READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
attack ships waited. Surrounding this fleet for miles were the
encampments of warriors and thoats, the reception and
clearance centers and the ammunition and weapons distributing
stations which typified the Warlord's vast preparations for
the major battle of the long and bloody Holy Wars—for the
great invasion of Tarnath.
Proud ships of Helium and its allied cities, such as Hastor,
were already taking on the burden of men and beasts in
preparation for the total aerial list of the fighting forces. Slave
conscripts and foreign volunteers alike mingled together.
Tall, proud warriors from distant Manator and Manatos, the
famed "Chessmen" of Barsoom with their gorgeous feathered
war helmets, rubbed elbows with the grim swordsmen of Gathol,
with yellow men from cold, remote Okar in the north,
who, alone of all Barsoomians wore black beards and carried
strange, formidable saucer shields and sword hooks, with
short, murderous javelins strapped to their backs. Towering
green men—volunteers from Warhoon and Torquas, from the
wild nation of the Thurds and from mighty Thark, itself, had
emerged from their ancient dead cities along the sea bottoms.
From Aaanthor and Xanator, from Horz and Korad, they had
swarmed, bringing their giant fighting thoats and vicious war
calots, their thirty foot lances and their deadly radium rifles.
Among these were even white-skinned Therns and blackskinned
First Born warriors. Men of all philosophies and
colors and shapes had arrived from the farthest reaches of the
planet, from the steaming shores of Toonol to the snow-clad
Artolian Hills, because they rode the opposing tide of doubt,
because they either suspected the Holy Alliance of duplicity
or sought revenge against those who had not fulfilled a
promised reward or position of authority.
In war, the barriers of tradition are shattered and new
barriers of hatred and suspicion are erected on new horizons
and the complexion of the world changes so that man becomes
disorientated and, resenting his own sense of instabil-
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