Said one: “But who will fetch us water?”
“Who but Krol?” chimed in the old rascal from behind his mud walls. “I make no more offers until you come to me with thirsty throats, begging.”
The speaker glanced sidelong at Hok. He half-whispered: “Krol wants the blood of Soko and the stranger—”
“He shall have blood enough and to spare, if you even think of fighting,” Hok cut him off roughly. “Krol spoke of using it ‘for the thickness of his walls.’ What did he mean?”
Soko pointed to the den. “He mixes earth with blood, and it turns into stone.”
Hok came toward the big egg of clay, and saw that Soko spoke truth. The texture of that fortress was more than simple dried mud. Hok prodded it with his finger, then a dagger-point, finally swung his axe against it. He made no more than a dint. Even his strength and weapons could not strip that husk from Krol.
“Hai, the old coward has built strongly,” he granted. “Well, the front door is open. Shall I fetch him out?”
Soko nodded eagerly, and Hok cut a long straight shoot from a nearby branch. This he poked in through the entrance hole. It encountered softness, and Hok grinned at the howl that came back. Then the end of the stick was seized inside, and he grinned more widely.
“Do you think to match pulls with Hok?” he queried. “A single twitch, and you come out among us.”
Suiting action to word, he gave his end a sharp tug. Krol let go, and Hok almost fell over backward as the stick came into view.
But upon it was something that made the tree-folk scream with one voice of horror, while Hok himself felt a cold chill of dismay.
Krol had clung to the end of the stick only long enough to attach a peculiar and unpleasant weapon of his own—a small, frantic snake banded in black and orange. This creature came spiraling along the pole toward Hok, plainly angry and looking for trouble. Hok dropped the pole, grabbing for his bow. Fallen upon the woven floor, the snake turned from him to Soko, who was nearest at the moment. Soko scrambled away, bellowing in fear.
But then Hok had sent an arrow at it, and spiked it to a lichen-covered stub of bough that thrust into view from the platform. The ugly little creature lashed to and fro like a worm on a fish-hook. Its flat head, heavily jowled with poison sacs, struck again and again at the shaft that pierced it.
“Wagh!” cried Hok, and spat in disgust. “The touch of that fang is death. Does Krol live with such friends?”
“Snakes do not bite Krol,” volunteered Soko, returning shakily.
“I do not blame them,” rejoined Hok. “Well, he seems prepared for any assault. Siege is the alternative.”
“I am thirsty,” piped up a child from behind its watching mother. Hok ordered a search for milk-nuts, and half the tribe went swinging away through the boughs to bring them. Soko lingered at Hok’s elbow.
“Hok! Only the death of Krol will save us. There are some in the tribe who will slay us if we sleep, if we relax watch even—”
“And your blood will plaster my walls afresh,” promised Krol, overhearing.
Hok made another close inspection of Krol’s defenses, keeping sharp lookout lest Krol turn more snakes upon him. He hacked experimentally at several of the branches that supported the structure, but they were tough and thick, would take days to sever. After a moment, inspiration came to him. He began to prune at nearby twigs and sticks, paying especial attention to dry, dead wood. Soon he had cleared most of the small branches from around the den, and stacked his cuttings carefully to one side.
“What will you do to force him out?” asked Soko.
“It is not I who will force him out,” replied Hok cryptically. “It is my friend, the Hot Hunger.”
“The Hot Hunger!” repeated Krol and his voice sounded hollow.
As the nut-gatherers returned, Hok gave them another errand, the collection of small faggots of dry branches. They obeyed readily, for Krol voiced no more threats, and Soko was acting the part of a chief. As the little stores of fuel came in, Hok began to peg and tie them to the outside of the clay den. Finally, while all watched in round-eyed wonder, he fished forth his fire-making apparatus.
Upon a thick carpet of green leaves he kindled the smallest of fires. All but Soko, who had seen fire-building once before, whimpered and drew away. Hok was all the more glad, for he wanted no crowding and bough-shaking to set the tree tops ablaze. Having found and kindled a torch to his liking, he stamped out the rest of the fire with his moccasin heel and returned to the fuel-festooned den of Krol.
