200 Million A.D.

Author: Kirk Straughen

Synopsis: Alex Drake and his brilliant but eccentric grandfather are hurled into the distant age of a future Earth when a time travel experiment goes awry. What strange creatures and perils will they encounter in a world transformed by the passage of 200 million years? Only by reading this action packed adventure will you know the answer to this intriguing question. But are you brave enough to face the dangers with our heroes?

Edit History: Minor changes were made to this story on 7 August 2021.

Chapter 1: The Time-cube

Alex Drake gazed in utter surprise at the Time-cube as it sat quiescent in his grandfather’s laboratory. The machine – a cube of silvery alloy measuring twenty feet to a side – rested on four curved legs that sprang from the corners of its base. Upon three of its vertical faces were large bullseye windows of toughened glass, while on the forth was a circular hatch, now open, that gave intriguing glimpses of the mysterious mechanisms that lay within.

The young man turned to his grandfather, Professor Michael Drake, and saw the savant had been intently watching his reactions. The man gazed at his grandson from beneath bushy eyebrows. His expression was stern, almost grim. A spade shaped beard adorned his face, giving him a brooding and intimidating appearance that wasn’t lessened by his narrow visage and thin husk of a body. The savant was a strange contrast to his grandson who had been graced with a thick unruly thatch of black hair, and masculine features that suited his tall, well muscled physique.

Poor fellow, thought Alex. I wonder how much of his personal fortune has been wasted on this folly. He’s no doubt wondering what I think. Well, I’ve no intention of expressing my scepticism with the undiplomatic bluntness of his fellow scientists. Then aloud: “It’s certainly an impressive machine.”

“But will it work – that’s your unvoiced question, isn’t it Alex? Oh, don’t try and hide your doubts from me, boy. I might be seventy, but my brain is sharp as a razor’s, and you’re no dullard either. That’s why I invited you here – you’re the science reporter for The Sphere.”

“The Sphere is a prestigious newspaper,” admitted Alex, cautiously. “But it’s not a scientific journal. Wouldn’t it be better to... ”

Professor Drake cut off his grandson with a bitter laugh. “The scientific community thinks I’m a moribund crank. My ideas on Time were pilloried by that halfwit Dr. Lawson, and you know how influential his views are. Bah, the fool wouldn’t know one side of a clock from the other!

“No, lad,” continued the savant bitterly, “I’m done with those imbeciles.” Then, stabbing a gnarled finger at the Time-cube: “The only way I can silence my critics is to prove my theory true by practical demonstration and have the story published in a leading newspaper. Now, take some pictures while I pose beside the craft, then we can board the machine for I’m eager to get this history making venture under way.”

The photographs taken, Alex followed his grandfather to the Time-cube wondering how the savant would react when the machine failed to work. That the young man was doubtful was understandable. Since his retirement at sixty, Professor Drake had devoted his remaining years to the study of the mystery of Time. Indeed, so preoccupied was he with the problem that it had reached the point where it was clearly an obsession and, as is the case with most obsessions, had blinded the sufferer to the irrationality of his mania. This observation and the fact that leading physicists rejected the elder Drake’s incomprehensible theory, naturally added to his grandson’s considerable scepticism.

Alex felt that it was all rather tragic. During his younger days his grandfather had been a respected scientist who had made significant contributions to theoretical physics, especially in the area of cosmology. As well as this he had invented the holoscope – a three dimensional image projection system that had revolutionized the movie industry and made him a considerable fortune. But as time passed his achievements had been eclipsed by a rising generation of younger scientists, and now he’d been reduced to the status of a reclusive crank – the object of unseemly ridicule.

It’s just as well he chose me rather than some other journalist, thought Alex as he stepped within the Time-cube. I can at least save him from further humiliation by not reporting his failure.

This train of thought was halted when his eyes fell upon the sight before him. A hexagonal column of clear glass rose from the centre of the cube’s floor to touch the ceiling, but it was not this sight that caused the look of amazement to come upon the young man’s face. Rather, it was the swirling aurora of opalescent fire trapped within the prism that made him gasp in sheer astonishment.

When he’d received the call from his grandfather early in the morning – a call inviting him to come and see what sounded like a time machine - Alex had expected to see something the eccentric professor had clapped together from odds and ends of junkyard scrap: a crackpot device that hadn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell of ever working.

He’d been surprised when he saw the Time-cube’s precisely engineered exterior. But as he gazed upon its inner mechanism his scepticism began to waver. Professor Drake was an obsessed eccentric, certainly. But he also knew that despite these idiosyncrasies his grandfather was a faultlessly honest man. The weird force trapped within the crystal column was no fraudster’s trickery of coloured lights, of that he could be sure.

This realization left Alex shaken to the core. He turned in slack jawed wonder to the savant who now stood before a control panel beneath the forward bullseye window, and saw that the scientist returned his startled gaze with an amused smile.

“What you’re looking at is a strand of the time stream itself. Well, don’t stand there like a stunned fish,” grinned the savant. ”Take some more photos then come over here and I’ll get us under way. I plan to travel into the past. We’ll capture a dinosaur – some of them such as Microceratops, which lived in the Cretaceous period, were the size of chickens. When we bring the creature back to the present it will be indisputable proof that the machine works, and that my theory is based on fact rather than being the ravings of a senile old man.”

After taking several pictures of the Cube’s interior, Alex moved to his grandfather’s side, his mind trying to catch up with the reality of the totally unexpected situation in which he now found himself. It seemed beyond belief that the machine would actually work and that he, Alex Drake – a man of the modern era – would be hurled back through time to the remote age when monster reptiles ruled the Earth.

Wild fear of the unknown and mysterious forces his grandfather was playing with suddenly came crashing down upon him, and he jumped when the hatch of the machine clanged shut with the doom laden sound of a slamming prison door. What in God’s name had he gotten himself into?

“We’re under way,” enthused the savant, too wrapped up in his moment of triumph and the manipulation of the Time-cube’s controls to notice his grandson’s evident distress.

There was no sense of movement. Nor was there any sound of machinery in operation. Only an eerie silence prevailed. Relief came upon Alex like a soothing balm. Clearly, the machine had failed to work as he had initially anticipated. But when he looked out the window terror seized him in its icy grip. The laboratory and all the world of comforting normality had utterly vanished, and he now gazed upon a phantasmagoria of swirling things that jolted his mind with their indescribable hues and forms.

The nightmare vision beat upon his brain like hammer blows as his reeling senses tried to comprehend the incomprehensibly alien. His throat went dry with clawing fear and his knees grew weak with terror. A wild rush of horror began to build – a black tidal wave that would drown his sanity in dark nightmare. He felt a mindless primal scream bubbling up inside him. Then a merciful hand slid across his eyes blocking off the horrendous scene while another eased his trembling body gently to the floor.

“Steady, lad. You’ll be okay in a minute,” explained the professor as he gazed worriedly at the pale features of his heavily breathing grandson. “What you just experienced was the full force of the Time Stream rather than the small strand that powers my machine.

“Time itself – as contrasted to our mere perception of its passing – is incomprehensible except in terms of purely abstract mathematics. The bizarre hallucinations were the result of your brain’s attempt to make sense of something completely outside commonplace reality. I should have warned you not to look at it directly... I’m sorry... I was so caught up in a Nobel prize vision that I forgot.”

“You... you mean you’ve made a trip through time before,” gasped Alex.

The savant smiled. “Of course,” he confirmed. “But only a short distance into the past. Really, Alex; do you think I’d invite you on this little jaunt before I first tested the Time-cube to ensure it worked? Now, rest awhile while I attend to the navigation of the machine.”

A little jaunt into the past, thought Alex in disbelief as he watched his grandfather manipulate the controls. Hardly little when one considered that their destination – the Cretaceous period – existed about one hundred and thirty million years before the present. But when was the present? They had been aboard the Time-cube for perhaps no more than five minutes. But during that period how many millennia, perhaps even aeons, had flashed by outside the walls of this room-like vehicle? The thought was staggering in its enormity.

Shortly, Alex climbed slowly to his feet. The initial shock caused by the fantastic situation in which he found himself had faded, and now he was infused by a growing sense of excitement. No longer blinded by irrational panic he could appreciate the extent of his grandfather’s genius, and the fantastic adventure the fruit of his intellect had launched them on. Why, a trip to the moon was bland in comparison to what their eyes would soon behold – the dead past from the Age of Reptiles to ancient Egypt’s glories brought to life through Time’s conquest. It was the scoop of a lifetime!

“How long until we reach our destination?” he eagerly asked.

Professor Drake made no reply, and when his grandson noted the lines of worry upon his brow the younger man was again beset by rising dread.

“What’s wrong?” he gasped in undisguised alarm.

“Our progress into the past is being retarded,” explained the anxious savant as he pointed to a display of graphs and equations on a screen. “We seem to be caught in a... a storm if I can use the analogy. Even as I speak it’s rapidly sweeping us into the future. Dear God!” he gasped in amazement. “We’ve just passed the year five hundred thousand A.D.”

Alex paled at the impact of this shocking revelation. The past was at least known to some degree. But their vessel, now caught in the grip of some vast and mysterious power, was being hurled through unknown centuries of future time towards what destiny not even the genius of his grandfather could divine.

“Can you slow the Cube?” he cried. “Can you stop our headlong rush?”

The savant turned to him with a bleak expression – the grim herald of his unsettling answer. “We’re like a ship caught in a howling gale,” he explained. “We’re at the mercy of the temporal storm and there is nothing I can do.”

Chapter 2: Marooned in Futurity

Alex leaned heavily against the control panel to steady himself as a rush of fear came upon him. He felt physically ill at the thought of the mysterious power that had seized the Time-cube in its unshakable grip. What had his fool of a grandfather gotten him into? He stared angrily at the man, and then grew ashamed. The professor looked concerned as he manipulated dials and typed commands on a keyboard, but his bearing was one of manly resolve to fight to the very end.

The younger Drake straightened himself with a conscious effort and squared his shoulders with the sudden realization he was acting like a spineless coward. The situation was grave, true, but giving way to fear and placing the blame for their predicament on his grandfather was a most unmanly reaction to their circumstances. No, he must muster what courage he could to face the unknown perils that lay before them, and thus be ready assist the savant in whatever way he could.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Worry still tinged Alex’s voice, but at least now he was master of his fear.

“Not really,” replied his grandfather in a distracted manner. “The storm, for want of a better word, seems to be abating. But even so we’ve been carried forward into future time by a tremendous degree. Ah, the Time-cube’s responding, slowing her headlong flight.”

“Thank God for that,” murmured Alex.

“Quiet, boy,” reprimanded the savant as he bent over a viewing instrument. “Let me concentrate. I must find a suitable point in time – an open space where we can emerge without danger of collision with anything.”

The minutes passed tensely as Professor Drake, hunched over the small screen, observed with intense concentration the swirling, ever changing panorama on its surface. Mere minutes passing, reflected Alex as he watched the scientist. But how many centuries had hurtled by in those paltry seconds as the vast river of Time swept them ever onwards. It was as if they were in the eye of a cyclone and all about spun the whirl of immeasurable ages, immense and mysterious. It all seemed so unreal, and yet here he was, caught in the midst of inexplicable strangeness.

“Eureka,” exclaimed the savant as he twisted a dial and, with relief, wiped the sweat from his brow. “I’ve found a spot. We’ve emerged from the time stream.”

There was no sensation of coming to a stop. It was purely the professor’s announcement that broke the strange mood which had come upon his grandson. A feeling of normality returned to him – they were once again in the real world. But where were they, or perhaps he should say when were they. He voiced this question to his grandfather.

“It’s the year two hundred million A.D.” replied the professor. “Yes, Alex; it’s a staggering thought isn’t it? We’ve come further into the future than I planned to go into the past. But no matter,” he continued as he moved to a storage locker and removed a pair of backpacks and two high powered hunting rifles from it. “Evolution will have wrought many changes on Earth’s life forms over such a huge expanse of time. We’ll bag a specimen and return to our own age. Whether the creature is from the distant past or the far future is immaterial, for we’ll have the proof we need.”

Alex took the backpack and rifle offered to him. The gun was a .460 Weatherby Magnum – a weapon designed for killing large and dangerous game. It certainly had the power to stop a dinosaur, but in this far flung age it seemed an anachronism. Indeed, he had to remind himself that although this was Earth it was an alien Earth – one probably as different from his own time as his age was from that of the Cretaceous era. Perhaps they’d have to face giant robots, or the super-science of a hostile civilization. It was a sobering thought indeed.

“Let’s have a good look at the environment before leaving the Time-cube,” said the savant, who was also thinking of possible dangers. “We’d best have some idea of the world we are stepping into.”

Both men eagerly gazed out one of the large bullseye windows in silent expectation of what marvels their roving eyes would see. They found they were surrounded by a forest of towering trees. The growths were titanic – each must have been at least four hundred feet in height. The girth of their mighty boles was astounding, as was the strange bark of mottled purple and yellow that clad the massive trunks in heavy shingle-like plates.

