It was Lukor whose keen eyes perceived our minute figures clinging to the ledge on the opposite wall of the cavern. He sent the craft gliding swiftly through the dimness towards our precarious perch, but such was the immensity of the cavern that Koja and Lukor were forced to watch without being able to assist in my desperate battle with the nesting Zarkoon. As the slain bird-man toppled over the ledge and my young companions rescued me from a similar fate, the skiff swung up past the ledge―and it was this sudden and unexpected apparition that caused Ylana to shriek in alarm.
A moment later Koja brought the craft to a halt and held it motionless, drifting in the idle air-currents just above the ledge, while Lukor sprang down to clasp my hand, beaming with delight. Introductions were hastily made, and before Ylana had time to fully recover from her alarm and to adjust to the fact that the odd little man and the gaunt, gigantic insect-being were friends and their amazing flying vehicle a safe and useful tool, we bundled the jungle maid and young Tomar into their seats, and I climbed aboard, and we angled the craft about, heading back to the circular hole in the roof.
For, due either to the fall of the dead Zarkoon I had slain or Ylana’s scream―or perhaps both―the slumbering bird-warriors were by now fully aroused from their diurnal slumbers and aware that their dinner was in the process of escaping. From the nests which lined the ledges all about the walls of the enormous cavern, winged figures were hurtling themselves into the air, and many of them clenched in their sharp talons rude, stone-tipped spears or flint axes or toothed swords of glittering obsidian. Some, in fact, were armed with bows and arrows.
We soared out of the crater only moments ahead of the foremost flight of our pursuers, and as we flashed out over the flanks of the mountain, riding the air-currents in a long, gliding curve, I looked over my shoulder to see angry black flecks boiling out of the pit behind us. They looked for all the world like a swarm of angry bees pouring in a vengeful stream out of a nest which had been disturbed by an unwary or careless intruder. Soon their eyes adjusted to the brilliance of day, which, in the extremity of their rage, they did not let deter them from their pursuit of us. They came after us, flying at amazing speed, squawking like angry hawks.
Neither the Jalathadar nor any of the other ships of the armada were visible aloft. Either the four aerial vessels were out of sight behind the mountains, busily searching for us, or they had for some unconjecturable reason quit the scene entirely. With a quick decision, Lukor decided he could attain the utmost velocity by riding the current of air which presently sustained us, so he followed it rather than attempting to ascend to a higher level from which the armada might well have been visible.
Glancing back at the two youngsters, I suppressed a grin. For all her flaunted contempt and derision, the jungle girl had flung her arms about Tomar’s neck and had buried her face in his chest. Looking distinctly uncomfortable, the scarlet-faced boy was awkwardly embracing her, gingerly patting her bare and rounded shoulder by way of trying to comfort her. I assumed correctly that the jungle maid was finding her first experience in a flying machine rather unsettling.
The winged men were hurtling after us in a long line, and they were obviously gaining upon us. For all the speed of the little craft, the powerful pinions of the Zarkoon drove them through the air at astonishing speed. The nearest of the monster-men was so close that I could see his glaring eyes, bright with fury, and his red tongue as his yellow beak parted to give voice to a screech of rage.
I could also see the great warbow he clutched, and the long, barb-tipped, blue-feathered arrows in the quiver slung across his tawny breast.
I did not like the look of those arrows.
It was impossible to discern the direction in which we were flying. I assume it was due north, or north and west, perhaps, but as the sun is not visible in the daylight skies of Thanator, it is peculiarly difficult to ascertain the cardinal directions. Burdened down with the weight of five passengers, the little skiff was flying sluggishly, wallowing from side to side in the air-stream, and I feared that at any moment it might sink from our combined weight, and descend into a region of calm
and motionless air, which would greatly reduce the speed at which we were flying.
Nevertheless, it soon became obvious that we were going to be able to hold our slender lead over the Zarkoon who pursued us. The aerial machine was tireless, but the bird-men were not. Their distaste for sunlight was beginning to overcome their rage and fury, and I saw that some of them had thrown away their weapons and were turning about, arms shielding their little eyes from the glare, heading back for the comfortable darkness of their cavern home. And as for those who still hurtled after us, their wings, although powerful and capable of spurts of surprising speed, were obviously unable to sustain that speed for long. Rapidly beginning to tire, even the most determined of our pursuers were beginning to fall behind as their pinions failed and faltered.
But the foremost of the pursuit, the enormous birdman who clutched the bow and the quiver of long, blue-feathered arrows, refused to tire or to turn back. I recognized him from the distinctive marking on his indigo plumage: he was the chieftain, Zawk, the one who had captured Tomar and myself at the start of this adventure.
We flew on. Ahead, in the distance, a ridgeline of serrated peaks blocked our path. If we continued in our present course, we should have to rise above that ridge, perhaps losing the advantage of riding the air-current which was now all that gave us our slim lead on the Zarkoon. Of course, it was possible that the wind-stream rose to pass over the lip of the ridge, and would carry us with it. There was a possibility that this was so, but of course we could not be sure.
The skiff flew on, buoyant hull riding the wind. The barren landscape of tortured rock swept by beneath our gas-filled pontoons. Fang-like peaks flashed past as we threaded through a maze of steep pinnacles of stone. Ahead, the clifflike rampart rose in our path, blocking away the golden sky like a wall of granite. I must confess that my heart was in my mouth as we hurtled on with the vengeful Zarkoon warriors soaring like hunting hawks in our wake.
One by one, however, they fell away behind us. Their eyes could not endure the torture of daylight and, as their great wings tired, they fell back and sought again the cool gloom of their cavern home. At last, only Zawk remained following us. And then he, too, gave up the chase. Brandishing his great black bow with a last fierce cry, he turned about and soon was lost to sight, a winged mote floating among the peaks.
Now the cliffs rose before us and, lifted on the wind, we rose to meet them.
Lukor was wrestling with the controls. I could not see what he was doing. Then he turned a despairing glance over his shoulder to me. I leaned forward to hear above the winds as he shouted something.
“Something is wrong!” he cried, the wind whipping his words away until I could barely understand him. “We are sinking―the craft is losing buoyancy for some reason!”
“Well, no matter―we can land at any time now,” I shouted in reply. “The Zarkoon have given up the chase.”
He shook his head furiously, the wind whipping his silver locks into a tangle about his high, noble brow.
“That’s just it, Jandar, my friend! We can’t―the wind has us in its grasp now, and we are traveling too swiftly. If we try to land now the skiff will be torn asunder, hurtling us against the rocks below!”
And he was right, for at that moment we were flying through space at a terrific rate of speed. Here the air currents were drawn through narrowing walls of rock, like a broad river forced between the banks of a tight gorge. Focused into a narrow stream, the wind howled like a banshee and thrust our flimsy craft before it like a chip on the surface of a torrent.