Bunduki and Dawn (A Bunduki Jungle Adventure Book 2) Read online

  That had been particularly so in the High Trieste case. Due to the suggestion that he had made to Zongaffa the Herbalist, there had been a major breakthrough in the matter of the ‘Thunder Powder’. Such was Dryaka’s faith in the newly discovered potential of the substance (which almost exceeded his expectations) that he had ordered it to be put into large scale production. However, before this could be accomplished, Zongaffa would need the services of many more slaves. There had been a large number of deaths during the manufacture and testing so far. Nor could the deficit be made up from the latest collection by the People-Taker, even the extra number being brought secretly and above the authorized quota would not be sufficient. To ask for another levy, particularly as he had succeeded in having the present one brought forward from its usual period, was out of the question. It would have required explanations to the council of Elders which he did not wish to make. Nor, even with the Protectress’s support—which he felt sure would be withdrawn if she found it convenient—could he as yet openly flout the Council’s authority.

  Remembering how Gromart, the District Administrator for San-Gatah, had requested an increased allotment of Telonga slaves, Dryaka had used it as an excuse to send twenty-five of his adherents to meet the People-Taker. Ostensibly, they were to reinforce his escort in case Gromart tried to relieve him of some of the collection. In actual fact, they were to make a second levy on the Telonga villages and deliver the result of it secretly to the High Priest’s well-guarded country estate.

  Being one of Dryaka’s stoutest supporters, the People-Taker had raised no protests when told what would be required of him. What was more, he had welcomed the addition to his escort and had seen in it a way to satisfy his curiosity on a matter which had been causing him considerable concern.

  While perturbed by the failure of his two details to rejoin the main body of his escort, the People-Taker had been disinclined to make further reductions to its strength. Yet he had wished to investigate a somewhat puzzling and disturbing report which he had received regarding the behavior of the people at the Jey-Mat Telonga village.

  Although Dawn Drummond-Clayton and Bunduki were not aware of the fact, the death of their female Mun-Gatah prisoner had been far from accidental. Puzzled by the continued non-appearance of Arat’s detail, the People-Taker had decided to make an investigation in a way which avoided losing the services of his remaining warriors.

  The man who had received the assignment was a Telonga. Born in slavery, he carried out an important function during the collections. Sent ahead dressed as an ordinary villager, a duty which his family had carried out for generations, he warned the Elders in each community of the forthcoming visit. This had always been done and the possibility of the information being turned to the potential victims’ advantage by allowing them to hide had, with the very rare exceptions like Tav-Han and Joar-Fane, never occurred to anybody.

  On arriving at Jey-Mat shortly before sundown, the messenger had been surprised by the change which had come over the place. In addition to closing the gates at night, an armed guard was mounted on them. Up to then, such was the efficiency of the ‘Suppliers’ control of the whole business of the collections, the messenger had never been aware of the hunters’ presence in the villages. Nor, as they did not carry their spears and other hunting implements around when inside the palisades, had he known that such things existed.

  With his curiosity aroused, the messenger had questioned Guildo. Hoping to exculpate the community, the Elder had laid the deaths of the three warriors and capture of Sarlio upon Dawn and Bunduki, avoiding any mention of the part taken in the affair by At-Vee.

  On being informed that the woman was still held prisoner, the messenger had insisted upon seeing her. His original intention had been merely to verify the story, which he had found difficult to believe. While taking him to the hut in which Sarlio was incarcerated, Guildo had explained about the guards and insisted they were placed there against his wishes by the mysterious ‘Apes’. As Dawn and Bunduki had been spending the night with the elephant herd in the jungle, the messenger had not seen them and doubted that they existed. However, he had kept his thoughts on the matter to himself.

  Recognizing the messenger when he had been admitted, Sarlio had demanded her release. However, such was her appreciation of the change which had come over the hunters’ temperaments that she had been more amenable to reason than would previously have been the case. So she had accepted that it would be advisable to leave her liberation until later that night. Doing so had not improved her never too amiable disposition.

