From Jungle Depths
Urb, the Neanderthal, was beginning to tire. He and his five hairy companions had been on the march since Dyta had risen, and even now the sun was hunting a new lair for the night. From the frequency with which those behind him were stumbling, he judged they, too, were tiring.
But the mountains were close, now. He and his men were almost certain to reach them before darkness came. There they might find caves near grasslands rich in game. Urb's mouth watered and he was aware of being very hungry.
A faint breeze, blowing lightly against their backs, changed its course suddenly and came whipping in from the west. As it flicked across their faces the six Hairy Ones came to an abrupt halt, standing stiffly as though turned to stone.
Urb sniffed in short rapid inhalations, his unkempt visage twisted in a ferocious scowl.
"Men!" he grunted. "The hairless ones! It has been long since we have found such. Hide!"
With a degree of soundlessness surprising in such clumsy bodies, the six Neanderthals faded into the mazes of undergrowth at either side of the path.
Hardly were they hidden, when Alurna and her five companions came into sight. They were moving slowly, the girl limping slightly from a bruised heel, her sandals scuffed and dusty.
The girl stopped and turned to the others. "Is it much farther, Adbor? I don't think I can take another step."
"Courage, my princess," smiled Adbor, a tall, slender man with a great shock of blond hair. "A short distance more and we shall be there."
Alurna sank down on a fallen log, removed her sandal and rubbed the bruised heel.
"I'm afraid you'll have to carry me from here on," she sighed. "My feet ache terribly."
Silently the foliage parted an arm's length from the girl's half-bent figure, and in the gap were framed the brutal faces of Urb and Mog, the sullen. Urb gave the female only a passing glance; his attention was riveted on the five unsuspecting men. The woman was not armed—the men were; and it was the males who must die before they could bring their weapons into use.
Meanwhile, the stunted mind of Mog, the sullen, was laboriously following an altogether different trend of thought from that of his leader. His unblinking pig-like eyes were intent on the sweetly curved back directly in front of him, and he was increasingly aware of what an altogether desirable bit of femininity this hairless she actually was. His tongue moistened suddenly dry lips and he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.
Urb waited no longer. Slowly he brought up his left hand, caught a small branch between his fingers, then suddenly clenched his fist.
The wood snapped with a sharp clear sound, freezing the five Sepharian guards into instant immobility.
But not for long.
As the sound of breaking wood rose on the still air, six grotesque figures rose in a rough semi-circle about the group in the trail, and simultaneously five mighty stone-incrusted bludgeons were hurled with unbelievable force and accuracy.
The startled Sepharians never succeeded in bringing their own weapons into play. Before they could fully comprehend their danger all five were stretched on the jungle path. Three were dead as they fell, heads crushed like brittle twigs; another died almost as quickly, his back snapped as a dry branch is snapped beneath the broad feet of Pandor, the elephant.
Only one still lived, a club having dealt him a glancing blow aside the head, laying his flesh open in a great gash and rendering him senseless. Gorb was more adept at making clubs than he was in their use....
Five clubs were thrown; there should have been six. Only Mog, the sullen, retained his hold on his murderous weapon. As his fellows loosed their cudgels, Mog sprang forward, caught the paralyzed girl about the waist with one immense hairy arm, and before the others could fathom his intentions, had turned and fled back along the pathway as quickly as his short bowed legs could carry him.
