第38章

ADRIFT OVER STRANGE REGIONS

PRESENTLY Ghek pushed aside a door that opened from the stairway, and before them Tara saw the moonlight flooding the walled court where the headless rykors lay beside their feeding-troughs.She saw the perfect bodies, muscled as the best of her father's fighting men, and the females whose figures would have been the envy of many of Helium's most beautiful women.Ah, if she could but endow these with the power to act! Then indeed might the safety of the panthan be assured; but they were only poor lumps of clay, nor had she the power to quicken them to life.Ever must they lie thus until dominated by the cold, heartless brain of the kaldane.The girl sighed in pity even as she shuddered in disgust as she picked her way over and among the sprawled creatures toward the flier.

Quickly she and Ghek mounted to the deck after the latter had cast off the moorings.Tara tested the control, raising and lowering the ship a few feet within the walled space.It responded perfectly.Then she lowered it to the ground again and waited.From the open doorway came the sounds of conflict, now nearing them, now receding.The girl, having witnessed her champion's skill, had little fear of the outcome.Only a single antagonist could face him at a time upon the narrow stairway, he had the advantage of position and of the defensive, and he was a master of the sword while they were clumsy bunglers by comparison.Their sole advantage was in their numbers, unless they might find a way to come upon him from behind.

She paled at the thought.Could she have seen him she might have been further perturbed, for he took no advantage of many opportunities to win nearer the enclosure.He fought coolly, but with a savage persistence that bore little semblance to purely defensive action.Often he clambered over the body of a fallen foe to leap against the next behind, and once there lay five dead kaldanes behind him, so far had he pushed back his antagonists.

They did not know it; these kaldanes that he fought, nor did the girl awaiting him upon the flier, but Gahan of Gathol was engaged in a more alluring sport than winning to freedom, for he was avenging the indignities that had been put upon the woman he loved; but presently he realized that he might be jeopardizing her safety uselessly, and so he struck down another before him and turning leaped quickly up the stairway, while the leading kaldanes slipped upon the brain-covered floor and stumbled in pursuit.

Gahan reached the enclosure twenty paces ahead of them and raced toward the flier."Rise!" he shouted to the girl."I will ascend the cable."Slowly the small craft rose from the ground as Gahan leaped the inert bodies of the rykors lying in his path.The first of the pursuers sprang from the tower just as Gahan seized the trailing rope.

"Faster!" he shouted to the girl above, "or they will drag us down!" But the ship seemed scarcely to move, though in reality she was rising as rapidly as might have been expected of a one-man flier carrying a load of three.Gahan swung free above the top of the wall, but the end of the rope still dragged the ground as the kaldanes reached it.They were pouring in a steady stream from the tower into the enclosure.The leader seized the rope.

"Quick!" he cried."Lay hold and we will drag them down."It needed but the weight of a few to accomplish his design.The ship was stopped in its flight and then, to the horror of the girl, she felt it being dragged steadily downward.Gahan, too, realized the danger and the necessity for instant action.

Clinging to the rope with his left hand, he had wound a leg about it, leaving his right hand free for his long-sword which he had not sheathed.A downward cut clove the soft head of a kaldane, and another severed the taut rope beneath the panthan's feet.The girl heard a sudden renewal of the shrill whistling of her foes, and at the same time she realized that the craft was rising again.Slowly it drifted upward, out of reach of the enemy, and a moment later she saw the figure of Turan clamber over the side.

For the first time in many weeks her heart was filled with the joy of thanksgiving; but her first thought was of another.

"You are not wounded?" she asked.