====================== Nemesis Magazine #7: Featuring Victory Rose in Death Stalks the Ruins by Stephen Adams ====================== Copyright (c)2005 Stephen Adams Renaissance www.renebooks.com Science Ficton --------------------------------- NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. --------------------------------- *NEMESIS MAGAZINE* Vol. II-No. 3 Featuring: *VICTORY ROSE,* Fighting Nemesis of Axis Tyranny in *"DEATH STALKS THE RUINS"* By *STEPHEN ADAMS* Nemesis Magazine is published by Anvil Publishing Editor-in-Chief: Stephen Adams; Managing Editor: J. M. Stine Distributed by Renaissance E Books For information contact: Renaissance E Books publisher@renebooks.com ISBN 1-58873-617-2 All characters featured there in, including their depiction and the Nemesis logo are the creation and copyright property of Stephen Adams. Copyright 2005: Stephen Adams. All rights reserved. Copyright to all other new material in this issue assigned to the respective authors. This publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. Cover: Stephen Adams -------- *CONTENTS* NOTE: Each section is preceded by a line of the pattern CH000, CH001, etc. You may use your reader's search function to locate section. CH000 DEATH STALKS THE RUINS CH001 JUNGLE MISSION CH002 TIGRESS OF T'WANBI * * * * -------- CH000 *DEATH STALKS THE RUINS* A book length Victory Rose adventure as told by *STEPHEN ADAMS* -------- U.S. War Department File No.: 358QT927 Subject: Hardwyck, Victoria Rose, Major, W.A.A.C. (a/k/a: Victory Rose) CLEARED FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION -- Auth. U.S. Sec'y of War -------- *CHAPTER I* The whistle shrilled. Private Yuri Lenzky jerked to his feet and began running through the night. All around him hobnailed boots slammed against the brick paving of the factory yard. Like a liquid black mass, men poured across the open space toward the giant hulk that loomed above them, silhouetted against the stars. Lenzky saw points of light winking in the darkness ahead -- heard the _pop! pop! pop!_ and _zzzzzips_ and the occasional thud as a heavy bullet smacked into one of his comrades. Although he scoffed at his grandmother and her superstitions, he prayed now to God, Jesus, and every saint he could think of to let him live till morning. Suddenly the blackness in front of him was split by the flash and roar of machine guns firing from every window in the factory wall. The shock of massive concussions told him that someone was throwing grenades down into the group from an upper floor. The Russian assault force wavered just for a second. But the whistles blew again and raging officers cursed the men forward. There was no turning back. Their own officers would gun the men down if they tried to flee. The only road was forward into the factory. Lenzky followed a clot of bulky shapes that were scrambling through a lower window. He heaved himself over the stone sill and fell through empty space. A concrete floor slammed the air from his lungs and as he was struggling to his feet another body crashed down on top of him. He roared as a boot heel ground his hand against the floor. Private Yuri Lenzky was nineteen years old and powerfully built, the legacy of a childhood spent doing heavy farm labor on his collective north of Moscow. Now he used his wide shoulders to bull a path through the struggling knot of men. Inside the factory all was blackness until his eyes accustomed themselves to the grey starlight filtering through the windows. He spared a glimpse at his surroundings but could only guess at how vast was the room through which he and his comrades surged. All around him crouched rows of great machines. Ivan had no idea what function they might have served but now they formed a maze of hiding places where German snipers could pop up and end his all-too-short life. No matter how the war came out or what happened this night, Private Lenzky was sure that he was not ready to die. But right now there was no time to dwell on such thoughts. The darkness had erupted into a maddening spectacle of tracers, flying chunks of metal, terrifying crashes, screams, and the ever-present thunder of running feet. Lenzky leaped, rolled, sprinted across open space. His submachine gun spat death at anything that moved, for in that blackness it was impossible to tell friend from foe and any shape could be the man who might end his life. He joined a group of men who dashed down a narrow passageway, firing on the run at the fleeing figures they drove before them. Soft yielding bundles littered the floor and he avoided them with a series of grotesque leaps in order to keep up with the pack. They rounded a corner and suddenly the hall was lit up with a series of blinding flashes. The men in front of him melted away like butter and the walls trembled to the roar of heavy machine guns. The leaders of his group were being chopped to pieces and death suddenly became a very personal, immediate reality to Lenzky. With a contortion that defied both anatomy and gravity he hurled himself back around the corner and lay for a second on the floor, watching the glowing tracer rounds scream past to smash against the concrete wall. But there was no time to lie still. Lenzky was scrambling to his feet, running through the darkness, his gun clutched tight. Here was the main room again. But there was no safety here for the terrified Russian. He found himself in the midst of a deadly struggle of grappling bodies while from above, the Germans at the windows had turned to fire down into the melee. Lenzky was lurching toward the sheltering bulk of some machine when he was thrown across the room by a gigantic concussion. Bricks showered down around him but he was too stunned even to raise his arms as a shield. His limbs twitched like those of a crushed insect, digging feebly in the rubble. The world turned white as the agonizing beam of a searchlight stabbed in through the hole blasted in the wall and now an entirely new type of death was ushered in by the withering fire of a four-barreled assault gun. Lenzky found new energy to bury himself beneath the bricks as the big shells screamed into the crowd of men. After some time impossible for him to calculate, the gun went silent and a new wave of Russians charged in. There were a few exchanges of gunfire as isolated Germans chose death over capture and then the only sound Lenzky could make out was the howling of the wounded. He joined a few other Russians rising to their unsteady feet, shouting at the newcomers not to shoot. A few officers kicked them together into a group and sent them forward into the darkness. Private Lenzky crept down the same passageway he had just left, still careful to shield himself in the midst of the squad. They had left the searchlight's glow behind them now and entered a place where death could strike anywhere, anytime. He held his submachine gun ready, finger on the trigger. The group halted for a moment as men up front cleared away some obstacle and Lenzky realized that this was where the German machine gunners must have been. As they resumed their march he looked down and could dimly make out the familiar sight of dead men sprawled across their weapons. He smiled down at those lifeless faces, glad it was them and not him. They continued through the passages, taking utmost care. Whenever they encountered some knot of the enemy Lenzky's group polished them off with hand grenades. In that confined space the noise was deafening but no one wanted to play the hero and shoot it out. Their officer snatched a flashlight from one of the dead Germans and gave it to a man to carry for him. He knew better than to make himself a target in that blackness. The man took it with a trembling hand and the look on his face varied between terror and sheer hatred as the light played over his features. The group pressed on, the light giving confidence to Ivan and the rest of the men bringing up the rear. After a few more minutes they stopped and called out. A wary answer came back and everyone relaxed a bit. They had walked around in a circle and met another of their own patrols coming from the other direction. While the officers conferred the men leaned against the walls and let a little of their tension drain away, but the break was short. Another passage intersected this one and two men were ordered to explore it to the next bend. They stepped forward with all the excited anticipation of condemned men walking to the gallows and Ivan was once again glad he had hung back. There were ways to survive. The sound of footsteps trailed off in the darkness until there was nothing more to be heard. Seconds dragged by as the groups waited with growing unease. The officers began glancing at each other until one of them called softly into the darkness. Silence was the only answer. They waited several more seconds and then the officer shoved another man toward the black opening. The man hung back, his white face twisting, painful to see. But the officer urged him forward with a drawn pistol. There was no doubt that this man faced certain death if he failed to obey, while what waited in the passage was debatable. He stepped forward but stopped in his tracks when a scream rang out in the darkness. Everyone stared into the passage as the sound of a scuffle reached them, and then a long low moan that went on and on and on until the men wanted to fire into the blackness just to silence that tortured soul. It trailed off at last and then they heard a noise which they identified as the sound of a body hitting the concrete floor. Suddenly they heard running feet in the passage. The officer, belatedly, grabbed the flashlight and swung its beam into the hallway. It hung there for a second before the light crashed to the floor and went out. Lenzky, where he stood, had been unable to see what was rushing up the passage toward them but he heard the cries of horror and the desperate fusillade of gunfire that broke out. Every man in the front ranks had opened up and the storm of blazing lead they sent forth was more than any living thing could endure. Inside Private Lenzky, panic struggled with elation at the thought of what his comrades were doing to the enemy in the passage. He imagined the German holdouts decimated by the irresistible attack. Then he heard the screams from his own men up front. The gunfire now sprayed wildly all around but in spite of that Lenzky struggled for some glimpse of what was going on. In front of him, even in the gloom, he could make out the forms of men fighting hand-to-hand. He could hear the terror in their cries and in the muzzle flashes he could see it in their faces. Suddenly the men in front of him were torn away and in the crazy light of a machine gun burst what he saw filled him with more raw fear than anything he had seen so far in his year of war. He turned and fled, howling like a lost soul. A few others had the same idea but none were so swift as Lenzky. One by one he heard them dragged down. He didn't dare turn to look. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with the all important speed, speed, speed. And besides, his imagination filled in all the details. He crashed headlong into walls, bounced away and continued his flight, eyes widening as he saw the glow of the searchlight in the distance. Nothing could stop him as he tore through the hall and burst into the main room. A few Russians shouted at him as he blazed by but he couldn't waste time on them. With a single mighty leap he launched himself through the hole in the wall and into the arms of more soldiers who waited outside. They held him tight though he struck them and begged to be released. Then sounds of terror and battle erupted in the main room. Lenzky was carried by main force back to the hole where startled men gaped as they saw a boiling black mass pour out of the passageway and fall upon the hapless soldiers in the main room. Gunfire couldn't stop it. Men fought uselessly and went down, covered by the unstoppable mob that swarmed over them like ants. The four-barreled gun went into action and poured a rain of explosive shells into the room. But although body parts flew through the air like leaves in a storm there was no halting the creatures who had come forth from the darkness. Smashed and mangled, they stormed over the broken bricks and attacked with their bare hands. The soldiers fled screaming. Men who had fought like demons against the German army fled in panic from this new enemy. From his hiding place behind the fence at the end of the factory yard Lenzky watched the black-clad horde tear the gun to pieces and drag the bodies of dead soldiers back into the shattered factory. -------- *CHAPTER II* The North African sun beat down on a dusty exercise yard outside the city of Casablanca on the coast of Morocco. Somewhere out there a tired sergeant was calling cadence as his men practiced their close order drill. It was getting close to noon. The heat was rising and soon they would call it quits for the day. A tired American flag hung from a pole that stood in the middle of the yard. Below its limp folds drooped another banner. Had the breeze stirred it would have been easy to spot the bright red rose and 'V' that marked the second flag. Any American who read the illustrated magazines would have recognized that insignia. A cluster of whitewashed buildings squatted off to one side, baking in the sun. Outside the biggest one a soldier was raking the gravel walk. By the standard of its upkeep it was clearly the headquarters of the commanding officer. The front door was closed, giving privacy to the two officers who conferred within. "Well this is just dandy. You can tell General Wingate that..." The sentence was bitten off before it ended. The speaker was a woman wearing battle dress and the gold bars of an army major. Major Victoria Rose Hardwyck was seated behind her desk, but even in repose she dominated the room. If she were to stand she would tower inches over the man who faced her. Her bulky uniform couldn't conceal the lithe, powerful lines of her figure. Nor could it disguise the untamed elemental female that smoldered within it. The British captain who sat across from her had never met a woman anything like her. But he had expected something out of the ordinary when he was sent to North Africa to fetch Victory Rose. "Major, I do wish I could enlighten you as to the nature of this summons," he began, "but of course it's all very wartime hush-hush. I myself don't know what it's all about. I was simply ordered to bring you back to London or not bother returning myself." Victory Rose picked up the papers the captain had set before her and scanned them once again. They offered no explanation of the sudden order. She was simply to board the submarine that had brought this British officer and report to General Wingate immediately on her arrival in London. This reassignment was to be temporary but the orders gave no time limit. With an explosive sigh she tossed the papers back onto her desktop. A thin little smile played across her lips. "He finally got his wish." "I beg your pardon?" said the captain. Rose's eyes flicked up at him. "Patton. He's finally got me out of his hair." The Brit remained quiet, unsure how to respond to this new turn of the conversation. "That publicity-seeking old ... He's wanted me out of here since we landed back at the beginning of the month." "I'm sure I wouldn't know anything about..." mumbled the man. "Now he thinks he'll have the spotlight all to himself. Well mark my words, the day will come when he'll wish he had someone else here soak up some of the attention." "Oh dear," said the captain. "I hope there won't be problems..." "Don't worry about it ... um..." "Sanders, Major," he piped up. "Don't worry about it, Sanders." Victory Rose flashed him a smile that made it difficult for the British captain to remember she was a fellow officer. "Get yourself some chow and some sack time. One of the men will show you where to go. I'll get things squared away here and we'll leave tonight." "Very well, Major. It's now 11:30. Shall I report back at..." "I'll send a man for you. Dismissed, Captain." Sanders saluted and made himself scarce. He was a man who wanted to simply do his job as efficiently as possible and he didn't like getting in the middle of this celebrity major's row with a celebrity general. Getting either of them angry seemed like a good way to court unnecessary trouble and perhaps lose the comfortable staff assignment he had worked so hard to get. Outside the door, he stopped the private who was policing the area and asked for directions. A few minutes later he had tossed his bag down on the floor in a rock-walled building and eased himself into a hammock. The room was dark and comparatively cool -- at least it was out of the direct sun, and before long he was asleep. In the meantime, Victory Rose had left her office and found Sergeant Cleveland, her trusted noncom, on a bench in the shade cleaning his Thompson. As rough as he was, he was absolutely fastidious about keeping his equipment in order. He didn't look up as Rose approached. He seemed to be completely engaged in his task, but Victory Rose wasn't fooled. She had seen him in combat enough times to know he had eyes in the back of his head. She sat down on the bench beside him and watched him work. After a time he spoke. "So Major," he said, "you got reassigned?" So far as Victory Rose knew, no one but she had been told about her new orders. Yet Cleveland could read her like a book. She had long ago given up asking him how he seemed to know things before even she did. "Temporary assignment to London," she answered. "Don't know how long. I'll be back as quick as I can." Cleveland nodded and went on with his work. The two sat quietly for a time until she spoke up again. "I'll put one of the captains in charge of the outfit. Drake's senior." There was no response from Cleveland. Having finally cleaned the metal parts to his satisfaction he began reassembling the Tommy gun. He took his time, but Rose knew he could beat any man in the outfit blindfolded. "You're to keep an eye on things, Sergeant," she said. Cleveland nodded. "You don't have to worry, Major. I won't let them foul things up too badly." "I'm expecting us to be sent east pretty shortly. I want this outfit kept battle ready so we can move out when I get back." "I understand," said Cleveland. Captain Drake had the makings of a good officer in him but no one had their finger on the outfit's pulse like Sergeant Cleveland. The sergeant and she had butted heads a year ago when she had become his commander. Taking orders from a woman didn't come naturally to him, and like most people at that time he had assumed she was more of a showgirl than a combat leader. After seeing her in action though he had changed his mind and from then on she couldn't have asked for a more loyal or resourceful subordinate. She knew the outfit would be in good hands with him watching out for it. "Don't start without me," she said, getting up. "I don't want to come back and find out I missed all the fun." Cleveland grinned as he examined his gun. "The men want to get this over with and get home. But I'll make sure they leave a few krauts just for you, Major." "So long, Sergeant," she said. She turned to leave. She had a full afternoon ahead of her going over things with Drake. "We'll be here when you get back," said Cleveland as she walked off. * * * * Late in the evening Sanders reported to Victory Rose's office. She grabbed him by the arm and hustled him out to a waiting jeep. He had thought of offering to take the bag she swung in her other hand but hesitated too long and she tossed it in the back. A second later she was in the driver's seat and he had just time enough to jump in beside her before they roared off. He hung on for dear life. His sedate career back in London hadn't prepared him for driving like this. Sanders couldn't help but admire the confidence with which she handled the jeep. Somehow she was able to guide the vehicle at top speed even through the blacked-out darkness. Actually, he was grateful for the distraction provided by her wild driving. This close to the major it was impossible for him not to be aware of her as a woman although he knew that such thoughts were the gateway to disaster. An American major was hardly likely to be flattered by his attention. In a few minutes they skidded to a halt by the wharf where a boat waited to take them out to the submarine. Sanders exchanged a few quiet words with the seaman in command and then they both clambered down into the little craft. The boat was pushed off and rowed stealthily out toward the open water. There was no sound but the grunts of the sailors as they bent to the oars and the clunk and rattle of the oarlocks. Rose kept her eyes peeled ahead and was rewarded with a glimpse of something poking above the water's surface -- a thin dark shape in the moonlight. "I think we're there," she said. As if in answer there was a sudden bubbling and roiling and almost at once a massive steel tower rose where she had spotted the periscope. In seconds the submarine had surfaced and floated, black and gleaming in the moonlight, just a few yards off. A rope was tossed out and the boat pulled to the sub's side. "Welcome aboard, Major," said a deep voice from the darkness. "Please step this way and when you next see daylight you'll be in England." -------- *CHAPTER III* Deep underground, lamplight flickered on cracked stone walls. While up above men crouched behind their guns in terror of the enemy and the gathering cold, down in the cellars the air was cool but comparatively comfortable. In a small circle of light stood a group of men, a mixture of German officers and white-coated technicians. Barely visible, long lines of oblong boxes were stacked against the walls, disappearing into the shadowy distance. The foremost among the officers was a general proud and stern who wore the knight's cross at his throat. While his carriage was ramrod straight, as befitted a military officer, his eyes betrayed him. They were dull, with the tired weary gaze of a man who perceives the enormity of the task before him and knows he is overmatched. He looked about the mammoth cellar room and his companions saw that he was at a loss to express his feelings. "Seven hundred and fifty tons of supplies a day we require to hold this pocket -- ammunition, fuel, food, medical supplies. And the Fuehrer sends us ... sends us..." At his side stood a smaller man, hunched, his greasy hair plastered over his domelike skull. Behind thick glasses his eyes glittered with an unholy energy. His moist pale hands continually rubbed over one other, as he stood among the military officers. He emitted a soft, knowing chuckle. "Why General von Paulus," he said, "do you question the Fuehrer's judgment?' The commander of Sixth Army, Friedrich von Paulus, glared at the repulsive man who had flown in just days earlier. After a brief moment the fire in his eyes subsided. "I'm a soldier," he said quietly. "A soldier's policy is obedience." "You will not regret your faith in the Fuehrer's wisdom," answered the man. "What you see before you is a true wonder weapon -- a weapon that will clear the way for our victorious armies as they march across Asia. You should be honored that the Fuehrer has selected your pocket as the testing ground." Paulus stood silently a moment before he answered. It seemed that he was searching his soul to find his true feelings and came up wanting. "Doktor Schadel," he said, "I have seen your men in action and since I do not understand the nature of their training I choose to reserve my comments to myself. For now I can only say that Supreme Commander sees the whole situation more clearly than do I, and I will yield to his judgment." The man addressed as Doktor Schadel grinned toothily and began to speak but before he could another voice rang out from among the officers. "Some may choose to ignore the evil we see before us but I, for one, can no longer do so! General, as a man of decency, a man of culture, you simply cannot allow this horror to be unleashed. Pack this room with high explosive and blow it to kingdom come! March that..." the speaker indicated Doktor Schadel, "_creature_ up to the surface and let the Ivans put a bullet through his monstrous brain!" The author of the outburst, a lowly lieutenant, stood alone. His companions had discretely moved away and now stood watching, their attention flickering between him and their commander as they waited to see the outcome of the confrontation. Now the lieutenant glanced around and when he saw how things stood he pulled himself straighter and resolutely faced Paulus. Schadel he ignored. Paulus wasted no time rebuking his subordinate. "Lieutenant, you may consider yourself on report. Return to headquarters now and attend to your duties." His eyes flickered over the other officers. "I will not stand for defeatist talk. Any further such occurrences will result in the speaker being instantly transferred from my staff to a front line position." The officers stood absolutely still. Whatever feelings they might have held about the Doktor, none of them were foolhardy enough to risk their relative safety by shooting off their mouths the way this junior officer had. They knew which side of their bread held the butter. The lieutenant stalked off and the sound of his retreating footsteps floated back down the stairwell. "Well done, General," said Doktor Schadel. The general didn't bother to reply. He didn't feel any better about the situation than had the lieutenant, and to tell the truth he held some admiration for the man's courage. But his personal opinions had ceased to matter when he had donned the uniform of an army commander. His subordinates too must understand that their individual ideas of morality must be set aside in favor of the greater goal. Doktor Schadel didn't give Paulus time to lose himself in thought. Already he was tugging the general forward, chattering incessantly and gesturing toward the lines of wooden crates. Paulus looked down with disgust at the fishy white hand clutching his sleeve but he allowed himself to be drawn on. The doktor led him through the half light to a table laden with rows of strangely shaped helmets. When he turned on a lamp Paulus could see they were indeed regulation German army headwear, but modified with a black box about the size of a small cake tin attached to the top. Schadel unscrewed the lid to reveal the box's inner workings but to the general it was nothing more than a clutter of wires and tiny vacuum tubes. When Schadel turned the helmet upside down however, and exposed the inside, Paulus gaped for a second in surprise. He reached in and tested with his fingertips whether his eyesight had been mistaken. But no, his vision had not lied. Inside the helmet an arrangement of six two-inch-long metal spikes projected downward from the top. He turned his attention to Schadel. "But Herr Doktor, how is one to wear this? Why, those spikes would be driven right into a man's brain!" Schadel's pale face split in a smile. "The general misses nothing, I see. Of course a normal man could not wear such a thing, much less fight as you have seen my soldiers do!" Paulus was growing restless. Ever since he had first met this character his dislike had grown. It was all he could do to endure Schadel's presence so close to him. The doktor looked as if he spent too much time in dark cool places like this and he reeked of chemicals and ... death. Schadel and Paulus stepped away from the table and crossed the concrete floor to face one of the wooden boxes. "And now, Herr General," Schadel crooned, "you will see a demonstration of my genius -- the final result of all my years of solitary toil." At a gesture from the doktor two assistants leaped to the box and attacked the lid with crowbars. The nailed boards came free with piercing screeches and were tossed aside. After a moment the case was open and the men set aside the iron pry bars to pull out wads of straw packing. When they stood aside Paulus could see what the box held -- the emaciated corpse of a man, clad in a one piece black jumpsuit. There was no doubt the man was dead. The body was completely inanimate, one glassy eye open and staring off into space, the other shut. The grey waxy skin hung loosely on the bony frame. Schadel looked expectantly from Paulus to the other officers. If he hoped for a reaction he was disappointed. All of the men had seen so many bodies over the last few years in so many states of decomposition and destruction that one more scarcely made an impression. Paulus shrugged and glanced toward the multitude of boxes that lined the walls. "If you've come here to establish a morgue I can assure you there is no need to import bodies. Unlike the supplies I have requested over and over, that is something we have here in abundance." One of the officers chimed in too. "It's a regular production line out there. How many do you want? What kind? Russian? German?" The man fell silent as Paulus leveled a withering glare on him, then turned back to Schadel. "My officer is right, Herr Doktor. If you have come here to perform some sort of anatomical experiments you should pack up and leave now. The military situation here is ... fluid. Naturally I and the Sixth Army are absolutely dedicated to defending and holding this pocket until events permit another German offensive to relieve us. I must warn you though that the Russians can pop up like rats anywhere, anytime. There is no guarantee that we can protect civilians in this zone." Doktor Schadel laughed out loud, much to Paulus's consternation. When he had regained control of himself he apologized and explained, "You see, General, I am here to protect you!" One of the assistants grasped the corpse by the neck and pulled its head slightly out of the box. It sagged limply in his hands and he had to hold it straight. Schadel handed the helmet, which he had brought with him, to the other assistant. The man stepped up to the corpse, placed the helmet on its head, and shoved it down hard. There was a sickening crunch as the spikes broke through its skull. The men eased the body back into the box and stood aside. Schadel looked at Paulus. "Do you see now?" he asked. Paulus cleared his throat. The expression on his face clearly showed his disgust at the process. "I am afraid, Herr Doktor, and I do believe I can speak for my men as well, that this sort of desecration holds no appeal for any of us. If you will excuse us we have work to do." He turned to leave but Schadel grabbed his arm. "What? You dare...?" Paulus raised his hand to strike the little doktor. "Wait! You must wait!" insisted Schadel. "I'm not finished. Watch!" One of the assistants stepped forward with a large hypodermic needle. With a smooth, practiced movement he jabbed it into the neck of the corpse and pressed the plunger. In the meantime Schadel had moved to an instrument panel and began adjusting a set of dials. When the readings on the various meters were satisfactory he nodded and the assistants hauled the body out of its crate. It hung between them like a sack of bones. Paulus shook his head. "Doktor, this is ... foul." "Wait," said Schadel once again. "Just one more second." The instrument panel was humming loudly now and the doktor gave one dial a final twist. A shudder ran through the corpse. Paulus and the officers flinched at the sight but the general quickly recovered his composure. "A jolt of electricity through a dead frog will cause its legs to twitch," he said. "I do not wish to watch the body of a man subjected to such treatment. Good day, Doktor." "No!" shrieked Doktor Schadel. "I insist that you see this!" He twisted another dial. "Now watch..." The corpse's feet shuffled against the floor. The legs moved shakily, but with purpose. Suddenly this had become more than a sick experiment. The dead body was showing actual signs of intent. Although its movements were clumsy, it found its center of balance and the assistants stepped away. The body stood on its own. Now Schadel's hands flew over the controls, his fingers as nimble as those of a concert pianist. The corpse responded. It stepped forward. "_Mein Gott_!" breathed General Paulus. The other officers uttered similar oaths. The corpse continued walking forward, closing the space between it and the general. "Try to kill it," said Schadel. "I challenge you to stop it." Paulus drew his sidearm and fired. The bullet hit the body's midsection with an audible smack. The corpse swayed with the impact but continued walking, unaffected. Paulus fired again, then again and again. Bullet after bullet crashed into it to no effect and the general backed away while Schadel laughed like a madman at his control panel. Now the other officers pulled out their guns and blazed away. The cellar's stone walls rang to the sound of gunfire as the corpse was caught in a hail of lead. Chunks of dead flesh were blown away and its face was a ruin but it walked on. "Are you convinced now?" asked Doktor Schadel. By now all the guns were empty and the officers were retreating before the shambling, mangled figure. "Are you convinced?" "Good lord, man," shouted Paulus. "Call it off!" "Please!" begged the officers. The corpse took another step. General Paulus and his men, in their shock and surprise, had allowed themselves to be backed into a corner. The knot of terrified officers pressed themselves against the wall as the body came nearer. Paulus shoved his men behind him and stood between them and the unnatural horror that stalked them. As the distance from the dead to the living shrank to a mere few inches he shot a terrified look toward Schadel. "It's brilliant," he said. Instantly the doctor switched off his machine and the hum wound down. In mid-step the corpse collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. The heavy steel helmet hit the concrete floor with a _thunk_. For several minutes the officers simply stood in their sweat-soaked uniforms, gaping at the lifeless thing that sprawled at their feet. But Paulus's skepticism was not completely allayed. "It's a fine thing to create a little unit for suicide missions where living soldiers couldn't succeed. But is it possible to produce enough whole corpses to be militarily significant? Why, it would require tens of thousands..." He stopped as Schadel laughed out loud and long. When he could speak again he said, "General, you surprise me! You know as well as I do that if there is one thing at which Nazi Germany excels it is the production of corpses. Tens of thousands? I will give you millions!" "But how..." stammered Paulus. "Camps," said the Doktor, looking each of the officers straight in the eye. "_Konzentrazionlager_. Don't play the innocent with me, gentlemen. Every one of you knows what I'm talking about." Paulus threw up his hand for silence. "Enough!" he cried. "Your methods are none of my concern. I have my orders to hold this city and nothing else matters. I will hear no more!" "Amazing, isn't it? A limitless source of divisions at our command. Endless supplies of soldiers," said Doktor Schadel. "And this was just one of them." He gestured toward the rows of boxes that lined the room. "Here, gentlemen, you see the unstoppable army that will guarantee your defense of Stalingrad!" -------- *CHAPTER IV* This was not Victory Rose's first ride in a submarine but it was her longest yet and she would have been satisfied to make it her last. There was nothing like spending five days crammed in a steel tube with fifty men to make her appreciate the wide open desert air of Morocco. Over those few days her thoughts often wandered back to her encampment outside Casablanca and she imagined her men making themselves ready to face Rommel's forces somewhere in North Africa. Whatever this new assignment was, she had to complete it and get back before her unit could be broken up and absorbed into the greater army. To the men on the boat, having Victory Rose aboard was almost as good as playing host to a movie star. Every one of them had read the exploits of the famous American Nazi fighter and to have her at close quarters now was something none of them had ever expected. She found herself the focal point of many covert stares, though few of the men were bold enough to actually speak to her. The captain himself, on inviting her aboard, had offered her the use of his own cabin. Though his space amounted to little more than a closet, Rose genuinely appreciated the gesture. He had given her the only spot of privacy on the boat. The second day out Sanders brought a mug of tea joined her in the galley. "Major, I daresay you're a bit of a distraction to the crew." Victory Rose shot him a disgusted look and concentrated on her magazine. "Those sea-wolves better put their eyes back in their heads and concentrate on business or some lucky U-boat's going to put a fish in our belly." Sanders chuckled softly and sipped from his mug. "Cheer up, Major. This new mission might prove not to be a total waste of your time." "You know something," said Rose. "What's the scoop, Sanders?" Her magazine landed on the tabletop, forgotten now as she directed her full attention toward the British officer. "I'm sorry Major," he said with a sigh. His eyes roamed about the close quarters where men were continually squeezing past as their duties took them from one end of the boat to another. "I'm not at liberty to say. But trust me. I think you'll find this mission interesting, to say the least." "In-ter-esting..." said Rose. "Well, that sounds promising." Sanders flashed her a mysterious smile. And so the days passed aboard the submarine. During the nights they traveled on the surface and at times Victory Rose was able to climb up to the conning tower and let her gaze roam over the vastness of the heaving black sea. Those moments were both a pleasure and a torment for her since after an hour of breathing fresh open air she would have to return to the fetid combination of diesel fumes and packed humanity inside the submarine. Otherwise, there was little for Rose to do but sit in the cramped galley and read whatever the submarine crew had brought with them from England. Since they had already been at sea for three weeks none of the newspapers or magazines were up to date. After going through these she commandeered a stack of adventure story magazines and used them to while away the time. At last the time came when they arrived off the southern coast of England and she could leave the boat for good. They waited until dark to surface and then after farewells to the crew and a final thanks to the captain for a swift and safe voyage, Victory Rose and Sanders stepped down into a rubber dinghy and rowed for land. They stopped at a pub before taking the night train up to London. There, in a quiet booth with a pint of ale under his belt, Sanders loosened up a just bit. He spoke in a low voice: "It's a scientific breakthrough -- something that could enable the Jerries to hold off the Russian army while they build up their defenses in the west." Victory Rose was intrigued. She had an idea of the vast resources the Soviets could call upon, given enough time, and she dreaded the idea of another German blitzkrieg that might set that process back. "Some kind of new gun? Rocketry?" But despite her questions Sanders would say nothing more than, "You simply won't believe it." After a time she gave up and they left for the train station where they boarded in silence. The ride lasted several hours and both Rose and Sanders used the time to grab a little sleep. It was just before noon when they rolled into Victoria Station in London. They pushed their way through a wartime crowd of soldiers taking leave of their loved ones. Officers and enlisted men, British and Americans jostled and mingled on the loading platforms. It seemed everyone in England was in uniform. The entire nation had become one vast armed camp dedicated to the downfall of the Third Reich. "Look at those boys," said Sanders, who was scarcely older than most of them. "If Hitler could just see what's coming for him he'd call off this whole mess." Victory Rose, who had seen veteran SS troopers up close, surveyed the fresh-faced youngsters in the swirling crowd and wondered if any of these brand new soldiers knew what was waiting for _them_. Though she had no doubt of the war's final outcome she feared that many of the men around here wouldn't be around to see it. She turned to Sanders, who seemed lost in his admiration of the Allied soldiery. Would he be around for the end? Sanders had called ahead and a military automobile was waiting to take them to their final destination. The driver, a courteous young private, held the door as they entered the vehicle and then jumped behind the wheel. In a moment they were off, winding their way through the city's streets. Victory Rose looked about her at wartime London, the first time she had seen it since leaving for North Africa. Sadly, she saw there were more bomb-shattered ruins, more sandbagged buildings, more displaced citizens living in temporary shelter. The city had suffered under the German onslaught, but she could see that life was still going on. They made their way quickly through the city, the wartime traffic being comparatively light, and soon were speeding north through open countryside. Other than bicycles and a couple of horse-drawn carts the only vehicles they encountered now were olive drab military trucks and jeeps. More than once they passed huge convoys carrying men or equipment to some strategic location. A massive build-up was going on and Sanders had been right. If Hitler could see what was coming for him he would do well to surrender now before Germany was totally destroyed. At last they pulled into a long graveled drive flanked by yew trees that led them back to a country manor. The old house reminded Rose of something out of a movie -- a lovely example of ivy-covered brickwork topped by a half-timbered upper story. With its leaded glass windows and slate roof it was something out of another age. The front door opened and a uniformed officer waited until they had left the car to usher them in. Inside, Victory Rose and Sanders were led down a long hall to a door where the officer rapped smartly. The door opened a crack and once identities had been confirmed they were allowed to enter a large room where a group of men waited. Rose looked around. There was a cluster of American and British officers present. Among them she recognized General Wingate, who introduced her to the others. Thankfully, he refrained from addressing her as "Vickie," one of his more annoying habits when there was no one else around. "And over here," he gestured toward three men who stood in a corner by themselves. These men wore uniforms that were neither American nor British. "Over here are three of our Russian allies who are the reason you have been summoned here today." Rose looked them over. One of them was a young private, a big peasant boy who looked as if he'd just left the collective. This was clearly his first trip to the west and Rose was sure he had never dreamed of leaving the Soviet Union to see the outside world. He must have some direct bearing on the case for there was no other reason for bringing him all this way, far from the fighting. The second was a colonel, probably some staff officer assigned to shepherd the boy along. He looked competent but no more than that. Rose paid him little mind. The third was the inevitable Communist political officer. Could any Russian travel without one of these birds looking over his shoulder? She eyed him belligerently. He was short and his ample proportions indicated that he suffered few of the privations the average citizen endured. He seemed oblivious to Rose's glare however, and answered it with a belligerent tilt of his chin. "This young man," continued Wingate, "has a story to tell. And you'll want to listen carefully to it, Major, for you'll be going east to check it out yourself. This is Private Yuri Lenzky of the Russian Army." He nodded to the peasant boy, who looked at his officer, who looked at the political hack, who nodded back to the officer, who nodded back to the boy, who began to speak in his native language. Although Rose was fluent in Russian the speech had to be translated for the benefit of the other men present. This was a task the political officer took upon himself and Rose listened carefully to make sure the western officers heard the same story the boy was telling. For the moment she gave no indication that she could understand him. As the story was getting under way though, another speaker broke in. It was Sanders, his usually mild voice now harsh and vicious. Rose looked around and saw that he had backed away from the group and now covered them with his drawn pistol. "Hand over your guns, please," said the captain. "I promise you I'll shoot the first man who resists." He glanced at Victory Rose. "I include you in that, you American amazon. Everyone place your pistols on the floor and kick them over here." The Russians jabbered among themselves for a moment before accepting the situation. Their angry looks were directed more toward their western counterparts than toward Sanders as they unholstered their sidearms and complied with the demand. Even Victory Rose slid her big army .45 over to Sanders, her furious eyes never leaving his. "Thank you," said Sanders as he picked up another of the guns off the floor. He now had enough firepower in his hands to murder everyone in the room. "My masters in Berlin have decided this is a story that need not be told. Therefore, I have been assigned to see that it does not leave this room." "You'll never get away with this!" said Wingate. "This house is full of armed men..." "Shut up, General," said Sanders. "I am quite well aware of the situation, thank you. It is a pity that I will never leave this place alive, but I knew full well this day might come when I sold my allegiance to the Reich. Regrettable, yes, but no one lives forever ... as you are about to learn!" Sanders raised his gun and took careful aim at the Russian soldier. -------- *CHAPTER V* The scene held, frozen -- the British and American officers off to one side, gaping in astonishment; the Russians looking shocked and angry; and in the center of the room Victory Rose glaring belligerently at the pistol-wielding Sanders. Tension crackled through the room like lightning. Rose's intent was visible in the coiling of her muscles, the snap of her eyes. Sanders forestalled her. "Now, now," he said, "no sudden moves, if you please. My immediate business is with the young Russian lad, but I can move you up in the queue if you prefer." Rose remained still, her body a perfect image of power under restraint. "What's the meaning of this?" barked one of the Brits. "Captain, I'll have you up on charges for this!" Sanders's laugh was bitter. "Pardon the vernacular, Major, but shut your gob," he hissed. "I've taken enough of your orders, you pompous fool. If I had my druthers you'd be the first one I'd put a bullet into. However, I have a job to do..." By now the Russians were shouting in their own language and the rest of the officers were all talking at once. Despite his possession of overwhelming firepower, Sanders was about to lose control of the situation if he didn't act fast. Surely the guards just outside the door were only seconds from bursting in to investigate the disturbance. The captain's narrow eyes focused on the Russian private as he squeezed the trigger of his pistol. But Victory Rose had seen the tightening of his muscles around the pistol grip and even as he pulled the trigger she became a blur of motion. Her hand swept down and slammed against his gun hand. The gun roared but the bullet went wide and buried itself harmlessly in the wall. Before anyone realized what had happened her fist exploded against Sanders's jaw with stunning force. The captain spun across the room and crashed to the floor. Without a pause, Rose leaped, but even her speed wasn't enough to stop Sanders from raising the other gun to his head. The thunder of her boots hitting the floor on either side of him was nearly drowned out by the crack of another shot. Rose tore the gun away from his hand and tossed it away. "Sanders, you dirty ... Don't you dare die on me!" she shouted as she gripped his shoulders. But it was too late. The lifeless body sagged from her fists. The head flopped backward, a trickle of blood running from one temple. Suddenly the door burst open and two burly guards forced their way in. They stopped short when they saw Victory Rose bending over a bloody corpse. She spared them a glance and said, "You're a little late, boys," before turning her attention back to Sanders. "What on earth are you doing?" asked one of the British officers as she began running her fingers through the body's rumpled hair. It was a messy job after the man had just shot himself in the head. General Wingate spoke up when she didn't bother answering. "She's looking for a mark." "What?" said the officer. "What do you mean?" "A mark," said Wingate. "A tattoo. A mushroom tattoo." "The Poison Mushrooms," said Victory Rose. "So called because they can pop up anywhere. They started in Japan back in the '30s to help hold down their conquered territories in Asia, but it didn't take Schickelgruber long to copy the 'honorary Aryans' once he came to power." General Wingate continued the explanation. "The Axis's worldwide spy network. Marked with a mushroom tattoo, generally on the scalp where it's hidden by hair. Once they've taken that mark they're in it to the death. There's no turning back for those rats." "Saboteurs, assassins. We're aware that they're active here," said another of the British, "but in our own army..." By now the Russian Colonel was also bending over the corpse and intently watching Victory Rose rummaging through the hair. He seemed to know what she was looking for even if he hadn't understood the conversation. No doubt the Poison Mushrooms were even more active in his homeland than they were in England. His eyes widened and met hers as she pulled aside a lock of hair and they nodded tersely to one another. There, marked indelibly on Sanders's scalp, was a tiny black mushroom. Rose looked up at the guards. "Get this body out of here. Search him. Search his office, his living quarters. I don't think you'll find anything but try anyway. You never know, he might have been careless." She wiped her bloody fingers on the dead man's jacket and stood up. She had faced his fellow agents before back in the States and it didn't reassure her to find one of the Poison Mushrooms operating right under the noses of the Allied military. "Right away, Major," said the soldier. He made sure he took hold of the corpse's feet while his unlucky partner got the messy end and they hauled it out of the room. Rose faced the Russians and spoke in their tongue. "Alright, tell me what you've got. Looks like it's important." The young private started to speak up but was cut short by his political supervisor. 