The Atlanteans launched themselves forward.
Confined before the peristyle between two sunken paths, the area of the parvis scarcely permitted more than twenty combatants to advance abreast with any ease. Before they had taken twenty paces, the first rank fell, exterminated. Twenty dead or grievously wounded warriors uncovered to the aggressors those who were following; an uninterrupted hail of arrows, of frightful precision, fell upon them. The cadavers and the dying piled up on the flagstones, where the assailants slid in pools of blood, disconcerted, dispersed and stopped dead in their tracks by arrows half a brass long, with freshly-sharpened native iron tips. In front of the peristyle, in the fingers of the northern giants, the taut bowstrings sang like the lowest strings of a harp.
A furious wave of Atlanteans, driven by Ortiz, nevertheless succeeded in gaining ground. Overflowing the preliminary altar, it unfurled against the almost-empty colonnade, and was about to climb the steps when, from either side of the peristyle, axes or swords in hand, two groups of Gilt-Hermians charged. Impeded in the unexpected hand-to-hand combat by their useless spears, Yerra’s guards, cut to pieces, were crushed between the two branches of the barbarian vice. A dozen of the wounded, howling, were able to bet a retreat as far as their own troops, already demoralized by that formidable defense.
Dhu Hern and Maghée, at the head of their respective groups, joined up again before the preliminary altar; all the enemies who were still defending themselves under the peristyle were killed.
Three successive attacks failed, broken by the same stratagem; the melee became denser; the Gilt-Hermians, most of whose wounds were slight, maintained their thin line along the steps strewn with corpses. Each of them now had a sword of pure steel, conquered in the battle. The possession, so long coveted, of those magnificent weapons multiplied the superhuman vigor of the Northerners, radiant with pride and buoyancy. Gathered more closely, however, they fought with a gravity devoid of anger, which left them all the advantage of an amazing self-composure. Bows and arrows became useless.
“Kernik,” said Fraam, “Now, I think, is the time to use our pebbles!”
Profound masses of soldiers hurled themselves at the combat lines. Isolated in the heart of the battle, covered on three sides by their improvised retrenchment, the two companions had heaped up cadavers beneath their arrows, choosing among the assailants the bold officers or the redoubtable warriors. They were, above all, attached to one duty: any Atlantean who attempted, by means of an oblique attack to attain Dhu Hern, at grips with other soldiers or exposed to some sly feint, had immediately perished under the infallible arrows. Thanks to them, almost alone among his men, the young chief, without the slightest wound, seemed invulnerable. That idea, spreading among the assailants, struck the bravest with a superstitious terror. They avoided Dhu Hern, trying to break the rank of his companions and get behind the chief, surrounded by a rampart of dead enemies.
“Whenever you wish!” said Kernik.
“Together, then,” said Fraam. “That will increase the effect.”
Two blocks of granite flew, and fell in the middle of a living cluster, smashing skulls, breaking arms and crushing knees, hollowing out a mortal double furrow in the Atlantean lines.
And from then on, without interruption, twin flights of murderous stones soared and descended upon the confusion of the melee, incessantly enlarging the bloody holes, from which frightful clamors of agony rose up. More impressive than the silent work of the arrows, that fashion of combat had a superhuman appearance, which determined the panic of the assailants, and completed their rout, striking them with horror and terror. Unexpected and ferocious, death rushed so atrociously upon the bewildered lapidated, that they imagined that they were receiving it from the heavens—from which, the survivors later swore that they had seen the rain of stones fall.
A unanimous howl of distress carried the vanquished irresistibly in a precipitate retreat; the officers, overflowed, were forced to abandon the parvis, strewn with heaps of dead and the brief agonized.
Ortiz, quivering with fury, ran to bend his knee in front of the royal litter. His right arm hung down inert, broken near the shoulder by the blow of a sword-hilt that Maghée, perhaps sparing Yerra’s favorite, had struck without making use of the point thereafter. A stone had grazed his temple; covered with blood, the humiliated warrior saluted the sovereign, who was more thoughtful than irritated, with his left hand.
“It’s not my fault, O Queen! I slipped in the blood; my eyes were obscured. But many of them are wounded too, and the second attack will certainly succeed; if not, this time, you will not see me return.”
“No,” said Yerra. “I forbid you to get yourself killed.”
Nohor grunted bitter words, and looked at the officer scornfully, but Ortiz, standing up abruptly in front of him, stared at him with so much insolence that the pontiff turned away without taking up the wounded man’s challenge.
