And directly ahead of us the cliff rose like a mighty barrier. Within instants, unless we could break free from the grip of the gale, we would smash against that terrible wall and be shattered to atoms.
We could not descend; but if we could rise above the gale, we would enter into a region of calmer air where our headlong velocity would slow, and we could curve aside.
But we could not rise, for unaccountably the craft was losing her buoyancy almost visibly. Moment to moment we hung heavier in the roaring wind, and already the wings were shuddering under the buffeting of the blast. The craft wallowed sluggishly, wobbling from side to side. But what was wrong? Had the gas-filled pontoons sprung a leak?
I bent over the side of the cockpit, trying to see what was the matter. The wind made my eyes water and whipped my long yellow hair. Blinking the tears away, squinting into the blast, I searched the pontoons with a fierce, intent scrutiny.
And there I saw it.
Ere turning back, Zawk had sent one arrow after us in a final gesture of defiance.
Nor had his great bow failed him.
For, thrusting from the portside pontoon, the long shaft protruded, feathered with indigo-blue.
The Zarkoon bow had launched a feathered messenger of hate against us. And that feathered shaft would soon prove a winged messenger of death!
For, sunk deep in the pontoon, it had torn a ragged gash in the molded paper hull―through which our levitating gas was swiftly leaking―
Chapter 12
The Monster from the Lake
“Hold on!” Lukor shouted, jerking the lever frenziedly.
The cliff-wall loomed up before our prow, blocking out the sky.
Here the wind rose, fiercely, soaring up and over the jagged edge of the barrier. And the skiff rose with it, climbing at a steep, impossible angle.
Lukor slammed the ailerons into their vertical slot, and kicked at the rudder pedals with every ounce of strength lie possessed-fighting madly to coax every scrap of lifting power out of the hurtling machine.
Leaking gas though she was, the trim little craft was still made of laminated paper, tough and light as a kite. She was borne before the rushing winds like a cork in a millstream.
We rose at an incredible angle, virtually standing on our tail, prow pointed into the sky! Up … up … up … the rugged cliff flashing by … the serrated crest expanding as we flashed towards it―
And over it―
The little skiff shuddered like a live thing. Caught in the tide of wind that flowed up and spilled over the wall, we scraped over the crest. With a shattering impact one taut wing slammed against a boulder―and flew apart in flying rags and splinters―
Over the top of the wall we coasted. We got one swift look at the weird and fantastic thing which lay beyond the barrier―a vast plateau, circled with a cliff-like barrier, a dense tangle of scarlet jungle, threaded through with silvery rivers, and the broad glimmering shield of a huge lake.
Then, unbalanced because of the shattered wing, we cartwheeled madly, losing height and hurtling down at sickening speed. The tangled carpet of crimson jungle whirled up towards us. Lukor fought the controls, trying to ease the spinning craft into a glide, but we fell like a stone.
“Jump!” I yelled as the shimmering lake swung up to slap us. I sprang from the cockpit of the spinning craft, followed by Tomar and the jungle maid. I caught a glimpse of old Lukor standing up to spring over the side―
Then a thousand tons of cold water smashed into me and I sank into gathering darkness …
Gagging and fighting for air, I returned to my senses in a numb silence. I lay face down on a stretch of wet mud, soaked to the skin and vomiting a barrel full of cold fresh water. I staggered to my feet, lurched drunkenly, and fell to my knees.
I was dazed with shock, and momentarily deafened from the impact of striking the lake from such a height, and I ached all over as if I had been beaten with rubber truncheons. But I still lived, and no bones seemed to be broken.
Further down the beach I came upon Lukor, his clothes a soggy ruin, pouring water out of his boots and cursing because he had lost his favorite stiletto. He was not exactly disarmed, however, as he still wore his trusty sword. He was in a fine temper, but looked little the worse for wear. It would take more than a ducking in the lake to beat the spirit out of the gallant old Ganatolian!
“Where are the others?” I asked. He made some reply, but I could not understand him, because of the ringing in my ears. At first I feared lest my eardrums had been ruptured when I slammed into the lake, but it proved only a momentary discomfiture and already I was recovering, although I still could not hear him.
Sensing my problem, he pantomimed, and I turned to see the girl, sleek with water as any mermaid, half dragging the floundering form of Tomar out of the lake. She waded up to us and cast the boy down before us with a little pretty expression of disgust.
“Pooh!” she snorted. “The boy is useless. He cannot even swim!”
And she was right―poor Tomar looked as if he had swallowed half of the lake. And from the amount of water he began gagging up, I believe he had done so. But, though sodden and green about the gills, he had survived the crackup of the aircraft with no serious hurt that I could see.
“Hah!” Lukor cackled with fierce pride. “I am not so bad a pilot after all! I believe, Jandar my friend, I will ask for a command in the sky navy, when we are out of here.”
“Not so bad?” I laughed. “You nearly killed us! It’s sheer luck we aren’t all drowned! And if you call that a landing … !”
“Pah, my boy―anything you can walk away from is a good landing―ask Zantor sometime! And, outside of a ducking, we are in fine enough shape, I’ll warrant!”
It was Tomar who asked it.
Still lying in the mud, he looked about him dazedly, then up at me, eyes wide and questioning in his pale face.
“But where is the lord Koja?” he asked.
His clear young tones faded into silence. There was no sound, save for the ripple of wavelets on the beach and the distant cry of sea-tells.
Lukor looked down at the sodden boots he held in his hands. His features were averted but I saw them go blank and empty. Was it a tear went trickling down his cheek, or a drop of lake-water from his damp head? I cannot say. But I think I know.
For Koja was not on the beach.
Towards evening we built a fire at the edge of the jungle and cooked a fat, waddling lizard-thing Ylana had brained with a stone. She and Tomar had built a bonfire, gathering dry leaves and fallen branches, and
Lukor touched it alight with his flint-and-steel. We chewed half-burnt, half-raw lizard meat in a moody silence.
We had spent the afternoon searching the beach in both directions for what must have been miles. The lake was very large―so large that we could not see the further shore, save as a dim, misty line against the dark cliffs beyond. But we found no sign of Koja.
The warrior princes of the Yathoon horde roam the Great Plains of Haratha from the Black Mountains near the pole to the fringes of the Grand Kumala. There are no lakes or seas for thousands of miles in the southern hemisphere of Callisto, and only one river.
There is no reason to think, therefore, that any of the Yathoon have ever learned how to swim.
“‘Tis my fault,” Lukor muttered. “I am not such a good pilot after all.” Suddenly, and for the first time, he looked old, his shoulders stooped, his eyes dull and weary in a face lined and scored with wrinkles.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “You did the best that you could do, under the circumstances,” I said quietly. “No one could have brought us down without a crackup with one pontoon empty and one wing shorn away. At least you took us down in the lake. If it had been the jungle, or the shore, none of us would be alive now. You did the best you could, Lukor.”