by Lin Carter
The black warrior woman shrugged carelessly.
“It will not take long, and Niema will not go far,” she said. Then she added, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes: “Besides, it will give Zuma more time to yearn for the embrace of Niema!”
Yualla laughed and the two women exchanged a glance, understanding each other perfectly.
They continued west, with Niema striding along in the lead and the two young people at her heels. She moved with a gliding, pantherlike grace, and the rolling of her naked hips and the grace of her long, tapering legs was entrancing to watch.
Indeed, Jorn the Hunter could hardly keep his eyes off the black woman. The daylight glistened from her naked body as if from oiled black satin. He thought her stunningly beautiful, even breathtaking, in a new and different way from any woman he had ever before seen. And it did not take Yualla long to notice his rapt gaze was always fixed upon the bare buttocks and long legs of the Aziru amazon. Very much a woman for all her youthful years, Yualla first pouted, then became piqued. Before long, she left Jorn’s side to join Niema, whom she engaged in conversation as if oblivious to Jorn’s very presence. From time to time, the two women glanced back at him and giggled.
Jorn flushed scarlet with mortification, and his firm jaw became truculent.
“Women!” he muttered to himself.
They came to a pool in the rocky flanks of the Peaks of Peril, and the two girls decided to bathe. They sternly ordered Jorn to turn his back and stand guard while they divested themselves of their few garments and plunged delightedly into the cool silver shock of the fresh mountain stream which fed the lucent pond.
The two women looked each other over with frank curiosity. The part of the plain of the thantors where the Aziru had built their kraal was very far from the nearest tribal grounds of any of the Cro-Magnon nations, and, while Niema had occasionally seen one of the blond, blue-eyed barbarians from a distance, Yualla was as much a novelty to her as she was to Yualla. She admired the silky softness of Yualla’s golden, fluffy hair, and her wide blue eyes, which were very beautiful.
For her part, Yualla found Niema equally interesting. The Cro-Magnons, both men and women, have very little bodyhair, but Niema had even less. And her nipples were protruding studs of milk-chocolate brown, different from Yualla’s own rosy nipples.
“What is Zuma like?” she asked, as they lolled in the cold embrace of the pool. The black woman sighed.
“He is very beautiful,” she said wistfully, “in the ways that men are beautiful. He is as tall as Niema, and no older, a mighty hunter and a brave warrior. It has been long since Niema saw Zuma, and she longs to feed her eyes upon his body … .”
“What do you think of my Jorn?” asked the other girl, shyly. Niema grinned.
“He is very handsome.” And they went into this fascinating subject in much more intimate detail than I care to record here. Suffice it to say, that Jorn’s ears would have burned crimson had he been able to overhear their words.
Chapter 7. GORAH OF KOR
When Hurok the Apeman disappeared so mysteriously during our sleep period, the first explanation that sprang to my mind was an alarming one. I feared that Hurok thought himself unwelcome among the Cro-Magnons, and that once we had found our way to Thandar he would be lonely and unliked.
I said as much to the warriors of my company as we broke our fast. In their opinion, I was wrong.
“In the opinion of Varak, my chieftain is mistaken,” said my Sotharian friend. Parthon and Warza agreed with him, and they quickly told me how Hurok had risen by popular acclaim to the rank of chieftain of my band, when I had lain captive in the Scarlet City. His strength and endurance, his indifference to danger, and his innate wisdom and common sense, had won first their grudging respect, then their admiration, finally their love.
I had been reunited with my friends too briefly to have heard more than a sketchy account of their adventures during my absence. Now this cursory narrative was filled in with further corroborative detail.
I was heartily relieved to learn that my huge friend had won the affection and liking of my warriors, but puzzled as to what had impelled him to flee from us, if it was not the fear of finding himself alone and unwelcome.
Ragor the Thandarian shrugged philosophically.
“That we may only know when Hurok tells us, my chieftain,” he said, sensibly enough.
“The real question, my boy,” puffed Professor Potter impatiently, “is: what are we going to do about it?”
I looked at my friends thoughtfully.
