Jeda spun and dropped and used the shaft of the spear to catch Jean behind the knees with it and trip her. Jean was tossed into the air
and came down hard on her rear end.
The crowd roared.
Jeda turned her back on Jean and raised her spear to the crowd.
Jean found this the most humiliating event of all. Jeda was not taking her seriously in the least.
Jean twisted to her knees, lunged with her spear, and poked Jeda sharply in the rear end. Jeda leapt and whirled to the sound of an arena full of laughter.
Jeda glanced out of the corner of her eye, and took in Kurvandi, who was laughing so uproariously his headdress shook. Even the black lions looking over the edge of the box, their big paws holding them in place, appeared to wear expressions of humor.
Jeda spoke sharply to Jean, and though Jean could not understand the words, she understood their intent. She knew she was in for it now.
Maybe that was the best thing, Jean thought. Agitate Jeda until she was so infuriated she would kill her swiftly. A swift death would be better than a lingering and humiliating one.
At that moment, with Jean but an instant from death, Hunt reached the top of the sluice, and at the same moment below, Jad-bal-ja sprang into the face of Ebopa. The creature drove Jad-bal-ja back to the end of the tunnel, then with Jad-bal-ja riding its head like a hat, clawing, gnashing, Ebopa stood up in the tight shaft.
Hunt was forced against the grate by the rising of Jad-bal-ja and Ebopa. Fortunately the grate lifted easily and Hunt was pushed into the open. Unfortunately, the grate was right behind the arena throne of Kurvandi, who, hearing the grate clatter to the floor, turned and gazed around the edge of his throne. What he saw astonished him.
A bedraggled white man was scuttling out of a drain shaft on his hands and knees, and a huge lion was rising out of the shaft behind him on the head of-
Kurvandi sprang to his feet in horror.
It was Ebopa. Kurvandi screeched like a rat being crushed beneath an elephant's foot The lion was riding the head of Ebopa.
Out in the arena, Jeda, confident of her victory, lost interest in Jean and turned to look at Kurvandi, trying deduce the nature of his scream. It was a mistake on Jeda's part.
Jean tossed her spear. It was a wide toss and went behind Jeda's head. Jeda whirled back to face Jean, but the Texan had drawn her knife, and now she sprang forward. Had Jeda not been so astonished at the tenacity and ferocity of her opponent, she could easily have slain Jean. But by the time she realized Jean was an actual threat, it was too late.
Jean plunged her dagger into Jeda's eye and rode her to the ground, twisting the weapon into the socket as if she were fastening a corkscrew into the cork of a wine bottle.
Jeda, the great warrior, died easily.
Tarzan had not been idle. From the moment Jean left for the arena, he set about scaling the wall. It was a nearly smooth wall, but with the chains wrapped around his waist, Tarzan set to the task. There were some outlines where the stones had been cemented together, and the ape-man used his strong fingers to take hold of these and gain purchase. He made the slow, agonizing climb, and reached the summit of the wall at the very moment Jean sprang forward and slew Jeda.
Tarzan saw this and cheered.
Jean, straddling her enemy, turned toward him, saw him standing on the summit of the connecting wall beneath a fluttering redflag on a long pole. She raised her knife and let out a yell of victory. Tarzan thought it almost animallike. Above Jean, in Kurvandi's box he saw a sight that both heartened and agonized him. Jad-bal-ja was clinging to a
monstrosity's head, ineffectually biting and clawing at it.
Kurvandi had retreated to the far corner of the box, and the two black lions had joined Jad-bal-ja in his quest to bring Ebopa down. But Ebopa would not go down. It. Flicked one of the black lions away with its leg. The lion went high and fell on its back in the arena. Even from a distance, Tarzan heard its back snap like the cracking of a whip. The lion shook and thrashed, then lay still.
In the opposite corner of the box from Kurvandi, Tarzan saw Hunt holding a broken spear, looking willing, if not eager, to fight.
