by Andy Briggs
Clark followed Jane and Robbie from the cave and they looked down the mountain slope at a terrifying sight. An army of Targarni swarmed from the jungle. This was no ambush. This was war.
15
Pale apes emerged from the mist like cursed jungle spirits. The silverbacks charged forward, thundering past Greystoke and Werper, who dropped to their knees in terror.
Kerchak collided head-on with a pair of Targarni. The chimps clawed and bit him, but were no match for the gorilla’s greater strength. The smaller apes were hurled back into the trees as Kerchak searched for his next target.
Tarzan sprinted down the incline at an incredible speed. The female Mangani and the younglings raced past him in terror, seeking safety farther up the slope where Jane and the others remained.
One Targarni barreled into Tarzan from the side with enough force to sweep the ape-man’s legs from under him. Tarzan landed hard on his back and slipped down the grass slope with the wild chimp clawing at his face. Tarzan used both legs to kick the ape off and, in one graceful movement, flipped himself back onto his feet.
With the finesse of a dancer, Tarzan sprang for a Targarni who had his back to him as it attacked a younger silverback. Looping an arm around the pale Targarni’s neck, Tarzan drove the beast into the ground with bone-crunching force. He didn’t stop to admire his handiwork but continued down the slope.
• • •
Greystoke and Werper leaned against each other in the hope that their combined mass would deter the pale apes. Greystoke looked frantically around for Idra’s rifle, but couldn’t see it. He leaned forward for a rock just tantalizingly out of reach. A thundering footfall made him look up, just in time to see the slobbering jaws of a chimpanzee as it bore down on him. Intelligence and hatred were burning in its eyes. Its teeth were a full two inches long. Greystoke froze in utter terror. It was so close that he could smell its rank breath.
Then, a blur of movement as Kerchak slammed into the Targarni from the side. Greystoke heard bones break and the chimp fell limp. The mighty Kerchak looked at Greystoke and snorted an acknowledgment that they were fighting on the same side. The Englishman marveled at the power and intelligence before him. He had only seen gorillas confined in zoos, and had never fully appreciated their might until now.
Mist swirled as another Targarni appeared, springing through the air to take advantage of Kerchak’s turned back. Greystoke reacted on instinct and lunged for the rock. He hurled it, cracking the chimp across the head, and causing it to slump aside.
• • •
The mass of Targarni throwing themselves at Tarzan was unrelenting. Every step he took into the throng was achieved with a vicious right hook or wild elbow swing as he parted the savage apes. He was searching for Goyad—the leader was there somewhere, but keeping a low profile.
To one side, Tarzan saw one of the silverbacks was down, mercilessly being torn apart by a gibbering pack of chimps. To the other side he saw the unlikely team of Greystoke, Werper, and Kerchak—all three standing back-to-back to defend themselves from the endless attacks.
But where was Goyad?
• • •
Karnath raced past Robbie, the little gorilla gibbering with fright. He leaped up onto the cave entrance just behind Jane and watched with the humans as the Targarni attack continued. Jane caught glimpses of Tarzan through the mass of bodies, but the odds were stacked against them. For the first time in the ape-man’s company, she was beginning to doubt they would survive.
With Clark and Robbie’s help, Reyna clambered to her feet to watch the battle. Her mouth hung open in awe.
“I never imagined such a thing,” she breathed. “If only I had my camera… .”
Jane flushed with anger. Life and death were unfolding before them and all the stupid woman could think of was her camera? She turned to speak her mind, but froze as she saw a ghostly figure rise on top of the cave behind Karnath. It was Goyad.
The ape’s single red eye burned at her, and she could see recognition across the ape’s face. Karnath caught the movement and screeched, jumping for safety as Goyad launched himself at Jane.
Jane’s breath was crushed from her as she fell onto her back, Goyad’s weight pinning her down. Humanlike hands reached for her neck as she tried to fight him off. Goyad roared, a maw full of fangs and dripping saliva inches from her face.
