King Of Zunga

CHAPTER FIVE

They spent four more nights in the forest, each in one of the little compounds. Twice Nayung and Chamba had to go out with their spears and clay pots and bring back fruit and small animals. They ate the animals raw-fire was taboo in the forest. Once Blade went to refill the water jugs. Chamba promptly jeered at him for this.

«The English warriors have no sense of shame, I see. They will do women's work without complaint. They will even ask to do it. Can you have babies also, Blade?»

At that remark Nayung was probably closer than Blade to putting a spear through Chamba on the spot. It was Blade who, held the two men apart. If Nayung killed Chamba, well and good. But if Chamba killed Nayung, Blade would at once have to kill Chamba. And they might also kill or disable each other. In either of the last two cases Blade knew he would be left with the job of leading the remaining warriors out of a vast forest that he did not know, back to their homes among a people he knew even less well. And he would be pitchforked straight among those people with no one to sponsor him or teach him the ropes. No, this was not the time or place for a finish fight between Chamba and either himself or Nayung.

Once the rage had gone out of Nayung's face, Blade turned to Chamba and said, «Your tongue is waving again, Chamba, like a dry leaf in the wind. I go to bring the water because this is not a forest of the land of the English. I do not know how to hunt its animals, I do not know what fruits are good to eat. If I went out to gather fruit, I might bring back something poisonous. And then you would stuff your swollen guts full of it, and that would be the end of you. Do you want to risk that, Chamba?»

Chamba didn't. Nayung burst out laughing at the expression on the other warrior's face, and said, «Blade, is the art of using one's tongue as a weapon practiced among all the English warriors? Or are you the only one who has learned this? The spirit of your head must be very wise indeed if you are. You stick your words into that man like one of the Ivory People digging up the ground with his tusks.»

«When we are at home, I will fight Blade, and I will cut that tongue out of his mouth with a dull knife,» snarled Chamba. He could barely keep himself from grinding his teeth in rage. «Then I will throw it on a fire, and we will see if it is a very good weapon when I roast it and eat it!»

«I do not know how good a weapon it would be either,» said Blade. «It would not be ruled then by the spirit of my head. But at least it is ruled as long as it is in my head. Yours flaps and waves by itself even now.» He picked up the water pots and strode off toward the spring before Chamba could move or speak again.

So they marched across the forest; with Blade and Chamba swapping verbal thrusts every mile or so. On the afternoon of the fifth day Blade noticed that the greenery overhead was beginning to thin out noticeably. Soon they began passing open spaces, where the sun glared down onto patches of grass cropped short by any number of animals and marred with their droppings and footprints.

Blade noticed that the Zungans were beginning to move more cautiously. Their eyes roved about ceaselessly, and their hands were tighter on their spears than before. Blade hardly needed Nayang's warning that they were coming to the edge of the northern plains. There the slave raiders might be met, although Nayung admitted it was rare for them to travel all the way to the edge of the forest. Rare, but not unheard of. So from here to the town of Brona there was danger that there had not been before.

There was no permanent camp for them that night. On the edge of the forest one would have simply been bait to the slave raiders. Instead the party found a patch where the trees still grew thick, laid down a heavy carpet of leaves, and made camp there. They had dried meat with them, and with the water from their gourds they half filled their stomachs before going to sleep. Here two men mounted guard during the night instead of one. And the other four slept with their spears close beside them.

Early the next morning they were on the move, striking out across the open plains toward Brona. North of the forest the land was drier, the ground harder, the grass shorter. In the south it had reached almost to Blade's knees. Here it only brushed his ankles. But as in the south, the plain was still dotted with gnarled trees and patches of low-slung shrubbery.

With Nayung in the lead and Blade at the rear, the band headed north at the mile-eating jog that put even Blade's muscular legs and good wind to the test. The hard ground with its wavering of coarse brown-green grass offered good footing. One stride flowed easily into another, in what seemed like an endless pattern.

On and on they went. Although Blade had renewed his hat of leaves on the edge of the forest, he felt the sun beating down on the leaves and through them. It wilted them until they offered no more protection, then began working on his head. He knew, logically, that his brains couldn't be getting boiled in his skull like a potato in its jacket. But it certainly began to feel that way as the day wore on. Once again he blessed his Mediterranean tan. Without it, he would have been rapidly turning the color of a boiled lobster. How he would have felt was better left to the imagination.

None of the Zungans seemed to be showing any sign of fatigue, strain, thirst, or even heat-sickness. Blade was a bit surprised. He knew that this was their land, their climate. But they were made of flesh and blood, not iron.

