” 'Brave?' To swing along a rope? ‘Tis childish sport, for one raised in the Jungle Country,” she snorted.
And without the slightest warning, the girl flung herself out of the cage, wrapped her long bare legs about the swinging line, and nimbly traversed the distance in half the time it had taken Tomar!
Arriving at the other side, she levered herself up on the ledge, disdaining Tomar’s assistance, and sprang upon her feet. Putting her hands on her smooth young hips, the girl tossed her head and shot a mischievous little smile over at me.
I swung across the abyss myself, both pair of young eyes intent on my progress. To the teen-aged boy and girl, anyone over twenty-five is ready for the old age home, so I tried to do it as agilely as possible, but I fear my face was scarlet with effort and my chest bedewed with perspiration before I reached the security of the ledge. And I was by that point grateful enough for the helping hand Tomar offered. I clambered up over the lip of rock and sat there for a moment, catching my breath, considering what next to do. Our options were certainly few enough in number.
We had escaped from our imprisonment, but we were still prisoners, in a sense. That is, we were still within the vastness of the hollow mountain, and still prey to the dangerous Zarkoon. At any moment, Zawk and his bird-warriors might swoop upon us like hunting hawks. For, although it was still day, I wondered how trustworthy was Ylana’s information concerning the diurnal dormancy of the winged men, and whether or not a cadre of Zarkoon sentinels might not be on watch. Naked save for loin-cloths, and our boots, which we salvaged from the end of the line and made haste to don, we were few and unarmed and therefore relatively helpless before the blue-winged predators who ruled this cavern world.
And we had yet another problem to deal with.
We had emerged from our cages and gained a ledge near the roof of the cavern. The great circular crater or pit that was―insofar as we knew―the only entrance or exit from the cavern was in this roof. But we were on the opposite side of the cavern from it!
The ledge, of course, did not run evenly all around the cavern. Which meant we could not just follow it around to the other side and climb out the crater-like hole in the roof. Neither could we go across the ceiling of the cavern by any conceivable means, not being able to walk upside down. No, we were going to have to do things the hard way, when it came to escaping from the cavern-world of the Zarkoon cannibals. We were going to have to climb down the sheer rocky wall, cross the floor of the cavern, and ascend on the other side, as near to the hole in the roof as we could manage. This would be hard, exhausting work and would consume many hours, I felt sure. And it would enormously increase our dangers of being discovered by a wakeful Zarkoon. But there was no help for it that I could see.
I rose to my feet, stretching to ease the kinks from my arms and the ache in my shoulders.
“Well, let’s get going,” I said.
The ledge was about two feet wide for the most part and by no means level. At times it dipped sickeningly; at other times it narrowed to as little as nine inches of rock. To further complicate matters, it was streaked and beslimed with the bird-like droppings of the Zarkoon. Our footing was thus precarious in the extreme. In some places we could stride along in single-file; in others, we inched along a hand’s-breadth at a time, with our backs pressed against the wall.
Tomar proved agile, sure-footed and calm-even when the footing was dangerous and uncertain. As for Ylana, my bosom filled with admiration for the sturdy jungle maid. If ever I am blessed with a daughter, I could ask for none better than a girl like her. She was brave and cool-headed, nimble as a mountain-goat, and her cheerful good-humor kept us all in fine spirits. It seemed a momentary truce had been declared in the mischievous rivalry between the two youngsters: they helped each other (and myself) over the hazardous spots without a quip or a sneer, clasping hands without embarrassment or rebuff. And when we reached the terminus of the ledge and had to descend to a lower outcropping, Tomar picked up the girl and handed her down to me, his arms clasped about her waist, and her arms about his neck, their faces rather close together for a moment, in wordless silence. I was grateful for the truce, and wondered how long it would last.
The second ledge descended at a steep incline and would, I guessed, take us twenty or thirty yards down the cliff before it dribbled away in mere stubs of outthrust rock, forcing us to hunt for another way down. We followed this declining ramp in single-file, the girl, as it chanced, going first for no particular reason. The incline was rough, uneven, and littered with pebbles, many of which were sharp-edged, and flinty rocks, and I thanked the unknown and mysterious Lords of Gordrimator for allowing us to resume wearing our boots before forcing us to traverse this path of broken rock.
Ahead of me, going around an immense boulder, Ylana suddenly froze and stood breathless and tense. Catching up to her I looked over her shoulder and felt the blood congeal in my veins. It was a danger I had anticipated, but had hoped to avoid.
Around the bend the ledge narrowed to a smooth boss of rock some three feet wide. And there, directly in our path, a huge, untidy nest of lime-smeared twigs, bits of cloth, dried grasses and gnawed white bones, blocked our way.
In the nest squatted motionless the immense figure of a great Zarkoon.
It was neither Zawk nor Skeer nor Kloog, they being the only three of their terrible kind I knew by name. But it was not the identity of the creature, but its presence, that mattered.
The brute was seated tailor-fashion in the bottom of the nest, his clawed feet securely clenching the sides of the nest lest he should lose his balance in his sleep and topple from his place of safety. His gaunt yellowish arms, terminating in those grotesque bird-talons, were folded loosely in his lap, and his blue-plumed, ungainly wings were half-folded over his shoulders. His beaked and hideous visage was hidden under one wing, and he looked for all the world like a pigeon asleep in his nest. And asleep he was, for I could see his bony chest rise and fall in the deep breathing of slumber.
He blocked our way. And there was no way past him.
Tomar had caught up with us. Peering over Ylana’s shoulder, the boy took in the problem with one swift glance.
“Can’t we brain him with a rock?” the boy whispered in my ear. I shrugged helplessly; we could try, but it would be difficult at best, as his head was half-hidden by the blue-feathered wing, and as I had no means of knowing how tough were the skulls of the
Zarkoon or how easy―or difficult―it might prove to slay one of them with my bare hands.
And there was another danger as welclass="underline" suppose I didn’t manage to slay the brute outright, but only injured him. His squawk of rage and pain might well rouse his dozing neighbors on ledges nearby, rousing a host of the savage winged monsters―if indeed some were not already alert and awake, as I half-feared.
But there was nothing else to do but give it a try. I was fumbling about on the ledge for a large enough rock, when Ylana caught my attention with a quick gesture, and pointed to the Zarkoon. Thrust through a loop in its leathern harness, the stone blade of a crudely-chipped flint knife glinted in the half-light.
That would indeed be the best weapon.
Gliding past the girl, I bent, plucked the flint knife from the breast of the sleeping monster―and drove it to the hilt in his scrawny breast!
Convulsing in a spasm of agony, he flung wide his gaunt arms, thrusting me off-balance. For a moment I teetered on the brink of the abyss as the monster-man lurched half-erect, vulture-wings beating, yellow beak gaping wide, eyes glaring, mad with pain.
In the next instant, Ylana seized my arm, dragging me back to a place of safety on the narrow ledge as the dying Zarkoon, eyes glazing, oily gore bubbling from its chomping beak, toppled past me over the edge of the abyss.