Zanthodon Page 11

  A sallow little Gorpak with nasty eyes, whom I recognized as one Vusk, abruptly nudged me from the line of workers which included my friends Professor Potter, the two Sotharians, Varak and Yualla, and my old enemy, One-Eye. He signaled to another Gorpak.

  "Buo, conduct this animal to the place-of-feeding, and give him over to Otha of the Seventh," Vusk snapped.

  The Gorpak Vusk had addressed as Buo saluted crisply, and struck me across the bicep with his cudgel.

  "Forward, animal!" he squeaked.

  I went forward, down the curving corridor, with Buo scampering at my heels.

  The halls and chambers of the underground cavern city are very dimly lit, as I have remarked before.

  Although oil-soaked and tarry torches are used for illumination, they are restrained from burning as brightly as they might otherwise, as the oil and tar are in some fashion diluted with a noncombustible substance. It is generally as dim as the interior of a movie theater here in the cavern city, and I have often wondered why.

  Having nothing else to do, I inquired of Buo why the lights were not allowed to be more bright.

  He said nothing, giving me a sharp rap on the elbow in return for my impertinence in daring to address a Gorpak without invitation. A bit later, he thought better of it, and volunteered the information. The fact was, this Buo was loquacious, like all of his kind, and loved to show off, and strut, and jabber.

  "The eyes of the exalted Lords do not enjoy brilliance," he said. "Neither do they relish the light of open day in the surface country nor the brilliance of unhampered fire. This, impertinent animal, is the reason the torches are not permitted to burn without encumbrance."

  "Thank you!" I said affably. "I had been wondering what the reason was-"

  I broke off as he dealt me a stunning blow beside the head-his way of telling me to be silent. The Gorpaks have manners somewhat less than charming, let me assure you. As I had nothing in particular to gain from further irritating the bandy-legged little monkey, I took the none too subtle hint and shut up.

  Buo handed me over to a fat, greasy Gorpak who must have been Otha. Otha was in charge of cooking up the mess upon which we slaves were fed daily. It was an unappetizing sort of watery stew, slimy and half-cooked, and filled with clots of cold grease and morsels of almost-raw flesh, whose origins, whether animal or human, I queasily refrained from investigating.

  The room in which I was to labor was capacious and high-ceilinged with fire pits over which huge crockery vats simmered, and roof vents to draw away the oily smoke.

  Otha assigned me to stirring one of the pots, while another slave tended the fire beneath the pot with sticks and pieces of wood doubtless salvaged from the jungles of the surface.

  This slave was Darya.

  At the sight of me, she gasped and all but dropped the armful of twigs and broken branches she was carrying. As for myself, I have to admit I was so surprised I almost fell off the high stool I was standing on, which would have toppled me into the cook pot. Seeing the sharp eyes of Otha fixed in our direction, we hastily dissembled our joy in finding ourselves close to each other again, after our seemingly interminable separation, and dissembled, smoothing our features into bland expressions of weary boredom.

  With all the noise and bustle about the place-where-food-is-prepared, and the crackle of innumerable fires, the clatter of pots and pans, and the shrill squawking sound of Otha's harsh voice giving orders, shrilling abuse, screeching threats and reprimands to the others who toiled herein, it was easy enough for us to speak to each other without being noticed or overheard.

  "It is a cause of pleasure to Darya to learn that Eric Carstairs, her friend, yet lives," the beautiful girl said tremulously, in low tones, bending over the fire.

  "That goes double for me," I said, nor did I have to translate my slang phrase into the more formal idiom of ian. For she smiled, her eyes dropping modestly.

  "Jorn the Hunter will also be pleased to learn that Eric Carstairs has survived the perils of ," she whispered demurely. "Often has he spoken of his admiration for the way in which Eric Carstairs arranged our escape from the Drugar slavers, and the courage and self-sacrifice displayed by Eric Carstairs in turning back alone to give battle to the Drugars, thus affording the rest of his friends the opportunity to escape into the jungle."

