Forest Trails
"It was here we found the dead guards. Where, or in what direction, the
Hairy Men took Alurna is not known. Vulcar and his men followed this
trail away from Sephar."
The guard detailed to show Tharn the scene of Alurna's capture had told
all he knew. To the cave man it more than sufficed; following a trail
left less than a sun before would not tax his prowess.
"You have told me enough," Tharn assured him. "Hasten back to your chief
and tell him I will return soon--his daughter with me."
The Cro-Magnard, a slight smile touching his lips, watched the
retreating figure until it disappeared around a bend of the trail. Even
then he did not move, but stood quiet, arms folded across his swelling
chest, drawing great draughts of humid air deep into his lungs.
Free! Gone were stone walls, cold floors and barred doors. No longer
must he go only where others permitted. There were soft grasses and
growing things about him. Overhead was the limitless blue of space; and
there was Dyta, the sun, sending golden spears to prick, with welcome
heat, the smooth skin of the cave lord.
Siha, the wind, moving in little eddies and gusts, brought to his
nostrils a heavy pungent cloying odor belonging only to the jungle; the
combined essence of uncounted varieties of plants, together with the
comingled scent of endless small life that makes of the jungle a teeming
city in itself. Overhead, little Nobar, the monkey, sat on a low-hanging
branch and scolded roundly the two-legged creature in the trail below.
Yes, it was good to be free again. Good to know the pure pleasure of
unlimited vistas of trees and plains. A vision of his father's caves and
the members of his tribe rose before him, bringing the pangs of
homesickness. But superimposed on the familiar scene came, unbidden, the
lovely face and softly rounded figure of Dylara.
Siha veered sharply and came sweeping at right angles across the path.
Tharn stiffened for strong in his nostrils was the scent of Tarlok, the
leopard. He was instantly alert--a wary jungle denizen who wheeled and
faced upwind, eyes narrowed, the sharp blade of flint ready in his right
hand.
The strength of the great cat's scent faded as the creature moved
farther away. Whether or not it had caught Tharn's scent did not
interest the cave-man, now; a retreating danger ceased to be of
interest.
For a few minutes Tharn carefully went over the floor of the trail at
the point where the abduction had taken place, as well as the
neighboring undergrowth. Soon he found the several hiding places of the
Hairy Ones; and a bit later he came upon the delicate footmarks of
Alurna within the trail itself. One of these prints was almost
obliterated by the broad square mark of a great naked foot; it was here
Mog's initial leap had ended beside the girl.
Dropping to hands and knees, Tharn placed sensitive nostrils close to
the marks. To that unbelievably keen organ was borne the individual
scent spoor of Alurna, as well as that of Mog, the sullen. Immediately
there were engraved on Tharn's memory, scent impressions he would
recognize among a hundred others for a long time to come.
He found more of Mog's footprints, all leading along the path and away
from Sephar. He followed these, increasing his pace when they showed no
indication of swerving from the trail. Satisfied that locating Alurna's
captor was only a matter of following the path underfoot, Tharn went on.
He felt no inclination to hurry. Too long had he been denied freedom
from supervision. The sooner he found the missing girl, the sooner he
must return to Sephar--even though he and Dylara were to be freed the
moment he returned.
* * * * *
As he strolled along, he was reminded of the bow and arrows hanging at
his back--these and a stone knife and a grass rope were the weapons he
had chosen when preparing to leave Sephar.
The bow, he found, was fashioned from a hard black wood. Its inner
surface was nearly flat; the outer quite round. Both ends were
gracefully tapered, each notched to hold a string of catgut.
The arrows were made from the same wood as the bow. Their heads were of
flint, painstakingly shaped into the likeness of a small leaf, and
exceedingly sharp. Each head was fitted snugly into a deep groove,
packed about with a clay-like substance and hardened by fire until
nearly impossible to loosen. Near the butt of each arrow a thin rounded
bit of wood had been inserted to guide its flight.
Bordering the trail some fifty paces ahead, stood a small tree. During
some recent storm a lightning bolt had torn a jagged streak in its bole,
close to the ground, leaving a strip of white wood gleaming in the sun.
Partly through accident and partly by clear reasoning, Tharn drew the
bow with the finished technique of a veteran archer. His left arm,
stiffly extended, pointed straight at the selected mark; his right hand,
fingers hooked about the string, came smoothly back to a point just
below the lobe of his right ear.
There sounded a singing "twang" and a polished bolt flashed in the
sunlight, passed the tree's bole by a good foot and disappeared into the
foliage.
Tharn ruefully rubbed an angry welt on his left wrist where the
bowstring had stung him. He understood, now, why many of Sephar's
warriors wore wristbands.
With his knife he hacked off a strip of his loin cloth. This he bound
about his left wrist, then took up the bow, his chin set in determined
lines.
