by Earl
Aran Deen shook his head.
“I cannot say. But the green-eyed witch must go. Remember that.”
Perry nodded grimly. If he had hesitated at all in the thought, he told himself, it was only because she was a woman. War was terrible. But the aftermath of war was worse. Those grim, necessary purges. Perry knew he aged, in that moment.
After the tragedy of war—what? An age-old problem.
CHAPTER XV
Swords Aloft
AN ARMY of 200,000 marched where millions had marched in a bygone era.
Perry knew it was a small army, in 20th century terms, and poorly equipped. Only half had metal weapons. But it was unlikely that Lar Tane had been able to conscript more, or produce more weapons. The battle would not be less significant than a thunderous, shell-torn battle of ancient days. More significant. The whole world was at stake.
Perry had conscripted the larger army hastily, by messenger and telegraph. He must hurtle through to Vinna, at any cost. Delay meant a chance for Lar Tane to organize, build, fortify. To add fuel to the seething fire under a continent.
When the snow-capped Tyrols loomed to the west, and the flat plains of the Danubian region stretched to the north, Perry expected the enemy. Elda could choose her battlefield wherever she liked. It was all the same here. No rows of concrete dugouts to sneak behind.
At last arrow-fire announced the enemy, from the opposite slope of a wide valley.
Perry called a halt on the near side, and went up in a plane for observation. Drumming over the slope and the brushland beyond, Perry looked down and made out the enemy clusters of men. By rough estimate, about 150,000. Despite his personal magnetism, Lar Tane had evidently had some trouble raising an army. He had had only six months, in the 50th century. For twenty-five years before, the world had acknowledged Stirnye the Lord of Earth. It was remarkable that Lar Tane had whipped up that much of a following.
And what war-aim could Lar Tane hold up, palatable to the Tribers? What war cry?
Not “defense” of their homes and lands. For Perry had been shrewd enough, at the start, to announce he was fighting a crusade against Lar Tane alone. No reprisals against the rebellious tribal-states. The Stone Age grapevine of rumor must already have circulated that undermining whisper.
Perry was sure his men had more morale, more reason and spirit to fight. That was important, in any war of any age.
Perry’s eyes gleamed. Not far to the north, from his plane’s vantage, he caught the glint of blue water. The Danube. On its shores, the smudge that marked the ruins of olden Vienna. He’d smash this army, march there, drive Lar Tane to hiding. It would be over soon.
Perry almost catapulted out of his seat, suddenly, as his pilot slewed sharply.
Perry heard the crescendo and then fading of thundering rockets. He caught the metallic glint of the enemy plane that had nearly rammed them, sweeping by. And the glint of copper-gold hair!
The other plane circled, came roaring back, straight for them. Perry’s pilot was already turning tail. With an explosive curse, Perry grabbed the dual controls and took over with a jerk of his head to the pilot.
Chasing him away, was she?
Probably with that mocking smile on her face. Perry swung his ship around, straight for the other. He gunned the drive rockets to whistling speed. In seconds the two ships would smash head-on.
THE pilot clawed at Perry’s arm, with a shriek of fear. Perry shook him off with a wild laugh. Chase him away, would she? She’d have to chase him through hell to do it.
He could see her face now, straight before him through the other ship’s windshield. Ivory oval face, coppery helmet of hair, emerald eyes. The features ballooned in his vision.
Mocking smile—no, there was no mocking smile. A horrified look had leaped into it. No wonder. She was looking into the face of a maniac—Perry’s face. And at Death’s grinning skull over his shoulder.
Perry waited for the crash that would snuff out his life, and the life of the green-eyed girl who had made him a maniac.
There was no crash.
At the last split-second, the other plane slewed sharply upward. What slim margin they missed by, Perry never knew. Perhaps a foot.
Perry eased his throttle and looked around. The other plane wobbled erratically, as though out of control. It righted finally, swooped, and made a very bad landing in an open field. Perry soared down, as a slim figure stepped out and leaned against the cabin.
