Manly Wade Wellman - Hok 01 Read online

  “You might have killed yourself,” he scolded.

  She burst into new tears. “I hate you. As soon as you let me go, I will try again.”

  Hok took from his shoulders the javelin-strap. Pulling her wrists together, he bound them.

  “My feet are free,” she cried and, springing up, darted from the cave and leaped across the fire. Before she had run half a dozen steps he overtook her and dragged her back. This time he bound her ankles with his girdle-thong. She lay helpless but tameless, and glared. Hok hugged his knees and studied her with worried eyes.

  “I wanted you the moment I saw you,” he said plaintively. “I thought you would want me, too.”

  She spat at him, rolled over and closed her eyes.

  “Sleep then,” he conceded. “I shall sleep, too.”

  In the morning he woke to find her propped upon bound hands, her eyes turned unforgivingly upon him.

  “Let me untie you,” he offered at once.

  “Do,” she urged bitterly. “Then I can kill myself.”

  “You must be thirsty,” he said. “I will bring some water.”

  In the clearing he plucked a dried gourd from a spreading vine. Deftly cracking it, he cleansed the withered pulp from one cuplike piece and filled it at the stream. Carrying it back, he offered it to Oloana. She neither moved nor spoke, but when he held it to her lips she drew her head away.

  “You do not eat or drink,” he said. “You will die.”

  “Let me die, then.”

  Hok gazed at her perplexedly. Things were not going as he had hoped. What would life be like, with a sullen, vengeful woman who must go always tied lest she run away or kill herself? Suddenly Hok saw an awful vision— Oloana still and voiceless, with blood flowing from her heart where nested his javelin. So vivid was the mental picture that he dashed the back of his hand to his eyes.

  “I hate you,” Oloana snapped at him.

  He rose and stooped above her. His hands caught the leather that bound her wrists, his muscles suddenly swelled, his breath came in a single explosive pant. The cord broke. Bending, he hooked fingers under the thong at her ankles. A heave, a tug, and that, too, tore apart.

  “Run away,”' he bade her dully.

  She rose to her feet, amazed.

  “I thought I had you,” he tried to explain, “but, even when you were tied, I did not have you.” His brow creased at his own paradox. “You hate me. Run away.”

  “You don’t want me now?” she challenged him.

  His hands grasped her shoulders. Their faces were close to each other. His stare fastened upon her sulky mouth, as full and red as a summer fruit. How sweet that fruit would taste, he suddenly thought. His face darted down upon hers, their lips crushed together for a whirling moment. Clumsy, savage, unpredicted, it was perhaps the first kiss in human history.

  Still more abruptly, Hok spun and fairly raced out of the cave, out of the clearing, into the forest away from Oloana’s black eyes and fruit-red mouth.

  CHAPTER V

  The Capture of Hok

  BUT he did not run far. Somehow it had been easier to run yesterday, even when encumbered by the struggles of Oloana. Hok lagged. His troubled young eyes sought the ground. His feet took him where they wished.

  The day and the distances wore away, like rock under falling water. Hok did not eat. Twice or thrice he drank at singing brooks, then spewed out the water as though it were brakish. Once he saw a wild pig rooting in a thicket and by force of habit reached back for his javelins. Then he remembered that he had left them leaning at the door of the cave. He had left Oloana there, too. He could get more javelins, but never another Oloana.

  It was nearly evening. He walked slowly down a game-trail, less watchfully than he had ever walked since childhood. Before he knew it, something huge and swarthy flashed from behind a broad tree-bole and flung itself upon him.

  On the instant Hok was fighting for his life. One glimpse he caught of that distorted, black-bearded face before they grappled—it was Kimri, the giant who had sworn to follow him and take Oloana back. He was an adversary to daunt the bravest; but Hok had faced Gnorrls, which were more horrible. Smaller but quicker than Kimri, he locked his arms around the huge body in a python-tight underhold. His tawny head burrowed with canny force into Kimri’s shaggy cascade of black beard, driving under the heavy jaw and forcing it upward and back.

