Warrior of the Dawn Part 28

The strength of the great cat's scent faded as the creature moved farther away. Whether or not it had caught Tharn's scent did not interest the cave-man, now; a retreating danger ceased to be of interest.

For a few minutes Tharn carefully went over the floor of the trail at the point where the abduction had taken place, as well as the neighboring undergrowth. Soon he found the several hiding places of the Hairy Ones; and a bit later he came upon the delicate footmarks of Alurna within the trail itself. One of these prints was almost obliterated by the broad square mark of a great naked foot; it was here Mog's initial leap had ended beside the girl.

Dropping to hands and knees, Tharn placed sensitive nostrils close to the marks. To that unbelievably keen organ was borne the individual scent spoor of Alurna, as well as that of Mog, the sullen. Immediately there were engraved on Tharn's memory, scent impressions he would recognize among a hundred others for a long time to come.

He found more of Mog's footprints, all leading along the path and away from Sephar. He followed these, increasing his pace when they showed no indication of swerving from the trail. Satisfied that locating Alurna's captor was only a matter of following the path underfoot, Tharn went on.

He felt no inclination to hurry. Too long had he been denied freedom from supervision. The sooner he found the missing girl, the sooner he must return to Sephar--even though he and Dylara were to be freed the moment he returned.

As he strolled along, he was reminded of the bow and arrows hanging at his back--these and a stone knife and a gra.s.s rope were the weapons he had chosen when preparing to leave Sephar.

The bow, he found, was fashioned from a hard black wood. Its inner surface was nearly flat; the outer quite round. Both ends were gracefully tapered, each notched to hold a string of catgut.

The arrows were made from the same wood as the bow. Their heads were of flint, painstakingly shaped into the likeness of a small leaf, and exceedingly sharp. Each head was fitted snugly into a deep groove, packed about with a clay-like substance and hardened by fire until nearly impossible to loosen. Near the b.u.t.t of each arrow a thin rounded bit of wood had been inserted to guide its flight.

Bordering the trail some fifty paces ahead, stood a small tree. During some recent storm a lightning bolt had torn a jagged streak in its bole, close to the ground, leaving a strip of white wood gleaming in the sun.

Partly through accident and partly by clear reasoning, Tharn drew the bow with the finished technique of a veteran archer. His left arm, stiffly extended, pointed straight at the selected mark; his right hand, fingers hooked about the string, came smoothly back to a point just below the lobe of his right ear.

There sounded a singing "tw.a.n.g" and a polished bolt flashed in the sunlight, pa.s.sed the tree's bole by a good foot and disappeared into the foliage.

Tharn ruefully rubbed an angry welt on his left wrist where the bowstring had stung him. He understood, now, why many of Sephar's warriors wore wristbands.

With his knife he hacked off a strip of his loin cloth. This he bound about his left wrist, then took up the bow, his chin set in determined lines.

On his third attempt he hit the mark, sending an arrowhead deep into the center of the white patch.

The cave-man all but shouted aloud. Lovingly he ran his palms over the black wood. No matter what he had suffered at Sepharian hands, they had repaid many times over by disclosing to him the power in a gut-strung branch. Now in truth was he lord of the jungle! He pictured Sadu dead, a few well-placed arrows in his carca.s.s. And s.h.a.ggy-coated Conta, the cave-bear; of what protection his tough hide against such keen-tipped shafts?

Clearly, Tharn had forgotten the mission that had sent him into the jungle. Everything ceased to exist for him except the bow in his hands and the quiver of arrows at his back. Although he continued on toward the west, his progress was slow and uncertain; for the cave-man was determined to become an expert bowman without delay.

At first he was content to use nothing more difficult than tree trunks as targets; but as he increased in skill his ambition led him to seek more difficult marks.

n.o.bar, the monkey, industriously occupied in searching the hairs on his belly for dried bits of dead skin, almost fell from his perch in fright as something streaked past his nose with a vicious hiss. With the nimble alacrity of his kind he rocketed thirty feet upward, where, from a swaying vine, he hurled a torrent of verbal abuse at the grinning youth in the trail below.

The hours sped by, but Tharn never noticed. At first he lost almost every arrow he shot, but little by little his skill was increasing. He attempted drawing the bow with either hand; he sought to release a second arrow before the first had struck; he shot at birds on the wing.

