The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (34 page)

* * * *

We entered the caverns beneath the hollow mountains by two different routes. Half of our host clambered up the ladders and went down into the underground city by means of the great trapdoor atop the cliffs. The other half marched through the door in the cliff wall which we had left ajar, wedging one of the burnt-out torches between the door and the jamb so as to block the mechanism.

It was by this route that I and my warriors entered the caverns. Yes, when Darya hailed me as “chieftain,” she was only giving me my due. For Tharn and Garth, in conference, had both decided to reward me for my services by creating me a chieftain in the temporarily combined tribes. I felt quite flattered.

Also, quite put-upon. For a Cro-Magnon chieftain gets to pick and choose his own warriors, and just about everybody clamored to serve under me. By triggering the slave revolt and leading the successful escape out of the cavern city, I had built quite a reputation for myself.

I chose, in the end, Varak of the Sotharians, Hurok of Kor, Jorn the Hunter and seven other of the warriors of the combined tribes. I would have liked to have had old Komad on my combat team, but he was already a chieftain on his own.

We were determined to clean out the nest of human and nonhuman filth that dwelt beneath the Peaks of Peril. The Gorpaks would have to be our first concern, because they stood in our path directly. But I had vowed in my heart to eradicate the Sluagghs from Zonthodon if it took a thousand years. We were fully aware of the dangers we faced: but the Sluagghs had to be destroyed. I might never leave Zanthodon and return to the Upper World again, but either way I would never be able to enjoy a night of peaceful sleep again, knowing that the horrible vampire leeches were breeding down there in the filth and slime of their black burrows.

Incidentally, we were by now aware that a few of us were missing. I was not surprised to learn that One-Eye had seized the opportunity to run off, and was heartily glad to be rid of the fellow. But the men and women of Sothar were puzzled to find that Murg had vanished.

Well, these were mysteries to be cleared up later, and we simply left it to that. Right now, we had more important work to do.

The warriors constructed torches and set them alight with their flints and began to file into the caverns again. Leaving the women of Sothar behind, together with such noncombatants as Darya and the Professor, the rest of us entered the caverns and got about our grisly business. Gorpak reinforcements were gathered by this time, and soon we found the entrance into the cavern city itself blocked by a barricade. We eliminated the barrier through the simple expedient of setting it afire; when the Gorpaks fled squealing, we scattered the burning wreckage with the tips of our spears, and pressed on.

The Gorpaks had never been invaded before, and could hardly believe that this was happening. Gorpak after Gorpak took a stand before us, shrilly ordering us to throw down our weapons and surrender, “in the name of the Lords.” We didn’t waste time talking but put an arrow through such as these and kept on going. Whenever they tried to make a fight of it, we cut them to pieces. The pity of it was, the little creatures didn’t really know how to fight and never even had a chance. It was ugly business, but it had to be done.

While the men of Thandar went about their work with grim efficiency, not really enjoying the slaughter, the warriors of Sothar were not so squeamish. Not a one of them there was that had not suffered at the hands of the Gorpaks, or who had been forced to stand helplessly by as Gorpaks subjected their mates and children to indignities I do not care to describe. So the men of Sothar cut the Gorpaks down with savage relish, nor could I find it in my heart to blame them overmuch.

One of the last to die was Queb, the ancient shaman of the Gorpaks. When we had penetrated to the very entrance to the Chamber of Feasting, he stood in our way, waving his skinny arms, clanking his beads and amulets, shaking his gourd rattles.

We were reluctant to kill the old man in cold blood, for he was not armed. Fortunately, Queb solved that problem for us by charging our line, shrilling imprecations. Automatically, the warriors raised their spears to fend him off, but in his frenzy the old witch doctor impaled himself on the spears and died quickly.

* * * *

In retrospect, I realize that we had utterly no choice. All of the warriors who marched with us were of the same mind, and knew that we had no alternative but to invade the cavern city of the Gorpaks, if only to make sure that the rest of their captives and slaves were set free and the last of the Gorpaks wiped out.

Privately, I determined to exterminate the Sluagghs like the unholy vermin they were. None of us who had undergone the ordeal in the hollow mountains really wanted to go down there again. That was only natural and human of us; but we were also men. And men sometimes have to do things they don’t really want to, or abandon honor and manhood.

