Kirov Skalkiller

Zuul, acting chief of the Dyal Riders, was sunning himself lazily when the thunderbolt struck.

“Thunderbolt” was a metaphor. Pellucidar’s clear skies did not turn black with clouds. Lightning did not flash downward to strike any of the many trees sheltering Dyal Town. But life in the settlement of the Dyal Riders would never be the same from then on.

Zuul stretched himself contentedly in the rays of Pellucidar’s eternal noontime. The cold winds that chilled this portion of the Inner World were still and the tiny Sun baked the acting chief on his throne like an expert chef.

Of course, Zuul’s throne was really a wooden stool and the royal palace that he dozed in front of was really an elaborate thatched grass hut. An American might call it a shack. And neither of them was his by right. Zuul was only a deputy chief, temporarily empowered by the absence of his queen, Lal, and her senior lieutenants, Pol and Rell.

But Lal had been gone for a very long time and showed no sign of returning from her foolish reconnaissance of the lair of the Black Birdriders. Soon enough, Zuul would sadly proclaim her to be long dead and himself to be the chief of their people. When? Who can say for sure in timeless Pellucidar?

In the meantime, the life of Dyal Town went on. Many men had disappeared in the war between the Black Birdriders and the Dyal Riders. The remaining hunters had to work twice as hard to feed the community. They saddled their great war birds and prepared to hunt game with spears, axes and clubs. Women attempted to control their children and prepared to gather edible nuts, tubers and seeds from Dyal Town’s grove of trees and the surrounding grasslands. Older women continued the endless job of repairing the thick grass matting of the huts to keep the cold winds at bay.

A group of young women walked by, carrying skin bags en route to the spring that watered Dyal Town and its trees. When they passed in front of the royal palace, they swerved away from Zuul’s less than regal presence. Their gaily chattering voices dropped and they watched the acting chief as they moved.

Zuul opened an eye and hailed one of the women. She jerked to a halt and then turned to face the deputy chief.

“Yes, yes, Bel. But after you have finished that, come to m… the house of the chief.” He indicated the great hut behind him with a motion of his head. “It needs cleaning and it is your turn. To clean the house.” His mouth described a smile such as the Serpent must have made when he invited Eve to partake of the Apple.

Bel’s face clouded. “Are you sure it is not the turn of some other maiden? I cleaned Lal’s house a few sleeps ago.”

Zuul’s face darkened at Lal’s name. He sat upright. His voice sharpened. “I am chief of the Dyal Riders. I decide when it is your turn to clean the house of the chief. When you have taken your water skin to your mother’s house, come here.”

Bel looked around for support but her fellow water carriers had vanished. She breathed deeply and straightened her back. “Mighty Zuul, Lal is still chief of our tribe. I will clean her house for her when I return…. With my sisters and cousins. Many hands will make the tasks easy.” She smiled knowingly and departed while Zuul was still analyzing her strategy.

He sniffed and then spoke softly if fiercely to her disappearing back. “Well, Bel, you are rightly called the Clever One. You think that there is safety in numbers. You will not always have your sisters and cousins around to protect you. And I am the chief of the Dyal Riders and you will be my mate!”

The words of Zuul’s unchivalrous oath had no sooner departed his mouth when he heard the thumping of running footsteps approaching. He swung his attention away from the now distant sight of Bel’s shapely figure to the business at hand.

A young man burst into the clearing in front of the royal palace. “Zuul! Zuul!” He shouted. “Lal returns from the mountains of the Black Birdriders! She has rescued our people who were slaves! And she brings Ala , the chief of the Black Birdriders, as her prisoner!” The runner collapsed in front of the suddenly demoted deputy chief, gasping for air.

“What?” screeched Zuul. “Lal has been dead for many sleeps!” The lie that he had been saving for the right moment popped out without his thinking about it. “How could she return from the Dead World?”

The runner answered, “She has returned due to the power of a strange man, Kirov the Skal Killer.”

Mikhail Kirillivitch Kirov, formerly Specialist Kirov of the Soviet Red Army and now Kirov Skalkiller of the Dyal Riders tribe of Pellucidar, marched into Dyal Town.

Ahead of him marched Lal, the queen of Kirov’s newfound tribe, her chief lieutenant Pol, her prisoner Ala, and Ala’s guard, the amiable giant Dyryth. Behind him came more than five hundred Dyal Riders, the men walking, the women and children riding on the fearsome flightless birds from which the tribe drew its name. Far behind him, Lal’s second lieutenant Rell chivvied the stragglers to keep together.

All of the new and old Dyal Riders had been freed from slavery by Kirov’s actions in the roost of the Black Birdriders. And Ala, the former queen of that tribe, had been captured when he fought and killed her mighty skal – an avian monster unknown to the science of the Outer World.

Kirov and all the marchers were very tired from their hasty journey across the Plain of Grazers but also very happy to reach the freedom and security of their home.

Homecoming was a happy time. Many families torn apart by the Black Birdriders’ slave raids were reunited with tears of joy. Even families that had not lost loved ones rejoiced at the return of friends or the simple pleasure of knowing that the tribe was once more together. Men and women brought food and drink. An impromptu celebration began and continued for a long time.

Lal was as happy as any of her people. But she had work to do and she needed rest. She hunted up Zuul, who was still standing in front of her father’s hut. She had expected him to greet her at the entrance to Dyal Town.

“Hail, Zuul. I have returned from Esi, the roost of the Black Birdriders. You know Pol, my lieutenant. These people are Kirov Skalkiller, Flana of the Seashore People, and Dyryth the Quiet One. They are now Dyal Riders.” She gestured to her companions.

Zuul looked at the newcomers. Kirov was a lean young man wearing a strange grey featherless garment. To the suspicious deputy chief, he seemed cunning, dangerous and generally untrustworthy. Flana was an attractive brunette clad like most Dyal Riders in brown feathers glued onto a leather undergarment. Her pretty face had a slightly foolish expression on it. Not as attractive as Bel or Lal certainly but worthy of a chief’s attention. Perhaps when he was tired of Bel…. Dyryth was truly a giant of a man with a taunting smile on his face. Zuul could easily understand how this newcomer had become named for the Megatherium, or giant ground sloth, a creature thousands of years extinct in the Outer World. He escorted a stunningly beautiful woman clad in black feathers and covered with bruises. Zuul stared at her until his chief coughed to attract his attention.

“Hail, Lal. We had heard that you were dead. I am glad to see that you are alive. I have kept the Dyal Riders safe until your return.” The lies came easily to Zuul’s lips.

Lal nodded diplomatically. The unknown woman snorted. Even her sound of disgust seemed charming.

“Very well. I go to my house. Flana will come with me as my guest. My handmaidens will guard Ala while I sleep. Pol, take Kirov and Dyryth to the men’s quarters. We will find suitable houses for them when I wake.”

Zuul coughed. “Pardon, Lal, but m… your handmaidens have returned to their families. There are none in the house of the chief.”

Lal frowned. “Why did this happen? The maidens of Dyalsi [Dyal Town] take turns assisting the family of the chief.”

The former acting chief stammered and said, “Your handmaidens became unruly and disobedient in your absence. They said that I was not the chief and that my mate could clean your house as well as ours.” From Zuul’s point of view, that was the truth. The maidens of Dyal Town would have told a different version of the story.

The returned chief and her captive snorted in unison. Lal pronounced, “Very well. This matter can wait until I wake again. Zuul, take Ala to the house of your sisters. They will guard her until I make other plans. I go to my house.”

The men saluted the departing queen by raising their right hands, palms outward, Zuul grudgingly, the others sincerely. Pol led Kirov and Dyryth to the bachelor men’s quarters.

Ala ’s eyes flickered from Zuul to Lal and back again. When Lal entered her home, the beautiful queen of the Black Birdriders caught the deputy chief’s eye. She smiled deeply, brightly, beguilingly. She dropped her head in seeming modesty before his admiring gaze. Zuul flushed and his pulse raced. He stepped forward and took her by the hand.

Ala ’s new campaign to conquer the Dyal Riders had begun. Already, she had her first conquest.

Kirov had only been a boy in 1913 when Pellucidar had exploded into the consciousness of the Exterior World. The idea that the Earth was actually hollow had been theorized by scientists as far back as Edmund Halley. An obscure pre-Soviet revolutionary Russian Vera Zarovitch had explored part of the Inner World in 1865-80. (Owing to monarchist censorship, her account had been published in a little known American newspaper rather than the scientific journal that her discovery deserved.) Professor Nikolai Trukanov had explored another portion in 1914. But it was E.R. Burroughs’ accounts of the 1903+ adventures of David Innes and Abner Perry that had dramatically confirmed what many had long suspected. A youngster in St. Petersburg at the time, Kirov had eagerly devoured both At the Earth’s Core and Pellucidar and resolved that, one day, he, too, would enter the Inner World to study its dinosaurs and Pleistocene mammals for the glories of Russian science and the honor of his family.

And now, here he was in the land of his dreams with a lifetime of happiness and accomplishments ahead of him. He had freed a community from slavery, “invented” things undreamed of in an entire world, and had discovered strange new species unknown to the paleontologists of the Outer World. And – he smiled foolishly – he was engaged to marry Flana.

Once Lal had reinstalled herself as chief of the Dyal Riders, she had adopted Flana as her sister. Kirov had become an adopted brother to Rell, the deputy chief that he had met as a hewer of wood in Esi. Lal proclaimed that the skal Kirov had slain on the Plain of Grazers met the Pellucidarian requirement for a hunter to slay a beast and lay its head before the door of his intended’s hut. In five more wakes, Kirov and Flana would become mates. Only five more wakes…!

In the meantime, Kirov , Pol and Rell started him on his new career as inventor and military advisor for Dyal Town . The two natives had seen his “inventions” – actually copies of things invented by various Exterior World Neolithic people – among the Black Birdriders and were enthusiastic for him to recreate them for his new tribe. Kirov had had long talks with Pol and the other community leaders about the wonders of Exterior World science. The native Pellucidarians had trouble understanding most of the things that Kirov described. But they had gradually worked out a plan to equip the Dyal Riders with quantum advances over their existing saddles, straps, spears and axes. Kirov called the new technologies “stirrups” and “bows and arrows.”

Even as he mused about life as Flana’s mate, he was carefully cutting a piece of leather into a saddle with stirrups. Stirrups had made Scythian and Mongol cavalry the terrors of their respective ages. Potentially, they would do as much for the Dyal Riders.

He was jolted out of his reverie by a runner shouting his name. Lal wanted to see him at her palace.

The messenger ushered Kirov into the war council in Lal’s “palace.” He recognized her deputy chiefs, Pol, Rell and Zuul. The young inventor repressed a grimace at the sight of the last. His first impression of the older man had not been good. Two strangers were present with them.

“Hail, Kirov Skalkiller,” replied the chief of the Dyal Riders respectfully. Here in her own “throne room”, clean and rested, Lal was more beautiful than ever. “I present Hortul Paddlemaker of the River People and Chirp of the Lodge Builders. They come as friends.” In savage Pellucidar, such an introduction was necessary. One did not casually assume that a stranger was anything but a potential enemy.

Kirov greeted them politely. He had briefly met Hortul before, when they were both slaves in Esi, the town of the Black Birdriders. Now he was dressed in a curious garment of reeds woven together and glued to a leather undercoat. The Dyal Riders’ national costume was somewhat similar but with brown feathers rather than reeds. Hortul greeted his liberator warmly. Chirp was a bulky fellow dressed in a luscious looking fur coat – much more like the Exterior World’s stereotype of a “caveman.” He returned Kirov’s welcome more cautiously.

Lal came to the point. “Kirov, the River People are allies of the Dyal Riders and the Lodge Builders are allies of the River People. They have come to ask our help against a new threat from beyond the hills where the Lodge People roost.”

Chirp took up the story. “The Wava Hills are twenty waking periods’ march in that direction.” Guided by the unerring homing instinct of native Pellucidarians, he pointed to his homeland – directly away from the Mountains of the Birds. “Even there, we, the brothers of the wava, have suffered from the raids of the Black Birdriders and we also have heard of the great deeds of Kirov Skalkiller. Now a great tribe of enemies advances towards our lodges and the lodges of the River People and Dyal Riders. We therefore ask for your help in defeating them and driving them back across the Plain of Grazers.” He turned to face Lal. “We, the brothers of the wava, ask that you send the great Skalkiller to our lodges to aid us.”

Before Kirov could respond, Rell enthused, “ Kirov the Inventor can do anything. Many wakes ago, he was a simple slave of Ala Skal-rider. Despite her keen eyes, he organized the slaves of many tribes and freed us all. He invented long and short spears, spear throwers and rock casters. He slew many skals himself and led us in killing the trals that made the Black Birdriders feared.” His pronunciation of the Russian words that Kirov had grafted into Pellucidarian was less than expert but the war council understood who and what he meant.

Chirp and Hortul nodded sagely. Chirp rejoined, “We have heard these things and therefore believe that Kirov Skalkiller can defeat the Pulka Horde.”

Hortul chimed in, “We told these things to the River People, the Marsh Dwellers, the Snake Eaters, and other tribes as well. We, too, say that Kirov Skalkiller can defeat the Horde.”

Kirov was tremendously flattered by the description of his prowess and by the confidence shown by his new tribal allies. But, he was still wary about tackling the Inner World’s equivalent of the Mongol Horde.

“Great Chirp, I thank you for your words. But I wish to know more about this Horde. How many warriors does the Horde have? How are they armed? And what is their strategy?” The last word was in Russian and the council paused while Kirov translated it into Pellucidarian as best he could.

Chirp informed the council. “The Horde has many tens of ten tens of warriors as well as their women and children.” Kirov rendered that as ‘many thousands’ of soldiers plus at least as many dependents. “They are armed with stabbing spears, throwing spears, and clubs. They ride on pulkas – strange beasts similar to the riding birds of Dyal Town. They also have other strange beasts from the Plain of Grazers with them. When they attack, they advance and hurl spears. Then they retreat beyond our reach. So far, they have done only little damage to our lodges but they have killed our brothers. They say that they will return and take our brothers and ourselves captive. Then they will capture all of the tribes of the Plain of Grazers as far as the Mountains of the Birds.”

The Hordesmen were sounding more and more like the Mongols who had once conquered a quarter of Europe and Asia combined. Pellucidar’s scattered tribes were small by comparison with the great nations of the Outer World. If the Pulka Horde really had multiple thousands of warriors, it could easily conquer every settlement on the Plain of Grazers.

Kirov realized that a reputation as a wonder worker meant that you were expected to produce miracles on demand. He asked more questions, probing for more insight into the threatening Horde, as he stalled for time, trying to formulate a strategy. Chirp answered each question patiently, providing what information he had.

Zuul interrupted, a beatific smile on his face. “Great Lal, great Chirp, I, too, believe that Kirov Skalkiller can defeat the oncoming Horde.” He gave the honorific a sneering intonation. “Did he not defeat many skals personally? Did he not invent great weapons under the very eyes of Ala of the Black Birdriders? Surely he can do the same for our new friends, the Lodge Builders.” Butter could not have melted in Zuul’s mouth – had butter existed in primitive Pellucidar.

