READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
down age-worn stone steps and under the half-corroded and
tumbled foundations of ancient Opar.
La, in the meantime, knew where she was going whereas
Cadj did not. Or at least she believed she could remember her
way in these long unused labyrinths and chambers of the
dead. Here was a territory which no Oparian priest would
enter in his right mind, for superstition told him that the
spirits of the dead waited in these dreaded catacombs to
sacrifice the living on their own altar. Years before, Tarzan
had made good his escape by this same route, and La believed
that somewhere he had found a rear entrance to the treasure
vaults, which gave access, she knew, to the valley beyond the
city. Now it appeared that her only hope of eluding her insane
pursuer was to find that same exit, and she prayed to her
unknown ancestors that she might be guided in the footsteps
of her long lost love.
Several times as she paused to reconnoiter, her fear
sensitized ears caught the distant sounds of Cadj's approach
as he growled and pounded his chest and bounded gorilla-like
along her trail on all fours. And that distant thumping that was
the prelude to certain death, should she be overtaken, was
augmented by the audible thumping of her heart.
Half out of her mind, herself, La ran onward, and now in
her distraught mental condition she became shorn of rational
judgment in relation to which passageways she should
choose. First into one and then into the other she ran,
sometimes discovering only a blank wall, an empty room, or
an impassable pit, from which she would have to retreat, only
to hasten onward, frantically groping through that dim lost
world of the dead for any chance avenue of escape. The more
she feared being apprehended the stronger her scent spoor
became, thus making it easier for her relentless, drooling
nemesis to follow.
Finally, when ready to scream aloud in her terrible
desperation, she came to a dead stop in mid-flight. She held
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