Savage Lands (15 page)

“This is our stuff!” Idra exclaimed. She began opening plastic crates and emptying bags.

“Anything useful?” said Robbie hopefully.

Idra held up some electronic devices Werper had brought along. “Not really.” Then she opened another huge pack. The second Zodiac raft unfurled. The engine was missing, but the pump and oars were there.

Robbie shook his head, trying to be jovial despite the terror he was experiencing. “That's fantastic. Just what we need. What about weapons?”

Idra shook her head. There wasn't even an extra flashlight they could use. Tarzan guided them onward, and with each step it was clear the atmosphere was definitely changing. It grew even hotter and a persistent ambient rumble grew in volume, accompanied by the sound of agitated Targarni.

“We're walking straight into the volcano!” Robbie exclaimed as beads of sweat formed on his face. “I'm gonna kill Clark for making me do this!”

He stopped in his tracks, but Tarzan gripped his arm tightly and spoke in a low voice. “Stay calm. No going back.” The simple honesty of the words suddenly calmed Robbie. Taking a deep breath, he nodded. Once Tarzan was satisfied, they continued on.

Closer to the end of the tunnel, they could see it opened into a cavern that dwarfed the previous one. A dull red glow illuminated the far walls, and they all cautiously crouched at the opening, expecting it to lead onto a bubbling magma chamber in the heart of the volcano.

However, they were wrong—they were not walking in to certain death. And for a moment, they were utterly speechless at the astonishing sight that greeted them.

T
he map was damp with sweat when Albert Werper pulled it from beneath his shirt. Since being handed the recovered maps he had never let them out of his sight. He laid them on a broad rock and twisted them around to match his surroundings, aligning the volcano with any other features he could. The only geographic marker of any significance was the valley far behind him, but it gave him confidence that Clark had been correct and that he was on the right track.

Since slipping away from the Mangani he had run and stumbled as fast as he could back toward the volcano. In his imagination, the ferocious Kerchak was dogging his heels, determined to bring his charge back to safety. But in reality, the apes didn't care about him and he hadn't seen a single sign of pursuit.

Rather than retrace his steps to where the ape battle had occurred, Werper used the map to head directly to the black squares that indicated the ruins. At least he hoped they did. As fatigue began to overwhelm him and his legs throbbed from the effort of climbing the mountain, he began to wonder if they hadn't misinterpreted the small markings. Could Clayton have accidentally made the marks? Had he added them as a joke? That family had a warped sense of humor, and Werper wouldn't put it past him.

The forest he was in formed part of the upper belt of the volcano. Beyond that was a wasteland of black stones, then the cone itself, which was discharging more smoke than ever. He could see flecks of molten orange lava spitting over the rim and he hoped that Thunder Mountain was not ready to erupt just yet.

Another earthquake struck with colossal force, sending the trees around him violently shimmying. He expected another avalanche to dislodge from the cone, but it didn't. He also anticipated the jungle coming alive with thousands of fleeing birds and monkeys, but it was deathly silent. The absence of wildlife was startling. The black scree across the ground came up to his ankles, and grains trickled into his boots. In places, Albert Werper felt as if he was walking on the moon.

He was desperately thirsty, but the only stream he came across was black, polluted by the volcano. With the thoughts of fame and fortune burning feverishly in his mind, Werper forced himself onward. He kept praying the maps were accurate; otherwise he would undoubtedly die out there. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he had met a man who had single-handedly found his way out of the jungle. If that man could do it, Werper could too; he only hoped that if that were the case, nobody would be waiting at the other end to smother him with a pillow.

He lost track of time, and when the wind changed direction the volcanic plume obscured the sun, plunging the mountain into an eerie twilight. On he clambered, often on his hands and knees, and he was forced to tear foliage aside with his bare hands. Without a machete, he was slowed to a crawl, but still pushed on until his fingers bled.

Then he stubbed his toe on an angular stone. Werper stared at it for a long moment and then tears coursed down his cheeks, but not from pain. Such straight lines were not a natural formation—they had to have been made by the hand of man. He knew, even before he pulled back the last veil of undergrowth, that his dreams had come true. He had found the lost city of Opar.

• • •

T
arzan
gazed at the view across from where they had emerged out of the tunnel and, for a second, thought he had stepped back into the jungle.

