Bunduki (Bunduki Series Book One) (19 page)

For her part, Sabart was perturbed and
not a little afraid. Ever since the eerie cry had arisen from the
depths of the bushes, followed by sounds such as a rhinoceros made
when it was attacking and the scream of a man—the eagle’s
attendant, Shanu, most likely—in mortal agony, she had been
experiencing a sensation of superstitious dread. Nor had it grown
less at the events which had followed.

According to Chanak, the foreign
girl’s tracks had disappeared in a way that suggested she had
climbed the inclined trunk of a tree. However, there had been no
sign of her among the foliage. Instead, they had heard noises from
the branches of the nearby trees which had been suggestive of those
made by a monkey leaping from one to another—except that something
larger and heavier was responsible for them.

Remembering the various stories
she had heard about the ‘Hairy People’ and being uncomfortably
aware that she was approaching what was said to be their domain,
Sabart was troubled by her thoughts. She could not forget how Tomlu
had been killed, with the arrow sunk so deeply into his
chest
through
his breastplate.

No ordinary human being could have
done such a thing!

What if
—?

‘
There she is!’

Chanak’s excited comment cut
through Sabart’s uneasy sequence of thoughts. Looking in the
direction which he was indicating, she let out a sigh of relief and
urged her
banar-gatah
forward with a greater willingness than she had up to now
been displaying.

Crossing the small clearing,
Sabart and Chanak halted the zebras. After a quick glance around,
they dismounted and stood over Dawn’s unconscious body. They
could
hear
Elidor and Mador approaching and exchanged delighted
glances.

‘
We’ve
got her, Chanak!’ Sabart enthused, unaware that a similar
sentiment was being expressed by her rival.

Elidor and Mador had not made any
special effort to catch up with the Protectress’s supporters.
Instead, they had been content to follow at a distance which would
have allowed them to retire if the foreign girl had led them into
an ambush. They had closed the gap somewhat, due to the other two
slowing down when they reached the place where Dawn had taken to
the trees.

‘
May the
Quagga God curse them!’ Elidor spat out, glaring furiously through
the undergrowth and across the clearing.
‘They’ve caught the foreign
bitch!’

‘
Dryaka won’t be pleased
when we go back and say Charole’s got her,’ Mador answered,
scowling malevolently and making what his companion considered to
be an understatement.

‘
I
wouldn’t want to have to go back and tell him,’ Elidor
declared, bringing her
banar-gatah
to a halt. ‘And
I’ve
no intention of doing it.’

In the clearing by Dawn’s body, Chanak
nodded his agreement with Sabart’s statement. Then he turned to his
zebra. He opened the left side saddlebag and removed a long rawhide
thong. Going to Dawn and kneeling at her side, he rolled her onto
her stomach. After pulling her hands behind her back, ignoring her
groan and feeble movements as she struggled to regain
consciousness, he used the thong to secure her wrists. Having done
so, he drew the Randall knife from its sheath.

Although Chanak’s primary
intention had been to disarm the girl, the look and feel of the
weapon attracted his attention. He did not realize that he was
holding an example of what Judge Roy S. Tinney, secretary of the
American Academy of Arms, had described as ‘a refined and perfected
Bowie’, or that the eight-inch-long, clip-pointed blade was
hand-made from the finest Swedish
tool steel. However, he could tell that it
might be as special and unusual as the bow and arrows with which
she had dispatched Charole’s eagle and Tomlu.

‘
This
is mine!’ the man stated, showing the knife to
Sabart.

‘
Charole will
see that you get it when we deliver this bitch to her,’ the woman
answered, stirring the weakly struggling and groaning girl with her
left toe. ‘I can hardly wait to see what she’ll do to
her
.’

Being so full of themselves and
absorbed in their respective sources of delight—Sabart because Dawn
had been captured, and Chanak because he had gained almost certain
possession of something which he knew was very special—two very
important matters had slipped right out of their minds.

When sending the party to capture
Dawn, Dryaka had deliberately avoided any mention of the importance
that he attached to also obtaining her bow and arrows. For all
that, her captors ought to have given thought to the fact that she
was no longer carrying them.

Of infinitely greater importance to
them personally was the fact that neither was giving any
consideration to how their rivals might react when learning that
they had achieved their purpose.

The latter omission was to cost them
dearly.

Sabart was the first to become aware
that they were being remiss in their behavior. Hearing the sound of
hooves behind her, she turned with the intention of displaying her
triumph to her rival. What she saw drove all thoughts of enjoyment
and satisfaction from her head. One glance was all she needed to
realize that she and her companion were in grave danger.

While Elidor and Mador had
entered the clearing side by side, only the man was mounted. That
the woman was on foot of her own free will was shown by the thing
which she was carrying in her right hand. That, and the way in
which Mador was sitting on his
banar-gatah
gave a grim warning that they did not
intend to surrender their claim to the prisoner, despite her having
fallen into their rivals’ hands.

‘
Chanak!’
Sabart screamed, sending her right hand
across towards the hilt of her sword. ‘Look
behi
—
’

Darting forward, Elidor drew back and
snapped forward her right arm. The spear which she had drawn from
its retaining loops on the skirt of her saddle left her hand and
flashed across the clearing. Its point struck Sabart just below the
left breast and impaled her before she could even start to draw the
sword or to attempt any kind of evasion.

With her warning ending in a shriek of
agony, the stricken woman spun around and bumped into Chanak. It
could not have happened at a worse moment. Having glanced around,
he too had appreciated the peril and was preparing to counter it.
He was thrusting himself erect, letting Dawn’s knife drop as he
reached for the sword—a more familiar weapon—that he had sheathed
before seeming their prisoner. Rebounding after having knocked her
companion off balance, Sabart clutched ineffectually at the spear’s
handle and fell alongside Dawn.

