Bumude had caught the scent of smoke on his sensitive nostrils from several miles away.  As always the thought of fire carried with it the threat of men since fire was a very rare thing in the moist tropical jungle.  Since he was so close to home Bumude  a stab of apprehension pained  him.   Though he felt no fear for himself, thoughts of his mate in danger  quickened  his pace.   Where he had once been proceeding at a leisurely saunter, the jungle man now leaped into the trees and sped urgently  toward his tree house home.

By the time he got to the tree house, the deep smell of burning had informed him what he would find.  Not that the entire house had been burned to the ground.  Whoever had used fire to destroy  part of his home had also kept most of it intact.  Death was scattered around the area like rotten apples fallen from a big tree.   There was no sound of life as he crept  out of the trees into the clearing.  Gingerly,  he stepped over the body of a black warrior.   His name had been Vumumba, and his head had been caved in by an ax.

 A great golden lion, once Bumude's frequent companion and friend,  lay on its side riddled with spears and arrows.  More blacks dotted the clearing.  Bumude  searched carefully and found no sign of her.   Hand over hand he climbed up a rope to the house built in the giant toberra tree.  Her scent was old.  She wasn't here.

 Many years of tracking animals, many years of studying tracking techniques  under  the guidance of savage tutors, had given  Bumude the ability to reconstruct events such as these long after they had happened.   June  had been taken from the tree house by men from the north.  They had come upon the home swiftly and had completed their work without mercy.  Judging from the arrows and weapon fragments left behind they were a mercenary group.  No homogeneity  grouped these artifacts.  Their footwear was northern shod and torn pieces of clothing appeared to be those chosen by white men.  Even  some pieces of skin and hair found about the scene  were those of white men.

 Bumude held his large hands up and stared at his tanned white skin.  Among the man apes with whom he had lived as a child  there had been a knowledge of race based on skin color.   There had been among those simple, bestial anthropoids a propensity for differentiating things, both living and non living by obvious traits such as color, size or whether something was threatening or not.    As such he had been called "white" from his earliest memories and often thought of himself as a "white" man.   Later in life he had learned that all men were capable of acts of evil, more pronounced than among the ugly actions of beasts because the men were more aware of what they were doing.   That these men who had raided his home were white was not so important to Bumude.  It merely helped to identify them so he can find them more quickly.

 He paused  by the side of the a slain warrior  called Mutamba.  Clearly Mutamba had engaged one of the raiders in single combat whereas everyone else had been killed without the added risk of a  personal man to man challenge.  The signs said that Mutamba had drawn a circle of challenge and one of the raiders had accepted it.  Still, despite the fact that the huge black warrior had been given a fair chance a northern broadsword had killed Mutamba.  Bumude  placed his hand on the giant black warrior's cold chest and smiled for there was nothing he admired more in a man than courage.

 June  had been taken.  One last sign told Bumude  by whom.   Laying on his mate's simple bed was the medallion of a noble Akluononian family.
 "Romuncy," Bumude  hissed.
 

 There were a few hours left of daylight in the long equatorial day so Bumude  used them to set upon the trail of the raiders.  Having just finished a long journey he was already outfitted to begin another and was already carrying his bow, arrows, grass rope and the hunting knife of his long dead father.  He packed some dried meat in a pouch which was unusual for Bumude because he preferred to eat raw meat taken from a fresh kill but on this journey he might not be able to spare the time to hunt.  It was a quick guess for Bumude to determine their destination but it appeared that they were moving to an Akluononian outpost settlement about 50 miles away.   If that were true then Bumude could move swiftly in the chase.  If it were not true then the jungle man would lose their trail and as a consequence lose track of his mate.   So it was that Bumude would have to pause to make sure that they were heading toward the outpost and at the same time trail them as quickly as possible.
 

 Bumude  was eager to rescue June, but he could not overtake them before dark.   While Bumude  could  move easily through the jungle at night he couldn't properly track his prey except by scent.   He wondered if June was in any immediate danger and paused to consider this idea.   If the raiders were going to molest June they would probably do it at night when they stopped.  Bumude remembered the passion that Romuncy had developed for his mate and concluded that the Akluononian nobleman would not want her tarnished before he would be able to take her himself.   It must be that Romuncy had informed  his men that June must be saved for him, so it was unlikely that June was in immediate danger of being raped or harmed by Romuncy because it was unlikely that the nobleman   had accompanied the raiders into the jungle.  He was a cautious and intelligent man  who was not inclined to take unnecessary risks.  The leader of the raiding party was probably the big man who had killed Mutamba.   A rare smile crossed the jungle man's lips as he thought of the raider chieftain.  He was eager to meet that man and hurl his own challenge at him.
 