  By the time the messenger had returned, shortly before midnight, the woman had been in a vile temper. It was caused by her having had an opportunity to consider how her capture would affect her future, almost certainly resulting in a drop of social status. Nor had it been improved when he had stated there was no hope of retrieving her weapons. Filled with rage, she had struck her rescuer in the mouth.

  Little did Sarlio know that the blow formed the breaking point in the messenger s resentment over the way in which she had always treated him. Ever the bully, she had frequently vented her spleen on him when no other victim was available. His bitterness had grown, but up to that night had been held in check by a knowledge of what would happen to him should he attempt to repay the abuses.

  Free from observation, Guildo having asked to be excused from taking any further part in the affair, the messenger had been determined to obtain his revenge. Insisting that they could not hope to leave through any of the well-guarded gates, he had guided Sarlio to a flight of steps leading to the palisade’s parapet. On the way, unnoticed by her, he had picked up a stout piece of branch from one of the houses’ fuel supply. As she had started to dumb over, he had delivered a savage blow to the base of her skull. In all probability her neck had been broken even before she crashed to the ground outside the village.

  Climbing the palisade and hiding in its shadows until after the guard, who had appeared above to investigate the noise, had gone away, the messenger left undetected. However, being on foot, he had only rejoined the People-Taker on the morning of the reinforcements’ arrival.

  Having been on the ill-fated hunting expedition, the captain of the High Priest’s party had been less skeptical than the People-Taker regarding the mysterious ‘Apes’. In fact, being aware of Dryaka’s desire to regain possession of the girl who had escaped, he had insisted upon going to investigate. Puzzled and interested, the People-Taker had suggested that they could use the situation to satisfy the High Priest’s need for additional slaves. Allowing his escort to continue the journey with the original collection, he had accompanied the second party to Jey-Mat.

  Sending the messenger ahead of them, having become so conditioned to doing so that its omission never occurred to them, there had been no sign of the ‘Apes’ on the party’s arrival. At first, the Elders had insisted that no such persons were known to them. However, after they had been subjected to torture, one of their wives had taken the captain and People-Taker to a house. The two men had found a foreign girl, who the captain had recognized as ‘Dawn of the Apes’, lying unconscious behind a curtain. They had not been able to revive her, nor would anybody in the village admit to a man of her nation having been among them.

  Deciding that the man might not exist, or might have been separated from the girl for some reason, the Mun-Gatahs had taken their departure. With them had gone every member of the community who would be suitable for the High Priest’s purposes, including ‘Dawn of the Apes’ and the girl who had escaped from the earlier collection who had been discovered unconscious alongside Dawn.

  Handling so many villagers had presented difficulties, for they had displayed a terror-stricken reluctance to travelling which was very different from usual. However, by the second evening they were passing through more open woodland and, at the People-Taker’s suggestion, they made camp in a clearing that he and his escort always used. Although he would not usually have bothered, the captain had insist
ed upon positioning sentries on the rim around the location.

  Muttering curses under his breath, the young warrior wished that his captain had agreed when the People-Taker claimed there was no need for guards to be posted. Then he gave a shrug and accepted that he could do nothing except make the best of it. Turning his thoughts to the assignment in which he was currently engaged, he decided that such a duty would not appeal to him on a permanent basis. For all that, he mused as he recollected the part he had played in torturing the Elders of the village, some of the work was enjoyable. How that fat old coward had screamed as he was pulling off a strip of flesh—

  Even as the memory brought a sadistic leer to the warrior’s face, his ocha-gatah let out a nervous snort which jolted him from his reverie—

  Too late!

  There was a hissing swish of something passing rapidly through the air from the direction of a clump of bushes at which the ocha-gatah was staring.

