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Flight To Opar by Phillip Jose Farmer
Foreword
Those unacquainted with Hadon of Ancient Opar, volume one of the Ancient Opar series, should refer to the map following. This shows the two central African seas which existed circa 10,000 B.C. At that time the climate was much more humid (pluvial) than now. What are now the Chad Basin and the Congo Basin were covered with fresh water, bodies whose area equaled and perhaps surpassed that of the present-day Mediterranean. The Ice Age was dying, but large parts of the British Islands and northern Europe were covered with glaciers. The Mediterranean was from one to two hundred feet lower than its present level. The Sahara Desert of today was then vast grasslands, rivers and freshwater lakes, and was host to millions of elephants, antelopes, lions, crocodile and many other beasts, some now extinct.
The map also shows the island of Khokarsa, which gave birth to the first civilization of Earth, and the largest cities which grew around the Great Water, the Kemu, and the Great Water of Opar, the Kemuwopar. The prehistory and history of the peoples of the two seas are outlined in the Chronology of Khokarsa in volume one.
The map is a modification of the map in volume one. That, in turn, was a modification of a map presented by Frank Brueckel and John Harwood in their article: Heritage of the Flaming God, an Essay on the History of Opar and Its Relationship to Other Ancient Cultures. This appeared in The Burroughs Bulletin, Vernell Coriell, publisher, House of Greystoke, 6657 Locust, Kansas City, Missouri 64131.
This series basically derives from the Opar books of the Tarzan series, and the author wishes to thank Hulbert Burroughs again for the permission to write these tales.
There is a rumor that this series is based on the translation of some of the gold tablets described by Edgar Rice Burroughs in The Return of Tarzan. That speculation will have to be dealt with in an addendum to a later volume of this series.
1.
Hadon leaned on his sword and waited for death.
He looked down the mountain slope from the mouth of the inner pass. Once again he shook his head. If only Lalila had not twisted her ankle, they might not be in such a hopeless situation.
The slope leading to the pass was steep, requiring a hands-and-knees approach during the last fifty yards. For a hundred yards from the inner pass, cliffs at least a hundred feet high and sixty yards wide walled the approach. These formed a sort of outer entrance. The walls went rapidly inward from that point, like the edges of an arrowhead. The slope and the walls met at the point of the arrow. Hadon stood now in the narrow aperture. Here the path began from a rocky ledge about ten inches high. It ran at a slightly less than forty-five-degree angle to the horizontal for a hundred feet, the cliffs that caged it rapidly dwindling in height.
It came out on the top of the cliffs, where the ground was fairly level. Beyond it was the vast oak forest.
The distance between the cliffs in the inner pass was just enough for a man to wield a sword. He had an advantage in that anybody trying to fight him would have to stand up before he could gain the less steep incline. That warrior would not have a stable footing. Hadon, standing on the ledge, would have a relatively firm stance.
The cliffs extended their high verticality for five miles on either side, however, so the pursuers did not have to attempt a frontal attack. They could go along the base of the cliffs until they came to a climbable part. Then they could ascend it and come back along the top of the cliffs. But it would take them about eight or nine hours to do this. They could not progress more than half a mile an hour on the steep rough terrain.
The soldiers would have their pride. They could not allow one man to scare off forty. In either event, direct or circuitous attack, they would be giving Awineth, Abeth, Hinokly, Kebiwabes and Paga time to get many miles into the forest. They would not know about Lalila's injured ankle and so would assume that he was making a stand just to give the refugees plenty of time to get lost in the woods. It would not take them long to know, however, that they were up against the man who had won the Great Games, who had been taught by the greatest swordsman in the Empire of Khokarsa.
Down on the slope, about twenty minutes away, the soldiers climbed steadily. In the lead were five dogs, straining at their leashes, digging their paws into the sparsely grassed dirt, slipping now and then. Three were keen-nosed tracehounds, belling as they sniffed the smells of the pursued. Two were wardogs. They were descended from the wild dog of the plains, bred to the size of male leopards, without the endurance of their ancestors but with no fear of man. Part of their training was the attacking of armed slaves. If the slave killed the three dogs loosed at him, he was freed. This seldom happened.
Some distance below and behind the dogs and their handlers was the lone officer. He was a big man, wearing a conical bronze helmet sporting a long raven feather from its top. His sword, still in its leather sheath, was the long, slightly curving, blunt-ended weapon of the numatenu. The same kind that Hadon was leaning on, which meant that the officer would be his first antagonist. The code of the numatenu dictated this. The officer would be disgraced if he sent in lesser men to face another numatenu.
Still, things were not always what they had been in the old days. Now there were men wearing the tenu who had no right to do so, men who often went unchallenged. The moral codes were breaking down, along with much else in these times of trouble.
Behind the officer, in straggling disorder, were thirty soldiers. They wore round bronze helmets with leather earflaps and noseflaps, leather cuirasses and leather kilts. They carried small round bronze shields on their backs and held long bronze-tipped spears. They dug these into the ground to assist their climb. Short stabbing swords were in their leather scabbards. On their backs, under the shields, were leather bags of provisions.
