CHAPTER V. THE SMITING THING
Silently we looked at each other, and silently we passed out of thecourtyard. The dread was heavy upon me. The twilight was stealing uponthe close-clustered peaks. Another hour, and their amethyst-and-purplemantles would drop upon them; snowfields and glaciers sparkle out inirised beauty; nightfall.
As I gazed upon them I wondered to what secret place within theirbrooding immensities the little metal mysteries had fled. And to whatmyriads, it might be, of their kind? And these hidden hordes--of whatshapes were they? Of what powers? Small like these, or--or--
Quick on the screen of my mind flashed two pictures, side by side--thelittle four-rayed print in the great dust of the crumbling ruin and itscolossal twin on the breast of the poppied valley.
I turned aside, crept through the shattered portal and looked over thehaunted hollow.
Unbelieving, I rubbed my eyes; then leaped to the very brim of the bowl.
A lark had risen from the roof of one of the shattered heaps and hadflown caroling up into the shadowy sky.
A flock of the little willow warblers flung themselves across thevalley, scolding and gossiping; a hare sat upright in the middle of theancient roadway.
The valley itself lay serenely under the ambering light, smiling,peaceful--emptied of horror!
I dropped over the side, walked cautiously down the road up which butan hour or so before we had struggled so desperately; paced farther andfarther with an increasing confidence and a growing wonder.
Gone was that soul of loneliness; vanished the whirlpool of despair thathad striven to drag us down to death.
The bowl was nothing but a quiet, smiling lovely little hollow in thehills. I looked back. Even the ruins had lost their sinister shape; weretime-worn, crumbling piles--nothing more.
I saw Ruth and Drake run out upon the ledge and beckon me; made my wayback to them, running.
"It's all right," I shouted. "The place is all right."
I stumbled up the side; joined them.
"It's empty," I cried. "Get Martin and Chiu-Ming quick! While the way'sopen--"
A rifle-shot rang out above us; another and another. From the portalscampered Chiu-Ming, his robe tucked up about his knees.
"They come!" he gasped. "They come!"
There was a flashing of spears high up the winding mountain path. Downit was pouring an avalanche of men. I caught the glint of helmets andcorselets. Those in the van were mounted, galloping two abreast uponsure-footed mountain ponies. Their short swords, lifted high, flickered.
After the horsemen swarmed foot soldiers, a forest of shining points anddully gleaming pikes above them. Clearly to us came their battlecries.
Again Ventnor's rifle cracked. One of the foremost riders went down;another stumbled over him, fell. The rush was checked for an instant,milling upon the road.
"Dick," I cried, "rush Ruth over to the tunnel mouth. We'll follow. Wecan hold them there. I'll get Martin. Chiu-Ming, after the pony, quick."
I pushed the two over the rim of the hollow. Side by side the Chinamanand I ran back through the gateway. I pointed to the animal and rushedback into the fortress.
"Quick, Mart!" I shouted up the shattered stairway. "We can get throughthe hollow. Ruth and Drake are on their way to the break we camethrough. Hurry!"
"All right. Just a minute," he called.
I heard him empty his magazine with almost machine-gun quickness.There was a short pause, and down the broken steps he leaped, gray eyesblazing.
"The pony?" He ran beside me toward the portal. "All my ammunition is onhim."
"Chiu-Ming's taking care of that," I gasped.
We darted out of the gateway. A good five hundred yards away were Ruthand Drake, running straight to the green tunnel's mouth. Between themand us was Chiu-Ming urging on the pony.
As we sped after him I looked back. The horsemen had recovered, werenow a scant half-mile from where the road swept past the fortress. I sawthat with their swords the horsemen bore great bows. A little cloud ofarrows sparkled from them; fell far short.
"Don't look back," grunted Ventnor. "Stretch yourself, Walter. There's asurprise coming. Hope to God I judged the time right."
We turned off the ruined way; raced over the sward.
"If it looks as though--we can't make it," he panted, "YOU beat it afterthe rest. I'll try to hold 'em until you get into the tunnel. Never dofor 'em to get Ruth."
"Right." My own breathing was growing labored, "WE'LL hold them. Drakecan take care of Ruth."
