Читать книгу The Lost World MEGAPACK® - Lin Carter - Страница 67

CHAPTER 23

THUNDERING DOOM!

Blinking with dazed relief in the sudden brilliance of day, Darya emerged from a cleft in the rock at the further side of the Peaks of Peril, gazing about her tremulously.

The cavern had indeed bisected the bulk of the mountain, and now the jungle girl stepped forth into the clean air and warm daylight, thankful to have escaped from the monsters of the mountain peaks.

She was weary and hungry and dirty and dishevelled, but she was also unharmed. Before her stretched a narrow strip of beach washed by the salty waves of the Sogar-Jad. A small stream of fresh water wound its way down the slope to mingle with the sea, and it was fringed on either side with dense bushes.

Glimpsing the gurgling little brook, the Cro-Magnon girl was suddenly mindful of her sorry condition.

Dried blood from the carcass of the uld she had slain covered her back and shoulders, and her hands and arms and legs were filthy from crawling through black, noisome caves.

She paused and looked about her at the sloping ground, the narrow stretch of sandy beach, and the misty waters of the Sogar-Jad, which could be glimpsed shining through the interstices of the tall, fronded calamites which rose beside the prehistoric sea. Nowhere in view did the girl discern the slightest sign of animal or of human life, nor did aught her keen senses could detect suggest to her the presence of danger.

With a small sigh of relief, the weary girl unfastened her abbreviated garments of soiled, bedraggled fur, and cast them aside. For a moment she stood slim and naked at the edge of the little stream. Then she stepped daintily into the gurgling waters, waded out to the middle, and began to wash her beautiful young body.

The cold, pure water stung the many small cuts and abrasions on her arms, legs and knees, got from climbing through the stony caverns in the heart of the mountain. She splashed the chill water on her perfect breasts and scrubbed the dust and filth from her smooth thighs, sleek rounded calves and supple flanks, using handfulls of sand from the river-bottom in lieu of soap to scrub the stain of travel from her glowing flesh.

The icy wetness of her bath revived the flagging spirits of the Cro-Magnon princess and refreshed her weary and aching limbs. Floating on her back, she relaxed blissfully, enjoying her respite from exertion and danger.

That it might be only a momentary respite did not escape her thoughts; alas, it was to be even more brief than she could have guessed.…

* * * *

As she relaxed, letting the cold waters of the gurgling stream lave! and refresh her naked limbs, the young Cro-Magnon girl permitted her mind to drift back over the adventures and perils where-through she had so recently passed.

She wondered what had become of Jorn the Hunter and of the querulous, waspish old man from the Upper World…and her thoughts dwelt for a time on his tall, strong comrade with the crisp black hair and clear and steady gray eyes…did Eric Carstairs yet live, or had he succumbed to one or another of the numberless monsters of Zanthodon?

She rather hoped that somehow he had survived the many hazards of the wilderness…although it did not seem likely to her that she should ever set eyes upon him again.

Busied with her memories, letting the gushing river water drain the weariness and aching fatigue from her lithe young body, the girl dreamed lazily there, unmindful of the sharp, gloating eyes that lingered on her naked legs, sleek thighs and perfect young breasts.

From the concealment of the bushes which fringed the edges of the stream, a tall and curiously clad form crouched, staring at Darya through the leaves as she innocently bared her nude beauty amid the clear water.

The first sign she had that she was not alone came as swarthy hands clutched her bare shoulder and she turned to stare up into a cruel, grinning, bearded face.

And she screamed—

* * * *

As One-Eye turned to seek the source of that peculiar drumming thunder which caused the earth to shake, fear suddenly smote him to the heart and the power of speech deserted his frozen tongue.

The stone axe he had clenched in his hairy hand now dropped from his suddenly nerveless fingers as the Apeman flinched in unholy terror from that which he saw bearing down upon him upon the plain.

A long, moving mass of dark, lumbering forms, veiled in rising dust, with the scarlet of crackling flames behind them, goading them on!

Like moving mountains they were, like walking hills of dark russet fur, their sail-like ears flapping, trunks lifted to give voice to shrill squeals of sheer panic, and the daylight gleamed dimly on their fantastic, curling tusks.

