The Chessmen of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs (best thriller novels of all time txt) 📗

they stand upon the board in the first row, from left to right of each player.

Warrior: two feathers; two spaces straight in any direction or combination.

Padwar: two feathers; two spaces diagonal in any direction or combination.

Dwar: three feathers; three spaces straight in any direction or combination.

Flier: three bladed propellor; three spaces diagonal in any direction or combination; and may jump intervening pieces.

Chief: Diadem with ten jewels; three spaces in any direction; straight or diagonal or combination.

Princess: Diadem with one jewel; same as Chief, except may jump intervening pieces.

Flier: See above.

Dwar: See above.

Padwar: See above.

Warrior: See above.

And in the second row from left to right:

Thoat: Mounted warrior two feathers; two spaces, one straight and one diagonal in any direction.

Panthans (Eight of them): one feather; one space, forward, side, or diagonal, but not backward.

Thoat: See above.

The game is played with twenty black pieces by one player and twenty orange by his opponent, and is presumed to have originally represented a battle between the Black race of the south and the Yellow race of the north. On Mars the board is usually arranged so that the Black pieces are played from the south and the Orange from the north.

The game is won when any piece is placed on same square with opponent’s Princess, or a Chief takes a Chief.

The game is drawn when either Chief is taken by a piece other than the opposing Chief, or when both sides are reduced to three pieces, or less, of equal value and the game is not won in the ensuing ten moves, five apiece.

The Princess may not move onto a threatened square, nor may she take an opposing piece. She is entitled to one ten-space move at any time during the game. This move is called “the escape.”

Two pieces may not occupy the same square except in the final move of a game where the Princess is taken.

When a player, moving properly and in order, places one of his pieces upon a square occupied by an opponent piece, the opponent piece is considered to have been killed and is removed from the game.

The moves explained. Straight moves mean due north, south, east, or west; diagonal moves mean northeast, southeast, southwest, or northwest. A Dwar might move straight north three spaces, or north one space and east two spaces, or any similar combination of straight moves, so long as he did not cross the same square twice in a single move. This example explains combination moves.

The first move may be decided in any way that is agreeable to both players; after the first game the winner of the preceding game moves first if he chooses, or may instruct his opponent to make the first move.

Gambling: The Martians gamble at Jetan in several ways. Of course the outcome of the game indicates to whom the main stake belongs; but they also put a price upon the head of each piece, according to its value, and for each piece that a player loses he pays its value to his opponent.

Endnotes

I have used the word “king” in describing the rulers or chiefs of the Bantoomian swarms, since the word itself is unpronounceable in English, nor does jed or jeddak of the red Martian tongue have quite the same meaning as the Bantoomian word, which has practically the same significance as the English word “queen” as applied to the leader of a swarm of bees. —⁠J. C. ↩

Soldier of Fortune; freelance warrior. ↩

Approximately 814 Earth Miles. ↩

Those who have read John Carter’s description of the Green Martians in A Princess of Mars will recall that these strange people could exist for considerable periods of time without food or water, and to a lesser degree is the same true of all Martians. ↩

About 8:30 p.m. Earth Time. ↩

About 1:00 a.m. Earth Time. ↩

Colophon

The Chessmen of Mars
was published in 1922 by
Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
An Anonymous Volunteer,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1998 by
Judy Boss
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
The Chessmen of Mars,
a painting completed in 1922 by
J. Allen St. John.
The cover and title pages feature the
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