The Adventure Novella MEGAPACK®

by Wildside Press

  There was a struggle for the axe. The thing could barely sustain Hok’s weight clear of the ground, and it tried to kill, not capture. A long tail belabored him like a club, hideous hand-like claws on the wing-elbows scratched and scrabbled at his chest and throat. Hok, dangling in midair, found himself able to voice a savage laugh.

  “Ahai! You think to eat Hok, you nightmare? Others have found him a tough morsel.” Quitting hold of the axe with one hand, he whipped the dagger from his belt. Thrusting upward, he pierced the scaly throat to the bone.

  The jaws let go his hair, and emitted a startled screech. Snaky-smelling blood drenched Hok, and the two fell. The wings, though out of control, partially broke the tumble, and Hok had the wit and strength to turn his enemy under and fall upon it. They struck the slope some paces lower than where the fight began. Hok pinned the still struggling nightmare with his foot, and cleft it almost in two with his axe. Then he stepped clear, nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “Khaa!” he snorted again, mopping away the ill-scented gore with handfuls of fern. “I’d have doubly died if that bird-snake had eaten me. Are there others?”

  His question was answered on the instant. Dry flappings, shrill screams—Hok sheltered in a thicket, and watched a dozen more birdsnakes swoop down to rend and devour their slain brother. It was a sight to turn the stomach of a Gnorrl. Hok slipped away down slope.

  Now he came to a gentler incline and larger trees. He journeyed on without mishap for the rest of the morning. Hungry, he ate several strange fruits from vine or tree at which he saw birds pecking. Once, too, a strange thing like a tiny-tailed man scolded him in a harsh high voice and flung down a big husk-fibered nut. Hok dodged the missile, split it and enjoyed both the white flesh and the milky juice. “Thanks, little brother!” he cried up at the impish nut-thrower.

  When noon was past, Hok had come to where he could spy the floor of the valley.

  With difficulty he spied it, for it was dusky dark. From it rose fumes, mist-clouds, earthy odors. It was a swamp, from which sprouted upward the tallest and biggest trees Hok had ever seen. They grew thickly, interlaced with the root-ends and butts of vines and creepers, hummocked around with dank clumps of fungi, rimmed with filthy pools. Swarms of biting insects rose, and Hok retreated, cursing.

  “I see nothing of Gragru down there,” he said. “I’ll go sidewise.”

  Nicking a tree to mark the turnoff, he traveled directly along the slope. Nor had he far to go before he saw Gragru.

  Here was the place where mammoths were entombed. Above, extending up the valley’s slope, was a tunnel through trees and thickets, kept open by so many falling, rolling masses of dead or dying mammoth-meat. At the bottom of the chute rose a stinking stack of remains. Hok could not have counted them—there must be thousands of desiccated and rotted carcasses, the bones gray and the curling tusks white. On top lay the freshest of these, Gragru his quarry. And beside it was one that had beaten Hok to the kill.

  “First bird-snakes,” grumbled Hok. “Now elephant-pigs.”

  For the thing was bigger than an elephant and grosser than a hog. Its monstrous bulk, clad in scant-bristled hide of slate gray, stooped above the carcass. Its shallow, broad-snouted skull bent down, and powerful fangs tore the hairy hide from Gragru’s flesh, exposing the tender meat. That head lifted as Hok came into view, a head larger than that of a hippopotamus. Two small hooded eyes, cold and pale as a lizard’s, stared. The mouth sucked and chewed bloody shreds, and Hok saw down-protruding tusks, sharp as daggers. Upon the undeveloped brow, the swell of the muzzle, and the tip of the snout were hornlike knobs—three pairs of them.

  Fixing Hok with that lizard-like stare, the big brute set its elephantine forefeet upon Gragru’s bulk and hitched itself nearer. Its bloody, fang-fringed jaws seemed to grin in anticipation of different meat.

  “Thing,” Hok addressed the monster, “you came unbidden to eat my prey. You yourself shall be my meat, to replace that which I killed.”

  He lifted his bow, which was ready strung, and reached over his shoulder for an arrow. Just then the elephant-pig moved toward him.