"Good boy," he said. "I wouldn't have asked you. It probably meansdeath."
"Very well," I gasped, irritated. "But why borrow trouble?"
He reached out, touched me.
"You're right, Walter," he grinned. "It does--seem--like carryingcoals--to Newcastle."
There was a thunderous booming behind us; a shattering crash. A cloud ofsmoke and dust hung over the northern end of the ruined fortress.
It lifted swiftly, and I saw that the whole side of the structure hadfallen, littering the road with its fragments. Scattered prone amongthese were men and horses; others staggered, screaming. On the fartherside of this stony dike our pursuers were held like rushing watersbehind a sudden fallen tree.
"Timed to a second!" cried Ventnor. "Hold 'em for a while. Fuses anddynamite. Blew out the whole side, right on 'em, by the Lord!"
On we fled. Chiu-Ming was now well in advance; Ruth and Dick less thanhalf a mile from the opening of the green tunnel. I saw Drake stop,raise his rifle, empty it before him, and, holding Ruth by the hand,race back toward us.
Even as he turned, the vine-screened entrance through which we had come,through which we had thought lay safety, streamed other armored men. Wewere outflanked.
"To the fissure!" shouted Ventnor. Drake heard, for he changedhis course to the crevice at whose mouth Ruth had said the--LittleThings--had lain.
After him streaked Chiu-Ming, urging on the pony. Shouting out of thetunnel, down over the lip of the bowl, leaped the soldiers. We droppedupon our knees, sent shot after shot into them. They fell back,hesitated. We sprang up, sped on.
All too short was the check, but once more we held them--and again.
Now Ruth and Dick were a scant fifty yards from the crevice. I saw himstop, push her from him toward it. She shook her head.
Now Chiu-Ming was with them. Ruth sprang to the pony, lifted from itsback a rifle. Then into the mass of their pursuers Drake and she poureda fusillade. They huddled, wavered, broke for cover.
"A chance!" gasped Ventnor.
Behind us was a wolflike yelping. The first pack had re-formed; hadcrossed the barricade the dynamite had made; was rushing upon us.
I ran as I had never known I could. Over us whined the bullets fromthe covering guns. Close were we now to the mouth of the fissure. Ifwe could but reach it. Close, close were our pursuers, too--the arrowscloser.
"No use!" said Ventnor. "We can't make it. Meet 'em from the front.Drop--and shoot."
We threw ourselves down, facing them. There came a triumphant shouting.And in that strange sharpening of the senses that always goes handin hand with deadly peril, that is indeed nature's summoning of everyreserve to meet that peril, my eyes took them in with photographicnicety--the linked mail, lacquered blue and scarlet, of the horsemen;brown, padded armor of the footmen; their bows and javelins and shortbronze swords, their pikes and shields; and under their round helmetstheir cruel, bearded faces--white as our own where the black beards didnot cover them; their fierce and mocking eyes.
The springs of ancient Persia's long dead power, these. Men of Xerxes'sruthless, world-conquering hordes; the lustful, ravening wolves ofDarius whom Alexander scattered--in this world of ours twenty centuriesbeyond their time!
Swiftly, accurately, even as I scanned them, we had been drilling intothem. They advanced deliberately, heedless of their fallen. Their arrowshad ceased to fly. I wondered why, for now we were well within theirrange. Had they orders to take us alive--at whate
ver cost to themselves?
"I've got only about ten cartridges left, Martin," I told him.
"We've saved Ruth anyway," he said. "Drake ought to be able to hold thathole in the wall. He's got lots of ammunition on the pony. But they'vegot us."
Another wild shouting; down swept the pack.
We leaped to our feet, sent our last bullets into them; stood ready,rifles clubbed to meet the rush. I heard Ruth scream--
What was the matter with the armored men? Why had they halted? What wasit at which they were glaring over our heads? And why had the rifle fireof Ruth and Drake ceased so abruptly?
Simultaneously we turned.
Within the black background of the fissure stood a shape, an apparition,a woman--beautiful, awesome, incredible!
