Unarmed, they were useless. Dumarest twisted, throwing his body back, face turned upwards; the weapon in his hands firing, aimed by instinct. The foremost Monitor burst in a rain of metallic fragments.
"Adara! Quick! Damn you, man! Open fire!"
He was too slow, forgetting to cock the weapon, fumbling as he jerked at the protrusion. Dumarest snarled, firing again; hitting the switch on his harness to fall as death tore the air where he had been. He rose, the unit sluggish as the Monitors swept past and down, to rise again in a sharp curve towards him. He saw their glowing lenses, the guns aimed and steady, the orifices which would spout missiles to take his life. One he could hit, never both; and one wasn't enough.
"Earl!"
Adara was rising, his face taut, the gun awkward in his hands.
"Turn, you fool!" He was facing the wrong way. "Turn!"
The Monitors were beyond him, a little above as they came in for the kill. Another second and they would open fire. Dumarest tensed, jerked to one side, lifted the gun and closed his finger. Flame blossomed as one of the things died, but the other had already fired.
Then Adara was before him, a living barrier against which the missiles burned; to explode, to rip apart flesh and bone, to shower the air with a fine spray of smoking blood.
Dumarest dropped, turned as the Monitor passed; he fired at the head, the missiles hitting the torso, the hips, shattered metal falling to join the tattered bundle which once had been a man.
"Thank god!" As he landed, Arbush came running from a crevasse in which he had only seen the blur of movement, the flash of explosions against the sky. "Earl, I thought it had got you. I saw-"
"Adara." Dumarest looked at the woman. "He saved my life at the cost of his own."
"I'm glad, Earl. Glad that it wasn't you."
"I wish it hadn't been anyone," said Arbush. "In a way, I liked the man. Felt a little sorry for him, I suppose. Well, he's dead now, and at peace." He rubbed thoughtfully at his cheek. "At least we're out of danger."
"For the moment." Dumarest searched the sky, tensed as he saw three more flecks in the distance. "Take those units off. Hurry!"
Eloise frowned. "Why, Earl? We shall need them."
"Do as I say." Tearing at the harness, Dumarest stepped from the tangle of straps. "Those Monitors followed us and more are coming. How do you think they found us?"
"A beacon?" The minstrel was shrewd. "Inside the units, Earl?"
"I think so. What else are we carrying which could contain it. They're homing in on a broadcasting unit. Now get rid of them and hurry!"
A deep crevasse swallowed the machines, Dumarest leading the way from the spot; ducking, keeping under cover, out of sight of the Monitors who had grown in the sky. An overhang gave on to a blind grotto, a dead-end facing the crevasse in which they had dumped the units. Rocks lay before it, the gray stone slimed with ice; he crouched behind them, the others lying flat to the rear.
Arbush whispered, "We dumped the food, Earl. If we lose the units-" He broke off, remembering the past; the bleak and savage time before they had reached the city.
"We'll be alive," said Dumarest.
"True, if they're satisfied with finding the units. But if they should look for us, what then?"
"We pray." Eloise's voice held an ironic amusement. It changed as vibrations tore the air, the shock of explosions shaking the stone on which they lay. "Earl!"
"Be quiet!"
"But, Earl-"
"Damn you, woman? Be silent!"
The units, he knew, had been destroyed, their signaling devices stilled; but unless the Monitors were fools an examination would be made. They would have expected to see the fugitives, could still expect to find them, and they must know that they couldn't be far.
They would be drifting above at this moment, flying slow and low, sensors alerted for sonic vibrations; the unmistakable signs of infra-red radiation which would betray the presence of living tissue.
Something scraped at the end of the tunnel leading to the grotto. A fragment of ice fell, a small stone. Slowly Dumarest reached beside him for the gun, lifted it, steadied it on his arm.
The weapon could, in itself, have betrayed them; but it was the only defense against the things they had. And he couldn't be sure how effective it would be; how many missiles it contained. Only one, perhaps, in which case they were dead. But if it held only three, they had a chance.
Again came the scrape of ice and something dropped from above. He heard a soft inhalation as Eloise sucked in her breath, the rustle as Arbush moved, his urgent whisper.
"Get it, Earl! Quickly, for God's sake!"
Dumarest didn't move, staying frozen, blended into the rocks behind which he lay. One Monitor was in sight; where were the other two?
Something hit the overhang as another metallic shape came into view. Two facing him and one above; out of sight and impossible to reach without showing himself. And the things were fast. It would fire before he could turn and aim.
Unless, somehow, its attention could be distracted.
Dumarest rose, aimed, fired all in one quick movement, the missile bursting against the head of the foremost Monitor; slamming it back against its companion. The weapon it held lifted, firing as the fingers clamped in dying reflex, sending a hail of missiles into the air above where he stood.
An explosion wracked the air as Dumarest sprang from cover, turning in mid-air to see the Monitor above falling, limned with flame; he turned again to send the last shot his weapon contained at the remaining Monitor as it climbed to its feet.
As the echoes died Arbush said, dazed, "God, Earl, I never thought a man could move so fast. You were just a blur."
Speed and luck, which had won the calculated gamble. Looking at the wreckage Eloise said, "What now, Earl?"
"We walk."
"Walk?" Her voice was high, incredulous. "Without food or fuel? A thousand miles or more over this ice? Maybe it would be better to end it now."
"We walk," he said again. "And we try to contact the Krim."
* * * * *
The man was small, plump, his face smooth in its rim of fur. His hands were broad, dark with hair on the backs, the nails blunt and filed short. He wore garments of quilted fabric, warmed by the power-packs at his belt. His name was Juskan, a trader.
"You were fortunate," he said. "If you had handled things differently, made a threatening gesture even; well, you wouldn't be here now."
"Luck," said Arbush. "Earl is loaded with it. I read it in his palm." He dipped again into his bowl of stew, swallowing, chewing a fragment of meat. "Luck," he mused. "Sometimes I wonder if, of all the things a man could wish to be given, that is not the most important. Is there more stew?"
"Help yourself." Juskan gestured to the pot which hung on a tripod over the fire. "How about you?"
Dumarest shook his head. "Later, maybe."
"And you?"
Eloise put aside her bowl, shaking her head. Her face was hollowed, thin with privation, her eyes enormous beneath the level brows. A week, she thought, or had it been longer. Days in which they had crossed the rugged ground, staying always on the skyline; burning garments at night to make a clearly visible flame. And then had come the Krim.
They had arrived like ghosts, furred balls with peaked, suspicious faces; talking only in monosyllables, armed with knives and primitive guns.
And now, incredibly, they were safe. She leaned back in the low chair, looking at the expanse of the underground cavern to which they had been taken; the walls thick with luminous fungus, the roof crusted with mineral deposits. Such places were to be expected, the Krim had to live somewhere; once explained, it all seemed so obvious.