'This is an outrage! We came here to share our information in a spirit of comradely fellowship and find ourselves the target of attacks by reactionary forces right here..." "Alright, alright, you said your piece," said Rose. She rolled her eyes toward the Colonel. "Neither one of you looks to me like you need a babysitter. What say we get down to business, okay?" Extreme caution warred with amusement on the faces of both the private and the colonel while the political officer spluttered in fury. Wingate broke into a coughing fit that sounded curiously like laughter while the other officers gaped at the American major's audacity. The Russian colonel set his hand on his minder's shoulder and spoke reassuringly. "Our allies are as shocked as we are by what happened here. Let's not mistake the American woman's eagerness to stand beside us against this danger for rudeness." Little by little the guardian of Communist doctrine allowed himself to be mollified while Rose waited as patiently as she was able. This sort of diplomatic mollycoddling held no interest for her but she gritted her teeth and acted polite. At last the Russians were able to take up the business for which they had undertaken their dangerous voyage to England. "I am Colonel Botcharski," said the officer, "and you have already been introduced to Private Lenzky. We are aware that what we have come here to tell you about is almost impossible to believe and that is why I have brought the only living witness to this horror to describe it in his own words." He turned to the young man. "Make your report, Private!" Lenzky, pale and husky, looking scarcely old enough to shave, stepped forward and saluted. He shuffled a little uncertainly and finally stammered, "I am fortunate to meet at last the famous American heroine, Victory Rose." The political officer grunted. "You needn't fawn over her, Private. We have many fine Soviet women serving in the Red Army. Simply because most Capitalist women choose to stay home and..." Colonel Botcharski cleared his throat. "Time is short, Major Zelkov. Even now our valiant soldiers are facing a danger against which they have no defense. Continue, Private." Lenzky darted a quick look at the political minder and resumed speaking. "We faced them at night, fighting in the ruins of a factory building. They came out of the darkness, wearing black uniforms, carrying axes, clubs, or simply fighting with their bare hands." He stopped, and seeing the look on Victory Rose's face he knew what she was thinking. "Yes Major, we shot them! Poured enough lead into them to wipe out a battalion of men." "So they wore bulletproof vests," she said, "or some kind of armor. Still, a squad of unarmed men against guns..." She was plainly skeptical. "Major," said Lenzky, "how can you kill what is already dead?" Rose looked from the private to Colonel Botcharski, who simply nodded. "You did say 'dead,' didn't you?" "Yes!" said the private. "If you could have seen how they moved ... smelled them..." "It's a hoax of some kind," said Rose. "Psychological warfare. There's no such thing as zombies. This sounds like something out of Hollywood." "You see?" said the political officer. "Arrogant, privileged. To doubt the word of a..." Now the colonel spoke up. "I swear to you it is true, Major. They have the means to reanimate dead bodies, and we have proof to show you. Private!" Lenzky strode over to a table that held a wooden box from which he drew forth a battered German helmet. He returned and handed it to his commander, who held it out for Rose's inspection. The British and American officers crowded in close to see what the Russians had brought. "Interesting decoration on top..." Her gaze fell upon the metal box fixed to the helmet's crown. "What's it for?" While Colonel Botcharski held the headpiece Lenzky opened the top of the box to reveal the wires and tiny vacuum tubes within. "Some sort of radio set?" said one of the Americans. "Deucedly clever of those Jerries," remarked a British officer. "Imagine the possibilities that sort of communication could open up." But even Victory Rose could tell at a glance that it was no radio. "I don't understand," she said. "What is it?" "It's a control device," said the colonel, "Or so we believe. One of the dead German fighters must have lost it during the fight, but the body was dragged away. We searched the next morning but this is all we found." "But how does it work?" asked Rose. Botcharski flipped the helmet over to reveal the inside. There were various exclamations from the officers as they saw the six metal spikes that projected downward into the interior of the helmet. "Looks like some kind of Nazi execution device," said General Wingate. "No," said Victory Rose. "These are some kind of electrical connections. They carry the signal from the box directly into the brain of ... of..." She looked at the colonel. "This is correct," he said. "And yet, although we have tested it repeatedly we haven't yet figured out how it works." "Tested it?" said Rose. "Of course," said the Russian, who smiled at the shocked looks on the westerners' faces. "On the _Russian_ front there is no shortage of dead bodies to work with. We have discovered the wavelength on which the device operates, but so far there is some element we haven't yet figured out. So far we have achieved nothing more than a few twitches from the freshest subjects." Rose took the helmet and looked it over carefully. "Well," she said, "I believe I'd like to go have a closer look at these zombie killers of yours." -------- *CHAPTER VI* Ten days later a gasping locomotive rumbled into Moscow's gigantic central station. No sooner had the ancient engine shuddered to a halt than a riot of shoving broke out both inside and outside the Spartan carriages as soldiers heading for the front battled the tide of disembarking passengers for the least uncomfortable spots on board. Victory Rose stepped off the train and into the boiling mass of humanity that would have trampled most westerners, unaccustomed to such chaos. Tough as she was, she couldn't resist rubbing her backside, which was completely numb after days of sitting on a wooden bench. Every bump in the track seemed to have traveled up through wheels, floor and seat and been aimed directly at her. Rose's three companions, Private Lenzky, Colonel Botcharski, and Major Zelkov seemed unaffected by the rigors of the journey. For them, the unheated carriage had undoubtedly been much less grueling than the boxcars that seemed to carry most of the Soviets. Making liberal use of their elbows, the four fought their way out of the grimy station and into the open air where the first pink streaks of dawn were just appearing in the east. A monstrous old caricature of a limousine awaited them at the curb. Before they got into the car Rose had a good look around. London had been a city at war, where the citizens endured bombing and privations with more or less good cheer and a sense of purpose. Moscow was something else entirely. The Soviet capital didn't endure the war, it was the war, as everything in Russia was the war. Here there was no friendly jostling with allied forces who were "over paid, over sexed, and over here." The Russians had no doubt that they were on their own, facing the full, sledgehammer fury of the Nazi armies alone while the west took its time preparing to open the second front in Europe. What Victory Rose saw in the brief moment before entering the closed car made the cities back home look carefree in comparison. Lenzky got in front with the driver while Victory Rose was crammed into the back seat between Botcharski and Zelkov. The door slammed shut and the view was obliterated by the heavily tinted windows. They rode through the city in semi-darkness for nearly an hour, crawling through wartime military traffic despite the flags that marked them as a priority vehicle. All the men produced _papirossa_, foul cigarettes made of some ersatz tobacco-like material and soon the car was filled with a thick blue haze. Although the air on board the train carriage had been almost as bad, Rose still hadn't gotten used to the task of breathing this mixture of fumes. As they drove through the city, she reflected on the journey that had carried her thousands of miles, a voyage aboard a swiftly moving supply ship that braved the constant threat of U-boats to carry war materiel for the Red Army around Scandinavia's northern cape to Archangel, Russia's port on the icy White Sea; then a series of trains making their slow and winding way south toward Moscow, the central transportation hub of the Soviet Union. Along that way she had seen impenetrable forests covered in snow, endless icy steppes, squalid towns and vast crowds of uniformed soldiers making their way toward the front. Now she had one more leg of the journey to make, south to a tiny pocket of hell on the Volga River -- Stalingrad. Before she could proceed though, Botcharski had one more thing to show her. * * * * In a sub-basement, deep beneath the Kremlin, a curtain was drawn aside to reveal a tiny barred cell. Victory Rose felt that she truly understood now what it was to be trapped. They were many levels down now and had gone through five checkpoints to reach this place. Any prisoner who was brought down here had to know he would never see the light of day again. It seemed that the entire mass of Moscow pressed down upon her head. Within the cell, propped upright and strapped tightly to a board, was a mangled, emaciated corpse. The naked grey flesh hung slackly, preserved by the cool air. On the corpse's head was a black helmet. "You see," said Colonel Botcharski. "Here is the proof of what we told you." Victory Rose looked at the broken body and didn't know what to think. Finally she said, "You didn't tell us you actually had one of them in your possession." Zelkov snorted. "And do the capitalists tell us everything? No, they do not. We have learned that we must be very careful in our dealings with the west." Rose didn't reply. She had learned that the argument was endless and pointless. Instead, she observed, "It looks like any other dead body to me." "Watch this," said Botcharski. He stepped to an electrical panel -- a monstrosity of wires and lighted dials that had obviously been cobbled together from whatever odds and ends were near to hand. Two thick cables ran from the panel to the corpse's helmet. The colonel threw some switches and the cellar room was filled with an electric hum. "Look!" he said. To Rose's astonishment, the body began to twitch, almost as if it was struggling against the bonds that held it to the board. It was a horrible sight and neither Victory Rose nor the Russians were unaffected by it. "Can it ... walk?" she asked. "No," answered Botcharski. "The body is too badly damaged to do more than flail about. Even if it wasn't, we have yet to learn how to do more than simply stimulate the muscles." "I see you're not taking any chances with it, though," said Victory Rose, nodding toward the steel barrier that confined the thing. "Haven't you tried this with any other subjects?" "Of course we have," said Colonel Botcharski. "There has been no shortage of material to work with, but it appears that there is more to the process than just the helmet. What that may be we do not know, but we have been unable to achieve any results whatsoever with any subject, only this one zombie we captured from the Germans." Rose nodded. "So there's more to it than just the helmet." "Yes," he answered, "some other agent we have yet to discover, that acts as the catalyst. The helmet is only a means of directing the reanimated energy." "But is it truly alive?" she asked. She stared at the wiggling thing in fascination. Its movements were simply the random jerkings of muscle tissue stimulated by electricity ... and yet... And yet... She leaned closer, pressed against the iron bars of the cell. Those eyes ... so flat ... collapsed like little fallen cakes without the internal pressure of blood pulsing through them ... in those eyes she saw ... something. And suddenly Rose knew that deep inside that artificially animated brain there flickered a spark. "My God," she whispered, "it knows." "Hmm?" said Botcharski. Victory Rose turned to glare at him. "It's aware -- aware of itself, somehow. I mean, there's no telling how much it's remembering ... or how much ... but it knows that it is ... or was ... a living man. I can see it! It knows it's being manipulated." Zelkov gave the thing a closer look and then shrugged. "Then it can take pride in knowing that its sufferings are now dedicated to the glorious victory of the Soviet people over the reactionary forces of fascism." She whirled to face the political officer. "Turn that thing off," she said. "Let it die in peace. There's nothing more you can learn from it." She turned back to the Russian colonel. "Please, turn it off." Colonel Botcharski turned a switch and the electric hum died down. Instantly the corpse went limp, hanging from the straps that bound it like any other slab of cold meat. All the horrible, artificial life had drained from it as soon as the electric currents had ceased to course through its brain. "Okay," said Rose, weakly. "I guess I believe you." She felt sick to her stomach. The others could see she was ill and hastened to draw the curtain closed again, to mask the hideous sight of the again-dead body from sight. She continued to stare until Botcharski placed a fatherly hand on her shoulder. While he stood by her, waiting for her to gather herself, his attention was fixed on the control panel. When the light blinked once he said, "Come, young one. It is time for us to travel south. The German Sixth Army and their hellish allies await us." "Yes," she said. "The time has come to stop those Nazi thugs and start rolling them back. When can we get moving?" "There is a troop train waiting for us now," said Botcharski. "We leave immediately." Victory Rose and the Russians turned away from the veiled cell with its grisly occupant and started back up to the surface. Behind them an iron door slammed shut and the room was plunged in darkness. -------- *CHAPTER VII* "Out! Out! Out! Move, you filthy..." The Russian tirades continued in a torrent of abuse up and down the train as boxcar doors slammed open and bewildered soldiers jumped out to join a rough formation on the siding. All along the tracks sergeants with heavy truncheons were clubbing the men into line, trying to impose some sort of rough order on chaos. These troops, freshly arrived at Krasnaya Sloboda, stood stamping their feet in the cold night, breathing in the fog that rolled in off the mighty Volga River. There, across the broad expanse of water, awaited the cauldron of fire into which they all must plunge ... and only the fast and the lucky would emerge whole. Victory Rose pulled away the cardboard covering her window and peered from the coach she shared with dozens of other officers on their way to the doomed pocket. Immediately outside her car the darkness was pierced by the sharp fitful beams of powerful flashlights swung about by the noncoms who were forming up the men. Here and there were revealed pale frightened faces, work-hardened hands pressed against thighs as they assumed the position of attention, hunched shoulders in bulky greatcoats that strained under the weight of burdens too heavy. "Kids," she thought, "fresh from the farm, the factory floor. Untrained, illiterate. Some of them didn't even have guns. How many of them even knew where they were? How many of them would live long enough to find out?" Farther off, on the other side of the river, flares rose to cast their pitiless light over a ruined city. They hung in the air, points of hissing light in the black sky, until they dropped to the river below. From time to time red lines of tracer blazed out over the water's surface as some gunner fired at a half-imagined target. Somewhere nearby a loudspeaker began to blare. In the scratchy German, Rose heard words like "annihilation..." and "encirclement." She wondered if the message actually carried across the river. It didn't matter. Over there in the darkness were men who already knew they were trapped. They had eyes to see and ears to hear and they knew their lives could be measured now in weeks ... days ... hours. In case any of them forgot, a fearful drumroll of artillery shells thundered down somewhere in the city. The barrage lasted only a few seconds. A minor harassment. "Shall we?" It was Colonel Botcharski's voice. Rose looked around. The car was empty. The colonel stood by the door, waiting for her. She grabbed her duffle bag and in two strides she had joined him. Outside, Zelkov waited impatiently. "Come, come," he insisted. "In Russia there is no time for standing around sight-seeing. Here we have war!" He hurried off into the darkness. Rose and Botcharski walked along side by side, their boots crunching in the cinders. Ahead of them Zelkov disappeared into a patch of blackness that was slightly darker than their surroundings. Suddenly Rose whirled. Her sharp ears had caught the whine of an engine up above and she knew it was coming toward them. As she turned she heard guns opening up all around her, blasting red hot steel into the sky. She and Botcharski broke into a run and before they had moved half a dozen steps she was half-carrying the slower man as they dashed for shelter. Beside the train men dove for cover or simply collapsed on the ground, hoping that death would land someplace else. The engine's whine had grown into a roar and the noise of the guns was deafening. Rose and Botcharski reached the doorway where Zelkov had entered and she hurled the colonel inside just as an explosive blast slammed her to the stony ground. The airplane engine reached a final crescendo and then the craft was banking, climbing. The noise dwindled to a distant purr before dwindling away to nothing. The guns were silent once again, their roar replaced by the roar of officers trying to get the terrified newcomers to their feet. Rose stepped into the doorway. Inside she saw Botcharski on his feet, dusting himself off, looking at her with a peeved expression on his face. Zelkov was shaking his head. The room was filled with officers and one of them said, "That German daredevil comes over every night and drops an egg -- a little good-night kiss. One of these times we'll give him what for." None of the men in the room looked particularly disturbed by the minor air raid and Rose wondered if she had over reacted. The whole thing seemed to be more of a joke to these men than a real danger. "Veectory Rohhhse!" From behind his desk a corpulent man in the uniform of a general got to his feet and boomed out a greeting in something intended to be English. "Beeeeg Amerikan hero! Velkum to our ally from the west!" He stepped around his desk with remarkable grace for such a large man and took Rose's hand, bending to kiss it. She deftly turned the move into a handshake and extricated herself from the massive paw. Before the general's face could finish registering surprise she saluted and said in flawless Russian, "Major Victoria Hardwyck, reporting as ordered, sir." The room fell silent for a moment as the general straightened and stepped back. He was generally a jovial man but the privileges of rank had given him a taste for having his own way and no one was sure how he would react to Victory Rose's formality. The general eyed her for a second, then broke into a broad smile and reached for the bottle on his desk. "You must drink," he said, reverting to Russian now that Rose had demonstrated her competence with the language. He splashed vodka into a menagerie of glasses and handed one to her. She sniffed the raw liquor and smiled. Little did they know that with her heightened powers of resistance she could drink the bunch of them under the table. However, she didn't care to totally emasculate the men so she merely sipped and made a wry face. The officers all laughed heartily and drained their own glasses. The general thumped his chest. "You Americans have to toughen up if you want to go toe-to-toe with the Germans!" Rose just grinned and turned her attention to a large map pinned to the wall. It showed the area between the Volga and Don rivers. From what the map showed it was obvious to her that Sixth Army had backed itself into a corner. She saw that Russian armies were sweeping in from the north and south. If the Germans didn't break out soon they would be trapped within a ring of steel. Her expert eyes noted the point where the armies would meet to complete the encirclement -- a tiny dot on the map labeled "Kalach." Suddenly she realized that the laughter had stopped and she turned to see the officers watching her carefully. She reflected that it might not be such a good idea to appear so interested in the Russian dispositions. "I'll have to go into Stalingrad itself to find what I'm looking for," she said. "Do you have a map of the city?" One of the officers handed a rolled up map to the general and he spread it out on his desk. "Look here," he said. At the same time he signaled to one of the other officers who took down the large wall map. "We believe the building you seek is in this area." He pointed to a block in the center of town. Rose saw that the building was not far from a railroad line that led into the city from the west. "They're bringing the things in on trains?" "They would if the tracks were still usable," answered the general. "They were destroyed long ago. No, they haul in supplies by road from their airfield at Gumrak. We bomb the hell out of them, shoot the planes out of the sky, but that doesn't stop them. Industrious, those Germans -- even the Nazis." "They certainly have reason to be motivated," said Rose. The general looked at her for a long second and then laughed. "You Americans," he said. "Always with the jokes. Yes, they'd better be motivated ... but it won't help them now." "So I see," she said. She tapped her finger on the map. "I want to see this for myself. Do you have a plane I can use?" "What, now?" asked the general. From his expression it was clear he hadn't anticipated this question. "You just got here and now you want an airplane?" "No point in wasting any more time," answered Rose. "I had plenty of time to rest on the train down here." The general glanced over to Colonel Botcharski who shrugged and said, "I have found that she is a very determined American woman." "If anything should happen..." said the general. He clearly didn't want to be responsible if the American celebrity got herself killed on her first night here. Visions of a penal battalion danced through his head and he saw himself walking arm-in-arm with other disgraced soldiers through a minefield. "Of course we do fly harassment raids at night..." "I'd just as soon fly myself, if you can get me a plane. That way I can go where I need to, and if there's any trouble I'll be better off on my own." All of the officers stared and the general shot Botcharski a meaningful look. "Colonel," he said, "I hold you personally responsible. Should anything happen to our guest I assure you that my last act as commander here will be to have you shot. Do you understand?" "General," he answered, "if Victory Rose says she can fly on her own then I swear to you she can do it." It was obvious the general was unconvinced but he nodded. "The American was sent here specifically to destroy the zombie soldiers who are forming a new resistance force in the Stalingrad pocket. If she fails, I am at fault. If something happens to her, I am at fault. And yet, if I hinder her..." He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Find her a plane," he said to Botcharski. "Check it over yourself. Your life depends on it." He turned to Victory Rose. "Please do not get yourself killed tonight." She grinned back. "Don't worry General. The krauts haven't yet made a bullet with my name on it." -------- *CHAPTER VIII* Colonel Botcharski led Victory Rose across a rough expanse that served as an airfield where small planes could land. They picked their way carefully through the darkness, for the moon shed a tricky light over the churned-up ground. As they walked, she noticed him looking at the rose design stenciled on the shoulder of her jacket. "The emblem of my unit," she said. "They gave me a special identification mark. Sure beats the get-up they make me wear at press conferences and public appearances." He nodded. "So I see. I was surprised to meet you in such ... normal attire. We had only seen you in pictures and newsreel films. To tell the truth, we did not know what to expect when your superiors told us they were sending you here." "I can imagine," she answered. "It's supposed to be good for morale when the public sees me decked out like a comic strip character. Maybe after this war is over I can give that up and be taken seriously." "When we saw you in action you dispelled all doubts," said Botcharski. "I have never seen anyone move so fast. How do you do it?" "Ancient Chinese secret," said Rose. "Sorry, but I can't talk about it." The colonel shrugged. "I understand. I suppose even allies must have some secrets from each other. Perhaps after the war we can be more open with each other." "Is that the plane?" asked Rose. She pointed to a stubby little relic of a fighter that squatted on the runway just ahead. "An old I-16," he said. "Pre-war. A real museum piece." "I thought the Nazis shot them all to kindling when they first invaded." "Even they couldn't destroy everything," answered Botcharski. "We salvaged this one and use it to harass the Germans at night. Our pilots fly over and drop ten-pound bombs over the side." Rose walked around the old plane. A mechanic had been standing nearby and he came over with a flashlight. Together, they checked the aircraft over and after several minutes she pronounced herself satisfied. She climbed up into the cockpit and tried the controls. "It's got more holes than a hunk of swiss cheese," she said, 'but it looks serviceable. Got any of those bombs?" The mechanic looked surprised at her question. "Um ... wait just a minute." He ran off into the darkness. It didn't take him long to return carrying a heavy satchel. "Hand grenades," he said. "No bombs." Rose reached down to take the satchel. From the weight she judged it held seven or eight grenades. Well, she could have fun with those too. She called out, "Let's fire it up! Time's a'wastin'!" With a powerful heave the mechanic spun the propeller and the engine coughed twice and came to life. Rose sat still for a few minutes, checking her gauges and listening to the sound of the motor, familiarizing herself quickly with the obsolete machine. It was clearly no match for anything else in the sky, but she intended to be out and back before any of the few German fighters could take off and locate her. She let the mechanic help her strap in and then waved him off. She looked to her left and saw Colonel Botcharski silhouetted in the darkness a dozen yards away -- nothing more than a dark outline punctuated by the burning tip of a cigarette. She nodded in his direction even though she was sure he couldn't see her, and the plane began bumping forward over the rough airstrip. Seconds later she was in the air, soaring higher and higher over the Russian positions. Below she could see hundreds of bright pinpoints against the blackness -- each one a campfire where soldiers gathered -- each one a perfect target for marauding enemy fighters. She looked out over Stalingrad and in the south saw a fantastic display of tracer and explosions where Russian bombers were working over some unlucky German emplacement. Far out on the horizon, to north and south, she could just make out the flash of artillery lighting up the low clouds. Something was up out there where the Don River cut through the plains. But down below in the darkness was Victory Rose's hunting ground. No light showed in those ruins. The men of Sixth Army were learning not to draw attention to themselves. She flew over the Volga and into the enemy pocket, wrapped in the roar of the aircraft engine and cradled in the cockpit. She stayed low, skimming the tops of the ruins. Even in the night her eyesight was keen enough to discern the jagged edges of smashed walls and she flew unerringly, following a broad street west until she sighted the hump of Mamayev Kurgan and banked to the north. The clump of buildings she sought was just ahead. * * * * At that moment Doktor Schadel had risen from his cot and was rubbing his stubbly face. Miserable place this -- the cold, the poor rations, the outright danger of being so close to the Russian lines in this mousetrap. How he wished the western allies had opened up a second front in France, where he could have demonstrated his weapon in far more pleasant surroundings. He checked the luminous dial of his watch. Past midnight. He was weary to the bone after laboring so long over his project, yet he couldn't sleep. He decided to get some fresh air and a smoke. He threw on his lab coat and stepped into the shoes he had left by the door. Outside, he lit up and took a deep drag. The smoke calmed him and he decided to stretch his legs. Picking his way carefully, he made his way down the rubble-strewn street. Far off he could hear the sound of fighting and he was glad it was nowhere near him. Hopefully in a few days he would have enough of the bodies reanimated that they would all be able to break out of here. He had no wish to end his days in this shattered hulk of a city. For now the only good thing about it was the dark and the quiet. In this area there was no one on the street but him. Then above, he heard the roar of an airplane engine. He looked up but could see nothing, yet the noise was getting louder. Something was coming closer. Schadel hadn't been at the front for long but he was wise enough to know he didn't want to be caught out in the open. He looked around but the ruins were pitch black. No way to know what he would be stepping into if he entered one of those yawning doorways. He could fall into an open cellar and break his neck. Instead, he flattened himself against a crumbling brick wall, hoping the fighter wouldn't see him as it swept over. * * * * As she scanned the ground, Victory Rose couldn't help but see a flash of white in the street below her. She banked the plane and circled, watching the movement of the pale blotch. Even from that distance she could make out the form of a man. "So," she thought, "a little white Ratzi down there all by himself. What are you doing out here at night dressed like that? Let's see what hole you scurry into..." With that thought in mind she reached into the satchel and drew forth one of the Russian hand grenades. Pulling the pin, she dropped it over the side, judging the distance carefully so that it wouldn't land too close to her target. * * * * Doktor Schadel heard the metallic _thunk_ of something hitting the ground nearby. It was only his involuntary flinch that saved him when the grenade went off only a few yards away. Bits of red hot metal hissed by him and spattered against the wall. Schadel didn't need another warning -- he took off like a panicked rabbit, running as fast as he could for his own quarters. Another grenade went off right behind him, and another. As far as he was concerned they could have been 500-pound bombs. He tripped over a heap of loose rubble and smashed his knee against the stones. But this was no time to worry about a little pain. He was up and sprinting again as the next explosion urged him onward. With a leap that might have shamed an Olympic long-jumper he hurled himself through the doorway of his building. An explosion just outside terrified him enough that he ran straight downstairs to his cellar workroom, the safest place he could think of. There, in the darkness, he waited for the building to collapse and bury him. * * * * Victory Rose marked where he had disappeared and then began looking for a place to set the airplane down. Though it could have been a medical doctor she saw, she had a feeling it was worth getting a better look at the fleeing figure she had frightened down below. Somewhere there had to be a reasonably clear space where she could land. She soared west, just past the hill, and found what she sought. With utmost care she selected the least inhospitable spot she could find in the gloom of night and eased the plane down, hoping not to attract the attention of any sleepless gunners on the ground. By sheer good fortune she was far enough from any enemy positions that she was able to make a perilous night landing. The little fighter was tough though, even if it was old and battered. It bounded over the clods and stones while Rose fought to control it, all the while half expecting it to flip over and crush her. When it finally shuddered to a halt she lost no time unbuckling her restraints and jumping out. She had no desire to be trapped in the cockpit if any nosy Germans should come around to investigate the landing. As it happened, her precaution was a wise one. "_Wer da_?" A halting voice reached her through the darkness. She looked around and her gaze came to rest on a skinny soldier who clutched a blanket around his shoulders with one hand while holding his rifle with the other. The pale face with its big eyes stared up at her and Rose could see his mind working, wondering whether he should greet the stranger or call for help. Before he could answer the question for himself she rapped out a thunderous "_Achtung_!" Female voice or no, the lad's army training took over and he snapped to instant attention. The reaction was automatic. "Is this what passes for an airfield here? No wonder the _Luftwaffe_ is having such trouble trying to supply this pocket! How do you expect a transport plane to land in this mess? Be assured this will be in my report to the High Command! Your name and number!" She gave him no time to think for himself and while he was stammering a name she instantly forgot, Rose brushed by him. "I'm walking to your commanders' headquarters. Remain here and guard my plane! Don't go near it!" Before he could answer she was gone, vanished into the night. Once she was out of the young soldier's sight she broke into a tireless run that ate up the distance between her and the building she sought. As she ran she hoped she had made the right decision in letting the man live, but he had looked so pathetic and ragged she couldn't bring herself to kill him in cold blood. If he stayed by the plane and she returned before he was missed things would work out all right. If not she'd have to swim the river and hope the Russians didn't shoot her when she climbed out on the bank. At the speed she was moving it didn't take her long to reach the part of town where the zombies were supposed to be kept, and only a few more minutes to locate the building where the white-coated man had taken cover from her grenade attack. She stopped and drew her army Colt automatic before entering. She peered in cautiously, not knowing what she might encounter inside. The grey light that streamed in through broken windows revealed a bare room -- nothing but a rumpled cot and a few cartons of personal belongings. It was the living quarters of a man who thought of nothing but his work, just a place to hang his hat while he stayed in Stalingrad. She passed through silently, her heavy boots making no sound on the concrete floor. The room was actually nothing more than a little entry space with one door at the opposite end. Her hand closed on the knob and she pulled it open. A light bulb glowed at the bottom of a wooden stairway that led downward into the cellar. She was sure the man had ducked in this door, and while he could easily have left anytime while she was landing the plane and returning, the light suggested that he could still be down there. Holding the gun before her, ready for instant action, she descended the steps. When she reached the bottom she looked around. This room was far bigger than the little space upstairs. It looked as if it was dug out under the entire building, and passages branched off it, extending far into impenetrable darkness. There was some electrical equipment set up and a table in the center that was laden with an indecipherable maze of glass beakers, tubing, and Bunsen burners. Rose's eyes flicked from side to side as she took in every detail of the basement. Along all the walls and stretching back into the passages were stacks of wooden boxes. She didn't have to open those containers to guess what was inside. Their dimensions told the story, for they were just the size and shape of rough coffins. "No," she thought, "packing cases. Packing cases for cargo. That's all they are." Then she heard a sound not too far away. It was a rapid clicking, almost a buzz, it was so fast. Every so often it would stop for a few seconds and then start up again more furiously than ever. In two strides she covered the distance separating her from the lab table and reached underneath. A moment later she had dragged forth the wriggling, screeching white-coated man she had seen from the air. It was like holding a frenzied cat and for a moment she considered hitting over the head with her gun barrel to quiet him down. Instead though, she gripped him securely with one fist and dragged him across the room where she thumped him down with his back securely pinned against a stack of coffins. She backed off a step, still holding him with the muzzle of her automatic shoved under his chin, and looked intently at his face. "Doktor Schadel," she said. The only photograph she had seen of the man was a grainy copy shown her back in England. It had been years old but even so she had no trouble recognizing the man who cowered before her. "Who ... who are you?" he whimpered. "Don't you worry about that," she answered. "I guess I ought to say thank you. If your teeth hadn't been chattering so loud I might not have found you so quickly." The Nazi scientist clapped a hand over his mouth and mumbled, "What now?" Victory Rose surveyed the room. "First," she said, "we destroy all this. Smash the equipment, burn all this. Then..." But she didn't get to finish her sentence. A commanding voice called out from one of the passages, "And then nothing. Hands up!" Four men dressed in the grey uniforms of the Waffen SS stepped out of the passages surrounding her. The held their submachine guns low, and pointed directly at Victory Rose. "Drop your gun and step away from the Doktor," said the leader. "I recognize you, the American _Sieg_-Woman. Now you come with us to the Commander of forces here in Stalingrad. He will decide your fate ... unless you prefer for us to do the job right here and now!" -------- *CHAPTER IX* Victory Rose remained still as her eyes flicked over the gun-toting SS men. Her only reaction was to jam the muzzle of her pistol even harder into Doktor Schadel's throat. "Back away now," she said, "or so help me, I'll blow his head off." Schadel whimpered, "No, please..." "Drop the gun," barked the lead SS trooper. "You don't have a chance. You're completely surrounded." Rose simply smiled and gripped the Doktor more tightly so that he howled in terror. Tears streamed down the helpless man's cheeks as he looked at all those guns aimed straight toward him. "Last chance," said the German. The four submachine guns thrust forward, ready to fire on command. But the command never came. A fusillade of gunshots from the top of the stairs ploughed into the Germans. Two men screamed and tumbled to the floor. The others whirled fired upward. They never had time to realize their mistake. Victory Rose's automatic roared twice and they both pitched forward. "Botcharski!" she shouted, and the man came clattering down the steps, carrying his smoking gun. "How did you find me?" "Is that how you capitalists address a superior officer?" he said. "I tracked you here and lucky I did. Don't forget, the general made me responsible for your safe return! Let's get out of here." Rose dragged the Doktor into view. "I've got the madman responsible for all this. We'll destroy this facility and get him back to the Russian lines." "No time," said the colonel. "If the Germans heard that gunfire we could have half a division on our necks. We'd have to fight our way through the city and even if we did make it the general might have me shot. Bring the scientist. We leave now ... _Major_!" "Yes, sir," said Rose, biting back the first reply that came to her mind. She spared a glance at Schadel. "Don't you dare give me any trouble, or else." The Doktor was too frightened to reply and meekly stumbled forward when Rose shoved him toward the stairway. He ran up the steps as quickly as he could, with Botcharski's submachine gun covering him from the front and knowing Victory Rose's automatic was only inches from his back. They emerged from the building and Rose looked up and down the deserted street. There was not a soul in sight and she turned to Botcharski. "The coast is clear. Looks like no one heard us. We could go back..." "No time!" he hissed. "We're expected back in..." he checked his watch, "twenty minutes. Let's get down to the river." "What about the plane?" asked Rose. "I left it just west of town. You can take Schadel and I'll fly it back." "Forget about it!" Botcharski lost his temper. "You Americans! Do you think this is a playground, Major? In case you didn't know, we are surrounded by thousands of Germans who would like nothing better than to kill us ... or worse! I gave you an order, now move!" That settled, they set out down the street toward the waterfront, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. To their right, the sound of explosions had ceased. The air raid must be over and the Russian bombers on their way back to base. The night had become eerily silent and the only sound was the scrape of their boots as they scuffed through the loose rubble. Even walking carefully it took only a few minutes before they had the river in view. Separated from them by a broad street and railroad tracks, the Volga's broad surface glistened with the reflected light of flares. Colonel Botcharski glanced toward Victory Rose and her prisoner. "Stay here," he whispered. "When you see my flare, join me as quickly as you can." They crouched in the ruins a few more seconds while the colonel checked for Germans. Seeing no one, he darted across the open expanse, hopped over the tracks, and suddenly disappeared. Rose looked Schadel in the eye and growled meaningfully. She didn't want him getting any last-second notions of escape. A minute ticked by ... then two, without any sign of Botcharski. She was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong when a streak of light flashed skyward and burst in a ball of green light that floated down to extinguish itself in the river. As soon as darkness had fallen again she gripped the Doktor and took off at a run, clearing the street and tracks in a few giant bounds. Suddenly the ground vanished from underfoot and they were tumbling down a steep bank. By the time she had dug her heels into the dirt and stopped her fall she realized why the colonel had disappeared so quickly. The river was several feet below the level of the street and in the darkness she hadn't seen how abruptly the edge gave way and sloped downward. At the bottom she found a rowboat and Colonel Botcharski knee deep in the water, holding the painter. "Come," he said in a hoarse whisper. "If