Jongor- the Complete Tales

by Robert Moore Williams

  At the sight of the city, Gnomer and Rouse seemed both excited and depressed.

  “It sure doesn’t look like much,” Rouse said.

  “The aerial maps were right,” Gnomer answered. “The city is here. Maybe the things we are looking for are here, too.”

  “What aerial maps?” Ann Hunter questioned.

  The two men glanced quickly at her and fell silent.

  “Forget we said anything,” Gnomer spoke.

  “Aw, what the hell if she did hear?” Rouse interjected. “She’ll never be able to do anything about it!”

  An excited babble of sound burst from the Murtos. They were gesturing toward the hill on the right. Rising above the babble of their voices was another sound—the growing thunder of heavy hoofs.

  “My God!” Rouse gasped, “Look at that!”

  COMING down the slope of the hill, charging straight toward the group, were three dinosaurs. These were not the vegetation-eating specimens that Gnomer and Rouse had encountered earlier. These were the meat eaters, the terrible thunder dragons of antiquity. Fanged mouths a yard wide gaped open, from distended throats shrill screams shocked the air.

  At the sight, the band of Murtos instantly broke. They went straight down the slope toward the city at a dead run. Ann Hunter caught a dazed glimpse of Great Orbo. Orbo was not only the leader of the Murtos in battle, he was also their leader in running. He led the pack. Umber was not far behind him.

  The click of the safety of a rifle caught her attention.

  But something else caught her attention: an object on the back of the leading dinosaur. Clinging scaled back, riding like a cowboy bent low in the saddle, was a human.

  “Jongor!” Ann Hunter screamed. The figure crouching on the back of the leading dinosaur could be no one else on earth but Jongor of Lost Land. Her heart leaped at the sight. Then, as Gnomer brought his rifle to his shoulder, she remembered the click she had just heard.

  She saw Gnomer’s gaze go along the sights of the gun.

  “Stop it!” Like an enraged tigress, she threw herself at the man. The gun exploded as Gnomer was knocked to the side by the fury of her attack.

  “Damn it, girl!”

  Clawing, scratching, biting, kicking, she clung to him. If she could hold him for minutes, Jongor would be here.

  “You little fool—”

  She got both arms around his neck, clasped her legs around his middle and locked them behind his back. It was a position from which she could not be easily dislodged. Indeed, she had no intention of being dislodged.

  “Rouse—”

  As Gnomer spoke, she felt Rouse grab her hair. He yanked backward. Agony shot through her scalp. Rouse hit her with his fist, hit her savagely on the side of her head. Her grip on Gnomer was knocked loose.

  Falling, as she tried to get to her feet, she heard the rifle roar. The first shot missed. Her heart leaped at the thought. The thunder of dinosaur hoofs was growing louder. The shrill screams of the mighty saurians rang in her ears. The rifle roared again.

  “Got him!” Gnomer spoke.

  THE girl had to force herself to turn to look. One glance was sufficient, The person on the back of the dinosaur had slid to one side, was clinging desperately. Gnomer dropped to one knee, aimed carefully. The rifle spoke again.

  The figure on the dinosaur jumped at the impact of the heavy bullet. The figure went to the ground and was obviously smashed under the thundering feet that followed the first dino. Ann Hunter stared at the charging monsters. She knew only too well what would happen to a person caught beneath those pounding, feet. The stampede of a herd of cattle would be mild in comparison. A person might survive a bullet wound, but nobody who ever lived would survive both a bullet wound and the effect of being crushed beneath those mighty feet.

  She had a mental picture of Jongor’s body, of what it looked like now that it had been trampled into the ground, all gory, broken, battered flesh.

  “Hey, them damned things are still coming!” Rouse spoke.

  “They ought not to be still coming.” Gnomer spoke. “I got Jongor. I saw him fall—”

  “But they are!”

  There was no disputing the fact. Whether the continuation of the charge was accidental, whether the dinosaurs were merely continuing in the same direction they had started, there was no way to tell. But coming they were.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here!” Rouse shouted.

  Turning, he started to follow the Murtos.

