The Vestoians would not quit because of what was coming half a mile away in the south under a cloud of brown wings, coming fast. The horde would be ignoring the omasha, striking them aside, spearing them when there was time, granting them the necessary toll for passage, and coming fast. Oh, they would be less than six thousand now--somewhat less. Meanwhile the remnant from the boats was waiting, regrouping, drawing breath, readying itself for the climax of massacre, maybe deliberately postponing it until Lantis of Vestoia, Queen of the World, could arrive to enjoy it. Paul tried again to count his people in the sturdy half circle. Black Elis was striding among them, a great stick in each hand, rumbling comfort and encouragement, and none of them shrank away from him. It looked like less than seven hundred. A hundred lost at the knoll; forty, Wright said, in the first skirmish at the camp; twenty in Samiraa's night expedition. Perhaps three hundred in this last wave of the battle. And Samiraa herself; Duriaa; Tamisraa wounded, Pakriaa insane with grief; Lisson and Surok dead. Lame Kamisiaa--Paul could not find her. Abro Brodaa--still calm, unhurt, competent. Very well--seven hundred against somewhat less than six thousand of the land army, somewhat less than four thousand from the boats. _How I dreamed!_ There would be no southward drive to the island. The omasha alone made it an absurdity. He had been idiotic to imagine it. Pakriaa broke her spear across her knee. She walked out into the meadow toward the advancing swarm. She looked back stupidly at Paul's shout, and Nisana ran to her, crying out in the old language. Pakriaa, with no change of expression, lunged at the captain, striking flat-handed across her face, forcing her back until Paul reached them to interfere and Sears caught Pakriaa's wrist, mumbling, "Come now--come with me, princess." "I am no princess." "I call you so," Sears said clearly, and speaking with sternness for possibly the first time in his life. "Now come with me." Paul stammered, "Have Doc get that damned arrow out of you. Then he's to start north with the wounded--at once." "North." Sears nodded. "There are no gods," said Pakriaa. "Yes, north. We'll catch up with you." "I thought of you as a god." "Think of me as a friend who loves you. It is better." She went with him, stumbling as Paul had never seen her do, and when the leaves closed behind them it seemed to Paul that there was surely the cloud of another world. She might have been a small girl going for a walk in the woods with her grandfather.... There was no lifeboat above that rolling swarm. Ed Spearman must have----_No time to think about it_.