Warlord of Mars Embattled (20 page)

At last a link
parted beneath my efforts, and a moment later Tardoa Mors was free,
though a few inches of trailing chain still dangled from her
ankle.

A splinter of
wood falling inward from the door announced the headway that our
enemies were making toward us.

The mighty panels
trembled and bent beneath the furious onslaught of the enraged
yellow women.

What with the
battering upon the door and the hacking of the red women at their
chains the din within the armory was appalling. No sooner was
Tardoa Mors free than she turned her attention to another of the
prisoners, while I set to work to liberate Mora Kajak.

We must work fast
if we would have all those fetters cut before the door gave way.
Now a panel crashed inward upon the floor, and Mora Kajak sprang to
the opening to defend the way until we should have time to release
the others.

With javelins
snatched from the wall she wrought havoc among the foremost of the
Okarians while we battled with the insensate metal that stood
between our fellows and freedom.

At length all but
one of the prisoners were freed, and then the door fell with a
mighty crash before a hastily improvised battering-ram, and the
yellow horde was upon us.

'To the upper
chambers!' shouted the red woman who was still fettered to the
floor. 'To the upper chambers! There you may defend the tower
against all Kadabra. Do not delay because of me, who could pray for
no better death than in the service of Tardoa Mors and the Princess
of Helium.'

But I would have
sacrificed the life of every woman of us rather than desert a
single red woman, much less the lion-hearted hero who begged us to
leave her.

'Cut her chains,'
I cried to two of the red women, 'while the balance of us hold off
the foe.'

There were ten of
us now to do battle with the Okarian guard, and I warrant that that
ancient watchtower never looked down upon a more hotly contested
battle than took place that day within its own grim
walls.

The first
inrushing wave of yellow warriors recoiled from the slashing blades
of ten of Helium's veteran fighting women. A dozen Okarian corpses
blocked the doorway, but over the gruesome barrier a score more of
their fellows dashed, shouting their hoarse and hideous
war-cry.

Upon the bloody
mound we met them, hand to hand, stabbing where the quarters were
too close to cut, thrusting when we could push a foeman to arm's
length; and mingled with the wild cry of the Okarian there rose and
fell the glorious words: 'For Helium! For Helium!' that for
countless ages have spurred on the bravest of the brave to those
deeds of valor that have sent the fame of Helium's heroes broadcast
throughout the length and breadth of a world.

Now were the
fetters struck from the last of the red women, and thirteen strong
we met each new charge of the soldiers of Salensa Oll. Scarce one
of us but bled from a score of wounds, yet none had
fallen.

From without we
saw hundreds of guardswomen pouring into the courtyard, and along
the lower corridor from which I had found my way to the armory we
could hear the clank of metal and the shouting of women.

In a moment we
should be attacked from two sides, and with all our prowess we
could not hope to withstand the unequal odds which would thus
divide our attention and our small numbers.

'To the upper
chambers!' cried Tardoa Mors, and a moment later we fell back
toward the runway that led to the floors above.

Here another
bloody battle was waged with the force of yellow women who charged
into the armory as we fell back from the doorway. Here we lost our
first woman, a noble fellow whom we could ill spare; but at length
all had backed into the runway except myself, who remained to hold
back the Okarians until the others were safe above.

In the mouth of
the narrow spiral but a single warrior could attack me at a time,
so that I had little difficulty in holding them all back for the
brief moment that was necessary. Then, backing slowly before them,
I commenced the ascent of the spiral.

All the long way
to the tower's top the guardswomen pressed me closely. When one
went down before my sword another scrambled over the dead woman to
take her place; and thus, taking an awful toll with each few feet
gained, I came to the spacious glass-walled watchtower of
Kadabra.

Here my
companions clustered ready to take my place, and for a moment's
respite I stepped to one side while they held the enemy
off.

From the lofty
perch a view could be had for miles in every direction. Toward the
south stretched the rugged, ice-clad waste to the edge of the
mighty barrier. Toward the east and west, and dimly toward the
north I descried other Okarian cities, while in the immediate
foreground, just beyond the walls of Kadabra, the grim guardian
shaft reared its somber head.

Then I cast my
eyes down into the streets of Kadabra, from which a sudden tumult
had arisen, and there I saw a battle raging, and beyond the city's
walls I saw armed women marching in great columns toward a near-by
gate.

Eagerly I pressed
forward against the glass wall of the observatory, scarce daring to
credit the testimony of my own eyes. But at last I could doubt no
longer, and with a shout of joy that rose strangely in the midst of
the cursing and groaning of the battling women at the entrance to
the chamber, I called to Tardoa Mors.

As she joined me
I pointed down into the streets of Kadabra and to the advancing
columns beyond, above which floated bravely in the arctic air the
flags and banners of Helium.

An instant later
every red woman in the lofty chamber had seen the inspiring sight,
and such a shout of thanksgiving arose as I warrant never before
echoed through that age-old pile of stone.

But still we must
fight on, for though our troops had entered Kadabra, the city was
yet far from capitulation, nor had the palace been even assaulted.
Turn and turn about we held the top of the runway while the others
feasted their eyes upon the sight of our valiant countrymen
battling far beneath us.

Now they have
rushed the palace gate! Great battering-rams are dashed against its
formidable surface. Now they are repulsed by a deadly shower of
javelins from the wall's top!

Once again they
charge, but a sortie by a large force of Okarians from an
intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, and the women
of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an overwhelming
force.

