Renegade of Callisto

11 Slaves of the Horde

Fanga’s command to strike the camp and depart for the south came as no surprise. Everyone had been expecting it to be ordered by the chief at any time.

Even Taran, who had little experience in the ways of the savage Yathoon Horde, knew that the regions around the southern pole were completely under the domination of the emotionless arthropods. There they ruled supreme, and in those parts of Callisto there were no human cities to challenge their supremacy.

He knew also that somewhere in the unknown Southland the Yathoon Horde guarded jealously the secret place they considered to be their sacred homeland. The youngster thought it likely that this was the place called “Sargol,” to which he had previously heard the Yathoon warriors and chieftains make cryptic reference.

As he was not certain but was curious about it, he queried Koja on this very point.

The arthropod did not change expression, but he was not too happy at Taran’s question. Sargol, and the secret it contained, was precious to his race. It was not something Koja felt himself to be at liberty to discuss openly with anyone who did not belong to the Yathoon.

It was precisely here that Koja’s loyalties were divided. The Horde itself might consider him to be a renegade, an outlaw, but from Koja’s own point of view, he was not truly aharj. Koja had not been outlawed by the Kandars, and neither had he been driven into exile. He had freely chosen to depart, and had followed Jandar on his adventures because he wished to, not because no other alternative existed.

Jandar had taught Koja the meaning of friendship. That friendship seemed to Koja at the time, as it seemed to him now, more precious and valuable even than membership in the mighty Yathoon Horde.

Thus his feelings toward his own kind were, to say the least, equivocal. He did not consider himself to be at enmity with the other insect-men: he still thought of himself as one of them, although he had come to live apart from the great tribes of his kind. Therefore, to Koja’s way of thinking, the secrets of the Yathoon race were still his secrets to keep.

On the other hand, Taran would soon enough perceive the wonders of Sargol, for the Garukhs were headed there, so there did not seem to be any particular reason to refuse the boy the information that he sought.

He decided to temporize, to say as little as was. possible, without seeming to be abrupt or secretive.

“Sargol is the name by which we call the place to which we are going,” he said solemnly.

“I thought so,” Taran exclaimed triumphantly. “But, Koja-chan, is Sargol the name of the whole southland where the Yathoon roam and live, or just one particular part of it?”

“It is one particular part of it,” admitted Koja.

Xara of Ganatol, who lay chained near them, and who had been listening to their conversation with interest, now spoke up with a question of her own.

“Is it where your females are kept, Koja?” the Princess inquired. “And the young of your race, as well? For I assume that you keep your females and their children in one particular place, since none are here with the Clan. They can only be living somewhere in the south …”

Koja solemnly agreed that this was the case. But he did not wish to go into further details, and Borak, who lay nearby and who was also listening, spoke up then and came to his rescue by diverting the conversation to another subject.

The Yathoon nation is divided into four great Clans, the Zajjadar, the Angkang, the Haroob, and the Kandar, and two smaller Clans, more recently formed, the Thorome and the Garukh.

Each Clan has its own high chief, or akka-komor, but over them all is one supreme autocrat, the Arkon, or Emperor.

The Arkon and his court are resident in Sargol, where they protect the Yathoon females and their young, and rule all of the southern hemisphere in a desultory fashion. Periodically, the Clans return to the southland to rest, to refurbish their weapons, to lie with the females and thus beget their young. After these brief periods, they return to the outside world in their mighty caravans to hunt for food, which they preserve in a manner peculiar to their kind.

They return with these fruits of the hunt to Sargol, to replenish the supplies of nutriment upon which the Yathoon young and the females depend. For there exists no edible game in the frigid regions of the south, and were the great caravans not to return to Sargol, those who dwell in the sacred homeland would at length perish from starvation.

Once they are beyond that invisible barrier that Yathoon tradition has established as the limit of their southerly domain, each Clan and tribe considers itself at war with every other Clan or tribe, or at least in a posture of armed and wary enmity. But once within the southern regions again, an absolute and ironclad truce is considered to exist, and no male Yathoon is permitted to slay or to attack another male on any conceivable pretext, upon pain of death in the Arena.

This is called the Peace of Sargol, and it has never been broken.

It is obvious to any student of cultures that some such arrangement would have to exist, for otherwise one Clan could seize and occupy Sargol to the exclusion of all other Clans and tribes. They would then possess all of the Yathoon females, and they alone would be able to breed and to beget the next generation.

The Yathoon, you understand, do not mate for life. Instead, they hold their females in common and compete in games of warfare or athletic prowess for the attentions of the females, and for the privilege of lying with them and of begetting offspring.

Each champion, and several of the runners-up, have their choice of females during the period in which their Clan observes the Peace of Sargol. The larva laid by the females are then marked with the Clan or tribal totem mark of the champion who was the parent. When the young are hatched, they are trained for survival, and when they are old enough to begin training for war, they enter the retinues of the various chieftains of their parent tribe or Clan, and are thought of as cadets.

But none of these young ever know their father’s name, nor even the name of their mother. Parenthood is considered a duty and a privilege, but it remains an anonymous one. The reasons for this are obscure and lost in the mists of dim, forgotten ages.

Since they are born to females they can never identify, of a parentage forever unknowable to them, the warriors of the Yathoon never experience the emotions of filial devotion or love. You cannot love a father whose name is unknown to you, nor a mother you have never seen. You can feel no brotherly love for your siblings if you have no way of ever knowing which of the other young in your nest are your own brothers and sisters.

Thus the love between mates, and the love a parent feels for its child, and the emotions which commonly bind children of one family together are completely unknown to the pitiful, cold, ever-emotionless barbarians who inhabit the frigid southlands, who roam and rule the measureless plains, and who live out their empty and loveless lives in an eternal war against every other thing that lives.

Camp was broken, as it had been broken ten thousand times before and would be broken ten thousand times again. The tents were dismantled and packed away in the covered wains. The thaptor pens were taken apart pole by pole, lashed into bundles, and strapped to the backs of the mighty glymphs. The caravan was at last ready to depart.

Every Yathoon warrior knew precisely what his duties and responsibilities were, and fulfilled them to the letter. The chieftains mounted their thaptors and rode in the fore, followed by the hunters and warriors and cadets of their households. The wains, which contained their baggage, their treasure, their weapons, and their slaves, followed the retinue.

The caravan wound slowly across the Great Plains of Haratha, winding ever south. As the territories traditionally under the dominence of this or that Clan or tribe of the Horde are widely set apart, from each other, it did not seem very likely that the Garukhs would encounter one of their rival Yathoon Clans on their southerly migration, but should this occur it was almost inevitable that war would flare up between them.

For this reason, and so as to afford his warriors the greatest possible margin of advantage, the high chief, Fanga, sent outriders before the caravan and to all sides, ranging far afield to scout out any approaching enemy.

All that day they journeyed south, moving with all deliberate speed but in no particular hurry. In fact, the Clan could move no more swiftly than they did, due to the ponderous and lumbering glymphs which dragged the great wains behind them. The huge, oxen1ike beasts were slow-moving and heavy-footed, and they could not be hurried. The Clan must perforce reduce its speed to the pace at which the glymphs could comfortably advance.

That night they made temporary camp on the Great Plains, choosing their location around a waterhole which the Garukhs had noticed months before, when first they had ridden out into these parts. Even though the encampment was to be a temporary one and their stay here was one of only nocturnal duration, the tents were erected and the thaptor pens were set up again just as they had been at the last camp, where they had remained for many weeks.

