"You two, find the nags of the gentry we slew. I hear stamping nearby. Nirea, go to your own beast and wait for me. You two, with Rack, Jerran, John and me, we'll search the mines for men. We need plenty of them—it's miners' guts and muscles it'll take to move that beam-throwing thing from the cavern. Let's begin."
He drew the Lady Nirea up to him, slapped her face lightly, kissed her open mouth. "Quick, wench, hop when I speak!" A touch of starshine glistened on his grin-bared teeth. Then he turned and leaped off the rock shelf.
The nearest mine was guarded by three gods, nervously jiggling up and down in grotesque little air-dances; below them sat half a dozen hideous-headed zanphs. Revel crawled up toward the entrance. At the first touch of an alien mind on his own, he shot forward, pick flailing. Two gods he caught with one stroke, the third began to rise and his backswing took it on the underside and tore a gash as if the pick had struck a rubber bag: yellow gore dropped in a flood. He had no time to wonder if the third globe had telepathed a distress signal, for the zanphs were on him.
Their snake-like heads were fitted with only two teeth in each jaw, yet those were four inches long and thick as a man's thumb at the base, tapering to needle points. One zanph, propelled by all the vigor of its six legs, rose like a rocketing pheasant and clamped its jaws across his left arm. It overshot, and two teeth missed; but the others dug down into the flesh and grated on the ulna bone.
He gave it a jab of the handle of his pickax between its cold pupilless eyes, and it swung limp, losing consciousness but anchored to his arm by the frightful teeth. He cracked the neck of another zanph with his foot, spitted a third, and then Rack and Jerran were slaying the others. John appeared and lifted the first one's body so that Revel could disengage the teeth from his bloody arm.
"What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love to dissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into the mine.
"Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders."
There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly, Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. His blood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement.
To his banner, which was a dead god on Jerran's pick, there came forty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay at their posts, true to their false gods and the service of the gentry.