The Lost World MEGAPACK®. Lin Carter

not of Thandarian worksmanship, nor of the Drugars, either.”

      “When we escaped from the Drugars,” I pointed out, “we were all unarmed. Upon entering the jungle, any one of your people might have paused in his or her flight long enough to trim such a stick, making a crude weapon such as this.”

      “That is true,” nodded Tharn.

      Then, turning to the old scout, he was about to command him to return to his search-party, when the underbrush parted and a huge form shouldered through.

      “Hurok!” I cried with relief. For it was indeed the Korian, my Neanderthal comrade who had fled alone into the jungle rather than impose his undesired presence upon the Cro-Magnons.

      “What do you want here, Drugar?” demanded Tharn sternly, with one hand upon his flint knife.

      “Hurok has returned where he is not wanted,” said the Neanderthal man in his deep, slow voice, “to warn the friends of Black Hair that Uruk, Omad of Kor, and a mighty host of warriors have entered this part of the jungle and are advancing upon this very spot.”

      The Cro-Magnons flinched and gasped, for the news burst upon them like an unsuspected thunderbolt.

      Tharn grunted angrily, eyes glaring like those of a lion at bay. “Just when we were on the track of my daughter,” he growled, “we must face the Drugars in war! Well, so be it—Komad, summon my warriors.”

      The scout nodded, and lifting to his lips the hollow horn of an aurochs he sounded a deep, groaning call.

      At once warriors and huntsmen began returning to the glade of the pool, assembling to hear the commands of their Omad.

      “We cannot bear the brunt of attack here,” decided Tharn swiftly, “for they could hide behind every bole while we remain exposed to their missiles. Komad, where is a more advantageous place for such a battle as advances upon us?”

      The old scout thought a moment, then pointed. “In that direction, the jungle ends, opening upon a level plain, with cliffs and mountains beyond,” he answered.

      “Then let us depart for the plain at once,” commanded Tharn.

PART VI: WAR IN THE STONE AGE

      CHAPTER 21

      THE PASS THROUGH THE PEAKS

      As the panic-stricken herd receded toward the jungle, Torn and Professor Potter surveyed their handiwork with a certain degree of complacency and self-congratulation. And the Neolithic chieftain turned to view the old man with a new light of respect.

      “It was clever of you to think of fire,” said the youth admiringly. “When all that Jorn could think of was to run away…you must be a very wise man.”

      The Professor preened himself a trifle, basking in the admiring gaze of the young savage.

      “Ahem!” he coughed. “Kind of you, my boy, but actually no more than I deserve…for in my own country, I will have you know, I am a highly-respected scholar and authority upon many recondite subjects. A trained, scientific mind, you know, should be able to cope with the small problems of the Stone Age…”

      Like most of the words which the Professor used, Jorn could make nothing of scholar, authority, and so on. But he gathered the general drift of the Professor’s modest little speech, and smiled slightly.

      “I suggest that we continue our journey, now that I am rested,” murmured the Professor, peering off toward the cliffs, which now were quite near.

      Torn nodded, turning to survey the Peaks of Peril. And all at once the Stone Age boy froze as cold fear clawed at his vitals.

      “What is it that disturbs you, young man?” inquired the Professor, noting his companion’s sudden anxiety. “Has the wind changed, perchance, driving the wall of fire back upon us?”

      “No,” growled Jorn the Hunter, pointing. “Look—!”

      The Professor craned his head, peering in the direction of Jorn’s extended arm. And suddenly he gasped, and went pale.

      For there, crouching at the edge of a shelf of stone, they both could clearly observe the form of Darya of Thandar!

      She was dirtied and dishevelled by her experiences in the thakdol’s nest, and the blood of the uld’s carcass had stained her back and shoulders, but at a glance both men could see that she still lived and did not seem to have sustained any injury of a serious nature.

      And then there loomed up above her the immense and shaggy shape of that which had caught her terrified, fascinated attention—

      “Omodon!” groaned Jorn in stifled tones.

      “Cave bear, for the Love of Linnaeus!” cried the Professor, almost in the same moment.

      They watched, frozen with horror, as the lumbering monster advanced upon the cowering girl, huge arms lifted to maul and crush and slay.…

      * * * *

      It did not take the horde of Apemen from Kor very long to find the clearing from which Tharn and his warriors had retreated, nor were the signs of their passage unreadable to the alert senses of the Neanderthal men. If their eyes were rather weak and dim of vision, as I had by now good cause to believe, their sense of smell was remarkably keenkeener by far than the sensitivity of the nostrils of civilized men, for they were closer to the primal beasts than are we.

      It was One-Eye who detected the direction in which the Cro-Magnons had fled.

      Crouched on all fours, the Neanderthal man sniffed the footprints in the turf. A bestial growl escaped his snarling lips as he scented a detested odor.

      “Panjani!” he grunted to his Chief. “Tens-of-tens…they went that way,” he added, pointing. Uruk surveyed the end of the clearing, his suspicious little eyes reading the passage of many men in broken twigs and disturbed fallen leaves.

      “Come!” he grunted, gesturing with his axe. And without another word, the Apeman turned and lumbered in the direction in which Tharn of Thandar had marched his warriors. At his heels shambled two score of the mightiest warriors of Kor, armed to the very teeth.

      Xask and Fumio, however, took up the rear. The sly vizier preferred to put as much distance between himself and any armed conflict as could with prudence be effected, and Fumio, although no coward, wisely clung by the side of his only friend among the Drugars.

      “It would appear that the fears of One-Eye were correct, and that the father of the girl from Thandar has indeed pursued her captors, and in force!” observed the slender man in the silken tunic. “Now, by Minos, we shall see a battle!—but from a careful distance, eh, Fumio?”

      “As you say, lord,” muttered the other. Inwardly, a pang of despair lanced through his heart; for if Tharn of Thandar were indeed as near as the Apemen believed, then he stood in a position of peril more deadly than if he had rashly placed himself in the very forefront of the Korian charge:

      Once Darya’s father had learned of his attempted rape of the Princess of Thandar, he would be hounded into exile and outlawry for the remainder of his life, with no possible hope of mercy or a royal pardon.

      If, indeed, the Cro-Magnon monarch permitted him to escape with his life!

      “Let us, then, follow our brutish heroes,” smiled the slim, dark man, “and observe their battle against the rival host.”

      The two conspirators entered the jungle and followed the loping, grunting Neanderthals to the edge.

      * * * *

      Reaching the broad and level plains before the first of the Apemen of Kor, Tharn and his host of warriors took up their position upon the sandy crest of a rounded knoll some distance from the edge of the trees.

      It was not high, this shallow hill, to afford the Cro-Magnons any particular advantage, but still and all their savage adversaries would have to come at them up the slope, which would force the bowlegged