The Yathoon warriors knew no other way of doing things than the way things were always done amongst them. In this, as in so many other ways, the intelligent arthropods resembled their distant cousins, the social insects of my own native world. Like the ants and bees and termites of Earth, which had evolved a rudimentary social organization aeons in the past, found that it worked well enough, and simply maintained it without ever making experiments or attempting to improve the system, the Yathoon of the Horde did not ever question immemorial tradition or tamper with the customary way of doing things perfected unguessable ages ago by their remotest ancestors.

No more conservative creatures existed than the Yathoon arthropods. And in that very inflexibility of their thinking, in their innate inability to change, to adapt, to grow into new social configurations with the arising of new circumstances, lay the seeds of their eventual doom. For no social order is so flawlessly perfect that it cannot be improved, or so ideally organized that it cannot break down. By now unable to change―unable even to imagine the necessity for change, and probably unable even to recognize change when it is forced upon them―the Yathoon were slowly dying, as their world changed around them.

The spread of manned air flight is one of the ways in which Thanator was changing, for instance. Valkar and the young lieutenant Kadar had searched all that day the region of the grasslands which stretched out to every side from the position in which they had found Fido earlier. They had flown in an ever-widening spiral, using that spot as a starting point, and just after nightfall the path of their circling flight intercepted the route of the southerly migration of the Garukh nomads.

The keen eyes of Kadar had first seen the track of the glymphs, for the heavy-footed and ponderous creatures had beaten a pathway through the wild grasses. But the Yathoon scouts had not seen the little aircraft as it floated far above them, although the sound of its engines was clearly audible to their sense of hearing.

They did not look up because they were not accustomed to looking up, there never having been in the experience of their ancestors much of anything to look up for.* Thus, although they clearly heard the roaring of the scoutcraft’s engines, they had no idea what caused the sound and dismissed it as being of no particular importance. The Yathoon are not a very imaginative race.

Cutting their engines, Prince Valkar and Kadar let their ornithopter drift idly with the breeze, while spying out the Yathoon encampment. It was too dark for them to make out any particular individuals―so dark that they could scarcely tell the arthropods from their human slaves. They were undecided as to what to do.

“Do you think it likely, my Prince, that Koja and the boy were taken captive by the Horde?” murmured Kadar as they floated above the camp.

“It seems very likely to me,” confessed the Prince grimly. “Fido came from somewhere in this area, and if Koja and Taran crashed here, they could easily have been spotted by the Yathoon scouts.” His expression became grimmer, as he added by way of an afterthought: “Of course, they weren’t necessarily captured at all. They could as easily have been slain …”

“What does my Prince suggest we do now?” asked Kadar.

“We wait,” said Valkar. “We can discover little of importance by night, but with day we may be able to ascertain if, indeed, our friends are prisoners of the Horde.”

The wind had died and the air above the Great Plains was all but motionless. Prince Valkar did not dare try to bring the scoutcraft down so as to anchor it to the surface of the meadow, lest Yathoon sentinels should perceive their actions and attack them. So he and Kadar made a makeshift meal of cold meats, refreshed themselves with water from the canteens, shared their stores of provender with the miserable Fido, who was now heartily weary of being airborne, and curled up in the cockpit for the night, wrapping their cloaks about them for warmth.

When day broke in the skies above Thanator in that vast, silent explosion of light that is dawn on the jungle Moon, the two questors awoke to discover that they had floated a mile or two south of the encampment of the Horde, but found it easy enough to find the camp again.

The Garukhs were in the process of breaking camp, loading their gear back in the wains, and entering formation again. Valkar took the little scoutcraft up to far greater altitude than that at which they had flown previously, while searching for some sign of their lost comrades. He did this in order to mitigate their chances of being seen, and also because it was no longer necessary to search for Koja and Taran.

Because they had found them. In the clear golden light of morning both captives had been sighted as they labored in the chains of the Horde.

The caravan rode south, and above them all the way soared the scoutcraft, while aboard two worried Shondakorians strove to figure out a way to rescue Koja and Taran from their captivity.

12 Thundering Hooves

All that day the little scoutcraft followed in the wake of the Yathoon caravan, while the migratory Clan stolidly pursued its southward way.

Since the Shondakorian ornithopter had fortunately thus far eluded discovery by the Yathoon scouts and outriders, Prince Valkar and the young officer took every precaution to make certain that their very existence remained a secret. The advantage of surprise, they reasoned, might yet prove vital to the success of their plans.

But the trouble was, they really had no plans. Once they had found out that Koja and young Taran still lived and were presently the captives of the Yathoon caravan, they bent every thought to the conception of a method by which the two might be rescued from their insectoid captors. As yet, however, no viable scheme for the rescue had occurred to either of them.

They could not simply engage the migratory Clan in battle, of course. Few activities are more intrinsically suicidal than for two warriors and a half-grown othode pup to challenge the might of a force of enemy swordsmen armed, so to speak, to the teeth, and numbering in the hundreds. Even the advantage they possessed in being able to attack from the air would afford them little more than a momentary tactical superiority which would soon be lost in the struggle against overwhelming numerical strength.

Neither could they swoop down and carry off the two prisoners by any conceivable means, since both Koja and young Taran were chained to their fellow captives.

“If we could stage a diversion of some sort,” suggested Kadar tensely, “while the attention of the guards was diverted, one or the other of us could descend by means of the mooring cable and perhaps sever the chains, or pry them apart, and then Koja and the boy could climb up the cable and we could all fly away together … ?”

“What sort of a diversion?” asked Valkar practically.

“Um,” replied the lieutenant lamely, subsiding into thoughtful silence.

“Perhaps,” remarked Kadar a bit later, “once darkness falls, we could set the meadow grasses afire, and while the Yathoon are busy fighting the fire, we could come down and carry off our friends unseen in the gloom of night?”

“Perhaps,” nodded the Prince with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “But suppose the wind changes and the fire turns back and goes the other way? Or suppose the Yathoon simply decided to outrace the flames? Or suppose it is the captives they send out in front of the warriors to fight the fire?”

“Um,” said the lieutenant for a second time. Again he lapsed into moody silence, a silence which upon this occasion continued unbroken for a goodly time.

“There must be some way we can use the ornithopter to good advantage,” Valkar mused. “It seems foolish to have this unique aerial superiority, without somehow putting it to use. But, for the life of me, I have to confess I cannot envision any method of rescuing our friends from the air which is not obviously foredoomed to failure …”

The young officer nodded gloomily, saying nothing. The trouble was that the flying machine was exceptionally vulnerable to damage when used at close grips with an enemy such as the Yathoon barbarians. A single lucky arrowstrike or spear-cast, and the pontoons of levitating gas upon which the aerial contrivance rode would be punctured, causing a serious loss of irretrievable gas. The twenty-foot spears wherewith the arthropods were armed were deadly weapons in their hands, and could be thrown for enormous distances and with uncanny accuracy. The same danger was attached to their mighty war bows and the barbed arrows which each warrior carried and with whose use the Yathoon were experienced from the egg, so to speak.

They flew on all that day, following the rear guard of the migrating clan, and when darkness fell they still had not conceived of a plan for the rescue of their friends that had the slightest chance of succeeding.

Ironically enough, at the same time that Prince Valkar and his lieutenant were racking their brains to think of some plan for rescuing their friends from their plight, Koja and his fellow captives were similarly engaged.

Chained together in the wains with the other slaves, they conversed by whispers pitched too low to attract the attention of the other captives. It had occurred to Koja that unique and favorable opportunities for making their escape were open to them, now that the Horde was on its great southward trek. That is to say, during the migration virtually the entire attention of their guards was focused on the dangers that might threaten from without. Busied with watching for the approach of enemies from elsewhere upon the Great

Plains, they were less alert and wary in guarding their captives.

