by Lin Carter
The corsairs were poor bowmen. The Thandarians had hunted all their lives with bow and arrow, and to nock and loose a feathered shaft was instinctive to them. Time and again, as the corsairs massed to cut the invaders apart with sharp steel, a withering rain of barbed and aerial death cut them down before they could get close enough to the savages to employ the superiority of their weapons against them.
Tharn stooped, plucking a steel cutlass from the lax fingers of a dying pirate. He hefted the unfamiliar weapon cautiously, his expression thoughtful: the glittering blade was sharper than that of a knife of flint or copper or bronze, would resist nicks better and would obviously hold an edge far longer. Moreover, the long curved blade was cunningly weighted in such a manner that even he could see it was a superbly designed weapon with which to slash and cut.
He passed orders down the line that his warriors were to retrieve from their fallen foe all such weapons, one to each man. Rapidly, the Cro-Magnons began gathering a harvest of gory steel.
Thandar had been entering upon the Bronze Age; but now the tribe had entered upon a more advanced era.…
* * * *
They dragged Kâiradine Redbeard from the gasping, half-throttled body of Yussef, and restrained him until his wild frenzy calmed and he was able to listen to reason.
“My prince, the city is under attack,” cried Achmed. “None but you can lead us against the savages—”
At that very moment one of Kâiradine’s servants burst into the room and fell upon his knees before the panting, wildeyed, disheveled figure of his lord.
“O reis, the savage girl has fled from the palace, escaping through a window!” the man wailed, thumping his forehead against the floor.
Kâiradine stared at him, a turmoil of emotions seething within his breast. He recognized the black slave as one of the eunuchs set to guard Darya’s place of confinement.
“Fled?” he repeated in wondering tones, as one dazed. “How ‘fled,’ you groveling pig? Was she not guarded and watched day and night—were not her windows stoutly screened?”
The black man beat his head against the floor. “Even so, my prince! But from somewhere the woman obtained a sharp knife and cut asunder the wooden screens, finding a path to freedom—”
Ayyub plucked at his sleeve. “Redbeard—let the wench go! None but you can lead us against the savages—”
Spitting like a wildcat, Kâiradine tore his arm free of the other’s grasp.
“Let me be, you whining cur! You have chosen yonder half-dead dog as your leader—follow him!”
“Master!” wailed Achmed.
But Kâiradine was beyond hearing or caring by this point. The blows to his esteem had come too swiftly to be endured. All that he could think of was the slim, vibrant, golden loveliness of the cavegirl, Darya. To think of such delectable girlflesh so long desired, and the consummation of that desire so achingly long deferred, now escaping from his reach goaded him into a red madness.
Hurling the pleading Moor from him, Kâiradine strode from the chamber and was gone, leaving the others to stare blankly at each other. Achmed soon gathered himself together and fled in pursuit of his master, while Ayyub and fat-bellied Zodeen assisted Yussef ben Ali to stagger to his feet, helped him to a chair and poured wine into a goblet, which the other man thirstily gulped down.
“You have a plan to rid us of the savages?” demanded Ayyub sharply. “Then use it, and quickly, O Yussef—for the savages are in the streets even now, and we are at war!”
“I have a plan,” gasped Yussef, massaging his bruised neck.
“Best use it, then,” grunted Zodeen, turning from the casement from which he had been peering down at the melee below. “The barbarians are assaulting the main gate of the palace, and soon we will all be fighting for our lives.”
“What is your plan?” demanded Ayyub of Yussef.
“The girl whom the savages seek has fled the palace, and my agents have seized her. Any moment now, Zoraida will appear to call out to the savages that the girl is theirs if they will make an orderly retreat.”
Zodeen stared at him dumbfounded. “But—but,” he spluttered, “Erlik fry me for a flounder, don’t you know Zoraida hates the wench’s guts, for replacing her in the affections of Kâiradine? Broil me for a haddock, by Ahriman, where is the dancing-girl?”
“She should be…ah…about now,” faltered Yussef as the main gate of the palace came crashing down before the lusty blows of the Cro-Magnon savages. He limped across to the window and stared out, and blanched.
