by Anthology
Out of the litter rolled a giant of a man. Seven feet he must have been in height; over the huge shoulders, the barreled chest and the bloated abdomen hung a purple cloak glittering with gems; through the thick and grizzled hair passed a flashing circlet of jewels.
The scarlet armored Kulun beside him, swordsmen guarding them, he walked to the verge of the torn gap in the wall. He peered down it, glancing imperturbably at the upraised, hammer-banded arms still threatening; examined again the breach. Then still with Kulun he strode over to the very edge of the broken battlement and stood, head thrust a little forward, studying us in silence.
"Cherkis!" whispered Norhala--the whisper was a hymn to Nemesis. I felt her body quiver from head to foot.
A wave of hatred, a hot desire to kill, passed through me as I scanned the face staring at us. It was a great gross mask of evil, of cold cruelty and callous lusts. Unwinking, icily malignant, black slits of eyes glared at us between pouches that held them half closed. Heavy jowls hung pendulous, dragging down the corners of the thick lipped, brutal mouth into a deep graven, unchanging sneer.
As he gazed at Norhala a flicker of lust shot like a licking tongue through his eyes.
Yet from him pulsed power; sinister, instinct with evil, concentrate with cruelty--but power indomitable. Such was Cherkis, descendant perhaps of that Xerxes the Conqueror who three millenniums gone ruled most of the known world.
It was Norhala who broke the silence.
"Tcherak! Greeting--Cherkis!" There was merciless mirth in the buglings of her voice. "Lo, I did but knock so gently at your gates and you hastened to welcome me. Greetings--gross swine, spittle of the toads, fat slug beneath my sandals."
He passed the insults by, unmoved--although I heard a murmuring go up from those near and Kulun's hard eyes blazed.
"We will bargain, Norhala," he answered calmly; the voice was deep, filled with sinister strength.
"Bargain?" she laughed. "What have you with which to bargain, Cherkis? Does the rat bargain with the tigress? And you, toad, have nothing."
He shook his head.
"I have these," he waved a hand toward Ruth and her brother. "Me you may slay--and mayhap many of mine. But before you can move my archers will feather their hearts."
She considered him, no longer mocking.
"Two of mine you slew long since, Cherkis," she said, slowly. "Therefore it is I am here."
"I know," he nodded heavily. "Yet now that is neither here nor there, Norhala. It was long since, and I have learned much during the years. I would have killed you too, Norhala, could I have found you. But now I would not do as then--quite differently would I do, Norhala; for I have learned much. I am sorry that those that you loved died as they did. I am in truth sorry!"
There was a curious lurking sardonicism in the words, an undertone of mockery. Was what he really meant that in those years he had learned to inflict greater agonies, more exquisite tortures? If so, Norhala apparently did not sense that interpretation. Indeed, she seemed to be interested, her wrath abating.
"No," the hoarse voice rumbled dispassionately. "None of that is important--now. YOU would have this man and girl. I hold them. They die if you stir a hand's breadth toward me. If they die, I prevail against you--for I have cheated you of what you desire. I win, Norhala, even though you slay me. That is all that is now important."
There was doubt upon Norhala's face and I caught a quick gleam of contemptuous triumph glint through the depths of the evil eyes.
"Empty will be your victory over me, Norhala," he said; then waited.
"What is your bargain?" she spoke hesitatingly; with a sinking of my heart I heard the doubt tremble in her throat.
"If you will go without further knocking upon my gates"--there was a satiric grimness in the phrase--"go when you have been given them, and pledge yourself never to return--you shall have them. If you will not, then they die."
"But what security, what hostages, do you ask?" Her eyes were troubled. "I cannot swear by your gods, Cherkis, for they are not my gods--in truth I, Norhala, have no gods. Why should I not say yes and take the two, then fall upon you and destroy--as you would do in my place, old wolf?"
"Norhala," he answered, "I ask nothing but your word. Do I not know those who bore you and the line from which they sprung? Was not always the word they gave kept till death--unbroken, inviolable? No need for vows to gods between you and me. Your word is holier than they --O glorious daughter of kings, princess royal!"
