Part 20 (2/2)

Gunnar reeled back into the flames.

CHAPTER 17

A deadening quiet fell over the huge room where Maya's and Ato's little armies were making their last stand. The flames were dying out in the tunnels and on the stairway. They fed more fuel to the fires and waited.

Maya was at Odin's side now. They clung together. Jack Odin kissed her and swore that they would never be parted again.

”Until death--” Maya said and raised her lips to his.

He s.h.i.+vered. It was a promise and an a.s.surance that might be kept too soon. The fires could not burn much longer. Grim Hagen's power over the Lorens might be questioned after the havoc that had been wreaked in the city above. But Hagen and his white-skinned soldiers could still fight.

And Grim Hagen's hate was hotter than the fires that were now dying out in the tunnels.

Ato joined them. He had proven himself a general. Outnumbered all the way, he had broken Grim Hagen's lines time and again during that awful night.

”I think we had better wait behind the barricades and make our last stand upon the balcony,” he said. ”We can't defend five entrances at the same time.”

Odin agreed.

”Some of Maya's people are unarmed. We still have a few of the Lorens who joined us. They are good fighters. Better than the Lorens who are with Grim Hagen. Apparently, he drew his following from the weakest among them.”

”Aye,” Val the Loren agreed. He had fought near Ato's side all through the night, and his lean left hand was rubbing two deep cuts across his chest.

”They have already had enough. But they have asked the wild things of the moss-country to dine with them, and now they can't get rid of their guests.

If Grim Hagen and his soldiers should die, they would give up in a minute.”

”Are your men still armed, Val?” Odin asked.

”Aye. They know to hang on to their weapons.”

”Not all of Maya's people are,” Odin said. ”I don't like the idea of the children and old men fighting.”

”Children and old men have fought before,” Ato answered simply. ”If this should be the last time, then the battle would be worth the blood. Anyway, I have set them to fas.h.i.+oning lances and staves from wood that we saved from the fires.”

They waited. All the troops and all the weapons were moved behind the barricade.

Some of the best throwers were mounted upon the improvised balcony.

They had rigged up a rude catapult from some lumber and ropes. They had barrels of nails and spikes for ammunition. Odin wished for some good bowmen, but the bow was as foreign to the Lorens as it was to the Brons.

There was nothing left to do except move all the workshop's water-pails and sand-buckets behind the barricade in case of fire.

Soon they heard the sound of war-cries and the splas.h.i.+ng of water from the tunnels. Smoke poured into the room from the quenched and dying fires.

It disappeared almost as fast as it came. Evidently the Lorens were masters of air-conditioning. Odin was thankful. Knowing Grim Hagen, he had been fearful of gas. Now that seemed unlikely. Even as Gunnar had predicted, this last fight would be with knife and sword and spear. Or, if it lasted long, with clubs and bare hands.

They had spanned s.p.a.ce and had mocked at time. Now time was triumphant as always. Would they end up as pre-stone-age men throwing sticks at one another? And was this a sample of the end of all the thinking men who would follow after into s.p.a.ce? If so, what a hollow, foolish end to such high endeavor. Odin remembered an old professor who had said that all races carry their own seeds of destruction with them wherever they go.

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