He ignited the broken, splintery end of a twig. It flared up, and other pieces of wood likewise. Hok nodded approval of his work.
“See, it will soon be night,” he announced. “Will someone bring me a little food? I shall watch here.”
“Watch what?” asked one of the tree folk.
“Krol’s embarrassment. Where are some of those milk-nuts?”
Twilight was coming on, with dusk to follow. Most of the tree-men led their families to distant nests, peering back in worried wonder. Soko remained with Hok.
“You are going to burn Krol,” guessed Soko, but Hok shook his head in the firelight, and pegged more sticks to the blood-mingled clay.
“Help me to spread thick, moist leaves to catch any fire that falls, Soko. No, Krol will not wait long enough to be burned. Eventually he will come forth to face us.”
From within the den came a strange sound, half wheeze and half snarl.
“You are a devil, Hok,” Krol was mumbling. “It grows hot in here.” Soko was encouraged. “Come and be killed,” he set up his chant of challenge. “Come and be killed. Come and be killed.”
Krol wheeze-snarled again, and fell silent. Hok fed his fire judiciously. The blood-clay cement was scorching hot to his fingertips. Dusk swiftly became night.
“Hok, listen,” ventured Krol after a time. “You and I are reasonable men. Perhaps I was wrong to make an enemy of you. You are wrong to remain an enemy of mine. I have it in mind that you and I could do great things. Your strength, with my wits—”
“This talk is not for bargaining, but to throw us off guard,” Hok remarked sagely to Soko.
Soko peered into the dark opening of the den. “Come and be killed,” he invited Krol.
Krol wheezed again, this time with a sort of sob as obbligato.
“Your hearts are as hard as ivory,” he accused shakily. “I am old and feeble. The things I did may have been mistakes, but I was trying to help my people. Now I must die horribly, of the Hot Hunger, because a big yellow-haired stranger has no mercy.”
Hok lashed a handful of fresh fuel together with a green vine and tied it to a peg he had worked into the clay, setting this new wood afire.
“I judge that Krol is at his most dangerous now,” be told Soko. “Beware of those who seek to make you sorrow for them. Tears bedim the eyes.”
“Come and be killed,” repeated Soko.
He had come quite close to the opening, and Krol made his last bid for victory and safety.
He dived forth, swift and deadly as the little coral snake he had attempted to use against Hok. The impact of his pudgy old body was enough to bowl over the unready Soko.
Winding his legs and one arm around the body of his younger rival, he plied with his free hand a long bone dagger.
Hok, on the other side of the fiery den, hurried around just in time to see two grappled bodies roll over, and then fall through a gap in the broad mat. Two yells beat up through the night—Soko’s voice raised in startled pain, Krol’s in fierce triumph. Then, as Hok reached the gap, there was only one voice:
“There, Soko, hang like a beetle on a thorn! You shall have time to think of my power before you die! I, Krol, depart for Rmanths, my only friend, whom I shall feed fat with the corpses of my rebellious people!”
Hok Accepts a Challenge
In the complete darkness, climbing might have been a dire danger; but the fire that still burned around the abandoned fortress of Krol shed light below. Hok was able to find footing among the branches, and to descend with something of speed.
At a distance of some twenty paces below the matted mid-floor of the jungle, he found Soko. His friend seemed to dangle half across a swaying branch-tip, struggling vaguely with ineffectual flaps of arms and legs. Of Krol there was no glimpse or sound.
“Soko, you still live!” cried Hok. “Come with me, we will hunt for Krol together!”
“But I cannot come,” wheezed Soko, pain in his voice.
A sudden up-blazing of the fire overhead gave them more light, and Hok saw the plight that Soko was in.
Evidently Krol and Soko had fallen upon the branch, Soko underneath. As earlier in the day with Hok and the Stymph, so in this case the lower figure in the impact had been momentarily stunned. Krol, above, had taken that moment to strike downward with the big bone dagger, pouring all his strength into the effort.
