CHAPTER III

The Mate of Grensu

What happened then was never afterward to be clear in Meg's mind. She realized that the air was alive with the cries of the attacking dwarfs; that these cries found echoes in the shouts of her Warrior sisters who sprang forward to meet them.

She was conscious that a Warrior at her side, with a half-uttered choke of fear, had suddenly met breast-high a streaming light expelled from one of the invaders' sticks; she heard the clatter of metal upon rock as the Warrior's sword fell. She did not realize she had stooped instinctively to retrieve the fallen weapon until she found herself charging forward, cries ripping her throat, the sword waving above her head.

There seemed to be two Megs; one who raced futilely, vaingloriously, toward that crouching, smirking band of attackers; the other who stood somewhere apart from the mad press, watching the battle with impartial judgment. It was the first Meg who flashed down upon a stunted yellow man unnoticed, swung her heavy sword in a flailing motion that split his hauberk and sent his headless body toppling to earth.

It was the second Meg who noticed, with incredibly cool appraisal, that from the sticks of the invaders emerged two different types of light. One, a pale, greenish light, caused those bathed in it to drop their swords, cease their shouting, wander aimlessly off across the blood-drenched field. The other, a cherry-flamed light, was the horror of which the Durm Warrior, Vivyun, had warned.

The attackers seemed only to use _it_ when dire necessity pressed. Its results were ghastly. Meg's brain reeled before the shock of seeing a Worker on her right run full-tilt into that cherry beam. One instant the Worker was there; the next she was gone. A sharpened hoe lay beside a blasted doll-like thing from which, momentarily, rose a steamy mist and a nauseating stench.

Given weapons to match those of the yellow dwarfs the Jinnians might have won through. Their numbers were as great as those of the invaders; their spirit was that of Women fighting for their native homeland. Gallantly they pressed onward, forward--and as gallantly they died. Save for that greater portion of them who assumed the "life-in-death" Meg had marked; the stupid insanity that sent them staggering, weaponless, upon mindless errands.

For conquerors, the yellow men waged stupid war. They seemed more intent on capturing prisoners than on destroying--or perhaps they had not anticipated such a stubborn resistance. Howsoever that may have been, time and again a member of the Jinnia Clan, evading the sticks-that-flamed, would pierce the enemy lines. There, ere the cherry light steamed her body into brittle stone, her sword would draw the life-blood of a yellow invader.

* * * * *

Meg had learned much in her long pilgrimage to and from the Place of the Gods. Daiv had taught her how to take advantage of all natural protections when warring against a superior force. These guerilla tactics served her well now. With the first conflict of forces she had sprung to a place of concealment behind the ruptured wall; from this vantage point she could see straggling invaders as they entered the village; could not be seen by them until their eyes widened at the sight of a dripping sword thirsting for their throats.

Four died thus beneath her blade. Cautiously, now, she ventured a glance into the yellow men's defense line.

There she saw what her quick intelligence told her must be the object of her attack. Outside the village stood a tiny knot of dwarfs garbed in armor more glittering, more ornate, than that of those who made the attack.

These, Meg recognized, were the leaders. The commander-in-chief must be that overripe, ochre plum in golden greaves and casque; he who stood impatiently fingering the handle of his light-stick as he watched his warriors' progress.

To think was to act. It never occurred to Meg that her solo foray was suicidal. Hurdling the bodies of those before her, she leaped through the broken wall; raced, bobbing and weaving, shifting her course to make herself an impossible target, down upon the commander's party.

As she ran, her hair broke loose from its handknit snood; lithe muscles snapped the sinews that held her cloak. She was like some magnificent golden panther as, hair flowing behind her in a liquid honey stream, high, firm breasts rising with the quickening of her breath, she charged down on her tribe's enemies.

Thoughts flashed dizzily through her mind. A great burst of exultation; she was too near, now, for them to stop her! Then a soul-shaking disappointment. She had been seen! One of the officers' eyes bugged; he raised a light-stick--

Then most incredible thing of all--the commander-in-chief had seen her, and his porcine eyes, slanted and deep-sunk in rolls of saffron flesh, were glittering with delight. His left hand was beating down the cherry-flame of the lieutenant as his right was pointing at her breast his own stick. Light flashed--pale green. Something within Meg seemed to snap; suddenly she was suffused with a sense of coolness, a bewildering drainage of the fever that had coursed through her veins.

