Chapter Seven

THE Alalus youth, son of The First Woman, ranged the forest in search of

the ape-man, the only creature that ever had stirred within his savage,

primitive breast any emotion even slightly akin to affection; but he did

not find him. Instead he fell in with two older males of his own species,

and these three hunted together, as was occasionally the custom of these

inoffensive creatures. His new acquaintances showed little interest in

his strange armament--they were quite content with a stick and a stone

knife. To the former an occasional rodent fell and the latter discovered

many a luscious grub and insect beneath the mold that floored the forest

or hidden under the bark of a tree. For the most part, however, they fed

upon fruits, nuts and tubers. Not so the son of The First Woman, however.

He brought in many birds and an occasional antelope, for he was becoming

daily more proficient with the bow and the spear, and as he often brought

in more than he could eat and left the remainder to his two fellows, they

were permanently attached to him, or at least until such time as some

fearsome woman should appear upon the scene to shatter their idyllic

existence and drag one of them away to her corral.

They wondered a little at him in their slow and stupid minds, for he

seemed to differ in some vague, intangible way from them and all others

of their sex that they had known. He held his chin higher for one thing

and his gaze was far less shifty and apologetic. He strode with a firmer

step and with less caution; but perhaps they smiled inwardly as they

cogitated muddily upon that inevitable moment that would discover one of

their coarse, brutal, hairy shes felling him with her bludgeon and

dragging him off toward the caves by the hair of his head.

And then one day the thing happened, or at least a part of it

happened--they met a huge she suddenly in an open place in the forest The

two who accompanied the son of The First Woman turned in flight, but when

they had reached the vantage ground of close-growing timber they paused

and looked back to see if the woman was pursuing them and what had become

of their companion. To their relief they saw that the woman was not

following them and to their consternation that their fellow had not fled,

but was facing her defiantly, and motioning her to go away, or be killed.

Such crass stupidity! He must have been whelped without brains. It never

occurred to them to attribute his act to courage. Courage was for the

shes; the male spent his life in fleeing danger and the female of his

species.

But they were grateful to him, for his rash act would save them since the

she would take but one of them and that one would be he who thus

foolishly remained behind to defy her.

The woman, unaccustomed to having her rights challenged by mere man, was

filled with surprise and righteous anger. Her surprise brought her to a

sudden halt twenty paces from the man and her anger caused her to reach

for one of the stone missiles hanging at her girdle. That was her

undoing. The son of The First Woman, standing before her with an arrow

already fitted to his bow, waited not to discover her further intentions,

but even as the woman's fingers loosed the feathered messenger of defeat

from the leather thong of her girdle, he drew the shaft to his cheek and

released it.

His two companions, watching from the seclusion of the wood, saw the

woman stiffen, her face contorted in a spasm of pain; they saw her clutch

frantically at a feathered shaft protruding from her chest, sink to her

knees and then sprawl to earth, where she lay kicking with her feet and

clutching with her fingers for a brief moment before she relapsed into

eternal quiet; then they emerged from their concealment, and as the son

of The First Woman approached his victim and wrenched the arrow from her

heart they joined him, half-stunned as they were by surprise, and gazed

first at the corpse of the she with expressions of incredulity and then

at him with what was closely akin to awe and reverence.

They examined his bow and arrows and again and again they returned to the

wound in the woman's chest. It was all quite too amazing. And the son of

The First Woman? He held his head high and his chest out and strutted

proudly. Never before had he or any other man been cast in the role of

hero and he enjoyed it. But he would impress them further. Seizing the

corpse of the woman he dragged it to a nearby tree where he propped it in

a sitting posture against the bole; then he walked away some twenty feet

and, signing his fellows to observe him closely, he raised his heavy

spear and hurled it at his realistic target, through which it passed to

embed itself in the tree behind.

The others were greatly excited. One of them wanted to attempt this

wondrous feat and when he had thrown, and missed, his fellow insisted

upon having a turn. Later they craved practice with the bow and arrow.

For hours the three remained before their grisly target, nor did they

desist until hunger prompted them to move on and the son of The First

Woman had promised to show them how to fashion weapons similar to his

own--a momentous occurrence in the history of the Alali, though these

three sensed it as little as did the hundreds of Alalus women repairing

to their caves that night in blissful ignorance of the blow that had been

struck at their supremacy by the militant suffragists of Minuni.

