BYRON PREISS MULTIMEDIA COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK
BERKLEY BOULEVARD BOOKS, NEW YORK
The Tyrannosaurus rex crashed into the clearing, jaws snapping. A young man—more of a boy, really, dressed in nothing more than a loincloth—scampered in front of her, with so little lead that the gust of the meat-eater’s breath chilled the sweat on his supple young back. Now that they were in the open, the dinosaur could sprint, and would soon overtake her prey.
Just as the animal hit her full stride, a thick cord rose from the grass behind the fleeing teenager and was pulled taut. The tyrannosaur’s ankle struck it, and down the beast went, flailing her ridiculously undersized arms. The huge body slammed to the earth.
Dazed, the gray-green theropod barely shifted as half a dozen powerful grown men raced from their hiding places in the brush and wrapped additional ropes around her huge, ostrichlike feet and around her snout to keep her vicious teeth in check. The savages darted away before a claw could swing their way and eviscerate them. They tugged in the direction the youth had been running.
A stone’s throw away, the clearing ended at a steep slope.
The dinosaur blinked, roared, and began to thrash. One man was yanked off balance. Another eight men joined the first six and continued pulling. The boy lent his effort as well.
The eight-ton monster need only have remained still and the men would have been hard-pressed to drag her massive body any distance at all, but her wriggling helped scoot it
over the bedewed grass toward the slope. She glared at her tormentors, far too eager to nip one or ten of them to notice the precipice.
Under thick, tropical fronds at the edge of the clearing, a final pair of men waited, one a coppery-skinned, long-nosed figure like those fighting the dinosaur, the other a tanned blond in a set of cut-off Levi’s and sandals.
The native hefted his spear. “A jab through the eye and we are rid of her, Lord Ka-Zar,” he said, his words rendered in a gutteral language full of sharp breaks.
“Have you no confidence in your men, Tongah?” Ka-Zar asked in the same tongue.
“Of course I do. Did you not see how magnificently they brought down the longtail?”
“Exactly,” said the blond. “So no spears. Not unless they lose their grip on those ropes,” Ka-Zar could hardly blame Tongah or his people for struggling against his strange requests. Spare the life of a longtail? Counter-intuitive. But he had to insist. This part of the Savage Land was becoming overrun with large herbivores. Only predators as large as the T. rex could assure ecological balance. Besides, Ka-Zar merely wanted the animal out of the way so he and the Fall People could continue their mission. If they were actually hunting for food, it might be a different story. But the Fall People had no shortage of food this year.
The main party of men worked their way over to the slope’s edge. At the last moment, the tyrannosaur dug for purchase in the loose soil, resulting in a primal tug-of-war across the gap. Tongah’s warriors eyed the hard boulders at the bottom of the slope and tightened their grips, pulling until their muscles stood out in corded ripples. The creature roared one, two, three times. A last surge of effort from the humans sent her careening over the edge. Down tumbled the tyran-nosaur and the trailing ends of the ropes.
The beast eventually came to rest awkwardly amid the boulders, flattening a mound of creek shrubs. She roared in pain. Ka-Zar worried she might have suffered a broken spine or major injury, but she rolled, twisted, and began pulling at the ropes entangling her legs. She soon broke free and stood up.
She didn’t charge. The scrabbly ground made climbing back up impractical, and the rex had to have realized that. She rumbled off downstream, growling. The men jeered at her, tossed stones, laughed.
The monster would eventually find a spot where she could mount the banks, but to return to the clearing would take her an hour or more. By then, the tribesmen would be gone.
Ka-Zar and Tongah greeted the victors as they recrossed the chasm on the remaining log. The teenager who had baited the trap found himself the center of attention.
“You were not supposed to lead the beast so closely, Im-mono,” chided the youth’s father, shaking his head so emphatically the long stripe of hair along the center of his scalp flapped from side to side.
“The longtail was faster than I imagined,” Immono said. His immature Adam’s apple fluttered at his throat, and he turned so pale Ka-Zar stepped back in order to avoid the splatter should the lad abruptly lose his breakfast. Delayed fear. A natural, healthy response. What counted was that during the chase, he had remained calm and executed his role in a manner that brought success.
“You bring honor to your family, Immono,” Ka-Zar said, squeezing the shoulders of both sire and offspring. “You will have plenty to talk about at the storytelling fires tonight. Tonight, and many nights to come.”
“Thank you, Lord Ka-Zar,” the young man said, and beamed.
“And,” Ka-Zar said, rubbing his palms together, “now that we’re finally, rid of that, nuisance, we can get back to following this trail.”
The Lord of the Savage Land pointed to a cluster of footprints along the top of the bluff, not far from those created in the scuffle with the dinosaur. Some bore the outlines of human feet. One set was distorted in a vaguely wolflike pattern, complete with clawed toes. A final set looked like they had been made by a giant frog.
Ka-Zar bent down, touched the spoor, and frowned. Half a day old now, and no fresher thanks to that T. rex. Her arrival was probably coincidental, but either way, the trackers had been delayed while they dealt with her, and the small hope they had had of catching up with their quarry had grown ever more faint.
But what was there to do but make the attempt? “This way,” he said, leading the men of the Fall People into the jungle.
The tracks took them up along one side of the little gorge where they had lured the dinosaur. The riot of footprints were plainly etched in the dirt. Small branches lay broken, the ends hanging by shreds of bark. The grass was still flat where it had been trampled. Even if Ka-Zar had been raised entirely in England as Lord Kevin Plunder and never escaped the protected, genteel lifestyle his cousins endured, he would have been able to follow a path such as this. His quarry had not tried to disguise where they had gone. They had chosen to flee as fast as possible, eliminating the delay inherent in avoiding soft ground or seeking out streams that would wash away spoor. This route made use of an animal trail, so that it had not even been necessary to hack away vines and fronds.
Tongah grunted and pointed to a shadow in a clump of grass. He picked up a broken leather necklace. “Ararisa,” he said, caressing the pearly mussel shell that decorated the loop. * •
Ka-Zar nodded. Ararisa Was one of the three members of the Fall People who had been kidnapped in the night raid. Her mate Kombo had been among those killed by the attackers.
At least the children had been spared. That was the only silver lining in the recent depredations. The raiders sought adults. And they wanted them alive if possible—Kombo apparently had been too quick for them, and had put up too much of a fight.
A mile up the slope, they came to a broad swath of volcanic rock. The trail vanished upon the dark, pitted surface, one of many scars from the catastrophic upheavals the Savage Land had survived in recent years. Tongah’s warriors combed the perimeter of the area, but shook their heads. It was as if their quarry had vanished into the air.
Ka-Zar was sure they had.
Young Immono confirmed it. “Look!” he called. Ka-Zar ambled over to a crevice near the center of the flow field, and looked down where the boy pointed.
“Leatherwing droppings,” he said. Pteranodon, or some other type of pterosaur, had left the pungent gift. “Like the last time.”
Ka-Zar gazed skyward, toward the umbrella of clouds that perpetually hung over his realm. Out over the great central lake he spotted a flock of leaf-tailed rhamphorhynchus and several puffin-beaked dimorphodons. Over the foothills to his left he saw a pair of condors gliding the thermals. The creatures belonged there. They were merely going about their business of slurping up fish from the lake or carrion from the upland meadows. But Ka-Zar knew that earlier in the day he would have seen particularly large flying reptiles with saddles and riders, carrying away Ararisa and the two grown cousins who had shared the hut along with her late husband and their children. ?
Again. Ka-Zar clenched his teeth until the enamel threatened to crack. This search party had met with failure more profound than the previous one. Two days earlier, when a pair of Fall People brothers had been snatched from their raft while spear-fishing in the river near the village, sharp-eyed observers had seen the kidnappers and their winged mounts pause to rest on an islet out in the lake. The stygian blackness of . Savage Land night had concealed where they went from there, but at least they had been seen. Should those raiders turn up in a village, some among the Fall People would recognize them.
Today, nothing. Only Ararisa’s necklace to put on her empty grave. Though her abductors had taken care to carry her off alive, once their master had his way with her, she would be dead.
“Back to the village, my friends,” Ka-Zar said. “Our vengeance will have to wait.”
The mounting of the search, the snaring of the Tyrannosaurus rex, and the fruitless end of the chase had consumed most of the day. Twilight was nearing by the time the band of warriors slipped out of the jungle foliage into the fields of the Fall People.
Ka-Zar frowned at the rows of tiny com stalks and the vegetable patches. He still wasn’t certain how much he should have encouraged the Fall People to take up agriculture. They had not forgotten their hunter-gatherer ways yet, but the risk was there. Once they made the shift, their culture would never be the same.
Too many doubts. The day’s mission had been a failure, so it was all tod easy to question his lifework as well.
Preoccupied, so close to home, tired from an ordeal that had begun at first light! with the news of the raid, he failed to notice that the parrots and bowerbirds in the trees had gone silent.
Tongah was more alert. “Lord Ka-Zar! Beware!”
The tribesmen flung themselves flat. Abruptly a hail of axes and spears rained down from above. Ka-Zar whirled just in time to see talons descending. He leapt to the side.
Clever. Who would have expected a raid upon such a large group of warriors, coming so soon after the other attack? Wounded men screamed. Dust flew. Ka-Zar rolled to his feet and looked up.