Rell enthused. “Zuul is right. Kirov can do anything. Let him ride to the Wava Hills where he will defeat the Horde with the help of the Lodge Builders. If any escape, the war bands of the Dyal Riders and River People will destroy them!”

Pol was more judicious than Rell but agreed. Kirov was increasingly uncomfortable about his reputation as the Alexander Nevsky of the Inner World but Lal decreed that he would leave for Wava, escorted by a small war band of Dyal Riders. The full war bands of the new allies would follow behind them.

Kirov raised a final objection. “Great Lal, in five waking periods, I am to take Flana as my mate….”

The queen of the Dyal Riders cut him off. “War threatens us all. You must postpone your mating.” A glacier crushing Dyal Town into rubble might have changed her mind but nothing less than that.

Fifteen wakes later, a very much unmarried Kirov and his party arrived in the hill country claimed by the Lodge Builders. Three waking periods had been consumed learning how to ride and more-or-less control the fierce dyals that Lal’s people had more-or-less tamed. Unlike the Black Birdriders who controlled their aerial mounts by slapping signals, the Dyal Riders cooed to direct their steeds. Kirov had never been a singer and cooing almost defeated him. Eventually, though, he learned enough of the right signals and the small war band set out with Rell as leader and Chirp as guide.

The Mountains of the Birds receded behind them, fading into mere smudges on Pellucidar’s upward curving surface. A waking period’s ride from Dyal Town, the war band crossed an impressive river in small boats provided by Hortul’s clansmen with a stopover at River Town Island on the way. Another waking period was consumed with a feast celebrating Kirov’s previous freeing of the River People from the Black Birdriders.

Once across the river, Kirov and party pounded onward, always guided by Chirp’s mysterious homing instinct.

En route, the young scientist observed the flora and fauna of the vast undulating land. Beautiful flowers reared starlike heads above the endless pale green grasses. Sweet scents caressed the nostrils of man and bird alike. Great herds of creatures, some startlingly similar to those inhabiting Siberia only 800 kilometers beneath their feet, some extinct on Earth’s outer surface for thousands of years, some totally unknown, grazed and hunted across the wilderness barely scratched by humanity. Kirov recognized saber toothed Smilodons, bison-like Crassiocornis, armadillo-like Boriostracons, Brontops, qirqirns, and several species of giant ground sloths. Overhead, the Teratornis, ancestor to the Exterior World’s condors, cruised by on patrol. The entire party watched for menacing trals and skals but none appeared. In contrast, families of antelopes, sheep, deer, tapirs, musk oxen, mammoths and mastodons were almost old friends.

A waking period later, the war band spooked a herd of antelopes resulting in another wasted waking period. Lurking codons – Canis dirus (dire wolves) to Exterior World paleontologists – had been stalking the herbivores and decided to dine on gilaks instead. The powerful dyals escaped the wolves but not without a long roundabout chase. When birds and men were rested, Chirp again patiently headed them towards the Wava Hills.

Three wakes’ ride before Chirp’s home, the terrain became rougher. Minor ridges grew into hills. Rocky outcroppings forced the dyals to swerve around them, complicating the journey. Small streams laced the land and one rest period the party dined on what the American adventurer David Innes had described as small freshwater whales. The occasional trees and small copses dotting the vast Plain multiplied and gathered into forests. Evergreens and hardy nut bearing trees predominated.

The forest parted, revealing a large park-like meadow with a sparkling lake in the center. Streams and other waterways stretched from the lake into the woods. Black mounds dotted the lake’s surface and dark bodies moved quietly through the waters.

“Behold our homes!” proclaimed Chirp proudly. “This is the Lake of Lodges . In the center are the lodges of our brothers, the wava. On the far shore are the lodges of the gilaks. Ourselves.” He thumped himself on the chest.

The war band rode slowly forward, beginning to circle the lake. They stopped at a waterway cutting across their path. Kirov noted its strangeness.

Unlike natural rivers and streams, the waterway ran as straight as an arrow into a grove of birch trees. It appeared to be of uniform width and depth as well – too wide and deep to cross easily.

Chirp smiled. “No. Our brothers, the wava, dug it to fetch trees to their dam and lodges. One comes now.” He pointed toward the birch grove.

A huge log moved silently along the artificial waterway. Behind it, pushing it, was a huge dark brown creature, easily the size of an adult Siberian brown bear. Its front paws rested on the trailing end of the log as its rear feet paddled vigorously.

“A beaver! A Pleistocene Castoride!” exclaimed Kirov softly. The words were necessarily in Russian and scientific Latin.

The Dyal Riders watched in amazement as Chirp greeted the huge mammal by slapping his hands lightly together and making chittering sounds. The creature looked up and paused in its paddling to chitter back. The log drifted to a halt.

After a few moments’ palaver, Chirp grandly announced. “We can cross the canal on this log.” He urged his dyal forward. The riding bird balked at first but responded to repeated urgings. It strode forward to the edge of the canal, jumped onto the substantial timber, and then down on the far side of the waterway. Chirp turned to face his allies, face expectant. Kirov realized that the Lodge Builder’s fur coat made him look very much like a beaver himself.

The Dyal Riders muttered among themselves. They were brave enough in their own setting but the strange situation upset them. A long tiring ride, the strange creature, its musky smell – all these were disconcerting. A bold young tribesman gallantly urged his dyal forward but misjudged the jump. Bird and man landed on the log but it rotated under them and dumped them into the water. Sputtering, he swam ashore on the near side of the canal, climbed out, and turned to help his squawking mount to safety.

Kirov concealed a smile. “Rell, Chirp, can we ride around the canal?” He pointed to the birch grove.

Chirp gravely agreed. He clucked at his dyal, which took a few steps towards the woods. The wava looked at the Lodge Builder, who chattered at him. The great beaver resumed paddling and the huge creature was soon in the lake heading into the distance.

The Dyal Riders needed no further suggestions. They turned their fierce riding birds and headed across the meadow. Chirp paced them on the far side of the canal. As Kirov suspected, the waterway ended a short distance into the birch grove. The wava had dug its canal only as far as was necessary to transport freshly cut trees and no further.

Kirov began to ride around the canal’s end. The dyal picked its way carefully thru the stumps of felled trees.

As the riding bird moved, another wava appeared out of the trees. Kirov glanced at it and imitated Chirp’s friendly chittering as best he could. He turned around the canal end, facing his guide.

The ryth – the giant cave bear of the Pleistocene and the most ferocious predator in Pellucidar – reared upright. Its massive claws struck at Kirov’s unprotected back.

The ryth – Ursus spalaens to the paleontologists of the Exterior World – reared upright. Two fists full of claws smashed into Kirov and his dyal before either could react. One claw swept Kirov off his steed, his feet ripping out of his stirrups. He flew brutally sideways, landing in the mud and water of the wava’s canal. Fire wracked his side.

The other claw slashed into the dyal’s thick body. Feathers flew and muscles shredded under the giant cave bear’s attack.

Dying, the dyal kicked backward. Its own powerful, claw armed feet smashed into its attacker’s guts.

The Dyal Riders shouted in unison. Their war birds lurched forward. Stone tipped spears stabbed into the giant bear’s side. The great carnivore’s claws were entangled in the body of Kirov’s dyal. It screamed in pain. Rell leaned forward, hammering the bear’s skull with his ax.

The ryth turned, shaking the dying dyal off its claws. It faced the gilaks who dared contest its rule over the Wava Hills. Five spears were embedded in its hide but its colossal vitality was undiminished. It roared its challenge. The leaves on the trees shook as with fear.

The ryth swatted Rell contemptuously. The brave Pellucidarian grunted. Ursine claws had missed his flesh but not the anvil-like paw. Unlike Kirov the Inventor, Rell was strapped to his dyal’s saddle. The force of the blow crumpled up the deputy chief of the Dyal Riders and knocked his fierce war bird off its feet. Both slumped to the ground. The other Dyal Riders paused, appalled by the giant carnivore’s power. Traditional axes and newly introduced assegais waved weakly.

Kirov shook himself off, spraying water and mud like a dog, and lurched upright. The water had cushioned his landing. He pulled his assegai from his belt and thrust forward. The ryth was facing the Dyal Riders beside the canal end. Kirov struck home.

The Pleistocene monster screamed again in pain. It looked around for its tormentor. Momentarily, it overlooked the inventor standing in the wava’s canal. Its claws glittered in the eternal noonday Sun of the Inner World.

Heartened by Kirov’s example, the Dyal Riders cooed and their war birds surged forward. Assegais stabbed into the distracted monster’s massive body while axes smashed down on forearms and skull.

Savagely hurt, the ryth flailed about. Whether by instinct or cunning, it hit two more Dyal Riders. Men and birds collapsed, knocked off their feet. For a moment, the battle seemed an insane dance as gilaks and dyals maneuvered to find the ryth’s weak spots without succumbing to its flashing claws.

Kirov slogged out of the canal’s shallow waters to Rell’s still body. The giant bear was dangerously close but the young inventor needed weapons more powerful than his remaining flint knife. He slashed Rell’s back up ax and spear loose from their bindings.

He pointed Rell’s spear at the ryth and braced the butt into the soggy ground as best he could. He shouted and waved one arm to attract the bear’s attention.

Whether because the bear understood Kirov’s Russian insults or simply because the young inventor was relatively stationary and close at hand while the mounted Dyal Riders bobbed and weaved out of reach, the great Pleistocene mammal focused on Kirov. It brought itself more fully upright and roared to intimidate the gilak who crouched and waved at it. Then it shambled forward, a terrible parody of a hungry man striding towards his dinner table, but moving more swiftly than a man could run. Its powerful body smashed down onto Kirov….

…. And the spear that Kirov had aimed at the advancing monster’s guts. The creature’s own power forced the stone tipped spearhead into its vitals.

No cowards, the Dyal Riders still quailed at its brute energy as it struggled upright, ready to kill again. They circled, looking for openings.

As the monster moved, it leveraged Kirov’s spear through its own body. The stone spearhead savaged the great creature’s internal organs. Red fluid poured from a dozen wounds, baptizing Kirov and Rell in blood.

Battered and bleeding, the ryth swayed and then collapsed. Tons of bone and muscle smashed Kirov and Rell into the ground. Blood soaked the ground and crimsoned the canal’s waters.

The Dyal Riders rallied. Axes and clubs crushed the ryth’s skull. Spears levered the ursine bulk off the gilaks’ bodies.

Freed from the ryth’s smothering weight, Kirov lay on the marshy ground, panting, sucking in air that had never seemed so sweet. Even his own sweat and the bear’s stink seemed like rare perfumes.

A Dyal Rider examined Rell’s fallen body and shook his head. “Rell the Brave One has gone to the Dead World,” he declared sadly. “When he fell, I hoped that he was merely sleeping [unconscious] but he breathes no more.”

Another Dyal Rider added, “The Dead will honor him for his scouting of the roost of the Black Birdriders, for his battle with the ryth, and for other brave deeds.”

Chirp quietly agreed. “And for coming to the aid of the Lodge Builders against the Pulka Horde.”

Kirov had originally come to Pellucidar as a draftee in the Soviet Red Army and all Soviet soldiers were taught basic first aid. “Let me see him,” the young man said between pants. “Let me try cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”

When the warriors of the Lodge Builders arrived to investigate the ryth’s screams, they found Chirp, Rell and the Dyal Riders in awe of Kirov for his conquest of Death itself.

Rell pointed to a barely visible smudge moving across the grass green back-ground, hazy with distance. “The Horde approaches.”

Kirov grunted agreement as he gazed across the Plain of Grazers from his vantage point in an oak-like tree in the Wava Hills. Pellucidar’s upward sloping landscape made scouting and spying out distant objects easy compared to the downward sloping curve of Earth’s outer surface. Kirov supposed that a powerful enough telescope could see across the vast void inside the hollow Earth and look down on the far distant Empire of Pellucidar. An amusing thought: spying on the American Emperor and his Stone Age court from overhead! However, until young inventor could introduce glassblowing and telescope making to the Inner World, he would have to observe potential threats with his own eyes.

Far out across the Plain, three groups of black dots resolved themselves out of the blur of distance. A thick vee led the way, a large rectangle occupied the middle position, and a small square followed. The three groups moved as a unit, pointing straight at the Wava Hills where Kirov and his allies waited. The young inventor easily recognized the units as advance guard, main body and rear guard. Multitudes of strange Pellucidarian creatures grazing or hunting on the Plain scattered before them.

Rell noted admiringly, “They are coming exactly as you said.” The oncoming Horde was indeed advancing directly toward Kirov’s men.

The hero worship in Rell’s voice annoyed and frustrated the young inventor. The deputy chief of the Dyal Riders had been Kirov ’s friend, colleague and blood brother. Since Kirov had saved his life with knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he had become a worshipper. As had many other Dyal Riders and their allies, the Lodge Builders.

The former Soviet Red Army Specialist regurgitated some of his military training. “The slope of the ground in front of us forms a natural ramp into the Wava Hills. Those small hills on either side will encourage the Hordesmen to ride here rather than over those rocks. Dyals don’t like running over rocks.”

Rell frowned. “I don’t think those beasts are dyals.” He pointed at the rapidly approaching creatures.

Kirov squinted his eyes against the eternal noonday Sun. Rell was right. Chirp had said that the Pulka Hordesmen rode creatures like the Dyal Riders’ flightless war birds, the Phororhacos of Exterior World science. But the oncoming creatures were quadrupeds, more like horses than birds….

The advancing creatures were indeed the Pleistocene progenitors of the common Arabian dromedary. Camels in the Leningrad Zoo stood two meters high at the hump. These monsters were at least three meters high at the hump and four meters high at the head, and proportionately shaped and muscled.

Like their Arabian cousins, these giant camels carried men. At least they were normal sized. The camelriders were typical Pellucidarian Stone Age warriors clad in skins – camel hides, Kirov guessed – and armed with spears. Kirov noted that those spears were longer than the common two meter spear that many tribes used. The spearmen would need the extra length to reach enemies on the ground.

As Kirov watched from his vantage point, the first camel reached the trap prepared by the inventor and manned by Lodge Builder spearmen.

The allied warriors had spent a great deal of work cutting sharpened stakes and pounding them into the ground across the expected approach of the Horde. Kirov’s plan was that the enemy dyals or dyal-like creatures would run onto the stakes and be impaled. Then the Lodge Builders and Dyal Riders could easily spear the immobilized attackers.

The great camels had indeed advanced exactly where predicted. But their evil eyes, mounted high above the ground, had obviously detected the line of stakes hidden in the tall grass. Contemptuously, the tall mammals simply stepped over the barrier!

The Lodge Builders were also hidden in the grass. One of them lay flat directly in the path of an oncoming giant. A hoof the size of a samovar or tea kettle came down on the back of the spearman’s neck. The snap of bones echoed loudly.