  For all its unwieldy bulk, it came at antelope speed, that great toothed maw open to seize and rend. Hok swiftly drew his long arrow to the head and sent it full at the long protruding tongue. The monster stopped dead, emitting a shrill gargling squeal, and lifted one horn-toed foot to paw at the wound. Hok retired into a bushy thicket, setting another arrow to string.

  That thicket would have shielded him from the charge of a buffalo or lion; but the bulk of the present enemy was to buffalo or lion as a fox to rabbits. It charged among the brush, breaking off stout stems like reeds. Hok, lighter, had difficulty getting aside from its first blind rush. He gained the open, and so did the elephant-pig. It spied, wheeled to charge again.

  He discharged a second arrow, full at one of those dead eyes. The six-knobbed head twitched at that moment, and the shaft skewered a nostril instead. Again a horrid yell of angry pain. Hok sprang away from under its very feet as it tried to run him down, found himself heading into the swampy bottom. There was a great cylindrical mass among the trees, a trunk which even this hideous monster could not tear down. Hok ran to it, seeking to climb the rough lappings of bark.

  “You cannot climb quickly enough,” said a voice from within the tree. “Come inside, where I can look at you.”

  CHAPTER IV

  The Man Inside the Tree

  It is often like that, even with a hunter as wise and sharp-eyed as Hok. Not until the voice spoke to him, in the language of men, was he aware that near him in the great trunk was a gaping hole, big enough for him to slide through, and full of blackness.

  The tree itself was not a tree. For trees are straight upward shoots of vegetable growth—this seemed a high-built, close-packed spiral, as if someone had coiled a rope, or a worm had made a great casting. Between two woody curves, one upon the other, showed the hole.

  “Make haste,” bade the voice inside.

  Hok saw that the elephant-pig, after a momentary questing to spy and smell him out, was ponderously wheeling to charge. He waited for no third invitation, but dived into the space, head first. A struggle and a kick, and he was inside, among comforting dimness that bespoke solid protection all around, A moment later the huge beast struck outside, with a force that shook every fiber of the strange stout growth within which Hok had taken refuge.

  “He cannot break through to us,” assured the voice, very near. “This vine is stronger even than Rmanth, the slayer.”

  Hok made out a dark shape, slender and quiet. “Vine?” he echoed. “But this is a tree, a dead hollow tree.”

  “The tree that once stood here is not only dead, but gone,” he was quietly informed. “If there were light, you would see.”

  Momentary silence, while Hok pondered this statement. Outside the elephant-pig, which seemed to be named Rmanth, sniffed at the orifice like a jackal at a rat-burrow.

  “You don’t sound like a mocker,” was Hok’s final judgment aloud. “And it is true that this is a strange growth around us. As for light, why not build a fire?”

  “Fire?” repeated the other uncertainly. “What is that?”

  Hok could not but chuckle. “You do not know? Fire lights and warms you.”

  “For warmth, it is never cold here. And for light—I do not like too much.”

  “There is need of light in this darkness,” decided Hok weightily. “If you truly do not know fire, I can show better than I can tell.”

  He groped with his hands on the floor of the cavern into which he had come. It seemed earthy, with much rubbish. He found some bits of punky wood, then larger pieces, and cleared a hearth-space. From his pouch he brought needful things—a flat chip of pine, one edge notched; a straight, pointed stick of hard wood; a tuft of dry moss.

  “Thus,” lectured
Hok, “is fire made.”

  Working in the dark, he twirled the stick between his palms. Its point, in the notch of the chip, rubbed and heated. Within moments Hok smelled scorching, then smoke. A faint glow peeped through the gloom. Lifting away the chip, Hok held his moss-tinder to the little coal of glowing wood-meal. The rising blaze he fed with splinters, then larger pieces. The fire rose. “There!” cried Hok, and had time and illumination to look up.

  His first glance showed him the refuge—a circular cavity, twice a man’s height in diameter, and walled snugly with those close-packed woody spirals. High above the space extended, with what looked like a gleaming white star at some distant apex. The floor was of well-trampled loam and mold, littered with ancient wood chips. His second glance showed him his companion.

