The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (74 page)

Also among my company were gallant Varak and his mate, Ialys of Zar, who had fled with us, and Grond of Gorthak and little Jaira, his mate, who had been slaves in the island fortress of El-Cazar. These, together with the other warriors of my company, such as mighty Hurok of Kor, had swelled the numbers in my service until we jestingly described ourselves as a miniature tribe, not just a company.

Each company seeks its own camping place, and lights its own cook-fires, and marches together. Hence, as we entered the edges of the jungle, we were a little apart from the others and forced to make our own path through the dense undergrowth and heavy foliage.

I was in the lead, of course, with Hurok the Neanderthal on my right hand, and Gundar on my left. The Cro-Magnon gladiator was the only panjani (as the Neanderthal Apemen of Kor refer to us) who could compare, in bulk and breadth of shoulder, in sheer physical might, to my old comrade Hurok, and venturing into the jungle I felt more comfortable with these two stalwarts at my side.

These jungles have many denizens, and among them are some of the most feared and savage beasts that ever roamed the upper world, the lumbering grymp, or triceratops, the vandar, as the Cro-Magnons name the dreaded sabertooth tiger, and the goroth (or prehistoric bull, known as the aurochs to science) are among these, and not the least among them, as you can imagine.

But the commotion made by the entry into the jungle country of such a host of warriors and their women, numbering over a thousand by now, drove even the more ferocious predators into hiding—a fact for which we all had cause to be thankful.

Still and all, we trod the jungle aisles warily, senses alert for the slightest sign of danger, weapons bared and ready in—

After a time, I began to notice that Hurok seemed unusually somber and silent, even for one given to few words. I glanced at the burly form of my friend curiously. Finally I spoke up.

“Why are you so silent, Hurok?” I asked. “Is anything bothering you in particular?”

“There is a certain matter on Hurok’s mind,” admitted the Apeman of Kor in his slow, deep voice, “but naught that concerns his friend Black Hair.”

“Anything that worries the mind of Hurok, worries his friend Black Hair,” I said. “For Black Hair and Hurok of Kor are more than friends: they are brothers.”

A gleam of pleasure momentarily brightened the small, dull eyes, buried under heavy neanderthaloid brow-ridges. Then it was gone, but I knew it for his version of a smile.

“Perhaps at a later time,” he said heavily, “Hurok the Drugar will apprise Black Hair the panjani of that which is in his heart.”

I was troubled by these words, and did not like the sound of them. For one thing, “Drugar” is the word by which the Cro-Magnons call the Apeman of Kor, and it is more or less to be considered a derogatory term. “Panjani” is the word the Apemen of Kor use for the Cro-Magnons: it means “smooth-skins.”

It bothered me that Hurok employed these terms. I could remember earlier occasions when he found himself unwelcome among the fighting men of Thandar because of his race, which they have good reason to detest. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon have been at war since first their remotest ancestors found their way into the hidden cavern world of Zanthodon, and they remain blood foes to this day. But Hurok had long since earned the respect and the friendship of the Cro-Magnon comrades by whose side he had fought many battles and braved the perils of the wilderness.

I said nothing more, assuming that in his own good time, my huge, hairy friend would unburden his heart to me.

And made thereby a mistake I later had cause to regret.…one, if I may say so, among very many!

* * * *

The misty-golden skies of Zanthodon know neither sun nor moon, neither night nor day. A perpetual late-afternoon light illuminates the humid atmosphere of the Underground World, under the vast curve of its cavernous roof. This mysterious luminescence, which derives neither from sun nor moon nor stars, is belived to be caused by some chemical action akin to phosphorescence.

Lacking sun and moon, the men and women of Zanthodon know neither day nor night. Unaware of these divisions of time, they tend to sleep whenever they become sleepy, and to awaken when they are sufficiently rested.

After we had cut our way through the thick jungles below the plain of the thantors
[3]
for what must have been many hours, weariness overcame us, and the desire for sleep.

Each company of warriors chose its own ground and posted its own sentinels. Hurok volunteered to take the first watch, with no particular reason; I think I assumed the glum old fellow wished to be alone with his thoughts.

When we awoke, he was gone.

CHAPTER 4

XASK RUNS INTO TROUBLE

When the great cave bear came rearing up on its hind legs and burst into a lumbering charge, Jorn and Yualla sprang from their places of concealment in the tall grass.

Since there was no way of fighting the monster with the weapons they held, their only recourse lay in flight. For the Cro-Magnon youngsters were young and lithe and swiftfooted, and could easily outrun the shaggy ponderous brute.