The other camels balked as they spotted the hidden men. Lodge Builders gallantly rose, attempting to spear the great beasts. The camels lurched backward, evading the first, awkward blows with malignant intelligence.

High above the land of hidden men, the camelriders were not slow to respond. As their mounts balked, they spied out the reasons. Long spears stabbed downward into the bodies of rising Lodge Builders. Cries of pain echoed across the Plain.

Kirov shouted orders at the Dyal Rider cavalry hidden in the tree line below him. His tribesmen cooed and their fierce war birds leaped forward. The gilaks mounted on their savage war birds raised their spears like Cossack lancers.

Dyal Riders and camelriders clashed furiously. Kirov’s tribesmen drove their charge home. The great camels had stopped to deal with the Lodge Builders. Their giant bodies made excellent targets. Dyal Rider spears thudded home in camel breasts and dyal beaks shredded flesh. The huge quadrupeds screamed in pain and reared upward, trying to escape the vicious bipedal attacks. Camelriders spilled to the ground. Freed from control, maddened by deadly pain and the scent of blood, the giant camels fought to escape. Some attacked the agile dyals with teeth and hooves but most tried to turn and leave the sudden battlefield. As they did, they trampled their fallen masters into the soft soil. The allied tribesman cheered the fleeing giants’ backs in sudden victory.

Rell smiled savagely. “We are victorious, mighty Kirov! Your plan worked….”

Kirov shook his head and pointed. One group of camelriders had been defeated. But from behind them came hundreds more.

The oncoming line of camel riders halted as their retreating fellows plunged into their ranks. Shrill shouts – battle cries and orders – echoed across the outskirts of the Wava Hills. Gradually, the camel riders brought their giant mounts under control. Savage eyes examined the allied defense line and the Wava Woods behind it.

Kirov could see a charge forming up, one with more than enough power to smash the thin line of allies opposing it. He shouted for his fellows to retreat into the woods.

Slowly, the allied tribesmen began to withdraw. Pellucidarian warriors valued bravery, not robotic obedience to orders. Kirov’s almost godlike prestige and the obvious mismatch in numbers caused them to obey. Kirov and Rell started down their arboreal command post to join the retreat.

Some horde leader bellowed. The camel riders charged, their long spears aimed at the backs of their retreating enemies.

The camel riders’ pause to reorganize had cost them precious time. The allies reached the woods and vanished into the leafy maze.

Giant camels pulled up short at the threat of low hanging tree limbs. Their snake-like necks bobbed and weaved. Their riders shouted commands and thumped their sides. Camels protested but moved forward, this time at a walking pace as they avoided thick branches. Riders, too, had to duck. The charge dwindled to a walking advance.

The lodges from which the Lodge Builder tribe took its name were built on the shores of a woodland lake inhabited by a large colony of wava – giant Pleistocene beavers the size of Siberian black bears. Like the smaller beavers of the Exterior World, the wava cut down trees, eating the tender bark and using the stripped timber to build and maintain their dams and homes. As the forest retreated from the shores of the lake as a result of the beavers’ continuing appetites, the wava had dug canals across the meadowland to ease the transportation of lumber to the sites of their homes and dams.

Some time in the past, a tribe of gilaks (humans) had befriended the wava and settled down beside them, adopting many of the beavers’ traits in the process. The Lodge Builders built shore side homes in imitation of their totemic animals’ lodges and improved the canals into a series of defensive ditches. The result was a strange but effective fortress from which gilaks and wava alike could defy the constant threats of Pellucidarian life.

The retreating allies burst into the great clearing. Strange animals ran with them. The wild withdrawal from the planned battlefield had spooked deer, antelopes and less identifiable creatures out of the wood. The animals instinctively skirted the water-walled fortress, heading for the woods on the opposite side of the clearing.

Lodge Builders shouted at their fellows to take cover. Women dropped baskets of food, seized children, and ran over log bridges to take shelter in their thick wooden lodges. The older and younger men – Kirov would have called them the Home Guard – seized spears and shovels and ran to defensive positions. The retreating Lodge Builders fell into beside them, panting with exertion.

Chirp, the war chief of the tribe, clapped his hands loudly and chattered at the wava. They slapped the water with their tails and disappeared.

The Dyal Riders had been moving at a walking pace to protect their slower moving allies. Once out in the clearing, they collected in a knot, trying to assess the situation and plan their strategy. Their savage war birds danced about nervously.

It was then that the warriors realized that both Kirov and Rell had disappeared.

“Something wrong with the window, Ed?” came a squeaky yet powerful voice from behind him.

Burroughs turned around to face his host who was offering him a drink. He took it as he answered. “No, Theodore. Just amazed and amused to see a window made out of glass here in Pellucidar. You really have created a New America just as you promised.” He took a sip of the Exterior World drinking whiskey. Another sign that civilization was coming to the Inner World.

“My New Americans have. Their work and ingenuity have created a bully new nation with all the promise of the United States and none of the vices.” Ed’s host was an orator among other things.

That host stepped over to the wide window and waved grandly at the outside landscape lit by the eternal noonday Sun of the Inner World. A small city stretched down the hill on which the house sat. House and city might have been snatched up from the Kansas prairie of sixty years ago by one of L. Frank Baum’s super-tornados and deposited intact in the Pellucidar of today. Neat streets – only dirt at the moment – formed a grid, defining spaces for houses, hotels, shops, schools, churches, saloons and other buildings. Energetic people clad in warm American frontier clothing strode or rode through the streets as mammoths pulled wagons and baulks of lumber to and fro. Beyond them, farms filled the valley below the city. In the distance, a cloud of dust marked the location of a huge coal mine. A moving pillar of smoke marked the railroad delivering cargos of coal and other minerals north to the port of Lexington in the Arctic Ocean to heat the homes and feed the factories of Alaska and Canada .

“Twelve years ago, this was nothing but rolling grassland,” declaimed the host. “A hill with a view here; a river valley down there; rolling plains stretching for miles in every direction. Nothing but antelopes, mammoths, herbivorous dinosaurs and the carnivores that fed on them. Not even your famous cavemen in this part of the world. Now, look at it!

“I’ll tell you what you see! Civilization! Civilization coming to savage Pellucidar! The best that American civilization has to offer to the people of our New America.” The host gestured grandly again.

“And it’s people that made it happen, Ed. People. Thousands of poor Americans looking for a fresh start. Tailors and bricklayers from New York ; ranchers and farmers from the Dakotas; miners and lumbermen from California. Thousands of Americans who couldn’t make a go of things Outside but took up land and built a new nation.

“A great nation, Ed. We learned from our mistakes Outside. We didn’t push the original Pellucidarians aside the way that Andrew Jackson pushed the original Americans aside. Instead, we purchased rights to the land with trade goods. If they didn’t want to sell, we respected their decisions and their tribal lands. And those that want to be citizens are citizens with all the rights and privileges. They’re still learning how republican government works but they are learning. We have no hyphenated New Americans here. Just New Americans.”

Burroughs had been patiently waiting for his friend of many years to take a breath. “I’m glad to hear that. Most of our Russians are royalists, loyal to the memory of Czar Nicholas. I’m glad that they’re adjusting to life in your postage stamp republic.” He grinned as he described his host’s pride and joy.

His host took the bait. “‘Postage stamp’? ‘Postage stamp”?! Old man, I’ll have you know that we now have 5 whole states laid out! Five! A population of almost 40,000 people! More than 5,000 here in the city of Lincoln alone! Thousands of acres in cultivation! Mineral production doubled in the last year! A thousand miles of railroad! Steamboats on the Longview River trading with a dozen tribes! This isn’t some dinky little principality that Rand McNally won’t give a distinctive color to! This is the Republic of New America!” He flourished his glass triumphantly. Amber liquid leaped through the air to splash onto the ryth-skin rug. He appeared not to notice.

Burroughs ignored his friend’s well deserved boasting. “You mentioned your railroad. Have you connected to the Empire of Pellucidar yet?” His face was serious.

His host came back down to Earth. “No. Not yet. And maybe not for a long time to come.” He kicked back the remains of his drink with a single gulp before continuing. He gestured to a pair of comfortable chairs and they sat down before the great window.

“Pellucidar is a huge place, Ed. The Soviets call it a New World and, for once, they’re right. I have a hundred scouts out day and night.” He paused and snorted in self depreciation at his unconscious use of an Exterior World phrase. “Well, I have them out waking period and sleeping period. But we haven’t actually reached the Empire by land yet. Or Maharland. We’ve found things that even you wouldn’t believe but we don’t yet know for sure where the Empire is!”

“I thought the Mahar maps that Abner got from Phutra showed that New America and the Empire are at the opposite ends of the same continent,” interjected Burroughs. He made a mental note: Ask Theodore about these “things that even I won’t believe” later. The other ERB is always looking for new stories to publish.

“The maps show that,” confirmed his host, “but we haven’t confirmed those maps yet. A Mahar flies over things and maps them differently compared to a human walking or riding across the ground. In the meantime, we’re driving the Lexington, Lincoln & Sari Railroad east and southeastward – along the shores of the Anti-North American Ocean – to where we think the Empire is. With a spur due south to connect to Fairbanks. Until we connect up, contact with the Empire is telegrams relayed through Old America plus David’s occasional visits to the Outside. David and I have met in New York and Hartford but never in Lincoln or Sari.”

Burroughs sighed. “I was hoping that you would have linked up with David and Abner by now. Parhan and the Russian royalist rear guard stopped the Soviet advance on the Plutonian Plain many sleeps ago but that was just a temporary check. The Soviets didn’t actually retreat to Russia; they’re just waiting for Joe Stalin to sort things out and issue new orders. In the meantime, they’re digging in. Every report the scouts bring back lists new roads and buildings. And guns. Big ones.

“Pellucidar makes a tempting target and cavemen can’t fight 20^th Century weapons with spears and axes,” he concluded.

His host nodded glumly. “The British and French aren’t letting any grass grow under their feet at the South Pole, either. Mussolini and Hitler are both talking about seizing living space in Pellucidar as well. Even some Japanese and Chinese have expressed interest in Pellucidarian territories. David’s cousin says that the Japanese are interested in building their own prospectors. Officially for civil engineering purposes. In the meantime, they’re buying up every cheap prospector knockoff that the French and Germans will sell them.” He looked at his glass and seemed surprised to find it empty.

Burroughs shook his head. “A land rush in Pellucidar. It was inevitable once the Europeans finished dividing up Africa and Asia .

“Still, our immediate problem is the Soviets. They’re only a few hundred miles from here. Once they start moving again, it won’t take them long to reach your western border. And based on their treatment of Poland and half a dozen other nations, it won’t take them much longer before they provoke an incident and cross that border. You’re a much tougher target than the Stone Age tribes are but your entire army is smaller than one Soviet division. David’s industries and trained manpower would be big help.”

His host added grimly, “I guess you haven’t heard the latest news. David has his own problems. The latest telegram says that the Mahars have reappeared in the northern Empire. Fortunately only in small, isolated groups. So far.”

Burroughs winced. The great reptiles had made much of Pellucidar a land of terror for untold centuries. Breaking their iron clawed grip had been David Innes’ first and possibly greatest achievement. If they returned in numbers, the Empire would have to deal with them first. There could be no help for New America against the Soviets even if Theodore and David connected their respective railroads.

The two old friends were silent for a long time. They gazed out of the glass window, visualizing the future that they were trying to build crumbling under the Soviet heel. Both of them felt cold despite a fire burning merrily in the hearth behind them.

Ed’s host coughed. “Well, when the Soviets bump up against New America, I guess we’ll have to show them that we make good neighbors – and terrible enemies – even without David’s help.”

The host’s hearty laughter filled the room. “Me? ‘Mind a political question’? Never! Ask away!”

“Why didn’t you return to the United States in 1920 or 1924? You could have had the Presidency again for the asking.”

Theodore Roosevelt was silent for a second or two. He smiled infectiously. He leaned forward. His eyes gleamed.

Fort Alinsky, Plutonia okrug (area), Interior Zone, Novy Mir Military District

During the battles of the 1917-20 Russian Civil War, Edgar Rice Burroughs had found Soviet military music unspeakably pompous. But, apparently, the Soviet Red Army liked it. Cymbals crashed to a crescendo and the band fell silent. A senior colonel barked a series of commands. The troops of Fort Alinsky came to attention, saluted their new commander, and began marching to their barracks.

Brigadier General Pavel Chukchi descended the reviewing stand and entered the log building that was the command post of the Soviet beachhead in Novy Mir, the New World. His staff followed him. He seated himself in the commander’s chair. He was a small man and the chair was overly large for him. He’d have it changed later. In the meantime, his brigade had business to attend to.

“Comrades, thank you for welcoming me to Novy Mir. Before we begin the regular staff meeting, I have important news from Moscow Center.” The grey clad soldiers all leaned forward in anticipation. They had been marking time for several months. There had been suicides caused by the stress of waiting.

“Comrade General Secretary Stalin has reviewed the unfortunate events of the Plutonian Plain battle.” Another man might have paused for dramatic effect but Chukchi plowed ahead. “He has determined that our unfortunate reverse was the result of Comrade Senior Colonel E. Kandinsky’s lack of foresight. Kandinsky has been remanded to a court martial for negligence. In addition, former Intelligence Officer I. Garman has been reassigned to new duties. No other personnel actions are to be taken at this time.” There was a noticeable breeze in the closed room as the assembled officers simultaneously let out their breaths. Chukchi ignored it.

“In addition, Comrade Stalin has directed that we continue the liberation of Novy Mir for the greater glory of the Soviet Union . The resources of the New World will enable us to break the capitalist encirclement of our nation. Our strategic advance will first be south to the shores of the Anti-Eurasian Ocean. The ocean forms a natural defensive boundary for the expanding Interior Zone. Upon completion of that operation, we will expand to the east and west.

“That expansion will include establishing control of all Russian territory as far as the border of the so called Republic of New America. Any persons found in the Interior Zone will either acknowledge Soviet rule or be eliminated. That includes primitive humans, humanoids, hominids and nonhumans, revanchist monarchists, and capitalist mercenaries. Once we have consolidated our position sufficiently, we will receive new orders. In the interim, we will establish diplomatic relations with New America and convince them of our peaceful intentions.”

Not that Vakar the Tall One would have seemed like a general to someone of the Exterior World. He was clad in loincloth and sandals. His hair was a windblown bird’s nest. The only outward sign that civilization had touched him was his weapons belt. It carried holsters for steel pistol and sword and stone knife and ax. During military operations, he would add a musket and bandoleer of ammunition. The belt buckle was ornamented with the insignia of Empire and generalship. For the people of the Inner World, that was uniform enough.

One of Innes’ counselors spoke up. “Vakar says that the Mahars wish peace with gilaks. That is hard to believe.” There was a murmur of agreement. Most of the chiefs present remembered the not too distant past when the great reptiles had tithed their human subjects for food and labor. To the men of the Inner World, gilak meant “human being”; to the Mahars, it meant “cattle.”

