The Golden Amazons of Venus Part 16

"Anything new?" Steve Brent asked, sitting up on the cot where he had been sleeping and running both hands through his tousled crop of sandy hair. His freckled face was as lined and drawn as Gerry's own.

"Another of the bastions on the west wall came down under the rays, but we're holding the breach all right with archers and a portable ray-caster. Hurry and get up there, like a good fellow! I left Portok in charge, and he's dead on his feet."

"I am not so d.a.m.n much alive myself!" Steve muttered, but he put on his helmet and went clanking off up the corridor.

Gerry sat down heavily on a bench, at the moment too tired even to take off his armor. The city of Larr still held out--but that was all that could be said. The Scaly Ones still pressed the a.s.sault day and night without ceasing. The once mighty walls of yellow stone were crumbling under the constant attack of the walls while the defense of the steadily widening breaches put an added strain on the dwindling numbers of the garrison.

If only the _Viking_ would come! Her duralite hull would withstand either rays or explosives, and her own powerful ray-tubes should be able to blast the attacking artillery out of existence and thereby raise the siege. But he could not raise the s.p.a.ce-ship on the radio! That was the thing that worried Gerry most of all. Tanda had been trying at hourly intervals for days, but he could not get any answer from McTavish.

At last Gerry stretched out on the cot that Steve had quitted, and almost instantly went to sleep. It seemed only a moment later that he awoke to find Portok the Martian shaking him by the shoulder. Gerry laboriously raised himself up on one elbow shaking his head to clear his brain. So strong were the bonds of sleep that several seconds pa.s.sed before his brain grasped the meaning of the words that Portok was shouting in his ear.

"Chief! Can't you hear me? The whole western wall has come down, carrying all the ray-tubes with it. The Scaly Ones are in the city!"

Gerry seized his helmet and weapons from the table where he had thrown them, and dashed out of the room. From one of the balconies of the Arrow Tower he could see the swift disaster that had come upon the City of Larr. The ceaseless, unrelenting play of Lansa's supode ray machines had finally weakened the city's western wall until the whole rampart had collapsed.

The once towering wall was now only a long mound of rubble. The companies of Scaly Ones nearest the wall had been buried in the debris when it fell, but fresh hordes were pouring forward with a shrill yelping. The Amazon archers defending the wall from above had been mainly crushed in the wreckage. Reserve regiments were hurrying into place at the double, bow strings tw.a.n.ging and long golden hair streaming out behind them but there was one loss that could not be replaced. All the alta-ray machines on that wall were shattered and broken.

The despairing courage of Larr's feminine defenders was not enough to hold that mile-long pile of rubbish whose sloping sides could be easily climbed by the swarming hordes from Giri-Vaaka. The Amazons were falling back all along the line. The retreat was a slow and stubborn one, but it was steady. Such of the alta-ray machines as could be brought to bear upon the shattered wall from other portions of the fortifications swept the advancing Scaly Ones with blue blasts that tore gaping holes in their ranks, but there were not enough of them. The firelight gleamed on the armor of a few of the _Viking's_ men who were fighting with the rear-guard, their ray-guns stabbing viciously into the Reptilian ranks as they fell back. The drums of the Scaly Ones took on a deep-mouthed bellow of triumph, and the brazen trumpets of Larr were the voice of a forlorn and fading hope.

Rupin-Sang appeared on the balcony beside Gerry, leaning his gnarled old hands on the rail. He was smiling, as though final disaster had at least brought a relief from strain.

"This is the end of the City of Larr," he said. "The ancient prophecy of Jeddah-Khana comes true after all. Save yourself and your men while you can, my friend."

"Can't we all escape through the swamps and put up a better fight in the hills?" Gerry asked. Rupin-Sang shook his head.

"No, my friend. The last survivors will do that when all is over, but we will defend Larr to the end--street by street and house by house--as is the tradition of Savissa. We are the last descendants of the Old Ones.

We may die, but we will do it with honor."

The swift advance of Lansa's men bit deeply into the city, halfway from the shattered wall to the central plaza surrounding the Great Tower, before it was checked at a line of hasty barricades. There was bitter house-to-house fighting all across the city. Gerry knew that the stand at the barricades could not be sustained for very long. The advance of the Scaly Ones had at the moment outdistanced their supode ray casters and their heavy caliber gas-guns. For the present the Amazon arrows held them checked. The advance was sure to resume as soon as Lansa's heavy weapons could be brought up again.

It was a hopeless fight--and yet Gerry could not bring himself to leave.

Partly it was his affection for the grief-stricken but indomitable Closana that held him there. Partly it was the sheer courage of the Amazon's gallant fight against such heavy odds that kept him in the battle line. By some standards the affair was none of his business but he could not quit now. However--he had not the right to hold his men in the stricken city if they wished to leave. As he located the various members of the _Viking's_ crew in the disorganized Amazon ranks, he gave each one permission to escape from the city through the eastern marshes.

Portok's reaction was typical.

"Run from these snake-skinned devils?" the little Martian panted hoa.r.s.ely, his ruddy face gaunt and his eyes sunken deep in their sockets. "Not while I can still stand. I'm staying with the rear guard--as long as there is one!"