Tarzan jerked the long, limber flagpole out of its sheath on the wall, turned, and lowered it to Nyama. Nyama took hold of it and he pulled her up.
Tarzan and Nyama ran along the top of the wall, and meeting them came a line of warriors. Tarzan did not like the odds, but the situation was ideal. No matter how many of them there were, they could only face him one at a time. He used the flagpole to punch them, trip them, gouge them off the wall. The fall was not enough to kill the warriors, but it was high enough to do them injury. Some of them moaned with broken bones and shattered skulls.
Tarzan told Nyama to jump, and jump she did. They leapt into the arena on Jean's side, and raced toward her, Now warriors were coming off the wall, running after them.
Never before had Jad-bal-ja's claws and mighty jaws been useless. Ebopa reached up with a hooked appendage and clutched the lion and tossed him at Kurvandi. Jad-bal-ja, scratching and biting, landed full force on Kurvandi, and down they went. When Jad-bal-ja rose, Kurvandi was dead, his head crushed between the great lion's jaws like a walnut between pliers.
Ebopa, annoyed with the black lion clinging to his leg, extended it and wiped the lion off on the throne, like a bored man scraping something off his shoe.
The black lion rolled across the floor, and quite by accident, he and Jad-bal-ja came together. In a moment the fight was on. They twirled, about as if they were biting, clawing tumbleweeds of fur.
Ebopa turned its black pumpkin-head and looked Hunt. Hunt had never seen a gaze like that. It was almost hypnotic. Ebopa crouched. Ebopa made one slow step. Ebopa opened its face to show its strange teeth.
Hunt leapt over the edge of the box and dropped ml the arena.
Mesmerized by Ebopa, Hunt was unaware of the crowd of warriors thundering across the arena toward Tarzan and Jean and Nyama. When he saw. Jean, momentarily, he was heartened, and then seeing Tarzan, he was even more enthusiastic. He did not know the other woman, but from her manner, he could see she was with Jean and Tarzan.
Then he took in the warriors thundering toward them.
Out of the frying pan, and into the fire, he thought.
But Ebopa, disappointed in losing his main prey, that which was the tastiest to eat- human beings- sprang from the box and landed light as a grasshopper in the arena behind Hunt, Tarzan, Jean, and Nyama.
The warriors, rushing toward Tarzan and the others, let out a shout and turned to flee from their god. They tried desperately to scale the wall they had leapt from, but couldn't do it. They climbed on top of each other, like ants, crushing their own below them. In this manner, some made the wall while others died underfoot, or pressed their bodies against the wall in fear.
Tarzan turned and looked over his shoulder, saw the source of their panic.
Ebopa was creeping up on Hunt.
"Hunt!" Tarzan yelled. "Behind you!"
Hunt wheeled, saw Ebopa. Ebopa crouched, bent its legs. And leapt.
TARZAN USED THE flagpole like a pole vault. He went high and came down on Ebopa's head even as the beast leaped. The creature floundered forward and landed in the sand of the arena, face first. It rose up with a roar, and shedding Tarzan from its back with a whipping movement of its spine.
It moved into a one-legged posture, its hooks held before it. It changed postures. Danced across the sands, twisted, hissed. Tarzan understood much in that moment. The martial-arts moves he had seen on the stone were the moves of this thing. The common mantis-- perhaps the cousin to this beast- made similar moves. Martial-arts systems in China had been based on these movements, and this accounted for the way the warriors of Ur fought. They were trying to mimic their god; had developed an entire fighting system based on these strange patterns.
Tarzan dropped the pole when he made his leap, and now he yelled to stand back.
"You can't take it alone,"
Hunt said.
"Wait until it is preoccupied with me," Tarzan yelled. "Then strike."
