The Return of Tharn Part 2

"Yes."

The young man from the tribe of Gerdak nearly betrayed his skepticism.

Never before had he heard of a man whose nose could receive and interpret a scent spoor. It smacked of a kins.h.i.+p with the animals themselves.

"Are you sure?" he asked uneasily.

Tharn's quick ear caught the undercurrent of incredulity in the boy's voice, and he smiled under the cover of darkness. It was not the first time his unique ability had been doubted. He drew Trakor to a halt.

"Watch," he said.

Lifting his head the cave lord gave voice to the hunting squall of a leopard. So perfect was his imitation of Tarlok's cry, so fearsome the sound, that Trakor shrank back in quick alarm.

As the harsh scream rose on the night air, there was a sudden flurry of motion among the tangled foliage to their right, a blurred figure skidded into the trail ahead of where they stood and disappeared around a bend of the path. In the brief moment in which it was visible, Trakor recognized the animal as Gubo.

Crestfallen, Trakor could think of nothing to say. Never again, he resolved, would he doubt any statement made by this G.o.d-like stranger.

There were many questions he burned to ask, but an aura of reserve seemed to surround the man--an aura he hesitated to intrude upon. At last he could contain his curiosity no longer.

"Where lie the caves of your people, Tharn?"

"Nearly two moons' march to the north," the cave lord replied readily enough.

"You came so great a distance alone?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Tharn did not at once reply. During the moon since he had set out from Sephar in search of Dylara this was his first opportunity for a friendly word with a fellow man. On the several occasions that he encountered hunting parties of Cro-Magnon warriors, he had been regarded as legitimate prey to be hunted down and slain. Tharn expected no different att.i.tude; it was the way of his own people when they came across fighting-men of other tribes. Consequently he gave such groups a wide berth, fighting against them only when given no other choice.

Long periods of silence, however, were no hards.h.i.+p to Tharn. Since boyhood he was accustomed to spending most of his days and many nights alone in the jungles and on the broad plains of this savage, untamed world, finding his greatest pleasure in matching his courage, cunning and strength against the denizens of forest and prairie. And because none of the other young men of his father's tribe was so highly developed mentally or physically, he made no intimates among them.

It was the kind of life which tends to develop a reticent nature in any man; and while Tharn was in no way morose or antisocial he was given to saying little beyond what must, of necessity, be put into words.

Under the warmth of Trakor's awed respect and undisguised admiration, however, Tharn's customary reserve began to thaw and he spoke at greater length than he intended.

"Two moons ago," he began, while they moved steadily along the twisting elephant path, "the girl I wanted as my mate was taken by a group of men who called themselves Ammadians. These men came from a great territory that lies south of your own caves. Ages ago many hundreds of the Ammadians left their country and traveled into the north, stopping finally in a high valley only a few marches from where the caves of my people now are."

"Here they built many strange caves on level ground by piling heavy slabs of rock together, surrounding them all by a great wall of stone.

They named this place Sephar and spoke of themselves as Sepharians."

"From time to time bands of Ammadians cross the plains and mountains and jungles between Ammad and Sephar. The leader of one of those bands, an Ammadian named Jotan, saw Dylara and wanted her for himself. Not long before this, Dylara had been taken from me by a hunting party of Sepharians, and she was held captive by Sephar's chief until he gave her to Jotan."

"Soon thereafter Jotan's party set out on the return journey to Ammad.

Because of a wound, it was an entire moon before I was able to set out in pursuit of those who hold Dylara."

So engrossed was Trakor in the other's story that he quite forgot his uneasiness regarding the night-cloaked jungle about him. His imagination was fired by Tharn's adventures, and his ready sympathy went out to the cave lord in his romantic quest.

"Then you must enter the land called Ammad and take Dylara from those who have her?" he asked.