  He stopped almost as quickly as he started. Barring his path, advancing toward him, was Jongor.

  JONGOR’S plan had been simple. Controlling the dinosaurs, he had brought them down the hill in a charge, using the crystal device that had been developed by the ancient Murians. He had stuffed a straw figure and had tied it on to the back of the leading dino.

  He had known the Murtos would run. He had also expected the two men to run. In the confusion, he had expected to snatch up Ann, to swing both himself and Ann on the back of the leading dino, and make a clean getaway.

  The plan ought to have worked. It was simple, apparently foolproof. But the two humans had not run as he had expected. He had been left in the position of taking quick, desperate action. He thought he could rush the two men from behind. One blow from the heavy spear would take care of one of them. Before the second knew what was happening, it would be too late to do anything about it.

  The plan was good. Again, it ought to have worked. And it would have worked, if Rouse had not turned at exactly the wrong moment.

  Even after Rouse had turned, Jongor could still have taken action. But Gnomer turned, too, Jongor was expecting both of them to shoot at him. Gnomer didn’t.

  “Stop!” Gnomer yelled. He pointed the muzzle of his rifle at Ann Hunter. “Stop—or I’ll shoot her.”

  Jongor stopped in mid-stride. In the face of that threat, there was no other action he could take.

  The thunder of the charge of the approaching dinosaurs was growing louder.

  “Turn ’em aside, send ’em in some other direction, or I’ll shoot her!” Gnomer ordered.

  The man’s face was granite hard. He meant every word he said. Jongor knew that the slightest hesitation on his part would sign the death sentence for Ann Hunter.

  His gaze dropped down to the crystal on his left wrist. This device was old, but it still worked. Some forgotten, long-gone Murian scientist had devised this crystal. The Murian who had made it had been a genius of the highest order. Out through it flowed, thought waves. Somehow they reached the brains of the dinosaurs.

  The beasts swerved. They thundered past fifty yards to the right. Rouse, sweat dripping from his face, stared at them in panic-stricken apprehension. Gnomer never turned an eye to look in their direction. He kept his gaze focused on Jongor. Every so often, his eyes flicked back to Ann Hunter. The muzzle of his rifle never ceased covering the girl.

  ONLY when the dinosaurs had charged after the fleeing Murtos did Gnomer speak to Rouse: “Have him drop his weapons. Then tie his hands behind his back.”

  Again Jongor was forced to submit to this indignity.

  “I want to know how you control those dinosaurs,” Gnomer demanded.

  “With my mind,” Jongor answered, shrugging.

  “What kind of an idiot are you?” Rouse said. “Nobody can control an animal just by using his mind.”

  Again Jongor shrugged. “Then believe what you wish,” he said indifferently. He had recognized that the two men were in awe of him, and determined to use this to his advantage.

  “Walk ahead of us, you and that girl. And don’t try any more funny business.” Gnomer’s voice carried the tones of deadly threat.

  Jongor and Ann Hunter obeyed. Neither knew what waited for them in the city, but each could guess. In short, terse whispers he told Ann what had happened to him. “For days I did not remember what had happened to me.”

  “Then you didn’t desert me,” Ann answered. “I’m so glad.” The thought that he had refused to he
lp her had been a gnawing canker in her heart. Now she knew the truth. In that moment, she completely forgot the danger around them. Jongor was here with her. Jongor could save her and himself!

  They were marched down into the city. The frightened Murtos appeared, gesturing with clubs. Now that the time of danger was past, they were very brave. Jongor ignored them. Ann Hunter acted as if she did not see them.

  “Lock them up in the old mines.” Great Orbo decided. “Soon we shall decide what to do with them.”

  THE two were taken into the old mine workings in the cliff. There they were thrown into a small cell with a barred door. A single Murto, with an unusually large club and a face that was constantly drawn up into a fighting snarl, was set to guard them. He spent most of his time grimacing through the bars of the heavy door and promising what he would do if they stuck as much as a nose out of their cell,

  “Wait till Jongor gets to you,” Ann said spiritedly.

  “Who is Jongor?” the Murto answered, brandishing his club and showing his fangs. Jongor walked to the barred door.