The entire cavern had once been an enormous magma chamber the size of a sports stadium, but was emptied countless years ago, leaving a vast space. The floor and walls were rich with verdant plants that had taken root in the fertile soil, but rather than perish due to the lack of sunlight, they basked in the red glow of a huge magma channel that cut through the middle of the chamber. The molten red surface bubbled as it constantly churned, patches of the surface rapidly cooling into black rock before convection sucked them beneath the surface as the entire channel disappeared through one wall. It was fed by a spectacular lava-fall that plummeted from just below the roof, creating a breathtaking sight.

If that wasn't enough, the underground river ran parallel through the opposite side of the chamber, snaking its way through a cave in the far wall. Only a hundred yards of rock separated the two rivers, but they were close enough to raise a gentle veil of steam that was carried high through ancient magma holes in the ceiling, ensuring the chamber didn't fill with noxious fumes.

More huge snake carvings dominated the cavern. Two had collapsed in the recent quakes, but another four rose almost a hundred feet up the walls, carved directly from the rock face. Numerous tunnels ran from the chamber, a honeycombed network of passages leading deeper into the volcano.

The sheer scale of the cavern was only put into perspective when Tarzan saw a large group of Targarni at the far end of the chamber. Foliage had been cleared to reveal the rock beneath and Tarzan finally saw what had happened to the captives not eaten by the cannibalistic queen and her Targani minions.

Several prisoners toiled at the rock. Tarzan counted eight men, stripped to the waist, most revealing skeleton-thin bodies, and three gaunt women. Their nationalities were mixed, but Idra identified two of the Mbuti porters among them. Tarzan motioned to the others to crouch down so they wouldn't be spotted.

Next to the prisoners, a massive wooden gantry spanned the entire mined area. It was almost two stories high. A huge waterwheel had been constructed on the edge of the fast-flowing river, powering a series of vine ropes across the structure, on which wooden baskets hung. The crude but effective array of pulleys and winches carried the cleared debris so that it could be dumped into the magma river. It was an operation that could easily support a hundred miners, and Tarzan wondered how many had fallen as meals and how many more had worked to death. A dozen skulls—both human and Targarni—had been mounted as a gruesome reminder to those who didn't obey.

He heard a shocked gasp from Jane as she pointed a finger at a pair of familiar figures: Clark and Greystoke, badly bruised and beaten, toiling with the other captives. They hacked at the ground with rusting metal tools. They were all held in check by Targarni guards. The entire troop had taken refuge here, some snarling at prisoners who paused from their menial task for too long, others looking around the vast cavern in alarm, expecting the next quake to strike.

One of the prisoners—a man captured from Reyna's party—suddenly dropped to his knees and extracted a gleaming stone from the rock. As he held it up with trembling hands, the robed woman who hovered nearby snatched it. Goyad was preening himself at her side.

She held the raw gemstone up to the magma, delighted as the diffused light shone through to play across her face. She spoke, her voice effortlessly carrying across the cave.

“Another trinket for Queen La—you have pleased her!” Her gaze lingered on the stone before she became aware the man at her feet was almost dying of thirst. She gave a casual wave toward the river. “Yes … you have earned your drink.” The man scrambled on his belly to the river and drank heavily from it. The self-styled Queen La ignored him, dancing almost graciously in a circle as she admired the gemstone.

“She's insane,” said Idra in a low voice.

Tarzan could see Queen La had no real power over the Targarni, and couldn't imagine they only carried out her wishes to get the next scrap of succulent human flesh. She had to have some other form of control. He could only guess that La had trained them to be accustomed to eating human flesh; otherwise they would have ripped her limb from limb the moment she stepped foot in Opar.

Jane moved to get a better view. “How do we free them?” They couldn't see any chains or ropes binding the prisoners, so they were held by fear alone. Fear could do terrible things to a man's mind and Tarzan imagined they had seen plenty of cannibalistic rituals, which made them frightened for their own lives.

There were more than twenty Targarni, still overwhelming odds even if there were twice as many humans, but a plan formed in Tarzan's mind. Goyad had employed a diversion strategy several times and Tarzan wondered if the ape would fall for his own trick. There was only one way to find out.

“Be ready,” said Tarzan as he ran silently from the tunnel and disappeared into the dense foliage.

“Be ready for what?” hissed Jane. But Tarzan had disappeared.

• • •

E
very
fiber in Lord Greystoke begged to sit and rest, though he didn't dare; instead, he lifted a rusting pickaxe and feebly struck the rock—any harder and either the metal would snap or he would. Some of the tools they had been given were over a century old, harkening back to when Belgium had occupied the country. Others were new, stolen from some poor souls captured for the hellish task.

