THE SPIDER MEN
Dylara awakened with a convulsive start as the lofty branch upon which she had been sleeping swayed and bent beneath suddenly added weight.
As she started up, a scream rising to her lips, hands reached out of the night's impenetrable curtain and tore her roughly from where she sat. Instinctively she attempted to struggle free, only to receive a buffet alongside the head that left her limp and only half conscious.
Her first impression was that one of the great apes, occasionally glimpsed among the more impenetrable reaches of jungle, had seized her; for she could feel coarse long hair matting its chest and arms. Even as the thought sent her heart sinking with fear and loathing, she knew she was mistaken, since the creature's body was much too slender, its arms too thin and frail to belong to one of the bulky anthropoids.
That she was in deadly peril Dylara did not doubt, but not to know the form such peril took was inconceivably worse. It was this, fear of the unknown that crystallized her determination to break from this stifling embrace or die in the attempt; and she was gathering her strength for the effort when her captor suddenly whirled about on the narrow branch and, with her across his back, dived headlong into space!
The shock was too much for human nerves. Dylara voiced a single scream and her senses fled under the lash of pure panic.
She came back to reality to find she was being borne through the trees with incredible speed. Now and then a vine flicked against her shivering body or leaves brushed against her face, and several times the thing carrying her leaped outward through space that seemed boundless, only to land lightly upon a swaying branch in another tree.
Even Tharn, she realized, could not have matched the creature's amazing agility, for it was using both hand and feet with equal dexterity after the manner of little Nobar, the monkey.
Gradually, as the likelihood of being dashed to earth seemed more and more remote, Dylara began to think once more of escape. The time was not now, of course; she could only cling desperately to her captor's thin shoulders and wait for this breathless journey to end. Eventually those wiry muscles must tire and the creature stop—then she would make her bid for freedom.
Abruptly and without slackening its pace the hairy thing uttered a piercing shriek like nothing Dylara had ever heard before. Twice more the awful sound rang out; and then, far ahead, came an answering cry faint and wavering.
Instantly the creature put on an added burst of speed, rocketing through the branches in dizzying bounds that threatened to tear away Dylara's none too certain hold. So swift was the pace now that within a few minutes a wide clearing loomed ahead and her captor began to slip groundward.
Suddenly the hairy creature halted on a wide limb bordering the clearing as a host of shadowy forms rose around him. There was not enough light for Dylara to make use of her eyes but she sensed these were the figures of creatures similar to the one which held her.
They chattered shrilly among themselves in a completely unfamiliar tongue for several moments, then all of them moved ahead a short distance until the clearing itself was reached.
Dylara was expecting the entire party to descend to the ground. But instead they began to climb higher and higher. At last the one carrying her came to a halt well within the embrace of a jungle patriarch; and at that moment Uda, the moon, appeared from behind a cloud and poured her silver rays into the clearing.
For the first time since her capture she was able to see well enough to distinguish objects. She was surrounded by a group of some ten or twelve man-like beings—but beings like nothing she had ever dreamed of!
All were well over six feet in height, but so thin in body they seemed much taller. All were naked except for girdles of grass about their hips, the rest of their bodies being covered with monkey-like hair. Their arms and legs were incredibly long and thin, their toes long and prehensile. Each face was hairless and almost perfectly round, containing small beady eyes, a brief blob of nose, a tiny lipless mouth and almost no chin at all. It was more the face of some particularly repellent insect—a comparison that leaped to Dylara's mind at sight of the long hairy limbs, the thin torsos pinched in deeply at the waist and the quick, jerky way in which they moved restlessly about her.
The one holding her let her slide from its back and the others moved closer, reaching out to pluck at her tunic with abnormally long nailless fingers, their voices like the rising skirl of an insect swarm.
Angrily she pushed away the exploring fingers. "Who are you?" she cried, "and what do you want of me?"
One of the things, evidently angered at being repulsed, snaked out a long arm and caught her roughly about the waist, dragging her to him. Instantly the one that had brought her here leaped upon the intruder, nearly sweeping Dylara from her precarious footing on the branch. For an instant the pair clawed frantically at each other, but their companions pushed between them and broke up the battle.
