The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond HamiltonЧитать онлайн книгу.
that he did or learned now, as Henry Stevens. Suppose that he—
“By Heaven!” Henry exclaimed excitedly. “There’s a chance I could do it! A trick to overmatch Egir’s poisoned arrows!”
His wife watched him puzzledly as he pored excitedly over certain volumes of their encyclopedia. She saw him hastily jot down notes, and then for a long time that evening he sat, moving his lips, apparently memorizing.
Henry was vibrant with excitement and hope. He, Henry Stevens of Earth, might be able to save Khal Kan’s city for him!
“If Khal Kan will only do it!” he thought prayerfully. “If he won’t just ignore it as dream—”
Waiting tensely for sleep that night, Henry repeated over and over to himself the simple formula he had gleaned from the encyclopedia.
“Khal Kan must try it!” he told himself desperately.
Sleep came slowly to him. And as he fell asleep, he knew that in his dream he would wake to what might be the last day of Jotan’s existence.…
Khal Kan awoke with that thought from his dream vibrating in his mind like an ominous tolling.
“The last day of Jotan!” he whispered. “By all the gods—no!”
Fiercely, the tall young prince rose and buckled on his sword. It was just dawn, and sea-mists shrouded all the city outside in gray fog.
Golden Wings still lay sleeping, Khal Kan heard a persistent hammering from out in the fog, as he went down to the lower level of the palace. Brusul, in full armor, came stalking up to him.
“All’s quiet,” reported the brawny captain. “The Bunts are still working away at their cursed scaling-ladders. When they are ready, they’ll dear the walls of our men with their damned poisoned arrows, and then come over.”
Khal Kan went out with him and inspected their defenses. As he supervised the placing of their fighting-men around the wall, and gave the white-faced people rough encouragement, something oppressed Khal Kan’s mind. Something he should be doing for the defense of the city—
When he got back to the palace with Brusul, Golden Wings’ slim, leather-clad figure came flying into his arms.
“I dreamed the Bunts were already in the city!” she cried. “And then I awoke and found you gone—”
Khal Kan, soothing her, suddenly stiffened. Her words had recalled that vague, forgotten something that had oppressed him.
“My dream!” he exclaimed. “I remember now—in the dream, on that other world, I learned how to make a weapon against the Bunts.”
It had all come back to him now—the dream in which Henry Stevens had feverishly memorized a formula out of the science of that dream-world of Earth, to help him in his struggle against the Bunts.
For a moment, Khal Kan clutched at new hope. Then his eagerness faded. After all, that was only a dream. Henry Stevens and Earth and its science were only an insubstantial vision of his sleeping mind, and nothing that he learned in that could be of any value.
“I could wish you’d dreamed away the Bunts entirely,” Brusul was saying dryly. “Unfortunately, they’re still outside and it won’t be many hours before they attack.”
Khal Kan was not listening. His mind was revolving the simple formula that Henry Stevens had desperately memorized, in the dream.
“It wouldn’t work,” he thought. “It couldn’t work, when there’s no reality to all that—”
Yet he kept remembering Henry Stevens’ desperate effort to help him. That timid, thin little man he was in his dream each night—that little man had prayed that Khal Kan would not ignore his help, would try the formula.
Khal Kan reached decision. “I’m going to try it—the thing I learned in the dream!” he told the others.
Brusul stared. “Are you wit-struck? Dreams won’t help us now! How could a dream-weapon be of any use?”
“I’m not so sure now it was a dream,” Khal Kan muttered. “Maybe this is the dream, after all. Oh, hell take all speculations—dream or reality, I’m going to try this thing.”
He shot orders. “Bring all the charcoal you can find, all the sulphur from the street of the apothecaries, and all of the white crystals we use for drying fruits. Those crystals were called ‘saltpeter’ in the dream.”
* * * *
Scared, wondering men brought the materials to the palace. There, Brusul and Zoor and Golden Wings watched mystifiedly as Khal Kan supervised their preparation.
He remembered clearly the formula that Henry Stevens had memorized in the dream. He had the men pound and pulverize and mix, until a big mass of granular black powder was the result.
“Now bring small metal vases—enough to hold all this—and lampwicks and day,” he ordered.
A captain came running, breathless. “The Bunts have finished their ladders and I think they’re soon going to make their attack, sire!” he cried.
“And our leader lingers here, muddling in minerals!” cried Brusul gustily. “Khal Kan, forget this crazy dream and make ready for battle!”
Khal Kan paid no attention. He was having the men stuff the small metal vases with the black powder, stopping their mouths with clay through which a fuse-like wick protruded.
“Distribute these vases to all our men along the walls,” he ordered. “Tell them, that when the Bunts place their ladders, they are to light the fuses and fling the vases down among the green warriors, at my command.”
“Hell destroy all dreams!” raged Brusul. “What good will such a crazy plan do? Do you think dropping vases on the Bunts will stop them?”
“I don’t know,” Khal Kan muttered. “In the dream, I thought it would. The dream-me called the powder ‘gunpowder’ and the vases ‘grenades.’ And in the dream they seemed a more terrible weapon even than the poisoned arrows.”
Yells from the walls and the warning blare of trumpets ripped across the sunlit city. A great cry swept through Jotan’s streets.
“The Bunts are coming!”
“To the wall!” Khal Kan cried.
From the parapet atop the great wall, the rising sun revealed an ominous spectacle. From all around the landward side of Jotan, the hordes of the Bunts were surging toward the city.
First came a line of green bowmen whose hissing, poisoned shafts were already rattling along the top of the wall. Jotanian warriors sank groaning as the swift poison sped into their blood. Khal Kan held his shield up, and swept Golden Wings behind him as they waited.
Behind the first line of bowmen came Bunts carrying long, rough wooden scaling-ladders. Behind these came the main masses of the stocky green men, armed with bows and short-swords, led by Egir himself.
The ladders came up against the wall, and the blood-chilling Bunt yell broke around the city as the green warriors swarmed catlike up them. Joranians who sought to push over the ladders were smitten by arrows.
“Over the wall and open the gates!” Egir’s bull voice was yelling to his green men. “Let us into Jotan!”
The main horde of the Bunts was already surging toward the gates of the city, while their attackers on the ladders sought to win the wall.
“Now—light the fuses and drop the vases!” Khal Kan yelled along the parapet, through the melee.
Torches at readiness set the wicks alight. The seemingly harmless little metal vases were tossed over into the surging mass of the Bunts.
A series of ear-splitting crashes shook the air, like thunder. White smoke drifted away to show masses of the Bunts felled by the explosions.
“Gods!”