Flash Gordon 1 - The Lion Men of Mongo

by Alex Raymond

  Ming was back on his feet, pointing a spidery hand at Dale. “Return that to me at once, my dear.”

  “I’ll use it on you, Ming, unless you stop where you are.”

  Flash, putting a hand to his head, tried to rise.

  Ming continued stalking Dale. “I doubt, my dear, that a kind-hearted girl such as you will shoot a man down.”

  “I will.”

  Flash half rose, then fell back. His head had cleared, but he couldn’t seem to control his legs.

  “Will you?” Ming laughed his rattling laugh and reached out to take the gun from Dale’s hand.

  “Not just yet,” said Flash, now recovered from his fall. He threw his shoulder into Ming, sent him staggering against the wall.

  The emperor became tangled with the bright silk hangings which decorated the apartment.

  Flash went after him, pulled him out of the draperies by his coat collar. He let go, threw a punch. It smashed against Ming’s sharp chin, sending him into the wall again.

  A pounding had started on the apartment door. “Emperor, Emperor,” called the guard, awake now. “Is something amiss?”

  Ming sat, dazed, on the floor.

  Flash went to the balcony and took a look at the gardens far below. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to get out this way,” he decided. “So it’s back the way I came.”

  “Flash, watch out!”

  Ming had regained his feet. He’d snatched up the bronze lamp and was charging at Flash with it.

  Flash stepped aside quickly, but Ming couldn’t stop in time. With a thin surprised yelp he went, still holding the heavy lamp, out the window and right over the balcony rail.

  Running back into the room, Flash hurried to the door. Opening it a fraction, he said, in a fair imitation of the emperor’s voice, “Come in here, fool. The alien is loose.”

  “I thought something must be—”

  Flash knocked the guard out with one blow to the side of his neck. Before the man had completely collapsed, Flash had his cloak off. Draping it around his shoulders, he said to Dale, “We’ll go now.”

  She took his hand and they stepped out into the corridor.

  CHAPTER 27

  Tun paced the shed, then strode again out into the mist. He stood on the ramshackle pier, squinting at the night. “Still no sign of them,” he said. “It is more than an hour since we parted.” He went back inside.

  An airship sat there, partially shrouded with canvas. Aura, hands folded, sat near it on a rickety wicker chair. “Are they coming?” she asked.

  The lion man shook his shaggy head. “Nay, I see them not.”

  “We’ll have to wait then.”

  “Aye, we cannot desert them.”

  Aura said, “I know you want to be free of the capital, too, Tun. Should neither Flash nor Dale appear in another hour, I’ll fly you out of here.”

  Tun did not immediately reply. Finally, he said, “We’ll talk of that later, when another hour has passed.”

  More minutes drifted by.

  The lion man’s tail flicked restlessly. He moved outside again. He heard footsteps on the planks of the old pier, but the fog still hid whomever it was. Tun’s right hand rested on the pistol he had taken from the drunken Royal Policeman.

  But it was Flash Gordon appearing out of the mist, grinning, with Dale Arden at his side. “Is all well?” he asked Tun.

  “Aye.” Tun laughed, coming forward to shake his friend’s hand.

  “This is Dale Arden,” said Flash. “Dale, this is Tun.”

  “Tun the lion man, at your service,” said Tun, with a deep bow toward the dark-haired girl.

  “I saw you in the arena and Flash has told me something about you,” said Dale. “So I feel we already know each other.”

  “Good.” He led them into the shed. “What of your other friend, Flash?”

  “Apparently Zarkov hasn’t been captured by Ming’s men,” replied Flash. “I’ll have to go back into the wilds and see if I can pick up his trail.”

  “Flash, you’re all right.” Aura rushed to him, caught hold of his shoulders and pulled him down so she could kiss his cheek. “I’m very glad.”

  Dale was about to say something but the lion man opened the door of the airship. “We had best be departing,” he said. “Ming may learn we are missing at any minute.”

  As he helped Dale and Aura into the craft, Flash told Tun, “I don’t think Ming will learn anything for a while.”

