The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (81 page)

When the ground leaped and shivered underfoot, knocking us asprawl amid the bushes, something like thunder growled and boomed in the distance, and the stench of sulphur and brimstone smoked upon the air.

I staggered to my feet and stared around wildly. Underfoot, the ground quivered like a live thing. Bushes rustled, beasts yowled, trees were toppling slowly to every side, uprooted by the earth tremors.

Great Gundar grabbed my arm, pointing.

“The beach! The beach!” he roared above the noise. I gulped and nodded, to indicate comprehension. Trees were falling to thump the earth all around us, and the open shores of the Sogar-Jad, not very far away, were certainly the safest place for us to be, under the circumstances.

We headed for the shore, stumbling along, lurching as the ground shook underfoot. By now, the air was pungent with the smoke of burning rocks and live sparks and cinders were floating down among us.

The Professor lost his footing and fell to the impulse of another tremor. Gundar bent, scooped the old savant up, tossed him across one brawny shoulder, and pelted on through the whipping bushes. I followed, and the others after me.

Moments later, we burst out of the line of trees and thick underbrush which fringed the beach and found ourselves on the sandy shores of the underground ocean once again. Trees had fallen athwart the beach, but we waded out into the shallows and stood, while I counted heads. Thankful, I saw that we had all escaped unharmed from the earthquake.

Gundar helped the Professor down, and the little scientist peered about at the plumes of smoke in the sky from the distant mountain, eyes snapping with eagerness.

“Fascinating, my boy!” he breathed. “Although the mountains of Zanthodon are ancient, there are still many live volcanoes among them, and vulcanism is active. I had presumed as much from the rock formations I have observed along our journeys, but this is the first eruption I have ever witnessed…Great Galileo, but I wish I were close enough to see the volcano!”

“Be glad you aren’t, Doc,” I said sharply. “Knowing you, you’d be sticking your nose into a bed of hot lava and get it singed off first thing.”

He snorted, but subsided. I guess he realized that I was right.

* * * *

We waited things out. Within the hour, the earth tremors subsided and the stench of brimstone (or whatever it was) faded from the air, and we deemed it safe enough to return to the interior of the jungles.

By then, we were all hungry, and decided to hunt and eat first, before continuing on the trail of the tribes of Sothar and Thandar.

Zuma proceeded farther down the shore, while others of our number unlimbered bows and arrows or hunting spears. The black warrior guessed that many fish would have been washed ashore in the eruption and earthquake, and spotted tidal pools ahead of us, which he wished to investigate.

Instead, he almost ran into an immense, hairy monster who boomed a savage challenge, hefted a heavy stone axe, and came charging down upon him, growling bestial warnings.

PART IV: CROSSING THE ABYSS

CHAPTER 16

THE PROFESSOR DEPARTS

Xask and Murg plunged headlong into the bushes and the underbrush swallowed them up. The ground shuddered violently underfoot and bushes whipped violently. As the two ducked and staggered between the trees, the gloom of the jungle was made hideous by the squeal of tearing wood, the thunder of toppling trees, the roaring of panicked beasts.

After a time, as the two ran out of breath and paused to catch their second wind, leaning exhaustedly against the tall bole of a towering cycad, it became evident that the earthquake was over and most of the danger seemed to have passed. The ground trembled no more and the burning whiff of sulphur and brimstone had faded from the humid jungle air.

Murg and Xask looked at one another wordlessly, and Xask smiled. They had escaped safely and were again at freedom, and Xask vindictively hoped the black warrior-woman had been crushed to death beneath the failing tree which had felled her.

“Come over here and free my wrists,” he snapped. Murg scuttled to where the other crouched and fumbled nearsightedly at the thongs which bound the vizier.

“Alas, Murg has no knife,” he wailed.

Xask shrugged irritably. “Untie me with your fingers, then, and be quick about it! Now that the earth has stopped its shaking, our late captors—those of them that have survived—may come looking for us.”

Murg tugged and pried at the thongs. “Murg hopes they all are slain,” whined the little man.

Xask glared coldly.

“Best for us that they are not,” he stated crisply. “For I still have need of them, as hostages for the secret of the thunder-weapon.”

Murg did not know what the other man meant, but wisely held his tongue, poking and pulling at the thongs. After a moment Xask added, meditatively:

“And if perchance they are dead, well…then I must think of something else. Aren’t you done with that yet?”

“Yes, master!” breathed Murg, and Xask pulled free of the thongs and briskly began rubbing the circulation back into his hands.

After a brief rest, they started on. As best they could, the two retraced their steps to approach the place where the falling tree had given them their chance to make a break for freedom. Neither Xask nor Murg had any particular talent as scouts or hunters, so their woodsmanship was minimal; still and all, before very long they found the place, but Jorn, Niema and Yualla were no longer there.

Xask studied the turf about the fallen tree thoughtfully, thin lips pursed. “It would seem that even the black woman survived the earthquake,” he mused. “They must all have continued on the track of their tribes. In that case, they would have traveled in that direction,” he said, pointing.

