THE COMING OF THE BEASTS
Seated on her ivory throne in the empty hall of her temple, the Goddess
Glorian fought within her heart a battle that was every whit as fierce
and hard as that of Ruthar in the field. In that sounding citadel two
forces stood arrayed, one for good and one for evil, and the conflict
between them was passing bitter. It was the world-old war of duty and
love that has ever torn the heart of woman.
No outward signal of the struggle marred the supernal beauty of her
face. She sat as one sits who is thoughtful and somewhat weary.
Light-rays that stole down from the windows in the lofty dome wrought
strange effects of fire in the wonder of her hair--fire which smoldered
and glowed and ran in tiny sparks along the silklike filaments. Her
head was slightly bowed. The slender hands, which lay in her lap, were
quiet and listless. Only in the depths of her eyes was she betrayed. In
those red-brown deeps, could one have seen them through the half-closed
lids, one would have found a pleading misery that would not still,
almost a terror.
Compelled by the ancient secret and a will that never slept, the
passing years had dealt splendidly by Glorian. Experience they had
given her, which is more than knowledge, and patience, and an almost
supernatural poise; but they had not made her more than human.
And a man had come.
Why should she give way to this other woman? Why should she not reach
out and take that for desire of which her soul yearned and her heart
was consumed by flame? 'Twould be easy. A delay, a word in the ear of
Zoar, a seeming mischance--and the priests of Shamar in Adlaz would
clear her way. Why should she shrink and hesitate?
The man had said that, were he too late, he would die upon the road.
Well, that might be prevented. Besides, men do not die so easily, and
time will heal all heart-wounds. But will it? And were that other woman
dead, could Glorian win him to herself--this man whose will was as
strong as her own?
He was through the wall now and on the road to Adlaz. Oleric had sent
messengers to tell her that. And they had told her, too, of that
brave friend of his, who had nearly given his life while opening the
way. Many had died--her own countrymen--and many more would die--and
why? Because of an ambition which she herself had nurtured and kept
bright--now hollow and of no appeal. What should Glorian care who held
dominion over Adlaz or over Ruthar--she, who desired only peace and to
rule in the heart of a man?
All of a long afternoon she sat there, and a statue were not more
still. For the better part of the night the struggle raged on above her
pillow, and left it drenched with tears. Then evil fled the field, and
she who had mastered her spirit slept dreamlessly until the morrow.
In the morning she sent away her tire-women, and ordered that a horse
be equipped for a warrior and left at the temple doors.
When that steed went down the hill there was no one in all Ruthar who
would have known that the Goddess Glorian was the rider. For she was
arrayed in the glittering armor, silver-wrought above its steel, of a
Rutharian zind. She wore a closed and vizored helm. A sword swung at
her back, and there were both ax and spear at her saddle-bow.
"I will go down with him into the battle," she whispered, "and let
things fall out as they may. Some day, somewhere, my time will come. My
soul has promised it."
She crossed the Illia and rode northward through the forests.
* * * * *
After the fall of Atlo the fighting went on at the wall for the rest
of that day, the Rutharians storming tower after tower, until they held
every turret from sea to sea. Through the afternoon and the night and
the next day Oleric pushed on with his road, working his men in relays,
and snatching for himself only brief spells of sleep. Through the night
in which the king of Ruthar stormed and took Barme, the sappers and
miners labored on at the breach.
Morning saw the task completed.
First through the breach went a flying squadron of the horsemen from
the hills, six thousand strong, led by two of the mountain zinds,
Maxtan and Albar. After them marched a great division of infantry,
nearly fifty thousand of them, the chest of the army, each section
carrying with it a number of companies of archers and slingers. Then
a force of nearly thirteen thousand chariots rumbled through the
breach--these following the infantry because they would be of little
use until the host should pass the mountain defiles to more level
fighting ground. Followed an endless train of baggage and provision
wains.
No siege machinery was carried, for two reasons. Rutharians long ago
had found such engines as their skill had devised to be powerless
against the Kimbrian Wall, and had lost faith in them. Secondly,
certain carefully handled bundles from the laboratories of Nematzin
were judged to be of more avail than any catapult, ram or mantelet.
At intervals Oleric halted the divisions to allow of the passage of
more cavalry, which spread out at each side of the main array and rode
down through the forest paths of the isthmus.
For more than twelve hours Ruthar poured her armed men through the
breach in the barrier, with scarcely a break--and the way was wide.
Reserves in the camp and on the wall cheered the various regiments as
they went by, marching under their banners and to the music of pipe and
drum.
Last of all, over the slope and through the gap came Zoar of the
Amalocs with no less than fifty-eight of the monsters of his herd.
In single file the amalocs marched, each holding fast with his trunk
to the tail of the beast ahead, as elephants are wont to do. Ixstus,
father and patriarch of the herd, led the line, and on the mighty head
of Ixstus rode Zoar, the master.
On they came, these mountains of red-wooled flesh, swinging their
gleaming wealth of ivories. Though their shambling tread was soft and
padding, the roadway, made smooth and hard by the passing of thousands
of feet and hoofs and wheels, shook under their advance.
