Warrior of the Dawn Part 23

Meanwhile, the stunted mind of Mog, the sullen, was laboriously following an altogether different trend of thought from that of his leader. His unblinking pig-like eyes were intent on the sweetly curved back directly in front of him, and he was increasingly aware of what an altogether desirable bit of femininity this hairless she actually was.

His tongue moistened suddenly dry lips and he s.h.i.+fted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.

Urb waited no longer. Slowly he brought up his left hand, caught a small branch between his fingers, then suddenly clenched his fist.

The wood snapped with a sharp clear sound, freezing the five Sepharian guards into instant immobility.

But not for long.

As the sound of breaking wood rose on the still air, six grotesque figures rose in a rough semi-circle about the group in the trail, and simultaneously five mighty stone-incrusted bludgeons were hurled with unbelievable force and accuracy.

The startled Sepharians never succeeded in bringing their own weapons into play. Before they could fully comprehend their danger all five were stretched on the jungle path. Three were dead as they fell, heads crushed like brittle twigs; another died almost as quickly, his back snapped as a dry branch is snapped beneath the broad feet of Pandor, the elephant.

Only one still lived, a club having dealt him a glancing blow aside the head, laying his flesh open in a great gash and rendering him senseless.

Gorb was more adept at making clubs than he was in their use....

Five clubs were thrown; there should have been six. Only Mog, the sullen, retained his hold on his murderous weapon. As his fellows loosed their cudgels, Mog sprang forward, caught the paralyzed girl about the waist with one immense hairy arm, and before the others could fathom his intentions, had turned and fled back along the pathway as quickly as his short bowed legs could carry him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mog s.n.a.t.c.hed Alurna into his arms and made off through the forest]

The remaining five watched Mog's hurried flight until he had pa.s.sed from sight. His purpose in stealing the she was clear; their surprise came only from his way of taking her--and the fact that seldom did a Hairy Man mate with a member of another race. But then Mog was a surly brute, unable to find among his own people a mate willing to endure his temper and moods.

The Neanderthal men gathered about the bodies of the five guards. Gorb, true to character, took up several of the scattered weapons and examined them closely, noting with envy that they had been fas.h.i.+oned with far greater skill than he possessed. He puzzled long over the bows and arrows, but his limited intelligence could make nothing of them and he finally cast them aside.

At last the five took up their march toward the distant mountains. They moved more cautiously now than before, realizing they might meet more of the hairless men.

Urb, still in the lead, noticed, a while later, that the forest was beginning to thin out. Soon he caught a glimpse of a plain marking the edge of the woods. He paused, nose searching the humid breeze.

They edged forward at a brief guttural command from their leader, until they came to open ground.

Before them, beyond level gra.s.sland, rose the gray stone walls of Sephar, looming huge and impressive in the light of early evening. White tuniced warriors lolled before broad gates leading to many stone buildings beyond.

Urb shook his head regretfully. "We must look elsewhere for caves," he said. "To make our homes near here would mean much fighting with the hairless ones. It is better to go where we may live in peace. Come."

With bowed shoulders and awkward shuffling gait the five frightful men turned back for the long journey to the distant caves of their people.

Soon they were filing silently past the five motionless bodies in the center of the trail. And through narrowed, blood-filled eyes, through a red film of hate and pain, Adbor, Sepharian warrior, watched them go, and planned a sanguinary revenge as payment for the death of his four friends and the theft of the princess Alurna, daughter of his king.

Two hours later, just as the night's first shadows fell across the path, a searching party found his unconscious body face down in the rotting vegetation of the trail. Tenderly they lifted him up, cradling the blond, blood-soaked thatch in their arms, and bore him back to the city.

There, men trained and schooled in the treatment of wounds, did all they could to revive the numbed brain of a courageous warrior.

They were only partially successful. With closed eyes Adbor gasped out, in a few broken sentences, his story of death and abduction. Something of his former strength seemed to come back to him as he spoke. Raising on one elbow, his eyes now wide and staring beyond those about him, he cried out, shrill and loud:

"Give me my spear--my bow! I will follow them! I will--"

His voice broke and he fell back limply. Adbor was dead.

Above that still form men looked at one another in silence and in horror. The Hairy men! Creatures so seldom seen as to be almost mythical, but whose savage and brutal natures were known from horror tales told at many a dinner table and about many a camp fire.

