Then the insect men of Jokar Ged swept up to the ladders and swiftly mounted toward the hilltop above.
Crossbow bolts and spears could not drive back that swarming horde. The defenders tried with poles to fend off the ladders and their loads of bloodthirsty Yzaps but spears from below soon put an end to their endeavor. Then they hurled great rocks down upon the enemy, sweeping many of them off but never for an instant halting that dogged advance.
Rurak Dun saw that the tide was turning against the defenders of the hilltop even as he slipped his rocket pistol over the rim of the cliff and started picking off the attackers one by one. Fear of the explosion as much as the sudden death that struck among them made the Plains' Yzaps falter and then come to a halt.
"Only a popgun!" Jokar Ged was bellowing as he dashed among his startled followers. "Will you be driven back by a little stick that spits lead? Come along, up the ladder with you."
His heavy fists were lashing out, trying to beat courage into the insect men. Rurak shot at him again and again but the luck of Droog must have protected his evil carcass from death. All around him the Yzaps were falling dead with bullets in their heads.
The weapons of the other defenders now increased their fire and shortly the demoralized ranks of the renegade Martian's party were straggling away among the brushy cover that the lower slopes afforded. For the time there would be respite from battle.