Another instant and Seymour and the Yankee would have fallen before the weapons of their foes, but, in the nick of time, a shout came pealing across the gulf.
“Aswani!” (“Courage!”)
At the word the wolf-men wavered in their attack, and a cry arose from their midst, “Yos toreal Ayuti!” (“The last of the Ayutis!”)
While they hesitated the drawbridge fell with a clang across the abyss, and over it an elk came galloping, his antlers gleaming like gold in the ruddy glow from the gulf. But it was not upon this magnificent creature that the gaze of the savages was fixed.
No: for astride the elk rode a man taller than any of the sons of earth, and his form was as that of a god. A battle-axe flashed in his right hand, and at his back swung a great embossed shield. This latter he unslung as he came on.
Checking his giant steed at the end of the bridge by the pressure of his knee, he sprang to earth and hurled himself upon the wolf-men. Like a thing of life his great axe whirred and hissed, and before it the savages fell as grain before the sickle.
For a while the two comrades stood astounded by this unexpected reinforcement. Their case had appeared so hopeless, so utterly desperate, that they had resigned themselves to destruction. They had not expected to accomplish aught, even by their most strenuous exertions. To sell their lives as dearly as possible had been their only object. But now, by the timely arrival of this gigantic stranger, whom the wolf-men called “The last of the Ayutis,” the tables had been completely turned upon their enemies.
Against the Ayuti’s great flashing blade the savages hurled themselves in vain. Vainly they cut and hewed, vainly they hacked and slashed. Cut and thrust alike fell harmless; their spears shivered themselves to fragments against the Ayuti’s shield. At every sweeping stroke of the great axe a savage crashed to earth.
Amid the hideous, misshapen forms of the wolf-men the Ayuti towered as a god among demons, and ever and anon a thrilling war-cry pealed from his lips, ringing clear as a bell above the din. Not all their ferocious courage could serve Nordhu’s savages now, nor could their cunning aid them. Their gigantic enemy seemed to be wholly without fear.