A long silence ensued, broken only by the sounds of distant fighting, which rapidly drew nearer.
“Nergal stew me for a squid!” groaned Zodeen to himself, staring at the other.
As for the saturnine Ayyub, he was also staring at the pale and twitching features of Yussef ben Ali, sourly wondering if the prince he had helped elect was any better than the love-besotted arrogant he had helped depose.…
CHAPTER 15
ZORAIDA’S VENGEANCE
Once the great portal to the palace had been broken through, Tharn and his howling horde went through the stumbling confused mob of Barbary Pirates like a heated blade through soft cheese. Utterly contemptuous of danger were the Cro-Magnon warriors, afire with vengeance, and hot with the lust to kill, now that they were within very reach of their goal.
The corsairs, on the other hand, had been roughly awakened from sound sleep, and were still struggling to gain clear heads and sharp wits. Befuddled with drinking the night through, they were also astounded beyond words, for never before in the generations they had dwelt here in El-Cazar had the fortress island been invaded by any foe.
They were used to raiding others, were the Barbary corsairs, weakly defended Cro-Magnon villages, ringed about with relatively flimsy palisades. Snug and secure behind their mighty and seemingly impregnable ramparts, it had never occurred to them that they might themselves someday be invaded. The knowledge was cold and queasy-making, and it unmanned them.
Another factor in the quick crumbling of their defense was the inexplicable absence at their fore of any of their leaders. Where was the redoubtable Zodeen of Algiers, the crafy and fortunate Yussef ben Ali, the unconquerable Ayyub? And where, above all, was their dauntless prince and leader, the mighty Kâiradine Redbeard? Nowhere were they to be seen.
“By the Sword of Allah,” groaned one wizened veteran to his grim-faced comrade as he manned a barricade of broken furniture flung hastily across a palace corridor, “have all the captains fled, scenting disaster and defeat?”
The two exchanged an eloquent glance of agreement and furtively slunk from their posts. Where the great captains flee, were not the lesser corsairs wise to slink away?
* * * *
In this manner, the defenders of the palace melted away before the seemingly tireless horde of yelling naked savages. There were many hidey-holes in a structure as ancient and as intricate as this one, and many of the rogues knew closets where they could conceal themselves for days, if necessary.
In less time than might have seemed possible, Tharn of Thandar found himself master of the deserted palace of the Prince of El-Cazar—deserted of all but the slain, that is, and the victorious Cro-Magnons.
While his men went hastily through the palace, freeing scores of slaves, all of whom were Cro-Magnons like themselves, although from little-known or unfamiliar tribes, Tharn’s chieftains sought out the leaders of the town, with Grond’s aid. These men had been at council meeting in the very hour of the invasion, it would seem, and all had been trapped by the sudden inrush of yellow-haired warriors. Their valor was such that they fought heroically and slew many, before they themselves fell to the superior strength of numbers. The heads were severed from their bodies with those new steel weapons which Tharn had commanded his warriors to retrieve from beside the fallen foe. Those
heads were brought before Tharn and Grond where they held a command post in the great hall, for Grond to identify.
“That is Zodeen the Algerian,” murmured Grond. “And that is the head of Ayyub.”
Tharn nodded; the names meant absolutely nothing to him, but as a leader born and bred, he well knew the value of slaying the leaders of the foe, in order to dishearten their followers.
“And that one?” he asked, pointing.
“Yussef ben Ali, my former master,” said Grond with a faint, bitter smile.
Now, for the first time, he felt truly free.
The jungle monarch looked at him sympathetically. Never having been a slave, he could not quite understand what it meant to Grond to be free.…
* * * *
Darya struggled vainly in the iron grip of Fumio, there in that narrow, stinking alley beyond the palace of Kâiradine Redbeard. To have come this close to drinking the sweet wine of freedom, only to have the cup dashed from your lips was bitter indeed. Fumio laughed sneeringly, vastly enjoying the sight of the helpless girl as she writhed panting in his arms. To his way of thinking, Darya of Thandar was the sole cause of all of his many misfortunes, and he gloated over her unhappiness.
