The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series

by Lin Carter

  By this time we were massed before the narrow mouth of one of the passes which led through the Peaks of Peril, and if we must stand and fight, at least our backs would be protected by that sheer and clifflike wall of stone.

  Garth voiced the command from his litter, and the chieftains of the host hastily assembled their warriors into fighting order. The taller and huskier of the warriors formed the first rank, their long shields locked together like a palisade. I believe that I have mentioned elsewhere in these memoirs that the Cro-Magnon warriors carry strong but light wicker shields over whose kite-shaped frame are stretched the tough, tanned hides of dinosaurs. These shields are approximately the shape and the height of the kite-shields used by the Norman knights when they invaded England, and the pattern or design of such shields goes back to the old Vikings who were the ancestors of the Normans. The Cro-Magnon warriors of Zanthodon locked these shields together much in the same manner as did the Vikings—I believe the old Icelandic sagas call this formation a “shield-berg.”

  At any rate, it presents a formidable defense, and behind this barrier of tall shields our warriors grimly waited for the attack of our unknown enemies, long bronze-bladed spears bristling and swords and stone axes held at the ready.

  The foe was not long in making their appearance…and their appearance was astonishing.

  I don’t quite remember what it was I had expected to see as I stood there at the forefront of my company of warriors, but I guess it must have been the Dragon-riders of Zar, for what other enemy could we have expected, here at the northern extremity of the world?

  Instead, they proved to be tall, long-legged, swarthy-skinned men with beards and turbans, clad in curlytoed boots, loose trousers, sashes bristling with daggers. They looked for all the world like buccaneers stepped from the pages of Rafael Sabatini’s The Sea Hawk—and in a very real sense of the word, they were: for they were, of course, the Barbary Pirates.

  “Who is the enemy, Eric Carstairs?” inquired Garth of Sothar from his litter behind my position. In terse words I told him.

  “But why are these men attacking us? Never have we encountered them before, nor done aught that would earn us their enmity.…”

  I was baffled by that one myself, and had no answer to give him. But the why and wherefore of the matter were of trivial importance, for they came howling against us, their bright scimitars flashing, shrilling their old Moslem battle cries, and the fight was begun.…

  * * * *

  Kâiradine felt satisfied as he watched his corsairs charge the shield-wall of the savages. The answer to Garth’s question and the cause of the attack were easily explained—the Redbeard had made a very simple mistake, one of identification. Pursuing a horde of naked blond Cro-Magnon savages, he had found one, and believed it to be the one for which he had been searching. That we were not the host of Thandar, his foes, who had invaded and sacked the fortress isle of El-Cazar, but the host of Sothar, come hither from the Scarlet City of Zar, was something he could not have guessed.

  I guess one host of yellow-haired Cro-Magnons looks about the same as another host of yellow-haired Cro-Magnons, to the eyes of a Barbary Pirate.

  The fighting began and soon became hot and furious. The long spears of the Sotharians held the buccaneers at bay for a time, but as the spears broke or were flung at the foe, the men of El-Cazar were able to close with their adversaries, and the battle degenerated into a hand-for-hand melee. The Cro-Magnons were taller and stronger than the corsairs, but they had never before faced men armed with steel swords, and the buccaneers had been practiced in the arts of swordplay since boyhood. The difference soon began to tell as the shield-wall broke, and bands of yowling, wild-eyed pirates penetrated our lines in a dozen places.

  We held our ground and fought grimly, since there was nothing else to do: with the sheer cliffs behind us, there was nowhere to retreat to.

  So we stood and fought.

  Until there came what can only be described as a timely intervention.…

  CHAPTER 29

  A TIMELY INTERVENTION

  We stared in baffled incomprehension as, suddenly, some strange impulse struck the Barbary Pirates. All along the front of their line, as they stood and fought our warriors, a ripple seemed to travel: heads turned, swordhands faltered; they seemed distracted—but by what, or from whence, none of us could say.

