“Look around for that stream of water,” directed Hok. “There, isn’t that it, showing through the stems below us? Come on, Soko. You are a chief now.”
At that word, Soko drew himself up. “Yes, I am a chief,” he said sturdily. “I will do what a chief should do, even though Rmanth eats me.”
“You shall eat Rmanth instead,” Hok said confidently. “But first, the water.”
They came to the edge of the stream. Gourds dangled down from above, on lengthy vine strings. Hok and Soko guided them into the water, and tugged for them to be drawn up. Glad cries beat down from the upper branches, as the hoisters felt the comforting weight of the containers.
“The voices will bring Rmanth,” Soko said dully.
Hok glanced over his shoulder. “He is already here. Leave him to me. Go on and fill gourds.”
He turned from Soko and walked back among the trees, toward the gray bulk with its six knobby horns and hungry tusks.
“I have a feeling that this was planned for both of us,” Hok addressed the elephant-pig. “Come then. We will race, play and fight, and it shall end when one of us is dead.”
CHAPTER XI
The Termination of Rmanth
Several accounts have descended to us of how Hok raced, played and fought that day. But names have been changed, some facts have been altered for the sake of ritual or romance. In any case, Hok himself talked little about the business, for such was not his way. The only narrators were the tree-folk, who did not see much of what happened. Which makes the present story valuable as new light on an old, old truth.
Hok saw that Rmanth was at least six times more angry than when they had met last. The arrow in his tongue had evidently broken off or worked its way out, though pink-tinted foam flecked Rmanth’s great protruding tusks. The arrow in his nostril still remained, and his ugly snout was swollen and sore. His eyes remained cold and cunning, but as Hok came near they lighted with a pale glow of recognition.
“You know me, then,” Hok said. “What have we to say and do to each other?”
Rmanth replied by action, a bolting direct charge.
Tree-thickets sprouted between the two, but Rmanth clove and ploughed among them like a bull among reeds. His explosion into attack was so sudden, so unwarned, so swift, that Hok’s sideward leap saved him barely in time. As it was, the bristly flank of the beast touched him lightly as it drove by. Rmanth, missing that first opportunity to finish this maddening enemy, turned as nimbly as a wild horse, head writhed around on the huge shoulders and horrid fangs gaping for a crushing bite.
Hok hurriedly conquered an instinctive urge to spring clear—such a spring would only have mixed him up in the brush, and Rmanth’s second pounce would have captured him. The part of wisdom was to come close, and Hok did so. He placed one hand against Rmanth’s great quivering haunch, the other hand grasping his bow-stave. As the big brute spun to snap at him, Hok followed the haunches around. Rmanth could not get quite close enough to seize him. As the two of them circled, Hok saw a way into the open, and took it at once. He slipped around and behind a big tree. Rmanth, charging violently after, smote that tree heavily. Hok laughed, then headed toward the slope which he had traveled the day before.
Rmanth’s thick head must have buzzed from that impact against the tree. He stood swaying his muzzle experimentally, planting his forefeet widely. Hok had done all his maneuverings with an arrow laid ready across his bow, held in place with his left forefinger. Now he had time to draw it fully and send it singing at Rmanth’s face.
As before, he aimed at the eye. This time his aim was not spoiled. The shaft drove deep into one cold, wicked orb, and Rmanth rose suddenly to his massive hind-quarters, an upright colossus, pawing the air and voicing a horrible cry of pain. Such a cry has been imagined only once by modern man, and the imaginer was both a scholar and a master of fantasy. Hok clinched forever his right to his reputation of stout-heartedness. He laughed a second time.
“An arrow in your other eye, and you’ll be at my mercy!” said he, reaching over his shoulder for another shaft in his quiver.
But there was not another shaft in his quiver.
The battlings with the Stymphs, his knocking of the milknut from an assailant’s hand, the hurried destruction of Krol’s gaudy snake had used up his store of shafts. If Rmanth was half-blinded, Hok was wholly without missiles. He felt a cold wave of dismay for a moment, but only for a moment.
