"Well, I've got a hunch she's down there. She's mixed up in this somehow. I've a feeling a big battle like this is pretty unusual. This has all the earmarks of a war of extermination. And if those are her 'people' protecting her--something, or somebody, has her cornered." "Could be," came Sturgis's voice. "But, then, who's this somebody or something?" "I don't know. I don't care. This scrap's nothing to us. But we want the wench, boys. We want her on account of last night. And maybe for a couple of other reasons. She'd better come home for a little psychotherapy, for one thing. Now, here's our plan of attack...." * * * * * Like the pointer of a sundial, the jagged spear of mountain lay its deep blue shadow across the curve of battle, as if to mark off the dwindling hours and minutes of life for those who struggled, writhed and lay with glazing eyes in that long ribbony grass, now mashed and matted flat for acres in every direction, its pliant green-brown blades stained and mottled dark. Red-eyed and snorting, the slate-gray boars stood shoulder to shoulder from one end of the arc to the other. As each one fell, the others closed ranks, shuffling backwards until their hides rubbed together again. Close behind them stood a thinning line of great scaled bears, clawing and biting what got past the boars. In and out among all their stiffly planted legs ran the lesser carnivores and the canines, snapping and worrying at the things creeping through the grass. Behind, in the shrinking zone of defense, roved the six-legged bovines and equines, and the leaping ones, and the shaggy-maned gorillas, prancing, goring, trampling, crushing. Overhead circled and hovered a swarm of hawks and condors, plunging and tearing. Against them came a nightmare horde. Those that could not fly or swim made clumsy rafts from odds and ends of vegetation and branches plundered from the jungle; some scurried across on swaying creepers, all along the banks. Crawling, creeping things, reptilian and crustacean and multi-legged, undulating and gliding, disappearing into the grass to emerge at the last deadly moment. Scurrying, spiny things were there in force--scuttling over the mashed-flat grass in beady-eyed haste to be in at the kill. Above them flew skull-headed, mandible-snapping horrors, with membranous wings. There were no tactics other than individual duel and the wearing down by sheer weight of numbers. Aloft, the winged ones met, clashed and fell, buzzing and flapping. Below, tusk and fang and claw and beak and hoof mandible rent and tore and worried and stung. The long, vicious lizards and the sudden-striking snakes kept coming through only to go down under churning, stamping hooves or be shredded by horns and claws and fangs.