And as suddenly, with more immediate results, the even tenor of Tarzan's

existence in the city of Trohanadalmakus was altered and a series of

events initiated that were to lead to the maddest and most unbelievable

denouement.

The ape-man lay upon a bed of grasses beneath a great tree that grew

beside the city of King Adendrohahkis. Dawn was flushing the sky above

the forest to the east of Trohanadalmakus, when Tarzan, his ear close to

the ground, was suddenly awakened by a strange reverberation that seemed

to come faintly from the bowels of the earth. It was such a dim and

distant sound that it would scarce have been appreciable to you or to me

had we placed an ear flat against the ground after having been told that

the noise existed; but to Tarzan it was an interruption of the ordinary

noises of the night and, therefore, however slight, of sufficient import

to impinge upon his consciousness even in sleep.

Awakened, he still lay listening intently. He knew that the sound did not

come from the bowels of the earth, but from the surface and he guessed

that it originated at no great distance, and also, he knew, that it was

coming closer rapidly. For just a moment it puzzled him and then a great

light dawned upon him and he sprang to his feet. The dome of the king,

Adendrohahkis, lay a hundred yards away and toward it he bent his steps.

Just before the south entrance he was challenged by a tiny sentinel.

"Take word to your king," the ape-man directed him, "that Tarzan hears

many diadets galloping toward Trohanadalmakus and that unless he is much

mistaken each carries a hostile warrior upon its back."

The sentinel turned and hallooed down the corridor leading from the

entrance, and a moment later an officer and several other warriors

appeared. At sight of Tarzan they halted.

"What is wrong?" demanded the officer.

"The King's Guest says that he heard many diadets approaching," replied

the sentinel.

"From what direction?" demanded the officer, addressing Tarzan.

"From that direction the sounds appeared to come," replied the ape-man,

pointing toward the west.

"The Veltopismakusians!" exclaimed the officer, and then, turning to

those who had accompanied him from the interior of the king's dome:

"Quick! arouse Trohanadalmakus--I will warn the king's dome and the king,"

and he wheeled and ran quickly within, while the others sped away to

awaken the city.

In an incredibly short space of time Tarzan saw thousands of warriors

streaming from each of the ten domes. From the north and the south doors

of each dome rode mounted men, and from the east and west marched the

foot soldiers. There was no confusion; everything moved with military

precision and evidently in accordance with a plan of defense in which

each unit had been thoroughly drilled.

Small detachments of cavalry galloped quickly to the four points of the

compass--these were scouts each detail of which spread fanwise just

beyond the limits of the domes until the city was encircled by a thin

line of mounted men that would halt when it had reached a predetermined

distance from the city, and fall back with information before an

advancing enemy. Following these, stronger detachments of mounted men

moved out to north and south and east and west to take positions just

inside the line of scouts. These detachments were strong enough to engage

the enemy and impede his progress as they fell back upon the main body of

the cavalry which might by this plan be summoned in time to the point at

which the enemy was making his boldest effort to reach the city.

And then the main body of the cavalry moved out, and in this instance

toward the west, from which point they were already assured the foe was

approaching; while the infantry, which had not paused since it emerged

from the domes, marched likewise toward the four points of the compass in

four compact bodies of which by far the largest moved toward the west.

The advance foot troops took their stations but a short distance outside

the city, while within the area of the domes the last troops to emerge

from them, both cavalry and infantry, remained evidently as a reserve

force, and it was with these troops that Adendrohahkis took his post that

he might be centrally located for the purpose of directing the defense of

his city to better advantage.

Komodoflorensal, the prince, had gone out in command of the main body of

cavalry that was to make the first determined stand against the oncoming

foe. This body consisted of seven thousand five hundred men and its

position lay two miles outside the city, half a mile behind a cavalry

patrol of five hundred men, of which there were four, one at each point

of the compass, and totaling two thousand men. The balance of the ten

thousand advance troops consisted of the five hundred mounted scouts or

vedettes who, in turn, were half a mile in advance of the picket patrols,

at two-hundred-foot intervals, entirely surrounding the city at a

distance of three miles. Inside the city fifteen thousand mounted men

were held in reserve.

