The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (16 page)

This made good sense to the dull-witted Uruk, so the High Chief passed his grunting commands along and soon the battle began again upon that level plain under the eternal day.

“We cannot maintain this rate of expenditure,” said Tharn to his chieftains. “The Drugars vastly outnumber us, and we have no way to replenish our arrows, once the supply we brought hither from Thandar has been exhausted.”

“What do you suggest, my Omad?” asked Goran, one of the chieftains. “Should we break ranks and attack the Drugars in hand-to-hand combat?”

“That were suicidal,” pointed out another of the chieftains, one Dumah. “For they are weightier than we, and mightier of limb. Still and all, it may be the only way to victory…”

Thus far in the battle, the warriors of Thandar had lost only a few lives, while inflicting heavy losses upon the Apemen of Kor. And Tharn was reluctant to waste his strength against the shambling horde.

“We shall see what happens,” he growled. “After the next charge…and here they come!”

* * * *

Hurok and I had fought beside the warriors of Thandar, and each of us had inflicted losses upon the enemy. I have no way of knowing what thoughts passed through the mind of my massive friend as he battled against his former compatriots, but I can imagine the emotions that stirred in his breast.

As for myself, I did not bother to waste the few bullets which remained to me, but employed a longbow I had taken from one of the slain Cro-Magnons. The weapon was cruder than those I had heretofore used in idle sport, but the skills I had learned in former days stood me well in the battle against the Neanderthals. More than one shaft loosed from my bow sank to the feather in the hairy breasts of a subhuman primitive.

When the next charge struck, it became instantly obvious to us all that Uruk was gambling his entire strength upon the chance of overwhelming our force. For he himself led the charge: too wary to expose himself to our bows, he had waited until our arrows were all but exhausted, before charging roaring in the vanguard, hoping to reap the victory.

And in truth we were almost out of arrows, and as for the spearsmen, their supply of javelins were very nearly depleted. And thus the defense disintegrated into a melee, as it became a hand-to-hand battle, with every man for himself.

And now the primitive Neanderthals had
us
at the disadvantage, for when it came to hand-to-hand battle, they were larger and stronger and very much heavier than we.

Amid the melee, I noticed a sudden trembling of the earth beneath our feet. I was swinging a stone axe in the very teeth of one of the Apemen, at the time. Splitting his ugly face in half and wrenching the stone blade of the axe free, I turned as the earth shook—

To see a fearsome sight!

I seized Tharn by the shoulder, as we fought side by side.

“Break and run for the trees!” I yelled in his ear. He stared uncomprehendingly, then followed the direction of my gaze and blanched.

Bellowing his command, he broke and ran for shelter, as did most of the well-disciplined Cro-Magnon warriors.

The Neanderthals, their blood-lust roused by now, paid little attention, continuing to fight as long as a Thandarian stood before them to be slain. But when the line of defenders melted away in all directions, they turned bewilderedly.

“They flee!” howled Uruk, triumphantly. “We have won!”

As it happened, he stood directly in my path, the High Chief of the Apemen of Kor. And as I ran for shelter, he spied me and his little eyes gleamed. Leaping into my path, he attempted to brain me with one swing of his apelike arms.

I was, at the moment, unarmed, my spear having broken off short in the burly chest of the last Neanderthal I had slain and my arrows expended. But the automatic which Hurok had restored to me was still thrust within the waistband of my tattered shorts, and my hand went instinctively to the butt of the pistol as the immense form of Uruk loomed up before me, glee and blood-lust burning in his little eyes.

Then his gaze fell to the object in my fist, and his expression faltered. He recognized it from One-Eye’s description as the terrible, thunder-weapon. Sudden fear distorted big ugly visage, and he sought to hurl himself upon me before I could employ its magic against him.

I put a bullet through his brain.

The explosion seemed oddly loud-deafening! Arrested by the sudden noise, the Apemen paused, faltering. They wrinkled up their nostrils at the sharp, bitter, unfamiliar stench of gunpowder.

Uruk fell at my very feet as if struck down by some invisible force. Puzzled, his warriors looked him over, but their dim little eyes were not keen enough to discern the small, black-rimmed bullet-hole between his eyes. It must have seemed to the ghost-ridden and superstitious minds of the primitives that their mighty Chief had been felled by the force of magic!

Howling, they sprang away from me, clearing my path, and I seized the opportunity to sprint for the shelter of the trees, while the hulking savages milled in confusion, their dull wits striving to ascertain what had felled their leader.