New fires had been started by the victory-drunk Reptilians, fires within the walls. The lurid glow of burning houses made the night hideous.

Fully a third of the city was in flames by now, and only the easterly wind kept the flames from driving the defenders away from those portions of the city that they still held.

By noon the next day the tale was nearly all told. The Savissans now held less than a third of their city, a V-shaped sector with the Arrow Tower at its apex. The murky beams of supode rays were now continually playing against the walls of the Great Tower itself, and small cascades of pulverized rock kept sliding off the face of the stone work as the weaker parts began to decompose under the steady impact of the rays. And still the fight went on!

Gerry had forgotten what it was like to lie down and rest. He was leaning in an angle of the wall, actually asleep on his feet, when Chester Sand from the _Viking_ hurried across to him.

"Rupin-Sang wants to see you down in the garden right away, Chief!" Sand panted. "You and Steve Brent both."

"All right. Get Steve," Gerry growled. He sighed, and tightened his belt, and went wearily down the steps to the lower floor of the tower.

The pleasant walled garden behind the tower was a very different place from the stop Gerry had seen when he first came to Savissa. The explosive bullets of the Scaly Ones had ripped up many of the trees, and shattered the marble statues. A heap of debris fallen from above lay along the base of the tower wall, while more was constantly trickling down as the murky beams of the supode rays criss-crossed overhead. The bodies of dead Amazons were scattered here and there on the trampled gra.s.s. Dense clouds of acrid smoke from the burning city swirled down over the garden wall.

Closana was waiting in the garden, her armor dim and battered. Her left arm was heavily bandaged, but she still carried a naked sword in her right hand.

"I was told that you wanted me," she said. Gerry shook his head.

"No, it was your father who sent for _me_." Just then Steve and Chester Sand came across the garden. A faint suspicion began to stir in Gerry's mind.

"Where is Rupin-Sang?" he demanded.

Sand hesitated, and cleared his throat. His eyes were shifty. Then Gerry heard a slight sound behind him. He spun around--and looked squarely into the muzzle of a ray-tube held by Lansa himself!

They had been neatly trapped! Lansa and a dozen of his men had come up through the sewers and slain the Amazon guards posted there.

"Drop your weapons!" Lansa snapped. Gerry shrugged and obeyed, and the others followed his example. There was a triumphant smile on the renegade's saturnine face. "I am glad you were not killed in the fighting, Norton," he said, "because you and Brent and the girl will make very valuable hostages for me when your s.p.a.ce-ship eventually returns."

Gerry turned and stared at Chester Sand. The _Viking's_ Safety Officer was pale, but he met the other man's glance with a sort of weak defiance. Gerry's lip curled.

"So _you_ are the rat who slugged me that time I caught Olga in the radio room!" he said. "I should have known it. I seem to have left several loose ends I should have watched, but I'll fix you for this some day and...."

"You won't be fixing anybody any more, Norton," Lansa said grimly.

"After I've used you to get possession of the _Viking_ you'll die in the torture chambers at Vaaka-hausen. Thanks to my good friend Sands, I also know the location of the invisible city. That, too, I will attend to.

But all in good time. Guards! Bind and gag the prisoners...."

He never finished the sentence. There was a sharp hiss, and a thud. A narrow steel point stood a hand's breadth out beyond his throat. A wondering expression came into his eyes. Then his knees buckled, and he went down on the trampled gra.s.s. Across the garden, still holding the air-gun from which he had shot the long steel slug, stood Sarnak of Luralla!

The Scaly Ones went for their weapons, but a vengeful throng of the outlaw brood of the Dragon came pouring up from below on the heels of their leaders. There was no thought of quarter between these hereditary foes. There was a short, sharp fight--and then the last of Lansa's raiding party died in the shadow of the wall. Sarnak came striding forward, his hand outstretched and a cheerful smile on his broad face.

"It seems that I came in very good time, my friends!" he said.

"Perfect," Gerry grinned. "But what does your coming mean?"

"It means that the hour of deliverance is at hand. When Lansa brought his full force eastward against Savissa, it gave us the opportunity we have been needing for generations. We of the Dragon's Teeth rose against the scanty garrisons he left behind, and put them to the sword. The ma.s.s of the people joined us then, when the chances of victory looked so strong that hope overcame the despair born of generations of oppression.

Now the Green Folk of Giri have thrown off the yoke of the invader at last, and thousands of them are marching this way to take the army of the Scaly Ones in the rear."

"But how did you come to arrive in the garden at this particular moment?" Gerry asked.

"The forces of Giri have forded the river and are marching overland, but I came ahead with a hundred picked cavalry mounted on swift saddle-dolphins. We saw a crude type of underwater craft moving in this direction, and followed it at a distance. You know the rest. After bringing down the sentries that Lansa had posted below, we left our dolphins and our water helmets down at the main drain and crept up through the pa.s.sages to this place."

"When do you think the rest of the Green Folk will come?" Closana asked.

"Within a few more hours, Princess. They will not be in time to save your city, but they will be in time to protect the survivors."

"If there are any of us left by then!" the girl said bitterly. Gerry suddenly pointed upward.