Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (41 page)

Lying nearby, Kong gave utterance to a cheeping grunt, as if curious, or even afraid. For the beast-god did not understand what his small ears conveyed to his brain.

This was a new sound in his experience.

Penjaga peered around, puzzled.

Over in one corner, Stormalong Savage seemed to rise, and speak. But his words were lost in the overpowering music.

Out in the jungle below Skull Mountain the magnified melody careened. It wafted over the shaggy palm crowns tossing in the breeze. It caused birds and beasts alike to snap heads around and cry out in surprise.

All of Skull Island heard it, from the natives in the village who suddenly lined the great sprawling wall, rapt with wonder, to the Dyaks tending their devilish fires below.

Others heard it, too. And in the covered jungle lanes, swift, furtive things were moving, coming closer, lured by the awesome sound.

Doc Savage kept up the sound for what seemed a yawning eternity. He paused for breath only once, and when he did, he took in air so swiftly that the trilling that was his signature appeared to be uninterrupted.

On and on, it wavered, climbing, falling, rising, dying, reviving, reverberating, seemingly inexhaustible.

Inevitably, the sound ceased. It trailed away like the dying sigh of a supernatural being.

“What the devil?” blurted Captain Savage.

“If I am correct,” said Doc, “it will not be long.”

“What on Earth are you driving at?”

Then far below, came a chorus of screaming, followed by other noises—weird, grisly, rending.

Penjaga’s sharp ears took in the noisy tumult. Her puzzled face smoothed out in shock and surprise.

“Slashers!” she hissed. “Deathrunners!”

FROM below, the sounds of slaughter carried. The smoke made it almost impossible to see what transpired far beneath them.

But the awful cacophony was unmistakable—unforgettable.

Men running, fighting, being pursued. Here and there, feral cries—cries that seemed almost human, but were not.

And mingled here and there, an uncanny whistling such as Doc had heard before. The human-like whistling of the canny deathrunners mimicking the sounds of men!

Mixed in with the terrible smarting smoke, they began to pick up the definite odor of spilled blood. A great quantity of it.

Entwined with that odor, came the crunching of bones and teeth tearing and rending—meat being ripped asunder by remorseless jaws housing serrated teeth.

Before very long, these sounds settled down to a noisy chewing and feeding.

Captain Savage looked at his son in stunned silence.

“Brilliant,” he breathed. “Simply brilliant. Tarzan himself, calling for his jungle comrades, could not have done a more credible job.”

“Thank you,” returned Doc modestly. “But this is far from over.”

From the pool, came a gurgle and a splash, followed by the padding of stealthy feet.

“Stormalong!” rapped Doc.

A bronze flash, he rushed to his grandfather’s side.

Hovering over the elongated form crouched the wiry wet figure of Monyet. His dark eyes were wide, wild with the closeness of thwarted death.

One hand seized the truncated tail—all that remained of Stormalong’s white beard—yanked his head off the ground and to one side. The other was clutching his dripping
duku.
It lifted.

Doc Savage plunged in. The moon threw his leaping shadow ahead of him.

Seeing this, Monyet whirled. His filed and blackened teeth showed in a fierce grimace. It might have been a wolfish grin, or it might have been a sneering snarl. It was impossible to tell.

Doc, a mighty colossus of living metal, closed with the smaller man.

In an ordinary contest, it would have been unequal. It
was
unequal.

Monyet was winded. Even though his chest heaved with every breath, his close brush with death combined with his burning hatred enervated him. He was alive with a vitality that only a man facing personal doom knows.

Doc had out his Bowie knife. His intention was to use it to hamstring the Dyak as he wrestled him to the ground. The Lakota Sioux had taught him this tactic.

But before he could accomplish this maneuver, the bronze man had to wrest the
duku
from his foe’s fist. A weapon that was designed to lop a man’s head off his shoulder with a sidewise swipe.

Doc came on straight, feinted left, right, then ducked beneath the side-swiping blade.

Seizing the Dyak about the neck and legs, he threw him to the ground, swiftly applying the sharpened edge of his Bowie knife along the back of the man’s knees, severing the ligaments there.

Monyet screamed, recognizing that he had been crippled in an instant.

