Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (18 page)

The wall on this side was much more impressive. The other side of the portal was framed in great stone blocks, improved by durable mortar. On this side, Doc discovered as he scrambled down to the ground, stood pillar-like pediments, at the top of which crouched two matching statues, carved to resemble great, crouching gorillas.

Below, decorative bas-reliefs depicted another pair of dinosaur skulls, and what appeared to be a pair of cuttlefish, or perhaps they were nautiluses.

Most amazing of all, when the bronze giant reached the ground, he found himself standing in the shadow of a life-sized carving of a species of horned Tyrannosaur—an artistic accomplishment that staggered the imagination. It was similar to the one Doc had observed, but had other attributes that suggested an evolutionary offshoot of
Tyrannosaurus rex.

Looking up, Doc saw a parade of unusual dinosaur skulls spaced at intervals along the top of the wall itself. He could not immediately place them.

Had this wall been built so long ago that men possessed the knowledge of prehistoric creatures? Man and dinosaur were supposed to have lived in different eras.

Yet here stood concrete proof this had not been the case on this remote island for centuries up to this very day.

Fascinated, Doc tore his attention away from the seemingly-impossible structure, and studied the land it faced. He saw a mountainous primordial wilderness, thick with gnarled trees that seemed out of place in this weird island in the Indian Ocean, and slashed by ravines and broken upheavals of land.

Nearby, a short distance and in line from the imposing portal, stood a man-made platform which aroused alarm. It was surmounted by twin stone pillars, intricately carved, with an iron ring set in either one.

Death’s Peak brooded over it all like a curse, or a symbolic warning made concrete by an awesome hand. Low on its east-facing flank, from the jagged mouth, poured out a cascade of tumbling water. Here and there, visible through the undulations of the varied terrain, shimmered a winding river. Doc wondered if its source might not be the mountain that wore the fixed face of Death.

But the most unnerving element of the evil-looking formation was the twin fires blazing in its eye cavities. They imbued the stony countenance with a malignant vitality, suggestive of an ancient intelligence glaring at him in warning.

Do Not Approach Me,
those hellish orbs seemed to say….

Chapter XXII

DOC SAVAGE REALIZED that his best course of action would be to climb to the top of Death’s Peak and investigate the fires burning there. They could only mean a camp, possibly a habitation for a cave-dwelling group of people.

But to reach the strange landmark, he would have to cross over many miles of primeval wilderness. An impossibility to do before darkness came. Not to mention the perils of traversing a seemingly prehistoric terrain.

Again, Doc Savage took to the trees. High in one, he located a vine which would serve as a makeshift lariat. With his Bowie blade, he cut this to a working length and began his journey from treetop to treetop.

Sometimes, he swung. Other times, Doc leaped from branch to branch where they interlaced. The growth was so thick that he could almost walk part of the way through the jungle lanes, so green they dazzled the eyes with their varied hues of emerald, jade and chlorophyll.

This brought the bronze man over ravines and rifts in the rugged plateau.

The trees were not empty of inhabitants. There were dragonflies whose wingspans rivaled the seagull. Undulating millipedes that looked unnatural flowed around trees, seeking the latter for food.

Once, Doc passed over a deep and jagged cleft in the riven rock. Dark things seemed to be scuttling down in its depths. He paused to scrutinize it from on high, found he could only discern furtive movements, decided further examination could wait, and passed on to the next arboreal perch. His skin crawled until he put it behind him.

This took him to within easy reach of a lesser summit. If he could reach the top, that vantage point should give him a better view of Death’s Peak.

The sides were sheer, but scalable. Dropping out of one tree, he landed on a rocky cliff. From this spot, he began to climb, using hands and feet. The going got rougher.

Doc slipped off his shoes and left them on a convenient crevice. This allowed him to use his amazing prehensile toes for leverage.

There was an odor clinging to the eminence. It seemed half familiar but Doc could not immediately place it. The island air was choked with competing scents.

Higher and higher, he climbed, pausing only to make certain that no predators were about.

A slithering nearby told of a serpent gliding through dirt and rocks. But Doc avoided it by moving around the mountain, finding a different way up. This proved a tougher climb, but he was equal to it.

Once, he hit an outthrust ledge that looked unassailable.