Vulcar was the first to speak. "I must take word to Urim. For the last two hours he has been storming about the palace demanding he be told where Alurna is. Now, I don't know what he will say--or do...."

He shrugged. "Make preparations to send out a searching party the first thing in the morning. I will lead it."

Slowly the hawk-faced warrior set out for the palace with the message that must wither the stalwart heart of him for whom Vulcar cared above all others.

Alurna had been conscious of a bobbing, rocking sensation for some time before she opened her eyes to the world about her. For a moment she watched the procession of thick greenery at right angles to the direction in which she seemed to be moving; then sudden recollection flooded her mind and she awoke to the horror of her position.

It was then that she became aware of the hairy back beneath her and a great calloused hand clamped about her wrists.

Instinctively she attempted to struggle free; but the nightmarish brute only tightened his grip and without pausing in his loping gait turned a snarling, b.e.s.t.i.a.l countenance toward her. At the sight, Alurna felt her senses reel and she closed her eyes with a shudder of loathing.

Mog, satisfied his captive would remain pa.s.sive, transferred his attention to the path underfoot. The hairy one was beginning to regret the decision that had cost him the companions.h.i.+p of his fellows. To cross, safely, the miles of jungle and forest between his present position and the caves of his tribe, would require all his strength and cunning.

Alone, armed only with club and spear, he could prove fairly easy prey to any one of many enemies. Jalok, the panther, agile and fearless and wantonly cruel; Conta, the cave bear, who fought on his hind legs; Tarlok, the leopard, beneath whose spotted hide lay such strength that by comparison Mog's stalwart thews were as nothing. And then there was Sleeza, the giant snake, whose slimy coils held the strength of ten Mogs.

Most fearsome of all, however, was Sadu, the lion, tawny of coat and s.h.a.ggy of mane, whose absolute fearlessness, speed of attack and irascible temper, backed by steel sinews and mighty fangs, caused the balance of jungle folk to give him a wide berth.

Above and about the lumbering monstrosity and its still, white burden, scampered, flew, slunk and crawled the superabundant life of this green world, their voices and movements adding to the vast ocean of sound rising and falling about the ill-a.s.sorted pair.

While far behind them came Urb and the others; but the distance between was growing rapidly greater so swiftly was Mog covering the ground.

And then, with almost frightening suddenness, Dyta, the sun, disappeared from the heavens and darkness fell upon the jungle. The Neanderthal mouthed a few disapproving grunts, peered about nervously, then swung sharply to his left and forced his way through foliage to the base of a great tree.

Alurna clung fearfully to the s.h.a.ggy neck as the great brute pulled himself into the lower branches. With the coming of night her fear was intensified a thousandfold; but even more than she feared Mog was her dread of the brooding jungle and its savage inhabitants. She reproached herself silently for venturing from the security of Sephar's walls.

Woman-like, she blamed Jotan for everything--had he not fallen in love with the cave-girl nothing like this would have happened.

Mog paused upon a broad bough well above the ground. Placing Alurna in a sitting position here, her back against the tree's bole, he tore free a length of stout vine and bound her wrists securely behind her back.

Satisfied his prize would be helpless to escape, Mog let himself down on a branch directly under her and sought a comfortable position in which to sleep out the night.

Alurna, hemmed in by a wall of blackness which her untrained eyes were unable to penetrate, could hear the Hairy One as he settled himself. She knew there would be no sleep for her this night; she was far too frightened to think of closing her eyes for an instant.

Seconds later she was sound asleep; and though the balance of the night was made hideous with the savage voices of jungle denizens, the exhausted princess did not stir.

A rough hand shook her awake. She shrank away with a whimper of fear at sight of Mog's forbidding face a few inches from her own. The Neanderthal freed her wrists by breaking their bonds with his powerful fingers, then swung her once more to his back and slid to the ground.

Noon found them at the outskirts of the forest. Mog had pushed ahead far more quickly than he had thought possible. Alone, without allies, he feared an attack at any moment from some forest dweller. There would be no safety for him until he was safe in the caves of his tribe.

With the forest behind him, Mog trotted across the narrow ribbon of gra.s.ses to the lip of the almost vertical cliff overlooking the tree-filled valley below. A portion of the boar killed two days before was cached in one of those trees; once he and his captive were safely down the cliff they could eat without wasting time in a search for food.

But Mog began to realize it would prove no small matter to transport the girl down the abrupt incline. Indeed, it would require all his own strength and limited agility to get himself down without the added burden of a helpless she.