Dracula of the Apes 3

by G. Wells Taylor

  “I am afraid her other protector Gazda is not able to perceive the gentler emotions like love. He is of darkness made, and of darkness born. I promise you, should this creature come to a full understanding of himself, we would not be safe anywhere on earth—and this woman... He must never come near her again.”

  Seward blinked sweat from his eyes, perplexed. It sounded like nonsense, but the doctor was a compelling speaker. He had also bulldogged the ranger on these many points for days.

  “Do you swear to protect her from Gazda should he return?” The scientist clasped the big man’s forearms and the old ranger nodded.

  “I swear it, Doc. If someone brought on Lilly’s death, as you say, then I’d consider it a duty and a pleasure to unleash a wrathy vengeance should he approach Miss James or our group, and I’ll go one farther. If we ever find a way home and you are compelled for any reason to return to these dark shores to seek him out, I’d consider it an honor to accompany you,” the old ranger said gruffly, joining Van Resen in glaring back along the path. He twitched his big moustache as the men shook hands.

  A huskiness had crept into Seward’s voice as he spoke, but he forestalled the tender recollection of Lilly with a sharp clearing of his throat.

  “I reckon I owe them all anyway and would see to it quick if I didn’t have the Quarries to tend to.” He straightened then and released the scientist’s hand. “I’ve half a mind to muster up my old troop and lead them here to settle things. They’re a rough crowd with time on their hands, and more than a match for any savage, masked or not!”

  “It is a pity that the first meeting between civilized men and those remarkable masked Africans was colored by such violence,” Van Resen said sadly. “I am in full agreement with you and Jacob, and feel they must have sprung from seaborne castaways like ourselves—though of a longer history, and piratical nature.” His shoulders slumped. “Much could have been learned.”

  Seward clapped his arm and said, “For now I say we put that wild man and the rest of them in the past like a good many things I aim to forget. I got to tell you, I’ve a real hankering to spit long and hard any time I think of the dinner those cannibals were cooking. I don’t wish to remember how they prepare their steaks... and I’ll never shake the memory of them feeding us some kind of jerky on the trail. I figured it for pork at the time...”

  Van Resen winced and raised his hand to stroke his own whiskers before saying, “I have contemplated the same, but there is really no way of altering the effect brought about by the cause. It is spilled milk that we will have to credit to survival. At least that is the wisest course at present. We can task our own consciences later. Pray, do not share your conclusion with the others...”

  Seward gagged. “I’d have a hard time telling anyone...”

  Their heads whipped around at a sudden sound and a light that came from the north.

  “Ahoy there!” shouted a strong male voice. Then lantern light sprouted up out of the thick undergrowth some 80 feet to their right and then more appeared farther back between the trees—as still other motes of light flickered, farther again to the north.

  “Anybody there?” another voice bellowed, and soon, the castaways saw silhouettes standing out starkly against still more lanterns.

  “Here!” Captain Seward shouted, and Van Resen joined in.

  “Help!” the scientist cried, taking a few steps toward the lights. “Over here!”

  Gathering themselves into a self-supporting mass, the exhausted castaways moved as a group toward the lights as they sped closer.

  A man loomed out of the thick undergrowth following the orange light from his lantern. He had a finely groomed moustache and goatee jutting from his chin, and he wore the uniform of the American Navy.

  “Captain Warner of the American naval vessel Victory,” he said, holstering his pistol as he peered through the murk. “We received a wireless telegraph regarding a private steamship the Lancet overdue at the port that we had recently departed upon our own northern voyage along the coast, and with that in mind we kept a wary eye. Might you be the survivors of that ship?”

  “Yes. There was a mutiny,” Captain Seward reported. “Mr. Manteau and his bandits killed the officers and stranded our group.”

  Van Resen watched other sailors step out of the foliage to join them on the path. Their collection of lanterns soon scattered most shadows.

  “Manteau... Well, the hangman’s noose will be their reward when we find them,” Warner said.

