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"The Hidden Kingdom of Padathor"
Mar. 6th, 2023 05:29 pm"The Hidden Kingdom of Padathor"
3/2006
I.
The faintest whisper of a footstep alerted Jeremy Bane. In the faint starlight of a cloudy night, a shadowy form loomed over him and something glinted in the lifted hand. Bane checked the descending wrist, keeping the curved knife away from him, and simultaneously he locked his right hand savagely on a bare throat.
A gasp barely escaped the attacker. Bane hooked one leg about the man's knee and heaved him over to pin him underneath. There was no sound except the rasp and thud of straining bodies. Bane fought, as always, in silence. No sound came from the straining lips of the man beneath. His right hand writhed in Bane's grip while his left tore futilely at the wrist whose iron fingers drove deeper and deeper into the throat they grasped.
Grimly, Bane maintained his advantage, driving all the power of his shoulders and corded arms into his throttling grip. He knew it was either his life or that of the man who had crept up to stab him in the dark. In that unmapped corner of the Chujir mountains all fights were to the death. The fingers tearing at him relaxed. A convulsive shudder ran through the body straining beneath the Dire Wolf. It went limp.
Bane leaped up off the corpse, into the deeper shadow of the great rocks among which he had been resting. Instinctively he felt under his arm to see if the precious package for which he had staked his life was still safe. Yes, it was there, that flat bundle of papers wrapped in oiled silk, that meant life or death to many thousands. He listened to the stillness. All about him, the hillside with its ledges and boulders rose black in the starlight.
But he knew that killers moved about him, out there among the rocks. His sensitive hearing caught the faint shuffle of sandalled feet. Since he could not see them, he knew they could not see him, among the clustered boulders he had chosen for his sleeping site.
His left hand groped on the ground for his short heavy bow, and he seized the leather quiver with his right. That brief fight had made no more noise than the silent knifing of a sleeping man might have made. Doubtless his stalkers out in the gloom were awaiting some signal from the man they had sent in to murder their victim.
Bane knew who these men were. He knew their leader was the renegade Yugen who had dogged him for hundreds of miles, determined he should not reach the Imperial City with that silk-wrapped packet. Bane was known by repute in every adjacent realm. Every Race feared and respected him as the Dire Wolf. But in Zemu Watura, renegade Zoku-Ya from Chyl, Bane had met his match. And he knew now that Zemu was lurking out there in the night with his hardened killers.
The Yugen of Chyl were an unnerving sight. They had tawny skin like a lion, strange eyes with black sclera and red irises, and hairless craniums. Weirdest of all, Yugen had no noses. Only a faint bulge rose between their eyes and mouth. Among the Cousins of Men, the Yugen were the most bizarre. Their swordsmen, the Zoku-ya, were among the most dreaded warriors in the Midnight War.
Bane glided out from among the boulders in complete silence. Not even a stalking tiger could have avoided loose stones more skillfully or picked his way more carefully. He headed southward again. His soft native sandals made no noise, and in his dark hillman's garb he was as good as invisible. In the pitch-black shadow of an overhanging cliff, he suddenly sensed a human presence ahead of him. A voice hissed, "Samuya! Is that you? Is the dog dead? Why did you not call me?"
The Dire Wolf lunged and struck savagely in the direction of the voice. His tight fist crunched directly against a skull, and a man groaned as he fell. All about there rose a sudden clamor of voices.
Bane cast stealth to the winds. With a bound he cleared the writhing body before him, and sped off down the slope. Behind him rose a chorus of yells as the men in hiding glimpsed his shadowy figure racing through the starlight. The twang of bowstrings cut the darkness, but the arrows whizzed high and wide. Bane's hurtling shape was sighted only for an instant, then the shadowy gulfs of the night swallowed it up. Faster than any normal Human, the Dire Wolf was gone in a blur. His enemies howled curses in their bewildered rage. Once again their prey had slipped through their fingers.
As he raced across the plateau beyond the clustering cliffs, Bane knew they would be immediately after him, with hillmen who could trail a wolf across naked rocks. Still, hopefully with the start he had... as that thought crossed his mind, the ground gaped blackly before him. Even his superhuman quickness could not save him. His grasping hands caught only thin air as he plunged downward to smash his head with brutal force at the bottom.