The incident seemed to touch off a long and heated discussion, during which Dylara was apparently forgotten. They stood in a tight knot among the branches, their ridiculous faces pushed together in almost a solid lump, while their keening voices went on and on with a monotonous kind of intensity.
A slow-moving cloud stole across Uda's shining face, plunging the scene into heavy darkness. Dylara felt sudden hope leap in her breast. Surely they were too intent with their arguing to notice her if she slipped away! Besides, how could even the keenest eye pierce the blackness of a jungle night?
She took a slow step away from them, balancing herself lightly on the broad bough. Another—and still another. The high-pitched debate went on in full volume.
Cautiously she lowered herself to a branch immediately below, then waited with pounding heart to learn if her move had been detected.
Nothing had changed! She bent again ... and from nowhere a sinuous arm slithered out of the blackness, caught her about the middle and jerked her back and into the group.
The discussion appeared to be ended. One of the creatures swept the cave girl into his embrace and continued to climb toward the stars, leaving his companions where they were.
A solid mass of foliage loomed suddenly in front of Dylara—and in that moment Uda came into the open sky once more. In the few seconds left for Dylara to drink in the scene she saw a sight she was never to forget.
Suspended among branches of the trees about her were conical huts of twigs and grasses. Their floors evidently did not rest on the boughs themselves but each separate structure bobbed lightly up and down from the end of a thick grass rope tied to a branch overhead. In the base of each was an opening only large enough to permit entry on only hands and knees.
Dylara's breath went out of her in a sudden gasp. Now she knew why her first impression of these creatures had likened them to insects. There was a species of spider that built nests above the ground—nests conical in shape and swung from twigs!
The hair-covered arms, legs and bodies, the pinched-in abdomens, the round heads set flush with the shoulders. These were spider men!
A wave of unbearable nausea overwhelmed her, robbing her of all strength. Dazed, she felt herself being thrust through an opening in one of the swaying huts, felt the spider-man follow her in—then once more she was lifted by a pair of long thin arms.
Weakly she lifted her hands to strike out at the loathsome thing holding her—then blackness poured into her brain and she knew no more.
For the better part of two weeks Tharn and Trakor made little progress along the trail taken by those Ammadians who held Dylara. With the patient stoicism of all creatures of the wild he accepted the unavoidable delay in his plans brought on by his acquisition of the untrained Trakor; and as the best way of lightening his burden, set out to school the boy in the lore of the jungle.
Most of that first week was spent in acquiring the knack of using the tree tops as a highway. Trakor, like most Cro-Magnards, was accustomed to climbing in search of fruit and birds' nests. But when it came to hurtling from bough to bough and tree to tree in a dizzying pathway high above ground, he was both hesitant and doubtful.
Patiently Tharn strove to build up the youth's confidence. At first he spent hours in developing within him that sense of balance which is the basis for forest-top travel. Once Trakor could thread his way along a swaying branch a hundred feet in the air without reaching wildly for a hand-hold, Tharn undertook to teach him the grasp, swing and release used in plunging through space from one jungle giant to the next.
At first the boy fell many times and his body was a mass of painful bruises. But he endured the pain without complaint, returning to the branches for more with unabated enthusiasm. Hour after hour, day after day he strove for something approaching Tharn's expertness at the craft, and while he knew he would never succeed in reaching the high standards of his teacher, he was gaining confidence that eventually he would near that mark.
Within a week he was bounding about the trees with a sure-footedness and celerity that brought praise from his companion. He took the utmost pleasure in challenging the jungle lord to arboreal races, and while he never won them he came close on several occasions. Soon his confidence passed into a cocksure attitude and he began to take long chances—leaping twenty feet across a treeless gap to catch some narrow limb waving in a strong breeze, or hurtling through space at the end of a trailing vine in imminent danger of being dashed to death on the ground below.
Nor did Tharn protest these activities or urge him to greater caution. The youth must learn from experience what could and could not be done. He gloried in Trakor's small triumphs and comforted him in his failures, and always he was careful not to say or do anything that would weaken the boy's mounting confidence.
When Tharn was satisfied the boy was reasonably at home among the trees, by night or by day, the second phase of his education was undertaken. He taught him to follow an animal's spoor along the dust of a game trail, he showed him how not only to classify each into its proper category but schooled him in such fine distinctions as judging an animal's height, weight and age from imprints left by its feet. Luckily Trakor was endowed with eyes and ears beyond the normal in keenness, and it was not long until he was able to give an excellent account of himself in woodcraft.
