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."