by Lin Carter
His friend chuckled softly. “Did you think I would let these Thurdan swine send you to the galleys without lifting a hand? Besides, it’s far from being the first time we’ve helped one another break out of jail—remember Zangabal, and the house Athmar Phong? But here, we’re wasting time with words. I took the key and brought along your sword. Quickly!”
Thongor grinned. Aid Turmis—although a thin-blooded Thurdan like all the rest and filled with Southlander sentiments about peace and comfort—was every inch a fighting man. He remembered their first meeting some eight months agone—also in a prison cell, in Zangabal across the Patangan Gulf from here. Down on his luck, Thongor had turned thief, and a scheming priest had cajoled him into robbing the house of a mighty Ptarthan sorcerer. What the priest had not told him was that he was not the first to enter the wizard’s house on burglar’s business. Thus had he come upon his woeful predecessor, Aid Turmis, languishing in chains. Together they had fled, after a night of horror and doom wherein the house of the Ptarthan sorcerer was transformed into a blazing inferno. And they had been together ever since, fighting comrades in the mercenary legions of Phal Thurid, Sark of Thurdis. And to think that Thongor had come within a hair’s breadth of bashing in his best friend’s skull with a length of chain!
These memories flashed through the giant barbarian’s mind as the lithe young Thurdan busied himself with the lock. Now it occurred to him to ask, “How did you come by the key to my chains?”
Aid Turmis smiled—a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “The jailer, in his present condition, had no conceivable use for them, so I borrowed them for a time.”
“Well, I hope it was not needful to slay the fat oaf. He fed me well; I’ll give him that.”
His friend laughed. “Just like a Northlander barbarian—always thinking of your belly! Nay, fear not; the fellow is merely enjoying an unexpected nap at the moment, from which he will awaken with a bad headache, I fear, but at least he will awaken. Damn lock…ah, there!”
He straightened up as the chains rang loosely on the stone-paved floor of the cell. Thongor felt his heart lift within him—free!—and he grinned tigerishly, exulting in his freedom. He stepped from the wall, flexing his mighty limbs appreciatively. Untamed savage that he was, he hated being caged and fettered as much as any other wild beast.
Aid Turmis handed him the great broadsword. “Here’s your uncouth Valkarthan blade, and a dark cloak to hide your ugly face in. Now hurry! Barand Thon’s men will be here in a moment to drag you off, and we must be gone.”
Thongor sheathed his sword and wrapped the cloak about his wide shoulders. It fell to his heels, covering his mercenary’s leather loincloth and harness, and its cowl hid his features.
They slipped from the cell, down the dark corridor and through the guardroom, where the fat jailer lay unconscious, and on through a maze of well-lit but empty corridors until Aid Turmis halted before a small, low door.
“You can get out into the side street this way,” he said.
Thongor nodded. “My thanks to you, Aid Turmis. I shall not forget your friendship.”
“Nor shall I, and I shall miss you at the Inn of the Drawn Sword hereafter. But now—hurry! You can steal a zamph from the prison stables and get out the Caravan Gate before the alarm spreads.”
“Aye.”
“Where shall you go, Thongor?”
Thongor shrugged. “Wherever they need a strong arm and a good sword. Kathool, perhaps, or far Cadorna to the east. I know not and care but little. A good swordsman seldom need starve for lack of employment.” A rare expression of seriousness made Aid Turmis look solemn—he who was usually laughing and merry.
“It has been a long road together, with many good tunes along the way, but I guess it ends here. Well…farewell, then, chanthar. Farewell, warrior. I doubt that we shall meet again, Thongor of Valkarth.”
Thongor set one great hand on his comrade’s shoulder and gripped in the hai-chantharya, the warriors’ salute.
“That lies in the lap of the Gods, Aid Turmis. Mayhap our paths will yet cross again. Farewell!” he growled.
He clapped the youth on one bare shoulder, then swung though the small door. His great black cloak bellowed behind him as he melted into the thick purple shadows of the cobbled street beyond and was gone.