The hours and the miles rolled by. Once Blade looked through the sweat that poured down over his eyes and saw a series of moving gray masses far off toward the horizon. A herd of the Ivory People. But the beasts ignored the men, and soon were left behind.

That was not the only wildlife on the plain. More than once Blade saw antelopelike beasts bounding away, in ones and twos, half-dozens, and entire herds. Once they came on a decaying carcass, large but beyond recognition now. Broad-winged birds with rust-colored backs and black bellies soared away from the carrion, and olive-brown dogs scampered away in all directions. The dogs made no effort to close with the moving men. Perhaps they ate only carrion, perhaps a group of six armed men was something they knew to be a tough proposition. Soon they were out of both sight and earshot, lost in the vastness of the plain.

Still the Zungans did not slow, although Blade noticed that they were sweating heavily. The man just ahead of Blade had his eyes half-closed and his face screwed up into a sort of grimace. It was good to know that at least one of these supermen was beginning to feel the strain!

Nayung now began looking back toward Blade every few minutes. So did Chamba. There was open disdain on Chamba's face, but there was something more like curiosity on Nayung's. Blade was a bit confused. Had his face turned green, or had something else equally unusual happened to him-

Then the light dawned. Nayung was watching him to see if he could keep up the pace, or if he showed signs of slowing down and even collapsing. The D'bor wanted to find out if this Richard Blade of the English could keep up with Zungan warriors in the field. Blade was almost willing to bet that Nayung was deliberately forcing the pace to the maximum his own warriors could take, to test Blade's speed and endurance. And Chamba, of course, was looking back at him, positive that this Englishman would fall on his pale face sooner or later and have to be left for the carrion birds and the scavenger dogs.

If he had felt like wasting the breath, Blade would have sworn, half in indignation, half in amusement. Very well. Nayung wanted to see if this new warrior was worthy of being accepted among the Zungans. Blade was an expert judge of his own endurance, and he knew that he had ample reserves left if Brona wasn't too much farther. He checked the position of the sun. It was well down in the sky already. Darkness would be falling soon. It would be safe enough to throw away a little of those reserves of his to drive his point home to Nayung.

Blade started lengthening his stride, and gradually he closed the gap between him and the next man, and soon he was walking beside him. The Zungan shot Blade a bewildered look. Then Blade was out in front of the man and angling back into the line ahead of him. As Nayung looked back this time, Blade would have sworn he almost started in surprise-and then grinned faintly.

Nayung did not step up the pace, however. A few minutes later Blade moved up another place. This time Nayung's grin was unmistakable. When Blade moved up a third place, to move in just behind Chamba, Nayung showed all of his teeth and raised both clenched fists over his head in salute.

Chamba, however, was obviously unwilling to be overtaken as easily as the first two men. Blade saw the Zungan warrior's long, sinewy legs increase their stride, and pushed his own pace up a little. Neck and neck, he and Chamba swung out and moved up past the next man in the line. Then they swung in together just behind Nayung.

Nayung's face was now showing signs of strain. Was physical exhaustion beginning to set in, or was he again concerned about the rivalry between Blade and Chamba? Nayung still made no effort to increase the pace, and Chamba found from somewhere the breath to taunt him for this.

«What is it, Nayung? Can even this woman of an Englishman join me in catching up with you?» And he put on a spurt that drew him level with Nayung.

The D'bor wasted no breath in replying to the taunts. He merely looked back over his shoulder, then the pumping of his long arms increased. This seemed to pour new breath into his body and new life into his legs. In seconds the gap between Nayung and the two men behind him was opening rapidly.

That push by Nayung worried Blade. Did the D'bor have the reserves of strength to keep up this new pace all the way to Brona? Or would he soon fall back and perhaps be shamed before Chamba? If that happened, it was all the more important for Blade to keep going, and above all to reach Brona before Chamba.

Blade increased his own pace a little more, and found that he was pulling ahead of Chamba. Also the gap between him and Nayung had stopped widening. For a moment he risked looking back. The other three warriors were moving along together at a steady lope, but they were definitely falling behind. And why shouldn't they? They had no stake in this mad race across the plain, nothing worth breaking their hearts and bursting their lungs to accomplish.

Gradually the movement of Blade's legs and feet slipped out of the reach of his conscious mind. They settled down to a steady pattern of their own, endlessly repeated, carrying him forward across the plain. He was no longer aware of the movement of air in and out of his lungs, of the expansions and contractions of his chest. He might have been a robot, for all that his body made itself known to his mind.

