Fearless Master of the Jungle (A Bunduki Jungle Adventure (5 page)

With the High
Priest
’s
broken and obviously lifeless body draped over her as she had lain
unconscious, the few people who had come close had assumed that
Charole too must be dead. Nor, occupied as they were by the
inter-factional fighting that had erupted following the failure to
witness the promised sacrifice, did any of them find an opportunity
to carry out an examination and correct the assumption.

On regaining consciousness,
Charole had appreciated her very grave peril. She had made enemies
even before becoming Dryaka
’s ally and they would want to see her pay the
price of failure. After what had happened, she had not known whom
she could still trust. Even her formerly loyal adherents could not
be counted upon to remain staunch. So she had decided that, until
she could form a better assessment of the situation, she must be
wary of everybody. Also, although confident no bones had been
broken, she had felt very weak and concluded it would be advisable
to stay out of sight until her strength returned.

By the time she had reached her
conclusions, the fighting was over in the arena and it was
deserted. For all that, she had been aware that she might need to
defend herself at any moment. Her ivory handled sword, shaped like
the
gladius
of Ancient Rome, was still in its sheath at the left side
of her gold disc belt. Yet, effectively as she could use it, there
had been another and much more potent weapon readily available. The
‘Terrifier’ she had dropped still lay where it had fallen. None of
the people who had entered the arena had touched it. They wanted
nothing to do with such a—to them—inexplicable and dangerous
device.

Having no such inhibitions,
Charole had wriggled from beneath Dryaka
’s corpse and picked up the
Terrifier. Despite having lost the smoldering piece of cord from
the perforated metal ‘fire box’ which was hanging from her left
shoulder (thus being unable to ignite the device) she had been
confident that she could use it to frighten away anybody who tried
to molest her; but the need to do so had not arisen. Entering the
room in which prisoners awaiting sacrifice were incarcerated, she
had made her exit via one of the secret passages known to those
Mun-Gatahs who held a sufficiently high office. From there, she had
traversed some of the vast labyrinth of tunnels and caverns which
spread beneath and even beyond the perimeter walls of the
city.

Created by the
‘Suppliers’ as an
aid to the Mun-Gatahs’ inborn proclivity for intrigue, the
subterranean area was ventilated and illuminated by a
self-operating and maintaining power source. Attaining the status
which gave access to the labyrinth was not hereditary, but came
about by personal endeavor. So the ‘Suppliers’ were compelled to
implant each who reached a specific rank with the requisite
knowledge to open the secret doors and traverse the tunnels. In
addition, the current six members of the ruling Council of Elders,
the High Priest and the Protectress of the Quagga God each was
allocated a private hiding place equipped for use in an
emergency.

Charole did not relax her vigilance
until she had entered and bolted the door of her hiding place.
While she intended to rest, she realized that to remain in the
small room for more than a short time would avail her nothing.
Until she could acquire reliable and powerful support, Bon-Gatah
would be an unhealthy location for her. So she would have to escape
from the city and go in search of the necessary
assistance.

Having removed her ceremonial
clothing, which was too heavy to be comfortable, Charole settled
down to rest. She took a drink of the clear, fresh water which
flowed from a crack in one wall and out of a hole in the
floor. There was
food available, in the form of sun-dried meat known as
fulsa.
^xviii
Having eaten, she lay on the
comfortable couch and went to sleep.

On awakening, Charole had no idea of
how long she had slept. However, she felt refreshed. Such was her
excellent physical condition that she had completely recovered from
the effects of the fall and she devoted her thoughts to the future.
In her estimation, the first task was to leave Bon-Gatah until she
could find out how badly public sentiment was against her and who
would assume the posts of High Priest and Protectress. Secondly,
she had to win over sufficient support to make it possible for her
to return.

Always a realist, Charole had accepted
that the time might one day come when she would have to flee for
her life and she had made preparations against that day. With the
exception of a mount, which was one of the reasons she had taken
the risk of returning to her villa, she had everything she needed
in the hiding place. She had no intention of trying to depart clad
in her ceremonial attire. While it might offer protection if she
should be recognized and attacked, it would also ruin her chances
of slipping away unnoticed. No other woman dressed in such a
fashion, so the garments would give her away even after night had
fallen.

Leaving the helmet, breastplate
and kilt where they had fallen when she undressed, Charole retained
only the sandals. These had plain brown leather cross-straps
extending to just below the knee and did not indicate that she
belonged to any particular faction. She donned the silver
lamé mesh halter
and short skirt which formed the everyday costume of a
banar-gatah
riding female
warrior.
^xix
The uniform had sufficient status to
allow her to adopt a highhanded attitude if her identity was
challenged.

Once dressed, using a pair of
scissors and a mirror, Charole cropped at her black hair until it
was short and boyish. As a disguise, it had its limitations. With
the magnificent contours of her five foot nine
inches
’
body—bust thirty-nine inches; waist, twenty-one; hips,
thirty-seven—and her sensually beautiful, if arrogant, features,
she could not hope to pass as other than a woman at close quarters.
However, seen even at a distance, her shoulder long tresses might
give her away. She was retaining the gold disc belt and, as it was
her favorite weapon, the ivory handled sword which had helped to
denote her rank. Until she was beyond the city’s walls, it would be
concealed beneath the long, hooded black ‘cloak of mourning’ she
would be wearing.

Having completed the
alterations to her appearance, Charole used the flint and steel
from her
‘fire box’ to light another piece of the slow burning cord
and coiled it inside. Realizing that to use the ‘Terrifier’ within
the confines of the labyrinth would be as dangerous to her as to
any assailant, she placed it in the leather pouch in which it was
carried during the abortive sacrifice. However, she did not hang
the pouch and ‘fire box’ across her shoulders. The cloak would have
concealed them and was designed so that it could be discarded
rapidly if necessary, but she did not want them to hamper her
movements if there should be trouble. Instead, she carried them by
their straps in her left hand and the sword was grasped in the
right.

