Meg's heart leaped in her breast as a startled fawn at the voice of a hunter. Swiftly she breathed, "My undying thanks, yellow friend. Meg the Priestess will never forget this—"
She sprang forward. The surrounding forest was but a few yards distant; let her reach that leafy fastness no dwarfed invader could ever recapture her. She would flee to a neighboring tribe, there find help for her captured Clanswomen....
These thoughts spun dizzily through her brain as she took three ... four ... five leaping strides to freedom. And then there came a violent, staggering shock! Pain trembled through her body, flooding her with torment; it was as though a mighty hand had struck her across the face, bruised her straining breast, flung her backward.
She lay in a crumpled heap, dazed, shaken, upon the ground. And in her ears was the belly-deep, taunting laughter of the yellow-skinned guards—and Leekno! Leekno's bulbous body quivered with jelly-like mirth; fun-waters streamed from his eyes.
"'Meg the Priestess,'" he howled, "'will never forget this'! How right you were, white-legs. Tell me, is it your bruises that will keep the memory fresh in your mind?"
Meg said nothing. But she reached out, cautiously, before her. This time it was a hesitant finger, rather than the reckless force of a headlong plunge, that touched the invisible wall. Even so, her finger jerked like a slain snake as jolting current grounded through her. Her jaw set, Meg endured the pain, pressing.
Nothing happened. With every ounce of her whiplash strength behind that finger, she could not make it penetrate that barrier.
She rose, a great anger cold in the pit of her stomach. To the still-laughing guards she said, "This is a coward's weapon, O dwarfs the color of slime! Yet it will take more than this wall-without-bricks to save you when my neighboring Clanswomen come to rescue us. Their swords and arrows will hack this fanged barrier to bits—"
"So?" mocked Leekno. "Move aside, Togi." And he stepped over the god-box, moved to his right, and was facing Meg. "Togi will lend you his dagger, Woman. Hurl it at my breast and learn the truth."
Meg snatched the proffered weapon eagerly. And in the same movement spun and whipped it squarely at Leekno's bulky frame. There was a brief, scintillant prick of light. The dagger dropped harmlessly to earth at the circle's rim. Leekno's thick lips continued to grin as he returned through the portal which stretched above the box.