by Lin Carter
Niema’s expertise at hunting was only equaled by her skills in warfare. The Aziru, in her time, were a dwindling people, and the women of the tribe fought at the side of their men, and were often as fierce and implacable as Amazons. Whether this had been the case when the Aziru had lived in the Upper World, I have no idea, but it was certainly the case now. She could fight and hunt as well as Zuma, for although her bodily strength was less than his, she was swifter on her feet, more agile, and a better runner, being lighter of build.
But I digress.
Approaching the place where she had left Jorn the Hunter and Yualla of Sothar safely asleep, Niema was startled to observe two strangers advancing upon them stealthily. The black woman flung herself prone in the grass, and wriggled forward on her belly as lithely as any serpent, until she had come up to the scene.
Then, as the one whom she would later know as Xask approached with drawn steel while the other, a shriveled and cowardly looking little man with skinny legs and fearful eyes, held back timidly, she waited until his back was turned, then came to her feet in a supple movement and set the hard, sharp point of her assegai between his shoulder blades.
Xask uttered a choked cry, paled to the lips, and turned to give a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder. At the sight of the magnificent naked black woman, his eyes widened all the more. Never having seen a member of the Negroid race, he was paralyzed with astonishment. This may explain the fact that he did not move a muscle, although that spearpoint between his shoulder blades may have had something to do with it.
“My…dear young woman,” he protested faintly. But, at the grim expression in Niema’s lovely face, he permitted the words to ebb away into silence.
His voice roused Jorn and Yualla from their sleep. They sprang up with a gasp, snatching at their weapons, but there was no need for their assistance, as the black amazon had the matter firmly under control.
She looked at the Cro-Magnon boy. “Do you know this little man?” she demanded. “When I approached, he was creeping up on you with that funny-looking spear in his hand. Shall I kill him for you now?”
Xask gave voice to a bleating cry that was meant to be a suave, light laugh.
“My dear boy, please explain to this…remarkable young woman that we are old and valued friends!” he said hurriedly, casting a placating smile in Jorn’s direction. “Finding you and your little friend alone and undefended, I was merely coming to your assistance when this—this—”
Words failed him—which very seldom happened to Xask.
With a grin, Jorn quickly explained to Niema that this was the man from whom they had recently escaped, and who had been obviously pursuing them all this while. He disarmed the vizier while Yualla strolled over to where Murg squatted, snuffling and trembling, and searched him for weapons.
Niema grinned, remembering Xask’s smooth words, which reminded her of one of the wise proverbs of her people, which she repeated to Jorn.
“The serpent has a pleasant voice, but he carries poison in his mouth,” she said succinctly. Xask flushed and tried to look indignant.
Jorn bound his wrists and ankles with thongs, then retired a short distance away to discuss the matter with the Aziru woman. Now that Xask was helpless, what were they to do with him?
“If we just let him and Murg go, they will sneak after us again, hoping to catch us off guard,” said Yualla. Jorn nodded seriously.
“And yet, if we have to take them with us, we’ll have to keep an eye on them every moment!” he explained.
They explored the few avenues of action open to them without coming to any conclusion that sounded satisfactory. It was Niema who came up with the most practical solution to the problem.
“Let me put my spear into him,” she suggested. “The other little man can do us no harm, but this one is sharp and clever. He will work us ill, if he can figure out a way to do it.”
Jorn was mightily tempted. The Cro-Magnon tribes have a rude code of justice which our effete civilization might consider overly swift and sanguinary. Still and all, it went against Jorn’s grain to just spear a bound man, even an enemy, in cold blood and leave him to rot.
In the end, they decided to take Xask along with them. And without further ado, they started off in the direction of the jungle’s edge, following the trail of trampled grasses which was clearly the route the twin tribes had taken, a spoor so blatantly obvious that even city dwellers like you and me would have had no trouble in following it.
Of course, they took little Murg along with them. So insignificant and harmless did the sniveling little wretch seem that Niema had ignored him when springing to hold Xask at bay, and they had not even bothered to bind him.
No one ever paid much attention to Murg, and it was hard to believe him capable of causing any harm—an oversight which at least one of the small party would have good and grievous cause to regret later on.
* * * *
Her heart pounding against her ribs, Gorah of Kor watched with wide and fearful eyes as the two Apemen battled for her. The male who would have raped her was one Ugor, a feared and hated bully whom all of the shes despised. Hurok she recognized at once, although she had not seen him for many months, and, in common with the rest of the folk of Kor, believed him long since slain.
Ugor might have been a bully, but he was a magnificent specimen of Neanderthal manhood, nearly seven and a half feet tall and tipping the scales at four hundred fifty pounds of solid beef. Hurok was a few inches shorter and several pounds lighter, but his fury more than made up the difference, for he had instantly recognized the cavewoman as she he had come to Kor hoping to find.
As their blood heated in the frenzy of combat, and the red haze of murder-lust thickened before their eyes, the two Apemen forgot their weapons and grappled hand to hand, breast to breast, gorillalike arms locked about each other, straining every thew and sinew in the effort to break the other’s back.