CHAPTER 2
Black Wings Over Chush
The War Maids ride the iron sky—
Come, brothers, either slay or die!
A dark wing sank as each man fell,
To bear our spirits home to hell!
—War Song of the Valkarthan Swordsmen
Beyond the door, Thongor found himself in a narrow alley between the citadel and a vast warehouse. At the end of the passageway, he could see the stables. Behind the huge pens the great dragon-like shapes of the zamphs stirred. Two bored guards lounged against the rail, watching the huge beasts. Their backs were to Thongor, and with a single stroke he could probably…
With a metallic scream the alarm gongs sounded. Thongor choked back a curse. The daotar’s men had reached his cell and found it empty—or had seen the unconscious jailer. The alarm had sounded just a moment too soon, for in a few steps he would have been up to the guards and could have slain them. Now, however, they were alerted, and with drawn blades they stood on either side of the gate to the pens. Other guards hurried from the rear portal of the citadel to reinforce the stable guards. An escaped prisoner would, or course, seek to steal a mount the very first thing.
Thongor ground his teeth with a bitter Valkarthan oath. They could not see him here in the thick darkness of the alley, but how in the name of all the Nineteen Gods was he to get away? Desperately he cast his eyes from side to side—and then glanced up. A slim metal shape met his gaze, gleaming in the light of roof torches.
A malicious gleam danced in Thongor’s golden eyes. The very thing! There on the roof of the citadel was moored the only prototype of the Sark’s new “floater,” the marvelous flying boat with which Phal Thurid planned to conquer the whole of Lemuria. The Sark’s cunning alchemist, Oolim Phon, had devised the weird airboat out of urlium, the weightless metal. It was driven by simple rotors, and although the Valkarthan had not the dimmest notion how to pilot the strange craft, he would soon learn. And what a stroke of fortune! To escape by the Sark’s prized airboat—the only one in existence as yet! It would fly him over the towers and walls of Thurdis and far beyond, faster than the swiftest zamph in Phal Thurid’s pens.
With a keen eye he measured the citadel’s wall. The fortress was built of great blocks of gray stone, half the height of a man, with an inch or so of space between them. Accustomed from boyhood to climb over the slippery ice-walls of the great glaciers of his polar homeland, hunting the savage snow apes for their precious furs, it would be far easier for him to scale this wall than for another man.
For Thongor, to conceive of a plan was to attempt it. Swiftly he removed his boots. Knotting the thongs together, he slung them over his shoulder, and tossing back the great cloak, he caught the upper ledge of the first stone and drew himself up hand over hand. His bare toes clinging to the small gap between the stones, he ascended, stone by stone.
The air was chill with the night wind from the southern sea, but luckily the great golden moon of old Lemuria was hidden behind a thick veil of clouds. There were guards on the roof, and it would never do for them to sight him climbing. With hands and feet fully occupied, he was in a bad position to fight.
Up and up he went, like a great black spider on the gray stone wall. The streets of Thurdis were far beneath him now. One slip, and he would dash out his brains against the slimy cobbles far below. He breathed calmly and deeply, ignoring the pain in his slashed arm.
Then a loose bit of cement slipped beneath his foot, rattling down to the alleyway. For a long second he dangled, feet free, his entire weigh
t supported by his fingertips. Then he clenched his teeth and drew himself up again, slowly, inch by inch, to a secure foothold.
He clung against the wall for a moment, catching his breath and resting his arms. Above, on the parapet, two roof guards leaned their elbows against the wall, idly looking out over the city. All they had to do was to glance downward and they could not fail to see him, a black-cloaked shadow against the gray stone. He held his breath as they talked idly, gazing out over the towers and spires of Thurdis. He dared climb no further while they were there, lest his sudden movement attract their attention. His arm and shoulder muscles ached from the strain. It was as if red-hot needles were slowly being thrust into his thews.
Still they leaned against their arms, just above him. He could even hear their conversation—as to which prisoner had escaped. The shorter one wagered it was the Northlander mercenary.