the Russians saw my flare they won't shoot us. If the Germans saw it they most certainly will try to." "Get in the boat," said Rose. She gestured with her automatic and Schadel complied meekly. Botcharski followed and Rose pushed them away from the bank before climbing in herself. "Let me row," she said, and settled onto the bench. She settled into her labor with a rhythmic kind of grace and the clumsy vessel scooted across the water. They were far out when another flare went up and revealed them to all eyes. A furious volley of gunfire erupted from the west bank and the water around them erupted with scores of little splashes. Schadel moaned and cowered in the bow where the colonel had him covered. "Is he hit?" Rose called over her shoulder. "He's fine," answered Botcharski. "Just scared to death. Can't we go any faster?" "Want to get out and push?" She pulled harder at the oars and little by little the machine gun bullets began to fall short. The machine gun fire tapered off and ceased. The Nazis had no ammunition to waste on a single rowboat if there was no chance of hitting it. At least the Russians could see them coming now, for there were flares going up for a hundred yards on either side of them as the Germans searched the river for more boats. It wasn't long before they heard shouts from the Russian side and then the boat bumped against the muddy bank. The colonel identified himself to a nervous sentry and they climbed onto dry land not far from the general's headquarters. Before long they were once again standing before the man. Zelkov was there too, along with a junior officer. The general was at first happy to see them back safe with a prisoner, and then mildly irate on learning that the fighter plane had remained on the other side of the Volga. There had been an element of prestige to having an airborne component in his unit, not to mention the fact that he dreaded having to justify its loss to his superiors. When he learned the identity of the prisoner though, his mood once again lightened. "You say this Doktor Schadel is the very scientist responsible for creating the zombie force? Excellent," he purred. He glared at the prisoner briefly and then motioned to a subordinate. "Take him away! I shall contact Moscow immediately for instructions." The cringing Schadel was led out of the room and Victory Rose wondered what would become of him. Allowing the Soviets to put him to work for them might not be much of an improvement over what he was doing for the Nazis. Stalin might be an ally for now, but she had no illusions about the dictator's ambitions. If there had been time for her to think things through back in Stalingrad she might have left him on the other side of the river. But the general was speaking again, handing out glasses of vodka and interrogating them about the night's adventure. "Now tell me all about what went on over there," he said. "Tell me everything you've learned." Victory Rose recounted her story of the flight over the ruined city and spotting Schadel on the ground. She told the general how she had left the I-16 in the custody of a German soldier (he would undoubtedly have some explaining to do come morning light when it became clear he had been guarding a Russian fighter) and how she had trailed the Doktor to his cellar laboratory. "Crammed full of stiffs just like a morgue," she said. When she reached the part about her escape from the SS men though, Colonel Botcharski took over. "Knowing how important her safety was to you sir, I had taken it upon myself to trail the American major," he said. "When I found that she had fallen into German hands I realized I had no choice but to take action. Once her fascist captors had been taken care of I was able to escort Major Hardwyck and our prisoner through the enemy lines to the boat I had secreted at the river bank. Fortunately we were out of range before our escape was discovered." "You are too modest, Botcharski," boomed the general. "Thanks to you the mission was saved and we have our American celebrity back unharmed with a valuable prisoner. I shall include you in my report, Colonel. You have done well." Zelkov listened in silence. Although her recollection of events differed somewhat, Victory Rose remained silent rather than dispute the colonel in front of his commanding officer. It wasn't until some time later when they had been dismissed and were walking back to quarters that she said, "I guess I owe you my thanks for pulling my chestnuts out of the fire back there on the other side of the river." Botcharski grinned sheepishly. He might not understand the expression but he knew what she was aiming at. "Try to understand a soldier's dilemma," he said. "In a few days, maybe a week, you will be back in England and for you Russia will be nothing more than an episode for you to relate to your friends. I, on the other hand, am a lifelong soldier in the Red Army. I will be here long after you have forgotten all about us. If I tell the story in a way that emphasizes my own contributions ... it is not to place you in an unfavorable light." Rose was too tired to argue. Besides, he was right. She would be gone before long and whatever the report said would scarcely matter to her. Let him have his way. "Good night," she said, and turned aside to find her own quarters. -------- *CHAPTER X* Lenzky's spade clanged against a stone as he shoved it into the ground. He grunted angrily and jerked it out, moved it a few inches and tried again. This time it bit deep into the soil and he heaved against the earth. A great, heavy chunk came up and he dumped it behind him. The hole at his feet grew larger by just that much. Five other men labored alongside him at holes of their own. Behind them lay a line of canvas-wrapped bodies, awaiting burial. One of the men looked at the sun and threw down his shovel. "Time for a break," he said. "These fellows can wait half an hour." Lenzky and the other men dropped their spades and sat down on the dirt piles where they broke out cigarettes, black bread, and cold water. One of the men produced a harmonica and began a little tune to which the others nodded in time. Fortunately, the burial ground was far enough back that they were safe from officers' prying eyes. As long as they had accomplished something by the time their sergeant returned they would be all right. Time passed and a couple of them dozed in the warm sun. Lenzky himself was lying back enjoying the warm rays when a shadow fell across his face. "Private Lenzky?" The man's eyes snapped open and he squinted to see a woman's figure silhouetted against the bright sun. "Major!" he said. He tried to remember her name as he struggled to his feet. He addressed her by the only name he knew. "Victory Rose!" At that the other men stood. They had all heard of the famous American heroine, even if they believed she was just capitalist propaganda. Whoever they thought she was, they all appreciated having a generously proportioned western woman in their midst. Lenzky stood at attention until Rose returned his salute and motioned for him to stand at ease. "What can I do for you, Major?" he asked. Rose let her eyes travel coldly across the other Russians until they turned away and took up their shovels. When they were hard at work she nodded to Lenzky and began to walk slowly away. The private hurried after her like a puppy. "They sure put you to work, didn't they?" she asked. Lenzky shrugged. "That's soldiering, I guess. Only officers get to..." He stopped, suddenly realizing he was talking to a member of the exalted class. Rose chuckled and they walked awhile in silence. She only spoke when they were well out of earshot. "Private, you've spent some time with Colonel Botcharski. What do you think of him?" Lenzky's eyes went wide and he stammered for a moment, trying to come up with words. "The colonel ... the colonel is a brave and loyal officer of the Red Army. I..." His voice trailed off and he wished he could go back to grave digging detail. "It's okay, Lenzky," she said. "I understand. I'm sorry for putting you on the spot like that. Why don't you get back to work." The private snapped a salute and practically ran back to the burial ground, clearly happy to be dismissed. Uneducated he might be, but a lifetime of experience had taught him that talking freely to authorities or outsiders was surely courting disaster -- and Victory Rose was both. Despite being a socialist "new man," he was the product of a centuries old peasant culture that warned him against mixing in the schemes of his superiors. Victory Rose walked slowly along the dirt road that led back to the military encampment. She had known that talking to Lenzky was a long shot but she was a stranger in a country that, although an ally in the war against Germany, held no illusions of true friendship with hers. She didn't know whom to trust and had reached out to her only option. Botcharski was engaged in his own scheming. Sneaking into Stalingrad to follow her and showing up in Schadel's laboratory the way he did would be an act of friendship if it had come from Cleveland or any of the other men in her unit. But the Russian colonel had admitted aggrandizing himself at her expense and Rose resented that. Zelkov, the political officer, was everything that Rose despised in her fellow man. Narrow minded, dogmatic, ruthless and self-seeking, he would fit well on a tribunal sentencing some poor fool to die for the crime of speaking his mind. As she neared the general's headquarters she glanced toward the distant hut where Doktor Schadel had been taken for safe keeping the night before. A truck sat in front, and as she looked she saw two men drag a hooded figure from the building and force it none too gently into the back of the waiting vehicle. As they jumped in after it she heard the engine rumble to life. At that she broke into a run. "Wait!" she yelled. "Where are you taking him?" But the truck was already moving off down the road, too far away for its occupants to hear her call. By the time she reached the hut it had already disappeared in a cloud of dust. She cursed and ran to the general's quarters, pushing her way in without knocking. The general was standing in front of the wall map lecturing a group of officers, Zelkov among them. They all whirled to face her. "What is the meaning of this?" rasped the general. Rage warred on his dark face with the need for diplomacy with his American guest. "Where are they taking Schadel?" she asked. "To Moscow, of course," he replied. "Not that it's any of your business. He is a prisoner of the Red Army and the Soviet government reserves the right to deal with him as it sees fit. Did you imagine that he would stay here for the duration?" Rose swore under her breath. It hadn't occurred to her that they would move him out so fast. Once again she thought back upon the wisdom of bringing him here as a prisoner. If the process for creating unkillable zombie fighters ever fell into Russian hands ... Staring at the general's angry face, she could think of nothing to say. "Don't worry," he assured her. "You and Botcharski both received due credit in my message to the capital. I am not a man to steal the honors from others." That said, he seemed on the verge of dismissing her when Zelkov stepped in. "There is one more issue to address," he said. "The spreading of subversion in the ranks is unacceptable under any circumstances and will no longer be tolerated." "What?" she said. "You were observed not half an hour ago spreading dissension among the workers on a burial detail. One of them was the young private who accompanied us to England. _He_ will require re-education. It was my belief all along that exposing him to western corruption was a mistake." He looked meaningfully at the general, who in turn glared at Rose. She sputtered helplessly and stammered, "That simply is not true!" "Oh?" said Zelkov. "And just what were you discussing when you two went off by yourselves? I warn you, we take espionage very seriously." "Espi ... How dare you!" snarled Rose. "General," said Zelkov, "I suggest you supply secure quarters for our American celebrity ... for her own protection, of course." "Yes, of course," said the general. "I strongly suggest this," Zelkov emphasized. "I will be sending my report in to Moscow tonight and as you may imagine, it would make a much more favorable impression if I was able to say that our men's morale was in good hands." "Yes, of course," the general hastily agreed. "I will have her escorted to her quarters immediately." He turned to one of the junior officers and sent him for a squad of men. Zelkov fixed his eye on Rose. "You needn't concern yourself. As a symbol of the alliance, your safety is of paramount importance to my superiors. You will be treated honorably for the remainder of your stay." "You may know your Lenin," growled Rose, "but you know nothing about honor." "Be that as it may," said Zelkov, "our general realizes now that it is in the interest of the Soviet state ... and in his own interest ... to see to it that you are not allowed to get into any more mischief. Ah, here comes your escort now." Six burly men announced themselves at the door and received orders to politely accompany Major Hardwyck to her quarters and see to it that she was not disturbed. For a moment she considered decking the lot of them, but swiftly reconsidered. A brawl with the Red Army in the heart of the Soviet Union was hardly the sort of diplomatic behavior her own superiors expected from her. With a final look for Zelkov, she took her place in the midst of the group and walked quietly away. At least they didn't try to take her pistol, simply motioned for her to enter a strongly built log hut and barred the door behind her when they left. She heard them take positions just outside the entry. * * * * The afternoon dragged along slowly, punctuated only by a meal of soup, black bread, and coffee. She lay on her cot, listening to the sounds of military life going on outside her shuttered window. Well supplied with rough comfort and boredom, she finally dozed off. When she awoke it was dark and for a second she wondered how long she had slept. But she only had that second to speculate before realizing what had awakened her. From outside, a voice was calling her. "Victory Rose ... It is I, Colonel Botcharski. Wake up! I need you!" -------- *CHAPTER XI* Moving with utmost wariness, Victory Rose slid along her bed until she was next to the shuttered window. The darkness inside the hut was absolute and she controlled even her breathing so that she made no sound until she was ready. A moment later she was in position, gun in hand and ready for instant action. The shutter rattled softly as a hidden hand tried to open it, but she had barred the window before lying down. In the tiny sliver of moonlight that filtered in through the crack between the shutter halves she saw the blade of a knife gently slide into view. When two inches were protruding from the wooden barrier it edged upward, lifting the bar off its brackets. Catlike, Rose remained focused on the window. Now the moonlight was pouring into the room and she could clearly see a hand she recognized as Colonel Botcharski's gripping an automatic, silhouetted in the gloom. Seconds ticked by as the arm extended further, waving slowly from side to side as if seeking a target. She waited, a grim smile playing upon her lips, until Botcharski's arm had moved inward almost to the shoulder. Then, in a silent blur of action, she lunged. Before he knew what had happened the colonel was pinned to the floor of the hut, Victory Rose's hand clutching his throat and the muzzle of her gun terrifyingly close to his face. His own hand thrashed helplessly as he realized he no longer held his pistol. "Be silent!" Rose leaned down and hissed. The colonel complied, allowing his body to go limp -- not that he had much of a choice. With Victory Rose's knees jammed into his chest he was pinned like a bug to the rough planks. "Are you prepared to be a good boy and tell me very quietly what you had in mind just now?" With Rose clutching his windpipe Botcharski could neither breathe nor nod his head. He hoped the desperate look in his eyes would answer for him before he suffocated. Whether that worked or not, her grip loosened just enough for him to draw in a rattling breath. He noted however, that her fingers still dug into his neck, ready to tighten again with crushing force. "Agh ... Ukkk..." he gasped. He was trying to get his mashed vocal cords to function again. "What?" asked Rose, and pressed her gun against his cheek. "Need ... helllllllppp..." he said, forcing the words out through his raw throat. "I'll just bet you do," she said. "What's the idea of sneaking into a lady's room that way?" "L-lady?" Wrong answer. Rose cocked her automatic. "Yes, _lady_, and don't you forget it, buster!" At the moment Botcharski scarcely knew what she was saying, busy as he was trying to control his own panic. He nodded though, and tried to look very earnest. Rose dragged him to his feet and shoved him down onto her bed, where he sat massaging his painful neck. When he looked up he saw her standing over him. It hardly mattered that she had him covered with her automatic, for he was in no shape to fight. But fighting was not what Colonel Botcharski had in mind. He held up one hand in a pacifying gesture and cleared his throat several times, making as little noise as possible, until he was at least somewhat in command of himself again. When he spoke it was in a hoarse and whispery voice. Between fits of coughing he gasped out, "Do you ... do you want to get out of here?" "Depends," said Rose. "How long were you planning to keep me in here?" "This is Russia," answered Botcharski, as if that was all the explanation needed. It seemed to be enough for Victory Rose. "What do you have in mind?" Colonel Botcharski waited a moment before answering. He knew now that he had her attention. "The Nazi Schadel is being interrogated on the train north to Moscow." Rose waited while he pretended to clear his throat once again. Even in the darkness her sensitive eyes could make out the traces of confidence beginning to seep back into his face and she allowed his ego to recover a bit. She could afford to be generous ... if it encouraged him to talk. "We received a wireless message only an hour ago that is of utmost concern to our military planners -- and also, I trust, to you." "All right, I'm all ears," said Rose. "This better be good." "Good indeed," said Botcharski. "Good indeed. Were you able, by any chance, to get a count of the boxes while you were down in that cellar?" She snorted in reply. "You didn't notice that I was a little preoccupied?" "Ah," he sighed, "how could I forget? Another few minutes, and..." "Yes," agreed Rose. "I know they had it in for me but we're getting off the subject. What's this all about, Colonel?" "It's about numbers, Major Hardwyck. Nearly five hundred of those zombie creatures lie in that cellar, waiting to be resurrected. I need not describe to you what havoc a force that size could wreak if it were to be loosed upon the battlefield." "But you've got Schadel," said Rose. "How many other Germans can duplicate his work?" "None who know the secret of restoring life to the dead," answered Botcharski. "At least that's what he claims. But," he held up a warning finger, "he did bring with him into Stalingrad at least a dozen assistants who can control the zombies he has already created. Grabbing Schadel was only half the job." Victory Rose's eyes narrowed. "And you're sure Schadel's the only one who knows the secret." "If he could have kept it to himself it would certainly be in his interest to do so. Of course it is too early to be sure at this point, but you may be certain that he has been asked." "Forcefully," she said, grinning in the darkness. The colonel shrugged. A reply was hardly necessary. Rose sighed and sat down on the bed next to Botcharski. "I am tired of being cooped up in here," she said. "Suppose I play along with you awhile. What's your plan?" "We go back into Stalingrad," he said, "tonight. It's not even midnight yet. We go in with explosives, destroy that cellar, kill or capture as many of Schadel's assistants as we..." "Hold it right there," said Rose. "Your people already have the Doktor and that's bad enough, as far as I'm concerned. I won't help your government to build an unstoppable zombie army of its own." Botcharski was silent for a moment. "Well then," he said at last, "this is, after all, war. If it should prove impossible to take any of the men alive..." "As long as we understand each other," she answered. "And so we do," he agreed. He gestured toward the window. "Shall we?" Rose hesitated. "What's wrong with the door?" "The guards are still out there," said the colonel. "I was not able to order them away from the front of the hut -- only back here where they are out of sight. In fact, if we do not hurry up they may return and catch us leaving." "I take it then," she said, "that your general doesn't know anything about this little outing?" "Absolutely nothing," he answered. "My orders for this mission came from ... another source. The general has not been informed of the results of the interrogation." "Interesting," murmured Rose. "I'm intrigued." She shot to her feet and Botcharski followed her lead. As he stood in the darkness Rose stepped to the corner where she had tossed his gun during their brief scuffle. "I'll hold onto this for you," she said, "until we're in the clear." She stuffed the Soviet's weapon into her belt and gestured toward the window with her own. Botcharski laughed softly. "And they say you Americans are too trusting for your own good." "We're fast learners," she answered. At her urging, Botcharski slithered through the window and remained standing where Rose could see him while she emerged from the hut. She pulled the wooden shutters closed behind her and together they set off at a trot through the night, heading toward the river. She allowed the colonel to lead the way, keeping a critical eye on his every movement. Colonel Botcharski ran quietly but swiftly and in minutes they were at the river's edge, sliding down the muddy bank and knee deep into the cold dark water. He pushed his way through some scrubby growth until he located the spot where he had hidden his boat from the night before. He moved carefully, not wanting to alarm the gun-toting woman behind him. An itchy spot between his shoulder blades reminded him of the automatic leveled at his back. He tugged the boat out into the open. There were two large packs in the boat, which Rose assumed to be full of the explosives Botcharski had mentioned. Also, she saw two Soviet submachine guns and bags with grenades and extra magazines. The colonel had planned well. When they climbed in she took one of the guns and checked it. Satisfied with the weapon's condition, she set it carefully by her side as she settled into her place on the bench. Colonel Botcharski opened one of the packs and showed her its contents. "Plastic explosive," he whispered. She nodded and reached for the oars. He tried to take them himself but she insisted. "I can get us across faster," she said. Botcharski sat back. He knew she was right. Flares were constantly shooting up from both banks all along the river as far as they could see. They cast a harsh but uncertain light over the broad Volga and Rose knew they would have to be quick and careful to escape notice by the gunners on either side. The idea of streams of burning tracer suddenly filling the air sent a special chill up her spine. Botcharski huddled low in the boat. He was obviously having similar thoughts. And so they passed silently over the river, back into enemy territory. -------- *CHAPTER XII* Victory Rose powered the little skiff across the Volga in record time. Neither she nor the colonel had any desire to linger, exposed to gunfire from both sides, for any longer than necessary. Fortunately the night had turned cloudy and they made good use of the extra measure of darkness. "My God, will we ever get across?" whispered Botcharski as they huddled in the bottom of the boat, waiting for a star shell to burn out. Without answering, she straightened once darkness fell again and pulled at the oars. Her silent strokes drew them ever closer to the German-held bank and the boat soon grounded softly in the mud. "Come on," she hissed, and slipped into the water. Botcharski followed and they dragged the craft through the shallows until they found a snag where they could tie it up. Up above them, on the steep bank, they heard footsteps and fragments of conversation. Rose and the colonel flattened themselves against the frozen mud and waited, scarcely daring to breath as the sentries ambled by. The steam from their breath rose to mingle with the fog from the river as the seconds ticked past. Suddenly a powerful beam of light stabbed through the darkness. The footfalls stopped and she heard the _click_ of a round being chambered in a Mauser. Rose glanced over at the colonel and saw his face pressed hard against the cold wet earth, his eyes squeezed shut. The light swung about once, twice ... then it flicked out and the footsteps resumed. She reached out and touched Botcharski's shoulder to let him know the danger was past. They had both been lying with their legs half under water and the numbing chill had already begun its work on their limbs. Still, necessity forced them to move with stealthy grace as they retrieved their supplies from the boat and crept up the bank. Once they stepped up on level ground they looked around. Everything was cloaked in a soft blanket of mist. Here and there fires burned, their light muted by the fog. As inviting as they looked, both Rose and Botcharski knew to avoid those places where miserable soldiers gathered for warmth. With only their internal sense of direction as a guide, they picked their way through treacherous fields of rubble that had once been streets. One false step could plunge them into an open cellar or a shell hole. Every ruined wall might hide the sentry who would sound the alarm and bring a whole division down on their necks. Even a simple loose brick could cause a sprained ankle which would end the mission. Rose scanned the ground before them and led the way and Botcharski was surprised at how quickly they found themselves crouching in the ruins across the street from the building where Doktor Schadel had kept his loathsome creations. "It looks deserted," said Rose. And so it did. The door stood ajar and no light gleamed from within. They waited several minutes and saw no sign of activity. "Maybe they're all down in the cellar," said the colonel. "After all, the ground floor was nothing more than Schadel's sleeping quarters. He spent most of his time downstairs working." She remembered that this was true. She had noticed nothing more than a cot and a few boxes when she had visited the building before. One would think though, that there would be guards all over the place if these zombies truly represented the Germans' hopes for defending the pocket. Perhaps Schadel had had his own "guards" on duty here. Perhaps there were few mortal soldiers willing to linger near a building that housed the living dead. Perhaps ... Perhaps ... There was little to gain from idle speculation. Rose shifted her pack and signaled Colonel Botcharski to move out. A minute later two shadows flitted across the open space, mere fleeting blots of sable against the darkness. Had there been any German around to notice, he might have wondered for a moment, raised his Mauser and sought to investigate. But then, if he knew the nature of the building, he might have decided to mind his own business. In any event there was no one. Victory Rose pushed though the doorway and glared about the room. A moment later the colonel joined her and they swarmed about, checking every corner. Botcharski relaxed slightly. "No one here." They both peered down the stairway. Surprisingly, there was no light and no sign of activity from below. Rose and Botcharski exchanged a look, and then she started down the stairs, creeping with the greatest care. Her boot soles scraped very softly against the wooden treads and anyone below would have to be listening carefully to detect the sound. Botcharski followed her a few steps back. He held his submachine gun at the ready, although to his eyes the darkness was impenetrable. The best he could do would be to fire at a muzzle flash, and by the time he saw that it would be too late. Rose reached the bottom and waited for him to reach her. "What are..." he began. But she pressed her fingertips to his mouth for silence. Her keen ears were scanning the underground chamber for any telltale sounds of life. "Deserted," she said. "I can't hear a thing. Wait a minute." The colonel heard her fumbling about and a second later her face was illuminated by a tiny point of flame. Victory Rose had dug her Zippo lighter from her pocket and struck a light. Botcharski could see nothing beyond the little circle of light but it was enough to give her an idea of their surroundings. She moved off without a word and a moment later he heard the sound of switches being thrown. Suddenly he had to squint his eyes as the cellar was filled with the bright gleam of electric lamps. He swore softly, shielding his face until he was able to stand the glare. When he could look around he was amazed by what he saw. "Empty!" he cried. "Completely empty!" Rose had already explored the room and had seen that it had been cleaned out. The tables were bare, the electrical equipment dismantled and removed, and most ominously of all the crates with their grisly occupants were gone. After a quick sweep of the room there was nothing more to be seen. "We're too late," he said. "What now?" "What now?" said Rose. "Now we explore those passages leading off the main room. They sure didn't haul all those boxes up those little stairs. Maybe we'll get a clue to the Nazis' whereabouts or plans." Botcharski looked around and shrugged. "Which passage do you suggest we explore first?" There was nothing in the room to give a clue which way to go. Even the scrape marks on the concrete floor were no more prevalent at one passage than another. There were six doorways beckoning them into the unknown and no way to make an intelligent choice. Rose simply checked her gun and walked straight forward toward the nearest passage. Colonel Botcharski followed her without a word. In seconds they had moved a score of yards down the passage, its gloom lit only by the grey light filtering in from the cellar. "Maybe you should get out your lighter again," suggested Botcharski. "I can see well enough," she answered. "I don't want to waste it. We don't know what we'll run into down here." When it became too dark for him to see, he set a hand on her shoulder and followed along. Rose set a brisk pace and he had the unsettling fear that she might walk off and leave him if he failed to keep up. And so the minutes slid by until the glowing hands on Rose's watch dial showed they had been walking for half an hour. By now even her sense of direction had become confused. She had lost count of the twists, the branches, the rooms through which they passed. Clearly the cellars of many buildings had been linked together by this warren of tunnels. Here and there light filtered down from some indefinable source and gave her just enough illumination to find her way. Finally she stopped. "This is pointless," she said. "I can find our way back but we could tramp up and down these passages all night and not find anything. I had no idea it was such a maze down here." "It's a mess alright," agreed Botcharski. "Alright, we'll head back. I can't see a thing down here anyway. Maybe you'll spot a stairway and we can get to the surface. At least we could get our bearings." Rose nodded. "Good idea, Colonel. Let's..." She stopped, every muscle suddenly tense. "Did you hear that?" "Hear what?" he answered. He bit back a cry of pain as Rose's fingers dug into his shoulder. "There it is again," she said. Botcharski could hardly restrain himself from asking what she meant until he heard it too -- faint, ominous. It was the scrape of a foot against the concrete floor. "There's two of them," whispered Rose. "No, more ... no, I don't know. Wait, there's more." She turned her head in a different direction. "We're surrounded," said the colonel. "Not yet," answered Rose. "Let's go." She grabbed his arm and dragged him along another passage, walking swiftly. Try as he might, Botcharski couldn't hope to match her stealth and his clumsy footsteps sounded to his ears like thunderclaps echoing against the stones. He could still see nothing and trusted Rose not to slam him against the wall as they fled through the labyrinth. Suddenly she changed direction again, nearly jerking him off his feet. Victory Rose had heard the footfalls coming at her from a new angle and she had the uneasy feeling that she was being herded by her unseen pursuers. Still, she kept going, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and her. If she could just lose them once they would never find her. There was no way the German soldiers could see her in this darkness. All at once she stopped and Botcharski stumbled against her. Before he could speak she thrust him behind her and then he realized what had happened. He felt the damp bricks of a solid wall against his back. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he realized they were trapped! Rose was already working on their next, desperate step. The colonel felt her grab the muzzle of his gun and position it so he was aiming past her. "When I give the word you open up," she said. "Just hold down the trigger and fire off the whole magazine. It won't be long now." Indeed she was right. Although it seemed an eternity, barely a minute passed before they heard the clatter of booted feet approaching. It sounded like a mob and there was no way for the blind Botcharski to estimate their number. However many they were, they were sure of their prey. There was no hurrying, no uncertainty, no attempt at stealth. The steps were heavy and slow, almost mechanical, and there was no rattle of equipment. Whoever these killers were, they were lightly armed and could see like cats in the gloom. "Get ready," hissed Rose. To Botcharski it seemed the Germans were already on top of them, so much did terror magnify the noise to his ears. He could scarcely control his trigger finger. All he wanted was to squeeze and kill as many as he could before he went down. "Now!" yelled Rose, and suddenly the passage was lit by the flickering flash of her submachine gun as she sent a torrent of red hot shells blasting into the crowd. Botcharski roared a war cry that matched the roaring of his own gun. His eyes burned in the harsh light of gunfire and he caught glimpses of black figures drawing near, stumbling, reeling under the impact of the heavy slugs, but never slowing. As they got closer he realized they were carrying clubs instead of guns. Then he saw the helmets... It took only seconds to exhaust the ammunition in their guns. Victory Rose threw hers into the oncoming mass and drew her automatic, fired off the whole clip. She had seen the same thing Botcharski had seen, but even more clearly -- black-clad figures shambling nearer, their bodies jerking as gunfire struck home but never stopping. The pale faces were slack and expressionless, and their hands clutched at their crude weapons like claws. Then she fired off her last round and everything went dark... -------- *CHAPTER XIII* Victory Rose didn't waste any time. As soon as her last round was fired she launched herself into the mob of zombie soldiers. Her powerful charge knocked a dozen of them sprawling but those behind just kept coming on. Now the dead warriors were swinging their weapons -- wooden clubs, iron bars, simple implements of death that didn't require the skill of a living mind to guide them. But Rose used their numbers against them in the confined space. She was one among many and they were more likely to hit one another than her dodging, weaving figure. But it would take more than boldness and agility for her to save herself and Botcharski from their tireless opponents. Individually none of them possessed her strength, but neither did they possess fear of pain or injury or death. Her fist slammed into a zombie face and she felt its bones collapse under the impact, yet its clawing hands did not release their hold upon her. The ruined face stared at her mindlessly, its jaws snapping. She twisted free and kicked the thing back but even as she did a dozen more piled on her. An iron bar crashed down on her and she was only saved by the bulky backpack full of explosives she still wore. Rose whirled and struck, and bodies were tossed about the narrow passage. She was like a lioness fighting a pack of baboons, and yet for all her strength there was only one possible outcome. Sooner or later she must be overwhelmed. Colonel Botcharski had fallen back against the wall, still blind in the darkness but well aware of what they faced for he had seen the dark shapes in flashes of gunfire before he had run out of ammunition. Now he felt cold hands clutching and he lashed out in the darkness. His fists landed with dull smacking sounds against flesh that felt like rubber. Little good did his flailing do him. Despite his struggles the colonel was seized and dragged past the tumbling mass where he heard Rose battling for her life against the horde. His limbs held fast, he wailed in terror as he was hauled off to a nightmare fate. Rose heard him and redoubled her efforts. The weight of numbers held her pinned against the wall now but still she fought on. She aimed a vicious uppercut at a dimly seen face. A groping hand deflected her blow and she missed, cracking her knuckles painfully against the brim of the zombie's helmet with force enough to snap the chinstrap. The helmet's spikes tore free of skull and brain and it flew through the air, spraying her with wet globs of something she was glad she couldn't see. And suddenly the zombie collapsed to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. "How simple," thought Rose, as she snatched her fallen opponent's club. She swept it around in a mighty swing, clearing a space about her, and then began hammering at the dimly seen heads. One by one, helmets were knocked loose or the black boxes upon them smashed and she realized that the creatures were easy prey once she discovered their weak point. Though they could still pull her down by weight of numbers, she now had a chance to win her freedom. "Colonel!" she shouted. "The helmets!" But Botcharski was yards away now, hopelessly pinioned and helpless. There was nothing he could do to save himself. If Rose was to act, now was the time to do it. She lowered her shoulder and drove through the crowd of zombies like a football player, trampling the sprawled bodies as she ran. She bounced off a stone wall, kicked away a menacing form, and barreled straight through the mob that had seized Botcharski. With her club beating right and left, she cleared a path to her comrade and grabbed his collar. "Come on!" she urged, and Botcharski was only too glad to obey. Both of them heard the tramp of feet out in the darkness and knew that in seconds the passage would be packed solid and there would be no way out. She ran as fast as she could, with the colonel stumbling along behind. Ahead she made out a dark mass and suddenly she was plowing through, spilling bodies like ten-pins in her wake. There was no time to slow down. If once those creatures got their hands on her she would never get free. She burst through the crowd and sped down the passage, into an empty space, and then plunged into another dark doorway. Botcharski was running on his own now and keeping up with her as best he could. Behind them they heard the thunder of running footsteps as the zombies gave chase, drawing ever nearer. Rose searched desperately in the gloom for a stairway or a ladder leading upward but to no avail. The vaulted stone ceiling stretched unbroken above them. Twisting and turning, ducking through one doorway and another, they knew their time was nearly up when Rose stopped short. At her feet was a large hole covered by a rusty iron grate. "What now?" asked the colonel. "A drain, I guess," she answered. As she spoke she was bending to grasp the iron bars. With one desperate wrench she tore the grating free and flung it aside. The Russian stepped away from the noise. "Is it safe?" "If you'd care to debate that with the zombies you won't have long to wait," said Rose. "I'm going. Give me your pack." Colonel Botcharski had forgotten the backpack full of plastic explosive he had been carrying all night. Now, as he shrugged free of the straps, he was relieved to be rid of its dragging weight. In seconds, Rose had opened both packs and was fixing blasting caps and fuses. "Go on," she said. The sound of running feet was getting nearer. With no further delay, Botcharski groped his way to the hole and lowered himself in. His hands gripped the edge as he dangled, his feet swinging in empty air. When he heard Rose telling him to hurry up he let himself fall. He guessed he dropped about six feet when he slammed against the floor and rolled aside. An instant later Rose crashed down where he had just been. She hesitated briefly and then squeezed past him. He didn't wait to be told -- he followed as quickly as he could. The passage along which they now moved was larger than he had feared it would be -- high and wide enough for them to crawl on all fours and it sloped gently downward. The air was damp and cold and the concrete under his hands was slick. They were in some sort of drainage conduit. Heaven only knew what sort of filth it had once flowed through here but now it seemed like the most wonderful place in the world. Just as Botcharski was getting used to his surroundings there came a deafening _boom_ and the earth heaved. A cloud of choking dust rolled down through the opening and engulfed them. "The explosives," said Rose. "Hopefully the passage is sealed behind us." Though still blind in the darkness, the colonel glanced around him uneasily. "Lucky this didn't cave in on us." Rose didn't answer. In this total blackness she too was blind and could only feel her way forward carefully lest they fall into another pit. Still, she crawled as swiftly as she could manage. The pipe continued sloping downward, widening slightly as others joined it from time to time. Now a thin trickle of water ran down the center channel and their pant legs were soon soaked, for there was no space to avoid it. The air began to grow colder and slightly fresher and they dared to hope for an end to their ordeal. As more pipes joined the main line the water grew deeper and they sloshed along impatiently, their hands and legs growing numb with the cold. They approached a bend and heard the sound of falling water. Botcharski could hardly contain himself at the idea of freedom and broke out in a fit of laughter. Victory Rose turned her head back and hissed, "Quiet, we aren't out of the woods yet, you know." That shut him up and when they rounded the bend they were hit by a wave of cold fresh air. They scrambled forward until Rose stopped short. "What's wrong?" demanded the Russian. "We're stuck," she answered. "I can see the outside but there are bars over the opening." "Well can't you bend them or something?" "Who do you think I am, Tarzan? Get back. I'll try something." Colonel Botcharski moved back while Rose shifted around until she was lying on her back with her feet toward the opening. Bracing herself, she began kicking with all her might at the metal bars. The bars were actually part of a heavy iron grate that was held in place with big bolts driven into the concrete. It had withstood decades of exposure to weather and the runoff from city and factory. Now it trembled under Victory Rose's assault. She battered away at it for several minutes, finally giving up as exhaustion took its toll on her. "Oh, my aching feet," she said. "Maybe more than that if we don't get out of here," said Botcharski. "Someone's bound to hear that racket." "I know," she answered. "I'm doing the best I can. This thing was built to last." She flexed her legs painfully and the gathered her strength once again. Once again her boots hammered at the iron. This time, after a dozen hard kicks, she felt a bit of movement. The rusty iron, the crumbly old concrete were beginning to give way. "I think I'm getting somewhere," she whispered, and began kicking with renewed vigor. Botcharski watched nervously, wishing she would kick harder and at the same time fearing that someone would hear the noise and investigate. Even from where he was he could see the grate shifting under her blows and he knew that in time she would prevail. She had to. Neither one of them wanted to go back through those black tunnels and look for another exit. At last one corner came loose and Rose lay back again. She panted hard and rubbed her legs. The muscles were aching but now that she knew how close to freedom she was she wouldn't stop. "This should do it," she whispered. Once again she began hammering away. Another bolt gave and the old metal let loose a painful creak. Several more kicks and Rose had pounded one side a good foot away from the concrete. After a few more she was sure she had an opening she could squeeze through. "I'm going," she said. And she began forcing her way through the narrow space. The iron bars jabbed against her back, the concrete lip of the pipe dug into her gut, and the constant flow of dirty water splashed over her face but she inched her way out into empty space. For a second she hung, dangling by her hands from the pipe's lower edge. Then she let go and fell a dozen feet to strike a slick mud embankment where she slid down another few yards to end with a splash in the freezing river. As she spluttered up to stand in the water she saw Botcharski following her example. In another few seconds he too was sliding down the muddy bank and Rose jumped aside in time for him to miss her when he struck the water. She helped him to his feet and they looked up to where they had come from -- a giant concrete pipe sticking out of the river bank high above their heads, endlessly spewing forth the runoff from Stalingrad. "Wh-what now?" asked the colonel. He was shivering and clutching himself in the cold air. His uniform was soaked through. Dawn was just streaking the sky and Victory Rose suddenly realized they had spent hours in the tunnels under the city. It would soon be light and if they didn't find shelter before long they could be caught out in the open by the Germans. She looked at Botcharski and saw him drenched and trembling. The man might catch pneumonia if they didn't find someplace dry to spend the day. "If we can get to one of the Russian pockets," he said through chattering teeth. "If," thought Rose. "If" they made it through the mass of Germans. "If" the Russians didn't shoot them on sight. No weapons, no food, no friends. Not a good situation to be in when you found yourself smack in the middle of a war zone. "Come on," she said. "Let's keep