Farree had pushed past Vorlund and was busy with the door latch, Yazz crowding in beside him, ready to leap when that portal opened.
It must have been their united fear which reached Bojor. For the bartle had halted and was standing now, back to the cliffs, from facing outward to where that webbing lay across bare earth. Maelen accepted the warning of them both. With no questions asked she pointed directly to the screen where Bojor was to be seen.
The light sparks shifted as the bartle settled back, again on his haunches, a favorite stance to await attack. His paws hung down before his barrel of body and, though Farree could not see them clearly in the minute flashes of light, he knew that the bartle was extending to their fullest length those broad punishing claws which could tear apart any attacker who got too close.
"What—" Vorlund moved, planting one booted foot over the fastening of the trap door in a stride so swift that Farree had only an instant to get his fingers out of the way. "What are you doing?"
"The hagger– Underground!" Farree returned impatiently. "They can attack, never coming into sight, from below! Lady, call him back!"
Maelen's fingers blazed, building up, as Farree knew, power for her mind sending. But if she reached Bojor, the bartle gave no sign of having received any such orders. His mouth was a little open and they could see his head more clearly, for the sparks were now clustering tighter there about. Though those within the ship could not pick up the sound, Farree knew that the bartle was roaring a challenge. He grasped a fleeting mind picture of a dark tunnel in the earth and things moving along it. Had he or had he not also glimpsed for just a second just such a figure as those small men he had seen in his "dream"?
He thrust his shoulder against Vorlund's leg, the suddenness of his move pushing the spacer off the door even as he struck a fast blow with the side of his hand against the latch. With his other hand he jerked up the plate which formed that barrier and Yazz, snuffling and whimpering beside him, leaped down, not touching the steps of the ladder.
Farree swung, folding his wings as tightly as he could. But it was always difficult to struggle through such passages with what he bore on his back.
Vorlund was following, but he could move no faster than Farree lest he push before him, perhaps disastrously, the smaller, hunched body. He asked no more questions and Farree would have had few answers for him if he had. There was only one thing true—that Bojor was about to face such an attack as none of his kind had ever known and against which all his strength and native knowledge would provide no defense.
They were in the lower corridor now and Yazz was on her hind feet against the wall, pawing at the controls of the ramp.
Farree reached up also and snatched from the rack mounted there a stunner kepi for just such emergencies when trouble awaited outside.
He brought the butt of that against the ramp controls just as Vorlund caught him by folded wing edge. Farree glared at the spacer.
"Out!" he said between gritted teeth. "Bojor will be taken else."
The ramp had answered; the hum of its expansion vibrated through the ship and the scent of ill-bane was wafted in to them by a brisk breeze. Yazz had already taken the lead and was riding the ramp out and down, her formidable rows of teeth locked around one of the railings to steady her as she was swung by the motion of her footing.
Vorlund loosed his hold on Farree. "What and from where?" he snapped.
"Hagger and from underground! Their webs already lie out there. But those are old. Now they are being led!"
Farree leaped ahead, free of the ship port. His wings expanded and he was airborne in the night, wheeling about to face that part of the cliff where Bojor waited at bay.
The spots of light were larger and brighter here, making a beacon easy to see. Farree shook his head a fraction; having left the interior of the ship, he could feel better and stronger that warning of the coming of the attackers. Beating his wings against a strong flow of air he headed toward the splotch of light. A moment later and he himself gathered up attendants. For the same sparks of fire which had hailed Bojor sprang to life around about him, outlining his body, gathering in a tight cluster over his head.
At the same time his wings faltered in their beat. He was nearly sent earthward as their power failed for the pace of a heartbeat of two, while in his mind the old ache steadied into an ever-growing pain. He forced himself on but it was as if he were trying to beat his way through some viscous invisible flood in which his wings were being tangled and slowed until he was brought down so low he was skimming across the ground, the toes of his space boots caught now and again by some higher tangle of growth.
Yet he refused to answer a compulsion and go a-foot, for there grew in him the strong feeling that as long as he continued to fight so he was free of another entanglement, this one ready to grip his mind. He was able to pick up Bojor's rage now. Not since the bartle had helped to retake their ship, captured by the Guild fighters on Yiktor, rescuing Maelen and Vorlund from imprisonment, had Farree known such anger to fill the brain of the huge furred one. However, threaded through that anger was puzzlement, for Bojor as yet faced no visible foe, only sensed, as did Farree himself, the threat growing ever stronger.
Those sparks of light which clustered over his head and followed the likeness of his suddenly too-heavy wings were glowing brighter. Pressing against him was the power which attempted to bring him to earth, perhaps to render him useless in any confrontation to come.
As Farree fought on, throwing all his strength into the struggle with the pressure, he was suddenly shocked by such a spear of thought as he had not felt even from Maelen, the acknowledged leader in their own communication.
"Come—die! Traitor, losstreek, demni—"
Loud and firm as that rang in his mind, he could not pick up, save as a wavering and faceless shadow, who thought that. But that opponent had erred for, by the very storm he so loosed, he gave Farree himself a goal for a counterattack.
At the very edge of that part of the valley floor which was crisscrossed by the web lines, Farree settled, though he kept his wings spread, and kept so little of his weight on the ground that he hardly crushed the last straggle of ill-bane.
Instead of concentrating on keeping aloft, he now bent all of his strength on a mind thrust—dragging out of the depths of himself anger engrossed by fear—a fear he projected on that other. Because he had no other clue and very much needed a target, he pictured his opponent firmly—one such small man as he had seen in the hall of the crystal—giving that vision all the details he could summon.
Above and around him the points of light blazed—no longer white, but green as if the ill-bane itself had become a fire and he had wound the flames about him as he might a cloak. The green motes swirled now, all gathering above his head and moving so fast that they appeared to form a ring. But Farree was more aware that his mind touch had vanquished a shield. It was not a shield like any he had met before—either the science-produced ones the Guildsmen had worn on Yiktor, or those he had encountered with Maelen, Vorlund and the Zacanthan when they had tested him in hope of finding some answer to the barrier which he found so crippling.
Having damaged it, Farree now threw strength against it. At his second raging attempt the barrier went completely down. He was caught up in a chaos of thoughts but the greatest and clearest was intelligible enough. The one who broadcast was afraid, yes, but under the spur of that fear was determination to act. It was true that the broadcast came from underground and the general direction showed that he who was coming into attack was heading toward Bojor. Only the mind Farree was now reading in part did not see the attacker to be physically engaged in any battle.