  “Look, Black Hair!” boomed Hurok the Korian from where he stood at my right hand. I followed the direction in which he pointed with an extended arm, and saw that, inexplicably, the rear ranks of the corsairs were melting away as if by magic. Men turned their attention from their assault of our lines, distracted by something we could not see in all that haze of whirling dust.

  “Can you see what it is they turn to greet?” I asked him urgently. “For you are taller than am I, and can see over their heads.”

  “But the eyes of Hurok are dimmer than are the eyes of his friend,” he rumbled hesitantly, peering.

  We fought on; but to every hand the line of the Barbary Pirates was crumbling, as men fell back as if to engage adversaries attacking from the rear—but what adversaries could they be, we puzzled, for surely the tribesmen of Thandar were somewhere ahead of us beyond the Peaks of Peril, through whose passes we had sent ahead our noncombatants, the women, the children, the aged and injured.

  Erelong, however, the nature of the forces which were assaulting the buccaneers from behind became apparent. They were a huge body of men, small and slight of build, with sleek black hair and olive-hued skin, arrayed in glittering metal armor and brandishing gleaming tridents and other oddly shaped hand weapons.

  The Dragonmen of Zar! Indeed, it was none other than they—which meant our host was engaged, or would soon be engaged, by twice the enemy forces now pitted against us.

  In the meanwhile, however, the surprise attack from the pirates’ rear worked to our advantage, for we pressed forward, breaking our lines, and in less time than it takes to describe, the corsairs of El-Cazar found themselves ground, as it were, between two millstones. Their forces crumbled and began to flee in all directions, as the frightened buccaneers threw down their weapons and fled in haste, severely outnumbered. This was done, incidentally, despite the rage and thundered orders of their tall, hawk-faced leader, whom I surmised (correctly, as it turned out later) to be none other than the notorious Kâiradine Redbeard, whom I had long hungered to meet at sword’s point.

  Spotting the man, I pressed forward at the head of my retinue, with huge, hulking Hurok on my right and the blond giant, Gundar, guarding my left. We cut a red path straight toward where Kâiradine stood, attempting to stem the disintegration of his host.

  * * * *

  As the legions of the Scarlet City hurled themselves against the rear-most ranks of the corsairs, Jorn the Hunter gave Yualla a nudge, which was the signal agreed upon between them earlier.

  Without a word, the boy whirled, his hands suddenly free: he turned upon the Zarian warrior guarding him and kicked the surprised fellow in the pit of his stomach. As the Zarian fell to his knees, gagging and clutching at his middle, the young Cro-Magnon snatched up his leaf-bladed shortsword and long-hafted trident.

  In the same moments, the lithe young girl had dispatched her own guard with her dagger and had divested him of his weapons. The pair raced for safety behind some rocks, glided from that vantage point into a stand of thick bushes, seeking to circle about the battle and to rejoin the tribe of Sothar from the rear.

  In the confusion of the battle, their escape had gone unnoticed by all but, of course, the wily Murg, who had been watching for just such a bold and daring break for freedom on their part. The moment that Jorn and Yualla turned to engage their guards, Murg gave the signal to the Zarian who accompanied him, and a bugle note soared above the tumult of battle.

  As the Divine Zarys led her legions against
the rear ranks of the Barbary Pirates, Xask unobtrusively fell back to a more prudent position, well out of the way of the glittering scimitars and thrusting tridents. Moments later, when the bugle signaled the attempted escape of the two young Cro-Magnon captives, Xask ordered his personal guards to their pursuit. Along the way, Murg and his guard fell into step with them.

  At this point, I must confess that I have no way of knowing—or even guessing—what plans went coiling through the subtle brain of the wily vizier. Perhaps he was seizing upon the pursuit of the escaping captives as a pretext for quitting the scene of battle in order to better preserve his own hide, and Xask had very little liking for battles and a perhaps over-exaggerated fondness for his hide.

  Or, possibly, he intended to recapture Jorn and Yualla and hold them as hostages for the Professor for he probablv still banked on gaining the secret of the thunder-weapon, which had almost been in his grasp.

