SADU ATTACKS
Sadu, the lion, pacing slowly and majestically through the velvet blackness of a jungle night, came to a sudden halt as Siha, the wind, brought to his sensitive nostrils the acrid scent of burning wood.
For several long minutes the great cat stood as though turned to stone, his broad nostrils twitching nervously under the biting fumes. Sadu was unpleasantly familiar with the red teeth that ate everything in their path, for it had been scarcely a moon ago that he barely escaped the fangs of a forest fire.
Had it been smoke alone which Sadu smelled, he would have turned away and sought his night's food elsewhere. But commingled with the scent of fire was another smell, and it was the latter that finally sent him slinking ahead.
After the lion progressed another several hundred yards in this manner, the winding game trail debouched abruptly into a large natural clearing bordering the reed-covered banks of a wide shallow river.
Standing amid the impenetrable shadows cast by a great tree at the clearing's edge, Sadu surveyed with slitted eyes the bustle of activity about the open ground. There were at least fifty men there, some of them tending a blazing windrow of branches arranged in a large circle to encompass a considerable section of open ground where were heaped several mounds of supplies. Others were preparing the evening meal, bringing water from the river and performing the other duties which go with establishing camp for the night.
It was the scent of these men that had brought Sadu here. Ordinarily he would have passed up the two-legged creatures for the more satisfactory flesh of zebra or deer, but there had been an absence of such meat lately because grass-replenishing rain had not fallen in many moons and the grass-eaters had strayed away from the vicinity in search of fresh pastures. Too, Sadu had found man easy prey when he was alone—in numbers he was dangerous, particularly when backed by burning brands and sharp-pointed sticks.
The circle of fire with which these men had surrounded themselves gave Sadu pause. Only the pangs of hunger kept him from turning about and seeking less complicated prey. Slowly the heavy lips rolled back, baring the great fangs, and from the depths of the cavernous chest came a series of grunting coughs.
As the dull, rumbling challenge reached the ears of those within the camp, men straightened from their tasks and looked fearfully into the heavy darkness beyond the light from the fires. A few unslung their bows and tested the strings, while others made sure their heavy war spears were within reach.
In the center of the camp itself, a group of five people—two girls and three men—broke off their conversation as the first notes of Sadu's voice reached them, and looked nervously at one another.
"Sadu is hungry too," one of the girls observed lightly as she turned her attention back to the freshly grilled meat on the clay dish before her.
"Will he attack us?" the other girl asked unsteadily, her dark eyes round with fear. Her slender, softly rounded body was covered with a knee-length tunic of some coarse, woven material and a cloud of black curls framed the delicate features of her olive-skinned face.
"I do not think so, Alurna," the first girl said, without taking her eyes from her food. "Sadu fears fire; he would have to be close to starving to brave the flames."
One of the three men, a slight, small-boned man whose round, full-fleshed face habitually wore an expression of slow-witted amiability, moved a little closer to the fire. "How do we know," he said anxiously, "whether this lion is not that hungry?"
The first girl shook back her wealth of reddish brown hair and looked at the speaker, her brown eyes sparkling with laughter. She said, "We can't know, Javan—not until he either springs through the fire or turns around and goes away."
If the words brought any comfort to Javan, his actions failed to show it. Once more he shifted his position until he was close to sitting in the burning branches and the fingers of his right hand were trembling uncontrollably as he groped for his flint-tipped spear.
"Dylara jests, Javan," the tall, broad-shouldered man next to him said. "There are too many of us for even several lions to attack."
"You say that, Jotan," Dylara said, "because you do not know Sadu as I know him. Often he will charge a hundred warriors through fires far larger than ours, yet at times several lions have run away from one man walking alone in the jungle. More than any other beast, Sadu is a creature of moods, and no one can say for sure what he will do."
The third man in the group rose now to scrape the remaining food on his plate into the fire. He said, "We are certainly in no position to dispute with Dylara the habits of animals." There was a subtle note of condescension in his voice that only Jotan and the princess Alurna noticed. "You must remember that Dylara is different from us. Most of her life has been spent among the people of the caves, and there can be no doubt but that the barbarians know the jungle and its life far better than we can ever hope to."
