by Lin Carter
As they rode slowly through the ruin-choked streets, Thongor saw neglect and filth on every side. The Zodaki homes were hovels of inconceivable squalor, heaped with fetid garbage and devoid of physical comforts—mere-camping-places, not homes. The Zodak warriors seemed to own no possessions save the gems and ornaments they wore on their person. It was as if they had not yet achieved a level of civilized organization sufficient for the concept of privacy and individual possession to become possible. Seemingly, one could not own anything he could not carry with him and be ready to defend at all times.
The camp of the great War chief was in the central plaza of the ruined city. A fallen tower blocked off more than half of the paved square, and from a broken section of collapsed rubble, a rude cavernous space had been hollowed out to form the chamber of Zarthon’s court. The entrance was shielded from the elements by a tattered and filthy awning hoisted up with two tall tent-poles. When Thongor came nearer, he saw this was the ruin of what had once been a gorgeous tapestry of the noblest art, now terribly stained and discolored but still magnificent even in decay.
Before this entrance, the ambush party halted and swung down from the saddles, dragging Thongor to the filthy pave with a brutal grip on his arm. He staggered to his feet, grim-faced and silent, making no complaint. They laughed coarsely at his impassive mask-like visage, and the taller of his captors, a brute whom the other warriors had regarded as the leader of the expedition and whom Thongor had heard addressed by the name of Hoshka, thrust a massive hand into the small of Thongor’s back and sent the Valkarthan stumbling helplessly ahead of him into the shadow of the entrance.
The lair of Zarthon was a hovel of indescribable filth that reeked with an effluvia of decay which struck the nostrils like a blow. All about the cluttered chamber lay the spoils of conquest, the loot of the lesser hordes. Caskets burst open, spilling forth glittering pools of gemmy fire. Vases and statuettes of gold and silver, jazite and electrum, were tumbled underfoot, amongst the garbage of rotting food, smeared fruit, spilt wine and gnawed meat-bones.
In the center of the chamber was a raised platform which bore an ivory throne-like chair of exquisite design and carving, much stained with filth and droppings. Upon this kingly seat squatted the most hideous and repugnant beast in human form that Thongor had ever seen. His bloated and enormous body, bulging with monstrous, overdeveloped muscles almost to the point of deformity, was gross and obscene in its nakedness. Hung upon this loathsome carcass was an incredible wealth of jeweled ornaments. His gorgeous trappings were literally crusted with blazing gems, and belts and straps Which crisscrossed his bull-like torso in a complex harness were sewn thickly with coin-like plates of red gold. The fantastic girdle which restrained his gross paunch was one dazzling mass of solid diamonds and supported a small armory of jewel-encrusted daggers and dirks, a huge scimitar and a mighty axe of bronze with a handle of gold set with huge uncut rubies.
The jeweled wealth that flashed and blazed from his ornaments could not, however, detract from the hideousness of his appearance. His huge bald head was stamped with all the signs of cruelty and lust a human visage could contain. The iron strength and warlike manhood of the mighty chief were debased and soiled by the marks of debauchery that showed in the loose wet lips and the rings of puffy fat that circled his small, cold eyes, the whites whereof were bloodshot from the aftermath of some gluttonous appetite of the animal passions.
No single sign of kingly or even manly dignity and pride could be ascertained in all his gross, sprawling bulk. From some disease or accident, his dangling mouth loosed a continuous dribble of spittle which drooled upon the massive, corded breast. The lineaments of cruelty and bestial cunning were cut deeply on his unspeakable face. Fang-like and yellowing tusks thrust from his underslung jaw to twist his upper lip into a perpetual sneer. In one filthy paw, which glittered with jewels, he held a winecup of enormous size, from which he drank noisily as Thongor stumbled before the throne. In the other, he clutched a greasy leg of half-raw beef over which he gnawed and slobbered between gulps of wine, cold little pig-eyes moving over Thonger as he sated his belly.
“So this is the little unza the Lords of Zaar bade us snare, eh?” he growled. The warriors who lolled about the dais made loud, obsequious laughter at the coarse jest, for an unza is a Lemurian rodent whose repulsive eating-habits, combined with a noted cowardice, make its name a favored epithet.
