CHAPTER VI

"The Old Order Changeth--"

A new note rose suddenly in the din of battle. It had been a howling note of despair before; the outraged cries of impotent Wild Ones mingling with the dying screams of the gallant Women. Now there rose to the skies a paean of joyous triumph. Hoarse masculine voices cheered madly as the horde of hairy Wild Ones found the barrier before them gone. Daiv foremost, their avenging circle closed in upon the village.

Where but a few moments before this engagement had been a slaughter of the Jinnians upon which the Wild Ones had been forced to look helplessly, now the battle became a free-for-all, split into a half-hundred tiny sectors.

Here a cherry-flame, wielded by a retreating dwarf in tarnished armor, winked its ruddy eye amongst Men who cried out, steamed, and fell. There a dozen Wild Ones hurled themselves upon a tiny knot of Japcans, literally ripped the yellow men into bloody shreds, and raced on--with one of the Wild Ones now brandishing a lethal ray-stick!

Still another place a handful of Mayco invaders fought vainly to fight a diverse foe--the Women before them and the Wild Ones who charged upon their flank. Up to now the Japcans had been content to subdue this Jinnia uprising with the green, stupefying ray; now they broke out their red weapon. Meg curdled with agony to see Women die beneath that cherry-flame.

But--Daiv?

Even as her mind asked the question, she found him. He had been at the farthermost perimeter of the circle; now he was racing recklessly across the central arena toward her. In haste or sheer bravado he had picked up no ray-weapon, but still brandished the huge, two-handed sword with which he had stormed the citadel.

But it was not this that miraculously saved his life from the lightning of crimson that flashed about him. It was his instinctive grace and agility, his perfect sense of timing. More than once Meg's lips formed a wordless shout as it seemed one of those flaming tubes must surely spend its charge on his smooth, gallant body. Each time Daiv saw the new danger, swerved to avoid the ray. And more than once his mighty sword accounted for the dwarf who would have been his destroyer.

* * * * *

Then, from another angle of the courtyard, burst a fat, bustling figure. Grensu. His golden armor, once so proud, was now dented in a score of places; there was a red stain upon his forehead, his ripe lips were working with a fearsome rage.

His objective was Meg, and upon her he was advancing, mouthing vile threats.

"So, ivory one, you think to triumph at last? Know, then, that Grensu takes with him in defeat his adversaries!"

And he raised his ray-weapon to cover Meg. For the first time in all those hectic moments, a sense of personal fear weakened the Priestess' knees. It had not seemed ill to die for a worthy cause. But now--when the cause was almost won, and when, in moments, her lover's arms would have been about her--But, as ever, Grensu's vaingloriousness was his own undoing. Once too often had he stayed his vengeance for a speech. Now as his finger tightened on the button that would blast Meg into rancid oblivion a tremendous object came hurtling through the air.

It was Daiv's claymore. Seeing there was no other way to halt Grensu's move, Daiv had heaved it squarely at the dwarfling commander with all the strength his mighty arms possessed. It was like a whistling flail of the Gods as it cleft the air; ripped the ray-tube from Grensu's hand, and with the spitting stick sheared yellow fingers.

Then, even as Grensu howled his pain and turned to flee, Daiv was upon him. He lifted the squat, heavy dwarf, massive armor and all, above his head; shook him as a dog might shake a ground-rat. Grensu's thick lips blubbered incoherent pleas, his eyes bulged wildly. But there was stone in Daiv's breast.

By the head and the calves he grasped the screaming commander; his arms made one sweeping motion. Grensu's fearful bleat ended in a choked wail of agony ... something snapped like a forest twig....

Grensu lay still.

* * * * *

Afterward, one of the Wild Ones came to Daiv where he stood with Meg beside a god-box that now lay quiescent on the ground.

"They call for the Priestess, Master," he grinned. "The Old One lies dying. Will you bring the lovely one to the _hoam_?"

Daiv said, "I have told you, Wilm, that it is not necessary to call me 'Master.' I am a Man, like yourself; we are all Men, proud and noble. Do not forget." To Meg he said, "You remember Wilm; don't you, Golden One?"

Meg did, though it was difficult to see behind the grinning, confident features of this hairy one the same terrified creature whom Daiv had rescued from the pit just the day--could it be so short a time?--before. She nodded.

"I remembered Wilm," Daiv told her with a happy-look, "when the lemon-skinned dwarf band attacked us. From the first I knew our defense was futile. We were too few. We needed more, and stronger fighters. So I went for the aid of the Wild Ones--aid which Wilm had pledged me should I need it.

"Though," he shook his head ruefully, "I did not know they would have this other weapon, the wall-that-cannot-be-seen, when we returned. Without your help, Golden One, all would have been lost."

"And without his," mused Meg, "I should be the pale bride of death." It was an unprecedented gesture for a Woman and a Priestess of the Jinnia Clan to make, but Meg made it. She stretched forth her hand. "I would grip your hand in my own, Man of the forests. Henceforth let there be peace between us."

