The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series

by Lin Carter

  When at length she had succeeded in freeing herself, the girl fearfully glanced at her captor, expecting momentary discovery. But Achmed had his broad back turned upon his captive, and was paying not the slightest attention to her. With her heart in her mouth, the girl began stealthily to creep from the gazebo.

  Although it seemed to take an agonizing eternity, she managed to reach the relative safety of the bushes which grew close about the little ornamental structure. Then she rose furtively to her feet, hopeful of gaining the security of the nearest group of trees—but at that which met her eyes in the very next instant, she stood transfixed; all thoughts of stealth fleeing from her mind, Jaira uttered a shrill and piercing cry of astonishment which jerked Achmed, cursing vilely, to his feet, one huge hand seizing up his scimitar.

  * * * *

  Grond was halfway down the garden path, on his way to accomplish a final errand for Tharn of Thandar, when a well-remembered voice raised in a sharp cry of alarm arrested his steps.

  The Cro-Magnon whirled about to see a sight at once delightful and dreadful—

  For there, not far away, stood his beloved staring at him with incredulous delight. At her back, rising into view, was a gigantic black figure armed with a glittering scimitar.…

  CHAPTER 23

  JAIRA STRIKES BACK

  Kâiradine well knew that his life was forfeit were his whereabouts to be discovered. If the leader of the blond barbarians was, indeed, the father of Darya, the girl he had stolen away and would have ravished, then her father—like all fathers—would be satisfied with nothing less than his blood.

  Although wary and cautious in the extreme, the Redbeard was not fearful of discovery. No one knew as thoroughly as did he the thousand hiding places open to a fugitive in the immense and ancient warren of El-Cazar.

  So, drawing the hood of his cloak over his face in order to conceal his features, and affecting a limp which should serve to disguise his swaggering, arrogant stride, the former Prince of the Barbary Pirates slunk furtively down the alley and into a main thoroughfare.

  The savage conquerors were everywhere, but as none of them save only for the girl Darya could possibly have recognized him, Kâiradine put a bold face on it, and mingled with the crowd which wandered to and fro. No trade was being conducted in the grand bazaar on this day, for those merchants who would otherwise have been boastfully declaiming the virtues of their wares hid behind bolted doors and closed shutters, fearful lest the conquerors should come seeking loot and plunder.

  It is natural for men to judge others by themselves, thought Kâiradine wryly to himself as he slunk through the square. Since the Barbary Pirates lived on loot and plunder, they expected no less from others—least of all, from their savage conquerors. The truth of the matter was, of course, that the “simple” Cro-Magnons had no conceivable use for gold or silver or gems, and were uninterested in accumulating such bright but essentially worthless trash.

  What they were interested in, were the excellent steel swords and daggers used by the corsairs. Thus, when Kâiradine crept past a swordsmith’s booth, he noticed the savages emerging therefrom, their bare and brawny arms laden with glittering weapons. He did not, of course, know that Tharn of Thandar, instantly recognizing the superiority of the Berber weaponry, had commanded his men to arms themselves with such.

  Keeping out of sight as much as was possible, and choosing the shadows rather the bright and revealing light of day, the Pirate Prince traversed the broad plaza of the bazaar without incident, and vanished into the narrow doorway of a disreputable dive.

  A few dispirited Berbers huddled on the long benches or sprawled in the booths to the rear, heavily gone in drink and obviously trying to forget the ignominy of their defeat at the hands of oafish primitives armed with stone axes and crude bronze spears. None of these so much as glanced up as Kâiradine, muffled to the eyes, limped past them and sank into a curtained booth near the kitchens.

  Hastily drawing the curtains, Kâiradine sank back with a sigh of relief into the welcome gloom. Then, rousing himself, he searched with nimble fingers beneath the edge of the table, finding a cleverly concealed switch. At his touch, a panel creaked open in the rear wall, through which he glided. A moment later, the panel closed again, and the booth was empty of any occupant.