“Hey! Freak!” yelled Robbie as he punched at the ape’s one good eye. The chimp shrieked in fury and lunged at Robbie.
The speed of the retaliation took Robbie by surprise and he felt Goyad’s teeth sink into his arm. He howled in agony, and was only saved from losing his arm when Clark cracked his walking stick across Goyad’s head, dazing the ape.
Goyad shook his head, attempting to clear the grogginess. He had Robbie pinned and extended his jaw ready to sever the boy’s throat. Only a terrific explosion from behind stopped him.
• • •
Tarzan kicked one Targarni across the head before pirouetting around, locking his arm around the neck of another, and breaking it as he tensed his muscles. There appeared to be no let up in the Targarni’s attack.
He glanced up the slope and saw Goyad leap off Jane and onto Robbie. The sly ape had relied on the diversion. He was going after more prisoners. Tarzan shook off a Targarni clinging to his back and took a step forward.
Just then, the ground shook, the terrifying boom resonating across the valley. A thick curl of black smoke shot upward from the volcano and the earth continued to shudder with such ferocity that Tarzan was almost tossed to the ground.
He heard Werper shouting, “Earthquake!”
Every gorilla and chimpanzee bolted for cover. The skies erupted as thousands of birds took flight. The world was suddenly thrown into chaos.
• • •
Goyad’s head darted around as he tried to identify the threat. The roar from the mountainside was more terrifying than anything made by man or beast, and he saw his Targarni flee back into the trees. A dozen chimps sprinted through the knot of humans. Escape was the only thing on their minds, and the surge of furry bodies separated Jane and Clark. With a final snarl, Goyad jumped from Robbie and sprinted as fast as he could for the sanctuary of the jungle.
Robbie helped Jane to her feet and they both wobbled as the mountainside trembled. Loose rubble from the peak far above them avalanched down, but a belt of trees cushioned them. Twenty seconds later the earthquake stopped so abruptly that Robbie, who was compensating for the vibrations, fell back down.
• • •
The aftermath of the battle was grim. Two silverbacks had been killed, and a dozen Targarni. Other Mangani were injured and badly shaken after the earthquake. The shock had been so severe that the differences between the humans and apes were forgotten. Now that Kerchak had fought side by side with them, he accepted their presence.
“The volcano’s going to erupt,” said Jane to Tarzan. “We have to leave the area. This is something we can’t fight.”
Tarzan nodded gravely, but his thoughts were torn between taking the Mangani to safety and annihilating the Targarni in revenge.
“Wait,” said Robbie suddenly. “Where’s Clark?”
They looked around, suddenly aware their party was short.
“Where’s Greystoke?” said Werper.
Both men had vanished.
“He was right in front of me,” said Jane. “When the Targarni …” She drifted off as Tarzan finished her line of thought.
“The Targarni took them.”
Jane looked around in despair. “We have to get them back.”
“No,” said Tarzan firmly as he motioned to join the Mangani, but Jane blocked his path.
“Please! I know you don’t like them, but we can’t let them die at the hands of those animals! Greystoke’s your family and Clark … We don’t often see eye to eye but he’s put his life on t
he line several times to save mine. I can’t just leave him.”
Robbie nodded. “If it was just Greystoke then I’d be with Tarzan on this and leave them. But Clark …”
Tarzan clenched his fists, undecided. His gaze lingered on his family, the apes banding together to treat each other’s wounds. His loyalty was with them, but then he looked into Jane’s pleading eyes and felt a rare twinge of guilt.
Jane indicated to Reyna. “And if any of her companions are still alive, we have to do the right thing.”
Tarzan looked up at the furious black clouds spewing from the volcano. How long did they have? He had no concept of what would happen, but he had seen the fire rock inside the mountain and could all too easily imagine what harm that would cause if it spilled onto the land.
Jane broke his reverie. “Tarzan?”
With a bull-like snort of annoyance, Tarzan nodded and stabbed a finger at Reyna and Werper. “You. You. Go with Kerchak, find a safe route from here.” To Jane, Robbie, and Idra he indicated to the jungle up the slope. “We go together.”
