by Lin Carter
“But—sire!” the old warrior protested.
Thongor cut him short with a curt word. “That’s an order. Obey it! I don’t like it any more than you do. But it’s the only way. Move!”
Thom Perns reluctantly signaled the bugler stationed aboard the flagship and shortly the trumpet-signal rang out. With admirable precision, the Black Dragons retreated step by step to the safety of the airboats, holding aloft their shields to protect each other as they clambered aboard the heavy-laden craft. Howling with helpless battle-fury, the surviving Jegga warriors of their escort joined them in seeking the safety of the flying ships, although they shook their mighty spears at the seemingly empty plain as they climbed over the deck rail.
Nearly all of the men were aboard now. Thongor and the Daotar of the Air Guard were among the last. They left the shelter of the rocky hill-crest and raced down the slope to the nearest ship. Black arrows whistled past them as they sprinted, thudding into the turf all about them like hail.
As it chanced, the old warrior was the first to gain the airboat’s side. With an agility that belied his years, the commander put one hand on the low rail and vaulted over the side, cloak swirling. He knelt beneath a sheltering shield and stretched out his hand to assist his lord.
It was then that it happened.
Thongor halted, stumblingly, striking at empty air with his naked blade—lurched, as if he had run into something that the eye could not see—and vanished from the sight of Thom Pervis!
The old warrior gaped, jaw dropping in disbelief.
He could hear the sounds of a scuffle—panting, grunts, the thuds of blows—but could see nothing. While his napeskin prickled eerily, he saw portions of the dry grass flatten where Thongor had vanished—as if trodden by invisible feet.
“Sire! I come!” he shouted, and drew his steel, putting one hand on the rail to spring over it and regain the ground below. But now came other sounds—the thud and rustle of many feet pounding the earth!
From the empty air came Thongor’s panting voice.
“Back! Back, you fool—take off at once! Don’t try to rescue me—the rest of the dogs are coming—take to the air before you’re boarded by men you cannot see!”
Thom Pervis groaned with anguish in his heart. Sweat beaded his face and dread knotted his throat so that he could hardly speak. “But—sire! My king!” he cried, torment making his voice break and quiver.
The panting, thudding scuffle came from further away now. Whatever had seized Thongor had dragged him some distance away—but in which direction, no one could exactly say.
Again Thongor’s voice came from the empty air. This time it rang with the harsh cold iron of kingly command in it.
“I—command you—take the air—get—the crystals to Iothondus! Tell him to speed the weapons—mount them in your—ships!”
“My lord!”
“Then return—and seek me—
“Lord! Lord Thongor!”
No answer came. The invisible voice was silent. Thongor the Lord of the West was gone, as if the earth had opened beneath his feet and swallowed him up in eternal darkness. The cold sweat ran down Thom Pervis’ twisted face, mingling with tears, and agony seared his heart like a broiling iron.
The warrior beside him gasped and staggered. Blood blossomed from a sudden wound in his chest, and he pitched forward, flopping over the rail—dead.
The man who held the shield above Thom Pervis screamed as an invisible ax sheared into his arm. He lurched and fell, clutching the spouting wound. Thom Pervis, dazed, looked about him almost without comprehension.
The deck was being assaulted by invisible warriors!
Like a man awakening from a horrible dream, Thom Pervis rose stiffly to his feet. All about him sudden uproar exploded, as the Black Dragons felt cold steel rip into their flesh. Directly before Thom Pervis, a blur appeared on the polished urlium rail. Its mirror-bright surface clouded, as if a sweaty hand had clamped upon the rail. The deck lurched ever so slightly, as if a heavy weight was straddling the rail—the old daotar felt his bare arms roughen with the supernatural thrill of a premonition.
Like a blind man he struck wildly with his rapier at empty air. The sword swished through emptyness—-and struck some unseen obstruction with bone-jarring impact. A hoarse booming cry sounded from the thin air directly in front of him and the deck quivered underfoot as if a heavy object, had toppled from the side, making the weightless ship bob up slightly in the air.
