Mike's eyes were only for her. He did not see a guard nearby who turned suddenly and charged him with the flat ugly sword gripped tight in his fist. Mike knelt down to lift Doree. The sword plunged down. But instead of going into Mike's back, it was driven deep into the breast of M'Landa who had hurled himself forward.
Nicko, with a curse bellowed in some obscure dialect, leaped forward and took the guard into his hands. He lifted the guard and held him aloft with one hand. With the other he tore the man's throat out and hurled him dying and bloody across the pit.
The whole building trembled at that moment, obviously from a bomb hurled off a Baserite ship. But Mike and Nicko were scarcely aware of this new thunder. Mike had set Doree on her feet and was now holding the fallen H'Lorkan warrior in his arms. Gently he withdrew the sword. There was a lump in his throat. He said, "Thanks, friend. You'll never be forgotten. I will always remember."
M'Landa smiled. He spoke and Nicko interpreted. "This is a fine worthy death. I could ask for no more. I die pleasantly, in the hope that the Ptomenites are brought down forever."
Then he was dead and there was no time to mourn him. "Back upstairs," Mike said. "Your father is in a cell there. We've got to get him and then find a way out of here and to the ship—if we aren't too late. I've got a hunch McKee and Talbott will be heading in the same direction."
Nicko had picked up Doree's robe. He threw it over her shoulders and he and Mike formed a cordon in front and in back of the girl, Nicko going first. They headed for a stairway while all about them bloody slaughter was taking place.
The priests had found the exit doors mysteriously locked and what few guards were in the pit proved to be helpless against the outraged horde from above. The priests and the guards were being torn to pieces as though by the fangs of maddened dogs. The screams of terror and agony were a crescendo drowning the whine of the ships overhead.
Professor Brandon was crouching in the far corner of the cell. A man of peace, this place of blood and confusion was beyond his conception. He was in a daze, his mind having thrown up a buffer against horror.