The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (78 page)

I turned to regard the man who had saved my life, which I had not even known to be threatened. Arms folded upon his breast with simple dignity, he regarded me solemnly.

I thanked him in dazed words I do not now recall. He nodded majestically.

“From the branch above, Zuma observed the vandar creep from the cover of bushes, and he knew that the white man was unaware of his danger,” the black said in a deep voice. I tried to express my gratitude.

What Zuma—that seemed to be his name—had done was inexplicable. In Zanthodon, each tribe regards the other with suspicion, and regards them as enemies until they are proven friends. This did not seem to be true, however, of the Aziru.

I queried him on the point, and Zuma shook his head slightly, white teeth flashing in a grin.

“My people, the Aziru, have never feared other tribes,” he said quietly. “And it would gall the heart of Zuma to have stood idly by and let the white stranger be slain without lifting a hand to defend himself. Zuma would feel less than a man had he not helped a stranger in need.”

I told him that my name was Eric Carstairs, and asked of him his story. We had been conversing in the universal tongue of Zanthodon, which he spoke well enough, though with a slightly foreign pronunciation; in later conversation. I noticed that he frequently employed native African words in lieu of their Zanthodonian equivalents. Listening to his story (the same account I have already given through the lips of Niema, and will not repeat here), I realized that his tribe must have been the most recent of all the many migrations of men and beasts into the Underground World. Probably, among themselves, the Aziru spoke Aziri; but they were acquainted with Zanthodonian, as well.

Suddenly, a skinny little scarecrow of a man with white goatee and pince-nez glasses clipped onto the bridge of his nose, with a huge, battered sun helmet teetering atop his baldish head, burst from the bushes and shrank back with a gasp from the corpse of the sabertooth stretched at his very feet. It was, of course, my old friend, Professor Potter.

“Doc, we have a new friend!” I cried cheerfully, introducing him to Zuma. It would have been hard to tell which of them found the other a more remarkable sight, although both were polite about it. While the Professor excitedly queried Zuma, first in Bantu, then in High Zulu, finally in “kitchen Swahili,” before discovering that he could speak Zanthodonian, I called my other wandering boys home with a toot at the aurochl-horn bugle which hung at my hip. Faint replies came from scattered points in the various directions; in half an hour, we all gathered in the glen and they were soon acquainted with Zuma the Aziru.

No one had been hurt in the encounter with the sabertooth, for everyone had fled into the thick brush with the same alacrity I had demonstrated. They were delighted to find me unharmed, and were amazed at the appearance of the towering black, never having seen or heard of a man with such a color of skin before. I was impressed with Zuma’s natural dignity, and asked him why he had come into these parts of Zanthodon, which were far to the west of the kraal of his tribe.

“Zuma has searched far to find the woman he would win for his mate,” he explained. “She is called Niema, and she is very beautiful. Not finding her in the east, Zuma has come into the west, knowing that she must be somewhere!”

“Ahem!” coughed the Professor. “My dear fellow, may we assume this young woman is also of the Negroid persuasion?” At Zuma’s baffled look of uncomprehension, he added, “That is, is the young woman, well, black of skin, and…all that sort of thing?”

“Niema is a woman of Zuma’s own people, yes,” answered the tall warrior. The Professor shook his head sadly.

“Then none of us have ever encountered her, I fear,” he said, to which the rest of my companions agreed. In fact, until meeting Zuma, they had never even heard of a man such as he.

Zanthodon is a large world, half a million square miles or more, and it has a lot of surprises in it, of which the presence of the last Aziru was only the most recent to our experience.

“We must go on, before Hurok gets too far ahead of us,” I reminded my people. In a terse aside, I explained to Zuma that we were tracking a missing friend, and hoped to have caught up with him by now, until delayed by the sabertooth,

“Zuma will accompany his new friends in their search for their comrade,” he decided. “Perhaps along the way, Zuma will find her whom he seeks, as well.”

We headed for the shore.

* * * *

Kâiradine had been limping along for a mile or two, his fine boots ruined by seawater and crusted with sand, his piratical finery a bedraggled mess. He had begun the day in a foul temper, but since his companion ignored his verbal excesses and vicious looks in her direction, the emotion subsided into a morose and gloomy mood of depression.

