Part 2

Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped the spike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as he faced the burly priest of the Skull.

Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shield of transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed as he saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man.

"So," he said, "to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You do not trust your guards, then."

The priest laughed. "We also have robes of invisibility," he said, "and the sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes." He snarled suddenly at the silent figure of the white man. "Down on your knees, guard, and show me your face before I kill you!"

Noork raised his sword. "Take my hood off if you dare, priest," he offered.

The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward of his sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with the velvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk from the priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut that drew blood from left shoulder to elbow.

The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. He was a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the white man's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even so his robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzed body. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by the slightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon.

The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple, and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunch so well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened his mouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtful whether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of the main temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at his enemy.

Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material the sword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noork leaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and a moment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets.

Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms. Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist and slipped it around her slim shivering shoulders.

"Are there other priests hidden here in the pits?" Noork asked tensely.

"No," came the girl's low voice, "I do not think so. I did not know that this priest was here until he appeared behind you." A slow smile crossed Noork's hidden features. "His robe must be close by," he told the girl. "He must have been stationed here because the priests feared the guards might spirit away some of the prisoners."

Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touched the soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairway entrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by the priest "Uzdon's window" over his hood, and then proceeded to don the new robe.

"My own robe is slit in a dozen places," he explained to the girl's curious violet eyes---all that was visible through the narrow vision slot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took the girl's hand.

"Come," he said, "let us escape over the wall before the alarm is given."

* * * * *

Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among the rows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field, his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was not watching when Rold abruptly faded from view.

Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness of the vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he had no wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozens of the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against the escape of the slaves.

They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hanging as he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helping from below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three of them climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to the jungle matted ground outside the wall.

"Will we hide here in the trees until night?" asked the girl's full voice.

Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. "I think not," he said. "The Misty Ones are continually passing from the island to the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So we will paddle boldly across the water."

"That is good," agreed the slave, "unless they see us put out from the shore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, opposite the Temple of Uzdon."

"Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island," said Noork thoughtfully. "In that way even if they detect us we will have put a safe distance between us."

Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlands of the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in the grassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blistered and the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat.

"Once we reach the jungle," he told the girl, "off come these robes. I am broiled alive."

Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him. "Misty Ones!" he hissed to Rold. "They crouch among the reeds. They carry nets and clubs to trap us."

Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at his heels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they bore them to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than one hooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets and bodies of the enemy.

A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as they were stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiously and a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voice changed--thickened--as he saw the features of Noork.

"So," he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork but was not, "it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich?"

* * * * *

A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of a nose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was that of Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrich had trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase. The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all he remembered.

"I see you have come from the island," said the Doctor. "Perhaps you can tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With the secret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth and make the Fatherland invincible."

"I do not understand too well," said Noork hesitantly. "Are we enemies? There is so much I have forgotten." He regarded the brutal face thoughtfully.

"Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me," he said. "Or perhaps the other bird brought you here."

Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noise that was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork's defenseless ribs.

"Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American," he roared suddenly, and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robe and Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. "Perhaps," the scientist repeated, "but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but a pretense."

His lip curled. "This is something for you to remember, Captain Dietrich," he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered on Noork's bronzed chest.

And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nerveless fingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his wide belly. He stumbled backward.

Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark and his men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies. In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork felt invisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him.

As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering drop aside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed.

"Gurn!" cried Noork.

A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother. And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantles of Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men they concealed. Rold whimpered fearfully.

"The message that Ud carried to me was good," laughed Gurn. "The Misty Ones skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across the lake," he looked at the dying Von Mark, "as were these others. Soon we would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend."

"Lucky I escaped first," Noork told him. "The priests of Uzdon would have trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible."

He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. His chest expanded proudly.

"No longer," he told Gurn, "am I a man without a name. I am Captain Dietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evil man when my bird died."

He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle."

"It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna.

End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman