XXVII

“Hiss! Something Whistled Past”

To Pic, his son’s prowess was a revelation. Never was known such stone-throwing. “It is one thing to hit a rabbit and another to hit a man coming at you with a club,” he thought. “The boy is a prodigy; may he live through this day.” The men of Castillo were now closing in. Pic’s powerful arm reached out and swept the lad behind him, for the time was near at hand for closer work with the flint-ax. “Well done,” he muttered. “My turn now. Stand well back and give me plenty of arm room to fight these wolves. Be ready with your ax, for if I break or lose mine, I will need another.”

Kutnar fell back obediently. His jaws were clenched tightly together and the grip on his ax-handle was even tighter as he awaited his chance to help when most needed.

From his rock-roost, Gonch was an awed witness of the boy’s deadly marksmanship. The sling suddenly ceased its work, for now the cave-men were coming to grips with those hidden from his sight. He saw Totan detach himself from the man-pack and fall back, permitting the yelling horde to sweep past him. To the hetman’s credit be it said that he who feared no man, now disdainedcasting the balance of his great strength into such a one-sided contest. He stood with arms folded, watching and shouting commands, but offering to take no more active part where he considered himself so little needed. Gonch observed Totan’s inaction. The time had come when he might rid himself of his two worst enemies at one fell stroke. He leaned far out from the rock-wall and howled furiously: “He has come as I promised. Up and strike before another wins the glory. It is Pic, the Lion Man himself.”

The giant hetman bristled as he heard. The blood of the pit-fighter surged through his veins like molten steel. In an instant his calm was transformed into a tempest.

“The Lion Man?” he roared, tearing through the crowd to the foot of the ledge. “And so he has come to me at last. He is mine, I say, and my hand alone shall do the butchering. Stand back, every one of you. The man who raises a club to strike him, dies.”

The cave-men stopped short, falling over one another in their anxiety to keep out of the hetman’s way. Totan turned from them to him who stood upon the ledge. Pic had seen and heard all. He shook his ax-blade defiantly in the other’s face.

“Butcher me?” he screamed. “You; ugly beast? Come and try, here where there is room for both of us.”

Totan answered with a thunderous roar. He clambered up the ledge. Pic fell back several paces,permitting his rival a foothold upon the rock-platform. This gave the hetman a moment to prepare himself—a bit of chivalry he failed to appreciate. Men who gave ground or hesitated were afraid of him—that was all. “Ar-r-r death!” he snarled like a mad tiger and flung himself upon the Mousterian champion.

“Death, so be it,” and Pic sprang forward to meet him. So fierce was the onslaught that the two giants came breast to breast before either had a chance to strike. Quick as a cat, Pic dropped his ax and grappled with his burly opponent, throwing both arms about him, bear-fashion. Finding himself at a disadvantage, Totan too let fall his weapon, roaring with rage and pain and fighting like a demon to break the other’s crushing grip.

But Pic had the under hold. With arms clamped around his rival’s midriff, and face beneath the hetman’s chin beyond the reach of tearing fingers and snapping bull-teeth, he held him as in an iron vise, from which there was no escape. The Mousterian made not a sound. He did not seem to even move, but slowly the Castillan giant’s head with nose and mouth gushing blood, fell back. A dull crunch, and before the cave-men realized what had happened, their chieftain was borne to the edge of the rock-platform and cast down among them, a bloody, lifeless thing. In a flash, Pic recovered his ax and was again upon the defensive. The rabble recoiled in terror from the fierce Lion Man. Gonch gazed down into the face of the dead Totan. “Good,” he croaked. “Now for the other,” and from his safe perch he gave frantic commands for his minions to renew the attack. “Kill the man!” he screeched. “Capture the boy alive. He is our last chance for flints and food. At them, wolves. A whole tribe will come down upon you if they escape.”

The Battle of the Giants

Thus urged, the cave-men rallied and rushed again to the assault. The giant Mousterian’s ax cut them down like straws, but the living climbed over the dead and carried the ledge by sheer weight of numbers. Pic was forced back against the wall, still fighting furiously, although bleeding from a dozen wounds. His ax was shattered, but the boy was ready with another. Pic seized and wielded it with deadly effect until it too was gone. Then grappling with the man nearest him, he fastened his teeth in his throat. The mob surged over him. Kutnar struggled desperately, but was soon overpowered.