Tarzan started to walk back to the Mangani to share his plan, but Werper blocked his path. Tarzan refused to slow down and roughly shouldered the Belgian out of the way.
“Wait a moment,” said Werper. “I’m going with you. If you’re going to Opar, I deserve to be there!”
“No.”
“No? You don’t own me, Tarzan. You can’t tell me what I can or cannot do! I’m coming with you and that’s that!” Werper blocked Tarzan’s path again and folded his arms. He wasn’t going to be swayed.
Tarzan grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and, with one arm, lifted Werper off his feet. “Go with them or I will feed you to the Targarni.”
The raw show of strength shut up Werper. He grudgingly helped Reyna down the slope, into the Mangani fold.
• • •
It took several hours for the expedition to get ready to leave. The humans required food and wounds had to be tended to. The bite Robbie had sustained to his arm was particularly nasty and Idra had to apply basic stitches to hold the flesh together. A half inch farther and Goyad would have severed muscle, so Robbie was fortunate he still could move his arm, no matter how painful it was. Idra patted his other arm.
“There you go, soldier,” she said and winked.
Robbie frowned, wondering why she was being so friendly. He noticed that she kept glancing at Tarzan—each time she looked fascinated.
Idra retrieved her rifle and told Tarzan that Mbuti porters were at the bottom of the valley with the rest of the equipment, which they would find useful on their rescue mission.
Robbie and Idra hurried back to the river, returning an hour and a half later with bad news. The Mbuti had gone. They saw signs of Targarni and guessed some of the porters managed to escape with a boat, but the others—and the equipment—had vanished.
Werper was terrified to be surrounded by the band of gorillas as he and Reyna finally headed down the slope to a new pasture beyond the valley, which Tarzan had identified to Kerchak. Reyna had watched the whole interaction and marveled at how Tarzan was able to communicate with the apes. Werper didn’t care. He hated playing babysitter to the Spaniard and had no desire to be any closer to the apes.
Only when the Mangani had safely disappeared into the trees did Tarzan signal that his party should leave. An eerie silence smothered the landscape. The bodies on the battlefield hadn’t been cleared. Not a single bird had descended to peck at the carcasses. A free meal was never passed up in the jungle, yet the animals could sense the potent danger of the volcano and stayed away.
Tarzan could sense it too. It was something primal inside him, warning him to turn back as he led Jane, Robbie, and Idra up the flanks of the rumbling volcano, toward Opar.
• • •
The mountainside became steeper the higher they climbed. The rich foliage underfoot suddenly gave way to fine black rock, the volcanic scree that had poured down during the quake and now hampered their progress. For every two steps forward they slid a step back.
The jungle was deathly quiet and only the occasional grumble from the smoking cone broke the monotony of their footsteps. The Targarni’s trail as they fled to their lair was clearly visible in the rubble.
Hours passed and they were all silently frustrated with their slow progress. Nobody wanted to be the first to ask to rest, and to everyone’s surprise, it was Idra who finally spoke up.
“How much farther?” she asked, panting hard.
“We are close,” said Tarzan in a low voice. Jane hadn’t seen him so subdued before. When he wasn’t being fierce, he was full of the joys of life. Being this close to Opar was troubling him deeply.
They pushed on through tall plants that blocked their view ahead and could only be cleared with a machete. The tough going and the heat wore Robbie down, but the thought of what Clark might be going through spurred him on. He was slashing the foliage aside with renewed vigor when a snarling face lunged at him through the leaves. “WHOA!” Robbie stumbled, the weight of his pack causing him to fall.
Jane and Tarzan burst into laughter despite the oppressive atmosphere. Robbie looked frantically around, wondering from which direction the attack would come. Idra stepped over him and pulled the straggling plants aside, revealing a stone snake intricately carved from a single block. The weather had blunted most of its features and moss had covered other sections, but at over six feet tall, it was still impressive.
Idra ran her hand across the statue in awe. She looked around. “This is it.”
