The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (31 page)

Queb began to harangue us in a shrill, unpleasant voice, lecturing us on our good fortune to be selected for this Feasting, to yield up the rich nourishment of our blood to the need of Those who were as immensely our superiors as we were superior to worms and grubs. The hysterical speech went on and on and more than a few of us became fidgety.

Finally, the sermon was over, and Queb lifted to his lips the whistle he wore about his scrawny old neck, and shrilled forth a piercing cry.

The slab rolled back with a heavy grating noise.

And there they were, just as Hurok had described…the huge, wriggling leeches sprawled lazily amid filthy puddles of stagnant water and slick beds of stinking slime. My gorge rose at the fetid reek of the Sluagghs’ lair, but I clamped my lips tightly together. It would not do to get sick now, with so much to be done.

The first of the monstrous leeches came slithering forward to the edge of the slime pit. I caught a glimpse of its six lidless unwinking red eyes, and felt my mind brushed by chill tendrils of uncanny force. With an effort, I wrenched my gaze away from that stare, but the person behind me was not quite so quick as I to avert her eyes.

It was Darya!

Her face went blank, her jaw slack. Like a mindless automaton of warm flesh, the naked girl began walking toward the edge of the pit, and my heart froze within me.

I sprang forward, seized her by the upper arms as she teetered on the very brink, jerked her roughly away and shook her until her head wobbled.

Still her eyes were glazed, indifferent.

Forgive me, but I slapped her face! Her head snapped back and the old familiar Darya again inhabited her glorious eyes. For a moment, rubbing her reddened cheek, she looked angry; then her gaze softened, as she became cognizant of what had occurred.

“Thank you, Eric,” she whispered.

But now others of the Sotharians were caught in the icy glare of the Sluaggh.

“
Don’t look them in the eyes!
” yelled Professor Potter in a loud voice that made everybody jump.

The echoes of his sudden shout bounced from wall to wall. The Gorpaks were frozen with mingled astonishment and outrage, for this was to them, I guess, a solemn, perhaps even a sacred, moment.

I whirled into action.

Balling one fist, I knocked down the guard that stood nearest to me. He toppled over on his back, squalling.

I jumped over him and sprinted for the wall. Reaching it, I sprang up and seized the bracket which held the feebly burning torch. I drew the flaming length of chemical-soaked wood forth, and dropped to the floor again, heading back to the edge of the pit.

The Gorpaks, yelping with fury, were waddling toward me to block me from my goal.

Then Hurok strode forth among them, huge fists striking from left to right like heavy pistons. With each smacking blow, a Gorpak went down with a broken neck, a shattered jaw, a dislocated shoulder or whatever. And behind Hurok came Garth and Varak and the other warriors, hurling themselves upon the Gorpaks from behind, pulling them down and trampling them into unconsciousness.

I circled around the embattled Gorpaks, heading for the edge of the pit. Near it, I crouched, and from the scrap of cloth I held balled in one hand I poured a whiff of dry, black powder over the burning end of the torch I held.

With a loud spitting and sizzling of sparks, a furious brilliance flared up to destroy the twilight gloom of the Chamber of Feasting.

Brightly now burned the torch—not as bright as the luminance of open day, but bright enough! The Gorpaks squeaked and yelped, covering their beady little eyes from the unusual radiance.

At the very edge of the pit, averting my eyes, I held forth the torch. Its searing light fell upon the fetid swamp-like bed whereon the loathsome Sluagghs wriggled. Their lidless eyes, which could not endure anything more than the twilight of the caverns, drank in the sizzling fury of the flame.

And they went mad! Coiling and uncoiling, flopping and writhing, they slithered about in the stinking slime, uttering a thin, ululating cry so high pitched as almost to be inaudible.

I stood there grinning, brandishing my torch, letting its light drive them into panicky flight. “Serves the slimy bastards right,” I thought to myself with grim satisfaction.

Now Potter and Hurok came up to where I stood, having retrieved two more torches from brackets along the nearer wall. I handed the Professor my other packet. He sprinkled his torch with the dry gunpowder which last night I had emptied out of the few cartridges remaining in my gun belt. And his torch flamed up, spitting sparks, adding its light to my own. Soon all three torches were ablaze, and in the triple radiance, the Gorpaks stumbled blindly, mewling piteously and trying to shield their eyes. Garth’s warriors made short work of them.

“I told you it would work, didn’t I, my boy!” the Professor commented, very pleased with himself. “I thought the powder in your cartridges would unite with the chemical-impregnated torch wood to flare up like fireworks!”

