The Goddess of Atvatabar: Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of AtvatabarBradshaw, William Richard
Science
The Goddess of Atvatabar: Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar
Bradshaw, William Richard
Science fiction
The rushing of wings, the explosions of the machine guns, the clashing
of spears and the yells of the combatants made a scene of infernal
horror. As the focus of battle swayed hither and thither, it left
behind a trail of blood, dead and wounded bodies, broken wings, spears
and revolvers. The _debris_ of the battle simply floated out on the
air, veritable clouds of disaster. Irregular masses of dead and
wounded wayleals and broken bockhockids floated in heaps amid pools of
blood.
The enemy could only succeed by stabbing, whereas our wayleals were
scorpions whose guns were fatal. With the points of their spears they
made great havoc in our battalions. But as long as our ammunition
lasted their formations were immediately shrivelled up.
Coltonobory began to mass his army in the form of an immense
outspreading hemisphere of the form of an open umbrella. His intention
was to enclose us on all sides, and so if possible devour us. I at
once ordered the army to take the form of a cone, each legion being a
segment thereof, whose apex was formed of bockhockids, and whose base
was wide circles of wayleals. With a blast of the trumpet I drove the
entire army like an enormous javelin right through the heart of the
foe, tearing a yawning chasm, half a mile in diameter, in his ranks!
We lost fully two thousand men in this movement, and the foe over ten
thousand in killed and wounded.
The enemy, paralyzed by the onset, became consolidated into three or
four immense globes. In front of these they placed their bockhockids,
whose monstrous limbs alone could keep our spears at a safe distance.
It was the intention of Coltonobory to ram us with the cohorts led by
Grasnagallipas and his bockhockids.
Hastily re-forming our broken ranks as before, I ordered a flank
movement, rapid and decisive. Our bockhockids plunged into a
tremendous mass of wayleals. Into the chasm thus made in the ranks of
the enemy General Zooly-Soase threw her amazons, protected on either
side by the legion of priests of Egyplosis under Gerolio. The
priestesses, whose spears were particularly long and powerful, did
terrible execution. The enemy was for a time panic-stricken as the
glorious girls made their successful onset. Their dramatic beauty and
the flash of their spears made a scene of imposing grandeur.
Coltonobory, recovering from his surprise, ordered his bockhockids to
the centre of the fight. To prevent the sacrifice of the priestesses
by overwhelming odds I sent the bockhockids of art to their
assistance. These swept to the rescue like a flight of eagles, and the
empyrean echoed to the roar of the combat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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