Perry wanted to see her expression, but couldn’t. Tears blinded him. He left. He was still laughing wildly, maniacally, when he landed beyond his army, and dragged out the pilot, who had fainted. But he stopped laughing suddenly, and was sick.
“I saw it,” cried Aran Deen, hobbling up, waving his thin arms. “Young fool, suppose you’d been killed?”
Perry shrugged, feeling better.
“I called her bluff, that’s all. Now I’ll smash her army. We attack at dawn.”
THE snow-capped Tyrols looked down on the sprawling battle that was fought for three days in the wide plains beyond the foothills. The weather, as though not to interfere, was balmy. The age-lasting mountains had seen countless other battles, through history, some that rocked their foundations. But none so strange, so vital, though not a single gun cracked through the Stone Age air.
Stone Age battle it was. Medieval butchery, men against men. Charges of cavalry against cavalry, footmen against footmen. Arrows, spears and stone-axes against the same.
But a new element had been introduced, from the previous battles along the Maginot Line.
Swords.
In hand-to-hand battle, spears and arrows exhausted, swords came into play. Perry exulted, at first. At last he had actually come to grips with the enemy forces. No longer were his men falling like leaves, charging against a concealed enemy in pill-boxes and underground warrens.
But his men were still falling, more rapidly than he liked.
Through the first day, he saw why. Lar Tane had trained fifty thousand of his men in the art of sword-play. They wore blue shirts, as distinguishing insignia. They had been divided into units of cavalry who had curved sabers, attack troops who had long double-edged swords, and shock troops with murderous short swords, to stem any attack quickly.
Perry’s swordsmen had only one kind—straight long swords.
Time and again, his attacks were stopped, by the shock troops with their light slashing weapons. Then would come counter-attack, at the center, long swords in the hands of fresh men. Finally cavalry charges at his right and left wings, with their wicked sabers cutting down his footmen methodically.
Perry watched with pursed lips.
“Our numerical advantage is fast disappearing,” Aran Deen mumbled that first day. “Lar Tane developed a trained fighting force. Perry, it is slowly going against us.”
“We’ll smash through tomorrow,” Perry said grimly. “We must!”
He didn’t sleep that night. He directed the wagon trains that took the dead and wounded away, and brought food supplies from the rear. At times he shuddered, sick at the blood spilled. Blitzkrieg, as his father had admonished. A sheer, brutal hammering against Lar Tane, at any cost. Quick victory.
And if he failed?
Perry was aghast at the thought. If he were thrown back, Lar Tane would have a breathing spell, gain in strength. Already he had organized a formidable trained corps. Given more time, his military power would rise astronomically.
AT DAWN, Perry called the charge with set lips.
“Down with Lar Tane, tyrant of the past!” yelled the troops, marching forward. Their morale was still intact, but a few more days of slow decimation and it might crack.
Perry threw all he had into the second day’s attack, recklessly saving a bare minimum for relief, reinforcement, and emergency.
Perry noticed with what efficiency the enemy repulsed the attack. Unit by unit they marched to the front line. Unit by unit they fell back for relief. It was admirable, sheerly artistic. And
maddening.
Perry stood at the crest of his side of the valley. He saw her finally at the crest of the other side. Even in the glasses she was a small figure, but her coppery flame of hair flashed like a mirror in the bright sun.
Between them they surveyed the lower valley, and its wide-strung battlefield. Horsemen carries messages back and forth down the slopes to their respective field generals.
Perry and Elda were the guiding forces. It reduced to that, as though it were a complicated chess-game they played, with human lives as pawns, the world as a prize. He was pitted against a woman. But more than a woman. An Amazon, and a 30th century mind that had seen much more of war than he.
Perry realized the odds against him. She was probably standing there with her mocking smile, scorning his clumsy frontal attack. Perry looked down. Step by step his attack had been broken. His army’s advance ground to a standstill. The struggle settled down to hours of slow, grim butchery again.
And Perry lost more men than she, with her clever swordsmen.
Night brought temporary armistice, but no peace to Perry, again sleepless.