“You can take credit for a lot more than that, Doc,” I grinned. “From the very moment you told me about that scene in the glade, where the Sluaggh flinched back from the direct light of day, I’ve been trying to figure out how to use that fact against them. The only weapon we had to use was to pit their own weakness against them—
they cannot endure light
.”

“Very kind of you to give me the credit, my boy,” said the Professor. “I suspect their inability to stand direct daylight stems from the fact that, in their natural habitat, they dwell in fetid burrows deep underground. Doubtless they evolved in those depths, living in utter darkness.”

“They’re not some form of prehistoric life from the surface world, then?”

“I believe not,” mused the old scientist. “We have no fossil record of any leech so large as they…no, I believe the Sluagghs are indigenous to Zanthodon and have never penetrated to the world above our heads.”

“And let’s hope they never do,” I muttered.

“Amen to that,” said the Professor fervently.

But we had no time for discussion; things were heating up, and time was getting short.

“More Gorpaks approach, Eric Carstairs!” boomed the deep voice of Garth as he came up to us. “Already the men of Sothar have unlimbered the rope—”

I looked across the chamber. While I had been driving the Sluagghs back into their noisome burrows under the floor, the Sotharians had been trying to secure the long rope we had made from knotted strips of our clothing about the edge of the balcony. A loop had been fashioned, and a slipknot. How many tries they made before it snagged the sharp protruding corner of the balcony I never bothered to ask, but it was secure now.

Already the men and women of Sothar were climbing the rope to gather on the balcony. We ran over to where they stood, and I boosted Darya up when her turn came while Hurok and Garth and the mightier of the Sotharian fighting men stood guard at the doorway, armed now with weapons seized from the Gorpaks they had felled.

As it chanced, we all managed to climb to the balcony level before the reinforcements arrived. Drawing our improvised rope ladder up with us, to discourage its use by our pursuers, we made tracks through the storerooms and other chambers Hurok had described.

Almighty God, but it was like cold water to a man perishing of thirst, to be running free through the upper level of the cavern city, with a long trident in my hand and my beloved at my side! Freedom has a heady taste—better than all the champagne in the world!

* * * *

With Hurok at the fore, we retraced the route he had first taken into the maze of caverns. Erelong we reached that huge, unused chamber that had been his first glimpse of the city of the Sluagghs.

There was the wall of dressed and mortared stone, just as he had described it. The stone wall which separated this portion of the outermost parts of the city from the natural caverns.

And there was the old, forgotten door of rotten wood through which he had forced his way
.

A shattered ruin, it hung in fragments from rusted hinges. I smiled with relief at the sight of it; never had any door in all the world looked so damned good to me before.…

In less time than it would take to tell, we were through the door, to the last man and woman, and stood in the black and lightless caverns of the hollow mountains.

But they were lightless no more! For still our torches burned brightly, and by their treble radiance we could see the mouth of a black opening in the jagged wall.

“Hurok believes that is the way he came hither,” grunted my huge friend, pointing.

We headed for it, wasting no time, for surely the Gorpaks would be yelping at our heels before too many minutes had gone by.

And so began our flight from the caverns, and the nightmare of our slavery in this living hell was over and done with forever.

CHAPTER 19

Pursued

If Captain Lutho was furious at the escape of the captives, his superior, Commander Gronk, was well nigh mad with outrage. Quivering with fury, the fat little officer shrilled abuse on Lutho, who shriveled and wilted before the withering scorn in his superior’s tones.

“How is it possible for even a miserable worm like the contemptible Lutho to permit such an insurrection?” shrieked Gronk, wild-eyed, spittle foaming at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. “For the animals to revolt—in the very presence of the Lords!—is unheard of in the annals of the City; for such brutes to inflict violence upon Gorpaks is a crime beyond parallel; for such groveling and spineless beasts to shame and humiliate us before the Lords is an atrocity which—which—”

The fat Gorpak commander broke off as if words failed him. For a moment or two he sought to find an adjective equal to the task of describing the horror, but his vocabulary was too limited. So he expressed himself by snatching up his whip and dealing the unhappy Lutho a blow across the face.

Lutho squalled, touching with care the raw welt which traversed his features. He fell to his knees, bowing his narrow shoulders as Gronk, spitting with fury, rained blows with his lash across the back and shoulders and buttocks of Lutho.

At length, wearying of the unaccustomed exercise, the fat officer threw down his whip and, seizing Lutho by the ears, lifted him squealing with pain to his feet.

