Read Online Warlord of Mars Embattled by Edna Rice Burroughs - Free Book Online Page B

none of them ever venture upon the patches of scarlet sward
which dot the swamp.
    When morning
broke they were still there, walking about as in a circle, but
always just beyond the edge of the sward. A more terrifying
aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it would be
difficult to imagine.
    Singly and in
pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungle shortly after
sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woolan and I
resumed our journey.
    Occasionally we
caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the day; but,
fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and when they
saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the solid
sod.
    Toward noon we
stumbled upon a well-constructed road running in the general
direction we had been pursuing. Everything about this highway
marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I was confident,
from the indications of antiquity which it bore, as well as from
the very evident signs of its being still in everyday use, that it
must lead to one of the principal cities of Kaol.
    Just as we
entered it from one side a huge monster emerged from the jungle
upon the other, and at sight of us charged madly in our
direction.
    Imagine, if you
can, a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experience grown to the
size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have some faint
conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidability of
the winged monster that bore down upon me.
    Frightful jaws in
front and mighty, poisoned sting behind made my relatively puny
long-sword seem a pitiful weapon of defense indeed. Nor could I
hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hide from those
myriad facet eyes which covered three-fourths of the hideous head,
permitting the creature to see in all directions at one and the
same time.
    Even my powerful
and ferocious Woolan was as helpless as a kitten before that
frightful thing. But to flee were useless, even had it ever been to
my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stood my ground,
Woolan snarling at my side, my only hope to die as I had always
lived--fighting.
    The creature was
upon us now, and at the instant there seemed to me a single slight
chance for victory. If I could but remove the terrible menace of
certain death hidden in the poison sacs that fed the sting the
struggle would be less unequal.
    At the thought I
called to Woolan to leap upon the creature's head and hang there,
and as her mighty jaws closed upon that fiendish face, and
glistening fangs buried themselves in the bone and cartilage and
lower part of one of the huge eyes, I dived beneath the great body
as the creature rose, dragging Woolan from the ground, that it
might bring its sting beneath and pierce the body of the thing
hanging to its head.
    To put myself in
the path of that poison-laden lance was to court instant death, but
it was the only way; and as the thing shot lightning-like toward me
I swung my long-sword in a terrific cut that severed the deadly
member close to the gorgeously marked body.
    Then, like a
battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caught me full in the
bosom and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded, clear across
the broad highway and into the underbrush of the jungle that
fringes it.
    Fortunately, I
passed between the boles of trees; had I struck one of them I
should have been badly injured, if not killed, so swiftly had I
been catapulted by that enormous hind leg.
    Dazed though I
was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back to Woolan's
assistance, to find her savage antagonist circling ten feet above
the ground, beating madly at the clinging calot with all six
powerful legs.
    Even during my
sudden flight through the air I had not once released my grip upon
my long-sword, and now I ran beneath the two battling monsters,
jabbing the winged terror repeatedly with its sharp
point.
    The thing might
easily have risen out of my reach, but evidently it knew as little
concerning retreat in the face of danger as either Woolan or I,