A rider on a pteranodon had Immono and had already risen above the treeline. The youth kicked, swiping upward with his knife. The alert rider spurred his mount—
—and the flying reptile let go. Immono plummeted. “No!” Ka-Zar screamed, sprinting forward.
He made it only four steps before a heavy weight landed on his back. His chin struck the path hard. Stars twinkled behind his eyelids.
“The Lord of the Savage Land himself.” The exclamation grated like an obsidian knife dragged across granite, point down. The language was English. At one time, the voice had belonged to a friend. “I have been so looking forward to touching you.”
Ka-Zar twisted, but could not free himself from the cold, scaly grip. He could see his attacker’s face, however. It was elongated, green, with a bony protrusion extending its skull backward. The face of a pteranodon grotesquely combined with that of a man.
“Sauron,” Ka-Zar grunted.
The monster answered with a smile. Checking to the side, it swept away Torigah, who had risen and drawn back his arm to fling his spear. Anpther warrior was sent tumbling on the other side, unable to /ekct as fast as Sauron’s long wings could whip outward. Other raiders had wheeled about on their pterosaur mounts and were keeping at bay anyone else who might try to interrupt their master at his amusement.
Tendrils of agony sprouted deep in Ka-Zar’s body. From his spine, his heart, his joints. The strength poured from him. In seconds, even keeping his eyelids open was more than he could manage. Then, mercifully, everything went dark.
Sharina O’Hara sprinted through the gates of the village palisade. Some of the village warriors kept pace, but none were able to pull out ahead. Not after what she had seen in the sky.
She and her party leapt across an irrigation ditch and through a row of orchard crops into the com and vegetable fields. It was as she had feared. Raiders on winged reptiles whirled and struck at the search party that had gone out with Ka-Zar. Limp bodies lay on the ground.
In the midst of them was the tall, blond form of her husband, pinned to the ground by a grotesque harpy, an enemy she had once thought dead.
She was within range now. She stopped, notched an arrow, and drew back her bowstring.
Sauron looked up, let go of Ka-Zar, and stared straight at her. Waves of nausea struck her. Something tugged at her mind, repeating a message so simple it was almost impossible to resist. Sleep, sleep, sleep.
She released the arrow. It sailed past Sauron’s head. A clear miss, not even enough to make him flinch.
She and the warriors beside her stumbled forward, no longer completely dazed by. his hypnotism. A wave of villagers—not just more warriors, but teens, pregnant women, children, elders—pouted through the orchard and onto the field of battle. Ahead of them raced Zabu, Ka-Zar’s sabretooth cat. Shanna had ordered him to stay and guard little Matthew, but the feline knew where he was needed most.
Sauron hissed and took flight His squadron of raiders scattered. They vanished toward the clouds. A few arrows raced after them, but fell far short. They were gone. The growing twilight would soon swallow every trace of them.
Zabu sent a blood-curdling roar after them. Shanna bel--lpwed even louder. It did nothing to slow the enemies down, but the outburst restored Shanna to full equilibrium. If those
murderers returned____
Tongah rose from the disrupted com and bent over Ka-Zar. Zabu nosed in, rolled the fallen man over, and began licking his face. By the time Shanna arrived, her husband was stirring.
“He lives,” Tongah said.
“Oh, my love,” Shanna said. She leaned down and kissed him, wishing him awake.
To her joy, he did open his eyes. He stared vacantly for an instant, then focused on her features and smiled faintly. “I am a husk,” he groaned. “I’m like a fly after the spider has sucked out its juices,” The smile collapsed.
“He feasted on your energies,” she said. “But we chased him away before he could take too much.” '
Ka-Zar tried to raise his head to check on his fallen comrades. “How bad?”
“Some were struck by the first hail of weapons,” Tongah
If
declared sadly. Still crouched beside Ka-Zar, the chief surveyed the battle site. “An axe caved in Mhogo’s skull. The others may have a chance, except... oh, no.”
Shanna saw where he wasjooking. An entire mountain of heavy stone settled upon her heart. Fighting back the tears, she raised Ka-Zar to % sitting position so that he could see.
Immono lay crumpYed in the com furrows, his head twisted at an impossible angle. He had freed himself from the claws of the flying reptile, but not before he had gained too much altitude to land well. He was staring sightlessly at the darkening sky.
“Shanna...” Ka-Zar murmured.
“I know, I know,” she said. “We need help. I’ll make the call.”
CHAPTER 2
THE. T ear the idyllic, thickly wooded community of Salem Center in upstate New York, the summer night lay A wL gently upon the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, a latter-day incarnation of what had once been called Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The day’s mugginess had dissipated. Mild breezes caressed beds of petunias and wafted the leaves of trees that had just thickened into the full bounty of the season. A few puffy clouds rolled by beneath the dome of stars and moon. A passerby on Greymalkin Lane would have every reason to think of the facility as the epitome of quiet, contemplative study.
It’s amazing what good soundproofing can do.
Deep beneath the visible portion of the building, bodies careened off the walls of the Danger Room. No silent contemplation here. Anyone treading across its threshold dared not relax their guard for a moment. If they did, they might have to pay a heavy price, in spite of the safety protocols.
Sailing through the air came two heavily muscled men known to the world as Wolverine and the Beast. Anyone would have labelled them hairy, particularly the Beast with his thick coat of blue fur, but at the moment they seemed even more so. Behind them raced six metal tentacles crackling with enough voltage to stun an elephant. The charged corona that extended from the devices was tugging each and every whisker, curl, and eyelash within reach straight out from the follicles. The two men were haloed in fuzz.
A feminine laugh echoed off the walls. The pair looked ridiculous. It didn’t change the fact that the situation was serious. Nothing the Danger “Room threw at its occupants was intended for their .amusement. For many years, the chamber had been the ke^ training site of the X-Men. If any group of super heroes had gone to greater measures to regularly challenge their powers, reflexes, and determination, they had probably swiped the idea from this mightiest of obstacle courses.
“Don’t slow down now, Comball!” Wolverine shouted.
He was speaking to the youngest occupant of the room. Sam Guthrie, or Cannonball—Comball only to a certain rough, gruff, mannerless elder X-Man—was rocketing across the room. The Beast and Wolverine were his passengers, surfing atop the kinetic envelope that surrounded the youth. He had just saved them from the initial thrust of the tentacles.
In fact, Cannonball was slowing down. He hadn’t much choice. The added weight was not the problem. The other wall was. If he sped up any more, he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. They were safe enough inside his bubble of power, but the impact of the wall would likely knock him for a loop and give the Danger Room another chance to nail them.
“Now, Bishop!” Cannonball yelled.
The tall, broad, dark-skinned X-Man on the floor to Cannonball’s right thrust out his arm. Out zoomed a burst of energy just like one of Sam’s own explosions. In fact, it was one of Cannonball’s blasts, absorbed a few moments earlier and saved until it was needed. The wave slammed against the tentacles, twisting them into pretzels.
The electrical charge in the mechanisms vanished. The metal arms scooted back into the wall like parts of one very sore octopus.
Cannonball throttled back, lighting deftly in a standing position. The Beast and Wolverine sailed on into the wall, but by the time they arrived, their speed was manageable. They struck feetfirst, spun, and landed adroitly on the floor next to a buxom, almond-eyed vixen in a skintight costume.
“Game’s still live, Betts!” Wolverine said, extending his claws from the backs of his hands and swiping at her.
Elisabeth Braddock, also known as Psylocke, yelped and sprang back. Wolverine’s slash—as light as it was quick— didn’t come near her costume but she made a frantic unnecessary leap to “safety,” which put her squarely on her rump.
“That, my blessed Ms. Braddock,” stated the Beast, “is what ladies who laugh at fuzzy men deserve.”
Psylocke’s expression blackened. Rolling gracefully into a ninja stance, she sent a blistering telepathic comment straight into the skull of everyone in the room.
“My stars and garters!” the Beast blurted. “I take back the term lady. It does not apply.”
Betsy opened her mouth to append a comment with her actual voice, but never got the words out. A panel slid open in the nearest wall. The muzzles of an entire row of laser cannons jutted forward.
Everyone ducked. Beams sizzled past just overhead. Everyone went back to work. Psylocke sent out the telepathic code phrase that would let them know which of dozens of rehearsed counterstrategies they would use. Each of the five X-Men rolled toward their designated position.
The cannons ceased firing.
“Hey—” Cannonball said. “Who aborted the session?”
Wolverine drew back his hands, ready to slash the nearest muzzle anyway should it resume firing. No one relaxed until the room’s intercom crackled and Storm’s voice came through the speakers. ‘ ‘My apologies for the interruption, my friends, but somethin has come up. Please meet me in the War Room.”
Cannonball, Psylocke, and Bishop spared a few moments to grab towels and wipe off some of the sweat of the workout. The Beast combed down his disarrayed fur. Wolverine was Wolverine. They did not dawdle. Only an urgent matter would have prompted Storm to shut down the Danger Room sequence.
