“Listen, Kulun,” she cried. “I am Norhala--daughter of another Norhala and of Rustum, whom Cherkis tortured and slew. Now go, you lying spawn of unclean toads--go and tell your father that I, Norhala, am at his gates. And bring back with you the maid and the man. Go, I say!” CHAPTER XXV. CHERKIS There was stark amazement on Kulun's face; and fear now enough. He dropped from the parapet among his men. There came one loud trumpet blast. Out from the battlements poured a storm of arrows, a cloud of javelins. The squat catapults leaped forward. From them came a hail of boulders. Before that onrushing tempest of death I flinched. I heard Norhala's golden laughter and before they could reach us arrow and javelin and boulder were checked as though myriads of hands reached out from the Thing under us and caught them. Down they dropped. Forth from the great spindle shot a gigantic arm, hammer tipped with cubes. It struck the wall close to where the scarlet armored Kulun had vanished. Under its blow the stones crumbled. With the fragments fell the soldiers; were buried beneath them. A hundred feet in width a breach gaped in the battlements. Out shot the arm again; hooked its hammer tip over the parapet, tore away a stretch of the breastwork as though it had been cardboard. Beside the breach an expanse of the broad flat top lay open like a wide platform. The arm withdrew, and out from the whole length of the spindle thrust other arms, hammer tipped, held high aloft, menacing. From all the length of the wall arose panic outcry. Abruptly the storm of arrows ended; the catapults were still. Again the trumpets sounded; the crying ceased. Down fell a silence, terrified, stifling. Kulun stepped forth again, both hands held high. Gone was his arrogance. “A parley,” he shouted. “A parley, Norhala. If we give you the maid and man, will you go?” “Go get them,” she answered. “And take with you this my command to Cherkis--that HE return with the two!” For an instant Kulun hesitated. Up thrust the dreadful arms, poised themselves to strike. “It shall be so,” he shouted. “I carry your command.” He leaped back, his red mail flashed toward a turret that held, I supposed, a stairway. He was lost to sight. In silence we waited. On the further side of the city I glimpsed movement. Little troops of mounted men, pony drawn wains, knots of running figures were fleeing from the city through the opposite gates. Norhala saw them too. With that incomprehensible, instant obedience to her unspoken thought a mass of the Metal Things separated from us; whirled up into a dozen of those obelisked forms I had seen march from the cat eyes of the City of the Pit. In but a breath, it seemed, their columns were far off, herding back the fugitives. They did not touch them, did not offer to harm--only, grotesquely, like dogs heading off and corraling frightened sheep, they circled and darted. Rushing back came those they herded.