High above, huge limbs arched outwards and intertwined with those of neighbouring trees. The leaves, vivid green and strangely corrugated, formed a dense canopy through which shafts of sunlight slanted to illuminate a dense undergrowth whose dominant vegetation consisted of heart-shaped plants. These growths, resembling giant caladiums in form, were colourfully variegated in white, green and crimson, and rose in thick masses to chest height.

“I know when we are in time, but where are we in space?” queried Alex as he moved to another window and gazed in puzzlement upon a similar scene.

“Spatially, the Time-cube occupies the same space as it did in my laboratory,” explained the savant. “It’s just moved forward into the distant future.”

Alex gasped as the frightening implication hit him. “But... but where is the city... the people of this distant age?”

“Life, whether it takes the form of individuals or entire species, comes into being and then inevitably passes away,” replied Professor Drake, gently. “More than likely we’re the only humans in existence on this future Earth of two hundred million A.D.”

Humanity extinct! It took all of Alex’s self control to master his reeling brain. “How can you be so calm in the face of such an awful truth?” he cried after a moment’s shocked silence.

“It’s a question of perspective,” explained the savant. “You see, just as space separates objects, so too does time separate events – everyone who has died is still alive in the past. The past is eternal,” continued the scientist consolingly as he patted his grandson on the shoulder. “When you look at things in this light nothing ever truly ceases to exist. Now, let’s go out and see what other changes have been wrought upon the world.”

The two men exited the craft and stepped upon the loamy soil of the future Earth. The reality of the forest settled Alex, for it had a comforting familiarity about it he could relate to. He laid aside the implications of his grandfather’s philosophy – it was simply too complex to consider just now. Instead, he’d best keep a sharp lookout for dangerous predators and potential specimens.

“We mustn’t lose the location of the Time-cube,” cautioned Professor Drake as he took a reading from his compass. “And we mustn’t lose sight of each other, either. One could easily become separated and lost in this dense undergrowth.”

Alex nodded, took the lead and began hacking a way through the crowding masses of vegetation with his bush knife. The explorers had penetrated the dense undergrowth to a distance of about a hundred yards when a tremendous bellow stopped them in their tracks. Both men quickly jerked about. Chill fear came upon them when they glimpsed the massive beast lumbering through the underbrush to the rear of the Time-cube.

The creature resembled a rhinoceros in general appearance. Its size, though, was gigantic. Alex estimated that it must have stood at least fifteen feet at the shoulder. The thing was covered in grey bony armour resembling an armadillo’s. Its head, though, was more bovine in appearance, but with three massive horns, fused at the base, that jutted out like thrusting spears from its broad forehead. Again it bellowed wildly and lowered its head.

“It’s going to charge,” cried the savant as he threw the rifle to his shoulder.

The brute exploded into motion. Both men fired, missed. The thing thundered forward like a living express train, and eighteen thousand pounds of primal fury rammed against the Time-cube’s side. The machine shuddered under the ferocious impact of the charge. Both men watched in disbelief and horror as the vehicle tilted. It fell to earth with a mighty crash. Delicate mechanisms were shattered by the fall, and with their breaking strange forces were unleashed.

It was as if a powder keg of concentrated lightening had exploded. The blast erupted, it roared like the trumpets of Armageddon. The machine’s sides bulged with the tremendous pressure of the detonation. Its windows vanished in a spray of molten glass as rays of blistering light lanced out. The echoes of the explosion rolled through the forest aisles like the rumblings of a vast volcano. Gradually, they died away, and in the aftermath only deathly silence reigned.

Slowly, the huge brute staggered to its feet. Its sheer vitality and heavy armour had saved it from the shockwave of the blast. But even so it swayed slightly for a moment, and then stumbled off through the undergrowth as fast as its unsteady legs would permit retreat. Shortly, it vanished from sight, but the damage was done. Both men, who had also been knocked to the ground by the explosion, raised their heads and looked on in shocked and shaken silence at the twisting plume of smoke that rose from the wreckage of the Time-cube, each overcome by the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen them.

“Come on,” said Alex, dully, as he helped the professor stand. “We’d better inspect the damage and see what’s salvageable. Why do you think it attacked the Time-cube?” he continued as they approached the machine. “I could have sworn it was charging straight at us.”

“The brute is probably territorial,” speculated the scientist. “It may have seen its reflection in the highly polished metal, and attacked our vehicle thinking it was another male. But never mind that. The hatch is underneath the side on which the Cube has fallen. I’ll have to peer through a window to assess the damage.”

Both men fell silent as they drew near the vehicle. Its sides had been buckled out and cracked by the explosion, and the entire time-ship would no doubt have been blown to smithereens but for the shattering of the windows, which had allowed most of the tremendous power of the blast to escape the confines of the machine and sear the surrounding vegetation for many yards.

Alex clung desperately to hope as his grandfather peered through one of the smoking bullseye windows, but even a cursory glance told the savant the unpalatable truth. He turned to his grandson and the look upon his face made the young man’s heart sink to the very bottom of the black pit of despair.

“Well, my boy,” he said heavily. “It looks like we’ll be here far longer than I anticipated. I’m so terribly sorry I got you into this.”

Chapter 3: Land of Monsters

Alex half expected the answer, but even so it still didn’t lessen the shock of his grandfather’s confirming words. The import of their predicament was a savage blow. Everything he held most dear – his parents, his friends; Rachel, his sweetheart – all forever lost to him two hundred million years in the past.

For a moment he was nearly overcome by the enormity of the disaster to himself and to those who loved him – the grief that his inexplicable disappearance would no doubt cause. With an effort he rallied his courage. His elderly grandfather was in this too. Now was not the time to go to pieces. He turned to the downcast scientist and forced a smile.

“Don’t blame yourself,” he said with studied bravado. “Look on the bright side - we’ll have more time to explore this strange new world, won’t we?”

**********

Two days had passed and the time travellers, or chrononauts as the professor preferred, found themselves on the lip of a mighty declivity that fell away in a series of natural terraces to a lush grassland some five hundred feet below.

At the back of them was the titanic forest through which they had fought their way. Both were sore, dirty, and weary from harrowing nights disturbed by the ferocious roars of nocturnal predators. So far they had managed to survive on the palatable apple-like fruit from a type of huge vine that grew in coiling profusion about the trunks of the mammoth trees. Water had come from the forest’s many streams.

It was a monotonous diet, but proved the only viable option. Although life abounded in this titan woodland much of it lived high in the soaring canopy, and as neither man was an expert marksman they were loath to waste precious ammunition on a shot that in all probability would miss its target.

They had encountered small family groups of the creature that had destroyed the Time-cube and Alex had brought down one of the young with a careful shot whose report scattered the rest. Its flesh, however, proved to be oily and unpalatable even when thoroughly cooked, and they had abandoned their nauseous meal in disgust.

Then, the following day, there had been a very close and frightening encounter with one of the huge predators of the forest. The explorers had just emerged from a thick tangle of vegetation when they came face to face with the enormous brute, which had no doubt heard their passage through the verdure and had decided to lie in wait for them.

The creature must have stood at least ten feet at the shoulder. Its massive body resembled that of a pit bull terrier. The hairless leathery skin, though, was more leopard-like in its colouration and patterning. Its ugly bony head was neither canine nor feline, but resembled that of a Komodo dragon. Huge claws sprang from its padded feet.

Alex was in the lead. The brute was in a crouch about two hundred feet in front of him. The instant each laid eyes on the other it sprang. Its enormous strides covered the distance with appalling swiftness. Its slavering fang lined jaws gaped wide in preparation to crunch down upon its puny prey.

The man fired as it sprang. The bullet slammed into its chest. The thing writhed midair, but the momentum of its leap carried it forward in an unstoppable rush. Alex swore. He hurled himself upon the startled savant, knocking him clear of the plummeting beast. The creature crashed to earth, somersaulted. The younger Drake had leapt clear but the monster’s lashing tail, as thick as a man’s forearm, struck him across the back and sent him spinning to the ground.

Alex fought against crippling pain. He saw the creature struggle to its feet as he crawled agonizingly towards his rifle. The beast’s eyes fell upon him. It hissed, lurched towards him, maw wide and red as Satan’s pit. He knew he’d never reach the gun in time. Then the professor’s rifle cracked. The brute stumbled as a portion of its ugly skull was blown away. It fell on its side with earth shaking impact, and twitched slightly as the life faded from its eyes...

These thoughts were foremost in Alex’s mind as he gazed at the mighty herds of distant beasts that roamed the grassland he now looked upon. A diet of fruit and water could only sustain them for so long. What they needed was palatable meat, and he wondered if the distant creatures would prove more toothsome than the other beasts they had encountered. He said as much to his companion.

“You’re right, Alex,” agreed the scientist. “A few more days of this paltry vegetarian diet and we’ll be undernourished. Going out there will be risky, but we have no choice.”

The decision being unanimous, no further words were spoken as the men descended the declivity and entered the fringes of the savannah. Here, the uncropped grass rose to almost shoulder height. The growth was exceedingly thick and green, and the dense lavender flowers that formed a cylindrical spike at the apex of each plant reminded Alex of bulrushes.

They moved with slow caution through the vegetation, which was simply too extensive and dense to waste energy hacking a path through. Each man was wary of his footing least he step upon some venomous creature that lay concealed by the thick grass. Progress was slow and nerve wracking for neither could be certain that some strange beast did not lie in wait for them.

The sun beat down upon the men. They sweated and itched from the heat and the coarse foliage they forced their way through. After about a hundred yards Alex could see that his grandfather was rapidly tiring from their battle with the hindering growth. He called a halt and reconsidered their plan. It had seemed a simple thing to push through the uncropped grass and from its margins lie in wait for passing game, but the vegetation was even denser than the forest underbrush, and now he wasn’t sure that the older man could last the distance.

“We’ll press on,” panted the savant who had divined his grandson’s thoughts from the worried look upon his face. “All I need is a few moments rest.”

“We’ll both sit for a spell,” agreed Alex. “I could do with a break myself.”

Both men doffed their backpacks, stomped down a rough bed of grass and stretched out upon it. Alex gazed up at the patch of sky and drifting tufts of cloud. Unseen insects buzzed a soft lullaby in the drowsy heat. The scent of the crushed grass beneath his body was strangely calming, and tiredness from sleepless nights conspired with slumber to steal in upon him. Soon he was oblivious to the world...

Alex jerked awake; alarmed by the realization he had so foolishly fallen asleep in such a dangerous environment. He quickly glanced at the savant. The man snored peacefully and his grandson calmed a little. No harm had befallen them. But something had woken him. He felt it – a strange presence, very close. Apprehension prickled his spine as he slowly stood and cautiously peered above the tall grass. Fear closed its hand about his throat and his racing heart seemed to miss a beat as his eyes fell upon the immense creature, dangerously near.

The animal looked roughly like an elephant, but was six times the size of the pachyderms of his own distant age. Its head resembled a camel’s; the neck was virtually non-existent. The thing possessed two long trunk-like limbs, one depending from each corner of its mouth. Its skin was hairless and tawny in colour. Large spiralling horns, like those of a ram, sprang from its skull. A row of fin-like growths, which served as radiators to help cool its immense body, ran along each flank.

But perhaps most amazing of all was the huge structure strapped to its broad back. It was a rectangular wooden turret the colour of old teak and the size of a small house. Crenulations, adorned with a frieze of gold triangles, ran about the upper works and blue pennants emblazoned with a golden crescent moon flew from poles at each corner of the battlements. A row of arrow slits encircled the tower, each one surrounded by a gilded Greek-key border.

A black harness of massive hawsers decorated with golden bells bound the structure to the creature’s back. And it had been the soft tinkling of these chimes that had awoken Alex from his slumber. He stood stock still in shocked amazement. Intelligent beings had built the turret upon the monster’s back, but were they men or something else entirely? It was impossible to say, for no head protruded above the crenulations of the tower.

There was a balcony that projected from the turret’s front. Here were reins used to guide the beast, but no hand, human or otherwise, gripped them. The creature stood placidly, tearing off great masses of grass with its trunk-like appendages, which it then used to convey the herbage to its cavernous mouth.

“What is it, Alex?”

The sleepy voice of the scientist made the young man jump. He hissed a warning and beckoned the savant to his side. The professor approached with wary caution, rifle ready. He barely stifled the gasp of surprise that rose to his lips when he beheld the sight his grandson gazed upon.

He gripped Alex’s shoulder as he looked about. “Over there,” he whispered. “There are even more of them.”

Alex started. He’d been so focused upon the beast before him that he’d failed to notice ten others of its kind, also bearing turrets, which grazed upon the grass all around them. They were in the middle of a herd of monsters so large that a single foot of one of the huge brutes could have easily crushed them to death whilst they were asleep.

He went cold at the thought, and even colder when the full import of their situation came upon him – surrounded by titan beasts under the control of unknown and possibly hostile intelligences. He turned to his grandfather, but before he could voice his concerns a breeze sprang up and wafted their odour to the sensitive nose of the nearest titan.

The creature rumbled its alarm call, which sounded like an avalanche of boulders. Instantly, the other beasts took up the reverberating cry. Alex cursed as a figure emerged onto the balcony of the turret. He jerked his grandfather down, but too late – the being had spotted them. A flick of the reins sent the mammoth beast lumbering in their direction.