Still, the session had served its purpose. The Danger Room ■had gone through numerous upgrades over the years. The most recent ones had come from the Shi’ar Empire, as a gift from the Shi’ar empress Lilandra Neramani, friend to the X-Men and lover to the X-Men’s founder, Charles Xavier. Unfortunately, the latest upgrades were telepathic circuits that had the Danger Room respond directly to the thoughts of the person running the session. None of the X-Men had been entirely comfortable with this particular upgrade, and so the Beast and Cyclops had removed it and reinstalled the previous version. This morning’s workout was as much a test of that reinstallation as it was a test of the X-Men’s fighting ability.
The five mutants marched through the building and filed into a huge room containing a ring of swivel chairs flanked by various monitors, arrayed around a huge central holographic display unit. A mere fraction of the chairs were occupied. The chamber could seat the entire X-Men roster, along with Professor X and whatever allies, super powered or otherwise, might be in residence at the mansion at any given time. But only Storm, Iceman, and Archangel were there to greet them, making eight in all.
“Thank you for coming,” said Storm. She motioned them toward their seats. She herself remained upright, pacing the room in the broodingly serious way that characterized an African goddess of weather. “We’ve received a plea for help from Shanna O’Hara, on behalf of herself and Ka-Zar. With the Professor on Muir Island and Scott in Alaska visiting his grandparents’ estate with Jean, I’m stepping up as co-leader and authorizing a mission to the Savage Land.”
“How bad is it, Ororo?” asked Iceman. He had fetched a glass of water and was getting rid of nervous energy by manipulating the size and shape of the ice cubes he’d formed in the liquid. He was in human form and in street clothes. He had been planning to go into town to sample microbrews at Harry’s Hideaway. Pretending to be an ordinary guy out for a laid-back evening, not a mutant with a certain amount of uneasy personal history behind him.
Storm taped a computer mouse, which caused a holographic display in the center of their circle to awake. Within it formed a green-skinned creature with the head, wings, and tail of a pteranodon, but a body somewhat like that of a human. Even in simulation, his eyes seemed to bore right through whatever he gazed at.
“Sauron has recovered,” Storm stated almost unnecessarily. Everyone in the room recognized the figure. “He has been leading groups of savages, sometimes mounted on pterosaurs, in raids upon the villages of the United Tribes. Taking captives to feed his vampiric needs, no doubt, and killing those that get in the way. Tongah’s Fall People have borne the brunt of the latest attacks. Ka-Zar was hurt, ambushed by Sauron himself.”
“Last I heard, he was completely loco,” Wolverine said. “Hardly knew which talon to pick his nose with.”
“Or perhaps even burned to death inside the Pangean relic where Ka-Zar last encountered him,” Storm confirmed. “He was not a serious threat. Something has happened to improve his condition. He is mentally coherent again. In fact, from the summary that Shanna forwarded to us through our private link, he is more capable of strategy and analysis than ever.” “Woulda been better if I’d finished ’im off last time I tangled with ’im—or if we did it a couple years back.” Wolverine had recently faced Sauron, and only let him go due to Sauron’s powers of hypnosis.
“It wasn’t our place to be his executioners, Logan,” Storm said patiently. This was an old argument, but she needed to make clear her position. “Certainly not after Professor X successfully purged the virus that turned Karl Lykos into Sauron. He was cured. He deserved his chance for happiness as much as anyone else. For a brief interval, he was able to carry on a legitimate medical practice. He helped people. He had the love of a brave and good woman.” Wolverine did not give in. “Emphasis on the word brief.\ ’Roro. The Toad nabbed ’im and made ’im as dangerous as ever. You forgettin’ that pretty little lady is history, killed by her man himself?” ,
“That was unfortunate, but if we followed your argument to the extreme of its logic, you might as well say we should travel back in time and suffocate any infant who is destined to become a killer.”
At the mention of time travel, Bishop’s face clouded. “Logan,” he told Wolverine, “you do not mean what you say.” Wolverine’s eyes flickered beneath his bushy eyebrows. “I always mean what I say. This time around, could be the best thing if we forget about the cure angle.”
“We will have to accept every possibility,” Storm said. “The certainty is that he must be stopped. You will not kill him if we can safely take him alive. If there is any shred of Karl Lykos remaining within him, it deserves a chance to be restored.”
“You can count on me,” Logan said. “An’ I’ll follow your lead no matter what—you know that. But you also know in your gut that sooner or later, it’ll come down to blood. Always does.”
Bishop combed his fingers through the narrow shred of beard on his chin. “I saw him only once, from a distance, when Storm and I fetched Rogue, Jubilee, and Wolverine from the Savage Land. I know him otherwise only from the archives and from conversations with some of you. He has often been associated with the mutates of the Savage Land, am I correct? The group from which Vertigo sprang?” “Yes. Some of the mutates have put in appearances,” Storm replied. ‘ ‘Barbaras, Gaza, Lupo, and Amphibius have all taken part in at least one village raid. It is probably safe to assume that Brainchild is assisting them, somewhere in the background.”
She prodded the holographic display. Sauron’s image vanished, replaced by five smaller representations. Gaza was a giant, muscular savage, with eyes that had obviously never known sight. Barbaras was not quite as large but appeared just as strong, with an extra pair of arms. Amphibius resembled a giant, humanoid frog, Lupo a wolfish man with pointed ears. Brainchild’s body was scrawny and small, but his cranium bulged out to twice the diameter of a normal person’s.
“These five are seldom far apart, and tend not to leave the Savage Land as some of their brood do. They may be the cause of Sauron’s resurgence. They were originally created by Magneto to be subservient to his desires. They have depended on masters to focus their ambitions. Sauron has played that role when Zaladane wasn’t available. Perhaps they found him and somehow resurrected him so that they would have a commander once more.”
“What about the others?” Bishop asked. “Whiteout and Worm?”
Psylocke shuddered. She was the one X-Man in the room who had been part of the mission to the Savage Land in which Worm had first been encountered. She telepathically shared a memory of how the mutate had seized control over the bodies of herself, Colossus, and Dazzler.
“Fortunately those two have not surfaced,” Storm said. “They were more Zaladane’s pets. Which isn’t to say that we'shouldn’t be on the alert for them.”
“Still enough of a zoo to make this a real fun trip,” Iceman muttered.
“When do we leave?” Bishop asked.
“We leave in the morning,” Storm said.
Wolverine squinted. “Why the delay?”
“Ka-Zar and Shanna have beaten off the most recent attack. It sounds as though Sauron has enough victims to sustain him another day or two. We won’t indulge in any unwarranted delays, but it’s only prudent to take what remains of this evening to outfit ourselves properly and get some sleep. It’s going to be a long trip to the southern polar regions and a potentially exhausting ordeal once we’re there.’ ’
Bishop asked, “Is there any particular reason why you emphasized we so heavily?”
“Yes—I’d like you to remain behind. I’m not comfortable leaving the mansion completely empty with so many of us so distant, especially with Cyclops, Phoenix, and the Professor also away.”
Nodding, Bishop said, “Understood.” Storm was grateful that the time-travelling X-Man didn’t argue. But then. Bishop was a soldier first, and knew when to follow orders.
Storm looked around the table. Everyone looked ready to go now.
With one exception. Archangel kept his eyes on the table, his blue-skinned face grim.
“Warren?” Storm asked. “Is everything all right?” Archangel looked up. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” He hesitated. “Sorry. I was just lost in thought for a moment there.” “See you bright and early for takeoff,” Ororo concluded. Archangel lingered behind after the others slipped out the doorway.
“You truly did not wish to go,” Storm said. “If that’s how you feel—”
Warren grimaced. “No, no, I have to go. Even if it was just me by myself, I’d have to go.”
“But you don’t have to like it, is what you’re saying.” “Brings up a lot of history, Ororo.”
“I know it does.” She ambled toward the door, pausing to squeeze his blue arm. “Try not to agonize, my friend.” “Oh, I’ll just lay back on my pillow tonight and dream of beaches on Maui. Palm trees swaying, foxy chicks in bikinis near the water. Life’s a breeze.”
Creatures roamed in Warren Worthington’s nightmares. They gibbered, shrieked, and worst of all, laughed. Those visions were the easy ones, because even in sleep, he recognized them as unreal. They were the traces of hallucinations thrust into his brain by a master of hypnotism. The hard part came as the dreams turned toward his original reaction to those chimeras.
/ was spineless, Warren thought. / was terrified.
His eyes. His eyes.
Sauron gazed at Warren and it was as if his unnatural, reptilian orbs filled the sky. Shudders coursed along Angel’s wings—his old, feathered wings, not the mechanical appendages he wore now—rendering them so nerveless he could barely stay aloft.
So much fear. It churned his intestines. He was willing to do anything to stem it. Sauron turned him against his friends. He obeyed. The fear still rooted deep in his bones, but as long as he obeyed, it didn’t grow worse. Even that slight blessing kept him a faithful slave.
, More memories. Fleeing those eyes again, racing up from a jungle and through mists into stark, freezing air. The prospect of death from the cold appealed to him more than turning and facing that green, winged demon.
Somehow, he had gone back and fought. Ka-Zar had made him go back and fight. For a few short minutes, Warren had endured the quivering muscles, the looseness in his bowels, the chatter of his teeth. But those eyes had locked upon him again.
And Sauron spoke the words that would echo for years thereafter:
7 long ago took your measure... and found you wanting*
Archangel lurched to a sitting position, flinging the top sheet and blanket off the bed. He almost cried out before he completely woke and saw where he was.
