arrows heldthem checked. The advance was sure to resume as soon as Lansa's heavyweapons could be brought up again.
* * * * *
It was a hopeless fight--and yet Gerry could not bring himself to leave.Partly it was his affection for the grief-stricken but indomitableClosana that held him there. Partly it was the sheer courage of theAmazon's gallant fight against such heavy odds that kept him in thebattle line. By some standards the affair was none of his business buthe could not quit now. However--he had not the right to hold his men inthe stricken city if they wished to leave. As he located the variousmembers of the _Viking's_ crew in the disorganized Amazon ranks, he gaveeach one permission to escape from the city through the eastern marshes.Portok's reaction was typical.
"Run from these snake-skinned devils?" the little Martian pantedhoarsely, his ruddy face gaunt and his eyes sunken deep in theirsockets. "Not while I can still stand. I'm staying with the rearguard--as long as there is one!"
New fires had been started by the victory-drunk Reptilians, fires withinthe walls. The lurid glow of burning houses made the night hideous.Fully a third of the city was in flames by now, and only the easterlywind kept the flames from driving the defenders away from those portionsof the city that they still held.
By noon the next day the tale was nearly all told. The Savissans nowheld less than a third of their city, a V-shaped sector with the ArrowTower at its apex. The murky beams of supode rays were now continuallyplaying against the walls of the Great Tower itself, and small cascadesof pulverized rock kept sliding off the face of the stone work as theweaker parts began to decompose under the steady impact of the rays. Andstill the fight went on!
Gerry had forgotten what it was like to lie down and rest. He wasleaning in an angle of the wall, actually asleep on his feet, whenChester Sand from the _Viking_ hurried across to him.
"Rupin-Sang wants to see you down in the garden right away, Chief!" Sandpanted. "You and Steve Brent both."
"All right. Get Steve," Gerry growled. He sighed, and tightened hisbelt, and went wearily down the steps to the lower floor of the tower.
* * * * *
The pleasant walled garden behind the tower was a very different placefrom the stop Gerry had seen when he first came to Savissa. Theexplosive bullets of the Scaly Ones had ripped up many of the trees, andshattered the marble statues. A heap of debris fallen from above layalong the base of the tower wall, while more was constantly tricklingdown as the murky beams of the supode rays criss-crossed overhead. Thebodies of dead Amazons were scattered here and there on the trampledgrass. Dense clouds of acrid smoke from the burning city swirled downover the garden wall.
Closana was waiting in the garden, her armor dim and battered. Her leftarm was heavily bandaged, but she still carried a naked sword in herright hand.
"I was told that you wanted me," she said. Gerry shook his head.
"No, it was your father who sent for _me_." Just then Steve and ChesterSand came across the garden. A faint suspicion began to stir in Gerry'smind.
"Where is Rupin-Sang?" he demanded.
Sand hesitated, and cleared his throat. His eyes were shifty. Then Gerryheard a slight sound behind him. He spun around--and looked squarelyinto the muzzle of a ray-tube held by Lansa himself!
They had been neatly trapped! Lansa and a dozen of his men had come upthrough the sewers and slain the Amazon guards posted there.
"Drop your weapons!" Lansa snapped. Gerry shrugged and obeyed, and theothers followed his example. There was a triumphant smile on therenegade's saturnine face. "I am glad you were not killed in thefighting, Norton," he said, "because you and Brent and the girl willmake very valuable hostages for me when your space-ship eventuallyreturns."
Gerry turned and stared at Chester Sand. The _Viking's_ Safety Officerwas pale, but he met the other man's glance with a sort of weakdefiance. Gerry's lip curled.
"So _you_ are the rat who slugged me that time I caught Olga in theradio room!" he said. "I should have known it. I seem to have leftseveral loose ends I should have watched, but I'll fix you for this someday and...."
"You won't be fixing anybody any more, Norton," Lansa said grimly."After I've used you to get possession of the _Viking_ you'll die in thetorture chambers at Vaaka-hausen. Thanks to my good friend Sands, I alsoknow the location of the invisible city. That, too, I will attend to.But all in good time. Guards! Bind and gag the prisoners...."
