Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria Read Online Free PDF Page A

throat, just below its powerful jaw. It screeched furiously, mad with the pain of the keen-barbed arrow, threshing wildly with its wings.
    One wing caught under the rail of the floater’s deck, overturning it. As it spun through the air, Thongor was hurled with stunning impact against the hull. He dangled at the rope’s end, unconscious.
    The bow and quiver dropped from his hands, falling into the jungle far below.
    Hissing with fury, the winged reptile now settled on the upturned keel of the airboat, much as a bird settles on a branch. Its claws tightened about the long rib of the keel, crunching on the smooth blue-white urlium.
    Beneath its heavy weight the floater lost much of its buoyancy and sagged down toward the treetops.
    Thongor still dangled head-downward, unconscious.
    And now a new danger threatened him. Up from among the trees came the hideous horned snout of the dreaded dwark, the jungle dragon. It snuffled at the sinking floater. Leaning its forepaws against the trunk of a gigantic lotifer tree, it extended its enormous length of mailed neck into the sky.
    Lower and lower sank the floater, borne down by the massive weight of the grakk.
    As it sank, Thongor’s helpless body dangled nearer and nearer to the opening jaws of the giant dragon. Still stunned from his collision with the floater’s hull, he was not even conscious of the approaching head of the monster saurian.
    The dwark’s entire existence was one unending and continuous quest for food, to fill its monstrous belly. It was literally capable of eating all day long. Vast quantities of meat were needed to drive the gigantic muscles in its lumbering body.
    The limp form that swung helplessly at the end of the rope smelled like food.
    The huge saurian opened wide its cavernous jaws. Two rows of needle-pointed fangs lined each jaw, and the largest teeth were longer than the Northlander sword that hung at Thongor’s thigh.
    The yawning jaws came closer as the jungle dragon strained its neck to the fullest length. Slimy saliva, reeking like an opened grave, slid down its scaled jaws. The scarlet eyes flamed with the lust of hunger.
    Then another screech rang out. Down from the sky came a second and a third lizard-hawk. As the dwark paused, scanning the sky above, observing the weird shapes that hovered above, the first winged reptile at last felt the deathly power of the war bow’s mighty shaft. It slid drunkenly from its perch atop the crippled airboat and fell flopping down into the jungle, virtually at the jungle dragon’s feet.
    Released from its burden, the weightless ship bobbed upward again, bearing Thongor out of the dwark’s reach—and into the view of the two lizard-hawks.
    While the tiny, dim brain of the giant saurian was striving to understand why its dangling prey was suddenly wafted aloft, far beyond its reach, the scent of the dead lizard-hawk at its feet reached its senses. Abandoning Thongor, it bent to feast ravenously on the body of the winged reptile.
    Thongor came to his senses, taking in the grim situation. Not one, but two lizard-hawks to contend with—the war bow gone, leaving him armed only with his broadsword.
    And the monster dwark directly below.
    He pulled himself up the rope hand by hand and clambered aboard the floater once again, which had returned to its normal horizontal position. If he could crank up the springs that powered the rotors before the two lizard-hawks attacked, he might yet escape. He opened the trap in the deck and began turning the wheel. Gradually the long springs wound tight.
    Meanwhile the two grakks circled the floating craft warily. Their tiny reptilian intelligences dimly comprehended the fact that this weird invader of their skies had in some unknown manner slaughtered one of their kind, whose half-eaten corpse lay far below, under the great jaws of the ravenous dwark.
    Red murder blazed in their hideous eyes.
    Wings folded, they struck the floater simultaneously.
    Still securely fastened to