The warlord of Mars
Shang, and wreak our own vengeance upon the black dator. What say you?”
“Never in a long life,” answered Lakor, “have I disobeyed a single
command of the Father of Therns. I shall stay here until I rot if he
does not return to bid me elsewhere.”
Lakor’s companion shook his head.
“You are my superior,” he said; “I cannot do other than you sanction,
though I still believe that we are foolish to remain.”
I, too, thought that they were foolish to remain, for I saw from
Woola’s actions that the trail led through the room where the two
therns held guard. I had no reason to harbor any considerable love for
this race of self-deified demons, yet I would have passed them by were
it possible without molesting them.
It was worth trying anyway, for a fight might delay us considerably, or
even put an end entirely to my search—better men than I have gone down
before fighters of meaner ability than that possessed by the fierce
thern warriors.
Signaling Woola to heel I stepped suddenly into the room before the two
men. At sight of me their long-swords flashed from the harness at their
sides, but I raised my hand in a gesture of restraint.
“I seek Thurid, the black dator,” I said. “My quarrel is with him, not
with you. Let me pass then in peace, for if I mistake not he is as much
your enemy as mine, and you can have no cause to protect him.”
They lowered their swords and Lakor spoke.
“I know not whom you may be, with the white skin of a thern and the
black hair of a red man; but were it only Thurid whose safety were at
stake you might pass, and welcome, in so far as we be concerned.
“Tell us who you be, and what mission calls you to this unknown world
beneath the Valley Dor, then maybe we can see our way to let you pass
upon the errand which we should like to undertake would our orders
permit.”
I was surprised that neither of them had recognized me, for I thought
that I was quite sufficiently well known either by personal experience
or reputation to every thern upon Barsoom as to make my identity
immediately apparent in any part of the planet. In fact, I was the only
white man upon Mars whose hair was black and whose eyes were gray, with
the exception of my son, Carthoris.
To reveal my identity might be to precipitate an attack, for every
thern upon Barsoom knew that to me they owed the fall of their age-old
spiritual supremacy. On the other hand my reputation as a fighting man
might be sufficient to pass me by these two were their livers not of
the right complexion to welcome a battle to the death.
To be quite candid I did not attempt to delude myself with any such
sophistry, since I knew well that upon war-like Mars there are few
cowards, and that every man, whether prince, priest, or peasant,
glories in deadly strife. And so I gripped my long-sword the tighter as
I replied to Lakor.
“I believe that you will see the wisdom of permitting me to pass
unmolested,” I said, “for it would avail you nothing to die uselessly
in the rocky bowels of Barsoom merely to protect a hereditary enemy,
such as Thurid, Dator of the First Born.
“That you shall die should you elect to oppose me is evidenced by the
moldering corpses of all the many great Barsoomian warriors who have
gone down beneath this blade—I am John Carter, Prince of Helium.”
For a moment that name seemed to paralyze the two men; but only for a
moment, and then the younger of them, with a vile name upon his lips,
rushed toward me with ready sword.
He had been standing a little behind his companion, Lakor, during our
parley, and now, ere he could engage me, the older man grasped his
harness and drew him back.
“Hold!” commanded Lakor. “There will be plenty of time to fight if we
find it wise to fight at all. There be good reasons why every thern
upon Barsoom should yearn to spill the blood of the blasphemer, the
sacrilegist; but let us mix wisdom with our righteous hate. The Prince
of Helium is bound upon an errand which we ourselves, but a moment
since, were wishing that we might undertake.
“Let him go then and slay the black. When he returns we shall still be
here to bar his way to the outer world, and thus we shall have rid
ourselves of two enemies, nor have incurred the displeasure of the
Father of Therns.”
As he spoke I could not but note the crafty glint in his evil eyes, and
while I saw the apparent logic of his reasoning I felt, subconsciously
perhaps, that his words did but veil some sinister intent. The other
thern turned toward him in evident surprise, but when Lakor had
whispered a few brief words into his ear he, too, drew back and nodded
acquiescence to his superior’s suggestion.
“Proceed, John Carter,” said Lakor; “but know that if Thurid does not
lay you low there will be those awaiting your return who will see that
you never pass again into the sunlight of the upper world. Go!”
During our conversation Woola had been growling and bristling close to
my side. Occasionally he would look up into my face with a low,
pleading whine, as though begging for the word that would send him
headlong at the bare throats before him. He, too, sensed the villainy
behind the smooth words.
Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom, and toward
the one upon the extreme right Lakor motioned.
“That way leads to Thurid,” he said.
But when I would have called Woola to follow me there the beast whined
and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first opening at the
left, where he stood emitting his coughing bark, as though urging me to
follow him upon the right way.
I turned a questioning look upon Lakor.