She was tall, standing there swathed from chin to feet in clinging veilsof pale amber, she seemed taller even than tall Drake. Yet it was nother height that sent through me the thrill of awe, of half incredulousterror which, relaxing my grip, let my smoking rifle drop to earth; norwas it that about her proud head a cloud of shining tresses swirledand pennoned like a misty banner of woven copper flames--no, nor thatthrough her veils her body gleamed faint radiance.
It was her eyes--her great, wide eyes whose clear depths were likepools of living star fires. They shone from her white face--notphosphorescent, not merely lucent and light reflecting, but as thoughthey themselves were SOURCES of the cold white flames of far stars--andas calm as those stars themselves.
And in that face, although as yet I could distinguish nothing but theeyes, I sensed something unearthly.
"God!" whispered Ventnor. "What IS she?"
The woman stepped from the crevice. Not fifty feet from her were Ruthand Drake and Chiu-Ming, their rigid attitudes revealing the same shockof awe that had momentarily paralyzed me.
She looked at them, beckoned them. I saw the two walk toward her,Chiu-Ming hang back. The great eyes fell upon Ventnor and myself. Sheraised a hand, motioned us to approach.
I turned. There stood the host that had poured down the mountain road,horsemen, spearsmen, pikemen--a full thousand of them. At my right werethe scattered company that had come from the tunnel entrance, threescoreor more.
There seemed a spell upon them. They stood in silence, like automatons,only their fiercely staring eyes showing that they were alive.
"Quick," breathed Ventnor.
We ran toward her who had checked death even while its jaws were closingupon us.
Before we had gone half-way, as though our flight had broken whateverbonds had bound them, a clamor arose from the host; a wild shouting,a clanging of swords on shields. I shot a glance behind. They were inmotion, advancing slowly, hesitatingly as yet--but I knew that soon thathesitation would pass; that they would sweep down upon us, engulf us.
"To the crevice," I shouted to Drake. He paid no heed to me, nor didRuth--their gaze fastened upon the swathed woman.
Ventnor's hand shot out, gripped my shoulder, halted me. She had thrownup her head. The cloudy METALLIC hair billowed as though wind had blownit.
From the lifted throat came a low, a vibrant cry; harmonious, weirdlydisquieting, golden and sweet--and laden with the eery, minor wailingsof the blue valley's night, the dragoned chamber.
Before the cry had ceased there poured with incredible swiftness out ofthe crevice score upon score of the metal things. The fissures vomitedthem!
Globes and cubes and pyramids--not small like those of the ruins, butshapes all of four feet high, dully lustrous, and deep within thatluster the myriads of tiny points of light like unwinking, staring eyes.
They swirled, eddied and formed a barricade between us and the armoredmen.
Down upon them poured a shower of arrows from the soldiers. I heard theshouts of their captains; they rushed. They had courage--those men--yes!
Again came the woman's cry--golden, peremptory.
Sphere and block and pyramid ran together, seemed to seethe. I hadagain that sense of a quicksilver melting. Up from them thrust a thickrectangular column. Eight feet in width and twenty feet high, it shapeditself. Out from its left side, from right side, sprang arms--fearfularms that grew and grew as globe and cube and angle raced up thecolumn's side and clicked into place each upon, each after, the other.With magical quickness the arms lengthened.
Before us stood a monstrous shape; a geometric prodigy. A shining angledpillar that, though rigid, immobile, seemed to crouch, be instinct withliving force striving to be unleashed.
Two great globes surmounted it--like the heads of some two-faced Janusof an alien world.
At the left and right the knobbed arms, now fully fifty feet inlength, writhed, twisted, straightened; flexing themselves in grotesqueimitation of a boxer. And at the end of each of the six arms the sphereswere clustered thick, studded with the pyramids--again in gigantic,awful, parody of the spiked gloves of those ancient gladiators whofought for imperial Nero.
For an instant it stood here, preening, testing itself like anathlete--a chimera, amorphous yet weirdly symmetric--under the darkeningsky, in the green of the hollow, the armored hosts frozen before it--
And then--it struck!
Out flashed two of the arms, with a glancing motion, with appallingforce. They sliced into the close-packed forward ranks of the armoredmen; cut out of them two great gaps.
