CHAPTER XXVII
My duties at the palace for the moment were over. With Atar, Caan and Nona, I hurried to the Cavern. Atar led us—none of us others had ever been there.
It was not far from Rax—a broad entrance cunningly disguised with removable foliage. A tunnel, short and steeply downward, led us under the sea-bottom. It was dark. Lights at intervals illumined the water—dim, wavering lights, lending to everything a ghostly unreality.
Several times we were stopped; but at sight of Atar the guards let us pass. Ahead of us presently we could see more open water—a broad shallow amphitheatre, artificially lighted. Figures were moving about in it, busy at various tasks. Human figures—most of them, but not all. Some were dolphins. And then I saw a great cage within which two or three hundred of the graceful creatures were swimming idly about.
With Atar to show us the way, we swam slowly the length and breadth of the cavern. Here, he said, were the weapons being made. I looked them over. A thousand of them possibly. Small, dagger-like things; swords; others long as a lance; still others very thin, but heavy in front to be thrown through the water like javelins.
The sight of the weapons standing in racks inspired me. With them, I could equip a thousand fighting men. More perhaps.
Further along we came upon a side cave. In it I saw a dozen sleighs to be drawn through the water by dolphins. They were not unlike the King’s sleigh in which I had already ridden upon two memorable occasions, save that these were smaller—to carry one man only. And slimmer, with streamlines, so that they might offer a minimum of resistance in passing through the water.
I examined them more closely. Each had along its sides, banks of lights—small, torpedo-shaped pods filled with extraordinarily luminous organisms. The lights were shrouded; but Atar uncovered those of one sleigh. A blinding glare, pointing only forward, shot like a search-light beam through the water.
These “light-sleighs,” Atar explained, were designed to precede an advancing army. They would blind the enemy, throw him into clear light. And in the comparative darkness behind them, our Marinoid forces could advance.
We passed along—quickly, for we had little time for these explanations. Atar was giving orders; the workmen were preparing everything for immediate action.
There were other sleighs—“sleighs of darkness.” These were in shape like the others—but larger, for two men. Around them were ink-bags. I remembered the squid which had attacked us in the Water of Wild Things. These bags, when squeezed, emitted an inky fluid—a screen of darkness that could be thrown over the scene of battle at any critical moment of disaster or retreat.
I was enumerating in my mind the forces at my command. I had men famed for their power of giving the electric shock. I would use them in a separate division—to combat the black fishes or the Maagogs.
The black fishes! My heart sank as I thought of them. Fearless! Suicidal little brutes whose only instinct was to fight until death. How many of them would Og have to hurl against us?
But we had dolphins. I demanded of Atar what the dolphins were for. There were several hundred of them, and a score or so were all that could be needed to draw the sleighs.
“Our men will ride them,” said Atar. “Small, slim, very skillful men will have to be chosen. Men without the electric power. It would be useless on a dolphin. We can arm these men with the long, thin spears. They can go swiftly, anywhere.”
Such words on the very eve of battle! How would we have time to select such men, train them? And where were the men? There were no small, slim, skillful men except among the younger group whose electric power would be more valuable to us.
Again had I reckoned without Nona. Her eyes were shining, her beautiful face flushed with excitement.
“We women will ride your dolphins. Small, slim, skillful—without the electric power—we are the ones you need.”
It was then I protested. Indeed, I tried my best to get her to stay with Boy, at home. I failed. And now I realize that in spite of my fears for her, I was more proud of her then than I had ever been before. My Nona!
A single dolphin out of its cage, swam past us—sleek, graceful creature longer than my body, its every line denoting speed. Atar called to it. Like a dog it came and fawned upon us. With her arm about its neck, Nona caressed it.
“This one will I ride,” she exclaimed. “Let me try now. Atar, make him let me try.”
Atar summoned a young Marinoid—one who had helped train the dolphins. He showed Nona how to mount it. She had on an outer garment at the moment, and at the lad’s direction she discarded it.
Then he brought thongs of grass, and bound her hair tightly around her head.
She was ready. Lying flat on the dolphin’s back, her slender body seemed welded to it. A collar was about the dolphin’s head; and into it she thrust an arm to hold herself. The young Marinoid told her how the creature was guided. A kick of the heel, pressure of an arm against its head—or even a whispering word.
She was away! Back and forth through the water before us the dolphin sped; and Nona’s body flat against it caused hardly a ripple. Then they gave her one of the long, lance-like spears. She carried it; held it poised; flashed it above her, below—lunging at imaginary enemies, as the dolphin darted out under her commands.
The grace and skill of it! I was amazed. Woman, with such a thing, learns faster than man. Soon she was twisting her body down to use the dolphin as a shield, lunging with the lance over its back.