  "I have good news for you" I began, then had to break off as Otha screeched at her to return to the bins for yet more wood. Then I had to stand there, chafing at the delay, while she fed the other cook fires and came near enough for me to speak with her again.

  "Your father and a host of the warriors of Thandar have not given up the search for you," I told her swiftly. "Indeed, they are probably not very far away even as I speak. Together we crushed the Drugars not very many sleeps ago, with some assistance from a herd of thantors-"

  Her eyes lit up with delight and relief at this news, but then she had to continue on her rounds of the cook fires and it was some time before we were able to converse again.

  "The thantors were in stampede?" she asked breathlessly.

  "They were that," I said feelingly.

  "Then it was the old man, your companion, and Jorn the Hunter who caused the stampede!" she exclaimed. "From the heights of the Peaks of Peril Darya observed the two men strike fire into the grasses of the plain, to drive the herd of thantors into another direction-"

  "Why do you linger idly by this cook fire, animal, when other fires languish?" demanded Otha suspiciously from behind us. "Hasten about your duty or Otha will lay the flesh of your back raw with his lash!" he added fiercely.

  I could, very cheerfully, have throttled the greasy chef on the spot, but controlled myself. Darya cringed, intelligently imitating the way the pale cavern people behaved toward the Gorpaks, and scurried off.

  Some little time later we caught another chance to speak. This time I didn't waste words on my adventures since we parted.

  "The thoughts of Eric Carstairs have very often dwelt upon the fate of Darya the gomad," I said formally. "And the face of Darya the gomad, and the beauty of her form, have made the dreams of Eric Carstairs warm and rich."

  The Stone Age girl-bless her!-turned crimson in the most adorable maidenly blush I have ever seen this side of old movies. Her long lashes dropped to veil the expression in her eyes, but I noticed that her luscious lips curved in a small, secret smile. She was every inch a woman, was Darya of Thandar. And the woman does not live or breathe, either on-or under-the Earth, who does not enjoy being admired by a man.

  "Eric Carstairs has been often in the thoughts of Darya of Thandar," she whispered demurely.

  And I felt as if I had just been given the Medal of Honor, the Pulitzer Prize, and the keys to Aladdin's palace!

  The next time she came by, I hastened to apprise her of our plans to escape from the cavern city by means of a slave revolt, and asked where she and Jorn, and the other Sotharians, were penned. The jungle girl did her best to describe the location to me, but the meandering and labyrinthine ways of the underground city were so confusing that it was hard-to grasp its situation in regard to my own dungeon.

  Still and all, I guess we conveyed enough information to be able to find each other, with quite a bit of luck.

  At that point our precious stolen moments of private conversation were abruptly terminated, for Otha, incensed at Darya's slowness in making her rounds, brusquely ordered her to another task far across the room, and we had no further opportunity to speak to each other.

  Except with our eyes ....

  In the eternal dimness of the cavern city, worked to exhaustion on a dismal variety of menial tasks, it was every bit as impossible to judge the passage of time as it was on the surface of , with its unending and changeless daylight.

  We worked short shifts of perhaps five hours or so, with a rest period thereafter, followed by yet another work shift, then a period devoted to feeding and to sleep.

  At some point following my tantalizingly
brief exchange with Darya, I was released from kitchen duties and, together with some of the listless, naked cavern folk, was returned under the guard of vigilant, mean-tempered Gorpaks to the dungeon in which customarily I was penned.

  That "night" I discussed with Hurok and Professor Potter and my new friends, Varak and Garth, Yualla, Coph, Rukh and the other Sotharians, a plan for escaping from the caverns.

  My plan was built upon something which had happened during that very "day," a morsel of information I had gathered almost idly or accidentally. I had been pondering it, off and on, during the exhausting boredom of my labors, and I had perfected it by now. They listened eagerly but judiciously, pointing out any number of possible flaws in the program I outlined. And I had honestly to concede that there were unknown factors which might adversely affect the outcome of our break for freedom.

