t he was done.
Conquering agony, he swung up the pick before Ewyo could recover from
the vicious downswing. With a noise like a rock hurled into a rotten
melon, the pick tore through cloth and flesh to lodge in Ewyo's belly,
half its head buried in the screaming squire.

Ewyo tore it from the Mink's hands as he fell, and writhed about it,
curled like a stricken serpent.

The Mink dropped to one knee beside him, head bowed with nausea and
relief. "You were a brave man, you bastard."

Ewyo, strong in his fashion as Revel in his, stiffened his body so that
he could look straight up at his killer. "Not--especially brave," he
ground out. "You see--Mink--I had no--ammunition--for the gun...."

His pale eyes filmed over, and Revel staggered off, leaving him for the
crows and worms of the valley.

* * * * *

When he had come, dragging himself like a wounded stag up the rock
shelf, they stared at him in silence for a long minute. Lady Nirea at
last said, "But you are dying, Revel!"

"Not for a good many years," he grinned.

Jerran said, "Aye, cut him a thousand times and he'll make fresh blood
from that valiant heart!"

John called, "Look there, Mink!" Down the dawn wind rode half a dozen
golden orbs, high enough to be out of reach of their picks, low enough
to observe them. Revel gritted, "Blast 'em!"

"You can always shoot later, son. Let's hear what they want."

Reluctantly Revel waved a crimsoned hand to stop his gunmen. The globes
halted a few feet above the machine. Fingers of thought pried into the
Mink's head, and automatically up went his screen.

Then the cerebral prying ceased. John murmured, "They're talking to me."

Revel watched the silent exchange of thoughts. What if the obscene
things got hold of John's mind. Anxiously he scanned the strong face for
signs of fading will. At last he could stand it no longer, and was about
to order a volley, when John said, "I think that's it, Mink."

"What happened?" they all asked eagerly.

"The things parleyed. They see they can't get close enough to smash the
machine--that last explosion was a desperate try at crashing a saucer
with a bomb ready to trip, and it didn't work--so they want to talk. I
gave 'em a skinful." He chuckled. "Told 'em there were men of my time
wakening all over the world, with machines to defeat them totally; they
know whom they're dealing with now, and they're going to talk it over.
Mink, that's the end o