Stepping back, Doc held his blade ready, in case he needed to strike again.

Monyet bored hateful eyes into the bronze man’s own. A sneer crawled across his hairless brown face. Then, he opened his hand, showing what lay in his palm.

A Dyak dart!

Suddenly, Doc Savage became aware of the stinging sensation in his left bicep.

Grabbing the flesh, he saw the telltale blood spot.

He had been stabbed by a poisoned dart unawares!

More swiftly than he thought it possible, the metallic giant began to feel light-headed. His knees turned watery. He staggered, sought the support of a stone wall. Cold perspiration popped out on his forehead. A deep groan emerged from him.

Behind him others reacted, not knowing what it all meant.

As they rushed toward the stricken man, Monyet began crawling toward Doc Savage, his
duku
clutched tightly, his eyes avidly staring at the bronze giant’s head, and the valuable orbs of gold it contained….

Chapter LX

RUNNING FEET MADE hurried sounds. Doc Savage heard all this only dimly. There was a ringing in his ears. A blood-red curtain fell across his vision. He was succumbing to the poison of the
upas
sap.

Captain Savage and Chicahua came charging in from different directions. They moved with all of their pent-up might, yelling, howling, demanding that the Dyak cease.

But Monyet did not hear them. Even if he had, he would not stop. He had only one feverish thought in mind—to harvest the head of the bronze giant whose eyes were composed of gold dust.

It all happened in less than a minute. It would never be forgotten over a lifetime.

As Doc Savage crumpled, rapidly losing consciousness, a great hairy hand lifted with a cracking of cartilage and fell over Monyet the Dyak prince.

Monyet sensed the shadow looming over him, but in his madness, refused to acknowledge it.

And so when the powerful fingers of the beast-god of Skull Island squeezed him, Monyet did not know his peril until his body left the cold stone floor and he was being conveyed, flailing and screaming, toward the yawning and white-fanged maw of the terrible Kong.

Still clutching his blade, Monyet attempted to slash at his gigantic foe.

The blade swept once, then back, then fell from his hands when a black thumb larger than he casually stove in his chest at the sternum.

Monyet screeched. His cry of mortal pain echoed and reverberated off the uncaring granite walls of the lair of Kong, bouncing among the stalactites and stalagmites, perpetuating itself wildly.

The next he knew—and the last thing Monyet ever experienced—was having his howling head inserted into the humid, malodorous mouth of the gigantic ape.

Monster teeth came together with a harsh snap. The crunch of Monyet’s fragile neck bones was hardly audible over that awful finality.

The beast-god chewed this fresh morsel experimentally, then spat it out in evident disgust. It was plainly not to his taste.

When Kong flung the headless body from him, it flew out onto the ledge, to topple over the cliff’s edge, neck stump pumping arterial blood, carelessly painting the rocks all the way down to its final fate.

Below, a startled slasher looked up and decided to investigate. It ate well.

Chapter LXI

WHEN DOC SAVAGE returned to consciousness, he looked around.

His father, Chicahua and Penjaga the Keeper looked down upon him, faces mixing worry with unabashed relief.

“I still live,” he said simply.

“For this boon,” related Captain Savage, “you may thank Penjaga and her herbs. That, and the fortuitous fact that the poisonous dart that struck you had been diluted by the Dyak’s long swim. Very little potency remained when it bit.”

“Otherwise, I could not have saved you,” added the Keeper.

“Monyet?” asked Doc.

“Kong took his head. He threw away the rest.”

“Stormalong?”

No one answered. They all looked away.

“Dead?” asked Doc, attempting to rise.

His father replied gravely, “No, but the end is near.”

“Take me to his side,” requested Doc.

Both Chicahua and Captain Savage had to help the bronze man to his feet.

Together, they reached the side of Old Stormy, stretched out near the greenish pool.

His yellow eyes were open. They were cloudy and their color was dull. Stormalong Savage was staring up into the vaulted rock ceiling as if into eternity.

“Grandfather…” said Doc.

The fading yellow eyes focused. Lips curled in a thin smile. “Doc….”

“I have so many questions to ask you.”

“And I have no time left on Earth to answer them. I am so sorry.”

Doc groped for words. “I… am sincerely glad to have known you at last.”

