Thongor looked at himself and laughed. “I’m not a pretty sight, I fear. But if it’s a pretty sight you want to see, my princess, look yonder.” He pointed with his dripping sword to the gleaming silver hoard. There were heaps upon heaps of goblets, crowns, shields, breastplates, statues, as well as a number of utensils harder to place, things that might easily have been designed for the use of non-human anatomy, as that of the Dragon Kings.
“We’ll be rich on this stuff.” Thongor the professional thief spoke now, all thought of the preternatural horrors of the past hour clean forgotten. “I swear that fat bastard Arzang Pome will lay nary a bejewelled finger upon it. Somehow we’ll get it out of here ourselves, and…” With that, the Valkarthan stooped down and sought to gather into his arms a sample of the hard-won booty.
Zakeela murmured, “My lord, I fear…”
At once Thongor found his arms empty of treasure, and the whole subterranean hall likewise! He looked around him with outrage and bafflement. “By the Flame Lord! What witchery is this?”
She could not suppress a laugh, hoping not to enrage him further. “It is witchery indeed! As was that whereby you were able to slay the guardian! As I fled, the spirit of the mage Belshathla came to me and bade me cast you the broach. A thing of silver, it proved fatal to a creature of black magic. It dispelled the sorcery that shielded the monster from all harm, so that you might engage it in fair combat.”
Still confused, Thongor asked, “But how can that be? After all, it was the guardian of a hoard of silver such as no man ever saw!”
“That was the riddle which the mage at last deciphered. There was never any treasure—only silver shadows, an enchantment placed there by the Dragon Kings, or by some sorcerers at any rate, to lure greedy mortals to their doom.”
“Then I have very nearly paid with my life for the greed of another!”
She came to him and embraced him, heedless now of the foulness with which he was soaked, kissed him, and said, “My warrior, let us make haste to depart the city, for Arzang Pome will soon enough learn that no treasure is forthcoming, and he will surely believe you have made away with it.”
“As I would, if only I could, by Gorm!” Thongor laughed, then swept up Zakeela in a great embrace. “Come, my would-be princess, let us back to the house of Belshathla. I suspect he has resources to aid two fugitives. We’ll settle up with Arzang Pome another time.”
INTRO TO KEEPER OF THE EMERALD FLAME
Thongor’s buccaneers continue to cause havoc among the rich merchants of Shembis, until Arzang Pome, the infuriated Sark, begins a determined campaign to bring the troublesome pirate to heel.
KEEPER OF THE EMERALD FLAME
1
The Sign of the Skull
The Daotar Dorgand Tul shifted gingerly in the hard saddle, scratched irritably at the bite of a stinging insect, and wished for the thousandth time that he had entered the priesthood rather than obeying his father’s desire by purchasing a commission in the legions of Arzang Pome, the Lord of Shembis.
He was a fat, soft-faced little man, with quick, clever eyes, a petulant mouth and a waspish temper. For all his silver-gilded cuirass, jeweled honors and the martial-looking longsword that hung at one plump thigh, he seemed distinctly out of place at the head of a punitive company of warriors. And, indeed, with every league his troop penetrated into the dense jungles his dissatisfaction with the military life grew more profound.
The bad-tempered little Daotar was hot and weary, and his buttocks and thighs ached from long hours on kroter-back. He sat slouched in the saddle, dreaming of a soft couch, cooling breezes from the gulf, nubile slave girls at his beck and call and tall, frosted goblets of spiced wine. He wondered if he would ever feel comfortable again.
For seven days and nights now he and his troop of warriors had plunged ever deeper into the jungles of southern Kovia, until by now he was heartily sick of the whole business. The massive crimson boles of soaring lotifer trees rose all about him; snaky vines dangling from low branches overhead caught the plumes of his helm; stinging gnats whirled in buzzing clouds about him as he guided his plodding kroter through thick bushes of tiralons, the strange green roses of ancient Lemuria. Behind him, half a hundred footsore warriors toiled along, their mail smeared with sap and black with mud, and they longed for the comforts of civilization no less than he.
