and. They
lifted their weapons to the sky in salute, a tribute to whatever dark
Gods had sped the deadly bolt that wrecked the enemy craft.

Gerry gingerly handed the deadly lightning caster back to the pilot.

"That's an effective weapon," he said. "If these flying cars can only
stay with us for a few hours after we arrive at the city of Larr, we can
probably break up the attack of the Scaly Ones and...."

"We return to Moorn immediately, as soon as we have landed you in Larr,"
the pilot said with cold finality. "Those are the orders of the Council
of Elders."

* * * * *

Dusk caught them just as they passed over the Savissan coast line. They
saw the gleaming lights of various scattered towns and hamlets below
them. An hour later the lights of Larr itself came into view. At first
they were only a glow along the horizon. Then, as the flotilla of flying
cars swept nearer, the lights of the city began to take on definite form
and shape. Closana was again leaning eagerly forward.

"The lights look strange!" she said, "so many of them are unsteady and
flickering!"

Gerry Norton peered ahead through the night. His own eyes were narrowed
and thoughtful.

"Those flickering lights you see are ray-guns," he said at last. "The
city is already under siege."

Before attempting a landing as they came to the Golden City of Larr, the
flotilla of flying cars swept in a wide circle over the city and its
surrounding suburbs. Great fires burned in braziers along the walls.
Other fires had been kindled by the besiegers. Dozens of cottages
outside the circuit of the city walls were also aflame, blazing
furiously. The whole place was suffused with a ruddy and uneven light,
and the observers in the flying cars had a clear view of the scene
below.

Behind the battlements and bastions atop the city's walls crouched the
Golden Amazons of the garrison, loosing their storms of arrows at the
swarming besiegers below them. Other tawny-skinned crews worked the
alta-ray tubes that belched blasts of blue flame at regular intervals.
Wherever the blue beams struck, the ground was blackened while the
twisted and charred shapes of Scaly Ones writhed in brief agony. The
myriad brazen trumpets of Larr sounded hasty rallying calls, or else
tossed staccato signals from one part of the defences to another.

The hordes of Lansa had invested the city on three sides, the marsh-land
on the far border of the city protecti