AS GRANDON struggled in the seething water, he strove to look about him for some sign of Kantar the Gunner. But save for that phosphorescent luminescence which had lured them onto the rocks, all was blackness.
“Kantar!” he shouted. “Kantar! Where are you?”
A big roller caught him unawares. Part of it he inhaled. Strangling and choking, he endeavored to rid his tortured lungs of the smarting brine. All the time he was being carried swiftly toward that deceptive phosphorescence. The roar of the breakers grew deafening. He realized, then, that if Kantar had been within fifty feet of him when he shouted, he probably would not have heard his cry.
Presently his hands struck a sloping ledge of sharp coral. He drew himself up onto it, and stood erect. But a giant comber knocked him flat, cutting his hands, face, and body on the jagged coral. After that he crawled forward painfully. At length the coral was replaced by rugged bits of stone, and finally by a sharply slanting beach where jointed sawtoothed reeds grew among outcroppings of volcanic rock. For some time he rested on a slab of water-worn lava, panting heavily from his exertions. His cuts and scratches were rendered doubly painful by the salt water.
Presently he stood up. The phosphorescent light was not more than five hundred feet away, and it seemed to be slowly moving toward him in a rather erratic fashion. It lit up the waving reeds and brackish pools with a pale greenish white luminescence. As he watched, it stopped behind a clump of tall reeds.
Suddenly, between himself and the light he saw a human form sloshing through the pools. There was something familiar about the bedraggled figure, and he recognized the gunner.
“Kantar!” he shouted, running forward.
The figure splashed onward, unable to hear him because of the roar of the breakers. At a distance of a few feet he again shouted: “Kantar!” at the top of his voice.
The gunner turned.
“Majesty!” he exclaimed. “I had thought you drowned with that yellow pirate. Praise Thorth, you are alive!”
“We must find that hut of the Huitsenni, quickly,” said Grandon as he came up. “Have you any idea where to look for it?”
“Our guide said there would be a light,” replied Kantar. “I was about to investigate this one.”
“I saw it moving a moment ago,” said Grandon. “I doubt that the cabin would be built in a salt marsh, or that a light in it would move about as this one has. Perhaps it is a light carried by one of the creatures the pirates called ‘Valkars.’ But it will do no harm to investigate.”
Cautiously they crept forward through the marsh, bending down below the level of the waving reeds so that they would not be seen. Presently Kantar laid a hand on Grandon’s, arm, and exclaimed: “I see it, Majesty! Why, it’s an enormous worm!”
Looking through the place where the gunner had parted the reeds, the Earthman saw a fat, grub-like creature about five feet in length. Its entire body glowed with a greenish white light. Leisurely it moved among the reeds, browsing on the water plants that grew in the bottoms of the brackish pools.
Disturbed at its feeding by the sound, the creature reared its luminous head and spied them. Arching its neck, it gnashed its mandibles threateningly.
“I wonder if that thing would shine as brightly dead as alive,” said Grandon. “If so, it would be useful to us.”
For answer, Kantar elevated the muzzle of his tork, and pressing the firing button, deftly sprayed a line of the needlelike projectiles across the luminous throat.
Cut off as cleanly as if by a sword blade in the hands of an expert, the head fell from the body, which immediately began writhing and thrashing about in the rushes and shallow water.
“Neatly done, Gunner,” commented Grandon. “Why the thing appears to be shining more than ever! Now for a couple of torches.”
So saying, he whipped out his scarbo, and advancing to where the headless thing squirmed and floundered in the reeds, cut off two sections, each about a foot in length. Then, with two sharpened reeds which he thrust into the sections for handles, he made a pair of torches, each of which was capable of lighting up the terrain for at least fifty feet in every direction.
Grandon passed one torch to Kantar, and holding the other above his head, set off along the shore line in the hope of coming upon the cabin which their yellow prisoner had described, and where he believed they would find Vernia in the power of the unscrupulous San Thoy. But though they traveled as swiftly as the rugged character of the shore line would permit for the rest of the night, morning dawned without their having reached their objective.
