They ran. Wyatt, Burdick and Whitfield all had ideas about giving Brinna a hand, only to find that she was going fleet as a deer with long clean strides. They ran their hearts into their throats and the breath clear out of them and they made it into a long colonnade that covered the walk beside a great building covered with the rows of sculptured dancing gods that seemed to delight Thurne's people. In the broad street men were dragging more of the queer little cannon into place. Their body-fur was dark and mottled with sweat. Several of them left the cannon and came leaping toward Makvern's party, their teeth and claws bared, but Thurne shouted at them in his own tongue and they stopped reluctantly. The five who had been captive with Thurne now ran to join the men with the cannon, which were already hurling shot at the stalking globe and not hurting it at all. Thurne pointed to a wide low door and said, "In here."
They crowded through. Over his shoulder, in the brilliant sunlight outside, Wyatt saw green fire in the street. The cannoneers fell down and the little guns were silent.
Inside it was quite dark by contrast, a great vaulted place so crowded with carvings and shadows that for a minute or two he couldn't tell if anything alive was in there or not. Then he got the sounds, the breathing and stirring, the whimpering of small creatures, the whisperings. His eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw that the place was full of women and children huddled along the walls on either side and in the alcoves which he supposed were shrines because they had big ornate statues in them and little lamps. The children, especially the very young ones, looked like oversized kittens.
Makvern said, "See those statues, and the gilding of the vault? All gold, and the stones are real too, every one of them. A poor place to seek sanctuary from looters."
The hot feral eyes of the women made Wyatt shiver. All along the way they would rise and come out with a white gleaming of claws and teeth. If it had not been for Thurne they would have been torn to pieces in seconds. Wyatt was glad when they reached the other end of the building and emerged again into sunlight and the sharp sounds of battle.
The red globes were stalking everywhere now, their monstrous forms visible over the roofs of houses or between the towers of the larger buildings. The defenders were being struck down or driven back into the heart of the city, and troops of Uryx were already in the outlying streets, beginning the systematic business of sacking Obran.
A globe had just passed by in the street, leaving in its wake a litter of stunned forms that looked sufficiently like corpses, but the troops had not yet come in sight. There was another huge carved building across the way. They raced toward it, and the men who were operating the departing globe did not see them in time to fire.
This building was better lighted inside, although it had just as much carving, gilding and statuary as the last one. This was obviously a hospital. Some of the patients began to scream at the sight of the strangers and attendants ran to bar the way. Once more Thurne's authority got them through—almost. This time, as they reached the doorway at the far end, a party of Varsek's troops came in.
There were eight or nine of them with stunners in their hands. They were expecting trouble but nothing more than they could easily handle, and the first thing they saw about the group inside was the uniforms of Makvern and his officers. The leader actually saluted, and while he was doing it he saw the Earthmen all armed, and the Alpha Centaurian armed, and he said in sudden alarm to his party,
"Look out, these are the people—"