Then she dashed over to where we were waiting, and slipped to the cave floor, standing there panting and triumphant—a little jockey, flushed with victory.
“You see, my Nemo? We women can do it! We will ride your dolphins!”
An hour or more had gone by. For another, we talked and planned, Atar, Caan and I. Nona had taken the dolphins with their four trainers—taken them to the palace roof to organize the girls. Soon our messengers would return from the Water of Wild Things with the news of the enemy’s progress.
I went up to the palace to join Nona. The men from the cavern under Caan’s direction were on the roof of the city, distributing weapons to our forces gathered there. I had no sooner reached the palace than one of my couriers came in.
Good news! Good news indeed! The Maagog forces were not coming at once to Rax. Gahna was in the hands of their half-breed allies. It was closer to them than Rax. They were heading for Gahna, occupying it—massing there; and from there, doubtless, would presently attack us.
It was the breathing space we wanted—needed so badly. Now we could organize.
Nona with her dolphin was with me as the courier poured out his news. Quick-witted, fertile-minded woman! Never will I cease to marvel at her. She whispered to me a plan—daring—yet almost certain of success. A plan that she and I alone could execute. A plan. . . . But presently you shall hear it in detail, for we lost no time in attempting it.
Nona and I started, each on a dolphin, and each bearing a short, broad-bladed sword. Only Atar knew where we were going, or what we were about to try and do.
Riding the dolphins, we started slowly at first, for I was inexperienced. The creature’s sleek body was beneath me and I clung to it, stretching myself out along its back, my fingers gripping its woven-grass collar. Nona rode ahead on a dolphin slightly smaller, but, I soon was to learn, equally as fast as my own.
“Nemo, are you all right?” Her sober, earnest little face was turned back toward me.
“All right,” I said. “Yes, of course.”
Would you let a woman know when you were perturbed? Not I.
At once Nona increased the pace, and my own mount followed hers. We were leaving the city, passing out along one of its horizontal streets. It was nearly deserted. The fighters had gone to the city roof; the others were barred in their darkened houses. Occasionally a face would show at a window. A courier came along—returning from one of the other cities. We stopped him. My orders were being obeyed, he reported, the fighters from the other cities were swimming in to join our own men on the roof of Rax.
I sent the courier on to the palace to receive further orders from Atar. We wished to spread the news that the enemy was not attacking at once. And while Nona and I were away on this enterprise, Atar and Caan were to organize the army; and the girl whom Nona had appointed, was to drill the other girls in riding the dolphins.
We passed on, out of Rax. As we left the city—heading for our first objective, the entrance to the Water of Wild Things—I caught a glimpse of the roof of Rax. The open spaces up there were thronged with our men.
Nona increased our pace and very soon Rax with its activities was left out of sight in the dimness behind us. The open water was almost deserted. Refugees were straggling in; occasionally we came upon parties of them—families who had fled from their isolated homes. They all halted and gazed after us curiously as we dashed past them.
“All right, Nemo?”
“Yes. Of course.”
We went faster. The water pressed against me, roared in my ears, blurred my vision. I clung tighter, and bent my head in the crook of my arm.
Then, after a time that seemed ages but was doubtless very brief, we slackened. Nona signalled to me, and I rode my dolphin close alongside of hers.
“See,” she whispered. “We are here.”
Ahead of us in the dim water, moving lights showed. We were almost at the entrance to the Water of Wild Things. The last of the Maagog forces were coming through. We did not dare go close enough to see much. Moving lights disclosed double lines of swimming figures. They were coming out through the passageway they had cut in the coral, and swimming off toward Gahna. The line of their lights extended out of sight in that direction.
We were just in time to see the last of them come through. Og and his black fishes! We assumed it was Og; we had gone closer, but not close enough to distinguish features. A lone male figure carrying a light and surrounded by that swarming pack.
The figure closed the passageway gate at this end carefully. Like ourselves, Og wanted no unruly monsters to get through into Marinoid waters.
We waited until his single light was well on its way to Gahna.
“We can follow now,” I said. “Nona—we will succeed. We can do it, my girl—and it is you who have planned it.”
She did not answer me; she had already started her dolphin. Like shadows in the gloom, silently, without a ripple of the water as we slipped through it, we followed close after the Maagog invading army.
CHAPTER XXVIII
To Gahna. It took us a long while to get there, for the Maagog army advanced slowly. Following the lights we found ourselves descending at once to the sea-bottom. These Maagogs, lumbering and ungainly, were poor swimmers; the line of them was walking along the bottom.