Gorah of Kor would not have seemed attractive to you or me, for the Neanderthal women are hardly less heavy, hairy and huge than are the males of their species; but everything that was feminine in her thrilled her to the core of her primitive heart as the two males fought for possession of her body.
The mating rituals of the Apemen of Kor were rude and simple. Any male may bellow his claim to any female of marriageable age who is not already mated, and then he must fight to the death any male who challenges that claim. So the outcome of the struggle was a matter of vital interest to Gorah, since the result would decide her future life. And she would have vastly preferred Hurok for her mate rather than Ugor.
The battle was noisy and ferocious. Hurok broke Ugor’s grip by ramming his elbow into his adversary’s throat. Ugor grunted, gagged, and let loose. Then he kicked Hurok in the belly, and when he fell to the ground, sprang upon him and began trying to break his ribs with vicious kicks of his enormous splayed feet.
Hurok kicked him in the groin, and Ugor sagged to his knees, spewing up the contents of his belly. Hurok hit him in the side of the head with one huge fist—a blow that would probably have crushed the skull of an ox. Ugor fell over backwards, then climbed stiffly to his feet and tried to brain Hurok with a rock he had picked up.
Hurok moved his head to one side so that the blow whistled past by a fraction of an inch, and hit Ugor full in the face, smashing his nose to gory ruin. Ugor blinked, shook his head dazedly, then lowered his head and butted Hurok in the belly. Hurok caught Ugor in his arms and they fell over backwards, blunt tusklike teeth snapping as each tried to tear out the other’s throat.
The Apemen of Kor have yet to learn the Marquis of Queensbury’s pugilistic niceties, you will observe.
Eventually, Hurok doubled up his legs, planted both feet in the middle of Ugor’s chest, and kicked him ten feet away. He slammed up against a boulder and sagged there, dazed and groggy. Hurok staggered
over, caught his adversary with a firm grip on both ears, and bashed his head against the rock. He got a punch in the belly in return. Shrugging it off, he slammed Ugor’s head against the rock several more times until at length he managed to crack the other’s skull.
Letting go of the limp corpse as soon as he was reasonably certain that it was a corpse, he let it fall to the ground and lurch over to where Gorah crouched, her small eyes filled with awed admiration. He caught her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.
“Hurok came back to Kor to find a mate,” he said thickly, between mashed lips. “Of all the shes, Hurok desires most that Gorah become his mate.”
It wasn’t much of a proposal, I suppose, but it thrilled Gorah to the heart. She smiled timidly.
“Hurok has fought Ugor for Gorah, and Hurok has won Gorah for his mate,” she said quietly. Hurok looked down at her.
“It is what Gorah would desire?” he asked. She looked surprised and faintly scandalized at the question, but nodded happily. The huge male put his great arms around her and held her against his hairy breast. She nestled there contentedly. Hurok was covered with blood and had just sustained a beating that would have killed you or me in the first exchange of buffets, but in the eyes of Gorah he was wonderfully handsome.
He hugged her, wincing just a little at the pain it caused one or two cracked ribs. But then he hugged her again because the pressure of her body against his own felt very good to Hurok.
“Hurok comes hither in a dugout which he concealed in the rocks,” he grunted. “Hurok wishes to leave at once to rejoin his friends, the panjani. Gorah must go with him now.”
Gorah did not understand what the Apeman her mate could possibly mean by referring to the panjani as his friends, for there is eternal warfare between Drugar and panjani and it has been so since the world began, as far as she knew. But she did not question her mate on this topic.
Together, they made their way through the tumbled rocks down to the beach, where Hurok had concealed the dugout.
Approaching within view, Hurok froze, a warning growl rising in his deep chest, gesturing the female to silence.
Five armed Drugars had found the boat, and were examining it curiously.
CHAPTER 10
ZUMA SAVES A LIFE
The man who had dropped from the trees to land lightly before me on the sward was the most magnificent black man I had ever seen. Nearly naked, his splendid body was black as ebony, and glistened with an oiled sheen in the shafts of daylight that speared down through the leafage overhead.
He was several inches taller than six feet, with broad shoulders, a lean waist, narrow hips, and long rangy legs. His hair was a cap of tightly curled black wool, fitted closely to the contours of his skull. He had a long neck, strongly handsome features, and long hands. A double necklace of the fangs of the sabertooth was clasped about his throat; crudely hammered copper wire was coiled about his left wrist; a leathern quiver of arrows was slung across his back and a long flint knife slept in its fur sheath, which was strapped to his upper thigh.
I absorbed these details in one, all-encompassing, lightning-swift glance. Most of my attention was on the arrow pointed (it seemed) at my chest. He drew back the bow and released it and it flashed over my right shoulder to thud into some obstruction behind me and by me unseen.
I heard a squall of pain and turned to see the vandar behind me. The shaft the black warrior had loosed had sunk to the feather in its eye, piercing the brain. As I watched, numb with amazement, it writhed, ripping at the turf with unsheathed claws, and died.
I turned to regard the man who had saved my life, which I had not even known to be threatened. Arms folded upon his breast with simple dignity, he regarded me solemnly.
I thanked him in dazed words I do not now recall. He nodded majestically.
