To Gahna. It took us a long while to get there, for the Maagog army
advanced slowly. Following the lights we found ourselves descending at
once to the sea-bottom. These Maagogs, lumbering and ungainly, were poor
swimmers; the line of them was walking along the bottom.
It made my heart leap to realize that. What match would they be for us
Marinoids in battle—our men so active in the water—our alert girls on
the dolphins. We would cut them to pieces . . . would rout . . .
I whispered my thoughts to Nona.
“Be not too sure, my Nemo,” she said soberly. “It may be so but first we
must do what we are now planning.”
We went on, through the forest road where the Maagogs had tramped aside
the tall, tenuous growth of foliage. It was much dimmer in here. Beside
us the trees and ferns spread as a dark lacework of green and brown.
They met overhead, wavering, tenuous, but impenetrable to our sight.
What a spot for ambush! A thousand hiding-places all about us. An army
could lurk here in ambush unseen.
It is very easy to look backwards upon life and say what should have
been done. We Marinoids—how stupidly we had done things! Our army—if
it had been organized and ready—could have lurked here in this dark
forest . . . leaped upon the Maagogs . . . defeated them at once in one
great surprise attack . . .
“What?” I whispered.
Nona, from her dolphin beside mine, had reached out and gripped my arm.
I followed her gaze, caught a glimpse of a figure hovering amid the
air-pods overhead and just in advance of us. A man, coming down now
toward us, swimming cautiously.
My heart leaped; my grip on my sword tightened. Then I saw it was a
Marinoid—one of my own couriers stationed here to watch the enemy pass.
He joined us. “Og,” he said, “and his black fishes were last to pass. I
would have given my own life to the fishes could I have killed him. But
it did not seem possible.”
I sent the courier back to Rax and we went on as before. Out of the
forest now, across an open stretch, with the lights of the Maagogs still
before us.
Then—Gahna. There it stood, leaning sidewise in the press of current.
Traveling so slowly, we could feel the sweep of the moving water. A
gentle current here; but just beyond Gahna, I knew there was an opening
in the side wall of rock which bordered in the Marinoid domain. It was a
large opening leading diagonally downward—an opening larger than the
city itself—and into it the water rushed swiftly.
“Wait!” whispered Nona.
We halted our mounts, and waited while the last of the occupying Maagogs
dispersed themselves about the city. From this distance we could see
their lights but hear no sounds. Evidences of the recent half-breed
massacre of the Marinoid population, were about us. Broken, inert bodies
lying here and there on the sea-bottom; and the smell of blood in the
water.
I shuddered to remember it. Gahna, bloody from end to end—a city of
death now; and these triumphant Maagogs occupying it, making it a base
from which to attack Rax.
At last they were all in. Cautiously, we advanced further. Moving lights
on the city’s outer surface—a murmur of sounds. Nothing more.
A few moments and we were under the city! In its cellar, let me say. No
one lived down here; sand under our feet; woven vegetation twenty feet
overhead—a cellar ceiling which formed the lowest tier of the city.
It was black in here; and almost soundless, just the murmur of the city
above us. We stood motionless, listening. Were we alone? Dared we light
our lights? I knew that if they caught us in here we could not escape.
Yet we could see nothing without lights.
We unshrouded them finally—little pods which threw tiny wavering green
beams. With them, we poked around, cautiously, with our swiftly beating
hearts seeming about to smother us.
* * * * *
Gahna was a small city. Four thick stalks of vegetation—each about
twice the thickness of my body—formed its main stems. I stood beside
one of them, dug my sword into it.
Within five minutes, I had hacked through the stem. Nona held the light.
“Quietly,” she whispered. “If they should hear us—”
The stalk was severed. A tremor seemed to run over the upper part, and
it moved slightly sidewise.
Trembling ourselves, we attacked another. Severed it; then the third.
The city over us was shifting, toppling. The fourth stalk was twisted
and bent by the strain. . . . I severed it with a few blows.
“Swim! Nona! Quickly!”
The ceiling overhead was lifting—shifting. Smaller stalks and vines
which had taken root in the sand were tearing away. Above us came a
cry—shouts—confusion. . . .
We swam to extricate ourselves. Tearing vines seemed to leap at us, but
we avoided them.
Back to our dolphins. They were waiting; we mounted them—turned to look
at the city. It was turning over in the water, and floating away.
