CHAPTER X.

KAR KOMAK, THE BOWMAN

As Carthoris moved through the forest toward the distant cliffs with

Thuvia’s hand still tight pressed in his, he wondered a little at the

girl’s continued silence, yet the contact of her cool palm against his

was so pleasant that he feared to break the spell of her new-found

reliance in him by speaking.

Onward through the dim wood they passed until the shadows of the quick

coming Martian night commenced to close down upon them. Then it was

that Carthoris turned to speak to the girl at his side.

They must plan together for the future. It was his idea to pass through

the cliffs at once if they could locate the passage, and he was quite

positive that they were now close to it; but he wanted her assent to

the proposition.

As his eyes rested upon her, he was struck by her strangely ethereal

appearance. She seemed suddenly to have dissolved into the tenuous

substance of a dream, and as he continued to gaze upon her, she faded

slowly from his sight.

For an instant he was dumbfounded, and then the whole truth flashed

suddenly upon him. Jav had caused him to believe that Thuvia was

accompanying him through the wood while, as a matter of fact, he had

detained the girl for himself!

Carthoris was horrified. He cursed himself for his stupidity, and yet

he knew that the fiendish power which the Lotharian had invoked to

confuse him might have deceived any.

Scarce had he realized the truth than he had started to retrace his

steps toward Lothar, but now he moved at a trot, the Earthly thews that

he had inherited from his father carrying him swiftly over the soft

carpet of fallen leaves and rank grass.

_Thuria_’s brilliant light flooded the plain before the walled city of

Lothar as Carthoris broke from the wood opposite the great gate that

had given the fugitives egress from the city earlier in the day.

At first he saw no indication that there was another than himself

anywhere about. The plain was deserted. No myriad bowmen camped now

beneath the overhanging verdure of the giant trees. No gory heaps of

tortured dead defaced the beauty of the scarlet sward. All was silence.

All was peace.

The Heliumite, scarce pausing at the forest’s verge, pushed on across

the plain toward the city, when presently he descried a huddled form in

the grass at his feet.

It was the body of a man, lying prone. Carthoris turned the figure over

upon its back. It was Jav, but torn and mangled almost beyond

recognition.

The prince bent low to note if any spark of life remained, and as he

did so the lids raised and dull, suffering eyes looked up into his.

“The Princess of Ptarth!” cried Carthoris. “Where is she? Answer me,

man, or I complete the work that another has so well begun.”

“Komal,” muttered Jav. “He sprang upon me . . . and would have devoured

me but for the girl. Then they went away together into the wood—the

girl and the great banth . . . her fingers twined in his tawny mane.”

“Which way went they?” asked Carthoris.

“There,” replied Jav faintly, “toward the passage through the cliffs.”

The Prince of Helium waited to hear no more, but springing to his feet,

raced back again into the forest.

It was dawn when he reached the mouth of the dark tunnel that would

lead him to the other world beyond this valley of ghostly memories and

strange hypnotic influences and menaces.

Within the long, dark passages he met with no accident or obstacle,

coming at last into the light of day beyond the mountains, and no great

distance from the southern verge of the domains of the Torquasians, not

more than one hundred and fifty haad at the most.

From the boundary of Torquas to the city of Aaanthor is a distance of

some two hundred haads, so that the Heliumite had before him a journey

of more than one hundred and fifty Earth miles between him and

Aaanthor.

He could at best but hazard a chance guess that toward Aaanthor Thuvia

would take her flight. There lay the nearest water, and there might be

expected some day a rescuing party from her father’s empire; for

Carthoris knew Thuvan Dihn well enough to know that he would leave no

stone unturned until he had tracked down the truth as to his daughter’s

abduction, and learned all that there might be to learn of her

whereabouts.

He realized, of course, that the trick which had laid suspicion upon

him would greatly delay the discovery of the truth, but little did he

guess to what vast proportions had the results of the villainy of Astok

of Dusar already grown.

Even as he emerged from the mouth of the passage to look across the

foothills in the direction of Aaanthor, a Ptarth battle fleet was

winging its majestic way slowly toward the twin cities of Helium, while

from far distant Kaol raced another mighty armada to join forces with

its ally.

He did not know that in the face of the circumstantial evidence against

him even his own people had commenced to entertain suspicions that he

might have stolen the Ptarthian princess.

He did not know of the lengths to which the Dusarians had gone to

disrupt the friendship and alliance which existed between the three

great powers of the eastern hemisphere—Helium, Ptarth and Kaol.

How Dusarian emissaries had found employment in important posts in the

foreign offices of the three great nations, and how, through these men,

messages from one jeddak to another were altered and garbled until the

patience and pride of the three rulers and former friends could no

longer endure the humiliations and insults contained in these falsified

papers—not any of this he knew.

Nor did he know how even to the last John Carter, Warlord of Mars, had

refused to permit the jeddak of Helium to declare war against either

Ptarth or Kaol, because of his implicit belief in his son, and that

eventually all would be satisfactorily explained.

And now two great fleets were moving upon Helium, while the Dusarian

spies at the court of Tardos Mors saw to it that the twin cities

remained in ignorance of their danger.

