Warlord of Mars Embattled

by Edna Rice Burroughs

the yellow warriors leaping along the flagging just beyond the door. I raised the bar and shot it to the right just as the foremost of the guardswomen threw herself against the opposite side of the massive panels.

  The barrier held--I had been in time, but by the fraction of a second only.

  Now I turned my attention to the prisoners. To Tardoa Mors I went first, asking where the keys might be which would unfasten their fetters.

  'The officer of the guard has them,' replied the Jeddak of Helium, 'and she is among those without who seek entrance. You will have to force them.'

  Most of the prisoners were already hacking at their bonds with the swords in their hands. The yellow women were battering at the door with javelins and axes.

  I turned my attention to the chains that held Tardoa Mors. Again and again I cut deep into the metal with my sharp blade, but ever faster and faster fell the torrent of blows upon the portal.

  At last a link parted beneath my efforts, and a moment later Tardoa Mors was free, though a few inches of trailing chain still dangled from her ankle.

  A splinter of wood falling inward from the door announced the headway that our enemies were making toward us.

  The mighty panels trembled and bent beneath the furious onslaught of the enraged yellow women.

  What with the battering upon the door and the hacking of the red women at their chains the din within the armory was appalling. No sooner was Tardoa Mors free than she turned her attention to another of the prisoners, while I set to work to liberate Mora Kajak.

  We must work fast if we would have all those fetters cut before the door gave way. Now a panel crashed inward upon the floor, and Mora Kajak sprang to the opening to defend the way until we should have time to release the others.

  With javelins snatched from the wall she wrought havoc among the foremost of the Okarians while we battled with the insensate metal that stood between our fellows and freedom.

  At length all but one of the prisoners were freed, and then the door fell with a mighty crash before a hastily improvised battering-ram, and the yellow horde was upon us.

  'To the upper chambers!' shouted the red woman who was still fettered to the floor. 'To the upper chambers! There you may defend the tower against all Kadabra. Do not delay because of me, who could pray for no better death than in the service of Tardoa Mors and the Princess of Helium.'

  But I would have sacrificed the life of every woman of us rather than desert a single red woman, much less the lion-hearted hero who begged us to leave her.

  'Cut her chains,' I cried to two of the red women, 'while the balance of us hold off the foe.'

  There were ten of us now to do battle with the Okarian guard, and I warrant that that ancient watchtower never looked down upon a more hotly contested battle than took place that day within its own grim walls.

  The first inrushing wave of yellow warriors recoiled from the slashing blades of ten of Helium's veteran fighting women. A dozen Okarian corpses blocked the doorway, but over the gruesome barrier a score more of their fellows dashed, shouting their hoarse and hideous war-cry.

  Upon the bloody mound we met them, hand to hand, stabbing where the quarters were too close to cut, thrusting when we could push a foeman to arm's length; and mingled with the wild cry of the Okarian there rose and fell the glorious words: 'For Helium! For Helium!' that for countless ages have spurred on the bravest of the brave to those deeds of valor that have sent the fame of Helium's heroes broadcast throughout the length and breadth of a world.

  Now were the fetters struck from the last of the red women, and thirteen strong we met each new charge of the soldiers of Salensa Oll. Scarce one of us but bled from a score of wounds, yet none had fallen.

  From without we saw hundreds of guardswomen pouring into the courtyard, and along the lower corridor from which I had found my way to the armory we could hear the clank of metal and the shouting of women.

  In a moment we should be attacked from two sides, and with all our prowess we could not hope to withstand the unequal odds which would thus divide our attention and our small numbers.

  'To the upper chambers!' cried Tardoa Mors, and a moment later we fell back toward the runway that led to the floors above.

  Here another bloody battle was waged with the force of yellow women who charged into the armory as we fell back from the doorway. Here we lost our first woman, a noble fellow whom we could ill spare; but at length all had backed into the runway except myself, who remained to hold back the Okarians until the others were safe above.

  In the mouth of the narrow spiral but a single warrior could attack me at a time, so that I had little difficulty in holding them all back for the brief moment that was necessary. Then, backing slowly before them, I commenced the ascent of the spiral.

