Part 5 (1/2)
Soldier of Fortune; free-lance warrior
They had reached the tower now, and as they entered it frolance revealed the van of their pursuers--hideous kaldanes ht be the three ascended the stairways leading to the ground level, but after them, even rasping one of Tara's hands the uide and assist her, while Gahan of Gathol followed a few paces in their rear, his bared sword ready for the assault that all realized must come upon them now before ever they reached the enclosure and the flier
”Let Ghek drop behind to your side,” said Tara, ”and fight with you”
”There is but roole blade in these narrow corridors,” replied the Gatholian ”Hasten on with Ghek and win to the deck of the flier Have your hand upon the control, and if I co cable you can rise at my word and I can claes first into the enclosure you will know that I shall never come, and you will rise quickly and trust to the Gods of our ancestors to give you a fair breeze in the direction of a more hospitable people”
Tara of Helium shook her head ”We will not desert you, panthan,” she said
Gahan, ignoring her reply, spoke above her head to Ghek ”Take her to the craft moored within the enclosure,” he commanded ”It is our only hope Alone, I may win to its deck; but have I to wait upon you two at the last moment the chances are that none of us will escape Do as I bid” His tone was haughty and arrogant--the tone of a man who has commanded other men from birth, and whose will has been law Tara of Heliu either conored, but with all her royal pride she was no fool, and she knew thehis life to save hers, so she hastened on with Ghek as she was bid, and after the first flush of anger she smiled, for the realization cah untutored warrior, skilled not in the finer usages of cultured courts His heart was right, though; a brave and loyal heart, and gladly she forgave him the offense of his tone and ave her sudden pause Panthans were rough and ready h command, so it was not the note of authority in the fellow's voice that see else--a quality that was indefinable, yet as distinct as it was farandsire, Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Heliurandfather, Mors Kajak, the jed; and in the ringing tones of her illustrious sire, John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, when he addressed his warriors
But now she had no ti, for behind her came the sudden clash of arms and she knew that Turan, the panthan, had crossed swords with the first of their pursuers As she glanced back he was still visible beyond a turn in the stairway, so that she could see the quick swordplay that ensued Daughter of a world's greatest swordsman, she kneell the finest points of the art She saw the clumsy attack of the kaldane and the quick, sure return of the panthan As she looked down from above upon his almost naked body, trapped only in the simplest of unadorned harness, and saw the play of the lithe muscles beneath the red-bronze skin, and witnessed the quick and delicate play of his sword point, to her sense of obligation was added a spontaneous admission of admiration that was but the natural tribute of a woman to skill and bravery and, perchance, soth
Three tied its position--once to fend a savage cut; once to feint; and once to thrust And as he withdrew it from the last position the kaldane rolled lifeless fro quickly down the steps to engage the next behind, and then Ghek had drawn Tara upward and a turn in the stairway shut the battling panthan fro of steel on steel, the clank of accouter of the kaldanes Her heart moved her to turn back to the side of her brave defender; but her judg ready at the control of the flier at the moment he reached the enclosure
CHAPTER IX
ADRIFT OVER STRANGE REGIONS
PRESENTLY Ghek pushed aside a door that opened froht flooding the walled court where the headless rykors lay beside their feeding-troughs She saw the perfect bodies,ures would have been the envy of many of Helium's most beautiful women Ah, if she could but endow these with the power to act! Then indeed ht the safety of the panthan be assured; but they were only poor lumps of clay, nor had she the power to quicken them to life Ever must they lie thus until doirl sighed in pity even as she shuddered in disgust as she picked her way over and a the sprawled creatures toward the flier
Quickly she and Ghek s Tara tested the control, raising and lowering the shi+p a few feet within the walled space It responded perfectly Then she lowered it to the ground again and waited Fro the witnessed her chale antagonist could face hie of position and of the defensive, and he was a lers by coe was in their nuht find a way to coht Could she have seen hiht have been further perturbed, for he took no advantage of ht coolly, but with a savage persistence that bore little semblance to purely defensive action Often he claainst the next behind, and once there lay five dead kaldanes behind hionists They did not know it; these kaldanes that he fought, nor did the girl awaiting hied in a ing the indignities that had been put upon the woht be jeopardizing her safety uselessly, and so he struck down another before hi leaped quickly up the stairhile the leading kaldanes slipped upon the brain-covered floor and stumbled in pursuit