  The warrior never knew what had disturbed his mount. Striking at the bottom of his neck, the needle-sharp tip of a 4-Blade Bear Razorhead point on a fiber-glass Micro-Flite arrow, propelled by a bow with a draw weight of one hundred pounds, drove onwards. The quadruple, cross-section cutting edges, which were kept honed to such a degree of sharpness that they justified their name, tore a swathe of destruction. They severed the vocal cords along with the windpipe, veins, arteries and even the bones of the throat before emerging to sink almost two inches deep into the trunk of the tree against which he was leaning.

  Although agony exploded through the warrior’s whole being, apart from a single strangled and not too loud squawk, he could do nothing to testify to the fact. Releasing the lance, which fell without a sound on the grass underfoot, his fingers rose in a frenzied and practically involuntary motion to close on the arrow’s shaft. Despite their desperate twisting and tugging, they could neither break the .328 of an inch hollow tube of fiber-glass nor pluck the steel head from the wood in which it was buried.

  The attempt was not prolonged. Such was the damage caused by the arrow that the warrior was dead within live seconds of the wound being inflicted. His hands, slick with blood, fell limply to his sides and his feet ceased their almost soundless, spasmodic kickings. However, the deadly missile kept him erect.

  The ocha-gatah snorted again and moved restlessly, but its training to stand still when the reins were dangling proved too strong. Although it moved restlessly, it neither bolted nor did anything else which might have alerted its master’s companions of danger.

  Standing alongside the bushes, with his custom built Bear Super Kodiak recurved l hunting bow held in the aiming position as a follow-through after loosing the arrow, Bunduki knew that he had achieved his purpose. The fourth and last of the Mun-Gatahs’ sentries had been dealt with as silently as his three companions.

  There was a cold and grim expression on the blond giant’s handsome face. He took neither pleasure nor satisfaction in what he had done any more than when, on Earth, conditions had compelled him to kill animals. If anything, after the sights he had seen at Jey-Mat and while following the People-Taker’s party, he felt less pity for the sentry than he did when his duty demanded that he dealt death to buffaloes, lions, leopards or other creatures whose numbers had increased to such an extent that the boundaries of the Amagasali Wild Life Reserve could no longer support them.

  In the company of the hunters from all four villages, Bunduki had entered Jey-Mat to see what had been done by the People-Taker and his escort. Although the blond giant had been angry over the betrayal of Dawn and Joar-Fane, he had lost all of his resentment at the sight of the four Elders’ mutilated bodies. For all their faults, which had been inborn after the conditioning of generations, they had shown great fortitude in withstanding the terrible pain that was inflicted upon them and refusing to answer the questions or give information to their tormenters. In addition, having drugged the two girls to prevent them from interfering with the “putting away” which had saved the hunters from capture or death, the Elders had carried out the almost unprecedented act of hiding them.

  Nor, in the face of the evidence, could Bunduki find it in his heart to blame the woman who had told the Mun-Gatahs where the girls were hidden. She had been trying to save her husband and the other Elders from further suffering and had failed.

  Faced by what they had seen, and with the crying of babies deprived of their mother ringing in their ears, the hunters of Jey-Mat had affirmed their determination to take revenge against the perpetrators of the outrage. Despite the qualms which they had clearly been experiencing, the contingents from the other villages had volunteered to take part in the mission. To give him his due, in spite of his previous objections, the Rol-Mat’s leader, Gar-Zok, was the first to offer his services.

  Knowing that his companions would be facing the greatest challenge of their lives when they caught up with the People-Taker’s party, Bunduki had learned all he could about its composition. Although the women had been too distressed and disturbed to supply accurate details, their information had warned him that he might not be contending with the People-Taker’s normal escort. In the first place, there had been no Mun-Gatah women present. For another thing, with the exception of the People-Taker himself, every one of the men had been wearing his helmet and leather breastplate. Finally, there had been more of them than had ever visited the village previously and they had returned in the direction from which they had come instead of following the usual practice of going along the track to Rol-Mat

  Leaving Tav-Han, a reluctant Mo-Han, the other apprentices and half a dozen of the hunters to look after the village, Bunduki had set off with the remainder. They were only twenty-five in number, counting the blond giant, and they had no way of knowing how large a party they were following, but that had not deterred them. Bunduki hoped that they would not be too greatly outnumbered, but had realized that the possibility existed.