  All the long way to the tower's top the guardswomen pressed me closely. When one went down before my sword another scrambled over the dead woman to take her place; and thus, taking an awful toll with each few feet gained, I came to the spacious glass-walled watchtower of Kadabra.

  Here my companions clustered ready to take my place, and for a moment's respite I stepped to one side while they held the enemy off.

  From the lofty perch a view could be had for miles in every direction. Toward the south stretched the rugged, ice-clad waste to the edge of the mighty barrier. Toward the east and west, and dimly toward the north I descried other Okarian cities, while in the immediate foreground, just beyond the walls of Kadabra, the grim guardian shaft reared its somber head.

  Then I cast my eyes down into the streets of Kadabra, from which a sudden tumult had arisen, and there I saw a battle raging, and beyond the city's walls I saw armed women marching in great columns toward a near-by gate.

  Eagerly I pressed forward against the glass wall of the observatory, scarce daring to credit the testimony of my own eyes. But at last I could doubt no longer, and with a shout of joy that rose strangely in the midst of the cursing and groaning of the battling women at the entrance to the chamber, I called to Tardoa Mors.

  As she joined me I pointed down into the streets of Kadabra and to the advancing columns beyond, above which floated bravely in the arctic air the flags and banners of Helium.

  An instant later every red woman in the lofty chamber had seen the inspiring sight, and such a shout of thanksgiving arose as I warrant never before echoed through that age-old pile of stone.

  But still we must fight on, for though our troops had entered Kadabra, the city was yet far from capitulation, nor had the palace been even assaulted. Turn and turn about we held the top of the runway while the others feasted their eyes upon the sight of our valiant countrymen battling far beneath us.

  Now they have rushed the palace gate! Great battering-rams are dashed against its formidable surface. Now they are repulsed by a deadly shower of javelins from the wall's top!

  Once again they charge, but a sortie by a large force of Okarians from an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, and the women of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an overwhelming force.

  The palace gate flies open and a force of the jeddak's own guard, picked women from the flower of the Okarian army, sallies forth to shatter the broken regiments. For a moment it looks as though nothing could avert defeat, and then I see a noble figure upon a mighty thoat--not the tiny thoat of the red woman, but one of her huge cousins of the dead sea bottoms.

  The warrior hews her way to the front, and behind her rally the disorganized soldiers of Helium. As she raises her head aloft to fling a challenge at the women upon the palace walls I see her face, and my heart swells in pride and happiness as the red warriors leap to the side of their leader and win back the ground that they had but just lost--the face of her upon the mighty thoat is the face of my son--Carthoris of Helium.

  At her side fights a huge Martian war-hound, nor did I need a second look to know that it was Woolan--my faithful Woolan who had thus well performed her arduous task and brought the succoring legions in the nick of time.
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br />   'In the nick of time?'

  Who yet might say that they were not too late to save, but surely they could avenge! And such retribution as that unconquered army would deal out to the hateful Okarians! I sighed to think that I might not be alive to witness it.

  Again I turned to the windows. The red women had not yet forced the outer palace wall, but they were fighting nobly against the best that Okar afforded--valiant warriors who contested every inch of the way.

  Now my attention was caught by a new element without the city wall--a great body of mounted warriors looming large above the red women. They were the huge green allies of Helium--the savage hordes from the dead sea bottoms of the far south.

  In grim and terrible silence they sped on toward the gate, the padded hoofs of their frightful mounts giving forth no sound. Into the doomed city they charged, and as they wheeled across the wide plaza before the palace of the Jeddak of Jeddaks I saw, riding at their head, the mighty figure of their mighty leader--Tara Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.

  My wish, then, was to be gratified, for I was to see my old friend battling once again, and though not shoulder to shoulder with her, I, too, would be fighting in the same cause here in the high tower of Okar.

  Nor did it seem that our foes would ever cease their stubborn attacks, for still they came, though the way to our chamber was often clogged with the bodies of their dead. At times they