In part this was due to the difficulty of trying to do two different things at the same time. But another element was the peculiarly Yathoon attitude toward slaves, which I have already described. A slave is an item of property, soulless and devoid of rights; and, moreover, a slave possesses no freedom of will, being completely subject to the whims or wishes of his master. To the coldly logical brains of the Yathoon, it is hard to conceive of a slave seeking his freedom. How can a piece of property be capable of such independence of thought? To the Yathoon way of thinking, an escaped slave is almost a contradiction in terms. And such is the grimly fatalistic philosophy to which they adhere that most of the Yathoon slaves, being themselves of the Yathoon race, unconsciously share the same outlook.

But young Taran and Xara of Ganatol were of a different breed from the Yathoon, and were in no way subject to this bleak and hopeless philosophy. And Koja, although a Yathoon born and bred, had been exposed for so long a time to different modes of thought that his adherence to the beliefs of his kind had deeply eroded. And as for Borak, such was the strength of his desire for revenge upon his enemies that he had been persuaded to abandon va lu rokka for freedom of will.

And if ever they were to make their escape, it was now. Now or never, in fact: for with every league that they continued to be carried southward in their chains, they came closer to Sargol.

And escape from the Hidden Valley, whose every point of egress was heavily guarded by alert warriors, Koja knew, simply was beyond the realm of the possible.

What was needed, Koja and his fellow conspirators at length decided, was a diversion.

This was precisely the same decision that Valkar and Kadar simultaneously had reached.

But―what diversion, and how arranged, and by whom to be set into action?

It was the day following the discussion by Koja and the others of this aspect of their escape that Fate, or Destiny, intervened.

The first sign that Koja or his comrades had that Fate had decided to intervene on their behalf came in the form of a distant sound of drumming.

At first it was but faintly audible over the sounds of the wains creaking, the wind in the long crimson grass, and the heavy, lumbering tramping of the feet of the glymphs. But gradually it became louder as it came nearer, until at length it was noticed by all. It sounded like ten thousand tomtoms beaten all at once with an irregular rhythm.

Scouts and outriders craned to look in every direction, searching the horizon for the source of this mysterious and omnipresent sound. Like the steady roar of the surf it was, but here there were no seas. Like the drumming of a thousand hoofs it was, but if that was the explanation of the sound, which grew louder and louder with every passing moment, then where were the beasts whose .pounding hooves were the cause of that drumming?

Then, like a long wall of smoke athwart the horizon, stretching from north to south, a cloud of dust became visible. And the outriders of the Horde, who had observed such phenomena before, knew the origin of that distant drumming and realized at last their danger.

For it was a vast and numberless herd of vanth hurtling across the plains in the direction of the Garukh caravan. As yet there was no clue as to the nature of the disturbance, but a stampede is a stampede, and no matter what it was that had disturbed the herds of the vanth and had panicked them into flight, in flight they surely were, in all their thousands.

The Great Plains of Haratha experience no phenomena more perilous or more deadly than a stampede of the vanth. So vast are the herds of these huge, staglike quadrupeds that, once goaded into mass flight, there is no barrier that can stand before them untrampled, save for the very mountains of the south themselves. Whole encampments of the Horde have vanished from knowledge because they stood in the way of such a stampede. No army, however barricaded, could have stood in their path for long.

And now the caravan in which Koja and Borak and Taran and Xara were captives stood directly in the path of the mightiest stampede of the vanth that could be imagined. Ten or twelve thousand of the mammoth heavy-footed beasts, maddened into flight by some still unknown cause, came thundering down upon the caravan like a living ocean of hurtling flesh from which no escape was possible or even imaginable.

As for the caravan, it simply disintegrated, the warriors riding off in any direction―as long as it was not in the direction from which the herds came thundering―without a moment’s thought or hesitation.

The glymphs trumpeted in elephantine alarm and galloped off on their own, dragging their heavy wains behind them.

The thundering hooves were very near now, and the air darkened as immense clouds of dust veiled the sky.

The wain in which Koja and the others were chained was being dragged behind a team of panicky runaway glymphs. The Yathoon driver had leaped from the front of the wain and vanished in the whirling dust.

Bumping along over the swishing grasses, the wain began to strike against rocks, for the land was rising here into low, rocky hills. One such collision smashed a wheel to flying fragments; then the axle shattered against another boulder, and the wain began to break apart. The wooden guard-rail which ran around the sides of the wain, to which the captives were helplessly roped, also came apart, shattering into several pieces from the impact of collision with the boulder.

Koja knew nothing. Then, a moment later, he found himself lying on the grass, his tether fastened to a stump of wood. He was groggy but unharmed, and realized that he had been thrown clear when the wain had broken apart.

But where were his friends

He came to his feet, peering around through the dust, but saw no one. Here and there he spotted a fragment of the wain, but naught else. And the foremost of the stampeding vanths were almost upon him. Another moment and he would be a mangled thing, beaten into pulp beneath a thousand thudding hooves.

But there, just ahead, was the huge boulder into which the unruly glymphs had dragged the wain in their mad flight. It was nearly as tall as a man, and might afford him a momentary respite. He sprang agilely upon its crest. And then the herd was upon him, like a savage sea, waves of squealing, wild-eyed vanth curling about the sides of the great rock. Deafened by the tumult, blinded by the whirling dust which suddenly turned day into night, he reeled and fell―

―And found himself astride the back of a great bull vanth, legs locked instinctively about the beast’s barrel, clinging for life itself to the branching antlers of its staglike crestl

Scarcely noticing its rider, the vanth hurtled forward.

Then, out of the seething murk of darkness, a tall, gaunt figure staggered into view, directly in the path of the charging vanth to whose back Koja clung.

Swifter than thought itself he recognized the figure as that of Borak. It lurched, stumbling, into the path of the vanth and raised its arms. Momentarily diverted, the vanth veered to one side, narrowly missing the Yathoon. Without conscious volition, Koja bentcaught Borak by the arm-drew him up astride the charging bull.

They clung together, dust-covered, deafened, and blinded, unable to think or to speak.

Moments later their exhausted beast foundered among the rocky hills. As they tumbled clear, it fell on one side, vanishing beneath the driving hooves of the beasts close-packed behind it.

The two warriors clambered to the peak of the hill and lay there, panting. All about them and to every side a dust-gray sea of exhausted beasts raced by. Many staggered and fell, to be trampled to a pulp in moments. Others showed red, glazed eyeballs, tongues lolling, mouths flecked with foam; soon they, too, would fall to be trodden down by those behind them.

And then, almost as swiftly as it had broken upon them, the storm passed. Suddenly, with magical swiftness, the herd melted away and was gone, dwindling across the plain. Koja and Borak stood, peering through the dusty murk; the plain was naught but bare, trampled earth as far as either of them could see. They could no longer discern the wreckage of the wain, nor any sign of man. Here and there, like driftwood cast up by a freak swirling of the tide, the carcass of a dead beast lay in its gory ruin.

The thundering of thousands of hooves faded into the distance.

Gradually, the thick mantle of dust, swept away by the wind, cleared from the golden sky.

The stampede had come and gone, and they were miraculously unhurt.

But―what of their comrades?

Borak, doubtless, felt little concern for their whereabouts or safety, viewing their demise with the cold indifference of his stolid kind. But a poignant pang of sorrow and of sharp loss pierced the less armored breast of Koja at the thought of young Taran or fair Xara trampled to death under the flying hooves of the vanth.

But dead they were, must be, along with all of the Clan that had captured them …

Suddenly there appeared, riding across the beaten earth of the denuded plain, a line of tall huntsmen of the Yathoon, mounted on thaptors.

Koja and Borak would have concealed themselves to elude discovery, but already it was too late. Nocked arrows were pointed in their direction, and riders were already detaching themselves from the line to gallop forward and take them prisoner.

