Where the mounted Darksiders had stood and hurled their spears there was only a blotch of darkened ground. Even the long grasses were gone.
"Oww!" howled the thousands who watched with fear stamped upon their faces. "Oww! Here is the magic of the Klarnva come to eat us up!"
Some of them wheeled their mounts to run, but a great fellow whose fair blonde hair spilled to his shoulders, lifted a gnarled club in his hand and rallied them.
"What?" he roared. "Do we flee before one man? Feather me an arrow in his hide so that he will drop that flaming thing he holds. Then _we_ may use it."
Arrows carried farther than did spears. Flane scampered back up the ropes as shafts started to slither in among the cordage. He put a hand on the rail and swung over. Panting, he stood and stared at the horde that raced for them.
"Arrows and spears will never take the ship," he said, "but those war-engines might."
He called to Harth, "Pass the ship over their machines. I must destroy them."
Flane went to the rail and leaned on it, watching the ground slide under him. Now they were over the assembled tribes, skimming low. The war-engines were just beyond them. Flane lifted his gun, held it in readiness.
A massive catapult went violet, and disappeared.
But now the Darksiders were using their rocks against the magniship. Great jagged stones came crashing and bouncing on the deck. Men screamed, caught under them. Flesh was mashed, and ran red blood. One rock pierced the sides of the ship and clattered inside it, rolling and tumbling. Men moaned in the depths of the vessel, where the stone had gone.
Flane thinned his lips and fired faster, and faster.
One by one he encompassed the engines with the violet fire, and one by one they flared and disappeared.
Now there were none left, and Flane turned from the rail with a sigh of satisfaction.
The deck of the magniship listed at a peculiar angle. It was difficult to walk on it, for one side was lifted toward the sky, and the other pointed down toward earth. He had been so engrossed in his destruction of the war-engines, that he had not noticed.
"She sinks! She sinks! She is coming toward us! Now we shall have the gun!"
Flane went across the deck with flying feet. He caught at a stanchion, swung in through an open door, shouting, "Lift it! Lift her nose."