Their flailing arms coiled back, withdrew into their bodies.

They joined, forming for an instant a tremendous hollow pillar far down in whose center we stood.

They parted; shifted in shape?
rolled down the mount over the ruins like a widening wave--crushing into the stone all over which they passed.
Afar away I saw the gleaming serpent still at play--still writhing along, still obliterating the few score scattered fugitives that some way, somehow, had slipped by the Destroying Things.
We halted.

For one long moment Norhala looked upon the drooping body of him upon whom she had let fall this mighty vengeance.
Then the metal arm that held Cherkis whirled.

Thrown from it, the cloaked form flew like a great blue bat.