  “Why is that, my friend?”

  Flash eased into the pilot seat, studying the control panel. “I’m going to need your help with this, Aura.”

  “I can fly the ship,” she offered.

  “No, I’ll do it. You can, though, act as co-pilot.”

  “I’ll sit in the back here someplace,” said Dale.

  After making the doors secure, Tun said, “You still have not told me what happened to Ming, Flash.”

  “I can tell you,” said Dale. In a low voice she gave the lion man a brief account of what had happened in the palace.

  Flash, with Aura’s help, got the ship ready to take off. “Here goes,” he said. The aircraft eased its sharp nose out of the shed, then lifted its long silver body into the air.

  Tun scratched at his yellow beard. “By the multiple ears of the god of rumors,” he said, “I would like to believe that old Ming is no more and . . .” He suddenly remembered that Aura was Ming’s daughter.

  The princess turned in her seat. “What is it that’s happened to my father?”

  Flash said, “There was a fight, Aura, between Ming and myself in Dale’s apartment. He fell from the balcony.”

  Aura looked out at the misty night for a moment. “He is dead?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t stay to find out.”

  “I see.”

  The airship was high above the city now. The fog hid the lights and the towers and the spires.

  Aura said, “I really don’t know how I feel.”

  “If I could have . . .” began Flash.

  A loud bleating sound came from below their ship. An instant later, a similar shrill bleating started off to the left.

  The princess reached out to grip Flash’s arm. “Police ships,” she said.

  CHAPTER 28

  Voices called to them through the fog. Voices from above, from below, and to the side. The amplified words seemed to rattle the windows of their cabin.

  “This is the Royal Police ordering you to land!”

  “You have one minute to set down.”

  “We will shoot you from the sky if you don’t obey!”

  Flash asked Aura, “Our guns are in working order, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, but there’s no need for them.” She reached forward to flick a toggle switch on the control panel. She unhooked a mike and said into it, “This is Princess Aura. You will let me pass.”

  The answer came not out of the radio receiver, but again from one of the bullhorns mounted on the police ships. “You have forty-five seconds to land. Otherwise, you will be shot down.”

  “Didn’t you hear what—?”

  Flash turned off the radio switch. “They’re not going to obey,” he said. He ran his glance over the dials and gauges. “No way to get a fix on their position, huh?”

  “A light ship like this isn’t equipped for that.”

  “I think we’ve got three of them on us,” said Flash. “And I think I can about guess their relative positions. So here goes.”

  He caused the airship to shoot ahead, accelerating rapidly as it gained altitude.

  “I see the belly of one of them right above us,” warned Tun.

  Their craft passed close under the Royal Police ship, then climbed up in front of it. Flash banked, came down through the fog above the police ship. He pushed the gunfire button, the blaster guns on their ship’s underside sizzled.

  Tun pressed his shaggy head against a side cockpit window, laughing. “Got him. By the cropped tresses of the goddess of war, that’s on
e out of the fray.”

  Flash had their ship climbing again. He began to execute a narrow loop. When he was at the height of the arc, he again activated the guns.

  The lion man hopped to another window. “Another one down, Flash,” he shouted. “Only one more left.”

  “I wonder,” said Flash, “exactly where he is.”

  Something hit the body of their ship with a sharp thud.

  “A torchman,” said Aura, pointing. “They sent him down to cut open our cabin.”

  A man in a black tunic and leggings, wearing heavy suction boots and a flying belt, was walking along the scalloped left wing of their ship. In his gloved hand, he held a cutting torch.

  “Nay, this will not do.” Tun grabbed hold of the cabin door.

  “Wait, Tun” said Flash. “Let me see if I can shake him off.”

  The man on the wing had turned the flaming end of his cutting torch against the wing itself.

  “I’ll shake him off.” The lion man wrenched the door open, leaped out into the misty air.

  He landed on the wing, legs spread apart, tail switching.

  “He’ll fall.” Aura pressed her hands to her face.