Jotan's pale blue eyes frosted over and the hard, firm angle of his jaw tightened. For nearly two moons now he had endured Tamar's gibes at his love for a girl who had been a barbarian slave of Sephar's court. Many times during those sixty suns had Tamar said that no member of Ammad's ruling class, as was Jotan, had a right to take as mate some half-savage cave girl. There was such a thing, argued Tamar, as noblesse oblige, and Jotan was not only alienating his friends by this mad passion but breaking the laws of his class and his country.
Not that Tamar had anything personal against Dylara. On the contrary, he thought her beautiful and as gracious and regal as Alurna herself. But there was the matter of birth and blood—barriers too great for acceptance as the noble Jotan's mate.
All this was in Jotan's thoughts as he answered Tamar's last remark. "Perhaps it would be better for us," he observed lightly, "if we had a little of Dylara's knowledge of the jungle creatures and their ways. Perhaps then we would be spared such terror at the sound of Sadu's roar."
He made the statement while looking full into Tamar's eyes, and was rewarded by seeing a tinge of red creep into his friend's freshly scraped cheeks. And because no man likes to be called a coward, no matter how indirectly, Tamar sought to hit back ... in the one way that would cut Jotan the deepest.
"It is unfortunate," he said mildly, "that we could not have brought along with us the wild man who came to Sephar seeking Dylara. I'll wager he would not turn a hair were Sadu to charge among us at this moment."
As though in direct challenge to the statement, Sadu, in the darkness beyond the camp, again lifted his voice in the hunting roar of the king of beasts.
This time the hot blood of anger welled into Jotan's face and a biting retort formed on his lips. But a glimpse of Dylara's suddenly stricken expression checked them there, unuttered.
In the brief silence that followed Tamar's words, Dylara was aware that the others were watching her as though to learn if Tamar's edged comment would goad her into a response.
And so she made answer; and while the words were directed to Tamar, it was Jotan whom they hurt.
"You are right, Tamar," she said proudly. "Tharn, more than any man I have ever known, is free of fear. How could he know fear when there is no man or animal that could match his strength, agility or quick mind."
"Had you seen him, as I did, crush the skull of a full-grown lion with a single blow of his fist, had you seen him close in battle with Tarlok, the leopard, with only a stone knife to use against Tarlok's teeth and claws, had he carried any of you through the highest branches of the forest top—then you would know why I am sure he came through the battles in Sephar's arena! That is why I know that even now he is on his way to take me from you."
"And when he does come, neither you nor all the warriors with you can keep him from his purpose. You are children—all of you!—when compared to Tharn!"
The nails of Jotan's fingers were biting into his palms. "And would you go with him, Dylara?" he asked between stiff lips.
The girl's lovely brown eyes softened as she saw the pain under his carefully expressionless face.
"Yes, I would go with him," she said gently. "All of us know that I am no more than a prisoner among you. All of you have been kind and thoughtful and friendly toward me. Yet there is never a moment that I am not under the eyes of a guard. That is why I say that, given the chance, I would escape and return to the caves of Majok, my father."
Alurna shuddered. "You would not get very far, Dylara. The jungle beasts would get you the first night."
"I think not," Dylara said matter-of-factly. "You keep forgetting that I am not a Sepharian. The jungle and plains are not to me the horrible places they seem to you who have spent your lives behind the stone walls of your cities."
"How can you think of returning to such a life, Dylara?" Jotan said, almost pleadingly. "It is no way for a girl to live—in constant danger day after day, living in cold, damp holes in a cliff, wearing only an animal skin."
"Wait until you have seen the city of Ammad! As wonderful as Sephar must have seemed to you, it is crude and barbaric when compared to the splendor of the cities of my country. And in all the world there is no palace so lavish as that of Jaltor, king of all Ammad. Why, a few days among the glories and comforts of life among my people and the thought of returning to your caves would be hateful indeed!"