The commander dropped a dazed glance to the sword he was holding. From hilt to point it was drenched in scarlet gore! It was almost as if when he had thrust the sword out before him, it had slashed through a man’s throat. . . .
Thom Pervis whirled on his heel and sprang the length the deck, blue cloak floating out behind him like great wings. At the flag-mast that thrust out from the airboat’s stern he swung up the rapier and brought it down with a vicious chopping motion. He cleft through the mooring line that held the flying vessel anchored to the tree. Instantly, like a gigantic balloon set adrift, the airboat floated a dozen yards above the earth.
The great voice of the daotar rose above the uproar like the thunderous roar of a brazen trumpet. “All craft—cut your mooring-lines and take the air—NOW!”
Like a flock of pigeons suddenly startled into flight, the Patangan fleet shot up into the atmosphere. The decks were crowded with straggling, cursing men who battled against things that could not be seen. But as of the moment Thom Pervis had hewn through the mooring-line, only a handful of the invisible enemy had managed to gain the decks of the floaters, and these few were- swiftly slain and thrust over the side. Within a moment, the fleet was a hundred yards aloft and the men, panting with excitement and trembling with superstitions fears, stared down at the empty, tranquil scene below . . . barren rocky outcropping of low hills, with here and there a wandering zamph placidly cropping dry hummocks of grassy turf. That and the stretch of empty field, flecked here and there with an arrow-riddled corpse . . . but still nothing else could be seen! It was a living nightmare, but at last it was over, and they had escaped with the crystals, and with their lives—Leaving the king behind. . . .
The old commander’s weary face grimaced at the memory of what he had been forced to do. He rubbed the back of his hands across his eyes, shaken. It had been the king’s own command. And, as an old soldier, Thom Pervis knew a fighting-man does not question a command.
But in all his career of service, he had never obeyed a harder order than this. He felt . . . shamed. Broken. Like a wounded thing, cut to the heart, he wanted to crawl away and be alone with his pain.
He stiffened, straightening his shoulders, clamping control over his wet, twisted face until it was harsh and cold as a mask of iron.
He was now in sole command. And a score of ships—a hundred brave men of the Air Guard and the Black Dragons—were his to care for. No time now to feel his grief, his pain: he must think and plan and pass orders. He must get the fleet back to Patanga intact. He must bear the load of crystals to Iothondus. Those things were the only matters he could concern himself with now.
There would be time enough, later, to mourn the dead.
And to avenge! His heart quickened. For Thongor’s last command had been to see the new weapons installed, and then to return into the plains.
A cold smile creased his firm mouth. His eyes blazed with iced fires.
It would be a vengeance such as these barren plains had never seen since first the Hands of God molded them from the raw stuff of creation.
He turned to summon his bugler.
“Lad! Sound the signals as I give command. We shall return to the dead city of Althaar and let our friends of the Jegga return to their people—then at the greatest speed these boats can make—to Patanga! Sound the trumpets/”
On the deck of another floater, Shangoth crouched weeping at the rail, unseen by the others. He had watched with horror and fury in his great heart as Thongor had vanished, borne off by unseen hands fro
m amidst his comrades.
In his hand, the prince of the Jegga clutched one of the black arrows that had rained over the decks from invisible bows. Only Shangoth had looked closely at the missile. It was unmistakably marked with tribal signs.
An arrow of the Zodak Horde . . . the hereditary enemies of his clan!
Shangoth had heard the last desperate commands Thongor had shouted, ere he had been overpowered by his viewless assailants to be carried off.
And Shangoth had seen the grief of Thom Pervis. And he had watched the cold iron of command-responsibility enter the old warrior’s soul and stiffen his spine to bear the burden. He knew that even were he to give this information to the Patangan chieftain, it would not swerve Thom Pervis from carrying out to the letter the commands he had received from his fallen king.
Shangoth knelt by the rail, crushing the arrow in his great hands.
