Warlord of Mars Embattled (7 page)

Through several
inner chambers she raced until she came to a spiral runway. Up this
she dashed, I in close pursuit. At the upper end we came out into a
small chamber, the walls of which were plank except for a single
window overlooking the slopes of Otz and the Valley of Lost Souls
beyond.

Here the fellow
tore frantically at what appeared to be but a piece of the blank
wall opposite the single window. In an instant I guessed that it
was a secret exit from the room, and so I paused that she might
have an opportunity to negotiate it, for I cared nothing to take
the life of this poor servitor--all I craved was a clear road in
pursuit of Dejar Thoris, my long-lost prince.

But, try as she
would, the panel would yield neither to cunning nor force, so that
eventually she gave it up and turned to face me.

'Go thy way,
Thern,' I said to her, pointing toward the entrance to the runway
up which we had but just come. 'I have no quarrel with you, nor do
I crave your life. Go!'

For answer she
sprang upon me with her sword, and so suddenly, at that, that I was
like to have gone down before her first rush. So there was nothing
for it but to give her what she sought, and that as quickly as
might be, that I might not be delayed too long in this chamber
while Matain Shang and Thurid made way with Dejar Thoris and
Thuviar of Ptarth.

The fellow was a
clever swordswoman--resourceful and extremely tricky. In fact, she
seemed never to have heard that there existed such a thing as a
code of honor, for she repeatedly outraged a dozen Barsoomian
fighting customs that an honorable woman would rather die than
ignore.

She even went so
far as to snatch her holy wig from her head and throw it in my
face, so as to blind me for a moment while she thrust at my
unprotected breast.

When she thrust,
however, I was not there, for I had fought with therns before; and
while none had ever resorted to precisely that same expedient, I
knew them to be the least honorable and most treacherous fighters
upon Mars, and so was ever on the alert for some new and devilish
subterfuge when I was engaged with one of their race.

But at length she
overdid the thing; for, drawing her shortsword, she hurled it,
javelinwise, at my body, at the same instant rushing upon me with
her long-sword. A single sweeping circle of my own blade caught the
flying weapon and hurled it clattering against the far wall, and
then, as I sidestepped my antagonist's impetuous rush, I let her
have my point full in the stomach as she hurtled by.

Clear to the hilt
my weapon passed through her body, and with a frightful shriek she
sank to the floor, dead.

Halting only for
the brief instant that was required to wrench my sword from the
carcass of my late antagonist, I sprang across the chamber to the
blank wall beyond, through which the thern had attempted to pass.
Here I sought for the secret of its lock, but all to no
avail.

In despair I
tried to force the thing, but the cold, unyielding stone might well
have laughed at my futile, puny endeavors. In fact, I could have
sworn that I caught the faint suggestion of taunting laughter from
beyond the baffling panel.

In disgust I
desisted from my useless efforts and stepped to the chamber's
single window.

The slopes of Otz
and the distant Valley of Lost Souls held nothing to compel my
interest then; but, towering far above me, the tower's carved wall
riveted my keenest attention.

Somewhere within
that massive pile was Dejar Thoris. Above me I could see windows.
There, possibly, lay the only way by which I could reach him. The
risk was great, but not too great when the fate of a world's most
wondrous man was at stake.

I glanced below.
A hundred feet beneath lay jagged granite boulders at the brink of
a frightful chasm upon which the tower abutted; and if not upon the
boulders, then at the chasm's bottom, lay death, should a foot slip
but once, or clutching fingers loose their hold for the fraction of
an instant.

But there was no
other way and with a shrug, which I must admit was half shudder, I
stepped to the window's outer sill and began my perilous
ascent.

To my dismay I
found that, unlike the ornamentation upon most Heliumetic
structures, the edges of the carvings were quite generally rounded,
so that at best my every hold was most precarious.

Fifty feet above
me commenced a series of projecting cylindrical stones some six
inches in diameter. These apparently circled the tower at six-foot
intervals, in bands six feet apart; and as each stone cylinder
protruded some four or five inches beyond the surface of the other
ornamentation, they presented a comparatively easy mode of ascent
could I but reach them.

Laboriously I
climbed toward them by way of some windows which lay below them,
for I hoped that I might find ingress to the tower through one of
these, and thence an easier avenue along which to prosecute my
search.

At times so
slight was my hold upon the rounded surfaces of the carving's edges
that a sneeze, a cough, or even a slight gust of wind would have
dislodged me and sent me hurtling to the depths below.

But finally I
reached a point where my fingers could just clutch the sill of the
lowest window, and I was on the point of breathing a sigh of relief
when the sound of voices came to me from above through the open
window.

'She can never
solve the secret of that lock.' The voice was Matain Shang's. 'Let
us proceed to the hangar above that we may be far to the south
before she finds another way--should that be possible.'

'All things seem
possible to that vile calot,' replied another voice, which I
recognized as Thurid's.

'Then let us
haste,' said Matain Shang. 'But to be doubly sure, I will leave two
who shall patrol this runway. Later they may follow us upon another
flier--overtaking us at Kaol.'

My upstretched
fingers never reached the window's sill. At the first sound of the
voices I drew back my hand and clung there to my perilous perch,
flattened against the perpendicular wall, scarce daring to
breathe.

What a horrible
position, indeed, in which to be discovered by Thurid! She had but
to lean from the window to push me with her sword's point into
eternity.

Presently the
sound of the voices became fainter, and once again I took up my
hazardous ascent, now more difficult, since more circuitous, for I
must climb so as to avoid the windows.