Beyond the stone guardian the trees thinned out. Everything was covered in a fine layer of scree, but the avalanche appeared to have bypassed the ancient site. Angular blocks of stone—all that remained of the ancient buildings—poked through the vegetation.
The entrance to the city lay between a pair of carved lion’s paws, and a black hole beckoned them below ground. But what drew their attention was above the claws. The faded remains of a lion statue, about the size of a house, had crumbled as to be almost unrecognizable. It reminded Jane of the Egyptian Sphinx she’d seen in pictures, except where the Sphinx had a lion’s body, this head had been mounted on the base of a huge stepped pyramid that rose almost a hundred feet from the earth. Soil and plants covered half the structure, but the quake had dislodged the other half, making it look as if the pyramid was bursting from the mountainside.
“Now that’s impressive,” Robbie conceded.
“Opar …” said Idra breathlessly. “Legend says the Oparians worshipped the animals of the jungle.” She indicated to the panels between each step. They were covered in detailed hieroglyphs, depicting jungle scenes and fierce animals. The soil had preserved them with remarkable clarity. “They were said to be able to commune with the animals.”
“How do you know all this?” Jane suddenly asked suspiciously.
“Albert has been searching for this place his whole life. He met a man who had crawled from the jungle, barely alive, clutching an opal the size of his fist. He claimed to have escaped from here.” She looked sheepishly at Jane. “He was part of the missing anthropology expedition Reyna mentioned. As soon as she said that, we knew we were close to finding this place.”
Robbie switched on a flashlight and shone it into the depths of the entrance. “We’re going in there?” he said anxiously.
“You’re not claustrophobic are you?” Jane teased, although she was feeling less than bullish at the prospect herself. Robbie gave her a look that suggested he didn’t want to find out.
The ground suddenly trembled. It was not as severe as earlier, but this close to the cone, the noise sounded more terrible than ever. It only lasted for seconds but it was enough to unnerve them all.
“Are you sure the Targarni took Clark in there?” Robbie asked, shining his light back in the cave. Tarzan nodded, and Robbie frowned. “Looks like something i
s moving—” He was cut off as thousands of bats suddenly blasted from the cave. The squeals and fluttering wings zipped past them all, forcing everybody to crouch, arms wrapped tightly over their heads.
Idra screamed, but Jane had enough presence of mind to keep it together. She found it incredible that not a single bat hit them, such were their navigational skills. The group looked up to see the sky had turned black as thousands of bats obscured the sun. With the broiling volcano so close, Jane wouldn’t have been surprised to discover they had reached the end of the world.
“Let’s get this over with,” said Robbie, trying to mask his anxiety. He took a deep breath, and led the group into the cave. Into the depths of Opar.
16
Kerchak rapidly led the band through the jungle, easily descending down steep grassy ravines that had Werper and Reyna slipping on their backsides as they ungracefully followed the apes. When they reached the river, the procession of apes continued onward without slowing. The two humans slowed the party down, but Werper walked ahead of Reyna now that she was fit enough to walk on her own. His thoughts went back to Opar and the dying man who had crawled from the jungle with incredible evidence of the lost city.
Werper had been trawling through a small village market on the off chance that something of archeological significance had made it out of the jungle. In the past he had been handed several intriguing trinkets that hinted at a lost civilization, discovered by poachers venturing deep into the bush. This time he heard tales of a dying westerner who had been saved by a nun and lived in a small Christian church on the edge of the village. Werper lied his way in to seeing the man, claiming to be a member of a search party looking for him.
The man was in a malarial daze as he wove his tale, even secretly sharing the opal, exquisitely embellished with a snake, that he’d found. Luckily for Werper, the nun had left for water so she did not see the exchange. He had precious seconds to decide what to do next. The man was unlikely to recover, and Werper couldn’t afford anybody else hearing the stories… . So he pressed a pillow across the man’s face. The man was too weak to struggle against the attack, and when the nun returned, Werper broke the sad news of the man’s passing away.