“And I am justifiably proud to see what you have become. Cap, you should be proud of your son.”

Doc looked to his father. “Cap?”

Clark Savage, Senior, looked sheepish. “When I was a boy, my father called me his Little Captain. Cap for short.”

“You loved being called that,” murmured Stormalong. “When you were very young….”

Captain Savage nodded, his eyes wet.

“As soon as I grew into long pants,” he said thickly, “I put it behind me forever.”

Silence fell over them all. There was only the raspy breathing of Stormalong Savage. He coughed once. His lips were flecked with a pinkish foam.

“It is better this way,” he managed. “For I have no ship. I do not wish to live like the sad Karo Bataks. I only wish I could walk the warpy deck of the old
Courser
one last time.”

Pain touched Clark Savage’s eyes. “That, I fear, is impossible now.”

“You know what my last wish is, don’t you, Cap?”

Captain Savage nodded. “Burial at sea. It will be done with all due and proper ceremony. Rest assured.”

Filmy yellow eyes searched the faces arrayed around. Clark Savage, Senior. Chicahua. Penjaga. Finally, they fell on the stricken face of Doc Savage.

“I have no heritage to bequeath to you, grandson. No wealth. No property. No station in life. For that, I am truly sorry.”

“It does not matter,” assured Doc.

“I suppose not. So I leave you with these words from the Bard of Avon: ‘Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.’ May they light your path.”

“I will try to live by those words,” promised Doc.

Captain Savage cleared his throat. “To which I might add, ‘Keep your mind, your conscience and your body clean.’”

Frowning, Doc asked, “I do not recall those lines from literature. Shakespeare?”

“Nick Carter’s father spoke those very words to his own son.”

“I see.” But Doc’s expression was faintly puzzled.

With that, a low rattle issued from the throat of Stormalong Savage and his entire elongated frame relaxed. A final exhaling breath seemed to flurry his snowy white beard. His eyes closed slowly, but not completely. A glint of dull amber remained.

Captain Savage closed them with gentle fingers that trembled. “I never imagined that I would live to see this day,” he whispered.

He stood up. “And so it is done.”

“There are still the slashers,” warned Penjaga the Keeper.

AS if they had heard her, a rattle of rock and a scramble of hard, horny claws came from the other side of Kong, whose great amber-gold eyeball had rotated downward to witness the passing of Stormalong Savage.

The titanic ape roused, turned his head toward the ledge. From his bristling throat issued a low warning growl.

Sounds of scampering persisted. With it, came an eerie whistle. It was the whistle of Stormalong Savage, but it issued from a deathrunner’s throat!

“The slashers cannot climb,” said Penjaga. “But the deathrunners are more clever. That one is trying to lure us to our dooms.”

Painfully, Kong reached out and wrapped a hairy hand around a boulder too large for mortal man to lift. Nor could he manage to raise it in his present condition.

But carefully, he pushed it farther and farther along toward the entrance, finally giving it a jerky push. But his great arm was too short to complete the task.

Captain Savage, assisted by Chicahua, stepped in and put their backs to the stone.

The boulder made ugly grinding noises inching onto the ledge, but they managed it.

They got it to the stony lip. With a final heave, they sent it over. The cracking sound of shattering stone striking and dragging a screaming deathrunner to its doom on the rocks below gave them all renewed hope.

Kong appeared to grunt in pleasure. Then, he slowly closed his eyes.

“There are many more,” Penjaga reminded. “Some have not eaten their fill.”

“How can we defeat these things?” asked Captain Savage angrily.

“We cannot wait for them to finish feeding and leave,” she said. “For they know that we are here. They will hide in the brush until we show ourselves. Then they will come screaming and devour us.”

Captain Savage bowed his silvery head. “Then we have no hope.”

“There is one thing,” said Penjaga, smiling slyly.

“Yes?”

“The sting-ray spines. The slashers are not immune to their venom. That is why I carry them.”

Hearing that, Doc Savage struggled to his feet. Reaching into his waistband, he extracted the elaborate Pan-pipe blowgun and Penjaga’s waterproof pouch of sting-ray spines. Loading it carefully, he moved toward the ledge, pausing only to give the sleeping Kong a reassuring pat atop his bullet head.