RORG and I climbed high up the mountainside while his female attendants and the mob of cave-apes which had been so bent on killing me scrambled after us.
We were ascending the tallest peak of a chain of mountains which extended toward the north and south, their rugged slopes partly concealed by the various strata of gray clouds which floated lazily westward. And these mountains, as far as I could see, swarmed with cave-apes.
As we mounted steadily upward we passed many ape families, some of which were breakfasting while others appeared to be starting out on their morning quest for food. Tiny helpless infant apes were at their mothers’ breasts. Spindle-legged, round-bellied ape children played about on the rocky slopes, or gnawed at bones, scraps of meat, edible fungi, and sporepods.
All of them, from babes to adults, watched me with their beady black eyes as I passed, but none made a hostile move or sound, evidently because of the awesome presence of Rorg.
At length we climbed over the rim of what had once been an active volcanic crater. It was shallow, filled with the litter of centuries. In the center a volcanic cone projected upward, and toward this we made our way across the debris-strewn crater floor. The walls of the crater, I noticed, were honeycombed with caves.
Enormous male apes, some of them nearly as large as Rorg, patrolled the rim of the crater, their saw-edged clubs swinging in their hairy paws. With these alert sentries always on duty, it was plain that escape from the crater would be most difficult and dangerous.
As we drew near to the mouth of the great central cave a number of females and young ones of assorted ages and sizes came out.
“These are my wives and children,” said Rorg. “If you are as clever as I think you are, you will find a way to amuse them.”
“I will find a way,” I promised, “but first let me see this clever food-man and beautiful food-woman of whom you have told me.”
“I will send for them at once.”
Searching in the debris near the cave mouth, I picked up two well-dried finger bones which looked exactly alike. Palming one and displaying the other as I stood with my face to the audience and my back to the wall of the volcanic cone, I proceeded to perform some very simple tricks, such as making a finger bone disappear from my right hand—then seemingly plucking the same finger bone out of my ear with my left. I even appeared to remove six finger bones, one after another, from the ear of one of Rorg’s half-grown male children.
My audience seemed intensely interested in what I was doing, but I noticed that no matter what tricks I performed, not one of them laughed. Then I remembered that, to them, I was actually doing the things I seemed to do.
Before I had performed many tricks I saw two figures coming toward me, each tethered by the ankle to the wrist of an enormous she-ape. Instantly, I recognized the purple-clad, black-bearded Taliboz, and the slender, scarlet-draped figure of Loralie.
Rorg, who had seated himself on a low boulder with his female attendants behind him, ordered Loralie to a place on his right and Taliboz on his left.
With right hand extended palm downward, I bowed low to the princess in the customary salute to royalty, but she did not respond, nor even give any indication that she had seen me. Instead, with a haughty toss of her pretty little head, she sat down at Rorg’s right and, looking across at Taliboz, said something in a low voice which I could not quite catch. He smiled unpleasantly at me.
Puzzled at this singular and inexplicable show of dislike on the part of the princess, I mechanically went through several more tricks from the book of magic—then pocketed my bones and bowed.
“You are indeed clever, food-man,” said Rorg. “You are even more clever than Taliboz. To pluck six bones from the ear of Vork! I will not eat you today. You may go now, without tether or guard, but do not attempt to pass the crater rim or you will die.”
I walked away with the black beady eyes of the cave-apes staring after me and the sardonic grin of Taliboz following me. But Princess Loralie deliberately looked in another direction.
As I wandered about the crater I pondered the strange conduct of the princess. What could I have done—or what could Taliboz have told her—to arouse her anger and disdain to such a degree that she showed it even when we were both in deadly peril and should have united forces against a common enemy?
I was half oblivious of my surroundings until a hairy paw was laid heavily on my shoulder. Quickly whirling, I faced a huge ape about eleven feet in height whose scarred fur was spotted with gray, attesting his considerable age.
“I am Graak,” he said. “Rorg sent me to feed you. I have food in my cave. Come.”
The old warrior turned and I followed him across the crater past many ape families, who looked at me curiously, but manifested no special hostility. Presently we came to a rather small cave, the floor of which was littered with old and malodorous gnawed bones. From the partly devoured body of a huge ptang, or giant sloth with sharp upcurved claws, he carved a slice of raw meat which he handed me.