As the spear was leaving
Elidor’s hand, a touch from Mador’s heels gave his
well-trained
banar-gatah
the signal which it had been expecting since its rider had
lowered his lance to the ready’ position. The animal bounded
forward, guided by knee pressure rather than control from the reins
held in the man’s left hand. It built up speed rapidly, making for
what its instincts said was the object of its master’s
attentions.

Watching Chanak staggering from
the collision with Sabart, Mador let out a hiss of triumph. The
mishap had put the Protectress’s adherent at his mercy. However, he
knew better than to take chances with a man as experienced as
Chanak was in fighting on foot against a mounted, lance-carrying
opponent. With the
banar-gatah
carrying him into striking distance, he aligned his weapon
at a downwards angle.

Chanak recognized his terrible
predicament, but could do nothing to avert it. Nor did he have any
false hopes about surviving the encounter.

While a Mun-Gatah’s breastplate
would turn aside the usual kind of arrows with which the wearer was
brought into conflict, their own lances were a very different
proposition. At the end of the nine foot shaft of male bamboo, the
head had a twelve-inches-long, diamond-section steel blade that was
two-and-a-half-inches at its widest and tapered to an acute point.
It was retained in position by a pair of steel languets some three
feet long which extended down the pole and were secured by six
screws on each side.
^xxxv
All in all, it made a very deadly
weapon and was one which the Mun-Gatah warriors had brought to the
peak of efficiency.

Before Chanak could regain his
equilibrium, the point of Mador’s lance met the centre of his
chest. The High Priest’s supporter had the rear end of the shaft
tucked under his right arm and was pressing it tight against his
ribs. In addition to his hand grasping the shaped grip at the point
of balance, greater firmness and security was achieved from the
rawhide loop that was attached just above it and encircled his
wrist.

Aided by the
banar-gatah’s
onrushing impetus, the lance’s head cut through
Chanak’s breastplate and into the flesh below. The impact threw him
backwards and from his feet. Turning his hand as his victim went
down and his mount rushed by, Mador released his hold and slipped
his wrist from the loop. Reining the
banar-gatah
around, he drew his sword and, when the
turn was completed, sprang from the saddle. He knew there would be
no need for the second weapon. Pinned to the ground by the lance,
Chanak lay supine with his limbs flailing spasmodically. Even that
movement ended before Mador reached him.

‘
She’s ours
now, Mador!’ Elidor stated delightedly, placing her foot on
Sabart’s lifeless body as an aid in retrieving her
spear.
‘We’ll have to do something about Stafak,
though.’

‘
We’ll give him the same as
these two,’ Mador stated. ‘Then, when we get back, we’ll say that
we were separated and pretend to be surprised that they aren’t
back.’

‘
She could spoil that for
us,’ Elidor warned, indicating the still unconscious
girl.

‘
Not if she
doesn’t know what’s happened,’ Mador pointed out. ‘Take them and
their
banar-gatahs
into the woods where she’ll not be able to see
them. Then go and kill Stafak. I’ll look after her.’

‘
Make sure
that
look
is all you do,’ Elidor advised, knowing the man. ‘Dryaka
wanted her for himself.’

‘
Bunduki!
Bunduki! Help!’

Standing on the crotch of the tree
into which he had climbed to make preparations for spending the
night, the blond giant dropped the leaves he had gathered on to the
pile of branches as he heard Joar-Fane’s terror-filled voice
screaming the words.

Having heard Dawn’s distress
call, without having realized that it was she who had given it,
Bunduki had—much to Joar-Fane’s annoyance—insisted upon
resuming
their journey. He had reduced her irritation by explaining
to her his plans for ensuring their safety from prowling carnivores
during the hours of darkness. Accepting the situation with what
good grace she could muster, she had apparently consoled herself by
considering and anticipating the pleasures which she felt sure lay
ahead. Certainly, she had been cheerful enough as she had walked
along at his side.

By the time the sun had started
to set, Bunduki and Joar-Fane had been approaching the more open
woodland. Completely unaware that Dawn had been taken captive by
the Mun-Gatahs, although he still had the subconscious belief that
she was somewhere to the northwest and might be in danger, the
blond giant had realized that trying to continue the search after
night had fallen would be futile. So he had selected a tree which
met his requirements and, while Joar-Fane had taken the remains of
the capybara’s leg to wash it in a stream they had passed a short
while earlier, he had set about making the kind of a bed that
chimpanzees and the
Mangani
used in the branches of trees.

Looking downwards, Bunduki found that
the undergrowth prevented him from discovering the cause of
Joar-Fane’s cry for help. So he did not waste time in making
useless speculation. Instead, he grabbed the vine which he had cut
so that its end was dangling to the ground in order to help the
girl attain their bed-platform. Going down hand over hand at
considerable speed, he let go and dropped when certain he could do
so without risk of injury. Although his bow and arrows were lying
at the foot of the tree, he did not pause to gather them up. As
soon as he alighted, he started to run towards the point from which
he had last heard the girl.

Bunduki did not know what to
expect as he sprinted through the bushes. Nor was there anything to
supply a clue. After her first shouted words, Joar-Fane had been
silent. Nor had he heard any other sounds that might
have accounted for
her state of alarm. It was possible that she had fallen foul
of
Bul-Mok
’s
family, or another group of
Mangani.
Or it might be some kind of animal which
was stalking her. No matter what it was, there was nothing to
suggest that it had caught or was attacking her.