At first he saw no light in the dungeons. He led the way by touch alone through the narrow, rock-hewn passages, counting his steps and groping for the memorized turns. But presently he could see a little, by a phosphorescence of decay that patched the walls and floors.
Beyond the bars of cells he glimpsed abject human creatures, maimed, blinded, less than half alive, sprawled among the bones of the wholly dead that lay still chained beside them, shining with a cold blue luminescent rot.
A dreadful silence filled most of the prison. But in one cell was a great squeaking and thumping commotion. Lanning glimpsed huge sleek rats battling over a motionless body in chains.
Farther on, in another cell, a sightless, famished wretch had bitten his own wrist, to let a few drops of blood flow upon the floor. He crouched there, listening, and snatched again and again, blindly, with fettered hands, at the great wary rats that came to his bait.
“My word!” gasped the British flyer, Courtney-Pharr. “When we meet that she-devil, she’ll account for all this.
Rather!”
Lanning stopped, at a turning, and breathed his warning: “Ready, men!”
With a little jingle of their weapons, four of Sorainya’s warriors came down the corridor. Great black giants, walking erect, eight feet tall. Huge compound eyes burning in the darkness, strange jewels of evil fire. Mandibled, monstrous insects. Yet somehow, sickeningly human.
“Bayonets,” whispered Lanning. “No noise.”
But his own bayonet had been left back on the precipice, to hold the rope. He clubbed his rifle to lead the rush, swung it down to crack an armored skull. Taken by
In Sorainya’s Citadel 65
surprise, the monsters reeled back, snatching with strange claws for their weapons.
They were mute, as if their creators, had sacrificed speech for deadliness. But little red boxes clamped to their heads, might, Lanning thought, be communicators. A black limb was fumbling at one of them. He snapped the rifle down in a second hasty blow, to crush it.
Ugly mandibles seized the Mauser’s stock, sheared through the hard wood. And a mighty golden battle-axe came hissing down. Lanning parried at it with the barrel of the broken gun, but the flat of its blade grazed his head, flung him down into fire-veined blackness.
He lay on the floor, dazed and nerveless. Red agony splintered his temple. Yet he retained a curious detached awareness. He could see the weird feet stamping about in front of his face, on the faintly glowing slime. The reek of formic acid stung his nostrils, burning out the odor of the cells. The monsters fought wordlessly, but their hard bodies made odd little clicks and creaks.
The men had followed Lanning, with bayonets fixed, but they were dwarfed by the four-armed fighters. And now the advantage of surprise was gone.
“Viv Jonbar!” sobbed Cresto. The dexterous sweep of his blade completely decapitated the nearest fighter. But its insect inheritance was not so quickly vanquished. The headless thing remained for a moment upright, and the great yellow axe struck again, deep into the Spaniard’s skull.
“For Dios—”
His gaunt body lurched automatically forward, and came down on top of the creature, driving the bayonet deep into the armored thorax. Meantime Emil Schorn had slashed into the one remaining monster with a force that carried it over backward. Barry Halloran followed him, with a ripping lunge. And the battle was ended.
Barry helped Lanning to his feet, and he stood a moment swaying, fighting for control of his body. Courtney-Pharr produced a silver flask of brandy, splashed its liquid fire on his temple, gave him a gulp of it. His head began to clear. He seized Cresto’s rifle and staggered on, following Emil Schorn.
An outstretched hand and a whispered warning stopped him in the darkness. Greenish light shone through massive bars ahead. He crept up beside Schorn, and looked into a long guard room.
A dozen of the warriors were lounging in the room, and the air was thick with their acrid smell. Several, at a low table, were sucking at sponges in basins of some red liquid. Two couples were preening one another’s glistening black bodies. A few were polishing battle-axes and thick red guns. One, in a gloomy corner, knelt in a mysterious travesty of prayer, as if begging for its lost humanity.
“No hope for silence, now,” Lanning breathed to Schorn. “We’ll take ‘em! With all we’ve got.”
He was working at the lock, with the fragile bone key. Isaac Enders and Courtney-Pharr, beyond him, were setting up the Maxim on its tripod, the muzzle jutting through the bars. The lock snapped silently. He nodded to Schorn, and began to swing the door slowly open.
