But the fellow may as well have tried to deflect a feeding banth from its prey, for the girl clung to her victim with all the tenacity of a predator. Her knife plunged again and again into the bloody mass that had been a head. The green man crumpled to the turf, the girl still on top of him.

That gave me all the opening I required to dispatch the other, after a brief crossing of swords.

I approached the naked woman with a friendly smile of greeting upon my lips. But I stopped short when she dropped to one knee and, with a quick cut, sliced the scalp from the head of her victim. When she looked up from the mutilated body, the expression upon her face was one of utter shock at the sight of me. It was as if she had seen a ghost. But the reaction was quickly shunted away, and she leaped to her feet, facing me with outstretched blade in one hand and the dripping green scalp in the other.

I raised a hand, to calm her. Then, slowly, I unbuckled my sword and tossed it softly at her feet. She never took her eyes from my own, ignoring the gesture.

Still watching me, she fastened the scalp to the thong at her hip. Blood trickled down her bare thigh.

"I am a friend," I said, pointing to the two savages I had killed in her service.

She snarled, flashing white teeth.

"I have no friends in this strange land that is so far from The World," she said, in an accent that was tinged with the voice of the green men. There was something else, something undefinable and utterly foreign in her quiet tones. I'd never heard an inflection quite like hers before.

"You do have a friend here," I said. "I, too, am far from home. Allow me the honor of serving you."

She looked intently at me, searching my face. I could see the hesitation, the caution, that consumed her. Her knife remained pointed at my breast.

"You almost look like a Human Being," she said at last. "And yet...you are no Human Being. Your skin has not quite the same hue, and your eyes seem distant — as do the pindah of all who dwell here. There are no Human Beings in this place. Only the Green Ones. They are even worse than the Men With Metal Heads."

As she crept backward, I assured her that I was quite human, which seemed an odd thing to have to do. As odd as the thought of a man with a metal head.

"What tribe?" she demanded. “You are not Be-don-ko-he or Cho-kon-en or Ned-ni You bear weapons similar to those of the Men With Metal Heads. And yet, you are not one of them, either.”

Her eyes pierced me, then. Her brow furrowed.

“What manner of man are you?” the girl asked.

“I am a Prince of Helium,” I replied.

Surely, anywhere upon Barsoom, that revelation would draw some response. But she gave no sign that it meant anything at all to her.

The girl stood there, more beautiful than any creature under the moons of Mars; and seemingly as savage as the savages who inhabit the sea bottoms. She cast a sly glance at the dead green men.

Then she turned, banth-like, and leaped into the woods with scarce a sound.

I hesitated a fraction of an instant, pausing only to retrieve my sword, then plunged into the darkness after her. It wasn’t just the fascination she held that drew me, but the suspicion that she may have information that could lead me home, to Helium. If nothing else, she might know a safe path out of this damnable wood.

I’d have sworn on my brother’s grave that I knew exactly the point at which she entered the jungle vegetation. The vines and creepers encircled the glade so thickly that I should have had little trouble picking up her trail. But search as I might, it was as if no one had passed this way in a year — much less a few moments before.

I found where the green men had been hiding prior to their attack on the girl. Their spoor was unmistakable by the light of Thuria and Cluros. Of the girl herself I could find no trace.

Nevertheless, I pushed forward in the general direction I knew she must have taken. If this was the “wraith” that Thuvan Dihn had said the Warhoons were seeking, perhaps she did have some mystical ability to conceal her whereabouts. Nor could I forget her uncanny leaps.

She had accused me of not being human. I began to wonder if it was she who was not of this world.

The girl certainly held a spell over me.

Though both of Barsoom’s moons were in the sky, their light barely penetrated the thick canopy above me. Strange creatures moved in this primeval forest. I could hear their breathing, and the brush of tawny limbs on bushes to left and right.

A scream rang out from directly ahead. There could be little doubt it was the girl. I practically threw myself forward in an effort to reach her side.

As I broke into another small glade, I saw her slender form in the grip of what I first took to be some gigantic carnivore that stood upright, clutching her in what appeared to be billowing arms.

I soon realized, however, that I was mistaken about the nature of her attacker. It was no creature of flesh and blood; rather, a sinuous man-eating plant that held her. Razor-like thorns reached toward her from a gaping maw at the top of a thick stalk. The girl struggled, but in vain.

I hastily swung at the carnivorous thing, hacking through woody limbs and pulpy vines that spewed syrupy liquid with every blow. A needle-like thistle pricked the girl in the chest, and she screamed again. As I continued my attack, the plant shuddered, its grip loosening. The girl was thrown clear. She reeled backward, and crumpled to the ground.

The plant, which seemed to come alive during my encounter with it, was now inert. It appeared as motionless as any tree. I knew not whether I had injured it, somehow, or if this was its natural state, to lure unsuspecting prey. With the girl free from its menace, I gave it no more thought.

I rushed to her side. Her wounds did not appear mortal. There was a nasty welt where the thistle had stuck her. I did my best to cleanse her wounds with a cloth, though I had no water to do a proper job. My medicinal balms were gone.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she looked up at me. The suspicion had begun to leave her, though I could see it still flitted below the surface.

“Maybe you are a Human Being,” she said weakly. “You fight like one.”

A soft, feminine smile disarmed me as I stooped to assist the girl to her feet.

"My Tats-ah-das-ay-go," she whispered, caressing my cheek. She seemed almost to pur, like a contented banth-cub. The sound intoxicated me.

That's when she slipped the dagger between my ribs.

I never did understand women.