“You remember the great lout, the one who made a wager with Jeled Malkh that his racing zamph would not win in the arena yesterday? He struck the noble otar down with his great barbarian pigsticker when the otar refused to pay! I hear Jeled Malkh nearly stuck the pig himself, but the oaf threw wine in his face or something. Hah! It would be an otarship for us, Thulan Htor, if we captured the Northland wretch.”
“Aye,” his companion grunted. “But the street patrols will get him, not you and I. He will steal a zamph and make for the Caravan Gate, doubtless—unless he purchases a hideaway in the Thieves’ Quarter. I would like to come face to face with the mercenary pig myself, that I would. I’d show him what Thurdan steel can do with Northlander meat!”
Just as Thongor’s arms were about to give way, the two turned away, leaning their backs against the parapet. Silent as a shadow, the Northlander ascended the wall behind them, grinning wolfishly.
The two were still conversing when a deep voice spoke softly behind them:
“The Gods have granted your dearest wish, Thulan Htor. Here is your chance to show a mercenary pig what Thurdan steel can do.”
They whirled—to see a bronzed giant, naked save for leather clout and black cloak and warrior’s harness, standing atop the parapet, a mighty broadsword flashing in his hand. Golden eyes blazed in a clean-shaven face, and a long wild mane of thick black hair fell to the huge shoulders.
Paralyzed, they gasped at this phantom that had appeared out of thin air by some supernatural force. Thongor kicked one in the throat, knocked him sprawling. His broadsword flashed out to open the other’s throat from ear to ear. The black beard was drenched in a sudden flood of gore. He sprang over their sprawled forms to the roof.
But there were other guards. A shout rang up—swords flashed in the torchlight. Thongor ran across the roof of the fortress.
The Sark’s floater was tethered to a mooring-mast in the center of the roof, drifting weightlessly some twenty feet from the rooftop. A thick cable was knotted about the middle of the mast, and its other end was fastened to a ring in the rail of the floater’s small deck. Thrusting his sword in its scabbard, Thongor sprang up and seized the rope. He slung himself up the line hand over hand, swinging over the rail onto the deck before anyone could stop him.
One slash of the sword cut the cable, and the airboat drifted free, out over the street. Thongor went across the narrow deck, which wobbled beneath his feet, and slid into the small enclosed cabin. His eyes raked the few simple controls, while the alarm gongs roared behind him and men shouted.
The floater was rendered completely weightless by its urlium hull, a gleaming sheath of blue-white metal. The boat was about twenty feet long, from pointed prow to pointed stern. It was driven by spring-powered rotors. One set at the rear propelled it forward; a second set just beneath the prow pushed backward; other rotors in the center of the deck and beneath the keel forced the floater either up or down, as desired.
These engines were set into action by four levers, labeled with the directions which they governed. The levers now rested at the bottom of their curved slots. The higher the levers were pushed, the stronger the rotors drove the craft.
Before the floater had drifted more than a dozen yards from the citadel, Thongor had mastered the simple controls and had the rear rotors humming. The airboat flashed over the city, high above the towers. As he passed the mighty walls of Thurdis, Thongor elevated the floater so that they should be well beyond the reach of any arrow. The airboat purred on into the night.
A small oil lamp sealed in a glass ball provided light for the tiny cabin. Locking the controls, Thongor swiftly examined the contents of the ship’s chest. He found a day’s supply of dried fish, a flask of water, and some medicinal salve, which he smeared over his slashed arm. Jeled Malkh’s blade had merely laid the skin open.
Clamped to the wall above the floater’s single bunk was a powerful war bow, such as those used by the beast-men and the Blue Nomads of the far western plains of Lemuria. Phal Thurid planned to mount a fleet of such air-boats manned by crews of archers trained with such weapons, famed throughout Lemuria for the incredible distance over which they could cast an arrow. Despite his fatigue, Thongor examined the weapon curiously. It was the first time he had seen one this close, for his wanderings had never carried him into the western plains where the monstrous and savage Blue Nomads reigned unchallenged among the crumbling ruins of Lemuria’s most ancient kingdom, Nemedis, dead now for thousands of years.