  I do not know—and thus you see demonstrated one of the weaknesses of the true and veritable history over the natural advantages of writing purely fictional narratives. For I never had the opportunity to query Xask on this point, and am merely reconstructing his actions from information given me by eye-witnesses.

  * * * *

  Intent on punishing the blond savages whom she believed—correctly, of course—to be the identical host which had earlier defeated her upon the plains of the north, Zarys led her legions forward, assaulting the rear of the confused and amazed buccaneers with the impetuous daring and contempt of danger which marked her mercurial character. Taken off guard, the corsairs went down before her disciplined and armored legions by the dozen and the score. In no time, the Divine Empress had cloven into the very heart of the force of strange, swarthy men which had attacked the Sotharians.

  As she did so, she came within close proximity to Kâiradine Redbeard, who stared at her open-mouthed. She did not know the man, save only that he was an adversary, but he—and very strangely!—seemed instantly to recognize her.

  By this time, being attacked from two sides simultaneously, the buccaneer host was beginning to crumble, as the pirates, losing heart, took to their heels. On sight of Zarys, Kâiradine instantly abandoned his attempts to hold his men in check: whirling about, he leaped upon Zarys and bore the astounded young woman prone to the ground, while his personal retinue of well-armed mariners dispatched her own guards.

  Zarys was stung into an incredulous fury. Never in all of her young life had the Empress of Zar been so rudely attacked by a mere man. But there was little that she could do about it, although she struggled in the prison of his brawny arms like the proverbial wildcat, snarling imprecations and spitting curses. All the while, enjoying the pressure of her supple, warm body against his own, the Redbeard grinned down exultantly at his furious but beautiful captive.…

  The fact of the matter was, of course, that Kâiradine had made another mistake in identity. First, he had attacked the host of Sothar, believing them to be the host of Thandar; now, he had mistaken the Divine Zarys for none other than Darya!

  I have elsewhere in these memoirs remarked on the astonishing resemblance which Zarys held to my beloved Darya; indeed, at my first sight of the Empress, I, too, mistook her for Darya, so I cannot exactly blame the Prince of the Barbary Pirates for this error. Expecting to find the woman he so lustily desired among the Cro-Magnon host, he had encountered a young woman who so closely resembled her that it was difficult to tell them apart. It made little difference to Kâiradine that she was curiously arrayed in glittering metal armor, with a crystal-studded coronet or circlet about her brows: Darya was—Darya.

  When, exhausted, she had ceased struggling, he quickly bound and gagged the girl. Then, turning abruptly to the bewildered Moustapha, who had watched without comprehending these inexplicable actions, he curtly directed his lieutenant to take what acts he could to hold the men in battle, and, without waiting to hear a word in reply, turned and began cutting his way through the howling Zarians toward the beach where his longboats were hidden.

  In the whirling and dusty confusion of the three-way battle, he soon vanished from the knowledge of men.

  He—and his helpless captive, the Empress of Zar.

  CHAPTER 30

  BATTLE’S END, JOURNEY’S BEGINNING

  By now, the battle had degenerated into a vast, confused, bewildered mob in which only the men of Sothar kept their heads.

  The buccaneers had lost many lives in striving to defend themselves from the front and rear simultaneously. Also, they had lost heart and many of them had fled the battle, leaving Moustapha’s host decimated and in considerable disarray.

  As for the legions of Zar, as soon as their fiery Empress had pressed forward into the very midst of the battle, and then vanished from their sight so suddenly and mysteriously, they turned to Xask as second-in-command. He, of course, had prudently left the scene of battle: disheartened and leaderless, they threw down their weapons, surrendering in droves.

  Which left the host of Sothar victorious. We quickly rounded up as many of our former adversaries as we could and disarmed them, taking their weapons for our own.

  Nowhere among the many captives did we find Zarys, Xask or Kâiradine. The arch-villains, unaccountably, had disappeared. Anyway, the battle was won.…

  Garth’s warriors were resting. drinking water from a little stream that meandered across the trampled meadow toward the sea, when suddenly a vast host of warriors appeared at the mouth of the pass through the Peaks of Peril.

  And, at its head, stood Tharn of Thandar.

