The Island Under the Earth Read Online Free
Author: Avram Davidson
sure,” Captain Stag said, thoughtfully, “are shorter than others…. Just for the present, we’ll do better in the hills. Nobody will be nosing around up there. Afterwards, when the ashes are cold …” He didn’t finish the sentence. Perhaps he had not meant to finish it. At any rate he stopped … everyone stopped … everything stopped …
For quite a few seconds nothing moved, neither men nor women nor beasts. No breath of wind disturbed the hot air and the very grass upon the ground was still. There was nothing different to be seen, only the towering boulders and here and there a twisted tree, as far as eye could reach. And then they began to hear it … had, probably, been stopped in the first place by having heard it but so low that the mind had not fully perceived the burden of the ear … a low and humming sort of noise … low at first … like the low, dull, swarming sound of bees … like the high, shrill, piercing sound of gnats …
“What — ?” They looked at each other, puzzled.
“What — ?”
They looked at each other, confused.
“What! What!”
They shouted at each other, amazed.
The woman who had lost her children began to scream, there were words in the scream, but they could not make them out, for the maddening noise was louder and louder and was all about them now; the woman who had lost her children began to tug and to pull at Stag’s woman — A rock came hurtling through the air, and another, and then volleys of rocks. One caught Stag and hurled him half off his feet; one knee and one hand on the ground, he saw his woman come tumbling out of her litter, heard a cry of “Sixies! Sixies!
Sixies —
” the last repetition prolonging itself indefinitely upon the troubled air; and the ground shook to the sound of the hooves of the centaurs.
Chapter Four
Around and around they went, now thudding on four legs and now up in the air to thud on only two and menace with the other four, bellowing, beating their shag breasts with the flats of their odd-shaped hands, beards flowing into manes, teeth gleaming, eyes rolling — now and again one or two together of them would sally out of the circling swarm and come dashing forward as though bent on riding down the people who had automatically come close together: the bosun with his cutlass drawn, the captain with javelin and sword: but though they snarled and shouted, at each feint of the man-weapons they returned once more to the whirling circle.
It was a shout from the bosun which made Stag turn half around to follow look and gesture: a black centaur-stallion with rage-reddened eyes was rushing in upon them with a boulder held aloft in both his hairy hands. He faltered just a moment, as though upset at not being able to hurl and escape unseen whilst (on the other side of the beleaguered humans) two brindle cob-centaurs were capering and clashing their hooves in evident intent to distract — only a moment — then he came on, came on — but in that moment Stag had loosed his javelin. It struck the half-human in the thicket of his upper flank, where man-trunk joined beast-body, and fell to the torn and trampled soil.
The creature’s eyes widened, he let the boulder fall and struck one hand to his head and the other to his gashed and bleeding side. One moment only he swayed and trembled. Then, with his chest trembling from the deep and endless roar of rage which issued from it, he came hurtling straight at Stag, who raised the sword, and went hurtling past him … but, as he went by, he lifted the hand which had been cupped to his bleeding wound and dashed it at the one who had wounded him: then he followed full among his fellows and was lost from sight.
Stag, meanwhile, saw his own sight obscured by a haze of tears of agony. The centaur’s blood had struck him full on the side of his face, it burned him like a thousand fires. He fell to his knees and screamed his agony aloud. He saw his woman and his man standing, stricken and uncertain,
For quite a few seconds nothing moved, neither men nor women nor beasts. No breath of wind disturbed the hot air and the very grass upon the ground was still. There was nothing different to be seen, only the towering boulders and here and there a twisted tree, as far as eye could reach. And then they began to hear it … had, probably, been stopped in the first place by having heard it but so low that the mind had not fully perceived the burden of the ear … a low and humming sort of noise … low at first … like the low, dull, swarming sound of bees … like the high, shrill, piercing sound of gnats …
“What — ?” They looked at each other, puzzled.
“What — ?”
They looked at each other, confused.
“What! What!”
They shouted at each other, amazed.
The woman who had lost her children began to scream, there were words in the scream, but they could not make them out, for the maddening noise was louder and louder and was all about them now; the woman who had lost her children began to tug and to pull at Stag’s woman — A rock came hurtling through the air, and another, and then volleys of rocks. One caught Stag and hurled him half off his feet; one knee and one hand on the ground, he saw his woman come tumbling out of her litter, heard a cry of “Sixies! Sixies!
Sixies —
” the last repetition prolonging itself indefinitely upon the troubled air; and the ground shook to the sound of the hooves of the centaurs.
Chapter Four
Around and around they went, now thudding on four legs and now up in the air to thud on only two and menace with the other four, bellowing, beating their shag breasts with the flats of their odd-shaped hands, beards flowing into manes, teeth gleaming, eyes rolling — now and again one or two together of them would sally out of the circling swarm and come dashing forward as though bent on riding down the people who had automatically come close together: the bosun with his cutlass drawn, the captain with javelin and sword: but though they snarled and shouted, at each feint of the man-weapons they returned once more to the whirling circle.
It was a shout from the bosun which made Stag turn half around to follow look and gesture: a black centaur-stallion with rage-reddened eyes was rushing in upon them with a boulder held aloft in both his hairy hands. He faltered just a moment, as though upset at not being able to hurl and escape unseen whilst (on the other side of the beleaguered humans) two brindle cob-centaurs were capering and clashing their hooves in evident intent to distract — only a moment — then he came on, came on — but in that moment Stag had loosed his javelin. It struck the half-human in the thicket of his upper flank, where man-trunk joined beast-body, and fell to the torn and trampled soil.
The creature’s eyes widened, he let the boulder fall and struck one hand to his head and the other to his gashed and bleeding side. One moment only he swayed and trembled. Then, with his chest trembling from the deep and endless roar of rage which issued from it, he came hurtling straight at Stag, who raised the sword, and went hurtling past him … but, as he went by, he lifted the hand which had been cupped to his bleeding wound and dashed it at the one who had wounded him: then he followed full among his fellows and was lost from sight.
Stag, meanwhile, saw his own sight obscured by a haze of tears of agony. The centaur’s blood had struck him full on the side of his face, it burned him like a thousand fires. He fell to his knees and screamed his agony aloud. He saw his woman and his man standing, stricken and uncertain,
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