  The wingwalker swung his torch up to aim it at Tun.

  The lion man surged forward, butting him in the stomach.

  The suction of the boots broke, the man went pin-wheeling away.

  Tun looked up at the remaining Royal Police ship, thumbed his nose, and then dived for the cabin door.

  Dale had anticipated his leap and was able to push the door open against the outside air pressure.

  The lion man squeezed back into the cockpit. “Mind, don’t let it slam shut on my tail.”

  Flash increased the speed of their ship again.

  An instant later, the guns of the police craft crackled.

  “Missed us,” said Tun, “but they’ll try again.”

  “We’ve got a faster ship,” said Flash. “And, until they can call in reinforcements, there’s only one of them.”

  In a shade over ten minutes, they had far outdistanced the Royal Police airship, leaving it behind in the fog.

  Another fifteen passed. “We’ve lost them,” observed the lion man.

  “For now,” said Aura. “They’ll keep looking for me, whether my father’s dead or alive. I’m now considered a traitor.”

  “You can go back,” suggested Flash, “after we land safely someplace.”

  “No, I won’t do that,” said the auburn-haired girl. “I don’t exactly know what I will do.”

  After setting a new course, Flash turned to the lion man. “We’ll head for your territory first, Tun,” he said. “After we set you down, Dale and I can start searching for Dr. Zarkov.”

  “He must still be alive,” said Dale.

  “Doc’s nearly indestructible,” Flash told her.

  The ship continued on through the night.

  After a time, Flash started to have trouble with the craft.

  Tun said, “I fear we have a bit of a problem, my friends.” He had moved again to the window of the cabin. “That lout with the torch did something serious to our wing.”

  “You’re right, Tun,” Flash said. “We’d better land now.”

  “It would be wise to land before yon wing parts company with us.”

  There was no fog around them now. Only blackness everywhere, above and below.

  Flash, with help from the instruments and from Aura, brought the ailing ship down through the night. “Not exactly sure where we are,” he said.

  The craft landed, bounced once, and skidded to a stop.

  “Feels like rocky ground,” remarked Tun.

  “A very good landing, Flash,” said Aura, pressing a hand against his arm.

  Dale said, “What’s our next step, Flash?”

  He leaned back in the pilot seat, exhaling. “Might as well camp here in the ship till morning. It’s probably the safest course.”

  “There’s food and water back in that compartment there,” said Aura.

  “I’ll fetch it,” Tun said. “Then we’ll have ourselves something of a victory celebration.”

  Flash said, “I hope a victory celebration is appropriate.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Tun awakened first. He rubbed his eyes, stretched, flicked his tufted tail. A frown creased his brow. “Can it be?” he muttered as he moved to the door and let himself out of the downed silver ship.

  Feet on the ground, the lion man sniffed at the dawn air. He nodded, looking around at the dry orange and brown landscape. It was mostly rock, sandy ground, and gnarled leafless trees. “By the second head of the god of mobility,” he exclaimed, “I do believe we’re in lion man country!”

  “What’s that?” asked Flash, swinging down out of the ship.

  “Good morning, my friend,” greeted Tun. He stretched his arms out. “We did better than I’d thought.”

  “We reached your home territory?”

  “Aye, we are here and I am home,” said Tun with a chuckle. “I’ll wager my village is not twenty miles from this spot.”

  “Then we’ll set out for there,” said Flash.

  “It will be the best course to follow. For, once home, I am sure I can recruit several of my fellow lion men to help search for your friend Zarkov.”

  Leaning against their ship, Flash asked, “If Ming is dead, will things change on Mongo?”

  “They may change,” said Tun, “but not without a fight. You may be certain old Ming’s underlings, men like Erik and Haldor, will try to hold on to power. In fact, they may not even admit Ming is dead. Such things have happened in the past.”

  “You’re still going to need a revolution,” said Flash.

  “Aye.”

  Quietly Aura climbed down out of the ship. She hugged herself, taking in the chill dawn countryside. “Were in lion man territory, aren’t we, Tun?”