It made my heart leap to realize that. What match would they be for us Marinoids in battle—our men so active in the water—our alert girls on the dolphins. We would cut them to pieces . . . would rout . . .
I whispered my thoughts to Nona.
“Be not too sure, my Nemo,” she said soberly. “It may be so but first we must do what we are now planning.”
We went on, through the forest road where the Maagogs had tramped aside the tall, tenuous growth of foliage. It was much dimmer in here. Beside us the trees and ferns spread as a dark lacework of green and brown. They met overhead, wavering, tenuous, but impenetrable to our sight.
What a spot for ambush! A thousand hiding-places all about us. An army could lurk here in ambush unseen.
It is very easy to look backwards upon life and say what should have been done. We Marinoids—how stupidly we had done things! Our army—if it had been organized and ready—could have lurked here in this dark forest . . . leaped upon the Maagogs . . . defeated them at once in one great surprise attack . . .
“What?” I whispered.
Nona, from her dolphin beside mine, had reached out and gripped my arm. I followed her gaze, caught a glimpse of a figure hovering amid the air-pods overhead and just in advance of us. A man, coming down now toward us, swimming cautiously.
My heart leaped; my grip on my sword tightened. Then I saw it was a Marinoid—one of my own couriers stationed here to watch the enemy pass.
He joined us. “Og,” he said, “and his black fishes were last to pass. I would have given my own life to the fishes could I have killed him. But it did not seem possible.”
I sent the courier back to Rax and we went on as before. Out of the forest now, across an open stretch, with the lights of the Maagogs still before us.
Then—Gahna. There it stood, leaning sidewise in the press of current. Traveling so slowly, we could feel the sweep of the moving water. A gentle current here; but just beyond Gahna, I knew there was an opening in the side wall of rock which bordered in the Marinoid domain. It was a large opening leading diagonally downward—an opening larger than the city itself—and into it the water rushed swiftly.
“Wait!” whispered Nona.
We halted our mounts, and waited while the last of the occupying Maagogs dispersed themselves about the city. From this distance we could see their lights but hear no sounds. Evidences of the recent half-breed massacre of the Marinoid population, were about us. Broken, inert bodies lying here and there on the sea-bottom; and the smell of blood in the water.
I shuddered to remember it. Gahna, bloody from end to end—a city of death now; and these triumphant Maagogs occupying it, making it a base from which to attack Rax.
At last they were all in. Cautiously, we advanced further. Moving lights on the city’s outer surface—a murmur of sounds. Nothing more.
A few moments and we were under the city! In its cellar, let me say. No one lived down here; sand under our feet; woven vegetation twenty feet overhead—a cellar ceiling which formed the lowest tier of the city.
It was black in here; and almost soundless, just the murmur of the city above us. We stood motionless, listening. Were we alone? Dared we light our lights? I knew that if they caught us in here we could not escape. Yet we could see nothing without lights.
We unshrouded them finally—little pods which threw tiny wavering green beams. With them, we poked around, cautiously, with our swiftly beating hearts seeming about to smother us.
Gahna was a small city. Four thick stalks of vegetation—each about twice the thickness of my body—formed its main stems. I stood beside one of them, dug my sword into it.
Within five minutes, I had hacked through the stem. Nona held the light.
“Quietly,” she whispered. “If they should hear us—”
The stalk was severed. A tremor seemed to run over the upper part, and it moved slightly sidewise.
Trembling ourselves, we attacked another. Severed it; then the third.
The city over us was shifting, toppling. The fourth stalk was twisted and bent by the strain. . . . I severed it with a few blows.
“Swim! Nona! Quickly!”
The ceiling overhead was lifting—shifting. Smaller stalks and vines which had taken root in the sand were tearing away. Above us came a cry—shouts—confusion. . . .
We swam to extricate ourselves. Tearing vines seemed to leap at us, but we avoided them.
Back to our dolphins. They were waiting; we mounted them—turned to look at the city. It was turning over in the water, and floating away. Slowly, then faster, down toward that black opening into which the current would sweep it.
The city of death! But every living thing in it was pouring out. Lights—dark blobs of figures—shouts—commands. . . .
The Maagogs were escaping! In a turmoil; and they would lose whatever apparatus they had for war; but they were escaping nevertheless. We had hoped the catastrophe would come more quickly. But it did not. The city toppled slowly over, while those terrified figures leaped from it. Slowly it floated away—then plunged into the torrent.
It was gone with its murdered Marinoid dead; but on the sand, and in the water ahead of us, the Maagogs and the half-breeds remained. Some had gone to their death, no doubt; the others . . .
“They will not wait to attack us now,” Nona whispered suddenly. “We have crippled them, but . . .”
