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

beast or another, or a group of trees too thickly intergrown for him to penetrate. At a rough guess, he would estimate that he had covered fifteen miles, perhaps more.
    And he did not know if he had been going in the correct direction. If he had been aimed away from Kathool, he was a doomed man, for the first city that lay due west was Cadoma, more than a thousand vorn distant, and his bones would rot beneath the sucking fangs of the slith before he could reach its walls.
    Then he became aware of a danger far closer—the tread of mighty feet crushing the underbrush flat not far behind him. From the way the ground shook, he knew with a deadly certainty that it could only mean one thing —the jungle dragon was stalking him.

CHAPTER 4
    Dream Lotus
    Aye, it was an age of magic, when the might of wizards strove against the tides of darkness that hovered over the lands of men like threatening wings. And the world shall not again see such wizardry as reigned of old when proud Lemuria was young…
    — The Lemurian Chronicles ,
Book Four, Chapter One
    The great Valkarthan broadsword sang from its leathern scabbard into the mighty hand of Thongor. His jaw tightened grimly, and beneath his black and scowling brows, his eyes glared with gold fires like the eyes of lions.
    The earth shook about him beneath the massive tread of the lumbering saurian. He could hear the rustle and crack of breaking boughs as the giant reptile shouldered a path through the thick jungle. There was no question that it was a jungle dragon, but whether the same one that had threatened him before when he had dangled limp and senseless from the airboat—this the Valkarthan could not know.
    Nor did it greatly matter. The dwark was hungry—and it had caught his scent.
    Now the young barbarian was no soft, city-bred weakling. The cruel and frozen wilderness of the Northlands had been his boyhood home, and among those weird glaciers and snowy hills no weakling long survives. He had faced and fought a thousand foes ere now. His mighty broadsword had cut a crimson path through a hundred perils. Men, beasts, and demons howling from the scarlet mouth of hell had he been set against, and never had he winced or fled from danger.
    But a mere man alone, however brave, however mighty in battle, had little hope against the titanic reptiles of Earth’s Dawn Age. Against those moving mountains of muscle, the swords of a score of warriors would prove futile. Thus Thongor chose the way of discretion, although it wrung his heart to turn and flee in the face of danger. Yet the warriors of his magnificent race knew there was no taint of cowardice in seeking to avoid combat with the lumbering saurians of their prehistoric age.
    Thus he turned to seek a haven. The nearness of peril drove new strength surging through his weary thews and limbs. He hurled himself through the jungle at the utmost speed possible, seeking the thickest-grown places wherethrough the jungle dragon might be slowed in seeking to crush passage.
    Thom vines slashed his shoulders with needle-sharp barbs as he plunged through their dangling loops. Wiry branches whipped his naked legs. He struggled on, for the thundering tread of the saurian was nearer now. It was gaining on him. Earth shook beneath its massive pads as it crashed through the age-old trees, shouldering a path through the brush and toppling those patriarchs of the Chushan wild that had stood unshaken for centuries ere this hour.
    Panting for breath, he halted by one such tree, and a soft weight fell over his arms. A sweet odor drifted to him and his senses swam. With horror he saw he was in the grip of a slith. The swaying blossom spread soft petals to bare rows of hollow fangs that could drain the blood of a full-grown bouphar in a single hour.
    The vampire-flower emitted a narcotic cloud of perfume that rendered its victims insensible. Senses blurring, Thongor strove to peel the thick, soft petals from his flesh. He felt a numbness spread up his