Alex and the savant looked wildly about. The tall, thick grass impeded swift escape and the other monstrous creatures, despite their immense size, were converging upon them with alarming rapidity. A crossbow bolt suddenly slammed into the earth at the explorer’s feet, adding to their fright.

The professor swore. Both men fired at the nearest creature. Steel jackets slammed into its head. The thing stumbled. It toppled with the majestic slowness of a felled tree. Dust billowed as it struck the ground with earth shaking force. The turret shattered on impact and indefinable beings were hurled screaming into the tall grass.

Tragedy swiftly followed on victory’s heels. The savant gasped a gurgling cry and pitched forward on his face. Alex looked in horror at the quarrel protruding from his back. Then wild rage came upon him. He spun round and drew a bead on the lumbering brute from where the fatal shot had come, but before he could squeeze the trigger another bolt slammed into his leg. He gasped in agony, dropped his rifle and fell to earth, then fainted from the searing pain.

Chapter 4: Slave of the Numari

For Alex reality degenerated to disjointed perceptions of the world overlayed with the hallucinations of fever from his infected wound. He hovered precariously between life and death for many days and, in the few lucid moments he had, dimly perceived the strange beings that changed the dressing on his thigh, forced bitter medicinal herbs between his pale lips, and tended to his bodily needs.

These brief glimpses of reality were intermingled with nightmares in which he was pursued by monstrous phantoms of his dead grandfather and other horrors conjured up by his overheated brain. But at last the fever broke and reality gradually emerged from the chaotic visions of his debilitating illness.

He lay in what appeared to be a small room. The ceiling was rather low and sunlight seeped through a single narrow window on his right, illuminating the interior of the ornately panelled chamber. He was very weak and could barely turn his head to look about.

To his left was a wall lined with drawers from floor to ceiling and in front of him was a curtained doorway. A profusion of coiling vines had been carved in the panels of the other walls to frame strange creatures so bizarre they could only be the beastery of outlandish legends.

Strangely, the room rocked from side to side with a gentle motion reminiscent of a ship at sea. Where was he and what had happened to him? Was he on an ocean going vessel? His brow furrowed in puzzlement. No, that wasn’t quite right. He struggled to remember, attempting to sort out true memories from the false visions of his illness.

There was a ship, yes. But it wasn’t a vessel of the sea. Then the truth hit him – the Time-cube, its destruction and the death of his grandfather. He groaned as the reality of events crashed down upon him. He must be within the turret mounted on the back of the monster beast, and in the hands of violent enemies. Alex desperately tried to struggle up from the sleeping mat, but found he could barely lift his head. The effort left him weak and panting. A sobbing cry of rage and grief escaped his lips.

The curtain parted at the mournful sound, and a being stepped within the room. The appearance of the creature was so amazing that it banished all other thoughts from Alex’s mind. He had recalled seeing it during the few lucid moments of his illness, but so fantastic was its appearance that he had dismissed the memory as nothing more than a fever dream.

It was humanoid inasmuch that it possessed a head, two arms and legs, and stood upright like a man. But that was where the similarity ended. The being was entirely hairless except for a white, fan shaped crest of feathery growths that sprouted from its forehead. Its skin was a glossy chestnut colour and, except for the face, was patterned with markings like that of a giraffe.

The eyes of the being were large and startlingly golden. The motile, fox-like ears were set higher than those of a man. Its face was oval, its nose somewhat feline in appearance. The lips were full and as black as onyx. The arms were slightly longer and the body more muscular than the average human.

A row of four breasts, each about the size of a pear and similar in shape thrust proudly from its chest indicating it was female. The girl, for despite her inhuman appearance there was no other word Alex could think of to describe the being, was dressed in nothing more than a leather g-string – the standard item of apparel, he was to discover. Her only ornament was the thin bronze slave collar about her throat from which hung the emblem of her captors: a palm size blue porcelain disc with a crescent moon in gold glaze.

Alex grew tense as the girl approached him, uncertain of what to expect from this alien being. He relaxed a little when she knelt and placed a soothing hand upon his brow. Her smile was rather unsettling though, for it displayed a row of sharply pointed teeth.

“Ootya,” she said as she touched her forehead with her finger, and then pointed at him in an interrogative manner.

“Alex,” he responded weakly. And thus began his lessons in the language of the Numari – one of the strange peoples of this distant age.

**********

Alex, now fully recovered from his wound, leant against the crenulations of the turret and gazed at the other immense beasts of the Numari caravan that grazed placidly upon the tall grass of the vast savannah. Three months had passed since his capture and now he had a grasp of essential cultural facts and language skills.

His captors were a nomadic people divided into a hundred clans which roamed across the Plain of Xotu - a vast area of grassland. The Crescent Moon clan, of which he was a prisoner, was fairly representative of the people. It consisted of ten full grown zuni – the titan beasts that bore the turrets, or yura as they were called in the Numari tongue.

Each yura housed a family consisting of a husband, his wife or wives (depending on his status) and their children. As many as ten people could be packed into the two story structures, which were constructed from koru wood – a timber as light as balsa but as hard as oak.

The zuni, despite their immense size, had been fully domesticated. The cows of the herd provided rich milk for the Numari, which was processed into cheese – an important source of protein that was supplemented by occasional hunting. Vegetables were grown aboard the yura in clay pots and also gathered from wild plants. The cultivated vines bore spherical, purple fruit which tasted like pumpkin when roasted in the barrel-shaped porcelain ovens that hung suspended from the yura’s kitchen, which had been fireproofed with tiles on walls floor and ceiling.

Alex had been surprised at the Numari’s level of technology, which was well above that usually found among nomadic peoples. He knew that far to the north was the Zurma - a sacred meeting ground consisting of a vast circle of monoliths where all the clans gathered once a year. Here, feuds over grazing territory and other sources of rivalry were set aside. Wives, like zuni were bartered for, and yura repaired or manufactured in well appointed workshops.

But how had such a system come about? He puzzled over this as he gazed across the seemingly endless savannah. Another puzzle was why he had been spared. His captors could have easily slit his throat after shooting him. Could they have stayed their hand out of mercy? After the rough treatment he’d seen the men inflict upon their women and children he doubted that. No, there had to be some other motive, but what?

The sound of his name being called interrupted Alex’s musings. He turned and saw that the slave girl Ootya had thrust her head through the hatch of the yura’s roof.

“Xanur demands your presence,” she informed him, then disappeared down the ladder before he could reply.

Alex grimaced. Xanur was the tu, or head of the Crescent Moon clan. He didn’t like the fellow, whose narrow face and pointed ears held too much of the savage wolf in their feral poise for his liking. Still, there was no avoiding the summons – he was a prisoner still, for no opportunity to escape his captors had presented itself, and even if it had he had nowhere to run. With a repressed curse, Alex descended the ladder and entered the cramped yura, which was redolent with the spicy odour of koru wood.

Most of the warriors, which consisted of Xanur’s three oldest sons, were out hunting with the other members of the clan, so he was able to negotiate the maze of small rooms with relative ease, and soon found himself before the curtained doorway of Xanur’s abode – the very chamber where he had been nursed back to health.

Ootya, who had been waiting for him, held the drapes aside. He entered and saw Xanur sitting cross legged on a cushion, and standing behind him Var and Temu, his younger sons. Alex tensed. Both apprentice warriors held long steel knives in their hands and eyed him coldly as they fingered the naked blades in a most unnerving manner.

Xanur motioned him to sit, and then spoke without preamble. “You and your companion killed one zuni and with it many fellow clansmen when it fell upon the ground. Yet I spared your life and bid my women save you with their healing arts. Now that you are well and speak our language with sufficient fluency it is time to talk of this matter.”

The tu smiled at Alex, but his eyes were as hard and cruel as the sharp fangs his grin displayed. Here it comes, thought Alex with a cold feeling in his gut. The velvet glove is off the iron fist. Then aloud: “I am grateful for your kindness...”

Xanur cut him off with a derisive bark. “I am not a kind man! Your blood remains in your veins because I think you may be useful to my plans,” he continued as he whipped aside the piece of cloth before him and revealed the professor’s .460 Weatherby Magnum rifle.

Alex darted a quick look at the tu’s sons. Their feral eyes glittered with bloodlust. Both were crouched, ready to spring upon him. He leaned back and made a conscious effort to relax and hide the sudden fury that had come upon him. It had been on Xanur’s orders that his grandfather’s corpse had been left in the wilderness without proper burial. The sight of the weapon had roused his dormant rage. He wanted to avenge the savant, but any attempt to grab the gun would be suicidal.

“A wise decision,” observed Xanur, coldly, as he picked up the rifle. “This thunder-rod,” he continued, fingering the Weatherby, “is far more powerful than our crossbows. Your people must be mighty magicians in that distant land of Merika from whence you say you came. With many of these weapons a tu could master all the clans. He could make them one – a vast hoard that could sweep down upon the golden cities to the east and overwhelm them.”

The tu’s glittering eyes, alive with an unbridled lust for conquest, seemed to drill into Alex’s own. “Now,” he continued. “Can you make more of them? Think carefully before you answer, for if you lie to me I shall kill you with tortures so terrible they shall horrify even the foulest demons of Kethor.”

Alex felt his heart skip a beat at these alarming words, for he was clueless as to the manufacture of such weapons. A jolt of fear flashed down his spine like a thunderbolt. In an instant he knew if he told the truth he’d be useless to Xanur and his life forfeit in seconds. Despite the threat only a convincing and desperate lie could save him now.

“Yes,” he replied with studied confidence. “I can give you what you want.”

It was a believable performance, but the brief flash of naked fear on his face had betrayed him to the tu. Xanur’s visage grew wrath at this deception and the crushing of his hope. What a waste of time it had been to save this worthless captive’s life! He cursed, signalled to his sons. They leapt forward, glittering knifes extended for the bloody kill.

Chapter 5: Battle Onboard

Alex threw himself to one side in a desperate bid to escape his attackers. A throwing-spike, hurled from the doorway would have struck him in the back had he been a little slower. But the weapon whipped passed him and plunged within Xanur’s chest. The tu gasped in agony, collapsed. His sons hesitated at the sight of their bleeding sire.

It was a brief moment of distraction, but one Alex seized to his advantage. He leapt at Var, the nearest of his attackers, and grabbed the wrist of his knife-hand. His other fist slammed against the fellow’s jaw and sent him crashing to the floor.

Alex stooped to grab the rifle but Temu, Xanur’s other son, came at him with a shrieking curse before he could grasp it. Both men grappled, whirled about in a mad waltz, each trying to kill the other with murderous fury. Temu lunged against his opponent. Alex tripped upon the moaning tu. He crashed to the boards. Temu’s blade inched towards his throat.

From the corner of his eye Alex saw Var lurch to his feet. The Numari’s eyes were as hard as the naked steel in his fist. A torrent of fear swept through Alex as the man rushed to aid his brother. Outnumbered two to one the time traveller knew he hadn’t a chance. Desperation leant him strength. He forced away the threatening blade and head butted Temu with brutal force. The warrior gasped in agony. Blood gushed from his broken nose. Alex threw him off, shot erect and barely dodged Var’s gutting stroke.

Temu was down but not out. He swung a leg and tripped Alex. The man crashed heavily to the floor. Temu lunged and gripped him in a bear hug. Var swung his knife down in a life destroying arc. Alex gasped. He stared in wide eyed and helpless fear at the plunging weapon.

It was then that Ootya leapt within the room and flung herself upon the wielder of the blade. Her hurtling body knocked Var to the floor with all the force of a grid iron tackle. Alex grabbed Temu’s testacies and wrenched them as the girl wrestled with her opponent. Temu gasped in utter agony. Alex broke free of his weakened grip, grabbed his head and slammed it against the floor in a killing blow, then scrambled madly for the gun.

He snatched up the rifle, quickly turned and saw that Ootya had gotten a stranglehold on her opponent. She released the corpse and turned wary eyes upon the man as he covered her with the Weatherby. The throwing-spike that had nearly struck him in the back must have been cast by the girl. But why had she come to his aid when she had clearly meant to kill him? It was this puzzle that made him hesitate to squeeze the trigger.

The sound of running feet drew tense lines upon Alex’s face. Others were coming to investigate the sounds of fighting. Ootya cast a quick, worried glance behind her and stepped towards him.

“Back,” Alex growled.

“Fool,” she hissed. “Point your thunder-rod at those who come and let me tend Xanur’s injury. A dead hostage is of no value to us.”

Alex hesitated; then let the girl approach. Up until now he’d been running purely on instinct to preserve his life. He started thinking fast. The mystery that was Ootya could wait. He had to concentrate on more immediate threats. A head suddenly poked through the curtained doorway. It was Nia, Xanur’s senior wife. She gasped at the sight of her bleeding husband and lifeless sons stretched out upon the floor.

“Your tu’s life is in my hands,” snapped Alex as he pressed the barrel of the Weatherby to the unconscious chief’s skull. “You will order all those remaining aboard the yura to assemble here. Do not give any warning to your other clansmen. Remember, I’m a desperate man and I won’t hesitate to kill Xanur if I’m betrayed.”