So it is with cowards and weaklings, that they perennially blame others for their own guilty failures.
Zoraida looked the cavegirl over, eyes glowing with a nameless lust. This was the scrawny slut who had stolen her place in the bed of Kâiradine—she was the cause whereby Zoraida had been forbidden the pleasure of his embraces! Well, soon enough would the cause of her fall be removed forever—and with no one the wiser.
As for Fumio, lent to her by Yussef ben Ali for this purpose, once the slave had outlived his usefulness to her and to his master, he could easily be removed with a dagger through the ribs.…
“Bring her inside,” she commanded. Fumio dragged Darya into the door, which Zoraida shut behind them and barred with a hefty slab of solid wood.
* * * *
As soon as it was possible for him to do so, Grond the Gorthakian parted company with the now-victorious tribesmen of Thandar and hurried to the house of Yussef ben Ali. One fear and one fear alone possessed the heart of the Cro-Magnon warrior, and that was that in this lawless city, swarming with stalwart invaders, his beloved Jaira might be in peril.
The door of Yussef’s house was bolted against the savages, but Grond obtained entry by a little known side door. ’Dullah the majordomo admitted him, inquiring fearfully of the safety of their lord and master, and whether or not the Cro-Magnons were headed this way.
“They are,” said Grond with a grin. “And, as for your lord and master, his headless corpse lies slain in the palace of the Redbeard, which is now teeming with the warriors of Thandar.”
“O, woe! Woe!” wailed the quivering ’Dullah, his eyes virtually starting from their sockets. The majordomo clasped both hands together as if in supplication. “Whatever shall we do?” he moaned.
Grond chuckled with grim mirth: it was a pleasure to his heart to see ’Dullah in such a state of terror, for often had he suffered beneath the heavy hand of the majordomo, who had a penchant for the lash and an appetite for enjoying the pain inflicted on others.
“Flee for your life,” Grond said succinctly.
’Dullah needed no further encouragement. Seizing up a priceless carpet stuffed with objects that clinked and clanked metallically together, he shrugged into his burnoose and fled out of the house of Yussef ben Ali, slippers slapping the greasy cobbles. From the appearance of the bulging carpet, it would seem that the prudent ’Dullah, anticipating the fall of the house of Yussef ben Ali, had fortified himself against unemployment by selecting a few precious mementoes from the furnishings of the mansion.
“A pleasure to see you back,” growled Grond in what was obviously the Cro-Magnon equivalent of “good riddance.” He spat in the dust which bore the marks of ’Dullah’s slippers.
Then he went to work. Slaves and servants had largely fled from the doomed house already, he observed with mounting tension, slipping away one by one furtively, seizing the opportunity to escape proffered them by the Thandarians’ invasion. But where was Jaira? Had she escaped with the others, or was she hiding somewhere in the house? Was she perhaps imprisoned on orders of Yussef ben Ali, as insurance against the prompt return of Grond?
Swiftly and efficiently, the blond warrior searched the upper levels, finding a cowering maidservant in a closet and trembling eunuch concealed behind an arras, but no one else. Neither did the two recall having seen or heard aught of the Cro-Magnon girl, Jaira.
At length, having searched the house from top to bottom, Grond descended into the cellars and searched the gloomy vaults beneath the house. Here were stored the provisions of the household in barrels, boxes, bottles and bales. Here also he found no one and no sign of his missing sweetheart. Neither did the cells reserved for recalcitrant or disobedient slaves and servants yield any assistance to him in his quest. But he lingered long enough to find the dungeon-master’s keyring and open the rusty locks, setting free the miserable wretches therein immured. These he curtly informed of the tide of recent events, advising them to flee for their lives before the warriors of Thandar came to loot and plunder. They took to their heels on the instant.
Privately, Grond felt certain that Tharn’s men were not at all interested in looting and plundering, but he couldn’t be entirely sure.