The price of courage is very high. No hero myself, I know just how expensive bravery is. You have to swallow your fear, ignore your sweating palms and the queasiness in the pit of your stomach, and put a bold face on things. Or stop calling yourself a man.…

I am a man.

* * * *

With Queb disposed of, we entered the Cavern of Feasting without further opposition, and pried up the great slab in the floor. All of us had brought with us torches which would burn brightly, so we knew we had little or nothing to fear from the monster leeches, so long as we did not look into their multiple eyes and thus permit them to gain the mastery of our minds.

We planned to kill them all, even the young. The Sluagghs were too dreadful a peril to allow them to continue their existence; they were the only, and the best, argument for genocide I have ever heard: They truly had no right to live, and I was convinced they must all be sought out and slaughtered.

The men of Thandar did not understand my feelings on this, but the men of Sothar were of the same mind. And so we killed them, holding high the blazing torches, spearing them to death as they flopped and wriggled on their beds of slime. They died quite easily, one spear thrust did it. You punctured their clammy hides and out spewed a vile, stinking black fluid that could only have been old, putrid human blood.

We slew them in a cold, hating fury. And then we went after the ones that had slithered away into the deeper burrows. It was a dirty, disgusting job, wading into those black sewers, murdering the slimy monsters in the fetid gloom, but it had to be done.

In the end we found their nests, tunneled far under the floor of the cavern. The young of the Sluagghs were like pale, wet grubs, and they were the size of human babies. Like infants, they squealed and mewed as they died.

I leaned against the wall and lost my breakfast in wracking, painful spasms. Not one of the warriors around me thought any the less of my courage or manhood for this. More than a few had vomited before me, and others were soon to follow us. The stench of the nests was horrible beyond belief.

I say little of this episode. It is not one of the things I have done that I am proud of. It was a dirty job, but it had to be done, and we did it. But it was not something you would want to remember afterwards.

When we came out, after it was all over, we were sick from the smell and covered with reeking filth, and trembling with nervous reaction. We washed ourselves off in one of the conduits that bore cold water from springs within the mountain through the cavern city for the purpose of sanitation.

Even after washing, we still felt unclean. And we all wished later that we could have washed our memories as we had washed our bodies. For the hideous experience lived in our dreams and especially in our nightmares for a long while afterward.

But at least it was over, and we had rid the world of the Sluagghs for all time.

And
that
was a job well worth doing!

CHAPTER 23

Fumio Reappears

Once the warriors of Thandar and Sothar had vanished from view within the hollow cliff, Xask and Fumio were free to act. Darya, Professor Potter, the old wise man, Coph, and the women and children of the Sotharian tribe were alone in the clearing, guarded only by a small number of warriors who had sustained minor injuries during their adventures which, while not incapacitating them, rendered them temporarily unfit for such exertions as the war against the Gorpaks.

Whispering conspiratorially together, the two villains laid their plans.

Moments later, Fumio emerged from the underbrush and walked boldly up to the guards. Those among them who were men of Thandar were astonished to see him alive, for it was thought that he had either long since perished in the jungle or had been carried off a captive of the Apemen to Kor. But here he was, alive and well, strolling casually into the encampment as if assured of a friendly greeting and a hospitable welcome.

“Does the chieftain Fumio yet live, then?” one of the huntsmen of Thandar, a fine-looking fellow named Ragor, wondered.

Fumio spread his hands with an easy smile.

“As Ragor sees, fortune has smiled on Fumio and he has braved the dangers of the wild to rejoin his countrymen,” he said smoothly.

“Erdon perceives that someone has broken the nose of the chieftain Fumio,” remarked another Thandarian warrior.

Fumio lost a little of his composure; for a moment an ugly glint showed in his eyes. Then he smiled easily again, with a wordless shrug.

By this time he had come very near to where the two guards stood. He did not seem to be armed.

As for Darya, she was so amazed at this sudden and unexpected reappearance of one she thought long dead that she was, literally, speechless. Since Jorn the Hunter had interrupted Fumio in the act of attempting to rape her, knocked him down and chased him away, she had long ago dismissed the very existence of her false-hearted former suitor from her mind. To find him turning up now, bold as brass, as if nothing had chanced to occur between them, momentarily robbed her of the ability of speech. She could hardly believe her eyes.