Instinctively, they took opposite directions so as to confuse the beast and make him pause to consider which fleeing youngster to pursue. Not looking back, they raced off into the plain.

The omodon paused uncertainly, peering with small, weak eyes after the two escaping morsels, growling hungrily, trying to make up what passed for its mind.

This was the scene which confronted Xask and Murg and the six guards when they came pelting up to the spot from which the uld had scattered. The Zarians came to a stumbling halt, staring at the shaggy monster. At its full height, the omodon towered twenty feet high, and seemed a veritable ogre to the small slightly-built legion warriors. Spying them, it opened an enormous fanged maw, roared its angry challenge, and came charging down upon them with an earthshaking stride.

In no time it was among them, hammer-heavy paws batting them aside. One guard went flying, his skull shattered. Another staggered back, pawing at the gory ruin of its face, slashed to ribbons with one swipe of the bear’s huge, fearsomely armed paw. A third screamed and fell, disemboweled at a stroke.

Only one guard stood and faced the lumbering hill of fury muscle that came thundering down upon him. He thrust with a lightning-swift stroke, sinking the keen points of his metal trident in the bear’s belly. Instead of felling or even slowing the cave-bear, the wound only seemed to infuriate him.

He caught up the guard in the grip of those great paws.

And bit his head off
.

That was enough for Xask! Without further ado, watching his guards fall before the angry brute, the prudent vizier turned and took to his heels.

Murg hovered indecisively, squeaking, licking dry lips with a dry tongue. Then he took off in the same direction Xask had taken. A tall stand of trees stood in the midst of the plain, some distance away; it was the only thing in sight that might afford a safe haven, and toward it Xask had instinctively fled.

Murg followed.

Seeing its fleet-footed prey vanish in the distance, the bear grunted sourly. It quickly dispatched the last of the guards, then squatted on its hunkers to regard the gore-splashed corpses strewn and sprawled about amid the trampled grasses.

Most bears in the upper world prefer fat grubs, insects or leafy vegetation. The great cave-bear of the Ice Age, however, was less fussy in its tastes, and had developed a hearty fondness for raw meat.

Dragging the nearer corpse over to where it squatted, the bear sniffed at the bloody thing. It vastly preferred the timid, tasty uld—man-meat was stringy and sour. Still and all, hunters cannot be choosers.

It began to feed.…

* * * *

After about an hour, Yualla caught up with Jorn, having left the omodon far behind, finishing its meal. Neither of the young people was even winded by the rapid pace they had maintained across the plain, but it was good to pause and rest a little. They found a sheltered pool, nestled in the shoulder of one of the foothills of the Peaks of Peril, and satisfied their thirst therein.

Their flight from the cave-bear had carried them far into the midst of the plain, where it bordered the range of gray peaks. They were, in fact, near to the point at which the mountains petered out, diminishing into hills and hummocks.

While they rested, they discussed the situation.

“There is no point in retracing our steps to the scene of battle, for by this time our people have either won or lost the contest,” remarked Jorn thoughtfully.

“They will have sent the women and children, the aged and the injured, through the pass to the safety of the far side of the mountains,” Yualla said.

“It would be a lot easier to circle the end of the range here and rejoin the survivors on the other side,” murmured Jorn.

Yualla agreed with his choice of actions. Taking up their weapons, the two Cro-Magnon youngsters began making their way through the foothills at the end of the mountain range. They traced a path through narrow, rocky defiles, a mazelike labyrinth, which consumed much more time than it should.

Jorn and Yualla were alert for danger. These mountains were the haunts of many dangerous beasts, among whom the omodon was but one. Sabertooth tigers made their rocky lairs in the flanks of the mountains, and upon the summit of the peaks thakdols nested.

Having once been carried off by a hungry thakdol, Yualla had no particular wish to repeat the experience.

The thakdol is the bat-winged flying reptile the scientists of the Upper World call the pterodactyl, so you can imagine how the cavegirl felt.

The Peaks of Peril, you see, were aptly named.…

* * * *

Whatever gods watch over the wandering adventurers of Zanthodon seemed to have taken the Cro-Magnon couple under their care, for despite the numerous savage denizens of the Peaks of Peril, Jorn and Yualla encountered no further dangers during their journey through the hills.

Before the world was very much older, they found themselves on the southern side
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of the mountains, and saw before them the broad and level plain of the thantors, and, beyond these, the dark edges of the jungle country.