“My first impulse is to follow the spoor of Hurok through the underbrush, while it is still fresh, and catch up with him if I can,” I said. They nodded at each other, grinning.
“The huge fellow will move more slowly than will we smaller and lighter men,” remarked Thon of Numitor mischievously, adding, with a sly glance at the gigantic Gundar: “All of us, save, of course, for Gundar!”
The warrior from Gorad looked at him stolidly, and grunted as if disdaining to reply to the quip. Gundar is the biggest man in the twin tribes, this side of Hurok himself, as I have already explained.
Without further ado, we collected our gear and moved out. I disliked letting the women go with us, but their mates insisted as loudly as did they.
“I will help as best I can in the finding of Hurok, and please do not worry about me!” said timid little Jaira stoutly.
“Or me, either, Lord Eric!” added Ialys of Zar.
“There you are, my boy!” said the Professor explosively. “It is all the tribe or nothing-we are with you, my boy, to the last man and, ah, um, the last woman, too.”
I grinned and accepted the offer, glad that my friends were willing to join me in the search for the missing Hurok. In the little time he had been among us, the huge, hairy Neanderthal warrior had won the admiration of all for his courage and strength and prowess, and had made many firm and fast friends.
Without further ado we packed our gear, assembled, and entered the jungles. I dispatched the fleetest of foot among us, young Thon of Numitor, to apprise the two Omads of our brief (we hoped) absence from the twin tribes, together with our reason for departure. He soon rejoined us, having delivered the message.
We moved due west, following the track of Hurok, whose huge splayed feet had left a trail easy enough to follow. We knew that we could catch up with the rest of the host without trouble, since they were journeying south by slow and easy stages. An army moves no swifter than its weakest member, and mighty Garth of Sothar was still healing from his wound, having not quite fully recovered his former strength.
Hurok’s motive for leaving us so abruptly was really not so very mysterious, if you stop to think about it.
In his slow, ponderous way, the huge fellow had been thinking about what his future life would be like when we reached Thandar. That he would be the only one of his kind among us did not really bother him, for he regarded me as his brother, and had become good friends with many of the warriors of Thandar and Sothar, and knew that his place in our councils was as secure as his place in our affections.
No, but he was lonely … .
When Grond of Gorthak had joined our company with his mate, little Jaira, and when Varak of Sothar had wed Ialys, the slim, dark Zarian girl, the nature of his loneliness had risen to the fore of Hurok’s mind.
In a word, he had no mate, and was about to venture far into the southlands, where none of the Drugars of Kor had ever dwelt.
That night, while standing his watch, the great Neanderthal had pondered his predicament. He was aware of our position in the jungle country, and knew that at this point we were nearer to his homeland of Kor than we would ever be again. Indeed, the rocky island of Ganadol lay not far off the coast, amid the waters of the Sogar-Jad, easily reached by dugout canoe. Since so many of the warriors of Kor had been slain in the stampede of the thantors, the shes of his tribe were doubtless by this time lonely and restless, yearning f
or the companionship of their males. It should not be particularly difficult for Hurok to persuade one of the lonely shes to join him on the journey south.
And he remembered one of the young shes he had known in the cave country of Kor long ago. Her name was Gorah, and she had been too young to mate with a male, although by this time she would be ripe and ready ….
So, taking up his flint-bladed spear and his stone war axe, the Apeman moved off into the depths of the jungle as soundlessly as one of his size and tonnage could move. Skirting the encampments of the various Cro-Magnon companies, he circled the area, moving toward the sea.
Exactly how he planned to cross the waters of the underground ocean Hurok did not know. He could not swim, but he could paddle to the island’s shore on the back of a log, probably.
When at length he reached the shore, the lumbering Neanderthal prowled up and down the beach, looking for a piece of driftwood large enough to sustain his weight, or a log fallen into the shallows. To his considerable surprise, however, he came upon something he had never expected to find.
Drawn well up under the cover of the bushes, he found a number of dugout canoes fashioned by the hands of his people!