For the ten-thousandth time he cursed this Northlander savage and his gang of bandits, whose elusive track they followed. The bold young Valkarthan raider had been harrying the caravan routes for the past six months, and his depredations cut deeply into the revenues of Arzang Pome, who delighted more in the clink of fat gold coins than in the caresses of all his women and his perfumed boys. At length, stung beyond endurance by the daring of the bold young bandit chieftain, the Sark of Shembis had sent a troop of warriors on his trail…and it was the sad fate of Dorgand Tul to be the commander of that troop.
The day was wearing on apace. Ere long the gold disc of Aedir the Sun god would expire in crimson splendor on the western horizon and the thick jungle night would cloak all of Kovia in darkness. It was the night that Dorgand Tul feared most, for then the monstrous predators were a-prowl—the slinking vandars, the great black lions of the Lemurian jungles, the savage Beastmen, and—most dread of all—the colossal jungle dragons whose enormous size and ferocity rendered them virtually impossible to kill.
Dorgand Tul shivered at the thought. The days were exhausting and muddy and vile with the steaming jungle reek—but the nights were made hideous by the coughing roar of hunting reptiles and the glare of hungry eyes through the blackness, mirroring the flicker of the watch fires. Already he had lost two spearmen of his troop to the jungle brutes, and, were it not for the fact that his own tent was set each night in the very centre of the camp, the plump little Daotar would have trembled to the depths of his soul for his own precious hide.
Just then his kroter shied, almost toppling him from the saddle. He seized the saddle horn in one fat fist, straightening the plumed helm, which had slipped down over his eyes, with the other hand and snarling a blasphemous curse as he saw the cause of the disturbance.
The bushes ahead parted and the muddy, haggard figure of one of his advance scouts appeared, making a sketchy salute.
“Well, what is it, Yazlar? Don’t tell me you have lost their trail again?” he demanded shrilly.
The old scout shook his head. “No, Daotar. It continues straight ahead. I estimate they are now only four hours ahead of us.”
“Well, what then?”
The scout turned, gesturing for Dorgand Tul to follow, and vanished in the underbrush. The fat little officer thumped the kroter’s ribs with his booted heel and guided the weary beast through the bushes, whimpering a curse as thorn-edged leaves stung his hand. The kroter shouldered through the glossy-leafed bushes, and Dorgand Tul found himself in a little clearing.
The glade was small, hedged about with densely packed trees. Reining the beast to a standstill, the officer glanced about, and then his eyes caught an ominous and grisly emblem and he froze, while a small thrill of apprehension ran over him.
A tall pole of gaunt black wood thrust up from the muddy earth at the edge of the clearing. Atop the pole was affixed a grinning, naked human skull. A cryptic hieroglyph was etched in crimson paint on the brow of the death’s-head. The eyes of Dorgand Tul were caught and held by that coiling, crimson symbol.
“The sign of Omm,” whispered the old scout.
The fat little Daotar paled, swallowed, but could not tear his eyes from the blot of bloody color blazoned on the grinning skull. It held his gaze with a horrid fascination, like the cold enigma in the eyes of a snake.
“Did the bandits…pass it?” he asked at last, in a weak voice.
The old scout nodded, his lank, gray locks swinging. “They did,” he said somberly.
A flame of malignant delight blazed up in the eyes of Dorgand Tul. New energy surged within his weary, flaccid form. He snatched up the rein
s and wheeled the kroter about and plunged through the bushes by which he had entered the clearing. The first bedraggled warriors of his troop were just catching up to him as he retraced his path. A scarred, hard-faced sergeant came forward to receive orders at the Daotar’s impatient gesture.
“Turn the men about, my man. We shall camp for the night in that large clearing we passed through an hour or so ago. And then back to the city!” the Daotar crowed delightedly. Then, at the look of blank incomprehension in the sergeant’s eyes, he laughed with vicious humor. “The barbarian in his flight has led his bandits past the Sign of the Skull…and ere night falls across the world, he will be in the power of Shan Chan Thuu!” he smirked.
The sergeant’s eyes widened in black, horrified amazement. His lips parted and he whispered to himself a dread phrase at which his men shuddered…and which even cooled the malignant joy in the heart of Dorgand Tul, and made the fat officer fumble at his throat, where a protective amulet of blue paste dangled on a silver chain.
