by Earl
Crane started. A twig had crackled, somewhere out at the fringe of the invisible forest. He jumped up. Their invisible friend was returning.
“Robinhood? You—”
A shot rang out. The bullet whistled past Crane’s ear and thunked into the logs behind.
Jondra screamed. “Look there—a gun pointing at us!”
Two hundred feet ahead, a gun hung in the air.
“Harlan!” groaned Dr. Damon. “He’s invisible now and he’ll kill us!”
Another shot split the air, as they all leaped for the cave door. Harlan, a poor shot, had missed again. But if he pumped shots at their massed group, entering the doorway, he couldn’t fail to get one or two. Then he would stalk them inside, shoot them down one by one . . .
Even as he ducked and whirled, Crane saw what happened. Something wrenched the gun from Harlan’s hands. It swung around as a club. It whacked against an invisible tree, the stock shattering. For a moment it hung, then began moving toward them, at the pace of a man walking.
The battle of the invisible men had been short.
“Did you get him, Robinhood?” Crane queried eagerly.
“No.” The bodiless voice was weary, defeated. “I tried to club him, but he slipped away. He’s completely invisible now. And that’s why I failed in everything . . .”
“Failed? You didn’t get the other men?”
Again a weary, “No.”
“Everything seemed perfect,” the voice went on. “The men were all outside the plane—ten of them altogether. Creeping close, I shot one.” He seemed to shudder a little.
“But when I aimed for the second, a shot rang back. Harlan had been expecting me. Guessing my position by the hang of the visible rifle, he could get me eventually, poor shot though he is. I couldn’t get him. He was behind the plane.
“There was only one thing to do. I had to drop my giveaway—the rifle—and leave. Still, I hung around a few minutes, debating some other plan. For instance, using a grenade, and blasting plane and all apart.
“Suddenly, it came to me like a blow. Harlan now knew I was there. Therefore he would run to this camp and murder you, not having me to fear. He could do his job much quicker than I could do mine, and still have time to return and rescue whatever men remained. That’s how the fifth columnists figure those things—in plain, cold, emotionless figures.
“I guess I came back just in time, running all the way. Harlan’s first shot told me where he was. I ran to him—and you know the rest.”
Crane pondered. “Invisible man against invisible man! No matter what you do, he can duplicate it. And Harlan has the advantage. He has more men and more arms. Good Lord, what can we do?”
It was not stalemate. It was certain victory for the enemy.
DUSK came, as the sun slowly sank.
Darkness settled over the valley of invisibility and terror. And menace.
“Suppose they attack at night?” Jondra breathed.
“I doubt it,” the Invisible Robinhood said. “Darkness gives us more advantage than they, on the defensive. All blitzkrieg tactics take full advantage of the best, not the worst of conditions. However, we’ll take precautions. I’ll stand guard outside. Crane, you sleep at the door. The rest back in the cave.”
The night hours wore away. Crane awoke from the doze he had achieved, disturbed by some sound in the forest’s night quiet. The stealthy pad of feet! Closer they came, silently shrieking of threat.
Where was the Invisible Robinhood? Why wasn’t he on the job? Had he left them exposed to throat-slitting by the invisible Harlan?
Quivering at the frightful thought, Crane raised his rifle. He felt blind and helpless, as so often before. How could he fight an unseen presence who could come from any side, strike at any unannounced moment?
Was a sharp knife even at that moment sweeping toward his unprotected back?
The next sound Crane heard was the most welcome in the world. It was a sniff. An animal sniff, followed by the low growl of an invisible bear, snooping around the camp for tidbits of food, most likely.
Crane fumbled for a piece of the deer meat and tossed it out.
“Here you are, old top,” he whispered. “I’m glad it’s you rather than a certain invisible snake. Hope all your children are visible. Now scram.”
A pleased grunt sounded, and the slice of meat floated off into the starlit night.
Crane didn’t doze any more. Dawn was breaking. A new day was here—the day that would tell the story, one way or another.
