Dracula of the Apes 3

by G. Wells Taylor

  “I suspect some wild animal has bitten her,” Van Resen said, adjusting his eyeglasses. “Though I would have expected more damage to the surrounding tissues.”

  Indeed, the two marks he’d seen earlier appeared to have been enlarged, and the rims enflamed.

  “It was an animal?” Mrs. Quarrie said, holding the girl’s hand.

  “Of course!” the scientist answered sharply, lifting the cloth he’d used upon Lilly. Sniffing it he breathed the word: “Moringa,” wishing again that he had access to the instruments he used in scientific inquiry.

  “I suspect some local creature has attacked the poor girl,” he said, before clamping his hand around his own throat. “This hold is taken with the mouth to asphyxiate the victim. In which case the damage of the ‘bite’ would be superfluous.” The scientist reached across to calm the older woman by patting her wrist, but she drew her hand away.

  “In this case, the predator was interrupted.” He watched Holmes push the partition wall aside and cross the room to sit by the fireplace. “We may have Mr. Holmes to thank for that.”

  “Look, doctor!” Mr. Quarrie said, rising to stand at the window. The greenery around it was etched against a deep purple sky. “The sunrise can’t be far off.”

  “Perhaps then we’ll find out why Lilly put herself in such danger,” Van Resen said, getting to his feet and joining Quarrie at the window where the scientist’s eyes narrowed. He was certain that he could see remnants of black mist melting into the grass.

  Miles to the east Gazda hurled himself from tree to tree, uncaring of life or limb, certain that he had to recover the other night ape female at any cost. If Lilly’s tribe was like Goro’s and his own, then a high price would be placed upon family and each member in it. This dark-haired female was well loved by his new, young mate, nesting with her and sharing many attributes, so she would be prized by the other males as well.

  To travel at such speed was simple so close to his lair. For years Gazda had cut trails in the jungle, leaving clues for himself by removing strips of bark and cutting notches in the trunks of trees and branches so the light wood stood out in contrast for the night ape’s nocturnal eyes.

  The King of the Apes also knew the trails that animals used to move quickly through the jungle, lofty arboreal lanes for avoiding predators, and other paths that led to food and water.

  Most of these came off the greater tracks made by the elephant Magnuh and his herd of giants, and with these familiar ways etched in Gazda’s memory, he had little trouble gaining on his quarry.

  That did not rule out a necessity for jungle lore and woodcraft, for the night was dark, and many creatures moved through the forest to confuse the trail that he pursued.

  So, Gazda was forced to halt at times to study the spoor on branches: the scent of crushed leaves that spoke of time and space; the shape of twigs snapped away; and boughs broken and bent in the direction his quarry carried the brown-haired female.

  Amid this flurry of action, the night ape identified the creature that had stolen her. First he found a tuft of mangy fur caught in a splintered branch, and later the stink of infection lurking, before he identified the crippled ape by the taste of brown saliva droplets on broad green leaves.

  Omag had returned to steal a mate, and by the ease with which the creature kept ahead of his pursuit, Gazda’s own trail might have led him to her.

  The night ape did not know the brown-haired female, but he still shuddered remembering the traitor’s gruesome cave.

  Gazda snarled as he ran through the treetops; his grimace exposing the fighting fangs that gleamed in the growing daylight. Dawn would drain his strength he knew, but no sign of this coming weakness was yet shown in the rippling thews that flung him through the twilight.

  There was a female to rescue, and many old debts to settle.

  As his fury reached its boiling point, he halted on a stout branch where throwing back his head he beat upon his swelling breast and roared the challenging cry of a bull ape.

  CHAPTER 17 – By Vine and Branch

  Many miles ahead, Omag recognized the night ape’s roar, and while he did not remember it voiced with such passion or power, the sound did little to alter the crippled ape’s resolve. He hurtled on instead, emboldened by his knowledge of the growing sunlight’s effect upon his foe.

  Omag knew that the power of the sun’s rays weakened his night ape challenger, and he was certain that if it did not bring sleep to Gazda outright, it would still drain him of his uncanny strength and leave him no different than any other ape.