Zoar had been preparing against this day for many years. All of his
beasts were armored for battle. Their heads were protected by immense
bosses or shields of steel. He had also armor for their forelegs, with
chains, which could be attached in such a manner that they would swing
out when the animals charged, and strike down any living thing that
came near them. The tips of the spreading tusks were equipped with
sockets, to which sharp steel points could be fitted. More than half of
the great brutes bore fighting turrets on their backs, in each of which
was room for a half a score of men. A few tons more or less of metal
and men meant nothing to the boundless strength of an amaloc.
Until he saw that Zoar had passed the breach, Oleric waited. Then he
took horse and rode forward. Zenas and certain of his workmen had gone
through with the first of the cavalry. With them had gone the dog
Rombar. The animal had escaped from the laboratories in Zele-omaz,
where Polaris had left him, and had come into the camp half starved
and nearly frantic with anxiety to find his master. Zenas could not
withstand the appeal of the brute's dumb search, so he took Rombar
along. Everson, getting better of his wound, still sick and delirious,
had been transferred to Zele-omaz and lay at the house of Zind Atra,
tended by the best medical skill in Ruthar.
When the head of the host was some six hours upon its way, it met the
first of the long lines of captives, which Polaris had sent back from
the storming of Barme. The cheering which greeted the tale of that
exploit of their king passed down the marching regiments like a gale
and through the Kimbrian breach into Ruthar. When Zenas, with the
riders, clattered up the hill in the gorge and saw the strength of the
citadel that had been taken, his heart beat high with pride for what
his boy had done.
Learning there that the king had passed on to the north, the horsemen,
their numbers continually augmented by new companies from the rear,
pushed on along the road in the hope of overtaking him.
* * * * *
In a dark and narrow glen, wild with rocks and trees, with a mountain
wall at his back and steel death, many-handed and triumphant, closing
in along his front, a tawny-haired giant crouched warily among his
thinning ranks of fighting men. If ever a man was hard beset, it
was the king of Ruthar. Hemmed in where there was no way of escape,
he waited with his dwindling company the fifth charge of a horde of
Maeronican warriors, who were forming for the rush at the mouth of the
glen. Gone wild with glee were the sons of Ad. They had trapped the
king of Ruthar like a wounded bear. Great would be their reward from
Bel-Ar if they took him.
Among the rocks and bushes lay a grim reminder in shattered men of four
previous charges. Some comfort it was to those who waited above to know
that for every one of Ruthar who had gone to the stars, at least two of
Bel-Ar's men had traveled the same path--or perhaps to the sun; for the
Maeronicans prayed to Shamar.
After leaving Barme, Polaris had led his followers along the main road,
and they had almost reached the end of the pass, where it debouched
into the forests of upper Maeronica, before mischance overtook them. It
came in the shape of that same Captain Broddok, whom they had driven
from his blazing hold at Barme.
Broddok had ridden through the pass at speed, and beyond it had met a
strong outpost of cavalry and five regiments of foot-soldiers, sent up
to hold the passes. For Captain Fanaer had already arrived in upper
Maeronica.
Scouts brought word of the advance of Polaris with the most of his
force through the principal pass. He, too, had sent out small parties
to explore through the outer defiles, of which there were four, and
bring him word of the lay of the land.
"Now let him come on," counseled Broddok to the Maeronican commander,
"and we shall have a surprise for him."
Swiftly galloping riders at once swarmed into the four smaller passes,
overwhelmed the Rutharians whom they found there and drove them into
the hills. The horsemen then joined forces and swept down the road in
the rear of Polaris, having come into the defile by bridle paths over
the hills which were known to them.
Turning his front to meet this menace, the son of the snows was beset
from behind by both cavalry and infantry, and his force was split up
before it could be massed or a place be found suitable for defense.
With nearly a thousand of his men of mixed armament, Janess had been
driven into the glen, discovering too late that it was a cul-de-sac,
from which there was no escape.
Four charges the Rutharians had met, and their numbers were now less
than three hundred. But Jastla's ring of steel still held, and Polaris
himself was not even wounded. Where the fighting had been the thickest,
there he had gone; but ever when some perilous blow fell, there was
one of Jastla's mountaineers to meet it or to die under it. Of the
hundred men less than fifty lived, and scarcely a score of those were
scatheless.
"All that you can do here, you have done, O king," said Jastla
earnestly, as they waited for the fifth charge. "A man unhindered might
scale yonder rocks and escape into the hills. Do you make the attempt?
I and these with me will hold back these howling whelps of Bel-Ar.
Haste you, or 'twill be too late."
Polaris turned on him sternly.
"And you have been comrade to me, Jastla, and did train and make me
skilled with arms, and yet think that I am so small of spirit," he
said. "Jastla, I take it ill of you. You and these men are fighting for
the man whom Ruthar has crowned king. What sort of a king would he be,
think you, who deserted when he had those still lines yonder before him
for example?" He pointed down where the dead warriors lay.
"Here I may die, and here I may buried be; but I will not turn back."
Under his shaggy brows old Jastla's eyes were moist.
He grunted loudly.
"I didn't think that you would go. Forgive me that I spoke of it," he
said. He turned to his hillsmen, and the word went round that every
last one of the wolves of Ruthar was to die in his tracks. There would
be no giving back before the next charge.
