"The Old Order Changeth--"
A new note rose suddenly in the din of battle. It had been a howling
note of despair before; the outraged cries of impotent Wild Ones
mingling with the dying screams of the gallant Women. Now there rose to
the skies a paean of joyous triumph. Hoarse masculine voices cheered
madly as the horde of hairy Wild Ones found the barrier before them
gone. Daiv foremost, their avenging circle closed in upon the village.
Where but a few moments before this engagement had been a slaughter
of the Jinnians upon which the Wild Ones had been forced to look
helplessly, now the battle became a free-for-all, split into a
half-hundred tiny sectors.
Here a cherry-flame, wielded by a retreating dwarf in tarnished armor,
winked its ruddy eye amongst Men who cried out, steamed, and fell.
There a dozen Wild Ones hurled themselves upon a tiny knot of Japcans,
literally ripped the yellow men into bloody shreds, and raced on--with
one of the Wild Ones now brandishing a lethal ray-stick!
Still another place a handful of Mayco invaders fought vainly to fight
a diverse foe--the Women before them and the Wild Ones who charged upon
their flank. Up to now the Japcans had been content to subdue this
Jinnia uprising with the green, stupefying ray; now they broke out
their red weapon. Meg curdled with agony to see Women die beneath that
cherry-flame.
But--Daiv?
Even as her mind asked the question, she found him. He had been at
the farthermost perimeter of the circle; now he was racing recklessly
across the central arena toward her. In haste or sheer bravado he had
picked up no ray-weapon, but still brandished the huge, two-handed
sword with which he had stormed the citadel.
But it was not this that miraculously saved his life from the lightning
of crimson that flashed about him. It was his instinctive grace and
agility, his perfect sense of timing. More than once Meg's lips formed
a wordless shout as it seemed one of those flaming tubes must surely
spend its charge on his smooth, gallant body. Each time Daiv saw the
new danger, swerved to avoid the ray. And more than once his mighty
sword accounted for the dwarf who would have been his destroyer.
* * * * *
Then, from another angle of the courtyard, burst a fat, bustling
figure. Grensu. His golden armor, once so proud, was now dented in a
score of places; there was a red stain upon his forehead, his ripe lips
were working with a fearsome rage.
His objective was Meg, and upon her he was advancing, mouthing vile
threats.
"So, ivory one, you think to triumph at last? Know, then, that Grensu
takes with him in defeat his adversaries!"
And he raised his ray-weapon to cover Meg. For the first time in all
those hectic moments, a sense of personal fear weakened the Priestess'
knees. It had not seemed ill to die for a worthy cause. But now--when
the cause was almost won, and when, in moments, her lover's arms would
have been about her--But, as ever, Grensu's vaingloriousness was his
own undoing. Once too often had he stayed his vengeance for a speech.
Now as his finger tightened on the button that would blast Meg into
rancid oblivion a tremendous object came hurtling through the air.
It was Daiv's claymore. Seeing there was no other way to halt Grensu's
move, Daiv had heaved it squarely at the dwarfling commander with all
the strength his mighty arms possessed. It was like a whistling flail
of the Gods as it cleft the air; ripped the ray-tube from Grensu's
hand, and with the spitting stick sheared yellow fingers.
Then, even as Grensu howled his pain and turned to flee, Daiv was upon
him. He lifted the squat, heavy dwarf, massive armor and all, above his
head; shook him as a dog might shake a ground-rat. Grensu's thick lips
blubbered incoherent pleas, his eyes bulged wildly. But there was stone
in Daiv's breast.
By the head and the calves he grasped the screaming commander; his arms
made one sweeping motion. Grensu's fearful bleat ended in a choked wail
of agony ... something snapped like a forest twig....
Grensu lay still.
* * * * *
Afterward, one of the Wild Ones came to Daiv where he stood with Meg
beside a god-box that now lay quiescent on the ground.
"They call for the Priestess, Master," he grinned. "The Old One lies
dying. Will you bring the lovely one to the _hoam_?"
Daiv said, "I have told you, Wilm, that it is not necessary to call me
'Master.' I am a Man, like yourself; we are all Men, proud and noble.
Do not forget." To Meg he said, "You remember Wilm; don't you, Golden
One?"
Meg did, though it was difficult to see behind the grinning, confident
features of this hairy one the same terrified creature whom Daiv
had rescued from the pit just the day--could it be so short a
time?--before. She nodded.
"I remembered Wilm," Daiv told her with a happy-look, "when the
lemon-skinned dwarf band attacked us. From the first I knew our defense
was futile. We were too few. We needed more, and stronger fighters.
So I went for the aid of the Wild Ones--aid which Wilm had pledged me
should I need it.
"Though," he shook his head ruefully, "I did not know they would have
this other weapon, the wall-that-cannot-be-seen, when we returned.
Without your help, Golden One, all would have been lost."
"And without his," mused Meg, "I should be the pale bride of death." It
was an unprecedented gesture for a Woman and a Priestess of the Jinnia
Clan to make, but Meg made it. She stretched forth her hand. "I would
grip your hand in my own, Man of the forests. Henceforth let there be
peace between us."