“We must get back,” I exclaimed. “It is we who must attack at once—finish them up—now, before they can recover—”
In Rax, we found Atar with his work well done. We Marinoids were ready. And within an hour or very little more, we set forth to meet the advancing Maagogs.
I led my army out of Rax. The details of its organization I had left to Atar and Caan, while Nona and I were on our expedition to Gahna. They had done their work well; and within an hour after our return we were ready to leave—to face the advancing Maagog forces.
We left from the roof of Rax. The broad, open space there was ample for mobilization, and in the center of it my forces were gathered.Youof a greater civilization, might call this army of mine meager. Yet to us Marinoids it was huge—the largest group of fighting men these people had ever conceived of organizing.
Some two thousand men, girls and dolphins—the product of all the Marinoid cities and the rural population. We had many more who wanted, and were able, to join us. But these I left at home—some in Rax, some in the other, smaller cities. So that at home—in the event of disaster to our fighters in the open water—we would not be quite defenseless.
An army of two thousand! It was not very much, of course; but it was equipped and organized—with a plan of action which I shall tell you in a moment. That it would be ample for victory, I did not doubt. Og and his Maagogs might outnumber us—of that I could not say. But we had fighting qualities which the slow lumbering Maagogs could not possibly equal. We would be easily victorious, I thought; but Nona was not so sanguine.
In spite of my commands the people of Rax, many of them, had gathered on the city roof to see us leave; a circular fringe of them jammed the edge of the roof, waiting to cheer our departure.
But they did not cheer. With solemn faces they stared upward at our columns as we rose into the water—women staring after their husbands and sons, even their daughters—women and old men staring, and wondering which of their loved ones would return alive to them.
In command of the entire Marinoid forces, I rode alone on a dolphin—with hands free and with only a lance fastened flat against the dolphin’s back and a dagger in my belt. I was first off the roof of Rax. As I rose, gliding smoothly upward and outward, I looked down to see the city dropping away.
A column of young men, swimming five abreast, came up next—like birds rising in orderly array to follow their lone leader. It was an inspiring sight—this sinuous curving line of swimmers. It swung into the water, bent like a huge rainbow over the city, straightened, and followed me diagonally upward.
Soon Rax had dwindled small and dim in the water below. But I could see Nona’s forces—the girls mounted on dolphins—as they too were starting. Then Rax, now so far beneath me, blurred and was lost in the gray-green haze of water; and I turned my attention ahead.
The backbone of my army was the line of young men swimming five abreast behind me. Five hundred of them there were—young, powerful swimmers—youths at the height of their physical strength. Each was by nature capable of shocking into insensibility with an electric discharge, any opponent he could touch by head and heels simultaneously.
These young men were unarmed; I felt that they could use their natural weapon to better advantage when swimming free-handed.
Nona’s corps consisted of some two hundred girls mounted on dolphins. Each with a long, lance-like spear in her hands. Nona commanded them—with ten extra girls, each to control a group of twenty.
Then there was Atar’s corps of sleighs—the “light-sleighs” which I have already described. Atar himself had a dolphin mount. In each of the ten dolphin-drawn sleighs was a single occupant—an older man. These sleighs I would use to precede us—to throw light upon the enemy, blind him, and cover our onslaught made from behind.
The “sleighs of darkness”—ten of them, dolphin-drawn, and each with two occupants—were commanded by Caan, himself riding a separate dolphin. These sleighs were for darkening the water in the event of a catastrophe to our fighters—to cover our retreat wherever it might be necessary.
For the rest, my main forces were a thousand fighting men—older men in whom the electric power was waning. They were armed with various types of spears—daggers, javelins and lances. They were leaving Rax in a long swimming line some ten abreast.
Such was my army which now was following me into battle. I led it upward. Behind me I could see the long columns of swimming figures—the sleighs in two broad groups—the girls on the dolphins in squads of twenty, each with its leader apart.
Ahead of me lay open water—a gray-green in the half-light, dim and blurred. Far overhead I knew was the rocky ceiling which marked the top of this watery, subterranean world; and the ooze and sand of the sea-bottom was perhaps two thousand feet beneath me.
I was heading for Gahna. The water here was almost free of vegetation, but not wholly so. Occasionally thin, waving spires of seaweed, covered with air-pods to sustain them, reared their heads. I threaded my way among them; and with every turn I made, the line of swimming figures behind me followed.
Soon I conjectured I must be half-way to the former site of Gahna. The Maagogs would probably follow the sea-bottom in their advance, for they were all indifferent swimmers, flabby of muscle and short of breath. It was time for me to descend and locate them.
