THE FIGHT WITH THE KALKARS
The tunnel in which I found myself and along which Nah-ee-lah led me
toward the city of Laythe was remarkable in several particulars. It was
largely of natural origin, seemingly consisting of a series of caves
which may have been formed by bubbles in the cooling lava of the
original molten flow and which had later been connected by man to form a
continuous subterranean corridor. The caves themselves were usually more
or less spherical in shape and the debris from the connecting
passageways had been utilized to fill the bottoms of them to the level
of the main floor of the passageway. The general trend of the tunnel was
upward from the point at which we had entered it, and there was a
constant draught of air rushing along it in the same direction in which
we were moving, assuring me that it was undoubtedly well ventilated for
its full length. The walls and ceiling were coated with a substance of
which radium was evidently one of the ingredients, since even after we
had lost sight of the entrance the passageway was well illuminated. We
had been moving along in silence for quite a little distance when I
finally addressed Nah-ee-lah.
“It must seem good,” I said, “to travel again this familiar tunnel of
your native city. I know how happy I should be were I thus approaching
my own birthplace.”
“I am glad to be returning to Laythe,” she said, “for many reasons, but
for one I am sorry, and as for this passageway it is scarcely more
familiar to me than to you, since I have traversed it but once before in
my life and that when I was a little girl and came here with my father
and his court upon the occasion of his periodical inspection of the
passageway, which is now practically never used.”
“If you are not familiar with the tunnel,” I asked, “are you sure that
there is no danger of our going astray at some fork or branch?”
“There is but the one passageway,” she replied, “which leads from the
crater to Laythe.”
“And how long is the tunnel?” I asked. “Will we soon enter the city?”
“No,” she replied, “it is a great distance from the crater to Laythe.”
We had covered some little distance at this time, possibly five or six
miles, and she had scarcely ceased speaking when a turn in the
passageway led us into a cave of larger proportions than any through
which we had previously passed and from the opposite side of which two
passageways diverged.
“I thought there were no branches,” I remarked.
“I do not understand it,” she said. “There is no branch from the tunnel
of Laythe.”
“Could it be possible that we are in the wrong tunnel?” I asked, “and
that this does not lead to Laythe?”
“A moment before I should have been sure that we were in the right
tunnel,” she replied, “but now, Julian, I do not know, for never had I
heard of any branch of our own tunnel.”
We had crossed the cave and were standing between the openings of the
two divergent passageways.
“Which one shall we take?” I asked, but again she shook her head.
“I do not know,” she replied.
“Listen!” I cautioned her. “What was that?” For I was sure that I had
heard a sound issuing from one of the tunnels.
We stood peering into an aperture which revealed about a hundred yards
of the passageway before an abrupt turn hid the continuation of it from
our view. We could hear what now resolved itself into the faint sound of
voices approaching us along the corridor, and then quite suddenly the
figure of a man appeared around the corner of the turn. Nah-ee-lah
leaped to one side out of sight, drawing me with her.
“A Kalkar!” she whispered. “Oh, Julian, if they find us we are lost.”
“If there is only one of them I can take care of him,” I said.
“There will be more than one,” she replied; “there will be many.”
“Then, let us return the way we came and make our way to the top of the
crater’s rim before they discover us. We can throw their hooked poles
into the crater, including the one which we use to ascend from the mouth
of the tunnel, thus effectually preventing any pursuit.”
“We cannot cross this room again to the tunnel upon the opposite side
without being apprehended,” she replied. “Our only hope is in hiding in
this other tunnel until they have passed and trusting to chance that we
meet no one within it.”
“Come, then,” I said. “I dislike the idea of flying like a scared
rabbit, but neither would there be any great wisdom in facing armed men
without a single weapon of defense.”