moving. It'll warm us some. Once we climb up out of this water to higher ground we can at least see where we are and make a plan." "Better than staying here," he answered. And the two began toiling their way up the slippery bank. -------- *CHAPTER XIV* Victory Rose and Colonel Botcharski slept until midday, safe in the cellar hideout of a Soviet scouting unit. The platoon had taken up residence in the north part of Stalingrad near the Barrikady factory. From there they reported their observations of the situation inside the German fortress. Every night they scattered through the city, watching and listening -- and every morning they returned to the cellar and radioed back their intelligence. It was two of these men, returning from their nightly prowl, who had come upon Rose and the colonel just before dawn broke over the city. The two parties had met most unexpectedly, running into each other as they were turning a corner around a ruined building. For a second they had all stood paralyzed, too shocked to move. Then one of the Russians had raised his gun and nearly shot them both before Botcharski bellowed his name and rank to the surprised soldier. Even at that it took a few minutes before the men decided to lower their guns rather than open fire. In the half light Rose and Botcharski's filthy uniforms were unrecognizable and gave no clue to their nationality. Only the colonel's commanding demeanor had saved the situation and after some hasty conferring he had convinced them to spare him and Rose and hide them during the daylight hours. The handful of men in the cellar stood up in alarm when Rose and Botcharski entered the hideout. There were six men present, lean and wolfish looking characters who had long ago learned the value of secrecy as the key to their existence. The single room was filthy, with cans and bottles strewn about and a mixture of unpleasant odors flavoring the thick air. While Rose and Colonel Botcharski were held at gunpoint radio calls were sent out to the other side of the river. Eventually the general did vouch for the two, but he was less than pleased with the colonel for spiriting Victory Rose out of custody without permission. Still, the information they provided about the evacuation of the zombie facility was significant and worth sending up the chain of command. It wasn't until this was all over that the two were allowed to stretch out on blankets and grab a little much-needed sleep. That sleep lasted only a couple of hours. When they were awakened it was the general who spoke to them again. After listening for several minutes Botcharski handed the earphones back to the radio operator and turned to Victory Rose. "A boat will be sent for us tonight. We are to cross under cover of darkness and report to the general immediately." "It's not just because he's eager to see us back safe and sound, is it?" asked Rose. A smile flickered across Botcharski's face and he said. "No, in fact when I spoke to the general he made it clear that concern for my safety was the last thing on his mind. You must return to America but I might have been well-advised to remain here with the Germans." He laughed. "What's up then?" The colonel looked around at the men in the cellar. They quickly turned away and made a show of minding their own business. He motioned for Rose to join him in a corner as far from them as possible and spoke to her in an undertone. "German forces are moving eastward to meet Sixth Army and create an evacuation corridor. If they should succeed ... well, it is enough to know that the decision has come down from the highest levels that this breakout shall _not_ succeed." "And your superiors want us because of Schadel's zombie soldiers," said Rose. "Exactly," he answered. "It is not known whether they exist in numbers great enough to affect the outcome of the battle that may take place, but you and I have had the greatest direct experience with the creatures. We are needed at the front." "I'll be glad to get out of here," said Rose, looking around at their cramped surroundings. "I've had enough of basements to last me a long time. I'm ready for a change of scenery." "And that it will be," answered Botcharski. "I suggest we eat something and get some sleep while we can. We have busy days ahead of us and these few hours should not go to waste." * * * * Both Rose and the colonel slept like the dead on their rough pallets, their bodies stocking up on the rest they had been denied for the previous few days. Since the war began Victory Rose had never known when or where she would sleep next and so she had acquired the habit of making the most of each minute, dropping off at a moment's notice and waking instantly ready for action. It wasn't until late in the evening that they were roused from their slumber. "The boat is on its way. We will escort you to the spot." Rose got up and nodded. Botcharski blinked and stretched a bit before rising. "When this war is over I'm going to buy myself the thickest feather bed I can get and sleep for a week," he said. Everyone nodded, for they all felt the same way. "Are you ready, Colonel, Major?" asked the man who had awakened them. "If so we need to move out now." "Let's go," said Botcharski. "I'd feel better if I had a gun though. Isn't there an extra weapon lying about?" The men shook their heads, a little sheepish, for they possessed only their own submachine guns and nothing else and they hoped these officers would not demand they be handed over. But Rose spoke up. "We're only heading down to the river. If we're as careful as we should be we won't need anything. Let's just get this over with." And so they climbed up out of the cellar and headed east through the ruins. Their escort knew the area like the back of his hand and led them along ways where they were sure to avoid detection. Once they heard a squad of soldiers tramping past and they melted like shadows into the rubble. The men passed within twenty feet and had no idea the famous Victory Rose was there for the taking. It took only minutes for them to reach the river's edge where they were bidden to take cover in some scrubby grass while the Russian went on to find the boat. They heard him utter a low whistle and a moment later he returned. At his silent signal they arose and scrambled down the bank to where a boat wallowed in the gentle waves. "This is where I leave you," said their escort. "Good luck." He tossed off a salute and disappeared into the darkness, not waiting to see them off. "Hurry up!" a voice hissed at them through the darkness. The two men in the boat were clearly eager to be away from this spot and it was easy to understand their reason. At any moment a German sentry could come upon them and make a clean getaway impossible. Rose and Botcharski clambered into the bobbing craft and took their seats. With powerful pulls at the oars, the two boatmen soon had them skimming silently across the open water. Victory Rose took a look around. If all went well this would be her last crossing of the mighty Volga and she wished to impress it on her memory -- the light of flares and stars gleaming on the dark water, the sound of artillery rumbling in the distance, the feeling of total exposure on a vast open expanse between two armies. The oars clacked rhythmically in the night and the rough wooden bench dug into her backside. The boatmen grunted with their efforts. Before long the boat bumped against mud and dark figures sloshed into the water to help pull them in. Rose took an offered hand and stepped over the side of the craft to wade up on shore. She looked back to say a word of thanks to the men who had carried her across the river but they were already pushing off, preparing to disappear into the darkness. They walked up a path and back into the Russian encampment. There they were left alone to find their own way to the general's headquarters. When they announced themselves at the door he was alone with Zelkov. The two officers looked at them disapprovingly. "You are filthy. Is this any way to present yourselves to your superiors?" Botcharski mumbled an excuse and the general shook his head. "It is of no matter at the moment. It is more important that you have returned. The state requires your services." He pointed to the large wall map where a red circle marked a spot on the Don river. "This is Kalach," he said. "It is expected that the Germans will try to cross here as they move eastward to rescue Sixth Army. It is here that they must be stopped. And it is here that you are to be sent." -------- *CHAPTER XV* For three days they bounced along in the back of a troop-carrying truck, breathing dust and exhaust fumes and watching the monotonous flat landscape crawl by. The air turned cold and they huddled together for warmth under the canvas cover of the truck bed, swapping tobacco and singing songs to make the time pass. When the convoys stopped for fuel the soldiers spilled over the tailgates in a flood, happy to stretch their legs and take the load off their aching backsides. And they were the lucky ones. Over and over they passed columns of marching men who stood aside grudging to let the trucks pass and cast envious looks up at those who rode. Victory Rose would give them a wave and a smile and the soldiers would wave back, although they had no idea who she was -- just another woman soldier taking her place at the front alongside the men. She had discarded her own ruined clothing back at Krasnaya Sloboda and donned a Russian uniform, complete with a heavy greatcoat to keep out the November chill. From time to time they passed through the blackened ruins of some village or collective and the few inhabitants who had stayed on would emerge from hiding to peer at them shyly with eyes that told stories of terror and starvation. At such times Rose would curse bitterly and swear over and over that she would do all in her power to prevent such things from happening ever again. One day she met a photographer who was recording the scenes for posterity and he showed her some of the horrors he had preserved on film. When she saw the pictures Rose shook her head in wonder. "Take more pictures," she said. "Take all you can. Surely if the world sees enough of these it will never allow another war like this to take place." The photographer laughed harshly and said nothing. On other days the convoy stopped and whistles blew and everyone jumped out with their weapons ready. Some German unit had been sighted making its way across the trackless steppe, trying to escape to the west. These were desperate men who had nothing to lose. They had learned their trade in years of constant war and they fought like tigers to save their lives. Rarely did they have the strength to break through. Mostly the battles ended with the invaders wiped out, surrounded by the bodies of Russians who had given their lives to accomplish the feat. The Russian corpses would be buried hastily in a shallow grave, the Germans looted and left where they fell. The whistles blew. Everyone returned to the trucks and the convoy moved on. One day Rose's half-sleep was broken by the familiar buzz of an aircraft engine. Suddenly the truck lurched to the side and there was a tremendous explosion followed by the rattle of machine gun fire. A volley of shouts and small arms fire answered and then it was all over, the droning fighter plane losing itself in the distance. Rose hopped over the tailgate and looked around. Up and down the line trucks had veered off the road to avoid the aerial attack. Somewhere toward the front of the column a thick pillar of oily black smoke rolled into the air. The familiar whistles blew. "Everybody back in the trucks! Back in the trucks!" Officers were running along the ragged line of vehicles shouting for order. One of them stopped and faced Victory Rose. "You! American. Are you hurt?" When Rose shook her head he barked, "Back in the truck," and ran on. Minutes later engines roared and the column lurched into motion. Rose and her comrades pulled aside the canvas flap as they passed a burning truck flat on its back in the ditch. Scattered about it were the bodies of men, all more or less damaged. Some of them were receiving medical attention. Those who could walk were staggering about in a daze. And so the convoys pressed on over the broken roads, crossing the river Karpovka at some unnamed village, ever westward and northward toward their rendezvous at Kalach. Rose could sense the excitement building as they neared their destination. From the horizon they now caught the occasional rumble of artillery and knew they were close to the front. Old soldiers smiled and checked their weapons. Newer ones smoked nervously and tried to look brave. Everyone knew now that their lives could be measured in days or even hours. At last the trucks stopped for the final time and the whistles blew and officers beat on the sides yelling, "Out! Out! Everybody Out! Form a line! Out!" And they ran on while soldiers boiled out of the trucks and formed up along the roadside. Haggard unshaven men stretched and groaned and fell into a rough formation along the roadside while their sergeants prowled up and down. Victory Rose walked up toward the head of the convoy until she saw Colonel Botcharski approaching. He waved and motioned for her to hurry. When she reached him he said, "Come, we've been called to the command post. This way." He turned and walked briskly back up toward the head of the column and Rose hurried to catch up. As they walked she looked at the scenery about her. They were on the heights overlooking the Don. Broad plains stretched as far as the eye could see -- already snowy in late November but with nothing like the massive drifts that would soon cover the area. In the distant west she could just see the town of Kalach low on the horizon. Through its midst flowed the river, and across it stretched the all-important bridges which the Germans must hold if they were to rescue their comrades trapped in Stalingrad. On the other side the land rose sharply again and Rose knew the enemy must have artillery positioned up there to defend the crossing. An icy wind blasted across the steppe and Rose pulled her greatcoat around her. Botcharski saw her reaction and laughed. In a few minutes they reached a farmhouse that had been commandeered by the officers. Inside the snug log dwelling they found a collection of generals, assorted colonels, and various other lower ranking officers bustling about. Zelkov was there, his piggish eyes darting about to find any hint of unorthodoxy among the Red Army's leadership. A few typewriters were clacking away at top speed and every time a new telephone connection was established an officer began shouting into the mouthpiece. The farmer's rough table had been dragged out to the center of the room and a large map placed upon it that showed both Russian and German positions. One of the majors looked up from his work and stared for a moment before announcing the newcomers. "Ah, the American super-woman who has battled the newest fascist terror weapon," said Zelkov. "Please, tell us what you can about your experiences." Several of the officers now crowded around, attracted as much by the presence of a woman from the capitalist west as they were by the information she could impart. They were all rough, hardened men who had obviously shared the dangers of combat on the front lines. Many of them looked as if they openly doubted the stories of zombie soldiers and Rose found it hard to blame them. "Look," she said, "I don't know how many of these things the Germans have or how they'll deploy them. My guess is that if they have enough they'll send them over in some kind of mass assault. They can't shoot, they can't think. All they can do is fight hand-to-hand with the crudest weapons. But don't be fooled. If they get that close you've got your hands full. They can't be hurt and they can't be killed. You can shoot them and chop at them all you like and you won't stop them as long as they've got one limb left to crawl over the ground at you. But there is one easy way to take them out of action." With a casual gesture she reached out and flipped Zelkov's hat off his balding head. It plopped on the floor at his feet and before he bent to retrieve it he aimed a murderous scowl her way. Victory Rose continued. "It's the helmets they wear. They're held on by a heavy strap and six spikes driven into the skull, but if you can knock it off or smash the box on top that receives signals from their operators they'll turn right back into dead men." "Easy," said one of the officers. He shrugged and made a sarcastic face. The crowd of men around him chuckled. "Not so easy as you think," said Colonel Botcharski. "These things know no fear and they feel no pain. They're fast and strong and not all your laughter will stop them if they come after _you_. Where a living soldier might think of his woman or his family or the pain of dying and hesitate to charge straight at a machine gun, these zombies have no thoughts. Their only impulse is to kill. You underestimate them at your peril." "Do you have any questions?" asked Rose, though there was little she could add. She had fought the zombies but as for how they worked -- if the Russians had interrogated Schadel they certainly knew more about that than she did. "If the Germans do use this weapon," said Zelkov, "it will strike from the east and try to take us from behind as we head for the bridge. I do not believe it will be a major problem for our forces to handle, but in any event our leaders have supplied us with a counter weapon that should turn the tide in our favor if need be." "And what would that be?" asked Victory Rose. Zelkov looked at her coldly. "That, American, is not for you to ask." -------- *CHAPTER XVI* The rising sun found Victory Rose standing atop a T-34 Soviet tank facing northwest toward the town of Kalach with its vital bridge over the Don River. Along both sides marched crowds of Russian soldiers -- some grimly and some merrily -- toward the positions that had been marked for them. They bore rifles and long-barreled anti-tank guns, bandoliers of ammunition and clusters of grenades that swung from their packs like deadly fruit. Here and there Rose saw battered Studebaker trucks carrying the fearsome Stalin Organs, multi-barreled rocket launchers that could spray a rain of fire and terror over the battlefield. A movement caught her attention and she glanced to the left where a line of brown-uniformed men chained in pairs was plodding across the open ground far ahead. "Who are they?" she asked the tank commander. He looked up quickly from his own work and shrugged. "Penal battalion. Deserters. Political criminals, maybe. On their way to clear mines if the Germans let them get close enough." He turned his attention back to his map and orders. Clearly the subject was of little interest to him. But Rose gestured to him. "Give me your field glasses," she demanded. The man sighed and slowly lifted the strap over his head. He handed them over grudgingly. "I'll need them back," he said. She mumbled her thanks but she was already scanning the field. Something about one of the men had caught her eye -- the way he moved or the way he held his spade. She examined the line of men carefully until she picked out the one she sought. Yes, there he was, scuffing along reluctantly through the tall dry grass. Lenzky! It was Private Lenzky. So this was what Zelkov had meant by "re-education." The boy was to be thrown to certain death and she was responsible. It was Victory Rose herself, by seeking him out the other day, who had brought him to the political watchdog's attention and now Lenzky would pay the price for her naivete. She cursed and started to get down from the tank. "Hey! Where do you think you're going with my glasses?" bellowed the commander. Rose turned back. "That kid out there. I know him. He doesn't belong with that bunch!" "You'd better leave it alone," said the commander. "You'll only make it worse for him and maybe land me in hot water too!" "What? What do you have to do with this?" "I lent you the field glasses," he answered. "It could be big trouble for me. Give 'em back." He held out his hand impatiently. "Okay, okay." She handed back the glasses. "What am I supposed to do? They'll make mincemeat out of him." She was still staring anxiously after the men, who were growing ever smaller in the distance. "He might come back," said the commander, none too convincingly. "Sometimes they do. Maybe they'll let him go back to his unit if it gets chewed up badly enough today." From the look on Rose's face he could see he hadn't been as reassuring as he had hoped. "Americans!" he spat. "This is war, not Coney Island. Who says any of us will be alive after today? You should be worrying about yourself!" With that he disappeared into the turret. Rose watched helplessly as the doomed men disappeared into the vast landscape. For a long time she leaned against the tank turret and watched the tiny dots spread out over the slope. Once there was an explosion but she had no way of knowing who had triggered the bomb. She kept waiting for the German artillery to open up on the invaders but they never did. Perhaps they were saving their ammunition for bigger targets. Suddenly her sightseeing was interrupted by the tank's starter cranking over the engine. The giant power plant roared to life and Rose could feel its thunderous vibrations coursing through her body. All along the line engines were revving. There could be no element of surprise today. If the Germans had entertained any doubts about the Soviets' intentions they must be laid to rest now. Great clouds of exhaust swirled away on the breeze as the snarling metal monsters waited like bulls pawing the ground before a charge. Rose heard a deep _boom! boom! boom_! behind her at almost the same instant she looked up at the howl of heavy artillery shells streaking overhead. She couldn't see the big projectiles but she knew where they were headed. A giant blossom of smoke and dust billowed up from the center of Kalach. Then there was another and another. The tank commander's head popped up out of the hatch. "Ha!" he bellowed. "Those Krauts are really getting plastered now! Give it to 'em, boys! Three cheers for the artillery!" He roared and waved his fists as the barrage continued to rain down on the town and its hapless defenders. After several minutes of this he bent down to exchange a few words with someone inside the T-34 and then emerged to lean over the side and address the infantry crowded around. "Climb aboard, you daredevils. We move out in five minutes." As he looked around he saw Victory Rose again. "You still here? Well, are you coming along? If not, jump down and give up your spot." "Are you kidding?" She had to shout to be heard over the roar of engines and the clamor of men and guns. "I wouldn't miss this for the world!" The commander laughed and flashed her a "V" sign. "Watch yourself. It's going to get hot around here. This isn't southern France, you know!" "Wouldn't have it any other way!" she answered. She checked her submachine gun and then grabbed hold of the turret as men crowded around her on the back of the tank. By now the thunder of the engines was so loud she could scarcely hear herself think. As she took one last look back she saw a new convoy of canvas covered trucks pulling to the south of the Russian horde. The soldier beside her saw Rose's mouth moving but with all the noise she had to yell twice right in his ear before he understood she was asking about the newcomers. He yelled his answer back at her. "Who tells us anything? Word is the Germans have a secret weapon. Maybe the Boss is sending us one of our own!" She knew that by "the Boss" he meant Stalin himself and a vigorous nod showed she understood. He laughed and thrust his water bottle at her. She took a long swig from it and felt the fiery liquid burning down her throat -- it was pure vodka. She smiled her thanks and just as she handed it back the tank gave a tremendous lurch and began rolling forward. They were on the move now, heading straight down into the hell that was Kalach. The mighty tank bounded over the torn earth, treads hurling giant clods at anyone unfortunate enough to be running alongside. "Ourraaaaaaay Stalin! Ouraaaaay pobieda!" shouted the men around her, and Rose found herself joining in, caught up in the spirit of the moment. She leaned into the wind, watching the outlying houses of the town grow closer. Suddenly great fountains of dirt began to spring up and she looked up to the heights across the river. The Germans must have guns in place up there. No matter! Nothing could stop them now! One of the men yanked her back just in the nick of time as something huge slammed into the turret with enough force to leave Rose's fingers numb where they clutched the vibrating metal. Red hot splinters whined through the air and carried off two of her fellow riders. Small arms fire was reaching them now. The tank's armor was being peppered with bullets of all calibers but it was no use. The T-34 and its companion tanks rolled over the advance German positions without even slowing down. Leave it to the infantry to mop up whatever was left. Smashed farms went by in a blur and now they were at the outskirts of the town itself. Rose could see the bridge now, and across the wide river another line of Soviet tanks was drawing near. Fascist soldiers were running all over -- some to their positions and some taking to their heels in blind panic. By the bridge itself a single anti-aircraft gun put up a lonely fight against the armored sledgehammer coming down on it from the west. Now the tanks were slowing as they got into the built-up area and here the Germans made their stand. The air was filled with the screech of anti-tank rockets and the metallic crash when one struck home. Twenty yards away, a tank went up like a roman candle with burning fuel spraying all around and dozens of rounds of ammunition for the main gun cooking off. Men began jumping off Rose's tank on the other side to avoid the deadly fireworks display and she was about to join them when suddenly the great machine slammed to a halt and rocked back on its rear wheels. A giant section of broken tread flew past as she tumbled to the ground. Whether it had hit a mine or been struck by an artillery round, the T-34's track had been blown off and it sat immobilized. A quick glance told Victory Rose it wasn't on fire and in only a few seconds time the turret was traversing, still picking out enemy strongpoints to destroy. She had to hand it to that tank commander. He knew he was inside a giant target and that every German gun in the vicinity was aimed at him. The racket inside must have been deafening but he had obviously determined that he and his crew would fight on to the last round. For now the great machine was a fortress anchoring the stalled Russian line. But the force of the Russian charge had broken against the stout defense. German guns poured death from every empty window or heap of rubble. The men around Victory Rose gave as well as they took, but they were pinned down by massive firepower. The Nazis knew very well that they could expect no mercy from the Red colossus they had so foolishly provoked and they fought like men who saw death staring them in the face. Victory Rose joined a knot of men huddling in an anti-tank ditch the Germans had started as part of the town's defenses. Trapped by the horizontal storm of metal flying just inches above her, she was trying to think of a way to get back to the tank and help direct his fire when she felt yet another rumble in the earth beneath her. She put her ear to the ground and heard it -- constant and growing stronger. At the risk of losing her head she popped up for a quick look around and what she saw stunned her. The Russian infantry that had been left behind was running at full speed toward the town -- not charging, but fleeing. A few had even thrown down their weapons. Those who did try to stand and fight fired off a shot or two and then joined their comrades in the rout. Rose dropped down again into the hole and the men with her could tell from looking at her face that something was terribly wrong. Now even the German gunfire had shifted, no longer trained exclusively on the pinned assault force but aimed higher, at targets farther off. Rose chanced another look. Panicked, the Soviets were running straight into the German guns but even that didn't slow them down for there was something behind them that they feared even more. A mass of black-uniformed figures hurtled down upon them from the east. It was Schadel's zombie soldiers, hundreds and hundreds of them. Enough to blacken the steppe. They swarmed along in an unstoppable mass, swinging clubs and axes, shovels, anything that could be used as a weapon for hand-to-hand fighting. Men who stopped to defend themselves learned too late that these things could not be killed or harmed. Anyone who moved too slowly was clubbed and trampled by the grisly horde. Rose spared a second to wonder how the Doktor had managed to bring so many of his creatures into Stalingrad but in the next moment her thoughts were cast away as the first of the fleeing soldiers leaped toward her trench. The Germans were having a field day, mowing down Russians in droves. The storm of lead reached an unbearable crescendo of violence as the Nazis let loose with everything they had, and still the terror-stricken Soviets came on like lemmings to their death. Now Rose could just glimpse through the running, leaping, dying crowd the black clothing of the zombies. Trapped between two forces, the end was at hand and she made a desperate decision. If she had to die today she would face it on her feet, not cowering in a hole. She sprang to her feet, screaming a war cry, feeling the bullets stream out of her submachine gun. Then she turned to her left. -------- *CHAPTER XVII* The panicking Russian infantry was upon Victory Rose now and the horde of zombie soldiers not far behind. German gunfire was screaming in thick and fast, killing men all around her. She stood, legs braced wide, blasting away at the enemy with her submachine gun and waiting for the bullet that had her name on it when she whirled to the left and what she saw froze the blood in her veins. Now she knew what the Red Army trucks had brought in and she knew the Russian soldier on the tank had been right when he had said that Stalin would have an answer for the Nazi secret weapon. A cloud of dust rose in the south and hung there, growing. The ground trembled beneath a stampede of trampling boots -- hundreds of pairs ... perhaps a thousand ... the number seemed impossibly huge. Rose watched in horrified fascination as out of the dust cloud burst a swarm of running figures. They charged with jerky puppetlike movements and in their hands they clutched heavy clubs and axes. On their heads they wore Russian helmets made bulky by the addition of a box mounted on the top. She forgot all about the Germans as these terrible beings hurtled toward her. Suddenly she shouted and threw herself flat in the hole again. The fleeing Russian infantry leaped over her, stamped on her, fell atop her as they ran from their grisly pursuers straight into the German positions. The black-uniformed zombies were right on their heels, running mindlessly at their prey. Rose thrust a struggling body aside and turned to look up into a world that had turned into a black mass of trampling legs. The zombies swept over her position without slowing. And then she saw a single figure smash into their midst. It swung its weapon in great crushing blows, creating a swath of devastation until it in turn was struck down. The flood of zombies slowed, turned, and then suddenly the thunderbolt hammered home. The full force of the new Russian zombies slammed into the body of their German counterparts. Rose clawed for shelter between the bodies of her fallen comrades as she was enveloped in a terrible new chaos. The fleeing Red soldiers were now forgotten as the Nazi zombies recognized their own kind and turned to rend and destroy. Even the German shooting seemed to slow as the gunners gazed in awe at the spectacle unfolding before their eyes -- two unstoppable tidal waves of the living dead crashing headlong into one another with shattering force. "Schadel!" thought Victory Rose. "He gave the Russians his secrets ... or sold them." It didn't matter whether the Doktor had given his work to the Soviets willingly, sold it or had it tortured out of him. Now the only important fact was that they had it, and were able to put it to use with a speed she would not have believed possible. In Nazi Germany the production of dead bodies had been transformed into a science in the murder camps that dotted occupied Europe. But the Axis demagogues had forgotten a vital fact. If there was anyone in the world better than the Nazis at producing corpses it was Joseph Stalin. By introducing such a weapon into Soviet Russia, Hitler had made an incalculable blunder -- the sort of blunder that would only hasten the coming doom for his Empire of Evil. The situation would have been funny if it wasn't so horrible. Rose had wormed her way deep enough now that she was protected from the struggling, trampling forces that battled above her. The zombies fought with a savagery that she had never seen even in her months of front-line combat. They hammered away with their splintered clubs, tore at one another with tooth and claw -- and all of this with a terrifying disregard for the destruction of their own bodies. Here a disemboweled body waded through the tumble of corpses, dragging its vitals along behind it. There an armless zombie lunged at an opponent, kicking and biting. Even severed heads snapped and spat at anything that moved. As long as they wore their bulky helmets the creatures burned with an unnatural vitality that drove them on and on. Peeking from beneath a pile of shattered bodies, Rose watched the grim struggle continue. Despite the steady thinning of their numbers on both sides the zombies fought on. From time to time she would gasp as another body slammed down on top of her, torn to the point where it could no longer function. The forces, which had both numbered in the hundreds, were dwindling fast. Here and there knots of ragged figures still flailed away at one another but the street was clearing. Victory Rose heaved her way up through the ghastly ruin that had shielded her and looked around. A few Russians were beginning to do the same thing and they all stared at one another with eyes like stunned cattle. Rose crawled out of the trench and tried to think. Surely she could gather a few of these men and make things tough for the Germans who were running for the bridge. Many of them had abandoned their posts when the zombie forces collided and made a break for the west. On the other side of the Don, the Germans were paying a high price for their breakout attempt. The T-34s that had swept down on Kalach from the north were targeting anything that moved, blasting and machine gunning fleeing men who were too disorganized to mount a defense. From what Rose could see, the carnage over there was almost as terrible as what had taken place around her. She mopped her brow and was nauseated at what came away on her hand. It would take a month of hot showers before she could ever feel clean again. It was almost as an afterthought that she noticed the puffs of dust being kicked up around her feet. Slowly she swiveled her head about, trying to discover the cause of this mysterious occurrence. The puffs continued springing up all around her, dancing closer as she watched. Suddenly a chip of stone ripped across her leg and the painful shock awakened her from her stupor. A lone German machine gunner in a second story window had her in his sights. He must have been nearly as stunned as she was for she made a perfect target standing out there in the open and he hadn't hit her yet. Rose could see him cursing as he swung the gun barrel to and fro. Suddenly she exploded into action, leaping away from the trench and running as fast as she could. Machine gun bullets ricocheted off the pavement at her heels as she dashed along the rubble strewn street. Within ten steps she knew the gunner wasn't going to let up until she lay stretched out on the ground. A couple of the fleeing Germans had turned back at the noise and now saw her running alone toward them. Shots began to crack from upflung Mausers and Victory Rose squeezed the trigger of her own submachine gun, firing from the hip and spraying what was left of her magazine until the hammer clicked harmlessly on an empty chamber. There was no time to reload though. She lowered her head and kept going, as if she planned to plow right through the men in front of her. But even as they raised their guns to fire again she decided on a different plan. Rose didn't even slow her pace as she hurled her body sideways in an unexpected leap into a recessed doorway. The stream of bullets passed by and her momentum carried her back against the door. Wooden panels smashed into kindling under the impact and Rose fell sprawling onto the wooden floor, rolling through the dust and splinters until she righted herself. The machine gunner had not lost track of her though. A stream of blazing lead screamed through the ruined doorway and tore holes in the floor boards. Rose lunged aside and flattened herself against the wall, feeling the shocks against her back as bullets smashed into the bricks outside. She fumbled in the canvas sack slung over her shoulder and drew out another drum magazine for the rugged Soviet gun. In a single fluid movement she slammed it home and whirled to fire a long burst out through the door. The machine gunner couldn't take aim at her while she remained in the house but she did want to discourage any Germans who might be in the street from coming in to finish her off. Not daring to remain exposed for more than a heartbeat, she spun back and bent to dash through the house and out the back when suddenly she stopped in her tracks, paralyzed by the sight of a uniformed, gun-toting figure stepping out of the shadows of a back room -- a figure she recognized instantly. "Colonel Bo..." was all she had time to cry out. Botcharski's submachine gun roared and Rose's desperate twist wasn't enough to save her. The force of the burst threw her back against the wall, her left shoulder suddenly on fire. The Russian colonel wasted no time but strode right up to her as she slid to the floor. He swung the smoking muzzle of his gun to aim directly at her forehead as he said, "And now you die, Victory Rose!" -------- *CHAPTER XVIII* Victory Rose set her teeth against the grinding of shattered bones in her shoulder. Colonel Botcharski's face swam before her eyes and she squinted hard to focus. Her body, shocked by the force of the submachine gun burst that had hit her, responded sluggishly to her commands. "Why you lousy..." she sputtered. "I knew there was something fishy about you." The colonel sneered down at her and said, "Why, whatever could have given me away? Perhaps my hair? Has it grown thin enough for the tattoo to show?" He watched the understanding dawn in Rose's wide eyes and laughed. "Yes, my dear. I am one of the Poison Mushrooms. As you see, we can pop up anywhere!" "If I ever get my hands on you..." growled Rose. "From the moment you showed up so conveniently that night to save me I had a feeling there was more to you than met the eye." "Yes," he chuckled. "I almost laid it on too thick that night. I knew you were in no danger. Those four goose-steppers could only have hurt you by accident. I had to shoot fast before you took care of them yourself!" "And the other night back in the tunnels," she said. "Those zombies fought me tooth and nail but all they did to you was carry you out of harm's way." The colonel nodded. "But you were too lucky and too strong. I had planned to hold you prisoner under the factory until we were ready to move you. Who could have imagined you would fight your way through dozens of the creatures and escape?" She grinned back maliciously. "But now the Russians have Schadel, and as you can see they put him to good use. What do you and your Axis-loving buddies have to say about that, huh?" Botcharski shook his head and his eyes softened with mock regret. "So beautiful, so vital, and so simple-minded. It's very sad, really. If you were able to make the necessary intellectual leaps you would be a wonderful asset to our cause. As it is, shooting you in the head will be no loss, for brain power is not your most striking feature. I am sure the Poison Mushrooms can gain great benefits by dissecting the secrets of your lifeless corpse." "I'm not quite dead yet. Are you sure your Nazi masters don't want me alive? Better check with Uncle Adolf first!" "Masters?" roared Botcharski. "Masters? You display your ignorance every time you open your mouth, woman. Do you imagine it makes one bit of difference to us which crazy dictator wins this war? No matter who comes out on top it will be the Poison Mushrooms who are victorious. Whether the Reds hold Schadel or the Nazis, it is we who will command the secrets of how to create unstoppable armies of the living dead. And it is we who will send them out in their millions to subjugate Europe and Asia. Then the Poisoned Mushrooms will be free to spread their spores over the entire planet." With a Herculean effort, Rose staggered to her feet, although her face went white as she did so. She stood swaying in front of the Russian and slowly she removed her trembling hand from her shoulder. "See?" she said. "The bleeding's already stopped. If you're really planning to do something you'd better hurry it up." And it was true. The amazing healing powers of Victory Rose's body were asserting themselves. Already the blood from the gaping wounds had ceased to flow. It would still be weeks before the shattered bones could knit themselves strongly enough for her to face combat again but the flesh was repairing itself with amazing speed. Botcharski had to fight the urge to watch, fascinated, as the process continued. He could see her gaining strength with every passing second and he wished he had the leisure to see this through to its conclusion. What a pity they would not have her living, vibrant body to study. Botcharski's submachine gun was still pointed at her head. He could see Rose gathering her strength for one final spring and he admired her will to survive. Her eyes blazed defiance but his finger tightened on the trigger. The crack of a gunshot echoed through the room and a body thudded to the floor. A thick red stain spread across the boards and soaked into the cracks between them. For a moment there was silence. Then Victory Rose lifted her eyes from what lay before her and stared across the smoky room where Zelkov stood, pistol in hand. The political officer ignored her as he stepped forward to examine his victim. He grunted softly when he saw that Botcharski was dead, although Rose couldn't tell whether this was an expression of satisfaction or displeasure. Zelkov rose from his haunches and put another round into the colonel's head, just for good measure. He was not a man to leave a job half done. It wasn't until he holstered his gun that he spared a glance for Rose. "You are hurt," he said simply. "It's nothing," she answered. Her arm hung limp at her side but she was already feeling stronger. "Remarkable," said Zelkov, eyeing the wound. He could see that the bleeding had ceased completely and that she was more steady on her feet. "You followed me in here," said Rose, "just like he did back at Schadel's cellar." She indicated Botcharski's corpse with a quick nod of her head. Zelkov shook his head. "No, I was following him and it is simply your good fortune I walked into the room when I did." "Well, that's honest, at least," she remarked. "There is no need for me to lie. He was not as clever as he thought and he has been under investigation for some time now. What he told you just now was merely a confirmation of what we already knew." Zelkov lifted his chin combatively and added, "You were a distraction to him. With Schadel to watch and you to capture ... As we see, he simply was not up to the task. In your way you were a help to me, and for that you have the gratitude of the Soviet Union for your part in driving the fascists from our country." "Seems to me maybe I could ask for something in return," Rose ventured. The Russian immediately looked suspicious. "What? Your life is not enough? You capitalists ... always grasping for a profit." She gestured with her good hand. "Don't worry, it's not for me. It's for that boy, Lenzky." Zelkov eyed her silently. "You know he didn't do anything wrong," she said. "If there was any wrongdoing it was my fault. It was I who sought him out. The kid wouldn't even talk to me and I sent him right back to his work." "We know all this," said Zelkov. "He reported the contents of your conversation word for word at his hearing, under conditions that encouraged telling the full truth. If there had been anything incriminating in his account he would have been immediately shot." Rose could hardly contain her exasperation. "If you know he's innocent then get him out of that penal battalion. You know he doesn't belong with that bunch." "We take subversion very seriously," said the political officer. "It may be that he has learned a valuable lesson about the wisdom of seeking contact with foreign elements and has been rehabilitated sufficiently to take his place on the front lines alongside his comrades." Zelkov thought a moment and continued. "I tell you this. Once the fighting is over here, if he still lives, I will personally review his case and make a recommendation to my superiors. More I cannot promise." "Thank you," said Rose. She didn't know just how thankful she should be, but it seemed she had done all she could to do right by the boy. The rest was out of her hands. They were both quiet for a moment and noticed that the shooting outside had stopped. That could only mean that the Russians had taken the bridge and eliminated all resistance. At any moment now the house might be invaded by soldiers looking for food or loot. "It's time we got out of here," said Zelkov. "I destroyed Botcharski's tattoo with my second shot and so no one need ever know how he met his end. I do not wish for either of us to be found here with the body." "Good idea," she agreed. "Where to?" "Out the rear door," he replied, "through the alleys and back to our lines. Are you well enough to walk? The way is rough in places." "You just try and keep up with me," she said. In the back of her mind Victory Rose wondered what he would have done if she hadn't been able to make it back on her own. That second shot into Botcharski's head had been some cold-blooded work. But Zelkov was already tramping back through the house. "Hurry up!" he called back to her. "There is no time for dawdling!" Rose winced at the pain in her shoulder and hastened to catch up with him. -------- *CHAPTER XIX* Iron stairs rang under Victory Rose's combat boots as she descended ever farther into the black netherworld of sub-basements below the Kremlin. Level after level she