Psylocke regarded him silently, mouth drawn into a thin line.
Archangel winced. “You read any of that?”
She bent her head. “Your mind was in such turmoil, I couldn’t help but reach inside to try to calm you. Yes, I glimpsed what you were dreaming of. I’m sorry. I had no right.”
“It’s... all right,” he said forlornly. “We should have talked before we fell asleep. It’s just that I still haven’t come to terms with how useless I was those times against Sauron. I was—”
“Wanting?”
“Yes. Wanting. Inadequate.”
“Sweetheart,” Betsy said, leaning over and kissing him firmly, “you are not die same person you were then. I’ve taken your measure, too, you know. Trust me, Sauron doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You have proven yourself a brave and complete hero. You’re my hero.”
“Thank you,” Warren said. He let himself be drawn into an eyes-to-eyes moment of connectedness. Betsy’s body was warm beside him, chasing away some of the chill he felt within. “Keep sending me that thought. If I can see half of what you see in me, I’ll be fine. But I’m not there yet. This came to a head in the Savage Land. The circle won’t close until that jungle is back under my wings.”
A wren chirped on a branch out the window, composing a tune to mark the paling of the sky. The radio alarm clock on the nightstand clicked and out poured an old Credence Clearwater Revival tune.
Warren pressed the button and the song broke off. Ninety minutes until departure time. He reached for his lover.
“Be careful what you ask for, young man,” said Psylocke with a smile. “You might get it.”
CHAPTER 3
The first time that Storm had come to the Savage Land, she, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Banshee, and Wolverine had tunneled through solid rock while she froze an avalanche of hot lava that was trying to incinerate them. For all her brave attempts to fight her deep-rooted claustrophobia, she had emerged into the open air of the jungle as limp as the porridge she had often eaten as a child-thief in Cairo. She had been so in need of calm and recuperation that she proved a pathetically easy target for Karl Lykos, providing him with the mutant lifeforce required to fuel the rebirth of Sauron.
The second time she had come to the Savage Land, the X-Men had landed their Blackbird at Deep Ice Station Alpha, one of the U.S./UN military bases that guarded the perimeter of the prehistoric biosphere. An earthquake—triggered by ancient technologies that Brainchild, under the direction of Sauron, had activated—had brought the underground complex down around them. Rubble had pressed suffocatingly around Ororo, as it had when she had been buried alive in the bombing that killed her parents.
Good had come of both those ordeals. After the first trip, the X-Men returned home to find that Phoenix and the Beast had not been killed in the volcanic event, as feared. Furthermore, the team had preserved the Savage Land from the destruction being wrought by the god Garokk, the Petrified Man. The second trip, they had beaten Sauron, returned him to New York, and cured him—a happy ending for Karl Ly-kos and his beloved Tanya Anderssen, had not the Toad and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants come along years later and rewritten it.
Yes, good had come, but if Storm had to endure another dark, ominous trip beneath a mountain of collapsing rock, then by the Goddess, she would surely turn catatonic and wish to die.
At the moment, she was confronted by more immediate worries. The X-Men’s supersonic transport bucked and rattled, caught in the fierce weather that afflicted the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica. Driving snow pelted the windows. If not for Archangel’s piloting skills and Ororo’s constant tempering of the storm’s fury, they would never be able to reach, much less land upon, the mountain shelf that Shanna’s communique had directed them to.
A surge of turbulence pushed them up a hundred meters and down two hundred in the span of three seconds.
I think I’m going to be sick, Psylocke reported telepathi-cally.
“Ororo!” Archangel barked. “Can you do something about that wind shear? I’m starting our final approach. We won’t have enough altitude to tolerate that sort of abuse anymore.”
“I’m trying, Warren. That one would have been much worse if I’d been idle.”
The screen in front of Archangel acquired a blip. “There,” he said. “That’s the beacon.” Ka-Zar had installed it a year earlier, and Shanna had provided the code sequence of non-sinusoidal wave emissions that would render it visible to their equipment.
The plane shuddered as Warren dropped the landing gear.
The blip wavered and hopped from one side of the screen to another. It was supposed to remain steady between the crosshairs.
“Controls don’t respond like they should,” Archangel reported. “Too much ice and wind.”
Ororo opened her mouth and thought, Hear me, sister wind. Be calm. Let us ride the sky gently, happy in each other’s presence. The mantra helped her focus her weather-manipulation powers.
Gusts whipped up the nose of the jet. Archangel roared an unintelligible curse and forced the stick back into its proper position. Calm, sister, Storm begged. Be at peace.
Snowbound cliffs rose to starboard. A dark wall of mountain loomed ahead. Somewhere down there was a spot flat enough to land, but the swirling ice and snow concealed it.
“Oh, God,” Psylocke said.
Storm felt a warm caress deep inside, behind her heart, at the core of her weather sense. The attunement came, so clear that it truly was as if she were communicating with an entity. Be it a wind sister or Mother Nature, she smiled at the vivid familiarity. She reached upward.
The winds steadied. They were still blowing hard, but only from one direction and at a consistent rate. The snow seemed to lose its animosity. The view ahead cleared. A narrow strip of level mountainside appeared straight ahead. The beacon confirmed it as the landing site.
Sweat poured down Archangel’s blue forehead. His arm muscles quivered from the strain of holding the controls firm. He was murmuring to himself. Still, for the others, it seemed to be a quick, safe touchdown on the slab of rock and snow. Only the final, sharp bump showed that anything was less than optimal.
“Goddess, that was close.” Storm heaved a deep sigh, unbuckled, and stood up. Something crunched beneath her booted feet.
“What are these yellow-green crystals on the floor?” the windrider asked.
Psylocke groaned.
“Betts wasn’t kidding about throwing up,” Iceman explained. “But don’t worry. As you can see, I froze it before it touched anything.”
“Super heroes don’t dribble-vomit,” the Beast declared. “Strictly projectile all the way. Very impressive, Ms. Braddock.”
“I warned you not t’take that last stack o’ pancakes this momin’,” Cannonball added.
“Be quiet now,” Betsy said in a voice so tiny it resembled thoughtspeak. “Or next time I’ll take aim.”
Warren stood up from his pilot’s chair. “She was probably reading my mind as we landed, and knew how little control I actually had over the aircraft.”
“I was calming your thoughts, helping to keep you focused,” Psylocke said. “I forgot to do the same for myself.” ‘ ‘I vote that we debark before anything thaws, and remember to set the self-cleaning cycle,” Hank said. “And let’s not forget to think well of Forge for making our vehicle so entirely user-friendly.”
“Everybody for the exit,” Logan called. “Don’t forget to zip up your parkas.”
Bone-cracking cold, made all the worse by the region’s katabatic winds, assaulted them as they descended the ramp. Storm deflected as much of the blizzard as she could, but the temperature was beyond her ability to mitigate. They needed every last bit of the insulation afforded by their clothing.
The ramp retreated as they walked away, and the exit portal sealed itself shut. The outside lights blinked out. Their transport had not gone idle, however. In addition to the cleaning apparatus, power continued to flow through several major systems, keeping the polar air from crippling it, maintaining its readiness to fly the moment the X-Men returned. And all the while it would remain invisible to the detection equipment of the various UN bases hidden elsewhere in the icy desolation.
Storm had been deprived of the sight of snow for many years during her childhood. In the warrens of the Nile delta, imprisoned by the desert tones of ochre, tan, and rust, she could only dream of its cold, ivory purity. One of her first weatherworking tricks had been to chill a cloud and stand beneath it, letting the icy flakes fall on her outstretched tongue. Now it was the desert she missed, with its blessed heat. She rejoiced when they slipped beneath an overhang of rock arid out of the gale. At last, she could cease expending energy just to make conditions manageable.
Before her stood a cavern.
“Goddess,” she whispered.
This is not a tomb, she reminded herself. The cavern had survived for millennia; it was stable. At the other end, they would emerge through a waterfall into the Savage Land. No traps. For most of its length, the walls did not crowd any closer than a hallway in the Xavier Institute. Knowing her phobia, Ka-Zar would not have let Shanna suggest a route that would have her screaming for the open sky.
She drew in a deep breath, braced herself, and continued forward.
Storm did not need to announce to the group precisely when they crossed into the influence of the weather nexus that contained the Savage Land. Everyone could feel it. On one side of a passageway laced with stalactites and stalagmites, the frosty breath of Antarctica nipped at their extremities. On the other side, a moist, tropical draft warmed the cave walls, eradicating any trace of ice. The threshold was that distinct.
They shucked off their cold-weather gear and left it piled neatly on a ledge to slip into on the return hike.
The roar of the waterfall filtered down the twists and turns, becoming thunderous as they approached. Muted light appeared. Soon they were able to douse their flashlights. One final turn, and they faced a cascade of warm water.
“Last one through’s an ankylosaurus,” Hank shouted, and leapt into the spray.
The others flung themselves after him, falling a mere ten feet or so into a broad, deep pool. With the cool, refreshing liquid around her, Storm’s burden sailed from her shoulders. No, more walls. She kicked exuberantly, surfacing into an atmosphere as warm as her homeland.
