Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria (10 page)

CHAPTER 14

The Dragon Kings

As one by one his brothers fell, he raised the great Sword high.

He sang the runes to the Lords of Light—and thunder broke the sky—

Red lightning flashed—drums of thunder crashed—a rain of fire fell

To sweep the Kings of the Dragons down to the smoking pits of hell!

—Diombar’s
Song of the Last Battle

It was the rush of cold wind over his naked body that roused Thongor to consciousness. When his eyes opened at last, he was staring straight down into a sheer gorge of black stone that lay two thousand feet beneath him. His long black mane flowed on the cold wind, obscuring his vision. For a moment he thought that he was dead and the War Maids were bearing his spirit to the Hall of Heroes beyond the world where the great Castle of the Gods lifted its mighty spires above paradisical hills.

But then he realized that he was still alive. The warm blood leaked from his brow, where the boulder had struck his head, and his waist ached abominably, as if he was being crushed in a giant vise. Craning his neck about, he discovered his terrible predicament—and for a moment even Thongor of Valkarth felt his heart falter beneath the icy hand of fear.

The huge claw of the grakk held him about the middle, as its powerful wings bore him far above the Mountains of Mommur. His sword was gone—he was completely unarmed. Were the lizard-hawk to simply open its claws, he would hurl down helplessly two thousand feet to smash his life out in a bloody smear against the black rocks far below. Never in his long, adventure-filled life had the Valkarthan felt so alone—so completely helpless.

Yet he had the comforting knowledge that the Princess was safe, and that the battle against the Dragon Kings would still go on, even though he was not there to stand beside Sharajsha when he faced the Lords of Chaos.

Since there was absolutely nothing he could do to lessen his predicament, Thongor simply composed himself and lay still in the grakk’s clutches. Rather than exhaust his strength in hopeless fighting, he resolved to await the turn of events and do nothing until some avenue of escape presented itself.

The lizard-hawk might have been flying for hours for all he knew. It was difficult to estimate the sun’s height from his position, but it seemed near the zenith. After a long time, the creature suddenly slowed in its flight and hovered above the range of mountains. Then, sliding through the misty air in long, slow spirals, it began to descend.

Out of the murk a slim needle of rock emerged. The lizard-hawk swung down toward it in sweeping circles, hovered for a moment, great wings checking its flight—and dropped Thongor.

He fell helplessly, the landscape whirling madly about him for a terrifying moment or two, then landed with stunning impact upon a thick bed of something that crackled beneath his weight. Dazed, he lay still, not daring to move lest he dislodge himself. There seemed to be no broken bones. Overhead, the black shape wheeled to the left and began to spiral up, soon becoming lost to sight.

Thongor was lying in a shallow depression filled with dry branches and stiff leaves that rustled as he sat up. All about was sky—torn mist, driven by the whistling wind—and distant peaks ringing him in. He crawled to the edge of the matted branches and peered over. Below, a sheer wall of rock fell sickeningly straight down as far as the eye could see.

He turned to see if it was the same on the other side—and looked into a flaming red eye. Three snake-tailed little monsters, only slightly less than his own six and a half feet, were glaring at him a dozen feet away. Their hideous bodies were covered with small red and yellow scales, and from the humped shoulders at the base of the long snakelike necks, peculiar stumps protruded. They had curved beaks and four cruelly clawed limbs.

In a flash Thongor realized his terrible position. He had been dropped by the giant grakk, only to plunge into an even worse nightmare.
He was in the grakk’s nest!
This tangled mat of dry branches and leaves was the nest of the mother grakk, and those three scaly horrors glaring at him were the offspring of that monstrous parent, who had borne him home to feed the babies!

They had not attacked him yet, probably because they were unused to food that still lived. But now one of the little monsters waddled across the nest toward him, beak clashing, hissing like a jet of escaping steam. Thongor clapped one hand to his side—the broadsword was gone, dropped on the slopes of Sharimba when the grakk seized him. He stared around swiftly, darting glances here and there about the nest, searching for a weapon. Almost at his feet lay a long white bone, scarred with beakmarks, one end broken off in a jagged, saw-toothed edge. He snatched it up and sprang to meet the infant monster.

Its beak snapped at him hungrily, but Thongor knocked the head aside with the flat of his arm and drove the sharp bone into the long snaky throat. The scaly armor of the grakklet was not as tough as that of the full-grown lizard-hawk, but it was tough enough, and the pointed bone merely ripped a long, shallow gash in its neck. The gash welled with thick, evil-smelling fluid.

