Northmen were smashing with sword and ax toward the plaza.
"Look at them Masters run!" yelled Hank Martin exultantly.
The red Masters were fleeing, darting in all directions frantically as they saw their warriors crumpling beneath that terrible converging attack.
And though the drugged, enslaved Luunians had fought fiercely until now for their rulers, they seemed to become bewildered when the Masters fled. They too gave way and fled.
In less than an hour, it was all over. The last of the unhuman Masters had been hunted down and ruthlessly slain. And the stupefied Luunians had surrendered their weapons.
In the plaza in front of the great fortress, Ethan stood with his arm around Chiri. Besides him were five comrades and old Kim Idim.
And before Ethan in the plaza had gathered the thousands of fighting-men of different ages who had conquered Luun. Hundreds of their host lay dead — but the thousands who still lived hailed Ethan with a great shout.
"You have done what you promised to do, have conquered this city," Ethan shouted to them. "Now your work is done, for the Masters here are all dead and the people of Luun will soon become normal again, when they are no longer drugged.
"And now," he continued, "Kim Idim will fulfill his part of our promise and will send you back to your own times and lands. You need but march back across the plain to where his machine waits, and it will be done."
When his words had been translated to them all, there was a pause, a buzz of thousands of voices.
Then a French captain gave voice to his thoughts.
"We'd rather stay here, now that we're here," he told Ethan. "This looks like a good time, a good world. If you let us stay, we'll follow wherever you lead."
"Do the rest of you feel that way?" Ethan demanded.
The answer, when they understood his question, was an overwhelming affirmative shout. Soldiers of fortune all, men without ties, they had no desire to return.
"Then you stay!" Ethan cried. "There are still other Masters in other cities — we shall clean them out, one by one, until all Earth is rid of those red tyrants."
He added with a sudden thought, "There'll be legends back in past times — legends of a Roman legion that strangely vanished, a French regiment that never was heard of again, and so on. But who back there would dream the truth?"
Chiri, clinging to his arm, cried to him anxiously.
"Then you too are going to stay in this time, Ethan—you and your comrades?"
"I shore am," drawled Hank Martin. "Now there's a hull tribe of Sioux here, I feel kinder at home."
"And I remain too," declared Lopez. "If there is fighting ahead, my prowess will be sorely needed."
Swain said merely, "I stay." And Ptah nodded agreement.
"And I," added Crewe. "There be many souls here to whom the word of God should be taught—by means of a little force, if necessary."
Ethan was holding Chiri tight in his arms.
And Hank Martin burst into a loud guffaw.
"I guess nobody needs to ask if he's stayin'!" the trapper said.
