They came to the fire-break that the men of Vruun had labored all day to hew across the forest, and Nelson groaned inwardly.
This ragged hundred-foot lane, cut at such labor from the woods, would never stop the cyclone of flame raging up from the south.
"We must start our backfire going from the south side of this lane, and keep it from jumping back across!" he told Kree. "And there's little time!"
The whole night a few miles ahead was now a sky-high chaos of smoke and flame. The red glare lit the hosts of human and beast warriors now pouring here from the north.
"Fire to stop fire, my brothers!" Kree's thought called, from his steed. "It must be your task to prevent it from jumping back."
They did not like it, Nelson saw. The blood-mad excitement of the Clans checked briefly with something that was close to fear. But they had the courage to face what was to them the supremely dreaded thing.
"Fire to stop fire!" flared Tark. "Let it begin!"
Nelson had dismounted. Now he hastily supervised the men Kree deputed to the task of starting the backfire. Their torches kindled the dry brush like tinder all along the southern edge of their fire-lane. Dry cedar and fir blazed up and the edge of the lane became a new wall of fire moving back south toward that mightier oncoming wall.
But moving slowly, slowly! The wind was against them, Nelson realized. Blazing leaves and twigs began to whirl across the lane, to dance with joyous wickedness over the narrow gap.
"Stamp the fire-sparks out where they fall!" Hatha's thought called. "Help the man-Clan, Hoofed Ones!"