I waited—as it had been prearranged that I should wait at this point; and as I hung poised in a broad stretch of empty water, my army swung up and gathered. In two huge concentric circles, the men swam slowly around me, while the girls on the dolphins moved lazily back and forth above and below.
A beautiful sight, these girls—slim bodies clinging closely to the sleek backs of their graceful mounts. And Caan and Atar with their squads of sleighs holding motionless on the outskirts.
In the center of it all, Nona rode her dolphin to join me.
“We are all ready, Nemo.” And she laughed gaily; though searching her face, I could see no laughter in her solemn eyes.
I told her then to wait while I went down to the sea-bottom to locate the enemy. She nodded; and I left her.
Slowly I drove my dolphin around the circle of my men—shouting a word of encouragement here and there. I consulted a moment with Caan and Atar; waved at Nona as I passed her again, and dove my mount downward.
The ring of waiting figures above me faded into dimness and were lost. I was alone in the water.
It took but a few moments to reach the bottom; it came up to me, by optical illusion tilted vertically on end. A hundred feet above it I righted my mount.
I was over a level floor of sand, with cactus-like growths here and there. Empty; there was no sign of Maagogs.
Ahead of me, in the direction of where Gahna had once stood, I saw the shadows of a forest. I advanced toward it; and from it were emerging the first lines of the oncoming enemy.
But my heart sank. There were very many of them.
At once I raced my dolphin upward. And my thoughts were racing also. Again I had lost another opportunity for ambush. Had we reached the forest before the Maagogs began to emerge, we might have surprised them there. The forest was several miles long and a mile broad perhaps, in the horizontal direction from Gahna to Rax. A mile of thick vegetation—tree spires and a tangle of vines and weeds rearing themselves several thousand feet up into the water. The Maagog army was now traversing that mile-width of forest. Perhaps, if I could cut them off in there—attack them piecemeal as they emerged. . . .
I was again with my own forces. Nona, Atar and Caan rode their mounts hastily to meet me, and I told them the situation.
It took us but a moment to decide. We would maintain this upper open water as our base. I ordered Atar with his light-sleighs and half of our electric fighting men, to follow me down. I would attack these first columns of the enemy as they came out of the forest.
Nona, with her girls, was to ride swiftly above the forest, descend on its other side and drive the last of the Maagogs in. We did not want any of them to retreat toward Gahna.
I waited, while Nona with the dolphins dashed upward and away. The girls had all been flushed and eager; but as they swept by me in a line I saw that each little face was white, set and grave.
They vanished in a swirl of water. I wheeled my dolphin toward Atar. His ten light-sleighs were in a line abreast, with him on his dolphin behind them. He gave a signal. The pods on the sleighs were unshrouded. Green light leaped ahead—a broad, blinding glare; and in the semi-darkness behind it, my electric men were gathered around me.
Then I shouted my command, and we started vertically downward—our first attack upon the enemy.
CHAPTER XXIX
The glare of light showed the water plainly—a brilliant, ghastly green. We reached the sea-bottom, turned and dashed forward. The Maagogs were there. They saw our light coming of course, long before we saw them. A crowd of them, confused, half-blinded, but they were standing their ground nevertheless.
Over the line of light-sleighs I saw that we had to deal here with perhaps five hundred Maagog men. They seemed armed with spears. They huddled heavily against the sea-bottom, some half a mile from the edge of the forest. The line of them stretched back there, and more were constantly coming out.
When our sleighs were no more than a few hundred yards away, I shouted at Atar. At his relayed signal, the sleighs shrouded their pods and turned upward, out of reach of the enemy. It left the water in semi-darkness—blackness it must have seemed to the Maagogs, with that blinding glare so suddenly extinguished.
And then we leaped at them.
It was a swirl of confusion, this hand-to-hand warfare. I held my dolphin resolutely above it, taking no part, but watching for every advantage into which I might hurl my men.
Looking down into the swirling water I could see the Maagogs fighting desperately to impale my swimmers with their spears. And my young Marinoids, darting over them, up and down, seeking to touch them head and legs simultaneously that the electric shock might kill them.
The fighting spread. Soon it was going on over a wide area. It was almost silent, uncanny fighting. The swish of the churning water—a shout, a death scream here and there. Bodies were dotting the sand. Maagogs, but Marinoids too. And the Maagogs in this first engagement outnumbered us two to one.
I was perhaps fifty feet above the sand, with the sleighs poised inactive immediately over me. Atar dashed up.
“How are they doing? Nemo, would it be better in the light?”
I had not thought of that. A trio of Maagogs, wounded and confused, came floundering up at us. Atar, from his dolphin, dispatched them easily with his sword.
“The lights!” he shouted. “Lights—and spread out—to light it all.”