But Dylara was shaking her head. "No, Jotan. Tamar is right when he says I would not fit into such a life. I was taken to Sephar as a slave to the Sepharians; and, as considerate as you have been, I am being taken to Ammad while still a slave."
"Not as a slave!" Jotan protested. "You are to become my mate. You will be shown the same honor, the same respect that I am given. I am a noble of Ammad, Dylara. Jaltor, ruler of Ammad, is my father's closest friend. He—all Ammad—will be at your feet the day we go before the high-priest of the God-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken-Aloud and he makes you my mate."
The conversation clearly had gotten out of hand. Both Jotan and Dylara, so hard did each strive to make the other see his side of the argument, were putting into words things they ordinarily would never have said in front of those with them.
And all during the exchange, Alurna, princess of Sephar, sat there and watched them, her head bowed slightly and a hand shielding her face that none might see the hatred and jealousy mirrored there.
For Jotan was hers! Whether he was aware of that as yet was immaterial. Men had been blinded by beauty before and still brought to their senses before it was too late. As lovely as the cave girl was, Alurna knew that her own beauty suffered little by comparison—something that Jotan would have seen long ago were his eyes not blinded by a mad infatuation.
There was little else to do for the time being, Alurna realized, except wait. Tonight or tomorrow or a moon from now the opportunity for ridding herself of her brown-haired rival would come along. She had almost arranged the girl's death in Sephar, but Dylara had slain the hired assassin. Next time the result would be different. Fortunately it was not something that had to be done in a hurry. Dylara gave no indication of willingly becoming Jotan's mate, and being a person of high principles, Jotan would have her no other way. The only danger, really, was that his unfailing courtesy, thoughtfulness and complete adoration might succeed in winning the cave girl's love.
Sadu, the lion, standing beyond the circle of light cast by the fire, raised his voice in a challenging roar that cut into silence the encampment of humans. His hunger was growing with the passage of time and the sight of the many two-legged creatures behind the leaping flames.
Again, Sadu's majestic voice rolled out, filling the clearing with spine-tingling sound, and from the depths of night-shrouded jungle behind him came an answering roar. A moment later the foliage parted and a second lion slunk through the shadows just beyond the periphery of light. The newcomer was a great, tawny-maned beast even larger than the first. He eyed the blazing piles of branches and the men beyond them with slitted eyes for a long moment, then uttered a series of low, coughing grunts. In response to the signal, three more lions—a female and two full-grown males—emerged from the undergrowth to join their leader.
The first lion eyed the strange family and bared his great fangs, warning them with a low rumble that he would permit no interference in his hunting. They stared at him silently with a kind of dignified reserve, then turned their attention toward the humans beyond the wall of fire.
Two full hours dragged past. Within the camp the larger part of the caravan was sleeping soundly, huddled against the chill night air in sleeping furs. The normal guard of ten warriors had been doubled against the possibility of attack by the great cats.
Suddenly one of the lions rose to its feet and with regal deliberateness stalked into the open ground bordering the line of fires. Slowly the jungle king strode along the unsteady line of burning wood, his lithe sinews rolling beneath the shimmering hide, the sinuous tail moving in graceful undulations. Soundless were his padded paws on the turf and the mighty voice was silent.
Several minutes passed before one of the guards caught sight of the single lion. The man lifted a loud shout of alarm and several more of the sentries hastened to join their companion. When he pointed out Sadu less than a spear's cast outside the fires, the others readied their weapons for the attack they expected at any moment; while Sadu, seeing the flurry of motion among the hated manthings, lifted his mighty head and gave voice to a thunderous roar. "... Dylara! Dylara!"
The cave girl awakened instantly at sound of the frightened voice. She sat up and threw back the folds of her sleeping furs. In the flickering reddish glow of the night fires she saw the slender form of the princess Alurna bending over her.
"What is the matter?" Majok's daughter demanded.
