This time he leaped to the opposite side, and again brought down his blade with all his strength. It bit deeply into the center of the skull—so deeply that he could not disengage it, and it was wrested from his hand. But apparently it had not found the tiny brain, for the monster whirled, and again charged him with the tulwar imbedded in its massive head.
His sole remaining weapons consisted of the kukrie and three javelins. He met the charge with one of the latter, thrusting for an eye as he made his agile side-leap. The point went true to the mark, but the slender shaft snapped off, leaving it in the bleeding eye socket. Then, instead of charging past him as it had previously done, the huge beast came to a stop, and turning, slashed at him with the long, curved horn on the bridge of its nose.
So sudden and surprizing was this change of tactics on the part of the monster, that Tam had no time to leap back. Dropping the broken javelin shaft, he grasped the horn with one hand, and the hilt of his imbedded tulwar with the other. Then the beast tossed him.
The horn slipped from his grasp, but the tulwar, wrenched from the grip of the bone in which it had been imbedded, came out in his hand as he was hurled up and over the beast's bristling back. He alighted sprawling, just behind the horned tail, and scrambled to his feet, tulwar in hand, expecting the creature to turn instantly and attack him once more.
But, to his surprize, he heard the thunderous tread of many beasts running, mingled with the clank of arms and the shouts of warriors. At first he thought the Saivas had followed, and at last discovered him, but as they charged down the hillside in rows, twenty abreast, he saw that these were no Saivas, though they bore considerable resemblance to them. Gigantic, and four-armed, their skins instead of being pasty white were bright red in color, And they bestrode black baluchitheriums. Like the Saivas, they couched long, triple-pointed lances, and Tam saw that they were charging, not at him, but at the homed monster which had just tossed him.
It was this charge which had distracted the attention of the beast from Tam. And toward the oncoming riders it now directed the fury which the pain of its wounds had incited. With lowered head it charged straight into the bristling line of lances.
There was a shattering of stout wooden shafts as the lance points struck but did not penetrate that armored body. Then, swinging its massive head to the right and left with the motions of a rooting boar, the beast tossed and slashed open such baluchitheriums as came within its reach. In less than a minute a half dozen of the giant pachyderms lay on the ground with their bodies ripped open. Two of them had pinned their riders so they could not rise, and Tam saw the homed horror snap off and swallow the head of one of these as a bird might pluck and swallow a cherry.
Belabored with maces and tulwars and prodded with tridents, the monster whirled, first to the right, then to the left, goring and often disemboweling the mounts of its enemies with deadly efficiency.