Both he and Clark had been abducted when the Targarni fled the earthquake. He was sure they hadn't been targeted—they were just the unfortunate victims who had been in the apes' path. Those last few seconds of freedom had replayed through his mind as they were carried to the city, and each time the image of Werper pushing Greystoke in front of himself as a human shield magnified in his mind. There was no doubt about it: the weasel had sacrificed Greystoke to save his own skin.

The apes had dumped them on the sacrificial altar when they arrived. Greystoke and Clark hadn't realized what it was at the time, only noticing it was covered in thick dried blood. Greystoke had been convinced they were about to be ripped apart, but their fate was spurred by the arrival of a hauntingly familiar face: Larissa Dorman. He had recognized the missing anthropologist from photos he and Werper had gathered while researching Opar. He had been quite taken by the photo of the young brunette with a winning smile and sparkling eyes. But in reality she was a very different creature.

Referring to herself in the third person as Queen La, it was immediately clear the years of isolation had driven her mad. The beauty whom Greystoke had seen in the photographs was now a cold unsmiling woman who had woven glowing lichen into her hair. Her skin had turned so pale the blue veins on her forehead were visible. Yet a trace of her former beauty held out—until she smiled. It chilled Greystoke to the core. She had filed her teeth down to jagged fangs that made her look inhuman.

Despite her sinister appearance, Greystoke could not stop his gaze from being drawn toward the precious gems that had been crudely sewn into her patchwork robe, constructed from the clothes of past victims. In the low light, the gems glittered tantalizingly. He had no doubt their worth was incalculable.

Clark had tried to reason with the queen, but his words only drew more scorn until she toyed an ornamental sword over his body and he gave up. The silver gem-studded blade was worth a small fortune, but the thought of a sudden death focused the men's minds. However, they were not to be sacrificed, and a horde of growling apes led them deeper into the city. They could only wonder what fate had in store for them.

They had been shocked when, assigned to the mining detail, they had encountered other people. Their expressions were hollow, their spirits crushed. Greystoke soon discovered that talking brought angry punches from the Targarni guards, as did stopping to rest. All the while, Queen La would strut around the cavern, keenly watching the workers one minute, then reminiscing in some crazed daydream the next.

One man, an Indian, had fallen to his knees in despair when the new prisoners were brought in. He threw down his pickaxe and hurled himself at Queen La. The albino ape intercepted the attack and delivered swift punishment by stunning the man. Any horrific punishment Greystoke could imagine paled into insignificance when Queen La began eating the unconscious, but still live, man, her pointed teeth effortlessly slicing through the flesh. She tossed raw meat to the Targarni, who clamored like hoodlums to get their share.

Only Greystoke and Clark watched the macabre spectacle, unable to tear their horrified gazes away. The other workers had seen it all too often and averted their eyes from the fate they all ultimately shared. No wonder shackles weren't needed to keep the prisoners in check. Working yourself to death was a much more civilized way to go.

As Greystoke hacked at the ground, he suddenly realized the black material was not just volcanic rock. He knelt, feeling the texture—it was a huge deposit of coltan. The entire area was rich with it. Near the riverbank he could easily sluice it up with his hand. He let out a dry chuckle. Queen La was mining the area for a few precious stones, most of which had no doubt been plundered by the Oparians and lost to history, when the rocks around them contained something far more valuable.

One of the newer prisoners risked punishment by occasionally speaking in whispers to find information about the outside world. Greystoke learned his name was Ramón and he was the cameraman on Reyna's team. He was relieved to learn Reyna had survived her ordeal, although news of the active volcano immediately dampened any hopes he harbored of escape.

When Greystoke saw Tarzan crouching on a rocky outcrop, he thought he was hallucinating from the sulphuric fumes rising from the magma river. The ape-man was concealed from the Targarni by the broad-leafed plants. For a moment, the cousins' gazes met and Greystoke understood his life was in the hands of somebody both he and his father would rather have seen dead. Despite his fatigue, he felt a jolt of hope that he may be saved.

Greystoke quickly looked away, focusing on the ground, when a Targarni knuckled past and barked a warning at him. He struck the ground with renewed enthusiasm and was surprised to see a chunk of rock split away, revealing a gleaming opal beneath. Greystoke reached for it, then hesitated. If he didn't reveal his finding then the greedy Queen La would be denied the trinket and he could at least keep it for himself. He innocently placed his foot over the gem and struck rock a little farther away.