Gahan reached the enclosure twenty paces ahead of theirl ”I will ascend the cable”
Slowly the sround as Gahan leaped the inert bodies of the rykors lying in his path The first of the pursuers sprang fro rope
”Faster!” he shouted to the girl above, ”or they will drag us down!” But the shi+p see as rapidly asa load of three Gahan swung free above the top of the wall, but the end of the rope still dragged the ground as the kaldanes reached it They were pouring in a steady stream from the tower into the enclosure The leader seized the rope
”Quick!” he cried ”Lay hold and ill drag theht of a few to accoht and then, to the horror of the girl, she felt it being dragged steadily doard Gahan, too, realized the danger and the necessity for instant action Clinging to the rope with his left hand, he had wound a leg about it, leaving his right hand free for his long-shich he had not sheathed A doard cut clove the soft head of a kaldane, and another severed the taut rope beneath the panthan's feet The girl heard a sudden renewal of the shrill whistling of her foes, and at the saain Slowly it drifted upward, out of reach of the eneure of Turan clamber over the side For the first tiiving; but her first thought was of another
”You are not wounded?” she asked
'No, Tara of Helium,” he replied ”They were scarce worth the effort of my blade, and never were they a menace to me because of their swords”
”They should have slain you easily,” said Ghek ”So great and highly developed is the power of reason a us that they should have known before you struck just where, logically, you must seek to strike, and so they should have been able to parry your every thrust and easily find an opening to your heart”
”But they did not, Ghek,” Gahan re, for it does not tend toward a perfectly balanced whole You have developed the brain and neglected the body and you can never do with the hands of another what you can do with your own hands Mine are trained to the sword--every muscle responds instantly and accurately, and almost mechanically, to the need of the instant I aht, so quickly doesto h the cold steel had eyes and brains You, with your kaldane brain and your rykor body, never could hope to achieve in the sas that I can achieve Development of the brain should not be the sum total of human endeavor The richest and happiest peoples will be those who attain closest to well-balanced perfection of both mind and body, and even these eneral perfection lies stifling monotony and death Nature hts; sorroith happiness; both wrong and right; and sin as well as virtue”
”Always have I been taught differently,” replied Ghek; ”but since I have known this woman and you, of another race, I have coh and desirable as those of the kaldanes At least I have had a gli you call happiness and I realize that itit I cannot laugh nor smile, and yet within s--a sense that seeuessed pleasure that far transcend the cold joys of a perfectly functioning brain I would that I had been born of thy race”
Caught by a gentle current of air the flier was drifting slowly toward the northeast across the valley of Bantoom Below them lay the cultivated fields, and one after another they passed over the strange towers of Moak and Nolach and the other kings of the swarms that inhabited this weird and terrible land Within each enclosure surrounding the towers grovelled the rykors, repellent, headless things, beautiful yet hideous
”A lesson, those,” re the rykors in an enclosure above which they were drifting at the time, ”to that fortunately small minority of our race which worshi+ps the flesh and makes a God of appetite You know them, Tara of Helium; they can tell you exactly what they had at the o, and how the loin of the thoat should be prepared, and what drink should be served with the ruhed ”But not one of the took the Jeddak's Award in The Temple of Beauty this year,” she said ”Like the rykors, their development has not been balanced”
”Fortunate indeed are those in which there is coe of s, a capacity for love and a capacity for hate, for such as these can look with tolerance upon all, unbiased by the egotism of him whose head is so heavy on one side that all his brains run to that point”
As Gahan ceased speaking Ghek made a little noise in his throat as one does ould attract attention ”You speak as one who has thought much upon many subjects Is it, then, possible that you of the red race have pleasure in thought? Do you know aught of the joys of introspection? Do reason and logic form any part of your lives?”
