Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (37 page)

Calling together what remained, Monyet stood before them, moonlight glinting on his gold breastplates.

“We will hunt them down. All of them. We will take their heads. We will beard the mighty Kong in his lair. We will take his head. And when we are done, we will paddle home in triumph!”

The mere thought of how the village women and children would greet them on their arrival, hailing them as heroes, ignited their flagging spirits. Heads were like gold to them. They occupied places of honor in every longhouse fortunate enough to boast one. There, they dried, the rats eating away the outer skin until time transformed them into dried black death’s heads of superhuman power.

But the thought of the many men lost on the venture tempered their ardor.

For, after all those losses, they had no heads except for the one trophy they had come with—the skull of the young kong. It was a disappointing boast.

But they were Dyaks. To question or disobey their prince was not in their nature.

So when Monyet turned to begin the dangerous march toward Skull Mountain, every man followed.

They left the kong head behind. There would be time to retrieve it later. And if they did not because they could not, it would not matter. For they would all be dead.

Marching at the head of his men,
duku
in one closed fist, blowpipe in the other, only Monyet lacked such defeatist thoughts. His dark eyes burned. His mouth formed a snarl of determination. He had no intention of failing, much less dying. He would have the heads of his enemies and they would occupy places of honor in his family longhouse. Of that, he was absolutely certain.

His firm confidence in himself, his belief in his destiny, was unswerving. It remained with him even after he witnessed at a distance the brazen giant with the lungs of iron, who had bested him in contest, beat back and defeat a flying bat-lizard—armed with no more than a short knife.

It was an impressive feat. But Monyet feared failure more than he dreaded death.

And because his warriors understood this, they followed him to his certain destiny….

Chapter L

DOC SAVAGE DESCENDED into a cold, unwelcome darkness. It was so still he began to doubt the wisdom of his plan. Very quickly, all light ceased to excite his retinas and he was moving down by feel, fingers scoring the slimy sides of the well. To a wonder, they felt slick, manmade. It was possible this was created—or at least improved—by the unknown race that had left behind those relics in the chamber of the other eye socket.

Deeper and deeper sank Doc, his lungs holding their reserve of air. He released none of it—not even when something that felt as slick and slimy as the stone sides brushed one bare forearm.

Something suddenly wrapped about his wrist. Doc felt a tug—sharp, powerful, utterly irresistible.

Free hand flashing for his blade, Doc drew it and began hacking at something both sinuous and rubbery. The coil constricted. Doc felt himself being pulled into deeper darkness.

Hooking the blade under the tightening thing, Doc sliced upward and away from his trapped wrist.

The Bowie edge cut through!

Feet kicking, arms beating, Doc drove himself further down until he felt a new tug. This was a current of water. He surrendered to it.

Banging off rocks, the bronze giant found himself helpless in the flow of water. Still, he refused to release a breath. If Doc was right, he would be carried to the safety of the open air. If not—death. There was no turning back now….

A crack of light careened into view. Doc got control of his tumbling. Just in time.

A flow of water yanked him out of the rugged flank of Skull Mountain and deposited him roughly into the foaming headwaters of the River of No Return.

Doc kept his head down and his mouth closed. He released a breath finally, but refused to surface. Taking control of his trajectory, Doc swam with the current, not sticking his head above water until he could hold his breath no longer.

When he broke up into open air, Doc peered around, ready to dive ahead of Dyak darts. But he saw none.

Climbing onto dry land, Doc looked back at the base of Skull Mountain. He saw nothing alarming. So he struck out in the direction of the tremendous great wall gleaming in the morning sun, walking along the river bank. He stopped from time to time to pluck extra thistles.

Along the way, he noticed the inflamed circular marks on his right wrist. Their significance was unmistakable. Sucker marks of an octopus tentacle….

AFTER some slow going, Doc realized that the river would carry him farther, faster, if he simply entered it. He did, began swimming.

The course became a torrent and when it became too dangerous, Doc, not knowing when he might find himself striking rocks or going over a natural falls, struck out for land and resumed his trek on foot. He went at a trot, seemingly tireless. He regretted the absence of close-packed trees, otherwise he would have taken to the branches. His lack of boots seemed not to bother him at all.