“Perhaps I was not fair to think of hacking and prodding a helpless enemy to death,” he reflected. “This makes a more even battle of it. At any rate, Rmanth has forgotten that Soko will be filling the water gourds. Let me play with him further. Here he comes!”
And here he came, in another of his mighty bursts of power, swift and resistless as an up-driving avalanche.
Hok dared wait longer this time, for Rmanth must charge up the hill. He had quickly returned his bow to its shoulder loop, and now took a stout grip on his axe. As the gaping fang-fringed maw, from which lolled that inflamed tongue, was almost upon him, he sprang aside as before and chopped at the remaining good eye of Rmanth. Missing, he struck the gray hide of the cheek. His heavy flint rebounded like a hailstone from a hut-roof. Hok turned and ran, leaping from side to side to confuse his enemy, and paused near the great sloping trail down which dying mammoths were wont to slide themselves. A carrion stench assailed his nostrils, and he remembered his original quarrel with Rmanth.
“You ate my prey,” he accused the lumbering hulk, which turned stubbornly to pursue him further. “Gragru I trapped, wounded, and chased. He was mine. He recognized my victory. But you lolled below here and gorged yourself on my hunting. You owe me meat, Rmanth, and I intend to collect the debt.”
His voice, as usual, maddened the elephant-pig. When Hok began to scale the slope backward, Rmanth breasted the climb with great driving digs of his massive feet and legs.
But now the advantage was with Hok. Lighter, neater-footed, he could move faster on the assent than could this mighty murderer. Indeed, he could probably gain the snow-lipped plain above and escape entirely. But he did not forget his promise to Soko’s people. Victory, not flight, was what he must achieve.
“Come near, Rmanth,” he invited, moving backward and upward. “I want a fair chance at you.”
Rmanth complied, surging up the slanting trail with a sudden new muster of energy. Hok braced himself and smote with his axe at Rmanth’s nose. Right between the two forward horns his blade struck, and again Rmanth yelled in furious pain. But the blow only bruised that heavy hide, did not lay it fully open. Rmanth faltered, and Hok retreated once more.
“This nightmare cannot be wounded,” he reflected aloud. “At least not in the side or head or muzzle, like an honest beast. What then? The neck, as with a bull?”
But there was no way to get to Rmanth’s neck. He did not charge with head down, like a stag or bison or rhinoceros, but with nose up and mouth open, like a beast of prey. Hok wished that he had a spear, stout and long. It might serve his turn. But he had only the axe, and it must not fail him. He continued his retirement, along the trail he remembered from his previous descent.
So for some time, and for considerable rise in altitude. Then, suddenly, Rmanth was not crowding Hok any longer. Hok paused and grimaced his defiance.
“Tired?” he jeered. “Or afraid?”
Plainly it was the latter, but Rmanth’s fear was not for Hok. He turned his one good eye this way and that, looking up into the sky that at this point was not very misty. He sniffed, and wrinkled a very ugly gray lip that reminded Hok of Krol.
Then Hok remembered. “Oh, yes, the Stymphs. Krol told me that you did not venture far enough from the shelter of the trees for them to reach you. But think no more about them, Rmanth. I killed most of them. Those who lived have flown away. Perhaps the snow will destroy them—they seem to th
ink it a kinder neighbor than Hok.”
He moved boldly into an open space on the slope. Rmanth snorted and wheezed, seeming to wait for sure doom to overtake the audacious human. Then he squinted skyward again, was plainly reassured, and finally followed Hok upward.
“Well done, elephant-pig!” Hok applauded. “This is between you and me. No Stymph will cheat the conqueror.”
More ascent, man and beast toiling into less tropical belts. Hok found himself backing into a ferny thicket. It was here that—yes, wadded into a fork was his bundle of winter clothing.
As he found it, it seemed that he found also a plan, left here like the clothes against his need. He felt like shouting out one of his laughs, but smothered it lest Rmanth be placed on guard. Instead he seized and shook out the big lion skin that was his main protection against blizzards. Its shaggy expanse was blond and bright, like his own hair.