Then its claws were upon him, its full weight bearing him down as the long neck snaked with distended beak to tear out his throat. Thongor protected his head and throat with crossed arms—doubled up his legs and kicked violently, hurling the thing out of the nest. It went scrabbling over the edge, squalled piercingly, and vanished far below.

But now he faced two more hissing horrors. He drove his bone-sword straight into the open jaws of one and ducked while the other’s beak snapped-to above his head, catching a few strands of his hair. Balled fists lashed out, smashing the chest of the first one. It raked his chest and belly with sharp claws, drawing thin scarlet furrows down the bronzed flesh. Then it gurgled and fell away, tail thrashing violently. The pointed bone had gone through the back of its throat and had penetrated what little brain it possessed, paralyzing it.

But Thongor had no time to observe the death-throes of the second, for the third was upon him with flashing claws, bearing him over backward beneath its squirming weight.

He fought his way to his feet, forcing the squalling grakklet back with smashing blows. Then his mighty hands locked upon its pulsing throat, just below the clacking beak. Muscles swelled and writhed like giant snakes in his broad shoulders. The grakk struggled violently, twisting its long neck, but slowly, remorselessly, his hands closed like iron bands, crushing the monster’s throat. Its scrabbling forelimbs raked him from nipple to hip, razory talons slashing red lines through his flesh. Thongor gritted his teeth and bore the slashing pain.

Gradually, the grakk’s struggles lessened in their intensity. Its scarlet eyes glazed. A bubbling froth of slimy blood oozed from its straining, gasping beak. With every atom of strength in his terrific back and shoulders, Thongor crushed the life out of the thing and cast its quivering corpse from him.

He stood, panting, recovering his breath, ignoring the blood that flowed down his chest and belly. Then he prowled the nest from side to side, seeking an exit. On no side did anything meet his probing gaze but sheer cliff-walls of black rock, wet from the hovering veils of mist.

He was marooned atop a steep pinnacle of smooth stone.
Unless
—!

On one side of the nest the wall was broken. A narrow ledge jutted from the needle of rock—but it was thirty feet below the place where he stood. Thongor examined the rock wall between himself and the ledge. It was as smooth as glass. To attempt to climb down it was pure madness—to try jumping to the ledge was completely impossible, for it jutted only a foot from the wall. If he missed, he would be smashed to jelly, thousands of feet below. And yet, to remain here was to die. Within hours, perhaps within mere minutes, the mother grakk would return to the nest.

* * * *

The airboat soared through the skies above the Mountains of Mommur. Within its small cabin, Sharajsha, Karm Karvus, and the Princess Sumia sat, tensely watching the landscape flash past beneath them.

It was less than an hour since the wizard had come down from the Mountain of Thunder, bearing the great Star Sword. Now the weapon lay sheathed in black leather across his knees, its ice-blue blade quivering with leashed power. The electric tension of a storm cloud seemed to hum within its mysterious metal blade, and a faint halo of sparks appeared and vanished about the point. The Sword was ready.

Sharajsha had been shocked and saddened to hear of Thongor’s terrible fate. But there was no time to waste on a fruitless, hopeless search for the giant barbarian. Only hours remained before the moment of conjuration. Already the afternoon sun was declining toward the west. And of what use to search out their dead friend? His broken body—or his clean-picked bones—lay in the bottom of some rocky gorge. They must speed to their desperate rendezvous with time!

Far below them the endless vom reeled past. Thanks to the wizard’s improvement on the original design, the great coiled springs drove ceaselessly. The spinning blades of the rotors bit into the thin, cold air of the heights, thrusting the
Nemedis
ahead, her needle-sharp prow slashing through emptiness, pointed ever east into the gradually dimming sky.

Now the great mountains fell away and the silver ribbon of a river came into view, threading its winding way through the sheer black gorges. Ahead on the very horizon, like a dull iron shield, the glistening expanse of the Inner Sea could be glimpsed. Locked in by miles of mountains, walled with sheer cliffs of smooth, solid stone, the Sea of Neol-Shendis had not been seen by a human eye in ages. What secrets, what mysterious perils hid within her mist-shrouded depths?