The compound eyes of the farther giant glittered as they moved, and it sprang up from its attitude of prayer, inhuman as all the rest. An electric silence crackled in the guard room.
“Now!” Lanning shouted. “At ‘em!”
“Allons!“echoed Jean Querard. “With you, man capitaine!”
The Maxim thundered suddenly, filling the room with blue smoke and ricocheting lead. Lanning flung wide the door, and ran with Schorn and Querard and Barry Halloran diagonally across the room, to hold the other entrance.
The monsters were bred to retain a humenopterous vitality. Even when riddled with bullets they did not immediately die. Under the Maxim’s hail, they abandoned their occupations, seized weapons, and came charging in two groups at the entrances. Courtney-Pharr slammed the prison gate to protect Enders and his weapon, defending the lock with his bayonet. And the creatures in front of the gun began at last reluctantly to slump and topple.
The defense of the other door, however, was less successful. Lanning and his companions met the charging creatures with tossed grenades and a blaze of rifle fire. Out of seven, two were blown to fragments by the bombs, and another crippled. Four of them came on, with axes swinging, to meet the bayonets. The cripple fell back, to load and fire its clumsy gun, before a burst from the Maxim crumpled it.
But little Jean Querard was staggering forward, blood spurting from his breast. Knees trembling, he held himself upright for a moment, propped his rifle so that a charging warrior impaled itself on the bayonet. Loud and clear his voice rang out:
“Allans! Jonbar!”
And he slipped down beside the dying thing.
Lanning checked one of the creatures with three quick shots to its head, and then ripped open its armored thorax with a bayonet lunge that killed it. Schorn stopped another. But the third caught the barrel of Halloran’s gun a ringing blow with its axe, dragged him down with its claws, and lunged past. Lanning snapped another clip into his Mauser, and fired after it. But it dropped forward and scuttled out of sight, at a six-limbed, atavistic run.
Barry Halloran staggered back to his feet, his shirt torn off and blood dripping from a long red mark across his breast and shoulder, where a mandible had raked him.
“Sorry, Denny!” he sobbed. “I tried to hold the line!”
“Good work, guy,” Lanning gasped, running back to open the door again for Pharr and Enders with their gun.
But already, somewhere ahead, a great alarm gong was throbbing out a brazen-throated warning that moaned and sighed and shuddered through all the long halls of Sorainya’s citadel.
CHAPTER XI - BEYOND THE DIAMOND THRONE
The five survivors, Pharr and Enders, Halloran and Schorn and Lanning, running with their burden of weapons, came up a long winding flight of steps and through a small door into the end of Sorainya’s ceremonial hall, where the warning gong was booming.
The hall was enormous. Great square pillars of black soared up against the red metal walls, and between them stood colossal statues in yellow gold—no doubt Sorainya’s warlike ancestors, for all were armed and armored.
The reflected light from the lofty crimson vault had a sinister redness. Most of the floor was bare. Far toward the other end stood a tall pillar of shimmering splendor— the diamond throne that once Sorainya had offered Lanning, as treacherously, perhaps, as she had also offered it to Wil McLan.
The hug
e gong hung from a heavy chain beside the throne, a forty-foot scarlet disk. Tiny-seeming in that vast hall, two of the warrior monsters were furiously beating its moaning curve. And a little army of them—thirty, Lanning estimated—came swarming across the floor.
“Quick!” he rapped. “The Maxim!” He helped set the hot machine gun up, gasping to Schorn, “We’ve got to get through—and back! The door to Sorainya’s own apartments is behind the throne. We reach the strong room through a trap door, beside her bed.”
“Devil-things!” muttered Isaac Enders. His lean face was a hard bitter mask as he started an ammunition belt into the Maxim, dropped down behind it. “To kill my brother!”
The gun jetted flame, sweeping the line of anthropoid ants. Beside him, Pharr and Barry Halloran blazed away with rifles. Lanning and Schorn met the monsters with a barrage of hand grenades.
The creatures fired a volley as they came. Their thick crimson guns were single-shot weapons, of heavy calibre but limited range. Most of the bullets went wide, spattering on the metal wall. But one struck Enders, drilling a great black hole in his forehead.