“Aye, Magnificent One!” the brutal Hoshka said, fawningiy. He knelt and lay before the feet of Zarthon the Vaikanhan broadsword he had taken from his captive. Its keen gray steel gleamed cleanly amidst the foul mingling of Splendor and filth.
Thongor made no utterance, but his stern majestic stance, proud and unyielding, spoke for him, and his fierce golden eyes were eloquent of contempt and disdain.
Irked at the captive’s silence, Zarthon tossed his wine-cup clanking aside on the garbage-littered floor, and leaned forward.
“Speak, little one—you are among warriors here! Why should the mighty one of the Black City go to such lengths to seize a puny youngling like you? Have you something they want?” A flash of greed shone momentarily in Zarthon’s cold little eyes. He belched, wiped one greasy paw across an equally greasy mouth. Then, when Thongor made no reply, he flung the leg of dripping meat full in the Valkarthan’s face and roared with phlegmy laughter as the unexpected blow made Thongor stagger.
He wiped his hand over his naked thigh, and reached out.
“Hoshka—hand me the outlander’s steel,” the war chief demanded.
A deep-throated growl of warning rumbled from Thongor’s chest. His gold eyes blazed tiger-like. Among his people, no man handles another’s weapon, for a man’s sword, like his mate, is a matter of personal honor.
Zarthon paid no heed to the low growl. He would have been wiser had he done so. For behind his back, Thongor’s great wrists were straining and cables of bronze sinew were rising and writhing along his powerful back and shoulders.
Once before he had been chained by the Nomads of the East, when rebellious members of the Jegga Horde sought to burn the old chief, Jomdath, and his Valkarthan friend at the fire-stake. Thongor had discovered at that time that the manacles the Nomads used to fasten his wrists were fashioned for the huger limbs of the blue-skinned giants, and that it was possible to remove his from the gyves with effort. Now, unseen by the Zodak warriors, whose attention was bent on their lord, he sought to free himself in a similar manner. He succeeded, leaving a few square inches of raw skin behind.
The first thing that Zarthon knew of Thongor’s escape was the impact of an iron fist that drove with the sickening force of a blacksmith’s hammer into the pit of his stomach. Thongor had sprung upon the throned figure with the swift rush of a jungle cat. As Zarthon folded in pain, clutching his paunch and retching with nausea, Thongor snatched his sword from nerveless hands and swung swift as lightning to bury the clean steel in the putrid heart of his brutish captor, Hoshka.
Uproar exploded about him—a score of howling savage warriors sprang to defend their lord, galvanized into berserk frenzy.
But Zarthon swept them aside with one mighty arm while he tore from his girdle the great scimitar and, recovering from the effects of Thongor’s blow, swept the keen blade at the head of the puny wretch who had dared lay violent hands on his sacred person.
But when the blow landed, Thongor was not there to meet it. He ducked under the war chiefs furious swing, and sank the point of his sword into Zarthon’s beefy shoulder. With an inarticulate, slobbering screech of pain and fury, the wounded monarch let fall the weighty scimitar and hurled himself upon Thongor bare-handed to crush him in a bear-like embrace. But the Valkarthan nimbly dodged under the enraged Zodaki’s arms and slashed him painfully in one naked thigh. Roaring with rage, the ten-foot colossus lurched as the wounded limb gave way beneath him, and staggered to recover his balance.
And Thongor struck him squarely on the point of his jaw. It was a terrific blow. Thongor’s iron fist came
up from the level of his knees, with all the steely strength of arm and back and shoulders behind it, to connect with staggering impact.
It was probably the first time in his long and terrible life that Zarthon of the Zodaki had been struck in the face.
He went over backwards and crashed from the edge of the dais atop a sprawling heap of his warriors. His contorted face, black with congested fury, was bruised and aching and swollen from the weight of Thongor’s blow. But it was the indignity of the blow, the insult of it, the affront to his self-esteem that pained him the most. After a long, shuddering moment of shocked disbelief, of dazed vertigo, Zarthon went mad with frustrated rage. He staggered to his feet, shaking himself like a wounded bull, then turned on his men, feeling them to right and left with terrific blows of his ham-like paws. Seizing up a great ax, he turned to cleave Thongor into gobbets—but the lithe bronze figure of his taunting and elusive adversary had vanished!