Taking a resting position, Doc used his vine lasso and cast it blindly upward. Three tries and the vine flopped back, discouragingly. Doc hauled it back, organized for another attempt.

On the fourth try, he snagged something. Pulling the lasso tight on its slip knot, Doc resumed his careful climb.

He reached the lip of the rocky ledge, and lifted his head carefully over it, to see what might lurk there.

THE vine had caught a treelet whose roots were dug into the stony façade, clinging to a precarious existence. It appeared solidly anchored, so there was no danger of it ripping free under his weight.

A movement came. Doc’s eyes flicked in that direction.

A figure crouched on the flat escarpment. Dressed in skins that might have been peeled off the belly of a dinosaur, hair white as milkweed, a woman regarded him with dark eyes much brighter than the surrounding skin of her face.

An old woman, Doc saw. She possessed a seamed face that suggested incalculable age. A human turtle’s visage. The eyes sharpened and she gave vent to a venomous hiss.

At a momentary loss for words, Doc raised a quelling hand.

“Friend! Savvy?” he asked.

“You speak English?” she croaked.

“Yes!”

“You are called Savvy. Is that your name?”

“Savage,” said Doc, bewildered in spite of himself.

The old woman crept toward him, turtle head canting curiously. Gnarled fingers rose, making arcane gestures.

“You have the eyes, I see.”

“I do not understand.”

“You have the golden eyes of the—”

Suddenly, she turned, rushed to one end of the ledge—the southerly one.

Doc Savage took that opportunity to clamber up onto the ledge. He observed the crone in studied silence.

The old woman was listening to a crashing of brush.

“What is that noise?” asked Doc.

Her hissing admonishment made Doc think of a feral cat.

Something was moving through the underbrush, something whose progress could be traced by the quaking and twitching of brush below.

Doc attempted to peer through the thicket. There were thorny bushes he could see. Whatever moved through those was either well protected by hides—or armored like a dinosaur.

After a time, the thing moved out of sight and hearing.

“What was it?” asked Doc quietly.

“Slasher. Perhaps a deathrunner.”

“What are they?”

“Creatures of death. Horrible things. Smart as men. Smarter than some men.”

“How do you come to speak English?” asked Doc.

The old woman turned to face him. She looked him up and down and then up again.

“You have the eyes of a kong. Strong. Fearless.”

“Kong?”

“Do you not know of Kong?”

“No,” admitted Doc.

“Pah!” spat the crone.

Doc paged through his memory.
Kong,
he recalled, was Cantonese, or perhaps Mandarin. It meant “fear” or “dread.” But they were a long way from China. A very long way. The word probably did not mean the same thing here.

Doc asked, “What is your name, old woman?”

“My name, you would not be able to pronounce without long practice. But you may call me Penjaga, which in the Malay tongue means Keeper. I am the storehouse of the stories of my people, what you would call a wise woman. Now, why have you come to Skull Mountain Island?”

“Is that what this place is called?” countered Doc.

“In English, yes. In Malay, it is
Tengkorak Gunung Pulau.
In other languages, the words sound different, but mean the same thing.”

“Who taught you English?” demanded Doc.

“Pirates. Long ago. Few come to Skull Island. Fewer leave alive. Why do you come here, Gold Eyes?”

“I seek a man also named Savage.”

Penjaga squinted. “Your father?”

“No. Grandfather.”

The old woman scrutinized his strong, bronzed features.

“You are young, I see. But not so young that you could not raise a beard. Why no beard?”

“Men of my generation do not grow them. They are out of fashion.”

“You do not look very much like him,” she decided.

“Who? Kong?”

“No, not Kong,” Penjaga said impatiently.

“What are you doing on this ledge?”

“I am watching for the hunters of heads,” replied the crone.

“Dyaks?” asked Doc.

“I do not know what they are called. But many landed two suns ago. They prowl and creep through the jungle, seeking heads.”

“I will not let them harm you, Keeper,” said Doc reassuringly.

The old woman expectorated upon the ledge.

“Pah! I do not fear them. It is not my head they seek. It is Kong’s.”

“Who is Kong?”

The old woman did not reply. She fell to studying his youthful face once more.

“No, you do not look like him at all,” she clucked.