passed and with each turn of the staircase the sharp musty smell of the sweating walls grew stronger. She was far below Moscow now, deep in a restricted area which few entered and from which even fewer ever returned. Up above it was night, but down here it was always a timeless twilight, illuminated by flickering electric bulbs suspended from bare wires. She would leave Moscow in the morning and begin the long journey north to Archangel where a ship from England would be awaiting her. Now though, she had one last mission to accomplish before leaving Russia behind. At the very bottom of the staircase a steel door barred her path. Streaked with rust and studded with great bolts, it looked as if it had hung there since the time of Ivan the Terrible. Rose fished in her jacket pocket and extracted a massive key which she slid into the lock. Heavy tumblers fell into place and she pushed hard with her good arm. The other was bound up in a sling. The door yielded only grudgingly, the old hinges screeching their protest. When she stepped into the room beyond she took a good look around as she drew her automatic. It was a roomy vaulted chamber that had been recently whitewashed to dispel some of its subterranean gloom. The lighting was far better than in the stairwell. Fixtures had been bolted to the stone ceiling and these shone brightly. A lamp stood atop the desk in one corner and there was another one for the nightstand by the bed. Aside from that, the room was jammed with electronic apparatus and laboratory equipment. A giant cooler covered an entire wall. In the center of the room a wooden box stood upright on one end and in it sagged the body of a dead man with a metal box held directly to his head by heavy screws. A living man also occupied the room. He wore a white lab coat and stood in front of the coffin making tiny adjustments to the corpse's headgear. He turned when he heard the door open behind him. "You're late!" he complained. "It's past time for my tea and where are the supplies I asked for this morn..." He stopped and his eyes flew open when he saw who stood in the doorway. "_You_!" "Doktor Schadel," she said. "We meet again." By now Schadel had noticed the automatic clutched in her fist and his eyes remained glued to it. "How did you get here? What do you want with me?" There was a definite note of fear in his voice. Rose smiled. "The answer to the first question is, 'None of your business.' The answer to the second question though might be of interest to you. I'm here to give you a choice. Want to know what it is?" Schadel chewed his lip and nodded. "You can come with me," she said. "Or you can stay and join your friend there, permanently." She made a significant gesture with the gun. The doktor's face took on an unpleasant, wily look that made Rose want to shoot him no matter what he decided. She could see the wheels turning inside his head as he considered his options. Finally he spoke. "Can you really get me out of this basement?" "I wouldn't have made the offer otherwise," she replied. "Will I work for the Americans then?" Rose frowned as she answered. "I don't know what plans they've got for you. Frankly, I hope not. I don't think much of you or your work. But I have my orders and I'm here to offer you a chance to get out of Russia." "I haven't revealed the true secrets of my work to anyone," he said. "I could be quite valuable. Once this war is over you'd have an edge that no one else in the world would possess." This was just what Victory Rose had wanted to hear. Much as she hated to think of delivering this character back to her homeland, Washington had made it clear that they didn't want his perversion of science in the Soviet arsenal. "And what can I expect in return for going over the United States? Excellent working facilities, I know. You see what I must put up with here." He swept his arms around to indicate the room. "A nice apartment ... money, yes money ... Perhaps, um..." his gaze swept over Victory Rose, "female companionship?" "Oh, don't even think it," she snarled. "If I had my way you'd hang along with every other war criminal after this is all over." "Hmmmm..." he said. "I must think. America may not be my best option after all. After all, here I at least..." Rose didn't let him finish. "Life or death, Schadel. Take it or leave it. But I don't have all night so make it quick or I'll decide for you." The doktor nodded and his gaze lingered a moment on her injured arm. "I see how it is now. Let me get my papers and I will join you." He began to gather folders that were scattered about the room. As he moved from desk to lab table to instrument panel his hand almost casually brushed against a switch. Instantly the electrical apparatus came to life with a menacing hum. The sudden power surge caused the room's lights to dim and when they brightened again Victory Rose saw the corpse's clutching hands only inches from her throat. Doktor Schadel crouched over his controls, laughing maniacally. "Life or death it is then," he screamed. "And I choose death ... for _you_!" With an eye-blurring burst of motion Rose kicked the zombie across the room. At the same instant her automatic roared and Doktor Schadel was thrown backward. He fell to the floor, clutching his chest. Without his guidance at the control panel the zombie thrashed about aimlessly in a way that was horrifying to see. Rose pumped two more slugs into the apparatus and it sprayed showers of sparks over the room. The zombie collapsed like a broken doll, finally at peace. Victory Rose bent over Schadel but he was going fast. The bullet had cut an artery in his chest and there was no saving him even if she had wanted to. He clawed at her sleeve and gurgled a bit before joining his experimental subjects in final rest. She laid him back on the floor and stood to survey the room. For a moment she considered taking his papers with her. It would be natural for her to gather as much intelligence as possible to turn over to her superiors. But no, she remembered the old horror movie cliche, "There are some things man was not meant to know." And she felt that this terrible work fell into that category. Her decision made, Rose moved about the room swiftly, setting fire to everything that would burn. When the papers and bedding had made a good blaze and fire started licking at the wooden furniture she reached into a canvas bag she carried and drew forth a bundle of dynamite. She set the timer to give her fifteen minutes to make good her escape. With that done she exited the room, locked the door behind her, and began to run up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her. She was just nearing the top when she heard a muffled _boom_ from far below. The next morning found her on the first train headed north out of Moscow. She would be miles away before Schadel's remains were found. Hopefully she would be out of Russia entirely before anyone thought to connect her with what had happened. For now she buried herself as deeply as she could in her greatcoat, seeking some warmth in the unheated carriage, and dreamt of her return to the sands of North Africa. -------- IN THE NEXT ISSUE [NOTE: Image omitted. Images not supported in this eBook format. Download the MS Reader, Acrobat, or Hiebook format file.] After centuries trapped beneath the icy waters of the Atlantic, Sarabotes, Hell's mightiest demon, awakes to spread disaster through the world. Rising in Boston harbor, he rains flaming destruction down on the city, laughing as its citizens burn in the fire. But, before he begins his conquest of the Earth, Sarabotes plans to take an old flame for his bride. His prospective bride, however, has other plans. She's Femme Noir, Dread Nemesis of Hell's Restless Legions, and she has sworn to stop Sarabotes -- even if it means her death! Join Femme Noir, detective Rick Harrell, his irascible police chief, and Father Tomasino, as they oppose themselves to the occult powers of hell's most powerful demon. Here is a masterpiece of dark fantasy that will bring you face to face with Femme Noir's greatest secret and a shattering climax inside the Chapel of the Saints of Night. -------- CH001 *JUNGLE MISSION* OSCAR SCHISGALL We were flying at 3,000 feet when Red Worden banked the plane down toward the strip of savannah. The small green clearing, edged by palms, lay beside a river. Beyond the river the awesome black mesa called Yanqui Pui bulged a stark 7,000 feet above the Venezuelan jungle. I was in the back seat, behind Red. Next to him sat our oil camp's physician, Dr. Harris, a thin, hard man with a blunt manner. A good doctor, but cold, wasting no time on "foolish sentiment." "How far are they?" he asked Red. Red Worden jerked his head in the direction of Yanqui Pui. "Ten or twelve miles up yonder. We can reach them in a couple of hours by the trail we hacked." We were going down fast, and I began to see that the river was swollen. On the far shore it had climbed so high that it splashed among trees, throwing up thousands of fountains of spume. We skimmed over palm fronds and landed smoothly. Several of our men were licensed pilots, and I had always regarded Red Worden as the best flier among us. That was why I had assigned him in recent weeks to pilot the company's chief geologist, Philip Daniels, and his daughter over the jungles. Red was always calm and precise; the kind of man who never made a rash move or took an unnecessary risk. Moreover, he was virtually the only one I could trust not to be a nuisance to Ella Daniels. She was twenty-one, blond, by all odds the best-looking girl within five hundred miles, and her effect on the other unmarried men had been explosive. She had the good sense to take their excitement with a laugh, but sometimes -- especially after she began to be harassed by the recurrent fever -- the hounding of a hundred and seventeen eager young males must have been hard to take. She probably found relief in the aloofness of a man like Red Worden. I had kidded him about being blind to Ella's looks, but he had said, simply, "Any time I go after a girl like her, Jim, it'll be because I want to marry. And I'm not interested in getting married. I've got a long way to go, and I won't take the risk that a family might hold me back." I believed it. I had long known that this big, redheaded man was concerned primarily with himself and his career. Until it suited him, he wouldn't bother about Ella Daniels or any other girl. * * * * As I got out of the plane I saw, with a shock, that the river was actually a torrent. Racing along at wild speed, it swept logs and uprooted trees toward the thundering falls. Doc Harris climbed out behind me, with his waterproof medicine box slung from his shoulders. It contained cans of _leche hegeron,_ a derivative of tropical herbs with which he had been able to control Ella Daniels's fevers. "We can't cross that," Doc said angrily. Red Worden looked up and down the river with a scowl. "Wasn't like this when I crossed this morning." "Flash floods," I said. :Cloudbursts up on Yanqui Pui, and the canyons are pouring it all out. Should ease off in a few hours." "We can't wait hours," Red said. "Ella was running a fever of maybe 104 when I left them." He looked at the medicine box. "If you strap that thing on me, Doc, I can get over." "So we can lose you and the medicine _and_ the girl," Doc said. "No," he finished with decision, "we'll wait." Rubbing his jaw, Red peered up the river. Presently he started off downstream, looking for rocks or shallows that could be crossed. After Red disappeared beyond the palms at a bend I joined Doc, who had gone to find a cool spot for his medicine. He stood in the shade of a tree, the medicine box in the grass beside him. "What the devil is Daniels up to on Yanqui Pui?" he asked. "That's no place to prospect for oil." "He wasn't prospecting," I said. "I urged him to go. Wanted him to see how the world's highest waterfall comes gushing down a plateau where there's no river." Actually, of course, Angel Falls gushes from a cave in the cliffs just below the high plateau, pushed by terrific subterranean water pressures. I knew Daniels, with the fascination of a geologist, would want to get close to the 2,500-foot fall. He had taken Ella along, as usual, and of course he couldn't have known that she would slip on wet rocks and that all her equipment, including a thermos-packed supply of _leche hegeron,_ would go tumbling to eternal oblivion in a ravine. With her leg broken, Ella had lain in agony while her father and Red did what they could. When her fever had begun to flare, Red had rushed back ten miles to the plane and had flown in to the camp for help. Now we stood on the banks of the swollen river until Red returned from his search. We could tell from his expression that he had found neither rocks nor shallows. "There's no better spot than this," he said. "If you'll tie that box on me, I'll take it across." "Nothing doing," Doc said. Red's eyes narrowed. "Ella may be dying." "That's no reason for you to die first." "Doc -- this is one thing I've _got_ to do!" Before I realized what Red had in mind he shoved Doc sprawling in the grass and snatched up the medicine box. As he ran toward the water he slung it over his shoulders. I started after him, yelling, "Don't! You can't make it!" It did no good. He hit the water in a long, shallow dive and started across with hard strokes. Ten feet from the shore the full force of the torrent caught him. It swept him downstream like a log. He shouted and thrashed and tried wildly to turn back, but he was helpless in the rushing water. Doc was on his feet now. We raced along the banks, screaming to Red, seeing his bobbing head carried off to midstream, down toward the falls. We ran as far as we could, to a great mass of rocks, and there we stood stricken till we could see no more of Red Worden, knowing there was nothing we could do. I turned away, sick. Doc was saying hoarsely, "The fool! The crazy fool!" I went back to the plane. A dozen times that afternoon I flew up and down the river, low, hunting for Red's body. It was useless. A lot of trees had jammed up in the rocks above the falls, and there was a chance he had been swept into them, but even that could have killed him. He must have been sucked under the jam by the raging white water. There was no trace of him. By twilight I gave up. Standing at the spot where Red had dived, I said to Doc in a dead voice, "Fly you to camp for more drugs." "No need," he answered. When I stared at him, not understanding, he nodded toward a rock. At its base lay a pool perhaps eight inches wide, water sloshing in and out of it. "The medicine box couldn't fit in there," he said. "So I put in the two cans of _leche hegeron_ to keep them cool. The box Red grabbed was empty." That night I couldn't sleep. I kept seeing Red's head swept down in the torrent and thinking about the terrible futility of his death. Why would a calm, cautious man like Red take such a reckless chance? I could think of only one answer. Whether he had admitted it to himself or not, he had loved Ella Daniels -- loved her enough to risk his life in an effort to save hers. I didn't speak of this to Doc Harris. It would only have made him more bitter, supporting his contempt for all sentimental behavior. He would argue that if Red hadn't been so emotional he would be alive now... By dawn the water was hardly more than waist-high, and we crossed without trouble. Doc carried the drug cans inside his shirt. Following the trail was like pushing along a dark, narrow tunnel. We went on and on, mile after mile, for almost two hours. Finally we started climbing along the edge of a deep, black gash in the earth. The climb was difficult alone; carrying a girl with a broken leg would have been impossible. Suddenly Doc stopped in front of me and gasped. Ahead of us, on hands and knees, was Red Worden! He was too weak to stand, yet he dragged himself along, the medicine box still slung from his shoulders. When we got to him he was fumbling to unsling the box. "Get it to her," he whispered. I was on my knees, shaking him. "How on earth-?" "The jammed-up trees," he said. "Pulled myself across and passed out." We got his arms over our shoulders, lifted him to his feet. We dragged him with us now, his legs stumbling as though he had lost all control over them. But we had only a few minutes to go. Where the trail curved we found Philip Daniels and his daughter. The girl lay in a hammock under netting, and from the way she looked at Red I knew I wasn't mistaken about the love between them. I knew, too, that having risked his life, it would be natural now for Red to risk his career for Ella. And then I wondered how he'd feel when he saw Doc take the cans of drugs out of his shirt, how he'd react to discovering that his reckless courage had been all for nothing. The thought made me want to turn away. But Doc was making a great to-do of opening the medicine box in front of Red, and when the box was open, there were the two familiar cans! I stared up at his hard, thin face. I was stunned, knowing that somehow, while we had helped Red up the trail, Doc had managed to put those cans back in the box. Was this the man who had no use for sentiment? His eyes met mine steadily. "Jim," he said, "I'll need your help." I nodded and said, "Sure, Doc. You can count on me all the way." -------- CH002 *TIGRESS OF T'WANBI* KI-GOR'S GREATEST ADVENTURE *JOHN PETER DRUMMOND* _Over the forests of the Karamzili fell her evil blight, wiping out whole armies and villages ... until Ki-Gor took up the desperate cause of a people driven mad by fear!_ -------- *CHAPTER I* There was no sound except the monotonous droning of insects. Birds and beasts alike were sunk in torpor under the baking heat of the brassy, noonday sun. But far down on the jungle floor, protected from the fierce glare by layers of leafy canopy, Ki-Gor, White Lord of the jungle, strode along a tiny trail. On his powerful shoulders was balanced a freshly killed antelope that would weigh not an ounce less than two hundred pounds. But Ki-Gor padded swiftly along with it as if it weighed no more than a jungle fowl. Indeed, so rapid was his pace that his friend, little Ngeeso the Pygmy, traveling the tree-route above him, was hard put to it to keep up. Ordinarily, Ki-Gor would not have carried off the entire carcass of such a big buck. One quarter, or even a few good steaks would be all that he and his mate, the beautiful red-haired Helene, could consume before the meat spoiled. But because Ngeeso had been near when he felled this buck, and had looked so longingly at the plump legs and fat ribs, Ki-Gor had decided to take the whole beast along so that Ngeeso's people could have a feast. In the remote, secluded glen which was Ki-Gor's home, his only human neighbors were the Pygmies. And from old, wrinkled-face Ngeeso, the Chief, down to the tiniest solemn child, they were devoted to Ki-Gor and Helene. The jungle man and his mate reciprocated this affection by just such gestures as killing fresh meat for the tiny forest denizens. Now, as Ki-Gor strode tirelessly along, the drone of the insects took on a deeper undertone. That would be the waterfall, and Ki-Gor knew he was not far from home, that lovely sanctuary on the island in the rapids below the falls. Helene would not be expecting him home so soon. Unconsciously, Ki-Gor's steps hastened a little. They always did when Ki-Gor got close to home. For, of all the things in heaven and on earth, nothing counted for so much as a single red hair on the head of his beautiful mate. "Hai!" squeaked Ngeeso, considerably to the rear. "Art thou carrying the antelope, O Big Brother -- or it thee?" "What's the matter, Little One?" Ki-Gor laughed, stopping and turning around. "Art thou getting too old and decrepit to keep up a normal pace any more?" "A normal pace!" Ngeeso raged. "Aye, I can keep up a normal pace -- even when the trees grow far apart in spots as they do along here. But I never was able to keep up with one who lunges along the ground like a charging leopard!" The little man swung himself to a bough above Ki-Gor, his tiny bow and quiver flapping against his wrinkled torso. There he sat for a moment puffing and blowing indignantly, while Ki-Gor laughed up at him. Then, Ngeeso's beady little eyes, scanning the forest restlessly suddenly fixed themselves on a spot ahead on the trail. "Speaking of leopards," Ngeeso said in a voice suddenly lowered, "unless my eyes mistaken me there is one not far away." The laughter disappeared from Ki-Gor's bronzed face, and he watched Ngeeso's seamed face. "Where, Little Brother?" he murmured, "in front of us?" "Aye," Ngeeso muttered, "and it's as well I saw him. He is at some distance. The leaves are thin between us -- else I had not seen him at all. I think -- " the little man craned his neck -- "I think he is stretched out on a bough directly over the trail." "Aha," Ki-Gor murmured, "that is not too good." He shifted the buck on his shoulders and prepared to drop it on the ground, but Ngeeso spoke. "Nay, Big Brother, leave him to me. It is a long bowshot but -- " he plucked a tiny arrow from the quiver -- "I think I can reach him." "As thou say," Ki-Gor shrugged. "Thy bow hand is still steady, but -- " "Oh, I will not miss him," Ngeeso said confidently, "as long as I can reach him. These arrows of ours have only to pierce the fur and make the veriest scratch. It will take a little while for the poison to travel through the veins. But when it does -- no one will be troubled by that leopard any more." "Those are dangerous things, those arrows of yours," Ki-Gor observed humorously. "I hope thou wilt always be quite sure of what thou shoot at. For instance, I wear a breechclout of leopard skin. It would be most awkward, O Little One, if one fine day thou shot me by mistake thinking I was a leopard." Ngeeso giggled as he raised the bow. "Thou are forever joking, Big Brother, and mocking me. Be still now, for a moment while I take aim. This is no easy shot." He squinted along the tiny arrow, then suddenly lowered the bow again to giggle. "Imagine," he snorted, "mistaking thee for a leopard!" Once again, he aimed the arrow, his beady eyes narrowing to deadly slits. It was a difficult shot only because of the distance involved. The little patch of spotted fur which he saw through the light screen of leaves did not budge. It was a motionless target. The brown claw which was his right hand drew the bowstring back steadily. Back, back it went until the bow was bent almost double. Then two fingers of the claw flew open. There was a little ping! The tiny arrow flittered away through the air, carrying on its tip enough poison to kill an elephant if it struck an unprotected spot -- the eye, for instance or the inside of a nostril. Ngeeso leaned forward from the bough following the flight of the little arrow. His mouth and eyes were wide open. Seconds went by, then the Pygmy gave a squeak of triumph. "Got him!" he exclaimed. "A little high on the back, but I wanted to be sure the arrow wouldn't fall short -- " Suddenly, the Pygmy's voice died away with a little groan. "Why -- what's the matter, Little One?" Ki-Gor demanded. Ngeeso's eyes were bulging with horror. "Ai, me!" he whispered, and began beating his breast slowly. "Ai! Big Brother, what have I done!" "What, what?" Ki-Gor cried fiercely in sudden alarm. "It -- it is no leopard!" Ngeeso sobbed, "I see I see -- white flesh!" Just then there came a piercing scream from down the trail, and another -- and still another. "Ki-Gor! Ki-Gor! KI-GOR!" It was Helene's voice. For a second, Ki-Gor was numb. Then horror began to roll up and down his back in great ripples. Helene wore leopard skin, too. "Thou murderous little monkey -- " he bellowed, in a strangled voice. He flung the antelope from his shoulders and pounded up the trail, moaning. To Ki-Gor every step seemed an eternity. Actually, it was scarcely six seconds before he was standing under a tall baobab tree looking upward. Helene was stretched out on a bough twenty feet over the trail, staring down with bloodless face, her fingers clutching the bark of the limb spasmodically. "Oh, Ki-Gor!" she moaned, "thank heavens you were near! One of the Pygmies shot a poisoned arrow at me. I'm sure it was a mistake -- " "Where did it hit?" Ki-Gor demanded, tensely. "The small of my back," Helene replied. "Hit the leopard fur a half inch away from my own skin." "Did it go through?" Ki-Gor hardly dared listen for answer. "I-I don't know," Helene stammered. "I felt a slight bump. Then I looked back over my shoulder and saw the arrow..." "Don't move a muscle," Ki-Gor commanded, and started up the tangle of vines that coursed twistingly up the huge tree trunk. His mind was numb, and his hands and feet worked purely automatically to hoist him up to the bough on which Helene was outstretched. It could not be! He told himself, it must not be! The arrow must not have penetrated the leopard skin! The veriest scratch, Ngeeso had said, and it would take but a little while for the poison to go through the veins. Ki-Gor hauled himself up to the bough and crept out toward the prone body of his mate. Another wave of horror swept over him as he saw the arrow. The tiny, deadly shaft, hardly a foot long, was slanting into the back of Helene's abbreviated leopard skin garment at the small of her back. A half inch to the right, and it would have penetrated Helene's own fair skin. But chance -- or Ngeeso's fine shooting -- had sent it into the leopard skin. It was that fact that enabled Ki-Gor to get a grip on himself. It remained to be seen whether the point had gone through and scratched Helene's skin beneath. While there was a chance that it had not -- there was hope. Ki-Gor bent over his mate's still form. "Keep perfectly still," he said gently, and calmly. His right hand went down to the edge of the leopard skin garment just above the arrow. Slowly, ever so slowly, he drew the leopard skin up and away from Helene's tanned skin. A thrill of joy went through Ki-Gor as he perceived that the leopard skin lifted away without resistance. Warily, though, his left hand went to the feathered butt of the arrow and drew it out of the leopard skin. Then he lifted the garment higher -- and now his hands began to tremble a little -- and peered at Helene's skin underneath. Long and carefully, his keen eyes searched the smooth velvety surface. Then he took a deep breath and dropped the leopard skin back into place. The arrow had not so much as touched Helene's skin. Thanks to the angle at which it had struck, it had not penetrated the leopard skin. Ki-Gor's head began to swim a little. He quickly dropped the deadly little arrow to the ground, and moved backward carefully along the bough. "It is all right, Helene," he said and his voice was trembling a little. "It is all right. The poison didn't touch you -- there is no danger." "Oh!" Helene gasped. "Oh, thank heaven!" She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder with a wan smile. But the smile began to broaden immediately, the blue eyes twinkling. "Why, Ki-Gor!" she chuckled. "Your face is positively gray! Oh! and look behind you -- behind your right shoulder." Ki-Gor quickly twisted his head around. On the branch just above him sat Ngeeso. His seamed little face was set in agonized lines, and his right hand clutched one of his own arrows half way down the shaft. The poisoned tip was a scant inch away from Ngeeso's own leathery neck. "What did thine eyes see, Big Brother?" the Pygmy said quaveringly. "Did the tip...?" "The tip did not touch her, Little One," Ki-Gor interrupted quickly. "Put down that arrow!" "Art thou positive, O Big Brother?" Ngeeso persisted. "Because if I caused the death of thy mate -- even unwittingly -- then must Ngeeso decently die as soon as possible." "Nay, nay, Little Friend, no harm has been done." "Ai-ee!" Ngeeso wailed, moving the arrow down from his neck, but still holding it in his hand. "But suppose -- suppose -- " "Forget it!" Ki-Gor commanded, and quoted a Pygmy proverb. "If the arrow fail to hit the bird, it is as if it had never been fired." "Ai-ee!" Ngeeso moaned disconsolately, "Thou art too kind, Big Brother. I cannot bear it!" It took Helene and Ki-Gor at least ten minutes to persuade Ngeeso that he should not punish himself for the accident which came so near to having fatal consequences. But at the end of those ten minutes Ngeeso finally replaced the arrow in his quiver, and both Ki-Gor's and Helene's nerves had returned to normal. "You know," Helene said, as the trio resumed the journey toward the island home, "we really ought to know some sort of antidote to whatever poison they use on those arrows." "Yes, we should," Ki-Gor agreed grimly. "But there isn't any that I know of. Or that the Little People know of either." "Why that's terrible!" Helene observed. "Suppose one of them accidentally scratched himself..." "That has happened," Ki-Gor said. "And when it did -- there was no hope. The little man died." Helene shivered. "That's why I nearly went crazy," Ki-Gor said simply. "Well, that's not right," Helene declared. "Somewhere there must be an antidote. I suppose they get the poison from a plant, don't they?" "Yes," Ki-Gor said, "I know the plant." "You do?" Helene said thoughtfully. "You know -- there is someone who, I'll bet, would know the antidote. He was a great herb doctor -- that Hindu doctor that helped you escape from the slave traders." "Hurree Das," Ki-Gor murmured. "Yes, he might. He knew a great deal about all kinds of plants. Yes, Hurree Das might know." "Why don't we make a trip sometime up north and visit him?" Helene suggested. "All right," Ki-Gor said. "The next time we go up to see Tembu George. Hurree Das is about a week's journey northwest of George. We will do it. But not for several weeks." Ki-Gor did not know it then, but he and Helene were destined to be traveling northward much sooner than several weeks from then. Destiny was, in fact, awaiting them just a hundred yards up the trail, in the person of a tall, uneasy Karamzili youth. The Karamzili had a right to be uneasy. He was crouching, eyes rolling, under the great tree which supported one end of the rope bridge to the island. And above him in the tree, a half dozen of Ngeeso's Pygmies had arrows trained on him. "Hai, Bwana Ki-Gor!" the youth cried breathlessly as the jungle man and his mate came into view. "Tell the Little People I come as a friend! They have threatened me with the poisoned death in their little arrows for too long. We Karamzili are brave -- but that is a horrible death." "Calm your fears," Ki-Gor said. "They will not shoot until you do something unfriendly. Why did you come here?" "I bring a message, O Bwana Ki-Gor," the young black said. "And urgent message from Dingazi, King of the Karamzili, Protector of the Race, Emperor of the World." "Dingazi!" Ki-Gor exclaimed in astonishment. "Dingazi sends me a message!" "Aye, that he does!" the youth cried. "The great King is troubled by things that are happening in Karamzililand. He desires your advice. He begs you to make the journey to Dutawayo as fast as you can come!" Ki-Gor stared at the messenger. Dingazi was a tremendously powerful potentate. He ruled over a large territory with a population of not less than four million souls. He had a magnificent army of nearly thirty thousand men, well-disciplined and drilled in Zulu tactics. What possible trouble could Dingazi be in that he should call upon Ki-Gor to help him out? Yet, if Dingazi were in some trouble and needed Ki-Gor's help, Ki-Gor could not refuse it. It was not too many months before that Dingazi had, almost single-handed, dared his own subjects' hysterical blood-lust to protect the lives of Ki-Gor, Helene and Tembu George -- all of whom were then at Dingazi's court. "What is the trouble?" Ki-Gor bluntly asked the messenger. "I do not know," the youth said. "I am but a messenger. There are rumors about invaders from the north." "Invaders?" Ki-Gor said incredulously. "Who dares to invade Karamzililand? Not the Masai -- for they are friendly, and are connected by marriage. Who else is there to dare the might of Dingazi's impis?" "I don't rightly know," the youth confessed. "But it is said that there is some sort of mighty ju-ju being performed. The rumors say our border guards are slain before they could see the enemy. They say also that the subject tribes in the north are rising." "I can't believe it," Ki-Gor said slowly. "Why does not Tembu George and the Masai come to Dingazi's aid?" "Maybe he has sent for them," the messenger suggested. "I only know that Dingazi sent me to bid you hasten to him." "Very well, then," Ki-Gor said, with decision. "We will come." He turned to the Pygmies in the tree. "Hai, Little Brothers, have you seen aught of the great gray elephant? Is he hereabouts?" "Aye, Big Brother," the Pygmies chorused, "that he is -- just above the falls stuffing himself with the lush grass beside the water." "It is good," he said and turned to his mate. "I will go after Marmo. Will you go across and collect my war-gear and some food? The Little Ones will help you bring them back over the bridge. We will start for Karamzililand as soon as I come back with Marmo." -------- *CHAPTER II* Dutawayo, the capital of Karamzililand, was in a ferment of excitement by the time Ki-Gor, Helene, and the messenger arrived. Well-trained and docile as old Marmo was, he would obey Ki-Gor only up to certain points. He did not like towns and crowds, and he had, therefore, stopped of his own accord in the outskirts of Dingazi's capital and let his passengers off. As the trio walked through the crowded, noisy streets, an excited throng gathered in their wake and followed them up the hill to Dingazi's kraal. Ki-Gor was quick to notice one thing about the crowd, and that was that they were excited without knowing exactly what they were excited about. They were bewildered and uncertain. Whatever the menace on the northern border was, the Karamzili had heard only rumors -- they had been told no facts. At the gateway to the royal kraal, a young warrior stepped forward and informed Ki-Gor that Dingazi would receive him immediately. This was unusual. Dingazi loved his pomp and ceremony as well as any other African monarch, and out of sheer autocratic whim he would keep his dearest friend waiting for two days for an audience. It was an indication, therefore, of the extreme urgency of the situation, that Dingazi did not stand on the usual ceremony now, but wished Ki-Gor to come and see him without delay. As Ki-Gor and Helene walked into Dingazi's large circular throne room, the old king was lost in thought, staring at a piece of parchment in his hands. A tense silence prevailed among the score and a half persons in the room, as Dingazi sat motionless on his throne, a vast, thick-shouldered, pot-bellied man, naked to the waist and wearing the yellow-and-black striped kilt of his own bodyguards. Ki-Gor stepped forward unafraid and spoke. "Greetings, O Dingazi!" he intoned. "Emperor of the World, All-conquering Lion!" Dingazi's massive head jerked tip. "Hail, Ki-Gor!" he roared. "White Lord of the jungle -- whose Kingdom lies in the direction of the Four Winds! Right glad am I to see thee and thy slender wife! Come, we will go to my apartments and talk over the strange happenings up on the Border. By the Gods! I don't know whether to laugh about them or fly into a rage!" Dingazi stood up, a huge figure, and slowly stepped down off the throne-dais. Four of his guards hastened to his side. There was a party of strangers in front of the throne -- Arabs, by their dress. Three men and a heavily veiled woman, they were, and they drifted to one side as Ki-Gor and Helene came toward the King. Dingazi clamped a huge hand on Ki-Gor's wrist and led him off to a doorway on the right side of the room. In the other hand, the king still held the piece of parchment. It was a strange story Dingazi had to tell... About two weeks before, a messenger had arrived from the north, bearing a report from the leader of a small military outpost on the rugged, broken frontier. This leader had noticed smoke rising from behind the hills to the west of his post. He had taken a squad of men to investigate. He had eventually come upon the smoking ruins of a village. And they were truly ruins. The village had been completely destroyed, and every single inhabitant had been killed or abducted. There was not one living thing in the village. The messenger went on to say that the only clues as to the identity of the raiders were footprints. There were all manner of footprints, indicating a considerable force. Among the prints were some which looked like zebra tracks except that they were much larger. And there were other tracks that were unmistakably elephants' spoor. The conclusion of the message was to the effect that the leader of the patrol intended to follow the tracks northward and catch up with the raiders. However, there was no word from that patrol leader for two days. As a matter of fact, he and his patrol were never heard from again. The next messenger came from a different patrol farther to the east. This messenger had much the same story to tell. A village desolated with no survivors to tell of the disaster or of the perpetrators. This time, there was less evidence left. The raiders had driven off the cattle of the villagers and had covered most of their own tracks in doing so. Dingazi had dispatched reinforcements to the frontier posts with orders to keep him informed. But five days went by without a word from the frontier. Finally, a small trading safari of Arabs had come to Dutawayo and delivered to Dingazi a roll of parchment which they said had been given to them by a mysterious veiled horseman. "A horseman!" Ki-Gor interjected. "That is what the Arabs said," Dingazi replied. "And here is the parchment. What language is the writing on it? I cannot read it." Ki-Gor took the parchment wonderingly. "It is written in English," he said, after a moment. "What does it say?" Dingazi demanded. Ki-Gor studied the parchment without speaking for some time. When he looked up again, his face was perplexed. "O Dingazi," he said. "This message is hard to believe. If it were not for the other things that have been happening, I would say it was an impudent joke." "A joke?" Dingazi said grimly. "My destroyed villages are no joke, or my frontier guards who have vanished without a trace." "I will read it to you," Ki-Gor said, "and you may judge for yourself." Helene moved over beside him and looked curiously over his shoulder. Her face, too, took on a perplexed expression. Slowly, Ki-Gor translated: "'To Dingazi, Chief of the Karamzili-'" "Chief!" Dingazi exploded. "Who dares to address a King -- an All-Conquering Emperor as a petty chief!" "I am but reading you the message, O King," Ki-Gor said patiently. "There is much worse to come. It goes on, 'Know then, Dingazi, that your days as a ruler are numbered-'" Dingazi splattered wrathfully, but subsided as Ki-Gor continued. "'Unless you make due amends for the crimes committed against me by your stupid subjects!'" "Crimes!" Dingazi gasped. "What crimes?" Ki-Gor shrugged and went on, "'First some villagers wantonly attacked my people who were passing peacefully through their village. When we punished them for their impudence, you sent soldiers after us. My people well know how to take care of them. Your insolent troops have been annihilated. Any others you think to send against me will meet a like fate. Be warned, Dingazi! My patience is nearly exhausted! Stop this insolent aggression against my peaceful people! If you cease your senseless resistance, and agree to pay an indemnity, then you will not be harmed. You may continue to rule the Karamzili until you die. "'Upon payment of one hundred pounds of gold, five hundred tusks, one thousand pounds of salt, and every tame elephant in your kingdom, I will agree not to wage war against you during your lifetime. Failure to make this payment will result in a lightning invasion of your lands. The Sword of Hannibal as wielded by me, his descendant, will fall on the Karamzili with unexampled ferocity, killing and enslaving! The tribes subject to you will rise against you. Your power will be shorn from you! And you, Dingazi, will be dressed in chains! Be warned, Dingazi! -- in time! (Signed) Queen Julebba -- the Tigress of T'wanbi.'" Having finished the translation of this extraordinary ultimatum, Ki-Gor handed the parchment back toward Dingazi. The old man struck it to the floor in a fury and stood glaring at it in rage. "Who -- " gasped the king, finding his voice at last -- "who is Queen Julebba? Who dares to send me, Dingazi, such a monstrous message? What sort of people are these who slaughter peaceful villagers in the dead of night!" Ki-Gor sat down while Dingazi's fury blew itself out. At last, the old king fell silent. His eyes rolled at Ki-Gor and something close to a grin appeared on his broad, black face. "This is silly," he declared. "It is silly for me to be upset by such a thing. Queen Julebba!" Dingazi snorted. "Still, I suppose I'd better send an expedition after these raiders right away, before they do too much damage. What do you think, Ki-Gor?" "I don't know what to think," the jungle man replied. "Tell me, O Dingazi, is there no one who has brought you firsthand information about them?" "No one," Dingazi replied promptly. "There are plenty who have come with rumors, but no one to tell me how many of the raiders there are or even what they look like. Much less does anyone know of this woman who calls herself Queen Julebba." "What about the Arabs who brought this parchment to you?" Ki-Gor persisted. "Do you believe that they saw only a single horseman?" Dingazi looked thoughtful for a moment, then he barked a command to one of his guards. A moment later, one of the Arabs was led into the room, and Dingazi began questioning him. The Arab maintained that he had seen only a single horseman. It was in the evening when the light was poor, but he had seen that the man's face was wrapped in cloth. However, the Arab said that he had talked with some villagers who had seen a good-sized force near the place where the veiled horseman had stopped the safari. Dingazi finally dismissed the Arab and sent for his companions who were brought in one by one and questioned singly. The other two men corroborated the first Arab's story about the villagers seeing a foreign army, although these later versions increased the size of that army considerably. But the last person to be questioned held different views on the subject. It was the woman, tall and slender under the voluminous outer garment which veiled her from her head to her toes. Ki-Gor caught just a glimpse of flashing eyes behind the narrow slit in the cloth, and he sent a quick glance at Helene at the sound of the Arab woman's deep dramatic voice. "How can I speak of an army which I scarcely saw?" she said contemptuously in Swahili, "and yet I saw more than my father and brothers. I saw a few veiled horsemen, a few black spearmen. There may have been more -- there may not. But they have caused great destruction up in the north, so much that my father and brothers think it is a large army. I think not, but then I don't know." Dingazi stared at her in puzzlement for a moment, then turned to Ki-Gor. "Wah!" he said. "How can I get at the truth? One says one thing, another says another. I'll send up five impis. That should be enough to smoke out the dogs!" "Five impis!" It was the Arab woman, with a voice full of scorn. "Five thousand men to beat off a border raid! What a joke on the mighty Karamzili! Why, that would be like sending out an elephant to destroy a cockroach!" Dingazi looked at the woman, startled. "What do you know of impis, O Veiled Woman?" he demanded. "Who does not know of Dingazi's impis!" she retorted. "The fame of the Karamzili war -- might knows no bounds! For many moons have I crossed back and forth through your domains with my father and brothers, and nowhere else have I seen the equal of a Karamzili maps." Dingazi sent her away with a pleased smile. "Who would have thought," he observed, "that an Arab woman would notice such things? I am glad I talked to her. It was quite true what she said. If I sent five impis, we would be a laughingstock." The old king turned to a guard. "Bring Lotoko in here," he commanded. Then to Ki-Gor he said, "Lotoko commanded my armies when I originally conquered that northern territory. I will send him up with half an impi to capture this impudent Julebba." Ki-Gor was silent while Lotoko came in and received his orders and instructions from the king. The jungle man was much less satisfied than Dingazi to accept the opinion of the Arab woman over that of her father and brothers. For one thing, Ki-Gor wondered why there should be a difference of opinion among the Arabs at all. They had presumably seen the same things and had the same opportunity to form an opinion. Yet the Arab men thought Julebba had a formidable force, and the woman thought she had not. It was very confusing. Another thing bothered Ki-Gor, too. As his mind went back to the message from the mysterious Julebba, he realized that in a strict sense, it was not an ultimatum, Julebba had made specific demands, but she had laid no time-limit on the satisfaction of those demands. Furthermore, and this seemed very important to Ki-Gor, she had made no provision at all for Dingazi's answering the ultimatum! Was that an oversight? Ki-Gor wondered. Or was it intentional? In other words, could it be that the message was not really intended to be answered, but was designed only to terrorize an aging monarch? Ki-Gor was roused from his thoughts by Dingazi. "Accept my gratitude, O Friend," the king said, "for coming so promptly to read the writing on the parchment. I thought it looked like English, therefore I sent for you as soon as I received it. I hope now that you and your woman will visit with me for many days." As a matter of courtesy, Ki-Gor accepted the invitation. But even as he did so, he knew that before the day was over he would probably volunteer his services and go northward with Lotoko's punitive expedition. For Ki-Gor was discovering within himself an overpowering curiosity concerning Queen Julebba. Early the next morning, Helene took her place with Ki-Gor beside Lotoko at the head of five hundred kilted Karamzili who were to march north to deal with the mysterious Julebba. There was still a glint in Helene's eye, and Ki-Gor's face wore a look of resignation. Helene had flatly refused to be left behind at Dutawayo as Ki-Gor had proposed, while he went away with the column. But it had taken some time to convince him that she could take care of herself perfectly well on the expedition. "You know I can, Ki-Gor," she had argued. "I've learned so much since that day when my plane cracked up in the middle of the jungle. If you hadn't come along and protected me, I wouldn't have lived the day out, probably. But that was a long time ago, Ki-Gor, and I'm no longer a spoiled darling of Society." Ki-Gor had not been able to dispute that. From the very beginning Helen had been an apt pupil in the jungle lore in which Ki-Gor schooled her. She could keep pace with Ki-Gor's long tireless strides