The Zanthodon Megapack by Lin Carter

Author:Lin Carter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, science fiction, lost world, edgar rice burroughs, adventure
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

PART IV: THE DIVINE ZARYS

CHAPTER 16

LEAP FOR LIFE

As Hurok and his warriors sought safety beneath the sheltering crag above the ledge, the mountain shook and huge fragments of stone were torn loose and began to thunder down the mountainside in an avalanche.

It was indescribably horrible to look up and see great, jagged boulders hurtling directly toward you. What made the experience all the more terrible was that there was hardly anything you could do to protect yourself from the spinning rocks as they bounced and slid and fell toward the narrow little ledge in a massive and deadly rain.

As the ledge was too narrow to afford passage to men except in single file, one of the warriors had, of necessity, to be the last in line. And, as it happened, this was Jorn the Hunter. Already the landslide had very nearly reached the ledge, and Jorn knew that he could not reach the shelter of that rocky shelf which jutted out above the ledge in time to take refuge beneath it.

There was truly nothing to do—but jump.

The urge for self-preservation is strong within the hearts of all men. But it is perhaps strongest within the breast of a savage warrior such as young Jorn. Even though to leap from the ledge was suicidal, it was the only action which the young Cro-Magnon could conceivably take. For the alternative was simply to stand there and dumbly wait for the landslide to sweep him to a gory death. And any action, however hopeless, was preferable to that.

Jorn sprang from the ledge and fell as fell the heavy stones above him. He vanished from the sight of his comrades in an instant.

As Jorn vanished, Hurok uttered an inarticulate cry: it was a roar of bestial rage and loss, quickly stifled. The other warriors who clung together under the sheltering slab said nothing, their faces drawn and grim. The loss of a comrade was a common enough occurrence in their primitive existence. But Jorn had made good friends, and all in their number liked the youth.

The avalanche swept down about them in deafening thunder. Whirling clouds of bitter rock dust enveloped them. Fragments and splinters of stone pelted them. The ledge shuddered beneath where they crouched. Darkness closed upon them. The shelf of stone above their heads groaned to the impact of the landslide—which parted to either side of the projecting slab as a spur of rock parts asunder a waterfall.

The air cleared; the thunder died in the distance below.

No longer did the mountain shiver to the impulse of hidden volcanic forces.

One by one they emerged from the shelter of the slab, coated with gray dust, shaken and bruised, but otherwise unharmed..

No word was spoken regarding the loss of Jorn the Hunter, for there was nothing to say.

Looking above him, Hurok of Kor saw that the landslide had cracked and scored and pitted the surface of the cliff overhead. The climb, from this point on, would be swifter and easier than it had been before.

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