On his third attempt he hit the mark, sending an arrowhead deep into the
center of the white patch.
The cave-man all but shouted aloud. Lovingly he ran his palms over the
black wood. No matter what he had suffered at Sepharian hands, they had
repaid many times over by disclosing to him the power in a gut-strung
branch. Now in truth was he lord of the jungle! He pictured Sadu dead, a
few well-placed arrows in his carcass. And shaggy-coated Conta, the
cave-bear; of what protection his tough hide against such keen-tipped
shafts?
Clearly, Tharn had forgotten the mission that had sent him into the
jungle. Everything ceased to exist for him except the bow in his hands
and the quiver of arrows at his back. Although he continued on toward
the west, his progress was slow and uncertain; for the cave-man was
determined to become an expert bowman without delay.
* * * * *
At first he was content to use nothing more difficult than tree trunks
as targets; but as he increased in skill his ambition led him to seek
more difficult marks.
Nobar, the monkey, industriously occupied in searching the hairs on his
belly for dried bits of dead skin, almost fell from his perch in fright
as something streaked past his nose with a vicious hiss. With the nimble
alacrity of his kind he rocketed thirty feet upward, where, from a
swaying vine, he hurled a torrent of verbal abuse at the grinning youth
in the trail below.
The hours sped by, but Tharn never noticed. At first he lost almost
every arrow he shot, but little by little his skill was increasing. He
attempted drawing the bow with either hand; he sought to release a
second arrow before the first had struck; he shot at birds on the wing.
Darkness came upon him without warning. Then it was he remembered he had
not eaten since morning. An inventory of his supply of arrows revealed
only eight remained of the full two dozen he had brought from Sephar.
He would sleep now. In the morning he would find food and water. And he
would make his kill with an arrow--of that he was determined. The bow
had proved a wonderful toy; when Dyta came Tharn would prove its
practical worth....
* * * * *
With the first rays of the morning sun Tharn slid from his arboreal
couch and set out at a rapid trot along the trail into the west. An hour
later he was crossing the narrow belt of grasses bordering the precipice
overlooking a forest-filled valley.
Here he found where Mog and Alurna had started their tortuous descent.
Here, too, were signs of the passage of other Neanderthals, and those of
Vulcar's searching party.
Before descending the cliff, Tharn turned back to the plain in search of
food. Not long after, he had completed a successful stalk of Narjok, the
horned deer, and brought it down with a single arrow. After devouring a
generous quantity of raw flank-meat, he drank deep of the waters of a
small spring and came back to the brink of the precipice.
Tharn went down that vertical cliffside as though it were a broad
staircase. At the base he found a tangle of overlapping footsteps
leading straight toward a game trail leading into the nearby jungle.
Toward its mouth moved the young giant; and so confident was he that
Alurna had been carried along this path that only by chance did he keep
from losing valuable time.
As the Cro-Magnard neared the trees, the undergrowth parted with a
slight rustle, and Gubo, the hyena, slunk deeper into the forest.
At the first sound of disturbed brush, Tharn had pivoted about and with
unthinkable quickness unslung his bow and fitted an arrow into place. At
sight of cowardly Gubo he smiled and relaxed; but before he turned back
to the trail, he saw signs of a recent struggle in the matted grass
close by. It might have nothing to do with the business at hand--and,
again, it might.
A brief investigation gave him the complete picture. Here, Mog had gone
down beneath Sadu; a few paces away were the broken grasses where Alurna
had been tossed. He knew, without troubling to look, that Mog's bones
were bleaching behind yonder wall of verdure.
Well, the Hairy One was dead; it would save Tharn the task of killing
him. Now all that remained was to take the trail of the frightened girl
at the place where she had plunged blindly into the dark waste of
jungle. She could not have gotten far; and, except for the unlikely
chance that one of the big cats had pulled her down, his mission should
be finished before nightfall.
Delaying no longer, Tharn took up the trail of the princess, forging
rapidly ahead and following with ease the evidence of her hurried
flight.
Soon he came to the tiny clearing in which Alurna had spent the previous
night. Circling about, he quickly picked up her trail out of the glade,
went on across a short stretch of jungle and out onto the banks of a
little stream.
Here he found traces of small sandals in the soft mud. That these had
not been even partially obliterated by prowling beasts was evidence of
the spoor's freshness.
By this time the mid-day heat was at its strongest. Tharn paused long
enough to slake his thirst, then set out along the same pathway taken by
Alurna not long before.
A half hour later he was moving steadily ahead at a half trot, expecting
to come upon the girl at any moment.
Suddenly he came to a full stop, head thrown back, sensitive nostrils
searching the light breeze. And then he moved--as lightning moves.
Only the trembling of leaves marked where he had entered the trees
overhead.