Even as we had whispered thus briefly together, we found the voices from
the other tunnel had increased and I thought that I noted a tone of
excitement in them, though the speakers were still too far away for us
to understand their words. We moved swiftly up the branch tunnel,
Nah-ee-lah in the lead, and after passing the first turn we both felt
comparatively safe, for Nah-ee-lah was sure that the men who had
interrupted our journey were a party of hunters on their way to the
outer world by means of the crater through which we had entered the
tunnel and that they would not come up the branch in which we were
hiding. Thus believing, we halted after we were safely out of sight and
hearing of the large cave we had just left.
“That man was a Kalkar,” said Nah-ee-lah, “which means that we are in
the wrong tunnel and that we must retrace our steps and continue our
search for Laythe upon the surface of the ground.” Her voice sounded
tired and listless, as though hope had suddenly deserted her brave
heart. We were standing shoulder to shoulder in the narrow corridor and
I could not resist the impulse to place an arm about her and comfort
her.
“Do not despair, Nah-ee-lah,” I begged her; “we are no worse off than we
have been and much better off than before we escaped the Va-gas of
Ga-va-go. Then do you not recall that you mentioned one drawback to your
return to Laythe—that you might be as well off here as there? What was
the reason, Nah-ee-lah?”
“Ko-tah wants me in marriage,” she replied. “Ko-tah is very powerful. He
expects one day to be Jemadar of Laythe. This he cannot be while I live
unless he marries me.”
“Do you wish to marry him?” I asked.
“No,” she said; “not now. Before—” she hesitated—“before I left Laythe
I did not care so very much; but now I know that I cannot wed with
Ko-tah.”
“And your father,” I continued, “what of him—will he insist that you
marry Ko-tah?”
“He cannot do otherwise,” replied Nah-ee-lah, “for Ko-tah is very
powerful. If my father refuses to permit me to marry him Ko-tah may
overthrow him, and when my father is dead, should I still refuse to
marry Ko-tah he may slay me, also, and then become Jemadar easily, for
the blood of Jemadars flows in his veins.”
“It appears to me, Nah-ee-lah, that you will be about as badly off at
home as anywhere else in Va-nah. It is too bad that I cannot take you to
my own Earth, where you would be quite safe, and I am sure, happy.”
“I wish that you might, Julian,” she replied simply.
I was about to reply when she placed slim fingers upon my lips. “Hush,
Julian!” she whispered, “they are following us up this corridor. Come
quickly, we must escape before they overtake us,” and so saying, she
turned and ran quickly along the corridor which led neither of us knew
whither.
But we were soon to find out, for we had gone but a short distance when
we came to the tunnel’s end in a large circular chamber, at one end of
which was a rostrum upon which were a massive, elaborately carved desk
and a chair of similar design. Below the rostrum were arranged other
chairs in rows, with a broad aisle down the center. The furniture,
though of peculiar design and elaborately carved with strange figures of
unearthly beasts and reptiles, was not, for all of that, markedly
dissimilar to articles of the same purpose fabricated upon Earth. The
chairs had four legs, high backs and broad arms, seeming to have been
designed equally for durability, service, and comfort.
I glanced quickly around the apartment, as we first entered, only taking
in the details later, but I saw that there was no other opening than the
one through which we had entered.
“We will have to wait here, Nah-ee-lah,” I said. “Perhaps, though, all
will be well—the Kalkars may prove friendly.”
She shook her head negatively. “No,” she said, “they will not be
friendly.”
“What will they do to us?” I asked.
“They will make slaves of us,” she replied, “and we shall spend the
balance of our lives working almost continuously until we drop with
fatigue under the cruelest of taskmakers, for the Kalkars hate us of
Laythe and will hesitate at nothing that will humiliate or injure us.”