“I slew the ptang this morning,” he said, “so it is fresh and good.”
Casting about for fuel, I found a pile of dried fern fronds near the entrance. After powdering a quantity of them, I at length succeeded in igniting them by striking my flint knife against one of the buckles of my leather trappings, and soon had a small cooking fire crackling. Over this I held my ptang steak impaled on a fern frond.
Graak watched me with evident wonder. “You are indeed a sorcerer.”
For three days and nights I ate the food which Graak brought me and slept in his cave. Although his manner was surly, he was never openly hostile. But all my attempts at cultivating his friendship failed.
I spend most of my daylight hours searching for the cave in which the princess was confined, but it was not until the morning of the fourth day that I found her, seated in the doorway of a cave quite near my own. She must have been purposely avoiding me.
I swallowed my injured pride, and stepping before her, bowed with right hand extended, palm downward. “Prince Zinlo craves a word with Her Highness, Princess Loralie.”
She did not answer, but turning her head away as if she had not heard me, addressed something to her huge female guardian.
Without moving, I repeated my request.
She rose with flashing eyes. “Begone!” There was withering scorn in the look she gave me. “Annoy me further and I will call the apes and have you driven away.”
I bowed and departed. There was nothing else left for me to do.
Just before I reached Graak’s cave, I came face-to-face with Taliboz, walking with his huge female guard. He grinned maliciously and said, “Tomorrow is the first day of the fourth endir.”
“Any fool knows that,” I retorted.
“Perhaps any fool also knows that on the first day of each endir, Rorg takes a mate. And that if food-men are available, a food-man is served at the wedding feast.” As I stared at him, he added, “Rorg has just promised me that I shall not be eaten tomorrow.”
I sat down before Graak’s smelly cave. On the morrow, Rorg was to take Princess Loralie as his mate, and there were but two food-men held prisoner by the cave-apes—Taliboz and myself.
As we breakfasted on fungi and sporepods the following day, Graak was more talkative than he had yet been. “Today is Rorg’s mating day with the food-woman—if he lives,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Some of our bravest warriors do not want our race to degenerate by intermarriage with weaklings. There has been much talk, and I believe Rorg will be challenged.”
“Who will challenge the king?”
“It is the privilege of any warrior to challenge the Rogo to a duel to the death on the mating-day. The warrior who succeeds in killing him becomes Rogo in his stead, and takes his prospective bride as well as his other wives, children and possessions.”
“But suppose one of your warriors who does not believe as Rorg believes slays him. What will then become of the food-woman?”
“She will be eaten, and Chixa, who was cheated of her turn, will be taken as a mate.”
As Graak and I finished our meal, I noticed that the crater was beginning to fill with apes. Young and old, male and female, they came at first in scattered family groups, but later in great droves, until the huge pit was literally seething with moving brown figures.
Presently a tall, yellow-tusked male shouldered his way through the crowd and stopped at the door of our cave.
“Rorg commands the presence of Zinlo, the food-man,” he said.
As I trailed the huge ape through the jostling throng, I tried to formulate some plan of action by which the princess might be saved. Although I resented her attitude toward me, I felt the urge to fight in her defense.
We came at length to the mouth of Rorg’s lair in the great central cone. Passing through the deserted cave, dimly illuminated by reflected light from the exterior, we stepped into a narrow runway which slanted upward in a long curving spiral.
As we progressed steadily upward, the way grew so dark that I was forced to hold out both hands to avoid running against the walls. Presently it became lighter once more, and in a few moments we emerged onto the flat, narrow top of the cone.
Squatting in a semicircle near one edge of the platform were a dozen cave-ape warriors. At one end of the semicircle I recognized Urg, the huge ape I had disarmed, leaning on his great, saw-edged club and looking as belligerent as before.
Near the rim just opposite this ring of warriors stood Taliboz and Princess Loralie. Although their huge female guards stood behind them, I noticed that their tethers had been removed. The traitorous Olban noble favored me with a leer as I emerged from the runway, but the princess would not so much as notice my coming.
In the very center stood Rorg, evidently awaiting my arrival as he looked down at the vast sea of upturned faces in the crater. I was placed with my back to the twelve warriors.
As soon as I had taken my position, Rorg held his sawedged club aloft. Instantly the vast murmur of voices from below was stilled.
