Hovering on their slowly beating vans, the ponderous flying machines hung against the golden skies like something in one of the nightmarish paintings of Hieronymus Bosch or Hannes Bok. Far above the reach of spear, arrow, or catapult they hovered, and from the safe vantage of their height they rained down explosive missiles on the crowd―thronged streets below.
It was the hated Chac Yuul they were attacking, luckily for us, and the fire bombs wreaked a terrible toll of the beleaguered Black Legion warriors. Before my gaze the defensive lines about the palace were crumbling and the victorious ranks of the Ku Thad pressed forward, beating back the broken and demoralized forces of the foe.
Ere long, it seemed likely that the surviving Chac Yuul warriors would take refuge within the palace itself, which was constructed on the lines of a fortress, and which could be held indefinitely against siege. It was needful, then, for me to carry word to Lord Yarrak concerning the secret entrance into the palace―the hidden route whereby Valkar had often found his way into the network of secret passageways and thus to the suite of the Princess Darloona. For unless Yarrak made swift use of this secret door, he would exhaust his strength in a costly and time-consuming siege of the palace.
There was no time to lose.
I seized Valkar’s arm and swiftly drew him aside, suggesting that he withdraw to a secluded corner of the terrace and guard the safety of the Princess, while Koja, Lukor, and I sought to fight our way through the battling mobs to the side of Lord Yarrak.
Valkar protested that there was no reason why he should remain behind in security while we risked all, but I had no leisure in which to argue the point and tersely said so.
“Take care, Jandar,” the Princess begged. I made no reply, but after one long look into her emerald eyes and a brief salute, I turned away and swung out over the balustrade of the terrace and began clambering down the outer wall of the palace, followed by Koja and Lukor.
Obviously, it would have wasted much time for us to have attempted to work our way out of the palace through the mazelike network of secret passages. This route was much shorter and swifter. It was also, of course, much more hazardous: but I had faced a thousand perils in the service of my princess ere now, and I was not likely to flinch from one more danger.
Fortunately the outer wall of the palace was encrusted with elaborate sculptures. I have noted before the considerable similarity between the architectural style of Shondakor and the fantastical stone structures of the enigmatic ruined cities of Cambodia, such as Angkor Vat and Arangkor. The surface of the walls was covered with enormous stone masks which stared down like so many carven gods on the embattled streets below. Stone devils and dragons, gargoyles and gorgons, leered and laughed from between the calm features of graven divinity, and their profusion of horns and beaks and claws afforded us a broad choice of handholds and toeholds wherewith to clamber down the two stories to the street level below. Thus without any particular difficulty we reached the broad plaza before the main gate of the palace.
I found that matters had gone in the very direction I had assumed they might, and that the main forces of the Chac Yuul had already retreated into the palace, while small groups of surviving Black Legion warriors sought similar refuge in one or another of the stone buildings of the city. From these citadels they were fighting a twofold battle against the Ku Thad in the streets and the Zanadarians aloft in the skies.
Arkola had erected a rude defense against the impending attack of the Sky Pirates during the last days of his regime. Rooftop catapults had been set in readiness to do battle against the flying machines of Thuton, and as I gained the ground at last I saw to my surprise that the embattled Chac Yuul warriors had actually managed to bring down at least one of the great aerial galleons.
A well-placed stone missile, hurled with terrific force from one of these rooftop war engines, had smashed the control cupola of this galley, and grappling irons, securely hooked into the ornamental carvings, figurehead, and deck balustrade, had drawn it against the roof of a nearby building, from which bonds it was not likely to escape. Even as I gazed the Chac Yuul archers swept the decks of the captive ornithopter with a deadly rain of arrows, and thus the flying armada of Zanadar was lessened by at least one vessel.
But now Chac Yuul warriors, fleeing in broken rout before the victorious advance of the Ku Thad, were all about me, and I had no time to observe further events. For I was busy fighting for my life against the panicking warriors.
With Koja at my left hand and gallant old Lukor at my right, we formed a flying wedge and cut our way through the fleeing rabble to the forefront of the advancing Ku Thad. We three made a magnificent team, and the terror-stricken Chac Yuul melted out of our path, helpless to oppose us for long.
It was a scene of strange and terrible beauty, apocalyptic in its grandeur and destruction. The streets were filled with battling men, and they rang with the steely music of clashing swords, the shouts and war cries of the victorious, the howls and shrieks of the injured and the dying. Corpses lay all about, amidst the rubble of shattered stone, and the air was darkened with a pall of drifting smoke from burning buildings. The heavens resounded with the deafening explosion of the bombardment of the Sky Pirates, and their mighty winged ships darkened the ground with their monstrous gliding shadows. All about me men were fighting, falling, fleeing. The day of vengeance had come at last for the Black Legion, and the day of victory had dawned for the brave warriors of Shondakor.
We fought on through a scene of nightmarish splendor and power, while all about us a dynasty died and a new age was born.
At length we recognized the grim features of Lord Yarrak as be fought at the forefront of his warrior nobles, his beard flying in the murk, his eyes ablaze with victory, his great sword rising and falling tirelessly as he cut down the squat, swarthy men who had long held his city in their merciless grip, and who now received no mercy from his avenging blade.
He knew me at a glance, and his eyes lit with amazement to see me here in the streets amid the struggling hosts. Swiftly I drew him aside and satisfied his apprehensions, assuring him that Darloona was in a place of safety, guarded by his own valiant son, for which he gave heartfelt thanks to the Lords of Cordrimator.
“But as you can observe,” I said tersely, “most of the surviving Black Legion warriors have already retreated within the walls of the palace, from which vantage they can safely hold the gates against a thousand warriors, while picking o$ your men with well-placed archers.”
“That is true, Jandar,” he nodded in grim assent.
“There is, however, a secret entrance into the palace, which was discovered by your own son, Prince Valkar,” I informed him. “If you will follow me, we can be within the palace before the Chac Yuul are aware of it, and can open the gates to the body of your warriors.”
“Lead on, then!”
Summoning a small band of picked swordsmen to accompany him, Lord Yarrak, Lukor, Koja, arid I swiftly made our way to the secret door whose hidden place Valkar had disclosed to me many days before. I do not think that a single eye marked our progress, for the bombardment of the Zanadarian flying machines had set afire several nearby buildings in their efforts to destroy the rooftop catapults which imperiled the safety of the aerial fleet, and the drifting smoke of the conflagration effectively hid us from view as we crept along the outer wall of the royal citadel to the small stand of ornamental sorad trees whose thick dark foliage concealed the secret door from discovery.
My fingers fumbled along the rough stone of the wall and within but moments they had found and depressed the secret spring. A mighty slab of stone sank soundlessly into the earth, revealing the black mouth of a secret passage which yawned before us. With a reassuring word to Lord Yarrak and his. nobles, I stepped forward without hesitation into the throat of the hidden passageway and within moments we had vanished from sight. The stone slab rose behind us and once again became part of the walls of the citadel.