Meanwhile, the Gilt-Hermians had abstained from any pursuit. Almost all of their wounds seemed slight; they were not suffering from them; the pride of victory was sparkling in their eyes. Maghée, alone, leaned toward Dhu Hern and summarized the situation in a low voice.
“In an hour, if the combat isn’t resumed, the wounds, cooled down, will stiffen our arms, paralyze our legs and give us a fever that no beverage will be able to staunch.
“Here, at least,” said the young chief, “is what will slake our thirst for the moment.” He pointed to two of their companions, who, following Soroé’s indications, had drawn beneficent water from a cistern in the temple, and were bringing it out in an enormous bronze basin. The northern warriors drank it in long draughts, while the Atlanteans, reforming their ranks for a merciless attack, observed them from a distance, more inclined to delay than precipitate the new assault.
“What’s become of the priest?” asked Dhu Hern.
Maghée pointed with his finger. Ruslem and his servant had not interrupted their furious digging during the melee; isolated and shielded behind the altar, the substructure of which they had emptied, it seemed that they had just exposed a subterranean hiding-place, the opening of which was sealed by a stone slab, Fraam and Kernik, occupied in reconstituting their rampart of projectiles, were letting them work as they wished; each of them had gone in turn to drink. The two old men, on their knees, hastening their work feverishly, even after the battle had ceased to rage around them, had not even raise their heads.
Dhu Hern embraced the situation with a glance.
“The time has come,” he reflected, in a low voice, “to resume my name. No better occasion will ever be offered to me.”
“That’s probable,” said Maghée, with an ironic coolness. And, in accordance with his custom, Dahéla’s son, even though he judged the situation desperate, ordered the division of remaining arrows between the best archers and posted them in the corners from which they would be able to watch over his brother in arms while the latter advanced on his own.
Moving into the middle of the open space, his sword in its scabbard and his hands free of weapons, Dhu Hern raised his right arm and made a sign that he wanted to speak. Immediately, there was a vast silence.
Soroé, carrying a jug of fresh water, had come to join her grandfather behind the altar. The two old men drank delightedly, and, their eyes sparkling with joy, showed the virgin the mysterious slab, which they began to lift up, weighing upon a lever with all their strength.
“Queen Yerra,” pronounced the chief of the Gilt-Hermians, at the same time, whose sonorous voice made the sovereign shiver and vibrated all the way to the extremities of the square. “I salute you, and you, Atlanteans! You have attacked us; many of yours are dead.”
“But you and yours will perish to the last man!” Nohor howled, with frenetic indignation. “Your blood will fume on the altar, and the gods, satisfied, will bless the crops of Atlantis!”
“You speak well,” the warrior retorted, in a gracious manner, “but it’s strange: I didn’t notice your voice in the battle just now.”
Laughter burst forth; a jeer addressed to the chief of the sacrificers rose up among the warriors, and even among the people, where, in accordance with Nohor’s fears, respect for the bloody gods already seemed considerably compromised. Impassively, the Queen raised her hand. Livid under the insult, the high priest remained silent; his prestige was in rapid decline; his gods, outraged like him, were not manifesting any vengeful fury.
The Barbarian turned toward the sovereign again, and continued:
“Many are dead. The earth is red. Soon, no doubt, it will be redder. The survivors will not forget this day. That is why I shall give you my name, that of my birth, which I quit on departure, in accordance with the custom of my people. That name, I take back today, before my people and before you, Atlanteans—and those of you who see the impending dawns will remember the day of Argall!”
“Argall! Argall!” cried the Gilt-Hermians.
The Atlanteans, as if thunderstruck, suddenly displayed a universal, profound emotion. Yerra stood up, shivering.
“You lie!” cried Nohor, bewildered by fear.
The young chief took a step toward him; his visage seemed so terrible that the priest, shielded by a triple row of guards, recoiled, even paler.
“My companions know that I do not lie! Their fathers knew mine; my ancestors led theirs I combat. I am twenty years old; no lie has ever soiled my lips, any more than fear has touched my heart!”
Everyone sensed that he was telling the truth. Thousands of voices in the crowd repeated the name of the hero of Atlantis, recalling in low voices the prophetic words announcing his return, at the hour marked by destiny. Pure of any lie, inaccessible to fear, he would brandish the sacred sword, enchain the scourges and break the yoke of Gold and Iron.