Broddok on foot waved his sword and gave the word, and the Maeronicans
raised their battle-cry and came swarming up through the rocks to the
attack. The mountaineers answered them with a deep-voiced shout:
"For the king! For Polaris!"
None of the combatants heard a thin cry far above them at the brink of
the cliff and the frenzied barking of a dog.
On came the Maeronicans, Broddok leading, his face flushed with triumph
and hatred. In the captain's way was a large fragment of rock. As he
sprang around it, it split in twain and flew into splinters, belching
green flame. That flash was the last thing the captain ever saw; the
thunderous roar that shook the hillside was the crack of doom for him.
A sliver of rock smote him on the temple. Raula was avenged.
Another terrific explosion tore up the earth and boulders right in the
midst of the startled Maeronicans, and then another. Men were dying by
the hundred. Bel-Ar's men turned and fled shrieking for the roadway.
The charge was turned into a rout. Hardly were they out of the glen
where such fearsome happenings had befallen them, when a cloud of
Rutharian cavalry rolled down through the main pass and swept Bel-Ar's
men and their supports into headlong flight toward the lowlands.
On the brow of the rock a small, white-haired old man, clad in armor
several sizes too large for him, stood up from his knees and patted a
great black dog on the head.
"Good shots those were, Rombar," he said. "Used to be a baseball
pitcher once, and haven't lost my wing yet. By golly! I was just in
time."
Presently Zenas was down in the road with the others to greet Polaris.
The geologist made light of what he had done, but Janess and the others
knew that they owed their lives to his quick wit.
Soldiers who had been driven into the hills had met the Rutharian
riders and told them of the plight of their king. While the cavalry
engaged the Maeronicans in the pass and cleared it, the old man and
a small party, carrying melinite bombs, some few of which Zenas had
fashioned in his laboratories, had ridden by a bridle-path to the top
of the cliff.
"Be careful, son," said Zenas, when Polaris threw an arm lovingly
across his shoulder. "This chain jerkin of mine is packed with enough
of that green hell-cake to spread us over two counties. And keep the
brute away."
For Rombar had found his master and was leaping about him like a crazed
thing and barking as if to tell the whole army about it.
* * * * *
Despite the utmost efforts of Fanaer, the most trusted of Bel-Ar's
captains and a general skilled in all the arts of war, Ruthar held
the isthmus and the mountain passes, and through the Kimbrian defile
poured down with horse and foot and chariot into upper Maeronica.
Failing to hold back the host of the invader and fortify the passes, as
he had hoped to do, Fanaer began a harrying, guerrilla warfare. From
sea to sea he made the land barren of supplies for his enemy, sending
the peasants and hill-dwellers with their cattle and provisions down
to the coast cities of Zeddar and Aklon. He sent swarms of light
riders into the hills, where by sally and ambuscade and the breaking
of bridges and a hundred other means they fretted the advance of the
Rutharian army.
Did the way lie through a forest, Fanaer fired it, and Ruthar marched
in flames and smoke. Did the road follow the turn of a hill, there were
men at the crest to roll huge rocks down on the tramping legions. Was a
gorge to be passed, the bridges were ruined.
Days wore away, days which Ruthar could ill spare, and which Polaris
counted with a sinking heart, seeing his army go forward so slowly.
Still it did advance--slowly, painfully, but surely, the steel lines
made progress.
Craft against craft Oleric matched with Fanaer. Ruthar had her light
horsemen, too. Right and left Oleric sent them into the uplands to
clear his path of the stinging pests of Fanaer. Scores of times in
a day, on hilltop or in wooded glen, short, fierce engagements were
fought, but never a pitched battle. Maeronica was playing for delay.
Far behind the shifting screen of Fanaer's operations Bel-Ar and his
generals were consolidating the main strength of Maeronica in the
lowlands along the river Thebascu.
When hill-riding and skirmishing was done, the generals of both armies
knew that the real war would begin--that the issue would be joined and
decided on the plains of Nor.
Careful as any general in modern warfare was Oleric with regard to
his flanks and rear. Well he knew, did the red captain, that in the
slow-moving trains of provisions that crept ceaselessly along the
isthmus from Ruthar was the strength of his host in the field. Once
that line was cut, Bel-Ar might laugh indeed.
It took many men to keep the rear ways open and man the isthmian
passes. On the morning when the Rutharian army writhed forth from the
forests like a wounded but tenacious serpent onto the level stretches
of the plains of Nor, Oleric had under his banners a scant hundred
thousand men. Thirty thousand more warded the rear. Fifty thousand in
reserves were massed in the forests and on the isthmus. Twenty thousand
were with the slain.
The sun was shining as the host wound out from the gloom of the
forests. To right and to left were wooded hills and beyond them the
peaks of mountain ranges, blue against the skies. Ahead, the plains, a
reach of level land some thirty miles broad from east and west and a
score of miles across, were divided by the gleaming, irregular ribbon
of the river Thebascu.
In a loop of the river in a camp that was strongly entrenched, for all
the haste with which it had been constructed, lay the army of Ad, fresh
and unwearied and ready for battle. And it outnumbered the host of
Ruthar by nearly two to one. Across the river, down the hundred miles
to Adlaz, the Mazanion Road was choked with supply trains and reserves.