Alone on the throne-platform in the center of the chamber, ringed about with ferocious enemies, Thongor had taken advantage of the momentary lapse in attention to him as the Zodaki rushed to aid their fallen, dazed chief. He crouched, powerful muscles coiling in his long sinewy legs, then sprang into the air, strong hands clamping a firm hold on the age-blackened wood of the rafter directly above the throne.
His keen, searching eyes had spotted a black opening in the further wall at the rear of the room. Now, swinging himself up and atop the rafter, he ran lightly along its length to the end of the chamber—swung lithely down and was through the further exit in a bronze blur of moving limbs. He was gone from sight almost before the bewildered Rmoahals noticed he was absent from the throne-platform.
But a sharp-eyed young warrior at the rear of the throng had spied his moving figure in flight, and raised the pack howling on his trail.
Beyond the black door, Thongor found himself in a narrow tunnel-like corridor between two broken walls of moldering masonry. This he raced down, knowing not where it might lead him, his great sword flashing in one capable fist. Like a pack of demons, the Zodaki poured through the rear entrance in close pursuit, led by the limping, lumbering bulk of their maddened war chief. The white foam of blind fury dribbled from Zarthon’s howling, swollen jaws and his eyes raged with scarlet blood-lust.
At the end of the narrow corridor stood some sort of rude shrine to whatever devils of the pit the brutish Nomads worshipped. Behind the blood-spattered low altar yawned a black pit which fell down into the depths of the earth.
Thongor paused on its brink, gazing swiftly around. There was no other way he could go—and in a second the pack of berserk warriors would be upon him to pull him down like slavering hounds. Sword in hand, he sprang into the unknown depths below!
Zarthon and his warriors halted their mad rush at the edge of the well, and peered down into the black deeps beneath. Naught but a cold breeze rose from the pit, laden with an unholy reptilian stench of unspeakable foulness, like a monstrous den of serpents.
Into this had Thcngor fallen. . . .
Zarthon stood looking down.
He smiled . . . a cold, mirthless grin of leering cruelty. Then he began to laugh.
CHAPTER 9
THE JEGGA TAKE REVENGE
The Jegga thunder into strife—
War-horns roar from brazen mouth!
To dare and die, for Thongor’s life,
Against the Zodak of the south.
—Thongor’s Saga, XVII, 14.
The scarlet banners of sunset were unfurled athwart the west as the mighty legions of the Jegga Horde streamed through the broken gates of the dead city of Althaar and poured across the grassy plains in a mailed and glittering flood of grim-faced warriors.
At the head rode Jomdath the old chief who had led them through a thousand battles to the bright gates of victory. Now he rode forth to the most portentous battle of his life . . . for in his savage heart, the fierce-eyed old Lord of the Jegga Nomads swore an oath that he would go up against the very walls of Yb and take them by storm, to spit the accursed, foul and stinking heart of Zarthon of the Zodaki on his steel, or perish in the attempt.
For Jomdath, as well as his son Prince Shangoth, had read the tribal markings on the terrible black arrows that had rained from the empty sky upon them there among the Hills of the Thunder-Crystals. And Jomdath knew it was his ancient foe, the age-old enemies of his people, the Zodak Horde to the South, who had so shamefully launched a cowardly attack on them from under the cover of some magic shield of invisibility.
It was they, the Zodaki, who had slain or stolen away the great Thongor from amidst the protective escort of the Jegga. And Jomdath swore grimly that this insult to the honor of his people would be washed away in blood ere the world was one day older. He vowed to render the proud escutcheon of his name stainless, or die trying.
Thus, no sooner had Thom Pervis and the Patangan fleet of airboats returned the chief and his surviving warriors to the safety of their camp in the ruined city of Althaar, and departed to bear the precious power crystals to Iothondus in Patanga, that the great war-horns of the Jegga Nomads had run to the welkin with the iron-throated call to war!
Now, as the dark wings of night stretched out to cover the sky and drown the earth beneath their inky shade, the mighty Jegga Horde thundered to war.
