Atar and I, rising alone from our defeat, met our main army coming down to help us. The light-sleighs had carried the news.
Hastily we told them of our disaster. It was my fault, no doubt; I should never have split my forces. How easy it is to look back and say what should have been done!
Atar was anxious to descend at once, with all our men, in one desperate attack. But I was learning the art of warfare. Inexperienced still, yet now not wholly so. We must wait here, I told them, for Nona and the girls to return. And by then the enemy would be on this side of the forest. In the open, we would attack them with all our forces at once, as Atar said.
“Look!” shouted Atar.
Above us, in the direction of the forest, the blur of swiftly moving forms showed, with lines of white, V-shaped, behind them.
It was Nona and the girls—victorious in what they had undertaken. The news heartened us. We had lost a few of the girls and dolphins—and two hundred and fifty of our best men. But we had done the enemy all told a more than equal amount of damage.
For half an hour we waited. Atar and I twice cautiously descended. The Maagogs seemed all out of the forest—and were advancing on Rax. High over them in the water, we followed; and almost within sight of Rax, we dove down in a mass upon them.
It was a scene of carnage which at first seemed inextricable confusion. My forces spread out—attacked the enemy everywhere at once. The Maagogs seemed to prefer the sea-bottom; they clung there and fought stubbornly.
At Atar’s insistence, I held my dolphin at first in mid-water, out of range of the fighting. Below me was the center of the struggling mass—the main force of sword-armed Maagogs. Against them, in the glare of Atar’s light-sleighs, I hurled my older men. They were fighting down there in the brilliant light. We were outnumbered in this section, but I could see that my men were more than holding their own.
Off to the left—toward the forest—a cloud of the black fishes had come up. With them were the Marinog electric men; and against them I sent my own two hundred and fifty youths—and the girls and dolphins.