  The dark forest man’s huge muscles began to sag as Hok increased the leverage. Hok’s heel crooked behind Kimri’s, Hok’s entire weight came suddenly forward. Down they went with a crash of undergrowth, Kimri beneath, while his lighter opponent’s oak-hard fingers drove through the beard-tangles, finding and closing upon the throat beneath.

  But a flurry of feet drummed down upon them as they strove on the ground. Two sinewy hands damped under Hok’s chin from above and behind. He bit a finger to the bone, heard his new assailant howl, and next instant was yanked bodily away from the prostrate Kimri. As he tumbled he tore free, whirled catlike to get his feet under his body, and rose swiftly to face a second blackbeard, shorter and older than Kimri. But something darted forward to quiver a thumb’s-breadth from his heart — a long, lean dagger of chipped flint.

  “Move!” the newcomer dared him. It was Zorr, Oloana’s chieftain-father. “Move—and die!”

  Hok stood motionless. Kimri struggled up, wheezing and cherishing his bruised throat with shaking fingers. He gulped welcome air into his great lungs, then seized his fallen axe.

  “No!” barked the father of Oloana. “The rope!”

  At the voice of authority, Kimri dropped his axe and jerked from his girdle a coil of rawhide line. Quickly he flung a loop of it over Hok’s shoulders and ran the rest of it round and round, pinioning the prisoner’s arms to his body.

  The chief lowered his dagger. “Where is Oloana?”

  Hok shook his head.

  “Answer!” roared Kimri, and struck Hok’s mouth with his homy palm. Blood sprang to the bruised lips as Hok curled them in scorn.

  “Coward’s blow,” he mocked. “Untie me, and I will take the head from your body like a berry from a bush.”

  “Where is Oloana?” demanded Zorr again.

  “I do not know. I set her free.”

  “You lie,” raged Kimri. “Tell us where you have hidden her.”

  “I say that she is free,” insisted Hok.

  “Tell us,” Kimri repeated, “or we will kill you.”

  “You will kill me anyway,” said Hok.

  Kimri’s beard bristled, and again he clutched his axe. As before, the chief intervened.

  “It is nearly night, Kimri. We will camp. He can think until morning.” He studied Hok narrowly. “Tomorrow, if his mouth is still empty of the words we want, we will stuff it with hot coals.”

  Kimri grunted acquiescence, and the two herded their prisoner through the trees for nearly a mile. In a grove at the top of a brush-faced slope they came to a halt, shoved Hok violently down at the base of a big tree and tethered him between two gnarled roots with the free end of the rawhide. Then Zorr kindled a fire with rubbing sticks, chanting a ritual similar to the one Hok’s people used. The forest men produced flitches of dried venison from their belt-bags and began to eat, talking in low tones.

  Darkness came. The two dark men stretched and yawned. Kimri rose, larger than ever in the fireglow, and came to the big tree. He examined the knots in the cord and gave the prisoner a kick.

  “Tomorrow you will talk,” he prophesied balefully, and returned to the fire. Zorr built it up with hard wood. Then the two lay down and fell into quick, healthy slumber.

  HOK listened until the men by the fire began to breathe regularly and heavily. Then he tried his bonds, cautiously at first, lastly with all his strength; but the rawhide had been passed many times around him, and was drawn tight. He could not make it so much as crack.

  Forced to lie still, he thought of Oloana and her resentful beauty, of how he had not tamed her. With the dawn his enemies would awak
en and question him again. .Zorr had hinted of fire-torture. He, Hok, could truly tell them nothing, but they would never believe. If he were lucky, he might goad them into finishing him off quickly.

  He dozed fitfully at last, but started awake almost immediately. What was that? ... He felt, rather than heard, the stealthy approach of light feet. The ash-choked fire suddenly cast a bright tongue skyward, and Hok saw the newcomer—a woman, crowned with clouds of night-black hair. Oloana had tracked him down.

  She bent to look at Kimri, at her father. Another tongue of flame rose, and by its brief glow she saw where Hok lay. Immediately she tiptoed toward him. Her right hand lifted a javelin— his javelin, brought from the cave.