He never finished the sentence. There was a sharp hiss, and a thud. Anarrow steel point stood a hand's breadth out beyond his throat. Awondering expression came into his eyes. Then his knees buckled, and hewent down on the trampled grass. Across the garden, still holding theair-gun from which he had shot the long steel slug, stood Sarnak ofLuralla!
* * * * *
The Scaly Ones went for their weapons, but a vengeful throng of theoutlaw brood of the Dragon came pouring up from below on the heels oftheir leaders. There was no thought of quarter between these hereditaryfoes. There was a short, sharp fight--and then the last of Lansa'sraiding party died in the shadow of the wall. Sarnak came stridingforward, his hand outstretched and a cheerful smile on his broad face.
"It seems that I came in very good time, my friends!" he said.
"Perfect," Gerry grinned. "But what does your coming mean?"
"It means that the hour of deliverance is at hand. When Lansa broughthis full force eastward against Savissa, it gave us the opportunity wehave been needing for generations. We of the Dragon's Teeth rose againstthe scanty garrisons he left behind, and put them to the sword. The massof the people joined us then, when the chances of victory looked sostrong that hope overcame the despair born of generations of oppression.Now the Green Folk of Giri have thrown off the yoke of the invader atlast, and thousands of them are marching this way to take the army ofthe Scaly Ones in the rear."
"But how did you come to arrive in the garden at this particularmoment?" Gerry asked.
"The forces of Giri have forded the river and are marching overland, butI came ahead with a hundred picked cavalry mounted on swiftsaddle-dolphins. We saw a crude type of underwater craft moving in thisdirection, and followed it at a distance. You know the rest. Afterbringing down the sentries that Lansa had posted below, we left ourdolphins and our water helmets down at the main drain and crept upthrough the passages to this place."
"When do you think the rest of the Green Folk will come?" Closana asked.
"Within a few more hours, Princess. They will not be in time to saveyour city, but they will be in time to protect the survivors."
"If there are any of us left by then!" the girl said bitterly. Gerrysuddenly pointed upward.
"Look there! The worst is over now!" he shouted. The _Viking_ wasstreaking across the sky in a burst of yellow rocket flame.
The big space-ship dropped down over the beleaguered city, her powerfulray-tubes flashing. Other murky beams stabbed up to meet her, but herduralite hull was impervious to the rays and Angus kept her high enoughso that the helicopters were protected by the curve of the hull. Oneafter another the ray casters and heavy gas-guns of the Scaly Ones wentout of action. When the ship's beams had silenced the artillery andcommenced to rip black holes in the ranks of the Reptilian warriorsthemselves, they suddenly broke and fled.
* * * * *
The war drums of the Scaly Ones were silent at last, while the trumpetsof Savissa raised a long-drawn paean of vengeance. Out of the ruined andflaming city fled the Reptilian men, while troops of swift-footedAmazons hung on their flanks and rear with twanging bows. Back acrossthe plains toward the border they fled--and ran squarely into the grimthousands of the Green People who tore them apart with the savagery ofan oppressed race just finding their souls again. The few that survived,out of the powerful army that Lansa the mad Earth-man had broughteastward to attack Savissa, were a handful who fled back across the landof Giri and vanished into the desolate Vaaka marshes fr
om which theirpeople had first emerged generations before.
The Golden City was hopelessly afire, past saving, and the survivorsgathered on a level field outside the northern wall. Gerry and Sarnakand Rupin-Sang were standing together as the _Viking_ dropped down toland on the edge of the field. McTavish stepped out, red bearded andjovial but showing the effects of sleepless nights himself.
"Sorry we couldn't get here sooner," he said, "but we've been workingnight and day to make proper repairs with that queer metal the people ofMoorn gave us. We got your radio messages, but couldn't reply becausethe ship's sending set is broken and I figured the helicopters were moreimportant repairs."
In a few brief words Gerry told McTavish of the fight in the garden. Thebig Scot beamed his