Five years ago, when Thongor had saved him from a terrible death at the hands of Adamancus the Wizard of Zaar, Shangoth had laid his war ax at Thongor’s feet—the primitive token of an oath of lifelong fealty that the warriors of his people took when they placed themselves in service to a mighty chief.
He had laid his heart there at Thongor’s feet as well.
He knew there was only one thing to be done.
With the swift and simple directness of his barbaric kind, Shangoth swung silently over the rail and clutched the dangling rope ladder that trailed down through empty air below the ship. So sudden and unexpected had been the airboat’s departure, that when they had taken off no one had yet remembered to draw up the rope ladder to its accustomed place when in flight—coiled upon the deck.
Now he swung down hand over hand, until he dangled from the last rung.
He let go and dropped, landing on the springy, spongy turf. The distance of the fall could have broken the legs of a lesser man. But Shangoth was a Jegga Nomad, with the iron strength and mighty thews of his proud people. Although shaken, he was unhurt. The tremendous muscles of his long and powerful legs had absorbed the impact unharmed.
He stood and watched as the fleet passed overhead and dwindled in the distance, hurtling through the early afternoon towards the distant walls of Althaar.
Then the prince turned and loped away at a steady, long-legged pace that ate up the distance—a pace that his endurance and stamina could keep up for hours, if necessary.
He knew the Zodaki camped in the ruins of immemorial Yb, the City of the Worm, many leagues to the south. He doubted not that for whatever purpose they had seized Thongor, the Zodaki would bear their prize swiftly to the safety of their city. And Shangoth silently vowed to follow Thongor’s captors, to seek him out somehow, even from the midst of ten thousand enemies.
Or die trying.
CHAPTER 8
CAPTIVE OF THE BLUE GIANTS
Made viewless by the Wizard’s art,
The spectral foe—grim Zarthon’s horde—
Seize Thongor from his men apart,
And bring him bound before their Lord.
—Thongor’s Saga, XVII, 13.
Purple shadows of late afternoon were lengthening across the mighty plains before Thongor and his captors came within view of the walls of immemorial Yb the City of the Worm.
They had bound his arms with stout manacles of cold iron, clamping the cuffs and locking them on his wrists, with his arms behind his back. Once beyond sight of the Hills of the Thunder-Crystals, the invisible men had removed their peculiar cloaks, and whisked from Thongor the cloak which had concealed him from the view of Thom Pervis, Shangoth and the other warriors. And he saw them for Blue Nomads of a rival horde, although he could not read them for Zodaki from the jeweled badges that studded their ornamented, gold-encrusted leathern harnesses, as he knew not the tribal signs.
To the south of the hills, a herd of saddle-bearing zamphs had been tethered. The warriors bundled up the strange cloaks of slippery, glassy material which twisted the eyes painfully to look upon. They thrust the magical garments into saddle bags and bound Thongor with the chains while he stood grimly silent in his stoic way.
The cloaks, he saw, were more like hooded robes which hid the entire body. Extra-long sleeves were folded under, concealing even the hands, and the cowl-like hoods were drawn down over the face. As far as he could gather from his brief experience with the mysterious swathings, a jewel-set brooch worn at the waist controlled the mystic power of invisibility. The central jewel, a huge chandral, a gold-orange gem of great rarity, which has vanished from the earth with the submergence of Lost Lemuria, seemed to be the control. It turned in its setting, like a vernier-dial that switches on a radio.
Thongor recalled, years and years ago, the great Wizard of Lemuria himself, the mighty Sharajsha, had given him a gold armlet set with a huge chandral, saying cryptically that the bauble might someday come in handy. And some time after receiving the gift, while a prisoner of the corpselike men of the Lost City of Omm. in the jungles of unknown Kovia, Thongcr by accident had discovered the armlet to be a talisman of invisibility, which conferred the power of moving unseen to its wearer when the loose chandral was turned to a different position in its setting.
He also recalled that Sharajsha had been a magus of Zaar, long years and years before the mighty wizard had broken with the unscrupulous Black Druids and fled their city to take up his above in a subterranean palace hollowed from beneath the roots of the Mountains of Mommur in the distant West.
