Fearless Master of the Jungle (A Bunduki Jungle Adventure (19 page)

On coming to a halt without
falling, although his shou
lders were still hurting, the mustached Wurka
snatched the fishing net free from his belt and shook it. Specially
folded for the purpose, it spread out to its full extent as he cast
it in the blond giant’s direction. Falling over Bunduki’s head,
shoulders and arms, the thin strands began to ensnare him. Giving a
howl of delight, for every other victim of his skill had been easy
meat once caught in the meshes, Jomus-Takn ran back in the
direction from which he had been propelled. What was more, spurred
into activity by what he saw, Sraat-Challig lurched erect and
started to close in on the blond giant. With his arms pinioned as
effectively as if they had been bound, Bunduki glanced from left to
right. There was cause to worry, he decided, apart from the fact
that his legs were unimpeded. Already Jomus-Takn was grasping and
pulling at his left arm. Still a few feet away, Sraat-Challig was
lumbering at him from the right. Nor could he count upon Dawn for
assistance.

Although still obviously in pain,
Han-Ateep had taken advantage of the respite given to him by
Flant-Wlip and was making for the girl again. Having been in
another part of the village, At-Vee was running towards the scene
of the altercation; but he would not arrive in time to save his
friend. None of the other Jey-Mat hunters were offering to
intervene, either, for they still lacked the instincts of fighting
men.

Not that Bunduki intended to
rely upon anybody else for
succor. His training in
ju-jitsu
and
karate,
reaching a fifth
dan
grade, had taken into consideration the
possibility of an attack being launched upon him when his arms were
indisposed. He had already decided what action was called for by
his present situation.

Instead of struggling against
Jomus-Takn
’s
tugging net, the blond giant blended his own response into it.
Pivoting swiftly on his left foot until his toes were pointing at
his assailant, he swung his right leg so that its bent knee met the
other’s groin with great force. Turning an ashy gray-green color
and letting out a moan of torment, Jomus-Takn let go of Bunduki’s
arm. Twisting away, he collapsed, retching piteously, to his hands
and knees.

To Han-Ateep, flinging himself
at Dawn, it seemed at first as if he was going to knock her over.
However, as he discovered an instant later, this was not the case.
She had already commenced dropping backwards just before he reached
her, bringing off a stomach throw every bit as effective as the one
that had been performed by Charole far to the north-west a little
earlier in the evening. More effective in fact, as the force with
which her would-be attacker landed rendered him
hors-de-combat
without the need
for any further attention on her part.

Satisfied that he need devote
no more time and attention to Jomus-Takn, Bunduki turned upon his
second assailant. In spite of what he had just witnessed,
Sraat-Challig was over-confident.
He too had never
seen anybody who had been netted
capable of raising more than a minimal defense. So, believing the
blond giant to be almost helpless, he was charging recklessly
forward.

Looking over his shoulder and
measuring the distance with his eye, Bunduki suddenly whipped his
right leg backwards in an
arc that caused his torso to incline beneath the
blow that the Wurka was swinging at him. Although his kick landed
slightly higher than on Jomus-Takn, he had no reason to consider it
less effective. Struck in the pit of the stomach, Sraat-Challig was
put into an involuntary retreat and was bent almost double by the
pain and nausea that was assailing him.

Using the ball of his other
foot as a swivel, Bunduki turned and, changing legs deftly, landed
a kick with the left to his victim
’s descending face. Lifted erect,
Sraat-Challig over-compensated through no fault of his own.
Tumbling over backwards, he met the ground with a thud that sounded
like music to a number of the other Wurka guests’ ears and lost all
interest in the proceedings for several minutes.

‘
My
apologies, Tav-Han and Elders of the Jet-Mat village,’ the blond
giant said, saying the words in a way which emphasized that he was
not including Tik-Felum in the sentiment, as he gripped and began
to tear the net apart with his powerful hands.

‘
None
are needed, Bunduki of the “Earths”,’ Tav-Han stated, eyeing the
Wurkas’ Senior Elder defiantly. ‘The fault was not
yours.’

‘
I’ll
say one thing, though,’ At-Vee commented, grinning broadly
and glancing at the moaning Jomus-Takn. ‘This is one time when an
Elder should have stuck to talking.’

‘
Very
well, Lady Charole,’ War-Lord Torisaki said almost amiably,
indicating the three “Terrifiers” which remained after the
accidental explosion, and a deliberate experiment he had carried
out later the previous night. They, the small bag of “Thunder
Powder”, the Protectress of the Quagga God’s ceremonial garments
and weapons had been brought into his quarters after the fight. So
had the “Earth’s” arrow, overlooked until then because of the more
obviously unusual and impressive nature of the other items. ‘How do
those things do what they do?’

Bruised, only able to focus
through her left eye as the right was still swollen shut and both
were blackened, Charole was stiff in every muscle and joint in
spite of the ministrations she had received. So she lay back and
relaxed upon the comfortable floor-cushions which furnished the
dining-room portion of the Cara-Buntes
’ large pavilion.

On recovering consciousness the
previous evening, Charole had found herself in a soft bed. As
always happened when she had emerged victorious from a hand-to-hand
conflict with another woman, she had felt sexually stimulated. Nor,
despite a general disinclination among the people of Zillikian to
have intercourse with members of another race, had her passion been
left unsatiated. Although more than an hour had elapsed since her
collapse across the defeated body of War-Lady Shushi, Torisaki was
still experiencing the erotic stimulus caused by watching two all
but naked and shapely women fighting.