“The Keeper of the Emerald Flame…”
“…Only the Nineteen Gods can save Thongor of Valkarth now,” the grizzled scout said under his breath.
2
Something in the Dark
Thongor of Valkarth was baffled.
He crouched in the crotch of a great tree, his keen gaze studying the jungle behind his track, and deep in his heart he felt a nameless qualm…a distinct yet shadowy unease. Something was wrong, yet he did not know what.
Lithely he swung down from his perch, dropped to a lower branch and clambered down a dangling vine, to drop lightly to the thick grasses of the clearing as might a jungle cat. His warriors, who had been resting while he sought the upper levels, rose now to their feet, turning questioning eyes upon their young chieftain as he appeared.
For a moment he stood silent, brows knotted in puzzlement. As the men of his band watched him, waiting for his words, there was not one among them who did not gaze at him with admiration. He was superb, the half-naked young barbarian, his bronze body with the thews of some savage god. Black and heavy as a vandar’s mane, his unshorn hair fell across his broad, naked shoulders, framing a stern, impassive face, strong-jawed and manly for all his youth.
Beneath scowling, black brows, his strange gold eyes blazed with sullen, wrathful, lion-like fires. Few men could meet the gaze of those somber, burning eyes, for behind them smoldered the fighting fury of a barbarian, whose savage heart had never learned the cooler temper of civilized men.
His powerful torso was clad in the plain black leather of a Lemurian warrior. A great cloak was flung back over his shoulders and a massive girdle bound his taut, rock-hard mid-section. The leather strap of a baldric was slung across his chest from shoulder to hip, and from it hung in its scabbard a mighty Valkarthan broadsword. A crimson loincloth and black leather boots completed his war-harness.
“What is it, Thongor?” one of his lieutenants demanded, as the long silence of their young leader began to puzzle the men.
The barbarian shook his head. “Strange, Chelim! The Shembian troops are—going back!”
Chelim, a tall, massive Zangabali with shaven pate and gold hoops in his ears, scratched his heavy, stubbled jaw thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s a trick?” he suggested. “Maybe they split up, one group returning, the other sneaking around, hoping to catch us off guard, once we were convinced they were all turning back.”
Thongor grunted. “Not a chance. I counted heads as they went through that big clearing near the lightning-blasted tree. Every man-jack of the troop is bound in full retreat.”
A scrawny, rat-like little man with one eye sniggered. “Chief? Maybe seven days o’ jungle muck and vandars in the night convinced them this is no place for Arzang Pome’s warriors, eh? A lot of craven-hearted dogs, those Shembians, anyway!”
Thongor grinned. “Well, maybe you’re right, Fulvio. At any rate, we’ll take no chances on being surprised. We’ll push on—even past nightfall—until we find a place that can be stoutly defended. On your feet, men. Mount up, and let’s get out of here.”
* * * *
Night fell, shadow-winged, across the edges of the world. Stars glittered like jewels in the dark sky, and soon the great golden Moon of elder Lemuria emerged from her palace of clouds to bathe the black jungles of Kovia in her silken, shimmering light.
Thongor and his bandits made camp in the hills, where sheer walls of rugged stone enclosed their position on three sides. The hill slopes were covered with loose, fragmented shale. Thongor believed that it would be impossible for any force to creep up on their position without dislodging underfoot a rattling miniature avalanche of broken rock, whose noise would give warning of the advance of the foe.
They watered their kroters in the small stream that trickled by the foot of the hills, built a fire to keep the beasts away and made a rude supper, gnawing on cold joints of meat and dry cheese, washed down with thin, sour ale in waxed skin bags.
Then, setting his sentries, Thongor curled up on a bed of dry leaves under the shelter of an overhang of rock, wrapped his great cloak around him against the night chills, set Sarkozan, his great Northlander broadsword, near to his hand and fell asleep almost instantly. Even his giant frame was weary from the long trek through the jungles, and from boyhood he had learned the knack of falling asleep at will. His boyhood, spent on the wintry plains of the wild north beyond the Mountains of Mommur, had taught him the survival skills known only to a barbaric people such as his own Black Hawk tribe. To survive in a rugged, frozen land, where the forces of hostile nature were leagued with savage enemies and monstrous predators against human life, one learned early—or one did not live long. Thongor learned—and lived.