Nia’s large eyes went even wider. Her face paled and in a trembling voice she agreed. “Do not kill my husband,” she begged. “I will obey... we will all obey.”

“Good,” replied Alex in a steely tone. “Now go.”

The girl hurriedly departed and quickly returned with all the other members of Xanur’s household – his second wife Uata and her two daughters: Lan and Thay. Their frightened, weeping faces sent a pang of remorse through Alex’s heart, but then he steeled himself against the feeling. It was a terrible ‘them or us’ situation.

“How is the tu,” he said to Ootya, not taking his eyes off the terrified women.

The girl set aside the items she had taken from one of the many drawers lining the wall of the room. “I have stitched his wound and applied a healing poultice,” she replied. “He is unconscious from loss of blood but will live.”

Xanur lives by my mercy,” he said, addressing the tu’s women. “I will let you go. Take word to your other clansmen that your husband is my hostage. If they pursue us when we leave he will die. Ootya, when you’ve completed your ministrations bind the tu and get us under way.” Then, to Xanur’s wives and children: “Move.”

The weeping women picked up the bodies of the slain and Alex herded them to the door at the yura’s rear. Here a rope ladder was let down. The women descended and Alex dumped the corpses overboard. He hated treating the dead – even dead enemies - with such disrespect, but the alarming sight of Xanur’s sons and the other warriors returning from the hunt left no room for any nicety.

A crossbow bolt thudded into the doorframe as he frantically hauled up the ladder. Another nicked his arm. An alarm-cry went up from the sentries on the other yura who had witnessed the commotion. The women ran towards the warriors screaming for them to stop. Alex slammed the door and felt the mighty zuni begin to move. They were safe, but for how long reflected the grimly worried man.

**********

Alex stepped out upon the balcony-like structure of the yura and stood by Ootya as she guided the titanic beast. He had completed a thorough search of the turret and had finally located the second rifle, ammunition and other items that had been taken from him and hidden in a storage chest.

An hour had passed since they’d escaped their captors, and the last time he had looked out across the vast savannah from the vantage point of the yura’s roof, which had been several minutes ago, there was still no sign of pursuit. Alex felt a little less tense with the knowledge that Xanur’s life was, for the moment, an effective shield against attack. But his mind wasn’t totally at ease as he leaned against the rail and looked sideways at the girl, mulling over how to broach the subject of her attempted murder of him, and wondering how much of an ally she really was.

He really knew very little about her except that she was a slave, and like all slaves among the Numari – which were status symbols more than anything else – generally spoke only when spoken to. The girl had helped care for him when he was sick and had taught him the language of the Numari. Despite this all he really knew about her was that she had been captured from an Eastern City caravan several years ago whilst journeying to a relative living in the metropolis of Amara.

She had seemed quite placid, but obviously there was fire beneath her calm exterior. He turned his head and gazed upon her fully. She possessed a strange beauty all her own. Her figure was muscular, true, but curved in all the places of a human woman. Her g-string – the only thing she wore after having cast aside her slave collar - left nothing much to the imagination, and Alex wondered where she could have concealed the throwing-spike she’d hurled at him. He felt his loins stir when he realized the answer to this question.

Ootya’s lips quirked into an amused smile as she, too, glanced upon him from the corner of her eye. It was as if she sensed his thoughts, and Alex blushed with the realization that perhaps she did by some universal feminine intuition.

“You’re wondering why I tried to kill you, and more,” she said; then laughed at the startled look that came upon his face.

Alex recovered his poise. “The thought had crossed my mind,” he replied dryly.

“The city of Nios is my birthplace,” she explained. “Hundreds of years ago the ancestors of the Numari were exiled from Nios for attempting to overthrow Kymanna, its tu. Ever since then the Numari have been trying to regain it by conquest. Xanur is the most ambitious of the nomad clansmen. He spoke the truth when he said your thunder-rod would enable him to conquer the Eastern Cities.”

The girl shivered slightly. “I overheard Xanur speaking of his plans to his sons. He is a cruel and ruthless savage. I would not see my beloved Nios overrun by stinking barbarians bent on butchery and rapine. When you said you could give him what he wanted I tried to kill you to save my people from the threat of these new weapons. Now, however, I am your ally against a common enemy.”

Ootya fell silent and Alex contemplated what she’d told him. It made sense. She hadn’t seen the look of fear on his face that had negated the conviction of his words and betrayed him to Xanur. However, when the tu ordered his sons to attack she’d realized her mistake. But by that time she’d cast the throwing spike. Despite the fact that she’d tried to kill him Alex had to admire her quickness of mind. With the tu wounded and his other sons absent she saw an opportunity to escape her servitude with his aid.

“Do you think you can you find your way back to Nios,” asked Alex, hopefully. “Xanur won’t prove a useful hostage against the other clans we may encounter.”

“Of course,” replied the girl, surprised. “You must be a strange people in this distant land of yours if you cannot find your way back home. I can feel the direction of Nios as clearly as I can see the earth and sky.”

Alex was amazed. The girl’s words suggested her people must possess some natural sense akin to a homing pigeon – the ability to detect magnetic fields, perhaps. He questioned her further, and then they spoke of other things for a time. After perhaps an hour Alex stirred himself from the pleasant company of the girl.

“I’d better go and check on our prisoner,” he said as he departed.

A curse burst from Alex’s lips as he stepped within Xanur’s room. He leapt forward, scooped up the prisoner’s severed bonds and swore again. Somehow the wily tu had managed to free himself. His seeming weakness from loss of blood must have been largely feigned.

Alex angrily flung the ropes to the floor, unslung his rifle and madly dashed for the door at the yura’s rear. He found it open and the rope ladder trailing upon the ground. Alex muttered an oath and scanned the grassland. There was no sign of Xanur, but his sharp eyes discerned something in the distance.

The man squinted and his face grew grim as the shape resolved itself to the intensity of his gaze. It was a zuni that pursued them, and behind it he thought he saw others strung out in a line. In an instant Alex guessed the unsettling truth. The Crescent Moon clan had started their pursuit when his own zuni was out of sight, and they’d stayed just beyond his range of vision all along. Xanur, who had escaped possibly two hours ago, had backtracked and met up with his fellow clansmen, and now the chase was on in earnest.

Still, perhaps things aren’t so bad, thought Alex. We have the advantage of a head start and I don’t see why we can’t maintain our lead.

But such hopes were quickly dashed when the faint sound of a distant horn rolled across the plain, and the zuni upon which he rode halted in response to this command.

Chapter 6: Pursuit

Alex swore lustily as the beast came to a stop. This was the last thing he needed. He spun around and was about to dash angrily back to the girl and ask why she had reined in their mount when Ootya burst upon him and thrust her head out the door. She cursed when her keen eyes descried the pursuing zuni.

“They’ve stopped our beast with a signal,” gasped the girl. “As soon as our mount halted I guessed what had happened and ran to Xanur’s room. The severed ropes told me plainly of his escape. Each clan,” continued Ootya, urgently, “has a series of secret signals by which they can control their zuni, and I don’t know the counter command that will get us moving. We must gather what we can and leave before the warriors arrive.”

“Why not wait until they’re in range of my thunder-rod,” suggested Alex. “The zuni are so large that even an average marksman like myself can hardly miss such huge targets when very close. If we go afoot across the savannah they’ll simply ride us down.”

The girl waved her hand in a negating gesture. “Xanur isn’t as foolish as that,” she warned. “They’ll stop well out of range of your weapon, and under the cover of darkness come afoot and sever the ropes that bind the yura to our zuni. The whole structure will come crashing down, and us with it. No, we must flee while we can.”

Alex grimaced. Huge herds of wild animals roamed the immense grassland. The herbivores were of tremendous size and fiercely antagonistic, and the brutes who preyed upon them even more so. It seemed that they had a choice of either death by savage beasts or brutal men. Still, at least the beasts wouldn’t torture them to death.

“All right,” he agreed, “Let’s grab what useful things we can and go.”

Within fifteen minutes the couple were forcing their way through the tall grass of the savannah. Alex had given the extra rifle and ammunition to Ootya. Both carried improvised backpacks stuffed with preserved food and other items the girl suggested would prove valuable. In addition to the guns each was armed with a knife, crossbow, and quiver full of bolts that, unlike bullets, could be easily manufactured.

Alex glanced over his shoulder. The pursuing zuni looked much nearer than before. The girl saw the lines of worry upon his face and peered in the direction of his anxious gaze. She gasped when she saw how much their pursuers had closed the gap.

“They’re really pushing their mounts,” observed Ootya. “A keen-eyed lookout must have seen us descending the ladder. Soon, they’ll be near enough to dismount and pursue on foot.”

Alex silently cursed. They were passing through a widespread area of uncropped grass and the thick, wiry growth was slowing them down considerably. By contrast their enemies would follow the trampled path made by their own zuni and thus be less impeded. He thought of halting and making a stand, but then dismissed the idea. He would have to face at least twenty warriors armed with crossbows. The Weatherby’s rate of fire was simply too slow to take on that many foes, and his marksmanship too poor. If he’d been equipped with a machinegun, plenty of ammunition and several hand grenades, then he might have risked it.

They pressed on, sweating profusely from their exertions and the heat of the blazing sun. The extensive grove of atupa trees – the goal towards which they struggled – lay about a mile distant. Ootya had spotted the growths whilst guiding their beast, and according to the girl these trees emitted a powerful odour – a defence mechanism that repelled both giant herbivores and people. Their only hope, she had explained, lay in being able to endure the stench to a greater degree than their bloodthirsty pursuers.

The voice of the girl interrupted his musings: “The zuni have halted,” she cried. “Our foes must be afoot and racing after us.”

Alex turned and raised his rifle as the girl stopped beside him to catch her breath. He fired at the nearest beast, which was about a mile distant. The crack of the Weatherby was like thunder in the hot stillness of the day. The man cursed. The monstrous zuni stood unperturbed. His gambled shot had merely wasted a precious bullet.

“Come on,” he rasped. “We’ve got to make those trees.”

They pressed onward, redoubling their efforts. The atupa grove was about one hundred yards away when Ootya cried out and stumbled. Alex caught the girl and looked in horror at the crossbow bolt imbedded in her backpack.

“I’m all right,” she gasped. “The quarrel hasn’t pierced my flesh. Keep moving.”

Alex threw the Weatherby to his shoulder and fired at a briefly glimpsed figure. A cry rang out and the hapless warrior tumbled to the ground, felled by the lucky shot. Several others ducked down and were lost from sight in the tall grass.

Man and girl forced their way through the hindering growth, spurred on by the nearness of the foe. Hissing crossbow bolts whipped passed them in narrow misses. Their pursuers were snapping off hasty shots, and then ducking into the high grass to avoid the man’s return fire. Alex dashed the sweat from his eyes and shot at another bobbing warrior. He missed and swore as the foe’s whistling blot cut a burning gash across his cheek.

Onward fled the pursued and behind them the Numari warriors, ever nearer. At fifty yards the atupa’s nauseous odour struck the couple. Ootya stumbled; then fell to the ground retching violently. Alex’s human nose smelt nothing, but his body felt the effect of the tree’s emissions. With a stifled groan he fought off his queasiness and dragged the girl to her feet. A crossbow bolt slammed harmlessly into his backpack, making him start.

Wordlessly, he slipped an arm about Ootya. The girl leaned heavily against him, deathly pale. They lurched onwards in a crouch. Behind them the wild shouts of the warriors rang out. Fear gripped Alex. Their foes were preparing to rush them.

Alex stumbled as sickness, like a body blow, struck him in the guts. He fell upon his knees. The girl slipped from his grip and slumped upon the ground. He heard the warriors rush forward, savage cries of bloodlust upon their lips. In but moments the enemy would be close enough to get a clear shot at them without encroaching within the debilitating influence of the atupa.

“Save yourself,” gasped the girl as Alex tore the backpack from her shoulders. “I can’t go another step.”

Alex ignored her pleas and his nausea. He cast aside all the weighty gear but for their knives and rifles, slung Ootya in a fireman’s carry and lurched to his feet. He cursed the foe as another bolt whipped past his head, then sprinted for the trees. He could hear the warriors closing in. Bolts ploughed into the grass all about him. He kept low, but his rapid passage stirred the verdure and drew their fire. Panic stung him. He knew it was only a matter of time before a quarrel in the back would bring him down.

Again, nausea twisted his innards and made him stumble. He lost his balance and crashed heavily to the earth where he lay gasping for breath. Alex clawed for his rifle. The enemy was closing in. All he could hope for was to take as many with him as he could. He glanced at the girl. She was unconscious. A strange feeling came upon him as he gazed at her alien beauty, but then a shout drew his attention before he could explore the emotion.

This is it, he thought as he weakly raised the Weatherby.

More screams rang out. He waited tensely, drenched in the sweat of fear, heart hammering. Moans came to his ears and with this sound soothing relief came upon him. Their pursuers had come within the influence of the atupa grove’s nauseous scent and had succumbed to its effects. But even so he thought he heard several warriors struggle up and stumble in his direction. Xanur’s men were determined to fulfil their tu’s orders regardless of the cost to themselves, it seemed.

