“Want to try for two?” Kickaha said.
“I hate to, but we’ll be handicapped if I don’t,” Wolff said.
He had to wait a awhile, for the gworl to whom he had been attached had been awakened by the breaking. He lifted his head and muttered something in his file-against-steel speech. Wolff began sweating even more heavily. If the gworl sat up or tried to stand up, his motion would reveal the damage.
After a heart-piercing minute, the gworl settled back down and soon was snoring again. Wolff relaxed a little. He even grinned tightly, for the gworl’s actions had given him an idea.
“Crawl up toward me as if you wanted to warm yourself against me,” Wolff said softly.
“You kidding?” Kickaha whispered back. “I feel as if I’m in a steam bath. But okay. Here goes.”
He inched forward until his head was opposite Wolff’s knees.
“When I snap the chain, don’t go into action,” Wolff said. “I have an idea for bringing the guards over here without alarming those outside.”
“I hope they don’t change guards just as we’re starting to operate,” Kickaha said.
“Pray to the Lord,” Wolff replied. “Earth’s.”
“He helps him who helps himself,” Kickaha said.
Wolff jerked with all his strength; the links parted with a noise. This time, the guards stopped talking and the gworl rose up abruptly. Wolff bit down hard on the toe of the gworl. The creature did not cry out but grunted and started to rise. One of the guards ordered him to remain seated, and both started toward him. The gworl did not understand the language. He did understand the tone of voice, and the spear waved at him. He lifted his foot and began to rub it, meanwhile grating curses at Wolff.
The torches became brighter as the feet of the guards scraped against the stone exposed beneath the loose dirt. Wolff said, “Now!”
He and Kickaha arose simultaneously, whirled, and were facing the surprised Sholkin. A spearhead was within Wolff’s reach. His hand slid along it, grasped the shaft just behind the point, and jerked. The guard opened his mouth to yell, but it snapped shut as the lifted butt of the spear cracked against his jaw.
Kickaha had not been so fortunate. The Sholkin stepped back and raised his spear to throw it. Kickaha went at him as a tackier after the man with the ball; he came in low, rolled, and the spear clanged against the wall.
By then, the silence was gone. One guard started to yell. The gworl picked up the weapon that had fallen by his side and threw it. The head drove into the exposed neck of the guard, and the point came out through the back of the neck.
Kickaha jerked the spearhead loose, drew the dead guard’s knife from his scabbard, and flipped it. The first Sholkin to enter from outside received it to the hilt in his solar plexus. Seeing him go down, others who had been so eager to follow him withdrew. Wolff took the knife from the other corpse, shoved it into his sash, and said, “Where do we go from here?”
Kickaha slid the knife from the solar plexus and wiped it on the corpse’s hair. “Not through that door. Too many.”
Wolff pointed at a doorway at the far end and started to run toward it. On the way, he scooped up the torch dropped by the guard. Kickaha did the same. The doorway was partly choked up by dirt, forcing them to get down on their hands and knees and crawl through. Presently they were at the place through which the dirt had dropped. The moon revealed an empty place in the stone slabs of the ceiling.
“They must know about this,” Wolff said. “They can’t be that careless. We’d better go further back in.”
They had scarcely moved past the point below the break in the roof when torches flared above. The two scuttled ahead as fast as they could while Sholkin voices came excitedly through the opening. A second later, a spear slammed into the dirt, narrowly missing Wolff’s leg.
“They’ll be coming in after us, now that they know we’ve left the main chamber,” Kickaha said.