Part 10 (1/2)

Ever since they had been brought to this field beside the lake, Angus had been working at his bonds. He was a very strong man anyway, and the swell of his earthly muscles was far greater than the strength of any of the races that the Scaly Ones were accustomed to making prisoners. While the attention of all the guards was absorbed in the appearance and subsequent wreck of the _Viking_, Angus had managed to snap his own bonds and was now unhurriedly freeing Gerry's wrists.

Gerry ran to Closana and untied her hands, while Angus freed the nearest other prisoner who was a stocky and broad shouldered Green Man with a heavily lined face. As soon as his hands were free, the latter wheeled to face them.

”My thanks, _hiziren_!” he panted, ”now go while you can. You are more easily spotted in a crowd than I. Hurry! I will free as many of these others as possible. Get into the city, and try to reach the place men call 'The Square of the Dragon.' Say that Sarnak sent you. Hurry!”

Even though he was carrying Closana in his arms, Gerry's Earthly muscles allowed him to run in mighty six-foot bounds. Angus went leaping along before him. So great was the confusion that they were half way across the plain to the city before anyone noticed them at all. Then a shouting officer of the Scaly Ones threw himself in front of them with his drawn sword in his hand.

The big engineer roared like an angry bull, and leaped clean over the man. Before the scaly warrior could turn the Scot had him from behind.

An instant later Angus had the sword and was racing ahead, while the Venusian lay sprawled in the mud with his neck broken and his long head twisted grotesquely awry.

The half dozen guards posted in the arch of the gate stared indecisively at the white skinned trio racing toward them. Angus had a sword in each hand by this time, and he leaped at the guards with a shout. The fugitive broke through the line of swordsmen by sheer momentum and dashed into the city. There was no pursuit. The first of the panic stricken throng rus.h.i.+ng back for the shelter of the city reached the gate a moment later, and the guards were swamped by a jostling mob of mingled Scaly Ones and Green Men.

Gerry and his two companions darted into the nearest of the many narrow alleys that twisted about this part of the city. They dodged from one dingy thoroughfare to the next. When they met a woman of the Green People, Gerry unceremoniously tore off her robe and s.h.i.+elding veil and flung them to Closana to hide her own tawny skin and golden hair. Later, when he and Angus had also disguised themselves in the rough garments worn by the poorer folk of this city of Vaaka-hausen, they were able to walk quietly down the streets without fear of detection unless they met a patrol at close range.

At last they came to a dingy plaza that was surrounded by ramshackle buildings of great age. It had probably once been a prosperous and fas.h.i.+onable part of the city, centuries ago, before the Scaly Ones overran the land of Giri. Now gra.s.s grew up between the paving stones, and the roofs of the dingy buildings sagged close to the breaking point, and piles of festering rubbish lay along the gutters. The place was a slum of the sort that had not existed on the more enlightened planets of Earth and Mars for many generations. A ca.n.a.l flowed along one side of the square, and in the center of the plaza stood the eroded and ancient black marble statue of a rearing dragon.

”This must be the place!” Angus muttered from the shadows of the hood that he had drawn up over his head.

As they hesitated, a few people peered furtively out at them from the broken windows and sagging doors of the houses around the square. Then a man came toward them. He was bent and crippled, a beggar wearing filthy rags. His matted hair hung down over his eyes, and his whole body seemed covered with the caked filth of one who had never thought of was.h.i.+ng. As the man came forward with a sort of limping shuffle, Gerry instinctively laid his hand on the hilt of the sword he carried concealed under his cloak, while Closana drew the concealing veil more closely over her face.

”Alms, _hiziren_! A little charity of your generosity!” the beggar whined as he came closer.

”What place is this?” Gerry asked, trying to give his voice the soft tone and lisping accent characteristic of the Green Men.

The beggar limped a little closer and peered up into the shadows of Gerry's hood. What he saw seemed to satisfy him.

”Take your hand from your sword hilt, friend!” he said in a low voice quite unlike his previous whine, ”what place do you seek?”

”The Place of the Dragon.”

”This is it. Who sent you?”

”Sarnak sent us.”

”It is good.” The beggar pointed down a flight of worn stone steps that led to the ca.n.a.l whose surface was some eight or ten feet below the level of the plaza. ”Go down there, below the bridge, and tap on the stone that bears a rusted iron ring. You will find friends. Go quickly, while there are no strangers to observe you.”

”Do you trust that man?” Angus whispered in English as they turned away.

Gerry shrugged.

”We've got to. It's our only chance, We're too easy to recognize, in spite of these clothes, to stay free in this city for long.”

The black waters of the ca.n.a.l flowed sluggishly along between slimy stone walls. Refuse drifted on the surface. The water itself had a foul and penetrating odor. Gerry walked down the steps, and then along the walk that stretched beside the water at one edge of the ca.n.a.l until he was under an arch that served as a bridge to support the street above.

The arch was wide enough so that they were now completely hidden from the view of anyone in the plaza above.

On one of the stones of the arch, at about the height of his shoulder, Gerry saw a rusted iron ring. He tapped on that stone with the hilt of his sword. He heard a faint click, and though there was no visible change in the surface of the pitted stone wall before him he heard a whispered question:

”_Who knocks?_”