  Powerful, but no match for a silverback like Omag.

  The exile and traitor Sip-sip had spent the last few weeks watching his old tribe for sign of Gazda, as word had reached him that the night ape had claimed the crown.

  That thought burned Omag deeply for had he not slain the mighty Goro and then his foolish son Ulok in a single challenge? True, Goro’s tribe had resisted the right of Omag’s rule that followed, but there was no precedent to allow the crown to fall to Eeda’s foundling.

  Life in exile had been difficult for Omag, and had ended in the deaths of his loyal blackbacks who had died by the fangs of jungle beasts and bone-face arrows and two had even fallen to the crippled ape’s axe-head cane.

  Deposed King Omag had led his retinue of six loyalists east to the river that bordered Goro’s land, and from there to the forested cliffs near the Bakwaniri village, thinking he might feed his followers on their pungent flesh, even making the bold promise to claim the bone-face lair behind the pointed sticks.

  But something had changed in the months since he’d last fed upon Bakwaniri, for the jungle had been filled with their hunters, and in each direction the outcasts turned there had been bone-faces and flying arrows. Driven in retreat to rocky lands by Omag’s cave had given them poor rest and no comfort for there was little but rotten bones to eat, though two of his unfortunate blackbacks had provided feasts for other creatures.

  Left alone finally, and with the flesh of Bakwaniri females beyond his reach, Omag had decided to return to the tribe in Goro’s lands and challenge the new king for the crown. He had expected Baho to have taken up the mantle, and believed it so when he first set his single eye upon the apes at a distance for there he had recognized the old silverback’s balding crest.

  It was only when the crippled ape advanced in the shadows and communicated with a blackback sympathizer, Dogo son of Tobog, that Sip-sip had learned the shocking news.

  Gazda was King of the Apes? Without threats, display or battle, and sanctified by the blood of old females? Pah! Eeda’s freak had been given the crown by cowards and fools.

  Omag claimed the kingship still by tribal law, by challenge and the Two Trees, and by the blood of not one, but two mighty silverbacks.

  He was king—no other.

  Omag’s disease had progressed steadily during his time in exile with isolation, pursuit by his enemies and poor nutrition to accelerate the blight.

  Grizzled grew his mangy hide, marked by blisters, pocked by open sores and darkened by rotting flesh. Hideous he was to look upon with but one eye, his right, to confound his depth perception, opposite the open sore that cratered the other side of his head. There his mouth gaped around a festering wound. Suppurating gums showed holes where splintered molars had loosened and fallen out—though three of his grim fighting fangs remained.

  Omag’s spine had twisted to further hunch his back, and though the bones in his arms and legs were bent and bowed; a bull ape he yet remained in muscle and fury. He would challenge this night ape upstart and kill him with his axe-head cane, for had the weapon not slain two silverback champions already?

  And there was more than wounded pride behind Omag’s choice, for alone in the jungle without his tribe, death awaited the crippled ape at every turn—he had no choice but to reclaim his crown.

  So far, his luck had held, for after following Gazda to Fur-nose’s lair, Omag had found the pale-skinned female that hung in his twisted
grasp.

  She would make a remarkable consort for a returning king or should the whimsy or fancy strike him a screaming meal to mark his victory.

  For now, all the crippled ape need do was find a defensible place to make his challenge, and to do so when the sun was in the sky. There was no need to have the tribe as witness for this way could he bring results without mention of his weapon.

  Instead, a finer tale of tooth and claw could be told to restart his interrupted reign...and after that could he save his axe for doubters and dissent.

  A clearing in the jungle would be best, where the light could fall upon his opponent undiffused to draw out his strength as blood poured from an open wound.

  And if Omag escaped pursuit? Then he could claim the kingship later, when the soft white flesh of his captive had satisfied his two unwholesome cravings.

  He clung to the female’s wrist with the long toes of his left foot, while clutching the axe in the other to free his hands for traveling branch to branch and vine to tree.

