"Out of here now!" Ethan yelled, leaping back into his saddle, with Chiri held tightly in the curve of his left arm. "We've got to fight back out of Luun."
The Puritan climbed to the back of a horse from which a slain Mongol had fallen.
With his remaining followers, Ethan spurred back out through the shadowy stone rooms.
They burst out into the blazing sunlight of the great plaza. And they stopped, appalled by what they saw.
"Trapped!" cried Lopez with an oath.
The two thousand horsemen whom Ethan had led into Luun were milling in the plaza, attacked by Luunian warriors pouring in solid masses from every part of the city, led by screaming Masters. They blocked every avenue of escape.
Ethan and his companions rode into the milling mass of Mongols and Sioux and Arabs and Crusaders. The young American shouted to his surrounded followers.
"Charge—break through into the eastern streets!" he yelled, waving his reddened sword, Chiri clinging terrifiedly behind him.
"We'll never make it," Hank Martin panted. "They got us boxed."
The horsemen answered Ethan's shouts by charging determinedly toward the eastern side of the plaza. But solid masses of Luunians were an impassable barrier. The drugged white warriors were fighting like demons at the urging of the Masters.
Once more Ethan led his repulsed band forward in a desperate charge—and again they were dashed back by the crowding Luunian hordes.
"It ain't no use!" Hank Martin cried. The trapper's face was terrible with blood and perspiration, his head bare, his rifle-butt broken away. "We're goners!"
"We'll take plenty of the dogs with us, then," roared Lopez, foaming with rage.
"Kill the red ones, the sons of Satan!" shouted Crewe's great voice. "Rid the earth of as many as we can, before we die."
The Luunians were pressing forward, stabbing up with sword and spear. Horses crashed down with their riders, bodies piled up, as the red Masters urged their hordes on to annihilate the trapped horsemen.
Then through the mad roar of the fight came a new sound, a hoarse, mighty bellowing through the streets.
"That's the buccinas of the Romans!" Ethan cried hoarsely. "Ptah and Swain have reached Luun with the main forces!"
The hoarse bellowing of the Roman trumpets swept nearer, louder. And now could be heard the insistent shrilling of French bugles sounding the charge.
In through the city by converging streets pushed the host of footmen from the past. Along three streets clanked the Romans, shields up, swords drawn, faces stern as they fought forward to the hoarse baying of their war-trumpets.
Along streets on either side of their advance came the Spartans and French, the Greeks striding forward like men of bronze in their heavy armor, stolidly hewing down all in their way; the infantry of Napoleon charging with excited battle-cries and leveled bayonets.
And from the south, Ptah was advancing at the head of a thousand blood-mad, wolf-faced Assyrians, while from the opposite direction, Swain Njallson and three hundred berserk