With his scarbo, Grandon speared a large, spiny fish, left by the ebbing tide in a small pool. They cooked a portion of it over a fire of dry reeds ignited by Grandon’s flame maker. It was tough, bony, and rather tasteless, but a welcome meal, nevertheless, to the two hungry men.
As soon as they had breakfast, they set off once more along the shore line. Shortly thereafter, the character of the terrain underwent a decided change. The ground sloped upward, and instead of marsh behind them, there was now a belt of fern forest. And the flat beach gave way to rugged rock ledges, then towering cliffs, clothed to their very edges with tree ferns, bush ferns, and many creeping and climbing varieties, as well as a few species of cycads and other primitive types. Here there grew in abundance the large Zorovian water ferns, the ribs of which contain water, clear, cold, and sweet as any that may be found on Venus. They paused, and broke off enough fronds to assuage their thirst and fill their canteens. Then they pressed onward.
Soon they came, quite unexpectedly, upon a small natural harbor. The entrance was a narrow channel which zig-zagged between tall cliffs, and the little inland bay, protected from wind and waves by this natural barrier, was as smooth as glass.
“This must be the cove described by our prisoner,” said Grandon, excitedly. “The cabin should not be far off.”
“I see it, Majesty,” cried sharp-eyed gunner, “over near the center of the bay. It’s partly hidden by the tree ferns.”
“Sure enough! Come on.”
Grandon led the way at so swift a pace now, that the tired gunner was sorely put to it to keep up with him. As they neared the cabin, the sight of the small boat which had been left there by San Thoy caused Grandon to hurry faster than ever, for he now felt positive that he should find Vernia and her captor in the cabin. But within less than a hundred feet of the cabin, he stopped suddenly.
“We must approach with caution, Gunner,” he said. “The yellow beast is probably armed with a tork, and it wouldn’t be healthy for us if he saw or heard us coming. Better go in from two different directions, too, so if he gets one of us the other will have a chance at him.”
They separated accordingly, and circling the cabin, crept cautiously up to it from opposite directions. The first to reach the front of the little building, Grandon saw the door standing wide open. With drawn scarbo, he leaped through, then stopped in amazement, for a single glance around the room told him that it was deserted.
The gunner was only a few steps behind Grandon.
“Gone?” he asked.
“So it seems. But where?”
Hanging on a peg at one side of the room was a belt containing a scarbo, tork, and knife. Grandon’s shoulder struck the hanging scarbo, and it clanked against the tork.
“What’s this?” he exclaimed, lifting the belt from the peg. “Why, these are the weapons of San Thoy! His name is engraved on the belt buckle in patoan characters.”
“I judge that he would not willingly have left without them.”
“No, not willingly.”
“Then who could have carried them off, and what has become of Her Majesty, your wife?”
“Who but the Valkars, those toad-like monsters that our prisoner described. We must find the trail. I’ll take San Thoy’s weapons and give the other scarbo to you. Then we’ll both be fully armed.”
Soon Grandon, who had learned his woodcraft from the Fighting Traveks, his fierce mountaineer subjects of Uxpo, and learned it well, discovered blood spots about a hundred feet from the door of the hut. And in the soft leaf mold were the small footprints of a woman, the large prints of a man, and the still larger tracks of webbed and clawed feet. Kantar who was born and bred in the mountain fastnesses of Uxpo, read the signs as quickly as did the Earth-man.
“She ran out here to escape the yellow pirate,” he said.
“And both were carried off by the Valkars,” finished Grandon. “Blood was spilled. I trust that it was not hers.”
“It starts at the point where San Thoy was lifted off his feet.”
“True enough. Let us hope for the best. And now to the trail.”
It was not difficult for the two trained woodsmen to follow the well-marked trail of the toad people. It led them through the belt of thick fern forest that fringed the shore, and across a range of rugged and sparsely wooded hills, into a gloomy and treacherous swamp. Here Grandon, at almost the first step, sank into a quagmire up to his chin. It would speedily have closed over his head, had not Kantar been there to extend a helping hand. Even then, it was with the greatest difficulty that the gunner succeeded in drawing him out of the clinging, sticky mess.
