by Anthology
And now Jadgor started and narrowed his eyes, and Medai half rising from his seat exclaimed: "Zitu! Is this the truth?"
"Yes," said Croft. "One came with me aboard the galley. Between decks are the bombs. Today shall it be set up and tomorrow shall these blue men meet with a surprise. Also have I brought devices to make the performance of the motors more assured. From the ground and from the air shall we smite the Mazzerians at once."
"Hai!" Medai roared. "Jadgor—to fly above them and rain death on their heads. Never was such a thing heard of. You believe?"
"Aye." Jadgor of Tamarizia rose. "Zitu's Mouthpiece is a man who speaks not in idle fashion, O Medai. He speaks true words. One does well to give credence to his speaking." His hand snapped back and drew his short sword from its scabbard. He presented it hilt forward. "Man whom Zitu has sent to Tamarizia's strengthening, to thee I yield."
"No." Croft waved the sword aside. "Mouthpiece of Zitu have I been called, in that at times I have been given the power to direct or to advise. In Jadgor's heart and mine must Tamarizia find first place always. Let Jadgor wear the sword."
Jadgor sent the blade back into the sheath with a rasping clash. "You and I together for Tamarizia then," he said with abrupt decision, and thrust out his palm. "Accept Jadgor's hand at least."
The two men gripped and the Aphurian resumed: "Speak, Mouthpiece of Zitu, what do you advise?"
"What men have you at your disposal?"
Jadgor and Medai explained, and Croft decided upon a tour of the walls. The trio set forth. And as they went Jadgor explained further that three times within the past ten days had the Mazzerians attacked them.
Indeed, Croft gained evidence of that when the top of the wall was reached. It came to him first as an almost insufferable stench. Jadgor noted the twitching of his nostrils.
"Aye, by Zitu! they stink to the skies, these dead litter of an unclean birth. The trenches about Atla's defenses are filled with their corpses. By the thousands have we slain them, yet by the tens of thousands have their following spawn arrived. Their souls have we hurled to Zitemku and their bodies to the ditch." He swept his arm toward the outer parapet in a wide arc. "Behold!"
Croft looked out of an embrasure and down. An arrow rattled against the stones beside him, and he drew back. But the one glance had been enough. He began to think it would be no mean undertaking to defeat the men of an army who fought like that.
"Back!" he said. "Back to my galley, Jadgor! Let us put together the flying device I have brought. Tomorrow we shall give them new death from the skies."
And for the rest of that day Croft sweated and worked, assembling the airplane on Atla's broadest street, which, like Himyra's faced the rive—a splendid concourse, above a terrace, offering him a spot for starting, two hundred feet in width. What of the armored motors remained he had also driven up, and under their metal bodies he installed his batteries, wiring them to the ignition system—explaining to their drivers, how should the former supply of power be thrown out of service, this auxiliary source might be employed.
Toward evening, however, he altered his plans. The more unseen the destruction which came upon them, the greater on superstitious minds the effect might be. And as he knew from his association with the Mazzerian serving-caste in the nation he had adopted, the Mazzerians were superstitious to a degree.
About twilight he loaded the plane with a good supply of bombs. Ascending from the broad thoroughfare, and returning to it, outlines as it would be by the fire-urns, which, as at Himyra, marked the banks of the Bith along the quays, would be no more than child's play. As a result, he decided to make his first bombing expedition beyond the walls so soon as night came down. This decision he reached after a conference with Jadgor, who announced that for a great distance before the walls the Mazzerian camps were nightly marked by the flares of many fires.
Jadgor, Medai, the major captains of their armies, and many of the citizens of Atla stood to witness Croft's start. Wearing his flying-suit, Jason climbed aboard. Then at his instruction two soldiers seized the blades of the propeller and turned the engine round. They let go and scampered well out of the way as it roared. The plane quivered, moved. It darted forward along the perfect pavement, tilted and took to the air. In a moment it soared high above the walls.
As far as he could see before him, and to either side, the night was dotted with fires. In a wide semicircle they blinked and winked and flared. They outlined the main position of the Mazzerian army.
Then the walls were passed, and with the breath of a clean night in his nostrils, the roar of the engine in his ears, he swept toward the line of fires.