Scratching his sloping, russet-furred brow, as if thereby to somehow stimulate the process of cognitation, Hurok puzzled over the mystery. At length it occurred to him that when the hosts of Kor had landed on this beach in order to pursue the Cro-Magnons, they must have come by a fleet of dugout canoes, which they would have dragged up the shore to conceal among the bushes. And, since most if not all of the Apemen had been trampled to death beneath the feet of the thantors, or woolly mammoths, the canoes must still be hidden.
Having solved the mystery to his own satisfaction, Hurok dragged one of the dugouts down into the shallows, clambered aboard, and began plying the crude oars.
The quicker he got to the cave country and found Gorah, the quicker he could persuade her to go with him, and return to rejoin his friends among the panjani, was the way his thinking ran.
For he never had any intention of leaving us for good, had my huge and faithful friend, Hurok of the Stone Age ….
We moved through the jungle aisles as swiftly as could be managed, following the tracks of our friend.
At this hour, for some reason, the jungle was silent as a crypt. If any predators were awake and on the hunt for food, you could not have known it from the deathly silence. Which was in itself, now that I think of it, odd. Ordinarily, the jungle is filled with small life, rustling through the bushes, scampering through dry fallen leaves. It is only when the great killers are hunting their prey, that the jungle falls silent-which should have given us a signal.
High on a branch above our heads, a silent figure lurked motionless, only the tip of its long tail twitching in the tension of the chase.
For hours, the great cat had roamed the jungle aisles in quest of meat. But the presence of so huge a bost of men in the jungle had scared the small and timid creatures into hiding, and the hunter went hungry.
Our first warning was almost our last, for without the slightest sound or warning, the great cat sprang among us, leaping from its bough to crouch, snarling, baring dripping fangs as long as daggers, momentarily confused by so many prey to choose from.
It was a vandar-the monstrous ferocious sabertooth tiger of Ice Age Europe—one of the most fearsome killers that ever stalked the earth!
Hurok drove his clumsy canoe through the waves of the Sogar-Jad with all the iron strength of his mightily muscled arms. The vessel was a crude one, a mere hollowed log, and it negotiated the underground sea with difficulty. But at length, driven by his tireless thews, it beached upon the rock-strewn shores of Ganadol.
He dragged the dugout up the shore and concealed it as best he could among the tumbled boulders. Then he looked about him with a certain nostalgia he would have been the first to gruffly deny. But it had been long since last he had visited his island home, and he sniffed the dank salt air gratefully.
Prowling among the rocks, Hurok scaled a slope and began to make his way to the narrow valley that was the country of Kor. There many caves cleft the sheer walls of stone, and in those the Apemen of Kor made their homes. Not certain of his welcome after so long an absence, Hurok decided to approach the cave country with circumspection.
Rounding a bend, he came abruptly upon a dramatic scene. Cowering against a rock there lay a woman of Kor; her fur garments had been ripped from her body and bending over her in menacing posture was a huge, hairy Korian male, a stone club clenched in one huge fist and raised threateningly. It was easy for Hurok to read the lust that flamed in the little red eyes of the male as he lowered above the helpless she, and to know that in another instant the male would hurl himself upon the she and crush her feeble resistance before the fury of his passion.
Without even pausing to think, Hurok unlimbered his heavy stone axe and sprang from behind the boulder, thundering forth his challenge.
The huge male whirled upon him, inflamed eyes blazing with rage. An instant later, the two males crashed together, swaying in savage combat, locked in the crushing embrace of each other’s powerful, apelike arms, while the female watched wide-eyed in horror-
Chapter 8. STRANGER FROM THE TREES
When the giant sabertooth landed in our midst, we instinctively bolted in all directions. Warza dropped spear and shield and sprang up, seizing a branch, swinging himself up into the treetops. The Professor jumped, squeaked in dismay, and flung himself into the gap between two trees. The others scattered in every direction, and this was from prudence, not from cowardice. In the tiny glade there was no arm room for us to fight the vandar. And, anyway, as it was twice the size of the largest Bengal tiger ever seen, it was wiser to take to our heels than try to fight the monster.