The three adventurers ate, rested, waited out the time. Sumia sat upon the bunk, her pale face lifted to the forward window. Before her eyes drifted pictures, visions from her memory. She remembered the bold, laughing face of Thongor. She saw again his fighting grin and heard his thundered war cry as he had held the entire ranks of Patanga at bay, there on the brazen knees of the God of Fire. She saw again his mighty broadsword whirling in a glittering arc, cutting into the snarling faces of the Druids, a crimson spray of blood-droplets flying from its blurred path. She remembered the deep chest, the powerfully moulded arms and shoulders, and the long, quick legs of the young Valkarthan adventurer. It was hard to believe that such animal vitality, such inexhaustible strength could be extinguished.

“Thongor
…” As she whispered his name, she felt again that strange, unfamiliar stirring within her blood.

Now the wet gray beaches of the Inner Sea of Neol-Shendis were beneath them. Long, slow waves of cold dark water washed against the lone sands. No sea birds called along these empty strands of shore which had never felt the foot of man. No small, scuttling creatures of the sea’s edge marked the sallow, greasy foam that the sliding waves left behind as they retreated, gathering strength to assault the land again. The airboat flashed through the fog and out over the dull waters.

The westward skies were reddening between the black notches of the mountain-walls as they approached the Dragon Isles. There were four of them, bleak, wet clumps of jagged black rock, looming above the swilling waves. Clinging to the crest of the largest isle was a fantastic castle of black stone, towering into the thick mist like a giant from the Dawn Age.

The rotors died and the airboat sank silently, sliding like a ghost through the vapor, coming to rest upon a spur of glistening rock. The three clambered out, anchoring the floater securely to a sharp angle of rock. They made their way along the narrow crest of the spur and onto the main island. Hidden by the fog, they melted into the shadows below the walls of the black castle and vanished from sight.

Sumia clung to the wet rocks, stunned by the flying spray and the hollow, booming thunder of the surf. Karm Karvus set a strong hand beneath her slim arm and helped her up.

“We must be silent now,” Sharajsha cautioned, his gray robes making him almost invisible in the thick fog. They followed him along the black wall. Above them, looming to a stupendous height, the frowning wall towered. The castle was built of enormous cubes of rough-hewn black stone, each block taller than a man. This cyclopean work of masonry looked oddly
wrong,
as if its dizzy angles and queer curves had been designed according to some geometry of another world—the weird architecture of nightmare, curiously disquieting to the eye. A dozen yards below the ledge upon which they walked, the surf pounded, icy spray splashing about them, chilling them to the bone.

They came to a great gateway, open and unbarred, facing the eternal waves. It was unguarded—empty. Sharajsha unsheathed the magic Sword and gestured them forward. He went on first into the black maw of the portal, the naked Sword glowing in his hand.

And then
—madness
!

The fog suddenly writhed—boiled—congealed—and monstrous black forms loomed out of the mist toward them. Karm Karvus’ rapier sang as he whipped it from its scabbard. Sharajsha lifted the blazing blue length of the Star Sword—but out of the whirling fog a fantastic black figure appeared, eyes like sparks of living green flame burning coldly within its misshapen head. A glittering black hand clamped upon Sharajsha’s wrist with crushing force.

The Star Sword fell in a dazzling arc from his nerveless grasp. Sparkling with blue flame, it whirled out—down—and into the thundering waves. It vanished in the boiling chaos of black water and white foam.

Sharajsha, helpless in the iron grip, gave a thin, despairing cry. He raised the other hand, magic rings sparkling into life—but an uncanny force struck him and he sank unconscious.

Karm Karvus sprang, sword bared, straight at the weird black phantom figures, still veiled behind the swirling fog. From the lifted black hand of one a sizzling spark of white energy darted, seizing his sword. He stiffened at the thrilling electric shock, and crumpled unconscious on the wet stone floor.

An enormous black hand closed upon Sumia’s slim shoulder. It had seven fingers, each tipped with a black talon, and its cold hard flesh was covered with an intricate pattern of tiny, glittering scales.

From the black shadow that had struck Sharajsha down, a cold, hissing voice spoke with a weird mockery of laughter ringing in its sibilant tones:

“
What fools, to think that our magic would not warn us of the approach of their flying ship! Their lives shall be spent upon the great altar amid the ring of monoliths in the hour when the stars come forth—to feed the growing power of the Lords of Chaos, Who will need such life-energy to cross the inter-cosmic gulfs. Imprison them until the appointed hour—and remove from the old sorcerer his sigils of power. We shall see their white faces again at the Hour of the Opening of Space!
”

The cold, hissing voice ceased, and dark, lumbering figures stepped forth from the cold mist. But before her eyes could make out the details of those awful forms, Sumia’s proud spirit failed, and she sank into merciful unconsciousness.