The whole Vestoian army was running. "Pakriaa!" Paul plunged after her, caught her shoulder. "No pursuit!" Her eyes glazed in mad rejection; he thought she would bite his wrist. "Turn your soldiers! Bring them down on the Vestoians from the boats—the boats!"
She could understand that. Her order was the shriek of a rusty nail on glass, and it turned them. It brought them howling down to the beach to aid what was left of the first hundred. The water was a jumble of abandoned boats—even the paddlers had struggled ashore to kill and die.
Mijok ploughed in a second time.... That ended it. Some of the Vestoians might have glimpsed what he did to the land soldiers. A few forgot all custom and threw their spears, which Mijok's shield carelessly turned; then they stared with sickness at their empty hands and waited for the club. Meanwhile the strengthened crowd of pygmies worked on till the sand was redder than the sky and there was no more to be done. "Back!"
Pakriaa screamed "No!" and pointed south. Paul stumbled on something slippery. He stooped to her, yelling, "Omasha! The sky will be full of them. Let them fight Lantis. We've lost a hundred already——"
Her face became sane and blank in agony. "My people—my people——"
"Yes! And other boats are still going north. Your soldiers must pick up the hurt and run for it."
There were not many living wounded in this sudden quiet. A spear has scant mercy. And the lifeboat had not come.... Mijok was holding out his shield on both arms; he had tossed his stick aside. "Put them on this. I can carry six—seven." When the shield could hold no more he lifted it, his face contorted and changed. "Paul—I told myself I was back in the old life, when we always killed them if we could. But the new laws—oh, Paul, the laws——"
"War perverts all laws. But the laws are true. It is—climbing a mountain, Mijok: we slip, fall back, try again. Nothing good in war, only necessity, choice of evils. Now make the best speed you can, friend—don't wait for us." Mijok ran with his vast strides, holding the shield out in front so that the motion of his body would not jounce it.
Pakriaa would not move till the last of the survivors had stumbled past her. They were disciplined. Already some of the soft bowmen had taken out arrows of the whining, glittering type that sometimes frightened off the omasha. They were ready. Paul tried to count, gave it up. Less than three hundred. The archers had not suffered much. Paul said, "Your leg is hurt, Abro Pakriaa. I'll carry you."
She was indifferent. "I thank you." He slung his rifle and caught her up, naked and slippery with blood and acrid-smelling paint. Her weight was less than forty pounds. Her head lolled back; she whispered to the sky, "No one should call me Abro. I am Pakriaa the child, weak as a male, a fool. I could have followed. I could have brought her to the ground. I let her go. I am a red worm. I blame you for it, Paul-Mason. You and your friends. All of you—except Sears, who is a god with a window on another world."