Warlord of Mars Embattled (21 page)

How she did it I
shall never know, nor does it seem credible that any Martian-born
creature could approximate the marvelous speed of my earthly
muscles.

Like a tiger she
turned upon me, and I was quick to see why Sola had been chosen for
this important duty.

Never in all my
life have I seen such wondrous swordswomanship and such uncanny
agility as that ancient bag of bones displayed. She was in forty
places at the same time, and before I had half a chance to awaken
to my danger she was like to have made a monkey of me, and a dead
monkey at that.

It is strange how
new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed ability to meet
them.

That day in the
buried chamber beneath the palace of Salensa Oll I learned what
swordswomanship meant, and to what heights of sword mastery I could
achieve when pitted against such a wizard of the blade as
Sola.

For a time she
liked to have bested me; but presently the latent possibilities
that must have been lying dormant within me for a lifetime came to
the fore, and I fought as I had never dreamed a human being could
fight.

That that
duel-royal should have taken place in the dark recesses of a
cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it has always
seemed to me almost a world calamity--at least from the viewpoint
Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatest
consideration of individuals, nations, and races.

I was fighting to
reach the switch, Sola to prevent me; and, though we stood not
three feet from it, I could not win an inch toward it, for she
forced me back an inch for the first five minutes of our
battle.

I knew that if I
were to throw it in time to save the oncoming fleet it must be done
in the next few seconds, and so I tried my old rushing tactics; but
I might as well have rushed a brick wall for all that Sola gave
way.

In fact, I came
near to impaling myself upon her point for my pains; but right was
on my side, and I think that that must give a woman greater
confidence than though she knew herself to be battling in a wicked
cause.

At least, I did
not want in confidence; and when I next rushed Sola it was to one
side with implicit confidence that she must turn to meet my new
line of attack, and turn she did, so that now we fought with our
sides towards the coveted goal--the great switch stood within my
reach upon my right hand.

To uncover my
breast for an instant would have been to court sudden death, but I
saw no other way than to chance it, if by so doing I might rescue
that oncoming, succoring fleet; and so, in the face of a wicked
sword-thrust, I reached out my point and caught the great switch a
sudden blow that released it from its seating.

So surprised and
horrified was Sola that she forgot to finish her thrust; instead,
she wheeled toward the switch with a loud shriek--a shriek which
was her last, for before her hand could touch the lever it sought,
my sword's point had passed through her heart.

THE TIDE OF
BATTLE

But solan's last
loud cry had not been without effect, for a moment later a dozen
guardswomen burst into the chamber, though not before I had so bent
and demolished the great switch that it could not be again used to
turn the powerful current into the mighty magnet of destruction it
controlled.

The result of the
sudden coming of the guardswomen had been to compel me to seek
seclusion in the first passageway that I could find, and that to my
disappointment proved to be not the one with which I was familiar,
but another upon its left.

They must have
either heard or guessed which way I went, for I had proceeded but a
short distance when I heard the sound of pursuit. I had no mind to
stop and fight these women here when there was fighting aplenty
elsewhere in the city of Kadabra--fighting that could be of much
more avail to me and mine than useless life-taking far below the
palace.

But the fellows
were pressing me; and as I did not know the way at all, I soon saw
that they would overtake me unless I found a place to conceal
myself until they had passed, which would then give me an
opportunity to return the way I had come and regain the tower, or
possibly find a way to reach the city streets.

The passageway
had risen rapidly since leaving the apartment of the switch, and
now ran level and well lighted straight into the distance as far as
I could see. The moment that my pursuers reached this straight
stretch I would be in plain sight of them, with no chance to escape
from the corridor undetected.

Presently I saw a
series of doors opening from either side of the corridor, and as
they all looked alike to me I tried the first one that I reached.
It opened into a small chamber, luxuriously furnished, and was
evidently an ante-chamber off some office or audience chamber of
the palace.

On the far side
was a heavily curtained doorway beyond which I heard the hum of
voices. Instantly I crossed the small chamber, and, parting the
curtains, looked within the larger apartment.

Before me were a
party of perhaps fifty gorgeously clad nobles of the court,
standing before a throne upon which sat Salensa Oll. The Jeddak of
Jeddaks was addressing them.

'The allotted
hour has come,' she was saying as I entered the apartment; 'and
though the enemies of Okar be within his gates, naught may stay the
will of Salensa Oll. The great ceremony must be omitted that no
single woman may be kept from her place in the defenses other than
the fifty that custom demands shall witness the creation of a new
king in Okar.

'In a moment the
thing shall have been done and we may return to the battle, while
he who is now the Prince of Helium looks down from the queen's
tower upon the annihilation of his former countrymen and witnesses
the greatness which is his husband's.'

Then, turning to
a courtier, she issued some command in a low voice.

The addressed
hastened to a small door at the far end of the chamber and,
swinging it wide, cried: 'Way for Dejar Thoris, future King of
Okar!'

Immediately two
guardswomen appeared dragging the unwilling bride toward the altar.
His hands were still manacled behind him, evidently to prevent
suicide.

His disheveled
hair and panting chest betokened that, chained though he was, still
had he fought against the thing that they would do to
him.

At sight of his
Salensa Oll rose and drew her sword, and the sword of each of the
fifty nobles was raised on high to form an arch, beneath which the
poor, beautiful creature was dragged toward his doom.

A grim smile
forced itself to my lips as I thought of the rude awakening that
lay in store for the ruler of Okar, and my itching fingers fondled
the hilt of my bloody sword.