Fash, chief of Suvi, and Oose, chief of Kali, emerged as the spokesmen for two groups of opinion. Suvi was on the northern border of the Empire, close to the Mahar menace. Fash wanted a powerful army to push the reptiles as far away as possible. If the reported sea raiders killed Mahars, so much the better. Kali was on the coast of Pellucidar ’s great ocean, the Lural Az, and therefore closer to the corsair threat. Oose was willing to attempt peace with the Mahars who now seemed a lesser problem.

After each of the Imperial chiefs had given his advice, David decided in favor of peace. “I did not think that I would ever sympathize with the Mahars but I pity an intelligent race in danger of extermination by a ruthless enemy. If the Mahars will have peace with us, we will have peace with them.”

Further arguments from Fash were cut off when a breathless messenger arrived from Thuria, the Land of the Awful Shadow.

The dreaded corsairs had arrived in Thuria and had surprised and killed or captured some hunters. Goork, the king of Thuria, frantically implored his Emperor for help. The counselors erupted in an excited hubbub.

David I’s imperial voice cut through the confusion. The federated tribes were to mobilize their armies. He, David, would lead one division against the invaders. Ghak would command the Sarian regiment. Other tribal regiments would join them en route. Tanar the Fleet One, son of Ghak, would immediately depart for Thuria to locate the invaders and offer an honorable peace. Meanwhile, Vakar was to return to the Mahar camp and offer peace if the reptiles submitted to Imperial rule and promised peace with all gilaks. And David’s wife, Dian, would rule the Empire in his absence.

As the war council broke up to deal with the corsair threat, Abner Perry’s report on extending the Imperial Railroad to the north was forgotten.

Kirov and Rell started to climb down the oak-like tree where they had been observing the oncoming camel-riders. As the latter advanced, they stopped. The enemy was too close. Concealed in the tree’s abundant leaves, they had a chance to hide.

The camel-rider advance thundered past. Behind the advance guard came the main body – a rough rectangle of warriors with women, children and massive bundles inside – all mounted on the great Gigantocamelus precursors to the camels of the Exterior World.

Kirov thought that the camel-riders should have stopped their main body and pitched camp while their warriors fought it out with the Lodge Builders and Dyal Riders. To his surprise, the horde moved forward, into the Wava Woods. Fierce cavalrymen, shouting women, screaming children, all passed below the tree where their enemies crouched and watched. The earth shook under the impact of great hooves. The air trembled with the bellowing (and the smells) of the ugly beasts.

Finally, the main body had entered the woods. The rear guard reined in their great beasts just outside the tree line. Keen eyes scanned the rear. Camel-riders shouted questions, asking if “they” were in sight.

Kirov was puzzled about the camel-riders. Chirp had said that the Pulka Horde rode beasts like the Dyal Riders’ great war birds. Instead, the hordesmen had domesticated the giant, four legged Gigantocamelus. And their numbers were much smaller than Kirov had been led to believe. Chirp had implied that the Pulka had thousands of warriors. Instead, their numbers were a few hundred.

Kirov shook his head. A few hundred was still many more than the Lodge Builders or his Dyal Rider continent could face alone. His long absent military instructor Senior Sergeant Voitinuik always said that you had to deal with the situation you found rather than what you imagined it to be. He peered in all directions, his scientist’s mind probing for possibilities.

The rear guard paused to kill the wounded camels. A handful of warriors stood watch while another handful butchered the beasts roughly. Apparently, the giant camels were food to their riders as well as beasts of burden. That, too, was typical of Pellucidar.

Rell gestured to the low hills beyond the rear guard. Animal heads appeared from behind rocks and in the tall grass. The horde had been followed by packs of hunters. Kirov recognized hyena-dog jaloks, pig-like golloks, codons and stolons. The aspiring paleontologist classified the latter two as the Canis dirus [dire wolf] and Amphicyon [giant dog] of the Exterior World. The packs maintained wide spaces between each other and glanced suspiciously at the other animals as they crept forward. But, clearly, all were united by the thought that a few giant camels would feed a lot of carnivores.

He whispered a few words to Rell. Both braced themselves on the tree limbs that they were standing on. Kirov sat down to given himself better anchorage and withdrew his spear thrower – his copy of the Central American atlatl – from his backpack.

A camel-rider guard, nervously eying the circle of carnivores edging towards him and his fellows, heard a giant camel’s bellow behind him. He turned in time to see the great beast charging forward…. Towards him! He leaped to the side as giant hooves flashed over his body. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small spear hanging in the camel’s rump.

He hit the soft earth of the Wava Hills and rolled over. The small herd of rear guard camels had broken loose from their handlers and stampeded. He could see more spears in more rumps. And the bodies of camel-riders smashed into the ground by their own panicked creatures.

He stood up and surveyed the scene. Giant camels had stampeded away from the woods that his tribe had entered. Some of them had crashed directly into packs of oncoming carnivores. The golloks had scattered, allowing “their” camels to escape, but the canine predators had counterattacked savagely. One camel was already down, hamstrung by flashing codon teeth. The great beast’s screams echoed across the vast Plain of Grazers.

Far away, numerous creatures grazing the endless grasslands looked up, eyes scanning for danger. Most returned to feeding. If the screams came closer, they would flee. Until then….

The surviving camel-rider decided that discretion was the better part of valor. None of his tribesmen were moving and the unfed carnivores had resumed their advance towards the tempting pile of camel and gilak steaks and chops. He gathered his weapons and began jogging into the Wava Woods.

As he passed under a giant oak-like tree, a sudden weight smashed him to the ground. Once again, he tasted the rich soil of primeval Pellucidar.

Stunned, he felt hands ripping his great spear and knives from his body and then rolling him over. He looked up to see two fierce warriors dressed in brown feathers of all things.

“Ka-goda?” barked one belligerently. Do you surrender? Sharp knives menaced his throat.

The warriors withdrew their knives to their own belts and pulled him upright. The belligerent one introduced his companion and himself. “This is Kirov Skalkiller, and I am Rell. We are Dyal Riders, who are allies of the Lodge Builders and many other tribes. We will defeat the Pulka Horde.”

“I am Hurn, called the Lucky One,” replied the captive. “No one can defeat the Pulka Horde. When the Horde advances, all must flee or submit.” He spoke calmly and simply as if he was describing the flow of a stream or the taste of a fruit.

Rell swelled up with confidence. He brushed over the earlier skirmish, saying, “The Pulka Horde has not yet fought the Dyal Riders. Or faced the powerful weapons of Kirov the Inventor.” The last word was Russian imported into Pellucidarian. Hurn furrowed his brow at the unknown term but Rell plunged on. “We will defeat the Horde as we defeated the Black Birdriders of Ala Skal-rider and….”

Kirov coughed. “Hurn, you are the slave of Rell the Brave One but we will not kill you if you do our bidding. Do you agree?”

Hurn thought the proposition over for a few seconds. “Yes, I will do your bidding. What would you have me do?”

“Fetch food to your people,” said the inventor simply. He looked past Hurn at the carcasses of the giant camels still lying on the ground. Most of the circling carnivores were occupied with other bodies, brought down by their own powerful jaws. Occasionally, a diner would look up to be sure that a competing tribe didn’t hijack its meal. The golloks had reassembled and were advancing on the original corpses.

Hurn gaped at the inventor in astonishment. He didn’t see Rell’s face. The latter stared briefly but then smiled. The Brave One had experienced many of Kirov ’s strange ideas before.

Kirov amplified. “Hurn, you see that one of your tribe hacked a large haunch of meat from that beast. Go, pick it up and carry it to your tribe in the Wava Woods as quickly as you can. Rell the Brave One will protect you from the golloks and other creatures. When you have done this, you will be free and your people will reward you for the food. I will hunt for more food and bring it to your tribe.”

Hurn turned to look at the partially butchered giant camels. Rell quickly hid his smile and solemnly nodded agreement with Kirov’s directions.

The captive paused, clearly trying to see a trap in the simple instructions. Finding none, he nodded. “I go.”

He breathed deeply and began jogging towards the camel carcasses. Rell waved a salute to Kirov and followed Hurn, weapons in hand.

Kirov watched them for a moment and turned to trot into the woods. His path took him in a wide arc past the Lake of Lodges.

Hurn’s people had surrounded the community of the Lodge Builders. Their giant camels swiftly bore their human masters in an arc around the community of beaver-like lodges. The open meadowland around the Lake of Lodges made movements easier than in the Wava Woods surrounding the clearing. But further advances were balked by the complex network of canals radiating outward from the lake. Even the giant camels could not easily step over waterways two meters or more wide. Camel-riders circled the community and the shores of the lake hunting for easy access. They found none. The wava, the Lodge Builders’ animal brothers, had done their work well.

Lodge Builder warriors crouched behind their watery barricades, spears pointing outward, ready to receive any creature, camel or human, that attempted to jump the barriers. Squads of Dyal Rider cavalry circled slowly, warily keeping an eye on their foes, ready to counterattack any breaches.

Camel-rider chiefs conferred. Eyes turned towards a point where the water barrier seemed relatively shallow….

Screams echoed from the mass of their tribesmen behind them. Attention jerked to the temporary camp under the trees where their women and children rested from their flight. A warrior, Hurn the Lucky One, burst out of the trees, carrying a great haunch of meat on his shoulders. Blood trailed on the grass behind him.

A chief barked an order. Another warrior enforced it, swinging his great spear in an arc towards Hurn’s flying feet.

Panting, Hurn gasped, “The camp is under attack by golloks and other meat eaters! They hunger for our people!” Screams and shouts underlined his warning. Women and older children fled out of the forest, carrying smaller children with them.

Stunned, the chief barked orders. Many of his warriors were scattered around the long perimeter, probing the Lodge Builder fortress. Few of them heard him. Those that did urged their ungainly beasts in circles, facing towards the sudden threat. They breasted the fleeing crowd of tribesmen escaping from the threatening woods.

The ugly noises – screaming, shouting, bellowing, snorting – emanating from the forest grew louder.

The camel-riders plunged forward, seeking their enemies. In the wooden cathedral of the forest, giant camels milled about, masterless. Great piles of gear – tents, clothes, cooking pots, firewood, dried food, spare weapons, and a hundred and one other things – littered the ground where the women had been setting up camp and now impeded movement.

The center of the confusion was yet another giant camel, screaming as a tribe of golloks savagely attacked it. A strange spear hung from its chest, the wound spraying blood over the battle, exciting the vicious prehistoric pigs. Some pigs were already investigating the camp.

And behind the golloks stalked entire tribes of still hungry codons, stolons and jaloks. If some camels were good eating, more would be better!

Focused on the threatening animals, no camel-rider noticed the blood trail that had led the creatures to their camp, or the amused eyes hidden in the high branches of a maple-like tree.

The camel-riders forced their great mounts through the wooded mazes. Plains dwellers, both riders and mounts were slow and uncomfortable in the closeness of the woods. Accustomed to the endless sunlight of Pellucidar’s Inner Sun, the gloom under the trees confused them and robbed them of their courage. And stabbing tree branches drew more blood as they forced their way through the woods.

When the camel-riders reached the savage golloks, they thrust at the giant pigs, their blows hampered by the tightness of their quarters. The trees seemed to shield the vicious omnivores from the long spears of the horde.

Some spears struck home. Shrill porcine squeals rent the already tortured air. Pigs began dodging camel hooves and spearheads alike.

As the camp camels tried to escape the chaos, some blundered straight into the jaws of the canine predators. Teams of ferocious dogs, wolves and hyenadons counter-attacked. The din increased. The blood fury mounted.

Other camp camels thundered into the meadowland of the Lake of Lodges where they collided with camel-riders attempting to rally to their chief’s orders. The siege of the Lodges begin to dissolve into swirling confusion. Riderless camels milled about, seeking escape. Mounted beasts scarcely seemed more purposeful. Jostling camels slid and fell into the canals. The giant beasts honked frantically as the unfamiliar medium closed over them.

The allied warriors gaped in awe as the seemingly invincible attack dissolved. Crouching Lodge Builders slowly uncoiled, standing upright as they stared at the milling mass, their ears deafened by prehistoric pandemonium. Even the more aggressive Dyal Riders and their fierce war birds stood still, bemused by the sight and sounds.

Eventually, the camel-rider chief stopped fruitless shouting. He began riding through the chaos, slapping warriors on their shoulders with hands and, occasionally, long spear. Gradually, he began imposing order on his troops. By dint of personality and much pointing, he gathered a “squad” of warriors around him. He dispatched messengers to gather in the camel-riders still strung out along the lake and canals.

Suddenly, another man, this one dressed in brown feathers like the Dyal Riders, came running out of the woods at right angles to the bizarre battle. He ran furiously, feet flying. A sentry camel-rider noticed him and attracted the chief’s attention.

At some unheard signal, the flying figure stopped, waved his arms, and slammed a short spear into the soft ground at a sharp angle. He glanced behind him and waved again.

A ryth, the most ferocious of Pellucidar’s many predators, charged out of the woods behind him. Her powerful legs hurled her towards the fleeing figure as quickly as an Exterior World race horse.

The brown clad figure took off again, obviously attempting to escape the gigantic cave bear. Her four feet quickly overhauled his two.

Focused on the tasty gilak fleeing before her, the ryth failed to notice the spear jammed in the ground in her path. Powerful legs slammed her huge body onto the spear. She screamed in sudden pain and momentarily halted. As she reared upright, the camel-rider sentry realized that she already had several other spears hanging from her furry chest.

The brown clad figure sprinted towards the apparent safety of the still distant knot of camel-riders. All across the meadow of the Lodge Builders, human and bestial eyes turned to watch the foredoomed chase.

The maddened ryth resumed her pursuit. Again, her vast power overhauled her intended victim.

He ran onward, determined to make the ryth work for her meal. He neared the “squad” of camel-riders gathered around their chief. He obviously hoped that they might save him.

The gigantic bear was almost upon the fleeing figure. He could hear her hot breath, loud in his ears. Her stride changed slightly so that she could bring a mighty paw smashing down onto her meal’s shoulder.

Mighty muscles surged as the ryth flung herself forward – where she expected her prey to be!

The brown clad figure fell heavily to the ground. It blended into the rich soil of the Inner World.

Mesmerized by the struggle of man to escape monster, the camel-riders had allowed their guard to relax, fatally so.

The mighty ryth crashed into the legs of the giant camels. Powerful jaws closed on one beast’s legs and it went down, screaming, crippled and soon killed. Its rider catapulted through the air. Unprepared for his sudden flight, his landing was announced by breaking bones.

The efforts of the camel-rider chief to rally his warriors and defeat the allies floundered.

Unnoticed, the brown clad figure slowly raised itself to an upright posture. It carefully moved to the waterway barring the camel-riders from the Lodge Builders’ community. The Dyal Riders hailed the return of Kirov Skalkiller.

The young inventor lowered his aching body into the water and swam across. Allied hands pulled him from the moat. Behind him, the camel-riders continued their fight with the savage creatures of the Inner World.

