She was silent. I shot a glance at Drake. The secret place of light--was it not that vast vault of mystery, of dancing orbs and flames trans.m.u.ted into music into which we had peered and for which sacrilege, I had thought, had been thrust from the City? And did in this lie the explanation of her strangeness? Had she there sucked in with her mother"s milk the enigmatic life of the Metal Hordes, been transformed into half human changeling, become true kin to them? What else could explain--
"My mother showed me Ruszark," her voice, taking up once more her tale, checked my thoughts. "Once when I was little she and my father bore me through the forest and through the hidden way. I looked upon Ruszark--a great city it is and populous, and a caldron of cruelty and of evil.
"Not like me were my father and mother. They longed for their kind and sought ever for means to regain their place among them. There came a time when my father, driven by his longing, ventured forth to Ruszark, seeking friends to help him regain that place--for these who obey me obeyed not him as they obey me; nor would he have marched them--as I shall--upon Ruszark if they had obeyed him.
"Cherkis caught him. And Cherkis waited, knowing well that my mother would follow. For Cherkis knew not where to seek her, nor where they had lain hid, for between his city and here the mountains are great, unscalable, and the way through them is cunningly hidden; by chance alone did my mother"s mother and those who fled with her discover it: And though they tortured him, my father would not tell. And after a while forthwith those who still remained of hers stole out with my mother to find him. They left me here with Yuruk. And Cherkis caught my mother."
The proud b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaved, the eyes shot forth visible flames.
"My father was flayed alive and crucified," she said. "His skin they nailed to the City"s gates. And when Cherkis had had his will with my mother he threw her to his soldiers for their sport.
"All of those who went with them he tortured and slew--and he and his laughed at their torment. But one there was who escaped and told me--me who was little more than a budding maid. He called on me to bring vengeance--and he died. A year pa.s.sed--and I am not like my mother and my father--and I forgot--dwelling here in the great tranquillities, barred from and having no thought for men and their way.
"AIE, AIE!" she cried; "woe to me that I could forget! But now I shall take my vengeance--I, Norhala, will stamp them flat--Cherkis and his city of Ruszark and everything it holds! I, Norhala, and my servants shall stamp them into the rock of their valley so that none shall know that they have been! And would that I could meet their G.o.ds with all their powers that I might break them, too, and stamp them into the rock under the feet of my servants!"
She threw out white arms.
Why had Yuruk lied to me? I wondered as I watched her. The Disk had not slain her mother. Of course! He had lied to play upon our terrors; had lied to frighten us away.
The wailings were rising in a sustained crescendo. One of the slaying stars slipped over the chamber floor, folded its points and glided out the door.
"Come!" commanded Norhala, and led the way. The second star closed, followed us. We stepped over the threshold.
For one astounded, breathless moment we paused. In front of us reared a monster--a colossal, headless Sphinx. Like forelegs and paws, a ridge of pointed cubes, and globes thrust against each side of the canyon walls.
Between them for two hundred feet on high stretched the breast.
And this was a shifting, weaving ma.s.s of the Metal Things; they formed into gigantic cuira.s.ses, giant bucklers, corselets of living mail. From them as they moved--nay, from all the monster--came the wailings. Like a headless Sphinx it crouched--and as we stood it surged forward as though it sprang a step to greet us.
"HAI!" shouted Norhala, battle buglings ringing through the golden voice. "HAI! my companies!"
Out from the summit of the breast shot a tremendous trunk of cubes and spinning globes. And like a trunk it nuzzled us, caught us up, swept us to the crest. An instant I tottered dizzily; was held; stood beside Norhala upon a little, level twinkling eyed platform; upon her other side swayed Drake.
Now through the monster I felt a throbbing, an eager and impatient pulse. I turned my head. Still like some huge and grotesque beast the back of the cl.u.s.tered Things ran for half a mile at least behind, tapering to a dragon tail that coiled and twisted another full mile toward the Pit. And from this back uprose and fell immense spiked and fan-shaped ruffs, thickets of spikes, whipping knouts of bristling tentacles, fanged crests. They thrust and waved, whipped and fell constantly; and constantly the great tail lashed and snapped, fantastic, long and living.
"HAI!" shouted Norhala once more. From her lifted throat came again the golden chanting--but now a relentless, ruthless song of slaughter.