An hour of this took him to a stand of green bamboo shoots and the bronze man worked through the close-packed growth.

Doc encountered no Dyaks, failed even to scent them.

He doubted that he had been spotted coming out of Skull Mountain, but going up was another matter. They had taken care in climbing the skull-faced side, but to reach the lair, they had to walk along open space, where they were exposed. The Dyaks beating toward Skull Mountain would be chiefly interested in Kong, but would be only too happy to add the heads of his father and grandfather to their collection.

Finding Penjaga the Keeper proved not so difficult as Doc Savage first imagined. Moving through the jungle, Doc suddenly smelled a human.

Creeping around in a circle, he attempted to come up on the blind side of the lurker.

His stealth was excellent, and he made little sound.

Yet he found himself looking into a long gun barrel poking out of a clump of ferns.

It was the muzzle of his Annihilator submachine gun! Instinctually, Doc froze in place. He did some swift mental calculating. The bronze man knew the weapon had been devoid of ammunition when he abandoned it. The only other clip had been lost when Kong seized him. It was possible that a Dyak might have salvaged one, but would he possess sufficient mechanical knowledge to load it properly? Unlikely. But not impossible.

And who was to say that this was a Dyak?

Doc decided not to risk any rash move. Concern over the fate of his family tempered his usual willingness to plunge into a situation, confident in his physical powers.

“Do you want me to surrender?” asked Doc in a clear voice.

Ferns rustled. Up from the shivering greenery rose a small wizened figure clad in dinosaur skins.

It was the old woman, Penjaga, her face a quivering web of fleshy wrinkles.

“Do not make me shoot you, Gold Eyes,” she warned in piping English.

“I was seeking you out,” said Doc plainly.

Her wise old turtle eyes narrowed. “Why do seek me?”

“Kong lies dying yonder on Skull Mountain. As does Old Stormy. We have no medicine for either.”

Penjaga lowered the weapon and hefted a pouch made of some lizard-like skin in one hand.

“Why do you think I am walking the jungle like this?”

“I do not know,” admitted Doc.

“Is that what you always say? You do not know? You do not understand? What
do
you know?”

Mustering his patience, Doc asked, “Can you help?”

“Take me to Skull Mountain safely and we will both see.”

“Come then,” said Doc.

He left the Annihilator. There was no point in attempting to carry it back to Kong’s lofty lair, given the dangerous trek ahead. As before, it seemed unimportant now.

While they crept through the amazingly verdant bamboo and fern underbrush, Penjaga noticed the pouch around Doc Savage’s neck. Her nostrils wrinkled.

“Where did you get that?” she asked sharply.

“My grandfather gave it to me,” Doc replied. “He said it was a charm to ward off Kong.”

“Nothing can ward off the mighty Kong!” the Keeper snapped.

Doc eyed her. “Old Stormy told me you gave it to him for that purpose.”

“He did not lie,” she said as they pushed fan-like ferns aside to peer ahead. “I lied. The herbs within are brewed to soothe Kong. I gave Old Stormy that pouch to protect him should he fall into Kong’s hands again, as I knew he would. He should have kept it about his neck.”

“I see,” said Doc, motioning Penjaga to follow.

“Take care to keep it about you when you stand before the mighty one.”

THEY encountered only one Dyak on their march. A lone scout. He had been perched high in a coconut palm, looking for them, when he moved suddenly. His elbow struck a heavy coconut shell. It was ripe to fall. It did.

The drupe landed with a thud, cracked, disgorging its watery milk.

Doc froze.

“Coconut,” said Penjaga contemptuously.

“Dyak,” corrected Doc, indicating his nostrils.

The Dyak heard them and sent a dart hissing downward.

Doc dodged it, loaded one tube of his own blowgun. He returned a dart of his own.

The Dyak was hardly in a position to evade it from his lofty perch. He tried to tuck his legs up under him and took the missile on the callused sole of one foot.

Quickly plucking out the barb, he threw it at Doc, but missed.

That was his last act on Earth. Giving a mingled cry of fear and warning, he toppled from his precarious seat. The poison had worked.