  “Boo!” he yelled.

  As if he had been attacked, the startled Murto leaped backward. Then, realizing Jongor was safely behind bars, he recovered his courage. Pounding his club against the door, he yelled, “Come out here and I’ll show you what I can do.”

  “He is very brave when he is out there and you are in here,” the girl taunted.

  “It would be funny if it were not so serious,” Jongor answered. Although he did not admit it to Ann, he knew that only the greatest stroke of luck would get them out of this place alive.

  They were two people kidding each other. Each kept locked in his heart the knowledge that only death was Waiting for them here.

  A day passed, two days. They saw only the guard with the big club. Neither Gnomer nor Rouse came near them.

  “What are they waiting for?” Ann wondered aloud, then was instantly sorry she had spoken.

  “I don’t know,” Jongor answered. “But they’re up to something, you can bet on that. And it’s not something that will be to our benefit. Listen!” he said.

  From somewhere in the caverns, seemingly rising from the very depths of hell itself, came a deep rumble, a dull throbbing roar of sound that shook the solid stone floor on which they were standing.

  “What’s that?” Ann asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The Murto guard was frightened. He came close to the door.

  “It is the great god of the lower caverns,” the guard spoke. “I have never heard his voice before. No living Murto has ever heard this voice. But there are stories . . .”

  The Murto shivered in fear. He stood licking his lips and trembling.

  THE sound died into silence, then came again, a throbbing roar that shook the entire mountain. Bits of rock, loosened from the walls and the ceilings, fell downward, striking with soft thuds that were hardly noticeable in the vaster roar coming from somewhere below. Again it died into a vast silence.

  “I don’t like that sound,” Ann Hunter whispered. “I don’t like it a bit.”

  Jongor put his arm around her shoulder and she crept closer to him. In the shelter of that mighty arm, she found protection.

  “Tell me more, about the great god,” Jongor said to the Murto guard.

  “I do not know much except that when the great god calls—and he has called twice—a sacrifice must be made ready.”

  “A sacrifice?” Ann whispered. She looked up at Jongor. He pressed her closer to him, noticed that she was trembling. Neither uttered the fear that was rising in their hearts.

  The Murto guard shivered and drew even to the metal grill of the door, as if he hungered for the companionship of the prisoners he had been set to guard. Quietly Jongor slipped his arm from Ann’s shoulder.

  His hands shot out. They went through the bars, got the Murto guard by the neck, jerked him hard against the metal grill.

  “Ugh!” the guard gasped. He had meant the sound to be a scream, but fingers tighter than iron bands were clamped around his throat. He jerked, twisted, arched his body like a bow, got one leg up and shoved backward against the bars of the door.

  Still the fingers held.

  Dropping his club, the Murto lifted both arms, caught the hands that were holding him, tried to jerk them loose. There was tremendous strength in his hairy arms. Jongor felt sweat begin to pop out on him. On his bare back, the muscles stood out as long ridges in the flesh.

  “Hold him, Jongor!” Ann gasped. “I’ll shove the bar out of its sockets!”

  “Good girl!”

  The door was locked on the outside by a heavy wooden bar which fitted into metal sockets. Jongor caught a glimpse of Ann shoving her hands through the grill and shoving hard against the bar. The weight of the Murto was against the door. She could not move the bar.

  “I can’t make it.”

  “Let it go then. I’ll have this monkey in just a minute.”

  Already the struggles of the guard had weakened. Suddenly the hands stopped clawing at Jongor’s arms. The heavy body sagged. Jongor released his grip. The Murto went down. A split second later, Jongor had reached through the grill and had lifted the bar.

  THE door swung open. They were free! Jongor snatched the club of the fallen Murto. It was better than no weapon. “Come on, Ann, let’s get out of here!”

  “Where in the hell do you think you’re going!” a heavy voice grated.

  Jongor and Ann stopped. Coming toward them was Gnomer and Rouse. Great Orbo and Umber were following the two humans. Gnomer had an air of elation about him, as if he had just achieved the aim of his whole life. Rouse looked worried. The two rifles came up instantly.