Not even the narrow escape he
had had when the
‘Terrifier’ detonated was enough to have cooled his ardor.
As his wife was still indisposed, he had joined her defeatress in
bed and all thoughts of racial antipathy were forgotten. Charole
was thoroughly satisfied with the service she had
received.

When the Protectress had woken
up that morning, she had accepted that she had no hope of escaping
in her present condition. The soothing oils and capable
manipulations at the hands of Shushi
’s personal maid, a skilled masseuse, had
done no more than somewhat alleviate her sufferings. It would be
several days before she would throw off the effect of the sword and
fist fights in which she had participated. Yielding to the
inevitable, she was trying to think of a way to liberate herself
from captivity once she had recovered.

Relaxing by her
husband
’s
side, Shushi was watching Charole as well as she could with her
left eye closed and the right a mere puffy slit. She was not
troubled by the knowledge that her husband had spent the night
making love to the foreign woman. What rankled was that he had seen
her go down in defeat. However, having studied the Protectress’s
badly mauled condition and knowing herself to be in even worse
shape, she conceded that the time was not ripe for her to seek
revenge. Instead, as convention demanded, she had ensured that
Charole’s injuries received the same care and attention as her own.
With that done, she had settled down and listened to To-risaki’s
story of the mysterious devices the other woman had been carrying.
She was now waiting eagerly to hear the answer to his
question.

‘
I
don’t know,’ Charole admitted truthfully and, seeing the
angry glances exchanged by her captors, she continued hurriedly, ‘I
really
don
’
t
know. I know what they will do and how to make them do it.
But I haven’t the slightest idea, apart from that they are filled
with “Thunder Powder”, of how it happens.’

‘
“
Thunder Powder”?’ Shushi repeated
interrogatively.

‘
The
black dust in the bag there,’ Charole elaborated, then told of the
discoveries made by Zongaffa the Herbalist and of the devastation
caused when the “Terrifiers” were used. She finished by saying,
‘Whoever has them can be the greatest of all in his, or
her,
nation.’

‘
Do
you know how to make the “Thunder Powder”?’ Torisaki inquired,
concluding that manufacturing the containers would be simple
enough.

‘
Do
I
look like a damned herbalist?’ the Protectress demanded
haughtily.

‘
You
looked like a woman with many enemies and few friends when we first
saw you,’ Shushi put in. Why were you riding alone?’

‘
There
had been serious troubles in Bon-Gatah,’ Char-ole replied, her
thoughts mingling with recollections that finally made her decide
that speaking the truth might be to her advantage. ‘I considered it
was advisable for me to leave until I could gather some support and
I was on my way to fetch it when they found me.’

‘
What
kind of trouble?’ Shushi asked.

‘
So
those so-called “Terrifiers” didn’t do any good for you after all,
‘Torisaki growled, his disappointment plain, after the Protectress
had briefly explained how she had supported the High Priest in a
bid for power that failed. She made no mention at this stage of the
part Dawn and Bunduki of the “Earths” had played in the
debacle.

‘
They
would have made all the difference,’ Charole said and could not
prevent bitterness creeping into her voice. ‘But that damned
Zongaffa and my maid brought us coconuts filled with soil and hid
those holding the “Thunder Powder”, except for the few we had
already, to be used by themselves.’

‘
Are
there many of them?’ the war-lady wanted to know, when her husband
did not speak.

‘
A
lot,’ Charole guessed, but so convincingly she might have been
certain.

‘
Where
are they?’ inquired Shushi, showing more eagerness than the
war-lord.

Unlike Torisaki, the buxom
woman could sense that the Protectress might be concealing some
facts, but was neither lying nor exaggerating. So, in spite of
suspecting that the other was speaking the truth for her
personal
ends, Shushi meant to encourage her to continue in the hope
of learning something worthwhile.

‘
Too
far on the plains for
you
to reach them,’ Charole warned. ‘You don’t have
enough warriors to smash your way through and there are too many of
you to slip through, especially on foot.’ Striving to hold her tone
with a timbre of no more than making a casual request for
information, she went on, ‘Are you the leaders of your
nation?’

‘
No!’
Shushi spat the denial out as if it had a bad taste.

The one word reply confirmed
the Protectress
’s suspicions with regard to Torisaki and his wife. While
making love with him, she had been struck by how closely his
behavior and manner resembled that of the late High Priest of the
Mun-Gatah nation. Keeping him under observation since waking up,
she had been even more convinced of the likeness. So she had felt
sure that the warlord was a man of high ambition and craved an even
greater position of power than was his present lot. In which case,
she had had an inkling of how she might turn his desire for
aggrandizement to her advantage. Such a person would see the
possibilities offered by the ‘Thunder Powder’ and the Terrifiers’,
particularly as he had-according to various comments she had
overheard— already been granted a demonstration of what the latter
could do. He would certainly want to learn more about them, either
with regard to their manufacture, or from whence he might obtain a
supply.

While Charole could not help him with
the former wish, she felt that she could turn his second aim to her
own use. If so, she would be increasing her chances of effecting an
escape.

‘
Then
you could call upon your leader to give you a sufficiently large
force to fight your way through,’ the Protectress suggested, almost
disinterestedly it seemed, doubting whether such a proposal would
be considered acceptable by the Cara-Bunte couple and having no
desire that it should be.

Charole
’s scheme did not include taking part
in an invasion of her homeland, although loyalty to the Mun-Gatah
nation had no part in her unwillingness. She was confident that
such a venture would be doomed to failure when carried out in the
only way Torisaki would regard as suitable for his
purposes.