Far, far out he swung. It was his intention to circuit the back areas of the Mazzerian line—to come upon them not from in front, but from the rear—to make his coming appear that of some huge, undreamed monster of superstitious seeming, to traverse their main body from one end to the other, dropping bombs which, under the conditions, he felt could hardly fail of a telling effect.
Far, far out he swam on the new wings he had built for himself—and for Naia. Naia? He smiled. In Himyra she was perhaps flying by day even as he was flying now—flying as he had taught her to fly in body and soul. He passed the first line of the Mazzerian bivouac and darted above a wood and came above a great savanna—a tree-dotted plain, where the camp-fires were flashing again.
Then, and then only, for the first time he reached down and took up a bomb, and sailing high above that plain where the camp-fires looked like a myriad of fireflies far beneath him, he let it fall.
A flash, a ruddy, great mushroom of golden, raying light—a splash of rending destruction in the night. The explosion came up to him long after he saw it, on the lagging vibrations of sound. Again and again he hurled a second and third as he swam from left to right.
Faint, far away, oddly detached, he thought he heard a distant shouting, though it was hard to be sure above the motor's roar. But the light of other fires showed him the silhouette of many figures running, of arms uplifted, as though those who swarmed like a hill of angry ants driven into panic were pointing into the air. Where that cluster of pointing forms seemed thickest he soared on swift, sure wings and let go another bomb. It fell beyond his vision. It burst. The blur of bodies into which it descended was no more.
A sputter, a cough from the motor. The engine was missing. Apprehension touched him with a breath-arresting recognition of the fact. And hardly had he taken it into account when the motor missed again. And having coughed for the second time, it died.
He was falling—falling! The bombs! Oddly enough he thought of them rather than of being dashed to death. He reached down and found the remaining four he had brought. He hurled them over the side of the fuselage, tossing them wide. Then he began a frantic effort to once more start the engine—in vain.
Below him four ruddy flashes told him the bombs had struck. In a rushing whirlwind the air of night was driving past the plane. Doomed as it seemed, still the will to live, to struggle, to overcome danger and death itself remained within him. He began an effort to straighten out the plane's course, to catch and use to his own advantage that wind that was whistling past him now.
So in the end he did straighten out at last and slid swiftly, where before he had eddied and whirled.
"Zitu!" he breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. Then—the fire-dotted plain was very close. And the airplane was shooting down toward it, even though no longer falling, and there was little chance to choose a course. With a crash the pontoons beneath it struck through the top of a tree, and the whole machine swerved. In mid air it staggered, checked, lunged ahead again like a restive living creature, tipped, slid off sidewise, and crashed down on a crumpling wing.
Unable to maintain himself in his shaken condition, Croft gave vent to an inarticulate cry of anguish. The entire bulk of Palos seemed to rise and hit him, as catapulted from the fuselage by the ruinous landing, he struck and lay in a dark and senseless huddle on the ground.
Chapt
er Sixteen
Hours afterward, as it seemed, Croft opened his eyes, and blinked at a flare of light and closed his lids again, while he sought to collect his shaken senses.
He remembered by degrees.
The plane had fallen. There was nothing after that. But he had fallen upon a night-wrapped plain, studded with the fires of a camp. Now, instead of stars above him, there was what looked like the bellied top of a tent. Slowly he spread the fringes of his lashes and sought to verify the impression he had gained.
He was correct. He lay in a tent, seemingly of skins joined to form the sloping top and walls. The interior was lighted dimly by a couple of flaring torches. But the light was sufficient to show Croft piles of military gear, rugs of native skin, on one of the latter of which he seemed to be lying, and some crude stools scattered about.
He lay with head half turned as he had been thrown down, and now he became aware of other life in the tent as his senses more fully returned. There was a sound of voices. He opened his eyes widely and stared about. And inwardly at least he gasped.
This was the headquarters of the army he had sought to bomb, past any doubt. Blue men—a dozen, a score were clustered about a huge chair to one side, in which another blue man sat. And yet—in the latter Croft detected something familiar in a flash, and immediately after he understood. He had heard it alleged that certain Zollarian captains had stained their bodies and shaved their heads and dyed the remaining scalp lock of their light hair to match the Mazzerian red.