Alex lifted the unconscious girl in his arms and struggled up. His limbs trembled and clammy sweat was upon his brow. He struggled onward towards the grove, but with closing distance the intensity of his nausea grew to torturous proportions and he gritted his teeth against it. Reality became a swirling morass of endless, squirming sickness. He pushed through the torment. His goal loomed before him. He entered the fringes of the grove, and collapsed within the shade of its spreading trees.

No sign of pursuit was in evidence. Apparently a human being could withstand the atupa’s repellent to a greater degree than the other life forms of this distant age. Alex, though, wasn’t comforted by this thought for a new danger now presented itself.

Ootya moaned. Her body trembled violently and her face was twisted into lines of piercing agony – whatever scent the trees were emitting was highly inimical to her. Alex, only slightly less affected by the toxin, was beside himself with worry.

According to the girl no one had ever gotten this close to an atupa tree before let alone a whole grove of them. Would the trees scent prove fatal? He didn’t know. The only thing he knew was that the wood was extensive – impossible to walk through quickly even if they were in prime condition, and out upon the plain lurked their relentless enemies.

Alex groaned in an agony of anxiety. Ootya might be dead in moments. His eyes darted about in search of something, anything that might gift him with a germ of an idea that would save the girl.

Above him arched the canopy of the grove, heavy with growths resembling giant passionfruit. A gust of wind stirred the boughs. A fruit dropped and splattered the man’s upturned face with its pulpy orange mass. With a curse he wiped away the sticky astringent mess and cast it angrily on the ground.

The girl’s groans drew his worried gaze. She began to scream like a woman in travail. Her body writhed, convulsed. Death’s grim hand was upon her, snuffing out the flame of life. Alex raged against his helplessness. There was nothing he could do but watch her die in utter agony.

Chapter 7: Grove of Menace

If only I could take her suffering upon myself, thought the tormented man as he gazed upon the dying girl. God knows I have the strength to bear it.

Alex’s eyes went wide in amazement with the sudden realization he did indeed feel better, not one hundred percent, true, but much improved. His mind raced in a frantic effort to divine the answer. The girl moaned. Her pain goaded his sprinting thoughts, and the solution burst upon him like an illuminating light – he had accidently swallowed some of the juice of the fruit that had splattered his face.

He quickly seized the fallen piece with a fervent prayer that he was right and squeezed the juicy pulp until its golden fluid dribbled between Ootya’s trembling lips. The girl swallowed; then coughed at its bitter, medicinal taste. The man continued his ministrations, ignoring his incoherent patient’s failing limbs that rained painful blows upon him. He forced as much of the juice within her mouth as he could, nearly losing a finger to her pointed teeth, then settled back to anxiously wait.

The minutes passed tensely. The girl slowly settled and Alex breathed a heartfelt sigh of vast relief. She was still unconscious, but her breathing was normal and her limbs no longer convulsed like those of an epileptic. The danger seemed to have passed for both of them, but there might be other hidden threats within this grove of menace. With this in mind he looked warily about for other signs of peril.

The atupa trees spread their heavy boughs above him. The growths were squat, no more than about forty feet in height with massive pear-shaped trunks. The leaves of the trees were olive green, ovate in shape, and distinctly oily in appearance. The undergrowth consisted of dense masses of a lacy purple fern. It was a peaceful scene. The only sound was that of the playful breeze as it tousled the canopy of the grove.

Alex relaxed as he forced himself to eat what was left of the fruit. It was clear that the repellent nature of the atupa scent kept at bay all life but the harmless insects he glimpsed in the slanting bars of sunlight that penetrated here and there among the trees.

Ootya moaned softly, quickly drawing his gaze. She opened her eyes and looked about in a dazed manner. Alex bent over the girl and the worried look upon his face focused her wandering mind.

“I’m not sick,” she reassured him, “just feeling a little weak. I thought I was going to die. What happened?”

He quickly explained the nature of her cure; then concluded: “Rest here while I retrieve our backpacks. Xanur’s warriors might carry them away. It’s unlikely, I admit, but I’m not willing to risk losing such vital equipment.” Then he hesitated. “I mean I’ll go if you’re feeling well enough to be left alone.”

The girl gave him a warm smile. “I’m much better. Besides, I’ve got your rifle, as you call it and you’ve shown me how to use the weapon.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” replied the man as he rose; then set out upon his mission.

Alex, now fully recovered, intently scanned the savannah as he forced passage through its tall dense grass. The distant zuni stood where he had last seen them, but of the warriors there was no sign and he could only assume that they were making their way back to Xanur. The man grinned as his inner vision saw the look of fury that would come upon the tu’s vulpine face when he heard of their escape. Xanur would be beside himself with rage – a rage made worse by the knowledge there was nothing he could do about it.

Within a few minutes Alex had located the discarded backpacks. Hoisting them to his broad shoulders he made his way back to the grove in high spirits. They had escaped murderous foemen and painful death by poisoning. Certainly there were threats ahead, but for the moment the sun was shining brightly, the air was warm and fresh, and all seemed right with the world.

This illusion was quickly shattered when the man stepped within the shade of the grove’s spreading boughs – the girl’s rifle lay among the ferns, but of her there was no sign. Panic seized the man in its chilly grip. He looked wildly about, opened his mouth to shout Ootya’s name, but then thought better of it. Clearly, they were not alone in the grove and his wild cry would alert whoever or whatever had taken the girl.

A sudden feminine scream, quickly muffled, plucked discordantly at Alex’s taunt nerves, making him jerk around. He caught a flash of movement in the distance as something passed through a slanting sunbeam. Ootya in danger! A bolt of fear shot through him. Throwing caution to the wind he cast aside the backpacks, tore madly through the undergrowth and in but moments burst upon a scene of horror.

The fiercely struggling girl was being dragged along the ground by ten of the ugliest things Alex had ever seen. Each creature stood no more than three feet high. Their heads resembled those of bats and their bodies were ape-like in appearance. The monsters hairless skin reminded Alex of a toad in both colour and texture.

All this he took in at a glance as ten pairs of black and hellish eyes locked upon him. The fiendish things hissed. Alex raised his rifle, but then hesitated for fear of hitting the girl. His hideous foes seized the slight delay and leapt at him like a slavering pack of wild dogs. In an instant he was the focus of a storm of madly slashing talons and snapping jaws.

Alex swung his rifle like a club and sent two hideous monsters crashing to the ground. Another jumped him from behind and sank its claws into his shoulders. The man slammed his back against a tree. The thing screamed as its bones cracked. It fell away but another leapt for his throat. He hammered the stock of the Weatherby on the beast’s ugly head and sent it tumbling to the earth.

The remaining creatures rushed him simultaneously and slammed into his legs, tearing at the thick denim of his jeans. Alex swore as he struck at the things. If they got him on the ground he’d be finished. He managed to club one with a crushing blow that shattered its ugly skull, but the others reefed his legs out from under him and he crashed heavily to the earth.

The things were on him in an instant, tearing, biting, clawing. The wildly battling man felt many taloned hands close about his throat. It seemed the frightening end. Then a flurry of wild and unexpected blows scattered the vicious foe in screaming retreat. Alex looked up and saw Ootya standing over him. A feral look was in her eyes and in her hand a heavy, blood splattered branch.

She calmed as Alex rose and looked for signs of serious wounds upon the girl. He was relieved to see that although both of them were covered in bruises and scratches, no life threatening injury presented itself to his scrutinizing gaze.

“What were those things?” he asked as he examined Ootya a final time to completely reassure himself.

“I don’t know,” replied the girl as she leaned against the tree. “I’ve never seen their like before. The creatures fell on me from the tree tops. They are probably found only within atupa groves of large extent.”

Ootya trembled. “By the Sacred,” she gasped, “what horrors they were.” Then she dropped the branch and began to weep in delayed reaction to her terrifying ordeal.

Alex, wishing to comfort her but unsure how she would respond, embraced the almost human girl with hesitant awkwardness. She clung to him fiercely as she wept, and he felt the press of her youthful breasts against his chest, and smelt the strange, stirring fragrance that she wore. Despite the cramped quarters of the yura he’d never been in such intermit contact with Ootya before, and those moments when he had carried her had been too fraught with danger for him to be aware of anything but her weight.

Now, all seemed oddly different as in a dream. With one hand he cupped the smooth roundness of her buttocks; the other pressed her gently to him. His lips found the graceful column of her neck and kissed it gently. Ootya gasped as she responded to his rising passion, but then gently disengaged herself from his embrace.

Golden eyes set in a face of alien beauty met his gaze. “I think we should move on before another danger presents itself,” she gently said.

He read the double meaning in her subtle words and dropped his eyes. They were of different species, separated by a barrier of cultures two hundred million years apart. The moment of pleasant madness had passed and he faced her with a sad smile.

“As you wish,” he replied.

**********

Six months had passed – six months of seemingly endless toil across the trackless waste of the mighty savannah. It had been a journey of innumerable hardships and countless danger, but at last the couple stood within sight of fair Nios, the jewel of the Eastern Cities.

The plains had given way to hill country, more dense with trees than the sparsely forested savannah. It was upon one such tor that the city had been built, and Alex drank in the delightful scene like a parched and weary traveller does a glass of cool, refreshing water.

The trefoil shaped palace at the top of the hill was of sandstone, as were the rest of the cylindrical buildings of the city, which had been painted in shades of pale rose, cream, sapphire and gold.

Nios spilt down the sides of the hill in a flounce of colour - from the walled peak where the aristocracy and well to do merchants had their mansions to the homes of the plebeians at its base. It was a tapestry of hues that delighted the eye with their tasteful harmony. A high wall and broad, deep dry-moat surrounded the hill to protect the city from the huge beasts that roamed the countryside, and beyond this lay the grain fields of Nios, similarly guarded.

The beautiful scene before him made Alex acutely aware of his own dishevelled state. He had kept his hair and beard in some semblance of order by trimming both with a knife, but his clothes had been reduced to filthy rags and he had been forced to discard them for a loincloth of crudely cured skin. He looked like a Stone Age savage and he suspected he smelt even worse.

Indeed, for all intent and purpose he was a brawny caveman – quite a contrast to the rather nervous youth who had stepped aboard the Time-cube all those months ago. The ammunition for the guns had been exhausted, and he had discarded the rifles as useless weight. One crossbow had been lost when he and the girl had forded a swift flowing river. The second weapon’s cranequin - the mechanism by which the bow was spanned (drawn) had broken, rendering it useless. All evidence of civilization, but for their steel knives, had been stripped away by the savage environment.

He turned to the girl and saw her looking on her birthplace with the wrapt adoration of a lover. Envy flickered for a moment through his mind. Six months of being with Ootya had intensified his feelings for her. They had come very close to making love on several occasions when they had huddled together at night for mutual warmth, but each time she had gently pushed him away.

Alex sighed. It was the only outlet for his frustrated desire. Despite his savage appearance he still retained civilized morals. An unknown factor of which she would not speak was holding Ootya back, and he wouldn’t force himself upon an unwilling woman.

These thoughts were interrupted when Alex’s skin prickled with a sudden premonition of danger. Months of hard life in the wilderness had sharpened that sixth sense largely dulled by the soft living of city life. He looked up and gasped. A bat-like creature was circling high above. The thing’s wingspan must have measured at least forty feet. Its neck was long and snaky. The head was eagle-like in appearance, the lengthy whip-like tail armed with a deadly sting.

In an instant Alex’s keen eyes absorbed the frightening sight. He saw the thing fold its wings and cried a warning to the girl.

Ootya looked up. A rush of fear came upon her at the sight of the plummeting monster. It was an aras – the dread aerial carnivore of the future Earth, and all they had to defend themselves from the savage brute was a pair of puny knives.

Chapter 8: Salvation and Treachery

“Run for that copse of trees,” shouted Alex as he tore a rock from the earth and faced the diving brute. The thing swept at him, intimidating in size and swiftness. Its envenomed tail lashed like a cracking whip. The sweating man leapt aside, barely avoiding the lash of the deadly sting. He turned, flung the rock.

The aras squawked in pain and fury as the stone struck its side. The monster’s wings snapped out. It soared aloft on furiously beating membranes and came about for another swift attack. Alex drew his knife and chanced a quick glance in the girl’s direction. She was busy prising stones from the soil with her blade.

He swore. “Run for the trees. Get under cover, damn it.”

“We’ll never reach them in time.” She countered, ignoring his frantic pleas. “Aim for its wings. Our only hope is to break them and bring it down.”

There was no time to argue. The aras was again swooping at them, swift and deadly. Ootya hurled a rock. She missed. The thing’s tail lashed at Alex. His flashing blade blocked the leaping sting, but the force of impact tore the knife from his hand and sent him spinning to the earth.

The monster hissed. It banked swiftly and darted at the girl. Alex struggled to rise, partially stunned by the heavy fall. His fear wide eyes saw Ootya hurl another rock. It struck the aras’ wing. The creature screeched as bone cracked. The girl threw herself aside. The monster crashed to the ground, its broken wing battering Ootya to the earth.

