by Lin Carter
The shadow of Zorgazon fell over us, like the shadow of doom.
And then the world went crazy!
The ground jumped under our feet. The floor of the arena shuddered, then tilted crazily. Stones fell clattering from the nearer wall of the arena. Women screamed.
We looked up, dazed.
A boiling cloud of inky black smoke enveloped the upper works of the palace citadel. Whirling, seething black smoke shot through with streaks of furious crimson.
A deafening explosion shook the very air. For a moment, all I could hear was my ears ringing.
Momentarily deaf, I could not even hear the uproar as the crowd went mad, and men came leaping down the tiers, running headlong for the exits.
Another explosion, louder than before. Again, the arena floor rose to slap against the bottom of our feet.
Gundar and Thon glanced at me, shaken.
"What is it?" one of them gasped.
"Who knows? Or cares? Run for it "
The second explosion took off parts of the palace roof, and felled one tower. It fell slowly, like a falling tree, except that it came apart with dreamlike slowness as it fell, disintegrating into a shower of stone blocks that pelted down across the arena in a deadly rain.
Zorgazon did not like the explosion, or the sulphurous stench of the drifting black smoke. He threw back his hideous head and screamed his challenge.
A mass of falling masonry came whirling down, and caught the tyrannosaurus aside the head, He staggered sideways, shrieked again, dark red blood trickling down his working jaws.
At that impact, the dinosaur went crazy. He headed for the grandstand and plowed into the stone wall. It came apart as if built of children's alphabet blocks. Seats crunched, people scattered. Splat-splat! went his little forepaws, as he swatted the crowd, leaving wet red marks that had been men.
Huge as he was, Zorgazon could not break through the solid stone construction of the arena. So he swung about, and swiped with his thick, long, heavy, kangaroo-like tail. It thundered against the side of the arena like twenty bulldozers, and even the stonework had to give. Screaming like fury, he began kicking and punching his way through the side of the arena.
I got one glimpse of Zarys, frozen, standing alone in her box. Her gorgeous face was white with unbelieving horror-white as death.
Then the framework of the box gave way and her slim, proud form vanished as the awnings fell.
Gundar slapped my shoulder. We turned and ran for it. I grabbed up Ialys, flung her across my shoulder.
The thirty-odd Cro-Magnons and I headed for the nearest exit.
Along the way we found a couple of guards and relieved them of spears, swords, tridents-whatever.
Another explosion ripped the palace apart. The crackling of flames shooting up from burning buildings was very loud in our ears; soot and hot ashes fell about us in a stinging black snowstorm.
Suddenly a huge, hairy form heaved itself up in front of us.
"A Drugar!" yelled Thon, and made to fling his spear.
"No-" I shouted, knocking his arm aside. For in the same instant I saw the recognized Hurok of Kor, and he knew me.
"Friend," I panted. Thon glowered, but subsided. Beyond Hurok I saw Varak and several others. I wondered dizzily what they were doing here, and how they had managed to find their way, but there was no time for that now. Zorgazon was going crazy, tearing the arena apart, and stones the size of Volkswagens were thumping down all around us.
We found the exit and dived into it.
The streets around the burning palace were a howling madhouse. Zorgazon had come this way, and houses had been smashed flat under the tread of his ponderous feet. People, too, if you can call smears of wet redness people. Villas had been kicked apart, luxurious gardens trampled into mud. And, everywhere, ashes were falling, falling.
We headed for the stone causeway across the inland sea. Just about everybody was heading in that direction, too, and nobody tried to stop us or even bothered to notice us. I saw men waddling along, their arms loaded with bric-abrac and rolled-up tapestries, women weeping, but hanging on for dear life to their jewelry boxes, scared-looking kids hugging jointed wooden dolls.
Zorgazon was somewhere up ahead, towering above the rooftops, howling like a fire engine. He swatted at a tower and it burst apart in a shower of bricks. He kicked in the side of a mansion as a man might kick in an egg crate; it folded in upon itself, collapsing in slow motion.
