Manly Wade Wellman - Hok 01 Read Online Free PDF Page B

and yawned. Kimri rose, larger than ever in
the fireglow, and came to the big tree. He examined the knots in the cord and
gave the prisoner a kick.
                 “Tomorrow
you will talk,” he prophesied balefully, and returned to the fire. Zorr built
it up with hard wood. Then the two lay down and fell into quick, healthy
slumber.
                 HOK
listened until the men by the fire began to breathe regularly and heavily. Then
he tried his bonds, cautiously at first, lastly with all his strength; but the
rawhide had been passed many times around him, and was drawn tight. He could
not make it so much as crack.
                 Forced
to lie still, he thought of Oloana and her resentful beauty, of how he had not
tamed her. With the dawn his enemies would awaken and question him again. .Zorr
had hinted of fire-torture. He, Hok, could truly tell them nothing, but they
would never believe. If he were lucky, he might goad them into finishing him
off quickly.
                 He
dozed fitfully at last, but started awake almost immediately. What was that?
... He felt, rather than heard, the stealthy approach of light feet. The
ash-choked fire suddenly cast a bright tongue skyward, and Hok saw the newcomer—a
woman, crowned with clouds of night-black hair. Oloana had tracked him down.
                 She
bent to look at Kimri, at her father. Another tongue of flame rose, and by its
brief glow she saw where Hok lay. Immediately she tiptoed toward him. Her right
hand lifted a javelin— his javelin, brought from the cave.
                 Kneeling,
she slid her other hand across Hok’s chest to where his heart beat, beneath two
crossed strands of rawhide. He looked up into her deep eyes and grinned
mirthlessly. If she but knew how she was cheating her father and her lover, if
she could foresee their rage when they would find him slain and beyond torture!
The flint point came down. He braced himself to meet it. Then—
                 The
rawhide relaxed its clutch upon him. A strand parted, another and another, before the keen edge of the javelin-point. He was free.
Wondering, he rose to his feet, chafing his cramped wrists and forearms.
Oloana, close to him in the dim night, cautioned him to silence with a finger
at her full lips. Then she beckoned. Together they stole away toward the edge
of the bluff.
                 Oloana,
going first, brushed against leaves that rustled. A roosting bird squawked in
sleepy terror and took noisy flight.
                 Next
instant Kimri’s awakening roar smote their ears. Oloana ran like a rabbit down
the slope, while Hok swung around to meet the clumsy rush of his late captor. A
collision, a clasping hug, and again the two who wanted Oloana were straining
and heaving in each other’s arms. Loose earth gave way beneath their feet. They
fell, rolled, and went spinning over and over down the declivity.
                 At
the bottom they struck with a thud, flew sprawling apart, and rose to face each
other. The giant hung back from a new encounter, his hand groping for his
dagger-hilt. But then he flinched and stiffened. In the gloom, Hok fancied that
the wrath on the hairy face gave way to blank surprise. A moment later the huge
form pitched forward and lay quivering.
                 Oloana,
revealed behind him, wrenched the javelin out of his back. She made an
apologetic shrugging gesture with her shoulders.
                 “I
knew that you would win,” she stammered, “but I—wanted to help.”
                 From
the trees above rang Zoor’s shouts for Kimri. Hok extended his hand for the
javelin, but Oloana held it out of his reach.
                 “No,”
she pleaded. “He is my father. Let us run.”
                 TOWARD
dawn, back at the cave where they had parted, Hok again coaxed fire from
rubbing sticks. In its warm light the pair relaxed,