Alex staggered up as the aras lurched erect on its hind legs. He stumbled towards the fallen girl. The thing’s head darted at her like a striking serpent. The man cried in fear. Ootya screamed as the cruelly gaping beak fell upon her like the swinging scythe of Death. Then, as if by magic, three arrows suddenly quivered in the horror’s breast.

The aras uttered a piercing cry. It staggered away from its prey and crashed upon its back. The beast’s wings beat feebly for a moment, then stilled in death as a frantic Alex reached the fallen girl.

“Are you badly hurt?” he gasped as he knelt beside Ootya.

“No,” replied the shaken girl. “I’ve a few bruises, nothing more.” Then she smiled and pointed. “Look, it’s a city patrol. We’re safe now.”

Alex, whose fear for Ootya had prevented him from fully contemplating the nature of her deliverance from the aras, turned and saw ten riders cantering towards them. He was amazed for it was not horses that they rode. Their mounts were flightless birds resembling ostriches, but twice the size and coloured in a zebra pattern of black and white, while the heads were parrot-like in appearance and crested with yellow plumes.

The man helped Ootya rise as they were quickly surrounded by the troop. The warriors were clad in a single kilt-like garment of black leather ornamented with silver studs, which was split at front and back for ease of riding. They were fine-looking men, but their suspicious, unfriendly stares made Alex tense, as did the drawn bows they pointed at him with distrustful cautiousness.

“Peace,” cried the girl, urgently. I am Ootya – a daughter of Nios. This man beside me helped me escape from the savage Numari who held me as a slave. My father, Sephur, wealthiest merchant in all Nios will vouch for me just as I vouch for my companion.”

“Ootya,” joyously cried a warrior who wore a gold medallion that ranked him as commander of the city guard. The man, a tall handsome fellow in his late thirties, leapt from his saddle and swept the girl into his arms. “Forgive me, my beloved that my foolish eyes did not recognize you before you spoke.”

“Oh Vara of course I forgive you,” replied Ootya with equal passion as she clung to him. “It has been over two years since we last saw each other. Thoughts of you have never left my mind, and the hope that we would meet again sustained me in my darkest moments.”

Alex, speechless at these shocking words, could only look on in envy as the couple exchanged the ardent intimacies of long parted lovers. Now he knew what had held her back from his own expressions of fervent desire. But he couldn’t fathom why she hadn’t told him her heart was given to another, unless it was some strange taboo that kept her silent on the matter. His confused speculations, however, were interrupted by Vara’s uncivil words.

“So, this is the fellow who helped you escape. He looks more like a hairy beast than a man. Nonetheless I suppose I should offer him my gratitude.”

“Oh Vara,” chided the girl as she laid a hand upon his arm. “You mustn’t make fun of his appearance. His name is Alex. He is an explorer from a distant land who was also a prisoner of the Numari. I can assure you he is a man, and a good one. He saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“A real hero, then,” observed Vara with a subtle hint of sarcasm that Alex didn’t miss. “Well then my good man,” continued the commander, “you may accompany us to the city where I’m sure you’ll be suitably rewarded for rescuing my betrothed.”

Alex watched in silent fury as Vara assisted the girl to mount his daya as the ostrich-like beasts were called. The time traveller didn’t trust himself to speak as Ootya giggled at the touch of her lover’s groping hands. He kept quiet as they moved off at a slow pace towards Nios. It was clear to him that Vara’s words had been no harmless jest. There was a sneer behind the bastard’s smile and poison on his tongue. Or was it jealousy that was making him misread the captain’s words?

The young man glanced at the girl as she laughed at Vara’s witty jests and smiled upon his handsome features as he walked beside her, one hand resting intimately upon her thigh. Alex grimaced and aimed a muttered curse at his rival and the dashing warriors that rode behind them – a polished contrast to his unkempt state.

Still, if Ootya loved the fellow then there was nothing he could do about it. Indeed, he should be happy for her. It was a noble thought, true, but of little comfort to his wounded heart. He took a deep, calming breath and began to pay attention to his surroundings in an effort to dispel the rising tide of bitterness and envy that threatened to engulf him.

After twenty minutes they were among the grain fields of the city, having crossed a narrow drawbridge which spanned the deep dry moat that protected the rose coloured wheat-like crops known as mirran from the monster herbivores of the future Earth.

Peasants were in the fields reaping mirran. Both men and women were naked but for g-strings. They hummed strange melodies as they swung their sickles in bright arcs. A group of serfs, heavily laden with the harvest, hastily moved off the dirt road the warriors moved along. And as the troop rode past Alex caught a brief flash of surreptitious anger, fear and contempt upon the faces of the labourers.

Alex grew grimmer. Those hard, furtive looks had certainly been aimed at Vara. So, he wasn’t the only one that viewed Ootya’s lover with a jaundiced eye. The man also drew the enmity of others, no doubt for different reasons. But what would make a supposed protector of the people loathed? A sense of looming danger settled upon the time traveller. Something was definitely amiss.

Alex brooded on the thought, but was no closer to the answer when they crossed the final moat and approached Nios’ impressive portal. If anything his unease increased for the high walls and entrance to the city showed evidence of recent repair in many places by way of new masonry, fresh paintwork and the new timber of the mighty iron bound gates. Was this evidence that the city had been under siege?

The unpleasant answer came in the form of three Numari warriors who stepped forward from the deep shadows of the towering barbican. Each man was armed with a primitive shotgun, or blunderbuss. The barrel, unlike the blunderbuss of Earth’s human era, wasn’t flared. Rather, it was a bronze tube mounted on a stock with a vertical foregrip on the forestock to aid in supporting the heavy weapon – an arrangement that gave it the rough appearance of a Tommy gun. Unlike a Tommy gun it was fired by a matchlock mechanism whose serpentine snapped a slow burning cord against the weapon’s flash pan.

The troop halted and Alex stiffened at the sight of his enemies. Eyes narrowed and mouth hard with anger he turned and raked Vara with a scalding stare as the commander identified himself to the watchful barbarian nomads.

“So,” spat the time traveller. “Nios has been overrun by her foes and you’re in league with them.”

Vara swung on Alex and uttered a scornful laugh. “The wise man sides with the strong,” he shamelessly admitted. “The Numari have new weapons that spit smoke, thunder and death. When they conquer the other Eastern cities as easily as they conquered Nios they’ll reap a rich harvest of gold and jewels. It is an opportunity that I don’t intend to miss.”

Ootya looked at her lover in utter disbelief. She had known he was ambitious, but not ruthlessly so. For a moment she was speechless - swollen arrogance had caused Vara to drop his mask of superficial charm, and the true nature of the man now confronted her in all its ugliness. “How could you?’ she gasped in breathless shock.

“Circumstances change,” he calmly replied, “and we must grasp what we can. Life will be very sweet for us Ootya, for Xanur, the new tu of Nios, holds me in high esteem.”

The girl looked at Vara in disbelief. Her eyes flicked to Alex and in that instant of comparison she realized what an utter fool she’d been. Her eyes narrowed as shock turned to incautious rage.

“Traitor,” she hissed as she struck away Vara’s clinging hand, now so revolting to her. “Do you think I could be happy with a man who aids the conquerors of my people? You fool; you have destroyed my love for you.”

Vara’s face grew ugly. The man’s conceit was such that rejection by any woman was inconceivable. “Then I shall have you as a slave,” he cried as he grabbed the girl, hauled her off the daya and flung her cruelly to the ground.

It was all too much for Alex. He leapt forward and seized Vara by the arm, jerked him around and slammed his fist against the snarling fellow’s jaw. The blow felled him to the earth. The Numari guards raised their guns; then hesitated – they would more than likely kill their allies if they fired.

“Behind you,” shouted Ootya as she struggled to rise.

Alex turned and saw the troopers coming at him. He ducked one swinging sword, leapt and hauled the warrior from his bird-mount. The time traveller twisted the weapon from his foe’s hand as the man smacked against the ground. Another opponent tried to stab him. Alex dodged the leaping sword and chopped the neck of the warrior’s daya. The creature screeched and fell into the path of the others, impeding their attack and crushing the screaming rider with its weight.

Vara staggered up. There was a wild and hideous look upon his face as he whipped the sword from his scabbard and lunged at Alex from behind. A wild cry burst from Ootya’s lips as she savagely flung herself upon her former lover and felled him to the earth.

Alex threw a swift glance behind him and saw Vara knock the girl unconscious with a brutal elbow to the jaw. He uttered a savage curse, swung his sword in a vicious arc. Vara rolled and the blade bit earth not flesh. The commander leapt erect. Both men exchanged swift and brutal sword strokes. The other warriors swept around the fallen daya and rushed towards the fighting pair.

“Take him alive,” screamed Vara as he leapt away from his foe’s wild slashes.

The drumming feet of the dayas alerted Alex to their swift approach. One warrior hurled himself from the saddle as the time traveller spun about. The trooper crashed against him and drove him to the earth. Alex’s head struck the ground and he was out.

Chapter 9: Desperate Measures

Alex opened his eyes. His vision was swimming and his head felt like it had been trampled by a herd of stampeding elephants. A blurred face hovered over him, indistinct with gloom and his reeling senses.

“Is he conscious?” someone asked.

Another voice, strangely familiar, also spoke: “Alex... Alex... My boy, are you all right?”

The injured man’s mind and vision slowly cleared, and he stared in utter disbelief at the worried features of his grandfather as the savant’s face resolved itself before his startled eyes.

“Good God,” gasped Alex. “I thought you were dead!” Then, as his gaze roved around the odious and gloomy confines of the dungeon cell and took in its other wretched occupants, “what is this awful place?”

Professor Drake sighed as he helped Alex to sit up and lean against a grimy wall for support. “We’re in the dungeons beneath the palace of Nios,” he explained. “I wish I had been killed by that crossbow bolt. That way Xanur would never have been able to torture the knowledge of gunpowder and firearms out of me. The tu kept us in separate yura so we could be individually questioned and our answers corroborated. My boy, I’m so glad you’re okay. I only wish we could have been reunited under different circumstances.”

Alex’s joy at finding his grandfather alive was squashed as he gazed upon the savant’s haggard and filthy features, and the scars the red hot irons had left upon his emaciated flesh. The professor’s eyes were sunken and haunted in appearance. He had been thin before, but now he looked like a living skeleton. It was something of a miracle that he had survived the nightmare ordeal of torture and imprisonment. Obviously Xanur had no further need of him.

The young man’s face became a frightening study in towering rage as his eyes took in the terrible evidence of barbaric cruelty. Then sick fear came upon him as he thought of Ootya’s fate in the hands of her evil former lover. He trembled for a moment, and then mastered the wild emotions that made him want to tear at the walls with his bare hands in a beserk bid to gain freedom and save the girl. No... Getting into a mad panic wouldn’t do any good. His actions must be ruled by reason, not raw emotion.

“Fill me in on the situation,” he quietly asked as he gingerly massaged his aching head.

Professor Drake sighed. “After the guns had been manufactured it was easy for Xanur to unite the other Numari clans with a demonstration of their destructive capability and promises of much loot from easy conquests of the Eastern Cities.

“When all was in readiness the hoard attacked Nios about two months ago. The huge zuni were used to push flat truss bridges constructed from a bamboo-like plant across the defensive moats of the city. These bridges are similar to the Bailey bridges our army uses, and I’m ashamed to admit are, like the guns, of my own design.

“The soldiers of Nios fought bravely, but...” the professor paused for a moment and passed a hand across his sunken eyes as if to wipe away the horrid sights he’d been forced to witness. “But swords and bows are no match for primitive shotguns and cannon. God forgive me,” he cried. “It was a massacre and I’m to blame.”

The professor broke down and wept bitter tears. Alex placed a consoling arm across his shoulders. “It’s not your fault,” he said, comfortingly. “A man can be made to do anything under torture... Why, even I would have cooperated under such dreadful circumstances.”

After a time the savant calmed, and Alex continued his questioning of his fragile grandfather.

“I saw no sign of any zuni. Where are they and how many Numari warriors are in the city?”

“As you probably know,” explained the professor, “the zuni consume huge quantities of fodder. They have to be moved about constantly to prevent overgrazing. The beasts are far out on the grasslands with the women of the clans and those males too young or old to fight. There are probably about eight hundred enemy warriors in the city.”

“What about a resistance force?” queried Alex. “Some Niosan soldiery must have survived as well as the nobles of the city. Surely...”

“We six are all that’s left,” interrupted a voice. “Look around and you’ll see the pitiful remains of the ruling class. Those of our warriors who refused to swear allegiance to Xanur have either been executed or await death by foul torture.”

Alex looked at the fellow who had spoken, who had followed their conversation as they'd been speaking in the native tongue, which by now had become natural to both adventurers. Though filthy like the rest of them there seemed an inner and unstainable dignity that was integral to the man – a dignity that not even months of grime and privation could erase. Alex rose as the burly figure approached and they pressed palms in formal greeting.

“I am Re, the rightful tu of Nios,” said the man. Then he added with a wry smile: “Despite what some barbarian upstart may say.”

Alex smiled. He found he liked the fellow and was about to say so when the noise of many feet alerted him to the guards approach. He stiffened as did every other prisoner in the crowded and stinking cell. Instantly, a desperate plan formed in his agile mind, one spurred by the sound of coming danger.