"The lions!" Alurna moaned through chattering teeth. "Listen!"
Fully aroused by the other's panic, Dylara rose from the ground and tried to pierce the velvet wall beyond the light. Most of the camp's sentries were grouped at a point near the line of fire, fingering their spear and bows nervously and staring at something between them and the jungle.
... Sadu ceased his uneasy pacing, his tail lashing now in brief, jerky movements. Too long had he put off feeding. The fearsome fires were dimmer now; let them die down just a little more and he would leap across them and take his food.
Elsewhere among the sheltering trees the other lions watched him with unblinking attention. By now there were fully a score of the mammoth brutes lying among the tall grasses and reeds. In two's and threes—even one family of six—they had assembled, drawn to the scene by the voices of the first arrivals.
Again Sadu threw back his head and poured out his rumbling roar, seeking to build up his confidence sufficiently to brave the fires protecting his prey. Cautiously he began to inch his way toward the flames, his hindquarters held low, his majestic head extended and flattened until his nose was close to the ground.
While behind him other lions, made bold by his move, also began to creep toward the circle of fire.
Dylara stiffened as Sadu's august voice echoed through the clearing. Her brown eyes, keener than most, began to pick out points of glowing yellow among the black shadows of the trees—bits of light that she recognized instantly as the eyes of lions. Even as she was conscious that there were many of them, she became aware of their growing size.
The cave girl waited no longer. Pushing past the fear-ridden princess, she went quickly to where Jotan slept nearby beneath a mound of furs and began shaking him urgently by the shoulder.
The Ammadian opened his eyes. "What—what is it? Dylara? What is wrong?"
"The lions!" Dylara said hurriedly. "Many of them. They are preparing to charge us!"
Flinging aside his furs, Jotan leaped to his feet and raced among the sleeping warriors, arousing them with a prodding foot and a few urgent words of explanation. Meanwhile, Dylara hurried to where the sentries were keeping watchful eyes on the first lion.
"Quick!" she exclaimed. "Throw some of the burning branches among the trees. There is still time to drive Sadu away!"
... Sadu, at sight of the rapidly awakening camp, halted his slow advance. For a moment he hesitated, his highly strung nerves twitching with indecision. And when several of the men dragged burning branches from the fires and threw them, like blazing spears, in his direction, he snarled uneasily and drew back. Already a few of the other lions had turned tail to flee back into the jungle. In another moment the retreat would become a rout and Sadu must seek elsewhere for food.
And then there occurred one of those unpredictable turns of fate which none can foresee. One of the blazing brands, propelled by a strong arm, struck full against the flank of a retreating lion. There followed a puff of smoke as hair burned away a wide patch and seared the skin beneath.
Sadu's uncertain temper blazed with the flame. With a startled roar that paled to nothing the surrounding chorus of growls, screams and curses, he wheeled about and bore down upon the camp, roaring as he came. A few feet short of the flaming stockade, Sadu rose in a mighty leap, cleared the flames easily, and landed squarely among the startled Sepharians.
Instantly pandemonium raged. The men scattered wildly from Sadu's flailing claws and glistening fangs, only to encounter other lions who, emboldened by the success of the first, had turned back to leap the barrier. Already a dozen of the tawny, sinuous bodies were sowing death among the ranks of Jotan's followers.
The princess Alurna huddled among a heap of furs and sought to close her eyes against the horrors of the growing massacre. But not seeing at all was infinitely worse than reality, and so her eyes remained open and staring.
Suddenly a huge, yellow-maned monster bounded toward her. A lithe spring brought it atop a mound of supplies scarcely ten feet from where she lay paralyzed with fear. Slowly the lordly head swung in a menacing circle and the savage eyes fixed upon her shrinking form. The small ears twitched back until they lay tight against the sleek skull, the mammoth maw parted to disclose awesome fangs and a low growl rumbled low in the deep chest.