Kirov sat on the inner edge of the moat and gave orders. Any Soviet officer would have harshly criticized him for lacking a “command voice.” The allied Pellucidarians didn’t care. Anyone who could lure a ryth into attacking their enemies could do no wrong.

When the decimated chief’s guard finally killed the ryth, they discovered that they were surrounded. Lodge Builders had swum the moat and captured many dismounted camel-riders trying to escape the carnivores. Dyal Rider cavalry had crossed on logs positioned by wava and circled behind the invaders. A small knot of camel-riders attempted to break out. Dyal Rider cooed and their savage war birds counter-charged….

When Lal and the main army of Dyal Riders reached the Lake of Lodges in accordance with the allies’ earlier agreement, there was little to do. Many giant camels had fled and their erstwhile masters had surrendered. Dozens of warriors were dead. The survivors and their women and children were captives. Many camel-rider women were already at work under the supervision of Lodge Builder women gathering nuts and berries from the once again peaceful Wava Woods or rendering the dead giant camels into steaks and chops.

Rell swelled with pride. “Hail mighty Kirov Skalkiller! We have defeated the great Pulka Horde!” He waved his arms in celebration.

Hurn looked at Rell in amazement. “’The Pulka Horde’?” he repeated. “We are not the Pulka Horde. We are the Sojar Pah Riders [Great Camel Riders]. We flee the Pulka Horde lest we become their slaves or meals. They will be here in a hand of sleeps [five days] or less. Then you must fight a great battle!”

Several waking periods after the battle with the Great Camel Riders, Kirov was working in the village of the Lodge Builders when a Dyal Rider messenger rode up on his vicious war bird. Around him, Lodge Builder craftsmen were cutting branches into piles of long and short shafts. Other craftsmen were knapping small flints and carefully trimming animal gut into strings.

“Kirov Skalkiller,” he said respectfully. “The Pulka Horde approaches. Lal commands you to come to the line of spears.”

The young inventor smiled as he rose to his feet. A Soviet Red Army man would have said the first defense line but Pellucidarian military vocabulary was more limited than Russian. Perhaps, if the Soviet Army completed the conquest of the Inner World, Pellucidarians would understand such ideas. They would be forced to understand. Until then, he and the allied tribes translated concepts as best they could.

“I come.” He gave parting instructions to the craftsmen as he walked to where his dyal, the terror bird of the Exterior World, was resting. He spoke to the messenger. “Bol, is Lal sure that the Pulka Horde approaches?”

The messenger nodded. “Yes, great Kirov. Lal sent scouts across the Plain of Grazers. They report that small camel riders approach.”

Kirov nodded in his turn as he cooed orders at his dyal. The savage war bird grumbled…. Actually, it squawked but Kirov was now familiar enough with dyal sounds to interpret the noise as a grumble. The young inventor threw his new saddle over the dyal’s back, cinched it into place, and mounted up. The powerful bird arose and the two Dyal Riders headed for Lal’s position.

Bol commented, “Your new saddle is easier to make ready than our old ones. I wish one.”

Kirov promised, “You shall have one.” He paused and added, “If we have enough time to make them.”

The messenger nodded in understanding. Their dyals trotted quickly from the Lodge Builder village, across a simple log bridge over the moat, and across the surrounding meadow. They passed Dyal Riders trying to master the giant camels – Gigantocamelus to Exterior World paleontologists – that the Great Camel Riders had brought to the Wava Woods in their flight from the Pulka Horde. Many camel riders had accepted slavery to the Lodge Builders and their allies in return for their lives. They were trying to teach their masters to control the great beasts with some success.

Kirov and the messenger entered the Wava Woods surrounding the meadow of the Lake of Lodges. They passed women of the Lodge Builder and Great Camel Rider tribes gathering edible nuts, berries and roots and carrying the natural produce to the village. Powerful dyal legs carried the men swiftly through the forest.

A few minutes later, Kirov and the messenger burst out of the far side of the woods and paused under an oak-like tree – the very same tree from which Kirov had commanded the first skirmish against the camel riders. Lal had established her command post under its boughs, shaded from the eternal noonday Sun of Pellucidar and overlooking the first defense line.

The warrior queen of the Dyal Riders and war leader of the allied tribes wasted little time in greetings. She pointed far across the Plain of Grazers. Kirov recognized the area where the Great Camel Riders had first appeared a hand or more of sleeps ago [about five days previously]. A line of black dots, barely visible in the distance, stood across the Plain from right to left. Another war band had followed in the track of the camel riders.

“Our scouts have seen those riders at a hand of spear casts distance [close range]. They ride small camels, not dyals. They are the Pulka Horde.”

Kirov nodded. Previously, Chirp, war leader of the Lodge Builders, had told Lal and his other allies that the Pulka rode dyal-like war birds. Kirov had planned a defense line that should have stopped a dyal riding force only to have the great camels that actually appeared simply step over the line of spears rammed into the ground at the natural choke point. So, the inventor had insisted that Lal’s scouts confirm critical details. If the Pulka rode small equines, the line of spears should stop them and check their advance. Then Lodge Builder infantry supported by Dyal Rider cavalry should be able to fight the Horde on even terms.

Far across the Plain, the enemy line thickened as more and more black dots appeared. Kirov could see the vast herds of strange Pellucidarian animals drifting away from the threat as they fed, grazers upon the lush grasses and strangely beautiful flowers of Pellucidar’s northern latitudes, and carnivores upon unwary grazers.

Kirov’s face moved from side to side, surveying the yet distant Horde, assessing, calculating. His brow furrowed.

Rell noticed his concentration. “Mighty Kirov, do you see danger? The Horde aims itself at this spot as did the Great Camel Riders.” Lal also turned her face towards the young inventor and military advisor, Russian terms grafted upon the Dyal Rider dialect of the universal Pellucidarian language.

“That line is very wide. If they advance in formation rather than concentrating here, they will outflank us.” He gestured to illustrate his thoughts. “They can attack us here, holding us in position, while flank attacks sweep around to both sides. We can’t fight in every direction at once.”

Rell’s confidence in the man from the Exterior World had only been increased by the latter’s previous victory. “Surely the Pulka Horde will come to this place as did the Great Camel Riders. The slope of the ground to this place has not changed.”

Distant noises sounded across the Plain. The thick line of enemy cavalry moved forward as a unit, maintaining an easy riding pace. Kirov estimated that the allied tribes were facing at least a thousand warriors advancing in a block about 5 ranks deep but 200 files wide. A devastating overlap and double flank attack was no longer a possibility; it was a certainty.

When the Great Camel Riders had advanced across the Plain, their entire formation was only a hundred meters wide or so. Disturbed herbivores had merely moved out of their line of advance until that tribe had passed, followed by the ever vigilant carnivores. In contrast, the Pulka Horde’s formation was several thousand meters wide. Antelope, deer, musk oxen, brontops, tapirs and stranger creatures looked up, saw the Horde approach and began moving away – slowly at first and then more quickly. Since other advancing Hordesmen blocked the sides, the feeding herds and packs began moving towards the Wava Woods and the allied tribes’ defense line.

More curious noises came from the direction of the Horde. The enemies trotted faster. The animals began to panic, running now to escape the implacable advance.

The rising ground in front of the Wava Hills forced the fleeing creatures into pseudo-military columns with fiendish precision, one aimed at the allied position.

The native Pellucidarians gaped at the waves of animal flesh thundering towards them. Again, strange piping noises from the Horde echoed across the Plain.

“Lal!” shouted Kirov. “Those animals will cover the line of spears! We must withdraw to the woods! The trees will shield our men from the charging beasts!”

Lal took precious seconds to absorb the idea. When she did, the waves of fleeing creatures were very near. She ordered, “Dyal Riders! Lodge Builders! Retreat to the trees! NOW!”

Her commanding voice broke the hypnotic spell cast by the awe inspiring sight of the onrushing creatures. Slowly, the warriors began moving back towards the trees. Several Dyal Riders, carried by their powerful war birds, reached safety, vanishing behind stout trees. Most cavalrymen, however, stopped, cooing wildly. Their birds pivoted and returned to the line of fleeing infantry spearmen, almost entirely Lodge Builders. Dyal Rider arms clasped Lodge Builders arms. The agile war birds pivoted again. The allies fled into the trees, dyal muscles pulling the clumsy infantrymen along.

Kirov reached his now familiar oak-like vantage post. He leaped from saddle to the lower branches and scrambled upward. Behind him, Dyal Riders, strapped to their own birds’ backs, noted the ease and mobility of the new invention Kirov called stirrups.

Behind the allied warriors, the first wave of beasts blundered into the defense line. Antelope crashed into concealed pits; deer smashed into the spears rammed into the earth; and tapirs discovered the punji sticks of the Exterior World. Animal cries rent the air as hundreds of creatures died in and on the products of Kirov’s ingenuity.

But behind those victims were thousands more beasts. They filled the pits and smothered the spears and sticks with their bodies.

A herd of mammoths strode through the chaos, crushing lesser beasts into jelly. Behind them came other creatures, following the path that the great elephants had smashed through the maelstrom. Kirov saw one mammoth calf with a white patch on its left jowl gamely charging along in the wake of its massive mother. The tsunami of beasts entered the Wava Woods, streaming past the men huddled behind trees mighty enough to turn even the great pachyderms of the Inner World. An armadillo-like Boriostracons shuffled along in their rear and disappeared among the trees, grunting fearfully.

Once he saw that his tribesmen and their allies were as safe as the situation allowed, Kirov turned his attention to the Horde. As he had expected, they had advanced, calmly and deliberately, behind the walls of flesh that had destroyed the first defense line. Wailing sounds came from the approaching enemy.

Kirov ignored the chaos below him, studying the foe, now at comparatively close range. His scientist’s mind observed, made notes, and compared the ongoing enemy with known things….

The average Hordesman appeared to be no more than 100-125 centimeters [three to four feet] tall in the saddle. They were well proportioned men but small![1]

Their steeds were proportionately small – the pony sized Merychippus or Mesohippus of the Pliocene era. They seemed almost dainty as they leaped from body to body, moving quickly over the blood soaked morass that was supposed to be a battlefield.

The tsunami of animals had passed the first defense line, moving into the woods. Who knew what chaos they might cause when they reached the meadow of the Lake of Lodges?

In the meantime, the Pulka Horde advanced. Kirov could distinguish chiefs and lieutenants directing their men. The Horde was much better organized than most Pellucidarian tribes. With their numbers – vast by comparison with almost any other tribe – they would need to be. Kirov wondered briefly about their history…. Later!

The Hordesmen were well armed with short spears and atlatls! Kirov cursed. He had laboriously introduced Central American atlatls to the Dyal Riders and here another tribe had had them for who knew how long! It wasn’t fair!

Again, he shook his head to remind himself that he had to deal with the situation that he found, not the situation that he would like to have.

As the Hordesmen began to enter the Wava Woods, Lal counterattacked. Dyal Riders swarmed out from behind trees, men and birds screaming battle cries in unison. Behind them, Lodge Builder spearmen charged, spears held in one hand as they slapped their thighs in their strange variant of a war cry. As they closed with their enemies, the slapping stopped so that they could thrust their spears with the power of both hands.

A grand melee erupted along the wood line. Lal had judged the moment well. Dyal Rider and Lodge Builder spears cut the first line of horse riders into ribbons. Powerful dyal beaks hacked into horses’ necks. Horses screamed and died. Blood again watered the grasses and mosses along the forest edge.

More waves of horse riders pushed forward over the corpse laden ground. The allied warriors were clearly outnumbered.

A duel of competing atlatls erupted. Dyal Riders armed by Kirov and the Pulka Hordesmen began hurling short spears at the opposing ranks. The air was thick with death.

Meanwhile, the front lines fought with more conventional weapons – spears and clubs. Brawny Dyal Rider muscles had the advantage in contests of strength with their diminutive opponents. Horde skulls split open and horse riders rolled to the hellish field. Less skilled, Lodge Builders jabbed and poked where they could. Their aggressive allies had no monopoly on courage.

But neither did the allies. Hordesmen continued to press forward, smaller weapons flying and taking a surprisingly heavy toll on their larger foes.

Kirov sat down on a convenient tree limb and unslung his latest invention. He fitted an arrow to his bow, sighted at a Pulka chief directing the battle, and fired. The chief went to join his ancestors in the Dead World.

A few arrows later and an alert Pulka discovered the source of swiftly flying death. He pointed Kirov out to some Horde lieutenant who was now acting as chief. Voices shrilled. New Hordesmen came forward, shrike-like birds resting on their arms.

The falconers pointed and unleashed their birds. Powerful wings flapped, carrying the living weapons towards Kirov. He caught one with an arrow before they were upon him.

Beaks stabbed and claws slashed. Kirov fought back with knife and atlatl. Birds died. Kirov’s blood dripped from a dozen wounds, rolling down his body and onto the tree branch. He twisted in position once too often….

Arms flailing, weapons flying, Kirov grasped desperately for a new handhold among the tree limbs.

Cold water splashed into Kirov’s face. He woke, coughing and spitting. He was in darkness. For a moment, he thought that he had gone to the Dead World.

Lal’s beautiful face hove into view. She was smeared with dirt and blood and hammered by exhaustion. She had seldom looked so beautiful.

“Kirov Skalkiller,” she began. Somewhere, a trumpet should have sounded. “You were right. The Horde surrounded us on both sides and overwhelmed us. The Dyal Riders – and the Lodge Builders – have been defeated.”

Kirov sucked in damp air. It seemed as though he had been beaten by experts for hours. He rose painfully to a sitting position. “Where are we now?”

“The lodge of Chirp. All of our survivors retreated to the village of Lodges. For the moment, the enemy is watching us from the woods.” Her voice shifted in tone. Her mouth quirked in a thin smile. “We taught them to fear our spears.”

She paused and continued, “However, they must soon attack the village. You will lead our women and children to safety at the Coldwater River.”

The warrior queen continued, “The wounded warriors will go with you to protect our people. When you arrive, tell Pol, Hortul, and the other war chiefs that the Pulka Horde will soon arrive at the River and attack the River Tribes. They must name a new war chief and defeat the Horde. I think that Pol would be the best leader.”

Kirov coughed. The River was a twelve wakes’ ride on fast war birds. Leading a mob of panicky women and children on an emergency evacuation…!

He took a deep breath. “I go. I ask that Rell go with me as deputy leader of the movement to the River.” Pellucidarian had no word for evacuation.

Lal shook her head. She spoke softly. “Rell the Brave One has gone to the Dead World. When your body fell from the tree, he rescued you and insisted that you would triumph over Death once again. As you have. But a black atlatl struck him in the arm and he died. You were sleeping [unconscious] and unable to rescue him. His face turned black, he coughed blood and he went to the Dead World.”

“’The Dead will honor him’,” quoted Kirov . “There are other brave Dyal Riders who can guide us to the River and safety. What will you do?” He suspected that he knew the answer but had to ask. He made a mental note to find out more about the ‘black atlatl.’