Snapping a curt command to Murg, the vizier started off in the direction which the three were most likely to have traveled. Cautioning his little companion to silence, he slunk through the woods, making all possible speed, but keeping as quiet as could be managed, to avoid being discovered by those he was following.

Unarmed as both men were, they felt themselves fortunate that the earthquake seemed to have driven all of the beasts of the jungle into their lairs, where, doubtless, they cowered in safe hiding. Thus the two were not molested during their tracking of their quarry.

Xask, busied with his own plans and plots, said but little, save to snap curt commands to his unhappy little companion from time to time. As for Murg, the poor fellow was morose and miserable. He seemed always to be finding himself under the thumb of those wiser or stronger than himself, and he was getting heartily sick of it. First there had been the dreadful, cruel Gorpaks, then the Neanderthal bully, old One-Eye, then he had been taken captive by Yualla of Sothar; now, he was at the beck and call of the Zarian vizier.

Murg wished there was something he could do about this, but was too timid and cowardly to think of a course of bold action that would free him from his present yoke.

Had Xask known of the emotions seething in the scrawny breast of his companion, he would only have smiled cynically.

Nobody ever paid much attention to Murg.…

* * * *

Professor Potter was also restive, but from more elevated motives of intellectual excitement and scientific curiosity than those which stirred in the heart of Murg. He was consumed with a fervent desire to witness the volcanic eruption at first hand, and at length resolved to do so while we lingered on the beach, waiting for the hunters to return with their catch.

Pausing to scribble a brief note to me on a blank page torn from his little black notebook, he took up a dagger and a light spear, and crept into the jungle. And I must confess that it was some time before any of us discovered that he was missing. When it did come to our attention, I found his note pinned with a thorn to my bedroll, and scanned it quickly. The missive read as follows:

Eric, my dear boy:

I simply must observe the active volcano at first hand, and have seized the opportunity to do so while our party is busied with hunting, cooking, and eating. I will be very careful, and will return soon enough, so please do not worry about me!

Your friend,

Percival P. Potter, Ph.D.

Blurting a curse, I sprang to my feet, then hesitated. Many of our group were still absent, including the black warrior, Zuma, and my friends, Gundar and Thon of Numitor. Varak looked at me quizzically, it having been that warrior who brought to my surprised attention and consternation the fact that the Professor had departed from our company.

“He will get lost, and then get eaten by a dinosaur, if I know the Doc!” I swore. Varak patted me on the shoulder.

“The old man is smarter than you think, Eric Carstairs, and will not be so foolish as to stray into the jungle without blazing a trail so as to be able to find his way back to us,” he said. “And, besides, the shaking-of-the-ground has frightened the dangerous beasts into hiding—see how silent the jungle is? He will be all right, Varak feels certain.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” I said grumpily. The truth was, I had become inordinately fond of the scrawny savant by this time, and dreaded losing him. But, surely, the volcano was not very far away, and, anyway, there wasn’t much I could do about the Doc’s disappearance. I just wish I had kept a closer eye on him, that was all.…

* * * *

Yet another person was getting restless and worried about things, and that was my beloved princess, Darya of Thandar. Before we left the camping area in pursuit of Hurok of Kor, we had dispatched a messenger to the encampment of Tharn the High Chief, informing him of our mission and promising that our absence from the tribes would be as brief as possible. We suggested that they continue on their way and promised that we would follow their trail and catch up with them a bit later.

Darya had been separated from me too long, and we had only very recently been reunited, for her to feel happy at my departure or comfortable over the length of my absence. So, while the twin tribes were momentarily held at bay, helpless to cross the wide chasm which the eruption and earthquake had opened in their path, the Cro-Magnon girl decided to backtrack and find me herself.

Knowing that her father would sternly forbid such an act, she merely took up her weapons and departed from the host in such a manner that her departure went unnoticed. She did, however, mention where she was going and why in a brief exchange of words with one of the warriors at the rear guard of the host, so that her father would not be unduly worried over her disappearance.

Knowing that Eric Carstairs and his company could not be very far to the rear, this warrior, a man named Bugor, permitted her to leave without trouble. He knew the bold and headstrong Princess from her childhood, and had a hearty respect for her woodsmanship and intelligence.

Entering the thick underbrush, Darya moved on light, swift feet down the jungle aisles in the direction from which the two tribes had come. It was her intention to locate the area in which we had all lain encamped during the last sleeping period, then strike out on our trail, for the cavegirl reasoned that she could follow the spoor of Hurok as easily as we could, and in this, of course, she was correct.

The jungle was silent and seemingly uninhabited as she glided through its aisles and glades and thickets. Darya was an experienced huntsman and her senses were as honed and keen as those of any Mohawk brave’s, and she was confident that she had naught to fear. The girl had lived all of her young life in such surroundings, and knew that those predators which were large and ferocious enough to be dangerous, make considerable noise in moving through a jungle as thick as this one, and thus advertise their presence far in advance of their arrival. If any such disturbance came to her notice, Darya intended quite simply to climb a tree in order to remove herself from the path of danger.