At that moment, a loud snorting and thumping of heavy feet sounded from below, followed by squeals of rage, and two monstrous beasts came charging up the slope. “The Mammoth! the Woolly Rhinoceros!” yelled the cave-men nearest them and away they scampered, howling with fear. The alarm spread like wildfire to their companions upon the ledge and they too scattered in all directions, the rearmost barely escaping with their lives. Even Gonch shared their panic, for he made allhaste to climb higher, forgetting that he was quite safe and that no beast could reach him.

Hairi and Wulli halted at the foot of the ledge and looked about them. The Castillans had fled and in all of that gore and slaughter, only one semblance of life remained. Kutnar the boy was kneeling over a prostrate form and wiping the blood from its face. The form was that of the Mousterian weapon maker, lying where it had fallen. The Castillan jackals had borne down Pic the Lion by their overwhelming numbers, but were now in their turn fleeing in disorder along the mountain side. It had devolved upon the Mammoth and Rhinoceros to rush to their friends’ assistance and strike the decisive blow, thereby terminating this most desperate of unequal conflicts—the bloody battle of the Scarp.

It had been a hard, wearisome charge up the steep mountain slope. Hairi and Wulli wondered how they ever summoned courage to do it. They had never done such a thing before. But the present conditions were extraordinary. Pic, their dearest friend, was being set upon by the man-pack and there was no other way to help him. They had returned after their first fright, and hearing the voice of battle about them, had hurried to the rescue. To their horror, they found the ledge a shambles reeking with blood and death. Pic was not there. They feared they had come too late. Then both jumped back in surprise, for Kutnar was looking down upon them. They recognized him at once.

“You here?” Wulli gasped. “I am so glad. We have found you at last.”

“I, too, am glad,” said the Mammoth. “We have come far to find you. But why should these men destroy each other? I do not see Pic and am so afraid. Where is he?”

Kutnar stared at the huge beast like one not in his right mind. He pointed to the body over which he kneeled and replied in a hollow voice: “Here he lies and yet it is not he. The best of him is gone.He tried to save me from these savage men. For that he died;” and the boy rocked back and forth over his father’s body, moaning as though his heart would break.

The Mammoth bowed his head, overwhelmed, crushed as the terrible truth drove itself home. “Dead?” he groaned dismally. “I too will stay. I will not leave him.”

“Nor I,” said the Rhinoceros solemnly.

All three remained with heads bent low, paying their last tribute to the Mousterian chief. The Mammoth was the first to recover himself. He stamped his feet and flapped his ears. His eyes reddened like hot coals. “Who killed him?” he screamed. “If one of these men did it, I will trample the life out of every one of them, even though I have to climb over the top of this mountain to do it.”

Kutnar was on his feet in an instant. “Who killed him? I do not know. But there is one who caused all this, my traitor-friend the Hyena Man. I heard his voice above us. He must die.” He darted across the ledge and picked up his sling and pebble-pouch which had fallen there during the melee, then leaped down the slope and looked above him. A man was ascending the Scarp. Kutnar ran to one side of the rock-shelter and began climbing up.

High above his head, Gonch was ascending leisurely, feeling comfortable in the thought that Totan and Pic were no more. He had seen Totan’sbody and would have relished a glimpse of Pic’s but the Mammoth and Rhinoceros stood on guard below and he dared not descend. However Pic was as dead as Totan, he felt reasonably certain and now that his enemies were out of the way, he planned to return to Castillo and seize the reins of authority. Some day, Fate permitting, he might even venture into the Mousterian country and take Pic’s place. The possibilities of his future were unlimited. He might become the foremost potentate in all the world.

He was looking behind him now and then from force of habit. There were none left to pursue him but he had not seen Pic’s body and therefore could not feel absolutely sure. As he snatched one of his hurried glances, to his horror, he saw a figure scaling the cliff below him. For an instant he thought that the Mousterian chief must have risen from the grave to destroy him, then he breathed a sigh of relief. It was not Pic but a much smaller man. One of his own people perhaps. He halted until the other came near enough to be recognized. Gonch stared at him in amazement then snarled hatefully, “Kutnar! What brings the boy here?”