“We will fight the Horde here. It is a strange fortress but a true fortress. It is better to fight them and their small camels here than in the open plains. We will teach them to fear our spears once again.” The smile on her lovely features would have given His Infernal Majesty pause.

A young man dressed in the brown feathers of the Dyal Riders sat his war bird on a slight ridge and surveyed the Plain of Grazers intently. The conclave landscape of the Inner World stretched outward and upward before him like the inside of a tora [tortoise] shell. In the distance, he could see a dirty smudge moving across the rolling plains. As it approached, it resolved into a more or less tidy mob of people walking slowly across the plain. They were guarded by a handful of dyal riders. He smiled and rode to greet them.

Kirov approached the scout. “Hail, tribesman. I am Kirov of Dyal Town. This band is the women and children of our allies the Lodge Builders and Great Camel Riders. We go to the Coldwater River at the order of Lal, chief of the Dyal Riders.”

The scout gulped and then nodded. “Hail, Kirov. The River is less than a half wake’s ride from here.” He pointed behind him.

Kirov nodded weakly but gladly. The journey from the Wava Hills to this point had been a nightmare of fear, exhaustion, thirst and starvation. But, now, they were almost at the River where the allied tribes would shelter the survivors and mobilize a new army to defeat the Pulka Horde and rescue the defenders of the village of Lodges . He would report to deputy chief Pol, see Flana, take a short rest, and then….

The scout coughed. “Great Kirov, there is news from Dyal Town. Zuul the Old has declared that Lal, Pol and you are dead and that he is now chief of the Dyal Riders. He has also declared if you, Kirov , return from the Dead World, then you are a demon from the Sea of Fire [the Molop Az] that must be killed until you return no more.”

The young inventor swayed and collapsed slowly to the ground. His knees folded and hit the soft soil of Pellucidar. For a moment, his still upright body knelt before the bearer of ill tidings. An accusation of demonhood was simply one stress too many. His weary mind closed down.

The scout gawped for a moment. Then he drew his spear. He had his orders from the chief of his tribe. He raised the grim Pellucidarian weapon to the overhead position to stab down into Kirov’s unresisting body. He thrust….

Kirov’s upright body collapsed further. His knees and hip joints folded again, and his body sat down onto his lower legs. The spear passed harmlessly over his head.

Startled, the scout recovered. He paused to look at the semi-conscious man who had evaded death once again. An experienced hunter, the scout had missed his prey often enough but never at such close range. A simple accident or some demonic power? Well, he would not miss a second time. He aimed carefully at his unresisting target….

A rock slammed into his chest, knocking him off balance. He flailed wildly and his savage war bird danced frantically, both of them trying to recover their stance. When they had, the human scout looked about.

Women had come up beside the silent Kirov. They had rocks in their hands and anger on their faces. Behind them were tens of tens of more women, children and a few wounded men.

One woman screamed, “Who threatens Kirov Skalkiller? We kill!” Her brown hair matched her strange brown furs. The scout had never seen any animal with such fur.

“I am Fama of the Great Camel Riders. I am deputy chief of the Women’s Band of the allied tribes. I will kill whoever threatens Kirov, deputy chief of the Dyal Riders and champion of the Women’s Band.” Her arm wavered in mid air, clearly ready to hurl another stone at a fully armed warrior and war bird.

“And I,” echoed another woman dressed in thick furs. The scout had never seen a wava, the great Pleistocene beaver of the Inner World. To him, the savage beauty looked very much like a small ryth, the ferocious cave bear. Behind the leaders, many tens of more women and children were coming forward. They were exhausted by great exertion but hurrying as quickly as they could. More of them stooped, hunting for stones.

“I am Yawl the Swift One of the Dyal Riders. Zuul the Old, chief of the Dyal Riders, has commanded that this… this demon from the Sea of Fire be killed! I obey!” He waved his spear overhead, threatening his challengers but not actually attacking their superior numbers.

The women cocked their arms, ready to throw their stones, but not actually attacking the trained warrior.

The stalemate was broken when another Dyal Rider appeared, riding around the mob of women and children. His war bird was thin and he was even thinner. One arm was bound to his body by grass ropes. But his spear was ready. He looked willing to attack a hunting tarag[2] by himself.

“Hold, tribesman! I am Gul, lieutenant of the Women’s Band. Kirov Skalkiller is no hand-sized demon from the Sea of Fire. He fought the Great Camel Riders at the Lake of Lodges and made them our allies. He fought the Pulka Horde until they surrounded our war band. When Lal commanded him to bring the women, the children and the wounded warriors of the three tribes to safety, he marched for thirty sleeps and brought us here despite the attacks of codons and jaloks. He walked when he could have ridden. He ate little and gave his food to feed the children.

“I have seen Zuul the deputy chief, who was once called the Hunter, eating well when better men bring the meat of thags[3] to Dyal Town. But I have not seen him in battle or on the march. Nor have I seen the judgment of Lal, chief of the Dyal Riders and war chief of the allied tribes, naming Kirov anything but military advisor (which means deputy chief in the land of the Soviet Red War Band Tribe). Therefore, return to Zuul and say that I, Gul, demand proper judgment according to the customs of the Dyal Riders.” He closed his mouth and stared at the scout.

The latter individual looked at Gul, at the fierce women now forming a protective screen around Kirov, at the accused himself. He blushed. Perhaps the thought of fighting women armed with rocks did not appeal to him. Perhaps the justice of Gul’s claim did. In either event, his decision was not long in coming.

“Hail, Gul. You have spoken well. A chief must sit in judgment upon an accused. I go to Dyal Town to demand justice for Kirov known as the Skalkiller.” He raised his spear in a casual salute to Gul. He clucked and his dyal danced backward, turned, and sped away.

Once again, Kirov recovered consciousness with a beautiful female face above him. This time, he did not recognize her. Behind her oval face was a background of reeds waving in the cool breezes of northern Pellucidar.

“Hail, mighty Kirov,” greeted the woman in a soft voice. “I am Bel, a Dyal Rider, and sister to Bol the Messenger. We are in a place of the River People on the Coldwater River. We are on the far shore beyond River Town Island.”

Kirov sat up. His rested mind was functioning again. He looked around. The River People lived on an island in the great Coldwater River, the Volga River of northern Pellucidar. But they maintained small outposts on either bank. The Women’s Band had arrived at the outpost while he was unconscious and occupied the huts of the outpost. A few River People moved back and forth directing traffic and trying to find places for the Band in the overcrowded facilities. Canoes shuttled back and forth between island and outpost carrying people in both directions.

He was lying on the soft ground near the primitive boat slips on the river. Around him were Fama, Gul, Bel and three other men. He recognized one but not the other two.

“Hail, Bol Messenger,” he greeted. “Why are you here?” He had last seen Bol at the Lake of the Lodges before the battle with the Pulka Horde. Seen close at hand, the resemblance between brother and sister was obvious.

The young messenger sighed. “Hail, mighty Kirov. The war bands of the Dyal Riders, Lodge Builders and Great Camel Riders have been defeated by the Pulka Horde. Some have been captured and enslaved. The Horde will come to the great River when they have rested.”

The little circle sighed in unison. Of the strange men, one’s face was impassive. The other was obviously shaken although he maintained a stoic silence.

Bol continued, “We fought them for many wakes and sleeps. We slew chiefs and lieutenants as well as mighty champions and valiant warriors. They feared our spears. And they feared the bows and arrows that you created.” A shadow of a smile raced across his face. “But there were too many Pulka for us to kill them all. Their bodies filled in the straight rivers [canals] of the village of Lodges. Their strange small camels leaped from body to body and advanced over the mounds of the dead without fear. Their hunting birds attacked us from the air. Their weapons are smaller than ours but many of their spears are black. When a black spear struck a victim, he would turn black, spit blood, and die….”

“Science,” corrected Kirov. The word was necessarily Russian but one that he had taught the Dyal Riders as being the source of his numerous “inventions.”

“I do not know the Soviet Red War Band Tribe words but the black spear ‘poison’ slew many brave warriors,” said Bol judiciously. “Some warriors surrendered to the Horde rather than face the black spear death.” He grimaced. The Pellucidarian ideal was heroic courage even in the face of death. The reality was that Pellucidarians were human beings and subject to the same weaknesses of all men and women.

“What of Lal?” asked Kirov quietly. She was the heart and soul of the alliance. Without her, the allied tribes had little chance of resisting the Horde’s sheer numbers. And the Horde’s advanced weapons.

Bol paused. “When I last saw her, she was alive. Lal and the few remaining warriors retreated to a wava dwelling in the middle of the Lake of Lodges. The Horde had no boats and dared not swim across the lake. The wava are not fighters but they will seize an enemy swimmer and drown him.” Bol smiled thinly. “But the Hordesmen were tearing down the dwellings of the Lodge Builders when I escaped. I think that they will build rafts and cross to Lal’s fortress.”

The messenger shook himself and continued. “That was ten sleeps ago. When the Hordesmen cross the Lake to Lal’s fortress, she will slay them until the Lake is red with blood. But they will kill or capture her in the end. Even Lal the Fierce One can not slay tens of tens of men with only a handful at her side.

He reached into his backpack and extracted an assegai – a short stabbing spear that Kirov had copied from the Zulus of the Exterior World and introduced into the Dyal Rider arsenal. “Before she retreated to the Lake , she gave me her short spear and commanded me to find you, Kirov Skalkiller. She appointed you deputy chief of the Dyal Riders in place of Rell the Brave One. Here is her short spear in token of your appointment.” He handed the assegai to Kirov who recognized the royal insignia carved in the middle of the shaft: the head of a gilak with a forest of dyal feathers in his hair. Only Lal or her now dead father had owned weapons with this carving.

Bol was not finished speaking. “Kirov, Lal sends a message by my mouth. She says that you must save the Dyal Riders and the allied tribes. Use your strange magic and invent a solution to the Pulka Horde.

Kirov turned the royal assegai over and over in his hands. His mind raced, seeking a way out of the trap. Then the tumult of images in his head cleared and the face of his intended mate, Flana, appeared. Kirov spoke.

Kirov was picking his way along the banks of the great river when Tsassal the Snake Eater approached. He had wanted some time alone to think things through but his walk was proving anything but relaxing. The marshy shoreland wanted to suck his sandals, feet and legs into the mire. In contrast, the Snake Eater seemed completely unconcerned about the softness of the ground.

“Hail, sure footed Tsassal,” greeted Kirov. “How do you walk so easily in this marsh?”

The normally impassive tribesman’s face twitched into a ghost of a smile. “Hail, Kirov Skalkiller. I place my feet on the handfuls of grass rather than in the mud.” He pointed to the ground. His own sandaled feet were indeed planted on tufts of grass while Kirov’s were centimeters deep in muck.

The young inventor quickly copied the Snake Eater and thanked him. “Why have you come to me, Tsassal?”

“Science,” corrected Kirov again. Something tickled his mind. The native Pellucidarians consistently took science to be magic. The implications….

“I do not care what the name of the magic is in the language of your homeland. But the magic must be powerful to slay a chief especially if you remain on the shores of the River and he remains in the nest of the Dyal Riders.” He pointed in the direction of distant Dyal Town, invisible in the direction of the Mountains of Birds, to emphasize the distance.

Kirov frowned, and swung around to face his ally more directly. Tsassal’s face seemed carved from stone and his voice utterly sincere.

“Of course. How else could you create the strange weapons that you used to defeat the evil Black Birdriders and the Pulka Horde? How else could you kill a monster skal with two spears and a garment? How else could you summon tribes of monsters to attack the Great Camel Riders including a she-ryth whose mate you had previously slain?” He fell silent. There was not the slightest hint of irony in his description.

The cold winds of northern Pellucidar ruffled the hairs of both men. They were warm enough in their heavy clothes, Kirov in a leather undergarment with brown feathers glued to it, Tsassal in a multihued garment of thick hide. Along the great river, birds and creeping animals called, hunted, fed, hid, and lived their small lives.

“Of course. Mighty champions go to the lairs of their enemies to destroy them. You went to the nests of the Black Birdriders and to the village of Lodges to fight your enemies. I do not see Zuul the Old here fighting you.” Did his level voice hide a sneer?

“My father and the fathers of Lal the Fierce and Hortul Paddlemaker pledged that our tribes would fight side by side against all dangers. Zuul would break this pact and hide behind the great river, hoping that the Pulka will not discover boats. He must die. You have the spear of Lal the Fierce. The Snake Eaters will march on Dyal Town when you bid us come.”

Kirov looked down at Lal’s assegai in his hand. In savage Pellucidar, even scientists – or magicians – out for peaceful walks to clear their minds needed to carry weapons for safety. For a moment, he was struck by the resemblance of the assegai to a stage magician’s wand.

Tsassal snorted. “Snake Eaters know poison and how to handle it. We do not fear it.” He tapped himself on the chest.

Kirov nodded sagely. “The Snake Eaters have great power.” The Pellucidarian language had no word for mana, the magical power that many primitive peoples believed underlay all things. Eating one’s enemies to gain their power was another primitive belief. Kirov was suddenly glad for his college anthropology courses. “I understand why the Dyal Riders and the other tribes are glad that your people are our allies.”

There was another pause. Kirov sighed deeply and shook his head. He seemed deep in thought. Tsassal waited for his strange leader to express himself. When the young inventor turned to look across the Coldwater River, Tsassal spoke.

“I will go to Dyal Town to confront Zuul the Evil One in his lair and free the Dyal Riders from his spell. I ask that you and the other loyal war chiefs go with me.”

The phlegmatic Snake Eater grunted approval and said, “Of course, I will go with you. We will slay Zuul’s band to the last man.”

Kirov smiled and said, “Come, my friend. We will return to the River outpost. I need to convert my bow and arrows into a fire drill.”

Zuul the Old One, self proclaimed chief of the Dyal Riders, was on the throne of his tribal kingdom when the demon’s messenger rode into Dyal Town. The latter was quickly escorted to the presence of the man who would be king.

Bol the Messenger rode to the plaza in front of the “palace” where Lal and her family had lived for generations. He looked at Zuul with contempt but saluted with his upraised hand. Zuul’s guards had confiscated all of his weapons at the entrance to the town lest a raised spear turn into an assassination.

Despite this precaution, fear washed over Zuul’s face when he gazed upon Bel’s brother. Bel’s abrupt departure from Dyal Town might be misunderstood by Bol – or anyone else who respected women. Zuul summoned his nerve and beckoned the messenger forward. Behind his back, a guard flushed at Zuul’s failure to return Bol’s salute.

Bol cooed to his dyal. The hard ridden war bird crouched down. The messenger unstrapped himself from his primitive saddle and stood tall before the chief and his guards. Bol grimaced at the sight of warriors surrounding the pasty faced chief. Neither Lal nor her father had ever needed guards against other Dyal Riders. He began to speak.

“Chief of the Dyal Riders!” snapped the Old One. His withered face flushed with sudden anger. His voice was still strong.