  “And how did you find us?” Van Resen asked.

  “Dumb luck,” Warner explained. “Some trick of the damned tropical heat spoiled our barreled water so we needed fresh, and the rocks jutting out there make a protected harbor easy to reach by longboat.” He rubbed his chin after pointing toward the sea. “Though there’s enough stone just beneath the surface to make it suicide approaching any other way. That would have been two hours before sunset when we came upon the anchorage, and the men tasked with finding the water found the Lancet’s lifeboat and then your cabin. With wood for a signal fire set out, well, I ordered a search...” He suddenly frowned and glared up at the canopy that had exploded with animal calls. “Damned birds! I can’t hear myself think. They had us running circles earlier...”

  “You get used to it,” the ranger said.

  “Thank God, you’re here!” the elder Quarries offered in unison, with Jacob hovering protectively near.

  “We arranged a rescue party, and had only started a search of the surrounding forest when Ensign Portland heard something back here.” Captain Warner raised his lantern to peer at the others and registered the condition of the group. “Lord! But you’ve been through some trouble!”

  “We have much to tell you, though it would be wise to leave here, sir,” Van Resen suggested, reflexively looking back the way they had come. “We narrowly escaped from hostile natives, and could all benefit from the security of your fine ship.”

  “That would do well with me also,” Warner said, turning as sailors arrived along the path with blankets and brandy, still others bore stretchers. “A wind is likely later this evening and rain, and I have no interest in being so close to shore when it arrives. But looking at your group it is my ship’s surgeon I think you’re in need of most.”

  Van Resen gave another quick look along the trail.

  “Sir, you are preoccupied with the jungle,” Warner said, drawing his pistol and glancing uncertainly after him. “Are there others in your group?”

  “No,” Van Resen said, eager to leave. “All we found here were savages.”

  “What of Harkon?” Captain Seward asked defensively.

  “A native, but savage nonetheless,” the scientist said somberly. “She was made so by need.”

  “We mustn’t tarry with savages about.” Warner’s eyes narrowed as he glared into the shadows. “Natural born killers!”

  The navy captain turned and led them quickly with the others toward the yurt. None in the group noticed Van Resen’s final ambiguous look behind, nor heard him whisper: “Or supernatural.”

  CHAPTER 38 – Cast Away

  Gazda had stayed with the bone-faces too long. Over two days he had punished them for killing Ginny and Lilly, for threatening his new night ape tribe, for invading his lands—and he had not forgotten their role in his mother Eeda’s death.

  The delay had cost him much, but it had taken much to satisfy him.

  In the end, he had fed upon bone-faces until he felt bloated, and he was covered with clotted gore. And when he had dealt with those behind the wall of sticks, he hunted down any that had escaped. This he did with an exacting purpose and a grim focus that in no way diminished his satisfaction.

  Finally, when his rage and vengeance were exhausted a great lethargy had come upon him and he slept for a time beyond his counting...

  ...to awaken ravenously hungry far from the bone-face lair, but with a long journey to the night apes and his tree-nest before him.

  There had been no ru
sh for he knew that Harkon and Ginny’s people did not move quickly in the jungle because they did not take to the trees, so it should have been easy for him to catch them.

  And if his mates were dead, then what was the hurry?

  When he arrived at the tree-nest near sun up, he found it abandoned, though his night time senses still told him much. The scent of many strange night apes lingered in the air, as if the greater tribe had come to reclaim Ginny’s group; but there was something else he scented that cast him instantly into sublime pleasure and then despair.

  The smell of Ginny’s living blood and breath still drifted there—in the tree-nest, and trapped in the forest by the great blue water. He found it, her breath and scent—and recent it was, this happy and then painful proof that his mate still lived!

  She had survived the blow to her head, but how? And why had the night ape Vanray told him she was dead? Unless they had all been mistaken—dazzled and confused by lightning and blood?