The great voice was harshly caressing; not obsequious, but as though he gave her as an equal her rightful honor. Her face softened; she considered him from eyes far less hostile.
A wholesome respect for this gross tyrant's mentality came to me; it did not temper, it heightened, the hatred I felt for him. But now I recognized the subtlety of his attack; realized that unerringly he had taken the only means by which he could have gained a hearing; have temporized. Could he win her with his guile?
"Is it not true?" There was a leonine purring in the question.
"It IS true!" she answered proudly. "Though why YOU should dwell upon this, Cherkis, whose word is steadfast as the running stream and whose promises are as lasting as its bubbles--why YOU should dwell on this I do not know."
"I have changed greatly, Princess, in the years since my great wickedness; I have learned much. He who speaks to you now is not he you were taught--and taught justly then--to hate."
"You may speak truth! Certainly you are not as I have pictured you." It was as though she were more than half convinced. "In this at least you do speak truth--that IF I promise I will go and molest you no more."
"Why go at all, Princess?" Quietly he asked the amazing question--then drew himself to his full height, threw wide his arms.
"Princess?" the great voice rumbled forth. "Nay-- Queen! Why leave us again--Norhala the Queen? Are we not of your people? Am I not of your kin? Join your power with ours. What that war engine you ride may be, how built, I know not. But this I do know--that with our strengths joined we two can go forth from where I have dwelt so long, go forth into the forgotten world, eat its cities and rule.
"You shall teach our people to make these engines, Norhala, and we will make many of them. Queen Norhala--you shall wed my son Kulun, he who stands beside me. And while I live you shall rule with me, rule equally. And when I die you and Kulun shall rule.
"Thus shall our two royal lines be made one, the old feud wiped out, the long score be settled. Queen--wherever it is you dwell it comes to me that you have few men. Queen--you need men, many men and strong to follow you, men to gather the harvests of your power, men to bring to you the fruit of your smallest wish--young men and vigorous to amuse you.
"Let the past be forgotten--I too have wrongs to forget, O Queen. Come to us, Great One, with your power and your beauty. Teach us. Lead us. Return, and throned above your people rule the world!"
He ceased. Over the battlements, over the city, dropped a vast expectant silence--as though the city knew its fate was hanging upon the balance.
"No! No!" It was Ruth crying. "Do not trust him, Norhala! It's a trap! He shamed me--he tortured--"
Cherkis half turned; before he swung about I saw a hell shadow darken his face. Ventnor's hand thrust out, covered Ruth's mouth, choking her crying.
"Your son"--Norhala spoke swiftly; and back flashed the cruel face of Cherkis, devouring her with his eyes. "Your son--and Queenship here--and Empire of the World." Her voice was rapt, thrilled. "All this you offer? Me--Norhala?"
"This and more!" The huge bulk of his body quivered with eagerness. "If it be your wish, O Queen, I, Cherkis, will step down from the throne for you and sit beneath your right hand, eager to do your bidding."
A moment she studied him.
"Norhala," I whispered, "do not do this thing. He thinks to gain your secrets."
"Let my bridegroom stand forth that I may look upon him," called Norhala.
Visibly Cherkis relaxed, as though a strain had been withd
rawn. Between him and his crimson-clad son flashed a glance; it was as though a triumphant devil sped from them into each other's eyes.
I saw Ruth shrink into Ventnor's arms. Up from the wall rose a jubilant shouting, was caught by the inner battlements, passed on to the crowded terraces.
"Take Kulun," it was Drake, pistol drawn and whispering across to me. "I'll handle Cherkis. And shoot straight."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE VENGEANCE OF NORHALA
Norhala's hand that had gone from my wrist dropped down again; the other fell upon Drake's.
Kulun loosed his hood, let it fall about his shoulders.
He stepped forward, held out his arms to Norhala.
"A strong man!" she cried approvingly. "Hail--my bridegroom! But stay--stand back a moment. Stand beside that man for whom I came to Ruszark. I would see you together!"
