Uda, the moon, had not yet risen above the trees when the Cro-Magnon youth plunged into the wilderness of growing things. As a result he found his way purely by his familiarity with the territory and a store of jungle lore not surpa.s.sed by the beasts themselves. Because of the dense darkness, he was guided by three senses alone: smell, hearing and touch; but these were ample when backed by the keen mind and superhuman strength bequeathed by heritage and environment.
The narrow game trail underfoot swerved abruptly to the west and rose rapidly. For several hundred feet the way was steep, became level for a short distance, then fell away in a long gentle slope to flatness once more.
All this was familiar ground to Tharn. The ridge containing the homes of his people was behind him now; from here on for a day"s march was nothing but level country.
Now came Uda, her shining half-disc swinging low above the towering reaches of the trees, her white rays seeking to pierce the matted growth below. What little light came through was enough for Tharn"s eyes to regain some degree of usefulness.
He was moving ahead at a slow trot, an hour afterward, when the shrill scream of a leopard broke suddenly from the trail ahead. Another time, and Tharn might have gone on--too proud to change his course in the face of possible peril. But tonight he had more urgent business than a brawl with Tarlok.
Turning at right angles into the wall of undergrowth lining the path, he vaulted into the lower branches of a st.u.r.dy tree. With the graceful agility of little n.o.bar, the monkey, he swung swiftly westward again, threading his way with deceptive ease along the network of swaying boughs, now and then swinging perilously across a wide span from one tree to the next.
Directly below was the beaten path; and now he caught sight of the animal whose scream he had heard. Tarlok was pacing leisurely in the same direction as that of the man overhead, pausing occasionally to give voice to his hunting squall, his spotted form barely visible among the shadows. Tharn pa.s.sed silently above him, the leopard unaware of his nearness.
Onward raced the Cro-Magnard, his thoughts filled with the quest he had undertaken alone. His savage, untamed mind had dwelt so steadily upon the outrageous attack, that it finally brought an emotion so powerful as to be almost tangible: Hate, and for a companion, Revenge.
Never would he rest until this unknown tribe had felt the weight of his own personal wrath. For what they had done they must pay a thousandfold in lives and misery.
Without warning, the forest ended; and the cave lord dropped to the ground at the edge of a great plain, its bounds hidden in the ghostly moonlight.
A line of broken gra.s.ses began where the game path ended. So fresh was the trail, now, that Tharn knew he had best wait for sunrise before continuing the chase. He had no wish to dash headlong among the ranks of the very enemy he pursued.
A few moments later Tharn was sleeping soundly in a crotch of a high tree, his slumber undisturbed by the long familiar noises of a jungle night.
The sun was an hour high when he awakened. His first act was to climb to the highest pinnacle of the tree, and from that point attempt to pick out, if possible, the goal of those he sought.
He was immediately successful. Due west, far in the distance, he saw hills rising steeply amidst another forest. His sharp eyes followed a wide line of broken gra.s.ses, noting that it pointed unerringly toward those same heights.
Tharn smiled grimly to himself. Soon the first member of that war-party would make the initial payment on the blood-debt. Making certain his weapons were in place, the broad-shouldered young man slid to the ground and took up a circuitous route, avoiding the open plain, which brought him finally to the forest"s edge at a considerable distance away from the others" point of entry at the far side of the plain. If he had crossed the plain, sharp eyes might have noted his pursuit from just within the forest edge.
Once the trail was picked up again, he took to the comparative safety of the middle terraces. Soon he was moving in absolute silence above a narrow pathway winding into the gloomy interior, the imprints of many naked feet clear in the thick dust. But he no longer needed such evidence; the humid breeze was bringing the a.s.sorted smells of a Cro-Magnon settlement close ahead.
So close were the hills by this time that he was momentarily expecting the trees to thin out, when he caught the sound of a faint movement from below. Warily he slipped downward until, parting the foliage with a stealthy hand, he made out the figure of a tall muscular warrior standing in the trail, his att.i.tude that of a sentry.
Tharn felt his pulses quicken as a new emotion came to him. In all his twenty-two years he had never been called upon to take a human life, and he found the prospect somewhat disquieting. Yet it was just such a purpose that he had in mind and there was no point in wasting time with self-a.n.a.lysis.
Noiselessly he slid to the ground and stepped onto the trail a few paces behind the stranger. With infinite stealth he lessened the s.p.a.ce between the unsuspecting warrior and his own half crouched figure. Forgotten was the knife at his belt; his purpose was to close fingers about the other"s throat.
Now, he was sufficiently near. The muscles of his legs tensed for the spring--and the enemy whirled to face him!
When the guard saw the young giant"s nearness and threatening position, his eyes flew wide in surprise and fear. His jaw dropped, but no sound came; his arms seemed frozen to his sides.
Before he could recover, Tharn was upon him. As the young cave-man"s fingers clamped on the stranger"s throat, a knee came up with savage force into Tharn"s stomach, almost tearing loose his hold. But the maneuver cost the man his balance, and he fell backward with Tharn"s weight across his chest.
Frantically the warrior fought to loosen the terrible grip cutting off his breath. He clawed wildly at the iron fingers, struck heavy blows at his attacker"s face and body. But Tharn only tightened his hold, waiting grimly as the efforts to dislodge him became increasingly weaker. Then a convulsive shudder pa.s.sed through the body, followed by complete limpness. The man was dead.