Matain Shang's
reference to the hangar and the fliers indicated that my
destination lay nothing short of the roof of the tower, and toward
this seemingly distant goal I set my face.

The most
difficult and dangerous part of the journey was accomplished at
last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close about the
lowest of the stone cylinders.

It is true that
these projections were too far apart to make the balance of the
ascent anything of a sinecure, but I at least had always within my
reach a point of safety to which I might cling in case of
accident.

Some ten feet
below the roof, the wall inclined slightly inward possibly a foot
in the last ten feet, and here the climbing was indeed immeasurably
easier, so that my fingers soon clutched the eaves.

As I drew my eyes
above the level of the tower's top I saw a flier all but ready to
rise.

Upon his deck
were Matain Shang, Phaidor, Dejar Thoris, Thuviar of Ptarth, and a
few thern warriors, while near his was Thurid in the act of
clambering aboard.

She was not ten
paces from me, facing in the opposite direction; and what cruel
freak of fate should have caused her to turn about just as my eyes
topped the roof's edge I may not even guess.

But turn she did;
and when her eyes met mine her wicked face lighted with a malignant
smile as she leaped toward me, where I was hastening to scramble to
the secure footing of the roof.

Dejar Thoris must
have seen me at the same instant, for he screamed a useless warning
just as Thurid's foot, swinging in a mighty kick, landed full in my
face.

Like a felled ox,
I reeled and tumbled backward over the tower's side.

ON THE KAOLIAN
ROAD

If there be a
fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surely is a kind and
merciful Providence which watches over me.

As I toppled from
the tower into the horrid abyss below I counted myself already
dead; and Thurid must have done likewise, for she evidently did not
even trouble herself to look after me, but must have turned and
mounted the waiting flier at once.

Ten feet only I
fell, and then a loop of my tough, leathern harness caught upon one
of the cylindrical stone projections in the tower's surface--and
held. Even when I had ceased to fall I could not believe the
miracle that had preserved me from instant death, and for a moment
I hung there, cold sweat exuding from every pore of my
body.

But when at last
I had worked myself back to a firm position I hesitated to ascend,
since I could not know that Thurid was not still awaiting me
above.

Presently,
however, there came to my ears the whirring of the propellers of a
flier, and as each moment the sound grew fainter I realized that
the party had proceeded toward the south without assuring
themselves as to my fate.

Cautiously I
retraced my way to the roof, and I must admit that it was with no
pleasant sensation that I raised my eyes once more above its edge;
but, to my relief, there was no one in sight, and a moment later I
stood safely upon its broad surface.

To reach the
hangar and drag forth the only other flier which it contained was
the work of but an instant; and just as the two thern warriors whom
Matain Shang had left to prevent this very contingency emerged upon
the roof from the tower's interior, I rose above them with a
taunting laugh.

Then I dived
rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woolan, and to my
immense relief found the faithful beast still there.

The twelve great
banths lay in the doorways of their lairs, eyeing her and growling
ominously, but they had not disobeyed Thuviar's injunction; and I
thanked the fate that had made his their keeper within the Golden
Cliffs, and endowed his with the kind and sympathetic nature that
had won the loyalty and affection of these fierce beasts for
him.

Woolan leaped in
frantic joy when she discovered me; and as the flier touched the
pavement of the court for a brief instant she bounded to the deck
beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation of her exuberant
happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel against the
courtyard's rocky wall.

Amid the angry
shouting of thern guardswomen we rose high above the last fortress
of the Holy Therns, and then raced straight toward the northeast
and Kaol, the destination which I had heard from the lips of Matain
Shang.

Far ahead, a tiny
speck in the distance, I made out another flier late in the
afternoon. It could be none other than that which bore my lost love
and my enemies.

I had gained
considerably on the craft by night; and then, knowing that they
must have sighted me and would show no lights after dark, I set my
destination compass upon her--that wonderful little Martian
mechanism which, once attuned to the object of destination, points
away toward it, irrespective of every change in its
location.

All that night we
raced through the Barsoomian void, passing over low hills and dead
sea bottoms; above long-deserted cities and populous centers of red
Martian habitation upon the ribbon-like lines of cultivated land
which border the globe-encircling waterways, which Earth women call
the canals of Mars.

Dawn showed that
I had gained appreciably upon the flier ahead of me. It was a
larger craft than mine, and not so swift; but even so, it had
covered an immense distance since the flight began.

The change in
vegetation below showed me that we were rapidly nearing the
equator. I was now near enough to my quarry to have used my bow
gun; but, though I could see that Dejar Thoris was not on deck, I
feared to fire upon the craft which bore him.

Thurid was
deterred by no such scruples; and though it must have been
difficult for her to believe that it was really I who followed
them, she could not very well doubt the witness of her own eyes;
and so she trained their stern gun upon me with her own hands, and
an instant later an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously
close above my deck.

The black's next
shot was more accurate, striking my flier full upon the prow and
exploding with the instant of contact, ripping wide open the bow
buoyancy tanks and disabling the engine.

So quickly did my
bow drop after the shot that I scarce had time to lash Woolan to
the deck and buckle my own harness to a gunwale ring before the
craft was hanging stern up and making his last long drop to
ground.

His stern
buoyancy tanks prevented his dropping with great rapidity; but
Thurid was firing rapidly now in an attempt to burst these also,
that I might be dashed to death in the swift fall that would
instantly follow a successful shot.