Warrior of the Dawn Part 37

The cave-girl was trying hard to a.n.a.lyze the tangled emotions resulting from Tharn's appearance. Something related to the sensation she had known when he had taken her in his arms after striking Sadu dead, had come back to her. Why did sight of him make her heart leap with that peculiar breathless swoop? No one else she had ever known could effect it so. How handsome, how magnificent he had appeared, standing there on the white sands, sweeping the crowd with a contemptuous glance before leaving the arena.

She stole a glance at the handsome profile of Jotan as he listened politely to Alurna's story. How fortunate she was to have won the love of this man. In him were qualities all women sought in the men of their choice. Good-looking, kindly, thoughtful, an honorable position in his world--what more could any man offer?

Yet only Tharn, untamed man of the caves, could make her heart leap and thrill--something Jotan might never be able to do.

Last night a priest had come to the great room where she had been taken upon her return to Sephar. He had brought her to Jotan's quarters, and she had spent the night there, sharing a room with the princess Alurna, who had welcomed the opportunity of leaving the palace.

The two girls had little to say to each other. Alurna had regarded the slave-girl with unmasked loathing; while Dylara, after the first cold rebuff of her attempt to be friendly, had withdrawn into a sh.e.l.l of silence.

On the following morning, however, Alurna had surprised Dylara by displaying an att.i.tude of warm friendliness toward her. Behind this sudden change was the secret decision of the princess to undermine Jotan's attempts to win the slave-girl....

Just as the second event was about to get under way, Jotan got up, excused himself and made his way to the section of the stands reserved for Pryak and the Council of Priests. There he took a seat beside the high priest.

Pryak glanced at him with a questioning lift of his eyebrows.

"O Voice of the G.o.d," said Jotan, "my men and I have kept our promise to attend the opening of the Games. We are anxious to start on our journey, and ask your permission to depart without further loss of time."

Sephar's enthusiastic reception of the Games thus far, had put the king in high humor.

"As you wish, Jotan," he said, rising and placing his hands on the other's shoulders. "I ask of the G.o.d a safe and uneventful journey for you and your men. And to Jaltor of Ammad, I send my greetings and avowals of lasting friends.h.i.+p. Explain to him my reasons for placing Urim's daughters in his care. He will approve, I am sure."

"All you have asked shall be done," promised Jotan. "And now, Pryak, king of Sephar and Voice of the G.o.d, I bid you farewell."

Turning, Jotan hurried along the stone aisle to his own lodge and waiting friends. Once there, he raised himself to his full height and waved both arms above his head.

Directly across the arena a group of some forty or fifty warriors rose in a body and started toward the nearest exit.

"Come," Jotan said, motioning to the balance of those in his party. "We start at once for Ammad."

Dylara stood up, casting one last look toward the closed doorway through which Tharn had pa.s.sed not long before. He had been her last tie with the old life. Now she was about to leave all that behind, to go into a new world at the side of a man she greatly admired. Why was her heart so heavy? Was it because she would never again see the caves of her people--the face of her father? Or was it because Tharn was lost to her, forever? Even should he come through the Games alive, she would be gone--separated from him by the vast distance between Sephar and the country Jotan called home.

Jotan had told her something of the long stretches of untracked jungles and waterless plains between Sephar and Ammad. From others of the visitors she had heard stories of savage beasts and wild tribes of men that haunted the mountain trails and forest-cloaked ravines to the south. And beyond the mountains began a level monotony of gra.s.slands that reached to still more mountains forming the boundary to Ammad itself.

The street before the building allocated to the visitors swarmed with hurrying figures bearing a wide a.s.sortment of articles to be bound into individual packs for easy handling.

Jotan took active charge. Quickly the line of march began to take form.

Broad-shouldered men swung compact bundles to their backs; well-armed warriors took up their positions; and last of all, strongly made litters of animal skins stretched between long poles, arrived for use of the two female members of the party.

Dylara, following the example set by Alurna, seated herself in the exact center of the sheet of skins as it lay in the street. Two brawny attendants stepped forward, bent, one at either end of the wooden poles, and in perfect unison swung the rods to their shoulders.

From his position at the column's forefront, Jotan looked back and waved a greeting to the two girls. Satisfied that all were in place, he shouted a command and the safari got under way.