  The crippled ape shook the female when she started screaming, and pondered whether it best to dash her brains out to travel unnoticed, and in peace; but he hesitated again, for the female alive might be held to weaken Gazda’s spirit.

  And there was no time for when the crippled ape stopped to catch his breath high in the branches of an iroko tree he saw behind him shaking treetops, dark green in the growing light—and from glance to glance a pair of burning red eyes glared back, throwing crimson anger from the jungle shadows like bursts fire.

  Gazda was coming.

  Omag began again his breakneck charge, now leaping, then flinging himself recklessly, until the space grew greater between the forest giants through which he raced, and a broad expanse opened before him that would require he leap much farther, so picking up speed he swung past the springing young branches with the screaming female in tow.

  While under him the jungle floor disappeared behind a carpet of leaves 200 feet below.

  Omag sprang to catch a vine and swing long and fast on a steep pitch—to cross this broad clearing; his captive screaming as they picked up speed. They fell until the vine snapped taut, and a terrified haze came upon the female’s mind.

  Omag looked back as the jungle night kept lifting but saw nothing now in the shadowy green. Had Gazda in his haste sped past? Had Goro’s great hunter lost the crippled Omag’s trail?

  He panted gleefully as he swung on the creaking vine, the teeth on the left side of his face exposed now by disease and by the tearing wind as he hurtled arcing upward.

  But a great concussion came as something rammed into the crippled ape at speed to send shards of flickering light before his eye—impacting and almost causing him to lose his grip upon the vine.

  Cursed Gazda!

  The night ape had circled swiftly ahead and in this fashion came upon his quarry from the east, where on another vine he had rammed into Omag with great force.

  Gazda’s body shuddered as they hit, and his weakening fingers lost their grip upon his vine for his strength was departing as swiftly as the night. He lashed out and caught a hold upon the female’s leg, before lunging from there to Omag’s vine that spun and twirled through the open space. The impact as they collided had forced their disparate momentums into chaotic turning and twisting.

  Gazda slid some 40 feet down the vine before catching hold, but quickly scrambled up to where Omag juggled his burdens, aware that the hurtling course they followed would take them spinning through the open space far from any other vines or trees.

  They swept along a revolving course upon the vine that careening wildly, pulled the riders on a speedy arc, and it was then that more evil hatched in Omag’s mind, for glaring down the vine to where his enemy climbed; the crippled ape bared his dripping fangs in a hideous snarl of triumph. Eye gleaming with malice, he lifted the axe-head cane in his powerful right foot gauging the distance to Gazda’s skull as the night ape climbed closer.

  Seeing this, Gazda drew his long knife to block the blow, misreading his foe’s desire as Omag had intended. And taking advantage of this opportunity, Omag swung the axe with all his strength at the vine to which the night ape clung below him.

  Omag smirked with his ragged, red maw, pleased with the startled look on Gazda’s white face as he realized too late the crippled ape’s intent.

  As the night ape dropped toward the jungle floor, Omag panted with pleasure. The force from the heavy, whipping vine flung Gazda end over end, before a hundred feet down he struck the tops of several young trees, shearing them off in his descent.

  Omag wasted no time climbing hand over hand with his burdens gripped tight in his powerful feet, and waiting there, rode the uppermost stretch of the severed strand until it circled close to the leafy branches of a kapok tree. He slung the female over his shoulder and scrambled along the limb toward the thorny trunk.

  The crippled ape climbed down, dropping branch to branch until he slid and jumped; his claws raking great sheets of bark free from the buttressed roots that twisted in the black earth on the jungle floor.

  Omag bellowed for his enemy, emboldened by the speedy deaths of Goro and Ulok, silverbacks that had died at his misshapen hands, the same hooked fingers that yearned for Gazda’s throat.

  He flung the pale-skinned female aside and shifted the axe from his foot to his right hand before lurching across the clearing to the place where he had last seen Gazda fall.

  But there was no need to search, for the night ape rose up suddenly from the cover of ferns and saplings many yards away.