Snow still lay in patches in the forest defiles; but the plains were
faintly green with a promise of the spring-time. On the trees the buds
were swelling. Through a month of wearisome marching Ruthar had come.
In less than forty-five days the trumpets would sound from the towers
of Adlaz for the Feast of Years.
"Now by her who sits at Flomos," said Oleric to Polaris, as they sat
their horses on a hillside and looked across the plains to where the
gold and blue standards fluttered, "here will be a battle worth the
waiting of all my years."
Somewhat worn with anxiety was the face of the son of the snows; but
his eyes were bright and his strength was unimpaired. He, too, was
ready.
"Shall we not strike at the nearest point of the river?" he asked,
pointing to the west of Bel-Ar's camp. "If we gain the bank of the
stream, it will shorten our front, and it seems that we shall not
easily be flanked."
Oleric swore that the plan was good, and Ruthar's army began to fight
its way across the plain. It could scarcely be said that battle was
beginning. All the way through the forests had been one long, unending
struggle with Fanaer. Already on the plains cavalry skirmishes were in
progress. Now was to come the climax of a month of conflict.
Steadily Ruthar pressed on, and with the fall of night pitched her
tents on the plain, her left wing resting on the river below the
Maeronican camp. By common consent, the fighting ceased at dusk and the
armies rested on their arms. The next day would tell the tale, and they
were content to await it. Such was the contour of the land that there
was little ground for strategy and juggling of men. This was to be a
battle, front to front, with victory to the strongest arms. And though
their force was the greater, there was much of doubt in the hearts
of the men of Ad. Tales had been brought in of the prowess of these
mountain warriors.
Other camp gossip had put uneasiness upon the soldiers of Bel-Ar. How,
for instance, had the Kimbrian Wall been sundered, if it were not the
work of the gods? And the beasts, the mighty red beasts, against which
men were as flies. Rumor had told that they had come into Maeronica
and would fight in the field against Adlaz. The sun set that night in
a sea of fire. Men did not know how to interpret that omen. Was Shamar
angered? And if he was, on whose heads would his blows fall on the
morrow? The stars shone calm and clear. Ruthar worshiped the stars.
Those and other thoughts caused many a stout Maeronican to shake his
head over his campfire. But most of all they feared the beasts.
* * * * *
Wary Oleric had kept Zoar and his herd well to the rear. Never in the
march had the amalocs gone forward until the way had been cleared. None
of the Maeronican fighting men had set eyes on them. The beasts were
Ruthar's strongest hope. If even the thought of them struck terror into
the hearts of the Children of Ad, Oleric reasoned that their sudden
appearance in battle might be counted upon to produce a panic.
Ruthar would try a tilt against Maeronica, the red captain planned, and
if she might would win her battle by force of arms alone. But if the
fight should swing against her, then the beasts would be better than an
army in reserve. So he bade Zoar camp in the forests, and he surrounded
the encampment with a strong guard and cordons of sentries.
In the morning Ruthar's stars paled, and Shamar came up smiling--seeing
which the men of Bel-Ar took fresh heart.
Scarcely had the first shafts of light thrust over the mountain-tops
when Oleric, from the shadows of the forest, launched a great bolt of
cavalry across the plain. Another division which had been moved in the
night swept east along the south bank of the river. While the riders of
Bel-Ar went out to meet them, the trumpets of the king of Ruthar were
sounded in the center of the camp, and long files of men-at-arms crept
forth into the dawn behind the screen of dashing horsemen.
In three deep columns Polaris moved his footmen into battle, with lanes
between them, into which the cavalry might retire, and through which
the charioteers would charge when the time came. Each of the marching
columns was tipped with regiments of swiftly moving javelin men, and
behind them came the archers, stringing their long bows and singing a
lilting chorus as they moved out on the plain.
Mounted on his black stallion, Polaris led the center, riding behind
the first ranks of his swordsmen and accompanied by the men of Jastla
and some score of the Rutharian zinds, all in full armor. Far to the
right rode Oleric the Red. The left was headed by Tarnos, one of the
zinds. That post Polaris had offered to old Jastla of the hills, but
the chieftain had declined it.
"'Tis a great honor, O king," he said when the proffer was made, and
his eyes shone. "But I pray you give it not to me. I would fight at
your side. That post will be troublesome enough, as I well know."
Jastla grinned broadly. "Give the command to a nobler man."
"There is none nobler, old wolf," Polaris replied. "But have it as you
will."
So Tarnos led the left, along the river Thebascu, and Jastla and his
ring of steel rode with his king, and he was content.
Midway between the camps, as Oleric had ordered it, the charging
horsemen swerved aside, doubled, and, as though in fear, plunged
back between the advancing columns. Hard on their flying heels came
the shouting riders of Ad. As they came the javelin men cast, and
the archers bent bows and loosed a bitter flight from their twanging
strings that shrieked among the horsemen like a white drift of blizzard
through the mountain trees. Then, before the eyes of the Maeronican
riders, the horsemen they pursued were gone; the bowmen and the
javelin-throwers melted away; fanwise the heads of the three columns
spread out and joined each to each, their front ranks kneeling; and
Ruthar received her plunging foemen on an unbroken front of leveled
spears.