Jotan, shouting orders in an effort to rally his scattered men to some semblance of order, caught sight of the doomed princess as Sadu rose in his spring toward her. Careless of his own safety, he drew back his strong right arm and launched his heavy war spear. The keen blade flashed across the intervening space and caught Sadu squarely in the chest, knocking him to one side and killing him instantly.
While all this was taking place, Dylara, daughter of Majok, had remained crouched close to one of the heaps of burning branches where she knew Sadu would be reluctant to approach. She saw man after man go down beneath the ravaging cats, and twice she saw lions leap back into the darkness, carrying the limp corpse of some unfortunate Ammadian. She witnessed, too, Jotan's rescue of the princess Alurna, and despite the awful carnage about her, she smiled grimly as Urim's daughter ran forward and threw her arms about the tall Ammadian noble.
At the moment it abruptly dawned on Dylara that this was her opportunity to escape from those who held her an unwilling captive. She turned her head and stared out into the open ground between camp and forest edge, seeing the long shadows cast by the flickering flames. If she could but cross that ribbon of grassland safely and gain the safety of the trees!
Even as she silently voiced the wish, her mind was made up for her. From behind one of the piles of supplies emerged a tawny shape. Two blazing eyes caught sight of the cave girl, and heedless of the nearby fire, the giant cat began to slink toward her.
Dylara, wise to the ways of the jungle, acted. Without a second's hesitation she whirled about and raced through a narrow break in the circle of fire, heading for the darkness beyond. Even as she acted, she knew this might be merely exchanging one peril for another: there could easily be ten lions between her and the safety of the trees.
With an earth-shaking roar, Sadu gave chase.
Her heart pounding wildly, Dylara shot across the open ground like an arrow from a bow. Behind her, gaining ground as though his frail quarry were standing still, came the lion, its jaws widely distended, low growls welling from its throat.
The low-spreading branches of a forest tree loomed ahead of the fleeing girl. Sadu was only a few feet behind her ... already he was launching the last leap that would crush the girl to earth just short of her goal.
In the camp itself, Jotan's bellowed commands were beginning to take effect on the disorganized warriors. Those still alive and unwounded managed to form a spear-bristling phalanx, standing shoulder to shoulder, while the blood-hungry cats moved slowly around them. Twice, a lion charged that square of flint spear-tips, only to fall back with roars of rage and bleeding from wounds. For a few minutes longer the beasts continued to circle warily about the men, now and then feinting charges in an effort to draw them into breaking ranks.
But the warriors, heartened by the confident bearing of their leader, held fast in spite of the fearful nearness of distended jaws and gleaming fangs.
At last, as though by some strange understanding, the lions began to withdraw, dragging with them some of the torn bodies of warriors who had died during the battle. Only the sharp commands of Jotan himself prevented the others from an attempt to save their fallen comrades from so horrible a fate—Jotan who was realist enough to know that any such foolhardy action—no matter how noble the purpose—could only result in further casualties.
When at last the lions were gone, Jotan set about restoring the broken defenses of the camp. Fires were increased in number and size, scattered supplies and weapons were reassembled and the wounded cared for.
Not until all this was done did Jotan learn of Dylara's disappearance. At first he was nearly frantic with worry, picturing her as being dragged away by one of the marauders. It was not until he questioned the wounded that the true story came out.
"No, Sadu did not get her. Not in the camp anyway." The warrior, wincing from the pain of a long gash in one arm, pulled himself into a sitting position as he replied to Jotan's questions. "She was crouched down near the fires until one of the lions began to creep up on her. She wasted no time in doing something about that!"
"What did she do?" Jotan demanded impatiently.
"The only thing she could have done: slipped through the fires and ran for the trees."
The young Ammadian noble glanced toward the Stygian gloom of the distant jungle and a faint shudder coursed through him. "What a mad thing to do!" he said, half to himself. "I would rather face Sadu here in the light than plunge into those shadows." To the wounded man he said, "Did you see her reach the trees?"
The other man shook his head. "My eyes are not that good. The lion chased her into the darkness and I lost sight of them both. She had a good start and she ran very swiftly."
