teardrop abdomen of a working Micone maneuvered out of the dark ness. The Micone sensed their light and scuttled around to face the intruders. Its antennae almost straightened while it studied the man and gnomes. Sturm had a momentary flash of fear. If the Micone attacked, his lone sword would never prevail.
The Micone kinked its feelers again and turned away.
Sturm and the gnomes let out a collective sigh of relief.
They inched past the giant, who was busy chipping away glassy 'dew' from the shelf below a row of eggs. A fragment of the clear encrustation landed at Rainspot's feet, and he pounced on it. He dropped it in a tiny silk bag and pulled the drawstring. 'For later analysis,' he said.
The caverns gave no sign of ending, and after penetrating a hundred yards or so into them, Sturm called a halt. The place they stopped was thick with Micones, and the giant ants swept past the explorers without any heed. Cupelix had told the ants to ignore them, and the ants obeyed, in their precise, unswerving way.
'We'd best go back before we get trampled,' Sturm said, dodging a flurry of Micone legs.
Rainspot drifted away from the others to where the ants were engaged in cleaning the dragon eggs. As they chipped and anointed and turned the blockish eggs, the ants exposed the undersides of the eggs to the air. Some of the shells had a scabrous layer peeling off, and the ants scrupulously removed this dead layer. It was this cast-off shell that made the parchmentlike skin they'd found in the first chamber.
Rainspot picked up a sheaf of cast-offs below the lowest egg shelf. A Micone turned sharply toward him and snatched the leathery shell fragment with its mandibles.
'No!' said Rainspot stubbornly. 'It's mine, you threw it away!' The gnome dug in his toes and pulled. The shell wouldn't yield and neither would the ant. Rainspot got angry. His enveloping cloud thickened and lightning flashed within it.
'Rainspot, leave it. We'll take samples from the outer cave,' said Wingover. But the Micone's implacable resist ance made the usually mild gnome madder and madder. A cyclone four feet wide lashed at the ant, and miniature claps of thunder reverberated through the cave.
Sturm entered Rainspot's tiny tempest. To his surprise, the whirling rain was hot. 'Rainspot!' he said, grabbing the little fellow by the shoulders. 'Let go!'
A bolt of lightning, diminutive by nature's standards, yet still five feet long, struck the Micone in the center of its head. The strike knocked Sturm and Rainspot backward at least six feet. The gnome landed on Sturm, shook his head, and found that he was holding the scrap of eggshell.
'I have it!' he said triumphantly.
Sturm, flat on his back and not happy, said, 'Do you mind?' Rainspot blushed and rolled off the man's stomach.
'Look at that,' Cutwood said in awe. The gnomes ringed the lightning-struck ant.
The bolt had split the createature's head in half with the pre cision of a diamond cutter. The Micone's headless body col lapsed, the thorax sagging to the floor. Immediately, two more Micones appeared and began to clean up. They nipped the shattered ant's carcass apart and carried each bit away.
'At least we know they can be killed,' said Roperig.
'And our Rainspot did it!' said Fitter. The gentle weather seer was mortified.
'I've never lost my temper like that,' he said. 'I'm sorry. It was unforgivable. The poor myrmidon was only doing its appointed task, and I killed it.'
'You very thoroughly killed it,' Sturm said, impressed.
'Remind me not to make you angry, Rainspot.'
'I hope Cupelix won't be angry,' Rainspot said worriedly.
'It wasn't intentional,' said Roperig consolingly.
'I doubt any single ant is that important to him,' Sturm said. 'Now can we go back l'
The lamp failed before they were all up the ramp to the steam chamber. Wingover took the lead and each one held the hand of the person in front and behind him. They avoid ed the budding giants in the birthing cave — though Flash cast a longing look at his jacket, still dangling from the
Micone's jaws — and soon they were back in the rubbish filled grand cavern. The six Micones who had brought them were just as they'd left them, unmoved by as much as an inch. Sturm and the gnomes mounted, and without a word or gesture needed, the giant ants lurched into motion.
Chapter 24
The drnagon, with Kitiara clinging to his neck, dropped like a stone from his lair, flaring out his wings to ease his landing. Kitiara discarded her cloak and reached the notch-shaped doorway just as the Micones bearing Sturm and the gnomes appeared.
'It's about time you got back!' she yelled. 'Stand to arms, all of you — the Lunitarians are forming to attack!'
A barrage of glass javelins arced through the doorway to shatter on the marble floor. The gnomes, though curious, retreated under a shower of red glass splinters. The Lunitar ians were hooting wildly.
'They mean to have you,' Cupelix said. 'They're calling for your blood.'
'Surely they can't get in?' Rainspot said.
'The tree-men are beyond reason,' the dragon replied.
'So they're coming,' Sturm said grimly.'He shucked off his outer garb and made ready his armor and helmet. Kiti ara marched recklessly back and forth before the door, drawing the tree-men's attention.
'Shall we sting them a little?' she said to Sturm.
'It does seem necessary to discourage them,' he admitted.
To the dragon, he said, 'Can you lend us some Micones?
They would even the odds for us.'
'They would be of little use,' said Cupelix. A glass hatchet whistled in and thumped against his scaly belly. It bounced off harmlessly and broke on the floor. Cupelix regarded the ruined weapon idly. 'The Micones are almost totally blind in daylight,' he said. 'If I unleashed them, they would as likely cut you two to pieces as any tree- man.'
'Enough talk,' Kitiara barked. She hitched her shield up on her forearm. 'I'm going to swing some steel!'
Sturm cinched his sword belt tighter. 'Kit, wait for me!'
He was shieldless, but his mail was heavier than Kit's. He drew his sword and ran to the door.
The tree-men had scaled the earthen rampart turned up by the Micones and were using its height to gain velocity for their spear casts. Kitiara held her shield to her face as missile after missile crashed against it. 'C'mon, you bark-covered devils!' she shouted. 'Throw on! Kitiara Uth Matar is com ing for you!'
She started up the slope. It was hard going, what with the steep angle and the loose soil. Sturm, more circumspect, worked his way around the obelisk to where the rampart was not so steep. He gained the top at nearly the same time
Kitiara did, though there were forty yards and twenty-odd tree-men between them.
Sturm had to fence with the Lunitarians on the mound and dodge spears hurled from the ground below. The Luni tarians were hooting at the top of their voices, and it didn't take much imagination to see the anger distorting their sim ple faces.
Kitiara plowed into a trio of tree-men, all of whom tow ered over her. She did little more than inflict deep chips on them with her sword. She did catch one tree-man with his arm down, and lopped it off with a single stroke. The sev ered limb hit the ground and crawled about, seeking its former owner. It got tangled up in Kitiara's legs, and she tripped, falling backward amid a flurry of spear thrusts.
The tree-men converged on the fallen woman, and Sturm could only think that she'd been wounded. He roared at the foe and cut at their backs. Unable to strike through a heart and kill them, he concentrated on their stumpy legs. A glass blade swept over his face. The hot line it left dripped blood.