”Most assuredly,” replied Gahan, ”but not to the extent of occupying all our time--at least not objectively You, Ghek, are an exaotism of which I spoke Because you and your kind devote your lives to the worshi+p of s think And possibly we do not in the sense that you do, who think only of yourselves and your great brains We think of s that concern the welfare of a world Had it not been for the red men of Barsoom even the kaldanes had perished fros upon which you depend for existence cannot, and there had been no air in sufficient quantities upon Barsooreat at world
”What have all the brains of all the kaldanes that have ever lived done to cole reda kaldane he knew that brains spelled the sum total of universal achievement, but it had never occurred to him that they should be put to use in practical and profitable ways He turned away and looked down upon the valley of his ancestors across which he was slowly drifting, into what unknoorld? He should be a veritable God as, he knew; but somehow a doubt assailed him It was evident that these two from that other world were ready to question his pree a suspicion that they patronized hian to wonder as to becoer would he have le one and when it died there could not be another When it tired, Ghek must lie almost helpless while it rested He wished that he had never seen this red woht him only discontent and dishonor and now exile Presently Tara of Helium commenced to hum a tune and Ghek, the kaldane, was content
Gently they drifted beneath the hurtlingof the banths ca volume to their ears as their craft passed on beyond the boundaries of Bantoo behind the terrors of that unhappy land But to ere they being borne? The girl looked at the azing off into the night ahead, apparently absorbed in thought
”Where are we?” she asked ”Tohat are we drifting?”
Turan shrugged his broad shoulders ”The stars telltoward the northeast,” he replied, ”but where we are, or what lies in our path I cannot even guess A week since I could have sworn that I knehat lay behind each succeeding ridge that I approached; but now I admit in all humility that I have no conception of what lies a mile in any direction Tara of Helium, I am lost, and that is all that I can tell you”
He was shtly puzzled expression on her face--there was soly familiar about that smile of his She hadof a world--but she could not place this one
”From what country are you, Turan?” she asked suddenly
”Know you not, Tara of Heliuhts beneath the banner of one master, toiance to so,” she insisted ”What banner, then, owns you now?”
He rose and stood before her, then, bowing low ”And I am acceptable,” he said, ”I serve beneath the banner of the daughter of The Warlord now--and forever”
She reached forth and touched his arm with a slim brown hand ”Your services are accepted,” she said; ”and if ever we reach Helium I promise that your reward shall be all that your heart could desire”
”I shall serve faithfully, hoping for that reward,” he said; but Tara of Heliu rather that he was uess that a simple panthan aspired to her hand and heart?
The dawn found the rapidly over an unfaht and had borne theh and inhospitable No water was visible and the surface of the ground was cut by deep gorges, while nowhere was any but the etation discernible They saw no life of any nature, nor was there any indication that the country could support life For two days they drifted over this horrid wasteland They ithout food or water and suffered accordingly Ghek had te Turan's assistance in lashi+ng it safely to the deck The less he used it the less would its vitality be spent Already it was showing the effects of privation Ghek crawled about the vessel like a great spider--over the side, down beneath the keel, and up over the opposite rail He seemed equally at home one place as another For his companions, however, the quarters were cramped, for the deck of a one-ht always ahead for signs of water Water theyplant which ly arid areas of Mars; but there was neither the one nor the other for these two days and now the third night was upon theirl did not co and his heart was heavy within him Ghek suffered least of all, and he explained to the periods without food or water Turan almost cursed hi away before his eyes, while the hideous kaldane seemed as full of vitality as ever
”There are circuross and hly developed brain”
Turan looked at hi Tara of Helium smiled faintly ”One cannot blame him,” she said, ”e not a bit boastful in the pride of our superiority? When our stomachs were filled,” she added