Now One-Eye leaped forward, snatched the fang necklace of the High Chief from about the thick, hairy throat of the carcass and clasped it about his own neck. The others blinked at him, dully.

“The panjani flee!” he yowled, spreading wide his heavy, ape-like arms, brandishing his stone axe. “Fall upon them now, brave men of Kor, and slay them all!”

But still the earth shook and there sounded from the midst of the plain a drumming as of distant thunder coming near and nearer. One-Eye growled and cast a suspicious glance out into the flat land.

And at what he saw there, his face turned pale as milk beneath its coating of dirt and pelt of russet fur—!

CHAPTER 23

THUNDERING DOOM!

Blinking with dazed relief in the sudden brilliance of day, Darya emerged from a cleft in the rock at the further side of the Peaks of Peril, gazing about her tremulously.

The cavern had indeed bisected the bulk of the mountain, and now the jungle girl stepped forth into the clean air and warm daylight, thankful to have escaped from the monsters of the mountain peaks.

She was weary and hungry and dirty and dishevelled, but she was also unharmed. Before her stretched a narrow strip of beach washed by the salty waves of the Sogar-Jad. A small stream of fresh water wound its way down the slope to mingle with the sea, and it was fringed on either side with dense bushes.

Glimpsing the gurgling little brook, the Cro-Magnon girl was suddenly mindful of her sorry condition.

Dried blood from the carcass of the uld she had slain covered her back and shoulders, and her hands and arms and legs were filthy from crawling through black, noisome caves.

She paused and looked about her at the sloping ground, the narrow stretch of sandy beach, and the misty waters of the Sogar-Jad, which could be glimpsed shining through the interstices of the tall, fronded calamites which rose beside the prehistoric sea. Nowhere in view did the girl discern the slightest sign of animal or of human life, nor did aught her keen senses could detect suggest to her the presence of danger.

With a small sigh of relief, the weary girl unfastened her abbreviated garments of soiled, bedraggled fur, and cast them aside. For a moment she stood slim and naked at the edge of the little stream. Then she stepped daintily into the gurgling waters, waded out to the middle, and began to wash her beautiful young body.

The cold, pure water stung the many small cuts and abrasions on her arms, legs and knees, got from climbing through the stony caverns in the heart of the mountain. She splashed the chill water on her perfect breasts and scrubbed the dust and filth from her smooth thighs, sleek rounded calves and supple flanks, using handfulls of sand from the river-bottom in lieu of soap to scrub the stain of travel from her glowing flesh.

The icy wetness of her bath revived the flagging spirits of the Cro-Magnon princess and refreshed her weary and aching limbs. Floating on her back, she relaxed blissfully, enjoying her respite from exertion and danger.

That it might be only a momentary respite did not escape her thoughts; alas, it was to be even more brief than she could have guessed.…

* * * *

As she relaxed, letting the cold waters of the gurgling stream lave! and refresh her naked limbs, the young Cro-Magnon girl permitted her mind to drift back over the adventures and perils where-through she had so recently passed.

She wondered what had become of Jorn the Hunter and of the querulous, waspish old man from the Upper World…and her thoughts dwelt for a time on his tall, strong comrade with the crisp black hair and clear and steady gray eyes…did Eric Carstairs yet live, or had he succumbed to one or another of the numberless monsters of Zanthodon?

She rather hoped that somehow he had survived the many hazards of the wilderness…although it did not seem likely to her that she should ever set eyes upon him again.

Busied with her memories, letting the gushing river water drain the weariness and aching fatigue from her lithe young body, the girl dreamed lazily there, unmindful of the sharp, gloating eyes that lingered on her naked legs, sleek thighs and perfect young breasts.

From the concealment of the bushes which fringed the edges of the stream, a tall and curiously clad form crouched, staring at Darya through the leaves as she innocently bared her nude beauty amid the clear water.

The first sign she had that she was not alone came as swarthy hands clutched her bare shoulder and she turned to stare up into a cruel, grinning, bearded face.

And she screamed—

* * * *

As One-Eye turned to seek the source of that peculiar drumming thunder which caused the earth to shake, fear suddenly smote him to the heart and the power of speech deserted his frozen tongue.

The stone axe he had clenched in his hairy hand now dropped from his suddenly nerveless fingers as the Apeman flinched in unholy terror from that which he saw bearing down upon him upon the plain.

