The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (20 page)

* * * *

For one long, frozen moment I stared up into the cold black eye of the unwavering gun muzzle. Then I sprang to my feet, hurling One-Eye onto his back with a thump that drew a growling oath.

And faced the three of them.

Fumio I already knew and disliked, for he was a treacherous coward and a preening swine.

Xask I had never seen before, and took in with one searching, curious glance. Slim of build, indeterminate of age, olive-hued, he resembled neither the russet-furred Apemen of Kor nor the stalwart blond savages of Darya’s tribe. His eyes were cold and shrewd and black as ink, and his hair was sleek and neatly trimmed and black as well. But it was his garments that caught and held my stare, for they were of fine, woven cloth—here in this primitive wilderness, where all others save for the Professor and myself went half naked, clad only in tanned hide and furs!

One-Eye sprang to his feet, red murder burning in his little pig-like eye. Spitting curses, he came toward me, swinging his heavy, ape-like arms, the pistol forgotten in the grip of one huge hand.

But the one whom I soon came to know as Xask stayed him. The slender little man laid a thin hand on the Apeman’s shaggy arm and murmured a word or two in his eye ear. Growling and licking his thick lips, One-Eye subsided.

I viewed the three of them with contempt.

“Well, here’s a fine trio of rogues!” I said boldly, deciding that it was best under the circumstances to put a bold front on it before the world. “One-Eye, you’d better put down—and carefully—that piece of iron you thieved from my person, before it explodes and rips your arm off as it split asunder the villainous brain of Uruk, your Chief,” I advised.

Beneath the dirt and matted fur that coated his ugly hide, One-Eye paled suddenly, staring down at the thing he held. And almost had he flung the pistol at my feet, as I had hardly dared hope he would. But Xask again stayed him with a crisp word.

“This
is
the famous thunder-weapon, then,” murmured the wily former vizier of Kor. “We have heard much about it. Give it to me, One-Eye.”

Not without reluctance, the hulking Neanderthal passed my pistol into the slim hands of the little man in the silken tunic. Xask handled it with cautious respect, turning it over and over in his hands.

“The workmanship is superb,” he breathed at last, “and far beyond the abilities of the artisans of my people. Your tribe, Eric Carstairs, must be far advanced in the arts of civilization. You must teach me how to work the device”

I folded my bare arms across my chest and gave him a cool, level look.

“I’d rather deliver a box of dynamite to a murderous maniac than teach you how to use it,” I said contemptuously.

A small smile hovered briefly about his thin lips.

“Well, as to that, we shall soon see. One-Eye has few virtues, but he is remarkably strong, and among his primitive kind, sheer cruelty is a trait necessary for survival. If it comes down to that, I believe a few minutes alone and helpless and in the grip of those huge paws will have you screaming for the opportunity to teach me how to use the weapon,” Xask said cleverly. And One-Eye leered and balled one huge fist suggestively.

I gave Xask stare for stare, and did not permit the slightest flicker of expression to mar my mask of nonchalant and contemptuous ease. But I could well imagine the brutalities of which the savage Neanderthal was fully capable, and my heart sank within me, wondering how much suffering I could endure in his grip before my will crumbled and my resolve broke.

It is not an easy question for any man to have to ask himself. And while I am, perhaps, bolder and stronger than most, and have lived a desperate life crowded with danger, the thought of torture touches the secret craven hidden in every man.

I did not care to have to put my own courage to
that
test.

“But,” smiled Xask with an easy shrug, “for the moment I am weary and also hungry. Fumio, bind our prisoner and see to it that he cannot wriggle free. One-Eye, come and help me build up the fire again…for I perceive that our friend did not entirely finish his fish dinner, and it has been long since I myself dined.”

They bound me, Fumio twisting my hands behind my back with cruel, numbing strength, and left me propped against a boulder while they rested at their ease, basking before the fire, leisurely finishing my meal for me.

And all the while, Xask eyed the automatic with shrewd, thoughtful, clever eyes.

CHAPTER 5

The Vampire Leech

When Professor Percival P. Potter, Ph.D., saw the thing that came slithering out of the shadows of the jungle, three things occurred almost simultaneously.

He paled to the color of fresh milk; his heart sank into what remained of his waterlogged boots and remained there, feebly palpitating; and his scientific curiosity awoke within him to acute and fascinated intensity.

During the weeks that he had spent here in the Underground World, the Professor had seen a wide assortment of rare and remarkable survivals from the remote eons of Earth’s distant past.