In the increasing light of dawn Tarzan watched these methodical

preparations for defense with growing admiration for the tiny Minunians.

There was no shouting and no singing, but on the face of every warrior

who passed close enough for the ape-man to discern his features was an

expression of exalted rapture. No need here for war cries or battle hymns

to bolster the questionable courage of the weak--there were no weak.

The pounding of the hoofs of the advancing Veltopismakusian horde had

ceased. It was evident that their scouts had discovered that the intended

surprise had failed. Were they altering the plan or point of attack, or

had they merely halted the main body temporarily to await the result of a

reconnaissance? Tarzan asked a nearby officer if, perchance, the enemy

had abandoned his intention of attacking at all. The man smiled and shook

his head.

"Minunians never abandon an attack," he said.

As Tarzan's eyes wandered over the city's ten domes, illuminated now by

the rays of the rising sun, he saw in each of the numerous window

embrasures, that pierced the domes at regular intervals at each of their

thirty odd floors, a warrior stationed at whose side lay a great bundle

of short javelins, while just to his rear was piled a quantity of small,

round stones. The ape-man smiled.

"They overlook no possible contingency," he thought. "But the quarry

slaves! what of them? Would they not turn against their masters at the

first opportunity for escape that an impending battle such as this would

be almost certain to present to them?" He turned again to the officer and

put the question to him.

The latter turned and pointed toward the entrance to the nearest quarry,

where Tarzan saw hundreds of white-tunicked slaves piling rocks upon it

while a detachment of infantry leaned idly upon their spears as their

officers directed the labor of the slaves.

"There is another detachment of warriors bottled up inside the quarry

entrance," explained the officer to Tarzan. "If the enemy gains the city

and this outer guard is driven into the domes or killed or captured, the

inner guard can hold off an entire army, as only one man can attack them

at a time. Our slaves are safe, therefore, unless the city falls and that

has not happened to any Minunian city within the memory of man. The best

that the Veltopismakusians can hope for now is to pick up a few

prisoners, but they will doubtless leave behind as many as they take. Had

their surprise been successful they might have forced their way into one

of the domes and made way with many women and much loot. Now, though, our

forces are too well disposed to make it possible for any but a greatly

superior force to seriously threaten the city itself. I even doubt if our

infantry will be engaged at all."

"How is the infantry disposed?" asked Tarzan.

"Five thousand men are stationed within the windows of the domes,"

replied the officer; "five thousand more comprise the reserve which you

see about you, and from which detachments have been detailed to guard the

quarries. A mile from the city are four other bodies of infantry; those

to the east, north and south having a strength of one thousand men each,

while the one to the west, facing the probable point of attack, consists

of seven thousand warriors."

"Then you think the fighting will not reach the city?" asked Tarzan.

"No. The lucky men today are in the advance cavalry--they will get

whatever fighting there is. I doubt if an infantryman draws a sword or

casts a spear; but that is usually the case--it is the cavalry that

fights, always."

"I take it that you feel unfortunate in not being attached to a cavalry

unit. Could you not be transferred?"

"Oh, we must all take our turns of duty in each branch," explained the

officer. "We are all mounted except for defense of the city and for that

purpose we are assigned to the foot troops for four moons, followed by

five moons in the cavalry"--the word he used was diadetax--"five thousand

men being transferred from one to the other the night of each new moon."

Tarzan turned and looked out across the plain toward the west. He could

see the nearer troops standing at ease, awaiting the enemy. Even the main

body of cavalry, two miles away, he could discern, because there were so

many of them; but the distant pickets and vedettes were invisible. As he

stood leaning upon his spear watching this scene, a scene such as no

other man of his race ever had witnessed, and realized the seriousness of

these little men in the business of war that confronted them, he could

not but think of the people of his own world lining up their soldiers for

purposes usually far less momentous to them than the call to arms that

had brought the tough little warriors of Adendrohahkis swarming from

their pallets in the defense of home and city.