Ahead of him up the beach, Zarys strode lithely along on beautiful bare legs. The Zarian woman, wiser in many ways than the Barbary Pirate, had tossed away wig and coronet, unbuckling and discarding greaves and breastplate, as these uncomfortably heavy encumbrances were no longer needed.

It was her firm intention to walk all the way back to Zar, if walk she must.

She had kept few of her garments and ornaments, as few were needed in her present situation. Under her gilt mail, she had worn a loose, short shift of silky stuff, and beautifully worked sandals adorned her small feet. These she kept, of course, as well as the telepathic crystal by which she had formerly controlled her giant saurian mount. As the Redbeard had tossed away her weapons when seizing her, she was unarmed.

She was a remarkably beautiful young woman, as Kâiradine reluctantly was forced to admit to himself. She strode zestfully along, hairless pate lofty, arms swinging at her sides. The brisk wind from the sea molded to the ripe contours of her handsome figure the light silky garment that was her only clothing. From time to time, a mischievous gust flirtatiously lifted the hem of her short skirt, revealing to the eyes of the buccaneer the succulent rondure of her pert buttocks and the tender flesh of her inner thighs.

Kâiradine swore feelingly to himself, mentioning the Sacred Well of Zemzem and the Black Stone of Kaabah in distinctly disrespectful terms. The moody corsair did not know what was wrong with him, and was gloomily baffled by his own behavior. If the beautiful young woman was not, after all; the Darya for whom he so long had lusted, she was enough like her to have been her twin sister, and was certainly no less beautiful or desirable. Why, then, had Kâiradine let her sleep untouched all night, instead of having his will of her?

Kâiradine did not know the answer to that question, and as he clumped along unhappily, he puzzled over it.

She was the most intimidating woman he had ever known, was Zarys of Zar! She had a way of glancing at him with a cool, disdainful look of appraisal and a slight, questioning lifting of one brow that made him seem foolish even to himself. With a frosty smile she could quench his ardor or tie his tongue in sputtering knots.

In her presence, he felt clumsy and ungraceful. As if to prove it, at that very moment, the Redbeard tripped over a piece of driftwood and fell flat on his face in a puddle of water.

Sitting up, dripping and covered with sticky wet sand, he climbed to his feet, only to find that the act wrung a cry of surprised pain from his snarling lips.

Zarys paused to glance back inquiringly over her shoulder at him. When she saw him squatting in the wet sand, trying to take off one soggy boot, she came back to where he sat and elevated one brow questioningly.

“Well…?”

“Turned my ankle,” he grunted sourly. “When I fell. Hurts.”

She stood watching as he inched down the ruined footgear to probe gingerly at his foot. The injured member was swelling visibly.

“Soak it in the sea,” she suggested solicitously. “Maybe it will feel better.”

“Go wading in the shallows like a child?” he demanded scornfully, although privately he knew it was a good idea. She shrugged.

“Limp along on it then, and bite back the pain. But keep up with me!”

He tried, but the effort made him gasp.

“I can’t,” he admitted sullenly. Stripping off the other boot, he waded out into the shallow water until it was above the level of his sprained ankle, and stood there with his pantaloons rolled up and the dripping boots held in his hands, feeling foolish.

Zarys gave an exasperated sigh and sat down on a rock. She looked around, appraisingly.

“Then we must stay here, I suppose,” she said. “Well, it looks safe enough; there are no beasts about. Perhaps we will have to sleep here, as you seem to be done with walking for a time.”

Kâiradine growled something unintelligible in a thick voice, but evaded her eye. She gave him a bright smile.

“While you’re standing there,” she advised, “take out that shiny sword of yours. Maybe you can spear a fish or two for dinner!”

The Prince of the Barbary Pirates snarled an oath and threw one of the boots at her, which she evaded easily with a delighted and mischievous laugh.

Somewhere, the gods were smiling.

Of all the women in the world I could have carried off
, thought Kâiradine Redbeard venomously to himself,
I had to carry off this one!