“Your Rogo takes a mate,” he bellowed, his deep tones reverberating from the surrounding crater walls. Then he leaped high in the air, brandishing his saw-edged club until the air sang and whistled through its teeth. Alighting with a loud smack of his leathery feet on the hard rock, so that he faced in a direction opposite to that in which he had previously looked, he roared once more, “Your Rogo takes a mate.” Leaping, whirling, and alighting as he had done before, he made his announcement in four directions so that all might hear.
He then hurled his club high above his head, caught it deftly as it fell. “Who will fight Rorg for his bride? Who will fight Rorg for his kingdom? Speak now, or for another endir, keep silence.”
There was a deep grumbling growl behind me, and, turning, I beheld Urg, fangs bared, stepping from his place at the end of the line, whirling his great club. “I will fight Rorg,” he shouted in a voice as deep as that of the king-ape.
Rorg appeared surprised—annoyed. For a moment he stood motionless, glowering at his challenger. Then, with a bellow of rage, his club held high in one huge paw and his flint knife gripped in the other, he leaped to the attack.
The club descended in a deadly, whistling arc, but did not connect, for with cat-like quickness Urg leaped to one side and struck back. His club bit deep into Rorg’s left shoulder, eliciting a roar of pain and rage from the Rogo, who instantly swung for his legs.
Urg sprang back, but not far enough. The flint-toothed point raked one knee, and blood spurted forth. As he danced about the larger ape, looking for another opening, he limped, and the limp grew more pronounced as the fight progressed.
Again and again Rorg rushed in. How Urg succeeded in evading those rushes, lame as he was, I was unable to understand. Presently his leg became useless, dangling, and he was forced to hop on one foot.
Over the brutal face of Rorg there crept a look of triumph. Deliberately, now, he advanced toward his opponent, forcing him backward until he stood on the very brink of the plateau.
He leaped in, and as Urg swung a slashing blow for his neck, he ducked, at the same time whirling his club in a low, horizontal arc. It caught the challenger halfway between knee and ankle; there was a snap of severed bones, and Urg toppled backward to alight on his head on the rocks seventy-five feet below.
Scarcely had he struck ere the milling horde beneath rushed to the spot, brandishing their flint knives. In less time than it takes to tell, the body had been dismembered, and a snarling group of apes was fighting over the fragments.
Again Rorg leaped in the air, bellowing forth his deep-voiced challenge. Although there were low growls from the ape-warriors standing behind me, none answered the challenge.
“Who will fight Rorg for his bride and his kingdom?” The final challenge was flung out by the victorious king-ape as he looked triumphantly about him. “Speak now, or . . . ”
“I’ll fight you, Rorg,” I said, drawing club and knife and stepping in front of the giant. As I did so I caught a fleeting glimpse of Taliboz and Loralie. On the face of the traitor was pleased anticipation. The eyes of the princess showed surprise, and something more. Incredible as it appeared from her recent actions, it was undoubtedly concern for my safety.
But these were only fleeting impressions.
Rorg stared incredulously down at me for a moment, evidently unable to believe that I had actually challenged the king of the cave-apes. Then he struck at me quickly, but not exerting his full strength, as if I were some insect annoying him.
Instinctively I used my club as if it had been a sword—parrying the blow with ease and countering with a thrust which bit into his furry abdomen, drawing blood and eliciting a grunt of rage and pain.
Although the club was so constructed that I could not hope to inflict a mortal wound by thrusting the sharp flint teeth with which it was armed, it could and did cause considerable pain and annoyance. As the cave-ape system of fighting was merely that of striking and dodging. I hoped to offset my adversary’s enormous advantage of strength and reach by employing the technique of a swordsman.
With an angry bellow, Rorg swung a terrific blow for my legs. Again I parried, and countered with a neck cut which would probably have terminated the engagement in my favor had it not been blocked by one of his huge tusks. The tusk snapped off and clattered to the rock; but as a result, the club wounded him only slightly, adding to his fury.
Foaming at the mouth and gnashing his teeth in his rage, the king-ape beset me with a rain of blows that would have been irresistible to any but a trained swordsman. Splinters and bits of broken flint flew from our clubs as time and again I parried his terrific blows.