along the elephant trails; she could travel the tree-route; she could read spoors, and stalk small game, and she could even handle a light spear well. "It isn't that you would be in the way," Ki-Gor had said, finally, "but I don't think this expedition is going to be so easy as Dingazi does. There is something very peculiar about these raiders, and the way they work. I smell danger up there in the north, somehow." "Well, then, that settles it," Helene had said firmly. "You can't deny me the right to share any and all danger with you. I always have shared it, and I always will." And so Helene went north with Ki-Gor and the Karamzili expedition. -------- *CHAPTER III* Lotoko expected to arrive on the frontier in three days' time. But even before the end of the first days' march, the expedition began to run into evidences that the raiders were perhaps more powerful than they had originally been estimated. Just before sundown, the force marched into a good-sized village and found its inhabitants in a ferment. They were all making preparations for immediate evacuation and flight toward Dutawayo. The village headman informed Lotoko that the mysterious invaders were already far into Karamzililand, striking secretly and swiftly at night, burning and slaying, and leaving hardly any survivors. The headman said the invaders had hundreds of men, perhaps thousands. There were horsemen, terrifying creatures in turbans and with their faces swathed in cloth. There were elephants, too, trained to war, and even hundreds of apes who climbed over village stockades with lighted torches. When Lotoko asked the headman how he had learned these things, the man answered that the information had come from some people from the next village. Lotoko looked thoughtful. He knew that there was no way of keeping this news from spreading through the ranks of his little force. The next day the expedition went through two more villages and even more discouraging reports about the size and ferocity of Queen Julebba's raiders. In fact, if the stories were true, the enemy could hardly be called raiders -- they must be an army of invasion. Lotoko called Ki-Gor and Helene to one side. "I don't like this," Lotoko confessed. "Dingazi did not give me enough men to fight an army of that size." "You have heard only rumors," Ki-Gor pointed out. "You still don't know the actual size of the enemy." "No, but the rumors all point in the same direction," Lotoko said gloomily. "We Karamzili are brave. But the bravest of men don't like to be sacrificed because of someone's mistake." "Then send a messenger back to Dutawayo for more men," Ki-Gor suggested. "But remember one thing -- not one person who has talked about the size of the enemy force has seen it. Every report you have heard has been at second hand." Just at that moment, there was a great hullabaloo among the warriors, and presently several of them dragged a strange black up to Lotoko. Here, the warriors said, was a man who had actually seen the enemy and could give first-hand information. Lotoko began to question him. At first, the man seemed too frightened to talk, but gradually he grew more confident and readily gave information. The story he had to tell was even more discouraging than the rumors they had heard from the villagers. There were, the man said, at least two thousand in Queen Julebba's army. There were spearmen, bowmen, and horsemen. Yes, there were elephants, too, he said, and trained apes. And what was more, the army was perfectly led and fought like demons. In fact, the man added shivering, there could be no doubt that this Queen Julebba was a strong ju-ju herself and could infect her troops with that quality. All during this questioning, Ki-Gor was studying the man. He was not at all the physical type of Karamzililand. He was blacker, shorter-legged, more powerfully built. Ki-Gor had seen his type in Nigeria, far to the northwest. The man had said that he came from one of the border villages that was destroyed, and was -- as far as he knew -- the only survivor. He had climbed a tree, he said, and had lain unseen while the ferocious invaders ravaged and slaughtered. After they had razed the village, they were gone as suddenly as they came, and after a long time, he came down from his tree and fled southward warning the other villagers on his way. It would have been a plausible story, even to Ki-Gor, if it had not been for his race. But the jungle man kept wondering what a Nigerian would be doing in a Karamzili village. And the more Lotoko questioned the man, the more Ki-Gor suspected that he was not quite what he pretended to be. His information was too complete, too detailed. After Lotoko had finished with the man, he ordered his release, and turned to Ki-Gor with an apprehensive face. "This is very bad," he admitted. "I cannot turn back. It would lower the prestige of the Karamzili tradition. Besides, Dingazi would probably have me killed. And yet, to go forward against such superior forces is not wise. To be sure, we would probably give a good account of ourselves -- " "One moment, Lotoko," Ki-Gor said. "I wouldn't believe everything that fellow said if I were you." "Why -- what do you mean?" Lotoko demanded. "I'm going to follow him," Ki-Gor said. "I want to see where he goes and what he does. I might even decide to have a talk with him." "What for?" Lotoko said, wonderingly. "He is just a simple villager with good powers of observation -- " "Maybe he isn't just a simple villager," Ki-Gor said. "At any rate, I'm going to find out. When you order the march resumed, I'll stay behind, I'll rejoin you sometime tomorrow." It took Ki-Gor several minutes to persuade Helene to go ahead with Lotoko and the column, but she agreed when he pointed out that he would be gone only a day and a night. When the force moved off behind Lotoko and Helene, Ki-Gor stayed behind -- inconspicuous in the foliage beside the trail. Then he drifted back to the last village the column passed through. The Nigerian was just leaving it on his way southward. Ki-Gor skirted the village unseen and picked up his trail. The man seemed to be in a considerable hurry, and at first Ki-Gor found some difficulty in keeping up with him and still keeping out of sight. After a while, though, the man's very haste convinced Ki-Gor that he did not suspect he was being followed. So without troubling much to stay hidden, Ki-Gor maintained a steady pace about three hundred yards behind the Nigerian. In this way Ki-Gor followed his man nearly four miles. Then the trail temporarily deserted the jungle for the short grass of the veldt. Ki-Gor could see ahead of him a considerable distance. His Nigerian was nowhere in sight. What had happened to him? Ki-Gor asked himself. Had the man suddenly decided that he was being followed -- and dropped down beside the trail to let Ki-Gor pass him? Or had the Nigerian simply left the trail and gone away in another direction? Ki-Gor searched the dust of the trail, and clearly saw the man's spoor. He continued his tireless, ground-covering gait, but kept his eyes fixed on the Nigerian's footprints. If it seemed that the Nigerian had stepped off the trail to let him pass, Ki-Gor intended to go on past him and do the same thing himself farther along. But then it occurred to Ki-Gor that the Nigerian might read the tail of footprints just as well as he did. So the jungle man suddenly and completely changed his tactics. Just as the Nigerian's footprints swerved off the trail, Ki-Gor halted abruptly and called out in an injured tone. "Hai, Brother!" he said, "What is the trouble? Are you hurt? Or are you avoiding me? For the past four miles I have been trying to catch up with you, so that we could keep journey together. But you have traveled a mighty pace." There was no answer to this overture, but Ki-Gor could see the tops of the two-foot grass quiver about twenty feet away. "Hai, Brother!" Ki-Gor said in a louder voice. "Why do you hide from me? I am not your enemy. I am no man's enemy. And I ask nothing of you except your company for as long as you intend to travel this path." There was another long silence. Suddenly, the Nigerian sprang out of the grass and came toward Ki-Gor. His hands were empty, and he wore an exceedingly sheepish expression on his wide face. "I-I -- er -- thought you were following me," the man said. "I didn't know what your intentions were. Nowadays, you can't be too careful. Anyway, I saw you with the Karamzili warriors." "Yes," Ki-Gor said amiably, "I came back to carry the warning to the villages between here and Dutawayo. Down here about a mile, the trail branches. I thought I would take one branch and you the other." "It is good," the Nigerian said, relief spreading over his features. "The people must be warned. You will help. It is good." Ki-Gor noticed that the man's Swahili was not very good. He was half tempted to say something in Haussa, or some other northwestern language, and observe the effect on the man. But he decided against ft. He was after bigger game than this one Nigerian. The Nigerian was not especially disposed to talk -- perhaps he realized his Swahili would not stand up under close observation -- and after a while Ki-Gor gave up any attempt at a continued conversation. When they arrived at the fork in the trail, the Nigerian brightened. "I will take the road to the left," he announced. "Fare thee well." "Go in peace," Ki-Gor smiled and swung off down the right hand path. He was well satisfied to be taking this branch. It turned and went straight back into forest country, whereas the left fork continued over the open rolling veldt. As soon as he was out of sight of the Nigerian, he began to consider his next move. Although he doubted the Nigerian's talents for stalking, he had to allow for the possibility that the man would follow his trail for a while to make sure he had gone. He moved along at a swift pace for a half a mile -- until he was well within the woods. All the way he stayed consistently on one side of the trail close to the grass and underbrush. When he thought he had traveled a safe distance, he simply stepped off the path. He went straight to the nearest large tree and climbed into the lower branches. Then, traveling the tree-route, he back-trailed some four hundred yards. It was as well that he took care to go silently. For he caught sight of the Nigerian standing in the middle of the trail indecisively. The man was looking down at the ground and then up the trail. Finally, the Nigerian decided, apparently, that Ki-Gor had really gone on to the next village. He turned around and began to lope away in the direction in which he had come. Ki-Gor gave him a fair head start, and then set off to follow him. But this time, Ki-Gor was going to keep himself well out of sight. Three hours later, just before sundown, Ki-Gor watched his Nigerian cautiously enter a narrow, wooded kloof at the base of a range of low hills. Scarcely had the man entered the wall of trees before he stopped and began to talk out loud, in the Kanuri dialect of northeastern Nigeria. But Ki-Gor quickly realized that the man was talking to someone who was hidden nearby. "I do not see you," the Nigerian said. "Do you see me? It is Yako, the Spearman." There was a moment's silence, then a voice from somewhere answered. "Pass, Yako the Spearman," the voice said, and Ki-Gor could nowhere see the owner of the voice. Yako went on into the kloof, but Ki-Gor stayed where he was. It would be unwise to follow until he had located the unseen watchman. Darkness would come within an hour, and Ki-Gor decided to wait for it, rather than blunder into trouble. In a very short time, another figure entered the woods, announced himself, and was permitted to pass. Then two men came along together. After that, there was a space of fifteen minutes or so when nothing happened. Then Ki-Gor felt a slight vibration of the ground. It slowly increased, and after a while, he could make out the sound of horses' hooves. At first, Ki-Gor thought it was a single horse at a gallop. Then, in the gathering dusk, he perceived that there were several horses coming into the kloof at a slow walk. They were in single file, and Ki-Gor blinked incredulously when he saw that it was the group of Arab traders he had seen in Dingazi's house at Dutawayo. The leader of the file was the veiled woman. As she came to the place where Yako the Spearman had been challenged, she reined in her horse. Dropping the reins, then, she lifted the skirts of the long outer garment, and drew it up over her shoulders and head. A moment later, the garment was lying across the pommel, and the daughter of the Arab trader sat her horse bareheaded and unveiled. Ki-Gor stared in amazement. She was without doubt one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life. She tilted her firm, exquisitely modeled chin upward, and flashed huge black eyes up toward the trees. "Do you see me, O Watchman?" she demanded, in the deep thrilling voice Ki-Gor had already heard in Dutawayo. "I see you, O Queen!" the hidden watchman declaimed. "Pass, Mighty Conqueror, Spotless Virgin, Gracious Queen! Your devoted army awaits your coming, O Julebba!" Ki-Gor just did suppress an involuntary gasp of amazement. Julebba! The daughter of the Arab trader! What magnificent audacity! As she moved away under the trees followed by the three Arabs and the half dozen or so black spearmen that formed the guard, Ki-Gor pondered the extraordinary situation. Who this astounding young woman was, and what had brought her down from the north to make unprovoked war on such a formidable nation as the Karamzili -- all that was beside the point. The most important fact was that she was at war with Dingazi, and that she was carrying on that war with the most unbelievable originality and daring. Just how big her army was Ki-Gor did not yet know -- he intended to see it that night -- but it could not be so very large to be contained in a comparatively small mountain kloof. But, however large the army was, she was supplementing its striking force with two other tremendous weapons. They were Terror and Confusion. She had annihilated border villages, taking care that there were no survivors to tell of the deeds. The only persons who told the Karamzili of the invaders were her own men whom she had sent throughout the northern areas with tall stories of the invaders. That these agents had succeeded in spreading terror and confusion among the Karamzili Ki-Gor had already seen. Even Lotoko was worried before he had so much as laid an eye on Julebba's army. Then as a brilliant cap to the climax, she had disguised herself as an Arab woman and coolly gone before Dingazi to confuse the old king completely as to the nature and strength of her forces. Ki-Gor had to shake his head admiringly when he recollected that she had herself persuaded Dingazi to send not five impis but only one-tenth of that force -- five hundred men, instead of five thousand. Ki-Gor guessed the fate that Julebba planned for Lotoko's little force. She would probably try to destroy it without a trace, and by the very mystery of its disappearance throw all the Karamzili into such a state of terror that they would no longer have the will to fight. His course of action became clear. He must get past that hidden watchman, go into the kloof, find out as much as he could about Julebba's army, and then hasten off to rejoin Lotoko and Helene. The first problem, that of getting past the watchman, he decided to leave until dusk had faded out entirely. If the watchman could not see him, he could not challenge him. To be sure, it might be possible to crawl off to one side and slip into the kloof through the tangle of undergrowth. But the entrance to the ravine was very narrow, and he would not really be far enough away from the path at any event. So, he settled himself to wait for another twenty minutes or so. But, just at that moment, Ki-Gor heard a scraping sound. He fixed his eyes on the tree in which he suspected the watchman was concealed. There, coming slowly down the trunk, was a huge black. Puzzled, Ki-Gor watched the man descend to the ground. He was carrying something in one hand -- just what it was, there was not enough light to see. But from the man's subsequent actions, Ki-Gor got a very good idea of what it was. It was fine rope or string of some kind, and the man was stretching it across the path, securing both ends at the base of two trees on either side. It was a neat trap for any stranger who might creep along in the dark and try to enter the kloof unseen. In view of this complication, Ki-Gor decided to wait no longer, but to take direct action. Knowing the string was there, he might successfully locate it and step across it without disturbing it. But then again he might not. Furthermore, he might have to leave the kloof in a hurry, in which case it would be better not to have a string stretched across the path. Very seldom did Ki-Gor kill a man in cold blood, but he knew he would have to do that to this guard. It would not do to allow him a chance to cry out and bring down Julebba's entire army on him. The guard was bending over now, tying one of the strings, his back to Ki-Gor. The jungle man gathered his legs under him. Then he shot up and forward as if his great body were released from a bowstring. He covered the ground between him and the watchman in three heartbeats. The watchman gave a little cry of alarm and half-turned. By that time, Ki-Gor was upon him. His left arm went around the man's neck, bending him backward. His right hand closed over the watchman's mouth, stifling his outcry to a gurgling groan. Ki-Gor thought of the hundreds of innocent Karamzili villagers that Julebba's men had slaughtered -- and tightened his hold. Suddenly there was a wild yell from above. An ugly shock of alarm went through Ki-Gor. At the same moment, the man in his arms bounced -- as if something had hit him. Ki-Gor looked down over the man's shoulder and saw a long arrow sticking into the black chest. The watchman went limp. In the meantime, the yelling continued from the tree above. Ki-Gor cursed himself for not thinking of the possibility that there were two watchmen. A second arrow whizzed past his ear. Something had to be done about that second watchman, and right away. Shifting his grip, Ki-Gor lifted the limp man in his arms, using him as a shield, and staggered forward toward the base of the tree from which he had come. Still another arrow smacked into the ground beside him, and the watcher in the tree continued to bawl out. With a sudden, quick movement, Ki-Gor flung the body of the first watchman on the ground. Simultaneously, he rolled away in the other direction. An arrow smacked into the inert body of the first watchman. But Ki-Gor was climbing the trunk of the tree, now, snaking up like a monkey before the archer could notch a new arrow and aim. He just made it to the lowest limb when the bowman shot again. But Ki-Gor swung his body under the limb a fraction of a second before the arrow sang past him. The jungle man knew he was in a desperate position, but his very danger spurred him to more furious action. Almost automatically, his right leg swung over the bough and his body followed through. Hardly had he gained his feet, before he was leaping up the trunk to the next limb above. Not until that moment did Ki-Gor see that the bowman was sitting astride that limb. There was an arrow already notched in the man's hands -- an arrow that was meant for Ki-Gor's up-lifted throat. But before that arrow could be released, Ki-Gor's right hand had closed over a black ankle. Swiftly, relentlessly, he had jerked downward. Down fell bow and arrow as the black strove desperately to save himself. But the iron grip on his ankle never relaxed, and hauled him down inexorably, until he was hanging legs down from the bough. But now Ki-Gor was hanging by his hands, too, and he gathered his legs up under him and shot them forward. His feet hit the bowman's chest like twin battering rams. The black gasped and groaned. His fingers relaxed their hold, and he dropped. It was nearly thirty feet to the ground, and he hit with a sickening thud and lay still. Ki-Gor lost no time in getting down the tree. The bowman had undoubtedly been heard down in the kloof, and there would probably be very little time to escape. Ki-Gor hit the ground running and sped toward the spot where he had left his own bow, quiver and assegai. As he paused to scoop them up, he heard the drumming of horses' hooves. The pursuit had begun! Ki-Gor hesitated a bare second while he made up his mind which was the most promising avenue of escape. His first impulse had been simply to run away out to the veldt, and trust to the darkness to swallow him up. But then he realized that he would not get far before the horsemen would overtake him. Furthermore, if he did somehow escape from them, he still would not have the information about this strange army that he wanted to take to Lotoko. He whirled around with sudden decision and ran back toward the kloof. Thirty seconds later, a score of horsemen pounded down the path and reined in, shouting, around the bodies of the two watchmen. But Ki-Gor was already traveling the tree route thirty feet above and to one side of the path -- toward the interior of the kloof. Burdened with his war-gear as he was, and traveling in almost pitch darkness, his progress was necessarily slow. But taking infinite care to avoid discovery, he worked his way to the edge of a small clearing in the middle of the kloof, and eventually stared down at a sight which Dingazi, King of the Karamzili would have given a great deal to see. The first objects that caught Ki-Gor's eye in the torch-lighted scene below, were the elephants. There were four of them, splendid bulls. They were uniform -- almost as big as Marmo -- and they were evidently well trained. They stood in a row on one side of the clearing, a score or so of black boys squatting on the ground in front of them. The dress of the blacks showed them to be Balubas from the elephant-country of the Belgian Congo. Next, Ki-Gor's eyes traveled to the center of the clearing, to a pile of rocks on which had been placed a high-backed, wooden throne. On that throne sat Julebba, a picture of barbaric splendor. Her beautiful head was lifted proudly high, the night-black hair falling straight and shining to her shoulders. An ivory necklace fell from the splendid column of her throat toward the jeweled breastplates which crowned her high tawny bosom. Below them her torso gleamed bare down to the narrow golden girdle, and her beautifully molded thighs were boldly outlined under the sheer white ankle-length skirt. Completing the barbaric picture, she wore wide bands of dull gold on each tipper arm, and her right hand gripped an efficient-looking, light spear. There was a subdued murmur of many voices filling the clearing, but Julebba, sat detached, aloof. It was as if she were waiting for something to happen, or someone to arrive. Perhaps, Ki-Gor shrewdly guessed, she was awaiting news about the disturbance at the entrance of the kloof. Looking beyond her, he perceived that not all of her horsemen had ridden away down the path. There were still some twenty drawn up in a row behind her throne, and strange and fearsome they looked to Ki-Gor. He had never seen any such horsemen in his life. They looked a little bit like some Arabs he had seen, in that they wore turbans. But the turbans were a different shape from those worn by the traders and slave runners of the East Coast. Furthermore, men of Julebba's had covered their faces, so that only narrow slits were left for them to see through. To the left of Julebba's throne were massed about fifty rugged blacks armed with heavy spears. They were very likely fellow-Nigerians of Yako's. And on the other side of the throne, there were another fifty blacks -- from the Ubangi country by their looks -- and they were armed with longbows. Ki-Gor counted the men in the clearing once again, remembering that there were probably about twenty horsemen absent. Then he marveled. Could this, he asked himself, he all of the dreaded army of invasion? The mysterious force that had ravaged and burned the northern border of Karamzililand, struck terror in the hearts of one of the stoutest-hearted races of Africa -- could this be it? Less than a hundred and fifty men plus four elephants and their Baluba boys! It was truly unbelievable! No wonder Julebba, in her Arab disguise, had persuaded Dingazi to send only five hundred men after her! She could not have successfully attacked one impi -- much less five impis! As it was, Ki-Gor wondered how this handful could beat Lotoko's five hundred stout warriors. He began to understand why Julebba had so carefully laid her groundwork of confusion and terror, and spread the stories of great numbers of horsemen, spearmen, bowmen, elephants -- and trained apes. Where, Ki-Gor suddenly asked himself, were the trained apes? -------- *CHAPTER IV* Just then a horseman galloped into the clearing from the path. The quiet hubbub ceased, and Julebba turned her head inquiringly. The horseman was not veiled, and Ki-Gor recognized the Arab who had posed as Julebba's father at Dingazi's court. The Arab reined in before the throne and spoke briefly to the queen. The language he used sounded like Arabic, which Ki-Gor did not understand, but as he held up two fingers, Ki-Gor guessed he was reporting two casualties at the entrance to the kloof. Julebba then asked some questions, to which the Arab seemed to reply negatively. Ki-Gor began to get an uneasy hunch that it was time for him to think of leaving the scene. Just how he would get away he was not sure, although there was a possibility that he might be able to scale one of the steep sides of the kloof. It would be dangerous enough, for both sides were nearly perpendicular and consisted of rough, shaly rock. But dangerous or not, Ki-Gor decided to swing himself to the nearest bank and explore it. But a new development in the clearing below caught his interest. He decided to stay a few more minutes and watch. It was a decision he very soon regretted. The rest of the veiled horsemen were returning down the path, their horses at a walk. An angry murmur went over the Ubangi bowmen squatting beside the path, and Ki-Gor very quickly saw what caused it. The first two horsemen each bore one of the two sentinels that Ki-Gor had felled. Julebba stood up suddenly, eyes flashing. She shouted a brief order in the Haussa dialect, and a half dozen of the Ubangi ran to the foot of her throne. The horsemen drew up beside them, whereupon the Ubangi lifted the two bodies gently down to the ground. Julebba swung around and shouted: "The doctor! Where is the fat doctor?" An indistinct figure rose up from the shadows near the elephants, and waddled toward the throne. Ki-Gor recognized him, and nearly fell out of his treetop with astonishment. It was Hurree Das, the Hindu. It was the very man Ki-Gor and Helene were talking about when Dingazi's messenger came to them. How Hurree Das came to be in Queen Julebba's army, Ki-Gor had not the faintest idea. The Hindu was a curious, and very droll character who by his own admission was a rascal. Ki-Gor had first encountered him among a gang of notorious slave-dealers. The Hindu had been a partner in the gang and shared in the profits which he earned as medical adviser. Yet when Ki-Gor had lain a prisoner of the gang, Hurree Das had saved him from a dreadful tortured death, even at the risk of his own life. And now once again Hurree Das had come into Ki-Gor's life -- and once again he was associated with a murderous gang. Only this time, the gang dignified itself with the title of "army," the chief a self-styled "queen." Ki-Gor leaned forward fascinated as Hurree Das knelt down beside the bodies on the ground. He had not changed at all. There was the same plump, soft figure in the long, black coat, the flimsy white cloth draped around his fat legs, the round black pillbox cap on his back curls. "Well?" demanded Julebba, "What do you say, Doctor?" Again Ki-Gor's mouth opened in wonderment -- for Julebba had spoken in English! Then he remembered that her "ultimatum" to Dingazi had been written in English. Who was Julebba? Now, Hurree Das was straightening up. "Beg to inform Your Majesty," he said in his sing-song tenor voice, "that both patients are indubitably dead. One has broken neck -- other has arrow through left ventricle of heart. It is Ubangi arrow fired at close range. Would venture guess that two sentinels were in disagreement over some private matter and did each other in -- so to speak." "Silence!" Julebba exclaimed in a terrible voice. "They were killed in line of duty while defending their Queen!" "Ah, yes! No doubt, no doubt!" Hurree Das replied hastily. "Fearful act of aggression by conscienceless Karamzili, no doubt!" "Exactly!" Julebba said sternly. She lifted her head then and began speaking to her army in Haussa. It was lucky for Ki-Gor that she did -- or so he thought -- because he suddenly discovered that he had gone too far out on his bough in his desire to watch the proceedings below. It had bent downward and he had begun to slip along it. He caught himself just in time and carefully dragged himself back nearer the trunk. If the men below had not fixed their attention on their queen they might possibly have noticed the slight rustle and sway of the leafy branch. As Julebba's voice rose oratorically, Ki-Gor searched the up-lifted faces below and was reassured. "This very moment we are tracking down the murderers!" Julebba was shouting. "And tomorrow you will all taste the sweet wine of vengeance!" There was a concerted rasping snarl of response from the army and Julebba raised her voice over it. She spoke: "In a few moments we will depart on our appointed assignments! The spearmen will hurry to make contact with Lotoko's force and will lead it toward the trap which the rest of us will have set. And when the hated Karamzili have been maneuvered into position for the kill -- " Julebba paused dramatically and a tense silence hung over the kloof. In spite of himself, Ki-Gor was spellbound by her voice. He knew that he should be taking the opportunity to steal away, but the situation gripped him so that he lingered on, telling himself that he might learn more specifically the battle plans of the invaders. Almost in the next second, however, Ki-Gor felt a terrific, burning intuition that something was very wrong. Was it something he heard? Or smelled? It was both! There was a faint rustle right in the tree behind him. At the same time, he caught a whiff of a heavy animal scent. He whipped his head around and stared into the murk of the tree. Then his blood ran cold, as a shrill chattering broke the silence over the kloof. He saw the dark form crouched against the trunk of the tree, saw other forms clamber near. Dark as it was in the tree, Ki-Gor knew they were large apes. The other apes picked up the loud awful chattering and Ki-Gor knew that they had tracked him through the trees. The sudden bedlam below in the clearing confirmed it. Julebba was screaming and the Nigerians' scampered toward the foot of the tree bearing torches aloft. Ki-Gor swung himself around with a bitter snarl and faced the ape. It was too late to bother about staying concealed now. He would be lucky if he escaped at all. He sprang to his feet and stood balanced precariously atop the limb. Then he leaped toward the trunk of the tree. The ape rose upward with a harsh squeal. Ki-Gor's assegai was poised. He lunged with it, and impaled the ape through its hairy throat. The creature gave a horrible half-human cry, and Ki-Gor sprang over it and seized the next branch above him. Just as he drew up his legs, he felt each ankle gripped by a horny paw. He kicked out frantically. There was a snarling grunt, and one ankle came free. But the other leg was held fast, and in a split second the horny paws had him around the knee. Ferocious tusks slashed at his calf. There was nothing to do but let go the branch above and drop down to throttle the creature. Ki-Gor dropped fighting. But even Ki-Gor could not land on the limb below and fight and keep his balance. He teetered for an awful moment and felt himself going. He shot a hand toward the vines growing up the tree-trunk, but there was another ape, snapping and clawing. His hand clutched thin air and he felt himself falling. In the brief moment of consciousness left to him, he gauged the next limb far below him. He wondered whether his body would fall across it. If that happened, it would break his back. He twisted his body. But the ape was still clinging to one leg snarling and biting, and he could not straighten himself out. Then there was a crash and Ki-Gor knew no more. When he came to, Hurree Das was bathing his face with water. Julebba stood behind him, bending slightly and looking down, her beautiful face distorted with ferocity. "Aha!" Hurree Das murmured. "Eyes opening with returning consciousness. We meet again under most unfortunate auspices, Ki-Gor! Most dreadfully sorry, but what can do?" "Silence, Doctor!" Julebba commanded, "Stand away." Hurree Das hurriedly removed himself from Ki-Gor's side. Julebba came forward a step and stared down malignantly. "Who are you?" she demanded, "and why do you come spying where you have no business and killing those with whom you have no quarrel?" Ki-Gor raised himself on his elbows without replying. How he had survived the fall he did not know. He must have twisted enough to have struck the bough below with his head instead of his body. He had then probably dropped limp to the ground. And because he had been limp he had broken no bones. "Answer me!" Julebba cried savagely. "Answer me, strange White Giant! Who are you?" Ki-Gor looked up coolly. "You have seen me before," he replied slowly and insolently. "I do not sneak around in disguise." "A-a-a-!" Julebba screamed. Her right hand lifted and a dagger glinted. Ki-Gor grinned up at her contemptuously. The hand with the dagger in it did not descend. Julebba stood with it upraised, an incredulous expression creeping into her lambent eyes. "No one," she said in a voice suddenly lowered, "no one insults me and lives long." "And Ki-Gor," said the jungle man coolly, "fears no man -- or woman." With that, he very deliberately sat upright, and equally deliberately gathered his legs under him and stood up. He swayed dizzily and took the weight off his right leg which pained fearsomely where the ape had bitten him. But he managed another nonchalant grin, his eyes boring straight into Julebba's. "Ki-Gor!" she whispered, and although she was tall she had to look up at Ki-Gor now. "Yes, that is what Dingazi called you. He called you 'White Lord of the Jungle' and said your kingdom lay in the direction of the Four Winds." Her right hand holding the dagger dropped to her side, and she stepped back. "Why have you come here?" she said in a tone that was more reproachful than angry. "Why have you killed two of my bowmen and three of my apes? You have no quarrel with me." "I am Dingazi's friend," Ki-Gor said sternly, and added, "Besides I don't like women who make war." "Oh, don't you?" Julebba glowered. "Men make war. Why shouldn't women?" "Because women make a treacherous, cruel kind of war," Ki-Gor replied, "full of tricks and deceits. They use innocent people to carry out their designs. The most terrible kind of war is the kind a woman makes -- or that a man makes who is like a woman, himself." A gust of anger swept over Julebba. She stamped her foot and tossed her black locks. "Why am I standing here listening to a stupid hulk of a man while he insults me?" she said. "You should be on your knees, begging for mercy! You apparently don't realize who I am. I am Queen Julebba, don't you understand? Julebba, descendant of Hannibal! If I make war like a woman then I make war better even than Hannibal did! With this tiny army I will shatter Dingazi's mighty hosts! And then I'll be Queen Julebba of Karamzililand! "And after I've trained the Karamzili to fight my kind of war -- there will be no army, no nation, in Africa, that can withstand me! Why, these spearmen -- " she gestured toward the Nigerians -- "and these bowmen and the horsemen -- they will be the officers in my all-conquering army of Karamzili! And you -- you, who call yourself White Lord of the jungle -- standing there smiling at me! I'll make you smile at me! I'll have you torn into shreds. I'll have every bone in that huge stupid body of yours broken and crushed! Then, let us see whether you will smile at me!" She glared. "Who," said Ki-Gor promptly, "will tear me to shreds? Your spearmen? Big men from Bornu, they are, but it will take all fifty of them to conquer me. And I promise you that if they attack me, I will barehanded kill ten of the fifty! Can you afford to lose one-fifth of your spearmen?" Julebba stared at him in speechless amazement. "Or perhaps you will set your apes on me," Ki-Gor went on vigorously. "I don't know how many you have left, but remember -- I killed three of them even though they came upon me unawares. Or your bowmen -- there are about fifty of them -- line them up with arrows notched. Let me have my bow -- and in a fair fight I promise you I will kill twenty of them before I die! Why, even your elephants -- " Ki-Gor leaned forward, eyes blazing -- "I have one elephant who is so big that he would only need to flap his ears -- and your four would turn tail and run from him!" Ki-Gor drew himself up scornfully. "Do your worst, Queen Julebba!" he said coldly. "You cannot frighten Ki-Gor. What a shame it is that a woman so beautiful as you should make war. You were meant for better, pleasanter things than tricks, and deceits, and disguises, and the slaughtering of innocent people. Perhaps you will have a change of heart after you have met Lotoko's force. They are five hundred against your hundred and fifty, and they are thirsty for vengeance." Ki-Gor folded his arms as an indication that he had finished speaking. His blue eyes were fixed on Julebba's smoldering black ones. There was a long pause while the jungle man waited to see the effect of his boldness. It was the only possible tack for him to take. His position was so desperate that only the most desperate device could even postpone a lingering death. He had, therefore, deliberately insulted Julebba, hoping thereby to shock her into an indecisive frame of mind. Abruptly, Julebba spoke. "You talk just like a man," she said calmly. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted in bitter lines. "According to all men, beautiful women exist only to make love to. But I have another purpose -- and that is to show men how wrong they are. If I am beautiful, it doesn't mean anything to me. I want to rule -- to direct -- to wield power. I want to show all men that there is a woman who can do anything they can and do it better. I want to show them that a woman can even make war better than men! I will show you, Ki-Gor! Tomorrow, or the day after, you will see for yourself how an army led by a woman will trap and annihilate a force over three times its size!" Ki-Gor's face did not betray by so much as the twitch of a muscle the relief that was spreading through him. "I will decide what to do about you," Julebba said, "after I have attended to this other business. And now," she added mockingly, "I know you are big and strong -- but please be quiet and not kill any of my men while they tie you up. I will really have to do that, I'm afraid. I really can't spare half my cavalry just to guard you." She swung away toward her throne issuing a string of orders. One of the veiled horsemen dismounted and held a long knife at Ki-Gor's throat while two Nigerians pinned his arms to his sides and then went around and around him with strong rope until he was thoroughly trussed from his shoulders to his hips. Then he was rudely thrown to the ground, and an elephant-boy armed with a wicked-looking curved knife was apparently assigned to guard him, the horsemen and the two Nigerians rejoining their own groups. With the postponement of his fate, Ki-Gor felt a prodigious physical letdown. His whole body ached from his fall, and his right leg began to hurt cruelly where the ape had bitten him. Bruised and ailing though he was, he nevertheless began to consider ways and means of escaping his bonds and his guard so that he could find Lotoko and warn him of the trap Julebba boasted of setting for him. The outlook for that escape was not promising, because the army was evidently getting ready to move from the kloof very soon. Then Ki-Gor glanced down at his right leg when some torches came near him, and by their flickering light he saw that he had been badly bitten, and that the wounds ought to be attended to quickly to prevent blood-poisoning. To his great relief, Hurree Das appeared beside him carrying a little black bag. "Once again it devolves on Doctor Hurree Das," the Hindu said humorously, "to preserve you for postponed execution. Well -- on the other occasion, you lived to fool your would-be executioners. Here is hoping your luck keeps up! I say, old fellow!" he said, staring at Ki-Gor's leg, "that is a nasty wound! Very nasty, indeed! It will require some prolonged and delicate treatment to insure against septicemia. Ticklish job working around tendons of calf. My dear fellow, I am afraid it will hurt like fury! I think possibly small intravenous injection is indicated." He frowned. Still muttering, the Hindu reached into his bag and brought forth a curious metal object the like of which Ki-Gor had never seen. It was cylindrical and came to a sharp point at one end. The Hindu brought forth two small bottles, and proceeded to dip the pointed end of his cylinder into first one and then the other bottle. Then he poised the point of the instrument over Ki-Gor's arm. "Shall now proceed to prick you with my hypo," he said. "Please do not jump or you will break end off bally thing. Ready?" "What is it?" Ki-Gor asked uneasily, although he trusted the plump doctor. "Purpose of easing pain in leg. Steady on, old fellow." Then Hurree Das's practiced hand jabbed downward, while Ki-Gor wondered. How something applied to one's arm could help the pain in one's leg was hard to understand. Hurree Das muttered solicitously, pulled the needlelike point of the instrument from Ki-Gor's arm, and then busied himself with other instruments which he brought out of his bag. Presently he got up and waddled off to one of the campfires, and Ki-Gor turned his attention to the scene around him. Evidently, the army was preparing to leave the kloof very soon. There was a constant subdued bustle and movement, both of men and animals. After considerable shifting around, the Nigerian spearmen came over in a body and lined up in front of Julebba's throne. Ki-Gor twisted his head around far enough to see that Julebba was standing up. Her right hand swung up over her head and the torchlight glinted on a short broad-bladed sword. "Soldiers of the Ever-Victorious Army!" she chanted. "The Sword of Hannibal is raised up against your enemies!" The waving, flickering flames seemed to distort Julebba's passionate face and her eyes seemed huger and blacker. "To you men of Bornu," she went on, and now her face, her head, her whole body seemed to wave with the torchlight. "To you is the honor of making the first approach -- " Julebba was speaking to these men in Kanuri, and Ki-Gor knew Kanuri as well as any African tongue. Yet he found it hard to follow her words. Her voice seemed at once muffled and yet clear and metallic as a bell -- seemed close in his ear and at the same time too far away for him to hear aright. And now the slim tense figure in front of the throne seemed to dance around jerkily. Ki-Gor blinked his eyes hard and then found it hard to open them again. He heard the Nigerians roaring but it sounded fantastic and unreal. The whole scene began to fade out. Then Hurree Das's voice sounded conversationally from a great distance. "Ah! How is patient doing? Resting easy, I trust?" Ki-Gor tried to answer but his tongue and lips felt so thick that all he could produce was an inarticulate mumble. It alarmed him for a moment, and he forced his eyes open. But all he could see were dancing figures and leaping flames, and then enormous weights gathered on his eyelids and forced them shut again. There followed now a period of wildly improbable happenings. Scores of beautiful women with cruel red mouths hovered over him. They had blue-black hair that seemed to writhe about their necks. After a while, Ki-Gor could see why the blue-black locks writhed -- they were tiny blue-black snakes, and each little snake had a cruel red mouth. Then there came a man who was half man and half horse, and his face was swathed in red bandages. And this creature stood over Ki-Gor with a Pygmy poisoned arrow and kept digging it into the calf of Ki-Gor's leg. Ki-Gor struggled to get at the horrible creature, but a python was coiled around his chest pinning his arms to his sides and he could not get his hands free. But suddenly it was not a python coiled around him but an elephant's trunk. Ki-Gor could not see very well but he thought it was Marmo and he talked to him. Marmo answered him -- which was very strange, because Marmo had never answered him before. Stranger still, Marmo spoke in two voices. One of them was familiar -- it sounded like Hurree Das. The other voice was a woman's voice, deep and thrilling. Ki-Gor thought it was a great joke that Marmo should talk with the voice of a woman and he told Marmo that. Where upon Marmo answered him using both voices at once. Finally, Marmo seemed to be ashamed of his woman's voice because he did not use it any more, and there was only the voice of Hurree Das droning on in flowery English. Then something about that voice made Ki-Gor suspicious and he opened his eyes. To his astonishment, he was lying stretched out under a tree beside a great rock. It was broad daylight but quite cool indicating that it was still early morning. There was no sign of Marmo, but Hurree Das was sitting cross-legged beside him. "Where are we?" Ki-Gor demanded. "What is this place?" "Most likely it is first balcony seats for watching impending hostilities," Hurree Das replied. "Ah, my friend! You have been dreaming quite considerable time. Most delicious morphine jag you have been enjoying, don't you know? How does injured leg feel to you?" It did not feel bad. It ached and smarted somewhat but Ki-Gor was accustomed to that sort of pain. He lifted his right leg experimentally, and saw that it was well bandaged below the knee. Now Ki-Gor really began to take stock of his surroundings. He and Hurree Das were apparently on the steep side of a hill overlooking a wide stretch of veldt. Low branches from the tree above swept downward providing an effective screen, so that they could see without being observed by anyone below on the veldt. As Ki-Gor stared down, waiting for a complete return of consciousness, he noticed a curious and significant conformation of the line where veldt met the wooded base of the hills. Just below him the veldt jutted inward into the hills in the form of a wedge several hundred yards long at its deepest apex. The hills