Wolverine gave her a hand onto the bank. She summoned a zephyr to dry her uniform, regarded the verdant foliage on every side, and sighed gratefully.
“Bright as an equatorial afternoon,” Hank said, scratching his pointy ears. “I’ve always wondered how the Savage Land manages that. It must be four p.m. by now. At this latitude, at this time of year, the sun’s already below the horizon. Manipulating the climate is a feat in itself, but where does the place get its light?”
“It’s made from ozone,” Iceman joked. “That accounts for the hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole.”
Hank chuckled. “What you don’t realize, Mr. Drake, is that you could be right.”
“Let’s take a look around, Warren,” Storm said.
He nodded, spread his intimidating biometaHic wings, and flapped aloft. She summoned winds to follow, but found herself nearly colliding with a cypress tree on the way up.
“You okay, Ororo?” Archangel called.
“Fine now,” she said. “I had forgotten how unusual the wind is here. I have to ‘speak’ to it carefully.”
The terrain sprawled beneath them. Warren whistled. “Oh, man, what a sight!”
Ororo had no words for it. The Savage Land filled a huge valley rimmed by the Eternity Mountains. Above, a glorious umbrella of mists held in the tropical air. At times, the cloud bottoms whirled and puffed into phantasmagorical shapes, brushed with the tones of sunset and rainbows. All without, as Hank had pointed out, an actual sun to generate the colors.
Though the highest ridges were lost to the inversion layer, foothills and lesser peaks thrust up from the jungles, some so distant the humid air rendered their slopes indistinct and almost illusory, like the creation of some faery artist. On the valley floor spread a carpet of green, green, and more green. Cycads, ferns, palms and other relics of the Mesozoic Era filled dells where dinosaurs and protomammals reigned. Elsewhere, flowering plants, broadleaf trees, and elephant grass hid a riot of other animal species.
Humans were here, too. Tendrils of smoke from wood fires rose from river banks and clearings, marking the sites of the villages of the United Tribes—the Fall People, the Lake People, the Sky People, and others under the guidance of Nereel. Storm hoped to see Nereel, recalling wistfully the smile that used to light up Colossus’s face whenever he spent time with the warrior woman.
Aside from the smoke, the traces of the indigenous people were well hidden. Just a few scattered fields, a watchtower on stilts, or the carved points of a log stockade. No paved roads, no buildings of concrete and steel, only the most primitive dams and bridges. The residents of the Savage Land lived close to nature. The rare outsider that came to live here, such as Ka-Zar and Shanna—even Karl Lykos, when he had been able to maintain his human shape—observed that covenant as well.
Not a trivial thing, Storm knew. Many times the land had withstood attempts at exploitation, from within and from without. There, down on an island in the center of a vast lake, stood a remnant of one such blasphemy—a citadel created by Sauron and his mutates, in imitation of one built by Magneto. Only a shell was left, but it was a reminder that the Earth, for all its size, had no wildernesses left that were unscarred.
“There’s the village of the Fall People,” Warren shouted. “Right where Shanna said to look.”
Storm spotted it, near the banks of the crystalline stream that flowed from the waterfall through thick jungle on its way toward the lake. It was not in the same locale as last time. The Fall People were largely hunter-gatherers, and moved between several different sites as game grew scarce.
“Good,” Ororo said. “Let’s start transporting the others.”
She and Archangel swooped back to the pool. Warren, not surprisingly, chose Psylocke as his passenger. Storm wrapped her palms around Wolverine’s wrists and vaulted skyward. Cannonball prepared to follow with the Beast, and Iceman generated an ice slide to follow along on. In this humidity, Bobby Drake would have plenty of moisture to convert to ice.
No pausing to admire the scenery this time. She raced in Warren’s wake. She couldn’t catch him. Once Archangel hit his cruising speed, she would have to whip up a gale force wind in order to keep up. Disturbing the environment to such a degree would be irresponsible.
“One of these days you have to learn to fly,” she told Logan.
“Hope not. Yer the cutest taxi I know, ’Roro.”
“Thank you, old friend,” she said with a smile. The banter reassured her that, despite their disagreements over how to deal with Sauron, Logan wouldn’t let it get in the way of his performance as an X-Man. More importantly, he wouldn’t let it interfere with their friendship.
Ororo glided beyond a towering stand of eucalyptus trees and suddenly found herself over the fields and community grounds of the village. She dipped toward the center of a ring of bamboo-and-grass huts and teepees, where Psylocke was already engaged in conversation. Storm recognized Shanna by her lithe body and long blonde tresses, and Tongah by his remarkably tall body and Mohawk haircut, a style not unlike the one she had affected for a time, though hers was never cropped as closely.
A well-muscled blond man was ambling gingerly toward the group. Beside him walked a huge sabretooth cat.
“Ka-Zar’s still hurtin’,” Logan said. “He usually moves as smoothly as Zabu.”
As if he had heard his name, the great feline lifted his head and coughed a greeting.
Storm dipped between the crowns of the huts and dropped Wolverine the last few feet to the ground. Compact as his body was, she murmured thanks that she was free of the weight. Unburdened, she was able to flutter to a dignified landing.
Cannonball roared down with the Beast, Iceman bringing his ice slide down behind them.
Shanna and Psylocke slipped off to the side, into a knot of village women, babies, and toddlers. Wolverine strode between the huts, obviously needing to assess the village’s security before he could endure standing and talking. Ororo chose to remain on the packed-dirt storytelling circle where
SI
Ka-Zar, Zabu, and Tongah stood. Iceman, Archangel, Beast, and Cannonball shadowed her.
“Welcome, wind-rider,” stated Tongah. As chieftain, he was the official host. Etiquette required that he speak first.
“I am happy to see you looking well, my friend,” Ororo replied. He was looking particularly healthy considering that he had been dead prior to the High Evolutionary’s resurrection of the Savage Land. “We are grateful for your hospitality.”
Ororo was acutely conscious that the native and his people were the true custodians of the Savage Land. It was all too easy to ignore their contribution, as if Ka-Zar, Shanna, and those bom in the outside world were somehow inherently superior. She vowed not to fall into that habit. It resembled too much the way European colonists had treated her beloved Kenyans, barely two generations ago. She wished she could have answered in his own tongue—he had used English in honor of his guests.
“As we are grateful for your aid,” he said. He clasped one of her hands between his palms, bowed, and released her.
Only then did Ka-Zar step forward, with his faithful sabretooth at his side. “On behalf of Shanna and our little family, hello to you all.” He reached out and patted the head of a small boy who had climbed on Zabu’s back.
“He has your nose,” Ororo said, smiling at the child.
“And Shanna’s temper,” Ka-Zar chuckled. He checked behind to see if his wife was listening, but luckily she was still to the side next to Psylocke, who appeared to be conversing with the cluster of tribeswomen.
“You are well?”
He winced. “Bruised from the fight. I’m hoping another long night’s sleep will wipe out some of the fatigue. There’s nothing quite like having an energy vampire suck half the life out of you. It’s early to bed for me tonight, dosed with another of the tribe shaman’s herbal remedies. It worked wonders last night, and I can’t afford to be below par at a time of crisis like this.”
“What happened to the Ka-Zar of old who always charged into danger, without an ounce of caution in his skull?” she said with a laugh. “Always pushing past the limit?”
“I’m an old married man now. A dad. I’ve had to get smarter.” Ka-Zar looked around. “Seven of you?” he asked. “Yes.”
“I will miss saying hello to Scott and Jean and the others. But seven is a good number.”
Storm cocked an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’ve heard some of what the Savage Land has gone through lately?”
“You have my sympathies. The incursions from the civilized world have, from all I’ve read, been outrageous.” “And devastating. We’ve had a record number of births among the village women this season, but it will take many more like that to bring the population back to old levels. Too many dead, Ororo. Sauron, Terminus, Zaladane, Garokk, Stegron—it’s becoming hard to count the number of ravagers who’ve tried to destroy the habitat or its inhabitants. You heard about Roxxon Corporation trying to flood us out in order to come in and drill for oil?”
“Yes. I’m told their lawyers have convinced the courts the floods were all the work of a renegade employee. A man conveniently deceased, of course.”
“Yeah. The corporate board of directors covered their tracks. That incursion made me particularly angry, Ororo. I can’t do much to stop gods and aliens from turning up, but Roxxon’s agents were human. They were just one more ex-
ample of outsider prospectors trying to get at the gold or the oil or the vibranium in our soil. I can and will see that their kind find the door to the Savage Land bolted shut in their faces. In the past few months the only people we’ve let in have been journalists, and that was only so that the plight of the Savage Land remains in the news back in the developed world. Shanna says we should go so far as to kick out the anthropologists. We have only five of them in the whole habitat, keeping a low profile and living right with the indigenous tribes, as adopted members.”
“The policy of ‘no outsiders’ has long been in force,” Storm commented.
“More or less. We eased off more than we should have. We now follow the restrictions to the letter wherever possible. We could have asked the UN for help this time, but if we let S.H.I.E.L.D. agents crawl around here, it would set a precedent of intrusion we’d never be able to back away from. They’d bring in armored vehicles and helicopters, they’d need roads and causeways to get around. Before long they’d be rolling right over burial grounds without even the decency to say, ‘Oops’.”
