The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond Hamilton
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as hell and twice as beautiful!”
Golden Wings’ black brows drew together angrily at the open, insolent admiration on the face of Khal Kan. She spoke to her father.
Bladomir looked down frowningly at the tall, grinning young warrior and his two companions.
“Watermen!” grunted the dryland chief contemptuously, using the desert-folk’s name for the coast peoples. “What do you want here?”
“We’re from Kaubos,” Brusul answered quickly. “We had to leave there when the Bunts took our city last year. Being men without a country now, we thought we’d offer our swords to you.”
Bladomir spat. “We of the desert don’t need to hire swords. You can have tent-hospitality tonight. Tomorrow, be gone.”
It was what Khal Kan had expected. He was hardly listening. His eyes, insolent in admiration, had never left the girl Golden Wings.
A shrill voice yelled from the drylanders feasting in the big torchlit tent. A thin, squint-eyed desert warrior had jumped to his feet and was pointing at Khal Kan.
“That’s no Kaubian!” he cried. “It’s the prince of Jotan! I saw him with the king his father, two years ago in Jotan city!”
Khal Kan’s sword sang out of its sheath with blurring speed—but too late. Drylanders had leaped on the three instantly, pinioning their arms. Old Bladomir arose, his hawk-eyes narrowing ominously.
“So you’re that hell’s brand, young Khal Kan of Jotan?” he snarled. “Spying on us, are you?”
Khal Kan answered coolly. “We’re not spying on you. My father sent us into the Dragals to see if the Bunts were in the mountains. He feared that traitor Egir might lead the green men north that way.”
“Then what are you doing here in our camp?” Bladomir demanded.
Khal Kan looked calmly at the girl. “I’d heard of your daughter and wanted to look at her, to see if she was all they say.”
Golden Wing’s black eyes flared, but her voice was silky. “And now that you have looked, Jotanian, do you approve?”
Khal Kan laughed. “Yes, I do. I think you’re a tiger-cat as would make me a fit mate. I shall do you the honor of making you princess of Jotan.”
Swords of a score of dryland warriors flashed toward the three captives, as the desert warriors leaped to avenge the insult.
“Wait!” called Golden Wings’ dear voice. There was a glint of mocking humor in her black eyes as she looked down at Khal Kan. “No swords for this princeling—the whip’s more suited to him. Tie him up.”
A roar of applause went up from the drylanders. In a moment, Khal Kan had been strung up to a tent-pole, his hands dragged up above his head. His leather jacket was ripped off and his yellow shirt torn away.
Brusul, bound and helpless, was roaring like a trapped lion as he saw what was coming. A tall drylander with a lash had come.
Swish—crack! Roar of howling laughter crashed on the echo, as Khal Kan felt the leather bite into his flesh. He winced inwardly from the pain, but kept his insolent smile unchanged.
Again the lash cracked. And on its echo came the voice of Golden Wings, silvery and taunting.
“Do you still want me for a mate, princeling?”
“More than ever,” laughed Khan Kan. “I wouldn’t have a wench without spirit.”
“More!” flashed Golden Wings’ furious voice to the flogger.
The lash hissed and exploded in red pain along Khal Kan’s back. Still he would not flinch or wince. His mind was doggedly set.
Through crimson pain-mists came the girl’s voice again. “You have thought better of your desire now, Jotanian?”
Khal Kan heard his own laughter as a harsh, remote sound. “Not in the least, darling. For every lash-stroke you order now, you’ll seek later to win my forgiveness with a hundred kisses.”
“Twenty more strokes!” flared the girl’s hot voice.
The whole world seemed pure pain to Khal Kan, and his back was a numbed torment, but he kept his face immobile. He was aware that the fierce laughter had ceased, that the dryland warriors were watching him in a silence tinged with respect.
The lashes ceased. Khal Kan jeered over his shoulder.
“What, no more? I thought you had more spirit, my sweet.”
Golden Wings’ voice was raging. “There’s still whips for you unless you beg pardon for your insolence.”
“No, no more,” rumbled old Bladomir. “This princeling’s wit-struck, it’s plain to see. Tie them all up tightly and we’ll send to Jotan demanding heavy ransom for them.”
Khal Kan hardly felt them carrying him away to a dark, small tent, his body was so bathed in pain. He did feel the gasping agony of the jolt as he was flung down beside Brusul and Zoor.
* * * *
They three, bound hand and foot with thongs of tough sand-cat leather, were left in the tent by guards who posted themselves outside.
“What a girl!” exclaimed Khal Kan. “Brusul, for the first time in my life, I’ve met a woman who isn’t all tears and weakness.”
“You’re wit-struck, indeed!” flared Brusul. “I’d as lief fall in love with a sandcat as that wench. And look at the mess you’ve got us into here! Your father awaiting our report—and we prisoned here. Faugh.’”
“We’ll get out of this some way,” muttered Khal Kan. He felt a reaction of exhaustion. “Tomorrow will bring counsel—”
He heard Brusul grumbling on, but he was drifting now into sleep.
Golden Wings’ face floated before him as sleep overtook him. He felt again the strong emotion with which the dryland girl had inspired him.
Then he was asleep, and was beginning to dream. It was the same dream as always that came quickly to Khal Kan.
He dreamed, first, that he was awaking—
* * * *
He was awaking—in fact, he was now awake. He yawned, opened his eyes, and lay looking up at the white-papered bedroom ceiling.
He knew, as always, that he was no longer Khal Kan, prince of Jotan. He knew that he was now Henry Stevens, of Midland City, Illinois.
Henry Stevens lay looking up at the ceiling of his neat maple bedroom, and thinking of the dream he had just had—the dream in which, as Khal Kan, he had been flogged by the drylanders.
“I’ve got myself in a real fix, now,” Henry muttered. “How am I going to get back to Jotan? But that girl Golden Wings is a darling—”
Beside him, his wife’s plump figure stirred drowsily. “What is it, Henry?” she asked sleepily.
“Nothing, Emma,” he replied dutifully. He swung out of bed. “You don’t need to get up. I’ll get my own breakfast.”
On slippered feet, Henry Stevens plodded across the neat bedroom. As he carefully shaved, his mind was busy with remote things.
“Even if Jotan can pay the ransom, it’ll be a week before I can get back there,” he thought “And who knows what the Bunts will be up to in that time?”
Out of the mirror, his own newly-shaven face regarded him. It was the thin, commonplace face of Henry Stevens, thirty-year-old insurance official of Midland City—a face far different from Khal Kan’s hard, bronzed, merry visage.
“I suppose I’m crazy to worry about Jotan, when it may be all a dream,” Henry muttered thoughtfully. “Or is it this that’s the dream, after all? Will I ever know?”
He