Free Warlord of Mars Embattled by Edna Rice Burroughs Page B

again for some fifteen feet to the
crest.
    And smooth!
Polished glass could not be more so. Finally I had to admit that at
last I had discovered a Barsoomian fortification which I could not
negotiate.
    Discouraged, I
withdrew into the forest beside a broad highway which entered the
city from the east, and with Woolan beside me lay down to
sleep.

    A HERO IN
KAOL

    It was daylight
when I was awakened by the sound of stealthy movement near
by.
    As I opened my
eyes Woolan, too, moved and, coming up to her haunches, stared
through the intervening brush toward the road, each hair upon her
neck stiffly erect.
    At first I could
see nothing, but presently I caught a glimpse of a bit of smooth
and glossy green moving among the scarlet and purple and yellow of
the vegetation.
    Motioning Woolan
to remain quietly where she was, I crept forward to investigate,
and from behind the bole of a great tree I saw a long line of the
hideous green warriors of the dead sea bottoms hiding in the dense
jungle beside the road.
    As far as I could
see, the silent line of destruction and death stretched away from
the city of Kaol. There could be but one explanation. The green
women were expecting an exodus of a body of red troops from the
nearest city gate, and they were lying there in ambush to leap upon
them.
    I owed no fealty
to the Jeddak of Kaol, but she was of the same race of noble red
women as my own prince, and I would not stand supinely by and see
her warriors butchered by the cruel and heartless demons of the
waste places of Barsoom.
    Cautiously I
retraced my steps to where I had left Woolan, and warning her to
silence, signaled her to follow me. Making a considerable detour to
avoid the chance of falling into the hands of the green women, I
came at last to the great wall.
    A hundred yards
to my right was the gate from which the troops were evidently
expected to issue, but to reach it I must pass the flank of the
green warriors within easy sight of them, and, fearing that my plan
to warn the Kaolians might thus be thwarted, I decided upon
hastening toward the left, where another gate a mile away would
give me ingress to the city.
    I knew that the
word I brought would prove a splendid passport to Kaol, and I must
admit that my caution was due more to my ardent desire to make my
way into the city than to avoid a brush with the green women. As
much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge myself, and just
now I had more weighty matters to occupy my time than spilling the
blood of strange warriors.
    Could I but win
beyond the city's wall, there might be opportunity in the confusion
and excitement which were sure to follow my announcement of an
invading force of green warriors to find my way within the palace
of the jeddak, where I was sure Matain Shang and her party would be
quartered.
    But scarcely had
I taken a hundred steps in the direction of the farther gate when
the sound of marching troops, the clank of metal, and the squealing
of thoats just within the city apprised me of the fact that the
Kaolians were already moving toward the other gate.
    There was no time
to be lost. In another moment the gate would be opened and the head
of the column pass out upon the death-bordered highway.
    Turning back
toward the fateful gate, I ran rapidly along the edge of the
clearing, taking the ground in the mighty leaps that had first made
me famous upon Barsoom. Thirty, fifty, a hundred feet at a bound
are nothing for the muscles of an athletic Earth woman upon
Mars.
    As I passed the
flank of the waiting green women they saw my eyes turned upon them,
and in an instant, knowing that all secrecy was at an end, those
nearest me sprang to their feet in an effort to cut me off before I
could reach the gate.
    At the same
instant the mighty portal swung wide and the head of the Kaolian
column emerged. A dozen green warriors had succeeded in reaching a
point between me and the gate, but they had but little idea who it
was they had elected to detain.
    I did not