That dagger had pierced Soko’s body on the left side, coming out beyond and driving deep into the wood of the branch. As Krol himself had put it, Soko was like a beetle on a thorn. “I cannot come,” he moaned again, making shift to cling to the branch with both hands, to ease the drag on his wound.
Hok balanced himself on the bough, and began to work his way out toward the unhappy tree-man. There was no nearby branch by which to hold on or to share Hok’s weight. The single outward shoot swayed and crackled beneath him. He drew back to safer footing.
“I must find another way to him,” muttered Hok, tugging his golden beard. Then he thought of such a way, and began to climb upward again.
“Don’t leave me,” pleaded Soko wretchedly.
“Courage,” Hok replied, and searched among branches for what he needed. He found it almost at once—a clumsy mass of vines, strong and pliable as leather thongs. Quickly he cut several of the sturdiest strands, knotting them together. Then he located a stronger branch which extended above the one where Soko was imprisoned. He slid out along it, and made fast one end of his improvised line.
“I am in pain,” Soko gasped, his voice weak and trembling.
“Courage!” Hok exhorted him again. He hung axe, bow, quiver and pouch on a stout stub of the base branch. Then he swung down by the knotted vines, descending hand under hand toward Soko.
He came to a point level with the unfortunate prisoner of the wedged dagger, and almost within reach. By shifting his weight he made the cord swing, and was able to hook a knee over the lower bough. Then, holding on by a hand just above a knot in the vines, he put out his other hand to the knife that transfixed Soko.
Even as he touched it, Soko gave a shudder and went limp. He had fainted.
Hok was more glad than otherwise, and forthwith tugged on the tight-stuck weapon with all his strength. It left its lodgment in the wood, and came easily out of Soko’s flesh. With nothing to hold him to his lodgment, Soko dropped into emptiness.
Hok made a quick pincer-like clutch with his legs. He caught Soko between his knees, as in a wrestling hold. His single hand hold on the vine was almost stripped away, but he grimly made it support the double weight. The bone dagger he set between his teeth. Then, still holding the senseless Soko by pressure of his knees, he over handed himself upward again. He achieved a seat on the larger branch, and laid Soko securely upon a broad base of several spreading shoots.
Soko bled, but not too profusely. Krol had struck hastily for all his vicious intent, and the knife had pierced the muscles of chest and armpit, just grazing the ribs without hurting a single vital organ. Hok quickly gathered handfuls of leaves, laying them upon the double wound and letting the blood glue them fast for a bandage. In the midst of these ministrations Soko’s wide eyes opened again.
“You saved me, Hok,” he said in a voice full of trembling gratitude. “That makes twice or three times. Krol—”
“He still lives,” rejoined Hok grimly, repossessing himself of his weapons. “Perhaps he steals upon us even now.”
Soko’s brilliant eyes quested here and there in the night. “I think not,” he said. “I have command of myself again. Shall we go upward?”
His wound was troublesome and he climbed stiffly, but he was back to the side of the dying fire well before Hok. “I thirst,” he complained.
“Because you have lost blood,” Hok told him, and took a fiery stick to light the inside of Krol’s abandoned den. Among the great quantity of possessions he saw several gourds. One of these proved to be full of water, warm but good. He gave it to the thankful Soko.
Soko drank, and passed the gourd to Hok. “How can we kill Krol now, my friend?” he asked. “Because we must kill him. You understand that.”
Hok nodded, drinking in turn. “You shall do it without my help, so as to be chief according to custom. My task will be to destroy Rmanth, and roast him for your people. I made such a promise.”
“Promise?” repeated Soko. “Who can keep a promise like that?”
“I have never broken a promise in my life, Soko. Here, help me put out this fire, lest some coals destroy the jungle. And tell me how we shall find Rmanth.”
Soko could not do so. His only ventures to the ground had been by way of the vine-spiral tube in which Hok had first found him. He reiterated that Krol, and Krol alone, possessed the courage and knowledge to face Rmanth and come away unhurt.
“Well, then, where do you let down gourds for water?”
“Near the hollow tube. Why?”