She winced at Wilm's enthusiastic grip. Then, "But let us make haste, O
Daiv, my love. The Mother sends for me; I fear she will soon go to join
the Gods."
There was already the God-look in the Mother's eyes when they reached
the _hoam_. A look of strange peace, mingled with one of happiness, as
she looked fondly upon Meg.
"I am to be with you but a little while longer, my daughter," she
breathed quietly. "The Gods have called me, their voices stirred in my
ears like the whisper of night-winds in the trees. Soon I shall go."
Meg's happiness was suddenly gray with the cloud of heart-hunger. She
dropped to her knees beside the older woman's side.
"You must not go, O Mother!" she sobbed. "There is much to be done, and
only thy wisdom can achieve it."
The pale hand of the tribal guardian sought, found, Meg's golden head.
"You speak the truth, daughter mine. There is so much to be done. But
already you know how to lead our Clan upward to the stature of the
Ancient Ones. With your mate at your side--"
There was a concerted gasp from the assembled Women of the Clan. The
Mother, hearing, smiled wanly.
* * * * *
"Yes, thus openly do I approve that of which, from the beginning, my
heart approved. Listen, my children--Meg was right. In her pilgrimage
she learned, as did I many winters ago, that the Gods were Men. Men
like Daiv. She rebelled against the Law that said a Priestess might not
mate--but she was right in her rebellion.
"List, now, for with the all-seeing eyes of one on the threshold of
death I tell you truth. It is right that Women should mate with Men.
There should be no Workers, no Warriors, no breeding-mothers. Our Clan
should own no stud-males, pale chattels like our kine and horses. All
this is wrong."
Lora, her harsh-lined face sagging with confusion, cried, "But,
Mother--the Wild Ones!"
"Never again must we prey upon the Wild Ones. Do you not see that the
Gods avenged our doing so when they permitted Meg to be captured in one
of the pits we dug?
"Henceforth--" The Mother's voice grew weaker, and a hurt-devil pierced
Meg's heart. "There will be peace and amity between Women and the Wild
Ones. I see a day--a day in the future to come--when mankind may again
attain to the heights of the Ancient Ones. In that day the children of
the Ancient Ones may return from the evening star to find a new world
happier than that from which they fled--"
Daiv whispered to Meg, "Her holiness is one with the Gods. Hear now her
sacred vision!" and Meg saw that his eyes were wet with heart-rains.
Then said the Mother to Meg, "Once I deferred judgment upon you, my
child. Now I give my approval of you ... and of this Man who is thy
mate ... and of all you have done. Lead well thy people...." And she
was gone.
A soft murmur stirred through the room, a murmur that was the sobbing
of a bereaved Clan. One by one the Women left the presence of death for
the sunshine and life of the world outside.
Only a huddled group of Japcan captives, over whom grim-jawed Warriors
stood guard, the bodies of those who had fallen in the battle, the
scarred and blasted _hoams_, told of that which had been. Soon all this
would be changed; a new and better existence would rise out of the
mistakes of yesterday.
Wilm was capering at Daiv's side, plucking at his elbow feverishly.
"Daiv, Master--"
"Not 'Master,' Wilm!" reminded Daiv sternly.
"Daiv, friend," corrected the Wild One. "Will the Women do as the aged
one told them? Will they now, perhaps, become our mates?"
There was a pathetic eagerness in his voice. Meg was strangely stirred
by it. Not so the angular Lora, who sniffed aloud.
"The Mother's word is the Law, O hairy thing that smells." Her voice
was derisive. "What Woman of our Clan so excites your fancy? One of
those, I suppose?" She nodded toward a young and buxom breeding-mother,
white-fleshed and not yet plump from over-bearing, who strolled down
the walk-avenue with hips swaying enticingly.
But Wilm shook his head.
* * * * *
"That?" he exclaimed. "Pah! What Man would want such a wobbly thing?
I like a strong Woman; a Woman with arms like a weathered oak. A
fighting Woman. A Woman like--" He paused breathlessly. Then, "A Woman
like--_you_!"
"_Me!_"
The Warrior Chieftain gasped. Then the slow crimson started at her
throat, spread slowly upward until it mantled her cheeks. And her voice
was choked. "Like _me_, Man?"
"Not just _like_ you," said Wilm staunchly. "_You!_"
Meg waited for the Chieftain's reply, atingle inside with wonderment
and tickling little fun-bubbles. Then Lora spoke, and her answer was
the answer of all womankind to the new regime....
"You must be mad, Man!" she declared. "But--but I think I like your
madness. We'll discuss it further if you'll go bathe the smell from
your body. And shave off that _awful_ beard...."
Meg looked at Daiv; he looked back at her, and a happy-look was on his
lips. He whispered, "The change has begun, Golden One. The change for
which I hoped. We will live in a new world soon. Surely the poet of the
Ancient Ones wrote truth."
"Poet?" asked Meg. "I do not understand, Daiv."
"His name," said Daiv softly, "was Tensun. Long ages ago he wrote,
'The old order changeth, giving way to new ... and the Gods fulfill
themselves in many ways....'"