Kulun's face darkened. But Cherkis smiled with evil understanding, shrugged his shoulders and whispered to him. Sullenly Kulun stepped back. The ring of the archers lowered their bows; they leaped to their feet and stood aside to let him pass.
Quick as a serpent's tongue a pyramid tipped tentacle flicked out beneath us. It darted through the broken circle of the bowmen.
It LICKED up Ruth and Ventnor and--Kulun!
Swiftly as it had swept forth it returned, coiled and dropped those two I loved at Norhala's feet.
It flashed back on high with the scarlet length of Cherkis's son sprawled along its angled end.
The great body of Cherkis seemed to wither.
Up from all the wall went a tempestuous sigh of horror.
Out rang the merciless chimes of Norhala's laughter.
"Tchai!" she cried. "Tchai! Fat fool there. Tchai--you Cherkis! Toad whose wits have sickened with your years!
"Did you think to catch me, Norhala, in your filthy web? Princess! Queen! Empress of Earth! Ho--old fox I have outplayed and beaten, what now have you to trade with Norhala?"
Mouth sagging open, eyes glaring, the tyrant slowly raised his arms--a suppliant.
"You would have back the bridegroom you gave me?" she laughed. "Take him, then."
Down swept the metal arm that held Kulun. The arm dropped Cherkis's son at Cherkis's feet; and as though Kulun had been a grape--it crushed him!
Before those who had seen could stir from their stupor the tentacle hovered over Cherkis, glaring down at the horror that had been his son.
It did not strike him--it drew him up to it as a magnet draws a pin.
And as the pin swings from the magnet when held suspended by the head, so swung the great body of Cherkis from the under side of the pyramid that held him. Hanging so he was carried toward us, came to a stop not ten feet from us--
Weird, weird beyond all telling was that scene--and would I had the power to make you who read see it as we did.
The animate, living Shape of metal on which we stood, with its forest of hammer-handed arms raised menacingly along its mile of spindled length; the great walls glistening with the armored hosts; the terraces of that fair and ancient city, their gardens and green groves and clustering red and yellow-roofed houses and temples and palaces; the swinging gross body of Cherkis in the clutch of the unseen grip of the tentacle, his grizzled hair touching the side of the pyramid that held him, his arms half outstretched, the gemmed cloak flapping like the wings of a jeweled bat, his white, malignant face in which the evil eyes were burning slits flaming hell's own blackest hatred; and beyond the city, from which pulsed almost visibly a vast and hopeless horror, the watching column--and over all this the palely radiant white sky under whose light the encircling cliffs were tremendous stony palettes splashed with a hundred pigments.
Norhala's laughter had ceased. Somberly she looked upon Cherkis, into the devil fires of his eyes.
"Cherkis!" she half whispered. "Now comes the end for you--and for all that is yours! But until the end's end you shall see."
The hanging body was thrust forward; was thrust up; was brought down upon its feet on the upper plane of the prostrate pyramid tipping the metal arm that held him. For an instant he struggled to escape; I think he meant to hurl himself down upon Norhala, to kill her before he himself was slain.
If so, after one frenzied effort he realized the futility, for with a certain dignity he drew himself upright, turned his eyes toward the city.
Over that city a dreadful silence hung. It was as though it cowered, hid its face, was afraid to breathe.
"The end!" murmured Norhala.
There was a quick trembling through the Metal Thing. Down swung its forest of sledges. Beneath the blow down fell the smitten walls, shattered, crumbling, and with it glittering like shining flies in a dust storm fell the armored men.
Through that mile-wide breach and up to the inner barrier I glimpsed confusion chaotic. And again I say it-- they were no cowards, those men of Cherkis. From the inner battlements flew clouds of arrows, of huge stones --as uselessly as before.
Then out from the opened gates poured regiments of horsemen, brandishing javelins and great maces, and shouting fiercely as they drove down upon each end of the Metal Shape. Under cover of their attack I saw cloaked riders spurring their ponies across the plain to shelter of the cliff walls, to the chance of hiding places within them. Women and men of the rich, the powerful, flying for safety; after them ran and scattered through the fields of grain a multitude on foot.