“Peace, my friend,” Ororo said, stepping back from the vehemence in Ka-Zar’s tone.
“Sorry.” He relaxed his fists. “The X-Men are old allies. Friends. We’ve been through a lot. But right now, Shanna and I didn’t want to have to call anybody from outside. You could say inviting you was a compromise. No bulldozers and corps of engineers. Just a few super heroes, keeping the damage to a minimum.”
“I...” Storm struggled to think of the correct response. “Hey, bub, you did ask us to come.” Logan was suddenly standing beside Storm, having slipped forward in his inimitable, quiet way. He had acquired a tobacco leaf from the
drying racks at the end of the row of tee-pees and had rolled it into a makeshift cigar. He lit it, puffed, and raised his eyebrow at Ka-Zar.
Stonn, murmured Psylocke telepathically. Storm glanced back to the other female X-Man, who was still with the group of tribal women. Shanna had turned away and was approaching.
Yes, Psylocke? Storm asked silently.
Serious turf issues here, Psylocke sent.
So I’ve noticed.
I’m not reading all that much ambivalence from Ka-Zar, actually. It’s our She-Devil over here. She doesn’t like it that I’ve already established a rapport with the villagers.
Leave it to Psylocke to be digging up dirt mere minutes after arriving on scene, Storm mused. Why on Earth not?
I think it’s more a general paranoia about outsiders than anything personal toward us. Also, I think Shanna figured they were “safe” from us “interlopers” because, aside from Tongah, they don’t speak English. She wasn’t taking into account that my telepathy enables me to communicate with them directly.
Storm answered, Thank you for the warning.
The psychic conversation had whisked by in a fraction of the span it would have taken to say the words aloud. Shanna was just now joining them. Wolverine and Ka-Zar were still gazing at one another in the manner of decisive warriors.
Interlopers. Storm resented that designation, but she was resolved to be diplomatic. Everyone was tired and edgy. Half a day fighting on the same side and the friction should—she hoped—evaporate.
“I can see your concern,” Storm told Ka-Zar. “Rest assured, the X-Men will abide by your wishes. Let’s not
let this get between us. We came for a reason. Has there been any more news in regard to Sauron?”
“No. But Shanna is better able to bring you up to date. I’ve been flat on my back much of these last twenty-four hours.”
Shanna crooked her arm inside Ka-Zar’s elbow, her stance not unlike a mother leopard guarding an injured cub. “We have heard of no new raids. That’s the pattern. A quick ambush, and the attackers fade into the jungle.”
“Or they fly off on their leatherwings,” Tongah added, in the outraged tone of a warrior whose opponent will not stand and fight.
“The fact is,” Shanna said bitterly, “we have no idea where Sauron’s base of operation lies.”
“That... isn’t like Sauron,” Ororo said. “Every time he’s emerged from hiding, he’s carried on like a pharaoh in his palace.”
“Or,” rumbled the Beast, who had walked up while Archangel joined Psylocke, “like Tolkien’s arch-villain in The Lord of the Rings, from whence Lykos pilfered his alias.” “He isn’t behaving that way this time,” Shanna explained. “We not only don’t know where his Barad-Dur lies, we don’t even know which part of the Savage Land serves as his Mordor. On the occasions when we’ve been able to observe where the pterosaur riders have gone, they’ve found temporary havens on islands or hilltops, and moved on to their final destination under cover of darkness.”
“Oh, great, we come all this way to square off against him, and we don’t know where to find him?” Iceman asked.
“No,” Shanna said. “That’s a big reason why we needed you. If we’d had a spot to concentrate our efforts, Nereel could have ordered a gathering of the United Tribes and mounted some sort of assault.”
“Though that strategy would have endangered many lives,” Ka-Zar admitted.
“Still,” Shanna said pointedly, “we could have done something.”
“Very well then,” Storm said. “The first order of business is to locate him. I confess this guerrilla-warfare style of Sauron’s troubles me. One of his great weaknesses was his tendency to make rash moves due to overconfidence. If he’s curbed that handicap, we will have to be twice as ingenious to bring him down.”
“Agreed,” Ka-Zar said. “The only bright side is that since we don’t know which way to hurry off to, we can retire to the lodge and discuss this carefully over a meal. You’ll have a chance to meet some of the people you’re helping, and we can all gather our strength.” He waved up at the cloud layer. “There’s not much left of today. Let’s help you get settled in. When night arrives in the Savage Land, you appreciate good company and stockade walls around you.” Storm rubbed the tight muscles of her neck. A little R&R—not a lowering of their guard, but an acknowledgment that they had done as much, physically, as they could for the time being-—would do a world of good. Some real food, not the packaged stuff that passed for victuals in modem society, that was a fringe benefit of a visit to the Savage Land that had slipped her mind completely until now.
But it would be difficult to relax enough to revitalize herself with this new concern: A cautious, hidden Sauron, who attacked at random times and locations.
Psylocke stood just outside the door of the lodge, gazing at Archangel. Warren was standing atop the guard platform near the top of the stockade wall, near the gate. The glow of the watchfires reflected off his wings, a cold, almost sinister scattering of light. She was not afraid of it, of course, but the Fall People gave the source a wide berth.
Warren had just flown a circuit around the village. Keeping an eye out for enemy activity, he said. Certainly a wise precaution, one that Storm and especially Wolverine had heartily endorsed. But Betsy saw his stiff spine and long, brooding stares into the jungle and understood that playing watchdog was not his prime motivation. Being out there meant he could be alone, working through his demons.
Time after time since they had become intimate, she had telepathically glimpsed him wrestling with the question of his own willpower. Asking himself over and over if some weakness in his fortitude allowed Apocalypse to turn him into his horseman, Death. Warren had struggled hard to re-• gain his humanity. His shedding of Apocalypse’s manipulations demonstrated to her the profound depth of his character, but somehow he wouldn’t quite believe he was deserving of that internal victory, especially since he retained the cyanotic blue skin tone and biometallic wings, both “gifts” from Apocalypse.
She didn’t try to reach out telepathically. He needed his privacy. All night, perhaps. If he did seek out his hammock, it would undoubtedly be long after she had entered her own dance with Morpheus. He might kiss her forehead when he joined her then, but what good was that if she were unconscious? Sometimes having a boyfriend along seemed more solitary than traveling alone.
The flaps behind her lifted. Ka-Zar ducked beneath them, stood, and acknowledged her with a nod. “Miss Elisabeth Braddock,” he said, in playful imitation of the formal British speech they had both been exposed to as children. As adults, their accents had strayed far from those roots, but the bond was there, called up every time they opened their mouths to say something.
“Lord Kevin Plunder,” she replied. A pleasant tingle flowed down her chest to her lower body, like the warm, alcoholic kiss of the pomegranate wine the Fall People had served an hour ago. Such a lovely curve to his muscles. And then there was that glorious blond mane.
“I’m off to my hut,” he said, “before I fall over.”
Even in the dim light, Psylocke made out wrinkles around his eyes. His posture lacked the fluid ease it normally possessed. But what struck her was how robust he remained at the core. Had Sauron leeched any other non-mutant human being, briefly or not, the person would be fortunate to be able to lift his eyelids the next day. This man, no matter what he claimed, had enough juice left that she found the idea of him retiring to his hut a provocative image. True, his wife was right on the other side of the hide walls of the lodge. True, her own boyfriend was perched within sight. But what was the harm in flirting?
“You’ll be yourself soon,” she said encouragingly.
“If I had a nurse such as you, I could probably avoid being an invalid altogether,” he said.
“You have a tongue that can charm savage beasts,” she said, chuckling. “No wonder Zabu follows you around.” Suddenly she wondered—Zabu was male, wasn’t he? And then even more suddenly, she had to know if Ka-Zar’s flirting was just idle habit and charm, or something more... specific to her.
She lightly touched his mind. Not enough that he would be able to sense the probe, but a sufficient glimpse to know what was on the surface, right at that moment.
Oh, my! She whirled suddenly to hide the furiousness of her blush. Men had such a—visceral quality to the pictures in their heads.
“What is it? Did something startle you?” he asked. The tone of frivolity was gone, replaced by concern and readiness for action.
“No. Just a telepathic comment from Warren,” she lied. “Telling me not to wait up for him.” There, she thought. Bring up the boyfriend. Let him think you’re a good girl, even if it isn’t always true.
And for goodness sake, quit feeling so pleased with yourself, Betsy Braddock.
The door flaps lifted again. Shanna stepped out. She eyed Psylocke sharply.
Whoops, thought Betsy, needing no telepathy whatsoever to read that icy expression.
“You didn’t say good night,” Shanna scolded her husband.
“Sorry,” he said. “I gave Matthew a kiss. He was supposed to pass it on to you.”
“Grounds for divorce,” she stated. Then, frown melting, she pressed hands around his cheeks and pulled him forward for the kind of kiss that could never be properly conveyed through an intermediary.
“I’ll just go get myself another cup of that excellent wine Tongah introduced me to,” Psylocke murmured, and slipped inside the building.
In fact, Psylocke did locate her earthenware mug and poured a splash more of the beverage into it. A sip or two helped settle the fluttering of her heart. Slightly.
Zira, one of the young women Psylocke had befriended earlier, was sitting beside little Matthew, with Zabu flopped on the reed mats nearby. Zira appeared to be Matthew’s governess. She possessed a bright smile and gentle movements.
