Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

Although these strange, small-winged creatures had started long after the soldiers, they had quickly passed them, and were now beginning to mount toward our plateau. They were making swift detours at intervals, as if to reconnoitre. We were hidden behind our rocks and shields, and the riders could not see us, and they had evidently not yet seen the brass barrel of our telescope. It would be folly for them to attempt to come up the road we were guarding, for we could easily heave boulders over and crush them. I had already put my shoulder to an immense rock near the brink, to see if it was as heavy as it looked. I found it porous and crumbly, and no heavier than so much chalk. Up the roadway the great birds climbed with wonderful ease. Their riders were evidently looking for us without any idea where we were.

“I won’t see those elephantine bipeds come any nearer to me!” I exclaimed, and rushing to the boulder, which was certainly four feet in diameter, I toppled it over the brink, and expected to see it carry everything down before it. It rolled slowly down the steep bank, with hardly a third the force and speed of the same mass on Earth. This discouraged me, but I watched for it to reach the foremost bird. He was surprised by it, but made one step sideways, and, lifting his great right leg, the stone rolled under him without any damage. He gave a queer, guttural croak, accompanied by a most violent motion of the head and neck. The other birds, thus warned, dodged quickly sidewise, and avoided the slowly rolling boulder; but all three of the riders were thrown by the swift lateral movement of the birds. The astonished men picked themselves up slowly from the bushes and approached their birds. But they could scarcely reach with their hands the lower part of the neck where they had sat.

“Unless they are good jumpers, they cannot mount again without a ladder!” said the doctor.

“Jumping is easier than standing still here,” I interrupted. “I can jump ten feet high with no trouble.”

“Yes; but these Martian boobies haven’t your muscles. Aber Blitzen! did you see that fellow mount his bird again?”

I had seen it, and I do not remember anything more wonderful than this operation, which was repeated for each rider. The man went in front of his bird, turned his back, and stooped forward. The bird then curved his long neck to the ground, and put his head and neck between the legs of the rider, who clutched tightly with his arms and legs. With a swift, graceful swing, the bird lifted its head on high, carrying the rider as if he were nothing. When the great neck was again erect, the man slid carefully down it to his place, much as one might slip down a telegraph pole. Then two of the birds turned back to the city as swiftly as they could go, and the other two took separate side trails and soon disappeared.

As the two returning birds passed the marching soldiers, their riders evidently delivered some message to the captains, for the soldiers suddenly broke forward in a run, using their long cross-bows with great dexterity as jumping staves. Placing the outer end upon the ground ahead of them as they ran, they leaped and hung upon the cross-piece with their hands. The springy resistance of this tough wood imparted to them a forward motion with its rebound, and they scaled great distances at each jump. The whole company did it in concert, and they made almost as great speed as if they had been riding bicycles. The slingers were consequently left far in the rear.

Less than half way up the incline the archers stopped, arranged their bow-thongs, and selected feathered arrows from a pouch slung over their shoulders.

“They can never hit us from that distance!” I exclaimed; “a rifle would not carry so far.”

“You forget the weak gravity which will bend their course down very little, and the thin air which will barely resist their flight; this is a model planet for archery,” he answered. “Quick! drop behind your shield! They have fired the first volley!”

A torrent of the shafts fell all about us, and many pelted against our shields. Those which struck the soft earth of the bank sank into it and stuck there, but those which struck our steel were shivered and broken.

“Sit still and let them shoot away their arrows,” I whispered. “This will soon be over.”

The next volley came with a little more force, as if they had marched further up the hill. One or two arrows fell very near me, and I reached for them to examine their construction. They were made of the hollow, filmy stock of a rather tough reed, and were pointed with a chipped stone tip, which was brittle, but not harder than porous chalk.

“That stuff wouldn’t pierce my two coats, to say nothing of the linked steel shirt,” I sneered. “I will show them what fools they are!” and I walked boldly out to the brink and faced them. They let fly a quick volley with a concerted shout. As I saw the arrows start, I turned my back and bent down my head quickly. Perhaps a dozen of the slim reeds pelted me, and then I stooped over and gathered up as many as I could find, and broke them all in my hands before their eyes.

This sent a hum of excited jabbering through their ranks, and they fired no more. I stood watching them, and presently I grasped my two hands together and shook hands with myself, to try to convey to them the idea that we were friendly; but it must have carried no meaning to them. By this time the slingers had come up, and I retired behind my shield to await their action. The archers seemed very glad of their arrival, and yielded the foremost place to them. I noted their operations carefully, and saw them place something, which did not look like a round stone, in the pocket of their slings, and then they whirled it long and cautiously. Suddenly they discharged it with a swift movement of their bodies backward, which landed them on one knee.

“Wide of the mark!” I cried, as the missiles sailed off far to the right of us. But just before landing they bent a sharp, surprising curve, and lacked but little of hitting us behind the shields! The things they had thrown were the thin, concave shells of a large nut, and the trick of discharging them gave them their peculiar flight.

“I don’t like this throwing around the corner!” exclaimed the doctor. “With a little truer aim they will be able to hit us behind anything.”

“Hurry, bring your shield over behind mine, and face it the other way,” said I; “then we will crouch between the two in safety.”

He did this just in time, for some of the next volley actually curved around and hit his shield, but none struck mine in front. However, the shells which fell near us were of light weight, and would not have bruised us much with heavy clothing on. Presently their pelting ceased, and we concluded that they were planning something new. We decided to let them know that we were not hurt, so we emerged; and I tried throwing the shells back with my hand, but I could not control their erratic course. When they saw this they jeered at me, and I itched to treat them to just one pistol shot, only to show them what child’s play their fighting was! Presently we saw what they were waiting for. Far down the road the two great birds were returning harnessed together, and dragging behind them an enormous catapult. Tied across their backs were two stout darts, seemingly twelve feet long and three inches square. Each of them had a wicked-looking barbed tip.

There was a pleased and confident jabber among the slingers and archers below as the birds arrived. The catapult was turned about toward us, and lashed tightly to stakes driven in front and behind. Then the birds were hitched to the cord of the immense bow, and they pulled it far back, until the men made it fast in a notch. The cross-piece had now become almost a half-circle, quite ten feet in diameter. The captain of a company of archers acted as gunner, and carefully adjusted the catapult, aiming it evidently at our shield. Upon seeing this we placed the two shields together, and leaned them both inward toward us, so as to make their angle with the upward course of the dart more obtuse, and thus cause a glancing blow instead of a solid impact. Crouching under the steel shelters, we awaited the dart.