PART III: PERILS OF KOR

CHAPTER 11

THE LEVELED SPEAR

Now that we were together again, we resolved to continue on the trail of Hurok. But first we had a problem to solve. That is, when the sabertooth had dropped down from the trees among us, we had scattered in all directions. By now, gathered in the long glen where Zuma had rescued me from the fangs of the huge cat, we realized that we had forgotten our direction, and since we could not retrace our steps to the last place we had seen the tracks of Hurok, we had no trail to follow.

When we explained the problem to our new friend, Zuma shrugged and grinned, white teeth flashing in his ebony face.

“If the feet of your friend are as huge as you say they are, then it should be easy enough to find his spoor, since you say he is traveling in the direction of the sea. Let us make a line, with as much space between each warrior as possible without losing sight of one another, and head in that direction. One or another of us will find the spoor.”

It sounded like a good idea. Actually, we didn’t know for sure that Hurok
was
heading for the shores of the Sogar-Jad, but while we had followed his trail, he had certainly been heading in that direction.

Since we had to do something we resolved to try it. Spreading out into a long rank, and trying to keep within sight or, at least, earshot of each other, we advanced through the jungles, studying the ground for signs that Hurok had come this way.

A quarter of an hour later, as nearly as I can judge, a
halloo
came to our ears and we gathered to the spot as quickly as could be managed.

It was timid little Jaira, Grond’s sweetheart, who had found the trail! And there it was, as big as life and even larger: the unmistakable imprint of the Apeman’s huge, splay-toed feet in a patch of mud beneath a conifer.

“Good work, Jaira!” I smiled. “Those blue eyes are sharp as well as pretty, eh?”

She flushed rosily, smiling with pleasure.

From that point on, we could move more swiftly, and also keep together rather than remaining strung out in a line. Zuma proved to be the ablest tracker of us all, and took the lead. Time after time, his gaze unerringly spotted the signs of Hurok’s progress through the underbrush. Even the Cro-Magnon warriors, keen-eyed hunters all, were not as good at it as our new black companion.

I have to confess that I am terrible at tracking a trail. Something about urban life in modern civilization seems to sap and vitiate the keenness of a man’s senses, and while I have sharp eyes and all that sort of thing, I was not raised from the cradle in the wild, or trained from boyhood to follow a spoor. So all of my friends, except for the Professor, of course, were very much better at it than I. And of them all, Zuma was the best.

I was already developing a healthy respect and liking for this magnificent specimen of manhood, and I hoped that we could assist him in searching for his sweetheart, the girl Niema, for by this time, of course, he had fully explained the nature of his own quest.

But first we had to catch up with Hurok.

* * * *

When we got to the seashore, it became easy to follow his steps in the sand. We tracked them to the place where the Drugars of Kor had, long ago, concealed their dugouts, and realized what he had intended.

Zuma pointed.

“See the marks in the sand? They are the same width as the bottoms of these hollowed logs. And they go down to the waterline, as do the prints of his feet. Your friend has taken to the sea!”

We looked out across the heaving expanse of the Sogar-Jad, feeling disconsolate. For now we realized the goal toward which the mighty Neanderthal had been journeying. Not far across the sea lay the island on whose southern tip was situated the cave country of Kor.

Hurok was going home.…

The island was not visible at this distance, of course, for the air of the Underground World is steamy and the sea usually has a layer of humid mist floating above its waves. But it was there, all right, we all knew.

“Heh, my boy!” chirped the Professor unhappily, “what do we do now? It appears that our Neanderthal friend has returned to the cave country to rejoin his people. Doubtless, he felt he would be miserable, being the only member of his species in Thandar…and we certainly cannot attempt an invasion of Kor! Surely, not all of the males were slaughtered during the battle and the stampede of the woolly mammoths.…”

“No, I guess that would be a foolish risk to take,” I said unwillingly.

“After all, my chieftain,” remarked Varak, “if Hurok our friend wishes to return home, he is free to do so. Varak is only sorry that the Drugar did not pause long enough to say farewell.”

“I suppose you’re right, Varak,” I said moodily. “Sure, Hurok is free to come and go as he chooses. But it’s just not like the huge fellow to take off without a word…something smells wrong about this, and I can’t figure out what!”

