The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (37 page)

“Well, I have a Theory of my own,” he began, eyes glittering. I groaned, having heard
that
one far too many times before.

They dragged us up to share the capacious saddles, tugged the heads of their dragonish steeds around and we went riding off across the plains toward the edge of the distant mountains. My men were widely scattered and had not dared to try to rescue us lest we be slain, I knew.

Suddenly, a small, slim figure that I recognized stepped into our path with lifted arms. The Dragonmen reined their reptiles to a ponderous halt.

“It is Prince Xask!” one of them cried in amazement. “The exile—the outlaw!”

“The Empress has placed him under sentence of death if ever he shows his face among us again,” said another. “Let us ride him down—”

“Hold!” cried Xask. “The Sacred Empress will revoke the sentence of death that lies upon my head when she sees the gift I bring to lay at her feet!”

“What gift may that be, Xask the Liar?” demanded the leader, disbelief visible in his countenance.

“The key to the throne of all the world!” cried Xask, taking something from his waist and brandishing it. And my heart sank within me to the chill of a ghastly premonition.

For it was my .45 automatic—the
thunder-weapon
.

* * * *

The decision was beyond the authority of the captain of this squad of Dragonmen. Binding Xask as we ourselves were bound, he was mounted behind one of the riders, and we continued off lumbering across the plains. Catching my eye, Xask smiled. It wasn’t a smile so much as an oily, gloating smirk. I kept my face stony.

We rode away.

But behind us, Hurok the Apeman rose to his feet from the thick grasses where he had concealed himself, and his great hands clenched and unclenched hungrily.

For the only true friend he had in all of Zanthodon had just been carried off into the unknown realm of mystery and marvel—
Zar
.

THE END

But the Adventures of Eric Carstairs in the Underground World will continue in “HUROK OF THE STONE AGE,” the third volume in this series.

AFTERWORD

THE PEOPLE OF ZANTHODON

Editor’s Note
: At this point, the end of the second volume in this series, it seems to me that the narrative has become so complex that I should supply the reader with a short glossary of the characters thus far introduced into the tale, together with a brief account of their positions in this history.

ACHMED THE MOOR
: First mate of the corsair ship
Red Witch
.

BORAG
: One of the Drugars on guard at the entrance to Kor when One-Eye returned to the cave country.

BUO
: A soldier of the Gorpaks, under the command of Captain Lutho.

COPH
: The old wise man of the Sothar tribe; counselor to Garth, the High Chief.

DARYA
: Daughter of Tharn and gomad, or Princess, of Thandar. It was Darya who instructed Eric Carstairs in the language of Zanthodon, and with whom he fell in love.

ERDON
: A warrior of Thandar.

ERIC CARSTAIRS
: The young American soldier of fortune who piloted Professor Potter into Zanthodon; the true author of these adventures.

FATSO
: A leader of the Drugar slaves who took Eric and the Professor captive soon after their entry into Zanthodon. “Fatso” was Eric’s nickname for this individual; at the time he was still too unfamiliar with the language to catch the name by which his fellow Neanderthals knew him.

FUMIO
: One of the chieftains of Thandar, a former suitor for Darya’s hand. He betrayed his trust and became an outlaw.

GARTH
: High Chief of the Sothar tribe, who made friends with Eric Carstairs during their period of captivity in the cavern city of the Sluagghs.

GOMAK
: One of the Drugars on guard at the entrance to Kor when One-Eye returned with his lone captive, Fumio.

GRONK
: Lutho’s superior officer in the military hierarchy of the Gorpaks.

HOOM
: One of the people of the caverns. Eric Carstairs appointed him leader
pro tem
of his people after their liberation from their Gorpak masters.

HUROK OF KOR
: A chieftain and mighty warrior of the Drugars of Kor, who became the friend of Eric Carstairs and his loyal companion on many of his adventures.

ITHAR
: A chieftain of the Thandar tribe; leader of the huntsmen who accompanied Tharn on their quest for the solen Darya.

JORN THE HUNTER
: The faithful young Cro-Magnon boy who rescued Darya from the embraces of Fumio, and, later, from the arms of Kâiradine Redbeard.