Slowly, then faster, down toward that black opening into which the
current would sweep it.
The city of death! But every living thing in it was pouring out.
Lights—dark blobs of figures—shouts—commands. . . .
The Maagogs were escaping! In a turmoil; and they would lose whatever
apparatus they had for war; but they were escaping nevertheless. We had
hoped the catastrophe would come more quickly. But it did not. The city
toppled slowly over, while those terrified figures leaped from it.
Slowly it floated away—then plunged into the torrent.
It was gone with its murdered Marinoid dead; but on the sand, and in the
water ahead of us, the Maagogs and the half-breeds remained. Some had
gone to their death, no doubt; the others . . .
“They will not wait to attack us now,” Nona whispered suddenly. “We have
crippled them, but . . .”
“We must get back,” I exclaimed. “It is we who must attack at
once—finish them up—now, before they can recover—”
* * * * *
In Rax, we found Atar with his work well done. We Marinoids were ready.
And within an hour or very little more, we set forth to meet the
advancing Maagogs.
I led my army out of Rax. The details of its organization I had left to
Atar and Caan, while Nona and I were on our expedition to Gahna. They
had done their work well; and within an hour after our return we were
ready to leave—to face the advancing Maagog forces.
We left from the roof of Rax. The broad, open space there was ample for
mobilization, and in the center of it my forces were gathered. _You_ of
a greater civilization, might call this army of mine meager. Yet to us
Marinoids it was huge—the largest group of fighting men these people
had ever conceived of organizing.
Some two thousand men, girls and dolphins—the product of all the
Marinoid cities and the rural population. We had many more who wanted,
and were able, to join us. But these I left at home—some in Rax, some
in the other, smaller cities. So that at home—in the event of disaster
to our fighters in the open water—we would not be quite defenseless.
An army of two thousand! It was not very much, of course; but it was
equipped and organized—with a plan of action which I shall tell you in
a moment. That it would be ample for victory, I did not doubt. Og and
his Maagogs might outnumber us—of that I could not say. But we had
fighting qualities which the slow lumbering Maagogs could not possibly
equal. We would be easily victorious, I thought; but Nona was not so
sanguine.
In spite of my commands the people of Rax, many of them, had gathered on
the city roof to see us leave; a circular fringe of them jammed the edge
of the roof, waiting to cheer our departure.
But they did not cheer. With solemn faces they stared upward at our
columns as we rose into the water—women staring after their husbands
and sons, even their daughters—women and old men staring, and wondering
which of their loved ones would return alive to them.
In command of the entire Marinoid forces, I rode alone on a
dolphin—with hands free and with only a lance fastened flat against the
dolphin’s back and a dagger in my belt. I was first off the roof of Rax.
As I rose, gliding smoothly upward and outward, I looked down to see the
city dropping away.
A column of young men, swimming five abreast, came up next—like birds
rising in orderly array to follow their lone leader. It was an inspiring
sight—this sinuous curving line of swimmers. It swung into the water,
bent like a huge rainbow over the city, straightened, and followed me
diagonally upward.
Soon Rax had dwindled small and dim in the water below. But I could see
Nona’s forces—the girls mounted on dolphins—as they too were starting.
Then Rax, now so far beneath me, blurred and was lost in the gray-green
haze of water; and I turned my attention ahead.
The backbone of my army was the line of young men swimming five abreast
behind me. Five hundred of them there were—young, powerful
swimmers—youths at the height of their physical strength. Each was by
nature capable of shocking into insensibility with an electric
discharge, any opponent he could touch by head and heels simultaneously.
These young men were unarmed; I felt that they could use their natural
weapon to better advantage when swimming free-handed.
Nona’s corps consisted of some two hundred girls mounted on dolphins.
Each with a long, lance-like spear in her hands. Nona commanded
them—with ten extra girls, each to control a group of twenty.
Then there was Atar’s corps of sleighs—the “light-sleighs” which I have
already described. Atar himself had a dolphin mount. In each of the ten
dolphin-drawn sleighs was a single occupant—an older man. These sleighs
I would use to precede us—to throw light upon the enemy, blind him, and
cover our onslaught made from behind.
The “sleighs of darkness”—ten of them, dolphin-drawn, and each with two
occupants—were commanded by Caan, himself riding a separate dolphin.
