He could dimly see the looming bulk of the blaster cannon, crouched
behind its iron shield. Above it the walls of the castle were high and
dark and--empty.
The voice came from ahead of him, taut with nervousness: "Who goes
there?"
"A friend. I have a message for His Highness." Janazik moved forward
almost casually. His eyes gleamed with mirth. It tickled his heart,
this dicing with death. Someday he'd overreach himself and that would
be the end, but until then he was having fun.
"Advance.... No, no one else. Just you alone."
Janazik sauntered forward until he stood only a meter from the blunt
ugly muzzle. He had his left arm out of his cloak, so that the golden
brassard shone in plain view. Underneath, his right hand thumbed the
catch of Alonzo's pistol.
"Who are you?" challenged the voice from behind the shield.
"A messenger for His Highness from his allies in Volgazan," said
Janazik. "Seeing that there was still fighting going on, I and my men
decided to come in the back way."
"Well--I suppose I can let you in, under guard. But your men, will have
to stay out here."
"Very well." Janazik strolled over behind the shield.
There were three warriors crouched there, in front of a small door in
the wall. One of them was about to blow his trumpet for a guard detail.
The other two poised their spears near Janazik's throat. None of them
thought that anyone outside the citadel might possess an Earth-weapon.
* * * * *
Janazik shot right through his cloak. In that narrow space, the
ravenous discharge blinded and blistered him, stung his face with
flying particles of molten iron. The hammer-blow of concussion sent him
reeling back against the wall. His cloak caught afire; he ripped it off
and flung it down on the three blackened corpses before him.
Vision returned to his dazzled eyes. These Earth-weapons were hideous
things, he thought; they made nothing of courage or strength or even
cunning. He wondered what changes Galactic civilization would bring to
old Khazak, and didn't think he'd like most of them. Maybe Volakech was
right.
But Anse was his comrade and Aligan had been his king. He whistled, and
the others came running up.
"Quick," rasped Janazik. "The noise may draw somebody--quick, inside!"
"Can't we swing this lightning thrower around and blast them?" wondered
a Khazaki.
"No, it's fixed in place." Anse threw his brawny shoulders against
the solid mass of the door. It swung ponderously back and they dashed
through the tunnel in the thick wall--out into the open courtyard of
the castle!
The noises of the fight rose high from here, but there were only a few
warriors in sight, scurrying back and forth on their errands without
noticing the newcomers--a fact which did not surprise Anse or Janazik,
who knew what vast confusion a battle was. The human remembered the
layout now--the rocket would be over by the machine shops, near the
donjon keep--"This way!"
They trotted across the court, around the gray stone bulk of the
citadel's buildings and towers, toward the long wooden shed which
housed the new machine shop. The rain was beginning to slacken now, and
the sun was up behind its gray veil, so that there was light shining
through slanting silver. Against the dark walls, the lean torpedo shape
of the rocket boat gleamed like a polished spearhead.
"Now--ahead!" Janazik broke into a run toward the boat, and they
followed him in a close ring about Ellen.
A band of fighters came around the corner of the machine shop, in front
of the rocket. The wet light shone off their brassards. Janazik swore
bitterly, and his hand dropped to his sword.
One of the enemy warriors let out a yell. "Earthlings--two--three of
them! Not ours--"
The blaster crashed in Janazik's hand, and five dropped their charred
bodies on the ground. With a spine-shivering yell, Janazik bounded
forward, and after him came Anse, Alonzo, and a round dozen of the
fiercest fighters in Krakenau. The blaster was exhausted now--but they
had their swords!
The leader of the enemy band was a huge Khazaki, dark-furred and
green-eyed. His men were scattering in panic, but he roared a
bull-voiced command and they rallied about him and stood before the
rocket.
Volakech. By all the thirteen hells, _Volakech_!
He must have been leading reinforcements to a threatened point on
the wall, thought Anse in a fleeting moment, and his sharp mind had
instantly deduced that the invaders were after the rocket--and that
they could have no more blaster charges, or they would be using them.
And Volakech's band was still larger than theirs, and he had all the
forces of the citadel behind him if he could summon them!
* * * * *
The two bands crashed together and steel began to fly. Anse stood
before Ellen and lashed out at a spitting Khazaki who reached for his
belly with a sword. The enemy dodged past his guard, drilled in close.
Ellen shouted and kicked at the native's ankles. He stumbled, dropping
his defense, and Anse clove his skull.
Volakech roared. He swung a huge battle axe, and its shock and thunder
rose high over the swaying tide of battle. Two of Janazik's men leaped
at him. He swept the axe in a terrible arc and the spike cracked one
pate and the edge split the other's face open. Alonzo sprang at him
with furious courage, wielding a sword. Volakech knocked it spinning
from his hand, but, before he could kill the engineer, Anse was on him.
They traded blows in a clamor of steel. Axe and sword clashed together,
sheared along chain mail and rang on helmets. It was a blur of rake
and slash and parry, with Volakech grinning at him behind a network of
whirling steel.
Anse gathered his strength and pressed forward with reckless fury.
His sword hummed and whistled and roared against Volakech's hard-held
guard. He laid open arms, legs, cheek; he probed and lunged for the
rebel king's trunk. Volakech snarled, but step by step he was driven
back.