Sickened, I saw fragments of man and horse fly. Another arm javelinedfrom its place like a flying snake, clicked at the end of another,became a hundred-foot chain which swirled like a flail through thehuddling mass. Down upon a knot of the soldiers with a straight-forwardblow drove a third arm, driving through them like a giant punch.
All that host which had driven us from the ruins threw down sword,spear, and pike; fled shrieking. The horsemen spurred their mounts,riding heedless over the footmen who fled with them.
The Smiting Thing seemed to watch them go with--AMUSEMENT!
Before they could cover a hundred yards it had disintegrated. I heardthe little wailing sounds--then behind the fleeing men, close behindthem, rose the angled pillar; into place sprang the flexing arms, andagain it took its toll of them.
They scattered, running singly, by twos, in little groups, for the sidesof the valley. They were like rats scampering in panic over the bottomof a great green bowl. And like a monstrous cat the shape played withthem--yes, PLAYED.
It melted once more--took new form. Where had been pillar and flailingarms was now a tripod thirty feet high, its legs alternate globe andcube and upon its apex a wide and spinning ring of sparkling spheres.Out from the middle of this ring stretched a tentacle--writhing,undulating like a serpent of steel, four score yards at least in length.
At its end cube, globe and pyramid had mingled to form a huge trident.With the three long prongs of this trident the thing struck, swiftly,with fearful precision--JOYOUSLY--tining those who fled, forking them,tossing them from its points high in air.
It was, I think, that last touch of sheer horror, the playfulness of theSmiting Thing, that sent my dry tongue to the roof of my terror-parchedmouth, and held open with monstrous fascination eyes that struggled toclose.
Ever the armored men fled from it, and ever was it swifter than they,teetering at their heels on its tripod legs.
From half its length the darting snake streamed red rain.
I heard a sigh from Ruth; wrested my gaze from the hollow; turned. Shelay fainting in Drake's arms.
Beside the two the swathed woman stood, looking out upon that slaughter,calm and still, shrouded with an unearthly tranquillity--viewing it, itcame to me, with eyes impersonal, cold, indifferent as the untroubledstars which look down upon hurricane and earthquake in this world ofours.
There was a rushing of many feet at our left; a wail from Chiu-Ming.Were they maddened by fear, driven by despair, determined to slay beforethey themselves were slain? I do not know. But those who still lived ofthe men from the tunnel mouth were charging us.
They clustered close, their shields held before th
em. They had no bows,these men. They moved swiftly down upon us in silence--swords and pikesgleaming.
The Smiting Thing rocked toward us, the metal tentacle straining outlike a rigid, racing serpent, flying to cut between its weird mistressand those who menaced her.
I heard Chiu-Ming scream; saw him throw up his hands, cover hiseyes--run straight upon the pikes!
"Chiu-Ming!" I shouted. "Chiu-Ming! This way!"
I ran toward him. Before I had gone five paces Ventnor flashed by me,revolver spitting. I saw a spear thrown. It struck the Chinaman squarelyin the breast. He tottered--fell upon his knees.
Even as he dropped, the giant flail swept down upon the soldiers. Itswept through them like a scythe through ripe grain. It threw them,broken and torn, far toward the valley's sloping sides. It left onlyfragments that bore no semblance to men.
Ventnor was at Chiu-Ming's head; I dropped beside him. There was acrimson froth upon his lips.
"I thought that Shin-Je was about to slay us," he whispered. "Fearblinded me."
His head dropped; his body quivered, lay still.
We arose, looked about us dazedly. At the side of the crevice stood thewoman, her gaze resting upon Drake, his arms about Ruth, her head hiddenon his breast.
The valley was empty--save for the huddled heaps that dotted it.
High up on the mountain path a score of figures crept, all that wereleft of those who but a little before had streamed down to take uscaptive or to slay. High up in the darkening heavens the lammergeiers,the winged scavengers of the Himalayas, were gathering.
The woman lifted her hand, beckoned us once more. Slowly we walkedtoward her, stood before her. The great clear eyes searched us--but nomore intently than our own wondering eyes did her.