Darkness came upon him without warning. Then it was he remembered he had not eaten since morning. An inventory of his supply of arrows revealed only eight remained of the full two dozen he had brought from Sephar.

He would sleep now. In the morning he would find food and water. And he would make his kill with an arrow--of that he was determined. The bow had proved a wonderful toy; when Dyta came Tharn would prove its practical worth....

With the first rays of the morning sun Tharn slid from his arboreal couch and set out at a rapid trot along the trail into the west. An hour later he was crossing the narrow belt of gra.s.ses bordering the precipice overlooking a forest-filled valley.

Here he found where Mog and Alurna had started their tortuous descent.

Here, too, were signs of the pa.s.sage of other Neanderthals, and those of Vulcar's searching party.

Before descending the cliff, Tharn turned back to the plain in search of food. Not long after, he had completed a successful stalk of Narjok, the horned deer, and brought it down with a single arrow. After devouring a generous quant.i.ty of raw flank-meat, he drank deep of the waters of a small spring and came back to the brink of the precipice.

Tharn went down that vertical cliffside as though it were a broad staircase. At the base he found a tangle of overlapping footsteps leading straight toward a game trail leading into the nearby jungle.

Toward its mouth moved the young giant; and so confident was he that Alurna had been carried along this path that only by chance did he keep from losing valuable time.

As the Cro-Magnard neared the trees, the undergrowth parted with a slight rustle, and Gubo, the hyena, slunk deeper into the forest.

At the first sound of disturbed brush, Tharn had pivoted about and with unthinkable quickness unslung his bow and fitted an arrow into place. At sight of cowardly Gubo he smiled and relaxed; but before he turned back to the trail, he saw signs of a recent struggle in the matted gra.s.s close by. It might have nothing to do with the business at hand--and, again, it might.

A brief investigation gave him the complete picture. Here, Mog had gone down beneath Sadu; a few paces away were the broken gra.s.ses where Alurna had been tossed. He knew, without troubling to look, that Mog's bones were bleaching behind yonder wall of verdure.

Well, the Hairy One was dead; it would save Tharn the task of killing him. Now all that remained was to take the trail of the frightened girl at the place where she had plunged blindly into the dark waste of jungle. She could not have gotten far; and, except for the unlikely chance that one of the big cats had pulled her down, his mission should be finished before nightfall.

Delaying no longer, Tharn took up the trail of the princess, forging rapidly ahead and following with ease the evidence of her hurried flight.

Soon he came to the tiny clearing in which Alurna had spent the previous night. Circling about, he quickly picked up her trail out of the glade, went on across a short stretch of jungle and out onto the banks of a little stream.

Here he found traces of small sandals in the soft mud. That these had not been even partially obliterated by prowling beasts was evidence of the spoor's freshness.

By this time the mid-day heat was at its strongest. Tharn paused long enough to slake his thirst, then set out along the same pathway taken by Alurna not long before.

A half hour later he was moving steadily ahead at a half trot, expecting to come upon the girl at any moment.

Suddenly he came to a full stop, head thrown back, sensitive nostrils searching the light breeze. And then he moved--as lightning moves.

Only the trembling of leaves marked where he had entered the trees overhead.

CHAPTER XV

Treachery

In the apartment of Pryak, far beneath the temple of the Sepharian G.o.d, a number of priests were grouped about a long table. At its head sat the high priest, Pryak; at his right was...o...b..r, second in command. The balance of the stools were occupied by six under-priests, all stern, silent men of middle-age, with that air of inflexible righteousness which appears to be the hallmark of their kind.

Pryak, his close-set eyes of watery blue blazing with an inner fire, rose from his chair.

"For many moons," he began, choosing his words carefully, "the loyal servants of the G.o.d-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken have been forced to bow to the unjust commands of a hated oppressor. Now the time is at hand to end this oppression. The way has been shown to me by our G.o.d; listen closely, for the future of the priesthood in Sephar depends on how faithfully my orders are carried out.

"This is my plan...."

For nearly an hour the high priest spoke without interruption. His cold, crisp sentences seemed to explode in the listeners' faces. Twice, old Cardon, grizzled from pa.s.sing years of service for his G.o.d, half rose from his stool, words of protest forming on his lips. But each time the mad glare of Pryak's eyes gave him pause.

When the high-priest had concluded, he watched the faces of his audience, waiting for his words to sink home. Much depended upon their reaction.