We ran, dodging through side streets and narrow alleys to avoid the crush of jammed, stampeding humanity that choked the main boulevards.
I tripped over a fallen pillar and went down on my face. Hurok caught me by the shoulder and lifted me to my feet like a rag doll, while Gundar paused to scoop up the limp form of Ialys, who had fainted sometime during the nightmare of the streets. He threw her over his shoulder and kept on running, as if the girl weighed nothing.
Suddenly, out of the veils of falling ashes and smoke and whirling sparks, a scrawny, gleeful figure appeared smack in front of me.
"Professor-!"
"Eric, my boy," he panted. "I've been chasing after you for blocks-"
I cocked a thumb back at the wreckage of the burning palace, high on its hill atop the city.
"Did-you-do-that?"
He nodded happily. "Yes, I'm afraid Xask and Cromus will not have their rifle platoons, after all," he chuckled.
"Professor . . . you amaze me," I said helplessly.
"And that's not all," he breathed. "I managed to carry off a little souvenir."
He whipped a silk-wrapped bundle from under his smoke-blackened garments and thrust it into my hands.
It was my.45 automatic!
We got across the bridge and headed straight for the pass. The sooner we shook the dust of the Scarlet City from our heels, the happier we would all be.
There were plenty of other fugitives crowding the causeway, but all they wanted to do was to put the breadth of the inland sea between themselves and their God run amok.
Nobody tried to stop us, or even bothered to notice us. It was weird, almost like being invisible. You would think that thirty-five blond Cro-Magnons and a huge, hairy Neanderthal would have attracted some attention from that crowd, but no.
At the top of the pass we paused to take a breather. Along the way we had all picked up plenty of weapons, and it felt good to be armed again. It also felt good to be able to stop running and sit down for a while.
Then Hurok grabbed my shoulder in a hand the size of a catcher's mitt.
"Look, Black Hair, they pursue us," he grunted.
I turned and my heart sank into my boots.
Down the length of the causeway came the Dragonmen, twenty strong, mounted on their immense loping thodars.
On the lead beast rode Zarys of Zar in her glittering golden harness. Directly behind her rode Cromus, his face flushed and angry, red murder in his eyes.
They were not escaping the burning city, no, not them. They were set to hunt down the fleeing slaves and prisoners who had caused all of the commotion in the first place.
White-faced, her superb eyes flashing with fury, Zarys rode like the avenging goddess she was. And, of the two Gods of Zar, I cannot say which of them was the more dangerous and implacable, Zarys or Zorgazon!
This day she had worn that sparkling wig of spun gold that made her so closely resemble my lost, beloved Princess. How beautiful she was-how glorious!
And how deadly. A woman-a queen!-scorned and rejected by the man to whom she had offered her love, and by whose bold connivance her splendid city now lay in blazing ruins.
To have earned the undying enmity of such a woman is not the sort of thing that lets you sleep easy of nights . . . .
I looked at Hurok and Gundar. They looked at me.
Then we. . . ran.
Chapter 30 RAPHAD STRIKES
When Garth of Sothar saw the band of running men who emerged from the mouth of the
pass and came pelting down the slope onto the plains, he frowned in puzzlement. Most of them were tall, strong, blond Cro-Magnon stalwarts like himself, but none of them was known to him. From their accouterments and the way they braided their long hair, he guessed them to be mostly warriors of Numitor and Gorad.
What it was that they were running away from he did not at once see. For, suddenly, to his complete astonishment he began to recognize the faces of men whom he knew among the throng of strangers.
There in the very forefront was Eric Carstairs, with mighty Hurok of Kor at his side! Puffing along behind them he spied the scrawny form of Professor Potter, who still clung gamely to his dusty pince-nez spectacles and his battered and travelstained sun helmet.
About these, like a guard, were the missing warriors Varak and Ragor, Erdon, Warza, and Parthon-men of Sothar and of Thandar all.