“From the branch above, Zuma observed the vandar creep from the cover of bushes, and he knew that the white man was unaware of his danger,” the black said in a deep voice. I tried to express my gratitude.
What Zuma—that seemed to be his name—had done was inexplicable. In Zanthodon, each tribe regards the other with suspicion, and regards them as enemies until they are proven friends. This did not seem to be true, however, of the Aziru.
I queried him on the point, and Zuma shook his head slightly, white teeth flashing in a grin.
“My people, the Aziru, have never feared other tribes,” he said quietly. “And it would gall the heart of Zuma to have stood idly by and let the white stranger be slain without lifting a hand to defend himself. Zuma would feel less than a man had he not helped a stranger in need.”
I told him that my name was Eric Carstairs, and asked of him his story. We had been conversing in the universal tongue of Zanthodon, which he spoke well enough, though with a slightly foreign pronunciation; in later conversation. I noticed that he frequently employed native African words in lieu of their Zanthodonian equivalents. Listening to his story (the same account I have already given through the lips of Niema, and will not repeat here), I realized that his tribe must have been the most recent of all the many migrations of men and beasts into the Underground World. Probably, among themselves, the Aziru spoke Aziri; but they were acquainted with Zanthodonian, as well.
Suddenly, a skinny little scarecrow of a man with white goatee and pince-nez glasses clipped onto the bridge of his nose, with a huge, battered sun helmet teetering atop his baldish head, burst from the bushes and shrank back with a gasp from the corpse of the sabertooth stretched at his very feet. It was, of course, my old friend, Professor Potter.
“Doc, we have a new friend!” I cried cheerfully, introducing him to Zuma. It would have been hard to tell which of them found the other a more remarkable sight, although both were polite about it. While the Professor excitedly queried Zuma, first in Bantu, then in High Zulu, finally in “kitchen Swahili,” before discovering that he could speak Zanthodonian, I called my other wandering boys home with a toot at the aurochl-horn bugle which hung at my hip. Faint replies came from scattered points in the various directions; in half an hour, we all gathered in the glen and they were soon acquainted with Zuma the Aziru.
No one had been hurt in the encounter with the sabertooth, for everyone had fled into the thick brush with the same alacrity I had demonstrated. They were delighted to find me unharmed, and were amazed at the appearance of the towering black, never having seen or heard of a man with such a color of skin before. I was impressed with Zuma’s natural dignity, and asked him why he had come into these parts of Zanthodon, which were far to the west of the kraal of his tribe.
“Zuma has searched far to find the woman he would win for his mate,” he explained. “She is called Niema, and she is very beautiful. Not finding her in the east, Zuma has come into the west, knowing that she must be somewhere!”
“Ahem!” coughed the Professor. “My dear fellow, may we assume this young woman is also of the Negroid persuasion?” At Zuma’s baffled look of uncomprehension, he added, “That is, is the young woman, well, black of skin, and…all that sort of thing?”
“Niema is a woman of Zuma’s own people, yes,” answered the tall warrior. The Professor shook his head sadly.
“Then none of us have ever encountered her, I fear,” he said, to which the rest of my companions agreed. In fact, until meeting Zuma, they had never even heard of a man such as he.
Zanthodon is a large world, half a million square miles or more, and it has a lot of surprises in it, of which the presence of the last Aziru was only the most recent to our experience.
“We must go on, before Hurok gets too far ahead of us,” I reminded my people. In a terse aside, I explained to Zuma that we were tracking a missing friend, and hoped to have caught up with him by now, until delayed by the sabertooth,
“Zuma will accompany his new friends in their search for their comrade,” he de
cided. “Perhaps along the way, Zuma will find her whom he seeks, as well.”
We headed for the shore.
* * * *
Kâiradine had been limping along for a mile or two, his fine boots ruined by seawater and crusted with sand, his piratical finery a bedraggled mess. He had begun the day in a foul temper, but since his companion ignored his verbal excesses and vicious looks in her direction, the emotion subsided into a morose and gloomy mood of depression.
Ahead of him up the beach, Zarys strode lithely along on beautiful bare legs. The Zarian woman, wiser in many ways than the Barbary Pirate, had tossed away wig and coronet, unbuckling and discarding greaves and breastplate, as these uncomfortably heavy encumbrances were no longer needed.
It was her firm intention to walk all the way back to Zar, if walk she must.
She had kept few of her garments and ornaments, as few were needed in her present situation. Under her gilt mail, she had worn a loose, short shift of silky stuff, and beautifully worked sandals adorned her small feet. These she kept, of course, as well as the telepathic crystal by which she had formerly controlled her giant saurian mount. As the Redbeard had tossed away her weapons when seizing her, she was unarmed.
She was a remarkably beautiful young woman, as Kâiradine reluctantly was forced to admit to himself. She strode zestfully along, hairless pate lofty, arms swinging at her sides. The brisk wind from the sea molded to the ripe contours of her handsome figure the light silky garment that was her only clothing. From time to time, a mischievous gust flirtatiously lifted the hem of her short skirt, revealing to the eyes of the buccaneer the succulent rondure of her pert buttocks and the tender flesh of her inner thighs.