The impression was so manifest that Nohor trembled for his power. If the stranger emerged victorious from a second assault, the people, and perhaps even a number of the nobles, without even waiting for Illaz and his rebel miners, might return in a host to the ancient cult to acclaim the new Argall.
The Queen and the pontiff exchanged glances. The common peril resealed their alliance. The armed sacrificers and the noble partisans of the temple prepared to support the companies of guards. Swords were draw from scabbards.
“Good!” said Argall, and drew his own.
At the same moment, a stone hurled by a sling struck its blade, and snapped it cleanly, just above the hilt. Doubtless a crack in the metal, enlarged during the combat, had prepared the rupture. The acclamations of the Atlanteans saluted that accident as a presage.
Argall, disarmed, shrugged his shoulders.
“There’s no lack of others,” he said, retreating a few paces to a group of cadavers.
His companions, bowstrings taut, were watching over him. The enemy, resolute but devoid of hatred, finished arranging themselves for the assault.
Suddenly, the voice of Ruslem rose up. The old man had just reappeared from behind the altar. Pale and exhausted, radiant with joy and enthusiasm, he approached the young chief at a measured pace, carrying in front of him both hands, horizontally, a naked sword with a mat bronze hilt encrusted with sparkling gems.
By his sides, Soroé and Tang-Kor were sustaining him, in accordance with the customary ritual of processions and offerings—and those three frail forms, united, evoked the idea of some unperceived and formidable Presence. Argall, whose back was turned to them, was the only one who could not see them. He was arranging his movements so as to avoid any possibility of surprise at the moment when, his choice having been made among the abandoned weapons, he bent down to pick it up.
Ruslem’s words, resonating in his ear, interrupted the commenced gesture, fixing him in a superb and attentive pose. One arm folded over his bare breast, his head half-turned, all the lines of his body expressing agile strength and indomitable virility, he suddenly recalled most celebrated image of the hero whose name he bore, in the palace of the ancient kings: the undisputed masterpiece of Atlantean art, familiar to everyone. And again, through the multitude, the repeated syllables passed like a vast murmur, almost an acclamation:
“Argall! Argall!”
But they all fell silent, abruptly; the people wanted to hear Ruslem’s revelations.
“Son of the North,” said the old man. “Do not seek on the ground the sword that must shine in your hand. Destiny has provided it, and the will of the true gods, the protectors of our fatherland. To you, who have never lied or trembled, to you, who aid the innocent weak and break the power of the wicked, to you belongs the holy, immaculate, irresistible weapon. It was waiting for you beneath the profaned altar, ready to punish the sacrilege. Receive it, not from me, but from the one who rightly disposes of it, from the royal virgin, the legitimate heir to the throne of Atlantis, to the sovereign blade, and to the blood of Argall!”
“Argall! Argall!” roared the Gilt-Hermians.
Even those who barely understood a few words of Atlantean saluted the courage of the old man and the beauty of the young woman
The surprise was incapable or further increase. For some, the pontiff’s words were truth itself. The era of prodigies opened, triumphantly. The others, too interested in believing nothing, feigned a scornful assurance belied by their attentive expressions and their suspended breath.
“Soroé,” sniggered Nohor. “Your son’s daughter! Get away!”
“No, no!” Ruslem riposted, his right arm extended toward the temple. “I have saved her, raised her, educated her, but she is not of my race. The blood of Argall is in her veins. I swear by the gods, and the One who created the gods: the Ineffable!”
It was a terrible oath. Few persisted in doubting it—but interests and passions remained irreducible.
Disdainfully, Yerra murmured: “What does it matter?”
She leaned toward Ortiz. Summarily bandaged by one of the sacrificers, who served as surgeons and executioners by turns, he was completing the alignment of the debris of his company.
“Go!” she said. “And this time, finish it!”
The order was heard. The equerry did not even need to repeat it.
Again, the Atlanteans charged.
The priests and armed servants threw themselves forward on the flanks, brandishing javelins and whirling slings.
The Gilt-Hermians hesitated to fire. Their last arrows were about to be lost in the mass; above all, they feared that their chief might be attained. Maghée shouted to him to come back. Another minute, and he would be overrun, crushed by the sheer weight of his assailants.
He did not even look at them. Soroé, having received the Sword from Ruslem’s hands, held it out to him, imitating without realizing it the attitude given by the sculptor of the bas-relief to the celestial Protectress. And he, in the same way, had bent his knee, raising his eyes to the adorable visage.
