The Return of Tharn Part 10

At this point the cliffside was neither as steep nor as high as that housing Gerdak's tribe. Tharn went over its edge without hesitation, slipping groundward with the reckless abandon of a falling stone, yet landing there without an appreciable jar.

The forest at this point came almost to the base of the cliff. Tharn entered, swung lightly up to the middle terraces and set out on the return journey to that point opposite Gerdak's caves where he had left Trakor.

While he had still a goodly distance to go he heard the sounds of shouting voices and caught an occasional glimpse of a flaming torch through rifts in the foliage ahead. Evidently Gerdak was not lightly giving up hope of getting his hands on the man who had made fools of him and his warriors.

An unerring instinct developed through years of travel through uncharted terrains brought Tharn to the very tree where he had left his new found friend. But even as he entered its branches his nose told him what his eyes verified.

"Trakor," he called out, keeping his voice down lest some nearby enemy warrior hear it. "Trakor, where are you?"

There was no answer. Trakor was gone.

Even as Sadu left the ground in a final leap aimed at crushing Dylara's fleeing figure to earth, the girl sprang for a low-hanging branch of a jungle giant. As her fingers closed about its rough bark she flung her body to one side, Sadu's cruel talons raking the air scant inches away.

Before the beast could turn and leap a second time she was twenty feet above it and climbing with the speed of desperation.

She heard the sound of tearing foliage as the lion sprang blindly into the lower branches, a thump as it toppled back to earth, then an angry roar of protest at being cheated of its prey. She stopped her climb then and leaned her head weakly against the bole, panting and shivering from strain and utter relief.

Below her, Sadu stalked back and forth a time or two, voicing his displeasure. This lasted for no more than a moment or two, however; Sadu was too much of a realist to waste time in bewailing his ill luck. The rumblings of satisfaction from his fellows as they bore their kills into the forest, the screams of dying men, told him there was food aplenty back among the fires.

Dylara caught a glimpse of the brute as it slunk swiftly toward the terrified encampment. She crouched there, watching the awful scenes of carnage while gradually her heart stopped its mad pounding and the trembling left her legs and arms. She knew regret that many of the men she had learned to know and respect were dying so horribly, but the sight of what went on did not affect her beyond that. Except for these last few moons all of her eighteen years had been spent practically cheek by jowl with the jungle and its denizens, the only life she had known. The fiercest animals had stalked her at times, just as the warriors of her father's tribe had stalked them. She knew first-hand the stinging insects, the loathsome snakes whose bite or coils could bring a lingering death or a quick one. She knew the chill nights of the rainy season, the unbearable heat and humidity at other times. As a result death and suffering were able to touch her deeply only when they affected some one close to her.

It was a kind of life that had its compensations. She was far more self-reliant and much better equipped for survival under her present circ.u.mstances than the average Ammadian would have been. Her eyes and ears were more sharply attuned to impending danger, she could climb far better, she knew how to find water where her recent companions would perish of thirst, she could distinguish between poisonous and non-poisonous fruits and roots.

Yet for all of that she was still a girl, young and, by jungle standards, weak. She caught herself wishing Tharn were with her--and even as the thought came she knew a fleeting doubt.

Did she love him? It was a question she was not yet able to answer. The memory of his handsome face and splendid body rose to torment her with doubt. She recalled him as he appeared in Sephar's arena facing insurmountable odds with a laugh and a careless toss of his black-thatched head, remembered his blazing eyes and rippling muscles as he plummeted to earth between her and charging Sadu, appearing just in time to stave in the lion's skull with one terrible blow. In all the jungle, in all the world, there was no man a tenth his equal in cunning, strength and courage! Even among his own kind he was unique; for no man in Cro-Magnon history could use his nose the way the beasts used theirs, no man who could travel among the trees with the rocketing agility of little n.o.bar, the monkey.

If only he had met and wooed and won her instead of seizing her by force and carrying her away like some bit of jungle loot! Pride and the awareness of her position as daughter of a tribal chief could not permit her to surrender to a man who would do such a thing. It was the way the Hairy Men[2] won their mates, and Dylara, daughter of Majok, must give her heart, not have it taken!