And daily his strength was increasing under the unaccustomed tasks imposed on his muscles. Swinging by the hands through mile after mile of branches molded biceps and back muscles into bands of steel and endowed his fingers with a vise-like grip. His body, already deeply tanned, became burned to a dusky hue and he began to fill out into a specimen of perfect manhood.
If Tharn chafed at the delay in his reunion with Dylara he did not display it and he continued the boy's education as though he had a lifetime to put into doing so. But Trakor knew what all this was costing the other, and while he never mentioned it, the determination grew to make it up to the cave lord. There was a bond between them now, based on mutual respect and admiration, plus a hero-worshiping desire on Trakor's part to become exactly like Tharn himself.
Exactly half a moon from the day Tharn had snatched Trakor from under the noses of Gerdak's warriors, the boy made his first kill—a fat buck that had come down to a water hole to drink. He had dropped upon its back from the lower branches of a tree, as Tharn had taught him, and a knife thrust into its heart had brought it down.
They sat side by side among the branches of a tree, gorging themselves on strips of raw flesh hacked from the side of Trakor's kill, while below them a pack of Jackals quarreled over the buck's remains. Sunset was only minutes away and already dusk was seeping into the forest aisles.
Trakor was full of plans for the morrow. "When Dyta comes again," he was saying, "let us hunt out the lair of one of the great cats. I need a new loin cloth and I will cut one from the hide of Jalok or Tarlok—after I have slain him."
Tharn hid his smile by sinking his gleaming teeth into the meat in his hands. "And how will you go about killing Tarlok?" he said casually.
Trakor was surprised at the question. "The same way you slew Sadu the day we met. I will spring upon him from a tree and drive my knife into his heart."
"You will spring into his teeth!" Tharn said grimly. "Let this be your most important lesson: Seek no fight with the great cats. A life time in the jungle is not training enough to pick a quarrel with any of them. There will be times when one of them will stalk you down and trap you; then, if you are lucky, you instead of Tarlok or Jalok or Sadu will come out alive."
"But you have slain them!" Trakor argued.
"True. But never have I sought them out for that purpose. Each time we fought it was because I had no choice, and always the margin between victor and vanquished was so narrow it easily might have gone the other way."
"I am not afraid!"
"Fear has nothing to do with it. A true warrior does not doubt his bravery; only a coward feels he must prove to himself that he is brave. Survival in the jungle depends on knowing and respecting its denizens; he who struts along the trails looking for trouble finds himself filling trouble's belly!"
And so Trakor changed the subject and they talked of other matters. But deep within the boy burned the determination to hunt down one of the great cats at the first opportunity. Tharn, knowing this—his own development had gone through the same stage—said no more on the subject.
While they talked Tharn watched his companion, marveling at the change these past two weeks had made in him. Trakor was every inch a true jungle dweller. He sat with his back comfortably against the tree bole, his shock of black hair falling almost to his shoulders in back and rudely hacked off above his eyes. His swelling chest and broad shoulders were burned almost black by the sun, the skin as clear and unblemished as a woman's. The thin waist, narrow supple hips and long straight legs were the hallmarks of a true warrior, and his sharp alert eyes and handsome clean-cut features were evidence of nobility and intelligence. Fate had placed worthy clay into Tharn's hands for molding and he looked upon his work and found it good.
With this realization came a decision. "Tomorrow," he said, "I must take up the trail of those who hold Dylara. Already she may be within the city of Ammad and I dare not wait longer."
Trakor flushed. "It is my fault. Had you not met me she might be with you at this moment."
"And had I not met you," Tharn said lightly, "I might still be looking for the trail I lost a moon earlier. Or Sadu might have caught and eaten me had I gone on instead of lingering here."
"A score of Sadus could not catch you!"
Tharn did not reply and his smile was hidden by the handful of leaves with which he wiped the blood of his meal from his lips. "Let us sleep now," he said quietly. "We have many suns of traveling ahead of us."
