He therefore drew the Great Truncheon of Held and signaled with it to his troops. The lead square of tanks fell back, then the tanks supporting the spearhead of elite motorcycle SS, so that the vanguard of the strike force behind Feric and Best was now composed entirely of black motorcycles reddened with gore, driven by the most heroic specimens of true humanity, their scarlet cloaks streaming in the wind of passage, their faces visages of fanatic determination, their truncheons drawn. This band of heroes would cut a path through the monstrosities on the bridge with naked steel and iron determination, Howling a battle cry, Feric led this solid phalanx of SS
men straight into the herd of grunting, drooling, rioting giants clogging the entrance to the bridge. With a swipe of the Steel Commander, he decapitated a slavering, red-eyed Warrior, finishing the mighty stroke by smashing right through the barrel-like thighs of two more of the creatures, who fell in agony in an ocean of their own blood.
At his side. Best beat a huge Warrior to its knees with a rapid series of truncheon blows, then dispatched the creature with a swipe that broke its spine. All around, the SS
men layed out scores of the creatures with fire and precision; scarcely a truncheon blow was aimed that did not hit its mark with telling effect.
The SS troop fought its way through the melee, slaying hundreds of the foul creatures and finally throwing the rest into a terrorized panic, so that howling, slavering giants ran madly from the fray in all directions, scattering out of the path of the Helder troops, and clearing the way for Feric and his men to fall upon the rear of the marching formation on the bridge itself.
Before the Dominator on the war-wagon could begin the clumsy maneuver of turning his troops about in this confined space, Feric himself had already attacked the exposed backs of, a score of Warriors, smashing their heads open with the Steel Commander, while the SS, their battle fervor raised to fever pitch by the sight of their leader's heroic efforts, pulped heads, crushed legs, and otherwise dispatched hundreds of the creatures, clearing the first fifty yards of the bridge and allowing the vanguard of tanks and motorcycles behind the spearhead to enter upon it.
By the time the Warrior formation had been turned to 162
confront the onrushing Helder, Feric and his men had fought their way nearly to the great creaking wooden wheels of the war-wagon. A great wall of Warriors pressed literally shoulder to shoulder barred further advance with a deadly threshing machine of giant truncheons. With a final sweep of the Great Truncheon, Peric lopped the arms off a dozen of the creatures, sending their truncheons flying, and their tiny drooling mouths to shrieking.
He then drew his submachine gun and fired a long burst at the mutants atop the flatbed of the war-wagon; from this vantage, it was impossible to tell which was the Dom, so all must be speedily slain. Six of the Zind soldiers were instantly ripped apart by Feric's blast; then Best opened up, and all around him the SS men hammered away at the creatures atop the war-wagon with their blazing submachine guns.
After only a few moments of this withering fire, the last denizen of the war-wagon was a riddled corpse, and chaos overtook the Zind slaves on the bridge. The huge, nearly armless Pullers drawing the war-wagon vented great howls into the air and began running in diverse directions still leashed to the battle cart, which began to totter and weave as it was yanked every which way at once. As for the remaining Warriors on the bridge, they were thrown into the same crazed state as their fellows east of the Roul, thrashing about in all directions, smashing at each other, grunting, urinating, heaving, and shoving their fellows and themselves off the bridge and into the carnage-filled river.
It was child's play for Feric and his men to hack their way through this twitching mass of effectively decapitated muscle; the task was made that much easier when the bulk of the Pullers suddenly chanced to run in the same direction, dragging the war-wagon and themselves over the edge of the bridge and down into the depths of the Roul with a gigantic splash. The great sound alone seemed to add to the panic, and scores of Warriors actually leapt off the bridge into the river, where their rudimentary brains proved quite unequal to the task of swimming.
Led by Feric and his SS elite guard, the Helder column brushed aside all residual opposition and roared across the bridge to join the climactic battle on the west bank of the Roul. Five tanks were the last to cross, and when their treads were firmly on the soil of the west bank, they swiveled their turrets to the rear, and with three quick 163
barrages blew the bridge to bits, stranding the decimated rear half of the Zind horde behind the wide watery barrier of the river.