  Here was a body slimmer and shorter than the average man of the Flint People. The shoulders sloped, the muscles were stringy rather than swelling, there were no hips or calves. Around the slender waist was a clout rudely woven of plant fiber, its girdle supporting a queerly made little axe and what seemed to be a knife. The feet, out-thrust toward Hok, looked like hands—the great toe was set well back, and plainly could take independent grasp. On the chest—quite deep in proportion to the slimness—and on the outer arms and legs grew long, sparse hair of red-brown color. Hok could not see the face, for the man crouched and buried his head in his long arms.

  “Don’t,” came his muffled plea. “Don’t…”

  “It will not hurt,” Hok replied, puzzled.

  “I cannot look, it burns my eyes. Once the forest was eaten by such stuff, that struck down from heaven—”

  “Lightning,” guessed Hok. “Oh, yes, fire can be terrible when big. But we keep it small, feeding it only sparingly. Then it is good. See, I do not fear. I promise it will not hurt you.”

  His tone reassured the man, who finally looked up, albeit apprehensively. Hok studied his face.

  Long loose lips, a nose both small and flattish, and no chin at all beneath a scraggle of brown beard. From the wide mouth protruded teeth—Hok saw businesslike canines above and below, capable of inflicting a terrible bite. This much was plainly of animal fashion, unpleasantly Gnorrlish. But neither the fangs nor the shallow jaw could detract from the manifest intelligence of the upper face.

  For here were large dark eyes, set very well under smooth brows. The forehead, though not high, was fairly broad and smooth, and the cranium looked as if it might house intelligence and good temper.

  “Don’t be afraid,” persisted Hok. “You were friendly enough to call me into this shelter. I am grateful, and I will show it.”

  Rmanths, the monster outside, sniffed and scraped at the entrance. He seemed baffled. Hok leaned against the wall. “What is your name?” he asked.

  The other peered timidly, Hok saw the size and brilliance of those eyes, and guessed that this man could see, at least somewhat in the dark. “Soko,” came the reply. “And you?”

  “Hok the Mighty.” That was spoken with honest pride. “I came here from snowy country up above. I had wounded a mammoth, and followed him down here.”

  “Mammoths always come here,” Soko told him. “Rmanth and his people before him—for he is the last of a mighty race—ate their flesh and flourished. If we dare descend the trees, Rmanth kills and eats us, too. In the high branches—the Stymphs!”

  “Stymphs?” echoed Hok. “What are those?”

  Soko had his turn at being surprised at such ignorance. “They fly like birds, but are bigger and hungrier—with teeth in their long jaws—man cannot prevail against them—”

  “Oh, the bird-snakes! One attacked me as I came down. I killed it, and descended before its friends came.”

  “You were climbing downward,” Soko reminded. “There was cover below. Rut if you leave the cover to climb upward, you will be slain in the open, by many Stymphs. Not even Rmanth ventures above the thickets.”

  “As to your elephant-pig, Rmanth,” continued Hok, “he has tasted my arrows.”

  That was another new word for Soko, and Hok passed his bow and quiver across for examination. “One shaft I feathered in his tongue,” he continued, “and another in his nostril.”

  “But were forced to take shelter here. Meanwhile, those wounds will make him the thirstier for your blood. He will never forget your appearance or smell. If you venture out, he will follow you to the finish. Between him and the Stymphs above, what chance have you?”

  “What chance have I?” repeated Hok, his voice ringing. “Chance for combat! For adventure! For Victory!” He laughed for joy, anticipating these things. “I’m glad I came—these dangers are worth traveling far to meet…but tell me of another wonder. This tree, which is not a tree, but shelters us in its heart—”

  “Oh, simple enough,” rejoined Soko. He was beginning to enjoy the comradeship by the glowing fire. Sitting opposite Hok, slender hands clasped around his knobby knees, he smiled. “A true tree grew here once, tall and strong. At its root sprang up a vine, which coiled tightly around like a snake. In time that vine grew to the very top. Its hugging coils, and its sap-drinking suckers, slew the tree, which rotted and died in the grip. But the vine held the shape to which it had grown, and when we tree-folk dug out the rotten wood, little by little, it made a safe tube by which we could descend to the valley’s floor.”

