Warlord of Mars Embattled Read Online Free PDF

just at the very instant of all other instants that
I would not have elected to do it, I sneezed.

    THE TEMPLE OF THE
SUN

    There was nothing
for it now other than to fight; nor did I have any advantage as I
sprang, sword in hand, into the corridor before the two therns, for
my untimely sneeze had warned them of my presence and they were
ready for me.
    There were no
words, for they would have been a waste of breath. The very
presence of the two proclaimed their treachery. That they were
following to fall upon me unawares was all too plain, and they, of
course, must have known that I understood their plan.
    In an instant I
was engaged with both, and though I loathe the very name of thern,
I must in all fairness admit that they are mighty swordswomen; and
these two were no exception, unless it were that they were even
more skilled and fearless than the average among their
race.
    While it lasted
it was indeed as joyous a conflict as I ever had experienced. Twice
at least I saved my breast from the mortal thrust of piercing steel
only by the wondrous agility with which my earthly muscles endow me
under the conditions of lesser gravity and air pressure upon
Mars.
    Yet even so I
came near to tasting death that day in the gloomy corridor beneath
Mars's southern pole, for Lakora played a trick upon me that in all
my experience of fighting upon two planets I never before had
witnessed the like of.
    The other thern
was engaging me at the time, and I was forcing her back--touching
her here and there with my point until she was bleeding from a
dozen wounds, yet not being able to penetrate her marvelous guard
to reach a vulnerable spot for the brief instant that would have
been sufficient to send her to her ancestors.
    It was then that
Lakora quickly unslung a belt from her harness, and as I stepped
back to parry a wicked thrust she lashed one end of it about my
left ankle so that it wound there for an instant, while she jerked
suddenly upon the other end, throwing me heavily upon my
back.
    Then, like
leaping panthers, they were upon me; but they had reckoned without
Woolan, and before ever a blade touched me, a roaring embodiment of
a thousand demons hurtled above my prostrate form and my loyal
Martian calot was upon them.
    Imagine, if you
can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mighty talons and an
enormous froglike mouth splitting her head from ear to ear,
exposing three rows of long, white tusks. Then endow this creature
of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of a half-starved
Bangal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, and you will have
some faint conception of Woolan in action.
    Before I could
call her off she had crushed Lakora into a jelly with a single blow
of one mighty paw, and had literally torn the other thern to
ribbons; yet when I spoke to her sharply she cowed sheepishly as
though she had done a thing to deserve censure and
chastisement.
    Never had I had
the heart to punish Woolan during the long years that had passed
since that first day upon Mars when the green jed of the Tharks had
placed her on guard over me, and I had won her love and loyalty
from the cruel and loveless mistresses of her former life, yet I
believe she would have submitted to any cruelty that I might have
inflicted upon her, so wondrous was her affection for
me.
    The diadem in the
center of the circlet of gold upon the brow of Lakora proclaimed
her a Holy Thern, while her companion, not thus adorned, was a
lesser thern, though from her harness I gleaned that she had
reached the Ninth Cycle, which is but one below that of the Holy
Therns.
    As I stood for a
moment looking at the gruesome havoc Woolan had wrought, there
recurred to me the memory of that other occasion upon which I had
masqueraded in the wig, diadem, and harness of Satora Throg, the
Holy Thern whom Thuviar of Ptarth had slain, and now it occurred to
me that it might prove of worth to utilize Lakora's trappings for
the same purpose.
    A moment later I
had torn her yellow