The staccato bark of the gun seemed momentarily to startle the dark beast-forms that were now all around them. As the creatures wavered, Van Voss shot the wolf that had dragged Lefty down.
The Cockney staggered up, a forearm slashed and bleeding, mouthing curses. Nick Sloan and Li Kin were already dismounted and Shan Kar was leaping catlike with a short sword from beneath his cloak.
"Help me get the tommy-guns out!" Nick Sloan shouted.
"Look out!" came Li Kin's scared cry. "There are men with them!"
* * *
Eric Nelson was later to remember this as the moment in which he first realized the fantastic otherworldliness of this valley.
For with the dark beasts charging them now came mounted men — men and horses who companioned wolf and tiger and eagle, men who wore queer metal skull-cap helmets and breastplates and wielded swords.
"There is Tark with Barin!" yelled Shan Kar.
Tark? Nelson's heart jumped. The great wolf who had been Nsharra's comrade, who had nearly had his throat out at Yen Shi?
Then he saw the wolf. He glimpsed that massive hairy head plunging forward beside an iron-gray horse on which sat a yelling, sword-wielding young man in helmet and breastplate.