StanleyWheeler

The Fight for Princess Jedah Siroth of Melihum

The servant to the Prince of Dozanga gasped, his eyes wide in surprise at the dagger between his ribs. Princess Jedah Siroth of Melihum let her hand slip from the dagger's handle in the same moment that his hands reflexively clutched at the weapon. She placed both palms against her kidnapper's side and shoved him over the edge of the small flier. As his screams faded beneath the swift craft, Jedah knelt behind the windscreen and struggled with the flight controls. They wouldn't budge. The key to the locking mechanism had plummeted to the ground with the Dozangan. She remained a prisoner of the speeding vessel.

When dawn broke, so did the flier's buoyancy tanks. Jedah awakened to the detonation of the explosive bullets ripping open the tanks of the mysterious substance which allowed the craft to defy the planet's gravity. Another shot sent the propeller spinning away from the flier in a dozen jagged fragments. Her prison plunged, only the smallest cache of the buoyancy substance trapped in the remnants of the damaged tanks preventing a fatal free fall.

The green Zarhoon warriors knew their business, and seldom missed even at long range with their long rifles. The three scouts returned the rifles to the scabbards and drove the cantankerous beasts they rode toward the ruins of a small city where they predicted that the damaged flier would meet the ground.

Jedah clung to the falling wreckage. The moribund machine scraped the tops of the only stand of trees within sight. The branches hooked the ragged edges of one of the tanks, slowing the vessel's descent, but sending it spinning rapidly as it went to ground. The craft crashed, the thin metal crumpling in the collision upon the sparse, yellow, moss-like grass which disguised the unyielding surface. Jedah slammed into the control panel before bouncing from the craft and tumbling away from the flier like a rag doll in a gust of wind.

The princess awoke with no idea how long she had been unconscious. She rose to her hands and knees. Pain raced up her left arm and it buckled. She knew it was broken. She held the damaged limb against her body with the good arm. She ignored the blood streaming down the left side of her head and rose to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but held her upright. Through the throbbing pain that seemed to dim the sight in her left eye, she made out three riders approaching. Green men! She stumbled away toward the nearby ruins. As she entered the hollow remains of the destroyed and deserted city, she felt her awareness slipping toward shadow. She stagger among buildings until an arched doorway opened before her. Her balance failing, she pitched through the entrance to collapse behind a pile of debris.

"There, Nantos Nan!" Dav Ravos called out to the lieutenant, or Dapwar, of the formation--what was left of the formation, a mere four men, Nantos Nan, Dav Ravos, Han Hadron, and Mardos Tors.

"I saw a woman fly from the wreckage. She ran into the city, but her gait is unsteady. She is hurt," Mardos Tors observed. "Green men on their mounts. They chase her."

"I see them," Nantos Nan said. He ordered, "Into the ruins! We've got to find her before the Zarhoons take her. I recognized our princess. It is Princess Jedah Siroth of Melihum"

Two of the green men ran into the ruins. The third took the mounts to secure them. Vak Voka, the leader of the scouts, sprang forward and into the first doorway he saw. Meanwhile, Bak Badja. dashed to his right toward another doorway.

Han Tadron ran straight into the ruins and up a bridge near the center. Atop the bridge he saw Bak Badja searching an entryway. Mardos Tors fired his pistol at the four-armed man, scoring a hit against the green hide. Bak Badja dove through the doorway for cover.

Vak Voka quickly looked through the room, grabbing a small jar of unguent, before passing through an adjoining opening. When he lifted a suspiciously raised plank, a section of the floor gave way, dropping him twenty feet below to the ancient pits beneath the city.

Mardos Tors broke to the right to enter a building before which a patch of moss-like grass and scrub brush had grown. Nantos Nan broke to his left while Dav Ravos sped toward the doorway into which Bak Badja had disappeared.

Dav Ravos found the wounded Zarhoon sprawled just inside the doorway. Bak Badja raised one of his blades, but the man of Melihum batted it away and plunged his sword into the Zarhoon's chest. Bak Badja slipped into oblivion.

Bav Bavja, having secured the mounts, rushed into the ruins. He spotted Han Tadron upn the bridge and engaged the red man. Han Tanron could not stop the Zarhoon's whirling blades. One of the green man's swords laid open his thigh, but the red man refused to retreat, merely giving ground before his large opponent. Duty to his princess compelled him to remain in the fight.

Nantos Nan found the Princess! He lifted her unconscious form and placed her over one shoulder.

Dav Ravos heard the clang of swords upon the bridge and sprinted up the bridge behind Han Tadron's attacker. Before he could reach the enemy, the bridge ran red with the blood of his comrade, and Han Tadron's head rolled down the slope of the bridge.

Vak Voka powered his way up the side of the ancient pit to stand within the ruined walls once again. 

Mardos Tors saw the green warrior rise and aimed his pistol, across the scrub brush and through the section of collapsed wall, at the Zarhoon. Mardos Tors squeezed the trigger. A wound exploded on a lower shoulder and Vak Voka ducked for cover. Mardos Tors redirected his fire to Bav Bavja upon the bridge. The Zarhoon's chest erupted in a spray of flesh, fluid, and bone. Bav Bavja's body crumpled over the bridge rail to drop in a heap upon the stones below.

Dav Ravos leaped over the side of the bridge to confront the wounded Zarhoon leader, but the green man jumped to his feet, hardly hindered at all by his wound.

Dav Ravos lunged and drove back the Zarhoon. Vak Voka brought his two blades around, threatening the red man from above, below, and from both sides, driving Dav Ravos back to the doorway. Dav Ravos slipped in the Zarhoon's bodily fluid staining the floor. The green man spotted his opportunity and drove both blades into the red man, pressing him into the dirt. (Both shots, above and below, as seen from beneath the bridge).

Meanwhile, Nantos Nad has steadily progressed in carrying the princess from the ruins. He was almost safety when he tripped upon the wrap hanging from the princess' costume. The poor woman fell from his grasp as he hit the hard surface. 

Vak Voka sprang over the bleeding Dav Ravos, and loped to the fallen Nantos Nan. He pulled up next to the red man and the princess. He considered only for a moment whether to raise the limp form of the princess or to slay the disadvantaged red man first. Opting for the latter, Vak Voka swung a blade down in a deadly arc at the red man's head. Nantos Nan rolled and parried, sprining to his feet to surprise the green man. The two antagonists clashed beside the inert body of the princess. Vak Voka overpowered the red Dapwar, knocking him to the ground. 

As Vak Voka raised his blades for the killing stroke, Mardos Tors hurled himself at the green mountain of flesh, driving a sword through one set of ribs. The red man turned the Zarhoon, spinning him away from Nantos Nan and the princess, placing himself between the green man and his princess.

Vak Voka pressed forward to drive the red man back, but the smaller man refused to give way, and Vak Voka stumbled, falling in frustration. Mardos Tors could not pierce the net of steel woven by the Zarhoon's twin blades, and the green man regained his footing, wounding Mardos Tors as he did so. Nanton Nan, also on his feet again, plunged into the fray, only to be pushed away by the Zarhoon. 

Nantos Nan saw that Mardos Tors' doom was upon him, and turned to scoop the beautiful Princess Jedah into his arms. As he raised her, Vak Voka swords penetrated Mardos Tors' defenses, and the red man's torso as well. Nantos realized that this was his one chance to escape and preserve the princess, and exited to safety as Mardos Tors' body slid from the bloody blades of Vak Voka.