Tharn got to his feet. For a long moment he stood there, staring in wonder at the dead, distorted face. His thoughts were a jumble of conflicting emotions: pride at vanquishing a grown man by bare hands alone; strong satisfaction in an enemy"s death; and a feeling of guilt at taking a human life. What was it that Barkoo had told him, long ago?
"Death cannot be understood, completely, by one who has never killed. A true warrior takes no life without knowing regret. Slay only when your life is in danger, or when someone has wronged you. Those who kill for the love of killing are beneath the beasts; for beasts kill only for cause."
Tharn stooped, swung the corpse across his shoulder and entered the jungle. There he concealed the body and once more took to the trees.
The forest ended suddenly, some fifty yards from the base of an immense overhanging cliff. A single glance told Tharn that he had reached the trail"s end, and he leaped lightly into the branches of a tree at the lip of the clearing. Swiftly he swarmed upward until a broad bough was reached that pointed outward toward the hillside.
Below and before him went on the everyday life of a Cro-Magnon village.
Four women carved steaks from the freshly killed body of a deer; naked children climbed in and out of the caves and ran about the open ground; two girls, several seasons short of woman-hood, sc.r.a.ped hair, by means of flint tools, from a deerskin staked flat to the ground.
There was but one thing lacking in this peaceful, commonplace picture, and Tharn noted its absence at once. There was not a single grown male in sight! Did this mean a trap had been laid for the pursuit which the warriors of this tribe had every reason to expect? Were they, then, lying in wait for Barkoo and his men at the outer rim of the forest?
Tharn was about to start back toward the prairie, when he suddenly stiffened to attention. A woman--a girl, rather; she could not have been more than eighteen--had slid to the ground from one of the caves. The man in the trees half rose to watch her.
She was a bit above average in height, slim, yet perfectly formed. That part of her body not covered by the soft folds of panther skin was evenly tanned but not darkly so. Soft, l.u.s.trous brown hair fell to her bare shoulders in lovely half-curls that gave off reddish glints when touched by the sun"s direct rays.
This breath-taking young person was coming straight toward the very tree that sheltered him. As she drew nearer, he could make out her features more clearly, and he saw that the wide eyes were also brown, flecked with tiny bits of Dyta, the sun (or so he thought); her cheeks were high but not too prominent, her nose rather small but beautifully shaped. She walked gracefully, shoulders back, her head lifted proudly, an almost saucy tilt to her chin.
She pa.s.sed beneath him and went on into the forest. Tharn came down quickly and set out to follow. Why he did so was not considered; some strange force drew him on. Less than twenty feet separated them, now; but so guarded were his movements that the girl was not aware of being trailed.
And now a small treeless glade stopped the stalker. Not daring to follow further, he watched her take an empty gourd from its hiding place in a clump of gra.s.ses and set about filling it with rich, red fruit from a cl.u.s.ter of low bushes.
Tharn watched her intently from behind the bole of a mighty tree. His eyes feasted on the matchless beauty of her face and form. Forgotten completely was the driving motive that had brought him this far from home. The flaming thirst for revenge was dead, quenched entirely by a flooding emotion, new to him but old as life itself.
A little later he saw that the girl"s search for berries was bringing her close to a tree some fifty feet to his left. Swinging easily into the foliage overhead, he moved silently along the boughs until the strange princess was directly below.
And as he drew to a pause, Tarlok, the leopard, rose from the screen of leaves just beneath him and, crouching briefly, sprang without warning at the golden form fifteen feet below.
That second of hesitation on the part of the cat, saved the girl"s life.
Tharn, trained to think and to act in the same instant, was in mid-air as Tarlok"s claws left the bark. And so, inches from that softly curved back, the beast was swept aside by the impact of a hundred and seventy pounds of muscular manhood.
Snarling its rage, the cat wheeled as it struck the earth, then pounced, almost in the same motion, at Tharn"s half-kneeling figure. But, swift as was the movement, the man was quicker. Crouching under the arc of the hurtling body, the Cro-Magnard drove his long knife to the hilt in the white-furred belly. The force of the leap, plus the power behind that strong right arm, tore a long, deep gash, and the animal fell, screaming with pain and hate. Quickly he regained his feet and again threw himself at the two-legged creature in his path. But Tharn easily avoided the charge and vaulted into a nearby tree.
Blood streamed from the fatally wounded leopard as it turned to the man"s leafy haven and attempted to scramble into the lower branches. The effort cost Tarlok his remaining strength, however, and he toppled heavily to earth. Once more he sought to regain his feet, only to collapse and move no more.
As Tharn came down to the floor of the glade, he wondered why the scream of the giant cat had not brought enemy warriors running to the scene.
That none had appeared made certain his belief that they were elsewhere in the neighborhood, and he breathed easier.
As soon as Tharn reappeared, the girl whose life he had saved rose from a clump of bushes a few feet away. And thus they stood there, each eyeing the other with frank interest.
Tharn"s brain was awhirl. So much that was new and exciting had crowded into it within the last few hours that he was incapable of rational thinking. But this he knew: something had been born within him that had not been there an hour ago.
He spoke first. "I am Tharn," he said.