Warlord of Kor Part 12

"Mara! Pull up--get out of there!"

"One of the wings is damaged," she said quickly, and suddenly there was another jolt on the screen and he heard her gasp. The picture spun and righted itself, seemed to hang motionless for a moment, and then the stone wall of one of the buildings was directly ahead and growing larger.

"Mara!"

The image spun wildly, the building filled the screen, and then it went black; he heard a crash from the speaker, cut off almost before it had sounded. The room was silent.

EIGHT

Rynason stared at the dead screen for only a moment; he wheeled and ran back to the outer room.

"Let's get those flyers up! Mara's found them, but they've brought her down." He was already going out the door as he spoke.

Manning and the others were right behind him as he dashed out onto the field. Rynason headed for the nearest flyer, a small runabout which had been discarded as obsolete on the inner worlds and consigned to use out here on the Edge, where equipment was scarce. He leaped through the port and was shutting the door when Manning caught it.

"Where are they? What's happened to the woman?"

"They were shooting something!" Rynason snapped. The knife-scar over his right eye stood out sharply in his anger. "She crashed--may be badly hurt. She didn't have too much alt.i.tude, though. The h.e.l.l with where she is--_follow_ me!"

He slammed the door and squeezed into the flying seat. While he warmed the engines he saw the others scattering across the field to the other flyers. In a moment the hum of the radioset told him that their communications were open. He saw the props of the other flyers starting to turn, and flicked on his mike.

"They're on the other side of the south range," he said quickly. "She didn't give me coordinates, but I should be able to find the spot. When we get there, we land away from the city and go in on foot."

Manning's voice came coldly through the radioset: "Are you giving orders now, Lee?"

"Right now I am, yes! If you want to try going in before reconnoitering, that's your funeral. They have weapons."

"When we touch ground again I'll take over," Manning said. "Now let's get going--Lee, you're first."

But Rynason was already starting his run across the field. When he had some speed he kicked in the rocket booster and fought the little flyer skyward. When he had caught the air he banked southward and fed the motors all he had. He didn't look around for the others; he was setting his own pace.

The mountain range was ten miles to the south; they should be able to make it in five or six minutes, he figured. Below him on the dry Flat he saw the pale shadow of his flyer skimming across the dust. The drone of the motors filled the compartment.

The radio cut in again. It was Manning. "What's this about a city, Lee?

Is that where they are?"

"The City of the Temple," Rynason said. "It's down among overhanging rocks--no wonder we hadn't seen it before. Doesn't seem to have been used for centuries or more. But that's where the Temple of Kor is--and the Hirlaji are all in the Temple."

Static hissed at him for a moment. "How did they bring her down?"

someone asked. It sounded like Stoworth.

"Probably the disintegrators," Rynason said. "The Hirlaji don't have many of them, but they've got enough power to give us a lot of trouble."

"And they're using them, eh?" Manning said. "What do you think of your horses now, Lee?"

Rynason didn't answer.

In a few minutes they were over the range. Rynason had to scout for awhile before he found the pa.s.s he had seen on Mara's screen, but once he saw it below him he followed it out to the other side. The city was there, lying darkly amid the shadows of the mountains. Rynason banked off and set down half a mile away.

He waited for the others to land before he left the flyer. He took a pair of binocs from the supply kit and trained them on the city across the Flat, but he couldn't find Mara's fallen flyer.

When they were all down he clambered out of the compartment and alighted heavily in the dust. Manning strode quickly to him, wearing twin stunners. He took one from its holster and fingered it thoughtfully as he spoke.

"The main party was back in the pa.s.s. They should be here inside half an hour. We'll storm the temple immediately--we've got them outnumbered."

Rynason made a dubious sound deep in his throat, looking out at the city. He was remembering that he had seen it before from this Flat ...

and had stormed it before. The defensive walls were high.

"They can fire down on us from the walls," he said in a low voice.

"There's no cover out there--they'd wipe half of us out before we could get in."

"We can come around from the pa.s.s," Manning said. "There's plenty of cover from that direction."

"And more fortification, too!" Rynason snapped. "Just remember, Manning, that city was built as a fortress. We'd _have_ to come from the Flat."

Manning paused, frowning. "We've got to take them anyway," he said slowly. "d.a.m.n it, we can't just stand here and wait for them to come out at us. What are they doing, anyway?"

Rynason regarded the older man for several moments, almost amused.

"Right now," he said, "they're probably having a conference--with the Outsiders. That's where the machine is, remember."

"Then the sooner we attack, the better," Manning said. "Marc, get the main party on the hand-radio--tell them to get here as fast as they can." He turned for a moment to look out across the Flat at the city.

"And you can promise them some action," he said.

Stoworth dropped the radio from his shoulder and threw back the cover.

He switched on the power, and static sounded in the dry air. He lifted the mike ... and a voice cut through the static.

"Is anyone picking this up? Is anyone there?"

It was Mara's voice.

Rynason knelt beside the set and took the mike from Stoworth's hand.

"This is Lee. Are you hurt?"

"Lee?"

"I hear you. Are you hurt?"

"Not badly. Lee, what are you doing? I saw the flyers land."

"Manning wants to attack the city as soon as the land party gets here.

What's going on there?"

"I'm ... in the temple. I've been trying to communicate with them. I've got an interpreter, but they don't listen to what I say. Lee, this is incredible here! They've brought out a lot of weapons ... some of them don't work. The hall is half-filled with dust and sand, and they move so clumsily! They're trying to hurry, because they saw you too, but it's like ... like they've forgotten how. They think they can get rid of us all, but they.... It's pitiful--they're so slow."

"Those disintegrators aren't slow," Rynason said. Manning was standing beside him; he dropped a hand on his shoulder, but Rynason shook it off.