After this misadventure, Grandon took more care where he stepped, quickly learning that a piece of ground which was safe for a web-footed Valkar might be extremely perilous for a man. He chafed at the delay occasioned by the necessity of testing each bit of soil before stepping on it, but was constrained by the obvious verity that if he did not travel with caution his travels would soon be terminated.
Nor was the treacherous footing the sole menace the swamp held for the two. They were constantly compelled to be on the lookout for venomous snakes which crawled across their pathway, and tremendous whistling serpents that dangled from tree limbs, waiting for unsuspecting victims on which to drop, then crush the life out of them with their immense muscular coils. In addition, they were compelled to avoid the huge saurians which made the morass their habitation. Some of these were herbivores, and harmless unless disturbed, but others, the mighty carnivores which fed on these and any other smaller bits of flesh that came their way, would make short work of them if they suspected this pair of tender, two-legged animals was crossing their feeding ground. Annoying, too, were the constant attacks of biting and stinging insect pests which buzzed in thick clouds about them.
Both men heaved a sigh of relief when they presently reached higher arid drier ground, for though the tall grass through which the path wound might harbor even more dangerous enemies than they had seen in the swamp, they were at least sure of their footing, and soon left the bulk of their insect tormentors behind.
They had traveled about a mile into this grassy savanna, when Grandon suddenly caught his companion by the arm.
“Quiet!” he said. “I hear something coming!”
Unmistakably there came to the ears of both the sound of someone or something speeding through the tall grass, then a shriek of pain or terror, and a hoarse booming croak.
“Come on,” cried Grandon. “It sounds like a human being attacked by some fierce beast.”
They had only taken a few steps in the direction of the sounds when there hove into view, running for his life, a short, bandy-legged yellow man. Although Grandon and Kantar had never seen a Valkar, both instantly identified the hideous, warty creature, which followed in swift pursuit, from the description their former prisoner had given them. It was rapidly shortening the distance between itself and its shrieking quarry, and the long pole it carried, tipped with a barbed hook, was extended to transfix its victim.
Kantar elevated the muzzle of his tork.
“Don’t shoot,” warned Grandon. “The sound may betray us, and bring a horde of these creatures. You grab the yellow man, and I’ll take the Valkar.”
Whipping out his scarbo, the Earth-man accordingly crouched in the grass at one side of the path, while Kantar, similarly armed, concealed himself on the other side.
Just as he came opposite them, the fugitive was caught by the barbed hook. He uttered an agonized shriek as it pierced his arm. But before his pursuer could jerk him backward, Kantar’s scarbo had cut through the shaft. And Grandon, blade in hand, had leaped at the Valkar.
Although he was taken by surprise, the toad man was remarkably quick. Dropping his useless shaft, he snatched his long knife from his belt, and raised it to parry the cut which Grandon aimed at his head. It turned the blade of the scarbo so that, in descending it only cut a small slice from the scaly shoulder. At the same instant, with lightning quickness, he struck the Earth-man with the mace in his left hand.
The blow took Grandon by surprise, and the hooked bill bit into his right shoulder, which he had instinctively raised to protect his face, inflicting a painful wound. With a croak of triumph the monster jerked the Earth-man toward him, intent on finishing him with the knife. But at that instant, Grandon drew back his lowered scarbo, then thrust upward with all his might. The blade, driven with terrific force, entered the silver-gray throat, and passing upward through the head, came out between the bulging eyes. With a hoarse death croak, the Valkar sank to the ground, kicking convulsively.
Kantar came running up, dragging his yellow prisoner, from whose arm he had extracted the barbed hook.
“Why, you are bleeding, Majesty!” he exclaimed.
“Only a flesh wound,” replied Grandon. “I’ll be all right.” The gunner twisted the small cup from the top of his kova flask, and held it to the bleeding throat of the dying Valkar. In an instant it was filled with blood. He stood up and proffered the cup to Grandon.
“You must drink this quickly, Majesty,” he said, “or your wound may prove fatal.”
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the Earth-man. “Have you gone crazy?”
“Drink quickly, I beg of you. It is the only antidote for the venom with which these monsters smear their weapons.”
“Right. I had forgotten what our prisoner told us.” He took the proffered cup, and with a wry face, drained it. The wounded yellow man whose wrist Kantar was holding, had meanwhile crouched down, and was lapping at the bleeding throat of the Valkar.
