“We stay here tonight,” said Hok in a voice of authority.
Her eyes cast fire of hatred at him, and her full, golden-brown breasts rose and fell with each tempestuous breath as she probed her mind for insults fierce enough.
“You dared steal me!” she gritted at him.
He made a careless gesture with his free hand. “You are a woman,” he said, as if that explained everything. “I am a man. My name is Hok.”
“A man?” she repeated in biting scorn. “A man, with no beard?”
“The men of my tribe pluck out their beards with clam-shell tweezers,” he explained.
“Your face is the face of a boy. Kimri will follow us. He will crush your skull like a toadstool.”
“Let him try,” said Hok. “Come into the cave.
“I won’t!”
He lifted her lightly from her feet and carried her in.
She screamed once more, though she knew help was far away. Her flying fists glanced from his chest and face like hailstones from a cliff-side. He laid her gently on the rocky floor, easily pinning her struggling body with one hand. The other hand slid caressingly over her cheek, down to her shoulder, then further to imprison one of her trembling breasts. She tried to strike it away from her body; she might as well have tried to uproot an oak tree.
“You are beautiful,” he said softly. “What is your name?”
She did not answer, but fought as fiercely and futilely as ever. His imprisoning arm slid around her and drew her close to him, pressing her thighs, belly, bosom against his hard flesh. He slipped the strap of her garment from her shoulder and began to peel the fur casing from her body like the rind from some delicious fruit.
In desperation she bit his shoulder until the blood came. He did not cry out, did not flinch even. She knew then that she was beaten.
Deep night found a blazing fire at the mouth of the cave. Lying across the opening, Hok was grilling bits of a slaughtered bird on the end of a stick. He drew the meat from the flame, studied it with the practised eye of a skilful bachelor cook, then offered the choicest morsel to Oloana.
“Eat,” he urged.
She gazed at him from where she crouched in the farthest corner. Her big, tear-filled eyes gleamed in the firelight.
“You will not let me go?” she pleaded.
He laughed and shook his tawny head. “You are mine. I am tired of my own people, and I do not want to live alone. You are the only woman I ever wanted. We can be the father and mother of a new tribe.”
“A new tribe?” she murmured, and began to creep toward him.
“Yes. You have not told me your name yet.”
“Oloana,” she breathed, and came to his very side.
“Oloana.” He savored the word. “It is beautiful. Will you—”
Out flew her hand. Next moment she had caught his javelin from where it leaned beside him at the cave-mouth, whirled it and plunged it straight toward her own heart. Hok’s fist darted like the head of a snake. Deflected, the sharp point of the weapon slid off across the polished globe of one breast, leaving a jagged thread of blood. A moment later he had disarmed her and clutched her close.
“You might have killed yourself.” he scolded.
She burst into new tears. “I will kill myself,” she wailed. “I hate you. I hate your love. As soon as you let go of me I will kill myself.”
He tore from his shoulder the strap in which he slung his javelin. Pulling her wrists together, he bound them deftly. Still she glared through her tears.
“My feet are free to run away!” she cried, and, springing up, darted from the cave and leaped across the fire. But before she had run half a dozen steps he had overtaken her and dragged her back.
“There are tigers in this part of the forest,” he warned her. “They would eat you.”
“Let them,” she cried passionately. “I hate you!”
Back in the cave again, he took the thong that served him for a belt and bound her ankles also. She lay helpless but tameless, her face dark with rage and dislike.
He held a bit of the savory meat to her lips, but she turned her head away.
“You will not eat?” he queried, but she did not answer.
Hok twined his corded arms around his updrawn knees and gazed at her in perplexity.
“I wanted you,” he said, a little querulously. “I thought you would want me, too.”
She spat at him for reply, then rolled over and closed her eyes.
“Sleep, then,” he conceded. “I will sleep, too—upon my weapons.”
In the morning he woke to find Oloana propping herself up on her bound hands to stare at him with unforgiving eyes.
“Let me untie you,” he offered at once.
“I’ll kill myself,” she replied, her voice as bitter as the night before.
“Don’t kill yourself, Oloana.” He moved quickly to her side and gathered her into his arms. She made no move, either of resistance or surrender, only lay quiescent and hated him with her gaze.
“Can’t you love me?” he half-pleaded. His immense hands, powerful enough to rend the tines from a deer’s antlers, quested over her smooth, soft body. She quivered at their touch. Was it a throb of delight, awakened in spite of her professed hate of him? Or was it a cringe of fearful loathing? Hok, simple hunter that he was, had no way of knowing. He released her and let her sink back to the floor.
“You must be thirsty,” he suggested. “I’ll bring you water.”
Walking out into the clearing, he stooped to pick a half-dried gourd from a spreading vine. Deftly breaking it in half, he cleansed the withered pulp from one cup-like piece and filled it at the brook. Carrying it back, he offered it to Oloana. She said nothing and when he held it to her mouth she jerked her head away as before, spilling the water on her face and breast.
“You do not eat or drink, Oloana,” he said. “You will die.”
