'We can't hold that fire now!' Nelson cried. 'It will be into Vruun in an hour. Pull back!'
Retreat was a lesson the Clans had never learned. Wild with battle-excitement, they would have refused to retreat now had it not been for the wall of flame sweeping toward them.
Tark sent out his thought-cry. 'Back to Vruun, Clan-brothers! We must get all out of the city before the fire reaches it!'
From out in the river a submachine-gun started hammering at them as they drew back from the water.
A stallion crashed down, a tiger screamed in rage and pain. Nelson, having lifted Kree's body across the back of Hatha, led the way through the forest.
Great scorching winds howled and whooped about them and flung blinding smoke to impede their way. The steady crackling of the sky-high wall of flame behind them had grown to an ominous roar.
Nelson felt rage and hatred equal to those of the Clans about him as he stumbled with them through the smoke toward Vruun. He knew that Nick Sloan would coolly bring his forces on down the river just behind the fire, following it in complete safety. And Sloan could wait, smiling, while the people of Vruun died amid the flaming trees.
'Hurry!' cried Nelson. 'Hurry!'
The southern edges of the city were crowded. All those who had been left behind had come there to watch the doom that rolled toward them down the reddened sky — the females, the old, the very young. The winding forest-avenues were choked with them.
As the returning Clans swept into Vruun, scorched and bloody and raging with defeat, from all sides the anxious question came.
'What word? Is the fire stopped?'
Then they saw Hatha and the burden he carried and it seemed to Nelson that the whole city gave one great cry of woe and was silent. Nsharra was waiting for them outside the Hall of Clans, and Nelson saw from her face that word of Kree's death had reached her.
She flung her mantle on the grass. She said to Nelson, 'Lay my father here under the trees.'
As he did so, he heard the thought of the Clan-leaders to Nsharra. 'You inherit the Guardianship now!'
She took the weight of duty on her slim shoulders. 'What is the word?'
Nelson told her rapidly. 'You must get every living thing out of Vruun,' he finished. 'The fire will be in these forest-streets in less than an hour.'
Nsharra showed no sign of fear. She turned to the leaders.
'Lead your Clans to the northern hills, up beneath the mountains!'
Quorr growled. 'Let the females and the young go. We stay to fight!'
'Fight what?' Nelson demanded. 'The flames?'
He whirled and pointed to the southern sky. Crimson and cruel it lowered over them and already the flickering glare was lighting the streets of Vruun.
'Will your Clan pull that down with their claws, Quorr?'
Tark's thought was furious. 'But to run away like cubs, with our tails between our legs-!'
'So that you'll live to fight later!' Nelson told him. 'When the ashes cool the Clans can come down from the hills and attack the Humanites again!'
'He is right, Tark!' Nsharra supported. 'Go now and spread the word!'
Nelson heard the cry go out by voice and thought. 'North to the hills and tarry not, my brothers!'
And they went, out through the streets of the doomed city under the reddened sky.
Mothers drove their children ahead of them — wolf-cub and tiger-cub and human. Mares with their foals went by. Broad pinions of the Winged Ones beat northward through the fiery gloom. Moving out, moving out, even as the Clans had fled from the forest! And fear went with them on the bitter air and the eyries were empty save for the drifting smoke.
Watching this, Eric Nelson came to a desperate decision. He told Nsharra, 'Sloan and Van Voss are the backbone of the whole Humanite campaign. If I could get those two and their weapons out of the way the Brotherhood would have a fighting chance later on!'
She looked at him, white-faced. 'I know what you are thinking — that you must stop them because
Nelson did not deny it.
'But it's impossible!' she cried. 'You can't get near them. They won't come on until the fire has swept us out of Vruun and out of the forest!'
Nelson said swiftly, 'But when the fire has cleared the way for him Sloan will make for the Cavern of Creation! I know him — it's the platinum there he's after, first and last.'
He caught her arm. 'You must show me how to get into the Cavern, Nsharra! I'll wait there for them — I've a few bullets left and those two won't get out again if I can help it!'
Nsharra looked at him with wide dark eyes. Then she said, 'Come, I'll show you the way.'
The streets, the forest-ways, were almost empty now. The last stragglers were disappearing northward through the trees. It was none too soon. Ash was falling like snow and the wind was hot. The Clan-leaders came racing back, their eyes burning with the anger and the shame of flight. Hatha had brought a mount for Nelson.
'Is the city cleared?' Nsharra cried.
Tark's quick thought answered. 'It is cleared.'
'Then it is time to go!'
She looked for a moment at her father, stretched out as though in sleep upon the dark mantle, his head pillowed on the grass.
'Leave him here in his city,' she said.
She turned and sprang to Hatha's back. Nelson also mounted, and they galloped northward out of Vruun after the Clans. Smoke coiled thick among the trees, lit by the strange red glow. Ash fell more heavily and the wind brought burning showers of sparks.
Looking back minutes later, Nsharra cried, 'The city burns!'
Nelson looked back also and saw the flames leaping triumphant behind them. They flared in great twisting banners from the treetops, turning the forest-ways into red rivers of fire that flowed northward. The crest of that fiery flood raced after the fugitives, roaring, dancing, eating the trees as it pursued.
'Faster or we'll be trapped!' Nelson shouted.
He saw how the glassy bubble-roofs back there had turned smoky red as the flames washed over them. They did not burn or crack but they glowed in the terrible heat, the minarets throwing back the crimson glare.
Choking, coughing, burned by flying sparks, Nelson and Nsharra and the Clan-leaders raced ahead of the leaping flames. Nelson clung desperately to his mount as the Hoofed One smashed through brush, leaped dry gullies, bucked and scrambled over fallen trees. He could barely see the others in the smoke.
They burst out of the woods onto the open plain that rose ahead of them to the barren foothills. Another spurt, another staggering burst of speed and they were safe. The fire flared to the edge of the woods and checked.
Now, close above them, Nelson saw the throbbing eye of the Cavern of Creation, pulsing with mysterious light. The Clans were moving up on either side of that coldly flaring orifice, on up into the higher bare hills.
On a flat ledge just outside the glowing mouth of the Cavern, Nelson stopped and dismounted. Nsharra did likewise.
She told the four leaders, 'Nelson and I go into the Cavern! You lead your Clans on to safety.'
Nelson cried, 'No! You're not to stay in there with me, Nsharra — only to show me the way!'
'I am Guardian now,' Nsharra said firmly. 'It is my duty and my right to go with you.'
He realized from her tone that argument would not sway her. And there was no time for argument. Time was running out.
'I go also!' Tark's thought cried and the other leaders echoed him.
'No!' Nsharra denied. 'You also have your duty- to lead your Clans to safety.'
Wolf and tiger, horse and eagle, wavered, irresolute. Then, as Nsharra repeated her command, they unwillingly went on into the darkness of the upper slopes.
Nelson uttered an exclamation. He had turned to look back, and now he pointed downward. By the glaring light, they could see Nick Sloan's rafts coming down the blood-red river past the blazing city.