Fell ruin awaited that splendid charge. Unable to turn back because
of the surging squadrons behind them, the foremost ranks were dashed
against the grim steel barrier, and went down in a horrible tangle of
struggling men and horses.
Into the mêlée, through the lines and over the shoulders of their
comrades, leaped the light-armed footmen with their javelins and
daggers, and slew hundreds of horses, whose riders fell easy prey to
the two-handed blades that now were aloft and busy.
At the rear the Rutharian cavalry formed again, and dashing around the
flanks of the columns in two flying wedges, closed like nippers behind
Bel-Ar's confused squadrons.
First cast in the game had gone to Ruthar. The horsemen of Ad were
routed and pushed back--all those who could go. Those that remained
were done with fighting.
From the earthen wall of his camp, standing among his golden-armored
generals, Bel-Ar saw his cavalry broken and flung back--saw it, and
laughed aloud.
"They fight well, these mountain wolves," he said. "But that was the
play of children. Now will we send them a taste of the swords of Ad."
Beyond the wall of the camp were massed the legions of the Maeronican
heavy infantry, flower of the fighting men of seven cities, the core
of which was formed of the garrison of Adlaz itself, fifteen thousand
veteran men-at-arms.
Bidding his captains go forward, the king called for his horse.
* * * * *
Somber as he had appeared in his dull garments in the midst of his
butterfly court, Bel-Ar, among his captains, offered an even greater
contrast. He loved the pomp and pride of power, its show and its
glitter, but not in his own person. While his generals rode in gold,
and the armor of some of them blazed with gems and patterns in
orichalcum that made them glow like fireflies in the night, the king
wore a simple suit of arms of black steel, plain of design and undecked
by any flashing gauds. Only the majesty that dwelt in his pallid face
and the fires of his mystic's eyes distinguished him from some humble
gentleman of poor estate.
Mounting his war-horse, a gaunt, powerful roan beast of vicious temper,
the king, with a number of his favorite captains, rode down the field
in the wake of his advancing phalanxes. With them was advanced the blue
and gold battle-standard.
Bel-Ar marshaled his legions in wide divisions, each of nearly a
thousand men, marching in quadruple lines, and the divisions in such
close touch that they might form, when there was need, a solid front.
At the wings of the force were stationed the light-armed men and
archers. Behind those, two wedge-shaped masses of chariots rolled forth
from the camp gates and rumbled across the plain.
At the foot of a gentle dip of the land the Rutharians had met and
hurled back the horsemen. There they elected to remain and await the
enemy's sterner onset.
On came the shimmering lines of Ad across the meadows now dewed with
blood; on with a rattle of drums, a brazen peal of trumpets, the clank
and clash of armor mingling with the pounding hoofs on the hard turf,
the thumping of chariot-wheels, and the shouted commands of the file
leaders--the ancient, many-tongued clamor that stirs the soul of Mars.
Silent and watchful, the men of mountainous Ruthar crouched low behind
their shields and waited.
Over the bodies of their dead comrades, over the fallen horses, the
phalanxes marched. Then, closing into a living wall, they took the last
tangled barrier of corpses with a rush and a shout, and the battle was
joined. All across the field echoed the hollow thunder of the meeting
shields as the lines closed. Followed a clanging as of a thousand
trip-hammers. For now the spears were down and the swords were at work.
Following their custom, the Rutharians cast their shields behind them
after the first shock of the onset, and plied their long blades with
both hands, making them serve both as swords and bucklers.
On pushed the Maeronican wall under its tossing banners. So fierce was
the rush and pressure of those charging thousands that Ruthar's line,
strive as her warriors might, was bent backward like a bow. A wild
cheering went up from the ranks of Ad when they saw the red standard
give back. Gathering themselves again, they swept the mountain legions
to the crest of the rise.
Sitting his charger on the slope behind the line of his men-at-arms,
Polaris looked down into that hell of combat. Like the unfolding vista
of a hideous dream, it seemed to him, which he was powerless to break
or to hinder. Yet above the din of the blood-maddened legions the sky
was blue and calm, the sun shone bright, and back there in the forests
the birds of spring were calling to their mates.
Under his fascinated eyes the line of his warriors bent and came
nearer. The red banner of Ruthar--a moment ago it had been planted
at the foot of the slope, and now it was almost touching his horse's
muzzle! Down there in the field another flag was coming, and with it a
company of riders whose armor flashed back the sunlight from plates and
shields of burnished gold.
The spell was broken.
Rising in his stirrups, the son of the snows drew his two-handed sword
from over his shoulder. Among the Maeronican generals his keen eyes had
seen a face that he remembered well.
"Zinds of Ruthar!" he cried, his voice ringing above the clamor.
"Yonder rides Bel-Ar of Adlaz. Let us go and greet him."
All around him he heard the clinking of closing vizors. The zinds were
ready.