Perhaps I should explain at this point that while Jorn and Darya had informed the Omad of Thandar of the treachery of Fumio, this was a matter of private information and had not been spread throughout the ranks of the men of Thandar. It might have been wiser of Tharn had he informed his warriors of the villainies of the deposed and outlawed chieftain, but as he assumed Fumio to be dead, there seemed no reason for the event to be made a topic of general knowledge.

Had he chosen to do otherwise, of course, this history would have taken a very different turn.…

Professor Potter was speechless with amazement, too, but recovered the use of his tongue before Fumio had quite entered the encampment. He leveled a shaking and accusatory finger at the smiling villain.

“Great Galileo. but that’s the rogue who struck me down with a cowardly blow from behind and was trying to assault the young lady here before Jorn pounced on him, mined his handsome face and drove him off in scorn!” he shrilled, redfaced with outrage.

Instantly, Ragor and Erdon snapped to attention, lifting their weapons to readiness. But it was already too late for such measures, for Fumio was among them by that time. He seized the still speechless Darya and from the cover of the furs which clothed his loins, whipped out a sharp flint knife, whose keen edge he placed at the base of Darya’s throat.

“Lay down your weapons, or my blade will drink the life of the gomad Darya,” he snarled. Stony-faced, the two warriors let their spears fall to the sward.

“Do not any of the rest of you move or attempt to interfere with us,” warned Fumio. “Come, woman!” he commanded Darya, giving her arm a vicious twist. Unresistingly, the girl rose to her feet and accompanied him as he forced her from the encampment and the protection of her friends.

“The old man, too,” called Xask from the edge of the trees. Speechless with fury and outrage, the Professor was made to follow after them, for he dared not protest lest the Princess of Thandar be made to suffer for his recalcitrance.

Obviously, it had occurred to the wily Xask that, even if Eric Carstairs was not available to teach the secrets of the thunder-weapon, the old man who had accompanied him into the world of Zanthodon might well be made to do so.

“Let none of you dare follow us, on peril to the life of your Princess,” warned Xask.

Bitterly, and with grim forebodings, the men of Thandar and Sothar stood helplessly as the two captives were led away into the jungles.

“What will we say to Eric Carstairs, when he returns out of the hollow mountains?” groaned Erdon to his companions. “His heart will be filled with wrath when he discovers that we, who were charged with the protection of their safety, have permitted the old man, his friend and fellow countryman, and the gomad Darya to be taken from our midst.…”

“More to the point,” growled a burly warrior named Warza, “how will we explain it to the Omad Tharn when he asks us what has become of his beloved daughter?”

“Far better than we pursue them with stealth and in secret, even if we fall in battle against those men than that we stand idly here, doing nothing,” said one of the Sotharians, a fine chap called Parthon. “For the High Chief of my people, as well, will deal harshly with those who betrayed the trust which reposed in them. For it was Eric Carstairs who freed us from the slave pens, and led us forth out of the mountains; and it does not take a wise man to have noticed that Eric Carstairs looks with warmth upon the beautiful gomad of Thandar, and would win her for his mate.”

“What shall we do?” queried Coph. “If the warriors pursue the two men into the jungle, they will leave defenseless the women and children of Sothar.”

At that word, Nian, the mate of Garth, and young Yualla, her daughter, spoke up indignantly.

“Are the women of Sothar so helpless that they cannot defend themselves?” demanded Nian, her splendid eyes flashing. “Are our bowels weak with fear at the thought of holding axe or spear or bow?”

“Let the warriors enter the jungles, and do all that can be done to set our friends free of their cowardly captors,” cried Yualla fiercely. “And in their absence, the women and children and the old people of Sothar will protect themselves with vigilance and courage—go!”

Without a word the nine warriors left behind to guard the encampment seized up their weapons and vanished into the edge of the jungle without a backward glance.

* * * *

Having washed the filth and slime of the burrows from my body, I was resting near the conduit when my lieutenants, Jorn and Varak, came up to me, saluting.

“All has been accomplished as you desired, my chieftain,” said the young Hunter. “The slave pens of the Gorpaks have given up their captives, who even now are being fed and their hurts tended. But we have been followed hence by these whom my chiftain sees at our heels.…”

He gestured, rather helplessly. I turned to see a number of the naked cavern folk lurking timidly at the entrance to this particular corridor. They seemed shy and confused, and furtively averted their eyes from the Gorpak corpse or two which lay about the floor. The dead Gorpaks seemed to shock them, and more than a few looked faintly scandalized.