Dracula of the Apes 3

by G. Wells Taylor

  “Captain you must trust me going forward and do as I say in this regard. The author of that call is dangerous,” the scientist warned, looking warily past the bars.

  “That noise came from a man?” Mr. Quarrie shouted, kneeling by his unconscious wife.

  “Yes—er—seemingly, and while he may aid us, his help comes at a price that no one else should pay.” The scientist stared at the fire pit where the flames crackled over the coals, then turned to see Jacob prop Miss James against his side. The woman’s face was a mask of blood, and there was no sign of consciousness.

  Again, the challenging bellow shook the village and by the fire pit many of the savages hurried to cower by the wall...

  ...while others donned their masks and gathered up their weapons.

  The castaways watched the savage leader, Seward’s Admiral Nelson shout angrily at his stunned people, kicking any that was slow to gain his feet while barking orders to the gathering warriors who ringed him round.

  Then he froze in place with mouth agape, eyes glimmering skyward from his bony mask.

  One heartbeat, and then...

  ...a grisly missile hit him full in the face with force enough to snap his spine and fling him head over heels among his frightened followers.

  The savages screamed in horror to see that their dead leader’s arms were wrapped around the River Demon’s severed head, and his skull was crushed within its rotten jaws.

  A cry of alarm rose up from the masked warriors, and weapons were trained toward the village-ship’s stern for it was from that direction the gruesome missile had come and from which dark smoke now drifted. Flames threw long lambent shards of light to flicker at their sandaled feet.

  “The buildings are on fire!” the ranger shouted, scowling back into the village center as Van Resen and the others turned to look.

  The smoke and flames snapped the savages from their shock for this was a danger to threaten all of their lives. Their capan had been killed by a dead demon; but he was beyond the death and destruction that the flames promised for the rest.

  So leaping up they charged toward the line of huts to extinguish the blaze that burst from among the farthest structures. Already, many of the simple buildings were engulfed in fire, with flames shooting up to threaten their leader’s towering hut. The old, the women and the young ran after the fighters for none could stay with their dead capan’s gruesome remains.

  Save two guards who lingered by the cage to eye the castaways fearfully with nocked arrows stroking curved bows, each prepared to stop the strangers from conjuring more demonic aid.

  Van Resen and Seward recognized this preemptive course of action as that which had befallen Phillip Holmes, and they leapt back shouting for the others to take cover...

  ...as a tall, lean silhouette appeared behind the guards.

  A harsh wet thud was heard, and a spear tip ripped out through one man’s chest—then disappeared, only to tear bloodily through the throat of the second guard who had turned in his surprise.

  The flickering fire pit was muted by the rolling smoke as the silhouette stepped over the bodies and to the cage door where the sharp spear-point was used to slash the bindings that held it in its frame.

  Only then did Van Resen sigh with relief, for this one wore no mask or face paint.

  Instead, a tall black woman with a shaven head stood there, dressed in hardened leather armor, and skirts—a warrior she was with a bow across one shoulder and a quiver of many arrows on the other.

  Thunder rumbled ominously, and the woman paused to glance at the sky before chopping the leather hinges until the door fell to the ground. Then, she retreated in a crouch with spear ready; its tip inclined toward their hearts.

  “Hold on, Doc, I’ve seen her before,” Seward warned, catching Van Resen’s shoulder as he started forward. “She watched from a tree when the savages took me and Jacob...”

  The scientist gave him a questioning look.

  “And didn’t lift a finger to help,” the old ranger finished, raising his fists high.

  “She is helping now.” The scientist lifted his open hands to greet the woman as he spoke over his shoulder. “Captain Seward, please gather our party. I believe we are being rescued...”

  “Gazda,” the woman said in a strong, inflected tone, her black eyes searching the cage.

  “...by a friend of Gazda.” Van Resen’s voice dropped. The muscular warrior woman towered over them, and he shuddered to think of her, should she be like...

  “The man with red eyes?” Jacob asked, climbing to his feet with Mrs. Quarrie in his arms. He had moved to help her husband rouse her, and left Miss James to the ranger who hoisted her high.

  “He knew Ginny,” the manservant said, as his face paled with realization. “...and Lilly.”

  “Where is Lilly?” Mr. Quarrie asked, patting his wife’s hand as she struggled toward consciousness. “And that blasted Phillip Holmes...”

  His companions looked away.

  “You speak English?” Seward asked, catching the black woman’s piercing eyes and distracted manner. After gesturing for the two old slaves to follow, she looked upon the cooking fire and the spear shook in her hands.

  “There’s more of your kin down the stairs.” The ranger pointed toward his old prison cell.

  The black woman stared at him suspiciously before her expression softened and she ran toward the stairs as yellow flames leapt skyward behind the line of huts. Van Resen and the others followed, certain that the masked savages would return at any moment.

  Gazda ran at the group of warriors that were charging him with their bristling spears level. The skull-masks gleamed weirdly in the yellow flames from the burning huts; but the night ape was undaunted, still enjoying his joke as he was, a hard smile on his full lips.

  The bone-face king had looked so stupid watching the sky with his beady eyes in the skull-mask, first pondering the dark, wondering what was moving up there hurtling end over end...