“Argall!” Maghée shouted to him. “Stand up! Retreat! They’re on you! Argall!”
“Argall!” his companions echoed. “Argall!”
He finally heard, seized the Sword, and stood up. His enemies were three paces away from him. He bounded to meet them, scything through the menacing blades with a backhand sweep. A dozen arrows passing him like black streaks, at body height, with their soft whistle, like the twitter of newly-awakened birds, built him a momentary rampart of cadavers, but the Atlanteans were no longer counting their dead. Their compact troop, twenty ranks deep, ran on, overflowing the sides, opening up before him on order better to engulf him. Maghée, dropping his bow, got ready to join him.
Neither Ruslem nor Soroé had budged. The old man, he arms and his face raised to the heavens, seemed to believe himself immune to all peril, surrounded by an invisible rampart. The young woman, clinging to his breast, searched in his eyes for the reflection of the mystical light that, until now, had shone for her alone.
Argall, surrounded by death, had not yet been struck. The blades raised to encounter his seemed to be deflected of their own accord, avoiding the impact or broken like fragile reeds, and the double edge of the marvelous Sword did not retain the slightest trace of their contact.
His adversaries saw him prepare his surge, gathering himself, choosing his first victims with his eyes. Not one thought of retreat, which was, in any case, impossible. The last ranks were driving the others forward. The latter had to kill or be killed.
“Ah!” growled Maghée. Finally decided as the mass of assailants closed in between himself and his brother in arms. “I was wrong to wait. We’ll arrive too late.”
“Perhaps,” said Fraam, raising an enormous block of granite above his head, “but before we follow him, we’ll avenge him!”
The stone flew. Twenty blades simultaneously sought Argall’s heart, face and sides. But before a single one could reach him, or he could prevent them by means of an explosive attack, a noise like the rumble of a thousand bronze chariots, with the stridency of innumerable gongs, or the roar of an army of wild beasts, an extraordinary, ear-splitting clamor rose up and extended, increasing further, to the point that deafened ears could no longer perceive anything but the vibration transmitted through dolorous and stupefied nerves.
The ground shook and undulated. The flagstones of the parvis, dislocated, leapt up, splitting in places, where, abruptly separated, long sinuous cracks were designed with moving edges, alternately drawing apart and coming together. Men, losing their footing, crushed in the frightful trap, howled their agony, their mouths twisted convulsively, in screams that could not be heard.
The declining sun had almost touched the crest of Bol-Gho, drowning its eternal snows in liquid gold. Suddenly, it could no longer be seen. A heavy, dense, opaque cloud, streaked by lightning, crowned the giant summit, blotting out the splendor of the sunset with a sheet of night. The eyes, dazzled momentarily, had the sudden sensation of darkness, and in that sinister obscurity, Argall’s sword was suddenly flamboyant.
It was not a reflection of the steel, the reverberation of some foreign gleam. A bright flame, a scintillating plume, had sprung from the point, prolonging it with a tongue of fire.
The oscillation of the ground had ceased; the subterranean rumble had fallen silent. The young chief, surprised by the movement of the flagstones beneath his feet, had immediately recovered the equilibrium of a mariner on the unstable deck of his vessel. His ears, habituated to the roaring of the tempest, had only been deafened momentarily. The flame itself, surging from his blade, had only half-astonished him; similar gleams had appeared at the top of the mast in the course of the voyage, and their presage had revealed itself to be favorable.
Those impressions, shared by his men, only served to renew their courage. The quake, in any case, had not been as manifest on their side. The temple and the columns had remained standing, scarcely vacillating, while at the other edge of the parvis, the idols of Gold and Iron, as if shaken by a giant hand, had been torn from their bases and collapsed on their adorers.
The crowd, momentarily panic-stricken and turbulent, had fortunately stopped, nailed to the spot, immobilized by terror. The evident futility of any effort, any flight, had prevented the disaster of contrary and murderous stampedes. When the earth trembled everywhere, no refuge seemed possible, the only hope of salvation being the heavens.
The priests of the bloody religion, the instigators of sacrifices, and Nohor himself, were the first to fall to their knees. Yerra, inaccessible to fear, was nevertheless aware of her impotence. Not one of her servants, at that moment, turned to her, either to offer her their devotion or to seek her protection. She too understood that she was a fallen divinity, and without any vain contest or anger, her lips pale but her head held high, she awaited her fate mutely.