Out of the frying fan and into the fire is a phrase uniquely terrestrial in its connotations, but the sense of it would have been readily obvious to Koja, under the present circumstances. With the stoic indifference of his kind, he stood tall with his head high, arms folded upon his mighty breast, awaiting capture. Flight was a folly and escape an impossibility, and to have fought with bare hands would have been suicidal.

The Yathoon huntsmen came riding up to the foot of the hill whereon the two comrades stood. Dismounting, the hunters ascended the slope to secure their captives.

And Koja was never so surprised in all of his life as when the huntsmen knelt before him to lay their swords at his feet.

13 Duel to the Death

The huntsmen whom Koja and Borak so dramatically encountered were a party of the Kandar Clan. This Koja knew instantly, for he recognized their tribal markings. What he did not at once grasp was the reason for the welcome afforded him, which was, to say the least, unexpectedly hospitable.

The leader of the hunting party he also recognized, one Izon, who had been a cadet in Koja’s own retinue, but who now, it seemed, belonged to the retinue of a rival chieftain named Gamchan.

Izon assisted Koja and Borak to fresh mounts, apparently taking it for granted that Koja wished to be escorted back to the encampment of the Horde. Koja wisely kept his silence; it would seem obvious that many changes had taken place in the Clan leadership since he had last been seated in its councils.

As for Borak, he took his cue from Koja and turned an impassive face to all of these things, saying nothing.

“It has been long since last we met, Izon,” observed Koja as they rode from the trampled field. “How did you come to belong to the retinue of Gamchan?”

“When you were captured by the flying ships, my komor, the chieftain Gamchan laid instant claim to your trove. Since none cared to challenge him, all that my komor had possessed, as well as all of those who had once followed him into battle, soon came under the chieftaincy of Gamchan.”

“I see,” mused Koja grimly. He well remembered the villainous Gamchan, his most jealous and treacherous rival in the Clan. The other had been second only to Koja in wealth, authority, and prestige, and had long desired to be first. Evidently, the dreams of Gamchan had come true.

“Does Pandol still lead the Clan?” he inquired.

“He leads no longer,” said Izon heavily. “He was challenged by Gamchan to the duello two years ago, and fell before his steel. Some there are that claim the chieftain waited until the akka-komor was far gone in drink before daring to challenge him. At any rate, Gamchan is now akka-komor of the Kandars.”

“Do you think he will be pleased or displeased when he learns that I have returned?” inquired Koja wryly.

The huntsman shrugged with a forward twitching of his knobbed antennae.

“He will be displeased, of course, for Gamchan has always feared and hated you, my komor,” he replied tonelessly.

“Why, then, did you offer me the salute due to a chieftain of the Horde, rather than taking me prisoner, which you could easily have done, since I bear no arms?” asked Koja.

“You were my komor once,” said Izon expressionlessly, “and you are still a komor of the Clan: how then could I deal toward you with disrespect?”

Koja said nothing, and they rode in silence for a time while he digested this valuable information.

The most surprising thing about it all was that Gamchan had not named him an outlaw. Nor, for that matter, had Pandol. This was truly a revelation to Koja, who had long since assumed that the warriors of his Clan had known or guessed that he had assisted Jandar and the Princess Darloona to escape. Now matters were cast in a completely different light, and suddenly the pattern became clear.

Something more than three and a half years before, Koja had permitted Jandar to escape from the captivity of the Horde; encountering Darloona in the jungles of the Grand Kumala, Jandar and the Princess did not enjoy freedom for very long, soon being recaptured by the Yathoon warriors. This time they were the slaves of Gamchan, a rival chieftain who had envied Koja his ownership of so rare an amatar as a human with yellow hair and blue eyes.

Gamchan had been struck down by Jandar in a quarrel; later, he had been about to deal “justice” to the rebellious slave who had dared to lift his hand against his master, but a sudden raid by the ornithopters of Prince Thuton, lord of the Sky Pirates, had thrown the encampment into turmoil; in the ensuing confusion, Koja had assisted the two humans to escape. All three had been captured by the Sky Pirates and were carried off together to Zanadar, the City in the Clouds.’

Now Koja realized that, in the confusion of the aerial attack, none of his fellow clansmen had noticed aught more than that Koja and the two humans had been captured by the Sky Pirates. Koja’s true role in their escape had gone unguessed. Therefore, he had never been declared aharj and still retained his rank among the Kandars, although it was doubtless believed that he was long since dead.

A chieftain retains his rank in the Horde until death, or until he has either been defeated by a challenger or has been officially declared an outlaw for some crime.

This simple fact totally altered the present circum stances. Suddenly, and most unexpectedly, Koja had found allies. And all might yet be well …

They entered the earthworks which surrounded the vast encampment of the Kandar Clan and at once made their way to the center of the camp, where Gamchan the high chief reposed.

There were many who recognized Koja as he rode through the rows of tents toward the residence of the akka-komor. And doubtless, in their coldly logical and unemotional way, there were many who were pleased at Koja’s return.

In his day he had been the mightiest chieftain of the Clan, second only to Pandol the high chief himself. As a chieftain of twenty tents, Koja had commanded a princely retinue, and his amatara―his treasure trove―was second to none.

Among the greatest chieftains of his Clan, he had been a warrior of high renown and a huntsman of enviable skill.

It was only natural, then, for the Kandars to be pleased at his miraculous return from the dead.

Gamchan, however, was not pleased at all. When he emerged from his tent at the exact center of the encampment and received the salute of Koja, he was about as surprised as a Yathoon can be. But he tried not to show it, as all of the chieftains and captains of the Kandars were in audience upon the scene.

“How is it that the former chieftain Koja returns to us after so long a time?” demanded Gamchan. “We believed you either enslaved by the Zanadarians or slain by them years ago.”

“I was indeed carried off into the captivity of the Sky Pirates,” replied Koja calmly, “and was long a slave in their city, toiling as a gladiator in the great Arena of Zanadar.”

“How, then, come you here?”

Koja shrugged. “In time there was a slave revolt, and in the battle I managed to escape,” he said simply. Gamchan looked dubious, as if guessing that Koja had left very much unsaid.

“And since then?” he prompted.

“My wanderings have been many,” said Koja expressionlessly, “and my adventures beyond the telling. Until just recently, I dwelt in Shondakor among the Ku Thad. Then, by an unhappy turn of Fate, I fell into the clutches of the Garukhs, who hold all of the Kandars in deadly enmity, as you know.”

“I know it well,” said Gamchan harshly. “It was that black devil Fanga who most opposed me for the high chieftaincy of the Kandars, even in view of my victory over Pandol in the duello! Tell me more. How did you escape from the villainous Garukhs, O Koja?”

Koja explained, having elicited the information from Izon during their journey hither. A hunting party of the Kandars had been organizing a drive of the vanth herds when one of the campfires ignited an accidental conflagration in the long prairie grasses, causing the mammoth herds, already in motion, to panic into a stampede. That stampede had shattered the Garukh caravan, destroying them utterly.

Gamchan looked mightily pleased at this information.

“Then the jealous and vindictive Fanga was trampled into red slime beneath the heavy hooves of the vanth herds, driven by my own proud and loyal Kandars?” he repeated gloatingly. “And he and all his warriors are slain?”

“I have no certain knowledge of the fact,” admitted Koja, “but I do not know how any of them could have escaped. I and my comrade here”―he indicated Borak with a gesture―“only narrowly escaped being trampled td death ourselves.”

Gamchan exclaimed in satisfaction.