  ...before Omag’s head smashed down to kill him. Gazda had flung the grisly thing from a grassy roof on one of the huts—a cast made perfect from years of throwing stones.

  How he would have liked to do that again and again...

  But, the attacking warriors demanded Gazda’s full attention—though his smile remained. He bent his mighty body forward, and upon all fours he sprinted—leaping and tearing at the hard earth as he hurtled to meet his enemy.

  The night had saturated his form and thews with all its strength. He felt unstoppable.

  Gazda plowed into the closest masked man with his elbows out before him, hitting the bone-face so hard that his ribcage crushed like a basket made of sticks. The impact flung the dying man aside and with a fluid action, Gazda rose to his full height and gripped the next man by the throat.

  Blood jetted as his clawed fingers closed in the man’s soft flesh—tearing skin and muscle, crushing cartilage and bone.

  Gazda punched another man’s mask with an iron fist, driving wooden shards and facial bone through the brain, and unhinging the skull. It flopped about on shredded tendons as the body took a faltering step before it died.

  The night ape moved more quickly than the bone-faces could, and several times he slipped aside to let one of them take the sharp point of a spear or arrow flung at him.

  Gazda splintered shields and weapons. He tore into his enemies with all the ferocity and power of the panther, employing the hunting and killing crafts he had learned from the powerful beasts. Biting through one man’s collarbone, he leapt over the next where with a handful of hair he guided his descent, landing behind and twisting the bone-face’s head so violently that it came off.

  Two bone-faced guards that had kept their presence of mind stepped forward with spears low and ready, but Gazda jumped away from them toward a tall post and kicked off to come down inside the range of their spear-points where he snapped one stout shaft in half and used its blade to disembowel both men.

  The night ape was crouched over
one dying bone-face rending him limb from limb when a spear flew from behind and struck. Gazda screamed at the pain and at the metal spear-point jutting from his right shoulder, but he simply snatched the blade and tore the length of missile through.

  He turned in place to seek the warrior who had thrown the weapon, but he could not tell which trembling mask had done it, so he killed all three before the wound in his shoulder had closed.

  Gazda guzzled blood from the third man’s throat. Its power pounded in his heaving breast and its heat surged through his limbs.

  With dying bone-faces all around, he started toward the cooking fire and the great cage, but the wailing of an infant brought him around.

  With the help of Gazda’s friends, Harkon had found nine captives within the stone basements, though sadly, none of these was her son. The big white man had helped her snap the brittle Bakwaniri chains that held some, and he broke down the doors that imprisoned others.

  In total 11 were freed, though she only half-recognized five who may have come from her own tribe. Children and young adults they were, but much time had passed, and their years as slaves had left them shattered and hopeless. It would take time to know their own faces, let alone their savior’s.

  But they could act, so for two women and two young men, she scavenged weapons from the dead and tasked them with protecting the children in the group.

  Van Resen could see that the black huntress was alternately anxious, sad and aggressive, as she looked for whomever she had lost, as she granted liberty to any black slave she found.

  But always she looked hard at the new faces, only to turn away in anger and desperation.

  The scientist knew they would be running out of time for the low boom of thunder had finally brought a shower of rain. The flames would be dying down at the other end of the village, so that distraction would soon end and the masked men would return.

  Ahead, the warrior woman halted as the thick smoke rolled, and with a single motion she shot an arrow into the shadows. A dying man fell from the murk.

  More would be coming...and Gazda had yet to appear.

  Harkon glared at Gazda’s friends who were useless in a fight. While that might be excusable to those busy with the unconscious women, it was the unencumbered man with gray curls that vexed her most for he stopped at each dead Bakwaniri to rob the corpse!

  What kind of creatures did the ape-man call his own? This thin one plundered any that Harkon killed, halting often on the way to the gate.

  He was no fighter...and they were her spoils—and she had no time for trophies!

  She had thrust and killed often with her spear before switching to the bow, a hungry white smile upon her cheeks. The huntress was pleased that some of her own folk had weapons or had made them from what laid about the village—but with that thought came her yearning for Anim.

  She could not find him.

  Each glimpse of the cook fire brought her lips away from her teeth and she wished to kill these Bakwaniri until her broken heart failed. But if she tried to kill them all the others would pay the price. Already, she could see that the fires were dying ahead of them, that Harkon’s group had to pass that way to reach the gate.

  A greater fight was yet to come.

  Though Gazda had not appeared, Harkon did not fear for the ape-man.

  She turned to his friends gesturing with her weapons raised to either side, pointing into the thick, black smoke and charging toward the gate. Crying out her encouragement, she bade them follow.

  The big white man bearing the younger woman was the only one whose eyes said he understood. Another warrior.

  But her call rang hollow in her ears for she had failed her son! Anim was gone.

  Perhaps the big man could have saved him—her little boy... Had she waited too long?

  The huntress slung her bow across her shoulder, and shifted her spear into her hands as she led the others through the drifting smoke.

  A masked warrior appeared with club raised—and he died with her spear through his heart.

  Another jumped out with arrow nocked—and her knife quivered in his eye.