Bol glared at the interruption. He breathed deeply to calm himself and began again. “Hail, Zuul, chief of Dyal Town– ”

“— Kirov Skalkiller, deputy chief of the Dyal Riders, sends a message by my mouth. He comes to Dyal Town with the war chiefs of the allied tribes. He will be here in three waking periods.”

Zuul paled. His voice quavered. “For what p-p-purpose does the demon Kirov come to Dyal Town?”

Three waking periods later, Kirov approached Dyal Town as promised. He rode a well groomed dyal like a king.

With him came the war chiefs of the allied tribes who lived in the great shallow valley of the Coldwater River and the Women’s Band of refugees from the battles of the Wava Woods. In numbers, they were a formidable host. In fighting power, much less so.

His followers could not see into Kirov’s mind and he was grateful for that inability. He had trained much of his life to become a scientist. He had never been a magician before now.

The allied “forces” approached Dyal Town, the primitive city of the Dyal Riders, and primary meeting place of the allied tribes. The site was a grove of oak-like trees watered by springs and small streams threading the Plain of Grazers. The Dyal Riders had built their thick walled huts under the trees to protect themselves from the aerial menace of the Black Birdriders, now dispersed by a civil war triggered by Kirov many sleeps ago. The city was surrounded by a palisade of wooden stakes to prevent the great carnivores of the Plain – or even a stampeding herd of herbivores – from overrunning its homes. Beyond the wall was the endless sea of grasses and beautiful flowers that cloaked the Plain and fed the grazers from which it drew its name. Strange perfumes arose as the feet of the allied forces crushed flowers.

Zuul’s “home guard” was drawn up to defend their city – and its chief. Zuul himself sat on his royal stool outside the main entrance to the city with guards thickly packed around him. Every able bodied Dyal Rider male clogged the entrance, weapons in hand. Dyal Rider children and females peered out from the stakes of the town wall. Puzzled faces revealed inner turmoil. A sensitive nose might detect the scent of fear.

As agreed to by a volley of messengers riding back and forth, Kirov’s forces stopped two spear’s throws outside the wall. The allied war chiefs rode forward half the distance to the entrance, halted their dyals and dismounted. The refugees behind them were silent, intent on the mounting confrontation. Even the cold winds that chilled northern Pellucidar were quiet.

Kirov stepped forward from the knot of chiefs, accompanied only by Bol, Fama, and Tsassal. They walked half a spear’s throw towards Zuul and stopped.

Kirov was armed only with the assegai of Lal the Fierce, the absent – and possibly dead – chief of the Dyal Riders and heart of the allied tribes. Bol and Tsassal carried the spears, knives and hatchets of primitive warriors. Fama carried several water skins.

Finally, Bol shouted, “Hail, Zuul, Old One. Kirov Skalkiller has approached for judgment. It was agreed that you would come forth and meet him as one chief to another.”

Kirov did his best to project an air of complete confidence tinged with irritation at Zuul’s stalling.

Eyes turned to Zuul, who sat frozen on his throne, sweat beading on his forehead. Finally, he stuttered, “The-the d-d-demon K-kirov is no chief of the Dyal Riders. He must approach me-me for my judgment.”

A furious expression darkened Bol’s face. His fellows remained impassive. “Lal the Fierce appointed Kirov Skalkiller second deputy chief of the Dyal Riders in place of Rell the Brave One who fell in battle at Lodges. He holds her short spear in token of his appointment.” He gestured and Kirov held the assegai aloft in both hands, displaying it for the Dyal Town crowd. The latter saw many heads nodding in agreement. His own followers had seen it several times before. After a moment, he lowered his arms.

Bol continued, “Therefore, third deputy chief Zuul should meet with second deputy chief Kirov as equals. As Zuul agreed by the mouth of his messenger Yawl the Swift One!”

Yawl himself stood beside Zuul along with Ala, the former queen of the Black Birdriders, and several Dyal Riders that Kirov knew only slightly. One lanky Dyal Rider seemed familiar for some reason. Had that man been at the battles in the Wava Woods? The familiar face looked away when he saw Kirov studying him. Two faces that Kirov hoped to see – Pol Taragkiller and Dyryth – were both absent. Pol was the first deputy chief of the Dyal Riders and Lal’s designated heir. Dyryth was an amiable giant and friend to Kirov. Neither would accept Zuul’s pretensions lightly. The other Dyal Riders, it seemed, had accepted Zuul’s assumption of authority and accusations of demonhood….

Or were they merely loyally obeying the man who held the title of deputy chief of their tribe?

Yawl leaned over and whispered in Zuul’s ear. The enthroned chief shook his head violently.

“No demon can be a chief of the Dyal Riders! Therefore, the demon Kirov must approach and receive judgment!”

Bol raised his voice further. “Zuul speaks foolishly! The little demons of the Molop Az are one hand tall! Kirov is twelve hands tall – a man among men! The little demons live in the ground! Kirov lives on the ground among men as men live! The little demons carry pieces of the dead to the Molop Az![4] Kirov is a great warrior, skillful [statesmanlike] chief, and cunning inventor! He makes good weapons and other things for the Dyal Riders and the allied tribes! He is no demon!”

A murmur of agreement broke out among the two crowds. Zuul heard snatches of conversation recalling Kirov’s previous feats, including his freeing of the slaves taken from the allied tribes by Ala’s Black Birdriders. Kirov noticed Ala’s eyes darting across both crowds and back to Zuul. Captivity had not dulled her intelligence.

Zuul rose from his royal stool, shouting for order. “Kirov the Stranger is indeed a demon from the Molop Az! Demons are able to move through the ground with pieces of the dead! Therefore, they are able to disguise themselves as gilaks [human beings] as Kirov has! How can a gilak create strange weapons except by magic from the Molop Az?!

He continued, growing louder and more strident as he shouted. “Has Kirov the Stranger not told us that he comes from a strange world deep under our feet?! A world of alternating light and darkness?! A world with a great fire called The Sun?! A world of powerful magics called science and socialism?! Has he not told us these things himself?! What can his homeland be except the Molop Az, which is a sea of fire beneath our feet?!!”

There was another moment of silence followed by more murmuring. Now the Dyal Town crowd’s reaction supported Zuul’s analysis. Faces turned towards Kirov in wonder – and horror.

He suspected that many among his supporters were waving in their allegiance as well.

Kirov was awestruck by Zuul’s malign brilliance. He had said those things to anyone and everyone who would listen. Those things were the honest truth: a straight forward description of the major features of the Exterior World 800 kilometers below the concave surface of the Inner World.

What Kirov had not considered is how a Pellucidarian – especially a hostile one – would interpret or misinterpret his statements. In retrospect, it was obvious that Pellucidarians would tend to interpret his statements in light of their own cosmology. Even brilliant scientists, trained in analysis and dedicated to discovering truth, were inclined to resist overthrowing established theories and practices when confronted with new evidence. Were Pellucidarians more revolutionary than the men of the Exterior World?

And so the 800 kilometer thickness of Earth’s crust became the depth to a great cavern below the Inner World, a great cavern filled with a Sea of Fire called The Sun.

And so Mikhail Kirillivitch Kirov became a demon in the eyes of many whom he had rescued from the tyranny of the Black Birdriders….

In the common Pellucidarian language the word for stranger also meant enemy.

Kirov sighed deeply in regret. He held himself erect, apparently unmoved, and commanding. He inhaled deeply of the sweet air of savage Pellucidar.

He stepped forward, still carrying Lal’s assegai in both hands. He released the left end of the short spear so that he could gesture with it very much as a stage magician would gesture with his wand.

“Zuul the False One lies!!” shouted Kirov. He pointed directly at his opponent with the assegai. The latter flinched. “He says that he is chief of the Dyal Riders rather than Lal or Pol. In saying this, he lies! He promised by the mouth of Yawl that he would meet me as an equal and render fair judgment. In saying this, he lies! He says that I am a demon and not a gilak. In saying this, he lies!”

“I was a stranger but am now a Dyal Rider. I was a slave – as were many of you – but am now a free man – as are all of you. I was a messenger of the Soviet Red War Band Tribe but am now a warrior of the allied tribes, a man who fought the Great Camel Riders and the Pulka Horde. I fought for you in the roost of the Black Birdriders and in the Wava Woods. I bled for you then as I bleed for you now.”

So saying, he adjusted his grip on Lal’s assegai, holding it near the left end with his right hand. Dramatically, he slashed the sharp left tip across his left palm.

When he completed his circle, he gestured to Fama with the assegai. She splashed a skin bag full of water onto his left hand and arm. Kirov’s blood washed away….

… and was replaced by more red fluid welling up. The wound had not had time to clot.

“I am a man among men,” he said simply as he rotated again, once more showing the allied tribesmen his life’s blood.

When he completed his third circle, Kirov looked directly at Zuul, his left palm clearly visible to his enemy and his enemy’s guards.

There was another pause. Many among Zuul’s followers were nodding in agreement, murmuring their support for the Skalkiller. Their soft words filled Zuul’s ears.

The enemy chief leaped to his feet, panic driven anger chasing fear from his face. He screamed.

“No!!! Kirov the Stranger must be a demon from the Sea of Fire!!! Kill him!!!”

There was a ripple among his guards as some started to obey while others looked at Zuul in confusion.

“Stop!!!” shouted Kirov. The rippling effect halted. Zuul’s guards looked back and forth at the two contending chieftains.

Kirov continued. “Let there be no war among the Dyal Riders or the allied tribes. The Pulka Horde will be here soon and there will be enough fighting for the greatest warrior. Instead, I will gave the spear of Lal to Zuul and accept the judgment of the Dyal Riders and the allied tribes.”

There was an audible sigh of relief among the crowds, especially Zuul’s faction. Clearly there was little appetite for civil war among the defenders of Dyal Town, especially when reminded of the Horde’s approach. None breathed more easily than their chief.

Behind his back, several of Zuul’s guards frowned at him. Ideally, a Pellucidarian chieftain was braver than any ordinary warrior. The guards could not help but compare the courage of Lal and Kirov in confronting their foes with Zuul’s obvious fear.

Kirov advanced towards his judge accompanied only by Fama. His face displayed a bland, submissive expression. Zuul had never lived in the Soviet Union and therefore did not know how readily a Soviet citizen could mask his emotions. In contrast, Bol’s face was dark with anger while Tsassal’s eyes narrowed as if mentally aiming a spear cast.

Zuul noted the strange woman walking beside the condemned. With her burden of water bags, she seemed nothing more than a man’s mate. He pointed to her and addressed Kirov, demanding, “Why does that woman come before the chief of the Dyal Riders?”

Fama spoke for herself, “Hail, Zuul of the Dyal Riders. I am Fama of the Great Camel Riders. I am chief of the Women’s Band and acting chief of my tribe. I come to unite the Women’s Band and the Great Camel Riders to the allied tribes.”

Zuul flushed with pride. Lal and her father had assembled the alliance of the Coldwater River Valley peoples to fight the Black Birdriders. Adding another tribe to the alliance would add more fighting strength to protect his throne from the Horde and cement his authority as chief.

And! Fama was a very attractive woman…! And obedient, too! A powerful chief could not have too many women…!

Kirov and Fama stopped an arm’s length from the swelling Zuul. The latter’s guards had resumed their observant stances, ready to fight but relaxed now that the crisis had passed. A Soviet military commander would say that they were in their Rest positions, spears grounded, knives and hatchets thrust into their primitive thongs and belts.

Kirov raised Lal’s assegai above his head, gripped in both hands again. He spoke loudly, not shouting but his voice carrying.

“I present the spear of Lal, which destroys the enemies of the Dyal Riders!”

Kirov Skalkiller twisted the spear in midair and smashed its blunt right tip into the chest of the man who would be king. Blood gushed forth, vividly coloring the royal torso.

Stunned by the sudden violence, Zuul staggered backward, blood dripping from his costume of brown feathers glued onto a leather undergarment.

Caught off guard by Kirov’s apparent submission, the guards gaped as their leader clapped his hand to his chest and brushed the blood aside.

“Behold the true demon!!!” shouted Kirov as he stabbed his finger at the impact point. “He does not die when killed!!! His wound has healed already!!!”

Kirov thrust both hands into the cool Pellucidarian sky, his bare left hand still dripping blood, his right hand holding the spear of Lal aloft. “I bleed when cut but Zuul does not!! He is the true demon!! He lied to deceive us!! He lied!!”

Ala closed her mouth and opened it again. “Zuul is the true demon! He lied about Kirov Skalkiller who unites our peoples! Death to the demon!”

Astonished, Zuul whirled to confront his suddenly rebellious captive, his face contorted in rage. He screamed, “You lied to me!! You promised me…!”

The shock of physical violence broke an emotional dam. The Pellucidarians had been gripped by powerful emotions, teetering between alternatives. Kirov’s revelation had swept one alternative away.

Yawl the Swift One lashed out, his fist rocking Zuul’s head forwards. The lanky guard that Kirov had half recognized began chanting “Death to the demon!” He struck his erstwhile chieftain again and again.

Other Dyal Riders, furious at being deceived by the demon who had replaced their once respected deputy chief, closed in. The confined space prevented using spears or knives but fists driven by fear and anger were enough.

After many minutes, the mob drew back, panting. In the center of the resulting circle, the bloody ruin that had been Zuul the Old One lay on the ground.

In the exhausted silence, he intoned, “The spear of Lal destroys the enemies of the Dyal Riders.”

“Fetch firewood,” he commanded softly. “Fire will force the demon back to the Molop Az and prevent its return.”

Glad to have clear orders, Dyal Riders ran off to gather the required materials. Soon, a pyre was complete. Kirov and Tsassal lifted the body, spear still thrust through it, onto the wood. A torch was applied.

Kirov watched as the fire consumed the mortal remains of Zuul and the spear of Lal. Whether demon or man, Zuul would never return from the Dead World.

And no one other than tight lipped Tsassal would ever know that Kirov had secretly converted the original spear into a stage magician’s prop. Fama might suspect something but all she knew was Kirov’s instructions to splash water at the appropriate moments.

The young inventor had worked alone preparing his “magic” while the phlegmatic Snake Eater guarded his privacy. First, Kirov had cut off one end of the spear and saved the resulting spear point. Then he had carefully drilled a hollow tube down the length of the shaft. Next had come the trimming of the spear point so that it would slide freely in and out of the tube. Finally, the tube had been filled with watered animal blood and lightly closed with glue. Careful handling had prevented premature breakage.

But the painstaking work had paid off. When the prop smashed into Zuul’s chest, the blunted spear point had been forced into the tube, breaking the glue dams and allowing the blood to spray the enemy chief’s body. Kirov’s pointing and shouting had focused attention on the “demon” rather than the spear.

As the fire burned down to ashes, Kirov became aware of Ala standing demurely beside him. He looked at her, distracted by many thoughts.

“Hail, mighty Kirov, chief of the Dyal Riders and the Coldwater River Valley tribes. I, Ala, am your slave again.” She looked modestly downward. “What do you wish me to do?” she cooed.

“I greet you, Ala.” Kirov paused. “Where is Flana of the Seashore People?”

Ala swallowed and then answered without lifting her head. “Flana has returned to the Seashore People….”

