Part 18 (2/2)

They fought now with sword and knife.

Jack Odin felt a heavy hand upon his arm. Gunnar was at his side. ”It is even as I foretold you, Nors-King. The weapons are all gone. Stay close by Gunnar's side now. We will fight together, as we fought before.

Eh, they are coming up from underground like ants. I think we have lost the advantage. Hagen's dead lie thick, though. And now it is our turn.

The old swords and the swinging chant. Ah, Old Blood-Drinker will not be thirsty tonight. Brace yourself. Here comes the first a.s.sault.”

And with his huge short legs spread wide apart, Gunnar swung his broadsword. The first wave of attackers went down like ripe wheat.

Gunnar and Odin cut their way through them, and came out against a smoking hedge. Behind them, Ato and his Lorens strewed the streets with dead.

Gunnar and Odin went through a hole in the hedge. A defender was making for it from the other side, and Gunnar broke the man's neck. Clinging to the thin shadow of the hedge they moved forward, killing as they went.

CHAPTER 16

Gunnar and Odin followed the hedge for a long way, until they came out against the far side of the dome. The noise of fighting still continued.

It was back of them, but drawing nearer. Odin guessed--or hoped--that Ato and Val were driving the defenders before them.

They came out upon a lane that was flanked by the beautiful colonnades.

Near them was one of the entrances to the tunnels below, and beside it was one of the stone cressets with a high-flaring flame. At the end of the lane was a dais. Upon this dais stood Grim Hagen, shouting instructions to a crew of white-skinned, soldiers below him who were trying to set up a strange machine. It looked like a model of Saturn balanced upon a tripod.

Except that it had three concentric rings about it.

Grim Hagen's s.h.i.+rt was scorched and tattered. It was falling from his lean shoulders. His face was seamed and lined. The muscles upon his neck stood out in cords. His hair was gray now. His left arm was gashed from elbow to wrist, and blood was dripping down his fingers. He dashed the drops aside as he screamed orders. His black eyes still blazed with that old feral hate, and though the years had wasted him, his hips were still as thin as an Apache's and he looked iron-hard.

Odin and Gunnar knelt beside the railing that marked the entrance to the tunnels below. Neither Hagen nor his men saw them.

Gunnar grasped Odin's shoulders and pulled him down. ”Listen,” he whispered in Odin's ear. ”Do you hear anything strange?”

Odin listened. Above the tumult behind them came that same sound which he had heard out on the plain. A whining, purring sound. The purring of a tiger feeding contentedly.

Then screams drowned out the whining sound, and Odin wondered if he had not imagined it.

Nearly a hundred of the defenders came running toward Grim Hagen. They were in mad flight now. Most of them were weaponless. Grim Hagen cursed them, rallied them about him, and urged them to pick up new weapons and fight.

Now, Ato and Val and another hundred men came charging forward.

Leaving three men to set up the strange machine, Grim Hagen's trained Aldebaranians met them. They clashed head-on--blade against blade, fist against bone. They held there, like two wrestlers evenly matched. For a moment Grim Hagen's men were forced back. Then some new defenders swarmed out of the side-alleys and joined them. A head was poked up from the stairway below, Gunnar split the man's skull and sent him tumbling down upon some new replacements.

Now Grim Hagen spied Odin and Gunnar as they advanced to help Ato.

Standing upon the dais, his face livid with rage, Hagen pointed to them and screamed--as mad as any of the last Caesars who had gone insane from too much power.

”Look, men of the Lorens,” Hagen cried, still pointing. ”I will give immortality to the men who bring me those two alive.”

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