CHAPTER IX
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.