As if in reply, Kutnar shook his fist at the Muskman and cried out, “Traitor, you shall not escape me this time,” and climbed up as fast as he could.

Gonch laughed a loud bitter laugh. The boy carried no ax and he was at a disadvantage, attacking from below. The Muskman seized a stone from the wall behind him and raised it above hishead in both hands. There he stood howling derision at his pursuer.

Kutnar heard but he only climbed the faster. His was a lithe active body. In his brain lurked the inborn gift of clear-headedness and sure-footedness working in perfect harmony. But never had his climbing powers been subjected to so severe a test. In places the wall, for rods at a time appeared so smooth and unbroken that it seemed impossible for a human being to adhere to it; but Kutnar not only did adhere but continued upward at an astonishing rate. His toes and fingers found every minute wrinkle and crevice. His legs were the sustaining members, his shoulders the windlass, his arms the tackle of a self-propelling derrick lifting itself in mid-air. Kutnar was expending his energy at a lavish rate. He might have rested temporarily on the occasional rock-shelves that marked his route. His enemy was resting and he could have done likewise. In a saner moment he would have so chosen but now he was insane; a maniac bearing a death message to the man whose perfidy had destroyed the one he loved best. The human derrick was strained almost to the breaking point and still it continued to propel itself skyward. Not until Kutnar reached an unusually deep shelf which gave him more than standing room, did he pause even for a moment; then he halted and looked up. The Muskman stood waiting above him. Kutnar could see his open red mouth and white teeth. Gonch’s face wore an expression of crueleagerness such as a panther wears when about to spring from the tree branches upon a fawn passing beneath. His back was set against the wall, both hands raised high above his head. He was preparing to hurl the stone.

Kutnar braced his legs, secured a firm foothold and whirled his sling. Gonch trembled. He could almost feel the pebble striking his skull with deadly precision. He faltered, tossed the stone wildly and fled in a panic up the wall behind him. The boy dodged the stone as it fell but now the Muskman was beyond effective throwing range and so Kutnar ceased whirling his sling and followed after. “The traitor must die,” repeated itself over and over in his mind and drove out all thought of himself, a stripling pitted against a full-grown man. His breath came in gasps, for what with the struggle below and his exhausting climb, the limit of his endurance was nearly reached. There came over him the fear that Gonch might escape after all and so he strove desperately, forcing his shaking legs to carry him on.

Gonch was comparatively fresh and perhaps it was just as well for the boy that he had abandoned all thought of fight. The Muskman had become obsessed with fear of the magic sling whose deadly accuracy he had become familiar with through long experience. Kutnar’s legs would no longer aid him in that heart-breaking ascent. The sling launched its bolt but in his anxiety, he missed his aim. Gonch was struggling up the slippery rockwhen he heard the stone whizz close by his head and click against the wall. The sounds spurred him on but in his over-eagerness he slipped and dropped back several feet. This slip terrified him.

Kutnar felt in his pouch and drew forth another pebble—the last. He had but one chance left. He reloaded his weapon but he neither whirled nor threw at his enemy now moving slowly but surely to safety. He was waiting until his heart would ease its pounding and his muscles could be brought under control for the final cast.

Gonch had recovered himself and was making progress. No second missile had followed the first to shake his nerves. Desperation gave him courage for the supreme effort required. His hands were raised to within a few yards of the crowning pinnacles of the Scarp. Once ahold of them he could drag himself to the top—and safety.

Kutnar saw. His heart had ceased palpitating. He no longer trembled. His body was as cold as ice. “That man must die,” he said for the last time. The thong hissed. Every ounce of strength in the guiding muscles followed the stone in its flight and sent it whizzing to the mark.

Gonch doubled up. His feet jerked convulsively as the death-messenger crashed into his ribs. His hands had already found anchorage. He might have pulled himself to the top, had not the sling-stone bid him halt. His lower limbs half-paralyzed, dabbed feebly against the smooth wall in a vain effort to relieve the weight of his body,thrown suddenly upon his arms. Once, twice, thrice, his feet sought support, then his muscles relaxed, his body straightened out and he hung suspended in mid-air.