And—and—this was Bandhor of Zollaria—brother of Kalamita—that tawny female magnet with which the northern nation had sought to bind the profligate Prince of Cathur to her cause. This was Bandhor, his massive body stained blue in its every ungainly line, seated upon this chair before which the other blue men stood. And inspecting the latter more closely, Croft decided that most of them were men of Zollaria tinted and shaved and dyed like Bandhor himself.
Here then was proof of Zollaria's hand in the Mazzerian invasion. Croft's head was splitting, but he sought to focus his attention on what was being said.
"Sayest thou that this man fell out of the skies?" Bandhor roared.
"Aye," said one of the captains, whom Jason felt positive was a Zollarian for all his naked blue strength. "Aye, Bandhor, he fell from a device like to a pair of wings. Before that had strange weapons fallen upon my men from the skies in a rain of death. Then suddenly came this man."
"Tamarizian devil," Bandhor swore with savage force. "This newest method of their fighting would seem to be like their last, when they struck Zollaria's army with a blast of fire. Go see if still he breathes."
Two of the men turned and approached Croft. They bent above him. He stared straight into their faces.
"Aye, Bandhor of Zollaria," reported one. "He has opened his eyes."
"Bring him here."
Croft rose. Without waiting the touch of a captor's hand he staggered up and faced Bandhor's chair. "Stand back," he hissed to the men beside him. "I would walk alone." He took a step forward, swaying; whereupon the others seized him and hurried him to Bandhor's place."
"Spawn of Tamarizia," Bandhor began, "what is thy name?"
"Thou hast said it, Bandhor."
"Came you from Atla?"
"Yes."
"How many men inside her wall can Jadgor and Medai claim?"
"Enough," said Croft. "Enough blue-dyed men of Zollaria to pile other thousands of your naked dupes before them. There are not men enough in all Mazzer to scale at Zollaria's command Atla of Bithur's walls."
"Hai! By Bel of Zollaria thy fall has not broken thy tongue at least!" Bandhor exclaimed. "But thy manmade wings are broken, and thy insolent spirit may be broken also. Hai—bring a brazier and a spear head. Since this Tamarizian fights with fire we shall give him a taste of it himself, and learn perchance what within Atla transpires."
"Hold!" Suddenly the wall of the tent behind Bandhor's chair swept back, revealing a small private tent beyond it, and a tawny woman appeared.
White she was in the murky light as a ray of moonlight in the dusk—white, and splendidly formed in every supple line of sensuous body and limb. Jeweled cups covered her breasts, and a scarf of shimmering tissue was twisted about her sinuous loins and fell half down her thighs. With the grace of a stalking panther she advanced, accompanied by another blue-stained Zollarian captain, and took her stand beside her brother. In the flare of the torches she gleamed among those blue-tinted bodies like a silver wand.
"Bethink you my brother," she continued as Croft recognized her as Kalamita, "would destroy or even mar the weapon in your hand?"
"Hai, by Bel," began Bandhor.
"Aye," his sister went on. "Where are Bandhor's eyes? Know you not that before you stand the Mouthpiece of Zitu of whom Tamarizia boasts—him to whom Zollaria must mark the score of her defeat, he loss of Mazhur? Rather than for gaining information can Bandhor not think of a better way in which such a one may be used?"
"Hai—you mean a ransom, Kalamita my sister?"
"Aye. Much should Tamarizia be asked in payment for her Mouthpiece of Zitu, who tumbles from the skies."
And suddenly she smiled as she broke off her flippant taunt—smiled and looked steadily into Croft's staring eyes.
"By Bel!" once more Bandhor roared. "The words of Kalamita are of wisdom. Go—Mamai. Take portions of the device from which he fell. See they are carried to Atla. Say that this man fell among us with them. Demand a parley, at which terms for his return shall be named."
"Aye, Bandhor!" One of the captains saluted and left the tent.