So funny. So funny to have thought this battle important. It wasn't, really. It was all a mistake. And the sword in her hand? Meg glanced at it idly, her charge slowing to a walk. She cast the sword away.

The din of conflict was a thin and distant sound. The world about her was sweet and green ... the clouds billowed on an endless blue like boat-sails scudding before the wind. _There was something she should remember._ There was a dancing haze before her eyes ... flowers about her feet. Were she to wander gently, now, to that farthest field--_what was it she could not remember?_--there would be golden buttercups and the prim, starch cornflower ripe for plucking.

Her body was numbed and drowsy with a sense of comfort. Only--_there was a Man; a Man named Daiv_--only she could not be happy here. Not unless she forgot her troubles, forgot the man named Daiv, forgot the world was spinning and reeling and swirling before her eyes like a gigantic wheel going faster and faster and faster....

Then there was blackness.

* * * * *

Her first thought was that she had fallen, momentarily stunned, on the field of battle. She woke with a start, groping for the sword that should be by her side.

It wasn't there. She touched the flabby flesh of a breeding-mother who, flaccid-breasted and aquiver, shook beside her in an ecstasy of fear. Meg gagged as she stumbled to her feet. Her limbs were still weak beneath her, as if the veins that fed them had been fouled; her head was filled with tiny imps who danced and shrieked unmercifully. But--she was alive! And the mists were clearing from her brain.

Now she knew there was sobbing beside her. Strange sobbing. Not the soft, easy gulping of a breeding-mother; a harsh sound like the rasp of an adze on _creet_. It was Lora, Chieftain of the Warriors. Her armor crusted with blood, her great hands twisting with grief, she was rocking backward and forward, alternately weeping and cursing the Gods.

"Now accursed be the breeding-mother that gave me birth!" was her plaint. "This night shall my stars burn as cinders--"

Meg shook her shoulder roughly.

"Lora!"

The Warrior Chieftain's eyes recognized her. Lora cried prayerfully, "Search well your girdle, Meg! Have you a dagger upon you?"

"No. But, why--?"

Lora beat her tiny, thwarted breasts with clenched fists. "I live!" she choked. "I, their leader, continue to live, while they lie there, in peace and glory--"

Meg saw, then, that she was part of a group huddled in the center of that which had been the fortress of their Clan. They numbered more than three score; a mixed group of battle-grimed Warriors, Workers, breeding-mothers, even one or two pale-faced, weeping Men. The studs of the Jinnia Clan.

But there was another group at the far end of the court. These would never again either laugh or mourn. They were the dead. Workers and Warriors for the most part, although a few plump, bulbous bodies fed the mound. In still another place lay the bodies of the slain invaders; these had been accorded more dignity. All about the arena lay curiously shaped pebbles which--Meg knew, shivering clammily--were not pebbles. Two stunted yellow men, grinning callously, now busied themselves raking up these grisly objects.

Meg said, "The--the Mother?" and as if in answer to her thought, a gentle voice reached her ears.

"I am here, Meg, my daughter."

* * * * *

Meg turned swiftly. The Mother of the Clan lay behind her, motionless, head lifted upon a bolt of cloth someone had provided. There was an image of dreadful pain in the Mother's eyes. Meg sprang to her side, heart bursting with sorrow.

"Mother--you are hurt!"

"Nay, daughter, I am slain." The Mother sighed; a wan breath of regret. "They had no intent to kill me. But the rays were too potent for my aged body. I will linger yet a little while, then I must go. It is sad that I must leave my Clan captive to a race of beasts like these."

Meg said, "Rays, Mother?"

"Yes, my child. Those weapons which our Warriors could not comprehend are similar to those which, in the old legends, it is told the Ancient Ones used to destroy each other. Vibrations that cause, in one case horrible death; in the other case, stupefaction."

"But--but how?"

"I am not sure. But I think the cherry-light has the power of absorbing all water from the human body, thus dwindling it instantly to a husk. The green ray interrupts the nerve-centers, breaking the brain's contacts with other organs." The Mother's face was resigned. "All these things and many others you would have learned, Meg, had not this catastrophe come upon us. And had not you returned from the Place of the Gods with--a mate."