  * * * *

  Down a narrow wooden stair Kâiradine descended, gaining at length a small apartment sumptuously hung with woven stuffs and furnished with luxurious furniture of rare woods and even a rarer craftsmanship. Pouring himself a goblet of wine from a stoppered bottle on a tabouret, the corsair captain kicked off his boots and sank into the soft embrace of velvet cushions with a sigh of relief.

  None in El-Cazar knew of this hiding place which Kâiradine had long ago prepared for himself in the eventuality of revolt or treason. Under the name of his lieutenant, Achmed, he owned the tavern and workmen at his direction had prepared the secret panel, the hidden stair and the unknown hiding place—before mysteriously vanishing from the sight of men, with slit gullets.

  Here he had squirreled away his chiefest treasures—objects of gold and silver worth a satrap’s ransom, and bags and sacks and chests stuffed with gems of inestimable worth, together with rare and exotic curiosities such as few of the pirates had ever seen.

  Here too he kept several changes of clothing and a supply of weapons, together with stores of food and drink sufficient to last him for many days before hunger or thirst drove him forth into the light of day.

  Here he could hide, biding his time, planning his escape from the clutches of his enemies.…

  And his vengeance!

  * * * *

  Without a moment’s thought or hesitation, Grond launched himself upon the burly black giant who menaced his sweetheart, Jaira. He flung himself across the intervening space which separated himself from the girl he had sought like a charging leopard, and such was the swiftness of his action that Achmed the Moor was quite taken by surprise.

  The Moor growled a savage curse to his African gods as he spun about, lifting his heavy scimitar to meet this unexpected adversary. Ducking under the blade, Grond clamped one iron hand about the massive throat of the burly Moor, digging his thumb into the corsair’s windpipe. His other hand locked about the wrist of the Moor’s swordarm.

  While Jaira stood frozen, one hand to her parted lips, eyes wide with fear, heart pounding against her ribs, the two men struggled breast to breast and thigh to thigh, grunting like beasts, faces black and distorted with effort.

  Slowly but surely, the superior weight and strength of the great Moor began to tell, as his younger, lighter adversary weakened and his grip relaxed.

  The moment his throat was free of the grim pressure, Achmed stole a precious moment from the conflict in order to suck air into his starved and laboring lungs. But Grond did not pause: balling his hard fist, he sank it into the pit of the Moor’s stomach with all the steely strength packed into his powerful arm, shoulder and back.

  The Moor’s paunch collapsed like a pricked balloon; breath whistled from his open mouth and his eyes popped comically. Grond spun about, clamped his other hand about the pirate’s arm—and heaved!

  Achmed whirled head over heels at this primitive jujitsu and landed with a paralyzing thump on his back, while his sword went spinning across the garden to splash into a pool, startling the lazing fish.

  In the next instant, Grond again flung himself upon his foe, and now, locked in each other’s iron grip, they rolled over and over, grunting and panting, crashing through the underbrush, the flowerbeds, the pebble-strewn walks. Weakened by the sledgehammer blow in the pit of his stomach, partially stunned by his fall, Achmed found himself temporarily helpless in the savage grip of the Cro-Magnon warrior.

  Within moments, however, the giant Moor had recovered himself and, once again, his greater weight and strength began to
tell in the balance of the struggle.

  Suddenly, he felled the blond youth with a lucky blow to the jaw, and, standing with spread legs straddling the half-conscious Grond, his swarthy features convulsed in a grin of cruel delight, he tore a long poniard from his sash and raised it high—to plunge it into the heart of his helpless foe.

  In the next second, the silence of the gardens was broken by a dull, resounding thud.

  His evil grin relaxed into a stupid expression of bewilderment.

  The brandished blade fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, to clank against the tiles which lined the edge of the flowerbed.

  For a moment, Achmed swayed on his feet like a tree torn from the earth in a gale.

  Then, knees buckling, he fell sideways and crashed to earth to move no more.