His tongue frozen with shock, all One-Eye could do to warn his fellows was to extend one trembling arm and point with numb and shaking fingers.

But from their secure niche behind the trees, Xask and Fumio saw his gesture. They had lurked here in safety, permitting the Drugars to charge the warriors of Thandar…and now they were doubly glad they had not ventured forth from the security of the jungle’s edge.

By this time, all of the Cro-Magnon warriors had reached the safety of the woods, and there were none left upon the shallow little sandy knoll but the dead and some two score or more of the victorious Drugars of Kor who had survived this Stone Age version of Custer’s Last Stand. Demoralized by the inexplicable death of their High Chief, confused by the sudden flight of their enemies, the hulking Neanderthal men milled about, and only a few saw what the speechless OneEye was pointing at.

They turned to stare…and froze with utter horror!

The enormous herd of giant wooly mammoths which Jorn and the Professor had panicked into a stampede had traversed the plain, and were coming down like thunder upon the Apemen who stood, transfixed by fear, directly in the path of the maddened brutes.

It is to be doubted if the lumbering pachyderms even noticed the Neanderthal men who occupied the place wherethrough they desired to pass. If the small eyes of the mammoths did take notice, they cared little: for the fire was at their heels, its bitter, acrid smoke stinging their eyes and nostrils, and the fear of fire whelmed all other considerations from their maddened brains.

One-Eye uttered a shrill screech of terror, threw up his arms and vanished in a whirling cloud of dust as the first of the stampeding mammoths came thundering into the mob of confused, squalling Apemen.

Immense, padded feet drumming like thunder, shaking the earth, the stampede passed through and over the crowd of warriors, trampling them into the gore-drenched dust.

Only the barrier of the trees turned the stampede aside. For the great boles were set too thickly together for even the lumbering juggernauts to crush them down.

Within minutes, the herd had passed, leaving gory ruin behind where had stood the victorious Drugars of Kor. The mammoths dwindled in the distance, slowing their frenzied pace as the smoke left their nostrils. Slowing to a shuffle, the huge bulls ambled out into the plains again, guarding the females and the young.

A sudden drizzle soaked through the trees-one of those frequent, brief cloudbursts which arise so swiftly in the humid air and cloudy skies of Zanthodon.

The warm rain sluiced the earth, saturating the trampled grasses. The coals of the racing grassfire died to hissing embers.

The fire was over; and so was the invasion from Kor.

Lurking in the trees, Xask and Fumio exchanged a long glance.

“Let us begone from this place,” suggested the former vizier of Kor.

“A good idea,” agreed Fumio. “But where shall we go?”

“Anywhere else but here,” whispered Xask with an eloquent glance at the middle distance, where the warriors of Thandar were emerging from the underbrush to search for survivors and for unbroken weapons wherewith to arm themselves.

* * * *

A while later, having retrieved those of the arrows and spears which had remained unbroken when the trampling feet of the herd had driven them deep into the soft, spongy soil of the knoll, the warriors of Thandar entered the jungle again and sought a suitable place to make their camp and consider what next they should do.

When the last of the Cro-Magnons had vanished into the jungle, loose dirt heaved, and a filthy shape lurched into view, gasping for air but thankful to be alive.

It was none other than One-Eye! Somehow, miraculously, the Drugar chieftain had evaded the crushing feet of the trampling pachyderms by wedging his hairy body into a small gully. Later, when the hated Cro-Magnons had come to retrieve those of their weapons which had survived unbroken, the fearful Apeman had feigned death. Among so many broken, crushed corpses, the Thandarians may perchance be forgiven for overlooking one which yet lived.

Peering fearfully about, One-Eye scampered into the jungle, and clambered up a broad-limbed tree to rest and recover his courage. That he was the last of his kind on the mainland he knew all too well, for surely all of his fellows had been crushed to death under the feet of the stampeding mammoths.

From his perch atop a broad and level branch, he watched with red murder flaming in his one eye as the hated panjani strode down the jungle paths, disappearing amid the trees.

Among them he spied Eric Carstairs and Hurok the traitor.

And in his cruel and evil heart, the Neanderthal man swore to be avenged upon his enemies.