  Kneeling, she slid her other hand across Hok’s chest to where his heart beat, beneath two crossed strands of rawhide. He looked up into her deep eyes and grinned mirthlessly. If she but knew how she was cheating her father and her lover, if she could foresee their rage when they would find him slain and beyond torture! The flint point came down. He braced himself to meet it. Then—

  The rawhide relaxed its clutch upon him. A strand parted, another and another, before the keen edge of the javelin-point. He was free. Wondering, he rose to his feet, chafing his cramped wrists and forearms. Oloana, close to him in the dim night, cautioned him to silence with a finger at her full lips. Then she beckoned. Together they stole away toward the edge of the bluff.

  Oloana, going first, brushed against leaves that rustled. A roosting bird squawked in sleepy terror and took noisy flight.

  Next instant Kimri’s awakening roar smote their ears. Oloana ran like a rabbit down the slope, while Hok swung around to meet the clumsy rush of his late captor. A collision, a clasping hug, and again the two who wanted Oloana were straining and heaving in each other’s arms. Loose earth gave way beneath their feet. They fell, rolled, and went spinning over and over down the declivity.

  At the bottom they struck with a thud, flew sprawling apart, and rose to face each other. The giant hung back from a new encounter, his hand groping for his dagger-hilt. But then he flinched and stiffened. In the gloom, Hok fancied that the wrath on the hairy face gave way to blank surprise. A moment later the huge form pitched forward and lay quivering.

  Oloana, revealed behind him, wrenched the javelin out of his back. She made an apologetic shrugging gesture with her shoulders.

  “I knew that you would win,” she stammered, “but I—wanted to help.”

  From the trees above rang Zoor’s shouts for Kimri. Hok extended his hand for the javelin, but Oloana held it out of his reach.

  “No,” she pleaded. “He is my father. Let us run.”

  TOWARD dawn, back at the cave where they had parted, Hok again coaxed fire from rubbing sticks. In its warm light the pair relaxed, their shoulders to the rock.

  “Oloana,” Hok now found occasion to ask, “why did you follow me? I thought—” He paused.

  “Yes,” she nodded shyly. “I, too, thought I hated you. But, before you left me, free and alone, you—” she, too, fell silent.

  “What was it?”

  “This.” Her round arms clasped his neck. His lips groped for hers. It was, undoubtedly, the second kiss ever to be achieved.

  “Tomorrow we start north,” he said, after a time. “My people are there. You will like my brother Zhik, and my sister Eowi.” He frowned. “Yet there are things you will not like. The Gnorrls.”

  “Gnorrls?” she repeated. “Are they animals?”

  “No. Not animals.”

  “Men? Evil men?”

  “They are not men, but they are evil. Like the spirits that trouble sleep.”

  “I shall not fear them,” she said confidently. “You, Hok, will fight and kill them.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “I will fight and kill them.”

  Then he paused, wondering how he would manage it.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Capture of Riw

  HOK and Oloana had not much time in the days that followed to discuss or dread the Gnorrls. As a matter of fact, Hok forgot the creatures, as much as any man could forget, having once encountered them. But when, in sight of the familiar plain and the bluff- bound river he saw on a ridge a cautiously peering hulk that was neither beast nor man, the old hate and revulsion came to him—came almost as strongly as though for the first time.

  It was then that Hok, clutching Oloana’s wrist with a crushing strength that surprised even her who had seen him grapple the giant Kimri, half growled and half quavered a command never to stand, walk or sleep without a weapon in reach; never to relax guard; never to stir from the home shelter alone. Oloana then knew that if her mate feared anything, it was the unspeakable Gnorrl. Solemnly she promised to obey and strictly she kept that promise.

  Approaching the old rock-defended camp by the river, Hok’s trained eye glimpsed footprints that told him of the presence of his kin. When he and Oloana drew into sight at the narrow entrance between rock and water, young Unn, who was standing guard, first sprang erect with poised javelin, then burst into an uproar of welcome. Others dashed into view—Eowi, Barp and Nohda, all larger and lovelier to Hok’s sight than when he had left them. There was a gay reunion in the open space before the cave; Hok introduced Oloana, with the simple declaration that she belonged to him and must be respected as much as his own right eye. Eowi smiled shyly but winningly at the stranger girl, and cemented a new friendship with a present—the finest of the scrapers captured from the Gnorrls.