“What?” barked Kirov. “When did she leave?” He took a step closer to Ala, his body stiff with tension. He forced himself to relax, to hear the news in full.

Ala seemed to lose centimeters in height, becoming more vulnerable, more placating. Her voice softened. “A handful of sleeps ago, Zuul announced that he would take Flana as his mate.”

Kirov sucked in his breath. He seemed to expand, gaining centimeters in height. And power. His face darkened before he remembered that Zuul was already gone far beyond any human vengeance.

“Zuul announced that Lal and you were dead at the village of Lodges. Deputy chief Pol and Dyryth had gone to Bari to defeat some monster that threatened your – our allies, the Cave Dwellers. Flana was a stranger in Dyal Town. She fled to the Seashore tribe rather than submit to Zuul’s wishes.” Ala gracefully pointed in the direction that Kirov knew led downriver.

“What about Bel the Clever One?” demanded Kirov. “Or the other women of the Dyal Riders? Would not they protect her?”

Ala bowed more deeply. “Bel had already fled to find her brother beyond the River. And the other women respected Zuul’s authority as chief of their tribe.” Her tone sharpened. “It was easy for them to do since Zuul did not wish them for mates as he did Bel and Flana.” She seemed on the verge of adding something more but held her tongue.

Kirov snorted. He looked across the Plain of Grazers in the direction of the seashore. He had never seen it but Flana had described its wonders many times.

Minutes went by. Around them, the Dyal Riders were resuming their normal lives. Ala could hear voices directing the Women’s Band to safety inside Dyal Town. She peered at Kirov’s thoughtful face. He was even more handsome than ever.

Finally, she asked, “What will you do?” She paused and added the word “Master.”

Kirov continued to gaze into the distance as he answered crisply. “I will go to the seashore and hunt for Flana. If she is willing, she will be my mate.”

Ala’s eyes widened. “No! Master,” she contradicted. There was still a pause before the word “master” but it was noticeably shorter than before.

Kirov’s head jerked to face Ala again. His eyes blazed. “Do you dare defy me?” he snapped. He added, “Slave?”

Ala winced and knelt before him. She scarcely seemed to be the same woman who had enslaved Kirov many sleeps ago. “No, master. I speak to remind you that the Pulka Horde approaches the Coldwater River. You have become chief of the Dyal Riders and the allied tribes. You must defend your people. You do not have time to hunt for one woman.”

Kirov was silent for a long time, his eyes closed, his face contorted in anguish.

Kirov had aged a thousand years in as many heartbeats. “I will defend my people from the Pulka Horde.”

“The Horde approaches,” announced Bol the Messenger as he pointed to a smudge, barely visible far across the upward curving green surface of the Plain of Grazers.

A sardonic smile flickered across Kirov’s face. This was the third time that he had heard those words. In the old Russian saying, The third time is charming. The Horde had overrun the territory of the Lodge Builders and now invaded the Coldwater River Valley – the heartland of the allied tribes.

“Yes,” agreed Kirov. “The Horde approaches our trap.” He spoke with confidence to impress his followers.

A handful of messengers surrounded him, ready to mount dyals and take his words to the war chiefs of the allied tribes. Kirov knew that Soviet generals would be surrounded by a battalion of colonels, majors and so forth. In primitive Pellucidar, the chiefs and lieutenants of the various tribes were commanding their tribesmen. (And tribeswomen.) As war chief of the allied tribes, his staff was himself.

The inward curving surface of the Inner World stretched before him, much like the map tables beloved of Soviet military commanders.

The distant smudge began to resolve itself into smaller groupings. An irregular mass of brown was closest, a tiny whitish blob next, and finally a box of black dots. Based on Kirov’s observations at the Wava Woods, they were easy to identify as a wave of animals fleeing the oncoming Horde, a “company” of Dyal Riders scouting and harassing the enemy, and finally the Pulka Horde itself. The latter was aimed at the low hill on which Kirov and most of the allied war band waited.

The Horde was distinctly smaller than it had been at the Wava Woods. And their great boxlike formation was more ragged. The implications….

“When you brought the last message from Lal the Fierce One, did you not say that the Dyal Riders and Lodge Builders had killed many Pulka tribesmen? Including chiefs, lieutenants and champions?”

The war chief smiled thinly. He suspected that Bol was repeating the word “mighty” to encourage himself as much as his leader.

“Good hunting. Your mighty blows have made them weaker and us stronger.” He raised his voice so that the warriors assembled on the low lying Hill of Warriors could hear him. Some of them passed his words along to the Snake Eaters moving around on the Plain of Grazers at the foot of the hill facing the oncoming Horde. Others passed the words to the boatloads of River People hugging the shore behind him.

Bol glowed with pride. The allied tribesmen murmured. Kirov couldn’t distinguish their words but the tone seemed hopeful.

Far across the Plain of Grazers, the animals fleeing the Horde began slamming into a line of spears planted in the thick grasses. Faint cries of pain echoed in the clear air of the Inner World. Rapidly, a wall of flesh developed in a vast white-brown chevron enclosing the allied warriors.

“Yes,” agreed Kirov. “As we have planned. The Horde leaders will think that the animals have again covered [smothered] our defenses.”

Across the Plain, the small band of Dyal Riders that had been retreating in front of the Horde, harassing them with spears, arrows and atlatls, broke off the running battle and began a headlong rush to Kirov’s right. They raced towards the outpost of the River People on this bank of the Coldwater. Kirov could see the front ranks of the Horde shifting to his right….

A lone Dyal Rider broke off from Yawl’s band, turning at right angles and heading towards Kirov’s left.

Bol shook his head. “I do not understand. Woel the Fearful One fled the battle at the village of Lodges without orders. He brought false news to Dyal Town and caused Zuul the Demon to proclaim you dead and himself chief. Yawl almost killed you. Yet you spared their lives. Why?”

“We need their spears,” answered the war chief as he continued to study the advancing enemy. “And this time Woel’s flight convinces the Horde that they have discovered our secret weakness. Look.”

Still far off, Woel raced through a gap in the line of spears and then straight towards the Hill of Warriors.

Behind him, the Horde’s advance broke into columns. One continued to follow Yawl and his band. Another chased Woel into the gap. Trapped behind the wall of dead and dying flesh caught on the planted spears and the living wall of the Horde, animals panicked and ran in circles. They battered the corpses, each other, the Hordesmen…. The Horde’s advance lost momentum as dozens of Mesohippus riders turned to fight the fear crazed animals. Other Hordesmen – perhaps luckier than their fellows – streamed through the gap, forming a great puddle of obviously confused mounted warriors.

He intended his words for himself but Bol and the other messengers heard him. They whispered among themselves as the vast Horde’s advance broke down.

“Mighty Kirov, we do not understand your thoughts. How have you managed to slow down and confuse the Horde?”

Kirov paused to translate his thoughts into the limited vocabulary of the Pellucidarian language. A Soviet military analyst would say that the Horde had lost unit integrity and that their command and control network had broken down as a result of previous battle losses and a skillful deception operation. Not having centuries of experience with civilized warfare, Pellucidarian simply lacked those words.

“Men and women of the allied tribes, the Horde gains great power by fighting as a single band and by riding their small horses. By the magic of history and psychology (which I will teach you later) we have caused them to believe that they have discovered our weakness. They have foolishly divided their forces and no longer fight as a single band. Their horses are not as agile as our two legged dyals. When they turned to pass through the gap, they lost speed. Now they are confused and must re-form.”

Along the wall of flesh that had been the line of spears, the Horde had ground to a stop. The column chasing Yawl’s “company” towards the outpost slowed and halted. Other “troops” of cavalry attempted to enter the gap but found the space too limited for their preferred maneuvers. Faintly, the allied warriors could hear irate shouting as the Horde leaders attempted to bring order out of chaos.

Woel rode up to the Snake Eaters below the Hill of Warriors, delivered a report, and began picking his way around the allied lines. He visibly preened as he headed toward the outpost where Yawl awaited him.

Finally, strange noises came from the Horde. The faint shouting died away replaced by the thin voice of someone giving orders. The Hordesmen inside the great chevron of flesh began moving forward. Pygmy heads began appearing over the wall as the agile Mesohippi – half the size of horses from the Exterior World – climbed the mounds of dead animals and then jumped down inside the enclosure.

“Snake Eaters!” shouted Kirov. “Come back [withdraw] to the second line of spears!”

The stoic tribesmen thus addressed were the forward most defenders of the Hill of Warriors. They silently turned their backs on the enemy and walked carefully to the second defense line where the Marsh Dwellers and Women’s Band awaited.

The allied leaders could hear Horde voices raised in excitement. This battle was unfolding as they, the Horde, would wish. Their enemies had made the same blunders here as at the Wava Woods. Those enemies were retreating before the battle had truly begun. And behind their foes coursed the mighty Coldwater River, cutting off further escapes.

More and more horse riders became enflamed by the prospect of an easy victory. More and more of them picked up speed. Soon the entire mass of the Pulka Horde was in movement, charging towards the Hill of Warriors. Mesohippus feet – not yet evolved into true hooves – drummed across the Plain.

As they charged, the pygmy horse soldiers’ eyes widened. Their enemies were women! The so called allied tribes must be desperate to place their women in the front line of battle!

Cruel snapping sounds followed by screams of equine pain pierced the thunder of myriad Mesohippus feet.

The legendary warrior prince Alexander Nevsky would be proud of his student and his student’s prehistoric followers.

The Hill of Warriors was an isolated swelling amid the marshy borders of the great river. All around it, firm dirt and rock gave way to sucking mud – mire concealed from Horde eyes by the abundant plants of northern Pellucidar and the picket lines of Snake Eaters. From long experience along the great river’s margins, the Snake Eaters had learned to how to walk apparently normally in muddy terrain. Seeing their enemies ostentatiously defending the Hill, the Hordesmen had assumed that the ground beneath the defenders’ feet was solid….

Mesohippi plunged into the mire, legs breaking, bodies shattering, and hearts failing. Their riders catapulted into the air, some landing in yielding ooze where they would be trampled by succeeding waves of their own tribesmen, others slamming into the spear wall of the Women’s Band, solidly braced against rock and earth. Behind them, more and more horse riders crashed into the chaos of death and dying.

Hordesmen who attempted to turn around ran into the atlatls and assegais of the Dyal Rider bands of Yawl and Gul closing in from the right and left rear. Those who went forward died on the spear wall. Poisoned arrows flew – and bounced off the snakeskin armor of the Snake Eaters and the leather shields of the Women’s Band. Falconers launched their strike-like attack birds – only to lose them to volleys of arrows fired by River People archers concealed behind the front lines. When the birds were dead, the archers redirected their fire onto the struggling mass of horse riders.

Tsassal and Woel escorted a Hordesman to Kirov. Tsassal was impassive in victory. Woel’s face suggested that he had defeated the entire Horde single handedly.

The diminutive Pulka was unsteady on his feet but he held himself upright. He saluted his conqueror. “Hail, mighty Kirov Skalkiller. I am Dolkon, acting chief of the Pulka Horde. Pulk the Great and his sons are dead. Ka-goda [I surrender to you]. I ask for the lives of my people.”

There was a moment of silence as Kirov and the assembled representatives of the allied tribes studied their foe. To them, he was no bigger than a child. Yet, his people had proven a greater threat than the once feared Black Birdriders.

Kirov’s eyes rested on a reed-impaled bag under Dolkon’s arm. Bagpipes!, he realized. That was how the pygmies had managed to control an army that was huge by Pellucidarian standards. There was so much to learn about Pellucidar; so much that the various tribes could teach each other.

“I greet you, Dolkon of the Pulka. You must surrender all of your peoples to us. We will spare your lives if you serve us well.”

Dolkon grimaced but nodded. In savage Pellucidar, slavery was the merciful option.

Kirov pointed to Fama, who was leaning on her reddened spear. “Behold Fama of the Great Camel Rider Tribe. A double handful of sleeps ago, the Great Camel Riders fought the allied tribes. Now, they are allies. The Pulka Horde may become a free people again when you have served us for a time.”

“You must also surrender all gilaks [human beings of normal stature] to me. They will return to their tribes and families. Your people will serve them to repay the death that you have caused.

“And you must surrender the secrets of your magic –” Kirov pointed to the bagpipes “—to us. In return, we will teach you the secrets of our magic when you are ready to learn them.”

Some of the assembled allies looked at Kirov askance but eventually all of them nodded their heads in agreement.

Allied eyes followed his movement – and thereby missed the look of astonishment that crossed Kirov’s face.

Kirov paused to survey his kingdom. The slaves of the Small Horse Rider tribe – formerly the Pulka Horde – were laboring to cover the bodies of their fallen kinsmen and conquerors alike with earth. The numerous scavengers of the Inner World – prehistoric rats, wolves, jackals, and vultures – were circling the rapidly growing mound but they would retreat unfed. Instead, the little demons of the Molop Az would soon do their rightful job and convey the flesh of the bodies to the Sea of Fire far below Pellucidar while the spirits of the valiant dead would go to the Dead World.

Dyal Riders – a tiny remnant of the once powerful tribe but proud defenders and victors nonetheless – escorted the Small Horse women and children to their new homes.

Kirov’s knowledge of first aid would save many lives and limbs. Gul’s broken arm was almost healed and he was loud in his praises of the tribes’ new king.

Ala was waiting for him when he reached the River People’s outpost. She smiled. “Hail mighty Kirov. You are again victorious. You have become the chief of all the allied tribes.”

Ala looked longingly into his face. She sighed, “Will you now take a mate, powerful Kirov?”

[1] Dr. Christopher E. Niemeyer of the College of William & Mary has suggested that the Pulka Hordesmen are similar if not identical to the Homo florensis species of humanoids whose remains were discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia in the late 20^th Century. Since Mikhail Kirov entered Pellucidar almost 70 years prior to that discovery, he would not be aware of that possibility and therefore referred to the Pulka tribesmen as “pygmies.” Also see Abner Perry, “A Survey of Pellucidarian Hominids”, The Journal of Pellucidarian Anthropology, August 2010.

[2] The savage saber tooth cat of Pellucidar. Tarags are not only physically powerful and armed with fearsome natural weapons but highly intelligent and capable of coordinating bands of its fellows in hunting vast numbers of lesser animals including men. – Ed.

[3] A corvine animal similar to a bull or elk. Considered a great delicacy by most Pellucidarian tribes. – Ed.

[4] The most common Pellucidarian explanation for the normal process of decay. Most Pellucidarian tribes believe that their world is a limitless plain of solid rock floating on a sea of molten rock, the Molop Az, or Sea of Fire. Volcanic eruptions provide evidence that the Molop Az is capable of breaking through into the material world. In addition, the Molop Az is the home of small demons who pick corpses apart and transport the remains to their homes in the Sea of Fire. – Ed.

This story was originally serialized in the National Capital Panthans Journal in issues #159 through 169 (but not in 160) from January to November of 2010, and is reprinted here with permission of the author. All rights reserved.