The partisans of the old cult, however, without being entirely resistant to the common fear, did not feel suddenly overwhelmed to the same degree. The advent of Argall, the upheaval of nature, attested the accomplishment of oracles so long desired, the reawakening of their gods, the triumph of their faith. At the moment when the accursed idols crushed their infamous priests as they fell, why should the innocent, the just and the faithful perish?
A man was there who ought to know, whose entire life, devoted to their service, had been one long communion with the tutelary Powers. Eyes, now habituated to the darkness, found him upright, his face serene, his hands extended in a blessing.
“Ruslem!” cried the believers, and all of the people with them. “Ruslem! Enlighten us! Save us!”
The priest made a sign that he wanted to speak. The silence was religious.
“The time has come!” he proclaimed. “The clement gods have remembered their promises. The sword of Argall is found. You have seen it shining in the darkness; the earth has trembled under the feet of the one who was to come.”
Thousand of mouths uttered an attestation: “We have seen!”
“Now, Atlanteans, it is for you to choose between darkness and the light, between pitiless scourges and the benevolent messengers of Being, between death and salvation. You will not be delivered involuntarily. The daughter of your kings does not want to reign over slaves. Only your free homage can replace her on the throne of her ancestors. But first, remember this: you must tear from your shoulders the mantle of servitude, abjure forever the infamous cult, and break the yoke of Gold and Iron!”
An acclamation rose up:
“Soroé on the throne!”
“Argall and Soroé!”
“No more sacrifices!”
And others, isolated at first, soon multiplied and furious:
“Death to the priests!”
“To the altar with the sacrificers!”
“Put Nohor to the torture!”
“And Yerra!” launched the shrill voice of a woman or a child, perhaps a eunuch.
The sinister yelp did not lack echoes.
“Yes! Yes! Yerra!”
“To the altar with the sacrificeress!”
“Death to the Immortal!”
“Burn the sorceress!”
“Oh, my Father,” murmured Soroé, imploringly, “my savior, I beg you, no more blood.”
Ruslem, his arm extended, dominated the crowd. “The guilty will be judged. Justice will be done.”
“Enough blood,” Argall repeated, in the language of the people of Erm-gilt-Herm.
Maghée, Fraam and two of his other companions detached themselves. The crowd opened up before them. They were just in time. Ortiz and a few guards, ranged around their sovereign, were about to be overrun.
The equerry said: “You can do with us what you wish, but you’ll have to kill us to get to her.”
“We don’t kill women!” Maghée protested.
“And we don’t finish off the wounded, comrade,” added Fraam, taking his sword in his left hand in order to hold out the right.
The young woman looked at them for a moment, her lips closed, immobile. Maghée bowed.
“Have no fear of us, O Queen. We have been your guests; we will not forget that, unless your servants force us to do so,”
She replied to him a slight nod of the head, and without being able to explain why, he and his companions almost felt ashamed of their victory.
“The gods have made me your captive, strangers. My servants are released from their oaths; you will not reproach them, I know, for having fought loyally under my orders.”
Maghée bowed more deeply. His prudence remained on the alert. Fraam clenched Ortiz’ valid hand cordially. But a new acclamation rose up. A wind blowing from the sea inflated the somber could extended over the sky like a sail, tore it apart from below, and in the sudden gap, the sun reappeared, a dazzling golden globe, at the summit of Bol-Gho. A radiant beam traversed the space, lighting up the façade of the temple, enveloping Argall and Soroé in splendor, and surrounding Rustem’s ecstatic face with a golden nimbus.
A vivifying coolness and a sensation of divine peace descended, and spread, with the sea breeze, the embalmed exhalation of the forests. Lungs expanded; the plaints of the wounded fell to a murmur. The dead were already forgotten. Nature seemed clement, the healer of temporary ills, the eternal consolation of human dolor.
The star descended rapidly and sank behind the jagged crests, seeming to gather about itself, compact and paling, the folds of its mantle of light.
On the opposite side of the horizon, however, the moon, scarcely less bright, fully round, surged from the sea, bathing the oriental contour of things with fluid silver; and for the Atlanteans, that was the very face of the Protectress, the gaze and the smile of the other Soroé, the Immortal; her blessing upon the reign that was commencing with the serene night, descended slowly over Atlantis.