War had been declared by Thuvan Dihn, but the messenger who had been

dispatched with the proclamation had been a Dusarian who had seen to it

that no word of warning reached the twin cities of the approach of a

hostile fleet.

For several days diplomatic relations had been severed between Helium

and her two most powerful neighbors, and with the departure of the

ministers had come a total cessation of wireless communication between

the disputants, as is usual upon Barsoom.

But of all this Carthoris was ignorant. All that interested him at

present was the finding of Thuvia of Ptarth. Her trail beside that of

the huge banth had been well marked to the tunnel, and was once more

visible leading southward into the foothills.

As he followed rapidly downward toward the dead sea-bottom, where he

knew he must lose the spoor in the resilient ochre vegetation, he was

suddenly surprised to see a naked man approaching him from the

north-east.

As the fellow drew closer, Carthoris halted to await his coming. He

knew that the man was unarmed, and that he was apparently a Lotharian,

for his skin was white and his hair auburn.

He approached the Heliumite without sign of fear, and when quite close

called out the cheery Barsoomian “kaor” of greeting.

“Who are you?” asked Carthoris.

“I am Kar Komak, odwar of the bowmen,” replied the other. “A strange

thing has happened to me. For ages Tario has been bringing me into

existence as he needed the services of the army of his mind. Of all the

bowmen it has been Kar Komak who has been oftenest materialized.

“For a long time Tario has been concentrating his mind upon my

permanent materialization. It has been an obsession with him that some

day this thing could be accomplished and the future of Lothar assured.

He asserted that matter was nonexistent except in the imagination of

man—that all was mental, and so he believed that by persisting in his

suggestion he could eventually make of me a permanent suggestion in the

minds of all creatures.

“Yesterday he succeeded, but at such a time! It must have come all

unknown to him, as it came to me without my knowledge, as, with my

horde of yelling bowmen, I pursued the fleeing Torquasians back to

their ochre plains.

“As darkness settled and the time came for us to fade once more into

thin air, I suddenly found myself alone upon the edge of the great

plain which lies yonder at the foot of the low hills.

“My men were gone back to the nothingness from which they had sprung,

but I remained—naked and unarmed.

“At first I could not understand, but at last came a realization of

what had occurred. Tario’s long suggestions had at last prevailed, and

Kar Komak had become a reality in the world of men; but my harness and

my weapons had faded away with my fellows, leaving me naked and unarmed

in a hostile country far from Lothar.”

“You wish to return to Lothar?” asked Carthoris.

“No!” replied Kar Komak quickly. “I have no love for Tario. Being a

creature of his mind, I know him too well. He is cruel and tyrannical—a

master I have no desire to serve. Now that he has succeeded in

accomplishing my permanent materialization, he will be unbearable, and

he will go on until he has filled Lothar with his creatures. I wonder

if he has succeeded as well with the maid of Lothar.”

“I thought there were no women there,” said Carthoris.

“In a hidden apartment in the palace of Tario,” replied Kar Komak, “the

jeddak has maintained the suggestion of a beautiful girl, hoping that

some day she would become permanent. I have seen her there. She is

wonderful! But for her sake I hope that Tario succeeds not so well with

her as he has with me.

“Now, red man, I have told you of myself—what of you?”

Carthoris liked the face and manner of the bowman. There had been no

sign of doubt or fear in his expression as he had approached the

heavily-armed Heliumite, and he had spoken directly and to the point.

So the Prince of Helium told the bowman of Lothar who he was and what

adventure had brought him to this far country.

“Good!” exclaimed the other, when he had done. “Kar Komak will

accompany you. Together we shall find the Princess of Ptarth and with

you Kar Komak will return to the world of men—such a world as he knew

in the long-gone past when the ships of mighty Lothar ploughed angry

Throxus, and the roaring surf beat against the barrier of these parched

and dreary hills.”

“What mean you?” asked Carthoris. “Had you really a former actual

existence?”

“Most assuredly,” replied Kar Komak. “In my day I commanded the fleets

of Lothar—mightiest of all the fleets that sailed the five salt seas.

“Wherever men lived upon Barsoom there was the name of Kar Komak known

and respected. Peaceful were the land races in those distant days—only

the seafarers were warriors; but now has the glory of the past faded,

nor did I think until I met you that there remained upon Barsoom a

single person of our own mould who lived and loved and fought as did

the ancient seafarers of my time.

“Ah, but it will seem good to see men once again—real men! Never had I

much respect for the landsmen of my day. They remained in their walled

cities wasting their time in play, depending for their protection

entirely upon the sea race. And the poor creatures who remain, the

Tarios and Javs of Lothar, are even worse than their ancient forbears.”

Carthoris was a trifle skeptical as to the wisdom of permitting the

stranger to attach himself to him. There was always the chance that he

was but the essence of some hypnotic treachery which Tario or Jav was

attempting to exert upon the Heliumite; and yet, so sincere had been

the manner and the words of the bowman, so much the fighting man did he

seem, but Carthoris could not find it in his heart to doubt him.

The outcome of the matter was that he gave the naked odwar leave to

accompany him, and together they set out upon the spoor of Thuvia and

Komal.