"Which way did she go?"
The warrior waved an arm toward the south. Jotan picked four men who, carrying spears and torches, accompanied their leader in that direction.
They reached the fringe of trees and jungle to the south of the camp, and walked among the tree boles, calling out the cave girl's name. But only the voices of disturbed bird life and the distant scream of a panther answered their cries.
"Sadu must have gotten her after all," said one of the four.
"I don't believe it!" Jotan snapped. "She knows the jungle beasts too well for that to happen."
"Then why," asked another of the men, "does she not answer our calls?"
Jotan ignored the question. "Return to the camp," he said through a strange lump in his throat. "When morning comes, we will take up the search for her."
Alurna, still weak and shaken from her recent experience with Sadu, watched the five men enter the camp. She saw Jotan dismiss the others and come over to where she was seated between Tamar and Javan. When there was no sight of Dylara, and when she noticed Jotan's grim expression, her heart bounded with a wild and horrible hope.
"Well, Jotan?" Tamar said quietly.
His friend spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "There is no trace of her," he admitted, and in his voice was a note of such intense suffering that Tamar's heart went out to him.
Javan, blinked stolidly at the stricken man, put into words the unvoiced question of the others. "The lions...."
Jotan shook his head. "I don't believe they got her. There were no signs of a struggle. No ... bones." His voice faltered on that last word, and he threw his hands wide in sick bewilderment. "I don't know what to think!"
The princess Alurna spoke up suddenly in silken tones. "Have you forgotten so soon, O noble Jotan, the cave girl's own words?"
Jotan stared deep into the faintly mocking gray-green eyes of Urim's daughter. "What do you mean?" he said stiffly.
"Did she not say: 'I would escape and return to the caves of Majok, my father'? Did those words mean so little to you?"
Harsh lines deepened at the corners of Jotan's lips. "Yes, she said that. But she would not try to get away at night. Especially tonight, when there are the God knows how many lions roaming about the camp. The hardiest warrior would not dare that, let alone a frail girl."
"How long," Tamar broke in, "will you go on thinking of Dylara as a 'frail' girl? Can't you understand that she is not our kind of woman? She does not fear the jungle: all that she needed was a chance to get into it without our seeing her, and tonight she was given that chance. You have Sadu to thank for that."
For several long minutes Jotan sat there without speaking, his gaze fixed unseeingly on the leaping flames of the campfire. What strange currents and cross-currents, he mused, had been set into motion by his love for the girl of the caves. There was the steadily widening rift with Tamar—Tamar whose only flaw was his stiff-necked pride in lineage and noble blood—Tamar, who was his closest friend, his almost constant companion since boyhood. Together they had learned the arts of hunting and fighting, together they had served as fellow officers in Jaltor's armies, together they had crossed those interminable stretches of jungle, plain and mountain between Ammad and far-off Sephar. Could he afford to risk an almost certain break with Tamar by pursuing further his mad infatuation for the missing cave girl?
There was another complication, too—one leaving him open for repercussions even more unpleasant than the loss of a friend. There was no doubt in his mind but that the Princess Alurna was in love with him. He knew that in the eyes of his family and friends she would make any man a mate to be proud of. From the standpoint of beauty alone she was almost as lovely as Dylara. More than that, however, Alurna was the niece of Jaltor, monarch of all Ammad and a personal friend of Jotan's own father. Jotan shuddered slightly. He could well imagine Jaltor's reaction upon learning that the daughter of his dead brother had been spurned in favor of a half-wild woman of the caves!
And then the lithe, softly curved body of Dylara came unbidden before his mind's eye ... and all else was forgotten. He rose stiffly from where he sat among his friends, conscious from their expressions that they knew he had arrived at a decision affecting them all.
"When the dawn comes," he said in a strangely toneless voice, "we break camp and continue on toward Ammad. Not all of us will go on, however. A few warriors shall accompany me in search of Dylara ... and I shall not return without her!"
Hers was the beauty famous across half a world