Bunduki (Bunduki Series Book One) Read online

  Eager as the blond giant might be to commence his search for Dawn, he was too wise to set about it in a hurried or impatient manner. The rash and incautious did not survive for long in a jungle. His every instinct warned him that the rule might apply even more strongly in his present situation. He was in a strange and unfamiliar type of country.

  Just how strange, he could not yet say.

  Seeing the red howler monkeys had suggested that he was no longer in Africa. Yet it was impossible for him to be anywhere else. He realized, however, that under the circumstances, he could not be sure of what was—or was not—possible.

  He should not be dressed in the leopard skin loincloth. The big knife could have been hanging on his belt as he always carried it when on patrol, but the bow and arrows should have been locked in his study at the Wild Life Reserve’s Headquarters.

  So what was the answer?

  Had Dawn and he been snatched from certain death and, in some equally miraculous manner, been transported without their knowledge to the jungles of South America?

  If so, why had it been done and who could have had the technical knowledge and equipment capable of doing it?

  Even while thinking on those lines, Bunduki became conscious of the sensation of being watched. Instantly, he grew alert and started to search for the watcher.

  There was a movement in an adjacent tree. Reaching for his bow, the blond giant turned his head to make a closer study. What he saw brought an even more puzzled frown to his face. He found himself looking at a predatory animal, but it was over thirty yards away and not a source of danger. The surprise came from a different reason. While the creature was feline, it was not—as might have been expected in a jungle that had red howler monkeys—a jaguar, mountain lion or ocelot. An ashy-gray in color, its short-legged body was dappled with large, deeper grey areas which enclosed small dark spots and its tail looked long in proportion to its build.

  As if becoming aware that it had been seen, the animal turned and darted away through the branches with as much ease and as swift as if it had been on the ground. That was, Bunduki realized, hardly surprising. Neofelis nebulosa, the clouded leopard, was arboreal by nature and only rarely descended to the ground. However, there were no clouded leopards in Africa, or South America. They were only found in the jungles of the East Indies and South-East Asia.

  After continuing with what proved to be an abortive search for the watcher, whom he felt sure still had him under observation, Bunduki thrust the question, along with the puzzle of a jungle that held red howler monkeys and clouded leopards, from his mind. In the former case, he was willing to let the watcher take the initiative in making a closer acquaintance. The incessant inner suggestion that Dawn was somewhere to the north-west was too urgent for him to waste time on less vital considerations.

  There was, Bunduki suddenly realized, one way in which he might learn of Dawn’s exact whereabouts. Although the Mangani ix—with whom Lord Greystoke had lived until young manhood x , following the death of his parents while he was still a baby—had become extinct in the early 1950s, Tarzan and his family had made use of their calls as a means of signaling to each other. Some acoustic quality in the vocal range of the Mangani allowed the sounds to carry for vast distances through a jungle. So, even if Dawn was beyond the range of a human voice, the challenge of a bull Mangani—being the farthest carrying of the calls, as it was issued to give a warning of territorial rights—might reach her. If she heard it, she would be able to identify his voice and would know that he was looking for her.

  Filling his lungs, Bunduki flung back his head and thundered out the awesome, roaring call. Twice more, with an unabated volume, he sent the challenge echoing through the jungle. Then he listened hopefully. A small flock of greater curassows which were feeding at the foot of the tree took off and flapped hurriedly away. Nearby, a black rhinoceros lurched up from where it had been sleeping and, with an explosive snort, crashed away through the undergrowth. Not far away, in another direction, what could only be a tiger gave its throaty roar in answer to the challenge. At a greater distance, elephants began to trumpet their defiance.

  And then, from a long way off in the north-west, rose a cry similar to that which Bunduki had given.

