Taranto sprang forward to snatch up the wicker stretcher from the ground. A long-fingered hand clutched at his shoulder, but let go when he kicked backward without looking around. He raised the stretcher and swung it around in a wide arc at the three Syssokans reaching for him.
Two, having left their heads unprotected, went down; but the stretcher frame crumpled. Taranto tripped the other Syssokan, glancing hopefully at the sky. There was no sign of the fire-trail of a descending spaceship in the deepening twilight. Then he had to duck as the other three bearers were upon him.
"Get up, Meyers!" he yelled.
He met the rush with a hard left that dumped the leading Syssokan on his back. The next hesitated, and was brushed aside by the sixth, who had had the wits to unsling his spear.
Taranto sidestepped the crude but large point that thrust straight at his belly. The shaft of the spear slid along his left ribs, and he punched over the outstretched arms of the soldier at the Syssokan's head. He clamped the spear between his elbow and body, retaining it as his attacker staggered back.
Two or three were now advancing from where a knot of figures seemed to be sitting upon Meyers in the gloom. They did not especially hurry. Taranto had begun to reverse the spear to jab at the Syssokan left facing him when he heard a scrabbling behind him.
He whirled away to his right, ducking instinctively as a body hurtled past him. When he faced about, he found that most of those whom he had knocked down were again on their feet and advancing. The officer, the lower part of his face smeared with purplish blood, ran at Taranto full tilt. He screamed an order in his own language.
The spacer cracked the butt of the spear smartly against the Syssokan's head, sending him down on his face. One of the others, however, managed to get a grip on the weapon. Instinct told Taranto that any attempt at a tug of war on his part would lead to a fatal entanglement. He dodged away and sprinted toward the group pinning Meyers.
A Syssokan voice yelled mushily behind him as he concentrated upon driving with the greatest possible force into the writhing group before him. He struck with a crunch that tumbled bodies in all directions. Taranto himself felt sand scrape raspingly against the side of his face as he half-rolled, half-skidded along the ground.
His pursuers now caught up to the new location of hostilities. The first thing Taranto saw as he managed to drag one knee under him was the butt end of a spear plunging at his midsection. The Syssokan behind it had his center of gravity well ahead of his churning feet, obviously intent upon doing great bodily harm. The spacer wondered for a split second why the native did not use his point.