  “That we are, Princess. I was just now telling Flash we are probably not more than twenty miles from my home.”

  “You needn’t call me princess anymore,” said the girl. “All that is over.” She came a few tentative steps closer to the two men. “I guess I’m ready for a long walk. When do we start?”

  “We’ll have breakfast,” said Flash, “and then get going.”

  “You’re sure Dale won’t need extra rest,” asked Aura, “after the ordeal she’s been through?”

  “No more than you, Princess,” said Dale as she joined them.

  The afternoon sun glared hotly in the yellow sky.

  Aura suddenly reached out toward Flash, saying softly, “I think I . . .” Then she crumpled, dropping to the dry sandy ground.

  “Perhaps we should have waited until nightfall to travel,” said Tun as he knelt beside the girl. “This is very rugged country to travel through.” He uncapped his canteen and gave Aura a drink.

  She sat up. “Got a little dizzy,” she said.

  With ease the lion man picked her up. “Allow me to carry you for a while,” he said. “That way you won’t mind the heat so.”

  “No, I . . .”

  “Think nothing of it.” He trotted on, with the girl in his arms.

  “How are you doing?” Flash asked Dale.

  “Despite what the princess may think about my stamina,” said Dale, “I feel fine. Don’t worry about my collapsing.”

  Flash grinned at her. “If you do, I bet Tun can manage both of you.”

  At dusk the heat began to fade. The sky began to turn a smoky blue.

  Tun, no longer carrying Aura, who had recovered, sniffed the cooling air. “We are nearing my home,” he announced. “But . . .”

  “Something wrong?” asked Flash.

  “Aye, there are strangers about,” said the lion man. “Many of them, among my people.”

  “Ming’s forces?”

  After another sniff, Tun said, “Nay, I cannot yet tell. Come, we will approach nearer but with much caution.”

  By the time they reached the ridge surrounding the villa
ge of the lion men, the sky had darkened to a clear black. Now the noise of many people drifted up to them. There was much talk and movement.

  “Await me here, my friends,” said Tun. “I will venture nearer by myself.” He left them near a scatter of dry trees and was soon lost in the night.

  “Trouble?” Dale asked Flash.

  “Hard to tell.”

  Tun came back out of the darkness. There was a puzzled look on his face.

  “What’s going on down there?” asked Flash.

  “It seems to be a party,” said Tun.

  CHAPTER 30

  Several rough-hewn oaken tables had been set out in the streets of the village. Thick tallow candles in copper holders sat on the tables, flickering and splashing yellow light amid huge platters of meat, bread, vegetables, and loose piles of fruit and nuts. Further light came from a large charcoal fire over which an animal carcass roasted.

  “By the wart on the nose of the god of joy,” cried a shaggy red-haired lion man who was in the act of raising a mug of ale to his lips. “It is Tun come home.”

  “Aye, Nak,” said Tun. “And I have brought friends with me.” He gestured with an open hand at Flash, Dale, and Aura.

  Nak clanked his mug down on a table top, hugged the returned Tun. “We have heard strange things concerning you, old friend.”

  Other lion men and women noticed Tun and began to cluster round him, hugging him, kissing him, whacking him heartily on the back.

  At the edge of the group stood Flash and the two girls. The lion men’s village consisted of curving rows of low mudbrick houses, with a few larger two-story brick buildings near the center. There were about two hundred lion men and women and children filling the streets of the village, circling the feast tables.

  There were also some fifty men in tunics and tights of woodland green. Many of the men wore quivers of arrows on their backs.

  “What exactly,” asked Dale, “is everyone celebrating?”

  “From what Tun said on the way down here,” said Flash, “the lion men must have reached some kind of agreement with Prince Barin’s people.”

  “Is Barin here?”

  A tall young man with light hair and moustache turned toward them. “The prince remains in Arboria,” he said. “I am Tomo.” He held out his hand to Flash. “I’ll hazard the guess that you’re Flash Gordon.”