[2] The Hairy Men was the Cro-Magnards' name for Neanderthal Man. The Neanderthalers appeared in Earth's prehistory roughly 100,000 years before the birth of Christ and centered in Southern France and Spain of today. At the time of the Cro-Magnards' arrival, perhaps 80,000 years later, Neanderthal Man was nearly extinct, possibly because of climatic changes due to the recession of the last Ice Age. Cro-Magnon Man, the first of _h.o.m.o Sapiens_ (true men), regarded these ape-like subhumans as little more than beasts and eventually exterminated them.--Ed.

Even as she told herself this for the hundredth time, she realized such thoughts were probably empty. The chances were overwhelming that Tharn had not survived the rigors of the Sepharian Games: battles between men and between men and beasts for the entertainment of Sephar's populace and held in honor of the G.o.d-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken-Aloud. Jotan and the others had told her many times that no man in all Sephar's history had ever come through those Games alive.

And even if he should! Would he undertake to follow her across the almost limitless stretch of plains, mountains and jungles to the country of Ammad? Even if he should accomplish such a feat--how could he hope to wrest her from the depths of a stronghold as impenetrable as she understood Ammad to be?

No, it was unthinkable. She had best wait until the lions were driven from the encampment below, then slip from her tree and go back to Jotan.

Since the day he had won her from Sephar's high priest he had treated her with unfailing courtesy and kindness, declaring over and over his love for her but not once attempting to force his attentions upon her.

After a little while she might allow herself to be won over into accepting him as her mate. It would be an honored, sheltered life and in time she might know complete happiness.

Dylara was shaking her head even as these last thoughts were crowding in. No. Her place was with her own kind, with Majok and the others. It was a long, long way back to them and in the attempt she might leave her bones to bleach on some mountain top or disappear down the maw of one of the great cats. But there was no other acceptable choice--and no time like the present to get started.

Carefully she began to work her way into the jungle, moving cautiously far out on a strong limb until she was able to clamber into the branches of the next tree. The curtain of greenery was too thick for the light of moon or stars to penetrate, leaving her to grope her way in utter darkness. Each vine she sc.r.a.ped against was pictured in her mind as the sinuous coils of Sleeza, the snake; each fluttering of a disturbed bird was an aroused panther or leopard.

She was not going on this way much farther; her nerves, steady as they were, could not take much of such suspense. Only deep enough into the jungle to keep the inexperienced Ammadians from following her trail; with the coming of Dyta, the sun, she would locate a game trail pointing in the direction she wished to go, then descend to the ground and follow it.

An hour later her trembling limbs refused to continue this inch-by-inch progress. And so Dylara made her way toward the high flung branches of a forest patriarch to where Jalok, the panther, and Tarlok, the leopard, dare not go. Here the foliage was less compact and Uda's pale beams displayed to her rapt eyes an endless sea of tree tops everywhere about her.

Finding a comfortable fork fully a hundred feet above the jungle floor, Dylara composed herself to wait the coming of dawn. Finally she drifted off to sleep, while far below a lion roared that he had made his kill and filled his belly for the night.

And not long after, a jungle dweller, swinging swiftly through the trees, came to a sudden halt on a swaying branch as a vagrant breeze brought the scent of her to its quivering nostrils. For a full minute it remained motionless as if carved from stone, then it turned sharply aside and went on, fairly flying along the dizzy pathway of swaying boughs, following that scent spoor to its source.

While Tharn was puzzling over the strange disappearance of Trakor, his keen ears caught a sudden yell of surprise from the direction of Gerdak's caves, followed by a chorus of exultant exclamations that told him the Cro-Magnards had flushed some sort of game and had succeeded in bringing it down.

Quickly he lowered his captive to a broad branch, stuffed a handful of leaves into its mouth, bound them there with a short length of vine, then lashed the wrists to the tree bole. This done he was on the point of swinging off to investigate what lay behind those sounds when he caught a glimpse of a familiar object swinging from a neighboring branch.

