat a planet, Donovan," said
Takahashi.
"No. Though this is an old dying race, their whole population in the
city ahead, and most of it will flee in panic and take no part in any
fighting. They aren't used to victims that fight back. If we can slug
our way through to the spaceships they have there--"
"_Spaceships!_" The eyes stared at him, wild with a sudden blaze of
hope, men crowding close and leaning on their reddened weapons and
raising a babble of voices. "_Spaceships, spaceships--home!_"
"Yeah." Donovan ran a hand through his yellow hair. The fingers
trembled just a bit. "Some ships, the first ones, they merely destroyed
by causing the engines to run loose; but others they brought here, I
suppose, by inducing the crew to land and parley. Only they killed the
crews and can't handle the machines themselves."
"If they captured ships," said Helena slowly, "then they captured
weapons too, and even they can squeeze a trigger."
"Sure. But you didn't see them shooting at us just now, did you? They
used all the charges to hunt or duel. So if we can break through and
escape--"
"They could still follow us and wreck our engines," said Takahashi.
"Not if we take a small ship, as we'd have to anyway, and mount guard
over the vital spots. An Arzunian would have to be close at hand and
using all his energies to misdirect atomic flows. He could be killed
before any mischief was done. I doubt if they'd even try.
"Besides," went on Donovan, his voice dry and toneless as a lecturing
professor's, "they can only do so much at a time. I don't know where
they get the power for some of their feats, such as leaving this
planet's gravitational well. It can't be from their own metabolisms, it
must be some unknown cosmic energy source. They don't know how it works
themselves, it's an instinctive ability. But it takes a lot of nervous
energy to direct that flow, and I found last time I was here that
they have to rest quite a while after some strenuous deed. So if we
can get them tired enough--and the fight is likely to wear both sides
down--they won't be able to chase us till we're out of their range."
Takahashi looked oddly at him. "You know a lot," he murmured.
"Yeah, maybe I do."
"Well, if the city is close as you say, we'd better march right away
before our wounds stiffen, and before the natives get a chance to
organize."
"Rig up carrying devices for those too badly hurt to move," said
Helena. "The walking wounded can tote them, and the rest of us form a
protective square."
"Won't that slow us and handicap us?" asked Donovan.
Her head lifted, the dark hair blowing about her proud features in the
thin whimpering wind. "As long as it's humanly possible we're going to
look after our men. What's the Imperium for if it can't protect its
own?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so."
Donovan slouched off to join the salvaging party that was stripping
the fallen Arzunians of arms and armor for Terran use. He rolled over
a corpse to unbuckle the helmet and looked at the blood-masked face of
Korstuzan who had been his friend once, very long ago. He closed the
staring eyes, and his own were blind with tears.
Wocha came to join him. The Donarrian didn't seem to notice the gashes
in his hide, but he was equipped with a shield now and had a couple of
extra swords slung from his shoulders. "You got a good lady, boss," he
said. "She fights hard. She will bear you strong sons."
"Uh-huh."
_Valduma could never bear my children. Different species can't breed.
And she is the outlaw darkness, the last despairing return to primeval
chaos, she is the enemy of all which is honest and good. But she is
very fair._
Slowly, the humans reformed their army, a tight ring about their
wounded, and set off down the road. The dim sun wheeled horizonward.