Back dropped the host of brandished arms,
threaded themselves into the parent bulk.
Right and left of us the spindle split into scores of
fissures. Between these fissures the Metal Things that made
up each now dissociate and shapeless mass geysered;
block and sphere and tetrahedron spike spun and
swirled. There was an instant of formlessness.
Then right and left of us stood scores of giant, grotesque
warriors. Their crests were fully fifty feet below
our living platform. They stood upon six immense,
columnar stilts. These sextuple legs supported a hundred
feet above their bases a huge and globular body formed
of clusters of the spheres. Out from each of these bodies
that were at one and the same time trunks and heads,
sprang half a score of colossal arms shaped like flails;
like spike-studded girders, Titanic battle maces, Cyclopean
sledges.
From legs and trunks and arms the tiny eyes of the
Metal Hordes flashed, exulting.
There came from them, from the Thing we rode as well,
a chorus of thin and eager wailings and pulsed through
all that battle-line, a jubilant throbbing.
Then with a rhythmic, JOCUND stride they leaped upon
the city.
Under the mallets of the smiting arms the inner battlements
fell as under the hammers of a thousand metal
Thors.
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