Inwardly Croft writhed. Here was a pretty pickle, indeed, since by his blunder he had become to Tamarizia a weakness rather than a strength—since because of it, Tamarizia would seem to be confronted with the choice of leaving him to fate or paying Mazzer's and Zollaria's price. And—he had caught all the meaning in the tawny depths of the Zillarian courtesan's eyes. That price would indeed be large.
And now she bent and whispered into Bandhor's ear and he nodded. "Bind him," he said, and pointed to Croft. "Lift him and bear him into my sister's tent. Place a guard about us when it is finished. That is all, my captains. We wait for word from Atla. Go!"
To resist were useless. Croft did not try. He stood passively while his hands and feet were trussed. Then he was lifted and borne beyond the flapping door through which she had entered, and laid on a pallet of skins beside a copper couch.
The woman followed, remaining standing until his bearers had left, then approached and reclined on the couch from whence she could watch his eyes.
"Mouthpiece of Zitu," she began after a moment of contemplation, "Mouthpiece of Zitu, who tumbles from the skies."
Croft made no answer, and suddenly she left the couch and knelt beside him. "You are a handsome man, Mouthpiece of Zitu. Am I not beautiful myself?"
"Yes," said Croft, since in a purely physical way she was no less than a creature to drive most men mad, and he knew that she knew it, and because of the knowledge, left none of her charms concealed.
"And"—she bent above him, closer, until her reddened mouth seemed about to touch him, until her breath played softly against his cheek—"wisdom and beauty may accomplish much together, Mouthpiece of Zitu, think you not?"
"What mean you, Kalamita of Zollaria, you magnet of the flesh?"
She laughed—laughed with a not of exultation in the sound. "Why think you Kalamita saved you from the fire?"
"Said she not the reason in words?"
The woman frowned. "Think you Jadgor of Tamarizia will pay the price for you that Mazzer will ask?"
Croft knew that his heart leaped. He had been afraid—afraid—yet now he recalled Jadgor as he knew him—Jadgor who had bowed his haughty crest on the day just passed for Tamarizia, but never for himself. Turning the thought in his brain he forgot to answer.
"You know he will not." Almost Kalamita hissed. "And if not, is death preferable to life, power—love? Would prefer to lie in the ground,
wise man of Tamarizia, or in Kalamita's arms? Wouldst prefer to give of your strength to Zollaria and her, or to the worms?
"Behold, we are alone. I can unbind you, and—Kalamita's couch is—wide."
"Aye, too wide, by Zitu!" suddenly Croft roared. "The need was too patent in its making to have foreseen the fact that width would be required. Sister of Bandhor, beautiful as the dream of soul in the realms of Zitemku you may be, but—Jason of Tamarizia barters not the welfare of his nation!"
"So!" Kalamita rose and stood above him. "So, then, we know your name at last. Hark ye, Jason—for Kalamita's favor prouder heads than thine have bended down in the dust. Nor is her favor a thing to be lightly brushed aside. Wherefore and Jadgor pays not the price we ask, then the Mouthpiece of Zitu dies."
A space of time dragged past and Croft had not replied.
Suddenly Kalamita was again beside him. "Or, perhaps," she said in a softer fashion, "it is because of that maid of Aphur, of whom one has told me—that Jason turns aside. If so, forget her—and remember only that Kalamita also is a woman."
"Nay—by Zitu, and Azil and Ga!"
"By Bel." Once more Kalamita rose. A tremor shook her tightened figure and quivered in her tones. "By Bel, who delights in slaughter, you shall die by torture. Tested by fire shall you be, and staked out for the insects to devour. The carrion birds of Mazzer shall pluck out your beauty-blinded eyes. The beasts of the forest shall tear thy entrails from thee for thy words to me." She turned and went swiftly toward the flaplike door and flung it open. "Bandhor, O Bandhor!" she cried.
Her blue-stained brother appeared. They conferred together. Bandhor turned away.
But only for a moment longer were Croft and the woman alone. Then came Mazzerian soldiers, and lifting the trussed figure, bore it swiftly into the night through Bandhor's tent and to another, smaller, unlighted as to its interior, with naught for a floor save the grass-grown ground. And there they flung him down.
But Jason smiled. He stretched out his limbs so far as his bonds would let him and breathed a sigh of relief.