The omodon, or great Cave Bear of the Ice Age, and its contemporaries, the wooly mammoth which the men of Zanthodon call the thantor and the dreaded sabertooth tiger, the vandar. As well, he had viewed with awe and amazement survivals from the Age of Reptiles, such as the grymp, or triceratops, the plesiosaur, which the primitives call the yith, and that fantastic flying dragon of the dawn, the mighty pterodactyl—the thakdol, as the men of the Underground World term it.

But the elderly savant had also observed species hitherto unknown to men of science and as yet unrecorded in their fossil histories, and had heard of yet others unfamiliar to him and probably unknown—such as the enormous albino spiders called the vathrib, and a kind of giant serpent, the xunth, which attains a length of more than thirty feet.

The creature which now came creeping upon him out of the underbrush was like nothing which Professor Potter had ever seen or heard of before.

It was a huge, slimy, crawling slug or leech, and it was nearly
five feet
in length. The curved back of the creature was in color a slick, leathery brown, but its under-surface was tender pink in hue.

That tender and fleshy underbelly was lined with hard suckers, like craters left by a broken pustule. The Professor shuddered in loathing at the thought of those suckers clasping naked human flesh, and sucking therefrom the hot blood of men, as do the smaller leeches of the Upper World.

But the most horrible and repellent feature about the monstrous leech was not its size or its nature, but the uncanny gleam of cold, inhuman
intelligence
that burned in its eyes.

For the front portion of the enormous slug-like thing tapered into something like a curled snout. This obscene proboscis—it could hardly be dignified by calling it a head—bore rows of small, gleaming red eyes. These were six in all. And within them glowed an alien sentience that was appalling: they possessed at once the chill, unwinking fascination of the eyes of a cobra…and an intellect vast, frigid, awesome.

The unblinking gaze of those six staring eyes held the old man frozen where he stood, as the gaze of a serpent reputedly is able to root to the spot the helpless fowl which is to be its prey.

Dizzily, the Professor stared into that febrile, unwavering and multiple glare. In his fear-frozen mind, it seemed that the six eyes expanded like unto mad red moons, until staring into them was like staring into the lambent but motionless depths of a sea of scarlet luminance.

And all the while that it held the old man rooted to the spot with its unwinking and hypnotic stare, the monstrous leech-like thing crept slowly nearer and nearer to where he stood.

Sick with fear, petrified with fascination, the Professor dimly guessed that the gigantic leech lived upon the blood of men and of beasts, much as do the smaller leeches he was familiar with in the world above. They are noisome and squeamish-making, but due to their smallness, can do a fullgrown man little harm.

But the leech that slithered and crept toward him now was nearly as tall as he was.

And the horrible mouths of those crater-like excresences that lined its pink and tender underbelly could suck a man dry in minutes.

There was nothing the old man could do to defend himself against the slimy vampire leech. Fast fixed in the hypnotic gaze of those snakelike eyes, he was utterly unable to move so much as the tip of one finger. And even if he had been able to move, his back was set against a sheer wall of unbroken stone, and the only aisle through the dense, thick wall of solid vegetation was the aisle down which the loathsome slug came slithering toward him.

Cold sweat slicked the old man’s bald brow. It ran down the insides of his thighs and down his bony ribs. Fear and loathing such as he had never before experienced or even imagined rose within his heart. Sick with horror and disgust, he stared into the soulless glare of those inhuman eyes, and watched the most hideous death known to him as it crept to his very feet.

Now that wriggling proboscis touched the toe of his boot, all the while holding him entranced and helpless with the glare of its unwinking multiple eyes.

He endured the sensation—although his skin crawled and sickness was in the pit of his belly—as it fumbled at his feet.

Then—horribly!—it reared up before him with a lithe, snaky motion ghastly to watch.

For one unbearable instant those hideous eyes stared at the same level directly into his own.

And then it was upon him, and the Professor felt his consciousness dim into roiling blackness as he sank into the loathsome embrace.

And he knew no more.

* * * *

I must now turn back from the course of my narrative to recount certain events which transpired only a little earlier. If you have perused the first portion of the story of my adventures in Zanthodon the Underground World, you will recall how the Professor and the young Stone Age boy, Jorn the Hunter, found a narrow pass which wound through the cliffy walls of the Peaks of Peril, and how they emerged to view the shore and the lagoon and the amazing vessel of the Barbary pirates—whose presence here in the Underground World neither of them had ever suspected.

When Jorn exited from the mountain pass just in time to see his lost Princess borne a naked and helpless captive aboard the pirate galley, the brave cave boy did not for one moment hesitate to spring to her rescue.

Without a word to his companion, the warrior flung his lean, strong body into the seething waters that boiled in the wake of the Moorish galley.

