Part 5

"Don't move without my order!" I addressed the remainder of Harvison's party, as if they were my allies again. "These defenders have the advantage of you in their planted explosives!"

"Then destroy them some other way," growled an under-officer.

I whirled toward the Dondromogon front. The attackers fell back.

"You still scare any man you look at, Barak," said Harvison. He was a little tottery from loss of blood, but game. "Well, shall we charge?" He managed a grin.

"I've been trying to keep you from doing that," I groaned. "I don't want tragedy here and extermination afterward. Can't this world stand peace--"

"If you can do it," someone said behind me, "I give you full authority."

I knew him. He was Dr. Thorald--high in the Newcomer command. With him were the other leaders, Parkeson and Captain Cross.

"Danger!" I gasped at them. "Don't come through here. Doriza, see that they do not--" I looked for her. She was not there.

"She slipped away while we fought," said Klob. "First setting the glare-lamp to run--"

My heart sank. "Which way did she go? Toward the Newcomers, or toward Dondromogon?"

"Toward Dondromogon," he said, and my heart sank the rest of the way.

She had decided to betray me after all.

"Wait here, all," I commanded, and moved clear of the glare-field. Moved straight toward the host of Dondromogon.

Gederr laughed again. I could read his thoughts. He had clinched his own power by judicious murders. Now he thought I was in his hands. "Shoot him down," he bade.

"Let no man shoot," I warned. "A pellet flying past me will strike and set off the glare-field. It's still swords, and in the open we can use their rays."

I flicked on my own. The blade glowed like hot iron.

"Come and fight," I invited. "All of you. Or withdraw and explode this trap on me alone."

"He's tired of life," snarled Gederr, hidden in the ranks.

"I'm tired of this fighting," was my reply. "If I die alone, the Newcomer force remains intact. It can move upon you and force you to peace. Men of Dondromogon, overthrow this coward tyrant Gederr, who defends his pride and power with your bodies!"

I think they indicated that they knew the truth of that, and Gederr knew it, too. At any rate, he moved boldly to reestablish his influence.

"I'll prove he lies! I hide nowhere!" The words fairly rang out. "Retreat, quickly, to the positions behind. Leave me to face him."

* * * * *

They fell back, quickly and orderly. Of a sudden I found myself in that big cave, and Gederr before me, no more than twenty paces distant. He held his ray-saber, glowing and ready, in his right hand. In his left was some sort of silvery cylinder. He grinned murderously.

"You offer yourself as a sacrifice," he said, "and I accept you."

I moved toward him, my body in line with the glare-field.

"You overgrown bully-swordsman," he taunted. "An ounce of my brain can defeat a ton of your big lumpy muscles."

"Explode the mine," I said. "It will take us both. You can't retreat out of both my reach and the explosion's."

"Can't I?"

He held up his cylinder. "Here's the fuse. By remote control it can set off all, or any part I select. Understand before you die, Barak. I'll blow up a small area, and you with it, as soon as you set foot where I want."

His broad face sniggered. "Oh, you've played into my hands from the first! You tried to disrupt--you only gave me an excuse to wipe out the rest of that Council, and take all power for myself. Now I'll kill you. Will you come on? Or retreat, and die as you flee? Or just stand there, like a captive statue?"

I continued my advance upon him. "You're lying," I said, but my heart told me that for once he was not.

"Your life is in my hands," he said. "You don't know what moment will see your own feet carrying you to your death. Come, pursue me, brave Barak, stupid Barak. Let your last thought be this--your death helps me immeasurably."

"You're lying," I said again, and he laughed again.

"Reflect. Let your thick skull filter these facts. I shall destroy you. To my followers I will be a hero. Your own Newcomers will pause and wonder. I can re-order my defenses, and most of the planted mines will remain to check any advance--"

Forgetting all caution, all planning, I charged him. He turned and ran like Dondromogon's outer winds.

But I had taken no more than half a dozen steps in pursuit when all the thunders and lightnings of the universe seemed to burst around me.

I fell, swiftly and deeply, into black nothingness.

* * * * *

I was able to establish which way was up, which down, and that I lay horizontally, as if floating in liquid or upon clouds. My ears hummed a trifle, and a voice spoke.

"He will be all right."

Dr. Thorald! I opened my eyes, and they were blurred. I lifted a hand to them, and moaned despite myself.

"Were you killed, too?" I muttered.

"Killed? Not me. Nobody was killed, except that fat pig you met in the cavern. Not enough of him left to make a funeral worth while." Thorald looked behind him. "Ahoy, Parkeson! Cross! Barak's going to be all right."

The other two heads of the Newcomer expedition pushed into view, and looked down upon me where I lay.

"High time," grumbled Parkeson. "They're yelling for him--both sides. Barak, you'll have to drop all your weapons and take up political economy. I greatly fear you'll have a world to run."

"World?" I echoed stupidly. "What world?" My head cleared a bit. "Where's Doriza?"

"The fighting's over," Parkeson soothed me. "Just as you forced it to be. I'm still trying to decide whether you were an epic hero or an epic idiot, there at the crossways of battle, making us all stop, or fight you! But your hunch paid off. The entire Council of Dondromogon is dead, and--"

"Doriza," I said again.

"Somebody named Klob, a sturdy soldierly chap, is taking charge. An old sneak named Sporr tried to foment a counter-rising, but Klob disintegrated him. However, the army of Dondromogon still holds an inner defense--says it doesn't trust us quite. Wants only you to assure it that we mean peace. Feel like getting up, Barak?"

Dr. Thorald leaned over. "You've engineered this yourself, Barak, or maybe you didn't engineer it--maybe you only bulled it through. So I won't put words in your mouth, or thoughts in your head. But tell those deluded people to start by trusting us. And you know that they can. Nobody wanted war less than I. Peacetime endeavor on Dondromogon is quite difficult and exciting enough."

"Doriza," I said yet again, and then, "All right, gentlemen. You won't tell me about her. Maybe you don't dare. But how did I survive?"

"Oh, that?" put in Captain Cross. "Don't you know? The explosion was set off prematurely, to trap and destroy Gederr. It blew him to atoms, but you were clear of it. You had a bad tumble into the lower chamber--"

Now I sat up. "Never tell me that he bungled it that badly! Gederr was a tyrant and coward and murderer, but not a bungler!"

"He was to some extent. Is your head clear? Now we can begin to explain."

Cross subsided, and Dr. Thorald took up the tale: "We sent a spy among them, a long time back, a spy that would pretend to be renegading from us. The spy was good, but got a rather visionary idea, like your own--that peace was better than war between us."

"Practically treason," opined Parkeson sagely.

"We might have held a court-martial and an execution," went on Dr. Thorald, "but for you. Because you seemed to plan out all this Horatius-at-the-bridge coup. And just when we thought it had achieved success--we thought you were failing."

"And up bobs our ex-spy, and sets off the explosion," chimed in Cross. "Sets it off to destroy Gederr and save you. And that left them without a leader to order battle, and they were more than glad to talk peace."

"What," I growled, "has all this to do with Doriza?"

"Why," grinned Dr. Thorald, "they're yelling for her, too, to lead in the final peace talks. Because, you see, she was our spy, our pseudo-renegade, who set off the explosion!"

Doriza came forward to where I had sagged back on the pillows. At sight of her smile, I thought no more of strife and wounds and worries.

End of Project Gutenberg's Warrior of Two Worlds, by Manly Wade Wellman