  “That must have taken much labor,” observed Hok.

  “And much time. My father’s father barely remembered when it was begun, that digging.”

  “You speak as if you live up above here,” said Hok.

  “We do,” Soko told him. “Come, kill the fire lest it burn the forest, and I will take you to the home of my people.”

  He rose and began climbing upward.

  CHAPTER V

  The World in the Branches

  Hok quickly stamped out the fire. Its dying light showed him a sort of rough ladder—pegs and stubs of hard wood, wedged into the spaces between the coils of that amazing vine. Soko was swarming well above ground level already. Slinging his weapons to girdle and shoulder-thongs, Hok followed.

  Hok had always been a bold and active climber, able to outdistance any of his tribe-fellows, in trees or up cliffs. But Soko kept ahead of him, like a squirrel ahead of a bear. The tree-man fairly scampered up the ladder-way.

  “This is another way in which Soko’s people are different from the Gnorrls,” muttered Hok.

  The climbing-sticks had been meant for bodies of Soko’s modest weight, and once or twice they creaked dangerously beneath the heavier Hok. He obviated the danger of a fall by keeping each hand and foot on a different hold, dividing the strain four ways. Meanwhile, the light above grew stronger, waxing and waning as Soko’s nimble body cut this way and that across its beam. Finally, noise and bustle, and a new voice:

  “Soko! You went down to see what was happening with Rmanth. What—”

  “A man,” Soko answered. “A strange man, like none you ever saw.”

  Hok took that as a compliment. He was considered something of a unique specimen, even among his own kind.

  “He is master of the Hot Hunger,” Soko went on, and Hok guessed that he meant fire. “He has killed one Stymph, he says, and has hurt Rmanth.”

  A chatter of several agitated voices above. Then, “Will he kill us?”

  “I think not,” said Soko, and drew himself through some sort of gap above. “Come on out, Hok,” he called back. “My friends are eager to see you.”

  Hok came to the opening in turn. It was narrow for his big body, and he had difficulty in wriggling through. Standing on some crossed and interwoven boughs, he looked at Soko’s people.

  All the way up, he had thought of Soko as fragile and small; now he realized, as often before, that fragility and smallness is but comparative. Soko, who was a head shorter than himself and slim in
proportion, would be considered sturdy and tall among the tree-folk—almost a giant. He was the biggest of all who were present. Hok smiled to himself. While he had been pegging Soko as a timid lurker in a hollow, these dwellers of the branches must have thrilled to the courage of their strong brother, venturing so close to the mucky domain of the ravenous Rmanth.

  As Hok came fully into view, the gathering—there may have been twenty or thirty of Soko’s kind, men, women and children—fell back on all sides with little gasps and squeaks of fearful amazement. With difficulty the chief of the Flint People refrained from most unmannerly laughter. If Soko was a strapping champion among them, Hok must seem a vast horror, strangely shaped, colored and equipped. He smiled his kindliest, and sat down among the woven branches.

  “Soko speaks truth,” he announced. “I have no desire to fight or kill anyone who comes in peace.”

  * * * *

  They still stood off from him, balancing among the leafage. He was aware that they moved so swiftly and surely because they got a grip on the branches with their feet. He was able, also, to make a quick, interested study of the world they lived in.

  Though Soko had led him upward in a climb of more than twenty times a man’s height, the upper hole in the vine spiral was by no means the top of the forest. Leafage shut away the sky above, the swampy ground below. Here, in the middle branches of the close-set mighty trees, appeared something of a lofty floor—the boughs and connecting vines, naturally woven and matted together into a vast bridge of platform, swaying but strong. Layers of leaf-mold, mixed with blown dust, moss and the rotted meal of dead wood, overspread parts of this fabric. The aerial earthiness bore patches of grass and weeds, bright-flowering plants, as richly as though it were based upon the rock instead of the winds. Birds picked at seeds. Hok heard the hum of bees around trumpet-shaped blooms. It was a great wonder.

  “I wondered how you tree-men could possibly live off the ground,” he said, with honest admiration. “Now I wonder how you can live anywhere else but here.” A deep-chested sigh. “Of such fair places our old men tell us, in the legends of the Ancient Land.”