As the half-naked lad clove the waves, heading directly for the strange ship—whose like he and his people had never seen before—the sailors along the rail caught sight of him and raised their voices to hail their captain, who had just come aboard, burdened with the struggling cave girl.

“O,
reis
Kâiradine! Behold!” they shouted, pointing. And the hawklike gaze of the Barbary pirate had narrowed, considering. He could not help admiring with faint astonishment the reckless and foolhardy daring of the savage boy, to strive singlehandedly to rescue the savage girl whom Kâiradine presumed to be his jungle sweetheart. But he wished to be gone from this place, and to enjoy his prize at leisure.

Therefore he had raised his jeweled hand carelessly in a languid gesture. And in the next instant his pirates unlimbered their horn bows, nocking barbed and deadly arrows and drawing the bows until the feathered shaft nestled against their ears.

An instant before the murderous rain of arrows hissed about him, Jorn sucked in a deep, hasty breath, and dove to the shallow bottom of the lagoon. He had just sunk into the depths as the deadly hail tore the muddy waters to froth. So closely simultaneous had been his diving to the bottom and the fall of the vicious barbed rain directly where his body had been but an instant before, that the sailors, squinting into the bright, dancing waters, believed they had slain the youth.

Moments later, the pirate galley came about into the breeze and swung out into the bosom of the Sogar-Jad. But, unbeknownst to any aboard the vessel, clinging to the keel was a stalwart youth with murder in his heart.

Pausing only to catch his breath, Jorn swung himself up out of the fuming wake and clambered up the rudder to a position just below the windows of the captain’s cabin, which gave forth a view of the ship’s wake.

Clutching the wooden sill in strong, wet hands, Jorn levered himself up and peered through the panes to see Darya struggling naked on the bed with the corsair towering above her, one heavy hand raised to deal the girl a resounding buffet.

Thus had Jorn, without a moment’s pause for thought, pulled himself up and hurled through the swinging windows to spring upon the astounded Barbary pirate like a striking leopard. He bore the larger man to the floor beneath the impact of his hurtling weight, and in the next instant his strong hands locked about the throat of the corsair, just beneath his thin fringe of red beard.

As Kâiradine kicked-and struggled, striking Jorn about the face and shoulders, the savage boy buried his face in the pirate’s breast to avoid his stinging blows; and all the while his sinewy hands closed upon the throat of his gasping adversary with throttling pressure.

As for the pirate, his mouth was open, froth beading his thin lips and flecking his fringe of trim beard. His face blackened as he strove with starved and laboring lungs to suck in one precious breath of air, and a red mist darkened before his gaze while a stealthy numbness crept like some insidious venom through his veins. Taller and stronger was the older man, and in an even match there was little doubt that Kâiradine would, with some effort and a bit of good luck, have been able to best the savage youth.

But when the boy’s leap had bowled the pirate over, his turbaned brow had struck the edge of the bunk with stunning force. Half unconscious from the numbing blow, even the sinewy strength of the pirate chieftain was of little avail against the tigerish fury of the cave boy. And this terrible truth burned like a branding iron through the darkening brain of Kâiradine Redbeard as he sank into swirling darkness and knew no more.

“
Reis?
Lord Kâiradine? Is aught amiss?” came startled voices at the door, and the drumming of pounding fists. It was obvious that the noise of their struggle had aroused the pirate’s crew to the defense of their chieftain. Reluctantly, Jorn let his crushing grip loosen about the throat of the pirate. Automatically, the unconscious corsair drank into his starved lungs a delicious gulp of fresh sea air.

“Jorn!” cried Darya, springing from the bunk. “We must be gone from here before they come to aid him—”

The boy nodded. Seizing up Darya, he flung her through the open window. As she fell into the sea he sprang upon the sill, and launched his lithe bronzed body after her.

In an instant, both had vanished in the boiling waters of the ship’s wake. And when, a moment later, the wild-eyed corsairs burst into the cabin to find their captain halfthrottled and semi-conscious on the floor and his young captive vanished as if into thin air, the superstitious pirates rolled their eyes in fright at each other, and mumbled half-forgotten texts from the
Book of the Prophet
.

In their tension and excitement, the corsairs did not notice that the rear windows of the cabin were even at that moment swinging slowly shut as the pirate galley pitched to the roll of the waves. Had Jorn burst through the portal, smashing his way into the cabin in a shower of shattering glass, the sailors would at once have realized the method of exit employed by the captive cave girl. But this had not been necessary, for Jorn had thrust the windows open with a nudge of his shoulders as he had levered himself up to the sill.