 Eventually the mighty jungle man grew tired, though it was hard to pause and rest.   Bumude had traveled 12 hours straight to get home and had not rested 10 hours before that.  Clouds drifted across the moon, hiding it and the jungle plunged into abject darkness.   Bumude decided it was necessary to stop and rest.

He climbed a tree and wedged himself between two heavy branches.  His shaggy head laid back and rested on the rough bark.   His mind wandered before he went to sleep which was unusual since the jungle man usually fell asleep immediately.  It had been fifteen years since Bumude and his mate had journeyed backward  to this primitive time.   Images of his old life moved through his mind's eye.  The plantation in Kenya, his old friends, the beasts and foliage of a more modern jungle were all so far away.   It had been time to leave.  His beloved Africa had been  ruined by the relentless encroachment  of men carving out more room to live for their growing billions from the wilderness that was no longer necessary in the minds of most people.  The jungle man had taken his mate and had fled through  secret portal to a time in the past where they  believed would be more happy.   In one of his many adventures, Bumude had discovered the portal.   How he had discovered it was another story.  Suffice to say that it had been there when Bumude had needed to leave the ever growing modernization of the world he had been living in.

 It had not been the primordial beginnings of the Earth  that they emerged into.   Rather some other time in Earth's past when men of steel and courage had walked the land.   Descendants of Atlantis and barbarians of the antediluvian world  all lived together in an Iron Age.   Nor had he come to Africa again.   He and his mate had entered this new world  somewhere in old Europe  near a forgotten ocean.   Africa had been what he wanted so they had made their way south until they had  come home again.

 Along the way they had made enemies.  Romuncy, the Akluononian nobleman,  had been one of those.   Fate had tossed Bumude against Romuncy,  and though the jungle man had won his conflict with the nobleman he had been cursed with a bitter enemy.
 

 June, the reason for his conflict with Romuncy,  came to his mind, until  he drifted into a concerned sleep.

 
                In the morning he was on his way again after a quick breakfast of dried meat.

**************************************************************

 Bumude kept to his plan and followed a general path to the distant outpost.   It was necessary for him to stay on the ground because he had to check for trail sign as he followed his quarry.   Several times he resisted the urge to take to the trees where travel would be much faster, especially on those occasions  when he thought of June.  He was more certain than ever that the raiders were traveling to the nearby Akluononian outpost.  They would probably meet Romuncy there.   The jungle man knew that it was imperative that he intercept them before they got to the outpost.  Once they had arrived at the outpost his chances of taking June back by force were much reduced.

 Since he had arrived in this jungle, Bumude had roamed extensively through the area until he knew it as well as the jungles back in his native Africa.   Gambling, he took several short cuts.   By late afternoon of the second day he had found them.
 
 

 There were seven of them.  A small man served point while the others  followed about fifty feet behind.  One of them was a woman, and it was she that walked close to June as if she were June's personal guard.   As the jungle man has guessed these men were white skinned mercenaries.   They ranged in physical size, and if there was one common denominator between them it was a presence of dangerousness.  These were not men to take chances on.

The jungle man noted that his mate was relatively unharmed.  Again, this was as he had predicted.   Her clothing was tattered, and she had a few bruises and scrapes, but she still held her blonde head high.   Her captors had not bound her, probably thinking that she could not escape them so deep in the jungle.

June's guard was a tall, muscular woman.  She was dressed in protective leather, and if Bumude were another man he would have noted the firmness of her thighs and the round bulge of her breasts.   She was also a blonde, though her hair was of a sandy color, and her blue eyes flashed with serious professionalism.   She was attractive, but to Bumude she was just another enemy.  Still, there was an innate strain of chivalry in Bumude that would prevent him from killing her outright as he planned to do to the men in her party.