It was four years since all of his tribe had fallen in battle against an enemy tribe. Since that savage day, he had left the north. Down across the wintry steppes he had come, through the rugged mountains. He was a hardy, bronzed youth of seventeen when he reached at last the lush jungle lands and splendid, glittering cities of the Dakshina, as the Southlands of Lemuria were known. And for the two years since that time, he had eked out a precarious living as thief and wandering adventurer, and now, most recently, as a bandit chieftain in the wilderness of Chush and Kovia. He had joined the caravan raiders eight months ago, and fought his way up the ranks to the leadership of the band, slaying the former chief, Red Jorn, in a barehanded battle to the death.
Some might think it odd that a youth of nineteen, scarce more than a boy, should lead a band of experienced warriors, most of whom were half again, or twice, his age. Odd, perhaps, but not illogical. For Thongor, from the first hour he had entered the ranks of Jorn’s raiders, had proved himself bold, fearless and indomitable. As for his men, seasoned veterans all, their very lives depended on the quality of the leadership of the band, and if the young barbarian, not yet twenty, could prove his superior gifts, they were willing to swallow the fact that he was younger than the least of them.
The secret of his swift domination of the bandit company may have been summed up in a single phrase: at nineteen, Thongor had faced more perils, fought more foes, seen more of death, war and adventure, than any man of them.
It was his savage intuition that roused him now—
The scrape of leather sandals on rough stone. The click and rattle of a dislodged pebble.
The boy snapped in an instant to full, tingling alertness. Yet, in the transition from sleep to wakefulness, not a muscle moved in all his mighty frame. To the eye of any watcher, he was still slumbering in heavy sleep.
Again, the faint sound. And now his keen senses told him it came from directly above his rude couch. Someone was descending the face of the steep hill. Someone was crouched just above the rock under which he lay.
He rose lithely to his feet, drawing a long dagger from his girdle. The broadsword he let lay—it would make too much sound to draw the blade, and he would need his hands free. As silent as a jungle cat, the barbarian padded to the brink of the overhanging ledge. Emerging
from under the low rock, Thongor rose slowly to his full height, flattening himself against the side of the wall of stone.
Dimly in the moon-silvered gloom, he could make out a crouching figure, black against the sky. It seemed to be surveying the bandit camp. One hand clutched a long spear, and it was the heft of this spear that had dislodged the pebble.
Like a striking snake, Thongor seized the unknown watcher.
3
Jungle Girl
He dragged the fiercely struggling figure down to the ground and sought to pinion its lithe arms. But it was as if he had seized a spitting, wriggling armful of clawed fury. It writhed and snarled in his grip like a maddened wildcat. Sharp nails drew lines of scarlet across his bronze hide and drew stinging furrows in his chest, cheek and shoulder.
Suddenly Thongor gasped with astonishment, released his captive and sprang back. For in their struggle, his arms had gone around the chest of his opponent from behind, and his hands had touched—not the flat, muscular hide of a male warrior—but the warm, pointed breasts of a young girl!
Illana the Moon Lady had receded behind a cloud moments before; now she displayed the glory of her unveiled visage, and by the sudden wash of silver light, Thongor could clearly see his foe.
It was a half-naked young girl, of his own age or a year or two younger, who crouched, stone-bladed dagger clenched in one small, capable fist, challenging him to continue the combat. Her slender body was bare save for a strip of fur worn low about her hips, and twisted about her slim loins. This and leather sandals and a bauble worn about her throat on a thong constituted her only garments.
Very lovely she was in the silver moonlight, her hair long, black, a shining cascade that poured over sleek shoulders and down her slender back to the firm rondure of her little rear. Her legs were long, adolescent, graceful. Her breasts were shallow but firmly rounded, warm, pointed. They rose and fell as she panted, and their surging rhythm drove his hot young blood to interesting speculations.
Young Thongor Page 13
