The arm withdrew, and out from the whole length of the spindle thrust other arms, hammer tipped, held high aloft, menacing.
From all the length of the wall arose panic outcry. Abruptly the storm of arrows ended; the catapults were still. Again the trumpets sounded; the crying ceased. Down fell a silence, terrified, stifling.
Kulun stepped forth again, both hands held high. Gone was his arrogance.
“A parley,” he shouted. “A parley, Norhala. If we give you the maid and man, will you go?”
“Go get them,” she answered. “And take with you this my command to Cherkis—that HE return with the two!”
For an instant Kulun hesitated. Up thrust the dreadful arms, poised themselves to strike.
“It shall be so,” he shouted. “I carry your command.”
He leaped back, his red mail flashed toward a turret that held, I supposed, a stairway. He was lost to sight. In silence we waited.
On the further side of the city I glimpsed movement. Little troops of mounted men, pony drawn wains, knots of running figures were fleeing from the city through the opposite gates.
Norhala saw them too. With that incomprehensible, instant obedience to her unspoken thought a mass of the Metal Things separated from us; whirled up into a dozen of those obelisked forms I had seen march from the cat eyes of the City of the Pit.