Croft ordered a halt and took stock of the situation. Before him was a defile in the hills, through which ran the road to reach a farther plain. And that was enough. He ordered an advance. Deploying his army right and left, he set them to digging trenches along the hillside so as to enfilade the plain from both sides of the central pass. In these he posted the riflemen and one of his trained grenade corps every fifty feet.
Across the road he built a barricade, some way back on the frontline trench. High on each side of the pass he posted other riflemen behind shelters of stone in such a position that they could fire into the road or cast down grenades. In front of the barricade itself he parked his battle-motors, unseen from the plain, but ready to emerge upon it when the time should come.
He was hard at it in the midst of these arrangements when a band of Zollarians mounted on gnuppas appeared above a gentle swell in the road, perhaps a mile away, sat watching the work along the hillside for some moments, turned and disappeared in the direction from whence they had come.
CHAPTER XXV
WHEN HELMOR'S SUN SET
"They come, O Jadgor of Aphur!" Lakkon said.
"Let them," Croft flung out from a wonderful confidence. "You shall see their slaughter, O king."
The hosts of Zollaria appeared. From the top of the hill above the road Croft and the other two watched. Foot and chariots, the men of the northern nation began to top the rolling hill before them. It was mid-afternoon. The sunlight sparkled upon spear point and chariot, on cuirass and plume-tufted helm.
It was a wonderful sight as the soldiers of the empire prepared to hurl themselves against the smaller force which held the pass and the hills to either side. They deployed right and left, spearmen, bowmen, with a chariot filled with some noble and his driver here and there along the far-flung front. And, having deployed, they began a slow advance, moving like a mighty living ocean toward the shoreline of the hills. Prisoners were to tell Croft later they were sorely puzzled by the scant sight of the enemy they obtained.