Free Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII by Alex Raymond Page B

air, trying to see where he was.
    Enormous lily pads floated in the water, big enough for a dozen men to walk on. In the distance, he saw high oak trees with some type of hanging moss suspended from their branches. It was called mongomoss. Even though it was an unearthly bright yellow, it resembled Spanish moss.
    Zarkov saw the shore, and he turned to make his way toward it.
    He finally dragged himself up onto the bank and flopped down on his back. He wheezed and coughed.
    He lay there, his eyes closed.
    “I’ve had it,” he said. “Just let me lie here.”
    Then he heard something.
    One eye opened.
    He stared.
    Above him, not five feet away on the grassy bank of the swamp, stood a youth. He was dressed in a plain earth-colored tunic laced with leather thongs in the center. He had on roughspun trousers tucked into boots made of soft animal hide. He wore a skullcap with a bright-yellow feather, apparently from some alardactyl. Under the cap Zarkov saw long brown hair tied in a pirate’s pigtail.
    The youth stared down at him without a flicker of expression. In his hands he held a huge crossbow, longer than he was tall. He had it fully drawn. The arrow in the string was aimed directly at Zarkov’s throat.
    “Should ye move a muscle,” said the youth in a voice which had not yet changed, “ye’re a dead man.”
    “Friend,” Zarkov said tiredly, trying to smile. “Friend, do not mistake me for an enemy. I am a friend to those of the forest kingdom.”
    “Now, ye don’t say so, do ye?” said the youth. “Ye nay would be pulling me leg?”
    Zarkov sank back. He knew better than to try to argue. Forest-kingdom folk were a breed unto themselves. They were hard, being reared in adversity. They were stubborn by nature. And they were tough from necessity.
    I can argue with any man on a scientific level, Zarkov thought. But when I argue with men on a lower level of intellect, I always lose.
    He saw the gleam in the youth’s brown eyes. He saw the arm tense and the string quiver.
    Why am I not an orator or a politico? he wondered. Why am I not blessed with the golden tongue of the pol?
    Zarkov could almost feel the metal tip of the arrow lodged in his throat.

CHAPTER 12
    I n his panic, Kial ran hard through the forest’s undergrowth without further thought. He did not see the low-hanging branch and smashed headlong into it. The blow knocked him to the ground, where he lay for a moment before he came to his senses and sat up.
    “Where am I going?” he asked himself. “What happened to Lari?” He shook his head and stood up, gazing fearfully about him.
    He was in a deep part of the giant forest growth. He heard the sound of trees moving and branches snapping in the distance. It was the giant aphid coming after him. He knew that.
    “Lari? I wonder what happened to Lari. I ran off. I never waited for him.”
    Kial moved through the woods and emerged in a small clearing. There, across a draw, he saw the purple monster crouching in the trees, looking for him. A purple giant aphid.
    Behind the beast, Kial saw the purple substance where Lari had been encapsulated by the aphid’s spittle.
    It’s Lari! thought Kial. What happened to him?
    Kial trembled.
    “I should go to help Lari,” he muttered. “But if I go, I may be killed by the beast. Perhaps Lari is already dead. How can I carry out the mission of Ming XIII if I, too, am dead?”
    Kial nodded thoughtfully.
    “I’ll go into the woods and find the Tempendulum again. Then I can talk to Ming XIII and report the imprisonment of Lari.”
    He turned and moved through the thick trees. He had not gone more than a hundred yards before he stumbled over a metallic object in the underbrush. It had been covered over with branches to camouflage it.
    Kial stared.
    “The antimatter neutralizer ray gun!”
    He and Lari had mounted it there on the ground when they had first come from the Tempendulum with it. It was at that spot that they had aimed it at Flash Gordon’s jetcar