“Then you return to us, 0 Koja, the bearer of excellent news! And we are pleased to welcome the former chieftain back to his people. Your `comrade,’ as you call him, will become one of my slaves. As for yourself, we can use you among the hunters, and with steady luck and faithful service you may again rise to a chieftaincy among us―‘

“I am already a chieftain of the Kandars and will remain one until my death,” Koja interrupted in a cold, level tone of voice. “You know as well as do I that this is the Law of the Clan, O Gamchan! I am a komor senior in rank to yourself, having attained to that rank long before you. Once it became mine, no one can deprive me of it.”

A murmur of agreement ran around the circle of listeners. But Gamchan looked surly and threatening, and it subsided.

“How can you be a chieftain, with no retinue to follow you in battle?” he asked skeptically.

Then it was that Borak spoke up.

“As for myself, I would rather walk in the retinue of Koja than be a slave in the shadow of Gamchan,” he said.

Others came forward, and among them were some of those who had served in the retinue of Koja aforetime as fullfledged warriors, like Sujat, or cadets like Izon.

“I, too,” said Izon, “would be numbered again in the retinue of Koja, my komor.”

“And I,” said Sujat and the others.

Gamchan looked angry, and if it had been within the limitations of the Yathoon physiognomy to scowl, he would have scowled―and thunderously.

“Your komor, is it?” he rasped. “And who has ever heard of a komor without a komor’s trove?”

“I once had such a trove,” said Koja steadily. “But it was taken by yourself, Gamchan, and I think unlawfully―”

“How so, `unlawfully’?” demanded the high chief, glowering.

“According to the Law of the Clan,” said Koja, “my trove is my own until I am bested in the duello by another, whereupon it becomes lawfully his. Or unless I die, whereupon another may lay claim to it, unless challenged. But I am not dead, Gamchan, and neither have you bested me in battle. Therefore, return to me my treasure―for, as you yourself have said, whoever heard of a chieftain without a chieftain’s trove?”

At those words, stung to a fury and losing all control, the high chief roared out a choked challenge and sprang upon Koja, swinging high his whip-sword.

And Koja was, of course, unarmed.

Ducking under the blow, Koja lunged forward and unexpectedly seized Gamchan in his embrace, wrapping both long, segmented arms about the upper thorax of his foe. Gamchan was astonished at this, for it is not in the natural order of things for a Yathoon to do battle barehandedly, so to speak. He tried to give voice to this argument, but Koja cut him off in a novel and unexpected―and really quite efficient―manner. That is, with a right to the jaw that laid Gamchan on his back, stunned and blinking.

The sword had fallen from Gamchan’s claw when he fell. Now Koja sprang upon his foe, and there ensued a free-for-all without parallel in the annals of Yathoon warfare.

And perhaps I should explain here that upon the jungle Moon of Callisto the fine art of fisticuffs is completely unknown, for some reason. It was I, Jandar, who introduced to the Callistans the earthly sport of pugilism; I learned rough-and-tumble in a number of hard schools back on my native world, and retain the craft for use as a secret weapon, so to speak. On a planet of master swordsmen, not one among them who knows how to use his fists, it often came in handy to be able to use your fists in a pinch. I know of no better ace to have up your sleeve when the chips are down than to possess the skill to deal your opponent a good right to the jaw.

And Koja had seen me in action in this fashion many times. Obviously, he had picked up a few of my tricks. And the clawlike hands of the Yathoon, armored in tough chitin until they resembled gloves of chain mail, made them powerful weapons.

It did not take Koja very long to teach Gamchan that it pays to know how to use your fists, especially when jumped by someone who has a sword when you do not.

Before long, it was over. Beaten into unconsciousness, Gamchan sprawled there at Koja’s feet. And then Koja broke his neck.

This may seem unsporting, but the Yathoon are fighters born and bred, not sportsmen. They learned in a hard school that the only safe enemy is a dead one.

And Gamchan was now a very dead one.

The next morning the lords and chieftains of the Kandars, in council assembled, debated the right of Koja to assume the mantle of the high chieftaincy which he had won from Gamchan in fair and honest battle.

This was, for the most part, a mere formality. Seldom was the conqueror’s right to inherit the rank of the conquered seriously questioned. True, Fanga had questioned it when Gamchan bested the former high chief, Pandol, but then there had been certain irregularities suspected in the circumstances of that duel.

That is, Gamchan was thought to have waited until Pandol was dead drunk before challenging him.

In the present case, the only irregularities which had any bearing on the legitimacy of Koja’s claim were the doings of Gamchan, who had attacked an unarmed man without warning. As no one would reasonably have expected chivalry and honor from such as Gamchan―who was known as a braggart, a coward, and a bully―no, one saw fit to contest Koja’s claim.

That evening he was elevated to the rank of akka-komor before the assembled warriors of the clan, who hailed him. Gamchan’s passing displeased few, if any. He had not been very popular, and as akka-komor he had been a distinct failure. The Clan had suffered from his poor leadership, his hasty and rash decisions, and everyone felt safer and happier with Koja in his place.

Especially Koja.

That day and the next he investigated the warriors who had been in Gamchan’s retinue, weeding out the ones known to be cowards or bullies or loafers, whom he replaced with those of his former followers who now flocked to join his new retinue. Among these were Izon and Sujat and Thomor and wise, canny old Zook.

And, of course, Borak.

Under the glory of the moons they conversed, Koja and Borak, while digesting the remnants of the victory feast.

“What do you intend doing now, O Koja?” inquired Borak. “Now you can return to Shondakor the Golden, for there are none with the authority to say you nay.”

Koja was inwardly troubled. He yearned to see his friends again―that was only natural. But the trouble was, he was now responsible for the well-being of the Kandars. And Koja was one who took seriously his responsibilities.

“This was to be the last roundup of the vanth before the Clan departed for the Secret Valley of Sargol,” he observed in his flat, emotionless tones.

“That, I believe, is so,” replied Borak. “But what have you decided to do?”

Koja thought for a moment, then said:

“I will lead the Kandars into the Secret Valley now that Taran and the Princess of Ganatol are dead.”

And his tones were bleak and empty as he said those words =almost as bleak and empty as his heart.

14 Wings of Rescue

However inescapable it may have seemed to Koja the Yathoon to suppose the boy Taran and the beautiful Princess of Ganatol had fallen beneath the thundering hooves of the maddened vanth, such, happily, was not the case.

From aloft in their small aerial scout, Prince Valkar and his lieutenant, Kadar, to say nothing of Fido the othode, had narrowly watched the progress of the caravan as it wound its meandering way across the limitless plain. And thus it was that from their lofty vantage they had been first to perceive the dreadful danger which impended; not even the scouts and outriders of the Horde, on their fleet, far-ranging thaptors, had espied the stampede before they.

Kadar, white to the lips, clutched Valkar by the upper arm and pointed off across the plain.

“Look!” he said huskily. Valkar followed his pointing finger and saw that long line of panic-maddened beasts―saw, too, that their inexorable advance was destined to swallow and to trample down the Yathoon caravan―and his heart sank within his breast.

But in the next instant he had kicked the scoutcraft into a hurtling dive. For, from his long association With me, Valkar of Shondakor had learned one of life’s most important lessons: never give up hope until the last instant of time, and strive to the very last, even against impossible odds.

Thus it was that, when the thundering wall of stampeding vanth shattered in titanic collision with the Yathoon caravan, the small scoutcraft was winging low over the vehicles of the arthropods; and even as the wain in which our friends were riding broke up against the boulder, and Xara of Ganatol sprang free, clutching young Taran to her breast, she had no sooner touched the ground than the strong arms of Valkar swooped her up, and the lad, too, and bore them aloft to relative safety.

