Into the afternoon and through the night, the Helder army barreled through Zind without meeting any serious opposition. The Zind horde assigned to defend this area was a bloody pulp far to the rear, in countryside now thoroughly pacified by the advancing Helder infantry. In effect, the border of Heldon was now the prow of Feric's tank as it thrust into the territory of Zind at forty miles an hour.
Scout planes had reported that there was nothing of significance between the Helder army and the great Zind horde a hundred miles to the north, which even now had wheeled about and was moving south to greet the con-querors along a wide front. Feric estimated that the great battle would commence shortly after daybreak, about four hundred miles inside Zind and five hundred from Bora; at dawn, he would pivot his army to the north to meet the Zind counterattack.
To the north, wave after wave of Helder dreadnaughts 203
pounded the advancing Zind horde. The pilots had reported that this gargantuan force outnumbered even the huge Holder army by almost ten to one. Although the Helder planes had blasted every last Zind aerial dreadnaught from the sky and ranged over the forces of Zind at will, vast formations of the mutated flyers hovered over the horde like swarms of huge venomous insects. In addition to the usual Warriors, war-wagons, and dreadnaughts, the scout planes had spotted several hundred tanks, Puller-drawn artillery, and vast troops of Warriors who seemed somehow different from the usual variety. Truly, the hosts of Zind were on the move in unprecedented force; upon the coming battle would hinge the future of the world for all time.
The first rays of dawn illumined a ghastly landscape.
Here nothing grew but scraggly and putrescent patches of radiation jungle. Huge ponds had been dug in the unyield-ing, contaminated earth; these were choked with slimy gray-green scum which no doubt was processed for slave fodder. The reek of these algae pools was overpowering, indistinguishable from that of open cesspools. Among these ponds were scattered rude wooden corrals which confined a revolting assortment of genetically twisted livestock: bloated legless swine wriggling about in the muck like giant pallid worms, six-legged cattle with tiny vestigial heads and cloacae from which dribbled green-brown ooze, hairless purple goats that trailed gross blue udders in the mud, chickens with a syrupy coating of viscous green mucous in lieu of feathers.
The slaves tending this perverted travesty of farmland more than fit their surroundings; a more revolting collection of mutants it had never been Feric's misfortune to see. Here such as Parrotfaces, Toadmen, and dwarfs stood out as paragons of genetic virtue! Skinless creatures covered with red ooze through which bluish blood vessels could be seen pulsing were a common sight as were green bipeds with empty insect-eyes and arms ending in clusters of tentacles. Warted, frog-skinned mutants with flapping rubbery lips abounded as well as perambulating mounds of wiry black hair through which naught was visible save flaming red eyes and lipless drooling mouths.
Despite the importance of time, Feric slowed the Helder advance in order to assure that every last one of these abominations was blasted to bits, burned, or mashed 204
beneath the treads of the tanks and every putrid scum-pond blown sky-high with purifying explosives.
Only when his tank had left this ghastly farmland and entered a rolling plain of lifeless gray desolation, did Feric feel clean again. "I can scarcely believe that such horrors exist even in Zind," he said to Best. "How do the Dominators stand themselves?"
Best's face was pale, his lips trembling. "I can't imagine, my Commander," he said grimly. "My very cells cry out in nausea at such a sight."
"Enough!" Feric said. "Let's put an end to this filth once and for all. Head due north. Best! It's time to confront the putrescence of Zind with the full might of the Helder army!"
Soon the northern horizon glowed with orange flame along a wide front, and an immense pall of dust and dense black smoke hung over the dead gray hills like a monster thunderhead, replete with the flickering lightnings of the falling bombs. No doubt the Zind horde had spotted the dust cloud of the approaching Helder army—the two mighty juggernauts were at last within sight of each other.
As the wall of Helder armor hurtled toward the onrushing Zind horde, a spotter plane continuously broadcast updated coordinates, and the earth shook with the rumble of the tank cannon as wave after wave of high-explosive shells ripped through the leaden sky to smash the enemy.
