A moment later, Feric led his spearhead of tanks and motorcycles into this bloody gaping hole in the enemy flank. Once more the Helder tanks fired a massed barrage, now at point-blank range, and the entire wall of naked, hairy, sour-smelling flesh before Feric flew apart in a hail of dirt and meat, showering him with gore and filth as he gunned his motorcycle forward. Only now did the cannon of the Zind steam dreadnaughts open fire, lobbing a ragged barrage into the rear of the Helder column. Several score Helder machines were blasted apart by the explosions, but the precision of the SS formations never wavered for an instant.
As for the minions of Zind, the surprise, incredible Speed, and withering concentrated firepower of the Helder attack left them milling about in confusion and disarray.
The dreadnaughts continued to lob shells into the Helder ranks, and at this range even the filth that served the Dominators as gunners could hardly help dropping their loads on target, inflicting telling losses on the Helder troops. But whereas the formations of Warriors continued to march brainlessly toward Lumb and had yet to put up a coherent defense in the face of the rapid-fire Helder tank cannon, the SS shock troop retained its iron discipline in the face of the point-blank Zind barrage.
Feric led his spearhead force at breakneck speed into the path in the enemy ranks opened up by the artillery, leading his "men straight for the command dreadnaughts.
Finally, the Dominators controlling this section of the horde apparently recovered from their initial shock, for suddenly and with an eerie superhuman precision, thousands of the giant Warriors executed precise ninety-degree turns and ran at top speed straight into the face of the Helder tank barrage, swinging their massive truncheons 156
like enormous scythes. Wave after wave of the naked Warriors was blown to pieces, but so vast was the horde, so bottomless the Dom's supply of cannon fodder, that thousands upon thousands of the creatures fell upon the Helder forces from all directions, hurtling straight through the massed cannon and machine-gun fire by sheer force of numbers.
Peric suddenly found his advance barred by a solid line of ten-foot, massively muscled, filth-caked monstrosities, swinging huge rude truncheons through the air in apparently random strokes, red eyes blazing mindlessly and drool flecking their chins as they came at him at top speed on legs as thick as marble columns. Feric drew the Great Truncheon of Held and met them head-on, swinging the mystic weapon before him in great juggernaut sweeps.
A vast surge of power seemed to shoot down his right arm and fill his body with inexhaustible energy and superhuman strength. The Steel Commander was a feather in his hand, but his first blow hit with the force of an avalanche, smashing the tiny heads of six Warriors to bloody flinders and sending their bodies writhing in the dust, fountaming gore. He heard a great cheer go up behind him; fired to heroic fervor by the sight of this incredible feat, the SS motorcycle elite guard, led by Ludolf Best, plunged into the fray at the side of their Supreme Commander. Though heavily outnumbered, and by creatures twice their size to boot, the SS fanatics made up for it with speed and superhuman fire, falling upon the Warriors with their truncheons, crushing legs with the wheels of their motorcycles, keeping close to Feric's heels as he cut his way ever deeper into the heart of the Zind horde with the irresistible Steel Commander.
For his part, Feric continued to mow down the hairy sweat-soaked giants in great lots and bunches: smashing through a forest of legs and leaving the crippled howling creatures for the troops behind him to dispatch, then whirling around to pulp a score of the tiny expressionless Warrior faces with the steel fist headball of the Great Truncheon.
Even in this close-quarter combat, the Warriors of Zind showed little if any individual initiative. They simply pressed forward, rank after rank, swinging their truncheons at everything that moved; perhaps even their truncheon blows were automatic behavior rather than individually 157
aimed. As each Warrior fell, another in the solid press behind simply popped into the gap in the line, a replace-ment part in the great protoplasmic killing machine that was the Zind horde.
Thus the battle assumed an inevitable pattern. Led by Feric, the Holder column tore into the horde at speed, killing everything before it, but taking certain losses due to sheer attrition. For their part, the Dominators simply threw wave after wave of Warriors at the onrushing Helder, for their reserves seemed endless. The consequent slaughter of Warriors was so tremendous that the forward advance of the Helder strike force was limited chiefly by the tangle of smashed giant's corpses that lay strewn in its path.