These sleighs were for darkening the water in the event of a catastrophe
to our fighters—to cover our retreat wherever it might be necessary.
* * * * *
For the rest, my main forces were a thousand fighting men—older men in
whom the electric power was waning. They were armed with various types
of spears—daggers, javelins and lances. They were leaving Rax in a long
swimming line some ten abreast.
Such was my army which now was following me into battle. I led it
upward. Behind me I could see the long columns of swimming figures—the
sleighs in two broad groups—the girls on the dolphins in squads of
twenty, each with its leader apart.
Ahead of me lay open water—a gray-green in the half-light, dim and
blurred. Far overhead I knew was the rocky ceiling which marked the top
of this watery, subterranean world; and the ooze and sand of the
sea-bottom was perhaps two thousand feet beneath me.
I was heading for Gahna. The water here was almost free of vegetation,
but not wholly so. Occasionally thin, waving spires of seaweed, covered
with air-pods to sustain them, reared their heads. I threaded my way
among them; and with every turn I made, the line of swimming figures
behind me followed.
Soon I conjectured I must be half-way to the former site of Gahna. The
Maagogs would probably follow the sea-bottom in their advance, for they
were all indifferent swimmers, flabby of muscle and short of breath. It
was time for me to descend and locate them.
I waited—as it had been prearranged that I should wait at this point;
and as I hung poised in a broad stretch of empty water, my army swung up
and gathered. In two huge concentric circles, the men swam slowly around
me, while the girls on the dolphins moved lazily back and forth above
and below.
A beautiful sight, these girls—slim bodies clinging closely to the
sleek backs of their graceful mounts. And Caan and Atar with their
squads of sleighs holding motionless on the outskirts.
In the center of it all, Nona rode her dolphin to join me.
“We are all ready, Nemo.” And she laughed gaily; though searching her
face, I could see no laughter in her solemn eyes.
I told her then to wait while I went down to the sea-bottom to locate
the enemy. She nodded; and I left her.
Slowly I drove my dolphin around the circle of my men—shouting a word
of encouragement here and there. I consulted a moment with Caan and
Atar; waved at Nona as I passed her again, and dove my mount downward.
The ring of waiting figures above me faded into dimness and were lost. I
was alone in the water.
It took but a few moments to reach the bottom; it came up to me, by
optical illusion tilted vertically on end. A hundred feet above it I
righted my mount.
I was over a level floor of sand, with cactus-like growths here and
there. Empty; there was no sign of Maagogs.
Ahead of me, in the direction of where Gahna had once stood, I saw the
shadows of a forest. I advanced toward it; and from it were emerging the
first lines of the oncoming enemy.
* * * * *
But my heart sank. There were very many of them.
At once I raced my dolphin upward. And my thoughts were racing also.
Again I had lost another opportunity for ambush. Had we reached the
forest before the Maagogs began to emerge, we might have surprised them
there. The forest was several miles long and a mile broad perhaps, in
the horizontal direction from Gahna to Rax. A mile of thick
vegetation—tree spires and a tangle of vines and weeds rearing
themselves several thousand feet up into the water. The Maagog army was
now traversing that mile-width of forest. Perhaps, if I could cut them
off in there—attack them piecemeal as they emerged. . . .
I was again with my own forces. Nona, Atar and Caan rode their mounts
hastily to meet me, and I told them the situation.
It took us but a moment to decide. We would maintain this upper open
water as our base. I ordered Atar with his light-sleighs and half of our
electric fighting men, to follow me down. I would attack these first
columns of the enemy as they came out of the forest.
Nona, with her girls, was to ride swiftly above the forest, descend on
its other side and drive the last of the Maagogs in. We did not want any
of them to retreat toward Gahna.
I waited, while Nona with the dolphins dashed upward and away. The girls
had all been flushed and eager; but as they swept by me in a line I saw
that each little face was white, set and grave.
They vanished in a swirl of water. I wheeled my dolphin toward Atar. His
ten light-sleighs were in a line abreast, with him on his dolphin behind
them. He gave a signal. The pods on the sleighs were unshrouded. Green
light leaped ahead—a broad, blinding glare; and in the semi-darkness
behind it, my electric men were gathered around me.
Then I shouted my command, and we started vertically downward—our first
attack upon the enemy.