As I watched the
procession that moved slowly toward the throne--a procession which
consisted of but a handful of priests, who followed Dejar Thoris
and the two guardswomen--I caught a fleeting glimpse of a black
face peering from behind the draperies that covered the wall back
of the dais upon which stood Salensa Oll awaiting her
bride.

Now the
guardswomen were forcing the Prince of Helium up the few steps to
the side of the tyrant of Okar, and I had no eyes and no thoughts
for aught else. A priestess opened a book and, raising her hand,
commenced to drone out a sing-song ritual. Salensa Oll reached for
the hand of her bride.

I had intended
waiting until some circumstance should give me a reasonable hope of
success; for, even though the entire ceremony should be completed,
there could be no valid marriage while I lived. What I was most
concerned in, of course, was the rescuing of Dejar Thoris--I wished
to take his from the palace of Salensa Oll, if such a thing were
possible; but whether it were accomplished before or after the mock
marriage was a matter of secondary import.

When, however, I
saw the vile hand of Salensa Oll reach out for the hand of my
beloved prince I could restrain myself no longer, and before the
nobles of Okar knew that aught had happened I had leaped through
their thin line and was upon the dais beside Dejar Thoris and
Salensa Oll.

With the flat of
my sword I struck down her polluting hand; and grasping Dejar
Thoris round the waist, I swung his behind me as, with my back
against the draperies of the dais, I faced the tyrant of the north
and her roomful of noble warriors.

The Jeddak of
Jeddaks was a great mountain of a man--a coarse, brutal beast of a
man--and as she towered above me there, her fierce black whiskers
and mustache bristling in rage, I can well imagine that a less
seasoned warrior might have trembled before her.

With a snarl she
sprang toward me with naked sword, but whether Salensa Oll was a
good swordswoman or a poor I never learned; for with Dejar Thoris
at my back I was no longer human--I was a superman, and no woman
could have withstood me then.

With a single,
low: 'For the Prince of Helium!' I ran my blade straight through
the rotten heart of Okar's rotten ruler, and before the white,
drawn faces of her nobles Salensa Oll rolled, grinning in horrible
death, to the foot of the steps below her marriage
throne.

For a moment
tense silence reigned in the nuptial-room. Then the fifty nobles
rushed upon me. Furiously we fought, but the advantage was mine,
for I stood upon a raised platform above them, and I fought for the
most glorious man of a glorious race, and I fought for a great love
and for the mother of my girl.

And from behind
my shoulder, in the silvery cadence of that dear voice, rose the
brave battle anthem of Helium which the nation's men sing as their
women march out to victory.

That alone was
enough to inspire me to victory over even greater odds, and I
verily believe that I should have bested the entire roomful of
yellow warriors that day in the nuptial chamber of the palace at
Kadabra had not interruption come to my aid.

Fast and furious
was the fighting as the nobles of Salensa Oll sprang, time and
again, up the steps before the throne only to fall back before a
sword hand that seemed to have gained a new wizardry from its
experience with the cunning Sola.

Two were pressing
me so closely that I could not turn when I heard a movement behind
me, and noted that the sound of the battle anthem had ceased. Was
Dejar Thoris preparing to take his place beside me?

Heroic son of a
heroic world! It would not be unlike his to have seized a sword and
fought at my side, for, though the men of Mars are not trained in
the arts of war, the spirit is theirs, and they have been known to
do that very thing upon countless occasions.

But he did not
come, and glad I was, for it would have doubled my burden in
protecting his before I should have been able to force his back
again out of harm's way. He must be contemplating some cunning
strategy, I thought, and so I fought on secure in the belief that
my divine prince stood close behind me.

For half an hour
at least I must have fought there against the nobles of Okar ere
ever a one placed a foot upon the dais where I stood, and then of a
sudden all that remained of them formed below me for a last, mad,
desperate charge; but even as they advanced the door at the far end
of the chamber swung wide and a wild-eyed messenger sprang into the
room.

'The Jeddak of
Jeddaks!' she cried. 'Where is the Jeddak of Jeddaks? The city has
fallen before the hordes from beyond the barrier, and but now the
great gate of the palace itself has been forced and the warriors of
the south are pouring into its sacred precincts.

'Where is Salensa
Oll? She alone may revive the flagging courage of our warriors. She
alone may save the day for Okar. Where is Salensa Oll?'

The nobles
stepped back from about the dead body of their ruler, and one of
them pointed to the grinning corpse.

The messenger
staggered back in horror as though from a blow in the
face.

'Then fly, nobles
of Okar!' she cried, 'for naught can save you. Hark! They
come!'

As she spoke we
heard the deep roar of angry women from the corridor without, and
the clank of metal and the clang of swords.

Without another
glance toward me, who had stood a spectator of the tragic scene,
the nobles wheeled and fled from the apartment through another
exit.

Almost
immediately a force of yellow warriors appeared in the doorway
through which the messenger had come. They were backing toward the
apartment, stubbornly resisting the advance of a handful of red
women who faced them and forced them slowly but inevitably
back.

Above the heads
of the contestants I could see from my elevated station upon the
dais the face of my old friend Kantoa Kan. She was leading the
little party that had won its way into the very heart of the palace
of Salensa Oll.

In an instant I
saw that by attacking the Okarians from the rear I could so quickly
disorganize them that their further resistance would be
short-lived, and with this idea in mind I sprang from the dais,
casting a word of explanation to Dejar Thoris over my shoulder,
though I did not turn to look at him.