A long, moving mass of dark, lumbering forms, veiled in rising dust, with the scarlet of crackling flames behind them, goading them on!

Like moving mountains they were, like walking hills of dark russet fur, their sail-like ears flapping, trunks lifted to give voice to shrill squeals of sheer panic, and the daylight gleamed dimly on their fantastic, curling tusks.

His tongue frozen with shock, all One-Eye could do to warn his fellows was to extend one trembling arm and point with numb and shaking fingers.

But from their secure niche behind the trees, Xask and Fumio saw his gesture. They had lurked here in safety, permitting the Drugars to charge the warriors of Thandar…and now they were doubly glad they had not ventured forth from the security of the jungle’s edge.

By this time, all of the Cro-Magnon warriors had reached the safety of the woods, and there were none left upon the shallow little sandy knoll but the dead and some two score or more of the victorious Drugars of Kor who had survived this Stone Age version of Custer’s Last Stand. Demoralized by the inexplicable death of their High Chief, confused by the sudden flight of their enemies, the hulking Neanderthal men milled about, and only a few saw what the speechless OneEye was pointing at.

They turned to stare…and froze with utter horror!

The enormous herd of giant wooly mammoths which Jorn and the Professor had panicked into a stampede had traversed the plain, and were coming down like thunder upon the Apemen who stood, transfixed by fear, directly in the path of the maddened brutes.

It is to be doubted if the lumbering pachyderms even noticed the Neanderthal men who occupied the place wherethrough they desired to pass. If the small eyes of the mammoths did take notice, they cared little: for the fire was at their heels, its bitter, acrid smoke stinging their eyes and nostrils, and the fear of fire whelmed all other considerations from their maddened brains.

One-Eye uttered a shrill screech of terror, threw up his arms and vanished in a whirling cloud of dust as the first of the stampeding mammoths came thundering into the mob of confused, squalling Apemen.

Immense, padded feet drumming like thunder, shaking the earth, the stampede passed through and over the crowd of warriors, trampling them into the gore-drenched dust.

Only the barrier of the trees turned the stampede aside. For the great boles were set too thickly together for even the lumbering juggernauts to crush them down.

Within minutes, the herd had passed, leaving gory ruin behind where had stood the victorious Drugars of Kor. The mammoths dwindled in the distance, slowing their frenzied pace as the smoke left their nostrils. Slowing to a shuffle, the huge bulls ambled out into the plains again, guarding the females and the young.

A sudden drizzle soaked through the trees-one of those frequent, brief cloudbursts which arise so swiftly in the humid air and cloudy skies of Zanthodon.

The warm rain sluiced the earth, saturating the trampled grasses. The coals of the racing grassfire died to hissing embers.

The fire was over; and so was the invasion from Kor.

Lurking in the trees, Xask and Fumio exchanged a long glance.

“Let us begone from this place,” suggested the former vizier of Kor.

“A good idea,” agreed Fumio. “But where shall we go?”

“Anywhere else but here,” whispered Xask with an eloquent glance at the middle distance, where the warriors of Thandar were emerging from the underbrush to search for survivors and for unbroken weapons wherewith to arm themselves.

* * * *

A while later, having retrieved those of the arrows and spears which had remained unbroken when the trampling feet of the herd had driven them deep into the soft, spongy soil of the knoll, the warriors of Thandar entered the jungle again and sought a suitable place to make their camp and consider what next they should do.

When the last of the Cro-Magnons had vanished into the jungle, loose dirt heaved, and a filthy shape lurched into view, gasping for air but thankful to be alive.

It was none other than One-Eye! Somehow, miraculously, the Drugar chieftain had evaded the crushing feet of the trampling pachyderms by wedging his hairy body into a small gully. Later, when the hated Cro-Magnons had come to retrieve those of their weapons which had survived unbroken, the fearful Apeman had feigned death. Among so many broken, crushed corpses, the Thandarians may perchance be forgiven for overlooking one which yet lived.

Peering fearfully about, One-Eye scampered into the jungle, and clambered up a broad-limbed tree to rest and recover his courage. That he was the last of his kind on the mainland he knew all too well, for surely all of his fellows had been crushed to death under the feet of the stampeding mammoths.

From his perch atop a broad and level branch, he watched with red murder flaming in his one eye as the hated panjani strode down the jungle paths, disappearing amid the trees.