The weapon was fully six feet in length, a bow fashioned of layer upon layer of horn. The extreme toughness of the horn made it difficult to draw such a bow; however, it also gave greater force to the arrow’s flight. From veterans of the western cities, Thongor had often heard tales of the fabled prowess of the blue-skinned Rmoahal Giants, who could reputedly hurl an arrow five hundred yards with fantastic accuracy.
The string of the bow was of dragongut, and the arrows themselves were at least half as large as a good-sized spear, tipped with wickedly barbed points of razor-edged steel. Thongor looked forward to trying out the weapon.
The floater hummed through the night skies of Lemuria. Now the golden moon broke free of her net of clouds and lit the landscape below him. Checking the controls to make doubly certain they were locked in place, Thongor went out on the deck and gazed over the low rail at the ground that rushed by beneath him. Far below him the farms surrounding the walled city of Thurdis rushed past—crossed, occasionally, by great roads paved with stone. He could see the farmhouses and outbuildings, plain in the bright moonshine. From this height, they were no larger than the slow wains in which the farmers carried their harvest to the bazaars of the city.
It was a fantastic, thrilling experience to fly like a great bird far above the earth. Only a couple of men, including Oolim Phon the Alchemist and the Sark himself, had ever flown before. Thongor felt like the hero Phondath the Firstborn, flying through the night astride his winged dragon in the myths. He grinned, feeling the cold wind lift his black mane. Thus the War Maids rode, bearing the spirits of valiant warriors to Father Gorm, so they might dwell in the Hall of Heroes until vast Lemuria sank beneath the blue waters of the mighty seas!
He gazed above, reading the starry hieroglyphs of the constellations. His father, years past and gone, had taught the boy Thongor to read his direction in the stars—taught him how the two stars of the constellation of the Chariot pointed over to the Boreal Star. According to star lore, then, the floater was headed almost exactly northwest. Were he to continue on this course, he considered, he would pass directly over Patanga, and Kathool farther on. Patanga he had no desire to visit. The city was virtually dominated by the yellow-robed Druids who worshipped Yamath, God of Fire, by burning women alive on his red-hot altars of fiery bronze. Barracks rumor had it that the young Princess Sumia of Patanga was virtually a prisoner in her great palace, under the command of the Yellow Druid Vaspas Ptol, who had seized power in the land upon the death of Sumia’s father, the late Sark. Phal Thurid, Sark of Thurd
is, hoped to wed this young Princess, thus gaining the fabulous wealth of Patanga without battle—if he could wrest her from her captors.
Thongor shook his head. The City of Fire sounded too chancy—best that he continue on to the farther city of Kathool, whose Sark needed warriors to protect his jungled borders from the savages of Chush.
He re-entered the cabin to examine the dial that reported the remaining amount of rotor power in the great coiled springs that ran beneath the deck. A rough estimate gave him five or six hours of flight before he must crank up the springs again. It would be dawn then. He stretched out on the small bunk and was asleep in a moment.
The farmlands of Thurdis gave out into wilderness below the floater’s gleaming keel, and soon it was passing over the waters of the Ysar, silvered by the round lamp of the moon. While Thongor slept the deep and refreshing slumber of one whose strength has been exhausted, the airboat began to cross far above the dense jungles of Chush, and soon the Eternal Fires on the domed roofs of the temples of Patanga passed beneath. As Thongor slept, the floater hummed beyond the City of Fire, where, unknown to him, his destiny lay, and headed for the distant realm of Kathool, flying through the night skies of Lemuria like a great bird.
CHAPTER 3
Attacked by the Lizard-Hawks
Below him, dwark with dragon-fang,
Above, hawk-talons stretched to crush!
Strange battle there, ’tween earth and air,
Above the deadly deeps of Chush.
—Thongor’s Saga, Stave IV
Thongor was awakened by two things. First, the silence and motionlessness of the floater, and second, the harsh scream that ripped through the stillness of the dawn. He sprang from the bunk, wide awake in an instant. The springs had wound down, and the airboat drifted without power. But what had made that raucous screech?