Otar was utterly miserable. Fresh blisters had broken on his feet for the fourth day in a row and each step was agony. Life as a guard in Vokal's palace had not been strenuous enough to prepare him for a long journey into the jungle, and as he limped along in the company of his fifty companions he heaped silent curses upon the head of Ekbar, captain of Vokal's guards, who had selected him to take part in this mysterious excursion into the jungles surrounding Ammad.
Otar knew full well why he had been one of those so selected. The lovely Marua had chosen him as her mate instead of Ekbar, and the captain was allowing to pass no opportunity to keep them apart. True, Ekbar was leading the expedition and therefore was unable to take advantage of Otar's absence from the side of his lovely mate. But in view of his aching feet and terror of the grim jungle hemming him in night and day, this was small consolation.
This was the eighth day since Ammad's walls had faded into the south and still no word from Ekbar as to how much farther they must go. Night was not far distant; at any moment now the several advance scouts Ekbar sent on ahead each day would be straggling back to make their reports to the captain. That would be the signal to make camp for the night—something others of the party besides Otar were looking forward to.
In a column two abreast the fifty shuffled along, war spears ready in their hands, bows and arrow-filled quivers at their backs, a stone knife in the belt of each tunic. Over them hung the brooding humid jungle on either side of the elephant path, while in their ears rose and fell the now familiar pattern of sound formed by buzzing insects, chattering monkeys and raucous-voiced birds. Except for the clouds of insects that had a way of working down inside a tunic this was not so bad. It was when night came and the challenging cries of Sadu and Tarlok and Jalok made hideous the darkness beyond the camp's circle of fires, that Otar knew the depths of fear. Then was when heavy paws padded against the earth nearby and yellow eyes gleamed out of the night.
"Here comes one of the scouts!" said the man next to Otar, pointing. "Look how excited he is!"
A stocky built man in a once white tunic was running swiftly along the path toward the column's head, waving his arms. Instantly Ekbar lifted his spear in a horizontal position and the column ground to a halt.
Otar could see the two of them, Ekbar and the scout, carrying on a heated discussion, but he was too far back to make out the words. While they talked, the remaining three scouts arrived and joined in the conversation.
It lasted for several minutes; then Ekbar, tall and square-shouldered, gave the signal to resume the march. Several of the troops groaned openly; but the groans changed to elated murmurs of satisfaction almost immediately when the winding trail debouched into a small circular clearing divided by a small jungle stream.
The order was given to make camp and prepare food. Those whose nightly duty it was to gather branches for a fiery circle to keep the cats at bay were called back when they started into the jungle—a matter that caused considerable discussion among the others.
They were not long left in doubt. Ekbar gathered the warriors in a tight circle and, standing in its center, gave them their first explanation since leaving Ammad.
"An enemy force lies encamped an hour's march ahead of us," he said in his high-pitched, almost querulous voice. "For that reason we must forgo our nightly fires lest the glow be seen and the enemy warned. Instead, once you have eaten, you are to spend the night in the trees. A few of us will go on ahead under cover of darkness and learn the number of enemies we must face. Early on the morrow we attack!"
His chill eyes went around the circle, then he lifted one arm and began to point out individuals, calling their names and ordering each to step forward.
Otar, anger stiffening his jaw, was among the first to be summoned. When the new group reached six, Ekbar dismissed the others and bade them follow him.
Half an hour after leaving the main body darkness came down upon the seven Ammadian warriors, blacking out their immediate surroundings. Unconsciously they moved closer together and their voices stilled. The jungle was unfamiliar territory to most of them and a place where death might lay behind each bush along the way.
Presently they detected a wavering glow filtering through the trees ahead, and Ekbar warned them in a low voice to proceed with added caution. A little later he motioned them to a halt and went on ahead, his body crouched, his spear and knife ready for action.
He reappeared almost immediately. "They have made a dry camp in a small clearing just around a bend of the trail," he whispered. "Follow me and let not so much as a blade of grass bend under your feet!"
Like disembodied wraiths the seven members of Vokal's palace guard crept among the towering trees to one side of the trail. With slow stealth they worked their way forward until they lay, side by side among the thick undergrowth at the clearing's edge. Trained ears would have marked their passage long before they reached that position, but the ears of the five sentries on duty were no keener than those of the average Ammadian.