A hand gripped his shoulder.
“I’m back, Crane.”
“Robinhood! Where were you? Damn you, man, do you realize you left us at the mercy of Harlan, if he had come?”
“I knew he wouldn’t,” the unseen man said calmly. “He was too busy guarding his own camp. Besides, it’s chilly at night. Don’t forget, he has to run around naked. His clothes are still visible.
“I went to their camp. I had grenades along. I thought of blowing the plane up, with them all inside. But only four were in. The rest were elsewhere, in some cliff cave I’d have to search for all night. If I did eliminate the four, Harlan would again have raced here and bombed this camp to smithereens. Any way I looked at it, they would come out ahead.”
His voice changed to bafflement.
“I’ve been thinking all night, hoping to figure out some other plan. We must try something soon, now that day is here—”
“For Pete’s sake!” Crane exclaimed, thumping his head with his knuckles. “What am I waiting for? If Harlan could become invisible, why can’t I? Two invisible men against one and we can get him!”
HE was already ducking into the cave, striding for the work bench at the rear and its bottles and cans of invisible blood. He picked up a flask, apparently empty, but heavy with its unseen contents.
Pulling out the stopper, Crane filled a hypodermic lying nearby. Eagerly he brought the needle close to his left arm’s largest vein, for injection.
A hand knocked the hypodermic away, shattering it on the ground.
Dr. Damon had watched, rubbing his eyes, and then bounded from his bunk.
“You fool!” he barked. “That stuff is poison. I would have suggested it yesterday, except for that. Any animal blood is poison in a human being’s veins, except certain types of anthropoid blood. Harlan will be dead before this day is over!”
“Did he know that?” Crane gasped.
The scientist nodded.
“The fifth columnists are fanatics,” the Invisible Robinhood remarked. “Harlan sacrificed his life for the cause.”
The words seemed to echo in the cave.
Crane picked up another hypodermic, grimly.
“Two invisible men against one, and we have a chance—”
Dr. Damon looked at him, but said nothing. The Invisible Robinhood made no move to interfere. They would have to stand aside now, and watch deliberate suicide.
With a tightening of his lips, Crane prepared to plunge the needle home. Again it was knocked out of his hands.
“I can’t let you!” Jondra sobbed. “Isn’t there anything else we can do?”
She was facing the spot at which the Invisible Robinhood stood, bitterly.
“In smashing the fifth column, Mr. Robinhood, you’re smashing us just as ruthlessly. You started all this—by not exposing Harlan at the beginning. You played the game your way, and we suffer as pawns. There’s probably no room for emotion—love, for instance—in your career of giant-killing. You’re just a cold, feelingless human robot—”
The tirade ended in a choke, as the girl buried her head against Crane’s chest.
Love! That was a queer thing to bring up in this valley of hate and death and menace.
An aura of sudden sadness radiated from the unseen man. Crane could feel it. Hard he might be at times, striving for his goals at any cost, but beneath it he was human. And somewhere, something had seared his soul—but still left him human.
There was the merest murmur.
&
nbsp; “Love? I loved a girl once. She is like you, fair, sweet . . .”
The voice trailed away. Then it spoke softly again.
“Wait here. I’ll investigate the enemy’s activity. If anything else can be done—”
He was gone.
HIS voice was still soft when he returned, an hour later. Soft but grim.
“They’ve set up three field guns, about two miles back. Judging by their positions, and the stacks of ammunition beside them, they’re ready to bombard this entire end of the valley. Raze it flat!”
Broooommmm!
The dull thump sounded, followed a few seconds later by a ground-shaking roar. A quarter-mile to the left of them, where the shell landed, a shower of dirt sprayed into the air. With it, unseen, had gone a shredding of the valley’s shadow-life.
A second shell landed fifty feet nearer. A third still nearer, bringing down on them a fine stinging hail. The artillerists were finding the range rapidly.