  When the first hugs and shouts had subsided a trifle, Hok suddenly stiffened to attention. Two figures—living human figures—crouched in the shadow of the rock.

  “Who are these?” he demanded at once.

  “Oh,” replied Eowi, with the carelessness employed in speaking of chattels, “Zhik found them.”

  “Zhik?” Hok had missed his brother. “Where did he find them?”

  “Here he comes,” interjected Barp. “Let him tell.”

  Zhik trotted into view, bearing the hide and choicest parts of a slaughtered goat. He whooped at sight of Hok, and the two exchanged affectionate fraternal roars and buffets. Then came once more an introduction of Oloana, and finally Zhik’s explanation of the strangers.

  He called them to stand forth—a middle-aged man with a great slate- colored beard, and a slim young girl, several years Eowi’s junior and as dark in complexion as Oloana. The man’s name was Kaga, and the girl was his daughter, Dwil. Zhik considered them his property, by right of discovery, capture and defense against the Gnorrls.

  “Two days after you left,” he told Hok, “I was hunting, and saw four people—these two, another man and an older woman. I did not know if they were friends, and I kept out of sight. They were new in the country, for they did not watch for Gnorrls. Before they knew it, Gnorrls had risen out of the grass and bushes—nine.” He held up that many fingers to illustrate.

  He went on to say that the second man, foremost of the quartet of strangers, had been seized and literally plucked to pieces by three Gnorrls—his arms and legs had come away in those terrible paws, like flower-petals. The others ran. The oldest woman had gone next, being overtaken by two of the pursuing monsters, and had died under their rain of blows. Before the last two could win to safety, a stone hurled from a Gnorrl’s cleft wand knocked the gray-bearded man down. His daughter had rallied beside him, facing hopeless odds. She meant, it seemed, to die in his defense.

  “But the Gnorrls did not know I watched,” continued Zhik, a trifle complacent in memory of his scouting skill. “I jumped up, and let them have- both javelins, one after another. I wounded two. A rock came my way, but it went to pieces in the air, and it only cut me.” He laid a finger on his temple. A scar showed, that had not been there when Hok had left. “After that the girl— Dwil—threw her javelin, and it went through a Gnorrl’s arm. That was three down in less time than I have told it; the others ran before they were well aware of what had happened, and carried away their wounded and the two they had killed.”

&
nbsp; He told how he had gone up to the fallen man and the girl. She had been most suspicious, and drew a stone knife, which Zhik took away from her. Then, as her father regained consciousness, Zhik possessed himself of their other weapons and obliged them to return with him to the cave. There they had been assigned most of the community chores — wood-carrying, water-fetching and so on.

  Hok talked to Kaga, whose language like Oloana’s was understandable. He learned that the unlucky four had been searching, as had Hok’s own people a year ago, for new and uncrowded hunting grounds. They had friends, far to the south and east, who waited for them to return and report.

  “You have friends?” Hok repeated. “You will stay here.” For he knew that the Gnorrls would be quite enough to fight at one time; he wanted no human adversaries in the neighborhood.

  “Yes, you will stay here,” seconded Zhik. Then he looked at Hok, at the manifestly happy Oloana, and finally at Dwil, who lowered her eyes. Zhik muttered to his brother: “I want to ask you something.”

  “Wait,” said Hok, with all the authority he could muster. His own courtship of Oloana had been so brief as to be almost instantaneous, and he had by no means repented at leisure; yet he wanted to be sure before advising Zhik, or permitting him to mate with this captive girl.

  “You are growing a beard since you got Oloana,” Zhik added. “It looks well.”

  “Wait,” said Hok again, and his brother sighed dolefully.

  HOK asked to hear more about the Gnorrls, and learned that they were more numerous by far than a year ago. Not a day passed but what Gnorrls were sighted, sneaking through thickets or among boulders, watching all that their human foes did, but seldom offering fight. Zhik did not like this, nor, when he heard of it, did Hok.