Up reared the monstrous bulk. Into it ran the dragon tail. Into it poured the fanged and bristling back.
Up, up we were thrust--three hundred feet, four hundred, five hundred.
Over the blue globe of Norhala"s house bent a gigantic leg. Spiderlike out from each side of the monster thrust half a score of others.
Overhead the dawn began to break. Through it with ever increasing speed we moved, straight to the line of the cliffs behind which lay the city of the armored men--and Ruth and Ventnor.
CHAPTER XXIV. RUSZARK
Smoothly moved the colossal shape; on it we rode as easily as though cradled. It did not glide--it strode.
The columned legs raised themselves, bending from a thousand joints. The pedestals of the feet, huge and ma.s.sive as foundations for sixteen-inch guns, fell with machinelike precision, stamping gigantically.
Under their tread the trees of the forest snapped, were crushed like reeds beneath the pads of a mastodon. From far below came the sound of their crashing. The thick forest checked the progress of the Shape less than tall gra.s.s would that of a man.
Behind us our trail was marked by deep, black pits in the forest"s green, clean cut and great as the Mark upon the poppied valley. They were the footprints of the Thing that carried us.
The wind streamed and whistled. A flock of the willow warblers arose, sworled about us with manifold beating of little frightened wings.
Norhala"s face softened, her eyes smiled.
"Go--foolish little ones," she cried, and waved her arms. They flew away, scolding.
A lammergeier swooped down on wide funereal wings; it peered at us; darted away toward the cliffs.
"There will be no carrion there for you, black eater of the dead, when I am through," I heard Norhala whisper, eyes again somber.
Steadily grew the dawn light; from Norhala"s lips came again the chanting. And now that paean, the reckless pulse of the monster we rode, began to creep through my own veins. Into Drake"s too, I knew, for his head was held high and his eyes were clear and bright as hers who sang.
The jubilant pulse streamed through the hands that held us, throbbed through us. The pulse of the Thing--sang!
Closer and closer grew the cliffs. Down and crashing down fell the trees, the noise of their fall accompanying the battle chant of the Valkyr beside me like wild harp chords of storm-lashed surf. Up to the precipices the forest rolled, unbroken. Now the cliffs loomed overhead.
The dawn had pa.s.sed. It was full day.
Cutting up through the towering granite scarps was a rift. In it the black shadows cl.u.s.tered thickly. Straight toward that cleft we sped.
As we drew near, the crest of the Shape began swiftly to lower. Down we sank and down--a hundred feet, two hundred; now we were two score yards above the tree tops.
Out shot a neck, a tremendous serpent body. Crested it was with pyramids; crested with them, too, was its immense head. Thickly the head bristled with them, poised motionless upon spinning globes as huge as they. For hundreds of feet that incredible neck stretched ahead of us and for twice as far behind a monstrous, lizard-shaped body writhed.
We rode now upon a serpent, a glittering blue metal dragon, spiked and k.n.o.bbed and scaled. It was the weird steed of Norhala flattening, thrusting out to pierce the rift.
And still as when it had reared on high beat through it the wild, triumphant, questing pulse. Still rang out Norhala"s chanting.
The trees parted and fell upon each side of us as though we were some monster of the sea and they the waves we cleft.
The rift enclosed us. Lower we dropped; were not more than fifty feet above its floor. The Thing upon which we rode was a torrent roaring through it.
A deeper blackness enclosed us--a tunneling.
Through that we flowed. Out of it we darted into a widening filled with wan light drifting down through a pinnacle fanged mouth miles on high.
Again the cleft shrunk. A thousand feet ahead was a crack, a narrowing of the cleft so small that hardly could a man pa.s.s through it.
Abruptly the metal dragon halted.
Norhala"s chanting changed; became again the arrogant clarioning. And close below us the huge neck split. It came to me then that it was as though Norhala were the overspirit of this chimera--as though it caught and understood and obeyed each quick thought of hers.
As though, indeed, she was a PART of it--as IT was in reality a part of that infinitely greater Thing, crouching there in its lair of the Pit--the Metal Monster that had lent this living part of itself to her for a steed, a champion. Little time had I to consider such matters.
Up thrust the Shape before us. Into it raced and spun Things angled, Things curved and Things squared. It gathered itself into a t.i.tanic pillar out of which, instantly, thrust scores of arms.