As for myself, I dived headlong into the wall of head-high bushes directly in front of me. Landing, scratched and bruised, on the far side, I found myself at the top of a decline, lost my balance, and rolled down to the bottom, where a small stream gurgled between wet stones.
Leaping to my feet again, I plunged into the nearest jungle aisle. Moments later, hearing no pursuit, I paused to catch my breath. Looking around, I discovered with a sinking sensation located somewhere about the pit of my stomach, that in my hurried flight, I had lost all sense of direction. I could not at once remember from which avenue I had come, or how to return to the little glade later, hoping to rejoin my company.
Cursing myself for a damned fool for panicking so blindly, I looked around, studying the foliage, and eventually decided to travel in one direction. It seemed to be the right one.
I moved through the brush cautiously, knowing I had not had time to come very far from where we had sundered ways. I could have called out, for surely my friends were not far away, but hesitated to do so. I had no particular desire to attract the attention of the hungry vandar, should the brute still be in the vicinity, which I hoped it wasn’t.
The jungle was deathly still again, which meant the hunter was aprowl … .
By this time I had unlimbered the .45 automatic I carried slung at my waist in its homemade holster of reptile hide, together with the few precious rounds of ammunition which still remained. These were carefully wrapped in oiled leather against the damp. The automatic was clenched in my fist, ready for instant use, should the huge cat make its reappearance.
I went through the jungle for a time, finding nothing. It is a peculiar thing about jungles, which I have also found to be true of forests, and that is: when you are in the middle of one, one part of it looks identical with every other part, which is why even seasoned backpackers find it so fearfully easy to get lost in the woods.
It would have helped if I had a compass with me, but I had none, and the peoples of Zanthodon are still too low on the scale of technology to have developed such a useful instrument.
In place of the compass, the savage tribes of Zanthodon have, over the ages since their remote ancestors fi
rst took refuge in the Underground World, developed a natural sense of direction, which they possess to an uncanny degree. This does not seem to be true of the more recent arrivals in Zanthodon, however, for I have never noticed the talent displayed by any of the Barbary Pirates or by the inhabitants of the Scarlet City of Zar.
Not being native to Zanthodon, my own directional instincts is vestigial, at best ….
I had no way of knowing that, all the while, a pair of sharp eyes were scrutinizing my every move. These
belonged to a man who lay stretched out on a high branch of one of the taller trees, a Jurassic conifer. He was nearly naked, save for his sandals, a bit of hide twisted about his loins, and his weapons and accouterments. With narrowed, thoughtful eyes, he watched me as I blundered back and forth beneath his high place of vigil, trying to find the proper direction in which I should go to rejoin my comrades.
As he reached a decision, his fingers closed about the shaft of a bow. With swift, silent movements, he nocked the bow and set a flint-bladed arrow in place, held at the ready.
I had no warning of what was about to happen. Grumbling and cursing under my breath, I plowed through stubbornly intertwined bushes, flailing away at the leafy branches which stingingly whipped my face, my sandaled feet sinking in rotting leaf mold and rancid mud.
Emerging from the underbrush, I found myself in a grassy glade of some size which I had not seen before. And I knew I was traveling in the wrong direction, for I had not come this way, even in my hasty flight from the fangs of the sabertooth.
I was about to turn on my heel and strike out at random in another direction, when leaves rustled overhead.
In the next instant, the magnificent figure of a nearly naked black man swung from the branches above to land lightly as a cat on the emerald turf.
His bow was bent, the arrow nocked and ready. Before I could think or move or speak, he loosed the deadly shaft directly for my head-Shivering miserably, Murg huddled beneath a bush in the drenching downpour, as uncomfortable as a wet cat. Against the trunk of the tree opposite from where he crouched whimpering and whining to himself, Xask sat stoically enduring the discomforture of the shower. The two had fled across the plain to a tall stand of trees wherein they had thought to conceal themselves from the huge, hairy omodon who had slaughtered Xask’s guards. As things turned out, of course, their precipitous flight had proven unnecessary, as the great cave-bear had lingered behind to assuage its appetite on the corpses of the Zarian warriors.