Valkar had flung down the rope ladder and clambered swiftly to the bottom rung, while Kadar clung to the controls. Now, as Valkar caught the two in his arms, Kadar kicked the rudder pedals and the game little craft arrowed upward again through the drifting clouds of dust raised by ten thousand pounding hooves. Below them, in whirling and halfglimpsed chaos, warriors and beasts screamed once and then were still, trampled into the dusty earth of the plain.

Xara gasped, cried out, and coughed dry dust from her lungs, staring incredulously as the prairie swung, then dipped and sank beneath her. She stared dazedly up into the tense, dust-covered features of the young prince, then aloft, and wonderingly, at the winged shape―of his flying craft. Such as it she had seen many times in the past, for the Sky Pirates of Zanadar had long been a peril to her people. But her handsome and stalwart young rescuer was an absolute stranger to her, for never had she laid eyes upon him before.

It is, I think, a tribute to the womanly heart of Xara of Ganatol that even in such desperate straits as these―snatched from the very path of those horrendous hooves―she was not oblivious to the manly charm of her rescuer.

In the next instant the boy blinked wide-eyed, grinned enormously, and crowed at the top of his lungs

“Valkar-jan!”

The prince hugged the boy briefly, then directed him to seize the rungs of the ladder while he assisted the girl to safety. The boy scooted up the rungs, nimble as a monkey, while Valkar and the princess ascended after him.

Valkar assisted the shaken Ganatolian girl to a seat in the craft and clambered in beside her. Taran, in the front seat beside the lieutenant, suddenly found his lap full of wriggling, panting, hysterically happy othode. He squealed and wrapped his arms around Fido, who was enthusiastically licking his face while wiggling ecstatically. It was all too sudden and too strange for Xara.

She uttered a helpless laugh and turned questioningly to Valkar.

“Sir, I know not by what fortuitous circumstance you came to snatch us from the very jaws―or, rather, hooves―of death, but for my part you have the undying gratitude of Xara of Ganatol,” she said breathlessly.

The prince smiled, introduced himself, and explained that many of the scoutcraft of Shondakor were combing the Great Plains in search of her young companion in captivity and his Yathoon friend, and that he felt favored by the Lords of Gordrimator that it had been his good luck to be near enough to lend assistance to them in their peril. Then, sobering, he asked of Koja.

The girl’s eyes fell. “Of Koja the Yathoon, and of his compatriot, Borak, I can tell you nothing,” she said somberly. “They were in the wain, tethered near us … but, in the confusion, when the wagon struck a rock and came apart, and the guardrail to which we were fastened broke and freed us, I lost sight of the two Yathoon. Indeed, I had only time enough to snatch up the boy and jump free, before the wagon overturned.”

Her glorious eyes were somber.

“I never saw them again. And I greatly fear that they went down beneath the slashing hooves of the vanth. Even the horny armor wherewith Nature has seen fit to clad the bodies of the Yathoon could not have withstood for an instant of time those thundering hooves.”

Valkar looked grim.

“That is indeed sorry news!” he sighed heavily.

And there was really nothing more to say.

From the moment he had first snatched Xara and young Taran from the path of the stampeding vanth, Valkar had paid little attention to the direction in which Kadar had been flying the scoutcraft.

Kadar himself had paid no particular attention to their direction, either. His primary objective was to get the little ornithopter down close enough to the surface of the prairie so that Valkar, dangling from the bottom of the rope ladder, could bear the two away to safety. And, once this had been accomplished, he had lifted the craft with all hastenarrowly managing to avoid striking his vessel against the upper parts of the rocky hills.

These were, of course, the same hills whereupon Koja, and Borak had found a place of safety only moments after the little Shondakorian scout soared past overhead. But so thick was the blanket of dust raised by the hooves of the stampeding herd that neither Koja nor Borak so much as glimpsed the ornithopter dart down, snatch up the princess and the boy, and soar away with them clinging to the bottom rungs of the swaying rope ladder.

And neither, of course, had the pair noticed the dust-covered figures of the two Yathoon as they clambered up among the rocks of the hills.

Kadar had then simply let the craft fly itself while watching below as Taran and Xara and Valkar climbed the rope. Once he had assisted the exhausted, trembling princess and the excited boy to take their seats in the craft, he began to return his attention to flying the scoutcraft.

They had soared away from the terrible scene of disaster and carnage, as it happened, in the same direction as the vanth themselves were stampeding, which is to say due west. Borne along by a brisk tailwind, they had covered quite a distance by this time. But now Valkar determined that they should return to the site of the massacre in order to search for any signs of Koja and Borak.

This must be done first of all, before anything else.

For Valkar found it difficult to believe that the brave and loyal Koja had actually come to so ignominious an end as to be trampled to death by beasts.

Not until the last shred of hope was exhausted would he believe it.

And he dreaded having to tell Jandar and Darloona that Koja was dead …

“Turn us about and send us back to the place where the Horde was before the stampede,” he directed Kadar. “If two could escape the holocaust, mayhap Koja and his comrade were equally lucky―”

Kadar leveled off and turned the scoutcraft about in a wide circle, returning the way they had first come. The stampede had long since passed, and naught but bare and beaten soil, trampled to dust beneath thousands of pounding hooves, was to be seen. That and, here and there, a fragment of splintered wood or crumpled metal. They could not even find any bodies.

And there was no sign of Koja or of Rorak. These, rescued, by chance as we have already learned, had long since ridden off with the hunters of the Kandar to the distant encampment before Kadar returned to the site of the massacre.

It is to Valkar’s credit that he did not give up easily. Bringing the little scout to a mooring place in the hills, he descended with Kadar and the others and searched the beaten earth for some sign or token, however slight, as to the doom of Koja, finding absolutely nothing. At length he was forced to conclude that Koja and his friend Borak had not been as lucky as had Taran and Xara, and that the mighty Yathoon and his comrade had met their end. There seemed no other conclusion that was even remotely possible under the circumstances. It was heavy news he must bear back to Jandar and Darloona and Lukor and all the other of Koja’s friends …

But at least young Taran was alive and safe, and Valkar knew that the Court of Shondakor would be pleased that he had saved from certain death the Princess of the Royal House of Ganatol. So, although not a complete success, his mission had at least salvaged something from the debacle.

They would rest here on the plains this night, for all were weary and worn out, and needed food and sleep. With morning, Valkar would direct his craft back to the rendezvous and rejoin the main force … with the sad, news that Koja of the Yathoon Horde was no more.

He directed their flight on across the plains into the south, following the path of the stampeding vanth. At length they caught up to the mighty herd. Now weary, their panic having faded, the vanth were dispersing in search of fresh meadow-grass and water. It did not prove difficult to overtake and slay a fat buck, which was quickly skinned and gutted. Kadar built a fire and in no time juicy vanth steaks were sizzling on a rudely improvised spit over a bed of crackling flames.

The meal was delicious, and doubly so for Xara of Ganatol, as it was the first food she had enjoyed in freedom for many months. After the pangs of hunger were assuaged, she and Valkar talked as night fell and the glorious panoply of the heavens blazed forth in all its splendor. Valkar was curious as to the nature of her mission to Shondakor and was alarmed to learn that the great Perushtarian Empire, which shared the coasts and waters of the broad inland sea of the Corund Laj with the kingdom of Ganatol, was making inroads against the freedom of her people.

The Perushtarians, a mercantile people, seldom given to warlike ways, had long been held in subjugation to the Sky Pirates, who had annually wrung from them a heavy tribute in wealth and slaves. Since the victory of the forces of Shondakor some two years or more before this time, which had resulted in the complete destruction of the City in the Clouds and had ended for all time the depredations of the Sky Pirates, it would seem that the Perushtarians had begun to expand their domain.