The lights flashed on; the sleighs moved away to separate positions.
As though on a lighted stage, the scene was now illumined. It was a good move, for the Maagogs, living in the dark Water of Wild Things, could not stand the light as well as we could.
Back to the edge of the forest the fighting was in progress. But my heart sank. There were two Maagogs dead to every Marinoid; but it was not enough. These were the weakest of Og’s forces—and I was using against them the best of mine. Half an hour more of such fighting and these first columns would be cut to pieces and routed. But what of that, if I lost nearly half of my finest men? There were the black fishes yet to cope with. My electric men would do best against them.
I saw now my mistake. I should have fought these lumbering Maagogs with my older, more numerous men. Spears against spears—and saved my youth for the black fishes.
Atar, I think, came to these conclusions simultaneously. Together we dashed over the scene of battle, calling off our fighters. They came readily, for the Maagogs, sorely harassed, were glad enough to let them go.
Up we started, but there were now no more than a hundred of us, where before there had been more than twice that. The light-sleighs, again shrouded, followed us. In the dimness down there, the sea-bottom was strewn with inert, broken figures—the wounded floundering—the water darkened with blood. And over toward the forest the Maagogs were retreating, to join fresh columns coming out. Then as we rose, the scene faded into obscurity.
“We must get back up,” Atar called to me. “Get our older men—all of them—and come down again at once.”
We were rising to where our waiting army would soon come into view, when off to the left I saw a cloud of tiny forms coming out of the upper recesses of the forest. Dashing at us, to cut off our ascent! Swiftly. I saw at once that our swimmers could not avoid them.
The black fishes! A swarm of them, with Og in their midst, was upon us!
I must go back now to when—previous to our first attack—Nona with her girls left us to cross the forest. Nona led them; and swimming at tremendous speed they were soon above the vegetation. It was a queer sight, looking down through the water upon those marine tree-tops. A tangle of weeds; air-pods, some of them gigantic—the whole forest a matted thicket on top of which one could lie at rest.
But there were many places which would have served as entrance down or exit up; which latter thought made my Nona shiver involuntarily. Down in the tangle—two thousand feet down—the Maagogs were passing through. What forces did they have? How many men? How many of the dreaded black fishes? Where were those black fishes—from which point would they attack us?
Nona knew that the fishes could best be fought by our electric men. The little beasts would be easy to shock and kill—but not easy, since they were so small, to impale upon a lance. Nona wondered where they were. If only she could get information of the strength and disposition of the enemy forces—information for me, so that I might intelligently plan my battle.
Woman acts upon impulse. Nona called her girl leaders—directed them to go on and carry out my orders—drive the Maagogs into the forest from its side toward Gahna.
Then abruptly she halted her dolphin; the others swept on, leaving her alone in the silence of the water above the forest. At once she fastened her lance to the dolphin’s back and dismounted; and the dolphin, understanding her reiterated, whispered command, held itself poised to await her return.
Nona planned to go down alone—swimming free-handed—into the forest to spy upon the enemy. She wasted no time; finding an open space between the tall spires, she dove into it.
The descent through those tangled, tenuous air-pods and plants, was laborious. She worked her way down, quietly, surreptitiously. It was almost dark, though not quite; and very silent. Far below now, she thought she could hear the sound of voices.
She was perhaps two-thirds the way down, when a sudden movement near at hand caused her heart to leap. Something human! She shrank behind a waving leaf, and clung. Peering into the gloom she saw a human figure—a Maagog. A woman—seemingly unarmed—a small female figure huddling in a branch of vegetation.
A Maagog! Nona could capture her—force from this enemy woman the information she sought.
My Nona plunged forward, her arms outstretched. Plunged silently, swiftly; and she was upon her enemy before the Maagog was fully aware of her. Their bodies met; the Maagog woman (she was no more than a girl) screamed; but Nona’s hand went over her mouth.
They fought, tore at each other, with the Maagog girl’s four arms gripping my Nona’s frail body like the tentacles of an octopus. But Nona was the stronger; her body built of firmer flesh; her muscles more powerful.
Abruptly the Maagog girl yielded. They had been tumbling over and over in the water—wound and entangled with sea-weed; and save for that one scream, fighting silently. Nona pulled her captured antagonist to a tree-stalk, and in one of its branches, held her there firmly. And not until then did she realize that this was Maaret, the girl who loved Og—the girl who had helped us escape from the Water of Wild Things.
“You!”
But Maaret now was crying. “What do you want of me? You go away. I hate you. You tried to take my Og. You let me alone.”
Women are strange creatures! My Nona put her arms tenderly about the vehement girl.
“You must not hate me, Maaret. What are you doing here?”