Most of the camp lay sleeping behind barricades of burning branches, their huddled shapes beneath sleeping furs visible by light of flickering flames. The sentries were pacing to and fro, stopping occasionally to pass a remark or two among themselves. The only sounds came from the crackling wood of the fires and, very distant, the hunting squall of a leopard.
Ekbar's eyes, a bit keener than those of his companions, noticed something. "Look!" he whispered. "Several in a row of sleepers nearest us have bandages on their heads. Yes, and one of the sentries is carrying his arm in a sling. They've come through a fight of some kind recently."
Otar, who had been peering intently at the five sentries, voiced a muffled explanation.
"Your scouts were wrong, Ekbar!" he said, his voice rising to its normal volume. "These men are——"
A savage hand about his neck choked off his words. "Quiet, you fool!" whispered Ekbar, his fingers tightening their hold.
One of the watch had lifted his head and was staring intently in their direction. After a long moment he shrugged slightly and busied himself with adding branches to the fire. Only then did Ekbar release his hold.
Otar, anger and bewilderment plain in his expression, massaged his aching neck. "I tell you," he whispered, "those are not enemies. They are warriors of the palace of the noble Garud of Ammad. One of those sentries is Dretox, an acquaintance of mine who went with Jotan, Garud's son, to Sephar several moons ago. It is plain that they are returning to Ammad and we should go out and welcome them instead of skulking here in the bushes."
"And I say these men are enemies!" hissed Ekbar heatedly. "Listen and judge for yourself."
"The morning of the day we left Ammad an attempt was made on the life of Jaltor, our king. The news swept the city; I know that some of you, at least, must have heard it. Vokal, our master, as one of Ammad's noblemen, learned Garlud was behind the attempted assassination. On the direct and secret orders of Jaltor himself, Vokal has sent us to intercept and kill Jotan, who once he learns Garlud is dead after plotting to have the king slain, may attempt to even the score by leading a revolt that could plunge all Ammad into civil war."
"That is why we are here and that is why these men are enemies. And on the morrow we shall attack them and put them all to instant death!"
It was reason enough and they were satisfied. Such intrigues were common in Ammad; several of the six had served more than one nobleman during their lifetimes.
"One thing bothers me," Ekbar was whispering. "It was believed Jotan took fifty men with him to Sephar, also two friends who are sons of noblemen. These last two must be overcome and spirited away without learning our identity. When Jotan and the rest are dead, we will release the pair of them and let them find their way to Ammad. I want a suggestion on how that can be done."
No one spoke for a while. The sentries continued to move among the fires a few feet away, and the sounds of a nocturnal jungle rose and fell about them.
It was Ekbar himself who hit on a plan, as befitted one of a captain's rank.
"We shall need one of those sleeping men," he said. "I will take two of you and circle the camp to the opposite side. After we have time enough to reach that point, the rest of you will make a noise of some kind to attract the guards' attention. Be careful not to make them too suspicious lest they rouse the camp. While they are looking in your direction, we will creep up and grab the first man we come to."
The men signified that they understood, and Ekbar, Otar and a warrior named Kopan set out to take up their arranged positions. Hardly were they ready when a low moaning sound rose from among the bushes across the clearing and the foliage there began to shake violently.
Instantly the five guards grouped behind that section of the burning circle nearest the disturbance. They raised their spears ready for casting and one of the five hurled a burning branch across the narrow ribbon of open ground.
"Now!" Ekbar grated.
Stooping, the three men raced for the encampment. They cleared the burning barrier at a bound, snatched up the nearest of the sleeping figures, muffling his face with his own sleeping furs before he could awaken, then turned and vanished into the jungle. So quickly had they acted, so swift and sure their motions, that none of the other sleepers so much as stirred and the guards never noticed.
The instant the abductors had disappeared the moans stopped and the shaking foliage stilled. For a long time the guards continued to stand there waiting, but when no other disturbance materialized they sighed with relief and went back to the restless patrolling.
Meanwhile Ekbar and his men were returning to their own camp, their captive with them. They drew him into a sheltered place under the trees, lighted a small fire that his expression might tell them if he answered their questions with lies and went to work on him.
He was a young man, clear-eyed, intelligent and not at all frightened. He stared at his captors without recognition, obviously puzzled to find they were men of his own nationality.