  When Grond awoke from his daze, he found his head cradled upon the soft thighs of a weeping, fearful Jaira. For a long moment the bewildered caveboy did not comprehend what had occurred. When he did, he grinned and almost laughed aloud.

  Jaira, as I have remarked previously, was more shy and timid than most of her sisters of the Cro-Magnon tribes, who for the most part can hunt and fight almost as well as can their men. But even a shy creature like Jaira responds with alacrity when her lover is threatened.…

  Climbing stiffly to his feet on bruised and aching limbs, Grond hobbled over to examine the sprawled figure of the fallen Moor. The fresh blood which pooled behind his turbaned head was sufficient to satisfy the curiosity of Grond, who did not even need to see the fist-sized dent in the back of Achmed’s broken skull.

  Again, the young Cro-Magnon grinned, hugging the happy girl to him and kissing her with pride.

  For Jaira—timid little Jaira!—had brained Achmed with a heavy flowerpot.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE TRIBE DEPARTS

  It was not very long after these events that Tharn began to ready his warriors for their departure from the fortress isle.

  The last of the corsair galleys had burnt to the waterline. Floating, half-submerged, flame-blackened hulks, they would encumber the harbor of El-Cazar and make perilous that formerly safe haven for years to come.

  This, of course, made it virtually impossible for the Barbary Pirates to rearm and sail in pursuit of their conquerors…at least, for a considerable length of time, until they could build new ships from whatever stores of timber might lie in the warehouses of El-Cazar.

  Armed with their bright new weapons of edged steel, the Cro-Magnons regained their dugout canoes and paddled across the waters of the bay to the island on whose far side there still lay hidden the women and children, the older people and the wounded of the nation of Thandar.

  Once all were reunited, and the freed slaves of El-Cazar were distributed amongst the boats, the flotilla set out to sea again, bound for the mainland of Zanthodon. Across the steamy seas of the waters of the Sogar-Jad they sailed, brawny arms plying crude oars. In the forefront of the lead vessel, Tharn stood, his magnificent form leading the way like some majestic figurehead.

  One powerful arm was wrapped protectively about the slim shoulders of his beloved daughter; having at last and in the fullness of time found and rescued the gomad Darya from the midst of a thousand perils, the jungle monarch had vowed deep within his heart never to let her stray far from his sight again.

  In another dugout canoe, Jaira sat close to her sweetheart Grond, as he plied his oar with lusty arms. She was very happy, was the Cro-Magnon girl: whatever the future might hold for the two of them, at least they would face it boldly—and together.

  * * * *

  In each of the dugout canoes of the Thandarians, vigilant bowmen sat with their arrows hocked and at the ready, keen eyes warily searching the misty surface of the Sogar-Jad for any sign of the fearsome yith. Fortunately, it seemed that the ghosts of their ancestors favored the men and women of Thandar on that day, for none of the dreaded plesiosaurs made their appearance.

  Many rocky islands broke the dim expanse of the steamy sea, and vision was difficult, making navigation something of a problem. But the Cro-Magnons, in lieu of the compass, possessed an innate instinct for direction, and knew that they were sailing in the proper direction.

  Before very much longer, a line of jagged rocks; about whose black bases swirled foaming white water, signaled their approach to the northernmost shores of the subterranean continent. And before it was time to rest and share a meal and sleep, the last of the Cro-Magnons had disembarked.

  Tharn had considered that much time might have been saved had they continued to sail on down the coast of the continent, but had at length dismissed the notion.

  In the first place, he felt that he had very little to fear from the vengeance of the Barbary Pirates, for he had rendered them incapable of pursuit and it would take them many wakes and sleeps to rebuild their fleet, by which time he and those that followed him would long since have returned to their distant homeland far to the south.

  In the second place, he thought it distinctly unwise to venture so near to the island of Ganadol, where there yet lurked those of the Drugars, or Neanderthals, who had survived the stampede of the great woolly mammoths on the plain of the trantors. Their wounds licked to health by now, and their cruel lust for revenge surely whetted, the Drugars would have found sufficient time to rebuild their own fleet of dugout canoes, and might well attempt to assault the Thandarian flotilla, had it ventured into those waters.