KÂIRADINE REDBEARD
: Prince of the Barbary pirates of El-Cazar, and captain of the
Red Witch
. He accounted himself to be the seventh in line of direct succession from the notorious Khair ud-Din of Algiers.

KEMAL THE TURK
: A crewman of the
Red Witch
.

KOMAD
: Leader of the scouts who accompanied Tharn on the expedition to rescue Darya.

LUTHO
: A captain of the Gorpaks.

MURG
: A sly and crafty man of the Sothar tribe.

NIAN
: The mate of the Omad Garth of Sothar, and mother of Yualla.

NOORKA
: A female of the cavern folk.

ONE-EYE
: A chieftain of the Drugars of Kor; upon the death of Uruk he seized the role of High Chief, but never really ruled.

OTHA
: The chef of the Gorpak kitchens.

PARTHON
: A Sotharian warrior.

THE PROFESSOR
: Professor Percival P. Potter, Ph.D., scientist, savant, explorer and all-around polymath.

QUEB
: Witch doctor of the Gorpaks and priest of the Sluaggh cult.

RAGOR
: One of the warriors of Thandar.

RUKH
: A chieftain of the Sothar tribe, imprisoned with Eric and the others in the cavern city.

SUNTH
: One of the Gorpak soldiers.

TARBU
: A Barbary pirate.

THARN OF THANDAR
: High Chief of his tribe; Darya’s mighty sire and Eric Carstairs’ loyal friend.

THUSK
: One of the men of Sothar. Eric was never quite certain that he correctly remembered the name of this man.

UNGG
: One of the Gorpaks of the cavern city.

URUK
: High Chief of Kor, and a dreadful ogre of incredible ugliness and bestial cruelty. Eric put a bullet through his brain just before the stampeding thantors crushed the Drugar host.

VARAK
: A fine young warrior of Sothar who became one of Eric’s friends.

VUSK
: A Gorpak soldier under Lutho’s command.

WARZA
: One of the warriors of Thandar.

XASK
: A strange personage of mysterious origin; exiled from the Scarlet City of Zar, he became vizier to Uruk of Kor. Much of the mystery surrounding him will be explained in the third volume of these narratives.

YUALLA
: A Sotharian maid; the teen-aged daughter of Garth the High Chief of that tribe.

ZORAIDA
: A dancing-girl of El-Cazar. Of Moorish descent, like Achmed, she was his rival in influence over Kâiradine Redbeard.

and

“
THE EMPRESS
”: An unknown woman, presumably the sovereign of the Scarlet City. Very much concerning her will be explained in the third book of this series.

DARYA OF THE BRONZE AGE

PART I: PRINCESS IN PERIL

CHAPTER 1

KIDNAPPED!

Darya of Thandar struggled helplessly in the iron grip of the giant Moor, Achmed, as he bore her through the jungles of Zanthodon. Thorny boughs whipped the naked thighs and kicking legs of the captive Cro-Magnon princess, sharp-edged leaves scored her bare shoulders and panting young breasts. She writhed furiously, but in vain, against the powerful arms of the Moor which encircled her slim body and against whose burly strength she was as helpless as a babe.

Events had transpired so swiftly that Darya was still dazed by the suddenness of her transition from freedom to captivity. One moment she had been torn from the safety of her tribe by the wily Xask and the treacherous Fumio—the next instant the Barbary Pirates had seized her from her captors and now bore her hastily through the jungles of the Underground World to the safety of their ship, the
Red Witch
.

All too well did the Cro-Magnon cavegirl know what fate awaited her aboard the red-sailed galley. Only the courage and daring of her young fellow tribesman, Jorn the Hunter, had rescued her from the lustful embrace of the pirate chieftain, Kâiradine Redbeard. To be recaptured so soon after winning her freedom was cruel…and where now was Jorn the Hunter? Where, for that matter, was the mysterious black-haired man from the Upper World who called himself Eric Carstairs?