Behind the soldiers were four peasants clad in kilts of papyrus fiber. They carried round wooden shields on their backs and short swords in sheaths at their broad leather belts. Their hunting spears were in their hands, and slings and bags of sling-stones also hung from their belts.
They were close enough now for Hadon to recognize them. These were the sons of the farmer at whose house Hadon's party had stopped to get food. After a brief show of resistance, the peasants had fled. But Awineth, in a fury because they had refused hospitality, had indiscreetly told them who she was. They must have gone to the nearest army post to notify the commander. He had sent this small force after the daughter of Minruth, Emperor of Khokarsa. And after Hadon and the others too. Awineth, of course, would be brought back alive, but what were the orders concerning the others? Capture so they could be brought back for judgment by Minruth? The men would probably be tortured publicly and then executed. Minruth, who seemed to have a passion for Lalila, would keep her as a mistress. Perhaps. He might have her tortured and killed too. And he was insane enough to wreak his hatred on Abeth, Lalila's daughter.
The dog tenders were weaponless except for daggers and slings. That made nine slingers in all. These were the deadliest weapons he would face. He had no room to dodge a lead missile traveling at sixty miles an hour, but they would have trouble getting into the proper stance for action if he had his way.
Hadon turned to look up the steeply sloping pass at Lalila. She sat at its end, about two hundred feet away. The sun shone on her white skin and long golden hair. Her large violet eyes looked black at this distance. She was bent forward, massaging her left ankle. She tried to smile but failed.
He walked up to her and, as he neared, he was struck with a pang of longing and sorrow. She was so lovely, he was so much in love with her, and they both had to die so soon.
"I
wish you would do it, Hadon," she said. She indicated the long narrow dagger lying on the dirt beside her. "I would rather you killed me now and made sure that I died. I'm not sure that I'll have the strength to drive the blade into my heart when the time comes. I don't want to fall into Minruth's hands. Yet… I keep thinking that perhaps I might escape later on. I don't want to die!"
Hadon said, "You may be sure that you'd never get away from him again."
"Then kill me now!" she said. "Why wait until the last possible moment?"
She bowed her head as if to invite him to bring the sword down on it.
Instead he dropped to one knee and kissed the top of her head. She shuddered on feeling his lips.
"We had so much to live for!" she murmured.
"We still do," he said after rising. "I've been a fool, Lalila. I was thinking of making a stand according to the dictates of tradition. One man in a pass, valiantly fighting, slaying until the warriors are piled before me, then dying when a spear drives past my arms, too weary to hold the sword up any more."
"But that's stupid. I can do other things, and I will do them. First, though, we'll get you away from here—not too far, since we don't have time. Come."
He raised her to her feet. She winced with the pain of the ankle but did not cry out. "It'd take too long for you to hobble there, even with me supporting you," he said. He put the sword in its sheath and picked her up in his arms. She started to ask him what he intended to do. He said, "Hush! I need my breath," and he hurried toward the forest. Coming to its edge, he halted a few seconds while he looked around. Then he plunged into the half-darkness under the great oaks, carrying her to the foot of a mottled white and brown giant.
The lowest branch was two feet above him. He lifted her up so that she could grasp it and then heaved her up. She stretched out on it face down, looking back at him.
"It may hurt you, but you'll have to do it anyway," he said. "Climb up as far as you can and conceal yourself in the foliage. I haven't got time to wait here and see how you do while you climb."
"But what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to kill as many as possible. Then I'm going to run, drawing them away from you and the others."
"You'll leave me here to…?"
"To starve, possibly. Or be eaten by, leopards or bears or be taken by the outlaws," he said. "That's a chance to be taken, Lalila. It's better than waiting for a sure death here. I'll be back for you. Somehow, I'll get back to you. But if I shouldn't, then take the same path the others took. It'll lead you to the temple, and you'll be safe in the sanctuary there."
Lalila smiled then, though it was certainly not with joy.
The probability that he would return was small. She could not walk the many, many miles through the forest, up and down mountains. She could easily get lost, and there were bears, leopards, hyenas and many other beasts of prey hereabouts. Even if she somehow did find her way to the temple at Karneth, she might find that the sanctuary was no longer sacred. The followers of King Minruth, worshipers of Resu, would probably violate the temple.
She did not voice her doubts. Instead she said, "Go quickly then, Hadon! I will pray to my gods, and your goddess, that we will see each other again! And soon!"
She reached down and he kissed her hand, then turned without a word.
2.
Hadon ran down the ancient hard-beaten path between the oaks for about fifty yards. Then he cut to his right, paralleling the path, and returned to the exit of the pass. If the dogs did track him to the oak where he had left her, they would smell only him. The trackers would see only his prints. The ground was not soft enough to show that his feet had sunk into the earth too deeply for one person. The dogs would follow his tracks down the path and then, hopefully, back to the pass through the forest… if there were any dogs left by then, and there wouldn't be if he had his way.
There was nothing to stop the pursuers from just ignoring his tracks and following those of the refugees. He hoped that by the time they were through the pass they would be in a fury of vengeance, bent only on chasing him down and killing him.