“The brute is seldom wrong,” I said, “and while I do not doubt your
superior knowledge, Thern, I think that I shall do well to listen to
the voice of instinct that is backed by love and loyalty.”
As I spoke I smiled grimly that he might know without words that I
distrusted him.
“As you will,” the fellow replied with a shrug. “In the end it shall be
all the same.”
I turned and followed Woola into the left-hand passage, and though my
back was toward my enemies, my ears were on the alert; yet I heard no
sound of pursuit. The passageway was dimly lighted by occasional radium
bulbs, the universal lighting medium of Barsoom.
These same lamps may have been doing continuous duty in these
subterranean chambers for ages, since they require no attention and are
so compounded that they give off but the minutest of their substance in
the generation of years of luminosity.
We had proceeded for but a short distance when we commenced to pass the
mouths of diverging corridors, but not once did Woola hesitate. It was
at the opening to one of these corridors upon my right that I presently
heard a sound that spoke more plainly to John Carter, fighting man,
than could the words of my mother tongue—it was the clank of metal—the
metal of a warrior’s harness—and it came from a little distance up the
corridor upon my right.
Woola heard it, too, and like a flash he had wheeled and stood facing
the threatened danger, his mane all abristle and all his rows of
glistening fangs bared by snarling, backdrawn lips. With a gesture I
silenced him, and together we drew aside into another corridor a few
paces farther on.
Here we waited; nor did we have long to wait, for presently we saw the
shadows of two men fall upon the floor of the main corridor athwart the
doorway of our hiding place. Very cautiously they were moving now—the
accidental clank that had alarmed me was not repeated.
Presently they came opposite our station; nor was I surprised to see
that the two were Lakor and his companion of the guardroom.
They walked very softly, and in the right hand of each gleamed a keen
long-sword. They halted quite close to the entrance of our retreat,
whispering to each other.
“Can it be that we have distanced them already?” said Lakor.
“Either that or the beast has led the man upon a wrong trail,” replied
the other, “for the way which we took is by far the shorter to this
point—for him who knows it. John Carter would have found it a short
road to death had he taken it as you suggested to him.”
“Yes,” said Lakor, “no amount of fighting ability would have saved him
from the pivoted flagstone. He surely would have stepped upon it, and
by now, if the pit beneath it has a bottom, which Thurid denies, he
should have been rapidly approaching it. Curses on that calot of his
that warned him toward the safer avenue!”
“There be other dangers ahead of him, though,” spoke Lakor’s fellow,
“which he may not so easily escape—should he succeed in escaping our
two good swords. Consider, for example, what chance he will have,
coming unexpectedly into the chamber of—”
I would have given much to have heard the balance of that conversation
that I might have been warned of the perils that lay ahead, but fate
intervened, and just at the very instant of all other instants that I
would not have elected to do it, I sneezed.
THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN
There was nothing for it now other than to fight; nor did I have any
advantage as I sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor before the two
therns, for my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presence and they
were ready for me.
There were no words, for they would have been a waste of breath. The
very presence of the two proclaimed their treachery. That they were
following to fall upon me unawares was all too plain, and they, of
course, must have known that I understood their plan.
In an instant I was engaged with both, and though I loathe the very
name of thern, I must in all fairness admit that they are mighty
swordsmen; and these two were no exception, unless it were that they
were even more skilled and fearless than the average among their race.
While it lasted it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever had
experienced. Twice at least I saved my breast from the mortal thrust of
piercing steel only by the wondrous agility with which my earthly
muscles endow me under the conditions of lesser gravity and air
pressure upon Mars.
Yet even so I came near to tasting death that day in the gloomy
corridor beneath Mars’s southern pole, for Lakor played a trick upon me
that in all my experience of fighting upon two planets I never before
had witnessed the like of.
The other thern was engaging me at the time, and I was forcing him
back—touching him here and there with my point until he was bleeding
from a dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate his marvelous
guard to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instant that would have
been sufficient to send him to his ancestors.
It was then that Lakor quickly unslung a belt from his harness, and as
I stepped back to parry a wicked thrust he lashed one end of it about
my left ankle so that it wound there for an instant, while he jerked
suddenly upon the other end, throwing me heavily upon my back.
Then, like leaping panthers, they were upon me; but they had reckoned
without Woola, and before ever a blade touched me, a roaring embodiment
of a thousand demons hurtled above my prostrate form and my loyal
Martian calot was upon them.
Imagine, if you can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mighty
talons and an enormous froglike mouth splitting his head from ear to
ear, exposing three rows of long, white tusks. Then endow this creature
of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of a half-starved
Bengal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, and you will have
some faint conception of Woola in action.
Before I could call him off he had crushed Lakor into a jelly with a
single blow of one mighty paw, and had literally torn the other thern
to ribbons; yet when I spoke to him sharply he cowed sheepishly as
though he had done a thing to deserve censure and chastisement.