A dozen men stood guard in groups of three at each side of the compound. They were armed with staves and already had adopted a familiar stance.
'Police,' said Talion. 'Bully boys enjoying their work. Give a man a club and a badge and authority and you've created a monster.' He spat on the ground. 'I guess we'll have to take them.'
Three against two with reserves for the guards. Dumarest slowed, studying the groups. Around them thronged others of the Ypsheim, a mixed crowd, some arguing as to the wisdom of keeping the creatures confined. One, a woman past middle age, illustrated her points with a series of expressive gestures.
'The Council,' she stormed. 'An order of the Council, they say-did we run from Krantz to make our own Quelen? Haven't we had enough of people telling us what to do? I say those things should be let loose. Why invite trouble?'
'They are our future,' said a man. 'Ulls Farnham has explained it all a dozen times.'
'Sure, sell their wings and use what's left as slave labor in the fields. Turn them into what we were back on Krantz but worse.'
'They're animals.'
'With friends.' The woman gestured to the fields now shrouded in darkness. 'They're lifting the seed from the ground-all that work gone to waste. Next they'll rip down the lights and break the wires. Will the Council replace them?'
'Open the cage!' yelled a man.
'Keep them tight!'
'Let them go!'
'You want to sweat like a peon? Keep them!'
A babble Dumarest ignored as he eased his way around the cage to halt at the side farthest from the argument. The three men in that position were a little less assured than the others, distracted by the rising voices, less alert than they should have been. Dumarest was almost at the mesh before one faced him.
'Orders of the Council-none to approach the cage.' The man lifted his stave to rest it against his right shoulder. 'That applies to everyone.'
'Especially you from the ship.' A second man faced Talion, his stave leveled at waist height.
The third man said, 'What do you want here anyway?'
He held his stave as if it had been a cane, one end touching the dirt, the palm of his hand on the other. A bad position if he needed to get the weapon into action.
Dumarest said, 'I was curious. I wanted a closer look at what you've got in there.'
'Didn't you bring in the dead one?'
'That's right.' Dumarest moved forward and to one side. 'It was a female. Like you have in the cage. Right, Lyle?'
'That's what I heard.' Talion stepped a little away from Dumarest, the guard facing him turning to follow his movement. 'But I've not had a chance to study them close. They say anything? Make noises, I mean?'
'Once,' said the eldest of the guards. 'A kind of whistling. I guess you could call that a noise.'
Keening or a cry for help. Had it been answered from above? Dumarest looked upward and saw the dark patches of wings against the stars. More crossed the newly risen moon, too large and too close for comfort. Above the swoosh of riven air came a thin, high-pitched ululation.
'Now!' Dumarest closed the space between himself and the guard, his hand rising, fingers bent backwards, the heel of his palm slamming against the unprotected jaw. 'Lyle!'
The man he had hit collapsed without a sound, unconscious, hitting the mesh before slumping to the dirt. Another joined him as Talion drove a fist into his stomach, following it with a cross to the jaw. The third guard opened his mouth to shout a warning; it was never uttered as Dumarest sent him to join the others.
'Cover me!'
As the engineer snatched up a stave Dumarest sprang to the top of the cage, knife gleaming as he whipped it from his boot, the sharp edge slashing at the tough strands of the net. A race against time; to release the captives before the other guards could overpower them or the angels wheeling above attacked.
One lost as the creatures below milled in panic, shrilling, looking upward.
At Dumarest and the thing which smashed at him from the sky.
It was an angel but while the captives were from Heaven it had surely come from Hell. A thing twice as large as the captives with wings of vermilion and ebon and a face which held a demonic majesty. The body was a mass of roped and corded muscle, the hands tipped with retractable claws which shredded the net as if they had been sickles. The long-toed feet were backed with pointed spurs of adamantine bone, the knees faced with calloused armor.
'A male!' Talion stared at it as he reached Dumarest. 'God-it's a male!'
And there would be others coming from the hives to avenge their dead.
Dumarest heard screams and shouting, the yammer of panic rising above the pound of feet as the Ypsheim ran from the area. The sounds came to him through a fog and he shook his head to clear it, feeling the warm stickiness of blood running from the back of his head where he- had been struck. A blow which would have killed had instinct not saved him; the subconscious recognition of imminent danger which had sent him down and away as the angel drove in to knock him from the cage to the ground.
Instinct and luck-but he was alive when another would have been dead.
'Earl!' Talion lifted his stave and lashed the air as something swopped above. 'We've got to get away from here!'
'Wait!' Dumarest caught the engineer's arm as he made to run. 'Run and you'll be an easy target.'
He stooped and found his knife and slipped it back into his boot before straightening with a stave in his hand. The angel had finished with the cage now, rising with shreds of net hanging from its claws, waiting as those within rose with a shimmer of wings. If they were animals they would leave now without further delay, but if Ava was right and they were adapted from human stock…
A woman screamed from far to one side as the cluster of late captives vanished into the night. A man yelled, choked, yelled again with a voice fading in a gurgle of blood.
From the ship came the strident blast of the alarm.
It came late but only by seconds and Dumarest knew the time-dilation effect of action. He shook his head again as the air jarred with the raucous sound and savagely drove his teeth into the inner lining of his cheek. The fresh pain cleared his senses, the alarm seeming to become suddenly louder. As it died Batrun's voice blared from the speakers.
'Get under cover! Take cover! If you can't make it drop to the ground and freeze.'
The instructions were repeated but the latter part would be ignored. The Ypsheim would run and so draw attention to themselves. Some would try to fight and if inflicting injuries, further enrage the angels.
'God!' Talion looked sick as more screams rent the air. 'Those damned things are ripping their throats out. Tearing their faces and spilling their guts. Why the hell doesn't Andre turn off the lights?'
The captain was wiser than the engineer; darkness would further handicap the people but the lights could dazzle creatures coming in from the dark. And, with their elongated eyes, the angels would have superior vision.
Dumarest ducked as wings cut the air close above. A male, looking like Lucifer in his pride, turned to hang poised for a moment then launched to the attack. Talion darted to one side, stave lifted, the end thrusting at the muscled body. The flap of a wing sent him to roll on the dirt, blood streaming from his nose. Another buffeted Dumarest and he ran within its sweep, lunging forward to slam the end of his stave at the creature's groin. Missing, he continued the motion, swinging up the end to crack against an armored knee.
A minor injury that served only to infuriate the angel. It hissed and came forward, hands outstretched, claws gleaming with a metallic brilliance. Dumarest backed, felt his boot bit against something soft, and went sprawling backward over the limp body of one of the guards.
A man unconscious, dying, as a spurred foot ripped at his stomach. Blood fountained over the creature's legs, the ground, spattering Dumarest with a carmine film. As the angel lunged toward him he swung the stave in a vicious arc, felt the jar as it hit the creature's shin, rolled free as claws ripped at the spot where he had lain.
Rising, he struck out again, the wooden stave slamming against the bristle of hair, the skull beneath. A second blow stung his hands. A third and the stave snapped in splintered ruin. Dropping it, he snatched out his knife, lifted