“They’ll systematically sweep every inch of our end of the valley,” the Invisible Robinhood said, still softly. “Everything will go—forest, cave, animals, dragons—”
“Dragons!”
It was Pierre’s voice, in a deadly rage.
“They kill dragon! Fear dragon! But I will kill them! I, Pierre, will lead my dragons—”
He lapsed into rapid French, shaking his fist in the direction of the thumping guns. The others watched in astonishment.
“Pierre!” Crane snapped. “Keep your head, now of all times. We need every man—”
He stopped, gasping. Pierre was stripping off his clothes. The garments dropped. The body exposed was translucent. Direct rays of the sun stabbed through and through, outlining the bones. And rapidly, even the skeleton was fading into the unseen background of air, as the hormone of invisibility bleached the guide beyond the color-spectrum faster than any dye had ever worked.
“Pierre!” Dr. Damon cried. “You took a dose of the blood. You’ll die!”
Pierre does not die. Pierre will lead his dragons—”
With a wild shout, the wraithlike form stalked toward the forest.
“Mad! Utterly mad!” Dr. Damon whispered. “I suspected it all along, in the previous six months. The thought of the invisible dragons preyed on his mind.”
Crane jumped to catch Pierre, but an invisible hand stayed him.
“Let him go. Time’s short. We have to dodge these shells. We can’t run forward openly, for they’ll be waiting for us. But we can move along the cliff-edges, in comparative safety, ahead of the barrage.”
“Suppose we survive the bombardment, by a miracle?” Crane said hopelessly. “What then?”
“Pierre is leading the dragons!” the Invisible Robinhood breathed.
Crane started. Had the Invisible Robinhood gone mad too? But there was little time to speculate. An invisible hand, covered with fine wire mesh, grasped his, pulling him away.
Jondra had Crane’s other hand, and her father brought up the rear.
They were to play a new game—dodging shells.
CHAPTER IX
Blood Barrage
CRANE was never quite dear how they escaped the holocaust of bombardment. With the precision of army artillery, the field guns methodically lobbed their shells back and forth across the narrow end of the valley. Starting at the cliff-face, the barrage worked inward.
The tenth shot struck the cave home, scattering logs in all directions. The four were driven forestward, to keep ahead of the destruction. Eventually, they would stumble into the arms of the enemy.
“What plan have you?” Crane yelled above the terrific rumble of sound banging between the cliffs. “Why didn’t you take the last chance—letting me become invisible? What chance is there now?”
But no answer came from the man whose unseen hand pulled them forward.
Crane noticed suddenly that they were working their way toward their own wrecked plane. Had the Invisible Robinhood forgotten that it was useless for flight? Crane tried to jerk away. Why let this madman lead them to certain destruction?
“You fool, stay with me!” came back the fierce retort. “Now’s our chance!”
He was tugging them toward the plane. The barrage had swung toward the other cliff-face, temporarily. They were safe for a few minutes from flying steel splinters and crashing trees.
“Quick!” commanded the Invisible Robinhood. “Run your gas out on the ground. But not the reserve tank. Start your engine and let it run on the reserve—at high speed.”
Crane complied, shaking his head in angry bewilderment.
The fuel poured out, soaking the plane and all the surrounding ground with its grass and bushes. The motor coughed, but started willingly enough, fed by the reserve tank. Crane set the throttle at half-speed, just at the point where the whole ship trembled and sought to move. A little more and it would trundle forward, to ram into trees with its controls wrecked.
“Now run!” the invisible man yelled. “Run as fast as you can—”
And he insanely led the way directly through the barrage line!
The raking shells began to pound nearer and nearer, like a returning pendulum. Trees crashed behind them, clutching at them with whipping branches. Flying splinters thudded viciously against invisible tree boles.
Crane felt a nudge in the flesh of his left arm, and the warm stickiness of blood, but raced on. He was half carrying Jondra. An invisible arm was pulling Dr. Damon along faster than his age could propel his muscles.
The universe seemed falling about their ears. But they made it.