Tarzan mimicked the creature's moves. He tried to focus only on Ebopa. The intentions of Ebopa were hard to read. Its body English was unlike that of human beings. A slight movement might lead one to realize an attack was coming from one direction in a human being, could be totally misleading against this monster. Its bones, muscles... They did not operate in the same manner.
Ebopa began to hop, posture. Tarzan did the same. The creature struck with a hooked hand, and Tarzan blocked the strike and struck back. Striking the mantis was like striking a brick wall.
Tarzan bounced back, casually uncoiled the chain from around his waist, wrapped it around one of his palms and began to swing it over his head.
Ebopa watched this with considerable curiosity. The movement of the chain was mesmerizing to the creature. When Tarzan felt it was preoccupied, he thrust his right leg forward like a fencer, and whipped the chain out and low, caught Ebopa's foreleg, and twisted the length of the chain around it.
Then Tarzan jerked, causing Ebopa to smash onto its back.
Jean and Nyama and Hunt started to rush forward, but Tarzan yelled them back. The chain had come uncoiled from around Ebopa's leg, and with amazing, almost supernatural speed, Ebopa had regained its footing.
The crowd in the arena had panicked at first, but now they and the warriors watched the spectacle below with bloodthirsty interest. Never, never, never, had they seen Ebopa on its back. Never had they seen a man challenge it with its own movements, or with such bravery.
Jad-bal-ja brought his jaws together against the black lion's throat, shook his foe dramatically, then fell over, the black lion falling on top of him. Jad-bal-ja tried to crawl from beneath the dispatched lion, but his wounds were too great. He could smell the man he loved below, could sense he was in trouble, but he could not help him. The lion began to whimper and painfully inch its way from beneath its fallen adversary.
A little figure scuttled up the steps and moved close to the lion.
It was Nkima. The little monkey, searching for Tarzan, had picked up the
spoor of the lion and had followed the scent to the arena box.
Jad-bal-ja purred softly, and Nkima stroked the lion's head.
"I would like to eat you," growled the lion.
"You cannot," chattered the monkey, "for I am Nkima and I am much too fast."
Hanson, Billy, and Wilson arrived in sight of the great city of Ur. Even from a distance, they could hear the roar of a massive crowd.
"Sounds like a baseball stadium," Hanson said. "If you think we're gonna just ride up there, get this daughter of yours out, you're a fool," Wilson said.
"Shut up," Hanson said. "Shut up before I shoot you down."
"Easy, Bwana," Billy said. "Jackass is right. They put holes through us many times with arrows, we come ride up. We best unbridle zebras, let them go."
"You let them go," Wilson said. "They'll head home. To Ur. The city might decide to investigate the loss of its warriors. Maybe they're already looking."
"If they were a hunting party," Hanson said. "Maybe not."
"Jackass right," Billy said. "Best kill zebras."
"But they are innocent animals," Hanson said.
"I am innocent animal too," Billy said. "And live one. Would like to stay that way. Like zebras fine. Like self more."
"We'll hobble, them," Hanson said. "They cannot go far bobbled. We'll leave them hobbled until we're finished here. We might need them."
"You're soft, Hanson," said Wilson.
"Good for you," Hanson said. "If I wasn't, you'd be long dead and meat for the worms."
The interior of Ebopa's brain experienced something it had never imagined it possessed. Surprise. This thing! This frail-looking thing was not frail at all! And it was fast. Almost as fast as Ebopa itself. Ebopa could not understand it. Not only was it strong and fast, it hurt him. It struck with a shiny black tail, and when it struck, it hurt.
Tarzan realized what Ebopa realized. It could feel pain. The lion's attack had been against the hard, bony arms and legs of Ebopa, but Tarzan determined the place to attack with his chain was the creature's joints, what passed for its knees, elbows, and neck. There it was weak.