“Tomorrow,” said Aran Deen, shaking his silvery head, “tomorrow may tell the story.”
“Tomorrow we attack in one mass,” Perry decided. “Every man.”
AT DAWN, Perry watched from his vantage. Elda was in her place, a glint of copper across the valley. This day would tell the tale.
Perry’s swordsmen advanced toward Elda’s swordsmen, two grim lines of men. The secondary lines of archers cast solid sheets of arrows back and forth. Cavalry troops thundered toward cavalry troops, ready for the shock of meeting.
All hell would break loose in a minute, under the morning sun.
It broke loose sooner than expected.
Down from the north drummed twelve rocket planes, probably the total number Lar Tane had been able to confiscate. They swooped down over Perry’s forces, vulturously. Back and forth they raced, raking his men with heat-blasts from their underjets.
Perry stared, thunderstruck.
His advancing men wavered. The threat from the sky took them completely by surprise, spreading the germ of demoralization. When the enemy forces struck, Perry’s men fell back. Like a resistless tide, the enemy pushed forward. Their triumphant yells carried through the clashing of metal swords.
Morale shattered, Perry’s army was beaten back, slowly and then with rising speed. The tide of battle had taken a definite turn.
Perry’s soul writhed. Defeat! It was plainly before him. Elda had planned this with diabolic cunning.
Aran Deen was shaking his head.
“Call retreat, before it becomes a rout, Perry!”
“No!” Perry bellowed the word. “I’m going down there myself!”
The old seer’s bony hand clutched his arm.
“Don’t be a fool. You can take a defeat now, without harm.”
“I’ll win now!” Perry cried.
He pulled an aide off his horse, leaped astride, and thundered wildly down the slope.
Aran Deen looked for the coppery flash of hair across the valley.
“The green-eyed witch makes fools of us all!” he muttered. Then he started.
The coppery flash wasn’t there. Had Elda, too, joined the battle?
CHAPTER XVI
Capture
PERRY stopped, back of the battle line, to pick up a blood-stained sword from a fallen soldier. He caught a riderless charger, for a better mount, and rode yelling into the melee, swinging the shiny weapon.
He knew he wasn’t quite sane. Something had gone blank in his mind. To call retreat, bow before a woman, would have torn his pride to shreds. Only one thing beat in his mind—fight, fight!
The peaceful young student was utterly gone. He was completely a warrior, riding to battle.
His wild yells pierced the din of battle, furious though it was. Men turned, wonderingly, and were instantly inspired. A cluster of his cavalry rallied back of him as the blazing-eyed, roaring demon dashed into the enemy. His sword beat around him like a magic wand that thrust the enemy back.
All the pent-up suspense and energy and rage in Perry went into his sword.
He beat down the saber of a blue-shirted horseman and saw him fall with a gashed shoulder. Another and another. A footman slashed at his legs. Perry met the sword half-way, swept it into the air, stabbed the man through the throat. Another horseman, swordless, swung a huge stone-headed mace at his head. Perry sheared the wooden handle cleanly, stabbed the man’s ribs.
All the while he yelled and thrust forward. A hundred fighters had rallied behind him, forcing a spearhead that crunched through the enemy ranks.
“Come on, men!” Perry exhorted. “Follow me. Fall on their rear. Down with Lar Tane, tyrant of the—past!”
The last word was a gasp.
A body of horse thundered down on them, blue shirts billowing, sabers swinging. At their head rode Elda Tane! She spied him, urged her horse forward.
It was incredible. Elda riding to battle, a woman, a girl—like Semiramis, the battle-queen. Coppery locks streaming in the wind, emerald eyes snapping, she seemed perfectly at home in the atmosphere of death and destruction. Certainly there was no fear in her eyes, only the light of daring and challenge.
Perry slowed his horse. Enemy horsemen swept by, to attack his men. They made no move against him. Had Elda given orders to that effect? Why?
Perry saw why. She reined before him, tossed her head in greeting, and raised a gleaming saber.
