Warrior of the Dawn Part 36

"Quiet, you fool!" snapped Katon. "This is no time to start a brawl."

Brutan mumbled something under his breath and went back to his bone.

Rotark wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "How many of us will see the end of this day?" he asked in doleful tones. "Take Gorlat, here--so careful not to soil his tunic. It may soak in his own blood before darkness comes again!"

The blond young man kept his mechanical smile. He said: "Not if they give me a knife...."

Something in the soft words brought a momentary silence to the group.

What had Vulcar said yesterday about this handsome, graceful youth? "Few men equal him in handling a knife...."

Katon said, "It will be an hour before the Games actually get under way. First they must finish the rites honoring the G.o.d-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken--a lengthy ritual. Then the guards will come, select a few of us, give them arms and send them into the arena."

"Somehow," Tharn said thoughtfully, "I wonder if it is wise to wait until the third day before putting our plan into action. After three days many of our men will have died in the arena. We shall need every man we can get."

Katon rubbed his chin, frowning. "True," he admitted. "But to hurry this thing would be fatal. The guards must be satisfied that everything is going smoothly before they relax their watchfulness.

"Although we shall lose men," he continued, "I believe many of the soldiers and citizens of Sephar will join us when the revolt gets under way. Few, I imagine, regard Pryak with favor; they should welcome a chance to end his power and make one of their own men king."

Then and there the germ of an idea was implanted in Tharn's mind--an idea destined to bear fruit in the days ahead.

For the better part of an hour the seven ring-leaders moved about the chamber, talking with groups of prisoners, discussing various phases of the plan Tharn had concocted. So confident did the seven seem, that many a despondent captive was caught up by their infectious spirit and began to grow impatient for the Games to start that the two days might pa.s.s the sooner.

At last the noise of sandaled feet sounded in the corridor, and a moment later the door was thrust open.

Five men came in: four well-armed priests wearing white tunics edged in black; and another, who was as different from the nondescript priests as Sadu differs from Botu, the jackal.

Head and shoulders above his companions towered this fifth man; his face was strong and proud, and from either side of a blade-like nose, eyes of blue fire swept over the crowded room.

Katon nudged the Cro-Magnard. "That tall one is Wotar, director of the Games. He is no priest; and before Urim died, was one of Sephar's most powerful n.o.bles. He has been Game director for a long time; and since he seems still in charge, must be high in Pryak's favor."

Wotar may have heard the whispered words, for he glanced sharply in Katon's direction. The glittering eyes stopped at the sight of Tharn, taking in the graceful contours and swelling thews beneath the clear bronzed skin.

"You," Wotar said quietly, crooking a long forefinger at the cave-man.

At first, Tharn did not fully comprehend; but when two of the priests laid hold of his arms, his doubt was gone.

"Goodbye, my friend." Katon's voice was sad. "We shall watch for your return."

"I will be back," Tharn promised from the doorway. Then he was gone, the great door crashing shut behind him.

Tharn, preceded and followed by guards, was led along the corridor to where it ended before a narrow door. In response to Wotar's knock it opened, disclosing a small chamber almost filled with a miscellany of weapons of every type known to prehistoric man. An attendant stood in the center of the room, awaiting instructions from the director.

"No weapons," Wotar said briefly. He turned to the cave-man. "You are to go directly to the arena's center and wait for whatever I send against you. Make a good fight of it and the crowd will be for you. That can mean much to you. If you manage to kill your opponent, return here at once. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Wotar nodded to the attendant and the arena door was opened, flooding the room with sunshine. Tharn, blinking in the sudden light, stepped out on to the white sands of Sephar's Colosseum.

That which met his eyes was something Tharn was never to forget. The sandy floor was perhaps three hundred feet in length and half as many in width--a perfectly symmetrical ellipse surrounded by a sheer stone wall twelve feet in height. Beyond that wall the spectator stands began, tier upon tier of stone benches sloping up and back for fifty yards to the last row.

The thousands of seats were filled with a shifting ma.s.s of humans, most of whom had risen as Tharn came into sight.

Never before had the cave-man seen so many people at one time; and the noise and confusion affected him exactly as it would any jungle denizen.

His first instinctive impulse was to retreat, not because of fright, for he knew no fear, but because it was strange and unpleasant and, worst of all, there was that infernal din which only man of all animals can long endure.

The cave lord halted and half turned as though to withdraw, but the crowd, believing him to be afraid, set up an ear-splitting clamor of catcalls, whistlings and raucous shouts that whirled the barbarian about in sudden anger.

For a long moment he glared at the multi-eyed beast above him; then a slight sound at his back aroused him to his immediate surroundings.

He wheeled just as a huge figure launched itself at his neck. Before Tharn could prevent it, strong fingers closed about his throat and the impact of a solid body sent him staggering, saved from falling only by superhuman effort.

During the seconds in which all this transpired, Tharn had discovered what it was that had leaped cat-like upon him. He saw a great hulk of a man, naked except for a pelt about his loins; a man with muscles bulging so in arms, legs and shoulders as to const.i.tute a deformity. He was not quite so tall as Tharn, with an ugly, hairy face, contorted with rage.

With the speed of a striking snake Tharn's hands came up, caught the wrists at his throat and tore away those choking fingers as though they were so many strands of cobweb. Then Tharn seized the other before he could twist free--caught him by thrusting an arm between the crotch of those gnarled legs while the other hand held to a hairy forearm. Lifting him thus, Tharn swung the man aloft like a bundle of gra.s.s, then flung him heavily to the sands a dozen paces away.

The onlookers came to their feet with a swelling roar of approval. This was what they had come to see; and they set up a deafening clamor that seemed to shake the stands. Tharn never heard them.

Now the dazed enemy was scrambling to his feet. Before he was fully erect, Tharn was upon him with the silent ferocity of Jalok, the panther. Grabbing the cringing man by the throat, the cave-man lifted him bodily from the sands, and holding him at forearm's length, shook him as a terrier shakes a rodent; shook him until the screaming voice was stilled as the senses fled and the white figure hung limp and motionless within Tharn's grasp.

Then, while the crowd watched in thrilled horror, Tharn dropped to one knee, placed the dead weight of his unconscious foe against his leg and snapped the man's spine as he might have broken a slender branch.

Rising, Tharn tossed aside the lifeless body and, not deigning to acknowledge by look or gestures the pandemonium of acclaim, disappeared through the arms-room door.

On the same morning that the Sepharian Games had opened, a band of fifty warriors, clothed only in animal skins about their middles, halted on the outskirts of an impenetrable forest which towered across their path.

At their backs was a broad prairie that had required many days to cross.

The leader of the group, a man of heroic proportions, called together three of the men and engaged them in earnest conversation. Several times he gestured toward the mouth of a game trail leading into the jungle; but the others continued to shake their heads as though unconvinced.

"He would not go that way," one of them was saying. "In that direction are high hills, and beyond those are great mountains he could not hope to pa.s.s."

"We do not know that he came even this far," said another of the three.

"We lost his trail over two suns ago; he may have changed his path many times since then."

Their leader silenced them with a wave of his hand. "You have told me nothing to change my mind. The trail lies ahead; when we can go no farther will be time enough to turn back and seek in a new direction."

A few minutes later the last of the band had pa.s.sed from view between the walls of vegetation lining the narrow path.

Dylara, seated just behind the retaining wall of the arena, watched Tharn's broad back pa.s.s through the little doorway. About her was the murmur of many voices exclaiming over the exhibition of brute strength they had just witnessed. Dimly she heard Alurna telling of being rescued by that same forest G.o.d, the three n.o.bles from Ammad serving as audience.