Tarzan let forth with the cry of the bull ape, whipped the chain like a scorpion's tail, and finally Ebopa, relying on its uncanny speed, rushed the ape-man. Tarzan could not move completely out of the way of one of its hooked hands, and the hook tore the flesh on Tarzan's shoulder, yet the ape-man was able to sidestep enough to grab Ebopa's shoulder, pull it back and down, and whip the chain around its neck.
Ebopa stood up, pranced about the arena with Tarzan dangling on its back, the chain tight around its neck. Tarzan dropped all of his weight and yanked back on the chain, striving for a marriage of gravity; if he could plunge all his weight to the center of Ebopa's back, he hoped he might snap its spine.
Ebopa went backwards, but its "knees" bent the opposite way, taking pressure off of Tarzan's attack. Ebopa shook its head and bent forward and sent Tarzan flying. The jungle man landed, rolled, and scuttled to his feet as the thing hopped toward him.
Tarzan fell on his back before Ebopa's onslaught, brought his foot up, caught Ebopa in the center of its bony chest, pushed up and back with all his might. Ebopa went flying, crashed into the arena wall below Kuvandi's box.
Tarzan whirled to his feet, and saw an amazing sight.
Ebopa was fleeing. It went up the smooth arena wall as easily as if it were running across the ground. It game the box effortlessly, then leapt from the box into the stands of the arena.
Formerly excited patrons now fled before their god. It sprang amongst them, spraying humanity before it like a wild man tossing wet wash. The Urs flopped and flapped and broke and snapped.
Tarzan took the moment to wrap the chain around his waist, then he recovered the flagpole and us ed it to launch himself into Kurvandi's box. There he found poor Jad-bal-ja and a panicked Nkima. The lion was badly hurt. Tarzan tore strips from Kurvandi's clothes and bound the lion's wounds to the sounds of Ebopa' destruction: yells of tenor, the thudding of feet. Ur was in a panic.
Nkima chattered softly.
"So, my friend," Tarzan said. "In spite of your cowardly nature, you came to try and help."
Nkima told a lie about a brave deed he had performed, but his heart wasn't in it. It was just something for him to say. He made a cooing noise, asked about the lion.
"I cannot say, Nkima," Tarzan said. "Jad-bal-ja is badly injured. But he is strong."
Hanson, Billy, and Wilson were making their way through the woods, and had just reached the grasslands in front of the city moat, when they heard a yell quite unlike that of any before.
"Must be a home run," Wilson said.
Suddenly, the drawbridge dropped, and fearful warriors, servants, the whole of Ur, tried to exit through that doorway. They fell beneath the feet of their friends and family, were knocked into the moat where the crocodiles happily greeted them.
"Drop back," Billy said. "Bad business here."
Hanson jammed a rifle into Wilson's spine, and Wilson, Hanson, and Billy slid back into the jungle, watching this strange spectacle with a kind of awe.
When Jad-bal-ja's wounds were dressed as well as possible, Tarzan extended the pole, and one at a time he pulled his three companions up to the arena box.
Nyama was first. She noted the remains of Kurvandi in one corner, his head smashed like a pottery vase. His beautiful headdress was a bloody ruin.
"So ends the great Kurvandi" she said. "The lion, I suppose?"
"Yes," Tarzan said, extending the pole down to Jean.
"He killed Kurvandi and the black lion. He is very brave. He is my good friend Jad-bal-ja."
"Is he dying?"
'Perhaps."
Jean held the pole as Tarzan, hand over hand, pulled her up. He lowered it for Hunt and soon they all stood in the box, the injured Jad bal-ja at
their feet.
"The lion is a noble warrior," Hunt said. "He was a boon companion."
"He is that," Tarzan said. "There's a litter here for Kurvandi. I will place the lion on it. He is very heavy, but the three of you, if you use it like a travois, you will be able to take him to safety. I want Nkima to go with you. If you will let him, and he does not become distracted, he can lead you back to safety once you escape Ur."
'What about you?" Jean asked.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Tarzan 27 - The Lost Adventure (with Lansdale, Joe R) Page 21