The Return Of Tharn by Howard Browne

Author:Howard Browne [Browne, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Project Gutenberg
Published: 2010-11-28T21:04:49.976000+00:00

Five dust-covered, disheveled men moved steadily along a winding game trail, the rays of a noon-day sun pouring down on their tunic-clad backs through rifts in the arching branches overhead. They moved in single file without speaking, almost without thinking, their every energy intent only on cutting down the distance between them and the major portion of their party.

Jotan was at the rear of the column, Tamar and he alternating at holding down this exposed position. The back of the warrior ahead of him was ten or twelve feet distant—a space Jotan almost automatically maintained.

The trail underfoot swerved abruptly to by-pass an especially heavy growth of trees and momentarily Jotan was out of sight of his companions. A dozen more strides and he too would make the turn and rejoin them.

A sudden rustling among the branches directly overhead caused him to look up in alarm, just as a crushing weight struck full upon his shoulders and drove him to his knees. Steel fingers sought and instantly found a hold on his neck, choking back an instinctive cry for help.

Jotan was a powerful, fully trained warrior, with muscles superior to most of his kind. Yet in the first few seconds of struggle he realized with sinking heart that his strength was as a child's when compared to that of the unseen and silent creature on his back.

A film began to form before his protruding eyes, his senses reeled, his laboring lungs fought for air—then blackness poured into his brain.

... Slowly the fog of unconsciousness left Jotan of Ammad and at last he opened his eyes. At sight of the half-naked man crouched over him instant recognition dawned in his expression. "You!" he gasped.

"I," said Tharn impassively, "Where is she?"

"I do not know."

"You lie!" The cave lord's hand shot out and sank incredibly powerful fingers into the Ammadian's bare arm. "Tell me where she is or I will kill you!"

Jotan raised a shaking hand and massaged the aching muscles of his throat where those mighty fingers had left their mark. He saw now that he was high in the branches of a tree, that sitting on a branch behind his captor was another cave man—a youth, rather—who was watching him from inscrutable eyes.

"She never really believed you were dead," the Ammadian said slowly, almost as though thinking aloud. "I tried to tell her no man comes through the Games of the God alive. Even now I can hardly believe that you are actually here."

Tharn was not to be side-tracked. "Where is she?" he growled. "For the last time—or do I choke the information from you?"

"That will not be necessary, my friend," Jotan said sadly. "For all I know Dylara may be dead."

Nothing changed in Tharn's expression but his fingers bit sharply into Jotan's arm bringing an involuntary cry to the Ammadian's lips. "What do you mean?"

Whereupon the young nobleman of Ammad recounted the events of that terrible night when the lions had fallen upon his followers and sent Dylara racing for the safety of the trees.

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