She had scarcely ceased speaking when there appeared in the entrance of
the cave the figure of a man about my own height dressed in a tunic
similar to Nah-ee-lah’s but evidently made of leather. He carried a
knife slung in a scabbard depending from a shoulder belt, and in his
right hand he grasped a slender lance. His eyes were close set upon
either side of a prominent, hooked nose. They were watery, fishy, blue
eyes, and the hair growing profusely above his low forehead was flaxen
in color. His physique was admirable, except for a noticeable stoop. His
feet were very large and his gait awkward when he moved. Behind him I
could see the heads and shoulders of others. They stood there grinning
at us for a moment, most malevolently, it seemed to me, and then they
entered the cave—a full dozen of them. There were several types, with
eyes and hair of different colors, the former ranging from blue to
brown, the latter from light blond to almost black.
As they emerged from the mouth of the tunnel they spread out and
advanced slowly toward us. We were cornered like rats in a trap. How I
longed for the feel of my automatic at my hip! I envied them their
slender spears and their daggers. If I could have but these I might have
a chance at least to take Nah-ee-lah out of their clutches and save her
from the hideous fate of slavery among the Kalkars, for I had guessed
what such slavery would mean to her from the little that she had told
me, and I had guessed, too, that she would rather die than submit to it.
For my own part, life held little for me; I had long since definitely
given up any hope of ever returning to my own world, or of finding the
ship and being reunited with West and Jay and Norton. There came upon me
at that moment, however, a sense of appreciation of the fact that since
we had left the village of the No-vans I had been far from unhappy, nor
could I attribute this to aught else than the companionship of
Nah-ee-lah—a realization that convinced me that I should be utterly
miserable were she to be taken from me now. Was I to submit supinely
then, to capture and slavery for myself and worse than death for
Nah-ee-lah, with the assurance of consequent separation from her? No. I
held up my hand as a signal for the advancing Kalkars to halt.
“Stop!” I commanded. “Before you advance farther I wish to know your
intentions toward us. We entered this tunnel, mistaking it for that
which led to the city of my companion. Permit us to depart in peace and
all will be well.”
“All will be well, anyway,” replied the leader of the Kalkars. “You are
a strange creature, such as I have never before seen in Va-nah. Of you
we know nothing except that you are not of the Kalkars, and therefore an
enemy of the Kalkars, but this other is from Laythe.”
“You will not permit us to go in peace, then?” I demanded.
He laughed sneeringly. “Nor in any other way,” he said.
I had been standing in the aisle, with my hand upon one of the chairs
near the rostrum and now I turned to Nah-ee-lah who was standing close
beside me.
“Come,” I said to her, “follow me; stay close behind me.”
Several of the Kalkars were coming down the main aisle toward us, and as
I turned toward them from speaking to Nah-ee-lah, I raised the chair
which my hand had been resting upon, and swinging it quickly around my
head hurled it full in the face of the leader. As he went down
Nah-ee-lah and I ran forward, gaining a little toward the opening of the
tunnel, and then without pausing I hurled another chair and a third and
a fourth, in rapid succession. The Kalkars tried to bring us down with
their lances, but they were so busy dodging chairs that they could not
cast their weapons accurately, and even those few which might otherwise
have struck us were warded off by my rather remarkable engines of
defense.
There had been four Kalkars advancing toward us down the center aisle.
The balance of the party had divided, half of it circling the cave to
the left and the other half to the right, with the evident intention of
coming up the center aisle from behind us. This maneuver had started
just before I commenced hurling chairs at the four directly in front of
us, and now when those who had intended to take us from the rear
discovered that we were likely to make our way through to the tunnel’s
entrance, some of them sprang toward us along the passageways between
the chairs, which necessitated my turning and devoting a moment’s
attention to them. One huge fellow was in the lead, coming across the
backs of the chairs leaping from seat to seat; and being the closest to
me, he was naturally my first target. The chairs were rather heavy and
the one that I let drive at him caught him full in the chest with an
impact that brought a howl from him and toppled him over across the
backs of the chairs behind him, where he hung limp and motionless. Then
I turned my attention again to those before us, all of whom had fallen
before my massive ammunition. Three of them lay still, but one of them
had scrambled to his feet and was in the very act of casting his lance
as I looked. I stopped the weapon with a chair and as the fellow went
down I caught a glimpse of Nah-ee-lah from the corners of my eyes as she
snatched the lance from the first Kalkar who had fallen and hurled it at
someone behind me. I heard a scream of rage and pain and then I turned
in time to see another of the Kalkars fall almost at my feet, the lance
imbedded in his heart.