But there is one dangerous denizen of the prehistoric jungles of Zanthodon that moves as silently as a gliding shadow, and that is the isst, or giant python, which flourished in primal ages and often attained the astounding length of forty-five feet.

Darya froze, therefore, with a startled yelp when without the slightest warning an immense serpentine shape dropped a coil from the boughs directly overhead, to challenge her passage with a hissing cry from fanged jaws that could open to swallow a full-grown man.

And, in the next fraction of a second, a sharp explosion rang out, deafeningly loud in the ominous silence which pervaded the jungle, and three things happened almost simultaneously.

The huge head of the super-python simply flew apart in a gory splatter.

Immense, writhing coils loosened, and the monster serpent dropped limply to the floor of the glade almost at Darya’s fear-frozen feet.

And a man, clothed as she had never before seen, stepped from the underbrush with a smoking rifle in his hands.

CHAPTER 17

THE BRIDGE OF LOGS

When the tall tree toppled slowly toward Niema, the black girl did not hesitate but plunged directly into its path. Jorn yelled and sprang forward. An instant later, the tree crashed to earth directly on the spot where the Azuri maiden had been standing when the earthquake struck.

In the excitement of the moment, neither Jorn nor Yualla—and certainly not Niema—noticed that Xask and Murg had seized this opportunity for escape, and had taken to their heels and vanished into the underbrush.

Jorn clambered over the tree trunk to find the lithe black amazon squatting amid a thick-leaved bush, shaken but unharmed and smiling broadly. The girl had instinctively realized that to leap backward would have been to come up against another tree, and that safety lay only in jumping under the toppling jungle giant.

“Niema is unharmed,” she informed the Cro-Magnon youngsters. They squatted beside her, while the earth tremors subsided. Once the brief earthquake was over, they searched for their two captives and found them missing.

No one was particularly sorry to discover this, and least of all Niema. She grinned, white teeth flashing.

“Niema is happy to see their heels,” she remarked, employing an Aziru saying whose meaning is more or less identical with “Good riddance!” Her companions were unfamiliar with the phrase, but grasped it readily enough.

“The earth has stopped shaking and that bitter, burning smell is gone from the air,” Yualla pointed out. “Let us be on our way before it starts up again.” Her companions agreed with her, and without further ado they continued on in the direction they had been following.

Niema strode along zestfully, fully aware that the earthquake would have frightened the more dangerous beasts into hiding in their lairs for the present, and that this reduced the perils they might face and made a more rapid and less cautious pace possible.

Her keen eyes searched the ground for signs of the passage of many human feet. The spoor she tracked would have been obvious even to you or me, and she followed the path made by the twin tribes as easily as if they had been marked with directional signs.

She had, of course, no slightest notion of what was about to happen next.…

* * * *

When the ichthyosaur overturned their dugout canoe, Hurok and Gorah sank beneath the foaming waves of the Sogar-Jad.

As the water closed over his head, Hurok opened his mouth to yell. Promptly swallowing a mouthful of seawater, he fought down his panic, closed his mouth, and kicked violently to the surface. When his head broke water, he reached out desperately with long and powerful, apelike arms. Flailing about, he touched the slick wood of the boat’s keel and locked his grasp thereupon, thus managing to keep his head above the waves. When, a moment or two later, Gorah also reached the surface, he helped her to grab ahold of the overturned boat.

The huge aurogh had submerged again, like the supershark it was, being unable to breathe the air and needing to return to its watery realm frequently. But it was obviously hungry, the ichthyosaur, and it was hunting.

Hurok feared the creature would bite their legs off underwater, but for all his strength, he was unable to clamber up out of the water and sit astride the overturned hollowed log. It simply bobbed under his weight and would not permit itself to be ridden.

Before long, however, the huge marine monster surfaced again, and bore down on them. This time he could see it clearly, the long beaklike snout, the round eyes mad with hunger and bloodlust. His weapons were lost in the sea, all save for the stone axe lashed to his waist; but, needing both hands to cling to the overturned canoe, he could not unlimber his means of defense, even if it had been feasible or even possible for him to employ spear or axe while immersed in seawater up to his chin.

Gorah wailed in fear, and, to tell the truth, Hurok felt his courage quail, for there seemed no way out of this dilemma. Even if he and his mate had been able to swim, which neither could, they were too far from the shores of the mainland of Zanthodon to have even dared attempt to swim to the beach before the hungry aurogh would be upon them with snapping jaws, ripping and tearing their bodies asunder.

Spotting its prey clinging desperately to the hollow log, the maritime monster bore down upon them, the water frothing to either side of its opening jaws like the fan at the prow of a speedboat. Gorah squealed and shut her eyes, momentarily expecting the jaws of doom to close upon her. Hurok growled a hopeless curse and stoically waited for the end—

But it did not come!

Water boiled behind them and there soared into view an incredibly long and sinuous neck, like the foreparts of the Sea Serpent of legend. Atop this supple neck upreared a head with open jaws fearsomely armed with fangs the length of cavalry sabres.

A
yith!
thought Hurok to himself, with an inward groan.