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hundred miles an hour over broken terrain, I understood their purpose: to be so difficult to hit that most
of them could work up to the very bombards of the foe.
However, these small cars hung back, 'covering the Wersgor infantry. The first line of actual attack
was the heavy-armored vehicles. These moved but slowly for a powered machine, no faster than a horse
could gallop. This was because of their size-big as a peasant's cottage-and the thick steel plating which
could withstand all but a direct shellburst. With bombards projecting from their turrets, with their roaring
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and dust, they were like unto dragons. I counted more than twenty: massive, impervious, grinding
forward on treads in a wide line. Where they had passed, grass and earth were smashed into stone-hard
ruts.
I am told that one of our gunners, who had learned how to use the wheeled cannon which threw
explosive shells, broke ranks and dashed for such a weapon. Sir Roger himself, now armed cap-a-pie,
rode up and knocked him asprawl with his lance. 'Hold on, there!" rapped the baron. "What're you
about?"
'To shoot, sire," gasped the soldier. "Let's fire at 'em ere they break over our wall and-"
"If I didn't think our good yew bows could deal with such overgrown snails, I'd have you priming yon
tube," said my lord. "But as it is, back to your pike!"
It had a salutary effect on the badly shaken spearmen, who stood with weapons grounded to receive
that frightful charge. Sir Roger saw no reason to explain that (judging from what had happened at
Stularax) he dared not use explosives at such short range, lest he destroy us, too. Of course, he should
have realized that the Wersgorix would have many kinds of shell of graded potency. But who can think of
everything at once?
As it was, the drivers of those moving fortresses must have been sorely puzzled that we did not fire
on them, and wondered what we held in reserve. They found out when the first war-wagon toppled into
one of our covered pits.
Two more were similarly trapped ere it was understood that these were no ordinary obstacles.
Surely the good saints had aided us. In our ignorance, we had dug holes broad and deep, which by
themselves would not have been escape-proof for such powerful vehicles. But then we added great
wooden stakes, almost by sheer habit, as if we expected to impale outsize horses. Some of these caught
in the treads which girdled the wheels, and erelong those wheels were jammed tight with wood pulp.
Another wagon evaded the pits, which were not continuous. It approached the breastworks. A
rapidfire gun spat from it, seeking the range, and stitched small craters along our earth wall. 'God send
the right!" roared Sir Brian Fitz-William. His horse spurted from our lines, closely followed by half a
dozen of the nearer cavalrymen. They galloped in a semicircle, just beyond reach of the gun. The vehicle
lumbered in pursuit, seeking to bring its smallest-bore cannon to bear. Sir Brian got it headed the way he
desired, winded his war-horn, and galloped back to shelter as the wagon plunged into a hole.
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The war-turtles drew back. In that long grass, and with our cunning camouflage, they had no way of
knowing where the other traps were. And these were the only such machines on all Tharixan, not to be
lightly hazarded. We English had trembled lest they continue. Only one would have had to get through to
wipe us out.
Even though his information about us, our powers, and our possible spaceborne reinforcements was
scanty, I think Huruga should have ordered the heavy wagons onward. Indeed, the Wersgor tactics were
deplorable in all respects. But remember that for a long time they had not fought seriously on the ground.
Their conquest of backward planets was a mere battue; their skirmishes with rival starfaring nations were
mostly aerial.
Thus Huruga, discouraged by our pits but heartened by our failure to use low-power sheilfire,
withdrew the great cars. Instead, he sent the infantry and the light vehicles against us. His idea was plainly
for them to find a path between our traps and mark it for the giant machines to follow.
The blue soldiers came at a run, scarcely visible through the tall grass, divided into little squads. I
myself, being placed far back, saw only the occasional flash of a helmet and the poles which they stuck
up here and there to mark a safe channel for the heavy wagons. Yet I knew they numbered many
thousands. My heart thudded within me, and my mouth longed for a beaker of ale.
Ahead of the soldiers came racing the light cars. A few of them went into pits and at such speeds
were horribly wrecked. But most sped in a straight line straight into the stakes we had planted in the
grass near our breastworks, in case of a cavalry charge.
So fast were they traveling, the cars were almost as vulnerable to such a defense as horses would be.
I saw one rise in the air, turn over, smash back to earth, and bounce twice ere it broke apart. I saw
another impale itself, spout liquid fuel, and burst into flame. I saw a third swerve, skid, and crash into a
fourth.
Several more, escaping the abatis, ran over the caltrops we had scattered around. The iron spikes
entered the soft rings encircling their wheels and were not to be gotten out. A car so injured could at best
limp feebly from the battle.
Commands in the harsh Wersgor tongue must have rattled over the far-speaker. The majority of the
open cars, still unscathed, ceased to mill about. They drew into a loose but orderly formation, and
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advanced at a walking pace.
Snap! went our catapults and crash! went our ballistic. Bolts, stones, and pots of burning oil hailed
atrociously among the advancing vehicles. Not many were thus disabled, but their line wavered and
slowed.
Then our cavalry charged.
A few of our horsemen died, caught in a storm of lead. But they had not far to gallop to reach the
enemy. Also, the grass fires started by our oil pots confused Wersgor vision with their heavy smoke. I
heard a clang and boom as lances burst against iron sides, then had no more chance to watch that
struggle. I know only that the lancers failed to disable any car with their shafts. However, it startled the
drivers so much that these often failed completely to defend themselves against what followed. Rearing
horses brought down hoofs, to crumple the thin steel plates; a few quick swipes of ax, mace, or sword
emptied a vehicle of its crew. Some of Sir Roger's men used handguns to good effect, or small round
shells which burst and scattered jagged fragments when thrown after a pin was released. The Wersgorix
had similar weapons, of course, but less determination to use them.
The last cars fled in terror, hotly pursued by the English riders. "Come back, there! bellowed Sir
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