d be heard swearing in a
strange foreign tongue as he wheeled his great gun around and around.

A ragged volley of shots broke out in the western end of the valley.
Revel jerked his head up. "They _were_ squires!" he said. "We've got to
get up there to help our men!" Rack motioned to the miners behind him
and went off into the gloom; Jerran shouted, "Some for the fallen
globes! Some have to stay to--"

Revel made a long arm, picked him up by the scruff. "Little man, are you
the Mink?"

Jerran struggled ineffectually. "No, damn it, no!"

"Then shut your mug till you're told to give orders!" Revel dropped him,
and roared out, "Two hundred men--Jerran, count 'em off as they pass
you--to the fallen buttons! Pickax the globes! Break the skull of every
zanph! The rest of you, up to the top o' this hill--spread round in a
ring that circles this ledge, and don't let a squire or enemy through!
We've got to protect John!" He turned, gripped Lady Nirea's wrist
urgently. "Have you quick eyes and hands, love?"

"Faster than most men's, save your own." Her slatey eyes glowed eerily
in the buttons' light.

"Then up you go," he said, and hoisted her up by the waist until her
hands clenched on the upper edge of John's machine. "Perhaps you can
help him. I can't spare a man yet. Luck, Lady!" He set off toward the
nearest button, tilted crazily with its rim in a cleft rock. At the
western end of the valley more shots were echoing and yells rose thin
and frightened. He wished he could be in several places at once but the
wounded ships were the place for a slayer of gods tonight.

* * * * *

The bottom projection, dark blue and some fifty feet across, had been
knocked open by the force of the fall. From the dark interior zanphs
were crawling, a veritable army of the six-legged, snake-headed beasts.
An occasional globe floated out, but moving slowly as if it were sick.
Pickmen were axing them out of the air with yells of glee, as the zanphs
milled, then spread out to attack.

He swept his weapon in a long looping arc that tore the head off one and
maimed another as it leaped toward him. It was the first blow in a
personal battle that seemed to last forever. When one batch of zanphs
and globes had been disposed of, another lay a few yards further on,
coming out of another ship and another and another, some ravening to
kill, some weak and sick, desiring only to escape. After the ninth
"saucer" as John