From Jungle Depths
Urb, the Neanderthal, was beginning to tire. He and his five hairy
companions had been on the march since Dyta had risen, and even now the
sun was hunting a new lair for the night. From the frequency with which
those behind him were stumbling, he judged they, too, were tiring.
But the mountains were close, now. He and his men were almost certain to
reach them before darkness came. There they might find caves near
grasslands rich in game. Urb's mouth watered and he was aware of being
very hungry.
A faint breeze, blowing lightly against their backs, changed its course
suddenly and came whipping in from the west. As it flicked across their
faces the six Hairy Ones came to an abrupt halt, standing stiffly as
though turned to stone.
Urb sniffed in short rapid inhalations, his unkempt visage twisted in a
ferocious scowl.
"Men!" he grunted. "The hairless ones! It has been long since we have
found such. Hide!"
With a degree of soundlessness surprising in such clumsy bodies, the six
Neanderthals faded into the mazes of undergrowth at either side of the
path.
* * * * *
Hardly were they hidden, when Alurna and her five companions came into
sight. They were moving slowly, the girl limping slightly from a bruised
heel, her sandals scuffed and dusty.
The girl stopped and turned to the others. "Is it much farther, Adbor? I
don't think I can take another step."
"Courage, my princess," smiled Adbor, a tall, slender man with a great
shock of blond hair. "A short distance more and we shall be there."
Alurna sank down on a fallen log, removed her sandal and rubbed the
bruised heel.
"I'm afraid you'll have to carry me from here on," she sighed. "My feet
ache terribly."
* * * * *
Silently the foliage parted an arm's length from the girl's half-bent
figure, and in the gap were framed the brutal faces of Urb and Mog, the
sullen. Urb gave the female only a passing glance; his attention was
riveted on the five unsuspecting men. The woman was not armed--the men
were; and it was the males who must die before they could bring their
weapons into use.
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 shifted 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.
[Illustration: Mog snatched Alurna into his arms and made off through
the forest]
The remaining five watched Mog's hurried flight until he had passed 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 fashioned 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 grassland, 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, bestial 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 passive, transferred his
attention to the path underfoot. The hairy one was beginning to regret
the decision that had cost him the companionship 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
shaggy 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-assorted 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 shaggy 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
grasses 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.
Then came the thought that she might be able to do so without his aid.
Not ungently he lowered her to her feet and signed that she should start
down. When Alurna, correctly interpreting his gesture, glanced at the
hard earth so far below, she gasped aloud and drew back, trembling.
Mog, sullen and short-tempered at best, did not intend wasting time in
coaxing her. Raising a bulky fist, he shook it threateningly under her
nose, then once more pointed to the edge of the precipice.
Alurna could not help but feel she preferred death by falling to being
mauled by this uncouth beast-man. And so, gritting her teeth and tensing
her muscles to control their trembling, she lowered herself over the
brink and began the tortuous descent.
Those long agonizing moments which followed were to live forever in the
memory of Alurna, princess of Sephar. Slowly, inch by inch, she worked
her way downward, feeling in an agony of suspense for footholds where
she was confident no such holds existed. At times her entire weight was
suspended by her fingers alone, while both feet searched for some
projection to which her sandaled foot would cling. She knew, now, it
would have been wise to have tossed her sandals down first; her bare
feet would have held to the rock with more certainty--but it was too
late for that.
Gradually she sank farther and farther from the lip of the escarpment.
She dared not glance above or below; her gaze was glued continuously on
the uneven surface over which she was passing. Her fingers were raw and
bleeding by this time; but she clenched her lip between white teeth and
went on.
At last the strain, both to limbs and to nerves, was nearing the
breaking point. Alurna knew she could not hold on much longer; if she
failed to reach the valley floor soon, she must fall the balance of the
way. Then, as the desire to loose her grip, whatever the consequences,
seemed too overpowering to resist, her feet came to rest on level
ground.
Tired, high-pitched nerves gave way, and Alurna sank to the ground and
burst into tears. Had she acted at once, she might have escaped, for Mog
was still fifty feet above her.
But she was conscious only of relief from the peril just undergone; and
Mog found her huddled in a pitiful heap at the very spot where her feet
had first touched solid earth.
Lifting her easily to his wide back, he took up his club from where he
had dropped it from above, and moved at a half-trot toward the nearby
forest.
While from the depths of a tangled maze of cloaking underbrush, at the
very point he was nearing, two baleful yellow eyes were fixed in
unblinking attention upon him and the girl he carried!
* * * * *
The morning after Alurna's capture, twenty warriors were assembled in
front of Sephar's palace. It was evident they awaited someone, for their
eyes turned often to the great doors.
And then came Vulcar, arms laden with an assortment of weapons. Rapidly
he handed them out to the twenty until each was fully armed. This done
he barked out an order and the men formed into ranks, four abreast and
five deep.
His hawk-like face set in stern lines, Vulcar faced them. "Warriors of
Sephar," he began, "you know what has happened to the daughter of our
king. You know, too, that five of your comrades died trying to save her.
Most of you knew and admired Adbor. I saw Adbor die. He died while
calling for his weapons, eager to take up the trail of those who had
stolen the princess.
"To you goes the honor of avenging your comrades and returning the
princess to her father, alive ... or dead."
As the calm voice ceased, a score of right arms shot up and a resounding
shout rose from twenty throats.
"Then come," said Vulcar quietly, and turned to lead the way.
But before the men could move to follow him, a deep voice from the
palace doorway bade them wait.
Clothed in the simple harness of an ordinary warrior, and fully armed,
Urim descended the steps and came up to Vulcar.
"I will go with you," he said simply.
Vulcar had been afraid of this. Urim no longer was a young man; to take
him along might cost Sephar a ruler, as well as its favorite daughter.
"O Urim," he said, "may I say a few words to you before we go?...
"My king, trust me and these warriors to find Alurna. They are young and
fully trained. For hours they can press onward so rapidly that anyone
less hardened would drop behind within an hour. To slacken their speed
for one less trained might cost much precious time."
Urim, ready to override any protests, could not help but see the logic
of the words. For several moments he stood with bowed head while impulse
battled with good judgment.
"Take your men and go without me, my friend," he said at last, his voice
unsteady. "I am an old man, and useless. I should only delay you."
He turned and strode back into the palace before the troubled Sepharian
could frame a reply.
Ten minutes later the twenty and one entered the trail that led past the
scene of Alurna's capture the day before.
* * * * *
Half an hour later another band of men filed through the western gates
of Sephar and entered the mouth of the same path. There were eight in
the group: Jotan, Javan and Tamar with five of the warriors who had come
with them on the long journey from Ammad to Sephar. Their destination,
now, was the house of Rydob, and with them was a man adept at following
a spoor, however faint.
Tarlok, the leopard, crouching among the dense foliage of a thick branch
above the trail, watched them pass. Soundlessly he bared glistening
fangs, and his yellow eyes narrowed into twin slits of hate. Tarlok
detested these two-legged creatures; but even greater was his fear of
them, for his mate had fallen, a moon ago, beneath the sharp sticks of
such man-things.