Casting down his shield, Polaris called to the swordsmen in front to
open and make way. Before the Maeronican soldiery could advantage
themselves of the gap, he was down the slope and upon them like a
living thunderbolt. Under the urge of the spurs, his horse reared
and struck out with its forefeet as it met the foemen. Leaning well
over the good beast's shoulder, the rider whirled his heavy blade and
struck so fast and so fiercely that eyes could not follow the blows.
Adlaz's stoutest warriors shrank bewildered from the menace of that
lightning-stroke and those steel-shod hoofs. Before one might count ten
he was through them, leaving a wake of crumpled men. Behind him rode
gray Jastla and the zinds of Ruthar.
As they passed, one of the zinds bent and snatched the crimson banner
from the standard-bearer.
A roar like that of angry lions went down the Rutharian front when
the hillsmen saw their flaming standard rise over the heads of the
fighting men and advance into the field. Where their king led, no wall
of steel could hold them back. As though the string had been released,
the mighty bow straightened. All down that long, grim battle-line the
two-handed swords clove through.
Rallying around their king, the golden captains waited the shock that
was coming.
For Polaris had one goal, and one only, on all that stricken field.
Outstripping the fleetest of his riders, he hewed his way through the
Maeronican nobles, nor stopped until his sable war-horse was shoulder
to shoulder with the steed of Bel-Ar, the king.
"By Shamar, 'tis the slave-king!" shouted Bel-Ar, as the apparition in
steel and silver burst through his gilded riders and bore down upon
him. Sword and shield he lifted to meet the assault, fending himself
with that skill of arms by which he oft had made good the boast of
Adlaz that he was the hardiest fighting man in the two kingdoms.
While the battle on the plain raged around them unheeded, king met king
in the play of swords.
First stroke of Polaris fell on the rounded shield and beat it down so
that Bel-Ar reeled in his saddle. Before the great blade could swing
again, the Maeronican straightened and smote with his own good sword of
tempered bronze. A clang as of a descending hammer rang in the ears of
Polaris. Under the trampling feet of the horses lay one of the golden
wings of his helmet. Another stroke fell on his shoulder, cracking a
steel boss of his armor and thrilling his arm with a sting of pain.
Heeding it not, he rose in the saddle and swung his sword to his two
arms' height. No shield or arm would stay that blow.
For the fraction of a second Bel-Ar's doom hung poised in air. Ere it
fell, Polaris's stallion reared, screaming. The mighty stroke that the
rider sped fell on empty air. Overbalanced by the weight of his own
effort, Polaris bent nearly to his saddle-bow. Beneath him the black
stallion shuddered and went down. An unhorsed captain of Adlaz had run
in and thrust the animal through the vitals with a spear.
Janess sprang free from the falling horse. Above him, Bel-Ar shouted
in triumph and hewed down with his bronze sword. But the zinds of
Ruthar had torn through Bel-Ar's riders to the support of their king,
upsetting both men and horses as they came. One of them, a slender
youth in silver armor, leaped from his steed and flashed between Bel-Ar
and his dismounted and helpless foeman, taking the king's sword-stroke
on his head.
Jastla closed his steel ring, then, and Bel-Ar was carried away in a
swirling press of his own cavalry, which had charged fiercely in to
save him.
* * * * *
Polaris knelt beside his fallen horse and lifted the still form of the
man who had saved him. The red banner of Ruthar, held by Zind Albar,
floated above them. Around the circle of riders which Jastla had drawn
the battle whirled like a seething maelstrom around a rock in a sea of
clashing steel.
"Who is he?" Polaris asked of Albar, and pillowed the head in its
silver helm on his knee. In vain he tried to lift the vizor. The
sword-stroke of the Maeronican king had shattered the upper flare of
the helmet and bent down its crest so that the vizor would not yield.
"I know him not," said Albar, who was a hillsman. "Some zind of the
lower cities, I judge, from the armor he wears. Whoever he is, he is a
brave man. He has this day saved the life of the king of Ruthar, and
I fear that he has lost his own in the deed. Bel-Ar strikes bitterly.
See; he has cracked the helmet like an egg. Ah-h--!"
Striking the steel-shod shaft of the standard into the earth, Albar
leaped down from his horse and knelt beside Polaris.
While the zind had been speaking, the fingers of the son of the snows
had loosed the clasps of the helmet and lifted it. From under the
cloven silver shell rippling coils of red-brown hair slipped down and
flowed over his arm and his knee, where the sunlight caught and turned
them into dancing flames. The pale face turned up to the sky, unmarred
save by a small stain of blood at one of the temples, was that of the
Goddess Glorian of Ruthar!
Janess groaned. Albar stared like a man transfixed. But Glorian was not
dead. As the air struck her face she moved her head faintly and her
lips trembled.
"Illia--roars--loudly to-day," she murmured. "It must be--the
freshets--of spring."
She opened her eyes, saw the faces bent above her, and smiled wanly at
Polaris.
"Then I was not too late?" she said, the halting gone out of her voice.
"'Tis well."
"Lady, why did you come hither--into the battle?" asked Polaris. "And
why--" His voice broke; for the courage of this woman moved him almost
to tears; the memory of that crushing stroke of bronze which she had
taken in his stead made him shudder.
Glorian smiled again.