A lovely body, too, tucked into nothing more than a loincloth. Psylocke envied that. It was awfully muggy in this jungle. Not the sort of place meant for clothing, even a costume as streamlined as her own.
“Almoost tookered off,” Zira said, stroking the boy’s head. He yawned, leaning against her.
“Almost tuckered out,” Betsy repeated, slipping in a dose of corrected English before she continued in the native language. “I can see you take good care of him.”
“Ka-Zar and Shanna need many eyes upon this one,” Zira said cheerfully. “His legs may yet be short, but he moves like a cheetah.”
“Something in the genetics.”
Zira blinked. “Genetics?”
Psylocke realized she hadn’t managed to translate the word. She needed to pay attention to read a language from a mind quickly enough to apply it flawlessly. Apparently she was still distracted. “I mean he takes after his mother and father.”
“Oh, yes.” Zira grinned at that, but then her face fell. “It is a gift and a curse. Enemies try to take Matthew hostage. Or worse.”
“I—” Psylocke began. She stopped and turned.
Shanna was there, having come up as silently as a leopard. Betsy had sensed her only by the proximity of her thoughts. Her physical body was too inherently stealthy to monitor readily. Had Ms. O’Hara really been bom in the civilized world? She seemed too primal for that to be possible.
“To bed with him, Zira,” Shanna told the tribeswoman. “It’s time, no matter how late that nap was.”
She is the mother. I am only the nanny. The thought was so vivid in Zira’s mind that Psylocke couldn’t avoid hearing it. Some thoughts couldn’t be shoved into the psychic background noise. Or had she said it aloud? No, if she had, Shanna would have reacted.
Zira stood, picked up Matthew, and tilted him so that Shanna could kiss him goodnight.
Psylocke got to her feet as well. “I’ll escort them to the hut,” she offered.
“Zabu can do that,” Shanna said, more sharply than was warranted. And indeed, the big cat had lurched to his feet and was gazing toward the door.
“Of course. Just wanted to be helpful,” Psylocke said.
“Thank you,” Shanna said. “But I see that your teammates are starting to refine the plans for tomorrow.” She tilted her head toward the central cluster of beeswax candles, where most of the X-Men were huddled.
Psylocke turned diplomatically and stepped toward the group while Shanna took a final few moments with her offspring.
Betsy did not, however, turn her mental focus away. Maintaining the etiquette of a telepath was one thing, but she had been provoked enough tonight. She peered beyond the crest of Shanna’s surface thoughts. She wanted an accurate portrait of what the hell was going on in their hostess’s consciousness.
Ah, now it makes sense.
Ka-Zar had not, after all, been opposed to the X-Men’s presence. True, he was furious with the Roxxon Corporation and all the other hostile outsiders, but Ka-Zar had come in recent years to appreciate the benefits of the outside world, from knives that didn’t need sharpening to pants that didn’t smell like dead hide. It was Shanna who had insisted that Savage Land business be kept “in house.” She had changed her mind only after Ka-Zar’s wounding—in a sense, guilt had forced her to make the call. She regretted letting Ka-Zar get too exposed without enough heavy backup. Now she was a woman coping with a split in her position—on the one hand, she was sorry she hadn’t issued the plea for help earlier, and on the other hand, she felt her opinion had been swept to the side.
Well, that was certainly enough internal conflict to make a person testy and even rude toward guests. Psylocke resolved to cut the She-Devil a little slack.
Except there was more. Not about the X-Men as a whole, but toward Betsy. Down a little deeper bubbled a kettle of garden-variety jealousy. Psylocke would have understood the presence of that emotion had Shanna been eavesdropping on the conversation outside, but apparently she had not heard a word of it. The feelings seemed to spring from something mpre basic. Say, for example, the simple competitiveness of a vibrant young woman toward any other vibrant young woman, especially when a spouse showed the bad judgment to stand next to the rival.
The law of the jungle. Fight for what’s yours.
That was hardly fair. If Betsy were going to get on someone’s bad side, at least let it be for something she’d actually done.
She wondered if Shanna came by her attitude naturally, or if this was simply the price of living hundreds of miles from the nearest flush toilet.
Whatever the cause, Psylocke found herself losing the desire to be as fully cooperative a “houseguest” as courtesy required.
“—don't think dividing into smaller units is wise,” Ororo was saying as Betsy and Shanna approached. “It may be exactly what Sauron wants.”
“Could be,” Logan countered. “Sometimes the personal approach ain’t bad. I kicked his butt last time I was here. It
don’t take more’n one person if it’s the right one.”
“Same thing works in reverse,” Iceman said. “If he catches us alone, it could be it won’t take more than one of him to take care of us.”
“Maybe. Roll o’ the dice, junior.”
Storm shook her head. “No, whatever we do, it must be a carefully coordinated team effort.”
“I know a way to eat our cake and have it, too,” said the Beast.
“What did you have in mind, Henry?” Ororo asked.
He was tinkering with a small device, his huge fingers somehow managing the finest of movements. He held it up to the candlelight. It proved to be one of the wrist radios the group sometimes used, though it had an extra, transparent , case around it.
“Most radios won’t work here,” the Beast said, “since the Savage Land generates an electromagnetic pulse that wreaks havoc with electronic devices. So the trick is to seal the equipment away from the pulses, and the circuits hold up just fine. Forge showed me how to do that to these units, and I brought along enough for the whole team.”
Storm nodded. “Well done. But won’t the pulses still distort any transmissions, even if the physical radios are protected?”
“Well, yes, but the pulses aren’t actually constant. They happen five or six times per hour, and usually only last a couple of minutes. In the intervals between, we’ll be able to talk. The range of these little things is not overwhelming, but it should be sufficient for our immediate needs. With Psylocke’s telepathy to help, we should be able to stay in communication even if we do split into small parties.” Psylocke nodded. Before anyone else spoke, she turned and gazed at the door. A familiar presence was approaching.
Archangel slipped through the portal and joined the gathering.
“I see,” Storm said, having paused only long enough to make room for Warren and his wings. “Yes, that is better than I had hoped, but it doesn’t resolve the main issue. What does it matter if the radios work if some members of the team are too far off to answer a distress call? I hate to give up the advantage of strength in numbers. That could lead to the type of setback Ka-Zar suffered. Or worse. Logan, Warren, you recall how overwhelming Sauron proved to be the time we and Kurt and Peter encountered him.”
“I’m afraid I do,” Warren said. Psylocke took his hand and squeezed it gently.
“Yer talkin’ like we’re already beat,” Wolverine said. “That battle went bad because we hadn’t figured out that Brainchild had installed some gizmo in Sauron’s stronghold that threw a wet blanket on our powers. We’ll be watchin’ for that this time.”
“Indeed,” Hank said. “I have already been scanning for just such a suppression field. No sign of it. More’s the pity. If there had been one, we would know which direction to search.”
“The way I figure, if we let old green-beak rattle us, we’re givin’ him a step up to begin with,” Logan argued.
“We’re being realistic,” Archangel countered. “Sauron’s raw powers are not trivial. I don’t expect an easy time bringing him to ground.”
Logan shrugged. “It’ll never work if you go in without a stiff backbone.”
Warren raised his voice. “I’ll do my part. Been doing it for the X-Men longer than you, pal.”
“That’s enough, both of you,” Storm said. At her commanding tone, they both settled back. Tight-lipped, arms folded, but silent. The two of them had never gotten along very well. They had gotten into a sparring match less than twenty-four hours after Wolverine joined the team, and once Warren quit the X-Men due primarily to Logan’s membership.
After an appropriate pause, Storm said, “Logan has a point. We can’t let Sauron bring the battle to us, we need to take it to him. We probably can’t do that as one large group of seven—or nine,” she added in deference to Ka-Zar and Shanna. “I’m going to take the night to decide how many divisions I’m willing to make. It’s late and we’re all tired. Let’s start tomorrow off right.”
The gathering drifted apart, Storm conferring with Shanna. Warren pulled Betsy aside. “I have an idea.” He spoke so that no one else heard.
She looked into his mind. “Oh, good,” she replied. “That’s a wise move. And yes, it would work.”
He nodded. “Then let’s set it up.” He cupped her chin tenderly in his palm. “And Betts?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for letting me get to this point on my own.” She laughed softly. “If I’d tried to give you advice, you’d have resisted. I’m learning how you work, Warren Worthington. Next thing you know, I’ll know you as well as would a wife.”
He didn’t fall into shock at the word wife. Hmmm, she thought. Inside the shadows beneath his eyebrows, she imagined she saw his eyes twinkle. Surely she was mistaken.
They stepped outside. Beneath the dark canopy of clouds, she summoned psychic energy and began to shape it into the construct that Warren had requested.
CHAPTER 4
olverine will go out alone,” Storm an-■W nounced.
y y The seven X-Men stood with Ka-Zar and Shanna just inside the open gates of the village stockade. The mutant visitors were as well rested as could be expected of a night in a land where mysterious roars and screeches tore through the jungle every five minutes. They were as ready as they were likely to get. Storm’s declaration drew them up short.
“Before we hit the hammocks last night, you were insisting on groups of at least two,” Iceman said.