A huge, black manned warrior seemed to be the leader of the party.  Bumude had seen him bark orders to the others, and these orders had been obeyed without hesitation.   This man was nearly a giant, armed with massive, corded muscles which he displayed with an exceptional coordination.   Correctly, Bumude surmised that this had been the fighter who had slain  Mutamba.

Seeing that there were only seven enemies, Bumude felt confident that he could handle them with relative ease.  However it was always his policy to proceed with caution if he had the time.   So it was that the jungle man decided that he would pick them off one by one.

He placed himself in a tree and shot the point man.  When the others caught up they were surprised this man had died so silently.  Their  black manned leader squatted by the dead point man and grunted.

 "An expert's shot.  The arrow severed his neck bone.  Pontan didn't have time to bleed to death," the big man said.

 The raiders strung their bows.  The killer had to be close.

 "Do we fan out and find him or keep going?" asked one of the raiders.

 "We don't know how many there are?   This arrow is similar but not identical to those that the blacks in this area use.   It may be the jungle man Romuncy warned us about.  If it is,  there is a good chance he is alone," the leader said.  Like the others, he  was  clad in leather armor, a poor protection against such an archer.

 "Let's get the bastard then," a short muscular  man shouted.

 "We may have to.  According to Romuncy the jungle man is relentless.  Spread out.  See if we can pick up his sign," the big man ordered.  He turned to the warrior woman guarding June.  "Stay with her.  The jungle man is reluctant to kill women, I've heard.  You may be safe."

 "What about you, Connar?" the woman asked.

 Connar shrugged his broad shoulders.  The big Cymbrian barbarian thought the question was foolish.   What else would he do but deal with the enemy.  He cuffed her gently and moved off with his men.

***************************************************************

 Bumude  was in no hurry.  It was apparent that they had not violated his mate.  That made this little war more his game.   It was a game he had played out a thousand times with  other men and animals.   He fitted another arrow to his bow.

 Within the next hour two more men had died.  Connar  couldn't understand how this jungle man could strike without being detected.   Arrows out of nowhere killed silently.   Two hours later one of his men was found dangling from a grass rope.  His neck was broken.  A death by hanging.  Connar's hair began to bristle.  He was frustrated and angry,  but not afraid.  Under his breath, and half as a jest, he prayed that Gom, his barbarian god would give him one good chance at this jungle ghost.   After his prayer he laughed bitterly.  In the hilly land of Cymbria where he was born, the grey god Gom was known to offer little aid to those who worshiped him.   Gom gave a man nothing but a body and the whisper of a will.   Connar recognized that he would have to help himself, as he had done so many times in the past.  That was no problem for the big hillman, for it seemed that the prayers of his mother at his birth were all the prayers Connar had ever needed.  Her prayers had given Connar more than his share of the body and will that Gom usually handed out with the stinginess of a miser.

***************************************************************

 Bumude  had been  frozen in the tree for two hours.  Not a muscle twitched as he observed  his prey.  Only three were left.  Two men and the woman.     Bumude  had to take every precaution to ensure June's safety.   No move had been made to hurt her.  The warrior woman had been talking to her for the past hour.

***************************************************************

 Valkere  admired the blonde woman's beauty.   Her face was clean and unmarked except for those  recently acquired bruises.  Clear blue eyes met her own calmly.  This one had great courage.

 "I can see why Count Romuncy paid so much to get you," Valkere said.  "They say he wants to make you his  woman.    Are you a great lady?"

 June smiled softly.  "No, not at all.  I am a commoner from a city called Baltimore.   I am a lady by marriage only.  My husband is the hereditary Lord of Weisstein, a place far from here.   But as you see he'd rather be here in the jungle."

 "So I've heard.  Was he truly raised by apes?"

 June rubbed her eyes.   They were beginning to hurt.   How often had she been asked that question about her husband.   So many times she had answered.  After all those times it  was growing tiresome.

 This woman had been fair with her, considering that she was her captive.  It had been made clear to June that they were taking her to Count Romuncy in a distant Akluononian outpost.   Early in her captivity two of the men had suggested that they would like to have some fun with her, but those suggestions had been rudely ended by the leader of the gang and seconded by this woman.   That consideration on the part of the warrior woman impelled June to answer her questions.

