"09 - Synthetic Men of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

Presently the twenty malagors alighted in a circle about us, and five of the
warriors dismounted and approached us. Now it was that I saw what lent them
their strange and unnatural appearance. They seemed the faulty efforts of a poor
draftsman, come to life Ц animated caricatures of man. There was no symmetry of
design about them. The left arm of one was scarce a foot long, while his right
arm was so long that the hand dragged along the ground as he walked. Four-fifths
of the face of one was above the eyes, while another had an equal proportion
below the eyes. Eyes, noses, and mouths were usually misplaced; and were either
too large or too small to harmonize with contiguous features. But there was one
exception Ц a warrior who now dismounted and followed behind the five who were
approaching us. He was a handsome, well formed man, whose trappings and weapons
were of excellent quality and design Ц the serviceable equipment of a fighting
man. His harness bore the insignia of a dwar, a rank comparable to that of
captain in your Earthly military organizations. At a command from him, the five
halted before reaching us; and he addressed us.
"You are Phundahlians?" he asked.
"We are from Helium," John Carter replied. "Our latest employment was there. We
are panthans."
"You are my prisoners. Throw down your arms."
The faintest of smiles touched the lips of The Warlord. "Come and take them," he
said. It was a challenge.
The other shrugged. "As you will. We outnumber you ten to one. We shall take
you, but we may kill you in the taking. I advise you to surrender."
"And you will be wise if you let us go our way, for we have no quarrel with you;
and if you pick one, we shall not die alone."
The dwar smiled an inscrutable smile. "As you will," he replied; and then he
turned to the five and said, "Take them!" But as they advanced upon us, he did
not come with them, but remained behind, quite contrary to the ethics which
determine the behavior of Martian officers. He should have led them, engaging us
himself and setting an example of courage to his men.
We whipped our longswords from their scabbards and met the five horrific
creatures, standing back to back as they circled us. The blade of The Warlord
wove a net of razor edged steel before him, while I did the best that I could to
defend my prince and uphold the honor of my metal; and I did well, for I am
accounted a great swordsman by John Carter himself, the greatest of all. Our
antagonists were no match for us. They could not pierce our guards, even though
they fought with an entire disregard of life, throwing themselves upon our
blades and coming in again for further punishment. And that was the
disheartening feature of the horrid encounter. Time and again I would run a
fellow through, only to have him back away until my blade was out of his body
and then come at me again. They seemed to suffer neither from shock nor pain and
to know no fear.
My blade severed the arm of one of them at the shoulder; and while another
engaged me, the fellow stooped and recovered his sword with his other hand and
tossed his severed arm to one side. John Carter decapitated one of his
antagonists; but the body ran around cutting and slashing in apparent
ungovernable fury until the dwar ordered several of his other warriors to
capture and disarm it, and all the while the head lay gibbering and grimacing in
the dust.
This was the first of our antagonists to be rendered permanently hors de combat,