After each blow I countered with a cut or thrust, and soon my opponent was bleeding from head to foot; yet his strength and quickness seemed rather to increase with each fresh wound. Had he possessed a swordsman’s training, I verily believe that ape would have been invincible on his own planet or any other.
Presently I succeeded in raking him across the forehead with the point of my weapon, so that the blood ran down in his eyes, half blinding him. But he wiped the blood away with the back of one huge paw and countered with a blow, the force of which numbed my wrist and splintered my club into fragments.
I leaped back, then hurled the club handle straight for the great, snarling mouth as he bounded forward to finish me. It struck him in the front teeth, breaking off several and momentarily bewildering him.
In that moment I leaped, and with the fingers of my left hand entwined in the wiry hair of his chest and my legs gripping his waist, I buried my flint knife again and again in his brawny neck. Blood spurted from his pulsing jugular as he endeavored to shake me off, to reach me with his sharp fangs, and to gore me with his single remaining tusk. But his mighty strength was spent—his lifeblood draining.
A quiver shook the giant frame and like some tall tree of the forest felled by the woodman’s axe, he toppled backward, crashing to the ground.
Leaping quickly to my feet, I seized the club of the fallen ape-monarch and, brandishing it aloft, said, “Rorg is dead, and Zinlo is king. Who will fight Zinlo? Who will be next to die?”
From the throats of several of the ape-warriors in the semicircle from which Urg had come, came low growls, but none advanced, and the growls subsided as I singled out in turn with my gaze each of the truculent ones who had voiced them.
Far below me, the mob of apes was clamoring, “Meat! We want our meat!”
I knew that, spent as I was, the enormous body of Rorg was more than I could raise aloft and hurl to the mob below, so I had recourse to an old wrestling trick. Seizing the limp right arm of the fallen king-ape, I dragged the body to the edge of the cliff. Then, bringing the arm over my shoulder in an application of the principle of the lever, I heaved the remains of Rorg over my head.
A moment later the milling beasts below were tearing the carcass to pieces, snarling and snapping over their feast. This custom, I afterward learned, had been established in consequence of the belief that the flesh of a strong, brave individual would confer strength and bravery on the one who devoured it.
Again I brandished my club aloft, shouting, “Who will fight Zinlo for his kingdom? Speak now, or keep silence for another endir.”
This time I heard not even a single growl from the warriors on the cone top.
An old warrior who had lost both tusks, an ear, and several of his fingers, stepped from the ranks and advanced to the cliff edge. “Rorg is dead,” he announced. “Farewell to Rorg.”
Following his words, a peculiar, quavering cry went up from the throats of the thousands of apes congregated in the crater, as well as from those on the plateau. So weird and mournful did it sound that I shivered involuntarily.
As the last plaintive notes died away, the old warrior shouted, “Zinlo is king. Hail, Zinlo!”
A deafening din followed as the ape-horde, brandishing knives and clubs aloft and clattering them together, cried, “Hail, Zinlo!”
I turned in triumph toward the spot where Taliboz and Loralie had been seated, intending to assure the princess that it would not be necessary now for her to marry the king of the cave-apes. To my surprise, I saw that both of them had disappeared. The two huge females who had been guarding them sat, side by side, slumped against a large boulder, their chins sunk forward on their hairy chests.
Bounding forward I seized one of the she-apes by the shoulder and shook her, shouting, “Where are your prisoners?”
Her limp body sagged forward, falling on the ground. The second female, when shaken, showed some signs of returning consciousness.
“What happened?” I asked. “Where are your prisoners?”
Weakly she pointed to a needlelike glass sliver embedded in her arm. Extracting it, I instantly recognized it for a tork projectile of the type which temporarily paralyzes its victim. In the arm of the other, a similar projectile was embedded.
Although he had been disarmed by the apes, it was evident that Taliboz had managed to keep his ammunition belt, and that during the excitement of my fight with Rorg, he had found the opportunity to paralyze the two female guards and slip away with the princess.
That she had gone with him willingly I could not doubt, for she had made no outcry, and her previous treatment of me had led me to believe that she would sooner have accepted Rorg for a mate than me.
I turned away, the sweetness of victory grown bitter in my mouth. I was about to enter the runway which led to the cave below, when a small, glittering object attracted my attention. Stooping, I picked it up and examined it minutely for a moment. Then a great light dawned on me.