tmp_8e30e50e85e50ee4e1405d47df8c3c0e_lY8giP.fixed.tidied Page 16

  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.

  With myself ever between his enemies and himself, and with Kantoa Kan and her warriors winning to the apartment, there could be no danger to Dejar Thoris standing there alone beside the throne.

  I wanted the women of Helium to see me and to know that their beloved prince was here, too, for I knew that this knowledge would inspire them to even greater deeds of valor than they had performed in the past, though great indeed must have been those which won for them a way into the almost impregnable palace of the tyrant of the north.

  As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear a small doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed the figures of Matain Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, her son, peering into the room.

  A quick glance about they took. Their eyes rested for a moment, wide in horror, upon the dead body of Salensa Oll, upon the blood that crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who had fallen thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battling warriors at the other door.

  They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its every corner from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had sought its entire area, a look of fierce rage overspread the features of Matain Shang, and a cold and cunning smile touched the lips of Phaidor.

  Then they were gone, but not before a taunting laugh was thrown directly in my face by the man.

  I did not understand then the meaning of Matain Shang's rage or Phaidor's pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me.

  A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow women, and as the red women of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonists a great shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drowned the noise of battle.

  'For the Princess of Helium!' they cried. 'For the Princess of Helium!' and, like hungry lions upon their prey, they fell once more upon the weakening warriors of the north.

  The yellow women, cornered between two enemies, fought with the desperation that utter hopelessness often induces. Fought as I should have fought had I been in their stead, with the determination to take as many of my enemies with me when I died as lay within the power of my sword arm.

  It was a glorious battle, but the end seemed inevitable, when presently from down the corridor behind the red women came a great body of reenforcing yellow warriors.

  N
ow were the tables turned, and it was the women of Helium who seemed doomed to be ground between two millstones. All were compelled to turn to meet this new assault by a greatly superior force, so that to me was left the remnants of the yellow women within the throneroom.

  They kept me busy, too; so busy that I began to wonder if indeed I should ever be done with them. Slowly they pressed me back into the room, and when they had all passed in after me, one of them closed and bolted the door, effectually barring the way against the women of Kantoa Kan.

  It was a clever move, for it put me at the mercy of a dozen women within a chamber from which assistance was locked out, and it gave the red women in the corridor beyond no avenue of escape should their new antagonists press them too closely.

  But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against me that day, and I knew that Kantoa Kan had battled her way from a hundred more dangerous traps than that in which she now was. So it was with no feelings of despair that I turned my attention to the business of the moment.

  Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejar Thoris, and I longed for the moment when, the fighting done, I could fold his in my arms, and hear once more the words of love which had been denied me for so many years.

  During the fighting in the chamber I had not even a single chance to so much as steal a glance at his where he stood behind me beside the throne of the dead ruler. I wondered why he no longer urged me on with the strains of the martial hymn of Helium; but I did not need more than the knowledge that I was battling for his to bring out the best that is in me.

  It would be wearisome to narrate the details of that bloody struggle; of how we fought from the doorway, the full length of the room to the very foot of the throne before the last of my antagonists fell with my blade piercing her heart.

  And then, with a glad cry, I turned with outstretched arms to seize my prince, and as my lips smothered his to reap the reward that would be thrice ample payment for the bloody encounters through which I had passed for his dear sake from the south pole to the north.

  The glad cry died, frozen upon my lips; my arms dropped limp and lifeless to my sides; as one who reels beneath the burden of a mortal wound I staggered up the steps before the throne.

  Dejar Thoris was gone.

  REWARDS

  With the realization that Dejar Thoris was no longer within the throneroom came the belated recollection of the dark face that I had glimpsed peering from behind the draperies that backed the throne of Salensa Oll at the moment that I had first come so unexpectedly upon the strange scene being enacted within the chamber.

  Why had the sight of that evil countenance not warned me to greater caution? Why had I permitted the rapid development of new situations to efface the recollection of that menacing danger? But, alas, vain regret would not erase the calamity that had befallen.

  Once again had Dejar Thoris fallen into the clutches of that archfiend, Thurid, the black dator of the First Born. Again was all my arduous labor gone for naught. Now I realized the cause of the rage that had been writ so large upon the features of Matain Shang and the cruel pleasure that I had seen upon the face of Phaidor.

  They had known or guessed the truth, and the hekkador of the Holy Therns, who had evidently come to the chamber in the hope of thwarting Salensa Oll in her contemplated perfidy against the high priestess who coveted Dejar Thoris for herself, realized that Thurid had stolen the prize from beneath her very nose.

  Phaidor's pleasure had been due to his realization of what this last cruel blow would mean to me, as well as to a partial satisfaction of his jealous hatred for the Prince of Helium.

