But the traitors had also been superbly trained -- by the same warlords as the three who were loyal. The display of swordsmanship that ensued would have drawn cheers from the throats of thousands, had thousands been there to witness it.

Love and loyalty might have been enough to bring victory to the Jeddak's faithful guards. But they had more than that -- there were Shis-Inday, Bal Zak and myself.

Two traitors were quickly dispatched; the third escaped through a hidden panel that none of us could re-open once it slammed shut behind him.

"Knife and awl!" cursed Shis-Inday, hurling her great strength against the immobile door.

"He'll make his way to Hora San," I said. "We're no longer safe here. If ever we were."

"We must know their plans!" insisted Moros Tar. "By the knee of Issus, I'll not sacrifice Helium because of some disparity in numbers."

"Disparity in numbers!" cried Bal Zak. "You men of Helium have a strange mathematics. It is four against a city!"

The Toonolian suggested we steal a flier, adjusting the mechanism in a way he knew that would improve the sluggish Phundahlian craft. We could return with reinforcements in a matter of days.

Neither Moros Tar nor I favored that plan, for who could know whether days were available to spare? But Shis-Inday counseled that there was wisdom in it.

Reluctantly, the Jeddak and his son were persuaded -- by two outsiders -- the best way to protect the Empire.

"No," the Tonoolian answered. "Ras Thavas may be an eccentric master, but I've served him my entire life. I suspect that I always will."

"Such loyalty makes you even more valuable," said the Jeddak. He was thinking, no doubt, of the three who'd betrayed him.

Moros Tar spoke no more of it, however. To those with honor, a Barsoomian's oath is more sacred than his life. And the number of those with honor is greater by millions than those without it.

That Bal Zak had thrown his sword at the feet of a mad scientist made the act no less significant. Any fealty to Xax and Hora San, by extension, had been broken by Bal Zak's sentence of death.

Shis-Inday leaned far over the side of our speeding craft, marveling at the new sensation of flight.

"The spirit of Black Wind must be a powerful ally among your people," she said. "He carries you upon his shoulders!"

"It's no ghost that lifts us," muttered Bal Zak. "Though I'll wager the Phundahlians who built this crate have long since gone to meet their ancestors."

"How long till we reach your camp?" Shis-Inday asked.

I'd never heard Helium referred to as a "camp," with all her millions. Smiling, I was about to answer, when the princess disappeared.

"Hair of Issus!" shouted Moros Tar, leaping to his feet. "She fell!"

Bal Zak, who manned the controls, needed no command from either the Jeddak or myself to plunge our ship in a mad descent toward the surface of Barsoom.

But we three knew it was a meaningless gesture. The Jasoomian girl's life upon our planet had ended as anonymously as it began. I felt sorrow and loss well within me, and I grieved for this unknown savage from another world. I sank to my knees, stunned by the loss.

I'd seen countless other lives senselessly snuffed out -- including my own brother and mother. Why did this girl's death affect me so profoundly? I barely knew her.

The answer came with the words I spoke after a faint cry for help rose from below our ship.

"Hold, my princess!" I shouted, staring over the gunwale at the dangling form of Shis-Inday. She clutched in one hand a rope that trailed in the wind, straining with with her great Jasoomian strength against the gravity that sought to drag her downward.

With Shis-Inday hanging by so slender a tether to life, I did not have time to think about the import of those words: "My princess."

I leapt to the rail, fastening a grappling hook to it, and began the perilous descent to Shis-Inday's side. Before I reached her, our craft was near enough the ground that she could drop lightly to the spongy floor of the Great Tonoolian Marsh.

I joined her, crushing her to me in an embrace that was more like that of a father than lover -- proper, for two who were not betrothed. She nestled contentedly.

"Raven nearly caught me," she said, as defiant as she'd been before Tur. "But Usen prevented it. Perhaps another day Old Man Death will win. But not this day."

Despite the brave words, I felt her tremble.

Then she stiffened, and a low growl of warning escaped her lips. Her dagger flashed from its sheath.

Hundreds of the Gooli lunatics surrounded us.

Perhaps it was Raven's day after all.

Shis-Inday was annoyed by the positions my father and I had taken on either side of her. Though we'd both seen her fight, and thus knew her to be entirely capable, it was difficult to undue a lifetime of protective instinct toward the fairer sex.

Bal Zak had been tinkering with the controls of the flier when the lunatics appeared. That he was unaware of their presence seemed evident by the loud curses coming from his direction.

"Foul workmanship!" he shouted over the side, amidst clanking metal. "Twisted drive shaft! The ship was unequal to the dive."

The lunatics were readying themselves for a mad charge when Bal Zak stuck his head up over the gunwale. The effect was electric.

"Ho!" cried the padwar of Ras Thavas. "Back, you unwashed pouch-breeders!"

They obeyed.

"You just have to hit 'em with the right voice," Bal Zak called to us. "The mastermind can do it in his sleep. I'm not bad at it, though."

For added emphasis, he pulled on the booming air-horn of the flier. The squeal sent our would-be attackers scurrying.

"Marsupials -- can you believe it?" Bal Zak said, climbing to the ground. "Why Ras Thavas wanted to breed human marsupials, I'll never know. The idea itself is as insane as they are. But if he's not cross-breeding species, he's growing a new one in some reeking vat. Or hacking out a brain and...doing things to it. That one is never content with Nature's plan."

Moros Tar looked at Shis-Inday.

"Your fall saved us a long journey," he said.

"Nevertheless," she answered, "I, too, feel like a fool."

We forced the door to the locked shed in Gooli where Ras Thavas kept his wireless. Soon, instructions had been delivered for a fleet of warships to meet us. The jedwar we contacted seemed confused, but as both Moros Tar and myself provided our personal codes, he obeyed without question.

Later, Shis-Inday and I scouted the forest around Gooli. I worried that we'd been followed from Phundahl, and wanted to assure myself otherwise.

We paddled across the lake, from the island of Ompt to the mainland. Over the course of millenia, the Great Toonolian Marsh had alternated between watery swamp and jungle-like forest. During the time of which I speak, the waters had receded to a few scattered lakes and small creeks, seeping into the ground to permit the nearly riotous growth that surrounded Shis-Inday and me.

I marveled at the girl's woodcraft. She saw signs in the tangled vegetation that were invisible to me. None of them hinted at pursuit, she told me.

Feeling confident that we were secure, I was about to turn back to camp when Shis-Inday laid a hand upon my shoulder. Without words, she nodded toward the open sea bottom that lay beyond the edge of the Great Marsh.

"Green men," I said, cursing. "Thousands of them." Two great hordes were converging upon us -- no doubt from Thark and Warhoon.

Possibly they hunted Shis-Inday. Or it might have been a continuation of the war that began with the destruction of Thark hatchlings at the incubator.

Whatever the cause, it heralded no good for us.

Then, over the rim of the horizon, a monumental battle fleet appreared. I knew that it could not be from Helium, as sufficient time hadn't yet passed for the arrival of Moros Tar's Navy. When the flagship approached close enough for me to make out its lines, I recognized the design of Ptarthian craftsmen.

Shis-Inday pointed in the opposite direction. Another fleet was massing on that horizon.

Whatever scheme had been hatched by Hora San, it now seemed ready to play out. The opposing fleet was from Phundahl.

Would the two meet in battle?

Or were they joining forces, as allies?