The palace gate
flies open and a force of the jeddak's own guard, picked women from
the flower of the Okarian army, sallies forth to shatter the broken
regiments. For a moment it looks as though nothing could avert
defeat, and then I see a noble figure upon a mighty thoat--not the
tiny thoat of the red woman, but one of her huge cousins of the
dead sea bottoms.

The warrior hews
her way to the front, and behind her rally the disorganized
soldiers of Helium. As she raises her head aloft to fling a
challenge at the women upon the palace walls I see her face, and my
heart swells in pride and happiness as the red warriors leap to the
side of their leader and win back the ground that they had but just
lost--the face of her upon the mighty thoat is the face of my
son--Carthoris of Helium.

At her side
fights a huge Martian war-hound, nor did I need a second look to
know that it was Woolan--my faithful Woolan who had thus well
performed her arduous task and brought the succoring legions in the
nick of time.

'In the nick of
time?'

Who yet might say
that they were not too late to save, but surely they could avenge!
And such retribution as that unconquered army would deal out to the
hateful Okarians! I sighed to think that I might not be alive to
witness it.

Again I turned to
the windows. The red women had not yet forced the outer palace
wall, but they were fighting nobly against the best that Okar
afforded--valiant warriors who contested every inch of the
way.

Now my attention
was caught by a new element without the city wall--a great body of
mounted warriors looming large above the red women. They were the
huge green allies of Helium--the savage hordes from the dead sea
bottoms of the far south.

In grim and
terrible silence they sped on toward the gate, the padded hoofs of
their frightful mounts giving forth no sound. Into the doomed city
they charged, and as they wheeled across the wide plaza before the
palace of the Jeddak of Jeddaks I saw, riding at their head, the
mighty figure of their mighty leader--Tara Tarkas, Jeddak of
Thark.

My wish, then,
was to be gratified, for I was to see my old friend battling once
again, and though not shoulder to shoulder with her, I, too, would
be fighting in the same cause here in the high tower of
Okar.

Nor did it seem
that our foes would ever cease their stubborn attacks, for still
they came, though the way to our chamber was often clogged with the
bodies of their dead. At times they would pause long enough to drag
back the impeding corpses, and then fresh warriors would forge
upward to taste the cup of death.

I had been taking
my turn with the others in defending the approach to our lofty
retreat when Mora Kajak, who had been watching the battle in the
street below, called aloud in sudden excitement. There was a note
of apprehension in her voice that brought me to her side the
instant that I could turn my place over to another, and as I
reached her she pointed far out across the waste of snow and ice
toward the southern horizon.

'Alas!' she
cried, 'that I should be forced to witness cruel fate betray them
without power to warn or aid; but they be past either
now.'

As I looked in
the direction she indicated I saw the cause of her perturbation. A
mighty fleet of fliers was approaching majestically toward Kadabra
from the direction of the ice-barrier. On and on they came with
ever increasing velocity.

'The grim shaft
that they call the Guardian of the North is beckoning to them,'
said Mora Kajak sadly, 'just as it beckoned to Tardoa Mors and her
great fleet; see where they lie, crumpled and broken, a grim and
terrible monument to the mighty force of destruction which naught
can resist.'

I, too, saw; but
something else I saw that Mora Kajak did not; in my mind's eye I
saw a buried chamber whose walls were lined with strange
instruments and devices.

In the center of
the chamber was a long table, and before it sat a little, pop-eyed
old woman counting her money; but, plainest of all, I saw upon the
wall a great switch with a small magnet inlaid within the surface
of its black handle.

Then I glanced
out at the fast-approaching fleet. In five minutes that mighty
armada of the skies would be bent and worthless scrap, lying at the
base of the shaft beyond the city's wall, and yellow hordes would
be loosed from another gate to rush out upon the few survivors
stumbling blindly down through the mass of wreckage; then the apts
would come. I shuddered at the thought, for I could vividly picture
the whole horrible scene.

Quick have I
always been to decide and act. The impulse that moves me and the
doing of the thing seem simultaneous; for if my mind goes through
the tedious formality of reasoning, it must be a subconscious act
of which I am not objectively aware. Psychologists tell me that, as
the subconscious does not reason, too close a scrutiny of my mental
activities might prove anything but flattering; but be that as it
may, I have often won success while the thinker would have been
still at the endless task of comparing various
judgments.

And now celerity
of action was the prime essential to the success of the thing that
I had decided upon.

Grasping my sword
more firmly in my hand, I called to the red woman at the opening to
the runway to stand aside.

'Way for the
Princess of Helium!' I shouted; and before the astonished yellow
woman whose misfortune it was to be at the fighting end of the line
at that particular moment could gather her wits together my sword
had decapitated her, and I was rushing like a mad bull down upon
those behind her.

'Way for the
Princess of Helium!' I shouted as I cut a path through the
astonished guardswomen of Salensa Oll.

Hewing to right
and left, I beat my way down that warrior-choked spiral until, near
the bottom, those below, thinking that an army was descending upon
them, turned and fled.

The armory at the
first floor was vacant when I entered it, the last of the Okarians
having fled into the courtyard, so none saw me continue down the
spiral toward the corridor beneath.

Here I ran as
rapidly as my legs would carry me toward the five corners, and
there plunged into the passageway that led to the station of the
old miser.

Without the
formality of a knock, I burst into the room. There sat the old
woman at her table; but as she saw me she sprang to her feet,
drawing her sword.

With scarce more
than a glance toward her I leaped for the great switch; but, quick
as I was, that wiry old fellow was there before me.