"Vex yourself not about me," she said. "Shall Ruthar's bravest shed
their lives for their land and king, and Glorian not do her part?" She
lifted her hand and pointed to the standard. "Where Ruthar's banner
goes, there goes Glorian also--even into the battle. And I am not
dying, or greatly hurt, only dizzied, and my head hums. See; I can
arise."
And arise she did, with Polaris's arm to support her. Around Jastla's
narrowing circle broke the shock of the battle-tide. But for the moment
neither the man nor the woman heeded it.
"But you are wounded, lady," Janess said. "There is blood on your
forehead."
She slipped a hand from its gauntlet and raised it to her head.
"Hardly a scratch," she said.
Just at the roots of her long tresses a splinter from the shivered
helmet had scarred the scalp--a tiny cut, scarcely a quarter of an inch
in length.
Now Albar the zind, who had hung on every word, came out of the spell
of horror that had bound him. He swung himself onto his horse. Then for
the one time in his life Albar gave orders to a king.
"Guard you the goddess and the banner," he cried to Polaris. "I go to
tell the men of Ruthar that which shall put in each one the strength of
ten!"
He rode to Jastla's side.
"Gray wolf, may your ring be strong till I come again," he said. "You
have within it a king and a goddess."
Down rang his vizor, and setting spurs to his horse Albar set out to
cross the field and find Oleric the Red.
No longer was the fight on the plains one of ordered lines of men. The
charge of Polaris had broken the Maeronicans' long front, and they
had not been able to close up the gap he had made. So they had swung
into the smaller phalanxes of their legions, and the battle was one of
division against division, with many breaks between. Here and there
the divisions had split up into still smaller groups, and occasionally
there might be seen two warriors who fought alone, one laying on for
Ruthar and one for Ad.
Gray Jastla, fighting with his face to the west, heard Albar's words as
the zind flashed past him. To find their meaning, the chieftain cast a
hurried glance over his shoulder. He saw Polaris and Glorian standing
together under the crimson standard, and was near to letting his sword
fall in his surprise. Next instant he rose in his stirrups and clove a
Maeronican from shoulder to breastbone. Out rang the chief's voice in a
hollow roar through his vizor:
"Strike as ye never struck before! Behind you is the Goddess Glorian,
come to see that ye do well. Would ye have these Maeronican hounds take
her? Strike!"
Around the circle echoed the war-cry:
"For the Goddess Glorian! Strike!"
Like living sword-blades did the Rutharian zinds answer that fierce
appeal. The circle grew smaller and drew in upon itself, but it did not
break. Under their resistless blades the zinds piled a rampart of dead
Maeronicans to defend their goddess. A riderless horse backed into the
circle, and Polaris, quitting Glorian's side, mounted the steed with
his two-handed steel and joined the zinds.
* * * * *
Standing up on the body of Polaris's fallen war-horse, supporting
herself with one hand on the staff of the banner, Glorian watched that
deadly fray. With her long hair flowing on her shoulders, she looked in
her warlike gear like one of the valkyries of Adin come down to earth
from Valhalla to watch the passing of the souls of heroes. Ever her
gaze followed Polaris. And if she seemed like one of the Norse god's
daughters, the man who fought under her eyes was a fitting part of the
simile.
His sword wrenched from his grasp in the body of a man he had slain, he
snatched the heavy ax that swung at his saddle-bow, and with it laid on
like Thor with his hammer.
Aid was coming.
Down the field as he rode Albar spread the tidings. From mouth to mouth
flew the word that the Goddess Glorian was on the plains of Nor, and
that she and the king were in sore peril yonder where the red standard
flew. The effect was instantaneous. Each warrior became a host in
himself. Wounded men who had turned to the rear heard and forgot their
hurts and staggered into the fight again.
When Albar reached Oleric the Red on the right, the zind found that his
news had preceded him.
"Get you to Maxtan," shouted Oleric. "Charge with every horse that can
bear a rider. A messenger has gone into the forests, and another charge
is coming. Clear the way for the amalocs."
Maxtan and Albar gathered their wild horsemen and charged and charged
again. So well did they do their work that they hacked a way to the
first rank of the Maeronican chariots, deep between the two horns of
which was waging the struggle around the red banner.
Vainly Oleric urged his own charioteers forward. Bel-Ar's blood was up,
and he was smiling no longer. Battalion on battalion of his infantry he
sent in to meet the steeds and feed the blades of Ruthar. Almost within
his grasp the Maeronican king saw victory. Already he counted as taken
the slave whom his foeman had crowned. Sooner than give back a foot, or
allow that little band of riders to go free, he was prepared to spend
his army to the last man, and himself with it.
No less than three horses Oleric had killed under him. When the last
was gone, he climbed into a chariot and fought at the point of his
rumbling wedge. Behind him from the forests a force entered the plain
and the conflict that was mightier than all the red captain's horsemen
and battalions.
Zoar had come.
In the shadow of the tall trees where the bending limbs swept their
mighty backs, Zoar marshaled thirty of his amalocs and set them in
battle array--a single line, with twenty intervening feet between each
beast. If Zoar knew aught of amalocs, and he thought that he did, there
would be need for no second line. A hundred men and as many horses ran
about the legs of the monsters, tightening the broad girths that held
the basketlike turrets on the mammoths' shoulders. The beasts stood
quietly, swinging their huge trunks and weaving from side to side,
as was their habit. Occasionally one of them cocked forward a great
blanket of an ear as though in lazy wonderment at the din on the plains.