The hapless man was probably dead before he hit the ground. In any event, his body did not exhibit any outward manifestation of dying. It simply lay crumpled where it fell, head askew on his broken neck.

Doc collected the man’s leather dart sheath and pushed on, Penjaga trailing him stealthily.

Chapter LI

MONYET LED HIS forces toward Skull Mountain, swimming in the midday mists.

They stopped along the way only once, where they found a cache of very large eggs. These they broke open into hastily
duku
-halved coconut shells, mixing the contents with coconut water, drinking the nutritious combination greedily.

“These are the eggs of the dragon-lizards who dwell here,” said Monyet, wiping his mouth. “They will give us the strength of a dozen men.”

This was their firm belief because the Iban god of hunting was a being called Gana, who had the fantastic form of a dragon. The fact that Skull Island was infested by dragon-lizards and fierce, reptilian birds the Dyaks took as a sure omen of success in their head hunt. These creatures, they reasoned, must be the children of Gana.

They were convinced on this point until a roaring two-legged reptile burst out of the foliage. The monster took the head of the nearest unwary Dyak into its massive jaws and began chewing it. The sound of the man’s skull breaking under the thing’s terrible teeth reminded them of the sounds of the stolen eggs breaking, which had been the creature’s brood. But the irony of that was lost on the scattering Dyak band.

Darts whistled into the creature’s thick hide but appeared to do no good.

Monyet ordered his men to scatter, and so they left the dragon-lizard to his human meal. The mealy sound of human bones breaking followed them for a time.

Eventually reaching the rock-strewn base of Skull Mountain, Monyet ordered a warrior to forage ahead as a scout. The latter left rapidly.

The lone warrior began working his way up the stony side of the summit. He managed to reach a high spot when a strange warrior stepped out on the ledge jutting out from beneath the hollow, fire-blackened stone eye sockets, and sent him plunging earthward by blowing a dart into his unprotected chest.

Seeing his scout tumble to a certain fate, Monyet hissed like a snake.

“We will have to find another way up,” he snapped.

Two warriors volunteered for the duty. They went up. This time, one expelled darts while the other climbed. Then, the first man paused to cover the second climber.

In this way, they managed to keep the coffee-colored guardian of Skull Mountain from firing down with impunity.

Unfortunately, they ran out of darts before they reached the formidable ledge where the lone sniper stood sentinel. Reluctantly, they returned to earth.

Monyet ordered three men up this time. He filled their pouches with fresh darts, saying, “He will run out before you do.”

The three scampered up the face of Skull Mountain, seeking the broken ledge under the cavernous hollows.

This time, the coffee-skinned guard changed tactics. He began rolling rocks down the side of Skull Mountain.

One landed atop a man, bounced off. When it reached the bottom, the man it struck had landed atop the settling stone, his limp body splayed like a beached starfish.

Monyet grinned, displaying filed black teeth. That still left two men, and they now knew what to expect in the way of defenses….

Chapter LII

RUSHING BACK TO Skull Mountain, Doc Savage took in the seriousness of the situation at a golden glance.

By the time he broke out to a point where he had a clear view of the forbidding peak, a clutch of Dyaks were scaling the flanks of Skull Mountain while others were dodging stones and boulders sent crashing down by Chicahua the Mayan.

But Doc could see what Chicahua could not: That there were many more Dyaks than the ones who were obviously acting as decoys. These skulkers were creeping up, unsuspected and unseen.

It was just a matter of time….

Penjaga squeezed her wise eyes at the stark summit of Skull Mountain.

“What is good for the ant is sufficient for the beetle,” she intoned.

“Meaning?”

“They climb three sides. We will climb the fourth.”

It made sense. Doc knew that returning via the torrent was impossible, for the tumbling current ran the wrong way.

Or was it impossible? Doc now knew that a great natural reservoir existed under the looming mountain. From this issued the River of No Return. But what fed it? Searching his memory, he recalled other wild tributaries he had glimpsed on the faceless side of what his grandfather called Mount Skull. It stood to reason that something fed that reservoir, and its perpetual cascade on the other side.