  For a moment, the blond giant wondered if his ears were playing tricks upon him. Then, as the distant call was repeated, he had the brief hope that it might be originating from a male member of his adoptive family. Certainly it had not been made by Dawn. She would have used the cry of a female Mangani. Nor was it likely to have come from Tarzan, Sir Paul, Korak the Killer, xi or Armand. When Kenya had been granted its independence, they had known that there was no future for them if they had stayed there. So they had accepted David Innes’ offer to join him and make a new life for themselves and their families in Pellucidar xii Dawn and Bunduki had been included in the invitation. Being employed under contract by the Ambagasali Government, they had honored the agreements by staying on until suitable replacements could be hired.

  So, with the rest of the Greystoke family already settled in their new homes at the Earth’s core, the response to his challenge could not have been made by one of them. Yet Tarzan’s exhaustive investigations during the mid-1960s had led him to believe that the Mangani were extinct.

  That was, Bunduki concluded, just one more mystery to add to those which had already come to his attention since he awoke. It certainly did nothing to help him locate Dawn, unless she too had heard the distant call and was making her way towards it. So he decided that he would not allow the speculation to distract him any longer from his search.

  Having reached his decision, the blond giant picked up his bow and climbed nimbly to the ground. On his arrival, still conscious of the feeling that his every move was being scrutinized, his right hand reached up and slid an arrow from the quiver on his back. Without the need for him to look at what he was doing, he rested its shaft on the arrow-shelf of the bow’s handle and slipped the groove of the nock over the string.

  Once again, failing to locate the watcher, Bunduki put the matter from his thoughts. However, he remained alert and his eyes were constantly on the move as he started to walk in a northwesterly direction. As he did so, he became aware of the pangs of a deep hunger. It was as if he had nothing in his stomach and intestines. Identifying a number of plants, bushes and trees, although some were unfamiliar, he selected such fruit and berries as he knew to be edible and ate them while on the move. There was, however, a more urgent need in the food line. From what he saw, filling it should not be difficult for a man with his skill as a hunter.

  The variety of animals which Bunduki came across proved to be an unending source of amazement and conjecture. Once a troop of black and white Colobus monkeys, like those in the Abedare Forest of Kenya, hurled abuse at him from the trees. At the same time, a small herd of white-spotted Axis deer fled as he had seen their kind do during an expedition to India. Not a mile away, while Hooloock gibbons swung from the branches and fed in a fig tree, a large sounder of white-lipped peccaries were foraging at its foot on the fruit which were being dislodged. Later he heard the calls of chimpanzees and of Asian jungle fowl. He saw tracks left by bongo, giant forest hog and buffalo as well as identifying—by sight—a South American three-toed sloth and a Malayan tapir. Still further on, a bull guided its harem and young away as a jaguar appeared at the edge of the clearing in which they had been grazing.

  Birds, reptiles and smaller mammals were also present in a similar geographically confusing profusion. By their lack of fear, they were none of them used to human beings. The only creatures that appeared to be absent, he noticed with relief, were bothersome insects, ticks, leeches and other parasites.

  It seemed to Bunduki that he had stumbled into a kind of vast zoological gardens, in which creatures from every continent had been gathered and were allowed to roam at will. Even Mangani, unless his imagination had been playing tricks upon him. That was possible, he had to admit. There had been no signs, nor sounds, of the
m apart from the very distant answer to his challenge.

  Altogether the environment through which the blond giant was passing struck him as being something Dawn and he had frequently discussed and hoped to find as children. He could not even start to guess where on Earth it might be, which aroused another possibility—farfetched as it might appear to be—for him to consider.

  The time was almost noon and the continuing pangs of hunger caused Bunduki to set aside the train of thought which his summation had brought to mind. Instead, he started to hunt in deadly earnest. Gliding silently between the trees and through the undergrowth, with keen blue eyes constantly flickering glances from side to side, ears straining to catch the softest sound and nostrils testing the air—although his sense of smell was not so well developed as that of the other members of his adoptive family—he looked more like a predatory jungle creature than a civilized human being.

