Fearless Master of the Jungle (A Bunduki Jungle Adventure (10 page)

Once again Bunduki left Dawn to
take care of the mare. Darting in rapidly, he used his knee to pin
the stallion
’s neck to the ground. Before it could start to struggle or
try to reach him with its hind legs, he hooked the loop of the
‘twitch’ around its top lip and twisted the stick until the cord
was drawn tight. With that achieved, he rose and moved until he was
standing in front of the quagga’s head. When it showed signs of
intending to resist, he applied a trifle more tension. Feeling the
pain increasing, it displayed its intelligence by returning to
immobility.

Not until he had established
his control over the stallion could the blond giant spare a glance
for Dawn. He found that she had been equally successful. However,
lacking his size and weight, she had straddled and knelt astride
the mare
’s
neck while affixing the ‘twitch’. As soon as it was securely in
place, she had stood up and the female quagga was showing just as
good sense as the stallion by refraining from pain-inducing
struggles.

Spluttering out curses and
trying to make the
banar-gatah
go faster as it churned through the water, At-Vee was hard
put to restrain his impatience. Coming ashore, he reined the animal
to a stop and almost tumbled from the saddle in his eagerness.
However, he did not permit emotion to make him forget any part of
his instructions. Allowing the reins to fall free and ground hitch
his mount, he ran to Dawn’s side. Although he had two more aids to
the capture hanging over his knife and
shilva,
he left them there and removed the
hobbles she was carrying.

As the Hunter knelt by the mare
and touched its upper hoof, it snorted and tried to jerk the leg
away. Instantly Dawn made use of the
‘twitch’ and its effort ended. Nor did it
attempt further objections while he was buckling the cuffs of the
hobbles into place. With that task completed, there was a further
precaution he had to take before removing the
boleadora.

The article At-Vee took from
across his
shilvas
head was modeled upon the
hackamore
of the American Indians and cowhands. Made
mainly from rope, it was shaped like a bridle. There was a loop
known as a
bosal
at the lower end, which would encircle the quagga’s head
immediately above the mouth and serve as a bit. Higher, a three
inch wide brow band made out of an opened up
fulsa
sack could be slid down the cheeks to
act as a blindfold. While reins could be attached, as yet only a
lead rope was fitted.

Working
as quickly as possible, At-Vee
slipped the
bosal
over the stick of the ‘twitch’ and, with the girl moving
first one, then the other hand to let it pass, eased the hackamore
into place as he had rehearsed the previous night. Having settled
it firmly in position, he adjusted the brow band over the mare’s
eyes and set about untangling the cords around the forelegs. With
that task completed, he went across and did the same for the blond
giant.

Fifteen minutes later, the capture was
complete.

Joar-Fane had joined her
husband and friends to help put the finishing touches to their
efforts. Wanting to give the quaggas an opportunity to recover from
the fright and moderately rough handling they had received, the
human beings had withdrawn a short distance. Having regained their
feet, the combination of being blindfolded and hobbled was inducing
the mare and stallion to refrain from trying to escape. They were
further calmed by being able to smell and hear the
banar-gatahs,
which had been unsaddled, grazing close
by.

‘
Well
you’ve got them, brother!’ At-Vee stated.

‘
We’ve
got them,’ Bunduki agreed, just as delightedly. ‘Now all we have to
do is tame them.’

‘
That
won’t be hard,’ Dawn declared. ‘All you pair will have to do is
let
us
do all the thinking for you. Don’t you agree,
Joar—?’

As Bunduki had done the
previous afternoon, the girl committed an error in tactics. Instead
of keeping him under observation, she turned her head to look at
Joar-Fane on starting the final sentence. A powerful hand caught
her right wrist and, before she realized what was happening, the
blond giant was sitting on a rock with her across his knee.
Transferring his grip to the back of her neck and pinning her down,
he applied the flat of his free palm to the seat of her
leopard
skin
pants.

‘
Ow!’
Dawn screeched and, the words being punctuated by further slaps and
squeaks of pain, went on, ‘Help me, Joar-Fane!’

‘
Y
ou try and you’ll get the same,’ At-Vee warned his
wife.

For a moment, the little
Telonga girl stood indecisive. Then she gave a shrug and, eyes
bubbling with merriment, said,
‘I’m sorry, sister. I don’t
know
you. So it’s not my
place to interfere.’

‘
You
should have listened to me last night, Dawn,’ At-Vee commented, as
the spanking ran its course. ‘I said everything comes to those who
wait—and ask for it.’

However, despite the levity, they all
knew that their problems were not at an end. The capture had been
successful, but they would have to wait until the quaggas would
succumb to being led and that was certain to take a few more
days.

Despite the curses Charole had uttered
over yielding to an impulse that had caused her some difficulties,
when she looked back, she felt that her luck was still holding
out.

Having made her escape from Bon-Gatah
with nothing untoward occurring, Charole had decided against
following the suggestions of Elder Eokan immediately. While she was
satisfied that he had sufficient ulterior motives to be sincere in
his offer of assistance, she considered that something else must
take precedence over going directly to Zeh-Gatah. A shrewd
strategist and born conspirator, she was aware of the value of
negotiating from as strong a position as possible, and she hoped to
gather the means to do just that.

When he had been preparing to
betray his superior, Zongaffa the Herbalist had made a large
quantity of Thunder Powder and had, almost certainly, prepared a
number of
“Terrifiers”. In which case, they must be hidden somewhere,
and Charole had deduced that the hiding place would be in the
vicinity of the late High Priest’s country villa. So she had gone
there with the intention of searching for what would be of the
greatest help in her bid to return to power.

