“HAI!” shouted Norhala once more. From her lifted throat came again the golden chanting--but now a relentless, ruthless song of slaughter. Up reared the monstrous bulk. Into it ran the dragon tail. Into it poured the fanged and bristling back. Up, up we were thrust--three hundred feet, four hundred, five hundred. Over the blue globe of Norhala's house bent a gigantic leg. Spiderlike out from each side of the monster thrust half a score of others. Overhead the dawn began to break. Through it with ever increasing speed we moved, straight to the line of the cliffs behind which lay the city of the armored men--and Ruth and Ventnor. CHAPTER XXIV. RUSZARK Smoothly moved the colossal shape; on it we rode as easily as though cradled. It did not glide--it strode. The columned legs raised themselves, bending from a thousand joints. The pedestals of the feet, huge and massive as foundations for sixteen-inch guns, fell with machinelike precision, stamping gigantically. Under their tread the trees of the forest snapped, were crushed like reeds beneath the pads of a mastodon. From far below came the sound of their crashing. The thick forest checked the progress of the Shape less than tall grass would that of a man. Behind us our trail was marked by deep, black pits in the forest's green, clean cut and great as the Mark upon the poppied valley. They were the footprints of the Thing that carried us. The wind streamed and whistled. A flock of the willow warblers arose, sworled about us with manifold beating of little frightened wings. Norhala's face softened, her eyes smiled. “Go--foolish little ones,” she cried, and waved her arms. They flew away, scolding. A lammergeier swooped down on wide funereal wings; it peered at us; darted away toward the cliffs. “There will be no carrion there for you, black eater of the dead, when I am through,” I heard Norhala whisper, eyes again somber. Steadily grew the dawn light; from Norhala's lips came again the chanting. And now that paean, the reckless pulse of the monster we rode, began to creep through my own veins. Into Drake's too, I knew, for his head was held high and his eyes were clear and bright as hers who sang. The jubilant pulse streamed through the hands that held us, throbbed through us. The pulse of the Thing--sang! Closer and closer grew the cliffs. Down and crashing down fell the trees, the noise of their fall accompanying the battle chant of the Valkyr beside me like wild harp chords of storm-lashed surf. Up to the precipices the forest rolled, unbroken. Now the cliffs loomed overhead. The dawn had passed. It was full day. Cutting up through the towering granite scarps was a rift. In it the black shadows clustered thickly. Straight toward that cleft we sped. As we drew near, the crest of the Shape began swiftly to lower. Down we sank and down--a hundred feet, two hundred; now we were two score yards above the tree tops.