  At last Bunduki found his prey. Halting in cover at the edge of a large clearing, he looked to where half a dozen grayish, somewhat squarely built creatures were feeding on the banks of a stream. They were capybara and, although rather large for his needs, made good eating. There was another point that appealed to him, as the former Chief Warden of a game reserve. Their species bred in such numbers that, particularly if his theory regarding his location was correct, the death of one would not seriously deplete the stock.

  Standing erect and relaxed, with his left foot pointing towards the target, the blond giant extended his left arm and turned the bow from the nearly horizontal carrying position almost to vertical. The fingers of his bow-hand were curled around the pistol grip of the handle-riser, taking the pressure of the draw against the base of the thumb. His right elbow was raised outwards to shoulder level. Tucking the little finger of the draw-hand out of the way, he folded the remainder—with the nock of the arrow between the first and second digits—over the string. Utilizing his tremendously strong back and shoulder muscles, rather than those of his right arm, he drew the string and arrow rearwards.

  Being a hunter, as opposed to a tournament-target archer, Bunduki favored the high, or cheek draw. Tilting his head slightly to the right, until the second finger of his draw-hand was touching his cheek just over the last tooth in his lower jaw, he attained his anchor point. He took aim swiftly and carefully, holding his breath to avoid the motion of his chest disturbing his posture. Then he relaxed the fingers of his right hand to accomplish a smooth release. Uncoiling from the arcs into which they had been drawn, the bow’s upper and lower limbs caused the string to straighten and thrust the arrow forward.

  Retaining his stance, the blond giant watched the thirty-one inch long arrow whistling through the air. It flew true and the capybara at which he had aimed, a young male, gave a convulsive bound as the one hundred and twenty-five grain, needle-sharp point spiked into its body. The razor-edged quadruple blades of the head cut onwards and collapsed the lungs in passing. Down went the stricken animal, its legs kicking. It was dead before its alarmed companions had plunged into the stream and swam away.

  Resuming a more relaxed attitude, Bunduki strolled across the clearing. It was fringed by dense undergrowth that was pierced at several points by game trails. Reaching his prey, he lay the bow on the ground. Slipping off the quiver, as he meant to take a dip in the stream after he had eaten, he placed it alongside the bow. Then, as his right hand reached across to the Randall knife, he heard something which drove all thoughts of food from his head.

  There was a rustling in the undergrowth to his left. A savage, snarling bellow rang out—followed by the scream of a terrified woman!

  Chapter Two – Are You Also A Great Warrior?

  Seeing a shape appear at the top of the slope, the large black-maned lion rose from where it had been lazing in the shade of a clump of bushes. At its low, challenging growl, the rest of its pride interrupted their feeding on the carcass of the cow bison which they had killed.

  At the sight of the lion, Dawn Drummond-Clayton came to a halt. It was, she told herself bitterly, her own fault that she should find herself in a such a precarious situation. After all she had seen that day, and with her practical experience, she ought to have been more careful. Instead of walking along engrossed in her thoughts, she should have stayed alert. If she had, the noises being made by the feeding pride would have warned her of their presence and she could have avoided them.

  Of course, she went on, her preoccupation might be considered excusable under the circumstances.

  Ever since Dawn had woken at sunrise, to find that she was lying on a ledge half way up the side of a rocky kopje xiii she had been forcing herself to accept very peculiar conditions. She had remembered M’Bili’s murder and the Land Rover plunging into the Gambuti Gorge, but nothing more until waking to discover that she was alive and uninjured.

  On first looking around, she had thought that she might be somewhere in the Ambagasali. Wild Life Reserve; although she could not imagine how she had come to be there. At every side the plains rolled away in gentle, undulating folds which were speckled with herds of herbivorous animals of many kinds and punctuated by kopjes, clumps of bushes and the occasional tree. The terrain was, in fact, reminiscent of what the male members of her family had jokingly referred to as the M.M.B. A.A.; the Miles and Miles of Bloody Awful Africa.