Tharn nodded. "At first," he said, "I hoped to overtake Jotan and his men before they could reach Ammad. But several times I lost their trail for days on end. Once a raging fire swept over a great stretch of gra.s.slands I was crossing and I was forced to spend many days circling the burned section before I was able to pick up the signs of their pa.s.sage. Then, ten suns ago, I lost the trail completely; since then I have been guided only by the directions given me when I left Sephar."

For a little while Trakor did not speak. Then: "Are these men you call Ammadians not so large as the people of our tribes? Do they cover their bodies with a strange kind of skin that comes from no animal? And do they wear strange coverings on their feet? And do they carry a strange length of branch with a tight length of gut tied to each end and many small spears such as you are carrying?"

Tharn, his pulses suddenly beginning to pound, seized the boy by one arm, bringing him to an involuntary halt. "Such are the Ammadians," he said tensely. "What do you know about them?"

"I have heard the warriors of my tribe speak of them," Trakor said.

"There have been times in the past when we fought them. But they are brave and good fighters and we do not have the gut-strung branches which throw the small spears so straight and so far. So now we seek no quarrel with them unless they come too near our caves."

"Why, it was no more than five suns ago that Roban, son of Gerdak himself, watched a large party of them as they made their way up the great cliffs not far to the east of our caves. I heard him tell about it at the cooking fires that same night."

"Did he speak of women being among them?" Tharn demanded.

Trakor scratched his head. "I do not think so. As I remember it now, I did not hear the whole story; for Lanoa walked away from the fires and I followed her before Roban had finished."

Tharn's hand dropped from the boy's arm. "Come," he said, and once more they set out along the path.

CHAPTER II

CRO-MAGNON HOSPITALITY

As the two Cro-Magnon men rounded an abrupt bend in the elephant path, the jungle and forest ended sharply at the edge of a wide clearing before a sheer cliff, its surface dotted with many cave entrances. Near the escarpment base a dozen cooking fires blossomed against the darkness, and the shadowy forms of members of Gerdak's tribe moved about them.

For a moment Tharn and his companion remained standing at the forest edge watching the activity. The cave lord's acute sense of caution, without which few dwellers of this savage world lived long, kept him motionless while his sharp eyes took in every detail of the surrounding terrain. This business of approaching a village of strangers--and therefore enemies!--was a move not lightly to be taken, even when accompanied by one of its inhabitants.

Trakor tugged at his arm. "Come, Tharn! Come and receive the grat.i.tude of my father and my people for saving me from Sadu. When they hear how you slew him with nothing more than a knife they will wors.h.i.+p you as a G.o.d!"

His vague reluctance still with him, Tharn permitted the youth to urge him into the open. They were well into the clearing before one of the men about the fires caught sight of them and gave a warning shout.

Instantly a score of warriors caught up their spears and formed a bristling line facing the newcomers, while others piled dry branches on the fires sending flames shooting high to illuminate the scene with almost midday brightness.

"Put down your spears!" cried Tharn's companion, laughing. "It is I--Trakor, son of Kygor. Where are your hunters' eyes that you do not know me?"

But the line of spear heads did not waver. Now, moving from behind the formation of fighting men came Gerdak, chief of the tribe. Short, squat and very ugly was Gerdak. Set nearly flush on his broad sloping shoulders was a bullet-like head, almost hairless as the result of an old scalp infection. Firelight reflected in his pig-like eyes made them glow like burning sparks as he glowered from beneath s.h.a.ggy brows at the tall stranger at Trakor's side.

"Who is he?" growled the chief, jerking a grimy thumb at the cave lord.

"He is my friend," Trakor said, and there was the beginning of anger in his tone. "His name is Tharn. In all the world there is no greater fighter."

Nothing changed in Gerdak's expression. "He is not one of us. Tell him to go at once or I will kill him!"

Trakor stiffened. Suddenly his anger flamed into the open--flamed with such intensity that he completely forgot the object of his wrath was his own chief.

"_YOU_ will kill him! Ha! There are not fifty among you who could kill him! With only a knife he slew Sadu--leaping upon him as though Sadu were no more than Bana, the deer. He comes among us as my friend--treat him as such!"