Growing impatient, Doc said, “I wish you would answer my questions.”

“I must be certain of you. Yes, you have the eyes. Kong has them. So does Old Stormy, curse his crabby old bones.”

“You know of Stormalong Savage?” Doc said, excitement grading his mellow voice.

“Did I not speak his name?”

“Is he—dead?” asked Doc.

“How would I know? I have not laid eyes upon him since the headhunters arrived. He is probably out chasing them, the long-legged fool. One man against many. They spit death from their mouth staffs. Perhaps by now they have brought him low.”

Doc Savage had been so stunned he had not uttered his trilling. It came now, rising in cadence, ventriloquial in its effect. It caused the old woman to duck and jerk around, as if fearing some unfamiliar avian attacker.

It took her nearly a minute before she realized that the bronze giant was making that sound.

When the truth dawned on her, she straightened and began getting her barbaric finery together.

“You are very short.”

Taken aback, Doc blurted, “Short? I stand considerably over six feet tall.”

“Short for a Savage,” snapped Penjaga the Keeper.

Doc said nothing. He wondered how she had meant the word. Did she consider white men to be barbarians?

A shadow fell over them. There was a rattle overhead and pebbles began drooling down, bouncing away noisily.

Doc Savage looked up sharply.

A NARROW face unlike anything he had ever imagined stared down at him. Dragon-like, yet also bird-like, it was riotously feathered in hues of emerald and silver. Its bare midriff and bony arms were covered in gray-green scales rather than plumage, ending in fierce raptor-like talons that clutched spasmodically.

“Slasher!” hissed Penjaga, ducking for the shelter of the straggling rock-rooted tree.

The eyes of the thing shone with a piercing lizard-orange gleam, but a spark of something more glittered deep within. Its mouth opened, disclosing thin blade-like teeth, and suddenly Doc understood why the old woman called the thing a slasher.

Moving like lightning, Doc whipped for the tree and got his lariat loose. Why he did so when he had a pistol at his side, he did not know.

In his youth, he had learned many cowboy rope tricks. One was the Houlihan, a cast that was designed to snare unwary horses or calves.

With only the briefest of backthrows, Doc let fly.

The avian thing was scrambling downward, jaws agape, displaying vicious triangular teeth.

The loop dropped over the narrow tufted head, and snared the thick-plumed neck beneath. Hissing, the thing gathered itself for a leap.

Holding the other end, Doc raced to the opposite end of the ledge, away from the crouching old woman, and leaped off the edge into dizzy space.

Chapter XXIII

THE LEAP INTO space was no maneuver borne of panic. The bronze man had calculated the situation and knew exactly what he was doing.

Vine clutched in both hands, Doc dropped down to land on a rocky tumble of stone he knew to lie below. He had memorized such landmarks on the way up.

The vine stretched, went tight, and with a snapping sound, yanked the ungainly slasher from its crouching perch.

Emitting a wild scream, it came careening down, a flailing bundle of shimmering plumage and scales. Raptor claws splaying wildly, it slashed and ripped at empty air.

One foot-talon swiped in Doc’s direction, but the space was too great for contact.

Doc caught a glimpse of a sickle-like central claw vicious enough to rip a man open.

Landing on the rocks, Doc watched the powerful creature go tumbling past.

He released the vine.

Scrambling for purchase that did not exist in empty air, the avian monstrosity finally crashed into the stony base of the mountain. It made an ugly sound as it dashed its life out against the obdurate masses.

There followed a distinct crack that Doc knew was its neck bones snapping, or possibly a shattered section of spine.

Doc watched to be certain of its death.

The body jittered, spike-feathered tail twisting and whipping in its death throes. The lean head flopped and lay still, hot orange eyes staring sightlessly.

Only then did the bronze man get a clear look at it.

It was small for a dinosaur, and feathered like some fantastic chicken, except where it showed plates resembling the armored underside of a crocodile. The body was supported by plumed legs ending in two-toed bird claws. Despite its abundance of feathers, the ostrich-like thing possessed no wings, as such. It was nothing like any creature the bronze man had ever seen, or discovered in the paleontological books. Like many young boys, dinosaurs had fascinated him. Doc had spent hours in New York’s American Museum of Natural History studying its murals and fossil display.