lightly up to the middle terraces and set out on the
return journey to that point opposite Gerdak's caves where he had left
Trakor.

While he had still a goodly distance to go he heard the sounds of
shouting voices and caught an occasional glimpse of a flaming torch
through rifts in the foliage ahead. Evidently Gerdak was not lightly
giving up hope of getting his hands on the man who had made fools of him
and his warriors.

An unerring instinct developed through years of travel through uncharted
terrains brought Tharn to the very tree where he had left his new found
friend. But even as he entered its branches his nose told him what his
eyes verified.

"Trakor," he called out, keeping his voice down lest some nearby enemy
warrior hear it. "Trakor, where are you?"

There was no answer. Trakor was gone.

* * * * *

Even as Sadu left the ground in a final leap aimed at crushing Dylara's
fleeing figure to earth, the girl sprang for a low-hanging branch of a
jungle giant. As her fingers closed about its rough bark she flung her
body to one side, Sadu's cruel talons raking the air scant inches away.
Before the beast could turn and leap a second time she was twenty feet
above it and climbing with the speed of desperation.

She heard the sound of tearing foliage as the lion sprang blindly into
the lower branches, a thump as it toppled back to earth, then an angry
roar of protest at being cheated of its prey. She stopped her climb then
and leaned her head weakly against the bole, panting and shivering from
strain and utter relief.

Below her, Sadu stalked back and forth a time or two, voicing his
displeasure. This lasted for no more than a moment or two, however; Sadu
was too much of a realist to waste time in bewailing his ill luck. The
rumblings of satisfaction from his fellows as they bore their kills into
the forest, the screams of dying men, told him there was food aplenty
back among the fires.

Dylara caught a glimpse of the brute as it slunk swiftly toward the
terrified encampment. She crouched there, watching the awful scenes of
carnage while gradually her heart stopped its mad pounding and the
trembling left her legs and arms. She knew regret that many of the men
she had learned to know and respect were dying so horribly, but the
sight of what went on did not affect her beyond that. Except for these
last few moons all of her eighteen years had been spent practically
cheek by jo