sloped steeply down on all sides and extended out like the arms of a chair to form a base for the wedge about a quarter of a mile across. Ki-Gor stirred uneasily, his mind going back to Julebba's words to her army, "We will set a trap -- " Was this where the trap was to be laid? He stirred again, and suddenly realized he was lying on his arms. He struggled to free them and discovered that his wrists were securely manacled behind his back. And manacled they surely were -- not merely fastened with rope -- he could feel the metal bands on each wrist, now, and a stout chain pressing into his back. He turned his head and looked at Hurree Das. The Hindu was apparently sorting out and inspecting the instruments in his bag. "Hurree Das," Ki-Gor murmured, "are we alone?" "Oah, by no means positively not," the Hindu replied without looking at Ki-Gor. "There is a nasty looking customer squatting behind your head with homicidal weapon held in position ready for malice aforethought." Ki-Gor thought that over and then said, "The elephant boy?" "Yess," Hurree Das replied with a smirk. "Toomai of the Elephants. That is joke. His name not really Toomai, he being African blackfellow. Toomai was name of character in story by Mistah Rudyard Kipling, don't you know! Hence joke!" After a pause, Ki-Gor said, "There are times, Hurree Das, when I don't understand everything you say." "Oah! How can you saying so!" Hurree Das said indignantly. "Please to know I was graduated cum laude from Bombay University, everybody commenting on most extensive vocabulary." Ki-Gor had only the vaguest idea of what a university was, but he had more important things to think about at that moment. For one thing, he wondered exactly what status Hurree Das enjoyed in Queen Julebba's army. "When," Ki-Gor said carefully, "did you join Queen Julebba?" "Less than a fortnight past," the Hindu replied. "Where?" "On upper reaches of Ubangi River. I was making extensive tour for purpose of botanical research when contact was made by pure happenstance." The doctor picked up a tiny knife and stared at it critically. Ki-Gor frowned. He still had not found out what he wanted. Was Hurree Das going to help him, or not? "If Julebba should -- " Ki-Gor began, then decided to rephrase his question. "I mean, what reward did Julebba promise you to come with her?" "Oah, no positive proposition was propounded. My decision to join her army as Army Medical Corps was based on purely negative considerations. Her Majesty graciously informed me I could enlist with her and stay in good health. Alternatively, I could refuse and be tortured to death. I have, like most Hindu people, constitutional aversion to torture, so I accepted offer of service." "Ah!" Ki-Gor sighed, "I'm glad to hear that." "Heavens!" Hurree Das ejaculated, looking at him sharply. "You did not for one instant think I was willing tool of this blood-thirsty monarch? Oah Heavens, no! People can say truly that Hurree Das is great rascal, that he is always and forever looking out for Number One, that he is not above violating certain ordinances for personal profit, that he is in short -- monumental rogue! But there is not slightest justification for supposing Hurree Das would be voluntary accomplice in such systematic mass-murder as this Julebba is engaged in! No person who has taken Hippocratic oath could ever be that!" By now Ki-Gor was grinning. "Good," he approved. "As a matter of fact, the only person I ever heard call Hurree Das as rascal was -- Hurree Das, himself!" "Possibly," the Hindu shrugged. He added dryly, "Although you should sometime meet some of Civil Authorities in city of Nairobi, Kenya Colony, which place I one time evacuated in great hurry." "Yes, but now listen, Hurree Das, you must help me to escape. I don't know just how, yet, but I'll work out a way." There was a long pause. Ki-Gor glanced sharply at the Hindu. Hurree Das was looking mournful. "Oah dearie me!" he said at length with a heavy sigh. "Much as I would like to do all in my power to help you -- I am afraid it is entirely out of question and impossible." "Why?" "For simple reason that if my complicity should be discovered, this amiable queen, this Julebba, would have me tortured and killed. I do not mind in the least being killed -- that is merely one more step toward achieving Ultimate Nirvana -- but I hate like deuce being tortured. It hurts so, don't you know, old fellow!" Ki-Gor gazed off glumly toward the veldt. For a moment, he had high hopes only to have them speedily dashed to the ground. In time he might be able to persuade the Hindu to change his mind. But escape from such a ruthless captor as Julebba could only succeed by the most resolute and daring methods. A timid and half-hearted partner might prove to be worse than no partner at all. "I am filled with shame," said Hurree Das contritely, "to disappoint in such a manner. But what can do? And please to remember this blackfellow behind you is also guarding me." "You mean Julebba doesn't trust you?" Ki-Gor said. "Most certainly not," Hurree Das said emphatically. "And if you somehow got away -- even if I did not help you in any way, shape, or manner -- Julebba would most likely accuse me of aiding and abetting such escape. And with dire consequences to yours truly, Hurree Das, M.D." "Oh, but you wouldn't be around," Ki-Gor said quickly. "If I got away I would take you with me." "Bah, not understanding that part -- so sorry," the Hindu said. "That might change aspect of things -- hist-!" he broke off and stared up the hill behind him. "Ah! Someone is coming! Might possibly be Her Majesty coming to make sickcall." There was a considerable rustling in the undergrowth up the hill, a rustling which swiftly became louder and nearer. Presently, one of the giant chimpanzees could be seen, swinging along on his knuckles using his long hairy arms like crutches. Close behind him and flanking him slightly came two more of the beasts. They came downhill in an aimless meandering fashion, but still in the general direction of Ki-Gor. Then Julebba appeared and behind her were four more of the apes. There was nothing meandering about Julebba. She came directly and purposefully toward Ki-Gor. He struggled up to a sitting position and watched her coming. She was dressed in the costume of the night before and carried the light spear. As she drew closer, Ki-Gor had to admit that she was fully as beautiful by daylight as she had been under the torches. Her flawless, cream-colored skin gleamed in the dappled sunlight that filtered through the foliage and her tall magnificent figure moved with sinuous majesty through the undergrowth. Both Hurree Das and the Baluba boy stood up long before she came up to them, but Ki-Gor stayed as he was, in a sitting position. But when she stood beside him she seemed not to notice anything wrong about that. She said nothing for a long moment, but looked down at Ki-Gor with burning eyes that traveled from his yellow hair the length of his great bronzed body down to his feet. "It will not be long now," she said finally, "before you will see your Karamzili friends slaughtered like sheep." Ki-Gor glanced up in surprise. Her opening gun had been milder than he expected. Moreover it had been directed at the Karamzili and not at him personally. "I have just received word," she continued, "that my spearmen have already seen Lotoko's force and have been seen by him. My spearmen are retreating, of course" -- she smiled vindictively -- "and in this direction. They will be in sight in two hours." "Where is the rest of your army?" Ki-Gor asked bluntly. "They are already at their battle stations." Ki-Gor looked down at the wedge-shaped tract of veldt below him, and then at the wooded slopes that reached out like arms on either side. "I don't see them," he said briefly. "You won't," Julebba said, "and neither will Lotoko -- until it is too late." Ki-Gor smiled. "You are just fooling yourself, Queen Julebba," he said. "If you have five hundred men you would still have a hard time beating five hundred Karamzili. Next to the Masai, the Karamzili are the finest fighting men in Africa. Just because you hide a few elephants and horsemen and bowmen, don't think they will prevail long against such overwhelming odds." "I will bet you," Julebba, said coldly, "that not a single Karamzili escapes!" "How can I bet -- what can I bet?" Ki-Gor queried. "Your life," the queen said. "My life?" Ki-Gor said frowning. "Spoken just like a woman. My life, just now, is not mine to bet. You can have me killed whenever you feel like it. In fact, you have already promised to kill me after the battle." "Well, perhaps I've changed my mind!" Julebba snapped. "Perhaps I shan't have you killed. That is my decision to make, and I shall do exactly what I please!" Ki-Gor was beginning to feel a little bewildered. "It might help your fate a little," Julebba went on accusingly, "if your attitude toward me were less insolent." She swung around and faced Hurree Das. "Have you treated his leg properly?" she demanded. "Will it heal soon?" "Oah, yess!" Hurree Das stammered. "Indeed, I have done everything possible to prevent infection, oah yes, indeed!" "Very well," Julebba said. "Your post is down below ready to treat the wounded as soon as the battle begins. You had better go down immediately and make your arrangements." "Yes, Madame!" Hurree Das cried. "I am going now. I am hurrying like anything!" His plump body went crashing through the undergrowth toward the foot of the slope. Julebba turned back to Ki-Gor. "I will see you after the battle," she announced. "After you have seen how a great general does what you say is impossible -- maybe -- maybe you will be more humble." With that she turned and stalked away across the slope, the seven apes shambling after her. Ki-Gor studied her diminishing figure until she was out of sight. What an extraordinary woman! What had caused the comparative mellowing of her attitude toward him? Ki-Gor put that line of thought away for a while, and concentrated on figuring a means of immediate escape. Although he hardly dared admit it even to himself, he was a little impressed by Julebba's confidence over the outcome of the impending battle. It seemed inconceivable that her tiny force could defeat, much less annihilate the Karamzili half an impi, and yet -- if Lotoko's men were taken completely by surprise -- Ki-Gor looked around at his guard. If he was going to escape he had to do it soon, so that he could get to Lotoko and warn him of Julebba's trap. Helene, after all, was with Lotoko, and if there was the slightest chance of Helene being endangered, he must get away and prevent the battle from taking place. Escape should not be too difficult to accomplish now. His only bonds were the ones on his wrists. His powerful legs were free, and he had used them as effective weapons many times before during his adventurous life. To be sure his right leg was wounded -- how badly, he was not sure. He rolled over on his stomach with a groan and spoke to the guard. "Oh, I'm stiff, brother," he said. "I must stand up a moment and stretch. You need not be alarmed. You are armed and I am chained." "Why should I be alarmed, O White Giant?" the elephant boy said surlily. "As you say -- I am armed and you are chained." Ki-Gor lay on his stomach and looked at the Baluba. "Are you not homesick?" he said, "being so far from your country?" "Nay, why should I be?" the Baluba growled. "What are you getting from this warlike adventuring and risking of your life?" "There will be rewards," the elephant boy said. "They are promises only," Ki-Gor pointed out, "and promises are cheap." "Promises are better than nothing," the Baluba retorted. "Are they -- I wonder," Ki-Gor said reflectively. "Down to the south where I live, there is a wonderful place for a man like you. There is a fine village set on fertile soil near a river with pure, clean water that is teeming with fish. The men in the village are kind and gentle, the women are handsome and strong and hard-working." "Why do you tell me this, White Giant?" the guard said. "If you came with me," Ki-Gor said simply, "you could live in that place. You could have ten goats and twenty cows and twenty wives." "Wah!" the Baluba spat on the ground. "You yourself just said that promises are cheap. And even your promises don't approach the ones our Queen makes. Why, after we have conquered Karamzililand, I am to be chief of a whole village! I will have fifty cows and fifty wives!" Ki-Gor fell silent. Evidently, the elephant boy would be hard to bribe on the basis of mere promises. Perhaps, it would be better after all to attack the man. He arched his back with a groan and twisted his head with a futile gesture. "I would like to get up on my feet," he complained, "but with my wrists chained behind my back like this, I can't do it alone. Would you help me up?" "Help yourself," the Baluba grunted. "Roll over on your back and draw your legs up under you." "Ah, yes, maybe I can do it that way," Ki-Gor said, hiding his disappointment. If the Baluba had done what he asked and come and bent over him, it would have been easy. Now, something else had to be figured out. He rolled over on his back, as the Baluba had suggested, drew his legs under him and staggered upward. He stood swaying and gasping for a moment. He was considerably weaker than he had realized. He covertly tested his right leg, resting his full weight on it. The pain that shot through his calf was fearful. It was not very encouraging. However, Ki-Gor decided that whether his leg pained or not, it would hold him up while he swung his left leg in a prodigious kick. He took a step forward uphill toward the guard. His heart beat a little quicker as he noticed that the Baluba was not even looking at him, but was staring off at something in the distance. "Hai!" the Baluba exclaimed. "Here they come, I think! They made quick time!" "Here who come?" Ki-Gor said. "Our spearmen," the Baluba said, still looking off toward the veldt. "No doubt the Karamzili are in hot pursuit! Wah! They'll walk into the trap like elephants into a pit!" In spite of himself, Ki-Gor looked over his shoulder. Far off on the veldt, there was a dust cloud rising slowly into the air. Shading his phenomenally keen eyes, Ki-Gor could just make out black specks under the dust cloud. He turned his head back quickly. "Can you see any of them yet?" he asked the Baluba. The elephant boy shook his head and squinted his eyes toward the horizon. If ever there was a guard vulnerable to attack, it was this one now. Ki-Gor shifted his weight to his right leg, and swept the Baluba with one all-embracing glance. The man seemed to be oblivious of all danger, his right hand carrying the curved sword hanging loosely at his side. One tremendous kick into the man's stomach would knock his breath out, knock him down -- might even knock him unconscious. If he were still conscious, Ki-Gor would kick the sword out of his hand, and swiftly kneel on the man's throat. A swift, resolute attack would prevent the man from making a sound to summon help. Ki-Gor dug the toes of his aching right leg into the ground to give him a sure purchase. The muscles of his left leg tensed -- then his ears caught the sound of rustling undergrowth behind him. He shot a glance over his shoulder -- and his heart died within him. Julebba, accompanied by her seven apes, was coming rapidly toward him. To attack the Baluba now would be worse than futile. With his hands chained behind him, he could not possibly fight off so many giant chimpanzees, and besides Julebba would scream for help. The Baluba boy stepped around him waving his sword in a salute, and Ki-Gor sadly watched Julebba hasten toward them. "They are coming!" she cried exultantly, "Do you see?" Ki-Gor nodded wearily, and she smiled triumphantly up into his face. "In a short time, now," she said, "the fun begins. This, you see, is our first test. Up to now we have only met frontier guards -- small groups. But here, finally, we are going to meet a real force. Not a big one, but they outnumber us more than three to one. And you will see! Not one of them will escape!" Ki-Gor looked off anxiously at the dust cloud. If Julebba, by any mad chance, were right, what would happen to Helene? He wondered whether he should mention the fact that Helene was with Lotoko. Then he dismissed the idea in disgust. Julebba couldn't be right! It was ridiculous. "You still won't believe me, will you?" Julebba said, eyes narrowed in a derisive smile. "Let me tell you something you don't know -- or have forgotten. Those Karamzili are beaten now -- already -- before they even reach us here. Why? Because they are so completely confused about my strength. They have been told we are few in numbers, and they have been told we number thousands. They don't know which stories to believe. Now, finally, they have caught sight of us -- the spearmen. There are only fifty of them. No doubt, Lotoko thinks that is all there are. Think of the shock it will be to him and to his men when -- thinking they have penned up a handful of men in this place below -- when suddenly they are assaulted on three sides by new forces. They have underestimated us for so long, that when the attack comes, they will overestimate us. It will be a terrible shock." Ki-Gor knew that there was a great deal in what she said. But Julebba had not finished. She pointed out on to the veldt where Ki-Gor, by now, could make out running black figures quite distinctly. "They have been running a long time now," she said. "My spearmen retreating and the Karamzili pursuing. They are all going to be out of breath and tired. But only a part of my force will be tired. The rest will burst forth fresh on the Karamzili." Ki-Gor essayed an indulgent smile, although he did not feel like smiling. "You have figured everything very closely, haven't you?" he said. "But have you figured out a way to make Lotoko send his entire army into that little wedge of veldt? He is too good a general to do that. He will send fifty or more men in to chase your fifty. The rest he will hold in readiness." "Don't fear," Julebba said calmly. "He will send every man he has into the wedge. For one thing, he won't suspect a trap. For another, he will be over-anxious. This is the first time he has seen the mysterious invaders of Queen Julebba -- he will strain every nerve to kill or capture them." "Well," Ki-Gor shrugged. "We'll see what happens soon enough." His face was blank as he gazed out on to the veldt, but his mind was in a turmoil. This extraordinary women by his side had apparently not overlooked a thing. Her imagination and ability to read human nature, and moreover, her skillful and daring application of that faculty to military problems -- was frightening. By now, Ki-Gor was getting genuinely worried that Lotoko and the Karamzili might actually meet the fate that Julebba was so confidently predicting for them. And Helene was with Lotoko! If there was ever a time that he needed to be free, it was now. And yet, he knew in his heart that escape was completely impossible, as long as he was surrounded by those powerful apes trained to do the bidding of the strange sand beautiful woman who stood next to him. And now the three Arabs came through the undergrowth toward them, the old Arab who had posed as Julebba's father, and the two younger ones who were supposed to be her brothers. From the conversation that followed Ki-Gor gathered that they each commanded a unit of the little army. The old Arab spoke in Arabic but Julebba for some reason answered in English. "No," she said, "Take no prisoners. Wait a minute, though -- there should be one man saved. We will release him later to take the news to Dingazi that we have an enormous army. It will seem enormous when we first burst out on them. So do this -- take one prisoner as soon as possible and put his eyes out immediately. We'll let him go then and he can tell of his impressions of the Ever-Victorious Army." She switched back to Arabic then and Ki-Gor could not understand what she said next. But he knew now that he had to tell her about Helene and plead for her life in advance. It would be risky enough to have Helene a captive to this bloodthirsty woman, but it was better than having her killed outright. The Arabs seemed to have finished the talk with Julebba and were backing away. Ki-Gor took a deep breath and was about to speak to Julebba, when all three Arabs suddenly jumped on him. Manacled as he was, and taken completely by surprise, Ki-Gor could not put up an effective resistance. But the assault was quickly over, and the Arabs had jumped away from Ki-Gor's thrashing legs before he realized what it was all about. Then the purpose of the attack was demonstrated by the thick, evil-smelling turban cloth that was bound tightly around Ki-Gor's mouth. "Just in case," Julebba told him calmly, "you tried to shout out to your Karamzili friends and warn them of the ambush." Ki-Gor's heart sank. He had held that idea in the back of his mind as a last desperate resort. But this woman thought of everything. "Ah! You look so fierce!" Julebba mocked him. "If your head were covered as well, you would look like one of my Tuareg horsemen." So the veiled cavalrymen were Tuaregs, Ki-Gor thought dully. He had heard of Tuaregs and knew that they lived on the great deserts far to the north, but he had never seen any before. How they happened to be so far south out of their element was no greater a mystery than was Julebba herself. But now Julebba's Nigerian spearmen were panting into the wedge, Lotoko's Karamzili shouting triumphantly scarcely three hundred yards behind them. Ki-Gor's eyes strained for a glimpse of Helene somewhere in the black mass of Karamzili, but they were too far away as yet. He still hoped against hope that Lotoko would use common prudence about sending his entire force into the ambush. But just at that moment, the Nigerian spearmen did some very fine acting. Half way into the wedge, they stopped and looked around them in great agitation as if they had just noticed that they were hemmed in. Then they pretended to decide on a last stand. They closed their ranks and faced the Karamzili with shouts of defiance. Apparently, Lotoko could not resist that bait. The entire half-impi ranged itself into the solid phalanx which was the basis of Karamzili infantry tactics, and marched resolutely into the wedge. Ki-Gor groaned behind his gag. Julebba had predicted accurately. -------- *CHAPTER V* From then on the action proceeded like a bad dream exactly as Julebba had planned it. The spearmen, once again acting, fell back right into the tip of the wedge drawing the unsuspecting Karamzili in with them. At the psychological moment -- when the Karamzili were all well into the wedge -- but still a hundred yards away from the decoying spearmen -- Julebba struck. From the woods on both sides of the Karamzili phalanx there suddenly came a shower of arrows. They were great archers, those men from the Ubangi. Half a dozen volleys poured into the vulnerable Karamzili before they realized what was happening and swung their long shields about to protect them from the unexpected arrow attack on their flanks. By that time, nearly three hundred arrows had poured into the serried masses at point-blank range, and while not every arrow had killed a man, the death toll was fearful. But the Karamzili wheeled bravely and charged the deadly woods. They were still in overwhelming numbers and apparently with unbroken morale. But now Julebba played her second card -- the elephants. They erupted suddenly from the woods -- again on both sides -- two on each flank. Each elephant carried on its back a large shallow howdah loaded with fifty-pound rocks. The Baluba boys hurled these rocks down on the defenseless heads of the Karamzili. Behind the elephants, the Ubangi archers streamed out keeping up an incessant shower of fearsome arrows. As the Karamzili recoiled at the flanks, the Nigerian spearman hurled themselves on the original front rank. The elephants bored bloody pathways through Lotoko's kilted warriors cutting the phalanx in half. In a very short time the Karamzili were no longer an impi -- they were merely a crowd of demoralized individuals. Panic swept through the shattered ranks. With one accord, the Karamzili broke and ran. Safety seemed to beckon from the open veldt, away from the cramped slaughter of the wedge, and the Karamzili fled with screams of terror away from the wooded slopes. But now Julebba climaxed her ambush. The Tuaregs poured out of the leafy screen at the apex of the wedge. With curved swords raised high they galloped around the Nigerian spearmen and fell on the doomed Karamzili. Before Ki-Gor's horrified eyes, Julebba, proceeded to demonstrate the truth of the military theory that cavalry is never so dangerous and effective as when it is unleashed in pursuit of an already beaten enemy. The battle had been so fast and so furious that not until this moment did Ki-Gor's searching eyes finally locate his wife. As the rear ranks dissolved into flight, he saw a tiny white figure left behind. Ki-Gor wondered whether Julebba saw it, too, but he did not dare turn his head to look, for fear he would lose sight of Helene. Apparently, Helene had not lost her head like the Karamzili. She moved not out toward the veldt but toward the wooded side of the wedge. Ki-Gor, knowing that all of Julebba's men were out in the open now, and that therefore the woods were the safest place, held his breath while Helene threaded her way through the fugitive blacks. She all but made it. With sickening horror Ki-Gor saw a single Tuareg horseman bearing down on her when she was only a few yards from the line of trees. In the next few seconds Ki-Gor thanked the fates for providing his wife with a keen mind, an athletic body, and undaunted courage. She apparently heard or saw the Tuareg galloping down on her, and instead of losing her head, she swerved and came to a standstill facing the oncoming horseman. Ki-Gor could just make out the light spear in her hands. She stood perfectly still until the horse seemed to be almost on top of her. Then she sprang to one side and the horse pounded past her. The Tuareg rider, evidently astonished that she had not perished under the hoofs of his steed, reined in sharply and swung the horse around. He must have been further astonished when he found that his prey instead of running away had pursued him. Helene had run swiftly after him, her spear poised in her right hand. While the Tuareg was reining the horse around, Helene reached out and hauled at his left stirrups away from his sword-hand. Ki-Gor could hardly believe his eyes as Helene thrust upward twice with her frail spear. But the Tuareg's head jerked backward as if the second thrust might have caught him in the throat. At the same moment, the horse reared up high in the air. The Tuareg brought his sword around and slashed downward wildly. Then, suddenly, he seemed to be sliding back down on to the horse's crupper -- apparently he had lost the reins. A split-second later, the Tuareg was down on the ground prostrate, and Helene was hanging on for dear life to the bridle of the plunging horse. Julebba, sitting beside Ki-Gor, gave an angry cry. "That is a white man down there!" she exclaimed. "He has killed one of my Tuaregs!" She leaped to her feet shouting imprecations. But Ki-Gor did not look at her. He was watching Helene -- who had been a fearless rider long before she came to Africa -- mount the Tuareg's horse and ride hell-for-leather out toward the veldt and safety. Julebba screamed at the Baluba boy and sent him scampering down to the field of battle carrying orders from her that the Tuaregs should pursue and capture the mysterious "white man" at all costs. But by the time the Tuareg leader received the orders, Helene was far away and out of sight on the veldt. Julebba whirled around at Ki-Gor. "Who was that white man?" she demanded. Then she realized that Ki-Gor could not answer her with the great gag tied around his mouth. She whipped out her dagger, knelt down and cut the bandage away. Ki-Gor thus received a few precious seconds to decide on his answer. "Who was that white man who was with Lotoko?" Julebba repeated grimly. "It was a woman," Ki-Gor said, guessing that she would probably find that out anyway later. Then he added, "The woman is my wife." "Your wife!" Julebba screamed. Then she remembered. "Of course!" she said slowly. "The red-headed woman in the leopard skin outfit that was with you at Dutawayo. Well -- as soon as we catch her" -- Julebba's eyes flashed -- "you will no longer have a wife." "Why?" Ki-Gor said sharply. "Why should you kill a woman who has done you no harm?" "She killed one of my precious Tuaregs!" Julebba replied hotly. "That's why!" "You don't know yet that he is dead," Ki-Gor said, and his face was dangerously bleak. "Well, then, I have a better reason for killing the woman!" Julebba shouted. "No woman shall have you for a husband but me -- Julebba, the Conqueror!" Ki-Gor stared at her aghast. Before he could organize his whirling thoughts enough to make some answer, she spoke with a beckoning sweep of her arm. "Come! We will speak of this matter later. Now, we will go down the hill. There is much to be done." Ringed by the giant chimpanzees, Ki-Gor followed Julebba's sinuous figure down the slope. Judging from the rapidly diminishing sounds from the field, the battle was nearly over. And when Ki-Gor reached the foot of the hill, he saw that that was so. A few Tuaregs were still hunting down and killing the last survivors of Lotoko's five hundred stalwart kilted warriors. But groups of Nigerians and Ubangi archers were already searching the field for their own wounded. Hurree Das had a rough dressing station set up and was hard at work patching up the wounded as they walked or were carried to him. The casualties were preposterously small, considering the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. There were twenty-one wounded in all -- seven of them severely -- and the dead numbered exactly five. Three Nigerians, one Baluba, and the Tuareg who had ridden down upon Helene. Her spear had caught him in the throat, severing his jugular. As Ki-Gor looked out over the shambles he marveled that such a holocaust could have been contrived by a beautiful young woman. For a moment, he wondered whether she really was the brain that conceived this brilliant strategy ... or whether she was a figurehead behind which someone else worked -- someone like the old Arab, perhaps. But Ki-Gor's doubts in this direction were soon dispelled by Julebba's own actions. While the vultures slowly wheeled downward out of the sky, Julebba organized her victory. Her orders were given to and carried out by the three Arabs, and she issued them in Arabic, so Ki-Gor did not understand her words. But he saw how swiftly the Nigerians went among the dead Karamzili gathering up their weapons, and how another party went around stripping the blue-and-white kilts and feather headdresses off dozens of Lotoko's lately fallen men. The purpose of that latter action Ki-Gor did not quite understand, but he had no doubt Julebba had an excellent one in mind. Then the Baluba boys carried the severely wounded on to the howdahs of the elephants, the Ubangi bowmen were assembled and dispatched up over the hills in a body, and finally the Tuaregs gathered around to form an escort for Julebba herself. Ki-Gor's manacles were removed, to his great surprise, and he was given a horse to ride beside Julebba. Any sudden hopes of escape that rose in his heart swiftly died, however, as he saw that he would be completely ringed about by Tuaregs. And as the cavalcade moved off, Ki-Gor no longer had the slightest doubt that Julebba herself was the guiding genius of her "Ever-Victorious Army." The route of the cavalcade led out of the wedge on to the veldt, then turned leftward and bore along the base of the range of hills. They traveled at a moderate pace for about four hours, and Ki-Gor was not surprised when their destination turned out to be the hidden kloof of the night before. Evidently this was the secret rendezvous of the army. What did surprise Ki-Gor was the fact that the Ubangi archers had arrived at the kloof ahead of them. Evidently there was another route into the ravine over the hills -- a route too rough for horses and elephants but passable for agile men on foot. Ki-Gor's mind had been furiously busy during that four-hour ride, and although he arrived at no definite course of action, he had considered a host of ideas, some of which might crystallize into concrete plans with more thought. For one thing, he became interested in the two younger Arabs who rode on either side for the entire distance. He had not been able to place them in Julebba's scheme of things. They looked enough alike to be brothers, and they looked enough like the old Arab to be his sons. But they did not resemble Julebba, they being typically Arab, swarthy and hook-nosed. Julebba was comparatively pale and her nose was straight and exquisitely beautiful by any standards except possibly those of the Guinea Coast. Who were the Arabs, then? Ki-Gor asked himself. But then, he sighed, who was Julebba? He had tried to converse with the young Arabs during the ride, using Swahili. But they had both answered his overtures with such rude grunts and ferocious looks that Ki-Gor did not pursue the attempt. He did not quite understand that enmity. It went beyond the fact of his being a prisoner of war -- there was something directly personal in it. Beyond the clearing in the middle of the kloof, there were three tents hidden away among the trees. The largest and most ornate of these tents was, of course, Julebba's. The other two were alike in size and appearance and were used by the Arabs. About an hour after the arrival in the kloof, the two young Arabs escorted Ki-Gor to the large new tent. "Sit down," Julebba said. "We are going to talk personally. My Arabs will remain to insure your good behavior, but we will talk English so that they cannot understand what we say." She flashed a brilliant smile and Ki-Gor tried to keep the bewilderment out of his face. What an unpredictable woman! "First of all," she said, "you are truly a white man, aren't you? You couldn't possibly be anything else, in spite of the way you are dressed. When did you come to Africa?" Her tone was one of matter-of-fact friendliness. Ki-Gor used the same tone and described his origin, the death of his missionary father in the jungle, and his own self-upbringing. "Magnificent!" she exclaimed softly when he had finished. "What a husband you will make me! I may even let you be king, instead of just a consort." Ki-Gor eyed her and said bluntly, "Who are you?" She smiled indulgently at him and then said, "It is a long story. My father was a white man. He captured and trained wild animals for European circuses, and he spent most of his life in Africa. My mother was a circus performer from Malta, originally. And while the Maltese are considered Europeans, they are actually descended from the ancient Carthaginians. That is why I say I am a descendant of Hannibal. "When I was young my mother died, and I lived a tawdry, degrading life traveling with my father in little circuses. Then he took me to Africa with him and I began to live. I had done a lot of reading as a child, and was particularly interested in the life and military campaigns of Hannibal. The first time I saw a tribe of Tuaregs, I thought how irresistible they would be if they were properly led in warfare. "How I became their leader is not important, but I did it with the help of Mohammed, here" -- she indicated the old Arab -- "who had been a friend of my father's. I led them down from their desert home and headed southward, skirmishing on the way and learning my art of war. I recruited among a few of the tribes I fought with. The army you see is the result -- small, but of marvelous quality. "By this time, I decided I would not only be a general, but I would be a queen. And rather than spend years carving out a kingdom for myself, I decided to look for an already established realm, and take it over. Karamzililand answered my problem. It is a mighty nation to conquer, but conquered it can be, and I am well on my way to doing it. When Dingazi receives the news of the fate of Lotoko's force, he will be so terrified that his fine army will be useless -- he being unable to direct it. Within two weeks -- maybe much less -- I will be Queen of Karamzililand." Ki-Gor kept his face grave and his eyes on Julebba throughout this remarkable recital. But his thoughts were racing, and he was ready for her next gun. "I thought there could be no greater happiness than being Queen of Karamzililand," she went on, "until I saw you, Ki-Gor. And when that happened, I could look into the future and I could see -- that I would be a very lonesome queen, indeed, without you at my side." Her great eyes seemed to devour him as she said the words. He remained silent, principally because he was not at all sure what he ought to say. "Well!" she exclaimed. "What have you to say?" "What can I say?" he said soberly, "Except that I cannot be your husband because I am already married." "Forget the red-headed woman!" Julebba snapped. "She is as good as dead, already. As soon as my Tuaregs catch her -- and they will not fail -- I will have her quickly put away. Then you will no longer have a wife and will be free to marry me." "But suppose," Ki-Gor said gently, "that I don't want my wife to be killed?" "Ki-Gor, do not make me jealous of the red-headed woman!" she cried wrathfully, "Or -- instead of putting her out of the way mercifully, I will have my apes perform the execution!" An icy chill traveled up Ki-Gor's back, and he had to remind himself that Helene had not been captured yet. But if she were... "What is the matter with you, Ki-Gor!" Julebba cried in exasperation. "Am I not beautiful? Am I not three times as beautiful as that sunburned savage? Will you not be the husband of a mighty queen if -- " "Wait a minute, O Julebba!" Ki-Gor said diplomatically. "You have given me no chance to say how tempting your offer is -- how flattering. And if I were single, I would have a far different answer to make -- " "Then I will make you single!" Julebba shrieked. She suddenly quieted down and gazed calculatingly at Ki-Gor. "Suppose," she said at length, "I sent her away -- suppose I did not kill her -- " Hope surged through Ki-Gor, then, only to be dashed away with Julebba's next words. "No," she said abruptly, "that wouldn't do. You are still in love with her, I can see that, if she were sent away safe, you would marry me, but you would run away the first chance you got -- run away to her. No. The woman must die." "If she dies," Ki-Gor said stonily, "then guard yourself, Julebba. Because I will surely kill you." "Oh! You beast!" Julebba screamed, springing to her feet. The three Arabs also sprang up, but she waved them back and stepped over to Ki-Gor. Before he realized what was happening, she had knelt beside him and kissed him full on the mouth. Then she drew back, face contorted with rage, and slapped him hard on the face. "Go away!" she raged. "Go and think -- think hard on what you should do! You will spend the night with Ahmed and Ali. And if you have an idea of escaping" -- she flashed a cruel smile -- "you may as well forget it. Both of your guards are already furiously jealous of you and would like nothing better than an excuse to kill you. Especially, Ahmed, the older one, because Ahmed would like very much to have the position you are refusing." As Ki-Gor left Julebba's tent and walked slowly away, he felt two knife points in his back. But he felt no fear of the two Arab brothers. And Julebba's parting shot had the reverse effect on him than she intended, because it crystallized one of the ideas which had been in his head vaguely for the past two hours. Just after the evening meal, Hurree Das came to Ahmed's tent to change the dressing on Ki-Gor's leg and inspect the wound. The Hindu, for once, was quiet, had very little to say. Whether that was because he was very tired from his work on the wounded, or whether he was terrified of the beetle-browed Ahmed who sat in the tent glaring -- Ki-Gor could not say. He peered at the bites on Ki-Gor's leg and murmured: "Remarkable healing job going on, old fellow. Don't know how you are doing it." Ki-Gor bent over and looked at his leg and spoke casually -- for Ahmed's benefit -- as if he were commenting on the wound. "The needle that you used to put me to sleep with -- is it in your bag?" "Yes," Hurree Das replied, "but, gracious! Why do you ask?" "Then, when you leave," Ki-Gor said, "leave the bag behind, as if by accident." "Oh lordy! What is your intention?" "I have to escape," Ki-Gor said, still keeping his voice matter-of-fact so that nothing in his tone would arouse the suspicions of Ahmed -- who did not understand English. "Oh! Fearful risk for poor Hindu doctor with no possible pretensions to heroism." "Nobody will know you had anything to do with me. You simply forget to take your bag with you when you go. I'll do the rest. If you come back very early in the morning, you can be the one who discovers that I have gone and give the alarm." "Oh! Dearie me!" Hurree Das moaned. "Am frightened like the devil -- but I cannot refuse you." With flying fingers, the Hindu put on a fresh bandage. When he had finished, he tossed the surgical scissors into the bag and stood up. "Happens to be full load already in syringe," he said in English to Ki-Gor. Then he turned to Ahmed, said a polite goodnight in Swahili, and turned and half, ran out of the tent. "What was all that talk about, Nasrani?" Ahmed demanded in Swahili. "We were talking about my leg," Ki-Gor replied. "The Hindu looked frightened," said Ahmed, suspiciously. "He was," Ki-Gor agreed. "The leg is not healing rapidly, and he is afraid Queen Julebba will blame him and punish him." "Wah!" Ahmed said bitterly. "She is young, your queen," Ki-Gor carried on smoothly. "She has girlish whims." The Arab glowered at Ki-Gor without answering. "This whim concerning me, for instance," Ki-Gor went on serenely. "Who am I to have the honor of marrying her? I merit no such wonderful fate." "If she wants you, she will have you," Ahmed said bitterly. "It is not right," Ki-Gor said shaking his head. "There is one person who should marry the queen -- one person who has earned that right -- " "Who?" snapped Ahmed, leaning forward and whipping a dagger from his girdle. "Who do you think has the right, dog of a Nasrani! Speak! Or by the -- " "Nay! Cool down!" Ki-Gor said good-naturedly. "The person I speak of is none other than yourself!" Ahmed glared in silence for a moment. Then he said ominously, "Do you mock me, Nasrani?" "I do not," Ki-Gor said calmly. "Does she not look with favor upon you, O Ahmed?" "She did," Ahmed admitted, "but never enough. And now since she has seen you -- " "Wait," Ki-Gor said. "Have you ever tried a love-philter?" "Aye, a many of them," Ahmed growled, "but they did not help." "What were they -- the kind you drink?" "What other kind is there?" Ahmed said. "There is a philter I know of," Ki-Gor said, lowering his voice, "and it never fails. You do not drink it, but instead, you inject it in your veins through a hollow needle." "I do not believe you," Ahmed said, then added, "Where is such a philter and such a hollow needle?" "There happens to be one within arm's reach of you," Ki-Gor said. "It is in the bag the Hindu left behind." Ahmed shot a glance at Hurree Das's bag lying near Ki-Gor. "Is this a trick to get me within reach of you?" Ahmed demanded. "Nay, it is no trick -- I'll push it over toward you." A moment later, Ahmed held the hypodermic syringe gingerly in his hands. Ki-Gor explained how it worked. "How do I know it is not a deadly poison?" Ahmed demanded. "Would a hakim, a doctor, carry deadly poison in his bag?" Ki-Gor said patiently, and Ahmed was silenced. "By injecting the philter into your blood," Ki-Gor explained, "you will become so desirable to her that you will be irresistible. She will come to you, possibly, in your dreams. With some persons though, it works more slowly and takes several days to make its effect." Ahmed put the needlepoint in the crook of his elbow, experimentally, moved it until he felt the vein underneath as Ki-Gor had directed him. Then he threw a terrible look at Ki-Gor. "There is something wrong here," he accused. "Why should you give her up -- a queen, beautiful and mighty -- " "I cannot marry her myself," Ki-Gor explained patiently. "I am already married, and we Christians are only allowed one wife." Ahmed stared long and hard at Ki-Gor. Finally he snarled, "Absurd religion!" and pressed the needle into his arm. A little more than an hour later, Ki-Gor lifted the back flap of the tent and went searching through the pitch-black woods for the back way out of the kloof. -------- *CHAPTER VI* Twenty hours later, Ki-Gor limped up a little hill, exhausted from lack of sleep and food, and racked with the pain in his right leg. He had not stopped once since he left the kloof in which Julebba's army was hidden. He had pressed ever onward toward Dutawayo, unable to rest until he knew that Helene had not been captured by Julebba's Tuaregs. He had come now about half the distance to Dutawayo, and had seen no sign of her, although he had kept to the route taken by Lotoko's ill-fated expedition. But, he told himself, that was possibly good news, and meant that she had safely gone all the way to Dutawayo. He had nearly reached the crest of the little ridge he was climbing, when he thought he heard voices in the distance. He stopped a moment to listen, and now if he heard one voice he heard hundreds. He hurried to the top of the hill and stared in amazement. At a distance of about a half a mile in front of him, there stretched an immense long line of twinkling campfires. There could be nothing less than an army camped there, and a big one. And the only big army in Karamzililand would be a Karamzili army. Ki-Gor ran down the hill, regardless of his aching right leg. He was recognized at the first campfire and greeted. It seemed to him that the warriors were very quiet, if not actually depressed and fearful. "Have you seen aught of my wife, the Red Headed One?" he asked immediately. "We did not see her," was the answer, "but we heard that she rode into the camp early this morning on a horse." Ki-Gor's heart sang a joyful cadence. "I must find her quickly," he shouted. "Where would she be?" "Most likely with King Dingazi," they answered. "Dingazi!" Ki-Gor exclaimed. "Is he here, then?" Quickly, he sought out the royal tent, and was immediately received. Relieved and happy as he was at the news about Helene's safety, he was a little shocked by the appearance of Dingazi. The old king looked ten years older, his great shoulders bowed with discouragement, and fear lurking in his bloodshot eyes. "I did not expect to see you away from Dutawayo," Ki-Gor said. Dingazi shook his head. "The very day Lotoko left, villagers came to Dutawayo from all sides running away from the great army of invaders. I collected ten impis as fast as I could, but there were delays. And I could