He was surprised to see the warriors of his tribe struggling in the shallows with a strange war band. From the noise, he had drawn the conclusion that one of the river-monsters had attacked the sentries posted about the perimeter of the encampment. These giant reptiles, called the groack by reason of their characteristic, croaking screech, resembled an extinct Mesozoic species of aquatic saurian called the plesiosaur more than anything else, and grew to enormous size. In general, they preferred the deeper portions of the Cor-Az for their habitat, but it was not exactly unknown for an occasional predator of their kind to venture into the more shallow waters of the river. More than a few of the less cautious River People had, over recent years, fallen prey to their hungry jaws.
But the cause of the disturbance was not, after all, a groack, but a band of unknown savages, wearing―as Zuruk quickly observed―the typical warriors’ gear of the Cave Country.
“What has occurred?” demanded Jugrid, who emerged into the light grasping his powerful bow. In terse words, the old chief advised his son-in-law of the invasion. Staring into the battle, Jugrid saw and recognized some of the fighting men as warriors of his own tribe. In particular, he observed that they were among the more quarrelsome and restive of the younger Cave warriors―those who had taken the villainous Xangan for their spokesman and leader.
But it soon became apparent that the villainies of Xangan were at an end. For there at Charak’s feet the corpse of the troublesome chief lay, his slack-jawed features gaping up at his murderer.
Jugrid would not have been human had he not experienced a brief and fleeting sense of relief and satisfaction to discover the foremost of his scheming adversaries would trouble him no more. Then, however, this sense of vindication and grim triumph passed, to be replaced by a new and urgent sensation of anxiety. For, having but yester-evening narrowly averted an outbreak of hostilities between the River People and his own tribe, he now observed the newly patched peace imperiled yet again.
His keen eyes sought out and identified the cause of the new peril, for Pandan, whose inexplicable absence had, of course, ere now been noticed by Thadron, who had brought the puzzling matter to Jugrid’s attention, stood in the forefront of the attackers. Jugrid instantly surmised that the young warrior had not merely wandered off into the jungle to be eaten by one or another of the night-prowling predators, as he had first supposed, but had carried tales back to Xangan, precipitating this present debacle.
Among the attacking force of warriors from the Cave People, Jugrid could see none of the older or more responsible of the members of his tribe. Xangan’s war-party had been drawn exclusively, it would seem, from the more disputatious, dissatisfied, and less loyal tribesmen. Jugrid was relieved to note this, and hastened to apprise Zuruk of the fact. The attack thus mounted, he explained, was not a full-scale invasion by the tribe as a whole, but represented a more-or-less private vendetta by Xangan and his more disreputable cronies, among whom he noticed Xangan’s own grandfather, Quone, the leader of the Elders, who had long been the most vindictive and venomous of Jugrid’s adversaries.
“Think not, O Chief,” said Jugrid with a half-smile, “that it will particularly offend me if your warriors make mincemeat of their opponents. There are among them none whom I count friends or supporters of mine, and none whose loss will make me bitter.”
Zuruk cleared his throat, and grinned a ferocious grin of his own.
“I was about to remark upon similar lines, my son and brother! For I espy among those of the River People currently embroiled with your warriors, none but those who are the more vehement and rebellious of Charak’s faction, not one of which I regard as indispensable to my serenity, nor any whose loss I would have cause to bemoan. I suggest we refrain from any intervention on either side, and let them fight it out between them.”
“Agreed,” Jugrid chuckled. “Unless I am mistaken, those of your people involved in the fight were those pointed out to me as the most belligerent of the River People, who most desired war. Am I not correct?”
“You are,” nodded Zuruk. “Right now, they seem to be having a bellyful of it. Let us leave them to enjoy that which they so vigorously sought…”
RECOVERING from the duel with Xangan, who now lay dead at his feet, Charak next found himself facing the whirling axe of a burly ruffian named Rask, who served as Xangan’s chief bodyguard. It was luck, not skill, that enabled the cowardly River warrior to fell the heavier man with a spear in the guts, for Rask slipped in the mud underfoot and before he was able to recover his footing, Charak had thrust the spear into him. But then the River warrior found himself attacked by a scrawny old man whose wattled neck was hung about with beads and trinkets, his all-but-hairless skull adorned with colored feathers. Screeching in a foaming fury, this spindly shanked old dodderer launched himself upon Charak in a blind, choked rage.
It was Quone the elder, who had long schemed to dislodge Jugrid from the chieftaincy of the tribe in fa. vor of that spoiled and pampered grandson of his, the same Xangan whom the River warrior had killed just before dawn. Throwing caution to the winds in his mad fury, the Elder flung himself upon Charak’s back, a flint-bladed knife clenched in the bony fingers of one hand. Before the surprised blackbeard could brush the skinny old man aside, the keen stone blade had slashed deep into his throat.
Blood gushed from a severed artery. Cursing and staggering, floundering to his knees in the slick mud, Charak bewilderedly felt his extremities going numb, saw his vision darken. He coughed lurid oaths, choking on his own blood. Reaching around, he seized the bony neck of the old man between huge, strong hands and dragged his assailant from bestride his back. Then he began pounding the old man’s head against a rock that protruded from the mudbank conveniently to hand.
Just before death took him, Charak quite thoroughly managed to beat out the brains of Quone the Elder. Then his own corpse sagged and collapsed across the gaunt body of his murderer, whom he had just murdered.
It was not without a certain flavor of poetic irony, this scene, in which the more villainous elements in Jugrid’s tribe fought against the more villainous elements in Zuruk’s tribe, each slaughtering the other, and being slaughtered thereby.
FROM the top of the riverbank, Zhu Kor witnessed the carnage with acute displeasure. Events had triggered the Cave warriors into action so swiftly that the Kuurian had not been able to interpose his will in time. Now he viewed the battle with distinct unhappiness.
Xangan’s party had reached the edge of the river before dawn and were about to reconnoiter the encampment of the River People when a war-band, armed to the teeth, burst up unexpectedly from the river and were among them before either group quite realized the fact. To attack the stranger had been instinctive on both sides of the conflict; and now, bitterly, Zhu Kor observed the straits to which this unfortunate accident had brought him.
More than half of Xangan’s force were dying or already dead, Xangan among them. And, while they had managed to slay more than half of the River warriors, driving the remnant back into the shallows, there could be but one outcome to the conflict, and the malignant little dwarf perceived that this outcome could only be detrimental to his wishes.
For there, drawn up on the other bank of the river, armed and ready, stood nearly three score of the River warriors. As yet, for some curious reason, they had taken no part in the engagement. It did not require the unique abilities of a telepath, to hazard the guess that the force that had obviously crept stealthily by night from the encampment of the River People had been a gang of unruly dissidents or rebels.