“Let me bind your wound, Majesty,” said the gunner.
“No. It is not large, and will close itself. Meanwhile let us examine the prisoner.” He glared at the diminutive yellow man, who now stood with bowed head, his wrist still clutched by Kantar. “Are you San Thoy?” he asked.
“No, Majesty,” replied the prisoner, who, noting the scarlet of Grandon’s attire was aware that he stood before royalty. “San Thoy is a great mojak, while I, as Your Majesty may see by the remains of my raiment, am only a common sailor.”
“Your name, sailor.”
“So Lan, Majesty, late of the ship, Sagana, of the Imperial Navy of Huitsen. I was captured by the Valkars three endirs ago with a dozen of my mates when we were sent ashore for fresh water. Today I escaped from the prison compound, but this Valkar hunter saw me, and would have slain me or taken me back a prisoner had not you come up.”
“Saw you aught of San Thoy?”
“He, and a beautiful white Princess, who some say was Vernia of Reabon, were brought in prisoners this morning.”
“Where are they now?”
“The white Princess was brought to the slave compound shortly before I made my escape. It was the attention she attracted, both from the slaves and the Valkars, which made it possible for me to get away undetected.”
“And what do these Valkars intend to do with her? Hold her for ransom?”
“No, Majesty. They care nothing for money, or any other things of great worth. But I heard that Grunk, their Rogo, who has never before captured a human female, planned to keep her for the purpose of breeding a race of slaves.”
“Enough! Lead us at once to this compound. Perform your task faithfully, take me to a spot where I can set eyes on my wife, and you will be permitted to escape again. But remember, one sign of treachery, and you die.”
“Your wife! Then you are the famed Grandon of Terra, the hero from the planet Mignor, who won the most beautiful woman on Zorovia!” He dropped to his knees, and with both hands extended, palms downward, pressed his forehead to the ground. “I do homage to so mighty a swordsman and so famed a ruler,” he muttered.
“Up, and cease this mummery, or by the bones of Thorth, I’ll split your head, and go on without a guide. Vernia of Reabon will take her own life rather than submit to the dictates of this reptilian Rogo. As it is, we may be too late.”
The pirate scrambled hastily to his feet.
“I’ll guide you, Majesty, and quickly,” he promised, “but we must circle the Valkar village to reach the compound. Otherwise we should not be permitted to go far.”
He set off at once through the tall, rustling grass, with Grandon, scarbo in hand, just behind him, and Kantar bringing up the rear. After a short walk Grandon heard, only a little way ahead of them, the chatter of human conversation and the croaking of Valkars, punctuated by the sharp clanking of metal.
So Lan turned. “The compound is just ahead,” he whispered. “Those are the sounds made by the metal workers and their overseers.”
The three crept cautiously forward now. So Lan, parting the grass, pointed to an enclosure by a paling of metal bars, in the center of which was a large, moss-covered mound.
Grandon’s heart gave a great bound as he saw Vernia standing beside a pile of knives. Then he cried out in anguish, and would have leaped forward had not Kantar detained him, as he saw her snatch the knife and attempt to plunge it into her bosom. But it was instantly shaken from her grasp by one of the yellow slaves who had grasped her wrist. Fortunately, Grandon’s involuntary cry had not been heard over that bedlam of sound, and so the three men still crouched there, undetected.
“What are we to do now, Majesty?” asked Kantar.
“I don’t know, Gunner. Let me think—let me plan. A sudden rush and a shower of tork bullets might be best. And yet, it might mean the death of Vernia. We must try to think of a better scheme.”
He turned to the yellow man who still crouched in the grass beside him. “You may go now, So Lan. You have earned your freedom.”
“Your Majesty has saved the life of So Lan,” replied the pirate, “and he is not ungrateful. Permit him to remain near you, that he may be of assistance in the rescue of her Majesty, your wife.”
“How? You are unarmed. But wait. Perhaps we can use you, for you could pass unnoticed among the slaves where one of us would be instantly detected.”
“I but await Your Majesty’s commands,” replied So Lan, bowing low.