Young Thongor by Lin Carter

Author:Lin Carter [Carter, Lin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781434441010
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2012-05-18T06:00:00+00:00

INTRO TO KEEPER OF THE EMERALD FLAME

Thongor’s buccaneers continue to cause havoc among the rich merchants of Shembis, until Arzang Pome, the infuriated Sark, begins a determined campaign to bring the troublesome pirate to heel.

KEEPER OF THE EMERALD FLAME

1

The Sign of the Skull

The Daotar Dorgand Tul shifted gingerly in the hard saddle, scratched irritably at the bite of a stinging insect, and wished for the thousandth time that he had entered the priesthood rather than obeying his father’s desire by purchasing a commission in the legions of Arzang Pome, the Lord of Shembis.

He was a fat, soft-faced little man, with quick, clever eyes, a petulant mouth and a waspish temper. For all his silver-gilded cuirass, jeweled honors and the martial-looking longsword that hung at one plump thigh, he seemed distinctly out of place at the head of a punitive company of warriors. And, indeed, with every league his troop penetrated into the dense jungles his dissatisfaction with the military life grew more profound.

The bad-tempered little Daotar was hot and weary, and his buttocks and thighs ached from long hours on kroter-back. He sat slouched in the saddle, dreaming of a soft couch, cooling breezes from the gulf, nubile slave girls at his beck and call and tall, frosted goblets of spiced wine. He wondered if he would ever feel comfortable again.

For seven days and nights now he and his troop of warriors had plunged ever deeper into the jungles of southern Kovia, until by now he was heartily sick of the whole business. The massive crimson boles of soaring lotifer trees rose all about him; snaky vines dangling from low branches overhead caught the plumes of his helm; stinging gnats whirled in buzzing clouds about him as he guided his plodding kroter through thick bushes of tiralons, the strange green roses of ancient Lemuria. Behind him, half a hundred footsore warriors toiled along, their mail smeared with sap and black with mud, and they longed for the comforts of civilization no less than he.

For the ten-thousandth time he cursed this Northlander savage and his gang of bandits, whose elusive track they followed. The bold young Valkarthan raider had been harrying the caravan routes for the past six months, and his depredations cut deeply into the revenues of Arzang Pome, who delighted more in the clink of fat gold coins than in the caresses of all his women and his perfumed boys. At length, stung beyond endurance by the daring of the bold young bandit chieftain, the Sark of Shembis had sent a troop of warriors on his trail…and it was the sad fate of Dorgand Tul to be the commander of that troop.

The day was wearing on apace. Ere long the gold disc of Aedir the Sun god would expire in crimson splendor on the western horizon and the thick jungle night would cloak all of Kovia in darkness. It was the night that Dorgand Tul feared most, for then the monstrous predators were a-prowl—the slinking vandars, the great black

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