  The open gate was near—torches burned to either side—and she called her people and to Gazda’s friends—urging them to run for the jungle, to run for freedom—as a sound came to her ears. Children, crying out in fear! Weeping they were alone...afraid.

  The tears of shame in Harkon’s eyes burned away as she turned to the fires. She left the others at the gate and charged through the billowing smoke toward the flaming huts.

  Where she attacked Bakwaniri warriors throwing water on the blaze.

  Harkon killed two men. With her spear tip she slashed deep strokes in the backs of their necks, as she cast about for the sound of children.

  Three of the closest buildings still smoldered and sparked, and one of them had started to burn anew. All of these huts and the others attached would be destroyed for they shared a center wall of stone blocks.

  A masked warrior ran at Harkon with a spear, but the huntress lunged in to redirect its tip with her arm, and take him through the eye with her own.

  And a great thump caused the ground to tremble at her feet!

  Harkon swung about as the sound and vibration came again—and again—and something in her welled up urgently, and in thrumming desperation she cried “Anim!” as the central stone wall cracked, as blocks exploded outward, as a hard white fist broke through from the other side.

  Another terrific blow and the wall collapsed as the ape-man Gazda leapt from the smoking ruins with two children under one arm, and a third over his muscled shoulder.

  Harkon surged past him to stab a man in the groin, then blinded still another to cover her friend’s retreat.

  The huntress ran after Gazda as flames leapt up from the new destruction and the Bakwaniri wailed at the death falling around them.

  Gazda sprinted past the gate with the infants and leapt over the flowing water to land on the far side. The other night ape friends were running up the path ahead, a slight incline, but he could easily catch them.

  Harkon followed slowly, gasping, falling to her knees and weeping at the river’s edge for she could see the third child in Gazda’s grasp was her own.

  Anim’s eyes were older now, but unmistakable, watching his mother from the ape-man’s embrace.

  Gazda pushed the children into Harkon’s arms, and said that he would follow.

  With tears running, the huntress staggered up the path, chasing the children before her as the ape-man awaited any threat at the rear.

  CHAPTER 36 – Nothing but Revenge

  Lightning split the heavens, and a great report of thunder shattered the night. As the battle raged, the sky had gone heavy and gray-black over the river and trail as the cloud cover thickened. Another blast and flash from above, and rain poured down on the fugitives; its initial invigorating effects were soon overborne by the sheer ferocity of the pounding they received.

  Harkon had taken the lead with her people and freed slaves while the castaways toiled some distance behind. Struggling against their exhaustion and the onslaught, they staggered west along the muddy jungle track.

  The great forest towered to either side and its arching branches soon closed out the worst of the rain. The deluge exploded against the canopy high above and its remnants cascaded earthward in waves of heavy mist and fat droplets.

  “The savages made this trail so we will not get far upon it! Whether we are exhausted or not we must make our own. When the rain extinguishes the fires, they will follow,” Van Resen said staggering beside the ranger. “And if for some reason they do not, the yurt is still a great distance and predators lie in wait upon the jungle passes—I am at a loss...”

  Captain Seward paced along, holding the unconscious governess in his arms. He’d been worried despite his weariness, watching the cool rain wash the blood from her pale face as the lightning flickered above.

  He hoisted the woman and pressed her cheek to his. “She’s freezin
g, Doc,”

  “Cold?” Van Resen grunted, closing with Seward in the dark. His trembling hands slid over the governess’ face and neck, and then slipped beneath the collar of her blouse.

  “What is it?” the old ranger asked, as the scientist worked blindly.

  “I feel no wounds here, thank God. Thank God! She must hold,” the scientist said, as he hurried forward again, casting nervous glances back the way they’d come. All of the freed slaves had salvaged a weapon during the fight, but of the castaways only the scientist and the ranger had taken knives from the dead.

  “That warrior woman is no small blessing,” Seward said, lifting his head to peer through the downpour. She walked some distance ahead. “God, I’d like to have had a troop of gals like her!”

  They had barely managed a quarter mile before drums began to roll behind them, and little farther when arrows hurtled in from the rear.

  Gazda sprinted out of the murk, appearing suddenly from the constant falling mist like a ghost; the cold rain had washed the mud and blood from his pale skin.

  The wild man fell into a lurching half-crouched walk beside the ranger, while reaching out with a muddy hand to touch Miss James’ clammy forehead where it rested in the crook of the big man’s arm.

  He hooted worriedly, and then barked coarsely, his eyes blazing up like flame as he tried to pull the governess from Seward’s grasp. The big Texan growled, and tried to heave away but on the slippery footing the pair of them went down, and in the jumble Van Resen lost his balance and dropped at Miss James’ side.

  “Go on! I’ve got her...” Seward warned the wild man, but it was clear that Gazda meant no harm. He pressed his scarlet lips to the governess’ cold face, and sniffed at the clotting blood in her sodden hair.

  The rest of the group had continued on ahead with Harkon in the lead. She carried her son upon her back, while the others followed close behind. Mrs. Quarrie had returned to consciousness and insisted on stumbling along under her own steam for a time. Her husband and Jacob Raines shepherded her to either side and kept the woman near the gathering of freed slaves.