With the River Demon gone, all those lands were open to the capan’s will, and if there were other servants like those who would be guests of honor at the coming feast, then Mack’s greater force would make short work of them, and bring many back as slaves and meat for the table.
He thought of the old captives again. Younger flesh than that, he hoped though his mouth still watered at the thought of the white man’s oysters which would be succulent despite their age.
The butcher had a way... And they would hold great power, for the Johnnies had said it took all of their clubs to bring him down.
After the River Demon...
Seetree cried out and his heart lurched suddenly, for in his distraction and growing drunkenness, he had stumbled close to the mainmast where the demon’s head hung. For a second, shredded bits of flesh had dangled close to his face—the fangs were just there.
He quickly covered his terror with a hearty roar.
CHAPTER 27 – The End Considered
Harkon the huntress was perched high in an iroko tree, weary yet eager, hopeful but unable to resist the notion that she might be coming to the end of her mission and thus her life.
She was guarding a narrow opening in the great tree trunk through which Gazda had crawled to sleep some long hours before. The sun was close to setting, and the few of its rays to penetrate the jungle cast her and the ape-man’s lair into shadow.
Harkon had managed to find a little rough comfort sitting with her back against the tree at the base of a thick branch. She’d wrapped her legs around the limb to keep from falling should she doze after a hasty meal of dried meat, nuts and water.
And she had slept fitfully as the time passed, disturbed by her dreams and the intermittent aches that came from her injured leg. True she was being carried through the jungle on Gazda’s back, but it took great strength to keep from falling off—and there had been moments of peril and strain.
Not that she would ever complain.
In truth, her vendetta against the Bakwaniri had toughened her to the point that she needed little in the way of creature comforts, and would have disdained pillows or down mattresses if such a thing had ever been available to her.
And had she known that they existed, she would have seen any reliance upon such soft things as weakness.
Life had hardened her for the mission, and the mission strengthened her the more, for what use were gentle feelings and luxury to a mother whose child was missing?
Losing Anim and watching the slow extinction of her tribe had hardened Harkon and prepared her for the oblivion she expected in death. Her people had been dying out for generations, and so the elders taught the young to embrace whatever small moments of joy might come, for the final death surely would.
Surviving alone in the jungle had only polished the granite that life had made her into and that abrasive refinement caused Harkon to admire strength above all other things.
The power that surged through the ape-man’s body had put her notions of strength to shame, for he was like a thing made of flexible stone. A stone that seemed to hold the level might of the jungle and earth, perhaps even the sun.
Gazda moved as no living man had ever moved, and his strength might have even surpassed that of the amazing apes. He had rushed east, tearing through the canopy like an unstoppable wind, only slowing at times to descend near the jungle floor to check the Bakwaniri trail.
With her breasts pressed against the sturdy bulwark of the ape-man’s back, Harkon could barely measure the beating of his heart or working of his lungs.
His travel through the constant green had appeared effortless. An excellent thing, too, for their quarry was enlivened beyond belief.
Harkon was impressed by the pace set by the Bakwaniri as they traveled and it seemed that the ape-man felt the same. He had even said as much with an easily translated sign of exasperation after judging the age of their tracks in the undergrowth.
But the huntress had studied her enemy while on the move, and knew their ways. She understood that they maintained their rapid pace in part through discipline but also by consuming a magic drink that she had seen them share. Once she had even recovered a small measure of the substance from her victims but found the bitter potion unpalatable.
The Bakwaniri also maintained their speed by keeping a fairly tight formation, and holding it as the leader set a vocal rhythm to his drumming feet with the group strung out behind him. She knew well the rhythmic chant that carried through the jungle like a rapid and endless version of a bullfrog’s call.
Additionally, the noise made by the masked men scared off all but the most determined predators...
...like Harkon.
She knew the Bakwaniri were mortal, and in time their merciless pace would take its toll, the weakest would slow and fall behind, easy targets for her spear or bow.
The leader of these raiders also had an instinct for finding the best trail to navigate, something any jungle dweller could learn to do when born of the forest.
Harkon knew that for many miles around their village the Bakwaniri had cleared the trails of vine and rock. As they had moved outward in the intervening years of her mission, they cut pathways ever deeper into the forest west of the river.
This made it possible for them to travel at speed closer to home or when crossing the jungle proper, often moving in groups over the wide lanes pounded flat by elephant herds.
A creature like Gazda had no need for such winding ways since he moved as straight as an arrow by throwing himself through the high trees. He had his splendid strength and speed to rely upon and so he liked to lie