“Tomorrow all the tree-dwellers shall have fresh water. That is another of Hok’s promises. Will you watch while I sleep, Soko? Later waken me, and sleep yourself.”
Soko agreed, and Hok stretched out wearily upon ferny leafage. He closed his eyes and drifted off into immediate slumber.
Sleeping, he dreamed.
He thought he saw a marshaling of his old enemies. He himself was apparently arrayed singly against a baleful mob. In the forefront was Kimri, the black-bearded giant from whom he had won the lovely Oloana. There was also Cos, a paunchy, nasty-eyed fellow who had ruled the walled town of Tlanis until Hok adventured thither and changed all that. Over the head of Cos looked Romm, who once made the bad guess that renegading among the Gnorrls would give him victory over Hok’s Flint Folk. Djoma the Fisher slunk pretty well to the back, for he was never over-enthusiastic about fighting Hok man to man. It was a delightful throng of menaces.
“I will have the pleasure of slaying you all a second time,” Hok greeted them, and rushed. One hand swung his axe, the other jabbed and fenced with a javelin. In his dream, those second killings seemed much easier than had the first. The ancient enemies fell before him like stalks of wild rice before a swamp-buffalo. He mustered the breath in his deep chest to thunder a cry of triumph, when—
They seemed to fade away, and at the same time to mould and compact themselves into yet another form. This one was hairy, pudgy, grizzled, but active. Bestial lips writhed and fluttered, wide eyes that could see in the dark glared.
“So, you big yellow-haired hulk!” choked a voice he knew, beside itself with rage. “I find you unprepared, I kill you thus!”
Hok threw himself forward, under the stroke of some half-seen weapon. His hands struck soft flesh, and he heard the threatening words shrill away into a shriek.
Then the dream became reality.
Dawn had come. Soko, wounded and weary, had dozed off during his watch, and Krol had returned to take his vengeance.
Only Hok’s sense of danger, shaking him back to wakefulness, had given him the moment of action needed before a blow fell. Krol had poised a big club, a piece of thorn-wood stout enough to break the skull of a horse. This weapon now swished empti
ly in air, as Hok grappled and held helpless the gray old sinner.
“Soko! Soko!” called Hok loudly.
Soko looked up, washing the sleep from his own eyes. “Eh?” he yawned, then he too was aware of the danger. He sprang up.
“Soko,” said Hok, “I swore that you would kill this man and become chieftain in his place. Do so now. Do not let him escape once more.”
Soko drew a dagger. Hok let go of Krol.
The deposed ruler of the tree-men made a last effort to break for safety, but Hok blocked his retreat. Then Soko caught Krol by his long hair. The dagger he held—it was the same big bone blade that had spiked Soko to the branch last night—darted into the center of Krol’s chest. Blood bubbled out. The old despot collapsed, dying.
The wakening tree-people were hurrying from all sides to stare and question. Hok clapped Soko’s unwounded shoulder.
“Obey your new chief,” he urged the gathering. “Be afraid of him, follow him, respect him. He is your leader and your father.”
Krol looked up, blood on his wide mouth. “What about the water?” he sneered, and with a coughing gobble he died.
There was silence, and Soko, in the first moment of his power, could only look to Hok for guidance.
“People of the trees,” said Hok, “I have been challenged. Krol was bad and deserved death. But he spoke the truth when he reminded us that water was not at hand while Rmanth roamed below. In other words, Rmanth must be destroyed. I promised that, did I not?” He balanced his axe in one hand, and nodded to Soko. “Come chief. We will arrange the matter.”
Soko followed him, trying not to seem too laggardly. Hok raised his voice: “Go to the usual place, you others, and let down your gourds. Water shall be yours, now and forever after.”
He and Soko came to the tube that gave sheltered descent to the ground level. Hok entered it first, swinging downward by the rough ladder-rungs. Soko for once did not climb faster than he. Hok came to the floor of the cavity, and without hesitation wriggled through the lower opening into the outer air, standing upon the damp earth of the valley bottom. Soko had to be called twice before he followed.
The Adventure Novella MEGAPACK® Page 34