Her last word reminded Meg of that latent question which the green ray had driven from her mind. Instantly her heart was cold with dread.

"Daiv! Oh, Mother--Daiv! I do not see him. Is he one of--of those?"

Her eyes stared with horrid fascination at the tiny pile of simulacra the invading warriors were raking together. But it was not the Mother who answered. It was Lora, now come to their side. The Warrior Chieftain's lean face was etched with scorn.

"No, Meg, your Man-thing is not there! That would be an honorable death for him."

Meg faltered, "Then--then where--?"

The Mother's eyes, in pity, would not meet Meg's. "He fled, Meg."

"Fled! Daiv fled!" Meg stared, every fibre of her body taut as the gut of a bow. "I--I do not believe it!"

Even Lora's harsh voice was more gentle as she said, "It is true. He was but a Man, Meg; a Man, weak and cowardly. With the first breath of fighting he turned and fled the camp. Into the hills beyond."

The Mother intervened, "Perhaps it is better so, my daughter. Perhaps your own madness escaped on his limbs? If ever we win free of this host--"

Meg's new-found world of love and happiness crumpled into shards about her feet. There was a redness on her cheeks, for Daiv and for herself who had let his mouth touch hers. The rains of weakness filled her eyes, and she said, "So be it, Mother--"

* * * * *

It was at that moment a coarse, guttural voice interrupted her.

"Ah--there she is! That's the one, Leekno. Step forth, ivory one!"

Meg turned. Staring at her, his lips red and moist as the pepper-fruit, was the golden-greaved and helmeted commander whose actions had at once saved her life and broken her will for battle. A fungoid puff-ball of a man with twisting mouth, his eyes upon her made Meg feel suddenly naked and unclean. She shuddered.

"Step forth, I say!" repeated the leader. A yellow soldier moved to enforce his command. Meg shook free of the underling's touch, moved a step forward with a proud freedom of motion that wakened a dancing light in her accoster's eyes.

His voice was a purr of satisfaction.

"I was right. Very well, Leekno, you may distribute the other captives to our men by lot. And mind there be no wrangling amongst them. This barbarian I will take to my tent."

Meg demanded, "What is the meaning of this, little monster? Who are you to thus address a Priestess of the Jinnia Clan, and what would you of me?"

The commander's slant eyes blinked in appreciative delight. "A spirited filly, this!" he murmured. "Know, then, Woman, that you are greatly honored. I am Grensu, captain of this band. We are a legion of the mighty race of Japcans who rule in the sunny land of Mayco, many days' march to the south of here."

From behind Meg the aged Mother's voice stirred in sighing wonder. "Mayco? In the books of the Ancient Ones it is written of a land by that name. But its rulers were white men--"

Grensu made mirthless happy-sounds in his throat.

"The old one surprises me. Aye, withered crone, in the early days it was as you say. But that was before the great wars, and before the rebellion of the Women. Even then there were in Mayco many of our race, children of the Sun.

"But when mankind destroyed itself and the Ancient Ones died out, battling first each other, then between their sexes, we stayed aloof; we waited and planned and bred. Our Japni blood mixed well with that of the Maycans, giving rise to the mighty stock we now represent--the Japcans." Grensu glanced down his own obese frame pridefully. "Now, not only are we the possessors of the secrets of the Ancient Ones' war-weapons, but we are become perfect in body and brain."

Meg laughed scornfully, "Little fat-bellied lemon, I could squeeze between my fingers--_so_!" And she took a step toward Grensu. For a second he looked startled; then an expression of mingled pique and admiration mottled his pudgy features.

"You will make a haughty doe to tame, ivory one," he smirked, "but tame you I will. Come!"

Still Meg did not move.

"Come where?"

"Have I not said," Grensu informed her, "that you are to be favored? Like the Wild Ones who infest the forests of your land, we of Mayco find need of new and sturdy mates. That is the purpose of our expedition. But you, white-limbs, I have chosen for myself!"

The high color rushed to Meg's cheeks.

"Me, little toadstool! Know you not I am a priestess and inviolate?"

Grensu's waning patience snapped. He turned to his lieutenant. "Leekno--!" he said.