He lurched upright, behind the Maxim. His long, gaunt arms spread wide. A curious expression of shocked, incredulous eagerness lit his stern face for an instant, until it was drowned in a gush of blood. His voice pealed out, in a last loud shout:
“Israel!”
He slid forward, and lay shuddering across the gun.
Courtney-Pharr tossed his body away, and crouched to fire the Maxim.
It took the warriors a long while to come down the hall. Or time, measured only by the sequence of events, seemed curiously extended. Lanning had space to snatch a deep breath of this clean air. He wondered how, without key or combination, they could break into the strong room. And how soon, after this alarm, Sorainya herself might return from the temple with more of her creatures to block the retreat.
A few of the enemy, riddled with lead, had time to slump and fall. A few more, running over the tossed grenades, were hurled mangled into the air. But the most of them came on, converging toward the door, clubbing crimson guns, spinning yellow battle-axes.
The four men waited in a line across the doorway, the Maxim drumming its deadly roll. Schorn flung his last grenade, when the black rank was a dozen yards away, and snatched his bayonet to meet the charge. Saving back two grenades, Lanning leveled his rifle to guard the machine gun. ‘
Three of the foremost monsters slumped and fell. But the rest came on like a tide of death. Insectile giants, fantastic in chitinous black, but yet dreadful with their hints of humanity, great eyes glittering redly evil in the bloody light, golden axes singing.
Lanning’s Mauser snapped, empty. He lunged, and his bayonet ripped open one armored thorax. But the golden blade of another monster rang against the rifle, tore it from his fingers. A flailing gun, at the same instant, struck his shoulder with a sledge of agony, hurled him back against the wall.
One arm was tingling, nerveless. He groped with his left hand for the Luger at his belt, surged to his knees, sent lead tearing upward through armored, acid-reeking bodies.
Savage mandibles seized the rifle of Emil Schorn, and the Prussian went down beneath the towering monsters. They trampled down the drumming Maxim. Great black jaws seized the bare blonde head of Courtney-Pharr. The gun abruptly ceased to fire, and in the breathless scrap of silence the crushing of his skull made a soft, sickening sound.
“Fight ‘em!” Barry Halloran was singing out. “Fight ‘em!”
Furiously, with his bayonet, the big red-headed tackle fell upon the two creatures sprawled over the silent machine gun and the Briton’s decapitated body.
The Luger was empty again. Lanning dropped it, groped for his rifle on the floor, and surged up to meet the second rank of attackers. If he could hold them for a moment, give Barry a chance to recover the Maxim—
The mute giants pressed down on him. But his paralyzed arm had come to life again. And he had learned a deadly technique: a lunge that ripped the hard thorax, upward, then a deep, twisting thrust, to right and left, that tore the vital organs.
Yellow axes were hissing at him. But the black warriors were piled before the doorway, now, in a sort of barricade; and the floor was slippery with reeking life-fluids, so that strange claws slid and scratched for balance. Lanning evaded the blows, and lunged, and lunged again.
Behind him, Barry had finished one creature with the bayonet. His blade snapped off, in the armor of the other. He snatched out his Luger, pumped lead into the black body. But it sprang upon him, clubbed him down with the flat of a golden axe, and fell at last across him.
Alone against the horde, Lanning thrust and ripped and parried. He laid one monster on top of the barricade, and another, and a third. Then his own foot slipped in the slime. Great mandibles gripped his wavering bayonet, twisted, snapped it off.
He tried to club the gun. But black claws ripped it from his hands. Three more giants bore him down. His own gun crashed against his head. He slipped to the floor, sobbing bitterly:
“Lethonee! I tried—”
The victorious attackers came clambering over the barrier of their dead. Tramping claws scratched him. He fought for strength to rise again, and failed. Jonbar was doomed. And, for him, would it be Sorainya’s dungeons?
The sudden loud tattoo of the Maxim was a wholly incredible sound. Lanning in his daze thought at first the sound must be a dream. But the reeking body of a dismembered monster toppled across him. He twisted his head, with a savage effort, and saw Emil Schorn.
The big Prussian had once gone down. His bull-like body was nearly naked, shredded, red with dripping blood. But he was on his feet again, swaying, his blue eyes flaming.