“I’ve reconsidered,” Storm explained. “You have no objection, do you, Logan?”
“Nope,” answered the Canadian. “Suits me fine. I can produce results quicker if I don’t have to worry ’bout anyone slowin’ me down.”
Psylocke was tempted to probe Storm’s mind to confirm what the team leader was thinking, but she didn’t have to. The wind-rider’s decision was a perfect example why she had been chosen to command the X-Men back when Cyclops had first left the group. Betsy again did not have to be a telepath to see that Wolverine was in one of his moods. The man got on a scent like a bloodhound sometimes and couldn’t be dragged back to the kennel. Had Storm ordered it, he would have been a team player and stayed with whomever she assigned, but he wanted to charge ahead this time on his own.
Was it the jungle? He liked it here. Was it calling him?
The best thing was just to get out of his way. Storm had not only done so, but made it seem like her idea. Ororo had taken a situation that could have exacerbated tensions, and used it to reinforce her authority.
Pretty smooth, Betsy told Ororo mentally. You saw which way the wind was blowing.
Storm didn’t reply, but did smile a small smile before continuing. “I’D drop you in deep jungle, then, where your tracking ability will do the most good,” Ororo told Logan. “Ka-Zar just reported that a clan of the Lake People have located signs of recent enemy presence. Perhaps you can see a,pattern to the comings and goings.”
“You and me are thinkin’ alike,” Logan replied. ‘‘It’s a go. Sooner the better.”
Storm inclined her head.
“As for the other teams,” the wind-rider continued, “Archangel and I are a natural tandem. We’ll reconnoiter the valley by air, covering as much terrain as possible both quickly and quietly. We’ll pursue Sauron or pterosaur riders should they appear, and fetch the rest of you if we should locate anything resembling a stronghold.”
“Ye olde mutant air force,” the Beast quipped.
“Yes.”
“Ka-Zar and I will be coordinating searches by the Fall People and the Swamp People,” Shanna said.
Ororo nodded. “Which leaves four X-Men to pair off into two more teams.”
“Actually, it doesn’t,” Psylocke said. “I was talking with Zira at breakfast. She mentioned that there are two people in the village who survived an early raid by Sauron. And, of course, there are scores of witnesses to the attack upon Ka-Zar. I think it might prove fruitful if I probe the minds of some of these individuals. I may uncover useful information that would help us against Sauron. Something in their memories they don’t realize is important, so they haven’t mentioned it.”
Ka-Zar murmured appreciatively. “That’s a great idea. I’ll round up some volunteers.”
“Some of Tongah’s people won’t care to have someone playing Peeping Tom with their minds,” Shanna interjected.
“But others will,” Ka-Zar said. “Especially if they think it will help put an end to the raids.”
“It does sound like an efficient use of Betsy’s talents,” Storm admitted. “Very well. She’ll stay here, at least for today.”
’ “Which leaves us with an odd number,” commented the Beast, settling his hairy paws on the shoulders of Iceman and Cannonball.
Storm frowned. “It does. So be it. Let’s keep the three of you as a unit. While Archangel and I visit places like Gar-okk’s old city and other farflung locales Sauron frequented in the past, you can serve not only as a search party, but provide firepower along the lake near the villages in the event of new attacks. Cannonball can airlift you if you need to hop from place to place quickly.”
“As you command, fair lady,” Hank said. Iceman and Cannonball nodded.
Storm held up her wrist radio. “Everyone linked up? Good. Then let’s do it.”
Logan bent down and gazed closely at the footprints in the mud of the clearing.
“Four of ’em,” he muttered aloud. “All men, by the depth of the impressions.” The two Lake People warriors that crouched beside him did not respond. They didn’t understand English. Logan pointed at the spoor, and counted off four on his fingers.
The warriors nodded, and then pointed at an additional set that did not match the others.
“Yeah. Lupo.” The prints resembled those of a human only to a degree. The claw marks and toes looked canine.
“Lupo,” said the older warrior with the velociraptor-tooth necklace around his throat. He gave a tiny howl like a wolf.
It had rained just before dawn, but no drops had rinsed away the tracks. They were as fresh as the warriors had promised when they rendezvoused with Wolverine just outside the village where Storm had delivered him.
, So far, so good.
The older warrior, whose name seemed to be Gelm, gestured at the rock outcropping ahead and the pterosaur droppings upon it.
“Yeah, they took to the air, looks like, not too long ago,” Wolverine said. “You think so, Aben?” he asked, winking at the younger tribesman.
Aben nodded, flapping his arms like wings.
“If they’re gone, why’d you bring me here?” Wolverine pointed to himself and shrugged.
The pair tilted their heads back. Their nostrils quivered.
“You guys’re good, y’know that?” Wolverine was impressed. They had noticed the scent of wolf lingered in the air. Nothing as definite as a trail. The mutate and his party definitely had taken to the air. But he was still somewhere in the vicinity, or had been very recently. The flight had been short, perhaps designed only to interrupt the trail and make things difficult for a tracker.
This was a lead he could work with. Lupo and his group were probably setting up for a raid on Gelm and Aben’s camp. It was inhabited by only twenty or so natives—just one clan, and therefore a prime target.
Wouldn’t it just be too bad if their plan developed a few rips and slices?
“C’mon,” Logan said, pointing at the thick jungle beyond the clearing. “Keep up if you can.”
Logan crept carefully along the animal track, nostrils flaring at the panoply of aromas here in the jungle. He had jogged, climbed, and slashed his way through at least four miles of verdant growth—how many species had he seen?
Such a place. True, it was not the conifer wilds of the Canadian taiga, but it still felt like home in so many ways. The; more he gave in to the untamed energies of the land, the more natural it felt. He’d had to go solo. Instinct. Not that he’d wanted to offend his teammates’ abilities, but he’d known how it had to be. He couldn't have explained why in words. Not to worry, though. Storm, perceptive as ever, had figured it out, and let him out of the harness.
He silently brushed aside a frond bigger than his torso. A few feet away, a small, deerlike creature was sipping from the rivulet that dribbled along between the giant trees. A dikdik, perhaps. One of the most timid of herbivores, the sort that bounded away at the first hint of danger.
It hadn’t detected Wolverine, so furtive had been his approach. He reached out with his hand and gently nudged the animal’s tail.
Viiiippp.
The dikdik, its throat fluttering and its eyes wide as saucers, bounded into the undergrowth, so quickly it seemed to overtake its own little squeak of alarm.
Wolverine chuckled. He bent and sipped from the same narrow stream.
There in the soft earth beside the water was another wolflike print.
Wolverine narrowed his eyes. Good. The scent had been growing stronger and easier to detect, but now he had a physical trail to follow again. He sketched a big “X” in the soil beside the track, so that Gelm and Aben would immediately know he had come this way. He had long since outpaced them, but there was no reason to make their lives difficult.
He moved even faster than before, nose and eyes picking up the signs of where Lupo had gone. His hands began to twitch, aching to extrude his claws and feel the pitch of battle.
It was a jungle out there. It was a jungle within. Life had a way of balancing out just right sometimes.
Psylocke shaded her eyes as she emerged from the dim light of the lodge into the overcast-but-brilliant Savage Land day. Sweat poured down her sides, and her hair was matted. It was bad enough spending the morning in hard psi labor. To do so without a morning shower and coffee, that was duty above and beyond the call.
As a tough preteen, Betsy Braddock, sister of the future Captain Britain, had always longed for adventure. As an adult with adventures galore in her resume, she understood that her childhood fantasies had somehow glossed over the possibility of missions to places with no softsoap, no comer pharmacies, not even a decent mirror.
But then, she had changed in so many ways since that spoiled, rich English upbringing. Right down to the body— no longer blonde and a trifle on the frail side, but long, dark-tressed, Asian, and powerful. A bizarre body-switch with a
woman named Kwannon—now deceased—had seen to that. To this day, she had yet to fully adjust to the change.
Her latest probe subject, one of the warriors wounded in the melee that had brought down Ka-Zar and killed young Immono—Psylocke shivered at the shared memory of the youth’s neck bent so grotesquely from the fall-—lifted the flaps and came out into the open as well.
“Thank you, Ushatch,” Psylocke said. “My apologies for the dizziness. It will pass by the end of the day.”
“No matter. It is good to be able to help.” The warrior, as Psylocke now knew from having seen inside him, was the kind of man who hated being an invalid. Luckily, his injuries were the sort that would cease to hamper him by the next feastnight, the every-thirty-days ritual the Fall People used as one of their key measures of time, having no moon to observe. He would eventually heal completely. “You found something?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hope so.”
He nodded optimistically.
As Ushatch limped back to the medicine man’s hut, Betsy stretched out the kinks in her joints and performed a slow-motion version of a white crane kung fu form she had been honing lately. Her ninja-trained muscles complained about the minimal level of physical activity she had endured these past few hours. Another price of losing her birth body.
She awakened the psychic tendril she had woven the night before, at Archangel’s request. Along its length came Warren’s soothing presence, though he was way out over the southern hills, ordinarily far enough to require more effort to make contact. Reassured, she let the connection fade once more into the background.
She heard footfalls, and opened her eyes. Ka-Zar and Zabu were ambling toward her. The jungle lord shrugged. “Learn