his time reading old tomes, yet it was as though he had traveled the world and plumbed its secrets.
A second wave of men charged through the steaming basin where the mines had exploded. They reached the foot of the mountain, taking cover as they had been drilled to do. But there seemed to be no fire from the defenders.
The warriors climbed through and under the twisted beams, following the pathways they knew. From this distance the column resembled a lashing snake, appearing and disappearing in partial cover. Then men ran out on the first plateau above.
And fire spurted from pipes rising from the ground.
Now Var believed. He fancied he could smell the scorching flesh as men spun about, smoking, and died.
Many died, but already more were coming up. They charged the pipes from the sides, for the fire flicked out in only one direction at a time. They fired bullets into the apertures, and those who retained clubs and staffs battered at the projections and bent them down, and finally the fires died. The rain continued, drenching everything.
'Your men are courageous and skilled,' the Master said to TyL.
Tyl was immune to the compliment. 'On a sunny day, none would have survived. I know that now.'
Then the return fire began. The thinned troops moved up the mountainside-but they were exposed to the concealed emplacements of the underworld, and the weapons mounted there were more than pistols.
'Machine-guns,' the Nameless One said, and flinched. 'We cannot storm those. Sound the retreat.'
But it was already too late. Few, very few, returned from the mountain.
When they totaled up the losses, known and presumed, they learned that almost a thousand men had perished in that lone engagement. Not one defender had been killed.
'Have we lost?' Var asked hesitantly in the privacy of the Master's command tent. He felt guilty for not finding and keeping properly secret a subterranean route into the mountain. All those brave men might have lived.
'The first battle. Not the campaign. We will guard the territory we have cleared; they can't plant new mines or flamethrowers while we watch. Now we know where their machine-guns are, too. We will lay siege. We will build catapults to bombard those nests. We will drop grenades on them. In time the victory will be ours.'
A warrior approached the entrance~ 'A paper with writing,' he said. 'It was in a metal box that flew into our camp. It's addressed to you.'
The Master accepted it. 'Your literacy may have turned the course of battle,' he said. Flattered, the man left.
Var knew that many of the women practised reading, and some few of the men. Was it worthwhile after all?
The Master opened the paper and studied it. He smiled grimly. 'We impressed them! They want to negotiate.'
'They will yield without fighting?' Var didn't bother with all the awkward words, but that was his gist.
'Not exactly.'
Var looked at him, again not comprehending. The Master read from the paper: 'We propose, in the interests of avoiding senseless decimation of manpower and destruction of equipment, to settle the issue by contest of champions.
Place: the mesa on top of Mt. Muse, twelve miles south of Helicon. Date: August 6, Bl 18. Your choice of other terms of combat. - - -
'Should our champion prevail, you will desist hostilities and depart this region for ever, and permit no other attack on Helicon. Should your champion prevail we will surrender Helicon to you intact.
'Speak to the television set in the near hostel'
After a pause, the Master asked him: 'How would you call it, Var?'
Var didn't know how to respond, so he didn't.