  Despite the lead which their quarry had obtained, the vengeance-seekers had been able to travel faster. What was more, the discovery of several villagers’ bodies along the trail had helped to keep up their desire for revenge and to fend off doubts or fears over what must lie ahead. By early afternoon of the next day, they had known that they were not far behind and would have caught up before dawn the following morning. Bunduki had told them that he did not intend to delay the confrontation until daylight. To have done so would increase their difficulties and, in the event of the Mun-Gatahs possessing numerical superiority, might leave them with an impossible task.

  Ranging ahead of his companions, the blond giant had come into sight of the Mun-Gatahs and their prisoners as the sun was going down. Making certain that he was not detected, he had followed and studied the arrangements which were made for spending the night.

  To Bunduki’s relief, he had discovered that the escort was smaller than he had anticipated. What was more; they were still passing through the bush country and did not intend to push on to the open plains before making camp. The site they had chosen was well suited for his purpose. Although the bottom of the large hollow was bare but for short grass and a small lake in its centre, there was plenty of cover on the sides. Provided that it was planned and executed properly, a surprise attack was well within the bounds of possibility.

  Unfortunately, the blond giant had not been able to approach close enough to locate Dawn and Joar-Fane among the mass of prisoners. Knowing his bride-to-be, as he now regarded his adoptive cousin, he had felt sure that she could be relied upon to act in a sensible manner when the time came.

  Rejoining the hunters, Bunduki had held a council of war. Knowing that they employed certain tactics when dealing with marauding bands of mandrills, large primates with a well organized social and protective structure which made them as dangerous as any carnivore, he had suggested that the same methods be used against the human foes. He had taken upon himself the task of removing the sentries. While he was satisfied that his companions were ready to fight when the time came, he did not want to
rely on any of them to handle such a deliberate, cold-blooded, yet vitally important and completely essential, task.

  Stalking each sentry in turn, the blond giant used his knife on the first two. The m’kuki, thrust instead of thrown from behind, had accounted for the third. However, the position of the last had precluded the possibility of approaching close enough to strike him down. So the equally effective bow and arrow had solved the problem.

  Turning away as soon as he knew that neither the warrior nor the ocha-gatah were going to raise the alarm, Bunduki gathered up the m’kuki and shield. As silently as he had come, he went back to where his companions were waiting. After repeating one piece of advice and making arrangements to deal with a contingency that had arisen from what he had seen in the hollow, he led them there. Moving with deadly stealth, they advanced until almost at the edge of the bushes.

  ‘Go to your positions,’ the blond giant ordered in a whisper. ‘When Lo-Pak comes back, I’ll give the signal and well all attack at the same moment.’

  While the hunters moved off in single file, halting one after another in concealment, Bunduki made ready for what lay ahead. Hanging the bow and his back-quiver on the bush behind which he was standing, he slipped the handles of the shield over his left arm. Haying made sure that it was securely in position, he picked up and grasped the m’kuki ready to be thrown.

  Thirty minutes went by before Lo-Pak completed the encirclement and rejoined the blond giant. During the period, Bunduki watched the camp for the slightest hint that their presence had been discovered. It said much for the skill possessed by the Telonga hunters that surrounding the clearing and taking up their positions was carried out successfully and they avoided any noise which might have betrayed them.

  Bunduki also studied the layout of the camp, noting the details which he had observed earlier and hoping to see Dawn and Joar-Fane. The villagers were huddled together in one group at the opposite side of the big clearing and, scan them though he might, he still failed to pick out either girl. So, to prevent himself from worrying about the possible danger to them, he turned his attention to their abductors.