 "By a tribe of manlike apes.  Not truly apes or truly men.  Sort of a transition between men and apes.   They are very rare, not as fit to survive as are true men.   Where we have come from they are all gone.   My husband was  happy to find more in this jungle we are now in.    He has rejoined them and husbands their survival, especially when it is threatened by true men.  He has become their lord and the lord of this jungle.  It is the only title he wants," said June  proudly.

 "Why does Lord Romuncy want you?" asked Valkere.   They were talking because Connar had called his small party to rest.   The sandy haired warrior woman was sitting on a dead log with her long legs stretched before her.  Idly she toyed with the hilt of her rapier.   As she studied June, Valkere knew the answer before she had asked the question, and she wondered what it must be like to be a woman as beautiful as this woman was.

 "A long story.  Just keep  it short, he wants me,  and  he wants to kill my husband..   Bumude  once humiliated him at the   court, " June  answered.

 "It looks as if we made a mistake in taking you.  Perhaps the gossip  about Bumude, the Jungle Man is true.  The local blacks call him  a jungle ghost," said Valkere.

 "No ghost shoots real arrows like he does, Valkere.   He'll be the death of us all.  I went into the jungle to find him and couldn't.  By Gom, I wish he'd step out and fight like a man," shouted Connar.   He was half hidden by a large tree.  His bow was ready but there was nothing to shoot at.   The big barbarian was unusually frustrated by his enemy.  It was not often that the Cymbrian had encountered a man more adept at woodcraft than he was.   He never knew that it was a tribute to his own forest skill that Bumude had not been able to kill him outright when the Cymbrian hillman had gone on a short foray away from the party.

 "Maybe he isn't a man, despite what his woman says," said the warrior woman as she rose and stood close to Connar.

 "He's no ghost, Valkere.  When I see him I'll split his skull.  His death will be real enough," snarled Connar.

 Against any other man, Valkere would believe this to be true.  She had never met a man as dangerous as the Cymbrian before, and in her lifetime she had known many dangerous men.  She stayed with Connar because he was good to her, and that was something she rarely encountered in those times when she had associated with all those dangerous men.

 Suddenly she felt a stab of fear.  For the first time since she had met him, Valkere wondered if Connar would be killed.   Fear was followed by surprise as she wondered why it mattered so much to her.

***************************************************************

 
 They were talking, and even the barbarian wasn't paying  close attention to the jungle.   Bumude chose this time to sneak quietly to a new vantage point.  He had been surprised by the observational  powers of the giant.  Somehow this man kept moving out of sight, or he moved in ways that made a sure kill by one shot impossible.  It was either luck,  or this man had an instinct for danger greater than any civilized man Bumude  had ever met.  This amused Bumude, it didn't really matter anyway because Bumude had no intention of shooting the giant.

 The other male remaining was different.   He was the last remaining bowman.   Most of the people at his home had been killed by ranged weapons so Bumude  had killed them the same way.   The jungle man waited to make his final shot at this man.   It took almost an hour before he felt the time was perfect.  That perfection was a combination of the angle of the shot, the amount that the target was distracted, and the surety of a swift kill.   That he had to wait was not a problem for the jungle man.  He had done so often in his life.  There were times when he had to wait in silence for passing prey.  Perhaps he had not possessed a weapon at the time, or perhaps his prey had been to scarce to find and he had been forced to stake himself out on a favorite path leading to a water hole.   Bumude had learned patience at an early age through these life and death lessons.

 Eventually he made his shot!

 Holog  gargled as the arrow pierced his throat.   He died ten feet away from Connar.

 Another hour passed.  Connar and Valkere were no longer resting, they were pinned down by their enemy's fire.   Realizing this, the barbarian grew angry.   Unlike lesser men, his anger would never turn him foolish, but it did grate on his nerves.   Connar conceived an idea to use his beautiful captive to lure the jungle man out.  Some instinct countered that notion.   For the moment he would wait.

 Connar  turned against a tree and relieved himself.  When he turned back again the jungle man was there, pointing his arrow at him.   He was twenty feet away.   The Cymbrian  had no chance.

 It was the first time either Connar or Valkere had seen their stalker.   He was a tall, muscular man with a body that would have been envied by a god.   Never had Valkere seen a man more beautiful.