“Let me die, then,” she snapped.
He made no reply, but considered her for a long time. Finally he rumpled his hair in perplexity and went to sit outside.
Things were not going as he had hoped. Oloana had been the incarnation of his primitive dreams when first he had seen her. And in his arms last night she had thrilled him even beyond those dreams—the more so because she had fought him and he had been the stronger. But now what?
She was not submitting. She was not even enduring. She would fight always, revile him always. Given a chance, she would kill herself—and Hok did not want that.
What would it be like, life with a sullen, hateful woman, a woman who must always go tied for fear she would run away, must be guarded lest she turn his spear on herself? And could even the closest guarding prevent her? Hok suddenly saw a vision—Oloana no longer vibrant with glorious life but still and voiceless, her eyes suddenly empty of light and hate, her brown skin gone dull, and blood flowing from where, through her heart, was thrust his javelin. He dashed the back of his hand across his brow to drive out the picture. So vivid had it been that he whirled and stared into the gloom. She lay there, still bound, still resentful.
“I hate you,” she flung at him.
He strode in, stooped and drew her to her feet. His hands caught the leather that bound her wrists, his muscles suddenly swelled and cracked, his breath came in a single explosive pant. Then the cord broke. Bending, he hooked his great fingers under the thong around her ankles. A heave and a tug and that, too, tore apart.
“I shall run,” she warned him.
“Run, then, Oloana,” he replied.
She drew herself up, statue-still in amazement.
“I thought I had you,” he tried to explain. “I carried you here and tied you up. But I do not have you.” The words died in his throat and his forehead crinkled at the paradox. “You hate me, Oloana. Go.”
“You do not want me now?” she challenged him.
His hands grasped her shoulders, then slid to her flanks, gripping her soft flesh so strongly that she almost whimpered. Their eyes were
close to each other. His blazing stars fastened upon her sulky mouth, as full and red as some jungle fruit. How sweet that fruit would taste, he suddenly thought. His face darted down at hers, their lips crushed together for a whirling moment. Clumsy, savage, unpredicted, it was perhaps the first kiss in the history of the human race.
Then, still more abruptly, he spun on nimble feet and fairly raced out of the cave, out of the clearing, into the unknown, untracked forest, with a heart in which he seemed to carry the heat of Oloana’s eyes, the heat of her breath, the heat of her fruit-red lips.
But he did not run far. Somehow it had been easier to run the day before, for all his struggling burden of loveliness. Hok lagged. His troubled eyes sought the ground. His feet took him where they wished.
The day and the miles wore away, like rock under falling water. Twice or thrice he gathered a handful of berries to eat and found them like dust in his mouth. He drank at the springs, then spewed out the water as if it were brackish. Once he saw a wild pig rooting in a thicket, and felt for his javelin. Then he remembered that he had left it in the cave. He had left Oloana there, too. His brows drew together in troubled sorrow. He could get another javelin; but he could never get another Oloana.
It was nearly evening. He walked slowly down a game-lane. Then something huge and swarthy flashed from behind a tree and flung itself upon him.
On the instant Hok was fighting for his life. One glimpse he caught of that distorted, black-bearded face before they grappled—Kimri, the baffled giant who had sworn to follow him and take Oloana back. Hok’s leopard-lithe arms whipped around his adversary’s huge body, crushing it like twin pythons. Hok’s tawny head bored with deadly force into the great black beard, driving under Kimri’s jaw and forcing it upward and back. The dark man of the forest was the biggest of the two but not the best—a moment later Hok curved his heel back of the other’s and threw his whole might forward. Down they went with a crash, Kimri underneath, while Hok’s clutching fingers drove through the tangles of beard and closed on the bull-like throat beneath.
“You came to find Oloana,” he snarled, swelling with the first joy he had known that day. “You find—death!”
Kimri had only breath for one strangled yell. His writhing face purpled as he tore at the garrotting grip and his great body squirmed and floundered in an effort to dislodge the man on top. Hok laughed grimly, his teeth stripped to the gum in a triumphant fighting grin as he burrowed his thumbs deeper into the flesh of Kimri’s neck.
But a flurry of feet drummed up behind Hok. Two steely hands hooked under his chin from the rear. He bit a finger to the bone, heard his new assailant howl, and next moment was yanked bodily backward and away from the half-dead Kimri. As he tumbled he whirled cat-like, got his feet under him and rose to face a second black-beard. At the same moment something shot forward to prick his chest over the heart—a foot-long dagger of bone, sharp as a needle.
“Move!” dared the newcomer. Hok saw that it was Oloana’s father, chief of the forest men. “Move—and die!”
Kimri also struggled up, gasping and holding a hand to his bruised throat. He caught up his fallen axe and raised it aloft to cleave Hok’s skull.
“No!” barked the father of Oloana. “The rope!”
At the voice of authority Kimri gained control of himself and whipped from his girdle a coil of rawhide line. Quickly he flung a loop of it over Hok’s shoulders, jerked it tight, then ran the rest of it round and round, pinioning the prisoner’s arms to his body. In half a minute Hok was as helpless as Oloana had been a few hours ago.