  In a frenzy Gazda scoured his tree-nest, and surrounding jungle—casting for a trail that he could follow, and there he found so many tracks and scents from so great a number of invaders that he dropped to a knee in confusion as he struggled to understand.

  If Ginny was alive, then why could he not find her?

  His daytime weakness came upon him then, and just as his eyes were poised to shut a strange noise brushed his ears and enlivened his failing spirit.

  The wind had changed as the day had aged, and Gazda saw that the sun had crossed the sky while he had searched for his mate.

  But a warm breeze now blew from the water and with it came a rumbling sound.

  He raced to the beach to stand for a time in the sun’s full glare where his skin burned to its bright touch, itched and prickled in the shining heat. He shaded his face with his hands and squinted through his fingers, searching for the sound far out where the sun hung over the water and glinted upon the waves.

  With the jungle shadows sliding east behind him, he glimpsed a narrow column of thick black smoke rising.

  A flat thing was there beneath it; a dark shape upon the water that threw up smoke as it moved toward the horizon. Sputtering, Gazda cast along the silent sand with only the throbbing sound in his ears, rolling with the waves to the shore.

  Was this another trick of the night ape tribe? Like music was that noise? And did they make their nests to ride the waves? Beneath his own feet then, he was startled to see the sand disturbed and marked from the trees edging the beach down to the water.

  This was where Ginny’s supple feet had left their final prints! There and there, toward the water were they pointed...so in the strange nest she must have been.

  Gazda fell upon his knees with the waves lapping near as relief slowed his aching heart. It was good that she still lived—and yet, would she not have waited for him?

  He remembered Ginny in the forest, remembered the many times they came together, and how they had lain in their leafy bower after. Eye to eye each had watched the other breathing.

  In the highest trees they had slept and come together as mates. As king and queen they would have been.

  For his blood was like her blood and her flesh his flesh.

  But she was gone, and only tracks remained, a trail that would soon vanish, washed away by wind and wave.

  Had Vanray and the others discovered Gazda’s truth, that he had drunk Lilly’s blood and almost caused her death? But had he not given her his own in recompense?

  Were they wise to leave him then, to leave a silverback that fed upon his own mate’s blood? In truth, he had only erred from inexperience, when he had believed himself an ape of another kind.

  And was it not his right and duty as a king to select many queens? And was it now as old Baho had said, and each female was insulted by the other?

  But how could Ginny be his queen knowing there was another, and that he had drunk her blood?

  Even then his thoughts returned to Lilly, to her soft breasts and welcoming eyes. He felt the hunger rise to refute his claims of innocence, and he beat a fist against his brow.

  “No Lilly! No Ginny!” he shouted, staring at the sand. “Gazda is a beast.”

  He did not deserve a mate like Ginny, anymore than he was worth his mother Eeda. Mates and mothers and love and family were for apes of every kind but not for Gazda.

  No, he was not an ape! For his mother, and Goro and old Baho had taught him the grace of power, that a good ape does not kill his offspring or beat his mate or his fellows, and that a king protects his tribe with his own life!

  Gazda was a predator and a beast no better than Omag! Sip-sip!

  His tribe of apes would not be safe with him as king. No! Better with old Baho they would be.

  From out of these turbulent thoughts Gazda’s awareness staggered briefly, and there to either side of him and behind he saw the black fog lurking. It covered the sand beneath the trees and crept through the leaves but would not trade the shadows for the sunlight, or touch him where he rose to stand near the waves.

  Growling, Gazda looked across the great blue water, then turned back again to the fog, only swing around and glare at the smoke at the horizon.

  No one remained. It was Gazda, the empty tree-nest, the jungle and the fog.

  He could never return to the apes for even little Ooso’s daughter Yulu should fear him.

  Gazda would be alone—as he deserved. He had killed his mother and would have killed his mate. Revulsion cramped the night ape’s guts and burned within his breast as this truth wrenched him, as he glared at the distant smoke knowing...

