CHAPTER XVIII
CHAINED IN WARHOON
It must have been several hours before I regained consciousness and I
well remember the feeling of surprise which swept over me as I realized
that I was not dead.
I was lying among a pile of sleeping silks and furs in the corner of a
small room in which were several green warriors, and bending over me
was an ancient and ugly female.
As I opened my eyes she turned to one of the warriors, saying,
“He will live, O Jed.”
“‘Tis well,” replied the one so addressed, rising and approaching my
couch, “he should render rare sport for the great games.”
And now as my eyes fell upon him, I saw that he was no Thark, for his
ornaments and metal were not of that horde. He was a huge fellow,
terribly scarred about the face and chest, and with one broken tusk and
a missing ear. Strapped on either breast were human skulls and
depending from these a number of dried human hands.
His reference to the great games of which I had heard so much while
among the Tharks convinced me that I had but jumped from purgatory into
gehenna.
After a few more words with the female, during which she assured him
that I was now fully fit to travel, the jed ordered that we mount and
ride after the main column.
I was strapped securely to as wild and unmanageable a thoat as I had
ever seen, and, with a mounted warrior on either side to prevent the
beast from bolting, we rode forth at a furious pace in pursuit of the
column. My wounds gave me but little pain, so wonderfully and rapidly
had the applications and injections of the female exercised their
therapeutic powers, and so deftly had she bound and plastered the
injuries.
Just before dark we reached the main body of troops shortly after they
had made camp for the night. I was immediately taken before the
leader, who proved to be the jeddak of the hordes of Warhoon.
Like the jed who had brought me, he was frightfully scarred, and also
decorated with the breastplate of human skulls and dried dead hands
which seemed to mark all the greater warriors among the Warhoons, as
well as to indicate their awful ferocity, which greatly transcends even
that of the Tharks.
The jeddak, Bar Comas, who was comparatively young, was the object of
the fierce and jealous hatred of his old lieutenant, Dak Kova, the jed
who had captured me, and I could not but note the almost studied
efforts which the latter made to affront his superior.
He entirely omitted the usual formal salutation as we entered the
presence of the jeddak, and as he pushed me roughly before the ruler he
exclaimed in a loud and menacing voice.
“I have brought a strange creature wearing the metal of a Thark whom it
is my pleasure to have battle with a wild thoat at the great games.”
“He will die as Bar Comas, your jeddak, sees fit, if at all,” replied
the young ruler, with emphasis and dignity.
“If at all?” roared Dak Kova. “By the dead hands at my throat but he
shall die, Bar Comas. No maudlin weakness on your part shall save him.
O, would that Warhoon were ruled by a real jeddak rather than by a
water-hearted weakling from whom even old Dak Kova could tear the metal
with his bare hands!”
Bar Comas eyed the defiant and insubordinate chieftain for an instant,
his expression one of haughty, fearless contempt and hate, and then
without drawing a weapon and without uttering a word he hurled himself
at the throat of his defamer.
I never before had seen two green Martian warriors battle with nature’s
weapons and the exhibition of animal ferocity which ensued was as
fearful a thing as the most disordered imagination could picture. They
tore at each others’ eyes and ears with their hands and with their
gleaming tusks repeatedly slashed and gored until both were cut fairly
to ribbons from head to foot.
Bar Comas had much the better of the battle as he was stronger, quicker
and more intelligent. It soon seemed that the encounter was done
saving only the final death thrust when Bar Comas slipped in breaking
away from a clinch. It was the one little opening that Dak Kova
needed, and hurling himself at the body of his adversary he buried his
single mighty tusk in Bar Comas’ groin and with a last powerful effort
ripped the young jeddak wide open the full length of his body, the
great tusk finally wedging in the bones of Bar Comas’ jaw. Victor and
vanquished rolled limp and lifeless upon the moss, a huge mass of torn
and bloody flesh.
Bar Comas was stone dead, and only the most herculean efforts on the
part of Dak Kova’s females saved him from the fate he deserved. Three
days later he walked without assistance to the body of Bar Comas which,
by custom, had not been moved from where it fell, and placing his foot
upon the neck of his erstwhile ruler he assumed the title of Jeddak of
Warhoon.
The dead jeddak’s hands and head were removed to be added to the
ornaments of his conqueror, and then his women cremated what remained,
amid wild and terrible laughter.
The injuries to Dak Kova had delayed the march so greatly that it was
decided to give up the expedition, which was a raid upon a small Thark
community in retaliation for the destruction of the incubator, until
after the great games, and the entire body of warriors, ten thousand in
number, turned back toward Warhoon.
My introduction to these cruel and bloodthirsty people was but an index
to the scenes I witnessed almost daily while with them. They are a
smaller horde than the Tharks but much more ferocious. Not a day
passed but that some members of the various Warhoon communities met in
deadly combat. I have seen as high as eight mortal duels within a
single day.
We reached the city of Warhoon after some three days march and I was
immediately cast into a dungeon and heavily chained to the floor and
walls. Food was brought me at intervals but owing to the utter
darkness of the place I do not know whether I lay there days, or weeks,
or months. It was the most horrible experience of all my life and that
my mind did not give way to the terrors of that inky blackness has been
a wonder to me ever since. The place was filled with creeping,
crawling things; cold, sinuous bodies passed over me when I lay down,
and in the darkness I occasionally caught glimpses of gleaming, fiery
eyes, fixed in horrible intentness upon me. No sound reached me from
the world above and no word would my jailer vouchsafe when my food was
brought to me, although I at first bombarded him with questions.
Finally all the hatred and maniacal loathing for these awful creatures
who had placed me in this horrible place was centered by my tottering
reason upon this single emissary who represented to me the entire horde
of Warhoons.
I had noticed that he always advanced with his dim torch to where he
could place the food within my reach and as he stooped to place it upon
the floor his head was about on a level with my breast. So, with the
cunning of a madman, I backed into the far corner of my cell when next
I heard him approaching and gathering a little slack of the great chain
which held me in my hand I waited his coming, crouching like some beast
of prey. As he stooped to place my food upon the ground I swung the
chain above my head and crashed the links with all my strength upon his
skull. Without a sound he slipped to the floor, stone dead.
Laughing and chattering like the idiot I was fast becoming I fell upon
his prostrate form my fingers feeling for his dead throat. Presently
they came in contact with a small chain at the end of which dangled a
number of keys. The touch of my fingers on these keys brought back my
reason with the suddenness of thought. No longer was I a jibbering
idiot, but a sane, reasoning man with the means of escape within my
very hands.
As I was groping to remove the chain from about my victim’s neck I
glanced up into the darkness to see six pairs of gleaming eyes fixed,
unwinking, upon me. Slowly they approached and slowly I shrank back
from the awful horror of them. Back into my corner I crouched holding
my hands palms out, before me, and stealthily on came the awful eyes
until they reached the dead body at my feet. Then slowly they
retreated but this time with a strange grating sound and finally they
disappeared in some black and distant recess of my dungeon.
see you tomorrow for CHAPTER XIX BATTLING IN THE ARENA