Despondent, yielding momentarily to despair, Grond sagged against the wall of the dungeon. Where was Jaira…? Had she fled into the tumultuous streets? If so, she could be anywhere by this time, hidden in any one of a thousand places, for the fortress city of El-Cazar was old and riddled with forgotton vaults and tunnels, attics and other hidey-holes.
Resolutely, he straightened his broad shoulders and tightened his jaw. And resolved to search on.…
* * * *
While a leering Fumio held the wrists of the captive princess behind her back, Zoraida ripped the front of Darya’s garment. The thin cloth split asunder, and the pale golden body of the Cro-Magnon girl was bared to view by the light of candles which flickered in a gold stand upon the long table.
Fumio stared with lust written in his ruined face as the Moorish woman tore open the front of the garment, exposing to view the naked breasts of the captive girl. With an ugly, gloating chuckle, Zoraida ran her bejeweled hands over the panting breasts of the Cro-Magnon girl who writhed helplessly in Fumio’s powerful grip.
Zoraida fondled the half-naked girl lasciviously, pinching the pink nipples which crowned the bare breasts. Darya sank her white teeth into her nether lip to silence the whimper of pain and outrage that rose within her throat.
Fumio grinned nastily, licking dry lips.
“So this is the beauty that lured the fickle Redbeard from Zoraida’s bed!” the Mooress snarled, fondling the cavegirl intimately. “Well…Zoraida will see to it that never again does a man find you desirable, slut! You, there, string her up.”
Fumio bound Darya’s wrists together with a stout thong and tied the thong to an iron hook in one of the wooden beams which braced the ceiling of Yussef’s hidden chamber—for it was to the place of the secret council of conspirators that Zoraida had led her henchmen and her captive.
Her arms stretched above her head, Darya kicked and struggled vainly as Zoraida stripped the torn garments from her, leaving her lovely body stark naked. But naught availed to free her from her bonds.
Zoraida drew from the sleeve of her robes a coiled whip and fingered it caressingly, looking the bare body of the young girl up and down with cold, cruel, calculating gaze. Catching the expression on Fumio’s ruined visage and the hunger in his eyes as he stared at the writhing loveliness so temptingly displayed, Zoraida laughed throatily.
“When Zoraida has taken her pleasure in her own way,” smiled the Mooress, hef
ting the whip meaningfully, “then the slave Fumio may take his own pleasure from what is left!”
“Yes, mistress,” said Fumio obsequiously, licking his lips.
“The breasts first, I think,” murmured Zoraida thoughtfully, raising the whip. Its long, snaky length of supple, well-oiled leather hissed as it slithered across the floor.
Slim, strong muscles stirred silkenly in the bare arm of Zoraida as she lifted the handle of the whip—And, in the next instant the stony walls of the hidden chamber echoed to the hideous sound of a young woman’s voice, screaming in unendurable agony.…
PART IV: THE HUNTERS AND THE HUNTED
CHAPTER 16
SOTHAR ON THE MARCH
Across the vast and grassy plains of the north the tribe of Sothar moved by slow and easy stages. They were returning to the place whereat they had sundered paths with their brother tribe, the Thandarian nation.
The two Cro-Magnon tribes had joined forces after the battle in the cavern city, which had led to the defeat of the Gorpaks and the eradication of their frightful and monstrous masters, the hideous Sluagghs. As their own homeland had been destroyed in a volcanic convulsion, there was nowhere for the warriors of Sothar to travel but wherever they wished. And, for a time, they had marched together with the tribe of Tharn.
When the pterodactyl had carried off Yualla, the daughter of their High Chief, Garth, the two tribes parted ways. The Thandarians continued on in their search for Darya, while the Sotharians marched across the plains in the direction of the Scarlet City of Zar, seeking the daughter of their Chief.
Now all was changed. While Yualla was still lost, no more did her people search for her whereabouts. For the dagger of the Zarian assassin, Raphad, had struck down the mighty Garth in the very moment of his triumph, when he brought to a standstill an attack of the Dragonmen of Zar, led by their proud and impetuous goddess-queen, the Divine Zarys.[1]