Who, in all of the Underground World, could save her from slavery in the harems of the savage corsairs? Her heart sank within her breast as she contemplated the grim destiny which lay before her.…

* * * *

Achmed grinned triumphantly, white teeth flashing in his swarthy visage. The mighty Moor had been assigned the task of recapturing the Cro-Magnon girl when she had so curiously vanished from the galley. Her escape had aroused the rage and fury of Achmed’s captain, Kâiradine Redbeard, as much as her youthful and vibrant Loveliness had aroused his lust and desire to possess her.

Privately, the burly Moor thought little of this assignment. To his way of thinking, the differences between one woman and another were minimal—and the fortress isle of El-Cazar, mountainous stronghold of the Barbary Pirates, held many beautiful women…not the least of whom was the voluptuous and passionate Zoraida, Redbeard’s mistress, and Achmed’s chief rival for closeness to the Prince of the Barbary corsairs.

To devote such time and energy to regaining one skinny, freckle-nosed, golden-haired savage girl seemed ridiculous to Achmed. Still, he had thought to himself with gloomy resignation and a philosophical shrug, an order is an order. And such as Kâiradine Redbeard, master of El-Cazar and seventh in direct succession from the feared and ferocious Khair ud-Din of Algiers, do not view insubordination as a light offense.

As for Fumio, the renegade Thandarian warrior, whom his men had taken captive at the same time as Darya, Achmed had certain reservations. But Kâiradine Redbeard had commanded the Moor to fetch back both the Cro-Magnon cavegirl and her young jungle sweetheart—for so he had assumed Jorn the Hunter to be—and Achmed did not dare to disobey.

He was aware by now, was the Barbary pirate, that his second captive was another than the boy Jorn, whom Kâiradine ravished to punish for his untimely interruption of the ravishing of Darya, and also for the almost unthinkable crime he had committed, for the jungle boy had sprung upon Redbeard and almost throttled the life out of him before taking flight with the girl.

But Achmed the Moor had not survived this long in the dog-eat-dog world of El-Cazar without developing cunning. And, having never more than glimpsed the boy Jorn, and that from a distance, he believed that he could safely get away with the pretense that, having captured the man in company with the girl, he took it for granted that the Cro-Magnon warrior was in fact Jorn.

He was clever, was Achmed; and he was a born survivor.

He was a magnificent figure of a man, was this Achmed of El-Cazar. Although his fellow pirates disparaged him for his “taint” of Moorish blood (being themselves mostly descended from pure Arab stock), he was swarthy rather than ebon-hued. Only his thick lips and kinky beard attested to his Negroid heritage. Beneath his voluminous turban, his bullet-head was clean-shaven; gold hoops bobbled in the lobes of his ears. Gold armlets clasped his burly arms; charms and fetishes, many of precious metals were strung on gold chains about his thickly-corded throat and fell upon his deep chest; he wore an open vest of red felt with gold froggings and loose, baggy pantaloons of pale green silk, whose bottoms were tucked into the tops of his calf-high boots of scarlet leather with up-curled toes. A wide sash of mustard-yellow and vermilion was wound about his thick waist; therein were thrust a long, curved scimitar very much like the cutlasses of the Spanish Main, a brace of wickedly-hooked daggers, and a fat purse of green leather fashioned from the hide of giant reptiles.

He was a towering man with broad, sloping shoulders and heavy, apelike arms, a figure of barbaric splendor. Cruelty showed in the curve of his thick lips; avarice marked his hooked nose with the flaring nostrils; but intelligence and loyalty could be read in his sharp eyes.

Such was Achmed of El-Cazar, first mate of the
Red Witch
and crony and confidant of Kâiradine Redbeard himself, dreaded Prince of the Barbary Pirates.

And into such hands had Darya of Thandar fallen a helpless captive…

* * * *

In the forefront of the band of corsairs which Kâiradine had dispatched to bring back the fleeing Cro-Magnon girl was one Tarbu—a lean, famished-looking rogue whose long-jawed, lank-cheeked, clean-shaven visage was rendered vicious and sinister by the jagged, zigzag knife scar which stretched from the corner of one eye to one corner of his thin-lipped mouth, causing a perpetual, menacing leer. He wore a loose, torn blouse of white silk open to the navel, whose voluminous sleeves flapped about his scrawny arms, while his bony shanks were clad in tight trousers of fawn-colored leather, much stained with seawater and blotches of spilt wine and scabs of dried gravy. He wore high-heeled seaboots with silver buckles upon the instep, and in one thin, strong hand he clenched the hilt of a cutlass whose blade was nicked and dented.