Across the city they marched, through wide-flung gates in the great walls, and on across the cleared s.p.a.ce beyond. Before them rose the majestic trees and thick matted foliage of the forbidding jungle; and here, leading directly southward through a tangled maze, was the beginnings of a well-beaten trail, the first of many such roadways the little cortege must follow before far-off Ammad could be reached.

Just before the marchers entered the forest, Dylara turned to look back at Sephar's walls, grim and impressive under the sun's flaming rays.

Still behind those sullen piles of rock was the man she could not forget. Something deep within her whispered that she had found love only to lose it; that happiness for her lay in forgetting, forever, the stalwart young giant who had s.n.a.t.c.hed her from a peaceful, uneventful life.

Once more she looked back, and abruptly the stone walls wavered and dimmed as hot tears flooded her eyes....

CHAPTER XIX

A Lesson in Archery

Dyta, the sun, swung lazily toward the western horizon. And with the coming of dusk, Pryak rose from his bench at the edge of the arena in Sephar's amphitheater and gave the signal ending the first day of the Games.

At his gesture the spectators climbed to their feet and pressed toward the exits. They were less lively--more subdued than when they had poured into the enclosure hours before. Perhaps the constant a.s.sociation with death during the long day had sobered them, hus.h.i.+ng their tongues at last. But on the morrow they would be back, yesterday's scenes forgotten, appet.i.tes whetted once more for hours of carnage.

While far beneath Sephar a roomful of tired unsmiling men spread their sleeping furs for the night in ominous silence. For them a long day had ended, yet taut nerves relaxed but slightly; for all knew that on the next day the wearying ordeal must begin anew.

Morning found most of the prisoners awake and moving about the cell when the morning meal was served. After the attendants had withdrawn and the crowds were beginning to stream into the amphitheater, Tharn called a number of prisoners together.

"Get ready," he said. "The guards are due here any minute. Listen at the door, Katon; when you hear them, let us know."

Turning, the cave-man pulled Vulcar into position as the central figure of the group. In this formation they waited expectantly, all eyes on Katon at the door with one ear glued to the crack between door and jamb.

Suddenly Katon straightened. "They come!" he whispered, and sprang forward to join the others.

At his words, the prisoners, yelling in well-simulated rage, pounced on the hawk-faced Vulcar. The one-time officer was swept from his feet and sent cras.h.i.+ng to the floor with a resounding thump. A second later he was at the bottom of a pile of raving madmen, all clearly l.u.s.ting for his blood.

It was this scene that met the eyes of four guards and Wotar as they came into the room. Taking in the situation at a glance, the director barked a curt order that sent the guards into the scuffle. Using spear b.u.t.ts as flails they managed to beat the cursing prisoners from the limp body of a disheveled Vulcar, who got painfully to his feet.

"What means this?" Wotar thundered. "Is there so little fighting in the arena that you must brawl amongst yourselves?"

Vulcar, still trembling from his narrow escape, hurried to explain.

"These men," he panted, indicating the scowling faces about him, "hate me because they think I am responsible for their being here. I have tried to tell them it was Urim's fault, that I had only obeyed his orders; but they would not listen. Some cried out that they would kill me; then all of them sprang upon me. I would be dead now, had you not come. As soon as you go they will try again. Put me elsewhere, mighty Wotar; I am afraid to stay here."

Vulcar's voice broke with fear, and he trembled so that he could hardly stand.

Wotar's lips curled with contempt. "Put him with the prisoners across the hall," he instructed one of the soldier-priests. "Perhaps they will be more gentle and considerate."

Wotar was an intelligent man; but he failed to notice that the departing prisoner no longer seemed the craven weakling of a moment before. Too, he failed to perceive the poorly hidden satisfaction of the other captives....

The Game director, an experienced showman, had planned as the second day's opening event, something calculated to arouse the spectators to the highest pitch of excitement. Once in that frame of mind they would follow each succeeding event with increasing enthusiasm--enthusiasm being the barometer by which his fitness as director was measured.

Three times his finger crooked; each time a man stepped forward.

Quickly the guards took up positions and the three prisoners were led away.

In the arms-room each partic.i.p.ant was handed a bow and three arrows.