  ...Ginny was alive, but she had rejected him.

  Fire burned in the night ape’s eyes as his powerful hands twisted into fists, and as they shook, as his mighty shoulders quivered with rage and sorrow, his body filled with power; it swelled with pain.

  The King of the Apes threw back his head and from his arching breast burst a challenging cry so wracked with wanton agony that as its echoes faded; a silence fell upon the jungle and the sea.

  Deeper seemed the quiet then for all Gazda’s loss had tinged his rage with hopeless, helpless pain. A silverback who gave that cry was calling Death itself to battle.

  And an answer came.

  Inland, the trees were shaken by a great disturbance. A terrible trumpeting wave of sound rushed through the shivering jungle, surging toward the sea, and Gazda turned to it, a grim and hungry smile on his handsome features.

  Magnuh had returned, and the bull elephant was making it known that he was master.

  But he was not the lord of this jungle, not yet. Not while one creature still lived.

  With the scar on his forehead blazing above his burning eyes, the furious Gazda leapt into the nearest branches and swung away to seek the source of this new challenge.

  His face was set in a mask of fury and despair, and his soul was empty of all caution.

  Gazda wished to know who ruled the jungle.

  The afternoon was old, and the jungle shadows long by the time Gazda found the bull elephant in a stretch of tall trees with trunks distant enough for the monster to move among them.

  The night ape saw then how large Magnuh had grown in his maturity. The beast stood 18 feet to the great mountain of muscle growing across his broad shoulders, and spear-like tusks curved 15 feet out from the battering ram of a skull.

  “I thought you were dead,” Gazda rasped from his high perch.

  As king of the greatest elephant herd in West Africa, Magnuh had been busy over the last years with his duties as monarch.

  Chief among these was siring generations of powerful pachyderms, and indeed his aggressive character and strength had long ago transferred to the young males of his herd.

  In the society of elephants, these males were driven off by the jealous king when they approached an age to challenge him for the females.

  The rogues then haunted the herd at a distance pounding their frustrations out upon each other, preparing themselves to challenge Magnu
h when the time was right.

  And so, Magnuh had no time for grudges like that which he had fostered with the night ape. Indeed, Gazda was strange to him for the jungle giant had learned he had somehow survived a fatal beating. Many times since had Magnuh heard his foe’s cry at a distance, and often he yearned to charge into the jungle to slay him outright.

  But as the bull elephant’s many scars attested, he was occupied battling young males who sought his crown. Young males who were his sons, and shared his might, malice and zeal.

  Only Magnuh’s titanic size, wit and violence had kept him in power, so when the herds entered the jungle to feed on fruit and plants, he roamed the grassy land that led to the groves to battle any male that approached his herd.

  The King of the Elephants had crossed the river many times in the years since thrashing the night ape, and even fed upon the trees that bordered Gazda’s lands; but the elephant’s offspring gave him no leisure, and his own foul mood drove him at every challenger.

  He had already slain the oldest and biggest of his sons, and would kill others, so Magnuh had not the time to search the night ape out.

  Unless the challenge came for open battle.

  Such as that which descended from the west.

  CHAPTER 39 – Lords of the Jungle

  Gazda leapt softly to the ground many yards from the elephant and there he beat his great chest, threw back his head and howled his challenge again.

  The mammoth Magnuh swung his massive head about, and lifted his mighty tusks toward the heavens to roar his acceptance of the call to war. The earth shook beneath his feet, and vast sheets of muscle quivered with anticipation for blood and wrath.

  The bull charged Gazda where he stood unmoving, and he struck the night ape with his craggy skull—smashing him against a gnarled tree, where the elephant wrapped his trunk around the night ape’s corded neck and with a violent whipping action, catapulted him through the dense jungle.

  Gazda curled into a ball as he smashed through brush and branch, snapping and splintering the forest as he flew, until he bounced up again, to race through the undergrowth toward the elephant that charged out of the trees.