“Og—he is down there. Fighting. For you, he fights—you, the woman who stole his heart. And he may be killed, and I love him.”
What could Nona say? This girl had followed Og to battle—followed, hoping to keep him out of danger, because she loved him. And at the last, frightened, she had crawled away to the treetops—crying with fear and misery when Nona set upon her.
“Maaret, listen. You tell me where the black fishes are. Where is your Og?”
“There—in the forest.” It was a vague answer—a gesture, not down, but off to one side, toward Rax.
“Still in the forest?”
“Yes. I think so—I don’t know. But he was going out to fight.”
“The black fishes were with him?”
“Yes.”
“How many of them, Maaret?”
But the girl had become suspicious.
“I don’t know,” she said sullenly.
“He is on the sea-bottom with them? Maaret, listen. How many Maagogs are there in the forest?”
But the girl understood Nona’s purpose and set her lips tight.
“Tell me, Maaret.”
“No!” burst out the girl. “You would do my Og harm. I want to help him, not you.” She tried to pull away, but Nona held her. Nona’s anger was rising.
“I’ll take you with me,” she told the girl. “My Nemo will make you talk.”
But Maaret resisted, and suddenly her tears came afresh.
“You let me go. I should be with Og—fighting beside him because I love him. I was a coward to come up here.”
The words appealed as none others could to Nona. Her anger vanished; sympathy flooded over her.
“You want to fight for Og, Maaret?”
“Yes! I want to fight—I belong there—beside him. Let me go.”
Nona stared into the girl’s pathetic little face.
“Go,” she said. “You speak truth, Maaret. You belong there with the man you love, no matter for what cause he fights. Go!”
Her gaze followed as Maaret dropped away, down into the recesses of the forest.
It was a terrible moment as we saw those black fishes, with Og in their midst, dashing at us. Atar and I shouted to our men—shouted encouragement. We could not avoid this new enemy; and so we had to plunge at it with a will. A hundred electric men, no more, and all of them were exhausted by the combat they had left but a moment before.
Our light-sleighs were of little use here; hastily we sent them speeding upward, to bring down our main army to our assistance. Atar and I on our dolphins circled about. The black fishes were everywhere; confusion again; the lashing figures of our young men as they met the black, ugly little things—all jaws, and teeth like needles.
A hundred personal battles simultaneously. But there were ten fishes to each of our men at least. The fishes were shocked and killed—some of them. Others bit and tore at our fighters’ flesh.
Have you ever seen a school of hungry fish pluck at a bit of food? Dismember it—carry it away? This was like it. . . .
Shuddering, I dashed my dolphin to and fro. A few of the fishes I caught on my lance. But so very few among that thousand. . . .
This was disaster. We would kill half the fishes perhaps—but lose all this portion of our men. Disaster. . . .
I became aware of Atar’s dolphin rushing past me; his voice shouting:
“Og! Let us get Og! Force him to call off the fishes! Or kill him!”
Og had been holding himself poised in midwater, watching the scene. But already he had realized the danger. He was making away; and at his call a hundred or more of his fishes gathered around him.
We would have dashed at them; our two dolphins could have scattered them.
But we did not; for from below, a swarm of other figures appeared. Marinogs! The half-breeds! A picked corps of Marinog youths. They were good swimmers. They possessed the power of electric shock. More than a hundred of them were rising now to Og’s assistance.
Atar and I stopped our onslaught. Around us on every hand our scattered forces were fighting the fishes. But the little groups of men fighting were now very few; everywhere bodies were sinking inert, with swarms of fishes plucking at them. . . .
We screamed for all to follow us who could; and mounted. A few of our men tried to follow—but not one succeeded. The oncoming Marinogs, fresh and lustful, caught them all.
And with hearts cold within us, Atar and I dashed on upward, alone.
CHAPTER XXX
Nona regained her mount above the forest and continued on to join her girls. I can tell you this part of the battle only as Nona told it to me—briefly, for my Nona talks little of her own deeds. The girls on the dolphins were beyond the forest, down near the sea-bottom. And they were engaged with the enemy when Nona arrived.
It was the last of the Maagog columns, just entering the forest when the dolphins attacked it. A very brief engagement. A few score of the last, heavy-swimming Maagogs. And without trouble the girls cut them down—drove them into the forest.
Atar and I, rising alone from our defeat, met our main army coming down to help us. The light-sleighs had carried the news.
Hastily we told them of our disaster. It was my fault, no doubt; I should never have split my forces. How easy it is to look back and say what should have been done!
