Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 9. Abraham Merritt
Читать онлайн книгу.
am here—and was there ever joy like this!"
The constellations in her eyes blazed. Beautiful, beautiful was Norhala —as Isis punishing Typhon for the murder of Osiris; as avenging Diana; shining from her something of the spirit of all wrathful Goddesses.
The flaming hair whirled and snapped. From all her sweet body came white-hot furious force, a withering perfume of destruction. She pressed against me, and I trembled at the contact.
Lawless, wild imaginings ran through me. Life, human life, dwindled. The City seemed but a thing of toys.
On—let us crush it! On—on!
Again the monster shook beneath us. Faster we moved. Louder grew the clangor of the drums, the gongs, the pipes. Nearer came the walls; and ever more crowded with the swarming human ants that manned them.
We were close upon the heels of the last fleeing stragglers. The Thing slackened in its stride; waited patiently until they were close to the gates. Before they could reach them I heard the brazen clanging of their valves. Those shut out beat frenziedly upon them; dragged themselves close to the base of the battlements, cowered there or crept along them seeking some hole in which to hide.
With a slow lowering of its height the Thing advanced. Now its form was that of a spindle a full mile in length on whose bulging center we three stood.
A hundred feet from the outer wall we halted. We looked down upon it not more than fifty feet above its broad top. Hundreds of the soldiers were crouching behind the parapets, companies of archers with great bows poised, arrows at their cheeks, scores of leather jerkined men with stands of javelins at their right hands, spearsmen and men with long, thonged slings.
Set at intervals were squat, powerful engines of wood and metal beside which were heaps of huge, rounded boulders. Catapults I knew them to be and around each swarmed a knot of soldiers, fixing the great stones in place, drawing back the thick ropes that, loosened, would hurl forth the projectiles. From each side came other men, dragging more of these balisters; assembling a battery against the prodigious, gleaming monster that menaced their city.
Between outer wall and inner battlements galloped squadrons of mounted men. Upon this inner wall the soldiers clustered as thickly as on the outer, preparing as actively for its defense.
The city seethed. Up from it arose a humming, a buzzing, as of some immense angry hive.
Involuntarily I visualized the spectacle we must present to those who looked upon us—this huge incredible Shape of metal alive with quicksilver shifting. This—as it must have seemed to them— hellish mechanism of war captained by a sorceress and two familiars in form of men. There came to me dreadful visions of such a monster looking down upon the peace- reared battlements of New York—the panic rush of thousands away from it.
There was a blaring of trumpets. Up on the parapet leaped a man clad all in gleaming red armor. From head to feet the close linked scales covered him. Within a hood shaped somewhat like the tight-fitting head coverings of the Crusaders a pallid, cruel face looked out upon us; in the fierce black eyes was no trace of fear.
Evil as Norhala had said these people of Ruszark were, wicked and cruel —they were no cowards, no!
The red armored man threw up a hand.
"Who are you?" he shouted. "Who are you three, you three who come driving down upon Ruszark through the rocks? We have no quarrel with you?"
"I seek a man and a maid," cried Norhala. "A maid and a sick man your thieves took from me. Bring him forth!"
"Seek elsewhere for them then," he answered. "They are not here. Turn now and seek elsewhere. Go quickly, lest I loose our might upon you and you go never."
Mockingly rang her laughter—and under its lash the black eyes grew fiercer, the cruelty on the white face darkened.
"Little man whose words are so big! Fly who thunders! What are you called, little man?"
Her raillery bit deep—but its menace passed unheeded in the rage it called forth.
"I am Kulun," shouted the man in scarlet armor. "Kulun, the son of Cherkis the Mighty, and captain of his hosts. Kulun—who will cast your skin under my mares in stall for them to trample and thrust your red flayed body upon a pole in the grain fields to frighten away the crows! Does that answer you?"
Her laughter ceased; her eyes dwelt upon him—filled with an infernal joy.
"The son of Cherkis!" I heard her murmur. "He has a son—"
There was a sneer on the cruel face; clearly he thought her awed. Quick was his disillusionment.
"Listen, Kulun," she cried. "I am Norhala—daughter of another Norhala and of Rustum, whom Cherkis tortured and slew. Now go, you lying spawn of unclean toads—go and tell your father that I, Norhala, am at his gates. And bring back with you the maid and the man. Go, I say!"
XXV
CHERKIS
There was stark amazement on Kulun's face; and fear now enough. He dropped from the parapet among his men. There came one loud trumpet blast.
Out from the battlements poured a storm of arrows, a cloud of javelins. The squat catapults leaped forward. From them came a hail of boulders. Before that onrushing tempest of death I flinched.
I heard Norhala's golden laughter and before they could reach us arrow and javelin and boulder were checked as though myriads of hands reached out from the Thing under us and caught them. Down they dropped.
Forth from the great spindle shot a gigantic arm, hammer tipped with cubes. It struck the wall close to where the scarlet armored Kulun had vanished.
Under its blow the stones crumbled. With the fragments fell the soldiers; were buried beneath them.
A hundred feet in width a breach gaped in the battlements. Out shot the arm again; hooked its hammer tip over the parapet, tore away a stretch of the breastwork as though it had been cardboard. Beside the breach an expanse of the broad flat top lay open like a wide platform.
The arm withdrew, and out from the whole length of the spindle thrust other arms, hammer tipped, held high aloft, menacing.
From all the length of the wall arose panic outcry. Abruptly the storm of arrows ended; the catapults were still. Again the trumpets sounded; the crying ceased. Down fell a silence, terrified, stifling.
Kulun stepped forth again, both hands held high. Gone was his arrogance.
"A parley," he shouted. "A parley, Norhala. If we give you the maid and man, will you go?"
"Go get them," she answered. "And take with you this my command to Cherkis —that HE return with the two!"
For an instant Kulun hesitated. Up thrust the dreadful arms, poised themselves to strike.
"It shall be so," he shouted. "I carry your command."
He leaped back, his red mail flashed toward a turret that held, I supposed, a stairway. He was lost to sight. In silence we waited.
On the further side of the city I glimpsed movement. Little troops of mounted men, pony-drawn wains, knots of running figures were fleeing from the city through the opposite gates.
Norhala saw them too. With that incomprehensible, instant obedience to her unspoken thought a mass of the Metal Things separated from us; whirled up into a dozen of those obelisked forms I had seen march from the cat eyes of the City of the Pit.
In but a breath, it seemed, their columns were far off, herding back the fugitives.
They did not touch them, did not offer to harm—only, grotesquely, like dogs heading off and corraling frightened sheep, they circled and darted. Rushing back came those they herded.
From the watching terraces and walls arose shrill cries of terror, a wailing. Far away the