That had been five days
ago.

Since then, the Protectress had had
cause to regret having made the attempt!

While conducting the search,
Charole had been seen
by the one person more than anybody else who had
cause to hate her.

Not only had Elidor of
Veet-Gatah been the High Priest
’s senior female adherent, she was the one
he had hoped would supplant Charole as the Protectress of the
Quagga God. However, having suffered defeat at the hands of Dawn of
the ‘Earths’—all the more humiliating because the foreigner’s
wrists had been manacled—she had fallen from grace. Before she
could recover from the broken jaw she had sustained in the fight,
Dryaka had formed his alliance with Charole and she was displaced
permanently from his favor.

Obviously, on learning of the
High Priest
’s death, Elidor had either decided to establish herself as
owner of his estate, or had duplicated Charole’s summation with
regard to Zongaffa’s treachery. Whatever the reason, she and six
male companions had come on the scene while the Protectress was
trying to locate the hoard of Thunder Powder. Recognizing her from
a distance, despite the changes she had made to her appearance,
they had given chase.

If Charole had had her own
quagga as a mount, she would have been able to leave her pursuers
far behind during the early stages and lose them at her leisure. As
it was, while the
banar-gatah
stallion circumstances had compelled her to use was an
animal of excellent quality it could do no more than maintain
roughly the same distance between her and her pursuers as she made
for Zeh-Gatah. Naturally, after the original attempt failed to
bring them together, neither she nor Elidor’s party were riding at
a gallop. Instead, the latter were following her with the aid of an
exceptionally competent reader of tracks.

In spite of having been taught
various methods of hiding signs of her passing, Charole did not
offer to put any of them into practice.
^xxx
They were all too time-consuming to
carry out correctly and anything less, considering the obvious
quality of the man doing the tracking, would be futile. Nor, as the
advantages were outweighed by other factors, had she kept moving
after night had fallen in order to increase her lead and, perhaps,
lose her pursuers. In addition to having no wish to tire and
possibly ride her stallion into the ground, she had known that the
proliferation of carnivores with nocturnal hunting habits, and
other dangerous animals, made travelling through the darkness an
extremely hazardous undertaking. Sharing her appreciation of the
difficulties, Elidor’s party had also halted once the sun went
down.

One worrying point for Charole
was that she was prevented from taking the most direct route to her
destination. She had been driven northwards by the original chase
and was now making a semi-circular swing towards Zeh-Gatah. What
was more, the area she had entered shortly before nightfall on the
third afternoon was rolling, but not too dense, woodland that
fringed the great
‘Lake With Only One Shore’ close to which— although she had
estimated it was still some miles away—the city was
situated.

For all
Charole
’s
misgivings, by noon on the fifth day of the pursuit, it seemed that
her persistence had paid off. Since she had set out that morning,
after breakfasting upon the
fulsa
and stream water which had been her only
sustenance since fleeing from Bon-Gatah, she had
seen
nothing of Elidor’s
party. Of course, because of the woodland terrain she was
traversing, her view to the rear was extremely limited. However,
she was taking comfort from the thought that they would possibly be
suffering even more than she was from the reduction of visibility.
They would now be forced to rely entirely upon their tracker, which
would compel them to move more slowly than she was.

Even as Charole was returning
her gaze to the path ahead, her complacency was shattered
in
no uncertain
fashion. She was going across a fair-sized clearing and, suddenly,
found herself surrounded by riders who appeared from concealment
all around it. There was even one to her rear, cutting off any
slender chance of a retreat. Facing the Protectress was Elidor!
Dressed and armed in the same style, except that she did not carry
a lance, the woman almost matched Charole in height and dimensions.
Although, in healing, the break had left her jaw slightly crooked,
she was still sullenly beautiful and about the same age as the
Protectress. Nearly as strong and fit, she had attained a
well-deserved reputation as a warrior. Lounging on the saddle of
her
banar-gatah
stallion, which was showing just as much evidence of hard
travelling as Charole’s leg-weary mount, she had a sword dangling
from her right hand.

‘
There, you see!’ Elidor said, looking with triumphant
exultation at the nearest man who was also mounted on a
banar-gatah
stallion. ‘I told
you that she was making for Zeh-Gatah and we could catch her by
cutting across this way.’

‘
You
did,’ the warrior agreed.

‘
So
you made a lucky guess for once,’ Charole scoffed, turning the
lance in her right hand and throwing it so that the point stuck in
the ground by her mount. ‘Now what?’

Before she started to speak,
the Protectress
’s thoughts were racing. The bag containing the small sack
of ‘Thunder Powder’ and the ‘Terrifiers’ was wrapped with her ‘fire
box’ and other belongings in the cloak that was strapped on the
cantle of her saddle. Even if they had been readily available, the
latter’s fuse cord was not lit. So she had no way of bringing the
potent devices into operation. Nor did she consider that the lance,
or the throwing spear hanging on the skirt of her saddle, would
serve her needs. Her
banar-gatah
had been too hard pressed over the past few days
to make a suitable mount on which to wield the former weapon, and
she doubted whether she would be granted an opportunity to draw,
much less throw, the latter. There was, she accepted, only one way
open to her.

‘
You
took an oath to sacrifice one of the “Earths” to the Quagga God,’
Elidor replied. ‘But we haven’t seen it happen yet. So you have
lost His favor and have forfeited your right to act as His
Protectress.’