We loitered about the beach, unable to think of what to do next. I have to admit, ashamedly, that not one of us even so much as guessed at Hurok’s desire to take a mate, before returning to join us on our journey south to Thandar. It simply never occurred to us, I guess.

“My chieftain, shall we hasten to catch up with the tribes? They will be well along the journey by now, and we shall have to hurry.” It was Warza who spoke.

“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “I can’t think of anything else to do.…”

The Professor laid his hand on my arm.

“Eric, my boy! If Hurok intends to catch up with us later, after his visit to the cave country, surely he will be able to do so. He can follow the tracks of the twin tribes as easily as we can. And if he had no intention of rejoining us, but has simply gone back home, then that is the way things are…pray do not worry yourself needlessly!”

I nodded, and gave a brief order.

We turned about and entered the edges of the jungle again, heading south after the tribes.

* * * *

Hackles abristle, Hurok crouched behind a great rock, his new mate whimpering fearfully behind him. He peered around the side to observe the huge Neanderthals as they prowled about his dugout canoe. The males sniffed at the boat, growling guttural remarks to one another.

“What shall we do, O Hurok?” whispered Gorah. Her mate did not know what to say; had there been only two or even three warriors about the boat, he might have risked all by challenging them, and, if it came to a fight, might conceivably have won. But they were too numerous and too well armed, for besides heavy stone axes, they bore throwing-spears and flint knives held to their sides by thongs.

And Hurok had only his spear and axe.

“We will wait and see,” he grunted. Gorah subsided, willing to leave such decisions to her mate.

She recognized two of the Apemen at the boat, and identified them to Hurok.

“The leader is Borga, the chieftain, a mighty fighter, the killer of many warriors,” she said in muted tones. “His friend is Druth, the Fat One, who terrorizes the shes. He is a great coward and bully, and the shes he chooses to bother with his attention are the very young and timid ones. When she was younger, he used to follow Gorah about and try to catch her when she was alone.…”

Hurok growled, indicative of understanding, and a red light flashed in his eye. Still, he held his peace and hid from the warriors. All he wanted was to return to the mainland with the female who had agreed to companion him in life. The last thing he wanted was a fight, not here and now. He was bruised and battered, lame and limping, after his tussle with Ugor, and knew that he would not be at his fighting best until later, when he had rested and dressed his wounds.

Something was happening down below. Hurok peered around the side of the rock, straining his ears to make out the grunts and mutters of speech.

The huge male whom Gorah had identified as Borga had given commands to one of the other males, who now went up the slope and vanished among the rocks, heading in the direction of the canyon which was the center of the cave community. Hurok guessed that Borga had dispatched the male to warn the Korians of the secret arrival on their shores of an unknown party. While the others remained behind to watch by the boat for the return of the strangers, in order to frustrate their escape from the island, the warrior would alert the community of danger, and would probably return with reinforcements, and even a search party to comb the tumbled rocks for the hiding place of the invaders.

Hurok crouched on his hunkers, and he was stymied. He could neither escape to sea with Gorah, since the boat was under guard, nor hope singlehandedly to fight off all the males of Kor. If he remained in hiding here, the searchers would discover him and he would have to fight. But where else could they go?

He turned, touching Gorah, and led the way off through the rocks. The center of the island was a mass of cliffs, honeycombed with caves and passageways, but the base of those cliffs, fringing the shores, was a maze of broken rocks in which a thousand men could hide.

With Gorah following closely at his heels, Hurok prowled through the winding ways. He did not exactly know where he was going, but it was his intention to find a place where the two of them could hole up until such time as they could return and find the boat unguarded, or steal another.

He rounded a corner, and almost ran full into a giant Neanderthal, who growled, bristled, lifted a stone-bladed spear, and leveled it against Hurok’s hairy breast.

CHAPTER 12

KÂIRADINE KILLS!

The tribes of Thandar and Sothar had moved through the jungles on their way south for many hours. At length they came to a break in the maze of trees, and found a broad and grassy plain before them. Not far to the east, the plain was bordered by a tall, conical mountain, about whose crest a plume of inky smoke floated, obviously an active volcano, of which the Underground World had many to boast.

Garth, by now largely recovered from the dastardly attack of the assassin, Raphad, and Tharn of Thandar, met at the forefront of their people to confer.