“An opportunity to escape has arrived,” whispered Alex, urgently, as reached under the ragged and filthy loincloth his captors hadn’t bothered to inspect, and removed from its inner pocket a large capsule made from the wax of a bee-like insect. “This,” he continued as he showed Re the object, “is filled with oil from the leaves of the atupa tree. When the cell door opens have all your men take a deep breath and hold it. I will burst the capsule and the stench will overcome the guards. Rush out the cell and grab what weapons you can. After that we’ll free those men still loyal to you and with their aid capture Xanur.”

“I agree,” said the tu, swiftly. “Those warriors are almost here. They may have orders to kill all of us. This might be the only chance we get.”

The word was quickly passed around. The men forced themselves to adopt a dejected air – a mask to their wild hopes - as a key grated in the lock of the heavy grillwork door. Alex waited tensely as the portal opened. The capsule – a repellent that he’d made to protect himself and Ootya from wild beasts as they journeyed from one widely spaced atupa grove to another – lay concealed within his palm.

A Numari warrior, sword drawn, cautiously stepped within the cell. He looked contemptuously at the filthy wretches that lay slumped upon the floor in a state of abysmal hopelessness. The man laughed harshly at their wretched plight.

“Up, scum,” he cried. “On your feet you...”

Alex was only too happy to oblige. He was on his feet with the swiftness of a leaping panther. He hurled the capsule at the warrior and saw it burst upon his chest with a satisfying splat.

The effect was virtually instantaneous. The guard never completed his insult. His sword clattered to the floor. He clutched his belly with both hands and doubled over. The other warriors behind him began to gag. Alex was racing forward as one man clawed at the door in a desperate bid to shut it. He slammed his fist against the fellow’s chin, sent him crashing to the ground and leapt across the threshold to confront the others.

Another guard swung his sword. But it was a feeble stroke. Alex ducked the clumsy slash and sent him reeling with an uppercut. Then the other prisoners erupted from the cell and fell on the enemy like a pack of rabid wolves. Fists and feet, elbows and knees smashed against the hated nomads in a desperate flurry of brutal blows, and in but moments ten Numari lay sprawled and bleeding upon the floor.

“By the gods,” gasped Re whom, like his other men, could hold his breath no longer. “The stench...”

“Quickly,” warned Alex, “get your men and my grandfather away from here before you’re overcome.”

The tu nodded and he and his gagging nobles staggered off with the retching professor in their arms. Alex, who, like Ootya, had developed immunity through regular exposure to the atupa toxin, began disarming the incapacitated warriors. He looked upon the moaning men as he went about the task. Should he slit their throats? It was the logical thing to do, but though these men were dangerous enemies it was murder to his conscious, so he swiftly dragged the guards within the cell and locked the door. Then, gathering up their swords, he ran to the other escapees and hurriedly distributed the weapons.

“Down this passageway, and quickly,” exclaimed Re. “The sounds of fighting may have alerted the other guards. We must reach my imprisoned men before reinforcements intercept us.”

“It’s a pity those Numari we bested weren’t armed with thunder-rods,” lamented Alex as the group swiftly moved off down the gloomy way, which was lit by flickering oil lamps upon widely spaced stone shelves.

“Xanur doesn’t entirely trust his own people,” explained the professor. “The guns, or thunder-rods, are under lock and key in the armoury. Numari culture is ruthlessly competitive and Xanur knows he has many rivals. Only a select few of his own clan are permitted to carry firearms when not in battle.”

“Quiet,” hissed Re. “We’re nearing the guardroom adjacent to the cells where my men are caged.”

But the warning was too late. A face suddenly peered through the archway towards which the desperate escapees stealthily advanced. The guard’s eyes went wide. He cried a strident warning to his fellows.

Re cursed. “Rush them,” he roared as he charged towards the doorway.

“Keep back,” warned Alex to the savant as he swiftly followed the other men who, screaming battle cries and oaths, swept within the spacious guardroom and collided with a rushing group of wild foes. In an instant the chamber erupted with the clash of leaping steel. Men screamed; blood spurted. In but moments body parts and corpses were strewn across the floor.

Alex split one foeman’s skull, parried the gutting stroke of another and cut him down with a swift riposte. The battle swirled around him in gory chaos – a wild melee of flashing blades and cursing men. He saw Re battling valiantly, hacking left and right, felling men with nearly every vicious stroke.

The tu’s imprisoned loyalists shouted wild encouragement from the cells that lined the further wall of the chamber. But already many escapees had fallen to the swift brutality of the Numari guards – though brave of spirit their bodies were weak from long imprisonment, and they were no match for healthy fighters in peak condition.

Alex fought on as bravely as the rest, but in his heart he knew there could be but one grim outcome to this unequal struggle – an outcome made worse by the fact that he knew he’d never live to save Ootya from her sickening fate.

Chapter 10: Death to the Enemies of Nios

As Alex cut another foeman down he glimpsed Re begin to weaken. “Fall back,” cried the tu as one more of their number died beneath a cleaving blade.

The imprisoned loyalists groaned in consternation. The savage Numari gave a wild shout, rushed forward howling fierce battle cries. Alex cursed. He backed against a wall as the raging foe came at them with a vengeance. It was then that he glimpsed by his side the rope suspending a heavy timber chandelier from which hung many oil lamps.

His sword flicked out and cut the cable. The chandelier fell upon the warriors as they passed beneath its massy weight. It struck the charging nomads and drove them to the floor. Oil lamps shattered and splashed burning fuel upon the foe. Several guards died instantly from the heavy blow; others, less fortunate, screamed in unimaginable agony as their bodies were wreathed in leaping flames.

Alex dashed forward. His sword swung in swift and merciful strokes, and silence quickly descended upon the scene.

“The keys,” cried a pointing prisoner. “Over there on that hook. Get us out before more guards arrive.”

Alex tore his eyes from the burning corpses. He was shaken by the horrific sight and stench, but quickly pulled himself together. Grabbing the keys he began to free Re’s imprisoned loyalists. In but moments fifty men were crowding around the tu as he quickly outlined his plan of action for the coming battle.

But Alex, at the fringes of the crowd, was distracted. Where was his grandfather? The chaos and swiftness of the bloody fray had left little time for any other thought but to kill his next opponent. He looked quickly about and to his horror saw the hacked corpse of the savant upon the floor.

The professor lay in a pool of his own blood. His vacant eyes were open and a sword was lying by his lifeless hand. Alex knelt and closed the sightless eyes. He felt sick with grief at having found the man and losing him so quickly. It was clear what had happened - his grandfather, driven by a sense of guilt, had sought to atone for the part he’d played in the conquest of Nios by taking on the enemy.

Alex’s bleak thoughts were broken by a gentle hand upon his shoulder. He looked up and saw Re gazing upon the savant’s body with sadness and compassion.

“I got to know him. He was a good man, and brave as well,” observed the tu. “When this is over and peace is again upon Nios he will be remembered with honour. But for now ‘death to the enemies of Nios’ must be our relentless battle cry.”

A man posted by the guardroom doorway suddenly shouted a dire warning: “More guards are coming.”

Re cursed. He ran to a wall and pressed against a section of the stones. “Help me push,” he grunted as he struggled with his task. Alex and another puzzled man joined him. “A secret way,” hurriedly explained the tu.

“Shove harder,” urged the lookout by the guardroom entrance. “I see the enemy. They are racing down the passageway and will be upon us in but moments.”

“Take the weapons of the slain and form a rearguard,” ordered Re as a wild war cry echoed down the passageway. The bloodcurdling shout was a goad to the sweating trio. They redoubled their frantic efforts, swearing and cursing the stubborn portal as if it was another enemy.

Then the howling Numari burst into the guardroom and hurled themselves with unrestrained savagely on the defenders. Men screamed, died horribly. Slowly, painfully, the secret door swung inward on groaning hinges as the battle raged in a whirlwind of violence. The barbarians pressed forward. Steel rang violently against steel. The sound was like a whip to the backs of the cursing trio. They thrust harder. The door gave way. Re shouted above the violent clash of steel: “The door is open. Through the hidden passage,” cried the tu as he and Alex stepped aside.

The men piled through the aperture as the rearguard fell back under the enemy’s withering assault. Alex looked on, grim faced. Loyalist blood gushed like red wine from a shattered cask as the tu’s fighters fell to the barbarians’ slashing steel. The foe was ploughing mercilessly through their ranks and would reach the door before they could get everyone to safety.

“We’ll have to close it,” observed Alex, sombrely, as he gazed at the rapidly thinning line of defenders. Re reluctantly nodded. Both men stepped within the passage, set their shoulders to the door and thrust against it. The stone grated closed as the screaming foe burst through the sundered line and raced towards them.

The furious enemy collided with the door. It began to open under the strength of pressing bodies. Alex, the tu and other loyalists hurled their weight against the counterforce. The opening of the way slowed, stopped. The men sweated, cursed. Both sides thrust like striving bulls. The door began to inch open. The Numari, sensing victory, screamed their horrid war cry.

“For Re,” cried Alex. Other loyalists took up the chant. Their muscles bunched. The men pressed forward, shouting, pushing. The door inched closed, slowly, painfully; then slammed shut as the enemy’s feet slipped from under them. The panting men heard the muffled curses of the foe as Re and Alex slid home the heavy bar. They were safe, at least for the moment.

“No time to rest or mourn the dead,” warned the tu, as he pushed through the crowded passage and took the lead. “The whole palace will be quickly alerted to our escape. We must move swiftly and in silence. Follow me.”

Re moved off at a sprint. Alex was at his heels and the surviving men, thirty in all, swiftly followed. They mounted a flight of steps and quickly ran along another dusty corridor, the way illuminated by a phosphorescent substance painted on the low ceiling of the passage.

“Here’s the plan... which I do not think you heard,” Re explained to Alex in gasped and broken sentences as they sped along the way. “We must... capture Xanur... and his fellow tu... render invaders... leaderless. Then I send... man to the house of Jaywa... trusted merchant. My man explains... Numari leaders our prisoners... Xanur has key to armoury... Enemy cannot... arm themselves... with thunder-rods.

“Jaywa send servants... to the other houses... Rouse as many... trustworthy citizens as possible... These men... attack enemy... Leaderless... beset from... all quarters... We defeat them.”

It was a desperate scheme, but with so little time it was the best plan that could be formulated under the circumstances. Alex knew this as did every other man among them, so he simply nodded as he followed Re along the passage. They had been racing through the gloom for perhaps a minute when Re raised his hand to call a halt, then peered through a spy-hole set in another secret door.

“What do you see?” murmured Alex.

“It is as I had hoped,” whispered the tu after he had caught his breath. “The one hundred Numari clan leaders are gathered in the council chamber to settle various issues. Xanur sits upon my throne. His personal bodyguard of ten men is ranged on either side of him. The problem is that they are armed with thunder-rods and we have only swords.”

Alex bit back a curse. The odds were weighed heavily against them. Still, there might be something that could be done about it. “How many secret doors open upon this room?” he queried.

“Two,” replied Re. “This one I stand before and another near the throne. You have an idea?”

“We divide our forces,” explained Alex. “You and your men burst through this door creating a diversion. When all eyes are upon you I and the men I lead will fall upon Xanur from behind. I know how to use these thunder-rods. If possible I will seize one and with it kill the usurper and his guards.”

“Agreed,” replied the tu. “Pick fifteen men, and may the gods be with you.”

Alex quickly chose his fighters and they moved off around a bend in the passage. Here, he found the second secret door and pressed his eye to its spy-hole. He gazed in on a large room with tall narrow windows through which the evening sky could be seen. A long table of glossy black wood ran the length of the chamber, and here were seated the leaders of the other clans. To his left he caught a glimpse of the throne and Xanur sitting upon it. A debate was in progress – one that was suddenly interrupted by a messenger bursting noisily through the doors at the far end of the room.

“Alarm... alarm,” gasped the panting wide eyed fellow. “The former tu and his men have escaped!”

For a moment a startled hush fell upon the room. Then Alex heard Xanur curse and the rising babble of consternation from his followers. The usurper rose from his throne and yelled for silence. Alex smiled coldly. Soon, things would become even more dramatic.

As if on cue the other secret door was jerked inward. A hoard of shouting fighters erupted from the portal. “DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF NIOS” shook the room with its reverberations. The Numari leaders jumped to their feet at the sight of the wild eyed, charging foe. Swords leapt from scabbards. Chairs were overturned, their clatter drowned out by a repetition of the deafening battle cry. Blades clashed in the grim music of death as the two sides came together.

Alex hauled the door open. He leapt at the nearest of Xanur’s bodyguards as the man swung his gun upon the loyalists. The time traveller’s sword flashed. Gore spurted as the man’s head parted company from his body. Alex hurled his sword at another guard. The man went down spurting blood as the time traveller snatched up the weapon of his first victim. He squeezed the trigger and the serpentine snapped its burning cord against the flash pan. The weapon thundered. Smoke and lead pellets erupted in a deadly spray that felled four bodyguards in bloody ruin.