Valkar knew that this news would distress the rulers of Shondakor. For one thing, among Jandar’s dearest and oldest friends was the gallant old sword-master, Lukor, a Ganatolian by birth, on whose behalf Jandar would surely mount some sort of assistance for the beleaguered city of Ganatol.

For another thing, there was the safety of Shondakor itself. Although the Golden City of the Ku Thad was probably the single most powerful of all of the cities of Callisto, Shondakor lay not far upriver from the center of the Perushtarian dominion. And, in any martial exercise, it would be but one city against four …

And those were unhealthy odds.

True, Shondakor had shared bonds of close alliance with the nearer of the four cities of the Bright Empire of Perushtar, the city of Soraba, whose Prince had joined with Shondakor, and with the free city of Tharkol in the great expedition to the Far Side of the Jungle Moon, where the combined forces of all three realms crushed forever the menace of the insidious Mind Wizards.

But in any real contest of arms, would Soraba continue to recognize her alliance with Shondakor, or would blood tell, and Perushtarian join with Perushtarian?

It was hard to guess what might happen under those circumstances.

But there was one thing that Prince Valkar knew for certain. And that was that the first advance warnings of warlike and imperial ambitions on the part of the Bright Empire had already been dangerously delayed. For Xara of Ganatol had been intercepted by warriors of the Yathoon before she had been able to bring the news to Jandar and Darloona, and ask for their help.

Thus Shondakor had, as yet, no intimations of the danger that impended from Perushtar.

And that news, Valkar grimly knew, was very, very important. No time must be wasted before Jandar and Darloona were apprised of these events. And it was of enormous and vital importance that Valkar and Xara bring the word to the attention of the Prince and Princess of the Golden City without any more delay …

Still, they were weary and needed their rest. Time enough, surely, to linger for a few hours of sleep, here amidst the endless plains. They could rise with dawn and be at the rendezvous point before midmorning …

And Xara was very beautiful.

And Valkar was only human.

The sweet, pure oval of her face filled his eyes. Her great eyes glowed like wet jewels. And the glory of the many-colored moons touched the rich sleekness of her silken hair with glimmering splendor. Valkar forgot to continue their conversation.

“I have not yet thanked you for saving my life,” the Ganatolian girl murmured softly.

Her full, tender, moist lips were ever so slightly parted.

Valkar opened his mouth to murmur some polite reply―never afterwards could he quite recall what he had been about to say.

For, just at that precise moment, thirty Yathoon flung themselves into the circle of the firelight.

And, in the next instant, Valkar found himself fighting for his life.

15 Zothon the Mysterious

It was not actually Prince Valkar’s fault. He had not really been careless or neglectful.

In the first place, Valkar had not fully realized exactly how far into the southlands they had flown. And he had no idea just how close they were to Sargol. Even if he had known, it is to be doubted that Valkar would have known enough about the Secret Valley, and how carefully it was watched and defended, to have been cognizant of his deadly danger.

Only in one respect had the gallant young Prince been careless. No woodsman, he had not realized just how far the light of an open fire can be seen on plains as broad and flat and unencumbered as those of Haratha.

And, of course, not being a Yathoon he could not possibly have known that this was that time of the Callistan year when the Clans of the Horde gather at Sargol for their games and ceremonies. At this period, every one of the gigantic, ferocious arthropods upon the entire planet were on the trek into the southlands; and thus it was that for the Shondakorians to have remained in the open about a blazing fire was the most dangerous thing they could have done.

He had no time to regret it now.

The ring of steel against steel filled the luminous silence of the night with harsh music ... already, in the first instant, Valkar had slain his nearest opponent with a reckless lunge. Now, as he parried the glittering blades of two others, he felt the warm pressure of Xara’s body as the Ganatolian girl put her back to his own in order to defend his rear.

She had bent and lithely snatched up the sword let fall from the lax claws of him whom Valkar had first slain. Now she matched her steel against a tall, monstrously ugly Yathoon warrior, wishing she was armed with a smaller and more slender rapier rather than an ungainly whip-sword. But there was no hope for it.

Nature has not made the Yathoon particularly beautiful, save in a grimly utilitarian sort of way. But her opponent was singularly ugly even among his own kind, for a jagged scar snagged its way down the inhuman casque of his horny brow and had obliterated one of his bulging compound eyes, leaving it milkily opaque with blindness.

She dispatched him with a level thrust to the abdomen which took him by surprise. Since she was armed with a Yathoon blade, he had naturally expected her to employ the weapon after the Yathoon manner―which she did not.

Now, of course, Kadar and Taran had joined them, and the ringing of steel and the grunt of exertion and the harsh gasp of pain were the only sounds to be heard.

Even Fido the othode had joined in the fight, and his terrible jaws and burly weight had accounted for two of their attackers.

But it was soon over. Four humans and a single othode cannot hold at bay for long thirty towering, heavily armed arthropods. In tight-lipped silence, Valkar threw down his sword and permitted his wrists to be bound.

Beside him, her head held stubbornly high, Xara of Ganatol did the like. The girl was crushed but refused to show it, and stubbornly blinked back the tears that stung her eyes.

“I am sorry, my Princess,” muttered Valkar quietly in low tones.

Her voice was serene and untroubled as she replied: “Va lu rokka, my Prince.” She smiled. But her heart was as a leaden weight within her breast. For it is cruel to have tasted so briefly of freedom after having for so long endured captivity―and to have the sweet cup dashed so soon from your lips.

“We will camp here and rejoin the caravan at dawn,” the leader of the Yathoon said in his rasping, emotionless voice to an underling.

“What of the othode? Shall we slay it?” inquired the other, indicating Fido the othode, whom they had netted with their lassos. Growling and frothing, the othode pup was trying to bite his way through his bonds. They were of rawhide, however, which is proof against even the savage tusks and powerful jaws of an othode.

“Slay none,” snapped the chieftain. “There has been enough slaying. We are on sacred ground.” And he regarded with cold eyes the seven corpses which lay sprawled upon the turf. Valkar and his companions had acquitted themselves well.

They slept that night in the long grass, and with dawn they were tied to pack animals and rode into the south to rejoin the main caravan.

As for the skycraft, which had been anchored to the surface of the plains, it must be accounted among the casualties of the brief conflict.

For in the confusion of the swift battle, a random swordslash had severed its mooring cable, and it had drifted away upon the breeze, like some immense, ungainly kite escaped from its master.

This knowledge did nothing to improve Valkar’s mood of grim despair.

For without the ornithopter, they were helpless to return to Shondakor, even were they somehow able to escape from their present state of captivity.

It was not very long before Prince Valkar learned that he and his companions had been taken prisoner by a scouting party of the great Zajjadar Clan, one of the mightiest and most numerous of the five which composed the Yathoon Horde.

The Zajjadar were, in effect, the Royal Clan of the Yathoon race, for the current Arkon (or Emperor) of the Yathoon Horde was himself a Zajjadar. He was above all Clan allegiance, however, and no longer actually commanded the Zajjadars; that position was held by a towering arthropod named Yazar, whom Valkar and the others had yet to encounter.

Nor did they particularly wish to do so.

These facts Valkar learned through furtive conversations with some of the other captives of the Zajjadars. There were many of these, for the Clan was renowned for its fearlessness in war, and had taken many captives during its long trek through the southern hemisphere of Callisto. Among them were bald, red-skinned Perushtarian traders, Shondakorian farmers and huntsmen, with their golden skin, green or amber eyes, and red manes, black-haired crimson Tharkolians, and one most peculiar young man whose unusual pigmentation and appearance piqued the curiosity of Valkar and his companions in misfortune.

His name was Zothon of Arzoma, and his people were known as the Laj-Thad. Since the same language is spoken and understood universally across the length and breadth of the jungle Moon, Valkar of course knew that this term meant “the People of the Sea.” But that was all that he knew about Zothon.