The thumping barrage swung away on its ordered course. It neared, now, the spot where the plane lay.
PANTING, they stopped and watched as a livid sheet of flame sprang from the spilled gasoline. Trails of fire promptly cracked into the air, following the branches of invisible trees. Billows of smoke swirled into the sky.
In seconds, the first tentative flames had become a roaring forest fire, fanned by the propellor blasts of air. The next shell sent the plane into oblivion.
And it scattered firebrands.
“It worked!” The Invisible Robinhood’s shout was a cry of triumph.
The fire became a blazing inferno. Rapidly treetops touched off from one to the next. A line of flame strung itself across the valley from cliff to cliff. Then, like an enraged bull, it charged forward toward the center of the valley.
Demon fire had joined the battle in the valley of invisibility!
It was a strange sight. The flames seemed to spring out from nowhere, burning on invisible fuel. Branches and trees became visible, under the scorching death, but again vanished in the consuming blaze.
Crane hardly realized he had been screeching like a maniac for some time.
“I get it!” he yelled above the din. “Jondra! Dr. Damon! We’re safe here, where the barrage blew the forest to bits. No fuel for the fire. But the flames will sweep through all the rest of the valley. Harlan and his gang can’t blitzkrieg a fire away. They’re sunk!”
His voice changed just as suddenly. “But wait—suppose they simply turn the field guns and blast clear their end, before the fire comes. Then they’re saved too.” He groaned. “We’re still no better oft!”
“Pierre is leading the dragons!” the Invisible Robinhood said enigmatically. In more practical tones, he added, “The valley is narrow. The fire will drive all animals before it, toward the enemy’s camp. Including the dragons. Have you ever seen what a herd of elephants do on a stampede?”
Jondra shuddered. “The men will be trampled to death!”
THEIR JUBILANCE over victory was subdued by the thought of what must be happening on the other side of that pitiless, searing, charging wall of flame.
The field guns stopped thumping abruptly. Crane could picture the gunners staring at the oncoming wave of fire in horror. Then screaming and running. No “strategic retreat” this time. Just a blind, panic-stricken flight.
No safety in their plane, with its gasoline but
fuel to feed the enveloping flames. No time to take off. They could only stumble hopelessly on, to the very end of the valley. They would turn around then, with their backs to the cliff, eyes horror-struck at their doom. They would tear at each other in the attempt to struggle up the one scalable path out of the valley.
BUT before this would come the waves of fleeing animals. The animals would dash themselves against the cliffs, making them slippery with blood. The monstrous dragons would thunder up, snorting, bellowing, trampling. Their mighty feet, as they raced up and down seeking escape, would crush all the lesser animals. Including man.
It would be a sight no one would want to see.
The four were silent, waiting. In a short hour, the whole valley had gone up in smoke. Walls of smoke had mercifully screened from their eyes any glimpse of the happenings there. The steady crackle had camouflaged all sounds.
The flames died, then. The valley lay a smouldering ruin.
“Every living thing is wiped out!” Crane grunted. “This is the valley of death!”
“Not quite—listen!”
They heard the rackling of a ponderous body through the dying embers ahead. Through the pall came limping a smoke-silhouetted dragon. Crane gripped a grenade but then relaxed. The beast, staggering and groaning, had no interest in them. It sought a cool spot. Easing its bulk down in the unburned section, it licked its wounds.
“Some of the animals escaped,” the Invisible Robinhood mused. “Perhaps the fleetest deer, and a few of the armor-plated dragons. Undoubtedly some of the vegetation here and there, in niches. The cycle could start again . . .”
His voice trailed away thoughtfully.
CHAPTER X
“The Secret Must Remain a Secret!”
THEY returned to what had been the cave home. Most of it was a gaping ruin, but the back portion was comparatively unscathed. Food supplies remained, and a dozen sealed cans of blood.
Dr. Damon picked them up eagerly.
“I thought they would all be destroyed. I’ll take these back. I’ll still announce to the science world the great discovery of invisibility!”
