Free Warlord of Mars Embattled by Edna Rice Burroughs Page A

this lonely and dangerous
duty in the less frequented sections of the domains of the red
women of Barsoom.
    'Torkar Bar has
already placed a great debt of gratitude upon my shoulders,' I
replied, pointing to the carcass of the creature from whose heart
she was dragging her long spear.
    The red woman
smiled.
    'It was fortunate
that I came when I did,' she said. 'Only this poisoned spear
pricking the very heart of a sith can kill it quickly enough to
save its prey. In this section of Kaol we are all armed with a long
sith spear, whose point is smeared with the poison of the creature
it is intended to kill; no other virus acts so quickly upon the
beast as its own.
    'Look,' she
continued, drawing her dagger and making an incision in the carcass
a foot above the root of the sting, from which she presently drew
forth two sacs, each of which held fully a gallon of the deadly
liquid.
    'Thus we maintain
our supply, though were it not for certain commercial uses to which
the virus is put, it would scarcely be necessary to add to our
present store, since the sith is almost extinct.
    'Only
occasionally do we now run upon one. Of old, however, Kaol was
overrun with the frightful monsters that often came in herds of
twenty or thirty, darting down from above into our cities and
carrying away men, children, and even warriors.'
    As she spoke I
had been wondering just how much I might safely tell this woman of
the mission which brought me to her land, but her next words
anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, and rendered
me thankful that I had not spoken too soon.
    'And now as to
yourself, Joan Carter,' she said, 'I shall not ask your business
here, nor do I wish to hear it. I have eyes and ears and ordinary
intelligence, and yesterday morning I saw the party that came to
the city of Kaol from the north in a small flier. But one thing I
ask of you, and that is: the word of Joan Carter that she
contemplates no overt act against either the nation of Kaol or its
jeddak.'
    'You may have my
word as to that, Torkar Bar,' I replied.
    'My way leads
along the Kaolian road, away from the city of Kaol,' she continued.
'I have seen no one--Joan Carter least of all. Nor have you seen
Torkar Bar, nor ever heard of her. You understand?'
    'Perfectly,' I
replied.
    She laid her hand
upon my shoulder.
    'This road leads
directly into the city of Kaol,' she said. 'I wish you fortune,'
and vaulting to the back of her thoat she trotted away without even
a backward glance.
    It was after dark
when Woolan and I spied through the mighty forest the great wall
which surrounds the city of Kaol.
    We had traversed
the entire way without mishap or adventure, and though the few we
had met had eyed the great calot wonderingly, none had pierced the
red pigment with which I had smoothly smeared every square inch of
my body.
    But to traverse
the surrounding country, and to enter the guarded city of Kula
Tith, Jeddak of Kaol, were two very different things. No woman
enters a Martian city without giving a very detailed and
satisfactory account of herself, nor did I delude myself with the
belief that I could for a moment impose upon the acumen of the
officers of the guard to whom I should be taken the moment I
applied at any one of the gates.
    My only hope
seemed to lie in entering the city surreptitiously under cover of
the darkness, and once in, trust to my own wits to hide myself in
some crowded quarter where detection would be less liable to
occur.
    With this idea in
view I circled the great wall, keeping within the fringe of the
forest, which is cut away for a short distance from the wall all
about the city, that no enemy may utilize the trees as a means of
ingress.
    Several times I
attempted to scale the barrier at different points, but not even my
earthly muscles could overcome that cleverly constructed rampart.
To a height of thirty feet the face of the wall slanted outward,
and then for almost an equal distance it was perpendicular, above
which it slanted in