“That is the Mountain-That-Smokes,” said Tharn. “Fire Mountain, we call it. By it, we know our route for certain. This country is new to you, I know, my brother; but we know it well, for by that sign and other landmarks, we traced our way into the north in search of the Drugar slavers who carried off my daughter, the gomad Darya, and Fumio, and Jorn, and others.”

“Herein you and your scouts must be our guides,” replied Garth. “For, even as you say, none of the Sotharians have ever ventured into these southerly parts of Zanthodon,” and with those words, the High Chief of Sothar broke off and stiffened. Tharn turned to follow his gaze.

A ways beyond where they stood at the jungle’s edge, the plain turned into a boggy, swamplike morass. Floating mists hovered above mossy hillocks which thrust above the stagnant, muddy waters, and trees grew sparse and twisted.

Amid the veils of foggy vapor, humped, enormous shapes moved slowly—a dozen, two dozen, thirty of the moving mountains of flesh.

“Grymps!” said Tharn in a terse voice.

And they were indeed grymps, or a species of dinosaur which our science calls triceratops. Armored in tough, almost bulletproof hide, the huge saurians, which resembled rhinoceroses more than anything, but were as big as Mack trucks and must have tipped the scales at ten tons each, were among the most fearsome and dangerous and virtually unkillable of the predators of Zanthodon.

“Have they sensed our presence?” asked Garth in low tones.

“I am not sure,” answered Tharn. “But one thing is certain: until the herd has moved on, we dare not challenge them by crossing the open place.…”

Even as they conversed, one huge bull, obviously on guard, sniffed the odor of man-flesh on the humid air. He raised his great beaked snout, armed with the thick, heavy horn, and bellowed a warning. The cows and the young squealed and gathered into a group, while other males trotted out to join the sentry, the earth trembling under their ponderous tread.

Behind the two chiefs, the hundreds of warriors had left the jungles and stood on the exposed plain near the edge of the swamp. The bulls trotted back and forth, tasting the air and raising their snouts to roar their challenge noisily. Their small eyes were too weak to clearly discern the humans, but their noses were keen enough to make up for the lack of eyesight.

There were very many men near, they sensed. And, in their experience, the presence of so many warriors meant that they were hunting. And it was the first duty of the bulls to defend the herd, which was largely made up of females and their young, against such a band of hunters.

“We are in for it, I fear,” grunted Garth somberly. “Before we can get our people back into the relative safety of the jungle, they will charge.”

“I fear that you are right, my brother,” growled Tharn. And even as he spoke, the first bull burst into a thunderous charge. Head lowered, massive nose-horn pointed in their direction, the huge reptile hurtled toward them at startling speed, followed by six or seven more of the younger, feistier bulls.

Tharn grasped his spear and leveled it, but even as he did so he knew the gesture was a futile one, because you cannot kill or even wound grymps with a spear, and the monster, huge as a moving hill of armored flesh, would be upon them before they could turn to flee.

* * * *

They did, after all, feast on fish, although Zarys was the one who caught most of them, for the saber-thrusts of Kâiradine Redbeard proved largely ineffective. But he scooped a hole in the sand, packed it with dry driftwood and grasses, touched it to fire with the flint-and-steel in his pouch, and on the glowing coals that resulted, they roasted the succulent finny feast and dined heartily. Not long thereafter, weary from the day’s exertions, they sought their rest.

The place they found themselves in was a cozy nest, backed by a tall stand of Jurassic conifers, with thick bushes to afford shelter against the warm, drenching rains, and watered by a small stream of fresh water which came meandering across the plain, to empty at length into the Sogar-Jad.

As usual, they slept well apart, each curled up beneath their own bush, and Kâiradine kept his sword close to hand, lest they be surprised in the sleeping-period by one of the predators that roamed this world. His ankle was less painful by now, for immersion in the warm waters of the sea had helped soothe the bruised and aching muscles, and the Barbary prince had stayed off the injured limb for hours.

After an hour or two of slumber, the quiet was suddenly riven asunder by a thunderous, shrieking cry. Kâiradine snapped wide awake and sprang to his feet, ignoring the pain that stabbed through his ankle. He snatched up his saber and stared about him.