For he had never before heard of a place called Arzoma, or of these Sea-People. Neither had he ever in all of his wanderings encountered so strange and unique a person as this Zothon.

For one thing, his hair was a stiff, bristling mane of snow-white, and it resembled quills or very coarse fibers rather than ordinary hair.

For another thing, Zothon’s skin was of a greenish hue, but of a shade so dark as to seem almost jet-black. The contrast between his stark white mane and his nearly ebon skin was startling and dramatic.

His eyes were every bit as unusual. They were of a pale, jewel-bright shade resembling lavender, that is the pupils were. But his eyes seemed to be almost entirely composed of pupil, and the whites were seldom visible.

Like great sparkling sapphires were the peculiar eyes of Zothon of the Sea-Folk. And Valkar soon became very curious about this strange personage.

As for his appearance, he was an odd, not unattractive, combination of lithe and sinewy strength together with a certain compactness of proportion so flawlessly symmetrical that you did not think of him as being smaller than the average human being, unless and until you saw him standing next to an ordinary man of Shondakor or Tharkol.

For one so slight, his physical strength, toughness, and endurance were genuinely remarkable. Set to toiling with the other slaves of the Zajjadars, he put them all to shame by his extraordinary strength.

Valkar was intrigued by the mystery of his unknown origin and homeland, but it was quite some time before, as chance would have it, he was chained to a work detail next to the strange black man with the startling white hair.

As soon as the first opportunity for them to converse together without being observed presented itself, Valkar, as it were, seized it by the forelock.

“Jaruga, notar,” he said in low tones.

“Jaruga, Valkar-jan,” replied the other quietly. “For I trust that to be your name; at any rate, thus I have heard the young boy address you. I am Zothon the Arzomian, a Zetetikar of the Sea-Folk.”

And here was another puzzle for Valkar to think about! For the word zetetikar means, simply, “seeker” or “searcher.” However, Zothon used the word in such a way as to suggest that, among the people of his nation, it was a title or rank or, perhaps, a profession.

“What do you seek, for what do you search, O Zothon?” the Prince inquired.

“For many things, my Prince,” replied the other. Then, with a slight smile, he remarked: “At the moment, for my freedom.”

Then, as luck would have it, they were separated and assigned to different tasks, and Valkar did not for some time find another opportunity to exchange words with the mysterious black man with the white hair.

The Zajjadar moved south in rapid, day-long increments, pausing only at nightfall to erect their tents, eat the evening meal, and rest. Although Valkar remained alert and vigilant for the slightest chance to escape, none presented itself.

Nor did he again have the chance to speak to Zothon. None of the other captives to whom he spoke concerning the black man knew anything about him or his unknown homeland. But it was the boy Taran who noticed something even more peculiar and unique regarding Zothon of Arzoma.

And that was that he had gills!

Now, as it happens, no true amphibians are known to exist upon the jungle Moon, although some of the aquatic denizens, like the monstrous groacks that infest the waters of the Far Side of the planet, are able to leave the depths for a brief time, in order to attack their prey ashore.

But certainly no sea-dwelling race of intelligent humanoids was known or even rumored to exist. Nor did the legends and sagas with which Valkar was acquainted make any reference to a race of merfolk. So this bit of chance discovery made Valkar even more mystified than before. .

But Taran was positive about his discovery. He did not, of course, call them gills, but announced that once, when he had toiled beside the black man at unloading folded tents from one of the wains, the Arzomian had gone stripped to the waist, and upon both sides of his torso, situated parallel to his ribs, Taran had clearly seen long, thin, pink-lipped openings in his flesh.

They were not scars, of this the boy was certain; and neither were they open, unhealed wounds. Indeed, as the chest of Zothon rose and fell, straining from his exertions, the long gill-slits had expanded and contracted, rhythmically.

They could be nothing else but gills, and therefore the true meaning of the name of his people, the Laj-Thad, was to be defined literally. They were―must be―dwellers beneath the sea.

This, of course, presented the Prince with yet another mystery to be solved. For only two bodies of water large enough to be called seas are known to exist upon the surface of Callisto, the Corund Laj at the north eastern border of the inhabited hemisphere of the planet, and the Sanmur Laj at the southwestern border.

The greater sea of Corund Laj is ruled by the Perushtarians, whose cities are situated along its shores, with their capital, Grand Perushtar itself, upon a large island near the southern shores. And the trading and intercourse between the Perushtarian cities and the Golden City of the Ku Thad were such that, surely, if the depths of the sea had been inhabited by an intelligent aquatic race, everyone would know about it.

That left only the Sanmur Laj in the distant south as a good possible site for Zothon’s city of Arzoma. The Lesser Sea was at a great distance from Shondakor and Tharkol and Ganatol, and was considered unexplored. No one had ever gone there, insofar as Prince Valkar was aware, for the plain and simple reason that there was nothing there that anyone would wish to visit. The sea was, as far as anyone knew, uninhabited and islandless, situated in the midst of a remote and hostile and uninhabited wilderness that bordered upon the far western terminus of the Plains of Haratha.

Could Zothon be from the Sanmur Laj, then, Valkar wondered. He supposed it was the most likely place. Unless, of course, there was another sea situated on the Far Side of Callisto, yet undiscovered by the Shondakorians. Only small portions of the Far Side had ever been explored, and the existence of a third sea was a distinct possibility …

So many questions, and so much that was mysteriously.

And then it occurred to Valkar, almost whimsically, that it was possible to put another construction upon that curious word, Zetetikar, by which Zothon had referred to himself.

Besides the obvious literal meaning-seeker or searcher, or one who searches―the term could be interpreted to mean “wanderer.” Zothon the Wanderer …

Valkar smiled.

From whatever far, mysterious homeland he had originally come, Zothon the Mysterious, with his strange greenish black hide and stiff, startling mane of bristling white hair, and weird sparkling sapphire eyes, had certainly done a bit of “wandering”1

Day after day they came nearer with each long trek to their unknown destination.

By day the horizons which lay ahead, to the ultimate south, were blocked by a towering range of dark peaks which could only be the famous and little-known Black Mountains.

Nightly, the range blocked away the southern stars, obliterated the glory of the many-colored moons behind weird, flickering, and luminous curtains of pallid and ghostly light. That this phenomenon was essentially the same as the aurora borealis seen near the pole of my own distant world I, Jandar, have no doubt.

For they were coming nearer and nearer to the polar region of Thanator with every day’s trek. At dawn, thick frost mantled the long scarlet meadow grass, which grew patchily here. By night they rolled themselves in heavy furs for warmth.

Before long, snow crunched underfoot, and frozen whiteness mantled the plains about them.

And the black wall of mountains rose before them, blocking half the sky.

One afternoon, near dark, they entered a narrow crevice in those tall and monolithic walls of soaring rock.

All day the Zajjadar caravan had been threading a path through rising hills, as through a winding labyrinth.

Cold winds blew down the clefts between the soaring peaks, buffeting them unmercifully.

Valkar threw back his head and took one last look at the open and glorious and golden skies of his world before the mountains closed around them.

They were entering the most secret and closely guarded place of mystery upon this planet, he grimly knew.

And whether he would live to return to the outer world again, this he could not know.

Beside him the Ganatolian girl, Xara, shivered a little―but whether from the chill gusts of icy wind that screamed down the narrow pass or from the same inward trepidation that whispered within his own heart, he could not say.

His arm tightened about her slender shoulders. And, for a moment, her head drooped against his strong shoulder.

Then she gently disengaged herself and drew away.

And they passed into the Black Mountains and vanished from the knowledge of men.