me darted through the dim-lit area. Bullets whizzed. Ato's
needle-nosed machines began to whine and the metal in the guards' cubicles
grew red-hot and melted. Charred bodies came tumbling down. Men came
pouring out of the subway entrances. There was a crashing and grinding as
hidden elevators brought weapons of death to the surface. The fires in the
cressets danced higher. They fought now in mid-day light.

There was a blast nearby that nearly burst Odin's eardrums. A crash of
flame that half-blinded him. A gun-crew screamed and died as one of the
needle-nosed machines melted into puddles of steel. One by one these
guns exploded, taking their crews with them. But even as they died, they
littered the streets with the bodies of those who were pouring up from the
depths of the city. Even as one melted, its needle-nose swung upward and
its beam cut through girders as though they were soft cheese. There was an
awful grating sound as the heavy dome sagged a few inches. Splinters of
glass and plastic rained down upon invader and defender alike.

Guns burst in men's hands--or turned to soft wax. The machine guns grew
red-hot and melted. Ato sent his swirling bombs toward the enemy. The
scythe-blades dripped as they cut swaths through massed rows of human
flesh. But from far down the street a swarm of red sparks came rushing at
the bombs like hornets. They swirled about them, humming angrily. And then
the bombs and the hornet-sparks were gone.

Odin learned that the toadstool-shaped weapon which Val's men carried was
a defense against the lancing beams from the glassy tubes. So one by one
the weapons of offense and the weapons of defense fell apart. Sirens were
screaming within the city. Hordes were still arriving from the depths
below.

Ato had set up a huge, slowly-whirling globe that was studded with spines.
As it turned upon its axis, it emitted a strange pulsing light. As the
defenders came rushing up the stairways to the upper world, the guns at
their belts exploded in furious heat. They died by the hundreds at those
entrances. They filled the stairways and the halls below. Screams from
seared throats drowned out the noise of battle. The stench of burned flesh
and blood was now so heavy that it was hard to breathe. Another wild shell
crashed into the spider-web framework of the dome. It sagged again with a
shriek and a groan of protest. And once more a rain of glass showered down
upon them.

The defenders cleared the c