 "Well, shoot and be damned," Connar  shouted as he gathered himself up for a hopeless charge.

 Bumude gestured with his head.  The meaning of the gesture was unmistakable.  Throw away your weapons.

 Connar mulled that over.  He was not afraid to die.  If the jungle man had wanted to kill him he would have  done so already.  Like he did the others.  With a sneering laugh the northern barbarian tossed his bow, arrows and sword away.

 "And the knife in your boot," Bumude said.

 Laughing again, the big barbarian complied.   With nothing to lose he stood proudly with his muscular arms akimbo.  "Now what?" he demanded.

 "Only you fought like a man at my home.  For what you did you must die.   But you will die like a man."

 Bumude gestured toward Valkere.  "Release my mate."   Valkere looked at Connar who nodded.   After being freed, June ran to her mate.   She smiled wonderfully and stood at his side.

 "Woman," Bumude  said to Valkere, "shuck your weapons and be bound by my mate."

 Valkere looked at death in a pair of grey eyes and complied.   With practiced skill, June tied the warrior woman's wrists with rawhide.

 "Now what, jungle man?" asked Connar.

 Bumude  wasted no words.  His answer to the Cymbrian was obvious when he gave his bow to June and after that his other weapons.  Then he turned on Connar.   A scarlet scar blazed across his forehead.   He charged, like a bull ape, screaming his defiance and challenge at the barbarian.  Connar  grinned and met the charge with a laugh.

 And abruptly stopped laughing.   Bumude  rained blow after blow on the barbarian raider.  His thickly calloused fists and palms  drove Connar  back until the Cymbrian's  broad back slammed against a tree.   Connar's thick muscular body survived this attack where a civilized man would have fallen.   His own fists lashed out and punished the jungle man's body.   But only at first.   The agility of the jungle man was greater than a cat's.  He slipped and dodged Connar's fists.   Connar  feinted and closed in, hoping that his strength was greater than the jungle man's.   These two powerful men locked.  For a moment both men stood rigid against each other, bracing themselves against the each other's arms.  Ice blue eyes glared into merciless grey.   For the first time in his life Connar locked arms with a man as strong or stronger than himself.   Bumude's growl rumbled deep in his chest as he began to push the barbarian's arms back.   Not much, not dramatically, but a little bit, and Connar realized bitterly that for all men there is someone who is a little bit stronger.   Strength was not the answer here so with the experience of an old brawler, Connar abandoned the hold and slipped under  Bumude's forward moving arms to grapple the jungle man's waist.   He heaved the jungle man off his feet and slammed him to the jungle floor landing on top of him.   Realizing the jungle man was too fast for him, Connar  tried to get a crippling hold on Bumude.   He managed to lock the jungle man's arms in a vise grip.

 Bumude  was not so much stronger than the barbarian that he could simply burst free.  The truth of it was that Bumude was stronger than Connar by only the slightest margin.  Instead the jungle man attacked the raider savagely with his strong white teeth.   Blood sprayed as Bumude bit chunks of Connar's flesh out of his face and neck.  Even the mighty barbarian was stunned by this kind of attack.   Connar had used his teeth in fights before; he had even killed animals with his bite, but when he tried to return the jungle man's attack, matching his bite against that of Bumude,  he was again outmatched.   Bumude had been weaned on fighting with his teeth.  A dog slashing and biting with its fangs needed no lessons.   Experience and the gift of nature guided a beast's fangs.  So it was with Bumude.   Their heads butted each other as they nipped and bit savagely for some advantage.   Connar was a brutal fighter, a merciless warrior, but he was still a man, and the enemy he was struggling against was an animal.   Suddenly, with unerring instinct and precision, the jungle man's fighting fangs fastened impossibly on Connar's throat.    The Cymbrian was taken aback and his grip slackened as he grabbed Bumude's face and tore it away from his neck.  This  allowed  Bumude to escape. .  The jungle man  rolled backward and sprang to his feet  in one motion.