“Heil, Jonbar!” he was roaring. “Heil, Valhalla!”
He started another belt into the Maxim, and came forward again, holding it in his arms, firing it like a rifle—a terrific feat, even for such a giant as he. The remaining warriors came leaping at him, and he met them with a hail of death. One by one, they slumped and fell. A great golden axe came hurtling across the barricade. Its blade cut deep into his naked breast. Foaming red spurted out.
But still the German stood upright, leaning against the shattering recoil of the gun, sweeping it back and forth. At last it was empty, and he dropped it from seared hands. Wide and fixed, his blue eyes watched the last giant stagger and fall.
“Jonbar!” his deep voice rumbled. “Ach, Thor!”
Like a massive pillar falling, he crashed down beside the red-hot Maxim. For a little space there was a strange hushed silence in Sorainya’s crimson hall, disturbed only by the faint sorrowful reverberation that still throbbed from the mighty gong. The golden colossi, in their panoplies of war, looked triumphantly down upon the cold peace that follows death.
A little life, however, was seeping back into Lanning’s battered body. He twisted, and began to push at the great dead thing that had fallen on his legs. A sudden throbbing eagerness lent him strength. For Schorn had opened the way to the strong room. There might still be time, before escape was blocked.
But Barry Halloran was the first on his feet. Lanning had supposed him dead beneath the warrior that brought him down. But there was a sudden, muffled shout:
“Fight ‘em! Fight— Huh! Denny, can you hear me?”
“Barry!”
And the big tackle came stalking through the dead, his naked torso as red as Schorn’s. He dragged the armored thing from Lanning’s legs, and Lanning sat up. Pain dazed him, and the next he knew Halloran was pressing Courtney-Pharr’s silver flask to his lips. He gulped the searing brandy.
“Make it, Denny?”
Lanning stood up, swaying drunkenly. A great anvil of agony rang at the back of his head. His vision blurred. The great red hall spun and tilted, and the golden colossi came marching down it, to defend Sorainya’s golden throne.
“Let’s go,” his voice came fuzzy and thick. “Get that thing. Get back to the ship. Before Sorainya comes! Two grenade
s—key to the strong room.”
Barry Halloran found the two bombs he had saved, and bent to pick up the hot Maxim. Lanning told him the ammunition was gone. He found a rifle, and seized Lanning’s arm. They started, at a weary, stumbling run, down the silent crimson hall.
It was an interminable way, past the frowning yellow giants and the soaring pillars of black, down to the high diamond splendor of Sorainya’s throne. But they passed at last beneath the undying sigh of the mighty gong, and staggered on beyond the throne.
Beyond was a broad arched doorway, curtained with black. They pushed through the heavy drapes, into the queen’s private chambers. Lanning did not pause to catalog their splendor, but he saw a shimmer of immense crystal mirrors, a gleam of ivory and gold. Sorainya’s bed, hewn from a colossal block of sapphire crystal, and canopied with jewel-sewn silk, shone like a second throne at the end of that vista of barbaric magnificence. Lanning and Halloran ran panting toward it, trailing drops of blood.
Lanning ripped back a deep-piled rug beside the bed. In the floor he found the fine dark line that marked the edge of a well-fitted door, and, in the center of that, a smaller square.
Barry Halloran used his bayonet to pry out the central block, while Lanning unscrewed the detonator cylinders from the two grenades. Beneath the block was revealed a long keyhole. Lanning poured the two ounces of powder from each grenade into the little square depression, let it run down into the lock. He thrust one detonator into the keyhole, with the safety fuse projecting. Barry came dragging a great jeweled coffer of red metal from the foot of the bed, pushed it over the lock to retain the force of the blast. Lanning took the rifle, put a bullet into the percussion cap.
The floor quivered. Glittering fragments of the burst coffer rocketed to the ceiling. Jewels showered the room. They ran back around the sapphire bed. A blackened hole yawned, where a tough sheet of red metal had burst jaggedly upward. Lanning reached his arm through, to manipulate hot bolts and tumblers. The square door dropped suddenly, elevator-like. Halloran, after a startled instant, stepped upon it with Lanning. They sank swiftly into the strong room.
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