Atar was anxious to descend at once, with all our men, in one desperate attack. But I was learning the art of warfare. Inexperienced still, yet now not wholly so. We must wait here, I told them, for Nona and the girls to return. And by then the enemy would be on this side of the forest. In the open, we would attack them with all our forces at once, as Atar said.
“Look!” shouted Atar.
Above us, in the direction of the forest, the blur of swiftly moving forms showed, with lines of white, V-shaped, behind them.
It was Nona and the girls—victorious in what they had undertaken. The news heartened us. We had lost a few of the girls and dolphins—and two hundred and fifty of our best men. But we had done the enemy all told a more than equal amount of damage.
For half an hour we waited. Atar and I twice cautiously descended. The Maagogs seemed all out of the forest—and were advancing on Rax. High over them in the water, we followed; and almost within sight of Rax, we dove down in a mass upon them.
It was a scene of carnage which at first seemed inextricable confusion. My forces spread out—attacked the enemy everywhere at once. The Maagogs seemed to prefer the sea-bottom; they clung there and fought stubbornly.
At Atar’s insistence, I held my dolphin at first in mid-water, out of range of the fighting. Below me was the center of the struggling mass—the main force of sword-armed Maagogs. Against them, in the glare of Atar’s light-sleighs, I hurled my older men. They were fighting down there in the brilliant light. We were outnumbered in this section, but I could see that my men were more than holding their own.
Off to the left—toward the forest—a cloud of the black fishes had come up. With them were the Marinog electric men; and against them I sent my own two hundred and fifty youths—and the girls and dolphins.
It was this segment that I most feared. I could see them now; the men were locked in hand-to-hand conflict—lashing the water—hundreds of little groups. The black fishes were mingled with them; and about the whole struggling mass, the girls on the dolphins dashed back and forth.
How long I watched I do not know. I was alone, save that near at hand were Caan and his dark-sleighs, holding themselves in readiness.
A Marinoid fighter came wavering up to me, wounded and gasping.
I descended. The fighters in this central melee had split into two separate sections—and on one side were far outnumbered. Atar was down here; he saw me, and rushed forward.
“Nemo—on this side we lose.”
It was impossible to transfer quickly any considerable number of my men from one side to the other.
“Take the lights from the losing side,” I shouted; and when Atar had dashed away, I swam my mount up to Caan.
With his dark-sleighs, we swept down into the threatened area. Men were fighting all around us; the dead were everywhere. The ink-bags on the sleighs released their fluid; the water darkened—turning to night.
Back and forth I scurried through the darkness, screaming to my men to shake off their foes—to extricate themselves and rise into the light. In the blackness my dolphin struck many struggling forms—friend and foe alike.
Then I went up, out of the cloud of ink, again into the blessed light. And waited, while in little groups, my sorely pressed fighters struggled up after me.
It was instinct for everyone to escape from that horrible darkness. Have you ever fought in the dark? It strikes a terror to the soul.
The Maagogs must have felt it, as well as my own men. In the black, inky water, all fighting soon ceased.
And here I saw my opportunity and grasped it. The Maagogs, confused and terror-stricken, were floundering out into the light. They came singly. And their eyes—weaker than those of the Marinoids—could see little when first they emerged.
For many minutes the inky water held together. And around its edges, Atar with his light-sleighs swept their dazzling beams back and forth. There were six or seven hundred Maagogs in there—and as they came out a few at a time, we fell upon them.
It was our great opportunity. And then I realized that I could do the same thing with the other wing. If only I had my other forces here! The girls with the dolphins!
Atar and Caan executed the same maneuver while I dashed away to get Nona. In this third sector things had gone very well indeed. The girls had suffered few casualties. They were fighting the Marinogs—holding them in check, while my electric men dispatched the black fishes.
I searched about for Nona, came upon her in time to see what manner of warfare this was. Three Marinogs had made for her. She went at them full tilt, with lance extended. They scattered; but incredibly swiftly she turned her dolphin, impaled one of them with her lance—then another, while the third for his life, turned and made away.
“Nona!” I called. “Bring your girls! Come—we need you!”
With the girls behind me, I hastened back to Atar and Caan. Out of the inky water below—into the brilliant beams of our light-sleighs—the surprised Maagogs were emerging. The girls rushed at them—the dolphins, extraordinarily swift, seemed to be everywhere at once. . . .
The ink finally cleared away; and my own remaining fighters took a hand. The combat turned to slaughter—then a complete rout. . . .
And I had men free now to send to the other sector, weakened by the withdrawal of the girls. The black fishes and the Marinogs there were overpowered. The fishes fought to the last. A few of the Marinogs fled—back to the Water of Wild Things. And from everywhere about the scene of battle, wounded Maagogs were floundering away.
But we let them go.
We had won.