Already the beam, more sure now as John's hands grew confident of their power, was flicking over other buttons. The least play of its purple glow on the under surface of an alien ship was sufficient to send it catapulting down. The other buttons were moving, sluggishly, then more swiftly, coming toward the valley; and John could be heard swearing in a strange foreign tongue as he wheeled his great gun around and around.
A ragged volley of shots broke out in the western end of the valley. Revel jerked his head up. "They were squires!" he said. "We've got to get up there to help our men!" Rack motioned to the miners behind him and went off into the gloom; Jerran shouted, "Some for the fallen globes! Some have to stay to—"
Revel made a long arm, picked him up by the scruff. "Little man, are you the Mink?"
Jerran struggled ineffectually. "No, damn it, no!"
"Then shut your mug till you're told to give orders!" Revel dropped him, and roared out, "Two hundred men—Jerran, count 'em off as they pass you—to the fallen buttons! Pickax the globes! Break the skull of every zanph! The rest of you, up to the top o' this hill—spread round in a ring that circles this ledge, and don't let a squire or enemy through! We've got to protect John!" He turned, gripped Lady Nirea's wrist urgently. "Have you quick eyes and hands, love?"
"Faster than most men's, save your own." Her slatey eyes glowed eerily in the buttons' light.
"Then up you go," he said, and hoisted her up by the waist until her hands clenched on the upper edge of John's machine. "Perhaps you can help him. I can't spare a man yet. Luck, Lady!" He set off toward the nearest button, tilted crazily with its rim in a cleft rock. At the western end of the valley more shots were echoing and yells rose thin and frightened. He wished he could be in several places at once but the wounded ships were the place for a slayer of gods tonight.
The bottom projection, dark blue and some fifty feet across, had been knocked open by the force of the fall. From the dark interior zanphs were crawling, a veritable army of the six-legged, snake-headed beasts. An occasional globe floated out, but moving slowly as if it were sick. Pickmen were axing them out of the air with yells of glee, as the zanphs milled, then spread out to attack.
He swept his weapon in a long looping arc that tore the head off one and maimed another as it leaped toward him. It was the first blow in a personal battle that seemed to last forever. When one batch of zanphs and globes had been disposed of, another lay a few yards further on, coming out of another ship and another and another, some ravening to kill, some weak and sick, desiring only to escape. After the ninth "saucer" as John called it, Revel gave up counting, and slew his way from button to button, gore of red and yellow spotting and splashing him, wounds multiplying in his legs and arms and chest, half the hair burnt off his head by the energy auras of angry orbs.