“See, Rmanth,” he roared, “I run no more! Catch this!”
He flung the pelt right into Rmanth’s face.
Next moment those mighty fangs had closed upon the fur. The horrid head bore its prize to earth, holding it there as if to worry it. His neck was stooped, the thick skin stretched taut…. Hok hurled himself forward in a charge.
Before Rmanth was aware that the hide in his jaws was empty, Hok had sprung and planted a moccasin upon his nose, between those forward horns. Rmanth emitted a whistling grunt and tossed upward, as a bull tosses. Hok felt himself flipped into the air, and for a moment he soared over the neck-nape, the very position he hoped for.
Down slammed his axe, even as he hurtled. It struck hard, square, and true across the spine of Rmanth, back of the shallow skull. Hok’s arms tingled with the back-snap of that effort, and his body was flung sidewise by it.
But Rmanth was down, stunned or smashed. He floundered to his knees. Hok ran to him, dagger out. A thrust, a powerful dragging slash, and the thick hide was torn open. Once more the axe rose and fell. The exposed spinal vertebrae broke beneath the impact with a sound like a tree splitting on a frosty night.
Rmanth relaxed, and abruptly rolled down slope, as dead mammoths were wont to roll. Hok saved his last breath, forbearing to shout his usual signal of victory. Snatching up his crumpled lion-skin cloak, he dashed swiftly downward in pursuit of that big lump of flesh he had killed.
CHAPTER XII
The Feast and the Farewell
Those men, women and children who had been Soko’s tree-people sat at last on the solid soil, stockaded about with the mighty trees of the jungle, and roofed over with the impenetrable mat of foliage, vines and mould that had once been their floor and footing. They sat in a circle near the brink of the stream, and in the circle’s center was a cheerful cooking-fire of Hok’s making. The air was heavy with the smell of roast meat.
There had been enough of Rmanth for all, and more than enough. Once Hok had found Soko and shown him the carcass, it had been possible, though not easy, to coax the other men down to ground level. And it had taken all the muscle of the tribe, tugging wearily on tough vine-strands, to drag Rmanth to the waterside. After that, it was an additional labor, with much blunting of bone knives, to flay away his great armor of hide. But when the great wealth of red meat was exposed, and Hok had instructed the most apt of the tribe in the cooking thereof—ah, after that it was a fulfillment of the most ancient dreams about paradise and plenty.
Three or four tribesmen were toasting the last delectable morsels on green twigs in the outlying beds of coals. More of them lolled and even slept in heavy surfeit, assured that no great trampling foe would overtake and destroy them. The children, who no amount of gorging could quiet down, were skipping and chattering in the immemorial game of tag. To one side sat Soko, on a boulder that was caught between gnarled roots, and his pose was that of a benevolent ruler.
A comely young woman of his people was applying a fresh dressing of astringent herbs and leaves to the wound Krol had made the night before. Grandly Soko affected not to notice the twinges of pain or the attractions of the attendant. He spoke with becoming gravity to Hok, who lounged near with his back against a tree, his big flint axe cuddled crosswise on his lap.
“There is much more meat than my people will ever finish,” Soko observed.
“Build fires of green wood, that will make thick smoke,” Hok directed. “In that smoke hang thin slices of the meat that is left. It will be dried and preserved so as to keep for a long time, and make other meals for your tribe.”
Soko eyed Hok’s bow, which leaned against the tree beside him. “That dart-caster of yours is a wonderful weapon,” he observed. “I have drawn two shafts, still good, from Rmanth’s body. If I can make a bow like it—”
“Take this one,” said Hok generously, and passed it over. “I have many more, as good or better, in my own home village. Study the kind of wood used, how it is shaped and rigged, and copy it carefully. Your men can hunt more meat. A jungle like this must have deer and pig and perhaps cattle. Since your people have tasted roasted flesh, they will want more on which to increase their strength.”