His blackwood bow and quiver of arrows left earlier with Trakor! With them in their accustomed places along his back and shoulder, Tharn swung the short distance between tree and clearing. From a wide branch he gazed down at the scene below.

A knot of enemy warriors was moving slowly toward the caves of Gerdak, among them the still struggling figure of Trakor. Wavering flames of resin-wood torches lighted up his features and Tharn saw there was only rage in his expression and nothing of fear. Already shouts from the group had aroused others of the tribe and a score of them were running forward to meet it.

With quick, certain movements of his powerful hands Tharn unshipped his bow and withdrew several arrows from his quiver. Steadying himself on the swaying branch, he notched an arrow, drew back the stubborn wood, steel muscles moving under his naked back, took careful aim....

"Tw.a.n.g!"

Like a plucked violin the bow sang his single note, polished wood flickered in the light of torches and one of Trakor's captors threw wide his arms and sank into a briefly twitching heap. Before his fellows could grasp the significance of what was taking place three more of their number were down, each with a thin-bodied arrow protruding from his chest or back.

There was a general scrambling as those holding Trakor released him and threw themselves headlong to escape the rain of death. The advancing wave of warriors halted with breathtaking abruptness, those behind the front rank crashing into it. Momentarily freed, Trakor looked wildly about him, as confused as the others.

"Run!" shouted Tharn. "Into the jungle, Trakor!"

The youth heard--and obeyed. As he broke into a run, one of Gerdak's fighting men, either more courageous than his companions or angered beyond reason at losing their prize, scrambled to his feet and lifted his spear for a cast at the flying figure.

Again Tharn's bow tw.a.n.ged and a tufted arrow appeared magically embedded in the spearman's chest. Voicing a piercing shriek he toppled back, spear rolling from his fingers.

Tharn was already among the lower branches of a tree when Trakor came crashing into the jungle. As the boy plowed past, the cave lord reached down with one arm and caught him under the arms, lifting him to the branch beside him before the youngster was fully aware of what was happening.

"Tharn!" It was a gasp of such utter relief that the giant Cro-Magnard smiled.

"I thought I left you safe in a tree," he said.

"I meant to stay there, Tharn," Trakor admitted sheepishly, "but I heard one of them shout to the others that you had been captured and was being held in Gerdak's cave. I thought that because of the darkness I might pa.s.s among them without being recognized, reach the chief's cave and in some way set you free."

"You could never have done it." Tharn's voice was stern, revealing nothing of his inner feelings. He was more deeply touched by this evidence of loyalty than he cared to admit. For this untrained boy to pit his relatively puny muscles against an entire community in an effort to rescue his benefactor was proof enough that here was material for the shaping of a great warrior; and with this thought Tharn's last remaining reluctance to be saddled with Trakor during the search for Dylara disappeared.

The warriors of Gerdak appeared to have recovered their courage; already several of them were entering the jungle in search of Trakor and the mysterious bowman. Two of them pa.s.sed cautiously beneath the very tree in which their quarry was seated. Tharn touched his own lips in warning, pointed up at the branches overhead, then lifted the youth to his back and climbed in perfect silence to where he had left the captive Roban.

In the dim light Tharn could see the whites of rolling, fear-filled eyes and beads of perspiration dotting the receding forehead. A m.u.f.fled chattering pushed through the wad of leaves and the prisoner shrank away as far as the vines binding his wrists to the tree would permit.

The cave lord was undecided as to his next step. He dared not remove the gag from Roban's lips and question him here. A single shout would bring Gerdak's men to the scene; and while this would mean little if any danger to Tharn and his new-found companion, it could mean he might lose the services of Roban as involuntary guide.

The alternative was to carry Roban deeper into the jungle where he might be questioned without interruption, but Tharn knew that Trakor could not hope to follow through the tree tops.

There was but one answer: he must carry both of them. Quickly he loosened Roban's bonds and swung him lightly across one shoulder, then turned to Trakor.