"These pack-ponies can't go fast!" Nick Sloan started to object and was silenced by the grim reply.
"They will!"
They rode pellmell down slippery rock slopes, Shan Kar leading them southward. And forest came darkly up to meet them — black forest of fir and larch and cedar that seemed to clothe much of the great valley.
Each of them led one of the pack-ponies. Nelson noted that the heavily burdened, shaggy little horse he led was nervously running with all its strength.
"The Hairy Ones can go faster than we, but we have a start!" rang Shan Kar's voice from ahead. "All depends upon which of the Brotherhood are out!"
A few minutes later, as though to answer him, a squalling cat-scream drifted from far behind them — a screech of feline anger.
"Quorr and his clawed ones, too!" cried Shan Kar. "And Ei's scouts wing ahead!"
Nelson had already glimpsed the dark shapes of great winged things sliding fast above the forest, only momentarily visible through the tangle of black foliage against the silvered sky.
Ei's folks — eagles of the Brotherhood! Nelson saw three of them sweeping overhead, then circling back.
Abruptly they emerged from the forest onto rolling moonlit plain.
"Those are the lights of Anshan!" Shan Kar called back over the rush of wind. "See!"
Nelson glimpsed a few closely grouped lights far ahead in the moonlit vagueness of the valley. Then they were lost to view as the party galloped down into a declivity of the plain.
Hai-ooo!
Wolf-clan of the Brotherhood shouted to each other as they raced down the valley in pursuit!
Nelson thought, "I should be wondering if all this isn't a crazy dream. Only I know it isn't!"
No dream — no! The great peaks that walled L'Lan loomed lofty and clear in the moonlight. The wind smacked his face with irritating persistence, a twisted stirrup-leather was rubbing his leg raw.
Again the lights of Anshan came into view as they topped another rise in the plain. At the same moment, Lefty Wister uttered a strangled yell. "Blimy, they're—"
It was choked from his lips. Nelson, turning in the saddle, glimpsed the dark wolf-shape that was dragging the Cockney from his frantically bucking pony.
Black leaping forms were all about them, eyes and teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Eagle-wings threshed the night close overhead.
Nelson had his pistol out but his own pony was so frantic with fear that he could not fire. He heard a Dutch curse from Van Voss.
"Off saddle before they pull us down one by one!"
Nelson yelled, making a split-second decision. "Stick together—here!"
He was sliding from the saddle as he spoke, holding his scared pony's reins. A bkck bulk came at him in soundless rush and he triggered his automatic.
The staccato bark of the gun seemed momentarily to startle the dark beast-forms that were now all around them. As the creatures wavered, Van Voss shot the wolf that had dragged Lefty down.
The Cockney staggered up, a forearm slashed and bleeding, mouthing curses. Nick Sloan and Li Kin were already dismounted and Shan Kar was leaping catlike with a short sword from beneath his cloak.
"Help me get the tommy-guns out!" Nick Sloan shouted.
"Look out!" came Li Kin's scared cry. "There are men with them!"
Eric Nelson was later to remember this as the moment in which he first realized the fantastic otherworldliness of this valley.
For with the dark beasts charging them now came mounted men — men and horses who companioned wolf and tiger and eagle, men who wore queer metal skull-cap helmets and breastplates and wielded swords.
"There is Tark with Barin!" yelled Shan Kar.
Tark? Nelson's heart jumped. The great wolf who had been Nsharra's comrade, who had nearly had his throat out at Yen Shi?
Then he saw the wolf. He glimpsed that massive hairy head plunging forward beside an iron-gray horse on which sat a yelling, sword-wielding young man in helmet and breastplate.
Nelson and Li Kin and the Cockney had their rifles off their saddles and fired at the dark forms charging through the moonlight.
"Kill the men!" Nelson yelled. "The brutes will run off if we get their masters!"
He knew almost as he said it that it was not so, that his incredulity and accustomed habits of thinking were deceiving him.
For these beasts were intelligent. They showed it by the way in which wolf and tiger came on in irregular zigzag leaps to avoid the rifle-fire that was obviously new to them.
In one sense, it was like all the battles in which Eric Nelson had ever engaged. There was the same sense of crazy confusion, the lack of a clear pattern, the feeling of being caught in a random collision of forces in which personal effort counted for nothing.
Then, as always, the fight suddenly crystalized. The youth whom Shan Kar had called Barin was shouting in a high, ringing voice, the other horsemen and the great beasts gathering toward him. "Stand clear!" yelled Sloan, from behind. Nelson and the others jumped aside and Sloan and Van Voss let go with the submachine-guns they had hastily unpacked.
The chattering storm of lead broke full on the human and beast attackers massing for charge. Blood-chilling horse-screams and cat-squalls ripped the din as mounted men and beasts crashed.
"They are beaten — they cannot face your outland weapons!" cried Shan Kar. "See, they flee!"
The beasts and the few horsemen left were dropping back, retreating from that deadly fire. Tiger-squall and wolf-howl rose and fell swiftly. Hoofs drummed the plain. Then Nelson heard a long, clear eagle-scream from far up in the moonlit sky. There followed comparative silence. Shan Kar, sword in hand, was bounding out toward the dark bodies dotting the plain.
"Nelson, what kind of place is this valley?" came Sloan's shaken voice. "Wolves, tigers, eagles—"
"Kuei!" exclaimed Li Kin tremulously. "Shan Kar spoke truth! Brute and men are equal here — at least, in the Brotherhood!"
They heard Shan Kar yell something and plunged forward after him. They were in time to witness an astounding spectacle. Shan Kar, sword in hand, was tensely approaching a mighty, crouching wolf that had been attempting to drag away a man's limp form.
"It's Tark!" cried Shan Kar. "He was trying to drag Barin away!"
Eric Nelson glimpsed the flaring green eyes of the great wolf as it turned its face toward them. It did not snarl, as an ordinary beast would have done. It merely crouched for an instant, seeming to choose its victim swiftly before it sprang.
Nelson, startled, raised his rifle as the wolf launched itself for his throat. Shan Kar yelled at the same instant.
"Don't kill him if you can help it! He's valuable to us alive!"
The wolf would have died despite that cry had Nelson been able to shoot in time. But the spring was too swift for that. Nelson, involuntarily stepping back from the blazing-eyed charge as he raised his gun, tripped and stumbled.
He just glimpsed the terrific swing of Sloan's heavy gun as the other batted with it at the plunging wolf.
He heard the thud of the blow, felt Tark's massive, hairy weight hit him — but limply. Then he scrambled hastily from beneath the motionless body of the stunned wolf.
"We've got Tark alive and Barin, Kree's son, too!" Shan Kar exclaimed. "And we've given the Brotherhood its first taste of our new weapons!"
The man was ablaze with exultation and excitement. Nelson looked down at the two bodies. The wolf still lay senseless, and the youth Barin was bleeding from a crease-wound across the temple.
Nick Sloan looked more shaken than Nelson had ever seen him as he stared at the dead beasts that lay there on the moonlit plain.