For a time they went along the flanks of the mountains, heading back in the direction from which they had fled. At length weariness overcame them and they prepared to sleep. They had also, by this time, developed hearty appetites—young Cro-Magnons being no different in that wise than the young people of the Upper World.

Since no game surfaced to visibility, there was nothing to do about their hunger except to attempt to forget it and seize the opportunity to sleep.

Finding a cozy nook among the rocks, they rolled up the long, dry grasses into a soft bed, and composed themselves for slumber.

Jorn was acutely aware of Yualla’s nearness. He had fallen in love with the pretty Cro-Magnon maid during their adventures together, and young blood ran hot in his healthy body. But he tried to ignore the tempting nearness and pretend he did not feel the desires that surged within him.

The Cro-Magnons, our remote ancestors, enjoyed a simpler and less complicated code of behavior than the cumbersome system of laws and restrictions our modern urban civilization imposes. They bare their bodies before members of the opposite sex indifferently, uncaringly, but when they mate it is a serious commitment for life.

Hence Jorn’s forbrearance and, also, his discomfort.

Perhaps it would have comforted him to know that Yualla was every bit as aware of his own nearness as he was of hers. Nor did she ache the less to feel his arms about her and his lips upon her own.

The two spent an uncomfortable night.

I use the word to simplify the need for explanations. In a world without sun or moon, a world bathed in perpetual day, there is no such condition as night.

* * * *

Jorn awoke first and lay very still and remained quiet. Sensing her companion, against whose naked body she lay nestled, Yualla roused herself, yawned hugely, stretched, and asked him how he had slept.

When he did not at once answer, she rolled over and looked at him. And quickly understood the reason for his silence.

It is hard to speak with the point of a long spear just tickling your Adam’s apple.…

CHAPTER 5

KÂIRADINE HAS A BAD DAY

Kâiradine looked distinctly unhappy, and indeed the Prince of El-Cazar
was
extremely unhappy. So would you have been, had you been misfortunate enough to have been in his predicament.

It is bad enough being chased by an inquisitive dinosaur, but it is even worse being treed by one. For the better part of an hour, the enormous brontosaurus had lumbered about the sandy beach, mildly curious as to what had become of the peculiar man-things she had followed all this way. It never occurred to the dim intelligence of the monstrous herbivore to look into the treetops: had she done so, she would have observed the hapless Redbeard uncomfortably stradding a branch, but she
[5]
did not.

His gorgeous silken pantaloons were ripped and torn by the rough bark of the trunk he had so hastily climbed. His turbaned headdress had been knocked askew when his head collided with a branch he had not noticed.

To make it worse, it had begun to rain.

The sudden showers of Zanthodon are warm, for the climate is mild; also, they are quickly over. You get just as wet and miserable from them, however, as when you are caught in the rains of the Upper World.

To make things even less comfortable for the buccaneer, the drenching rains had made the red dye which stained his trim, small fringe of beard run, and the reddish stuff was trickling down his throat to stain his shirt.

As for Zarys, who sat side-saddle on the next branch, the Divine Empress of Zar had seldom gone through such a heady variety of violent emotions in so brief a time.

First there had been the unheard-of experience of having the tall leader of the corsair host fling himself so unexpectedly upon her, crushing her in his arms, and carrying her off, bound and helpless and in a fury such as the gorgeous young woman had never known. Incredulity stung her to venomous rage.
Never
in all of the years of her young life had the Sacred Empress of the Scarlet City been so rudely handled by a mere man—that he had dared attack her in the first place was amazing enough, but to have trussed her like a roped uld, tossed her across one broad shoulder, and carried her off into the wilderness was a lese majesté beyond description.

There was little or nothing she could have done about it at the moment, of course, although she struggled like an infuriated leopardess in the prison of his brawny arms, snarling imprecations, spitting curses, and uttering imperious commands which went completely ignored and which were, in fact, soon quite effectively cut off by the sudden imposition of a gag.

To make matters worse, all the while, obviously enjoying the pressure of her warm and supple, half-naked body against his own, the Redbeard had grinned down exultantly at his beautiful, if furious, and very helpless, captive.…

But now the Empress had gone from one extreme to another. If it was insulting and outrageous to be carried off like a slave girl by the corsair, it was distinctly less pleasant to be forced to climb a tall tree in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of the most enormous reptile she had ever seen, this side of Zorgazon himself, her co-divinity and, technically, her “mate.”

Now, panting, disheveled, soaked to the skin, weary from her exertions, she clung to the branch and endured the downpour as best she could.