Under the Moons of Mars Read Online Free

allowed myself to fall into it. I might have defended myself adequately with my sword, but I had been so engaged with the one warrior, I had not expected the others. I thought of Dejah Thoris, and wondered if I would ever see her again. Then that thought passed. I would have it no other way. All that mattered was I was alive. As long as I was alive, there was hope.
“I still live,” I said to the heavens, and it startled my wardens enough that they stumbled, nearly dropping me.
    We traveled like this for days, and the only time I was released was to be watered and fed some unidentifiable gruel and to make my toilet. Unarmed or not, I might have made a good fight had the blow to my head not been so severe. Fact was, I welcomed the moment when I was tied down again and carried. Standing up for too long made me dizzy and my head felt as if a herd of thoats were riding at full gallop across it.
    I will dispense with the details of the days it took us to arrive at our destination, but to sum it up, we kept slowly descending into the valley, and as we did the vegetation became thicker and more unique.
    During the day we camped, and began our travels just before night. I never saw my captors lie down and sleep, but as morning came they would check to make sure I was well secured. Then they would sit near the scale on which I was bound, and rest, though I never thought of them as tired in the normal manner, but more worn-down as if they were short on fuel. For that matter, I never saw them eat or drink water. After several hours, they seemed to have built up the steam that was inside their armor, for it began to puff more vigorously, and the steam itself became white as snowfall. I tried speaking to them a few times, but it was useless. I might as well have been speaking to a Yankee politician for all the attention they paid.
    After a few days, the valley changed. There was a great overhang of rock, and beneath the overhang were shadows so thick you could have shaved chunks out of them with a sword. Into the shadows we went. My captors, with their catlike vision, or batlike radar, were easily capable of traversing the path that was unseen to me. Even time didn’t allow my eyes to adjust. I could hear their armored feet on the trail, the hiss of steam that came from their bodies. I could feel the warmth of that steam in the air. I could tell that the trail was slanting, but as for sight, there was only darkness.
It seemed that we went like that for days, but there was no way to measure or even estimate time. Finally the shadows softened and we were inside a cavern that linked to other caverns, like vast rooms in the house of a god. It was lit up by illumination that came from a yellow moss that grew along the walls and coated the high rocky ceilings from which dangled stalactites. The light was soft and constant; a golden mist.
    If that wasn’t surprising enough, there was running water; something as rare on Mars as common sense is to all the creatures of the universe. It ran in creeks throughout the cavern and there was thick brush near the water and short, twisted, but vibrant trees flushed with green leaves. It was evident that the moss not only provided a kind of light, but other essentials to life, same as the sun. There was a cool wind lightly blowing and the leaves on the trees shook gently and made a sound like someone walking on crumpled paper.
    Eventually, we came to our destination, and when we did I was lifted upright, like an insect pinned to a board, and carried that way by the two warriors gripping the back of the scale. The others followed. Then I saw something that made my eyes nearly pop from my head.
    It was a city of rising gold spires and clockwork machines that caused ramps to run from one building to another. The ramps moved and switched to new locations with amazing timing; it all came about with clicking and clucking sounds of metal snapping together, unseen machinery winding and twisting and puffing out