One pellet grazed Xanur’s arm as Alex’s men poured from the secret way like a swarm of angry hornets. The usurper screamed. He shouted to his warriors as he leapt from the throne and crouched in its shelter. The other bodyguards swiftly swung their guns at Alex and his warriors. But the time traveller was like a tiger – fast and fluid. He had already caught up another gun. It roared. Men fell, their tumbling bodies torn by flying lead.

Xanur looked on in utter disbelief as his remaining bodyguards fell in bloody ruin. His eyes darted to Alex. They widened with the shock of recognition, and then narrowed as burning hatred came upon him. The usurper leapt from concealment as Alex reached for another gun. Xanur screamed incoherent words of hate. His sword was a blur of striking steel as he aimed a vicious stroke at the time traveller.

Alex turned. He managed to block the ringing blow with the barrel of the gun, but was driven back by the fierceness of Xanur’s swift remise. He slipped in a pool of blood and crashed to the floor. The usurper’s face was a study in snarling malevolence. He leapt at his helpless foe, sword thrusting in a killing blow.

Chapter 11: Night of Blood

As Xanur lunged in triumph at the time traveller one loyalist warrior hurled himself upon the usurper. Xanur hit the floor. His striking sword missed Alex by an inch. Both combatants wrestled furiously as the time traveller rolled clear of the brawling pair.

Alex struggled up as more of his warriors savagely piled upon Xanur, pinning him. From the edge of vision he glimpsed a mass of hard faced Numari rushing to aid the wildly cursing tu. He seized the fallen gun and sent a roaring spray of buckshot crashing into them. The warriors screamed as they were shredded by the hail of lead.

Alex cursed. He saw Re’s men being swamped by a mass of howling Numari. Already many had fallen to the swords of their numerous enemies. Grabbing a fourth blunderbuss he aimed it at the closely packed ranks of Re’s assailants. The chamber echoed with the thunderous discharge of the weapon. A storm of lead slammed into the clan leaders, killing some and wounding many. Their attack faltered. Re’s men shouted, pressed forward, swords stabbing and hacking in a frenzy of violence.

The enemy stumbled back in bloody and shaken disarray, demoralized by having their frightening weapons turned against them.

“Surrender,” screamed Alex as he pointed another loaded gun at the disorganized foe. “We have Xanur. Surrender and beg mercy from Nios’ rightful tu.”

Silence gradually settled upon the scene as the vicious fighting petered out. The clan leaders looked at Xanur, now securely bound. Their eyes darted to Alex. They saw their demise in the hardness of his expression, the black mouth of the gun he held, and the blasted corpses of their comrades that lay in mangled heaps upon the bloody floor.

None of the tu of the other clans had any real loyalty to Xanur. He had promised them an easy victory, but now ugly death stared them in the face. The usurper cursed them bitterly as one by one they knelt in submission. Not a man among them would meet his contemptuous gaze.

A great victory cry went up from the loyalists. Re quickly ordered his men to bind the prisoners, and commanded others to stand guard by the doors. He then approached Alex, who was keeping his gun trained on the downcast captives.

“Thanks to you we’ve won half the battle,” exclaimed the rightful tu. “You can name your own reward when this is over.”

“I wish my reward now,” replied Alex, boldly. “There is a girl named Ootya. She has been taken against her will by Vara, captain of the city guard. All I ask is your help to find and save her.”

“Gladly,” replied Re. “I know that traitor well.” The tu turned, approached the usurper, tore away the key to the armoury that hung about his neck and then prodded him with his bloody sword. “Where are Vara and the girl?” He growled. “Speak the truth and I’ll ensure your death is painless.”

Xanur’s bravado ebbed away under the pressing of the blade. The blackness of defeat lay heavily upon his soul. He had been abandoned by his followers. All his plans and dreams of glory had come to ruin, and he saw that a clean death was the only thing he could now hope for. But even so he still retained a touch of insolence.

“Vara now resides in the house of Sephur – Ootya’s father. I gave him the mansion and the girl as a reward for capturing this man, Alex,” confessed Xanur. Then, turning to the time traveller: “I can no longer hope to torture you at my leisure, but I can still torment you with words: The woman you so clearly love is in the hands of your enemy. Imagine all the debased things he would have done to her by now.”

A bolt of wild fear shot through Alex, and tormenting visions arose within his mind. Xanur’s hateful words had stirred all those terrors he had kept suppressed in the dark recesses of his brain, but now they burst forth in a wild flood of horror that made him reel – Ootya tied naked and spreadeagled to a bed, screaming shrilly as Vara used her to satisfy his debased passions. Alex cursed. He kicked the usurper in the ribs, cutting off the fellow’s wicked laugh.

“Enough,” ordered Re as he pushed the enraged time traveller away from the groaning prisoner. “I can spare one man to guide you to the house of Sephur, and then he must be about my mission to the house of Jaywa. The fighting here was swift but noisy. More warriors will be upon us at any moment. Both of you must leave by another secret passage.”

The tu beckoned Asru - one of the surviving nobles. But as he joined them a sudden warning shout went up from the sentries posted by the doors of the chamber. Re quickly turned to Alex. “More Numari warriors are coming. Go now. Asru, my most trusted follower knows the way.”

Alex nodded as he handed Re the loaded gun and quickly explained its operation. He wanted to express his heartfelt gratitude but the tu had already sprinted away to deal with the coming attack. Thoughts of Ootya’s fate again beset him with sickening fear. Asru beckoned him. Alex snatched up a fallen sword, and quickly followed the noble through the secret door and down another hidden passage. He heard the muffled roar of the blunderbuss as Re fired it with devastating effect upon the enemy.

To the worried man the journey through the concealed way seemed never ending, but in reality only about two minutes had passed by the time they exited the secret door in the high stone wall that surrounded Re’s palace, and emerged onto the fronting night enshrouded plaza.

The sudden sound of hard laughter and coarse jests made them tense. Both quickly pressed themselves within the thick shadows, hands hard upon their sword hilts. A group of drunken Numari warriors staggered towards them. A young woman was in their clutches. Her clothes had been torn from her body and she was weeping piteously.

Closer came the guards, tenser grew the watching men. To be exposed now would ruin all their plans. One hundred feet, then fifty, nearer still approached the rapacious revellers and their crying captive. The tension reached fever pitch. Asru gripped Alex’s shoulder to still any impetuous attempt to rescue the girl. Both men wore grim expressions.

Then the wailing cry of a Numari alarm horn suddenly sounded from a palace tower. The drunken warriors stumbled to a halt. One man cursed as comprehension dawned upon his wine befuddled brain. “To the palace gates,” slurred the sergeant of the night patrol.

“Pray most are as ill disciplined and as drunk as those fools,” murmured Asru as they watched with vast relief the barbarians stumble off and the weeping girl, now forgotten, flee into the surrounding darkness. “Come,” he continued. “We must move swiftly now.”

What followed was a mad dash across the plaza, and then both were sprinting through the confusing maze of narrow streets and alleyways of Nios’ First Circle – the well to do quarter of the city located at the apex of the hill. Within a few minutes the breathless men stood in the shadow of the high stone wall that encircled Sephur’s house.

Asru knelt. Alex climbed on his shoulders and was hurriedly boosted to the top of the barrier. “May the gods favour your enterprise,” whispered the noble as the time traveller wordlessly swung himself over the edge.

Alex dropped and landed with a knee jarring thud on a path of quartz pebbles near the heavily barred gateway. The sound seemed extremely loud in the stillness and the time traveller silently cursed. His intense anxiety was making him hastily incautious. He hadn’t even looked before he leapt from the wall. Alex’s eyes swept the darkness. The fragrant garden was silent. The shadowed bulk of the mansion loomed before him. A single light burned in a room of the upper story, and from here a woman’s shrill scream suddenly broke the silence of the night.

The frightful cry was like a burning spur. Alex tore madly towards the portico of the building and hurled his shoulder against the heavy timber door. He bounced off it like a rubber ball and crashed to the ground.

He cursed the door, which stood fast. Again, another piercing scream of fear and pain rang out. Alex shot erect and looked wildly about, thrust through to the depths of his being by the dreadful cry and the terrible scenes his roaring imagination conjured up.

His roving eyes, which desperately sought some other means of ingress, fell upon an ornate pillar supporting the balcony of the room from which the anguished cry had come.

Leaping for the column he shinned up it with desperate haste, grasped the balustrade and hauled himself across its bronze rail. He paused to catch his breath, but another cry drove him across the threshold, and he burst wildly within the room and swore as he beheld the confronting scene before him.

All his wild fears had become sickening reality – Ootya, completely nude, had been tied spreadeagled to the bed. Vara stood over the whimpering girl, a bloody dagger in his hand. The girl’s breasts were also bleeding from the shallow cuts he had inflicted on her. By the bed was Sephur – Ootya’s father, who struggled wildly. He had been gagged and bound to a chair – a helpless prisoner forced to watch his daughter’s torture and degradation.

Vara turned at the sound of Alex’s vile oath. For a split second the sadist stood in rigid disbelief. Then he hurled his dagger and whipped his sword from its scabbard. Alex dodged the flying blade. He charged the tormentor of his beloved with all the fury of a wild bull. The clash of steel rang out as both combatants came together. Sparks leapt from their flying blades as savage blows were swiftly struck and parried.

The fighters danced about the room in a deadly whirl, crashing into walls, furniture. The chair to which Sephur was bound was overturned. Ootya cried in fear as the brawlers trampled around her helpless father. Alex tripped on the man. He went down. Vara lunged, a savage grin upon his face. The time traveller rolled to his feet. The darting blade had missed him narrowly.

Alex could feel himself weakening. The previous fighting and his most recent exertions had combined to drain his strength. Vara and the girl clearly saw it. The captain grinned, hurled himself at the man when he saw his sword begin to waver, his guard drop in sheer exhaustion. Ootya cried in fear as the leaping blade struck with the swift deadliness of a darting serpent.

But Alex twisted nimbly aside. Vara’s sword thrust empty air, and the time traveller drove his blade between the fellow’s ribs. A look of utter shock came upon the captain’s face. Vara fell upon his knees. He looked at Alex who smiled coldly at him. His cunning ruse had proven most effective. Vara opened his mouth to utter a final curse. But blood, not words, gushed out. Then his eyes rolled in their sockets and he fell dead upon the floor. It was over.

**********

Several days had passed. Alex, clean shaven and dressed in a kilt of Niosan style, sat on a stone bench in Sephur’s garden as he contemplated recent events. The uprising against the invaders had been a victorious success. Although the fighting had been vicious, it had ended quickly when the Numari learnt of Xanur’s capture along with the other leaders of their clans. Nios was now completely free of the barbarians, who had surrendered and been driven out in ignominious defeat.

Xanur had been executed cleanly, but how long would peace prevail? The knowledge of gunpowder, like the evils of Pandora’s Box, had been let loose upon the world. Whilst in prison Professor Drake, spurred by guilt, had passed on the formula to Re, and now the tu was busy overseeing the manufacture of his own armament.

Further memories of his grandfather’s passing came upon Alex. The savant had been laid to rest yesterday in the shady Grove of Ancestors outside the city’s walls, and as part of the dignified ceremony a bayza tree had been planted on the grave after the body had been interred. Utru, the wizened priest who had conducted the funerary rites, had solemnly explained to Alex this was done in the belief that the dead person’s spirit would enter the tree.

The proof of this, he claimed, was the fact that the leaves of the bayza tree, when mature, resembled a human figure in silhouette. As a consequence of this belief the bayza were venerated by the relatives of the deceased, and according to the priest if one listened carefully one could sometimes hear the voices of the dead when the breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. Alex sighed. It would have been a consoling thought if he could have believed it.

The sound of footsteps upon the pebble path broke in on the time traveller’s gloomy ruminations. He looked up and saw Ootya coming towards him. The girl was recovering well, both physically and mentally, from her ordeals. At least she hadn’t been raped. Vara had tried, but she’d driven her knee into his groin with such force that he’d been incapacitated until evening.

Ootya sat next to Alex and took his hand, an act that sent his pulse racing. “You look troubled,” she observed. “Are you grieving for your grandfather?”

“I am... But I’m also worried about the future,” he admitted. “The spread of these new weapons...”

The girl gently pressed her finger to his lips and he fell silent.

“Trouble, in one form or another, is intrinsic to existence,” philosophised the girl. “But perhaps I can distract you from your worries,” she continued with a playful smile.

Alex hesitated. Had he understood her right? She had so recently experienced the horror of her former lover’s treachery, and after that could the girl trust any man? He was uncertain as to how to proceed considering the potential fragility of her emotions.

“When I fell in love with Vara I was very young,” explained the girl who perceived the reason for his uncertainty. “I was blinded by inexperience and infatuation. But now I am a woman and see clearly with a woman’s eyes and heart. Misplaced loyalty no longer holds me back.” Then she placed a fervent kiss upon his lips.

“Well,” admitted Alex, who now felt the world wasn’t such a bad place after all. “That was certainly a most pleasant distraction.”

Ootya laughed happily. “Would you care to be distracted again?” she asked with an impish grin

“Definitely,” answered the eager man as he took her in his arms and returned her kiss with equal passion.

THE END