She winced at Wilm's enthusiastic grip. Then, "But let us make haste, O Daiv, my love. The Mother sends for me; I fear she will soon go to join the Gods."

There was already the God-look in the Mother's eyes when they reached the _hoam_. A look of strange peace, mingled with one of happiness, as she looked fondly upon Meg.

"I am to be with you but a little while longer, my daughter," she breathed quietly. "The Gods have called me, their voices stirred in my ears like the whisper of night-winds in the trees. Soon I shall go."

Meg's happiness was suddenly gray with the cloud of heart-hunger. She dropped to her knees beside the older woman's side.

"You must not go, O Mother!" she sobbed. "There is much to be done, and only thy wisdom can achieve it."

The pale hand of the tribal guardian sought, found, Meg's golden head.

"You speak the truth, daughter mine. There is so much to be done. But already you know how to lead our Clan upward to the stature of the Ancient Ones. With your mate at your side--"

There was a concerted gasp from the assembled Women of the Clan. The Mother, hearing, smiled wanly.

* * * * *

"Yes, thus openly do I approve that of which, from the beginning, my heart approved. Listen, my children--Meg was right. In her pilgrimage she learned, as did I many winters ago, that the Gods were Men. Men like Daiv. She rebelled against the Law that said a Priestess might not mate--but she was right in her rebellion.

"List, now, for with the all-seeing eyes of one on the threshold of death I tell you truth. It is right that Women should mate with Men. There should be no Workers, no Warriors, no breeding-mothers. Our Clan should own no stud-males, pale chattels like our kine and horses. All this is wrong."

Lora, her harsh-lined face sagging with confusion, cried, "But, Mother--the Wild Ones!"

"Never again must we prey upon the Wild Ones. Do you not see that the Gods avenged our doing so when they permitted Meg to be captured in one of the pits we dug?

"Henceforth--" The Mother's voice grew weaker, and a hurt-devil pierced Meg's heart. "There will be peace and amity between Women and the Wild Ones. I see a day--a day in the future to come--when mankind may again attain to the heights of the Ancient Ones. In that day the children of the Ancient Ones may return from the evening star to find a new world happier than that from which they fled--"

Daiv whispered to Meg, "Her holiness is one with the Gods. Hear now her sacred vision!" and Meg saw that his eyes were wet with heart-rains.

Then said the Mother to Meg, "Once I deferred judgment upon you, my child. Now I give my approval of you ... and of this Man who is thy mate ... and of all you have done. Lead well thy people...." And she was gone.

A soft murmur stirred through the room, a murmur that was the sobbing of a bereaved Clan. One by one the Women left the presence of death for the sunshine and life of the world outside.

Only a huddled group of Japcan captives, over whom grim-jawed Warriors stood guard, the bodies of those who had fallen in the battle, the scarred and blasted _hoams_, told of that which had been. Soon all this would be changed; a new and better existence would rise out of the mistakes of yesterday.

Wilm was capering at Daiv's side, plucking at his elbow feverishly. "Daiv, Master--"

"Not 'Master,' Wilm!" reminded Daiv sternly.

"Daiv, friend," corrected the Wild One. "Will the Women do as the aged one told them? Will they now, perhaps, become our mates?"

There was a pathetic eagerness in his voice. Meg was strangely stirred by it. Not so the angular Lora, who sniffed aloud.

"The Mother's word is the Law, O hairy thing that smells." Her voice was derisive. "What Woman of our Clan so excites your fancy? One of those, I suppose?" She nodded toward a young and buxom breeding-mother, white-fleshed and not yet plump from over-bearing, who strolled down the walk-avenue with hips swaying enticingly.

But Wilm shook his head.

* * * * *

"That?" he exclaimed. "Pah! What Man would want such a wobbly thing? I like a strong Woman; a Woman with arms like a weathered oak. A fighting Woman. A Woman like--" He paused breathlessly. Then, "A Woman like--_you_!"

"_Me!_"

The Warrior Chieftain gasped. Then the slow crimson started at her throat, spread slowly upward until it mantled her cheeks. And her voice was choked. "Like _me_, Man?"

"Not just _like_ you," said Wilm staunchly. "_You!_"

Meg waited for the Chieftain's reply, atingle inside with wonderment and tickling little fun-bubbles. Then Lora spoke, and her answer was the answer of all womankind to the new regime....

"You must be mad, Man!" she declared. "But--but I think I like your madness. We'll discuss it further if you'll go bathe the smell from your body. And shave off that _awful_ beard...."

Meg looked at Daiv; he looked back at her, and a happy-look was on his lips. He whispered, "The change has begun, Golden One. The change for which I hoped. We will live in a new world soon. Surely the poet of the Ancient Ones wrote truth."

"Poet?" asked Meg. "I do not understand, Daiv."

"His name," said Daiv softly, "was Tensun. Long ages ago he wrote, 'The old order changeth, giving way to new ... and the Gods fulfill themselves in many ways....'"