 Connar was up on one knee when the jungle man hit him again.   The barbarian had rarely taken  so much punishment so quickly.   He lifted his hands to defend himself as he struggled to get to his feet.  Bumude was  so surprised that Connar  was still fighting that he paused a moment, uncharacteristically,  to admire the barbarian.   Immediately Connar attacked and smashed the jungle man to the ground.  He tried to stomp on the jungle man  but Bumude squirmed out of the way and rolled back to  his feet.  As he came up,  Connar kicked him in the head.   Taking much of the blow, Bumude  caught the foot, moved inside the barbarian, lifted him over his head and slammed him to the ground.  This was done faster than a leopard moves.  Bumude  stood in a crouch, panting from his effort, and ready to attack again.

 Connar  lay on his back for a long moment.   His massive chest heaved in air and he shook his black manned head free of confusion.  He struggled to his feet and made it.  He smiled at the jungle man and said through torn lips, "Well?"

 Bumude growled and came in swiftly.  Connar caught him with a heavy punch and drove the jungle man back.   Bumude  stumbled backwards over an overgrown tree root and fell on his back.  Connar was on him quickly and seized Bumude's throat.   The barbarian saw a heavy branch laying close by.  He caught it and raised it over his head to bash Bumude's head in.   Their eyes met again.   Connar  saw the jungle man sneer.  A sneer that spurned all civilized men as weaklings.  With a laugh, Connar  tossed the branch away and drove his fist down at the jungle man's face.  Bumude  slipped the punch and twisted his body in a way he learned many years ago wrestling with the man apes he had been raised with.   Suddenly Connar  was beneath Bumude.  The jungle man slapped him soundly with his open palm, a blow that had once dropped the heavyweight champion of the modern world,  then fingers that could sheer the bark off a tree in a gorilla like fashion seized his throat in a death grip.

 A civilized man would have killed Connar  that day.   Connar  himself would have killed Bumude had their positions been reversed.   Instead, Bumude  leaned close to Connar's ear,  and, in the fashion of a beast, asked him to give up.

 Long ago Bumude had learned that it is not always necessary to kill an enemy.   Many wild animals never took a fight to the death when fighting among their own kind, though some did.  But this wasn't the sole reason that Bumude did not kill Connar.  He had no great reluctance to kill as a civilized man might have.  There was no restrictive morality binding his hands.   If there was another factor that stayed Bumude's hand it was his lifelong respect for courage.   And this barbaric man from the Cymbrian Hills had courage.
 

 Despite having been battered nearly punch drunk, Connar heard the request and understood it.  If he didn't surrender he would be dead in the next second.   While the barbarian never gave up if there was the slightest chance of winning, he had none now.

 "Okay, you win," he grunted.

 His head dropped to the ground when Bumude let him go.  The jungle man placed his foot on Connar's broad back and screamed to the jungle.  He was the victor.  He was still Lord of the Jungle.

 Bumude turned and walked over to June.   "Time to go home," she said with a beautiful  smile.

 Bumude said something to June, then he turned to Valkere.  "Don't come back to our jungle again.   You are not welcome.   And tell Romuncy that Bumude will reckon with him soon."

 Bumude and his mate melted into the jungle.

**************************************************************

 "Why didn't he kill you?" asked Valkere.   She held the Cymbrian's battered head on her lap.  Connar looked up at her and laughed.

 "No civilized man would understand, but I do.   That was no man I fought.  It was an animal.  And like animals he offered  a male of his own kind a chance to surrender .   It helped that I didn't use the branch.  His man side appreciated that.  But it was an animal who asked me to bare my throat to him and surrender.  Like a wolf pack leader.   Today he was the top dog.   I never fought a man like him before.  I think I never will again," said Connar.

 "I think he meant to kill me from the start but changed his mind after our fight.  That was a man who is never afraid.  Do you know what I mean, Valkere?  He was not afraid to let me live as a lesser man might.   He saw something worthy in me.   He honored me with my life.  Still, if we had met with swords.....it might have been different."   The barbarian's blue eyes smoldered as his thick fingers gripped the handle of his northern blade.

Valkere twisted her pretty nose.   Then she thought of something else.  Something much more interesting.   "I guess we'll have to give back the money Romuncy paid us."

 "Hell no.  We earned that half payment.   We'll ride up to Skaradar and live in sin for a month or two."

 "Oh, you know how to charm a girl, you big barbarian," Valkere said and gave him a kiss.

Copyright by  Rod Hunsicker
1/21/1997

Revised 8/29/1999