Nelson and Li Kin and the Cockney had their rifles off their saddles and fired at the dark forms charging through the moonlight.
"Kill the men!" Nelson yelled. "The brutes will run off if we get their masters!"
He knew almost as he said it that it was not so, that his incredulity and accustomed habits of thinking were deceiving him.
For these beasts were intelligent. They showed it by the way in which wolf and tiger came on in irregular zigzag leaps to avoid the rifle-fire that was obviously new to them.
In one sense, it was like all the battles in which Eric Nelson had ever engaged. There was the same sense of crazy confusion, the lack of a clear pattern, the feeling of being caught in a random collision of forces in which personal effort counted for nothing.
Then, as always, the fight suddenly crystalized. The youth whom Shan Kar had called Barin was shouting in a high, ringing voice, the other horsemen and the great beasts gathering toward him. "Stand clear!" yelled Sloan, from behind. Nelson and the others jumped aside and Sloan and Van Voss let go with the submachine-guns they had hastily unpacked.
The chattering storm of lead broke full on the human and beast attackers massing for charge. Blood-chilling horse-screams and cat-squalls ripped the din as mounted men and beasts crashed.
"They are beaten — they cannot face your outland weapons!" cried Shan Kar. "See, they flee!"
The beasts and the few horsemen left were dropping back, retreating from that deadly fire. Tiger-squall and wolf-howl rose and fell swiftly. Hoofs drummed the plain. Then Nelson heard a long, clear eagle-scream from far up in the moonlit sky. There followed comparative silence. Shan Kar, sword in hand, was bounding out toward the dark bodies dotting the plain.
"Nelson, what kind of place is this valley?" came Sloan's shaken voice. "Wolves, tigers, eagles—"