This Tarbu suddenly raised one arm for attention, halting the pirates behind him.

“What transpires, O Tarbu?” growled the Moor, his arms full of struggling naked cavegirl.

“The jungles end here, my chieftain,” panted Tarbu, peering through the curtain of foliage. “Beyond lie the beaches upon which our longboats were drawn.”

“Is aught in sight, then?” demanded Achmed.

“I see no one,” admitted the other.

Without further ado the Barbary Pirates left the jungle and dragged their longboats from under the cover of thick bushes where they had been concealed against chance discovery.

They began to board the vessels.

Before them stretched an astounding vista: steamy seas which extended into the misty distance where there uprose, instead of the blue and open skies, a titanic rocky wall which rose beyond the ability of the human eye to perceive its ending. And, in very truth, it did not end: for this was Zanthodon, the Underground World, a time-forgotten land far beneath the Earth’s crust into which had fled for refuge from a thousand ages and millions of years the last survivors of their kind…the mighty dinosaurs of the primal Dawn…the shaggy cavebears and burly aurochs of the Ice Age, and their contemporaries, the hairy-pelted Neanderthal savages and the tall, handsome, blond Cro-Magnon warriors who were their perpetual foes…and other strange survivals, too, from lost eras, like the Barbary Pirates themselves, hounded from the Mediterranean by the avenging fleets of Europe…and the mysterious Dragonmen of Zar, who were the last surviving colony of lost Minoan Crete, the very original of fabulous Atlantis itself.

Some strange trick of phosphorescence causes the domed roof of the subterranean world to glow with a ceaseless luminosity that is not unlike the golden radiance of late afternoon. Below that eternal daylit “sky” stretch unknown rivers, trackless jungles, impassable mountain ranges, vast plains where roam herds of mastodons and woolly mammoths—and the enormous expanse of the Sogar-Jad itself, strangest and most unique of all of the seas of this world—the Underground Sea, upon whose watery surface have never gleamed the light of sun or moon or stars.

And there, moored in a deep lagoon formed by the sheltering arm of the jungle-clad promontory wherefrom the corsair band had just emerged rode at anchor that proud galley, the
Red Witch
!

It has been many generations, even centuries, since such a vessel plied the foaming waves of the Upper World. Gone from our seas and receding into the history books are such galleys as the
Red Witch
, with her booming sails and lean black hull and rigging that sings like harpstrings in the winds.

No less a survivor from lost ages than the mighty beasts that roam and rule the savage jungles of the Underground World was the
Red Witch
…a vision of breathtaking romance would she have seemed to you or me, like some craft come a-sailing out of the golden pages of
Treasure Island
or
Captain Blood
or
Porto Bello Gold
.…

But to Darya of Thandar she was a thing of horror, like a floating prison. For all that the beautiful young Cro-Magnon girl knew and loved lay behind her in the vast plains and mighty jungles of the subterranean continent.

And all that lay ahead for her from this moment was a dreadful fate in the lustful arms of Kâiradine Redbeard and a miserable and degrading captivity in the harems or dungeons of El-Cazar.

As the longboats left the beach and the oars plied the foaming waters of the Sogar-Jad, Darya cast one mournful and despairing glance behind her as the jungle-clad continent receded into the mists of the distance.

Then unbidden tears blurred her vision, and the unhappy girl could see no more.

CHAPTER 2

THARN THE AVENGER

It was the cruelest irony that, even in the nadir of her hopelessness and despair, the blond cavegirl knew all too well that help and rescue were not far away.

Only recently had the black-haired soldier of fortune from the Upper World, Eric Carstairs, led the captive warriors of the two Cro-Magnon tribes of Thandar and Sothar into freedom from their dire captivity in the cavern city of the Gorpaks and the Sluaggh. Only a little while before the Barbary Pirates had carried off Darya had she and her people emerged from the caverns of the Peaks of Peril, to taste—in her case, but briefly—the daylight, the open air and freedom.