“We will keep coals from that cooking fire,” said Soko.
“Do more than that,” Hok urged. “You have seen my fire-sticks and how I used them. Make some for yourself, that the fire may be brought to you when you need it.” He peered around him. “See, Soko, there are outcroppings of hard rock near and far. I see granite, a bit of jasper, and here and there good flints. Use those to make tools and weapons instead of bone or ivory.”
The dressing of Soko’s wound was completed. Soko dismissed the young woman with a lordly gesture, but watched her appreciatively as she demurely departed. Then he turned back to his guest. His smile took from his face the strange beast-look that clung to the wide loose lips and chinless jaw.
“Hok,” he said, “we shall never forget these wonders you have done for us, and which you have taught us to do for ourselves. In future times, when you deign to come again—”
“But I shall not come again,” Hok told him.
Soko looked surprised and hurt. Hok continued:
“You and I are friends, Soko. It is our nature to be friendly, unless someone proves himself an enemy. But your people and my people are too different. There would be arguments and difficulties between them, and then fights and trouble. When I leave here, it will be forever. I shall not tell at once what I have seen. What I tell later will be only part of the truth. Because I think you and your kind will be better off untroubled and unknown in this valley.”
Soko nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “I had been counting on your help from time to time,” he confessed. “Perhaps experience will help me, though. What shall we do here after you are gone?”
“Be full of mystery,” said Hok sententiously. “The Stymphs seem to have flown away, but their reputation will linger over your home. I judge that game does not prowl near, and only the mammoth knows the valley—to dive into it and die. If ever a hunter of my sort comes near, it will be the veriest accident.
“Thus you will have the chance to make your people strong and wise. They have regained the full right to walk on the ground and breathe air under open skies, which right was denied by Krol. In times to come, I venture to say, you shall issue forth as a race to be great in the outer world. Meanwhile, stay secret. Your secrecy is safe with me.”
He rose, and so did Soko. They shook hands.
“You depart now, at only the beginning of things?” Soko suggested.
“The adventure and the battle, at least, are at an end,” Hok reminded him. “I am tormented by a sickness of the mind, Soko, which some call curiosity. It feeds on strife, travel and adventure. And so I go home to the northward, to find if my people do not know of such things to comfort me. Goodbye, Soko. I wish you joy of your Ancient Land.”
He picked up his furs and his axe, and strode away to
ward the trail up the slope. Behind him he heard Soko’s people lifting a happy noise that was probably their method of singing.
THE PIRATE OF SHELL CASTLE, by George T. Wetzel
A Mystery of the Sea
Originally published in The Gothic Horror And Other Weird Tales (1978).
CHAPTER 1.
There was something strange about the disaster. The wreck burnt furiously on the night sea. The strangeness, thought Captain Adams, was in the attitude of the crew of the iron steamer anchored alongside her—they appeared indifferent, made no efforts to put out the fire. At the steamer’s rail also stood an officer, his hands on his hips.
Captain Adams hailed him. “Do you require any sort of assistance?”
The unknown officer faced around as if startled, and cupping his hands around his mouth, shouted, “On your course! Or you’ll be burnt, too.”
The threat astonished Adams. He ordered the helm over and trusted he could quickly disappear into the darkness before the steamer officer changed his mind. As an additional safe guard, once out of sight, Adams changed his course-heading several degrees.
Going to his cabin, he took out the ship’s log and wrote: “Dec. 16, 1878. Very late this evening I encountered a mystery 50 miles off Fastnet Rock, Southern Ireland. I observed a burning wreck and a steamer alongside her. The steamer had 150 to 200 men on board—apparently English—an unusually large crew. She had no appearances of merchantman or man-of-war. To my offer of assistance the steamer officer ordered me on my way and admonished me to say nothing of the affair, under penalty of being set afire also.”
He put down the pen and went on deck to ponder on his experience. He puzzled over it until dawn grayed the skies in the cast. Could the steamer be a pirate?
The Adventure Novella MEGAPACK® Page 35
