Swiftly from each side of the gap a metal curtaining of the cubes joined.

Again the wall was whole.
I turned my stunned gaze from the City--swept over the valley.
Everywhere, in towers, in writhing coils, in whipping flails, in waves that smote and crashed, in countless forms and combinations the Metal Hordes battled.

Here were pillars against which metal billows rushed and were broken; there were metal comets that crashed high above the mad turmoil.
From streaming silent veil to veil--north and south, east and west the Monster slew itself beneath its racing, flaming banners, the tempests of its lightnings.
The tortured hulk of the City lurched; it swept toward us.

Before it blotted out from our eyes the Pit I saw that the crystal spans upon the river of jade were gone; that the wondrous jeweled ribbons of its banks were broken.
Closer came the reeling City.
I fumbled for my lenses, focussed them upon it.

Now I saw that where the radiant lances struck they--killed the blocks blackened under them, became lustreless; the sparkling of the tiny eyes--went out; the metal carapaces crumbled.
Closer to the City--came the Monster; shuddering I lowered the glasses that it might not seem so near.
Down dropped the bristling Shapes that wrestled with the squared Towers.
They rose again in a single monstrous wave that rushed to overwhelm them.