  Omag was pleased by the wounds that covered his enemy’s form—branches and bark had lifted the skin from arm, leg and shoulder and in many places torn the flesh beneath. The crippled ape beat the earth with his fists, and panted his great humor at the pale and shredded face from which the bruised eyes still blazed red.

  When Omag saw the crimson gaze he remembered the night ape’s defiant nature, so the evil ape conceived a blow that would cut beneath this last vestige of pride and deep into his enemy’s heart.

  The crippled ape charged back toward the white-skinned female with murder on his mind. He would kill her and cut Gazda’s head from his battered body before the upstart could recognize his loss!

  CHAPTER 18 – Forest Rescue

  Glancing back, Omag saw the night ape stagger, pitching forward through the undergrowth to land upon his knees. He regained his feet, and balanced his shambling upright gait with the flexible saplings that grew unevenly to every side.

  Omag crouched over the female that still lay in a heap upon the ground. He grabbed her hair, and stood upright with his weapon raised.

  Gazda halted.

  “Omag is King of the Apes,” the crippled ape lisped with a shower of brown drool. “Gazda must submit!”

  “Kings do not kill females,” Gazda said weakly, staggering in place.

  “Submit!” Omag roared and lifted the white-skinned female by the hair. With his red-rimmed eye on the night ape, he pressed the axe-head to her slender neck.

  But Gazda dropped to a knee, before struggling to his feet again where he swayed, smiling to show his long fangs.

  He rasped, “Cowards kill females and infants.” The night ape curled his arm and flung something across the distance between them.

  A small stone rapped against Omag’s beetling brow. As the crippled ape pressed the back of his hand to the bloody wound, Gazda’s fangs shone in an insolent grin.

  Omag glanced at the blood on his hand, and at the stone on the ground.

  “I had no fruit to throw this time,” the night ape laughed, before he pursed his lips and made the sound: “Sip-sip!”

  Enraged, Omag threw the female to the ground, and beating his chest he bellowed savagely. His mangled lips flew aside as spit and pus spattered the ground at his feet that stamped and pounded the forest floor like a drum.

  He snapped his long fighting fangs in anticipation of Gazda’s neck. Snarling, the great ape slashed the earth
with his axe again and again to open great black wounds—and then he charged!

  Gazda roared and drawing his knife ran toward Omag’s hurtling mass. Both great predators met with such force that sparks were struck as their weapons collided with a deafening CLANG that forced Gazda’s blade twirling from his day-weakened fingers.

  Before he could reclaim the weapon Omag swung the axe-head, narrowly missing Gazda’s skull as he tumbled out of range. Still injured by his fall, with his power diminished in the sun, the night ape could barely get his feet under him before the crippled ape pressed his advantage, surging forward with weapon raised and fighting fangs flashing.

  Gazda rolled to the side to miss the downward rushing axe-head that chopped so heavily into a thick tree root that it stuck.

  Omag grunted, the powerful muscles on his twisted arms bulging and quivering as he heaved but was unable to gain leverage on the broken handle that protruded from the axe-head.

  With Gazda struggling to his knees so near, the frustrated Sip-sip lunged out and stamped on the night ape’s back, toes gripping a pale arm to drag him near, as the crippled ape’s long fingers wrapped around the axe-head, wrenching the weapon to pry it free.

  Gazda contorted on the ground, and sank his fangs into his opponent’s calf.

  Omag shrieked in pain and fury before he kicked the night ape’s head to break the hold.

  Gazda wriggled and turned, attempting to slide out from under Omag, but the crippled ape had a solid grip on his arm with the long toes of his right foot. Sip-sip moved quickly then and grabbed Gazda’s free arm with the left foot before he dropped his full weight on the night ape’s abdomen.

  “Omag is King of Apes!” the crippled ape cried, finally wrenching his axe-head free and holding it awkwardly by the blade over Gazda’s chest—the sharp end of the splintered axe handle was pointed downward like a stake.

  “Omag is Sip-sip!” Gazda taunted from the jungle floor, twisting in his enemy’s grasp with the last of his strength.