  "On the other hand," I argued, "it is less than manly and honorable for us to remain here supinely in bondage, toiling at the filthy and degrading tasks set before us, cringing under the lash of those vile little devils, when we could break for freedom, venturing all upon the turn of chance. To go down in battle-"

  "To go down in battle before the Gorpaks," said Garth, the kingly High Chief of the Sotharians, "is a fate less worse and more honorable than to yield ourselves into the noisome embrace of the loathsome Sluagghs. Garth of Sothar agrees with Eric Carstairs upon this much, at least."

  "If we are to do it at all, we had better do it very soon," the Professor spoke up nervously. "For there is something I have not had a chance to tell any of you . . . the next 'Feasting,' as the Gorpaks genteely term the repulsive blood orgies of their vampiric masters is to take place during the next wake period.

  "And we are all on the menu," he finished grimly.

  Part Four

  THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAVERNS

  Chapter 16. WHEN ROGUES FLEE

  To be lost and alone in the jungles of was no new experience for Fumio the Thandarian.

  After all, his own distant land of Thandar contained jungles no less thickly grown, or gloomy, or less dangerous than these. Still and all, Fumio felt the cold touch of fear clutch at his heart increasingly the more he pondered his predicament.

  When One-Eye had come racing into the little camp with an enraged bull goroth charging at his heels, Fumio had jumped up and fled without a moment's thought for anything other than to save his skin. And, once started on his flight, he had continued running blindly for some time until he became satisfied that the aurochs was no longer in the vicinity.

  Such was his panic at the unexpected appearance of the monster animal that Fumio had taken no notice whatsoever of the direction of his flight. Noticing the jungle, he had veered toward it; instants later dense gloom closed about him. He blundered along for quite some time until, panting for breath, his legs beginning to ache with weariness, he paused to catch his second wind and strained his ears for some audible evidence that the goroth was or was not pursuing him. Since the jungle was silent and he heard nothing of the sounds so huge a beast would naturally have made had it been crashing through the underbrush, he soon concluded, to his immense relief, that the beast was no longer on his trail.

  Looking about him, the Stone Age warrior was unable to remember in which direction he had come.

  Every side of the small clearing in which he stood panting looked very much the same as every other side, and in the darkness cast by the tightly interwoven branches which roofed the glade, Fumio could not employ his hunter's gift for reading the signs of passage through the underbrush which a man or an animal make.

  Fumio shrugged gloomily, once the knowledge of this was borne to him. Philosophically, he decided that one direction was as good as another. A traitor to his kind, he was doubtless by now considered an outlaw and an exile, forbidden to return to the companionship of his people or to his homeland itself.

  This being the case, it mattered little to Fumio where he was or in which direction he traveled, for to the homeless, all other lands are strange and unfamiliar.

  On impulse, Fumio struck out to his left, where an aisle wound between rows of huge trees of a sort unfamiliar to him. Soon there came to his ears the splashing, gurgling sound a brook or small spring makes; aware of a consuming thirst, the warrior headed in the direction from which that sound came to him. Erelong, he came upon a small brook flowing from heaped and moss-grown rocks. He paused to refresh himself, and wet his face and beard in the clear, bitterly cold water to revive his flagging strength.

  After resting for a time on the sward, massaging the tiredness from his aching legs, Fumio rose and went about the business of survival in a practical manner. Coward and bully and traitor though he certainly was, Fumio was also a warrior of ; his entire life had been spent in the struggle to survive in a hostile environment filled with treacherous swamps, jungles where monstrous predators roamed and lands in which every tribe or nation other than his own was unthinkingly considered to be the enemy, to be avoided if possible, to be fought bravely if they could not be avoided.

  And Fumio would not have survived to his present age, the middle twenties, perhaps, had he not learned fast and well the hard lessons given in that toughest of all schools-the wilderness.