No chicanery of politics here, no thinly veiled ambition of some

potential tyrant, no mad conception of hair-brained dreamers seized by

the avaricious criminal for self-aggrandizement and riches; none of

these, but patriotism of purest strain energized by the powerful urge of

self-preservation. The perfect fighters, the perfect warriors, the

perfect heroes these. No need for blaring trumpets; of no use to them the

artificial aids to courage conceived by captains of the outer world who

send unwilling men to battle for they know not what, deceived by lying

propaganda, enraged by false tales of the barbarity of the foe, whose

anger has been aroused against them by similar means.

During the lull that followed the departure from the city of the last of

the advance troops Tarzan approached Adendrohahkis where he sat astride

his diadet surrounded by a number of his high officers. The king was

resplendent in golden jerkin, a leathern garment upon which small discs

of gold were sewn, overlapping one another. About his waist was a wide

belt of heavy leather, held in place by three buckles of gold, and of

such dimensions as to have almost the appearance of a corset. This belt

supported his rapier and knife, the scabbards of which were heavily

inlaid with gold and baser metals in intricate and beautiful designs.

Leather cuisses protected his upper legs in front covering the thighs to

the knees, while his forearms were encased in metal armlets from wrists

almost to elbows. Upon his feet were strapped tough sandals, with a

circular golden plate protecting each anklebone. A well-shaped leather

casque fitted his head closely.

As Tarzan stopped before him the king recognized the ape-man with a

pleasant greeting. "The captain of the guard reports that it is to you we

owe the first warning of the coming of the Veltopismakusians. Once again

have you placed the people of Trohanadalmakus under deep obligations.

However are we to repay our debt?"

Tarzan gestured deprecatively. "You owe me nothing, King of

Trohanadalmakus," he replied. "Give me your friendship and tell me that I

may go forward and join your noble son, the prince: then all the

obligations shall be upon my head."

"Until the worms of death devour me I shall be your friend always,

Tarzan," returned the king graciously. "Go where you will and that you

choose to go where there should be fighting surprises me not."

It was the first time that any Minunian had addressed him by his name.

Always had he been called Saviour of the Prince, Guest of the King, Giant

of the Forest and by other similar impersonal appellations. Among the

Minunians a man's name is considered a sacred possession, the use of

which is permitted only his chosen friends and the members of his family,

and to be called Tarzan by Adendrohahkis was equivalent to an invitation,

or a command, to the closest personal friendship with the king.

The ape-man acknowledged the courtesy with a bow. "The friendship of

Adendrohahkis is a sacred honor, ennobling those who wear it. I shall

guard it always with my life, as my most treasured possession," he said

in a low voice; nor was the Lord of the Jungle moved by any maudlin

sentimentality as he addressed the king. For these little people he had

long since acknowledged to himself a keen admiration and for the personal

character of Adendrohahkis he had come to have the most profound respect.

Never since he had learned their language had he ceased his inquiries

concerning the manners and the customs of these people, and he had found

the personality of Adendrohahkis so inextricably interwoven with the

lives of his subjects that in receiving the answers to his questions he

could not but absorb unquestionable evidence of the glories of the king's

character.

Adendrohahkis seemed pleased with his words, which he acknowledged

graciously, and then the ape-man withdrew and started toward the front.

On the way he tore a leafy branch from a tree that grew beside his path

for the thought had occurred to him that such a weapon might be useful

against Minunians and he knew not what the day might hold.

He had just passed the advanced infantry when a courier sped by him on a

mad race toward the city. Tarzan strained his eyes ahead, but he could

see no sign of battle and when he reached the main cavalry advance there

was still no indication of an enemy as far ahead as he could see.

Prince Komodoflorensal greeted him warmly and looked a little

wonderingly, perhaps, at the leafy branch he carried across one shoulder.

"What news?" asked Tarzan.

"I have just sent a messenger to the king," replied the prince,

"reporting that our scouts have come in touch with those of the enemy,

who are, as we thought, the Veltopismakusians. A strong patrol from the

outpost in our front pushed through the enemy's scout line and one

courageous warrior even managed to penetrate as far as the summit of the

Hill of Gartolas, from which he saw the entire main body of the enemy

forming for attack. He says there are between twenty and thirty thousand

of them."

As Komodoflorensal ceased speaking, a wave of sound came rolling toward

them from the west.

"They are coming!" announced the prince.