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When Tarzan struck him, the man yelled. Tarzan growled with anger as
he sprang to his feet. The sentry clambered to his feet and began to scream for
help. He looked at the bronze giant before him, and screamed even louder.
The big man looked more like an animal than a man: his teeth were bared and
the sounds coming from his throat did not sound as if they were of human
origin.
The sentry's screams were cut short as Tarzan sprang, his knife stealing
the sentry's voice.
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But it was too late.
Tarzan looked up. Sentries had rushed to the edge of the walkway. They
yelled at him and began casting spears and firing arrows. Tarzan slapped one
of the spears away, dodged an arrow. Others rattled at his feet.
The courtyard filled with warriors. They charged him. Tarzan struck
right and left with his knife. Dying men and women fell back from Tarzan's
brutal onslaught.
Close as the warriors were to one another, arrows were out of the
question, so they charged the ape-man en masse, armed with their blades and
spears.
The sounds of Tarzan's knife glancing off spear points and sword blades
filled the air. The warriors foamed over him like ants on a carcass. The first to
arrive were the first to die. Tarzan's knife wove a web of steel so intricate and
fast, that there in the moonlight it looked as if he were a six-armed god
wielding a weapon in every hand.
They tried to leap on him all at once, but the entire crowd was pushed
back. Tarzan came clear of them snarling like a wild beast, the remains of
some unfortunate's throat clutched in his teeth. Tarzan spat out the warrior's
flesh, raised his head, and bellowed, "Kreeegah! Tarzan kill!"
The warriors foamed over him again, and once again the ape-man threw
them back, flicking them from him the way a dog might shake water from its
fur.
But now more warriors were arriving, scores of them, and even Tarzan
with all his skill and might could not hold them. They rose over him like a
great storm wave, washed him to the ground beneath a rain of fists and feet
and weapons.
18
UNDERGROUND, UNAWARE OF Tarzan's plight, or that of his comrades.
Hunt and Jad-bal-ja proceeded. Hunt noticed there were large, rotting
timbers throughout the cavern. Many of the timbers had crumbled down, and
others were in the process. It appeared that at one point, whoever had used
these caverns had abandoned them to whatever it was that lived down here.
The bridge they had used to cross the chasm showed that the area was still
visited periodically, but it appeared repairs were no longer maintained.
The reasons for these repairs seemed to be the gradual weakening of
the cavern itself. The centuries had worn it down, and whoever was custodian
of these caves had attempted to keep it in shape with the timbers, reinforcing
it like a mine shaft. As this mission was abandoned, the timbers had begun to
rot. In time, Hunt concluded, this entire cavern would fall in on itself.
The torch was still burning briskly, but Hunt knew that shortly it would
be exhausted. He knew too, as Jad-bal-ja knew long before him, that the thing
down here was stalking them now, almost playfully. Hunt could smell it. It
had an odor. A strange odor. Like something dry and ancient, From time to
time Hunt thought he could hear more than its footsteps, a kind of rattling
and rustling of parchment skin, but ultimately it was an unidentifiable noise
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that reached down into some forgotten part of his brain and fired an alarm.
Hell was coming.
Even the great lion that padded beside him had taken to looking over its
tawny shoulder, watching for the appearance of something unnamable. Hunt
and Jad-bal-ja turned as the tunnel turned, and shortly thereafter, came to a
dead end. Hunt felt a tightening in his chest. It was not bad enough that he
was being stalked by an unnamable thing, but now there was nowhere to run.
He and Jad-bal-ja were trapped.
Going back the way they had come was useless. The thing would be
blocking their path. It had known it was driving them into this corner, and
now Hunt could hear that rattling and rustling sound louder than before. In
fact, the only thing louder than the noise it was creating was the pounding of
his heart.
The tunnel filled with the creature's foul smell, and Jad-bal-ja
crouched, twitching his tail, not anxious, but ready to do battle when the
moment arose.
Hunt moved the torch around the tunnel, lifted it upwards. Above them
there was a split in the rocks. It wasn't a great split, but it was enough that if
they could manage their way up there, they could slide through.
Hunt stuck the torch between two rocks, put the spear partially through
his belt, and tried to find hand- and footholds. This was relatively easy. A
large number of rocky slabs jutted out from the tunnel wall. Hunt began to
climb. He moved swiftly. When he reached the summit of the tunnel wall, he
turned and looked toward the hole, which from this angle he could see led
into a narrow tunnel. It was a slightly precarious jump, but it was not a leap of
great distance.
Hunt held his breath and jumped, caught hold of the interior of the
tunnel, and pulled himself inside. He looked down. Jad-bal-ja had not moved.
Hunt was unsure if the lion would understand him, but he knew he had to
speak to him, try something. "Come."
The lion lifted his head and looked at Hunt above him. The lion studied
Hunt for a moment, then the wall. He bounded up the slabs of rock, and as
Hunt moved aside, the lion leapt easily into the open shaft.
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