Thongor reached the conclusion that these magic cloaks of invisibility had been supplied to the Rmoahal warriors by his chief enemies, the Wizards of Zaar. It was an assumption based on slim evidence, but it seemed to make sense. For, since he had never had aught to do with men of this unknown horde, why else should they take this move against him—unless acting in the service of the Black Magicians?
Handling him roughly, the Zodaki thrust Thongor astride one of the zamphs, and they set out southwardly across the plains towards immemorial Yb. The zamph was a huge, strong and slow beast of burden that resembled a rhinoceros or a triceratops. Its hide was thick and leathery, a dull indigo in hue, changing to muddy yellow on the belly-plates. Its short, stumpy legs, hoofed with tough three-toed pads, could carry the beast without tiring for days on end. It had a horny, beaked snout like a parrot’s, and horns spouted from between the small pig-like eyes and over the small tender ears. A huge concave shield of horn and bone protected its neck and shoulders, and looked like a natural saddle. In the Lands of the West, a zamph’s raiders used this shield as a saddle, but the blueskinned giants of the east, too large to use the horny shield for this purpose, strapped gigantic leather saddles atop the zamph’s back, wherefrom they guided the slow-footed monsters in ponderous advance by means of reins affixed to small iron rings that pierced the zamph’s pig-like, sensitive ears. Although a fearful and monstrously huge creature to look at, weighing up to three or four tons in adulthood, the zamph was actually a docile beast of vegetarian habits, easily tamed as a beast of burden, although somewhat slow-witted.
The party of Zodaki ambushers set off across the plains with Thongor amongst them, leaving behind a score of their comrades to harry the Patangans and their Jegga escort. The Zodaki who were left behind would follow later, once the floaters had escaped from their invisible attack.
They rode through the gates of the City of the Worm some hours later. His captors had said little to Thongor, nor had he sought to question them, but assumed the silent dignity that hid behind an impassive face a busy mind and searching eyes.
Thongor observed that the warriors whom he knew now to be of the Zodak Horde, were much more primitive and uncouth than his friends, the Jegga. Grim, ugly warriors, their savage faces seamed with ritual scars, they seldom laughed or jested with each other. Indeed, each Zodaki seemed to regard his fellows with suspicion and hatred. Silent and sullen, they only spoke to growl an insult or utter a brutal warning. Savage tempers flared out constantly—each Zodaki seemed perpetually on the brink of mutiny—and durin
g the long trip across the plains, several fights broke out. A warrior, accidentally jostled or crowded by a comrade, would explode without warning into berserk fury. The expedition would then pause briefly, while two howling giants hurled upon each other, hacking with huge axes of bronze in. an explosion of maniacal frenzy that left one or the other opponent a hacked and gore-splashed corpse. During these duels, the others made not the slightest attempt to interfere or to halt the fight. The others simply gathered about to watch, laughing with coarse amusement as one of their fellows went down under the flailing blade of the thirty-pound axes. The victor would then strip the fallen corpse of its ornaments and gems, and they would all ride away, leaving the cadaver for the scavengers of the plain.
From such exhibitions of brutal and murderous fury, Thongor gathered that the Zodaki were on a much lower scale of civilization than the Jegga warriors, their rival horde to the north. For although the Jegga Nomads were also sunk in savagery, a rigid code of challenge and acceptance governed their quarrels, and a strict dueling code was adhered to, with a neutral umpire to oversee each individual conflict, to make certain it was an even contest, fought and won fairly. Moreover, among the Jegga, duels were forbidden during military actions such as this ambush party. Thongor wondered how the Zodaki kept any form of discipline over their ranks during war-season.
When they entered the city, still more evidence was visible that these were barbaric and brutalized people who had gained only the lowest rung of social organization. Women were held in common among the warriors of the Zodak Horde, and children were ignored, mistreated, cuffed aside until such time as they grew to adulthood and could defend themselves, whereupon they were grudgingly accepted as warriors of equal status to the other adults of the tribe.