Leaving the hiding place,
Charole made her way to the flight of stone steps which led to the
secret entrance of her living quarters. The items she had come to
recover were in a chest on the landing, but it would not be wise
just to take them and then return through the labyrinth until
safely outside the city. To make the only kind of
escape which would
offer an adequate chance of salvation, she would need to be
mounted. Provided that it had not been stolen, there was an animal
ideally suited to her needs in the villa’s stables.

Looking through the peephole in
the wall alongside the sliding panel which gave access to her
bedroom, Charole was puzzled by what she saw. She had hoped to
satisfy herself that it was unoccupied before going in. It was
already dark outside, but the lamps were lit and she should have
been able to see what was happening. However, although the room
seemed to be deserted, the drapes of her
four-poster bed had been drawn and it
was large enough to offer concealment for more than one intruder.
Furthermore, there was the matter to be considered of who had lit
the lamps. She would not have expected her household staff to be
attending still to such duties.

‘
Oh
well,’ Charole told herself silently. “Standing here won’t solve
anything.’

With that, the woman laid down
her belongings and raised the lid of the chest. Inside lay the
means by which she hoped to pave the way for her reinstatement.
Despite having allied herself to Dryaka, she had taken precautions
in case he should try to turn against her after they had achieved
their purpose. Without his knowledge, she had contrived to
appropriate a small bag of the
‘Thunder Powder’ and one of the remarkable
arrows belonging to Dawn of the ‘Earths’. In addition, when it had
been discovered that the latest batch of ‘Terrifiers’ to be
delivered were filled with soil instead of ‘Thunder Powder’, she
had collected the genuine articles which were in her adherents’
possession. There were four of them and, added to the one she was
already carrying, as nobody else had any—nor, since the death of
Zongaffa the Herbalist, knew the secret of how they were
manufactured— they formed a very potent source of power.

After Charole had transferred
the bag of
‘Thunder Powder’ and the ‘Terrifiers’ to
the
leather pouch, she
fixed the ‘cloak of mourning’ so it could be thrown off without an
instant’s delay and opened the panel. Carrying the arrow as well as
the pouch and ‘fire box’, she stepped across the threshold with the
sword ready for use. Once she was through, the entrance closed
automatically.

The first thing to strike Charole as
she walked forward was the lack of noise. She could not detect any
sounds of activity in the building. Nor, although the windows were
open, could she hear any disturbance outside. She would have
expected the latter at least, considering that fighting had still
been taking place elsewhere in the city when she fled from the
arena.

Then Charole became aware of something
which caused her to devote her full attention to her immediate
surroundings.

Once before, not many weeks
earlier, Charole
’s keen sense of smell had saved her life in that very
room.
^xx
Her olfactory organs were now giving
a similar warning that she might not be alone. However, on this
occasion, the odor which was assailing her nostrils was not the
fragrance of female perfume. Rather it was harsh, masculine and
unpleasant, like perspiration mingling with the other emanations
from a body that was rarely washed.

There was, Charole knew, only one kind
of person in Bon-Gatah who invariably smelled in such a
fashion.

Even as the realization was sending an
alarm screeching through her mind, Charole noticed that the drapes
of the bed were being violently agitated. Grasping a heavy wooden
club, a figure erupted through them. With a snarl that sounded more
bestial than human, it sprang towards her with the weapon raised to
strike.

In spite of the way he was
armed and the fact that he was clad in a white tunic emblazoned
with a
colored illustration of a standing quagga, there was
something brutishly inhuman about the woman’s assailant. About five
foot eight inches in height, the thickset and heavily muscled body
was coated with shortish, curly brown hair. The somewhat stooped
shoulders, disproportionately long arms and short, bowed legs
seemed more suitable to a chimpanzee than a man. Shaggy hair almost
met the brows above the deep-set eyes, so narrow was the forehead.
The snub nose, nostrils flaring like an animal’s, topped a snarling
mouth and a receding, bearded chin.

The attacker was, as Charole
knew, a
Brelef.
^xxi
His subhuman race had been enslaved
by the Mun-Gatahs to be employed as guards. There was no need for
her to try and read the insignia on the brass ‘collar of ownership’
around his short, thick neck to learn where his allegiance lay. His
tunic announced that he served the Council of Elders, being one of
the contingent which were used to maintain order in the
city.

Guessing why the
Brelef
had been concealed
in the room, Charole knew that announcing her identity would not
halt the attack. A trait which made the sub-humans so useful was
their complete and unthinking loyalty to whoever owned them. Even
as the Protectress of the Quagga God, she had had no control over
the Council of Elders’
Brelefs
and would have even less authority now she had
been deposed. Having been ordered to remain hidden and attack
anybody who entered, he would carry out the duty regardless of who
the arrival might be.

Accepting that verbal
conciliation would avail her nothing and doubting whether she would
have time to reach, much less open, the secret panel, Charole did
not try to escape. Instead, she dropped the pouch,
‘fire box’ and
arrow. Even as they were falling, she shrugged off the cloak and,
to avoid stepping on them, took a long stride to the right.
Although her rapid movement carried her clear of the club as it was
driven downwards, it left her poorly placed to retaliate swiftly
with her sword. Taking her weight on the right leg, as the
Brelef
’
s
impetus carried him onwards, she snapped a side kick to the
left. The sole of her foot caught him in the ribs with sufficient
force to thrust him away from her, which proved
fortunate.