Beneath him, his destroyer watched and waited, cold and implacable as an avenging Fate. The Muskman yet clung to the coping fluttering like a wounded bird. Slowly his head fell back and turned so that he could see over his right shoulder. His face blanched, his eyes started from their sockets at sight of the vast emptiness beneath him. Gradually his grip relaxed. He made a last effort for one more moment of sweet life, then with a despairing screech, down he fell. His body shot along the face of the Scarp until it encountered a rugged projection which sent it bounding clear of the rock-wall. Down, down it fell, whirling in space, finally crashing to its last resting place at the base of the Scarp. The traitor had come into his own at last and his body lay amid those of his comrades who now shared their lot with the true author of their destruction.

“Down He Fell”

How Kutnar descended the precipitous wall of the Scarp, he never knew nor did he care. A slip of hand or foot would have sent him to his death, a thing he feared not, for it meant only peace and rest to his aching heart. His motions were those of one imprudent and entirely heedless of danger. He lowered his body from one rock projection to another in such reckless fashion that the wonder is he did not fall. Some good angel must have been watching over him. His long journey downward was entirely without mishap and he reached the foot of the Scarp in safety.

Here a tremendous surprise awaited him. Pic’s body had disappeared. In its stead, a man sat upon the rock-platform with feet dangling over the edge. His body was bruised and bleeding. His eyes were closed and his head hung forward upon his chest. Had not the Mammoth’s trunk curled around his waist, given him support, he must have fallen. But he was alive for his muscles twitched feebly and he mumbled strange words that neither Hairi nor Wulli could understand.

For an instant, Kutnar stared open-mouthed unable to realize the great mercy that some goodspirit had reserved as his portion. “Alive!” he said in a low voice as though fearing to disturb the dead. “I am dreaming. It cannot be.”

“Alive, yes he is. Oowee, oowee!” squealed the Rhinoceros jumping up and down with joy. “And now you too are safe.”

Kutnar sprang to his father with a glad cry and threw his arms about him. Pic opened his eyes. “Kutnar,” he murmured feebly; then his eyes closed again and he rambled on deliriously about wolves and hyenas and snow and various other things that had not the remotest connection with the present occasion. It was a most unintelligible discourse but his audience listened with rapt attention and beamed happily, for it all meant that Pic was alive.

Yes he still lived, thanks to his great strength and endurance. But for them, he could not have survived the terrible battering he had received. His body was a mass of welts and contusions, the result of merciless pounding. Scarcely a square inch of it had been spared by the Castillan clubs. No man could have lived under a third of those blows, had they been delivered by flint-axes, which cleaved through the flesh and inflicted ghastly wounds. Pic had demonstrated with his own body that ineffective weapons made not only poor hunters but poor warriors as well. However he was not yet out of danger in spite of his having survived the damage inflicted by his enemies. Bad bruises, loss of blood and resulting weakness might havefinally put an end to him, had it not been for the care and treatment bestowed upon him by his friends.

Hairi found a spring bubbling from the mountain slope and brought a trunkful, doling it out to Kutnar who laved his father’s wounds and cooled his fever. The boy then hurried to the grotto of the underground vault and returned with Pic’s bearskin robe. The invalid was bundled up in this and tucked away under the rock-shelter to rest. This done, Kutnar went off to re-fill his pebble pouch and kill food for Pic so that he might eat when he had rested and regained his strength. Meanwhile Hairi and Wulli stood guard. When Kutnar returned, the two beasts descended the mountain slope to graze and the boy went on duty. Such nursing could not help but produce results. Pic recovered rapidly and before many days, the quartette was ready to depart. Still bundled up in his bearskin suit, Pic was lifted to the Mammoth’s neck and with Kutnar sitting behind to steady him, they marched down the slope and around the mountain to the River Pas. They crossed this and went north along the right bank until they came in sight of Castillo. A faint haze arising in the distance from the cave-entrance, showed that it was still the home of men. “What will they do with Totan and Gonch gone?” said Kutnar, and his father answered, “Rather what will they do now that they no longer have a boy to feed them?”

This was the last they saw of the Castillanstronghold, for here they turned in the direction of the rising sun. A long journey lay before them but their hearts were light and full of joy of companionship. Kutnar was found, Pic was himself again and now they were bound for a goal of rest and contentment—home.

The End

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