Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/77

 Ethan cried. "Can you draw them all through, Kim Idim?"

"I think so," panted the old man, his forehead damp, his hands trembling as he touched the knobs.

A fierce, wolfish yell from scores of throats crashed on Ethan's ears. The advancing body of Luunians had seen their quarry on the hillock. They came on in a gallop.

"Dios, they'll ride right up over us!" yelled Pedro Lopez. "They'll"

"Look!" screamed Ptah. "In the name of Osiris, look!"

Kim Idim had, a moment before, shut a switch. And instantly, the incredible had taken place.

A Roman legion of four thousand men had suddenly materialized out there on the empty plain.

For a moment, Ethan and his comrades were as stupefied as the Luunians who had stopped in their charge and were staring petrifiedly at the suddenly-materialized legion.

"You've done it, Kim Idim!" Ethan shouted hoarsely.

"Others—other armies of the dead ages," Kim Idim was panting as he reset his controls. "I'll get them"

The Roman soldiers out on the plain for a long minute stared about them, utterly bewildered by their sudden swift transition from their own world into this, to them, alien one. A babel of cries arose from the legionnaries.

But the confusion of the Romans lasted only briefly. Their officers had glimpsed the mounted Luunians near by. And Ethan and his companions heard the officers bark rapid orders in staccato Latin.

Romans responded quickly. The long column in which they had been formed changed shape smoothly and swiftly, its maniples shifting like cogs of a machine, the knights or mounted men moving out in a screen toward the Luunians, the solid mass of footmen forming up into three divisins [sic] facing their potential enemy.

"Sangre de Cristo, that's discipline!" shouted Pedro Lopez.

"Keep at it, Kim Idim!" cried Hank Martin, hopping in excitement. "We'll need plenty more men."

The switch of the projector clicked shut again. A second body of men appeared like magic on the plain, some distance beyond the Roman legion. These were a thousand unmounted men, black-bearded soldiers in peaked metal caps and kirtle-like skirts, bearing tall shields and long, heavy spears. Stunned for a moment, these newcomers began milling about in wild confusion.

"Assyrian spearmen!" yelled Ptah. "I've fought with those devils, more than once."

"Haw! Haw! Look at them Luunians pullin' out!" exulted the trapper.

The two hundred Luunian horsemen, petrified by the appearance of the Roman legion, had come to life with cries of terror as the Assyrian spear-men materialized. They had wheeled, were riding in a wild gallop back toward their city.

Kim Idim, trembling as though appalled by the supernatural audacity of what he was doing, was working like a madman with the projector controls. Every few minutes he slammed the switch shut—and each time, Ethan and his comrades saw a new host materialize suddenly on the plain. A band of Spartan warriors, stocky men in heavy armor who looked stupidly but fearlessly about them, had appeared after the Assyrians. And close after them came into being a force of a few hundred huge blond men in