LITMIR.BIZ

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recital.

      O’Keefe regained cheerfulness.

      “After all, Doc,” he said to me, “it’s a beautiful scrap we’re going to have. At the worst the worst is no more than the leprechaun warned about. I would have told the Taitha De about the banshee raid he promised me; but I was a bit taken off my feet at the time. The old girl an’ all the clan’ll be along, said the little green man, an’ I bet the Three will be damned glad of it, take it from me.”

      Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too:

      “I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little, Larry — darlin’. The Silent Ones say that you must not go into battle yourself. You must stay here with me, and with Goodwin — for if — if — the Shining One does come, then must we be here to meet it. And you might not be, you know, Larry, if you fight,” she said, looking shyly up at him from under the long lashes.

      The O’Keefe’s jaw dropped.

      “That’s about the hardest yet,” he answered slowly. “Still — I see their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no right to stray out among the lions,” he added grimly. “Don’t worry, sweet,” he told her. “As long as I’ve sat in the game I’ll stick to the rules.”

      Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray. “The Norns spin close to the end of this web,” he rumbled. “Ja! And the threads of Lugur and the Heks woman are between their fingers for the breaking! Thor will be with me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor.” In his hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five feet long, crowned with a massive head.

      I pass to the twelve hours’ closing.

      At the end of the coria road where the giant fernland met the edge of the cavern’s ruby floor, hundreds of the Akka were stationed in ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when the Murians debauched from the corials. We had little hope of doing more here than effect some attrition of Yolara’s hosts, for at this place the captains of the Shining One could wield the Keth and their other uncanny weapons freely. We had learned, too, that every forge and artisan had been put to work to make an armour Marakinoff had devised to withstand the natural battle equipment of the frog-people — and both Larry and I had a disquieting faith in the Russian’s ingenuity.

      At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened.

      Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies commanded by subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of rough walls along the probable route of the Murians through the cavern. These afforded the Akka a fair protection behind which they could hurl their darts and spears — curiously enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon.

      At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched almost to the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say, because there had not been time to build it entirely across the mouth.

      And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where it sprang outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a hundred feet away from the golden door of the abode, barrier after barrier was piled.

      Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited other thousands of the Akka. At each end of the unfinished barricade they were mustered thickly, and at right and left of the crescent where their forest began, more legions were assembled to make way up to the ledge as opportunity offered.

      Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they swarmed over the pinnacles and in the hollows of the island’s ragged outer lip; the domed castle was a hive of them, if I may mix my metaphors — and the rocks and gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them.

      “Now,” said the handmaiden, “there’s nothing else we can do — save wait.”

      She led us out through her bower and up the little path that ran to the embrasure.

      Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mournful whispering that beat about us and fled away.

      “They come!” cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes. Larry drew her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her.

      “A woman!” acclaimed the O’Keefe. “A real woman — and mine!”

      With the cry of the Portal there was movement among the Akka, the glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped clubs, rattle of horny spurs, rumblings of battle-cries.

      And we waited — waited it seemed interminably, gaze fastened upon the low wall across the cavern mouth. Suddenly I remembered the crystal through which I had peered when the hidden assassins had crept upon us. Mentioning it to Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a command to her attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady had returned with a tray of the glasses. Raising mine, I saw the lines furthest away leap into sudden activity. Spurred warrior after warrior leaped upon the barricade and over it. Flashes of intense, green light, mingled with gleams like lightning strokes of concentrated moon rays, sprang from behind the wall — sprang and struck and burned upon the scales of the batrachians.

      “They come!” whispered Lakla.

      At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun. Here it was plain the Akka were holding. Faintly, for the distance was great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up and take the places of those who had fallen.

      Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the barricade a mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise; sparking, coruscating points of diamond dust that darted and danced.

      What had once been Lakla’s guardians — dancing now in the nothingness!

      “God, but it’s hard to stay here like this!” groaned the O’Keefe; Olaf’s teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in such a fighting grin as his ancestors berserk on their raven ships must have borne; Rador was livid with rage; the handmaiden’s nostrils flaring wide, all her wrathful soul in her eyes.

      Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the Akka had built at the cavern mouth — was not! It vanished, as though an unseen, unbelievably gigantic hand had with the lightning’s speed swept it away. And with it vanished, too, long lines of the great amphibians close behind it.

      Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson Sea, sending up geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge, crushing the frog-men, fell a shower of stone, mingled with distorted shapes and fragments whose scales still flashed meteoric as they hurled from above.

      “That which makes things fall upward,” hissed Olaf. “That which I saw in the garden of Lugur!”

      The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had revealed to Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent all things within its range racing outward into space!

      And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long sword and daggers, here and there a captain flashing the green ray, moving on in ordered squares, came the soldiers of the Shining One. Nearer and nearer the verge of the ledge they pushed Nak’s warriors. Leaping upon the dwarfs, smiting them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the Akka fought like devils. Quivering under the ray, they leaped and dragged down and slew.

      Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the very edge of the cliff.

      And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew thicker over them all!

      That last thin line of the Akka was going; yet they fought to the last, and none toppled over the lip without at least one of the armoured Murians in his arms.

      My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs. Stretched along their length was a wide ribbon of beauty — a shimmering multitude of gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing, glowing ever brighter, ever more wondrous — the gigantic Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and frog-man alike!

      Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting from Lugur’s and Yolara’s men!

      Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler,

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