The grassy plains shook beneath the ponderous tread of the great zamphs who bore on their broad backs ten thousand mailed warriors with plumed crests and towering spears. The earth groaned beneath the grinding weight of the great, broad-wheeled metal war chariots of the Jegga warriors as they thundered into the wilderness of the endless plains beneath a black sky blazing with a million stars that peered down like curious eyes upon this mighty spectacle of barbaric savagery.
Without rest or pause the horde advanced across the measureless grasslands through the inky blackness of the night. But when, hours later, the great golden moon of old Lemuria rose beyond the edge of the world to flood the plains with her silken, shimmering radiance, she looked upon a fantastic scene.
For the Jegga Horde reached, by the hour of moonrise, the mined walls of elder and immemorial Yb the City of the Worm. Gilded with the glorious moonlight, the broken walls and riven domes, the crumbling facades of the ancient palaces with their fallen columns and black, empty windows like the eye-sockets of a skull, the streets and squares littered with rubble and overgrown with centuries of unchecked weedy growth, looked for all the world like some fantastic and forgotten city sunken in reed-grown ruin beneath a golden sea.
Great fires roared in the streets, and a clamorous thunder arose from shouting thousands, as the Jegga Horde drew up in all their glittering war panoply before the breached and fallen walls. But not a single watchman stood to his post on the walls, and not a single Zodaki saw the arrival of their hereditary foemen. For the entire city was roiling in drunken fury over the escape of Thongor and the indignities he had wrought upon their dreaded chief.
Zarthon himself, his bleeding wounds carelessly bound in strips of torn cloth ripped from a cloak, was roaring drunk, having imbibed deeply from the sour sarn-wine his people brewed. He had swilled down the potent fluid to salve the internal injuries done to his pride and sense of self-importance, rather than to numb and dull the ache of his poorly tended wounds. And to calm and cool his furious temper. For no sooner had Thongor escaped into the black cavern beneath the dead city of Yb, than Zarthon had turned on those who had been by his side when the bold Valkarthan escaped, and cut down a half-dozen of them in the unbridled fury of his anger. That he, the mightiest and most feared conqueror on earth, could be insulted, struck down and made to look a fool while a roomful of his most savage warriors stood by idle, gaping and slack-jawed as awe-struck girl-children, was a goad that stung his vile temper to berserk fury.
Thus, while the rest of the horde came running, Zarthon had run amok, turning upon his men like a blood-maddened tiger, striking about him with blind, drunken fury. And now the whole populace of the city quailed and shran
k before his roaring, foul-mouthed curses, as steeped in potent liquor, he lurched and staggered about the central plaza, striking at frightened men at blind random, and leaving their screaming corpses to flop and wriggle, ignored, behind him on the stone pave.
Silent as death, the warriors of the Jegga crept through the thousand places where the great walls of Yb had fallen through neglect or earthquake or internal decay.
Through the open and unguarded gates, the mighty chariots of Jomdath’s host rumbled on creaking wheels that crunched and clanked noisily over fallen pavestones, but all the noise they made was drowned in the uproar from the central square where the drunken war chief raged and murdered, watched by a frightened and mutinous circle of his men.
A squeak of terror—a naked infant, a scrawny little boy, fled from the throng to escape the noise and confusion. Zarthon’s inflamed eye spotted the awkward child, and with a terrible hoarse roar he swept out the glittering scimitar of steel whose shining curve was wet with hot and reeking gore and cut down the frightened lad with a fearful crunch of breaking bones.
Dead silence fell over the watching throng. Scarred hands in secret fondled sword-hilt and dagger-butt. Angry, rebellious eyes flamed with mute resentment. But naught occurred in the interval; in a moment, had one leader stepped forward to form an example behind which the mob could stampede, riot and fury could have exploded across the corpse-littered square, to sweep the broken body of the war chief to the scarlet gates of hell.
But nothing happened. In the tense and deadly hush, Zarthon spurned the broken body of the dead child with one limping foot, and laughed with long phlegmy peals of bloody mirth. Then his laugh was cut short.
As if by magic, a crimson arrow flashed into view, vibrating in his chest!
Zarthon lurched, staring at the thrumming shaft stupidly, eyes glazed and dull, mouth hanging slack and wet. The great scimitar dropped from one limp hand, ringing on the stony pave. He lifted one hand to pluck feebly, tearing the scarlet shaft from his flesh with a thick grunt of pain, flinging it from him.