  Having studied her surroundings, Dawn realized that she was not within the familiar bounds of the Reserve. The Reserve would have been hard put to equal the numbers of animals she had observed, and certainly could not have offered such a diversity of species. The very unusual variety of animals had caused her to have doubts as to whether she was even still in Africa. All of the normal plains’ creatures had been in evidence; ostriches, secretary birds, kori bustards, warthogs, giraffes, buffalo and numerous types of antelope and gazelle from different parts of her home continent. Scattered among them had been nilgai and blackbuck from India. Giant anteaters, pronghorns, pampas and whitetail deer that were normally residents of North or South America had been mingling with them.

  Various thoughts had been passing through her head as she stood identifying the different kinds of animals.

  Could she be suffering from a dying illusion, or dreaming while unconscious from the injuries she had sustained in the crash?

  Dawn doubted whether either supposition was the answer.

  Then what had happened?

  Where was she?

  And, equally important, why had Bunduki not been brought with her?

  Almost as a reply to the last question, the girl experienced a growing subconscious suggestion that her adoptive cousin was also alive and that she could find him somewhere in a jungle to the southeast.

  Like the blond giant, Dawn had been puzzled by the sensation. She had never felt anything so utterly demanding and compulsive. It was as if she had been subjected to post-hypnotic suggestion. While it was almost beyond her comprehension, she decided that it was no more so than any of the other inexplicable circumstances in which she found herself.

  There was, Dawn had concluded, only one way to deal with the mystery. Accept the suggestion as valid and go to try and find Bunduki, who was almost certainly looking for her. Between them, they ought to be able to solve the other puzzles.

  Having accepted that as her best course of action, Dawn had reviewed the situation in a calm and positive manner.

  Whoever, or whatever, had saved her life must have had a sound and logical reason for doing so. Certainly they had given her adequate means of self-protection. In some way they had found and assembled her Ben Pearson Marauder Take-Down hunting bow. It had been at her side, with the eight-arrow bow-quiver attached and her shoulder-quiver. Altogether, they had supplied her with twenty-two fiber glass Micro-Flite arrows with four-blade Bear Razorhead points, all of which were most acceptable in her present situation. Nor would her Randall Model 1 fighting knife come amiss. It was hanging sheathed on the belt of the garments which had replaced the blouse, jeans and moccasins she had been wearing in the
Land Rover.

  In addition to arming her, the mysterious rescuers had given her a way of satisfying the sensation of complete emptiness in her stomach. There had been a small packet, wrapped in the skin of a Thomsons gazelle, with her bow. Opening it, she had found that it contained some biltong xiv and pemmican. xv There had even been a small stream near the foot of the kopje so that she had been able to quench her thirst.

  Leaving the vicinity of the kopje, after having eaten a good meal, Dawn had started to walk in a south-easterly direction. She had had the sensation of being watched by something other than the animals, but had not been able to locate the person, or persons, responsible. Although the scrutiny had continued, nothing had come of it. So she had decided to let the observers make the first move in the matter of establishing contact. They had not offered to do so, but she soon had other things to require her attention. In addition to the herbivorous animals, there were other and more dangerous creatures to be taken into consideration. There had been other lions, a couple of cheetahs, a family of Cape hunting dogs and, far away, what she had taken to be a pack of wolves, but she had avoided coming too close to any of them.

  With the exception of the modem materials used in the construction of her weapons, Dawn seemed to blend perfectly into the primitive nature of her surroundings. Five foot eight inches in height, with the kind of a figure that many a sex-symbol movie star needed artificial aids to attain—bust, 38; waist, 20; hips, 36—she presented a picture of primitive, savage womanhood. Kept short for convenience, her curly tawny hair formed a frame to set off classically beautiful features. Tanned to a rich golden bronze, like all the exposed portions of her gorgeous body and legs, her face denoted breeding, intelligence, strength of will and determination. Power-packed, yet not unfeminine muscles, rippled under her sleek skin and she moved with the fluid grace of a trained athlete.