“There is one entrance only, from which the two sheds branch. It is at the further end: an open archway. One of the archers guards it, with six of the smaller Killers. They were all sleeping when I first approached, but the noise you made woke one of them, and he roused the others. Four of them have scattered now to search round the buildings. If one should come to the arsenal it will be well that he find the door closed. If it be pushed open, you will know that it is he, not I, and you can strike quickly, if you wish to do so. The smaller Killers carry a strangling-cord, and a short javelin. It is two feet long, and for a third of its length it is sharpened on both sides. It is balanced for throwing. The smaller Killers are without intellect. They have only greed, and cunning, and ferocity. The archers are in every way more dangerous. The smaller Killers obey them. They cannot communicate by thought, but signal to each other by whistling noises, which they make through their suckers. “I am in no danger. I can move more quickly and silently than they can search in the shadows. I am lying now in the steam of the vat, which is dense on the side to which the wind moves it. They have searched here already and will not....” My mind broke in: “The door is opening. Wait.” I stood with the axe lifted to strike, as the door moved softly. The drift of sleet was over, and the moon shone again on the entrance. Cautiously, as the door opened, a head came round it, about three feet from the ground. I brought the axe down with all my force, but the Killer dodged very swiftly, and avoided it, slipping past me into the dark interior. Losing its mark, the axe glanced off the edge of the door, barely missing my foot, the side of the axe-head striking the ankle-bone so sharply that I lost my footing and was on my knee for a moment. As I slipped, I heard the whizz of the javelin that passed above me. The Killer had turned and thrown it so quickly that it passed out over my head, through the gap of the closing door. As the door clicked, I sank lower, listening for a sound of my opponent in the darkness, and thinking with a moment’s satisfaction that he had now lost his weapon beyond recovery. Then, with fear, that he must be surrounded by other weapons, of which he would know the positions, and that any moment a javelin might transfix me. I think it partly redeemed the dishonour of my previous cowardice, from which all the trouble came, that I thought at this extremity to warn my companion not to come into the same danger. I could not have imagined that I should be saving my own life as I did so. Quick as a thought came the answer: “I will wait as you wish. I have told my Leader. She says, ‘Do not move. Put your hand on your neck with the palm outward. He will not think of other weapons until he has tried the strangling-cord. It is forbidden to use the weapons of others, and his sense is small.’”