Warriors fell, but it was on the bodies of foemen and even dying they
stabbed upward at the enemy. Bitter, bloody, utterly ruthless, the
struggle swayed about the rocketship. It was old Khazak that fought,
the planet of warriors, and, even as he hewed and danced and slew,
Janazik thought bleakly that he was trying to end the gory magnificence
of that age; he was bringing civilization and with it the doom of his
own kind. Khazak of the future would not be the same world.
If they won--if they won!
"To me!" he yelled. "To me, men of Aligan! Hai, Aligan! Krakenau!
Dougald!"
They heard and rallied round him, the last gasping survivors of his
band. But there were few of Volakech's men left, few.
"Volakech! Aid the king! To me, men of Volakech!" The rebel shouted at
the top of his lungs. And Anse lunged in at him, beating against the
swift armor of the axe.
"Anse!" Janazik's urgent shout cut through the clangor of battle.
"Anse, here! We're blasting free!"
The human hardly heard him. He forced his way closer in against
Volakech, his sword whistling about the usurper's helmeted head.
"Anse!" shouted Janazik. "Anse--Ellen needs you--"
With a tiger snarl, Anse broke free from his opponent and whirled
about. A rebel stood before him. There was an instant of violence too
swift to be followed, and Anse leaped over the ripped body and up to
Janazik.
The Khazaki stood by the airlock. There was a ring of corpses before
him; his sword ran blood.
"Ellen?" gasped Anse. "Ellen?"
"Inside," rasped Janazik. "She's inside. We have to get out of
here--only way to get your attention--_Come on!_"
Anse saw the armed band swarming at them from one of the outer towers,
defenders who had finally noticed the battle at the rocket and were
coming to aid their king. Not a chance against them--except the boat!
Man and Khazaki stepped back into the airlock. A storm of arrows and
javelins broke loose. Anse saw two of his men fall--then Janazik had
slammed the heavy outer valve and dogged it shut.
"Ellen!" he gasped. "Ellen--take the boat up before they dynamite it!"
The girl nodded. She was strapping herself into the pilot's seat before
the gleaming control panel. Only Alonzo was there with her, bleeding
but still on his feet. Four of them survived--only four--but they had
the boat!
Through the viewport, Anse saw the attackers surging around the hull.
They'd use ballistae to crush it, dynamite to blow it up, blaster
cannon to fry them alive inside the metal shell--unless they got it
into the sky first.
"Take the engines, Alonzo," said Ellen.
Gonzales Alonzo nodded. "You help me, Janazik," he said. "I'm not sure
I--can stay conscious--"
* * * * *
The pilot room was in the bows. Behind it, bulkheaded off, lay the air
plant and the other mechanisms for maintaining life aboard--not very
extensive, for the boat wouldn't be in space long. Amidships were the
control gyros, and behind still another bulkhead the engine controls.
Rather than install an elaborate automatic feed system, the builders
had relied on manual controls acting on light signals flashed by
the pilot. It was less efficient, but it had shortened the labor of
constructing the vessel and was good enough for the mere hop it had to
make.
"I don't know anything about it," said Janazik doubtfully.
"I'll tell you what to do--Help me--" Leaning on the Khazaki's arm,
Alonzo stumbled toward the stern.
Anse strapped his big body into the chair beside Ellen's. "I can't help
much, I'm afraid," he said.
"No--except by being here," she smiled.
Looking out, he saw that the assault on the castle was almost
over--beaten off. It had provided the diversion they needed--but at
what cost, at what cost?
"We might as well take off for the Star Ship right away," he said.
"Of course. And that will end the war. Volakech can either surrender or
sit in the castle till he rots."
"Or we can use the ship to blast the citadel."
"No--oh, Cosmos, no!" Her eyes were filled with sudden horror.
"Why not?" he argued angrily. "Only way we can rescue our people if he
won't give them up of his own will."
"We might kill Carse," she whispered.
It was on his tongue to snap good riddance, but he choked down the
impulse. "Why do you care for him that much?"
"He's my brother," she said simply, and he realized that in spite of
her civilized protestations Ellen was sufficiently Khazaki to feel the
primitive unreasoning clan loyalty of the planet. She added slowly:
"And when Father died, years ago, Carse took his place, he's been both
father and big brother to me. He may have some wrong ideas, but he's
always been so--good--"
A child's worship of the talented, handsome, genial elder brother, and
she had never really outgrown it. Well--it didn't matter. Once they had
the Star Ship, Carse didn't matter. "He'll be as safe as anyone can be
in these days," said Anse. "I--I'll protect him myself if need be."
Her hand slid into his, and she kissed him, there in the little boat
while it rocked and roared under the furious assaults from without.
"Anyone who hurts Carse is my blood foe," she breathed. "But anyone who
helps him helps me, and--and--"
Anse smiled, dreamily. The engines began to stutter, warming up, and
Volakech's men scattered in dismay. They had seen the fire that spurted
from the rocket tubes.
And in the engine room, Masefield Carson held his blaster leveled on
Alonzo and Janazik. "Go ahead," he smiled. "Go ahead--take the ship up."