“Now,” said the chief, “where is Oloana?”
“Hok shook his head.
“Speak!” snarled Kimri, and struck Hok’s mouth with his horny palm. Blood sprang to the bruised lips, but Hok grinned.
“A woman’s blow,” he mocked. “Untie me and I will take the hand from your body like a berry from a bush.”
“Where is Oloana?” repeated the chief.
“I do not know. I set her free.”
“You lie!” raged Kimri. “Tell us where you have hidden her.”
“I have not hidden her. She must be halfway home by now.”
“Tell us,” Kimri insisted, “or we will kill you.”
“You will kill me anyway,” said Hok.
Foam flecked Kimri’s beard, and he flourished his axe again. But once more the chief intervened.
“It is nearly night,” he told his companion. “We will camp. He can think until morning. Then,” and he grinned significantly at Hok, “if he stilt is silent, I will do tricks with hot coals.”
They herded him through the trees for nearly a mile. In a grove at the edge of a brush-faced bluff they came to a halt, shoved their prisoner violently down at the foot of a big tree and tethered him between two gnarled roots with the free end of the rawhide. Then Kimri kindled a fire with rubbing sticks. Over its blaze the chief set slices of venison to broil.
Dark came. The two captors ate and talked in low tones. Several times they glanced toward Hok, but said nothing to him. Finally both stretched and yawned. Kimri came to the big tree, examined the knots that bound Hok, and finally gave him a hearty kick.
“Tomorrow you will talk,” he prophesied balefully, and returned to the fire. The two forest men built it up with great billets of hard wood that would burn for a long time. Then they lay down and fell into the quick, healthy slumber of wild things.
Hok did not sleep. He tried his bonds, cautiously at first and then with all his magnificent strength, but the rope was of sound rawhide and passed many times around his body. Not even he could burst it.
He must lie there, then, and think. Think of Oloana and her beauty, and of how he had failed to win her. With the dawn his enemies would wake and question him again. The chief had hinted of fire-torture. And he, Hok, could truly tell them nothing. He could only bear the pain, give them scornful smiles and curses. If lucky, he might taunt them into finishing him quickly. He hoped so.
He dozed fitfully for a time, then started awake. What was that? He felt, rather than heard, the stealthy approach of two furtive feet. The flickering fire suddenly cast a bright tongue skyward, and he saw the newcomer—a woman, crowned with clouds of midnight hair, dressed in scanty fur that could not hide the rich beauty of her body. He knew that body. How could he forget? Oloana had tracked him down.
She bent to look at Kimri, at her father. Another tongue of flame rose, and by its light she saw Hok. She tiptoed toward him. Her right hand lifted—his javelin.
Kneeling, she slid her other hand across his chest to where his great heart beat beneath two crossed strands of rawhide. Hok looked into her eyes and smiled. If she but knew that she was cheating her father and Kimri—if she knew how they would rage when they found him quickly slain and beyond torture! The levelled point came down, down. He braced himself as it pricked his skin. Then—
The rawhide relaxed its hold on him. A strand parted, another and another, before the keen flint edge of the javelin-head. Wondering, he stood up, free and chafing his cramped wrists and forearms. She cautioned him to silence with finger on lips. Together they stole toward the edge of the bluff.
Oloana, going first, brushed against twigs that crackled.
Next instant Kimri’s awakening roar smote their ears. Hok whirled to meet the rushing giant, while Oloana sped like a deer down the steep slope. A charge and a grasp, and the two who wanted Oloana were straining and heaving in each other’s arms. A moment later they tripped, fell, and went spinning over and over down the declivity.
At the bottom they flew sprawling apart, rose and circled watchfully. Kimri’s hand sought the haft of his dagger. “Come on and fight,” Hok dared him.
But even as Kimri gathered himself to spring he started, stiffened, the wrath on his hairy face gave way to blank surprise. A moment later he pitched forward and lay still. Oloana, behind him, wrenched her javelin out of his back. She looked apologetically at Hok.
“You were strongest, I know,
” she pleaded. “I only wanted to help.”
From the top of the bluff sounded her father’s yells for Kimri. Hok put out his hand for the javelin.
“No,” she said, holding it out of his reach. “He is my father. Let us run away.”
In a far thicket Hok coaxed a fire from rubbing-sticks. Together they lounged in its warm light, their backs to a boulder.
“Oloana,” he now found time to ask, “why did you follow me? I thought—”
“Yes,” she nodded happily, “I, too, thought I hated you. But before you left me, free and alone, you—” She paused, seeking words.
“What did I do?” he prompted.
“This!” Her round arms twined around his neck. Her lips pressed his. It was, probably, the second kiss in history.
“You liked it?” he started to ask, but the words were smothered by the third kiss. Gathering her half-naked loveliness close to him, he joyfully stopped talking.
The Complete Hok the Mighty Page 30