Down to the ochre sea-bottom the trail led. There it disappeared, as

Carthoris had known that it would; but where it entered the plain its

direction had been toward Aaanthor and so toward Aaanthor the two

turned their faces.

It was a long and tedious journey, fraught with many dangers. The

bowman could not travel at the pace set by Carthoris, whose muscles

carried him with great rapidity over the face of the small planet, the

force of gravity of which exerts so much less retarding power than that

of the Earth. Fifty miles a day is a fair average for a Barsoomian, but

the son of John Carter might easily have covered a hundred or more

miles had he cared to desert his new-found comrade.

All the way they were in constant danger of discovery by roving bands

of Torquasians, and especially was this true before they reached the

boundary of Torquas.

Good fortune was with them, however, and although they sighted two

detachments of the savage green men, they were not themselves seen.

And so they came, upon the morning of the third day, within sight of

the glistening domes of distant Aaanthor. Throughout the journey

Carthoris had ever strained his eyes ahead in search of Thuvia and the

great banth; but not till now had he seen aught to give him hope.

This morning, far ahead, half-way between themselves and Aaanthor, the

men saw two tiny figures moving toward the city. For a moment they

watched them intently. Then Carthoris, convinced, leaped forward at a

rapid run, Kar Komak following as swiftly as he could.

The Heliumite shouted to attract the girl’s attention, and presently he

was rewarded by seeing her turn and stand looking toward him. At her

side the great banth stood with up-pricked ears, watching the

approaching man.

Not yet could Thuvia of Ptarth have recognized Carthoris, though that

it was he she must have been convinced, for she waited there for him

without sign of fear.

Presently he saw her point toward the northwest, beyond him. Without

slackening his pace, he turned his eyes in the direction she indicated.

Racing silently over the thick vegetation, not half a mile behind, came

a score of fierce green warriors, charging him upon their mighty

thoats.

To their right was Kar Komak, naked and unarmed, yet running valiantly

toward Carthoris and shouting warning as though he, too, had but just

discovered the silent, menacing company that moved so swiftly forward

with couched spears and ready long-swords.

Carthoris shouted to the Lotharian, warning him back, for he knew that

he could but uselessly sacrifice his life by placing himself, all

unarmed, in the path of the cruel and relentless savages.

But Kar Komak never hesitated. With shouts of encouragement to his new

friend, he hurried onward toward the Prince of Helium. The red man’s

heart leaped in response to this exhibition of courage and

self-sacrifice. He regretted now that he had not thought to give Kar

Komak one of his swords; but it was too late to attempt it, for should

he wait for the Lotharian to overtake him or return to meet him, the

Torquasians would reach Thuvia of Ptarth before he could do so.

Even as it was, it would be nip and tuck as to who came first to her

side.

Again he turned his face in her direction, and now, from Aaanthor way,

he saw a new force hastening toward them—two medium-sized war craft—and

even at the distance they still were from him he discerned the device

of Dusar upon their bows.

Now, indeed, seemed little hope for Thuvia of Ptarth. With savage

warriors of the hordes of Torquas charging toward her from one

direction, and no less implacable enemies, in the form of the creatures

of Astok, Prince of Dusar, bearing down upon her from another, while

only a banth, a red warrior, and an unarmed bowman were near to defend

her, her plight was quite hopeless and her cause already lost ere ever

it was contested.

As Thuvia saw Carthoris approaching, she felt again that unaccountable

sensation of entire relief from responsibility and fear that she had

experienced upon a former occasion. Nor could she account for it while

her mind still tried to convince her heart that the Prince of Helium

had been instrumental in her abduction from her father’s court. She

only knew that she was glad when he was by her side, and that with him

there all things seemed possible—even such impossible things as escape

from her present predicament.

Now had he stopped, panting, before her. A brave smile of encouragement

lit his face.

“Courage, my princess,” he whispered.

To the girl’s memory flashed the occasion upon which he had used those

same words—in the throne-room of Tario of Lothar as they had commenced

to slip down the sinking marble floor toward an unknown fate.

Then she had not chidden him for the use of that familiar salutation,

nor did she chide him now, though she was promised to another. She

wondered at herself—flushing at her own turpitude; for upon Barsoom it

is a shameful thing for a woman to listen to those two words from

another than her husband or her betrothed.

Carthoris saw her flush of mortification, and in an instant regretted

his words. There was but a moment before the green warriors would be

upon them.

“Forgive me!” said the man in a low voice. “Let my great love be my

excuse—that, and the belief that I have but a moment more of life,” and

with the words he turned to meet the foremost of the green warriors.

The fellow was charging with couched spear, but Carthoris leaped to one

side, and as the great thoat and its rider hurtled harmlessly past him

he swung his long-sword in a mighty cut that clove the green carcass in

twain.

At the same moment Kar Komak leaped with bare hands clawing at the leg

of another of the huge riders; the balance of the horde raced in to

close quarters, dismounting the better to wield their favourite

long-swords; the Dusarian fliers touched the soft carpet of the

ochre-clad sea-bottom, disgorging fifty fighting men from their bowels;

and into the swirling sea of cutting, slashing swords sprang Komal, the

great banth.