The Return of Tharn Part 25

Trakor rolled over to face her.

For a long moment the man and the woman stared deep into each other's eyes. Then the youth's lips parted in a slow smile, his strong regular teeth gleaming in the distant light of the fires.

"I am Trakor," he whispered. "You are Dylara!"

Open astonishment showed on her face. "How could you know that?"

She had spoken in her natural voice and alarm flickered in Trakor's eyes as they shifted to look about the silent camp. "Shhh!" he hissed. "Keep your voice down, else they hear and separate us."

Obeying, she said, "But how do you know my name?"

"Tharn told me."

"_Tharn!_" In spite of Trakor's warning, the word burst from her throat in a single loud exhalation. "But that is im----"

"Shhh!"

A sleeper a yard or two away stirred and turned over, while Dylara and Trakor lay unmoving, hardly daring to breathe. Dylara felt her heart thumping wildly while a hundred mixed emotions seemed to be battling within her. Questions, many questions welled up and sought to force her lips apart. At last she could bear it no longer.

"He is alive?" she whispered. "Is he still in Sephar? When did you see him last? Did he send you to find me? How were you able to follow me here?"

Trakor was shaking his head, smiling. "Tharn did not send me. I came here with him. He is in one of the trees bordering this clearing!"

"Ohhh!" Dylara closed her eyes as a wave of weakness seemed to roll over her. Tharn is here! Tharn is here! Elation, thanksgiving and relief swelled her heart almost to the bursting point. No matter now that fifty Ammadians lay between her and the cave lord. Fifty times fifty of them could not prevail against the might and cunning of Tharn!

Suddenly a new thought cut sharply across the flood of elation. Why was she so happy and thrilled to learn he had sought her out? Had not she, only a few suns ago, decided in favor of Jotan?

But Jotan was dead; the grinning Ekbar had told her so. Now, as then, she marveled at how little the news depressed her. Yet she had brooded many times over the thought that Tharn was dead....

She opened her eyes. "But why did he send you to take me? Has he been hurt?"

Trakor reddened. "It was my idea; I wanted to help him."

He told her the whole story then, how he had met Tharn, the debt he owed the cave lord, their hunt, together, for Dylara--everything. When he came to that part of his story detailing his ill-advised attempt to free Dylara, he stammered a little but got it all out.

Dylara was smiling as he finished. "It was very brave of you to try what you did. And although they caught you and have us both now, we need not worry. Tharn will take us from these people."

"I know that," Trakor said quietly. "It is only that he may think less of me for bungling things this way."

The girl shook her head. "You must know him better than that."

They fell silent as one of the guards sauntered in their direction during his routine inspection of the camp. Dylara, weary from her hours of jungle travel during the day before, fell asleep before the guard was at a safe distance for further conversation with Trakor.

When the youth saw she was sleeping, he lay there for a long time, staring at her loveliness and thinking bitter thoughts of his clumsiness in being taken captive. Tharn, he knew, would be unable to attempt a rescue with so many guards about; but tomorrow night the Ammadians, their suspicions lulled, would doubtless post no more than the usual number of sentries. To Tharn, four of the dull-witted Ammadians would be hardly any problem at all!

Shortly before dawn the men of Ammad were filling their bellies and preparing to break camp. When the line of march was being formed, Dylara and Trakor were separated--the girl being placed between two warriors midway along the column; while the young caveman, his arms bound firmly behind his back, was stationed well up toward the front. Ekbar strode back and forth along the line, making certain each man was in his appointed spot, inspecting Trakor's bonds, and cautioning those responsible for both prisoners.

Shortly before Dyta pulled his shining head above the eastern horizon of serrated tree tops, the Ammadian captain barked an order and the double line of warriors got under way.

By mid-morning both forest and jungle began to thin out as the path underfoot lost its level monotony and began to become a steep incline.

The air seemed to grow steadily cooler and gradually all underbrush beneath the trees began to thin out, then disappear entirely, leaving an almost park-like appearance to the forest. Even the trees were further apart and more and more often there were stretches of gra.s.sland without any trees whatsoever.

