“A ghastozar,” the girl breathed. “Coming this way…”
The boy gasped an oath, turning wild eyes aloft. The black shape grew swiftly in size, and soon the long, swishing tail with its barbed tip could be seen, as well as the long, arched neck and alligatorlike snout.
The ghastozar is a flying lizard of prodigious size, and one of the most dreaded and feared of all the predators on the jungle Moon. I have seen them at close range myself, and to my untutored gaze they distinctly resemble the grisly pterodactyl, winged monstrosity of the dim Pleistocene skies.
While the boy and girl gazed skyward in consternation, unable because of their bonds to flee or even to defend themselves, the flying reptile hurtled nearer and nearer.
Nor did Zhu Kor seem in the slightest degree fearful at the approach of the winged dragon, whose insatiable appetite and adamantine claws made him an object of horror the length and breadth of Thanator.
“The Terror of the Skies,” he was called by the nations of this world. Even those ferocious, indomitable, and coldly emotionless warriors, the Yathoon Horde, held this creature in helpless awe.
Black-ribbed, membranous wings spread wide, blotting out the golden skies, the flying horror dropped toward the three tiny figures on the rocky plain
Tomar and Ylana shrieked.
But Zhu Kor only smiled his thin, mirthless smile as the titanic aerial reptile fell upon them.
Chapter 8
CARRIED OFF!
IT was not long before Lukor discovered the first important clue as to what had befallen young Tomar and the Jungle Maid.
Armed with a precise map of the Underground City, his search teams combed every inch of the corridors and cells and chambers that extended beyond the last place where the two youngsters were known to have been.
The Tharkolian lieutenant, Kadar, had explained how he had assigned to Tomar and the girl the task of searching the vacant cellblock and storage-chambers to make certain no one was concealed therein.
It was Koja who discovered Ylana’s knife still wedged between the sill and the stone door in the empty cubicle at the rear of the storage-chamber. The Yathoon swordsman quickly raised the alarm, summoning to his side a party of warriors. Lukor came down at the news, eyes sparkling with zestful excitement.
The strong arms of Ergon pried open the stone door. Swordsmen entered the secret chamber, naked blades held ready in one hand, the other holding aloft flaring torches.
Lukor gasped, pointing.
The torch light revealed three sets of footprints clearly marked on the dusty pave. The smaller ones in the supple buskins could easily have been made by the jungle Maid. Those slightly larger, in sandals of regulation cut, were probably Tomar’s.
But―the third set?
Lukor bent over them, keen eyes searching in the glare of the torches. Eventually he straightened, and those who stood about, awaiting his instruction, saw an expression of grim satisfaction on his aristocratic features.
“Friend Koja, I believe we have found the whereabouts of the sixteenth corpse,” he said tersely. “Albeit, the corpse is not yet a corpse―a lapse I trust we shall soon be able to rectify!”
“In other words,” murmured the solemn arthropod, “you believe the third set of prints were made by the missing Mind Wizard?”
The old Ganatolian nodded, sleek, silver hair gleaming in the fire of the torches.
“Precisely so,” he puffed. “Somehow or other, Ylana and the boy got wind of his hiding-place, and unjudiciously chose to search him out on their own. A pityl I trust they have been sensible enough to merely dog his steps, and not attempt to arrest the yellow devil. Captain, a troop of men, quickly. Follow the trail wherever it leads and report back to me at the command post. Koja, you may accompany the search party if you so desire. I am going back to apprise our comrades of this discovery and to alert the sentries to the possibilities that at least one of the Kuurians somehow managed to survive the massacre…”
Koja nodded and turned to join the waiting warriors, while Lukor and grumbling Ergon turned to reenter the main portion of the labyrinth.
“I do not understand, Sir Lukor, why I may not accompany the search party,” the Perushtarian gladiator glowered.
“Because I have need of your strong back and fighting strength,” replied the master-swordsman crisply. “Come, and make hastel We have many things to do …”
“Such as?” inquired the red gladiator, a truculent and surly expression on his heavy-jawed face.
“Such as to make certain our facilities are secure against any depredations the fugitive Mind Wizard might attempt,” said the Ganatolian. “The Underground City is sufficiently guarded to prevent him from returning to it and from using it as a hideaway. The Jalathadar is aloft and beyond his reach. The Valley itself is infested with our troops, so it is unlikely he could utilize our stores or food supplies. One area remains open to possible use by the little yellow devil, however, and that is the cavern hidden in the side of the mountain, where the Kuurians had our captive vessels moored. I will alert our sentries and guards in the labyrinthine ways, the beach above, and aloft in the flying ship. I rely on you, friend Ergon, to lead a squad to occupy the mountain cavern, to make certain that the fugitive does not make use of it. Come along now, and briskly!”
THE war party, which Lukor had assigned to follow the subterranean tunnel to its end, made swift progress through the darkness. The warriors were eager to pursue the fugitive telepath and to render him helpless. They were also anxious to ascertain the safety of the youth and the girl whom they assumed, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, to be still following the trail of the Kuurian.
They found the secret stair and, still following the marks the feet of the Kuurian and his pursuers had made in the dust and the mold and lichen, ascended to the upper level, finding themselves in the long passageway that led underneath the mountains. Here they divided into two forces, which was the only course that reason and common sense dictated, as they had no way of knowing in which direction the three had gone. Here the floor was of damp stone―too dry to support lichenous growths that might display the marks of feet, and yet too moist to permit dust to gather for the same purpose.
The captain of the troop, a Soraban royal guardsman called Thord, led his squad in one direction, while Koja assumed command of the remainder of the force, with Kadar as his second-in-command. Koja’s troop followed the tunnel toward the mountains.
Kadar eagerly took the fore. Holding his flaring torch aloft, the young Tharkolian lieutenant prosecuted the pursuit with all alacrity and attention. Although the misadventures that had befallen young Tomar and the jungle Maid were, of course, none of his doing, he nevertheless felt a certain degree of personal responsibility for their plight, whose direness was yet unknown. It had been Kadar, after all, who had assigned them to this ill-fated mission, and the young officer would not have been worthy of his position of command had he not been keenly sensible of his share in the responsibility for their present dangers.
They traversed the length of the cavernous tunnel with all possible speed. They did not, however, pursue the fleeing three with haste so precipitous as to preclude a sharp attention to detail. Koja solemnly in. structed his warriors to shine the light of their torches upon the walls of the passage to detect any side tunnel which might branch off unexpectedly from the main shaft they were following.
Erelong one of the warriors uttered a low cry, stooped, and held into the light of the flaring torches a bit of coppery metal. Koja inspected it thoughtfully. It resembled a short length of hammered copper wire, such as the coil that Ylana wore as an item of adornment, wound around her upper arm. The end of the wire―which was half a hand’s-breadth long―was rough and shone with clear brilliance in the flaring, orange light, as if swiftly torn away from the remainder of the coil.