From the button above them a line of globes dropped, golden globules radiating bright energy.
Whom the gods destroy, they first madden. That was part of the Globate Credo, wasn't it? Well, Revel had been gradually made mad that day, and now, by Orbs, he'd show them something before he was destroyed!
As the first descended past him, and wrapped two tentacles under the girl's armpits to lift her, he lifted his pick to smack it as he had the supervising deity in the mine. He felt a tug; another globe had a whiplash arm around his pick. Gritting teeth, he threw his tremendous brawn into a swing, and the pick tore loose from the tentacle and sprayed the guts out of the sphere before him. It fell on the grass beside Nirea, an emptying sack. He slashed a second and a third, laughing between set lips. What a way to go down—killing gods!
Then he felt a searing pain, a sudden spasm of the flesh, as though a sword had been heated in a bonfire and laid alongside his ear. Reflectively he ducked to earth, sprang two steps forward and spun, rising to his full height again. One of the bulbous brutes had touched the side of his head, its energy aura so strong at that close contact that the hair was burned to a char and the flesh scorched.
So they could really hurt a man! He grinned with pain and defiance. If his pick wasn't as fast as any damned floating ball, let them kill him! He waited, crouched, keeping his eyes on them; and then they were rising again, leaving him there in the valley with a screaming girl in a silver gown.
Jerran, who had just started his own rest space, evidently, appeared on the rock shelf and came down, walking faster than Revel had ever seen him go. The little man came to him and, hardly glancing at Lady Nirea, said, "Were you attacked, lad?"
"I did the attacking, when they objected to my touching this wench."
Jerran gazed up. "They're spreading out. The gentry will soon be on you, Revel. You've got to hide."
"Where can you hide from a god?" It wasn't a hopeless tone he used, but a kind of laughing, bantering acceptance of his doom.