  Grinning hugely, the jungle monarch came striding up to where I stood dumbfounded; he clapped me on the shoulder (a numbing blow which would have felled a lesser man than I, and, in fact, made me stagger), then bent to where Garth had half struggled to his feet from his litter, to greet his brother Omad and inquire after his health.

  Then he turned to give a friendly salute to Hurok the Neanderthal and Varak and several of the chieftains who stood nearby, and to stare curiously at Gundar and Thon of Numitor and others of our new friends whom he had not yet met.

  The mystery of the sudden appearance of the Thandarians was easily explained. When we had been attacked by the Barbary Pirates, we had taken our stand up against the mouth of the pass, through which we sent our women and children, the aged and the injured.

  The tribe of Thandar had not been so very far ahead of us, after all, as it turned out. For ere the battle was half over, the forefront of our noncombatants had been spotted by the rearguard scouts of Thandar, and quickly Tharn had turned his host about and retraced their path through the mountains to come to our aid—just as quickly as he heard that the buccaneers of El-Cazar had attacked us, mistaking us for the Thandarians.

  That he had arrived too late upon the scene to have taken an active part in the battle was a source of disappointment to Tharn, but as his assistance had not been needed, it was an inconsequential detail.

  “There is someone here who has long been waiting to greet you, Eric Carstairs,” said Tharn of Thandar with a quiet smile.

  “There is?” I said inanely. “Who?”

  “You shall soon see,” he chuckled, and turned on his heel to disappear among the ranks of his warriors—reappearing a few moments later with a slim, tanned golden-haired girl clinging to his mighty arm.

  “It is…good to see you again, Eric Carstairs,” said Darya of Thandar tremulously.

  “It is…good to see you again,” I said in none too steady a voice. “My princess,” I added.

  She flushed crimson, but continued to smile at me through the sudden rush of tears which blurred her magnificent blue eyes.

  “Bless you, my children,” chuckled Tharn—or the Cro-Magnon equivalent of the sentiment, anyway.

  * * * *

  Having disarmed our captives, we simply turned them loose to wand
er away dispiritedly. There was nothing else to do with them, after all. There was no reason to bring them along with us on the long road south to Thandar, and, without their weapons or their leaders, there was little or nothing which they could do to harm us. So we let them go.

  Garth disapproved of this plan, which was my own strongly urged suggestion. And Tharn was none too happy with it, either.

  Staring after the last of the Barbary Pirates as they went trudging off to the beaches, Garth sighed and shrugged, saying, “I have a foreboding that this was charitable but unwise, Eric Carstairs. And a feeling that we have not seen the end of the corsairs of El-Cazar.”

  “I share your feelings, my brother,” rumbled Tharn, frowning after the last of the buccaneers as they dwindled in the distance.

  “You may both be right,” I had to admit.

  “What shall we do, if they rearm and pursue us again?” asked Garth.

  For a long moment I stood silent, considering.

  Then—

  “We shall fight them,” I said simply.

  My arm tightened protectively about the slim shoulders of my beloved Darya.

  “After all, we now have something worth fighting for,” I added.

  THE END

  But the Adventures of Eric Carstairs in Zanthodon. the Underground World, will continue in “ERIC OF ZANTHODON,” the fifth and final volume in this series.

  HUROK OF THE STONE AGE

  PART I: DRAGONMEN OF ZAR

  CHAPTER 1

  THE DRAGON-RIDERS

  Beyond the Peaks of Peril there stretches from the shores of the great sea of Sogar-Jad a mighty plain. Under the eternal noon of Zanthodon observers might have perceived a strange and unusual party traversing this grassy immensity.

  In the first place, the party consisted of a herd of dinosaurs. Now, on the surface world this would indeed have been remarkable, as the last of the great saurians of the Dawn perished into extinction long before the first true men evolved from their marsupial ancestors. Here in the Underground World, of course, the sight of the monster reptiles was commonplace, for it is here in the vast cavern-world beneath the Sahara that survivors from forgotten ages have lingered on hundreds of millennia since the last of their kind vanished from the Upper World.