Then there emerged into view the giant forms of the thodars, each with its armed rider seated between the shoulders and straddling the massive column of the reptile's long neck.
But nowhere did he espy the form of his lost daughter, Yualla . . . .
With arms folded upon his mighty breast he waited as we came up to the knoll where his warriors were arranged for battle. I burst through the line, bearing the limp form of Ialys in my arms, Gundar and Thou and Hurok at my heels.
"Garth!" I called, "these men are friends-former slaves in Zar-let them join your ranks!"
Handing the unconscious form of the Zarian girl to the solicitudinous arms of his mate, Nian, who bore her off among the women, Garth issued the command. Reluctantly, the ranks of Sothar parted to admit the warriors of Gorad and Numitor among them. The Sotharians eyed the newcomers suspiciously, and were stared back at with grim truculence.
I joined Garth on the height, and together we observed the huge forms of the lumbering thodars as they came out of the pass and drew up in a vast half-circle. There wasn't much that we could do to defend ourselves against the vengeance of Zarys, but at least we could go down fighting. I felt sorry that Garth had shown up just in time to have to face with me the Dragonmen.
"I perceive, Eric Carstairs, that again you have been making a few enemies," the Omad observed with somber humor. I grinned.
"A few," I admitted.
"May I inquire into the cause for this pursuit?"
I shrugged. "Well, we left the royal palace of Zar a flaming wreck, and the arena of the Games has been
knocked apart, and a considerable portion of the city lies in ruins ...."
He nodded solemnly. "I suppose that is enough to make an enemy of anyone," he commented. "If you were a slave in Zar, did you encounter therein my child, Yualla?"
I blinked, this being the first news I had received that the teenaged girl was missing. Reluctantly, I admitted that I had not seen her.
"Or Jorn the Hunter?" Hurok rumbled questioningly at my side. Again, I shook my head negatively.
Garth sighed, then straightened.
"Then she is lost," he said heavily. "Time enough to mourn our dead when this present circumstance is over."
I gave him, a surprised look. "There isn't much even you and your brave men can do against the Dragonmen," I protested. He shook his head with a slight smile.
"We have faced them before, and won," he remarked, gesturing to where Raphad stood between tall guards. I was amazed to see the little Captain who had first taken the Professor and me prisoner, but there was no time to ask what had been going on.
For just then Zarys lifted her gleaming lance in a royal gesture of command, and the huge, lumbering thodars began to advance upon our position.
Among the Dragon-riders I recognized the angry red face of Cromus, but nowhere did I see Xask. It would have been perfectly in character for that sly devil to have concealed himself in time to miss this expedition-if, in fact, he still lived.
And if I had been Zarys, I certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving the Scarlet City behind, with Xask there ....
But there was no time for these thoughts right now: we had a bit of fighting to do, and, I thought, a bit of dying, too.
With slow and ponderous strides the great thodars advanced upon our position across the grassy plains.
Their long, snaky necks reared high above us, and their long,. thick tails dragged through the trampled grasses.
You couldn't have brought down one of monster brontosaurs with a hand grenade, much less a javelin or an arrow, or even my precious .45. Realizing this, I couldn't understand why Garth seemed so confident.
As they came near, the High Chief of Sothar reached into his fur garment and withdrew a circlet of sparkling, reddishsilver metal, crowned with a dully glittering crystal.
This he placed upon his brows, and turned to face the advancing Dragonmen with a kingly frown upon his majestic features.
The Cro-Magnon doubtless believed the circlet to be a magic charm. The technology of the uncanny telepathic receptor was naturally beyond his primitive experience. But he had nothing to lose and everything in the world to gain by testing its strange powers . . . .
In the forefront, the Divine Zarys saw and recognized the circlet, and frowned, her furious expression changing to one of slight uneasiness . . . .
She almost raised her hand to halt the advance, to call a parley. But then she saw the Professor and me among the others and her face hardened again into an expression of vicious hatred.
