Cole found his voice and his senses once more.
"I must find a weapon! Grandfather, give me your flame pistol!"
"Soon, lad. Soon now. Let the power take you," the old man soothed.
Stompers streamed over the moor again and the fighting flared up. The war song beat against the man's ears so that he drew the girl nearer and shook the thigh bone. Blaster fire flickered out altogether and the red blooming of flame pistols weakened. But more and more stompers streamed past without attacking. Then the man saw fire mist plume lazily in the east, point after point coalescing all along the forest edge.
"Now!" shouted a great voice beside him. "Now, lad!"
It was old Bidgrass, striding out like a giant, blaster leveled in its carrying harness.
The shout released Cole and he saw it far off, coming down the scrap rubble to the moor. Huger than any, white crest thirty feet above the ground, Grandfather Stomper. The war song roared insanely over the moor. Hoggy Darn gleamed heart-midst of the three lady moons.
The grim old man aimed and fired. The great bird-shape staggered and came on, left wing trailing. The old man waited until it was nearly on top of him and fired again. The stomper jerked its head and the bolt shattered the great tripart beak but did not kill it. With the right mitten-wing it reached down and swung its adversary twenty feet up, held him and haggled at him with its stumps of beak.
The old man's free right arm flailed wildly. Cole beat the stomper's leg with the thigh bone and howled in hatred. Then he saw the flame pistol lying where it had fallen from the holster. He picked it up, but the power was on him again and he did not use it. He hurled the thigh bone at the stomper's head, diverting it for a second, and tossed the pistol to old Bidgrass. He knew they could not fail.
The old man caught the pistol. When the great head swung back he held the muzzle against the tri-corn eye and fired. Red plasma-jet burned into the brain behind it. The stomper bounded once in the air, dropped its slayer, ran three steps and collapsed.