The way before us was temporarily open, while the Kalkars behind us had
paused, momentarily, at least, in evident consternation at the havoc I
wrought with these unseemly weapons against which they had no defense.
“Get two knives and two lances from those who have fallen,” I cried to
Nah-ee-lah, “while I hold these others back.”
She did as I bade, and slowly we backed toward the mouth of the tunnel.
My chairs had accounted for half our enemies when at last we stood in
the opening, each armed with a lance and a knife.
“Now, run, Nah-ee-lah, as you never ran before,” I whispered to my
companion. “I can hold them off until you have reached the mouth of the
tunnel and clambered to the rim of the crater. If I am lucky, I will
follow you.”
“I will not leave you, Julian,” she replied, “we will go together or not
at all.”
“But you must, Nah-ee-lah,” I insisted, “it is for you that I have been
fighting them. What difference can it make in my fate where I am when in
Va-nah—all here are my enemies.”
She laid her hand gently upon my arm. “I will not leave you, Julian,”
she repeated, “and that is final.”
The Kalkars within the room were now advancing toward us menacingly.
“Halt!” I cried to them, “you see what fate your companions have met,
because you would not let us go in peace. That is all we ask. I am armed
now and it will be death to any who follow us.”
They paused and I saw them whispering together as Nah-ee-lah and I
backed along the corridor, a turn in which soon shut them from our view.
Then we wheeled and ran like deer along the winding passageway. I did
not feel very safe from capture at any time, but at least I breathed a
sigh of relief after we had passed the chamber from which the Kalkars
had run us into the _cul-de-sac_, and we had seen no sign of any other
of their kind. We heard no sound of pursuit, but that in itself meant
nothing, since the Kalkars are shod with soft leather sandals, the
material for which, like all their other leather trappings, is made of
the skins of Va-gas and of the prisoners from Laythe.
As we came to the pile of hooked poles which marked the last turn before
the entrance of the tunnel I breathed an inward sigh of relief.
Stooping, I gathered them all in my arms, and then we ran on to the
opening into the crater, where I cast all but one of the poles into the
abyss. That which I retained I hooked over the lip of the crater and
then, turning to Nah-ee-lah, I bade her ascend.
“You should have saved two of the poles,” she said, “and then we could
have ascended together; but I will make haste and you can follow me
immediately, for we do not know but that they are pursuing us. I cannot
imagine that they will let us escape thus easily.”
Even as she spoke I heard the soft patter of sandal shod feet up the
corridor.
“Make haste, Nah-ee-lah,” I cried; “they come!”
Climbing a pole is slow work at best, but when one is suspended over the
brink of a bottomless chasm and is none too sure of the security of the
hook that is holding the pole above, one must needs move cautiously.
Yet, even so, Nah-ee-lah scrambled upward so rapidly as to fill me with
apprehension for her safety. Nor were my fears entirely groundless, for,
standing in the mouth of the tunnel, where I could keep one eye upon
Nah-ee-lah and the other toward the turn around which my pursuers would
presently come in view, I saw the girl’s hands grasp the rim of the
crater at the very instant that the hook came loose and the pole dropped
past me into the abyss. I might have caught it as it fell, but my whole
mind was fixed upon Nah-ee-lah and her grave danger. Would she be able
to draw herself upward, or would she fall? I saw her straining
frantically to raise her body above the edge of the volcano, and then
from up the corridor behind me came an exultant cry and I turned to face
a brawny Kalkar who was racing toward me.