Before too much longer he realized that Nayung was definitely weakening. The Mor's arms now moved more rapidly, almost flailing the air. He no longer lifted his long-toed feet as high at each stride. In fact, he seemed to be running almost flat-footed. Sometimes his feet came down so hard that puffs of dust spurted up from the ground under them.

Chamba was still running beside Blade, and the Zungan showed no signs of strain. Or did he? Blade noticed cracked lips opening and closing, a sweat-greased chest heaving more than before. Would he be feeling the strain himself if he let his body tell him about it? Perhaps. But for now he felt as though he could keep on running for hours. And he knew it would be up to him to beat Chamba.

Suddenly Nayung threw up his head and gave a long gasping cry that must have taken every spare ounce of breath in his body. For a moment Blade thought the man was going to stumble and fall. But he kept on his feet, only slowing until Blade and Chamba were level with him. Then they were past him, and he was falling back still farther, to take a place ahead of the other three warriors. One of them grinned at Nayung and reached out to slap him on the back. That man at least did not think the D'bor shamed and weak.

But Chamba would, and there would be many who would support Chamba. Blade would have to run that arrogant warrior into the ground, or endanger not only Nayung but himself. He looked sideways at Chamba. The man showed no signs of speeding up, but his face wore an exultant grin.

Then suddenly he did step up the pace, so quickly that he seemed to leap ahead into the lead in seconds. Blade clenched his teeth, feeling the gritty dust between them, and followed.

The two men moved out across the plain now a good fifty feet ahead of the others, and the gap kept widening foot by foot. For the time being Blade was willing to let Chamba set the pace, and only match him. The time for his own move into the lead would come, if he lasted long enough. He was not sure he was going to. The breath rasping in his throat, and the stabbing pains in his chest, the throbbing ache in his thighs and calves, all were coming through clearly now.

A minute later Blade realized that Chamba was no longer increasing his speed. His pounding feet had settled down to a constant pace. It was time for Blade to make his move. He tried to breathe even more deeply than before, found it impossible, and decided to gamble.

As fast as he had been running before, it seemed to him now that he was almost flying. He barely felt his feet touch the ground, barely heard the breath wheezing in and out as his lungs clawed at the air. He saw Chamba stare at him, then he had to turn his head to watch the Zungan warrior.

There was agony, agony of the body and agony of the mind, written all over the man's face. His arms began to flail and his mouth opened wide, trying to gulp down as much air as possible. His eyes were no longer focused on Blade, or on anything else. They stared blindly ahead, into the fading sky, toward the flat horizon of the endless plain.

Suddenly he stumbled. He did not go down, but the steady pattern of his steps was broken. In the moments it took Chamba to recover, Blade gained ten feet. He could no longer look back at the Zungan without risking stumbling and falling, himself. He put his opponent out of his mind and concentrated on ignoring the shooting pains in his legs. He knew they and his lungs were both very close to letting him down. It was going to be a matter of minutes or seconds.

Then there was a thudding sound behind him. He risked turning his head back to where Chamba should have been, and saw nothing. He turned farther-and he saw the Zungan warrior writhing on the ground, kicking his legs and clawing at his chest, rolling over and over. Nayung and the others had stopped and were standing over Chamba, looking down at him.

Blade had to force his legs to stop moving, they had been going so long and so steadily. He stood still for a moment, then turned and walked slowly back to the others. He could not entirely keep his feet from dragging, or his chest from heaving like a bellows. But neither could he keep a broad grin off his sweating face as he looked down at Chamba. He did not feel particularly angry with the man, only a bit irritated with him for having forced this whole running match so far beyond the point of reason.

Then Nayung started, and said in an unexpectedly loud voice, «Blade, look!» He pointed at something to the north, behind Blade.

Blade turned and saw three columns of dark gray smoke curling up into the sky from below the horizon. «What is that, Nayung? Brona?»

«Yes. But those are Death Fires.»

«Death Fires?»

«Yes. And for a royal death. I hope it is not Prince Makuluno. He was most worthy.» Nayung's face seemed to have gone pale under the sweat. Without another word, he waved his arm toward the smoke columns and started moving. One by one the others followed. This time, Chamba brought up the rear. Blade did not worry about that; the Zungan was too exhausted and ashamed to try anything for the moment. He was more worried about what lay beneath those three smoke columns. A royal death? The hour of a royal death was seldom a good time to arrive among a new people, and often a dangerous one.