On the head of each, with his back to the turret, and clutching his
keen-pointed ankus, sat a driver in full armor.
When all was ready, the spear-throwers and archers clambered up by
rope-ladders and took their places in the towers.
At the left of the line, and nearest to the river, was Ixstus,
patriarch and giant of the herd. And on the broad head of Ixstus beside
the driver rode Zoar of the many years.
Along the line from beast to beast passed the word:
"We are ready, Father Zoar."
"Ixstus!" said the old man. The sail-like ears gave attention. "Ixstus,
I have raised you since a calf, and I think you love me after your
fashion. Do not fail me now, Ixstus. Go forward, fearing nothing. _Akko
dor!_"
Zoar's last words were spoken loudly. Thirty vast trunks lifted up.
From thirty huge proboscides pealed forth the amaloc trumpet-call--such
a call as might have shaken the forests in the ages before the first
puny man began his life of fear.
For of amalocs the records of the Garden of Eden make no mention.
Swaying their ponderous heads, and with the turrets on their shoulders
heaving and tossing like boats on a troubled sea, the amalocs went
forward.
Far in the turmoil of the fight Oleric heard that trumpeting. Over his
shoulder he looked and saw the mighty red bulk of Ixstus push out from
among the trees.
With their trunks curled out of harm's way, their thick and ropy tails
stretched straight out behind, and their ears flapping to their stride,
the amalocs came down the grim lanes of battle. Though the legs that
were as the trunks of trees for size swung with no apparent haste,
the beasts came on at a pace that it would have troubled a trotting
horse to distance. The lengths of chain fastened to their knee-harness
whistled through the air like flails.
From division to division along Ruthar's jagged battle-line sped the
warning cry:
"Way! Way for Zoar! Make way for the amalocs!"
Under the tossing ivory fronts the divisions parted and drew aside.
Zoar increased the distance between his beasts. Into thirty wide
aisles the army split. From forest to front, save for the dead, the
way was clear. From the wild vortex of the battle rose a stormy burst
of cheering as the amalocs thundered down the aisles, and Ruthar's
exultant warriors welcomed their gigantic allies.
Wilder still was the cheering when it was seen that at the ends of the
pathways the phalanxes of Bel-Ar's men-at-arms were crumbling away.
Flesh and blood could not abide the onset that was coming, and the
Maeronican legions broke and fled ingloriously across the plains in
droves, many of them casting away their arms and shields as they ran.
Bidding his charioteer pull in his horses, Oleric climbed up on the
high front of his chariot to watch how Bel-Ar would meet this new
stroke. What would meet the drive of the amalocs? As he reached his
vantage-point, the answer came--a cavalry charge!
From the wall of his camp, where he had been taken, nursing an arm
that was numb from wrist to shoulder, the Maeronican king ground his
teeth in fury as he saw the new force enter the battle and witnessed
the melting of his legions. Once before, in the morning, his cavalry
had been rudely handled, and he had laughed. Now, with tears of rage
in his eyes, he dispatched his shattered squadrons in the teeth of the
oncoming peril.
White-faced captains and quaking men scrambled into their saddles to
do their king's bidding, and the horsemen rode desperately to meet the
beasts.
What happened was simple. The amalocs plowed through the clouds of
cavalry that opposed them with scarcely a break in their stride,
overthrowing men and horses as though they had been of paper, and
leaving ghastly ruins behind them where their ponderous feet had
trodden.
One such onset was enough. No horse that ever lived could have been
forced to face another. For the amalocs, when they joined battle, set
up such a din of squealing and trumpeting as nearly split the ears that
heard it. The horse that could have met that grievous onslaught must
have been both blind and deaf.
From above, in the basket-turrets, the archers and spearsmen poured
down a deadly hail of missiles on the riders. Did a horseman avoid the
thrashing chains and get near enough to the vast side of an amaloc to
strike--and not many did so--he found his spear-point rebound from
the tough hide. The utmost power of his stroke was not a pin-prick to
an amaloc. Even as the swordsmen had fled, so fled now the riders,
betaking themselves in a fear-maddened stream to their camp, whither
the charioteers had preceded them.
"The beasts of Ruthar are a myth," had said Bel-Ar, the king. And his
soldiers had believed him, had fostered confidence with the thought
that the frightful tales that had been told of the strength and fury
of the amalocs were mere traditions which had come down from the days
of old. Now here before the camp were the beasts, red and awesome and
raging--more terrible by far than even tradition had painted them--and
among the Children of Ad there was none who had the heart to go out
and face them--unless, indeed, it were the king himself. Bel-Ar in his
rage would have fronted the overlord of all evil that day had he come
against him.
So it came about that the ring of Jastla, the chief, found the
pressure of assault slackening and falling away. Maeronicans who had
been fiercest to meet the sword-blades, now were stumbling over each
other's legs in their haste to escape the amalocs. What was left of the
ring--barely a score and five of battered men and horses--opened, and
through its gap strode Ixstus and paused beside the red banner.