  “Ready to get away, eh?” Gnomer said. “Lucky we came along just when we did. It would have disappointed Great Orbo if you two had escaped. And we wouldn’t want to disappoint Orbo, would we?”

  Gnomer was having fun. His sort of fun! But the rifles that he and Rouse held were steady and ready. There was no arguing with guns. “Drop the club,” Gnomer ordered. Slowly, Jongor obeyed. “Keep your chin up,” he whispered to Ann. “We’re not licked yet.”

  “One on each side of them. Hold them tight. I’ll have the head of the Murto who lets them escape!” Great Orbo yelled.

  With a powerful Murto firmly gripping each arm, Ann and Jongor were led away. When the march was over, they were standing on a ledge overlooking a vast excavation.

  “It’s a mining shaft of the ancient Murtos,” Jongor whispered to Ann. The scene before their eyes was that of a colossal excavation. A tremendous shaft rose far above them. Below them, a distance of fifty feet away, the bottom was visible. Flaring torches, set in sockets along the walls, shed a wan illumination over the entire scene.

  “What is that down there at the bottom?” Ann spoke.

  In the bottom of the vast pit was a machine of some kind. But what kind? Hooded and covered, all that was visible was a giant snout, that emerged from the machine and pointed downward to the rocky floor. Under the flare of the torches, it looked like some prehistoric monster out of. Earth’s long-dead past.

  “I don’t know what it is,” Jongor answered. “I’ve never been here before. I did not know this pit existed.” He could sense deep uneasiness amounting almost to terror arising in Ann.

  THE ledge on which he and the girl were standing circled the entire pit. Murtos were appearing from everywhere and were taking their places on the ledge. An air of eagerness pervaded the entire throng.

  “They’re getting ready to do something,” Ann whispered. Her voice was shaky and tremulous with rising fear. “W—what are they going to do?”

  Jongor shook his head and did not answer. He had a grim idea of what the Murtos were preparing to do, but it was an idea he did not intend to reveal to Ann. Down below, two men emerged from an opening in the wall of the shaft and made their way toward the machine.

  Gnomer and Rouse!

  Gnomer climbed a ladder to the top of the machine,
lifted a hood, and slipped into a seat thus revealed. Levers were on both sides of the seat. Gnomer moved one of the levers. In response, the long tube projecting from the machine began to move. A soft glow of light sprang from it. The machine throbbed softly, a grumble resembling the roar they had heard before, but much lower in volume.

  As if in answer to the roar from the machine, a soft moan came from the Murtos watching on the ledge. A shudder passed over the entire group, a ripple of emotional movement. The entire tribe of Murtos was out on the ledge.

  To them, this was obviously a great event, something that the whole tribe should witness. Jongor had the impression that what happened here would be told for generations among the Murtos.

  The projecting tube of the machine came to a halt. The light from it, pouring downward, illuminated a heavy square of black stone. Pitted and eroded, the stone was old, but still visible on it were dark stains of some kind.

  As the light illuminated and came to rest on the stone, the Murtos sobbed, a soft convulsive sound that had in it elements of both hunger and terror, hunger for a sight they were about to see, terror because of that sight. The sound coming from the Murtos was weird and eerie. There was pain in it, and ecstasy of a hidden kind. A shudder seemed to pass along the entire circle of watching monkey-men.

  DOWN below, Rouse was leaving the machine. He disappeared into an opening in the wall, then reappeared on the ledge, talking to Great Orbo.

  “Ready up above!” the Murto chief yelled.

  An answer came from somewhere in the darkness over them. “Re—ady!” A monotonous clank began.

  Rouse came along the ledge to Jongor and Ann. Sweat dripped from his three-day growth of whiskers. His eyes were apologetic. “These monkeys got funny ideas,” he said.

  “I know,” Jongor answered.

  “I just wanted you to know it ain’t my idea.” Rouse said. “I didn’t have any part of it.” As if to emphasize his meaning, he shook his head vigorously. “No part at all. I even tried to talk ‘em out of it.”

  “Talk them out of what?” Ann spoke sharply. A terror that she could no longer control was rising in her voice.