Katon
A painful sensation in one shoulder brought full consciousness to Tharn, and opening his eyes he stared blankly up into the face of a Sepharian warrior. Noticing Tharn was awake, the man lowered the spear point with which he had been prodding the captive.
"So—you are alive, after all!" exclaimed the Sepharian. "You have a hard head, my savage friend; I thought they had beaten it in for you, last night."
The speaker's thin sharp face reminded the cave-man of Toa, the hawk. Tharn's lips curled with open contempt.
"The arms of your men are weak," he said mockingly. "It took many of them to overcome me."
An angry red came into the man's cheeks. "They meant to take you alive," he snapped. "Try to escape and you will find a quick death." He turned on his heel and strode away.
Tharn sat up and glanced about. It was evident he was in some subterranean spot; the air was cool and slightly damp, and there was that musty odor found only beneath the earth's surface. High up in one wall he made out an immense grating of some sort outlined against an early morning sky.
As the light grew stronger he saw the room to be tremendous. He noticed now that he was not alone; near the far wall lay a full score of sleeping men—many of them apparently cave-men like himself.
The sound of feet to his left attracted Tharn. He saw several men enter the cell through the room's single door, and place huge platters of meat on the several long tables near one wall. Noticing the sleeping men were rousing and taking stools about those tables, Tharn got to his feet and, ignoring their curious stares, joined them there.
Lowering his weight onto one of the three-legged stools, Tharn dipped into one of the great platters a neighbor had pushed toward him. As he ate, he looked about at the faces of his fellow prisoners.