Starquake.pdf

They charged, the mounted warriors rapidly outdistancing Falling-Quirrl and her dozen warriors on
tread. As the Swifts moved across the bare ground, they began to roar and swerve to one side or the
other despite the efforts of their masters to keep them under control. From a porthole in the wall an
eyeball was watching.
"The undercrust magnetic barriers are bunching them up into the firing lanes," Weber-Gauss reported to
the control room. "Let loose the terror tops!"
Ferocious-Eyes suddenly heard high-pitched screams arising from all along the outer wall of the maze.
Through the holes at crust level there emerged a stream of spinning screaming objects that danced across
the crust. They were wide at the top and narrowed down to a tiny point at the bottom. By some
magic means they were able to stay balanced on the tiny point instead of falling over as one would
expect.
Sticking out from the whirling body of the screamers were sharp knives that slashed long gashes in Swift
and warrior alike. Panicked by the high-pitched screams, the Swifts bolted and the warriors fled.
One of the screamers came straight at Ferocious-Eyes. He watched it come, then gave it a flick with the
tip of his whip-sword. The screamer changed course and curved around his nervous mount.
Ferocious-Eyes rode to meet the fleeing Falling-Quirrl.
"I said for you to attack!Look at me!"
Falling-Quirrl stopped instantly and all her eyes went up on rigid stalks. Ferocious-Eyes rode up to the
nearest eye-ball, formed a pincer manipulator and slowly crushed the eye-ball.
"Attack," he said.
Falling-Quirrl gathered her warriors and led them back toward the waiting entrance to the deadly Maze
Temple. The Swifts refused to approach the wall, and all the warriors were forced to dismount and make
their way on tread across the open ground.
More of the spinning screamers came from the wall, but the surprise was gone. The speckled warriors
continued their advance. They tried to dodge the screamers and stabbed at them with their pikes and
swords to knock them over, but the strange random motion of the screamers across the crust and their
rigid resistance to being pushed over caused many casualties. The remaining warriors finally got close
enough to the wall that most of the screamers now shot out past them.
"The terror tops have them bunched into the firing-tube target areas," Weber-Gauss reported to the
control room. "Initiate ripple-barrage on areas one through eight."
A series of explosions from inside the Maze Temple caused the advancing warriors to hesitate and look
all around for danger. They saw nothing, then died, as heavy weights struck at them from out of the sky
and pierced them from topside to tread. The limber-swords swinging about Ferocious-Eyes were still
flashing the "attack" pattern, so they pressed on.
"They are now in the range of the flame throwers," reported Weber-Gauss.
Jets of violet-hot flame came from some of the eye-level portholes and swept back and forth, leaving