White-faced captains and quaking men scrambled into their saddles to do their king's bidding, and the horsemen rode desperately to meet the beasts.
What happened was simple. The amalocs plowed through the clouds of cavalry that opposed them with scarcely a break in their stride, overthrowing men and horses as though they had been of paper, and leaving ghastly ruins behind them where their ponderous feet had trodden.
One such onset was enough. No horse that ever lived could have been forced to face another. For the amalocs, when they joined battle, set up such a din of squealing and trumpeting as nearly split the ears that heard it. The horse that could have met that grievous onslaught must have been both blind and deaf.
From above, in the basket-turrets, the archers and spearsmen poured down a deadly hail of missiles on the riders. Did a horseman avoid the thrashing chains and get near enough to the vast side of an amaloc to strike—and not many did so—he found his spear-point rebound from the tough hide. The utmost power of his stroke was not a pin-prick to an amaloc. Even as the swordsmen had fled, so fled now the riders, betaking themselves in a fear-maddened stream to their camp, whither the charioteers had preceded them.
"The beasts of Ruthar are a myth," had said Bel-Ar, the king. And his soldiers had believed him, had fostered confidence with the thought that the frightful tales that had been told of the strength and fury of the amalocs were mere traditions which had come down from the days of old. Now here before the camp were the beasts, red and awesome and raging—more terrible by far than even tradition had painted them—and among the Children of Ad there was none who had the heart to go out and face them—unless, indeed, it were the king himself. Bel-Ar in his rage would have fronted the overlord of all evil that day had he come against him.
So it came about that the ring of Jastla, the chief, found the pressure of assault slackening and falling away. Maeronicans who had been fiercest to meet the sword-blades, now were stumbling over each other's legs in their haste to escape the amalocs. What was left of the ring—barely a score and five of battered men and horses—opened, and through its gap strode Ixstus and paused beside the red banner.
CHAPTER X
THE GODDESS GLORIAN'S DECREE
Zoar quit the straps where he had held and stood on the head of Ixstus. A triumph shone in the eyes of the master of the amalocs, and a smile spread over his mummified old-ivory features as he looked down at Glorian.