  But his third reason was the best of all: Tharn was heartily sick of boats and islands, and hungered for the solidity of the good earth beneath the heels of his sandals, and for the comfortable gloom of the jungle aisles about him once again.

  Pausing to rest and eat, they began the trek “south.” It would be a long road home to Thandar, down the rocky coast and across the Peaks of Peril, then “south” through plains and jungles and mountains. But at the journey’s end lay…home.

  * * * *

  Moustapha had not sailed very far into the islands and archipelagoes of the northern seas before a sudden storm drove the flagship of his squadron upon hidden reefs, gouging a hole in the hull of his galley just beneath the waterline.

  Cursing sulphurously, the corsair ordered his ship about, and bade his first mate to set a course directly for El-Cazar. Hasty patchwork had crudely repaired the pierced hull, and the pumps would keep the vessel from foundering, but Moustapha knew that only in El-Cazar could his crippled ship receive the skillful craftsmanship she required.

  And so he limped back to his home port, in a villainous temper, having raided not a single village or captured so much as a single Cro-Magnon slave.

  When he arrived in the vicinity of the pirate isle, he was amazed and alarmed to see the pall of dense black smoke which hung over the city. Sailing nearer, he saw that the source of the pall of smoke was in the burning ships which had foundered, blocking the harbor.

  Consternation seized the corsair—what in the name of the Beard of the Prophet had chanced to occur on El-Cazar during his brief absence? Had some unknown enemy launched an invasion of the pirate kingdom? Had riot and insurrection broken out among the quarrelsome Captains of the Brotherhood? Had the Cro-Magnon slaves, long docile and believed fully cowed into submission, revolted against their masters?

  Anchoring his crippled galley near an offshore island—by a quirk of whimsical Fate, the very same island on which Tharn had concealed his wounded and the women and children—Moustapha launched a longboat with a full complement of well-armed seamen, led by his own first mate. He instructed them to ascertain what had happened in El-Cazar, and to return to the galley with word. Before he knew exactly what he was sailing into, it behooved the corsair chieftain to remain wary and to practice caution. It would never do to risk his flagship from mere curiosity.

  Before very long, the boat returned with the astounding news that El-Caz
ar had been taken unawares by a great host of savages in dugout canoes, who had stormed the town and had succeeded in seizing the palace citadel of Kliradine Redbeard, and that they had taken, as well, the heads of Moustapha’s fellow captains.

  All save the head of Kâiradine Redbeard himself, of course, whose whereabouts remained unknown.

  Now Moustapha would not have been human had it not occurred to him that, in the absence of the other captains and of the Prince of El-Cazar himself, the leadership of the pirate kingdom was easily within his grasp. Although Moustapha had always been a staunch supporter of the Redbeard, and would never have taken any part in a rebellion against his prince, the domain of the Barbary Pirates was now leaderless, and the throne of El-Cazar was, so to speak, up for grabs.

  Moustapha of El-Cazar was no more and no less ambitious than any other man. And, although no single drop of the blood of Khair ud-Din the mighty Barbarossa of the Mediterranean was mingled in the veins of Moustapha, he cunningly knew that every line, no matter how ancient or illustrious, must end at last and that every dynasty must terminate eventually, giving way to a new sequence of monarchs.

  So…El-Cazar was his!

  * * * *

  Wasting no time, Moustapha ordered his squadron to anchor beyond the mouth of the harbor, which they could not enter due to the smoldering hulks which blocked the entrance. Then he and a full company of his mariners, armed to the teeth, descended upon the town and began putting things to rights.

  Demoralized by the sudden conquest, shaken by the loss of their captains, the men and women of El-Cazar were easily brought to heel. Under Moustapha’s stern directives, they began to clear the streets of rubble, to extinguish those fires which still smoldered in some of the wrecked houses, and to cart away the dead for rapid burial against the menace of the pestilence.