Bunduki (Bunduki Series Book One) (6 page)

It was, the girl told herself,
something that she ought to have expected and taken into account.
Everything about the eagle had pointed to it having been trained
for falconry. Instead of thinking about the ease with which she
could have avoided a thrown lance, or growing complacent because
the riders did not carry bows, she
should have guessed how they could
attempt
to
ensure her capture. While she might be safe from the
lances, the eagle could fly across the chasm and reach her without
any difficulty.

Throwing a quick glance at the
two riders, Dawn wondered if she could turn, deal with the bird,
and still beat them to the woodland. Not that, she realized, she
had any real choice in the matter. She might—and it would only just
be
might
—outrun the men, but the bird would be upon her long before
she attained the safety of the trees.

However, if Dawn halted for long
enough to drive away or kill the eagle, the two men would arrive
and cut her off.

Almost
before the echoes of the scream had
ceased, Bunduki was bending to retrieve his bow. This time,
however, he liberated an arrow from the bow-quiver and made his
weapon ready for use. All the time his hands were moving, he
watched the left side of the clearing.

As yet, the dense nature of the bushes
was preventing the blond giant from seeing the person who had
screamed. Nor could he discover the cause of her alarm. With the
wind, what there was of it, blowing from the north, his sense of
smell was of no assistance in gathering further information.
However, his ears suggested that there was more than one
pursuer.

Suddenly, a feminine figure
dashed from the mouth of the game trail. Although Bunduki had not
expected her
to be Dawn, it was still something of a relief when a
stranger came into view.

Long, straight black hair streamed
behind the running girl and her very pretty face was distorted by
an expression of horror. She was brown skinned, like a Polynesian,
about five-foot-three in height and possessed exceptionally
well-developed contours. They were made all the more obvious due to
the skimpy manner in which she was dressed. Her clothing consisted
of a short skirt made from twisted strands of grass—and not too
many of them—and a small halter that looked like a strip of colobus
monkey’s skin. Unarmed, and clearly very frightened, she sped
recklessly across the open ground. Instead of giving any indication
that she was aware of the blond giant’s presence, she ran towards
the river.

‘
This
way!’ Bunduki called, hoping that she would understand.

At the sound of his voice, the girl
showed her first sign of realizing that another human being was
close by. Staring at Bunduki, she gave a croaking cry of mingled
alarm and relief. She started to swerve in his direction, tripped
and went sprawling to the ground. After rolling over a couple of
times, she halted in a crouching posture and covered her face with
her arms. Sobs of terror and exhaustion shook at her scantily
covered and voluptuous little body.

Striding forward, Bunduki had just
reached the girl when the first of her pursuers emerged from the
undergrowth. Studying the creature, he could understand the reason
for her panic-stricken flight.

Bunduki’s first thought was that the
creature might be a gorilla, but a second look led him to revise
his opinion. While it was coated with coarse brown hair and had the
short-necked, projecting face of an ape, it ran with an upright
stance and with an ease that no gorilla or chimpanzee could
duplicate.

Other details began to leap to
Bunduki’s attention. The
creature’s broad shoulders and heavily muscled
arms suggested that it travelled by brachiation, swinging from
branch to branch through the trees. Yet its legs were long and
straight, with feet more suited to bipedal walking or running on
the ground. In height, it just topped six foot. While anything but
puny, weighing maybe three hundred pounds, it lacked the massive
bulk of a bull gorilla. Still more significantly, as far as
identification was concerned, it was carrying a six foot long,
fairly straight branch which had been broken to leave a sharp point
at the forward end. From the way the creature was handling the
branch, he—there was no doubt as to the sex—was aware of its
potential as a rudimentary, yet effective spear.

No gorilla knew how to make, nor use,
weapons. Even the more intelligent chimpanzee would only throw or
wield a stick, wildly, and none too effectively for
defense.

The fact that the creature was
armed in such a way might prove it was not a gorilla, but it also
produced an argument to the alternative which had come to Bunduki’s
mind. If he had not seen the branch-spear, he would have thought
that it was an
Australopithecus.
One of the same species which his adoptive
father’s American biographer had always referred to as the Great
Anthropoid Apes, but who had really been an omnivorous pre-human
phase of
hominid
evolution. Somewhat smaller and lighter than the gorilla,
which had frequently shared their domains,
^xxiv
the
Mangani
had possessed a higher standard of
intelligence. However, although Lord Grey-stoke had once taught
some of them to row a boat,
^xxv
those of the race with whom he had
been associated did not know how to make, or even use, such a
simple weapon as the branch-spear.

Thrusting aside his thoughts on
the creature’s possible identity, the blond giant prepared to deal
with him. Whether he was a more advanced kind of
Australopithecus,
or some later species like
Homo Erectus Erectus
^xxvi
—
which, it has been established, was
capable of making and using primitive tools—he was certainly
dangerous.

At the sight of Bunduki moving
protectively between him and the girl, the man-ape—which was the
most apt description the blond giant could think of—came to a
halt.

Three more of the creatures, all just
as obviously masculine, lumbered from the game trail. Two were
smaller than the first, reddish brown in color and armed with
branch-spears. Larger and heavier than the rest, the fourth was
almost black and grasped a thick, knobbly three-foot length of tree
root in the manner of a club. Clearly he was the leader of the
group. Although he had been bringing up the rear, he pushed to the
front. From his lips, as they advanced, came three rumbling, almost
grunting sounds.