not reach Lotoko in time to save him -- or try to save him," the old man amended. Then he said, "You heard about what happened to him?" Ki-Gor said, "I was there when it happened, and saw the whole thing." "You saw it!" Dingazi cried. "Ah, thank the gods for something. Tell me what happened!" "Yes," Ki-Gor agreed, "but first of all, where is my wife? I expected to see her with you." Dingazi raised his head slowly. "When did you see her last?" he demanded. "During the battle," Ki-Gor said. "She killed a Tuareg and fled on his horse. I didn't know until tonight that she had escaped them." "She escaped them," Dingazi said. "She came here this morning, thinking you would be with me. When she found you were not, she cried out that you must be a prisoner of Julebba's and she rode away again immediately to look for you." Ki-Gor felt a great weariness go over him. If she had only stayed! They would now both be safe with this great host of Karamzili. As it was, who knew where she might be? She might even have fallen into the hands of the Tuaregs. "I was a prisoner of Julebba's," Ki-Gor said with a sigh. "Hah!" Dingazi exclaimed. "Tell me about her and her monstrous ju-ju army! Ai-ee! I don't know what to do! What will become of my poor people!" "What do you mean monstrous ju-ju army?" Ki-Gor demanded. "I asked Helene about the massacre," Dingazi said, "but she said she was in the rear ranks and did not see much until our men were already badly cut up. She said it was an ambush, but she could estimate the number of the enemy. Fortunately, tonight another survivor arrived -- one of the impi. He was blinded at the beginning of the fight, but he was in the front rank. He said it was fearful the way the ju-jus poured out of the ambush by the many thousands -- horses, elephants, everything!" "Now, wait a minute, Dingazi," Ki-Gor said soberly. "I spent a day and a night as a prisoner of those jujus," and I can tell you to a man how many they are, and how they fight. Listen!" When Ki-Gor finished his account of Julebba, and her army, and her tactics, and how they prevailed over Lotoko, Dingazi leaned back pop-eyed. "I-I can't believe it!" he gasped. "A hundred and fifty men did that!" "And one woman," Ki-Gor added. "And she doesn't need men to fight with, Dingazi -- she uses ideas. Her greatest weapon is fear. Just think how skillfully she has used that weapon. Here you are with ten thousand of the best fighting men in Africa, and you were afraid to do battle with one hundred and fifty." "No longer am I afraid," Dingazi said grimly. "The impis will start at dawn. I will send for my commanders now -- I want you to tell them how to find this kloof if you can." "I can," said Ki-Gor. "I can draw a map of those hills by now and they cannot go wrong. But let your commanders hurry, because I must go as soon as possible to try and find Helene." "But you can't find her until daylight," Dingazi expostulated. "And then she is on foot. The horse she came on is still here. You can take that. But now you should rest a little and eat a little before you start." The horse changed matters somewhat and Ki-Gor decided to take Dingazi's suggestion. Food was brought, and while Ki-Gor ate, he discussed with Dingazi and his commanders various plans of action, plans which depended on whether or not Helene was a captive of Queen Julebba. In the meantime, Dingazi had finally convinced himself of the importance of the psychological element in this bizarre crisis. He had sent runners throughout the immense camp repeating Ki-Gor's story, and very soon the depressed and fearful Karamzili left their forebodings behind, and the drums began to beat out loud victory dances. And when Ki-Gor would have fallen over dead asleep, Dingazi asked him to make a special visit to a certain unit, the five hundred men of the Blue-and-White Impi. The other five hundred of this impi had perished with Lotoko. Ki-Gor told them briefly the story of the ambush, and when he finished a roar came from the warriors and they demanded the right to strike the first avenging blow. Now, finally, Ki-Gor was allowed to sleep. Three hours sufficed to recoup his strength, however, and he woke up of his own accord with the first rays of a full moon. Dingazi had ordered the horse made ready, and weapons were provided. There were a bow and quiver of arrows, two throwing sticks, and a fine Karamzili assegai. The camp was still wide-awake as Ki-Gor threaded his way between the campfires. One wide section was empty, the fires down to smoldering embers, indicating that at least one impi had moved out and was padding northward through the moonlight. Although there was a full seven hours before dawn, Ki-Gor pushed the horse along as fast as he dared. He wanted to get back as soon as possible to the big veldt near the hills in which Julebba lay hiding. He reasoned that if Helene were safe back in the jungle, he could do no harm by getting between her and the secret base of Julebba's army. And if she were captured he might still be in time to intercept her as she was being taken to the kloof. He had been riding for nearly four hours when he got a scare, reining in the Tuareg horse sharply. He was just leaving the trail when he realized that the dark figures on the trail ahead were the rear guard of one of Dingazi's impis on the march. He walked his horse with the commander of the unit for some distance, and finally, coming to an open run of several hundred moonlit yards, he kicked the horse forward and left the impi behind. The sun was well on its way to the zenith by the time Ki-Gor came within view of the range of hills which was his ultimate destination. The horse was tired and so was Ki-Gor but he was well content. Two hours before he had caught a glimpse of two horsemen in the distance. They were going disconsolately in the same direction he was. There could be no doubt that they were Tuaregs, and Helene was not with them. He had chuckled to himself, Helene had learned well the ways of the jungle. She was as smart, and resourceful as a Pygmy. Seeing the Tuaregs empty-handed had almost convinced Ki-Gor that Helene had evaded capture. And unless she had rashly gone up into the range of hills, she should be perfectly safe by now. She might have returned to Dingazi to see whether he -- Ki-Gor -- had come in. Or she might have caught sight of some of the Karamzili advance guard, who would have told her that he was free. But just to make doubly sure, Ki-Gor decided to patrol that part of the veldt for a couple of hours before returning to Dingazi, himself. In case Julebba decided to move her little army, Ki-Gor would be there to see and report it. He dismounted to reduce his visibility and led the horse forward until he was about a mile away from the entrance to kloof. If Julebba's men came out in any numbers he could see them, and he himself would only be a speck on the veldt, He sat down for a while in the shadow of the horse and gazed at the peaceful hills in front of him. Presently, the sun had climbed so high that there was no more shadow except right under the horse's belly. Ki-Gor stood up and glanced behind him. He grunted with surprise and swiftly mounted the horse. There was a party of men a quarter of a mile away from him out on the veldt, and they were coming straight toward him. He watched them carefully for a moment, then rode toward them. They were spearmen in the gaily-striped kilts of the Blue-and-White Impi. He had gone hardly a hundred feet toward them, when he gave a glad cry and set his horse at a gallop. Walking in front of the company was Helene! Just as he had surmised -- he told himself exultantly -- she had caught sight of them and been told that he was safe. They had made wonderful time, he thought to himself, those men of the Blue-and-White Impi. He tried to remember whether they had still been in the camp when he left there. Now he was riding full tilt at them, waving his arm gaily at Helene. But she did an odd thing. She held up both arms straight over her head and then gestured toward him with a sort of pushing motion of her hands. It was as if she were telling him to go away. Then he heard her voice. "No, Ki-Gor!" she shouted. "No!" The men in the blue-and-white striped kilts on each side of her put black hands over her face. Ki-Gor reined in the galloping horse and the cold sweat started out all over his body. The men were Julebba's Nigerians dressed in dead men's kilts! They yelled and brandished their spears as Ki-Gor swung the horse out of spear range to consider the situation. Helene had been fooled by the striped kilts just as he had been just now. She had come out of her safe hiding place and walked right into the arms of the Nigerians, thinking they were Karamzili. But now, what was to be done? Ki-Gor rode around the party seething. The entire company of Nigerians was there -- at least forty-five men. Could he, single-handed, rescue Helene from them? The only way that could be done would be to kill nearly every one of them. How could he do that? Ki-Gor considered his weapons. He had a tremendous advantage with the horse -- and with the Karamzili bow. His arrows could outrange their spears. He could circle them on the horse and pick them off one by one with his arrows from a safe distance. He glanced down at the quiver lashed to the saddle and groaned. The quiver was full, but still there were barely twenty arrows in it. Suppose that every arrow killed a man, there would still be twenty-five stalwart spearmen left after he had shot them all. He had two throwing sticks -- they could account for two more. Still, twenty-three men would be left. And twenty-three spearmen of the caliber of these Nigerians would be too many for him to handle -- too many, that is, for him to take a prisoner from. Another thought struck him. While he was attacking them with arrows, what would be happening to Helene? The chances were that the Nigerians would simply kill her in reprisal for their own dead. No, he regretfully decided, he could not Helene take from them by force. One other tactic suggested itself, but it had only a remote chance of succeeding. That was to ride down on them hard, depending on the weight and momentum of the horse to carry him through to Helene. He would sweep her up on to the saddle and cut his way out. It was a desperate resort, but he decided to try it. He rode warily around the company, picking the spot to charge. They had dragged Helene into the middle of the group. Possibly they anticipated the very move he was about to make. With a muttered imprecation, Ki-Gor bent low over the horse's neck and banged his heels against the horse's ribs. Like a bullet the beast shot forward at the shouting mass of Nigerians. But as the horse thundered down on them, they galvanized into action, and flung themselves into a set formation. A dozen men knelt, forming a front rank, and they held their spear butts to the ground, points leaning forward at an angle. Another dozen stood behind in a second rank, and their spears paralleled the front ranks. It was an impregnable defense -- the classical maneuver of spear-armed infantry against attacking cavalry, and as old as organized warfare. Ki-Gor groaned and hauled the head of the speeding horse around. Derisive shouts followed him as he sheered away. He might have known, he told himself, that Julebba would train her men in that formation. He dragged the horse to a stop and dismounted with a heart of stone. Knowing Julebba's vindictive jealousy and hatred of Helene, he dare not let her be carried into the kloof without him. As long as he could not rescue her by himself, or get help for some time to come -- he would go in with her. He would be a helpless prisoner, too, but he would be there to plead, cajole, or threaten Julebba against harming Helene. "Hai! Brothers!" he called out in Kanuri, holding up his hands so that the Nigerians could see that they were empty. "I will not resist. You had better not kill me, though, because your queen wants me alive." They came forward warily, but as soon as they were convinced Ki-Gor was playing no trick, the scowls left their faces. They tied his arms without resentment, and even seemed pleased with him for speaking such fluent Kanuri. They chaffed him good-naturedly for being beaten and captured, and boasted of their queen's cleverness in dressing them in the uniform of, the enemy. Most important of all, they let him go straight to his wife. "Oh, darling!" Helene cried, throwing her arms about his neck, "I guess I ruined everything! I thought maybe you'd fallen into their hands. You didn't come back to Lotoko and me, and you weren't at Dingazi's camp -- so I felt I just had to go out and look for you!" "I know, I know," Ki-Gor said gently. "I was captured, but I got away all right." "Oh, and now you're captured again!" Helene wailed, "and it's all my stupidity! Why don't I ever learn to trust you to get out of your own difficulties!" "I wish you had trusted me this time," Ki-Gor said ruefully. "But then, you can't be blamed for thinking these men were Karamzili. I was fooled by their dress, too." "Come on, Brother," one of the Nigerians said. "We have to get along. You can walk with your woman, if you want. But no tricks, now. We will be watching you. One false move and you're a dead man." "There is nothing I can do, Brother," Ki-Gor replied good-naturedly, as he and Helene fell into stride. "And speaking of dead men, that's what you'll all be when the Karamzili catch you in those kilts." "First they have to catch us," the Nigerians laughed. "We will have killed many of them, and be away before they get over their surprise." "But there is a day of reckoning coming for you," Ki-Gor said. "Did you know there was a great army coming after you? Not just five hundred this time, but thousands upon thousands!" "Aye, we heard they were coming," the leader of the Nigerians said carelessly. "But they stopped a day's journey away. They were afraid to come farther. It is a rich joke -- they think we are ruled by a ju-ju. All we have to do is to make faces at them and they will break and run. We will be in Dutawayo; in three days, you'll see." Ki-Gor smiled to himself. Evidently the Nigerians had seen none of the Karamzili advance-guard that had been streaming northward from the encampment during the night. Helene tugged at his arm. "Tell me what's been happening to you," she begged. "How were you captured, and how did you escape?" Briefly, Ki-Gor outlined his adventures from the time he left her with Lotoko's column until he rejoined her as a captive of the Nigerians. "And now," he concluded, "we are in a desperate spot. Julebba has sworn she is going to kill you, and I have told her that if she kills you, I will kill her. She doesn't seem to be moved by ordinary considerations -- I don't know how to appeal to her to do even the things that are in her interest to do." "Well, I don't know," Helene said. "I think you handled her pretty well when you were first captured. You said she was on the point of having you killed on the spot." "I don't think I had much to do with changing her mind, though," Ki-Gor said wearily. "She just seemed to develop a sudden -- sudden -- love, no, love isn't the word -- she doesn't love me -- " "Infatuation," Helene supplied. "Infatuation, then," Ki-Gor said. "Although, I think it was really that she suddenly realized that I was white. And she, being a white woman, decided that she should have a white husband." He smiled at her. "My dear," Helene said dryly, "if she'd been coal-black, she would still have wanted you. Don't be so modest. Any girl would want you." "Well, anyway, that's the situation," Ki-Gor said ignoring his wife's remark. "I don't know just what we're going to do. Wait and see, I suppose. By the time we are taken in front of her, she may have changed her mind about killing you, who knows? But sooner or later, the Karamzili are coming. They will surround the kloof and they'll force their way in, no matter how many of them are killed. Dingazi promised me that. But how soon they can get there, I don't know. We may both be dead before they go, or we may be killed as soon as the attack begins." Helene walked silently for a few seconds, eyes on the ground. Then she looked up at Ki-Gor. "Darling, I wouldn't be honest," she said, "if I didn't admit that I've got a dreadful sinking feeling in the stomach. I've faced death before, but I don't ever recall walking in to it -- " "I had to tell you," Ki-Gor said defensively. "You couldn't go in without a little warning -- " "Oh, I don't mean that, darling," Helene responded quickly. "Of course you had to tell me. All I wanted to say was this -- it's been nice knowing you, darling -- and -- and -- if we've got to die now, thank God we're together." She smiled at her mate, then looked away quickly before he could see the tears roll out of her blue eyes. Characteristically, Ki-Gor scowled ferociously. "We're not dead, yet, Helene," he growled. "Not yet!" As Helene looked back at him, she noticed that he was limping slightly. "Darling!" she cried, "is your leg hurting you terribly?" "No," he replied calmly, "it doesn't hurt very much. But I want our enemies to think I can hardly walk." By the time the little company entered the kloof, Ki-Gor was limping so heavily that he had to be supported on each side by a derisive Nigerian. There was tremendous excitement in the clearing within the kloof when the Nigerians swaggered in with their two prisoners. Their arrival evidently cut short, some ceremony or spectacle of some sort. Julebba was on her throne, her seven apes squatting about on the rocks which formed its pedestal. On the ground in front of her stood Mohammed and his two sons. In front of them a tall thick stake had been driven into the ground, and leaning up against that stake, his wrists lashed to it high above his head, was Hurree Das. The Hindu's body was bare except for the voluminous dhoti that draped over his legs from his plump waist, and his lemon colored back was striped with red welts. Evidently, Hurree Das was being punished for something. However, the punishment had not been too severe, because the skin of the back had not been broken. Julebba shouted some commands. Hurree Das was freed and staggered away to one side, and the Nigerians paraded before the throne with their prisoners. Julebba's huge eyes rested in silence for a moment, first on Helene and then on Ki-Gor. Finally, her red mouth curved in a cruel smile. "Greetings, Ki-Gor," she said, her deep voice ironic. "This should show you how useless it is to try to run away from us. You are recaptured and brought back even before we have finished punishing the stupid dolt who was responsible for your escape." "If you mean that Hurree Das helped me," Ki-Gor said -- he certainly owed this to the Hindu -- "you are wrong. He just forgot his bag." "Oh, I know he didn't intentionally help you," Julebba said contemptuously. "He wouldn't dare. But if he hadn't forgotten his bag, you wouldn't have escaped. But, let's get to more important matters. How far away did you get, Ki-Gor? Did you see your friend Dingazi?" Ki-Gor hesitated a second, frantically trying to decide what to answer. Finally he said, "Yes." Julebba's answer was a hearty laugh. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I don't believe you. You didn't have time." She turned to the leader of the Nigerians. "Where did you catch him?" she asked in Kanuri. Ki-Gor held his breath as the man told her. By a miracle, the Nigerian forgot to mention the horse. "Very funny, Ki-Gor," Julebba said. "What did you tell Dingazi and what did he tell you?" "He told me," Ki-Gor said carefully, "that he would surround this place with ten thousand men." Julebba laughed again. "A pretty bluff, Ki-Gor," she said. "Only I happen to know that Dingazi, after coming half the distance from Dutawayo with an army, stopped dead. Because he and his men were too terrified to come any farther. By now they are probably flying back to Dutawayo. Your bluff won't work, Ki-Gor. You should learn from me never to bluff unless you have some means of backing it up. Now, here is what I propose to do with you. You have refused my heart and hand which I offered you. That hurt me for a moment, but I got over it, I am completely indifferent to you, now. So much so that I wouldn't even trouble myself to kill you in revenge. From now on, I am completely uninterested in you or this redheaded woman whom you seem to be so attached to. You could go your way this minute -- if I did not see in you an instrument. I can use you to make a swift and final conquest of the Karamzili. Dingazi is afraid, but he still has thousands of soldiers. He must make them swear fealty to me. To get him to do that, I must have him personally in my power. Dingazi must come here to me. And, you, Ki-Gor, must bring him!" Again Ki-Gor had to admire the woman's ruthless cunning, her reckless daring. He guessed what was coming next. "So," Julebba went on, "I am going to turn you loose. You will find Dingazi and you will bring him back to me. You will bring him back alone -- he must have no soldiers with him. How you will accomplish that, I don't know. That is your problem. But you are clever, you will find a way. Because your little wife is going to remain here as a hostage. She will be perfectly safe -- remember, I have no personal feelings one way or another toward you, now -- she will be perfectly safe until you come back with Dingazi alone. If you betray me, if you attempt to rescue her by force -- she will be dead long before you can fight your way in here." "If I fight my way in here," Ki-Gor said evenly, "and find her dead -- you will not live long." "We will not be here, my friend," Julebba said. "You forget there is a back way out of this kloof -- a route you have never traveled." Ki-Gor decided to let her continue to believe that. "Well then," he said, "suppose I can bring Dingazi here, and you get what you want from him -- then what happens to my wife and me?" "You go free, of course," Julebba said calmly. "I might even make you some sort of reward for your services." Ki-Gor sank his chin in his collarbone, as if considering the offer. Actually, he was delighted with it. Anything that would gain time was to his advantage, time to allow the Karamzili to surround the kloof in such force that Julebba could not escape. When he could show her that, he could bargain with her. Her life to be spared, if Helene was set free unharmed. "All right," he said, finally. "I haven't much choice. But to find Dingazi and bring him back will take time -- four or five days perhaps. More, perhaps, because I am very lame." "I will give you three days," Julebba said. "I will lend you a horse. You will start immediately. Ahmed and Ali will ride with you a short distance to see that you go in the right direction. But if I know you right, and I think I do, you will not try any tricks. You are too much in love with your wife." Helene's face was bloodless as she watched the Nigerians take the ropes off Ki-Gor, and as he came to her and put his arms around her in farewell. "Ki-Gor!" she whispered in his ear, "What on earth are you going to do now?" "Don't be afraid," he murmured, "This is good for us -- gives us the time we need." "But -- do you think when you come back -- you'll -- you'll find me alive?" A cold finger touched Ki-Gor's heart. "Yes," he said. "As long as you are more useful to her alive, you will stay alive." He was sure that was true, but he nevertheless felt an unpleasant uneasiness as he mounted the horse that was brought up, then. "Good-bye," he said looking down at Helene, "and be brave." Then he looked up at the throne and said, "Good-bye, O Queen, keep your promises and I'll keep mine. I'll see you in three days -- maybe sooner." He rode in silence out of the kloof, Ahmed on his left side, and Ali on his right. Not until the trio had issued out on to the veldt did anyone speak. Then Ahmed said through clenched teeth, "Do not think for a moment, dog of a Nasrani, that I forgive you your trickery! Do not think that Ahmed ben Mohammed forgives the lying son of a pig who gulled him, with soft words of a philter-!" Ki-Gor looked at the hateful mask which was Ahmed's face. What was this all about? Were these two Arabs going to try and kill him? "Oh, do not fear for your miserable life, Nasrani!" Ahmed snarled. "You are safe enough -- for the moment. Our beloved queen has ordered it so, and so it shall be. Otherwise I would never be riding with you in peace like this. If I could have my way, you would be on the ground, my knee on your chest, my knife at your throat -- " "Nay, calm yourself, my brother!" exclaimed Ali, on the other side of Ki-Gor. "There is plenty of time for your revenge." "Aye, there is," Ahmed grumbled, "but it wears hard on a man's pride to delay collecting -- " "You can wait," Ali said soothingly. "After all, there is a terrible revenge already taking pl -- " "Silence! You fool!" Ahmed shouted. And Ki-Gor's blood froze. "I-I mean," young Ali stammered. "You have said enough!" Ahmed stormed. By sheer will power, Ki-Gor kept his face composed, as if he had not understood Ali, at all. But the two Arabs stared at him with embarrassment and suspicion. Ki-Gor assumed a mildly puzzled frown. "What do you mean?" he said finally, as if he had not the remotest idea of Ali's involuntary revelation. "What revenge?" Now Ahmed had a story ready. "Revenge on you, Nasrani! Your friend the Hindu hakim is just about now being thrown to the apes!" Ki-Gor stared incredulously, then laughed out loud. "My friend!" he shouted, then laughed again. "What typical Muslim stupidity! The Hindu is no friend of mine! Why he couldn't even heal my wound properly!" He laughed some more to cover up the furious workings of his brain. The covert, malicious smile on Ahmed's thin face was unnecessary confirmation of that which he was already convinced of. That somebody was being thrown to the apes, but that that somebody was not Hurree Das. It was Helene! "Wow!" Ki-Gor yelled, reining in his horse. "My leg! I hope the apes do a good job on that fool of a hakim! Here, I have to stop a moment and rest this leg." Then he acted. He drew his bandaged right leg up double, putting his foot on the saddle. Then, before Ahmed realized what was happening, he had disengaged his other foot from the stirrup and sprung from the horse. He went through the air like a panther, hit Ahmed shoulder-high, and in the same breath wrenched the scimitar out of his right hand. His momentum carried him across the back of Ahmed's horse. He landed lightly on the ground on his feet beside the screaming Arab who was hanging head down out of the saddle. One ruthless blow of the scimitar nearly decapitated Ahmed. The frightened horse plunged away dragging its bloody burden. Ki-Gor, not wasting a motion, bounded straight at the shrieking younger brother. And even though Ali had some warning, he was helpless against the murderous assault by the jungle man. It was the matter of a moment to strip Ali's bloody robe and headdress off and hastily throw them over himself. Then still grasping the scimitar, he caught the nearest horse and started back for the kloof at full gallop. Would he be in time? The agonizing question asked itself over and over again in his tortured brain as the horse pounded over the two miles that separated him from the kloof. Gradually, his mind cleared a little, and he asked himself what he would do if he were in time. A sweeping glance of the horizon showed no evidence of the Karamzili being near enough. It was still early to expect them, he admitted with an inward groan. And yet the impis had been on their way since midnight, and they were burning for revenge, hastening to the kill. There was the remote possibility that the advance guard had circled northward to come down the back way into the kloof. But that was a hope Ki-Gor hardly dared to entertain. For a while at least, he was on his own. He would have to save Helene -- if she still lived -- single-handed. He blamed himself endlessly for falling into Julebba's trap so easily. He should have been instantly suspicious, he told himself, of her airy renouncement of interest in him. It was out of character. He should have known that she would wreak a terrible revenge on Helene the moment he had gone. He was nearing the entrance to the kloof now, and he still had no concrete plan of action. But the vague impulse which had prompted him to put on the Arab burnoose and turban suddenly pointed to an impromptu course of action. As he thundered toward the narrow leafy gateway, he began shouting in Haussa to the unseen Ubangi sentinels in the trees. "The Karamzili!" he yelled, as if panic-stricken. "All is lost! The Karamzili are coming! Thousands upon thousands of them! All is lost! Save yourselves!" Without slackening pace, he plunged down the path toward the clearing still shouting his warning of a fictitious enemy at his heels. As he burst into the clearing, a fearsome, bloodstained apparition, he saw that he was barely in time. Helene was tied to the stake in front of the throne, tied by her wrists above her head, the way Hurree Das had been. But she was facing outward, her back to the stake, and staring with horror and loathing at the two black apes who stood in front of her. The other five hairy creatures were crouched on the rock pedestal below Julebba's throne. By their attitudes, they expected soon to join their fellows around the stake, around that fair, tender body... When Ki-Gor first appeared, Julebba and her men were too shocked and astounded to move. The clearing was a small one, and the galloping horse carried Ki-Gor across it to Helene in a few seconds. The chimpanzees nearest Helene dodged chattering away from the horse's flying hoofs. Ki-Gor sprang from the horse's back, his bloodstained burns flying. He hit the ground just behind one of the scrambling apes. Down flashed the scimitar on the flat, brutish head. Ki-Gor snarled with pure unleashed rage as he felt the blade bite into the hard skull -- felt it snap off at the hilt under the terrific impact of the blow. He flung useless hilt aside and whirled to meet next brute. Through a red haze he saw the other five shambling down toward him, he Julebba's piercing shriek, heard the confused babble of her army. Instinctively, he shucked off the loose burnoose and the headdress. The nearest ape was charging him now. Ki-Gor flung the burnoose full at him, then leaped after the burnoose. The ape struggled in the folds of the robe -- struggled only a few seconds, though. Ki-Gor leaped over him, launching a furious kick as he did so, and the ape collapsed quivering. Through a red haze Ki-Gor saw five huge chimpanzees scuttling toward him, jaws a-slaver. Without hesitation, he swept down upon the nearest one, seized an arm and a leg, and swept the chattering, snapping beast high in the air over his head. Then he flung him squarely at the next nearest ape. Like a cat that tosses a mouse in the air and then runs after it, Ki-Gor was on the ape again. Seizing a limp black arm, he danced backward, raising the squealing beast off the ground. Then he began to whirl the heavy, black body around his head by that one arm. "A-a-a-r-r-r-gh!" Ki-Gor roared his defiance and hardly realized he did it. Three chimpanzees charged him in a body now, and the broken half-dead carcass that was whirling over Ki-Gor's head went crashing into them. He pounced on one of them, lifted it by its short legs, dashed its brains out on the pedestal of Julebba's throne. All this time, there had been a mounting roar in the kloof, but Ki-Gor had had eyes only for apes. He whirled now, looking for the next one to tackle. Just as he did, something prodigiously heavy hit him on the back of a shoulder. He stumbled forward, nearly fell down, with a biting, clawing brute trying to reach his throat. Ki-Gor jabbed his right fist back over his left shoulder, caught the brute just under the round black ear. Then, seizing a hairy wrist, he hauled the stunned ape off his shoulder, and hurled him to the ground. One more ape remained on its feet. He been knocked down when Ki-Gor threw the body of one of his fellows at him. He stood now ten feet from Ki-Gor chattering with terror. The jungle man took one step toward him, and the ape wheeled and ran away like the wind. Ki-Gor shook the red haze out of his head and looked around him. An extraordinary silence hung over the clearing. He saw that his mad combats had carried him far to one side away from the throne and the stake that Helene was still tied to. Standing a safe distance away a mixed mob of Balubas, Nigerians, and Ubangi archers gazed at him in awestricken silence. The silence was broken by Julebba. "Cowards!" she screamed. "Craven wretches! Catch that man and kill him!" Ki-Gor looked back at her. Beyond her, far beyond her, by the tents among the trees, something moved. "It is too late, O Julebba!" he cried. "Your murderous career is over!" But Julebba did not even bear him. She was climbing down from the throne, mouthing imprecations, and brandishing her royal spear. Still screaming, she leaped to the ground and sped straight toward the helpless figure of Helene tied to the stake. Ki-Gor was a split-second late divining her intention. And when he started running, he was afraid he would be too late to prevent the mad queen from running Helene through with the spear. Then from nowhere appeared the paunchy figure of Hurree Das. He was still naked to his loincloth, and his round face shook with terror. But he stood squarely in Julebba's path. In his right hand a metal cylinder gleamed. Julebba tried to swerve around the Hindu. But he shot out a pudgy hand, seized her accurately by one elbow. There was a quick struggle, then Julebba flung away, screaming and holding her elbow. Ki-Gor reached Helene's side, looked back at the advancing mob of Julebba's men -- and prepared to die. Then he threw a glance over his shoulder to the other end of the clearing where the tents stood among the trees. "Hurree Das!" Ki-Gor shouted, "come over to me quickly and get out of the way! The Karamzili are here!" Like a horde of dark avenging angels, the kilted warriors of Dingazi poured into the clearing from the back way. Without a shout or any clamor of any kind, they padded down silently for the kill. The Ever-Victorious Army recoiled, then broke and ran for the narrow path leading out of the kloof. They well knew the revenge the Karamzili would take. But they did not know that there were more kilted warriors waiting impatiently for them. The Karamzili slew quietly and purposefully. They were a mighty fighting race, and they were avenging the blow to their pride as well as the death of their comrades who had marched with Lotoko. And here the tables were exactly turned. Here, the Ever-Victorious Army was demoralized, showing that the best discipline in the world can be cracked by shock and surprise. A few of the Nigerians attempted to organize a defense, but they were too few and were soon swept away in the tidal wave of blood. The Tuaregs rode around in a panic until they were swallowed up in the black mass of Karamzili. The Balubas and the bowmen from the Ubangi fled in all directions. Less than a half-hour after the first kilted warrior had entered the kloof, the last of Julebba's men was hunted out of a tree and dispatched. Julebba was dead, too, but she had died from the deadly poison in Hurree Das' hypodermic needle. The plump doctor was still trembling three hours later. Dingazi had just arrived with his main army, disgusted because they had not been in time to participate in the triumph of the advance guard. But a camp was promptly set up out on the veldt, and a victory feast was promised as soon as some food could be brought up. "Oh, dearie me!" said Hurree Das. "Am not at all positive I can eat any food for some time to come!" "By the time the food is ready," Ki-Gor smiled, "I think you'll be hungry." "Oh, but you don't seem to realize!" the Hindu said. "This is positively first time I ever intentionally killed anybody. "Any doctor may 'lose a patient,' don't you know? But, here I simply walked up to a poor woman and did her in!" "I wouldn't call her a poor woman," Helene said with a reminiscent shiver. "No, no," the Hindu said. "That, I'm granting you, is most horrible inaccuracy. More correctly let us denominate homicidal maniac. No, what is so remarkable is simply that I, Hurree Das, a Gujerati Brahmin, should be elected as Instrument of Fate. I -- whose ancestors were vegetarian and who never killed so much as a chicken in four thousand years!" "Incidentally," said Helene, "what was the poison you used in the syringe?" "Vegetable poison distilled from plant of Genus Strychnos," said the doctor. "Same like Pygmies use on their arrows -- exactly same." "For heaven's sake!" Helene exclaimed. "That is extraordinary!" "How so, dear lady?" Hurree Das inquired. "Why, before Ki-Gor and I had ever heard of Julebba -- or even knew that Dingazi was in trouble, we were talking about coming up to pay you a visit." "Delighted, I'm sure," said Hurree Das. "What was occasion of such conversation?" "I had just missed being hit accidentally by one of the Pygmy's arrows. I was simply terrified, because if I had been hit, I wouldn't have known what to use for an antidote. What is the antidote, Hurree Das?" "Absolutely and positively no antidote," Hurree Das said cheerfully. "It is most marvelous poison." "Ki-Gor!" Helene looked around her brows at her huge mate. "Do you think you can make the Pygmies stop using poisoned arrows around us?" Ki-Gor sighed and nodded. He did not relish the idea. Ngeeso had a quick wit and a sharp tongue, and Ki-Gor would rather battle the Ever-Victorious Army single-handed than have a battle of words with Ngeeso, who was three feet, eleven inches tall. *THE END* -------- *SF/F/H FROM PAGETURNER EDITIONS* AWARD WINNING & NOMINEE STORIES AND AUTHORS Moonworm's Dance & Other SF Classics -- Stanley Mullen (includes The Day the Earth Stood Still & Other SF Classics -- Harry Bates (Balrog Award winning story) Hugo nominee story Space to Swing a Cat) People of the Darkness-Ross Rocklynne (Nebulas nominee author) When They Come From Space-Mark Clifton (Hugo winning author) What Thin Partitions-Mark Clifton (Hugo winning author) Star Bright & Other SF Classics -- Mark Clifton Eight Keys to Eden-Mark Clifton (Hugo winning author) Rat in the Skull & Other Off-Trail Science Fiction-Rog Phillips (Hugo nominee author) The Involuntary Immortals-Rog Phillips (Hugo nominee author) Inside Man & Other Science Fictions-H. L. Gold (Hugo winner, Nebula nominee) Women of the Wood and Other Stories-A. Merritt (Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame award) A Martian Odyssey & Other SF Classics -- Stanley G. Weinbaum (SFWA Hall of Fame author) Dawn of Flame & Other Stories -- Stanley G. Weinbaum (SFWA Hall of Fame author) The Black Flame -- Stanley G. Weinbaum Scout-Octavio Ramos, Jr. (Best Original Fiction) Smoke Signals-Octavio Ramos, Jr. (Best Original Fiction winning author) The City at World's End-Edmond Hamilton The Star Kings-Edmond Hamilton (Sense of Wonder Award winning author) A Yank at Valhalla-Edmond Hamilton (Sense of Wonder Award winning author) Dawn of the Demigods, or People Minus X -- Raymond Z. Gallun (Nebula Nominee Author) RAYMOND F. JONES' CLASSIC SF (Hugo nominee author) The Toymaker & Other SF Stories-Raymond F. Jones The Alien-Raymond F. Jones This Island Earth-Raymond F. Jones Renaissance-Raymond F. Jones Rat Race &Other SF Novelettes and Short Novels-Raymond F. Jones (Hugo nominee story) King of Eolim -- Raymond F. Jones The Renegades of Time -- Raymond F. Jones Sunday is Three Thousand Years Away: Classic SF Novellas -- Raymond F. Jones STEFAN VUCAK'S EPPIE NOMINEE SPACE OPERA "THE SHADOW GODS SAGA" In the Shadow of Death Against the Gods of Shadow A Whisper from Shadow, Sequel (2002 EPPIE Award finalist) With Shadow and Thunder Through the Valley of Shadow, Sequel THE COSMIC KALEVALA The Saga of Lost Earths -- Emil Petaja (Nebula nominee author) The Star Mill -- Emil Petaja The Stolen Sun -- Emil Petaja Tramontane -- Emil Petaja THE AGENT OF TERRA #1 The Flying Saucer Gambit #2 The Emerald Elephant Gambit #3 The Golden Goddess Gambit #4 The Time Trap Gambit ARDATH MAYHAR'S AWARD-WINNING SF & F The Crystal Skull & Other Tales of the Terrifying and Twisted The World Ends in Hickory Hollow, or After Armageddon The Tupla: A Nover of Horror The Twilight Dancer & Other Tales of Magic, Mystery and the Supernatural Road of Stars: A Fantasy The Black Tower: A Novel of Dark Fantasy PLANETS OF ADVENTURE Colorful Space Opera from the Legendary Pulp Planet Stories #1. "The Sword of Fire" -- A Novel of an Enslaved World" by Emmett McDowell. & "The Rocketeers Have Shaggy Ears" -- A Novel of Peril on Alien Worlds by Keith Bennett. #2. "The Seven Jewels of Chamar" -- A Novel of Future Centuries by Nebula Nominee Raymond F. Jones. & "Flame Jewel of the Ancients" -- A Novel of Outlaw Worlds by Edwin L. Grabber. #3. "Captives of the Weir-Wind" -- A Novel of the Void by Nebula Nominee Ross Rocklynne. & "Black Priestess of Varda" -- A Novel of a Magic World by Erik Fennel. NEMESIS: THE NEW MAGAZINE OF PULP THRILLS #1. Featuring Gun Moll, the 1920s Undercover Nemesis of Crime in "Tentacles of Evil," an all-new, complete book-length novel; plus a Nick Bancroft mystery by Bob Liter, "The Greensox Murders" by Jean Marie Stine, and a classic mystery short reprinted from the heyday of the pulps. #2 Featuring Rachel Rocket, the 1930s Winged Nemesis of Foreign Terror in "Hell Wings Over Manhattan," an all-new, complete book-length novel, plus spine-tingling science fiction stories, including EPPIE nominee Stefan Vucak's "Hunger," author J. D. Crayne's disturbing "Point of View," Hugo Award winner Larry Niven's "No Exit," written with Jean Marie Stine, and a classic novelette of space ship mystery by the king of space opera, Edmond Hamilton. Illustrated. (Illustrations not available in Palm). #3 Featuring Victory Rose, the 1940s Nemesis of Axis Tyranny, in Hitler's Final Trumpet," an all-new, complete book-length novel, plus classic jungle pulp tales, including a complete Ki-Gor novel. # 4 Featuring Femme Noir, the 1950s Nemesis of Hell's Restless Spirits, in an all new, book length novel, plus all new and classic pulp shudder tales, including "The Summons from Beyond" the legendary round-robin novelette of cosmic horror by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, and Frank Belknap Long. # 5 Featuring Gun Moll in a new book-length novel, plus mystery shorts. # 6 Featuring an all new Rachel Rocked novel, plus new and classic science fiction, # 7 Featuring a thrilling new Victory Rose adventure, plus classic jungle tales. # 8 Featuring Femme Noir in an all new novel of dark fantasy and demonic menace, plus new and classic horror stories. OTHER FINE CONTEMPORARY & CLASSIC SF/F/H A Million Years to Conquer-Henry Kuttner After the Polothas -- Stephen Brown Arcadia -- Tabitha Bradley Backdoor to Heaven -- Vicki McElfresh Buck Rogers #1: Armageddon 2419 A.D.-Philip Francis Nowlan Buck Rogers #2. The Airlords of Han -- Philip Francis Nowlan Chaka: Zulu King-Book I. The Curse of Baleka-H. R. Haggard Chaka: Zulu King-Book II. Umpslopogass' Revenge-H. R. Haggard Claimed!-Francis Stevens Darby O'Gill: The Classic Irish Fantasy-Hermine Templeton Diranda: Tales of the Fifth Quadrant -- Tabitha Bradley Dracula's Daughters-Ed. Jean Marie Stine Dwellers in the Mirage-A. Merritt From Beyond & 16 Other Macabre Masterpieces-H. P. Lovecraft Future Eves: Classic Science Fiction about Women by Women-(ed) Jean Marie Stine Ghost Hunters and Psychic Detectives: 8 Classic Tales of Sleuthing and the Supernatural-(ed.) J. M. Stine Horrors!: Rarely Reprinted Classic Terror Tales-(ed.) J. M. Stine. J.L. Hill House on the Borderland-William Hope Hodgson House of Many Worlds [Elspeth Marriner #1] -- Sam Merwin Jr. Invisible Encounter and Other SF Stories -- J. D. Crayne Murcheson Inc., Space Salvage -- Cleve Cartmill Ki-Gor, Lord of the Jungle-John Peter Drummond Lost Stars: Forgotten SF from the "Best of Anthologies"-(ed.) J. M. Stine Metropolis-Thea von Harbou Mission to Misenum [Elspeth Marriner #2] -- Sam Merwin Jr. Mistress of the Djinn-Geoff St. Reynard Monster Lake -- J. D. Crayne Chronicles of the Sorceress Morgaine I-V -- Joe Vadalma Nightmare!-Francis Stevens Pete Manx, Time Troubler -- Arthur K. Barnes Possessed!-Francis Stevens Ralph 124C 41+ -- Hugo Gernsback Seven Out of Time -- Arthur Leo Zagut Star Tower -- Joe Vadalma The Cosmic Wheel-J. D. Crayne The Forbidden Garden-John Taine The City at World's End-Edmond Hamilton The Ghost Pirates-W. H. Hodgson The Girl in the Golden Atom -- Ray Cummings The Heads of Cerberus -- Francis Stevens The House on the Borderland-William Hope Hodgson The Insidious Fu Manchu-Sax Rohmer The Interplanetary Huntress-Arthur K. Barnes The Interplanetary Huntress Returns-Arthur K. Barnes The Interplanetary Huntress Last Case-Arthur K. Barnes The Lightning Witch, or The Metal Monster-A. Merritt The Price He Paid: A Novel of the Stellar Republic -- Matt Kirkby The Thief of Bagdad-Achmed Abdullah Women of the Wood and Other Stories-A. Merritt BARGAIN SF/F EBOOKS IN OMNIBUS EDITIONS (Complete & Unabridged) The First Lord Dunsany Omnibus: 5 Complete Books -- Lord Dunsany The First William Morris Omnibus: 4 Complete Classic Fantasy Books The Barsoom Omnibus: A Princess of Mars; The Gods of Mars; The Warlord of Mars-Burroughs The Second Barsoom Omnibus: Thuvia, Maid of Mars; The Chessmen of Mars-Burroughs The Third Barsoom Omnibus: The Mastermind of Mars; A Fighting Man of Mars-Burroughs The First Tarzan Omnibus: Tarzan of the Apes; The Return of Tarzan; Jungle Tales of Tarzan-Burroughs The Second Tarzan Omnibus: The Beasts of Tarzan; The Son of Tarzan; Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar-Burroughs The Third Tarzan Omnibus: Tarzan the Untamed; Tarzan the Terrible; Tarzan and the Golden Lion-Burroughs The Pellucidar Omnibus: At the Earth's Core; Pellucidar-Burroughs The Caspak Omnibus: The Land that Time Forgot; The People that Time Forgot; Out of Time's Abyss-Burroughs The First H. G. Wells Omnibus: The Invisible Man: War of the Worlds; The Island of Dr. Moreau The Second H. G. Wells Omnibus: The Time Machine; The First Men in the Moon; When the Sleeper Wakes The Third H. G. Wells Omnibus: The Food of the Gods; Shape of Things to Come; In the Days of the Comet The First Jules Verne Omnibus: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea; The Mysterious Island; From the Earth to the Moon The Homer Eon Flint: All 4 of the Clasic "Dr. Kenney" Novels: The Lord of Death; The Queen of Life; The Devolutionist; The Emancipatrix The Second Jules Verne Omnibus: Around the World in 80 Days; A Journey to the Center of the Earth; Off on a Comet Three Great Horror Novels: Dracula; Frankenstein; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde The Darkness and Dawn Omnibus: The Classic Science Fiction Trilogy-George Allan England The Garrett P. Serviss Omnibus: The Second Deluge; The Moon Metal; A Columbus of Space ADDITIONAL TITLES IN PREPARATION Visit us at renebooks.com ----------------------- Visit www.renebooks.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.