The ends of the spindle drew back before the horsemen's charge, broadening as they went--like the heads of monstrous cobras withdrawing into their hoods. Abruptly, with a lightning velocity, these broadenings expanded into immense lunettes, two tremendous curving and crablike claws. Their tips flung themselves past the racing troops; then like gigantic pincers began to contract.
Of no avail now was it for the horsemen to halt dragging their mounts on their haunches, or to turn to fly. The ends of the lunettes had met, the pincer tips had closed. The mounted men were trapped within half-mile-wide circles. And in upon man and horse their living walls marched. Within those enclosures of the doomed began a frantic milling--I shut my eyes--
There was a dreadful screaming of horses, a shrieking of men. Then silence.
Shuddering, I looked. Where the mounted men had been was--nothing.
Nothing? There were two great circular spaces whose floors were glistening, wetly red. Fragments of man or horse--there was none. They had been crushed into-- what was it Norhala had promised--had been stamped into the rock beneath the feet of her--servants.
Sick, I looked away and stared at a Thing that writhed and undulated over the plain; a prodigious serpentine Shape of cubes and spheres linked and studded thick with the spikes of the pyramid. Through the fields, over the plain its coils flashed.
Playfully it sped and twisted among the fugitives, crushing them, tossing them aside broken, gliding over them. Some there were who hurled themselves upon it in impotent despair, some who knelt before it, praying. On rolled the metal convolutions, inexorable.
Within my vision's range there were no more fugitives. Around a corner of the broken battlements raced the serpent Shape. Where it had writhed was now no waving grain, no trees, no green thing. There was only smooth rock upon which here and there red smears glistened wetly.
Afar there was a crying, in its wake a rumbling. It was the column, it came to me, at work upon the further battlements. As though the sound had been a signal the spindle trembled; up we were thrust another hundred feet or more. Back dropped the host of brandished arms, threaded themselves into the parent bulk.
Right and left of us the spindle split into scores of fissures. Between these fissures the Metal Things that made up each now dissociate and shapeless mass geysered; block and sphere and tetrahedron spike spun and swirled. There was an instant of formlessness.
Then right and left of us stood scores of giant, grotesque warriors. Their crests were fully fifty feet below our living platform. They stood upon six immense, columnar stilts. These sextuple legs supported a hund
red feet above their bases a huge and globular body formed of clusters of the spheres. Out from each of these bodies that were at one and the same time trunks and heads, sprang half a score of colossal arms shaped like flails; like spike-studded girders, Titanic battle maces, Cyclopean sledges.
From legs and trunks and arms the tiny eyes of the Metal Hordes flashed, exulting.
There came from them, from the Thing we rode as well, a chorus of thin and eager wailings and pulsed through all that battle-line, a jubilant throbbing.
Then with a rhythmic, JOCUND stride they leaped upon the city.
Under the mallets of the smiting arms the inner battlements fell as under the hammers of a thousand metal Thors. Over their fragments and the armored men who fell with them strode the Things, grinding stone and man together as we passed.
All of the terraced city except the side hidden by the mount lay open to my gaze. In that brief moment of pause I saw crazed crowds battling in narrow streets, trampling over mounds of the fallen, surging over barricades of bodies, clawing and tearing at each other in their flight.
There was a wide, stepped street of gleaming white stone that climbed like an immense stairway straight up the slope to that broad plaza at the top where clustered the great temples and palaces--the Acropolis of the city. Into it the streets of the terraces flowed, each pouring out upon it a living torrent, tumultuous with tuliped, sparkling little waves, the gay coverings and the arms and armor of Ruszark's desperate thousands seeking safety at the shrines of their gods.
Here great carven arches arose; there slender, exquisite towers capped with red gold--there was a street of colossal statues, another over which dozens of graceful, fretted bridges threw their spans from feathery billows of flowering trees; there were gardens gay with blossoms in which fountains sparkled, green groves; thousands upon thousands of bright multicolored pennants, banners, fluttered.
A fair, a lovely city was Cherkis's stronghold of Ruszark.
Its beauty filled the eyes; out from it streamed the fragrance of its gardens--the voice of its agony was that of the souls in Dis.