Much to Bunduki’s surprise, he found
that he could understand the big male’s guttural words.

‘
Bul-Mok
kill!’ the man-ape had announced, his name meaning
“Big Father”.

‘
Keep away,
or
Tar-Ara
kill!’

To add to Bunduki’s
astonishment, he found that he was able to answer the threat in the
same kind of primitive tongue. Although he had been encouraged by
his adoptive parents to make the most of his facility for learning
languages, he had not had the opportunity to
acquire any extensive knowledge
of
Mangani.
Nor, with them being so close to extinction, had there
seemed to be any point in him doing so.

Not that the blond giant
believed he was consciously speaking the
Mangani
dialect when he gave the warning and
translated his name as White Lightning. For some reason that he
could not comprehend, his brain was registering the thoughts in
English and they were leaving his mouth in the form of simple, yet
alien word-sounds.

Clearly the men-apes were puzzled at
meeting a human being who was able to address them in their own
primitive tongue. They came to a stop, with the younger males
lowering their weapons. They were waiting to see how their father
wanted the situation handled.

Deep growls rumbled in
Bul-Mok
’s
throat and he swayed uncertainly on his spread apart feet.
Glaring at the blond giant, he tried to decide what would be his
best line of action. Faced with a dangerous creature of another
species, the usual thing would have been for him and his sons to
launch a mass attack. However, against one of their own kind who
had strayed into their territory,
Bul-Mok
—in his capacity as dominant male of the
family—alone must assert his authority.

Although Bunduki did not know
it,
Bul-Mok
had never seen a human being until coming across the girl.
While puzzled by the blond giant’s hairless body and strange
features, the big man-ape was unable to decide whether he could be
classed as a
Mangani
or not. The answer to the puzzle would tell
Bul-Mok
how to deal with
the intruder.

‘
This
Bul-Mok
’s
land!’ the dominant male stated, beating at his chest with
his left fist. ‘
Bul-Mok
kill!’

‘
Tar-Ara
mighty fighter,’ Bunduki countered, although
holding the bow prevented him from repeating the others gesture.
‘Not afraid of
Bul-Mok
!’

Throwing back his head, the
dominant male thundered out a challenge. There was no doubt about
it, Bunduki
told himself. It was the call of a bull
Mangani.
What was more, he knew how he
must respond. While he had learned only a little of the
Manganis
simple language, he
could make all of the various signal calls. So he replied in kind
and his deep-throated roar shattered the air.

Hearing the awesome sound so close
above her, the girl crouching at Bunduki’s feet looked up. A low
moan burst from her as she realized that the second bellow, no less
savage in timbre than the one which had preceded it, must have been
made by the giant white man. Burying her face in her hands once
more, she moaned incoherently and tried to make herself even
smaller.

Discovering that the strange
white creature not only spoke
Mangani
but made the correct response to the challenge
roar was disconcerting to
Bul-Mok.
It presented a situation which severely taxed his
limited intelligence and reasoning powers.

Should he order his sons to
charge?

Or must he treat the intruder
as a trespasser of their own kind, strange-looking but a
Mangani
for all that, who
must be dealt with by himself?

All Bul-Mok’s instincts warned
him that the big stranger was a powerful and dangerous challenger.
Bearing that in mind, the man-ape sought for a way to avoid a
direct confrontation—but without letting it be apparent to the
other members of his family that he was doing so. His
eyes
roamed the
clearing, avoiding having to meet
Tar-Aras
gaze, coming to rest on the dead capybara.
Returning his attention to the blond giant, he decided to offer a
compromise which, if accepted, would leave the next move to his
oldest son.

It was a shrewd piece of
reasoning for a
Mangani. Bal-Tak,
“First Born”, was rapidly approaching the point
when he would make a bid to overthrow
Bul-Mok
and assume control of the family
group. Seeing how he fared against
Tar-Ara
would allow the dominant male to estimate
his potential as a rival.

‘
We take
food,’
Bul-Mok
offered. ‘You take woman.
Go
!’

‘
Woman mine.
Food mine!’ Bunduki snapped back.
‘
You
go!’

Greed and selfishness had not
prompted the hostile answer. While Bunduki still was not absolutely
sure of the kind of sub-human
hominids
he was up against, he could imagine how they would
react to any suggestion of weakness on his part. That was how the
younger males would have regarded his acceptance of their father’s
offer. Like most primates, the
Mangani
lived in social groups controlled by a
male hierarchy. The largest, strongest male was the leader with the
next toughest ranking second and so on down the scale. Each member
could only retain, or improve, his position in the community by
bluff or actual fighting prowess.

For Bunduki to have yielded
would have been construed as an admission of inferiority to
Bul-Mok.
Even if he had
allowed the big blond and the girl to go, the next largest of the
males would have been compelled to make a challenge and establish
his standing in the group. By acting as he had, Bunduki was hoping
that he would have only the leader to contend with.

Confronted with such open and
direct defiance,
Bul-Mok
was placed in a difficult position. His superiority was
being threatened in the fashion of the
Mangani.
That ruled out the possibility of him
ordering his sons to attack
Tar-Ara.
So he must act on his own, or he would be in
danger of losing his dominance over the family group. With that not
unimportant consideration in mind, he took a firmer grip on his
club.