Shortly after noon, Ekbar called a halt at the edge of a vast plain covered with a rich green species of gra.s.s which seemed to grow no higher than a man's ankles. Here and there on the gently undulating vista of gra.s.sland stood trees, usually no more than one or two together. To the south, nearly at the horizon, was a long dark line that Trakor at first took to be clouds but which, later, he was to learn was the beginning of another expanse of forest and jungle.

Food was distributed and eaten, an hour's rest period was announced, and the Ammadians gathered their strength for the final stage of the journey. From remarks the two prisoners overheard they learned that Ammad lay half a day's march beyond that distant line of trees, and that every man in the group was anxious to put the city's strong walls between him and the hated jungle.

Trakor was beginning to worry. Crossing that vast plain during the heat of day was bound to be a trying experience, especially for the comparatively frail girl. But worse than that, Tharn was going to be placed at a disadvantage in following them. These Ammadians were not complete fools; they would keep a sharp lookout in all directions against possible attack from animals or men; for Tharn to attempt to follow them during daylight hours would mean certain detection. Still, even though the cave lord was forced to wait until darkness before venturing out into the open, he could easily overtake the Ammadians while they were camped for the night.

All during the long afternoon which followed, Trakor kept shooting brief glances over his shoulder toward the north, half-expecting to catch a glimpse of his friend. But other than a distant herd or two of gra.s.s-eaters, no sign of life appeared.

Night came while the column was still an hour's march from the last barrier of jungle between it and Ammad. At any moment Trakor expected to hear the captain call a halt.

That call never came. Instead the group pushed on until the trees were reached; a brief stop was made near the mouth of a wide trail at that point while gumwood branches were found and ignited, and once more the column took up the march.

After two hours of plodding along the winding game path, flames from the smoking torches casting eerie shadows among the thick foliage and heavy tree boles, Trakor could stand this uncertainty no longer.

"When," he said to the Ammadian warrior next to him, "are we to make camp for the night?"

The man gave him a sidelong glance and a crooked grimace of derision. "I thought you men of the caves were accustomed to walking long distances?"

"I can walk the best of you into the ground!" retorted Trakor. "But when night comes you usually stop and huddle behind fires lest the great cats get you."

The Ammadian scowled. "We are afraid of nothing! But only animals and uncivilized barbarians wander about the jungle at night. We are but a little way from Ammad; it would be senseless to spend a night in the open when the city is so close."

Trakor's heart sank. "Only a little way from Ammad!" The words beat against his mind like the voice of doom. Dylara and he were lost; Tharn could not save them now!

Yet hope did not leave him entirely. His boundless faith and admiration where the cave lord was concerned would not let it die. He caught himself glancing time and again at the low-swaying boughs overhead.

Every flickering shadow from the torches was transformed into the lurking figure of his giant friend.

But as the hours pa.s.sed and nothing happened those last faint glimmerings of hope began to fade and his spirits sank lower and lower.

Ahead of him, Dylara was going through much the same travail. She staggered often now from weariness; for she had been on her feet, except for that brief period at noon, since early morning and she lacked the strength and stamina of the others. She wondered, too, if Tharn would make an attempt at rescuing Trakor and her before Ammad was reached; but the memory of his fearless entrance into Sephar in search of her brought the thought that he might do the same thing this time.

Abruptly the forest and jungle ended at open ground. Beyond a mile of open ground, flooded by Uda's silver rays, stood the towering stone walls of Ammad.

To the dazed, unbelieving eyes of Trakor it was like a scene from another and wonderful world. In either direction, as far as he could see, rose that sheer, ma.s.sive man-made wall of gray stone, broken at wide, regular intervals by ma.s.sive gates of wood. Far beyond the wall he could see mammoth structures of stone at the crest of five small hills.

The sides of those hills were lined with other, and smaller buildings of the same material. Lights twinkled from breaks in their walls, an indication that, unlike the cave men, Ammadians did not spend most of the night hours asleep.

Dylara, accustomed to city walls and buildings of stone from her long stay in Sephar, was not so overcome by the scene. Still Ammad's size, even from the small part visible at this point, brought a gasp to her lips. She had thought Sephar wonderful beyond compare, but next to Ammad, it was hardly more than a frontier outpost.

A challenging voice rang out from the shadowy recess shielding the nearest gate and Ekbar's column ground to a halt. Three Ammadian soldiers, their white tunics gleaming under the moon's rays, moved toward them and Vokal's captain advanced to meet them.