He raced back to the pass. Instead of entering its narrow high walls, he went around its right side. He ran along it, going up a slope, and presently was standing on the edge of the cliffs. To his left was the wide mouth of the outer pass, a hundred feet below him.
He looked over the edge. The frantic barking of the dogs was loud now. The lead pair was only fifty yards from the mouth of the pass. But here the slope was even steeper and the going slower. He went back along the edge.until he stood over the place where the narrow passage began.
He searched for rocks small enough to carry but large enough for the task he had in mind. By the time the lead dogs were several yards below the mouth of the slot, he had piled seven small boulders by the edge.
The officer had called to the dog handlers to stop, though he had trouble getting their attention. One of the tenders finally saw the officer's lips moving and spoke to the others who yelled at the tracehounds to keep quiet. This failing, they struck them with their hands. The animals yelped, but they obeyed.
The wardogs made no sound. They crouched low to the ground, their yellow eyes round, slaver dripping from long yellow teeth.
The officer gave a few orders, not quite loudly enough for Hadon to distinguish the words. The men kept looking up, but they were intent on the pass and so did not see his head further down the edge of the cliff. They would become aware of his location soon enough.
Two tenders suddenly released their dogs and spoke to their charges. These, breaking into a loud barking, bent like bows and then sped like arrows up the slope. Hadon waited. He could deal with them later. The dogs ran up the pass barking, while the men below listened carefully. As the clamor became fainter, they realized that no one was in the pass to oppose them. The officer smiled and said something to the other three handlers. These, still holding the leashes, urged their frenzied beasts ahead of them. Hadon rolled away so that no chance look would detect him. When a few yards from the edge of the cliff, he stood up. He picked up a boulder, heaved it above his head and walked to the edge. Just below him were the three dogs, in single file, each pulling hard on the leash held by its tender.
Hadon estimated their rate of progress, strained, holding the heavy rock, and then cast it out a few feet. It fell true, driving in the bronze helmet of the man in the lead.
His dog burst loose, trailing the leash behind it. The other two men halted suddenly and looked upward. Their mouths were open and their faces were pale.
Hadon turned, picked up a smaller stone and hurled that down. The two men turned to run back down the pass, but the stone struck one on the shoulder, breaking it and knocking him flat on the ground. The survivor, crying shrilly, leaped out from the pass and rolled down the steep slope.
Hadon picked up another boulder, as large as the first, and moved to the edge of the cliffs. He looked over, saw that the rolling dog handler had knocked down the officer and two spearmen. All four were rolling out of control.
He gave a mighty heave, and the stone shot out, fell, hit the slope, bounded and shot into a group of four spearmen. One must have been killed by the impact; the others were hurled back down the mountain. One rolled into another man, knocking him off his feet.
The boulder, its rate of descent only a little slowed by striking the soldier, smashed into the legs of another spearman, knocked him down, rolled, leaped and slammed into the stomach of one of the farmer's sons. Then it continued on down the mountain. None of the men hit by the boulder got up or showed signs that they were able to do so.
Hadon, instead of running back for another boulder, returned to the point where he could not be seen by those below the pass. He dropped the sword, still in its sheath, over the edge. He let himself over the edge, clung to the rock a moment, then dropped. It was fifteen feet from the top to the bottom at this point, but he was six feet two inches tall, one of the tallest men in Khokarsa, and his arms were exc
eptionally long. He rolled without injury, rose and picked up the sword. After fastening the sheath to his belt, he ran down to the two fallen men. One was dead; the other was unconscious. He removed their slings and bags. Then he used the injured man's dagger to ensure that he would never be a danger to anyone again.
He unsheathed his sword, Karken, Tree of Death, and drove its blunt point into the thin hard earth. Within a few seconds, he had placed a biconical lead missile in its sling. He moved to the mouth of the pass.
The officer was on his feet by then, bringing the soldiers to order. He looked up while shouting and saw Hadon. Hadon grinned and began whirling the sling at the ends of its thongs in a horizontal circle over his head. The officer cried out, his face pale. Perhaps he was protesting against a numatenu using a sling against another, not at his being in peril. But Hadon believed that the officer had lost any right to individual combat when he had loosed the dogs. Besides, he had decided not to play the game according to the rules. It would be stupid to give up his life for the code if it meant Lalila and the others would not escape. His highest duty was to Awineth, the high priestess of great Kho, now a refugee from the blasphemer Minruth. And also to Lalila and her child.
The angle was a difficult one for a slinger. It was not easy to estimate the trajectory of the cone. There was a tendency for a slinger in his position to underestimate, to cast the missile too low. But Hadon had given hundreds of hours to practice with the sling and he had hunted successfully in the jungle around Opar.
He released the end of the thong as it came down and the cone sped true. It was a blur on its way, but suddenly it bounced from the officer's nose. The nose disappeared in a gout of blood; the man was hurled back down the mountain. He fell on his back and slid for sixty feet downward, finally stopping when the. top of his head was caught on a projection of rock.
The slingers had their lead missiles in their thongs by then and were whirling them. He stepped back, out of sight. Some missiles shot upward past the lip of the cliff. Others struck against the rocks below him, knocking off chips.