  The first thing that Fumio did was to devise weapons. Nowhere in his vicinity could he spy those certain trees from whose long, slender, straight branches-his experience had taught him-crude but effective spears may be best fashioned. However, the foot of the rockpile wherefrom fountained forth the little spring was littered with stones of various sizes, and fallen wood lay scattered about the mossy banks of the narrow brook fed by that spring. Removing a length of leather thong from his waist, where such were wound about his middle to support the brief fur kilt which was his only raiment, he commenced binding the stone which he had selected-the one with the best balance and the sharpest edge-to a short length of wood, thereby manufacturing a crude but serviceable stone axe.

  Next, selecting smooth, round pebbles from the bed of the little stream, the Cro-Magnon warrior improvised a sling from another length of thong. Fumio was nowise as proficient in the use of the sling as was, for example, the Princess Darya-the sling being considered a woman's weapon, primarily.

  Nevertheless, he could employ a sling adequately enough, and two weapons were better than none.

  Conscious of that sudden desire to sleep that strikes the folk of unpredictably and swiftly, he chose the crotch of a tall tree to serve as his bed.

  With sling and stone axe near at hand, should dangerous beasts come prowling by, Fumio composed himself for slumber, and fell asleep in instants. This is a talent which nature has reserved for the more primitive of her children. It can be observed in beasts and also in savages; men softened and pampered by urban or civilized life seem to have been denied the faculty. But Fumio, of course, was neither, and he slept deeply despite the discomforts of his aerial perch.

  And woke to receive the surprise of his life-

  While Fumio of Thandar adapted swiftly and naturally to the harsh life of survival in the jungle, it was quite different with Xask the Zarian.

  The former vizier of the Apemen of Kor had not always dwelt among primitives such as Fumio's kind or the Neanderthals. Indeed, he had been a citizen of the Scarlet City of Zar which was, insofar as he knew, the premier civilization of . Effete, cruel, luxurious, the men and women of Xask's homeland were as urbane and sophisticated-and every bit as decadent-as had been the ancient folk of Imperial Rome.

  While this was not the first time that Xask had been forced to live in the jungle wild, he had learned but little from his previous experience. When, for mysterious reasons he kept to himself, the slender little man of indeterminate age had been exiled and driven forth from the Scarlet City, he had endured the privations and perils of a long trek, as he wandered aimlessly through the jungles and mountains and grassy plains of the Underground World.

  That he had managed to survive at all under such hostile conditio
ns, which neither his past experience nor his consider able intelligence had prepared him to face, was largely due to sheer luck, somewhat tempered with extreme caution and wariness. As matters eventuated, Xask had soon been captured by a band of Drugar slavers, who took him back to Kor, where his subtle wit and natural cunning brought him to first the attention and then the favor of Uruk, the brutal monarch of the cave kingdom.

  When the same goroth whose sudden charge had precipitated Fumio into flight similarly, frightened Xask, the quickwitted Zarian had retained the .45 automatic he had taken from me.

  Although the nature and mechanism of the weapon were completely unknown to him, Xask clung to it by sheer instinct. And, when he ran for his life, in another direction from that taken by Fumio, Xask did not succumb wholly to panic, but kept his eyes open. Thus, he knew approximately where he was in relation to where he had been; moreover, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time, the slim little man made a mental note of the place along the border of the jungle where Fumio entered that jungle.

  He could not exactly have told you why he did so; taking precautions and constantly adding to his store of information were among the traits of survival which assist one in urban civilization as well as in the primeval wilderness. And Xask-whatever else he might have been-was a survivor.

  Unlike Fumio, who fled in blind panic, Xask stopped running the instant he perceived himself no longer to be in any danger from the great aurochs, which had gone trotting off, as if satisfied at having driven the puny little man-things into flight. Concealing himself among the scattered boulders which littered the base of the cliffs, Xask examined the situation thoughtfully.

  He had not happened to notice the direction in which I had escaped, nor, indeed, was he certain that I had not been gored or trampled to death by the huge bull, because outcroppings from the foothills had blocked his view at a strategic point. Neither did he happen to observe what had befallen his henchman, One-Eye.