“Submit—or fight!”
Her clarion voice came clearly through the noise.
Perry grinned suddenly, thinking of the plane episode.
“Bluffing again?” he jeered. “I don’t fight women!”
Furthermore, he was in a dangerous position. Elda’s fresh cavalry liad driven his back. Perry wheeled his horse, to enter the fray and stay with his men. It wouldn’t do to be cut off entirely, back of the enemy lines.
But before he had gone half-way, Elda’s horse pulled up beside him. Her saber swung down. There was a grim look in her green eyes, now cold as ice. Back of it danced rage, at his biting words. And perhaps at memory of the planes nearly crashing.
PERRY instinctively defended himself, parrying her cut. Again and again she swung, forcing him to rein up and concentrate on saving his skin. She was an attacking fury. Her strong blows clanged on his sword ringingly.
At first grimly amused, Perry quickly found himself using every skill of his own. Her blows were not clumsy. She had at some time learned the use of the saber thoroughly. Perry’s own youthful fencing experience was necessary to ward off the attack.
Perry could not bring himself to make an offensive move, at first. But desperation of time forced him. And her mocking smile.
His blood suddenly boiled. This was the one, girl or not, who mocked him with notes, outwitted him on the battlefield, and now actually threatened his life.
“O.K.” he panted. “You want it this way—”
He thrust and cut back at her. She laughed, parrying his strokes. For a while they dueled, their swords sparkling in the sun. Humiliation stung Perry, beset and held off by a mere girl.
He rose in his stirrups, pounding viciously. She fell back a little. Perry watched his chance, caught his point in her hand-guard and flipped the weapon out of her hands.
She stared at her empty hand, startled. Then at Perry.
Her face lifted, and the glorious eyes told him he had the right to kill her, as with any man on the battlefield.
Perry raised his sword, cold and appalled at his own resolve.
Kill her? Of course! Why not? She was an enemy, a rebel, herself merciless. With her out of the way, the enemy forces would lack an inspiring leader. She had been ready to kill him a moment before. Every practical consideration in Perry shrieked for the act—and yet he hesitated.
Why? He was staring at her proud, queenly head thrown high, again like the battle-queen Semiramis who knew nothing of t
he word fear. Her tossed hair was a helmet of copper glory against the ivory of her face, her eyes like twin emeralds. Yet why should he hesitate to destroy such beauty—it was only a mask over a cruel, sinister being who did not even expect mercy!
Her eyes were on him, wide and wondering at his delay.
Perry’s upraised weapon was knocked stingingly out of his hand, in the next second. His vision became aware of other things. Some of the blue-shirted horsemen had returned to protect their girl-commander.
“Surround him!” Elda’s voice belled out. “Do not harm him. He is my prisoner.”
Perry looked for escape too late. He was unarmed, and within a ring of enemy horsemen. He called down the curse of all the gods on himself. If he had not shrunk from duty, Elda would now be dead, and himself free to gallop for safety.
Now—trapped!
His eyes went beyond the watchful horsemen. The battle line had receded rapidly. His forces, demoralized by the plane strategy and the enemy’s swift power-drive were turning into a running rabble. A rout.
Perry stifled the groan that rocked his being. His army beaten, himself a prisoner of war. How miserably he had failed!
ELDA’S commands rang out, to her aides.
“Chase the rebels to the hills. Break them up. Capture as many prisoners as you can. Likely most will join our forces, later. I am returning to Vinna, with my personal prisoner of war.”
Her tone became a jeer.
“This, you know, is Perry Knight, who calls himself Lord of Earth!”
She stared around at the men’s silent faces.
“Laugh!” she demanded, half furiously.
“We do not laugh at the son of Stirnye,” muttered one of the Tribers. It was Chief Hal Doth of Vinna. “He is a brave man.”
Perry thrilled. They still respected him, even the enemy! Then he saw their admiring glances at the girl. Chief Doth made a little bow to her.
“And you are brave, Lady Elda. You have broken all attack against us.
We will follow wherever you lead.”
