Desix Owun's shifty eyes gleamed delightedly. He hurried down to where the two women toiled upward.
"I'm going back with the grenades, Jay," the lanky man said. He took a swipe at his huge nose. "Keep climbing while I cover the rear."
"I'd rather go back," objected Jay.
"Some of them may have gone ahead of us," said Onin grimly, "and they'll be pushing rocks and spears down at you. We're trapped here on the slope."
Jay could see the logic of the older man's words. He climbed upward along the broken trail of ledges and watercourses more swiftly.
And emerged suddenly, between two towering walls of shattered pink and black stone, on the edge of a grassy plateau-like expanse—the flattened top of the mountain they were ascending! He turned to call down to the others, and a spear grazed his shoulder.
From below three explosions, raggedly spaced, told of the effectiveness of the crude grenades. Then he turned to face the unknown enemies of the plateau.
They were butrads like those on the trail below, unlovely web-footed batrachians with the spraddled two-legged bodies of uncouth humanoids. Twelve of them there were, all armed with spears, clubs and knives of bone.
He fired carefully, husbanding his dwindling store of explosive needles. And they went down, one after another, until only one croaking giant remained on his feet.
It was then that the trimmer key jammed.