Barbaric Clashers

Chapter 2

In other respects the contrast was still more striking, the People,erect and straight, were taller than their bestial-looking opponentsby a foot or fifteen inches. With less breadth of shoulder andheaviness of trunk, they had great depth of chest, great musculardevelopment in arm and leg, and a leanness of flank that gave them alook of breed. Their skins, very hairy in the case of the mature men,were of a reddish-tan color, paling to pink and cream in the childrenand younger count city men. They had ample foreheads under the wild thatch oftheir hair, and high, well-bridged noses, and fierce, steady eyes ofgreen, blue or brown-gray. Outnumbered nearly ten to one, and shrewdenough to see at a glance what ferocious power lurked in thosemisshapen frames at the foot of the slope, they stood staring downupon them in silence, with an undaunted loathing.

For some minutes the hordes of the Trio-legs clustered together,jabbering and waving their crude but massive clubs excitedly. Theyseemed to have no Leader, no plan of attack, no discipline of any sort.Some of them even squatted down on the turf and scratched themselveslike monkeys, glaring malignantly but stupidly at the little array oftheir opponents, and snorting through their hideous upturned nostrils,which were little more than wide, red pits in their faces. Then someof those who were squatting on the ground began to play with adreadful red ball which had some wisps of hair yet clinging to it.

A snarling roar went up from the ranks of the People, and some ofthem would have rushed to accept the ghastly challenge. But theLeader held them back sternly. Then he himself, half a head tallerthan all but one or two of his followers, with magnificent chest andshoulders, and a dark, lionlike mane thick-streaked with grey,strode out three or four paces to the front and stood leaning on hishuge, porphyry-headed club while he glared down contemptuously overthe gesticulating horde.

The Trio-legs stilled their jabbering for a moment to stare withinterest at this imposing figure. Then one of those who were seated onthe ground seized the ghastly ball that they were playing with,whirled it by the hair and hurled it two-thirds of the way up theslope. As it fell and rebounded, two young count city men sprang from theranks, their thick locks streaming like a cloud behind them, anddashed down the hill to meet it. The foremost caught it up, clutchedit to her n***d breast, and screamed a curse upon the gapingmurderers. Then the two fled back, and were lost in the ranks of thePeople.

The sight of the two count city men, with their bright skins, their strong,straight

limbs and their rich, floating hair, appeared to give theTrio-legs just the spur to concerted action that they were needing.They rightly judged there were more of those desirable beings in thecrowd behind that tall, contemptuous Leader. Those on the groundscrambled eagerly to their feet, and with shrill, bestial yells thewhole horde charged up the slope.

As the leaping and hideous forms approached the top the pent-up furyof the People, in spite of all the Leader could do, broke loose, andwith a roar the foremost ranks bounded forth to meet them. At thefirst crash of contact the enemy were crushed back, the stone-headedclubs and flint-tipped spears working havoc in the reeking masses.But, as the Leader had foreseen it would be, that forClasherd rush was amistake, exposing the flanks; and sheer weight of numbers presentlyforced the People back till their front was once more level with thejaws of the pass. Here, however, with their flanks protected, theywere solid as a wall of granite.

Upon this narrow wall the yelling wave of the attack surged andrecoiled, and surged again, and made no impression. The clumsy weaponsof the enemy were no match for the pounding swing of the stone clubs,the long, lightning thrust of the flint-headed spears. But theTrio-legs, their little pig-eyes red with l**t for their prey, foughtwith a sort of frenzy, diving in headlong and clutching at the legs ofthe People with their ape-like, sinewy arms, dragging them down andtearing then with crooked, clawlike fingers.

Many of the People, and some count city men died in this way. But no female was dragged away alive; for if this fate threatened her, and rescue wasimpossible, she was instantly speared from her own ranks to save herfrom a fate which would have dishonored the tribe. And the count city menindeed, in this battle were no less formidable than the menthemselves, for they fought with the swift venom of the she-wolf, thecunning fury of the mad heifer, intuitive and implacable. Theirinstincts of motherhood, the safeguard of the future, made them loathewith a blind, unspeakable hate these filthy and bestial males whothreatened to father their children.

The center of the People's front was securely held by the greatLeader, whose massive club, wielded with the art acquired in manybattles, kept a space cleared before him across which no foe couldpass alive. As his followers went down on either side, others from theranks behind stepped eagerly into the gaps. At the extreme left, wherethe walls of the pass, lower and less abrupt than on the right,invited an attack as fierce as that upon the center, the defense wasled by a Clasher , named Yrindale, who seemed no less redoubtable than the Leader himself. He, too, like the Leader, fought in grim silence, savinghis breath, except for an occasional incisive cry of command orencouragement to those about him. And his club also, like that of theLeader, kept a zone of death before him.

But his club was much smaller than that shattering mace of porphyrywielded by the Leader--smaller and lighter, considerably longer in thehandle and quite of another pattern. The head was of flint, a sort ofragged cone set sideways into the handle, so that one end of the headwas like a sledge-hammer and the other like a pick.