The lenken door groaned back from bronze hinges. Then I was into the battering-ram group, laying about me, and catching them completely unawares. They dropped the log. They carried thraxters in their right upper hands; but their other three hands had been occupied with the log, and it seems to me now that small fact perhaps saved my life. They were fantastic fighters. I had to skip and jump, to parry and block more than I could hack and thrust. But they went down, first one and then two, and two more as I caught the knack.
Others came running, holding shields balanced high on their two left arms.
The streaming light of the twin Suns of Scorpio poured down on the scene and the blaze of the burning inn shed a ghastly wavering light into that sunshine. There would be no quick and easy escap