"What is your name?" rasped Ekbar, scowling menacingly.
"Tykol—if that helps you any! What is the meaning of this? Who are you?"
"I will ask the questions here!" Ekbar snapped. "And you will answer them if you wish to see Dyta, the sun, again! Do you understand?"
"I understand well enough, but that does not mean I will tell you anything!"
Without the slightest change of expression Ekbar whipped out the knife at his belt and sank three inches of the cold flint into one of the man's thighs. Tykol cried out involuntarily and struggled to free his arms from the vines binding them to his sides.
Ekbar waited until his struggles ceased. A small stream of blood welled from the knife wound and began to drip against the leaves beneath.
"What," said Ekbar, "are the names of the two young noblemen accompanying Jotan?"
Tykol, his active mind racing, did not at once reply. It was clear these men meant no good to any of Jotan's followers. His cue was to simulate a certain amount of fear to satisfy them his answers were the truth until he could discover exactly what was afoot.
Ekbar leaned forward and lifted his knife again. "Shall I give you a second taste of this?" he growled.
Tykol appeared to flinch. "No," he mumbled. "I will tell you. Their names are Javan and Tamar."
"How many men are with them?"
"Thirty-seven."
"You lie!" Ekbar snarled. "Fifty were in the party when it left Ammad."
The young captive digested this information quickly. It proved these men were Ammadians like himself; how else could they have known that?
"I am not lying," he said sullenly. "Three nights ago lions attacked our camp and killed and ate the others, wounding many of the rest of us."
Ekbar, remembering the bandages he had glimpsed while spying on the camp, nodded to himself. It would make his task of wiping out the balance of them that much easier.
"What positions do these two men hold in the line of march during the day?" he demanded.
"Javan now marches at the head of the column."
The captain's head jerked up sharply. "Don't lie to me, you son of Gubo! Jotan marches there; he is in charge of his men. There is no need for you to attempt to shield him—he will be dead in a few hours!"
It was all Tykol needed. He knew now that he himself would not live to see tomorrow's sun; and while the thought was sobering enough it did not dim his determination to save the life of his beloved master.
And so Tykol threw back his head and laughed—laughed until a heavy blow from the fist of Ekbar sent him sprawling. The captain gestured angrily to the others to drag the youth upright again, then said:
"You laugh, fool. Does the thought of Jotan's death mean so little to you?"
"That is not why I laugh," Tykol told him, grinning. "I laugh because no act of yours can take his life—for he no longer has a life to take!"
Strong fingers twisted into the front of his tunic and jerked him forward. "What do you mean? The truth, jackal, or I cut you in bits!"
Tykol appeared properly cowed. "The lions got him—as they got the noble Tamar. It was terrible, I tell you! For hours they crouched just outside the circle of fires while their roars filled the night. We tried to drive——"
"Enough!" growled the captain. "We shall soon find out if you are lying. If our scouts learn Jotan is still with his men I promise you a slow and horrible death."
"And when you find I am telling the truth," Tykol said, feigning eagerness, "will you then let me go?"
Ekbar sat there fingering his knife, thinking. If this man spoke true words there would be no need for massacring Jotan's warriors. It would be far better to permit them to reach Ammad and tell of his death under Sadu's rending fangs. Thus the last threat to Vokal's plans would have been accomplished without an air of mystery behind it that some one, becoming curious, might dig into.
But he would need more than this man's word. On the morrow he would send scouts who could recognize Jotan, back to spy on the column. If Jotan was not there, then Tykol's story would be proved true; Ekbar would withdraw his men and return to Ammad, leaving the remnants of Jotan's troops to straggle back unmolested by him.
Either way he no longer had use of Tykol. His attention came back to the bound man in front of him. "Yes," he said, replying to the young man's last question, "you shall have your freedom. In fact I shall give it to you now."
With those words he lunged forward and drove his knife into Tykol's heart!
Thus died a true warrior—loyal unto death to the man he served, knowing his heroism would lie with his bones unknown, yet making his supreme sacrifice without hesitation and without self-pity.
Ekbar wiped clean his stone blade on the dead man's tunic and rose to his feet. "Haul this carrion deeper within the jungle," he told his sober-faced men, "and rouse the camp. We start back to Ammad at once."