They were, then, not winged reptiles, but―birds!
They were the first and only winged avians I have yet encountered on the whole of this world. The only feathered creature known to me is a wingless quadruped of horse-like size and shape called the thaptor, which I have several times in these journals described as a semi-domesticated creature the Callistans employ for riding purposes.
That the unexplored further hemisphere of Callisto was inhabited by an hitherto-unknown species of giant bird was a remarkable discovery, of course.
But there were more and greater surprises yet to come!
The oddest thing about the giant bird-winged creatures was that they were essentially anthropoid or manlike in form. Disregarding for the moment their brilliant blue plumage of wing and prehensile, barbed and featherless tails, their bodies were quite manlike, with long gaunt arms whose hands ended in cruel hooked talons, and long, sinewy hind legs which terminated in powerful grasping claws. Stark naked, their bony umber-and-yellow torsos were encumbered with some articles or implements I could not at first discern. Then, as they flew nearer, I saw with an uncanny thrill of amazement that the bird-monsters wore crude harnesses of leather straps from which dangled stone axes, flint knives, short throwing-spears and a variety of curved scimitar-like sword with a wicked glittering blade of chipped obsidian.
They were not birds, but men!
And in the next instant they were upon us.
The panes of thin glass that shielded the bridge from the cold winds shattered as the foremost of the bird-warriors hurtled upon us. I was flung backwards by the thrust of one lean but powerfully-muscled bare arm. Sprawling on my back, I looked up into the hideous face of the monster-man who stood astride me, vulture-like wings spread, claws reaching for my throat.
One look had I into that nightmarish face, all clacking parrot-beak and mad, glaring orange eyes under blue-feathered, overhanging brow―and then Drango hurled himself between my recumbent form and the winged warrior. His rapier flashed from its scabbard to sink into the canary-yellow hide of the bird-winged savage. The monster-man uttered a harsh shrieking cry of rage or pain and batted him aside with one swinging blow of its long arm. Torn loose, the sword flew across the pitching deck, and from the gash in the upper breast of the bird-warrior a weird purplish gore dribbled.
However roughly manlike, the bird-warriors were not even remotely human, it would seem. For it was not the honest red blood of men flowed in their veins, but the purple gore of monsters.
The creatures were intelligent, however, which made them all the more dangerous. For they bore weapons, and obviously knew how to use them.
These scattered observations flew through my brain during the first instant or two we were under attack by the bird-warriors we came later to call the Zarkoon.
In the next instant I was on my feet again, my sword free of its scabbard and flashing in the moonlight. I sprang to return the attack of the Zarkoon savage … but too late to save Drango.
When he inflicted the slight wound on the breast of the first bird-warrior, the creature had flung him aside with one sweep of his long and powerful arms. Stumbling back against the broken window, Drango was seized in the cruel claws of the second monster-man. I can still remember Drango’s cry of pain as those hooked talons fastened in the flesh of his shoulder.
In the next instant, the bird-warrior, still clinging to Drango’s shoulder with one clawed hand, reached around with his other hand and tore at the hapless young officer’s throat!
Hurling the blood-soaked body from him, the second bird-man clambered onto the bridge and seized young Tomar. The brave boy defended himself with his sword, inflicting a deep wound on the left shoulder of his monstrous adversary, which uttered a squawk of pain and outrage and sprang upon him, dealing him a buffet that knocked him flat.
In the next instant the bridge was alive with the winged monsters, and we were fighting for our lives.
Some distance from us, at the other end of the bridge, the pilot died hideously, literally torn asunder by the claws of two squawking bird-warriors.
I leaped to the defense of Tomar, who sprawled helpless on the deck, with the monster-man he had wounded straddling him and reaching for his throat.
My blade flashed, sinking into the brute’s armpit and transfixing its very heart. One mad orange eye glared into mine, beak clashing and snapping savagely. Then that eye glazed and went dull, purplish oily gore gushed from the open beak and the Zarkoon fell dead.
Tomar sprang to his feet, snatching up his blade. The boy was white-faced and breathing in light, shallow gasps, but his jaw was set in a resolute manner and the flame of fighting manhood shone in his clear, steady eyes.
Only he and I by now were still alive. The bridge was littered with corpses. My blade flickered and played as the savage bird-warriors lunged at us: in a moment I laid another feathered corpse beside the first, and had sunk my blade through the shoulder-joint of yet a third.
“Set your back to mine, Tomar,” I said. And we fought back to back for a time against the shrieking cawing monsters. Two more we slew, but for each that fell, two or three more climbed through the shattered windows to hurl themselves upon us.
It was soon over.
A stone ax caught the boy a glancing blow along the side of his head and he fell senseless, blood trickling down his pale cheek from an ugly cut. I stood astride his body and held them off as best I could, but not for long. My sword blade was caught in horny claws and torn from my grasp. Then a towering, lean-muscled form flung itself upon me and bore me to the deck. I strove with all my strength to keep that hideous clashing beak from my throat.
Dimly was I aware of one tall bird-warrior stooping to snatch up Tomar’s unconscious body. In the next instant, as I watched with unbelieving horror, helpless to interfere, the monster-man flung the boy out of the window.
A moment or two later I was seized in the clutch of powerful arms, dragged to my feet, held helpless in the grip of two birdmen who cawed in hoarse triumph.
They dragged me to the broken window.
And then, sinking their cruel claws through the leather of my tunic, they flung themselves―and me―out the window!
An icy gale roared about me as I fell like a stone.
Windows blazing with light, the vast shape that was the Jalathadar swung past me in the night, momentarily eclipsing the banded globe of mighty Jupiter; then it was whirled away on the winds and consciousness left me, and I knew no more.
Chapter 7
Captives of the Bird-Men
It was the rush of icy air against my face which revived me from my momentary swoon.
In an instant, my headlong plunge into the abyss was abruptly checked as the parrot-beaked creature which held me tightly in the grip of its hooked claws spread wide its indigo-plumed wings and broke our fall. The winged man swooped away to the left in a steep, sickening glide. Blinking away the tears the fiercely-cold wind brought to my eyes, I saw ahead of us the other survivors of the battle on the bridge. One of them bore a limp, dangling burden that must be the boy Tomar. Whether the lad yet lived or had been slain by his rapacious captors I could not at the moment ascertain, although I hoped against hope the youth had survived.
Striving with watering eyes to penetrate the dim gloom made bewildering by the tangle of colored moon-rays, I saw we swooped giddily over a tortured landscape of naked rock, carved into precipitous chasms and thronged with a fantastic maze of peaks and pinnacles. In another moment I was hopelessly lost, and could not guess in which direction we flew, nor in what position the armada might be found. The talons of my captor were tangled in my leather tunic and the monster-man thus carried me in such a position that I could gain no clear or unencumbered vista of either sky or land. We were, however, descending rapidly in a zigzagging flight composed of giddy sideslips, which were most disconcerting. In a few moments we were among the fang-like peaks. They rose all about us like the stalagmites in a mighty cavern, or a towering forest of petrified trees. Scarps and cliffs and sheer rocky walls hurtled by to every side. A moment more and the black mouth of a cavern yawned directly beneath us. Then the bird-monster who bore me folded his blue pinions and we fell like stones. The gloom of a mighty pit closed about us―overhead a dwindling circle of moonlit sky shrunk rapidly.