  My first thought was to look beyond the draperies at the back of the throne, for there it was that I had seen Thurid. With a single jerk I tore the priceless stuff from its fastenings, and there before me was revealed a narrow doorway behind the throne.

  No question entered my mind but that here lay the opening of the avenue of escape which Thurid had followed, and had there been it would have been dissipated by the sight of a tiny, jeweled ornament which lay a few steps within the corridor beyond.

  As I snatched up the bauble I saw that it bore the device of the Prince of Helium, and then pressing it to my lips I dashed madly along the winding way that led gently downward toward the lower galleries of the palace.

  I had followed but a short distance when I came upon the room in which Sola formerly had held sway. Her dead body still lay where I had left it, nor was there any sign that another had passed through the room since I had been there; but I knew that two had done so--Thurid, the black dator, and Dejar Thoris.

  For a moment I paused uncertain as to which of the several exits from the apartment would lead me upon the right path. I tried to recollect the directions which I had heard Thurid repeat to Sola, and at last, slowly, as though through a heavy fog, the memory of the words of the First Born came to me:

  'Follow a corridor, passing three diverging corridors upon the right; then into the fourth right-hand corridor to where three corridors meet; here again follow to the right, hugging the left wall closely to avoid the pit. At the end of this corridor I shall come to a spiral runway which I must follow down instead of up; after that the way is along but a single branchless corridor.'

  And I recalled the exit at which she had pointed as she spoke.

  It did not take me long to start upon that unknown way, nor did I go with caution, although I knew that there might be grave dangers before me.

  Part of the way was black as sin, but for the most it was fairly well lighted. The stretch where I must hug the left wall to avoid the pits was darkest of them all, and I was nearly over the edge of the abyss before I knew that I was near the danger spot. A narrow ledge, scarce a foot wide, was all that had been left to carry the initiated past that frightful cavity into which the unknowing must surely have toppled at the first step. But at last I had won safely beyond it, and then a feeble light made the balance of the way plain, until, at the end of the last corridor, I came suddenly out into the glare of day upon a field of snow and ice.

  Clad for the warm atmosphere of the hothouse city of Kadabra, the sudden change to arctic frigidity was anything but pleasant; but the worst of it was that I knew I could not endure the bitter cold, almost naked as I was, and that I would perish before ever I could overtake Thurid and Dejar Thoris.

  To be thus blocked by nature, who had had all the arts and wiles of cunning woman pitted against her, seemed a cruel fate, and as I staggered back into the warmth of the tunnel's end I was as near hopelessness as I ever have been.

  I had by no means given up my intention of continuing the pursuit, for if needs be I would go ahead though I perished ere ever I reached my goal, but if there were a safer way it were well worth the delay to attempt to discover it, that I might come again to the side of Dejar Thoris in fit condition to do battle for him.

  Scarce had I returned to the tunnel than I stumbled over a portion of a fur garment that seemed fastened to the floor of the corridor close to the wall. In the darkness I could not see what held it, but by groping with my hands I discovered that it was wedged beneath the bottom of a closed door.

  Pushing the portal aside, I found myself upon the threshold of a small chamber, the walls of which were lined with hooks from which depended suits of the complete outdoor apparel of the yellow women.

  Situated as it was at the mouth of a tunnel leading from the palace, it was quite evident that this was the dressing-room used by the nobles leaving and entering the hothouse city, and that Thurid, having knowledge of it, had stopped here to outfit herself and Dejar Thoris before venturing into the bitter cold of the arctic world beyond.

  In her haste she had dropped several garments upon the floor, and the telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had proved the means of guiding me to the very spot she would least have wished me to have knowledge of.

  It required but the matter of a few seconds to don the necessary orluk-skin clothing, with the heavy, fur-lined b
oots that are so essential a part of the garmenture of one who would successfully contend with the frozen trails and the icy winds of the bleak northland.

  Once more I stepped beyond the tunnel's mouth to find the fresh tracks of Thurid and Dejar Thoris in the new-fallen snow. Now, at last, was my task an easy one, for though the going was rough in the extreme, I was no longer vexed by doubts as to the direction I should follow, or harassed by darkness or hidden dangers.

  Through a snow-covered canyon the way led up toward the summit of low hills. Beyond these it dipped again into another canon, only to rise a quarter-mile farther on toward a pass which skirted the flank of a rocky hill.

  I could see by the signs of those who had gone before that when Dejar Thoris had walked he had been continually holding back, and that the black woman had been compelled to drag him. For other stretches only her foot-prints were visible, deep and close together in the heavy snow, and I knew from these signs that then she had been forced to carry him, and I could well imagine that he had fought her fiercely every step of the way.