With a wave, she signaled the charge-
At that precise moment, Garth hurled the full power of his iron will against the advancing reptiles.
With every atom of strength his disciplined mind and strong body possessed, he willed the beasts to halt in their tracks. And the will and mind of such as Garth, monarch of Sothar, was much more powerful than was the will of the Dragonmen, their inner strengths vitiated by the decadence of their enervating pleasures and by the soft pamperings of urban life.
The monster saurians came to a halt.
Wild-eyed, Zarys tugged at the reins, pummeling the sides of her gigantic steed with her heels. But she might as well have kicked a stalled locomotive, for all the reaction she got. Consternation and surprise flickered in the features of Cromus and the other Dragon-riders when they discovered that they had unaccountably lost control over their mounts.
Never before, in their experience, had such a thing happened. Frowning in concentration, they hurled their wills against that of Garth, commanding their steeds forward to trample and crush the blond barbarians.
But the beasts did not move, although they stirred restively, giving voice to bewildered and plaintive honkings.
A huge grin split the somber visage of Garth of Sothar. Merriment twinkled in his hawklike eyes.
He hurled another mental command at the giant reptiles. The stream of his thought waves, augmented and tightened into focus by the strange power of the circlet, broadcast his mental command into the tiny brains of the placid saurians.
The beast which Zarys rode turned, its long neck curving, small, snake-like head questing.
Jaws opening, it reached down and plucked the fear-frozen form of Cromus out of the saddle of the next beast. The head rose high into the air, the tiny figure of Cromus kicking and fighting in panic between its jaws.
The brontosaurus was a herbivore, not a meat-eater. Its jaws were huge and powerful, but they were not lined with fangs as are the jaws of a predator. Thus it did not eat or swallow the hapless Minoan; it didn't have to.
It tossed him.
Like a flimsy doll, the tiny form of Cromus whirled up into the air and came down to thump against the plain. And that was that, as far as Cromus was concerned.
Garth turned his attentions to the next thodar. Its long, serpentine neck curved down, but this time the Dragon-rider managed to leap out of the saddle in time to avoid meeting the same doom as Cromus. He fell, sprawling on all fours in the long grass. Picking himself up, throwing aside trident and helm, he went sprinting off in th
e direction of the pass. Better to face a burning city and a God amok, than stay here and be tossed about like a child's doll, were his obvious thoughts.
Freed one by one of their riders, the huge reptiles were lumbering off amid the plains in search of fresh water or succulent grasses. Zarys, too, slid off her mount and vanished in the direction of Zar before Garth could turn his attention to her. I was glad to see her escape death, and hoped that I had seen the last of her.
Raphad paused only long enough to realize that Garth had seized control of the thodars before making his move. The wily little Minoan officer had planned his next action. He had found a smooth, heavy stone amid the grasses, which he had hidden in the folds of his cloak. Now he drew it forth and, turning swiftly, struck one of his guards in the head with the rock. The man fell and even as he toppled, Raphad whirled and struck down the other guard.
Then he threw himself upon Garth before anyone could stop him, and the unexpected impact of his weight bore the surprised High Chief to the ground.
I yelled and made a grab at the Minoan, but Hurok was there before me. His huge balled fist rose and fell; with a sickening thud he broke the neck of Raphad with a single blow. The corpse kicked, then slid face-down into the grass.
We bent to help Garth to his feet, but then we drew back in consternation.
For in the split-second before Hurok slew him, the wily little captain had whipped a bronze dagger from Garth's scabbard. And had plunged the blade into his heart.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
We met there in council on that knoll amid the plains, the chieftains of the host of Sothar and my friends and myself, to decide what must next be done.
It was a strange, sad ending to an amazing day full of surprises. I've seen victory plucked out of the very jaws of defeat before, as the saying goes, but this was one of the first times I ever saw triumph followed so swiftly by stark tragedy.