At the very moment the longboats left the beach and crossed the misty lagoon to where the
Red Witch
rode at anchor, Eric Carstairs and burly Hurok of Kor, Jorn the Hunter, and her mighty sire, Tharn the jungle monarch, Omad of Thandar, were not very far away. That they were searching for her at that very instant was her firm conviction.

And it was quite true. The warriors of Thandar and Sothar were even then combing the jungles of the promontory in search of Xask and Fumio, who had carried off Darya and my friend, the elderly scientist, Professor Percival P.
[1]
Potter, Ph.D. At that moment the warriors had not yet discovered the corpse of the brutal Neanderthal, One-Eye, and had no idea that Darya and the Professor had eluded the clutches of Xask and Fumio, to run straight into the arms of Achmed the Moor and his band of corsairs. The time yet lay some little ways in the immediate future when we would discover the corpse of One-Eye and would surmise that it had been the Barbary Pirates who had carried off the Cro-Magnon Princess just after she had concealed Professor Potter in the tree where we later found him.

Help and rescue were, then, almost at hand. Only moments divided the blond cavegirl from the arrival of her stalwart friends.

But—as she knew all too well—we had no way of sailing out upon the steamy waters of the prehistoric ocean, or of either following or attacking the corsair galley.

And that sealed her fate.…

* * * *

At the point in time when Darya of Thandar was carried off by the Barbary Pirates while the rest of us remained behind, shortly to pursue her rescue, my narrative of these adventures parts into two separate but parallel courses. One of these courses I have already followed at length in the third volume of these memoirs of my experiences in Zanthodon the Underground World. This volume traces my pursuit of Darya with a small band of warriors, which resulted in my capture by the Dragonmen of Zar and the many perils and adventures which transpired during my captivity in the Scarlet City, and of those which occurred to my friends Hurok and Jorn and the others who sought to free me from the grasp of Zarys the Divine Empress of the ancient Minoan colony.
[2]

The second course, which consists of the dangers experienced by Darya herself in the corsair stronghold of El-Cazar, the present volume will trace. But it will be obvious to the reader of these adventures that the narratives, while separate in viewpoint, occupy the same interval of time.

It has, then, already been told how we emerged at length from the cavern city, having slaughtered the vicious Gorpaks, exterminated their loathsome masters, the vampiric Sluagghs, and freed the pallid and listless cavern people, their slaves. And it has also been told how we learned of the carrying-off of Darya, how we sped in pursuit of the stolen Princess, discovered the corpse of One-Eye whom Achmed had cut down, rescued the Professor from his tree, and followed with all haste upon the trail of Darya and the pirates, only to be diverted by the Dragonmen of Zar.

When the warriors of the twin tribes of Thandar and Sothar came out of the cavern city, they also followed on the trail of the kidnapped Princess. That same third volume of these memoirs gave an account of how young Yualla. daughter of Garth, was borne away by a thakdol (as the men of Zanthodon call that grisly flying dragon of Earth’s remotest dawn, the dreaded pterodactyl), and of how the Sothar tribe parted company with the tribe of Thandar, the Sotharians heading across the great plains of the north toward the mountainous rampart which guarded the secret access into Zar in order to find Yualla, while the tribe of Thandar continued their pursuit of Darya and the corsairs.

The mighty Tharn, Omad or High Chief of Thandar, determined to follow the coastline of the underground continent in the same direction taken by the
Red Witch
. So very recently had his long-lost daughter and heir been recovered, only to be thieved from him again, that the jungle monarch with stubborn and redoubled resoluteness swore to follow upon her trail to the very ends of the world, rather than give over the quest.

He and his warriors traversed the promontory, gained the northern plains, and followed the coastline as it meandered “north.” When in the fullness of time the tribe of Sothar sundered their common path with their brother Cro-Magnons, he remained grimly determined to continue the quest alone, if needed. If his daughter had been slain by her cruel captors, at very least he could avenge her murder by the slaughtering of “The-Men-Who-Ride-Upon-Water”—which was the name by which his people termed the Pirates of Barbary.