( the rest of the story )
3/2006
I.
The faintest whisper of a footstep alerted Jeremy Bane. In the faint starlight of a cloudy night, a shadowy form loomed over him and something glinted in the lifted hand. Bane checked the descending wrist, keeping the curved knife away from him, and simultaneously he locked his right hand savagely on a bare throat.
A gasp barely escaped the attacker. Bane hooked one leg about the man's knee and heaved him over to pin him underneath. There was no sound except the rasp and thud of straining bodies. Bane fought, as always, in silence. No sound came from the straining lips of the man beneath. His right hand writhed in Bane's grip while his left tore futilely at the wrist whose iron fingers drove deeper and deeper into the throat they grasped.
Grimly, Bane maintained his advantage, driving all the power of his shoulders and corded arms into his throttling grip. He knew it was either his life or that of the man who had crept up to stab him in the dark. In that unmapped corner of the Chujir mountains all fights were to the death. The fingers tearing at him relaxed. A convulsive shudder ran through the body straining beneath the Dire Wolf. It went limp.
Bane leaped up off the corpse, into the deeper shadow of the great rocks among which he had been resting. Instinctively he felt under his arm to see if the precious package for which he had staked his life was still safe. Yes, it was there, that flat bundle of papers wrapped in oiled silk, that meant life or death to many thousands. He listened to the stillness. All about him, the hillside with its ledges and boulders rose black in the starlight.
But he knew that killers moved about him, out there among the rocks. His sensitive hearing caught the faint shuffle of sandalled feet. Since he could not see them, he knew they could not see him, among the clustered boulders he had chosen for his sleeping site.
His left hand groped on the ground for his short heavy bow, and he seized the leather quiver with his right. That brief fight had made no more noise than the silent knifing of a sleeping man might have made. Doubtless his stalkers out in the gloom were awaiting some signal from the man they had sent in to murder their victim.
Bane knew who these men were. He knew their leader was the renegade Yugen who had dogged him for hundreds of miles, determined he should not reach the Imperial City with that silk-wrapped packet. Bane was known by repute in every adjacent realm. Every Race feared and respected him as the Dire Wolf. But in Zemu Watura, renegade Zoku-Ya from Chyl, Bane had met his match. And he knew now that Zemu was lurking out there in the night with his hardened killers.
The Yugen of Chyl were an unnerving sight. They had tawny skin like a lion, strange eyes with black sclera and red irises, and hairless craniums. Weirdest of all, Yugen had no noses. Only a faint bulge rose between their eyes and mouth. Among the Cousins of Men, the Yugen were the most bizarre. Their swordsmen, the Zoku-ya, were among the most dreaded warriors in the Midnight War.
Bane glided out from among the boulders in complete silence. Not even a stalking tiger could have avoided loose stones more skillfully or picked his way more carefully. He headed southward again. His soft native sandals made no noise, and in his dark hillman's garb he was as good as invisible. In the pitch-black shadow of an overhanging cliff, he suddenly sensed a human presence ahead of him. A voice hissed, "Samuya! Is that you? Is the dog dead? Why did you not call me?"
The Dire Wolf lunged and struck savagely in the direction of the voice. His tight fist crunched directly against a skull, and a man groaned as he fell. All about there rose a sudden clamor of voices.
Bane cast stealth to the winds. With a bound he cleared the writhing body before him, and sped off down the slope. Behind him rose a chorus of yells as the men in hiding glimpsed his shadowy figure racing through the starlight. The twang of bowstrings cut the darkness, but the arrows whizzed high and wide. Bane's hurtling shape was sighted only for an instant, then the shadowy gulfs of the night swallowed it up. Faster than any normal Human, the Dire Wolf was gone in a blur. His enemies howled curses in their bewildered rage. Once again their prey had slipped through their fingers.
As he raced across the plateau beyond the clustering cliffs, Bane knew they would be immediately after him, with hillmen who could trail a wolf across naked rocks. Still, hopefully with the start he had... as that thought crossed his mind, the ground gaped blackly before him. Even his superhuman quickness could not save him. His grasping hands caught only thin air as he plunged downward to smash his head with brutal force at the bottom.
( the rest of the story )