“Go after them, worm! Bring them back! Follow! Pursue! Capture!” hissed Gronk between clenched teeth, punctuating his directives with slaps across Lutho’s bleeding face.

Not bothering to speak, Lutho saluted and ran off. In the corridor he encountered his underling, Vusk, who failed to conceal a smirk as he noticed the weals of Gronk’s lashing. Whereupon Lutho vented his frustration and shame by kicking Vusk from one side of the corridor to the other.

Somewhat relieved, and breathing heavily, Lutho snapped brusque orders to the whimpering Vusk, to marshal the Gorpak forces for the pursuit of the escaped captives.

“The animals fled by means of the Grand Cavern,” he barked. “They will take Tunnel Fourteen, and either emerge from the mountain on its sheer face, or turn aside into Tunnel Thirteen, which will lead them to Exit ‘C’—”

“Yes, O valiant and sagacious Captain!” blubbered the unfortunate Vusk, rubbing his bruised buttocks.

“We will outwit the animals by predicting, with our superior intellects, their behavior,” snarled Lutho. “Take your force by means of Tunnel Seven to Exit ‘B’, and lie in wait for them to emerge into the daylight.”

“As ever, my Captain is wise and fearless—”

“I will follow shortly at your heels with the Third and Fourth Squads. We will round the animals up—mind, worm, that you slay or injure as few as possible in the recapturing!—and return them to the pens, whereupon the Feasting will resume. In this manner, if all is accomplished speedily and efficiently, we shall redeem ourselves in the sight of the Lords. Swift, now!”

Vusk threw his captain a hasty salute and bolted to summon his squad. In no time the troop of bandy-legged little men were trotting briskly down the corridor which led to the outer world.

But this was certainly not going to be Captain Lutho’s lucky day, by any means. For the exit to which he had directed his soldiers just happened to be the stone trapdoor at the top of the cliffs which ran like a rocky spine down the length of the promontory.

Yes, the same trapdoor which, even at that moment, Tharn and the warriors of Thandar were striving to pry open.…

* * * *

I don’t know whether you have ever had the opportunity to run through pitch-black caverns stark naked, but if you have thus far managed to avoid the experience, then I advise to you to keep it up. For it is certainly no fun.

Of course, the torches which we had carried off from the Chamber of Feasting shed some light. But the caverns wound and bent, and half the time the light was behind us and we were running in black gloom. In no time flat we were all bruised from bumping or scraping our naked bodies against the rough stone walls and sharp protuberances of the caves, and were covered with dust and grime.

Hurok led the way, since he was the only one of us who had ever explored this cavern. But he very soon got lost. The trouble was, I suppose, that feeling your way through the labyrinth of caves in the pitchblack darkness is a lot different from trying to retrace your steps in the light of the torches.

At length he paused, scratching his heavy jaw, small eyes reflecting his bafflement.

“Don’t tell me the huge oaf has lost his way,” panted Professor Potter testily.

I shrugged, fearing that to be the case, which it more or less was. Hurok came lumbering over to where I stood with Darya, catching my breath. He looked confused.

“Are you lost, Hurok?” I inquired. He slowly shook his huge head.

“Hurok believes that to continue on in this direction will lead the friends of Black Hair to the outer world,” said the Neanderthal in his deep, guttural tones.

“Well, then, let’s keep going,” I suggested. “Surely, by now, all the little Gorpaks in the cavern city are yapping at our heels like a pack of hunting dogs—”

“Black Hair does not understand the hesitation of Hurok,” he explained. “Hurok entered the caverns through a hole in the side of the mountain, far up. For Hurok was scaling the mountain and entered the hole in its side to escape the attack of a thakdol.”

“In other words, if we keep on going in this direction we will come out on the side of a cliff,” I groaned. “Well, that’s just dandy! I can just see the whole gang of us, stark naked and worn out, trying to climb down the cliff one by one, with the Gorpaks behind us and the thakdols snapping at our noses.”

He nodded heavily. “That thought has also occurred to Hurok,” he admitted. “And Hurok suggests that the friends of Black Hair follow this side cavern, which branches off from the way in which Hurok came.”

“Do you know where it leads?” inquired the Professor. Hurok solemnly confessed that he did not.

“But the Peaks of Peril are honeycombed with caves and tunnels,” he pointed out, “and surely there will be many exits into the daylight world.”

“That’s probably true,” mused Professor Potter, scratching his nose. “We already know of two others, at least: the door in the wall by which I gained admittance into this disgusting place and the trapdoor atop the cliff wall by which the young lady, here, and her friend Jorn got in. Well, where there are three entrances there will certainly be more.…”