The sun was hot and searing. Good! It was his ally, that immense orb. While it shone, they could not catch him.
Tyr ran.
His pace was a blurred thing. His flight was that of the kala-bird whistling before the hawk. He swerved and he darted, and he made fools of the men in the shiny things above and behind him. It was an incredible thing that he did, but Tyr was an incredible being. The rules were not made for him, for who made the rules knew nothing of Tyr. He outran those aircraft.
All day long, while the sun beat upon him, Tyr flew. Vaguely he realized that he was a living, functioning thing of energy—not pure energy, but energy translated into human power.
Yet he was human, and the fliers were machines. He lost them among the rocks, but the aircraft spread in widening circles and one of them found him again. And so Tyr ran on. Once or twice he stumbled, toward the end of the day. The thunder of the jet planes was loud in his ears. They swooped low, casting long shadows before them.
There were no more explosions. Those had stopped once he began his mad race. He thought, 'At least, Fay and the others are safe. I've led the ardth a long way from them.' The muscles in his legs were hardening, knotting. They grew heavy and inert.
Tyr staggered.
The planes had landed, and the men were coming for him. The stars-and-bars on their jackets loomed bigger and bigger as he stood and waited. His chest rippled with sweat, and his long arms hung limp on either side of his giant frame.
He could fight and die here, with the moon starting its rise in front of him, and the wilderness of his run behind him. His body was pouring the energy through his system again, and his muscles grew less heavy.
"By Kagan!" swore the first ardth-man, staring at him with round eyes over the muzzle of a lifted gun. "Who are you, man? What are you?"