The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series by Lin Carter Page A

the one-piece, abbreviated fur garment that was Darya’s only attire, with its brief short skirt covering her upper thighs. Well, she reached down and pulled the fur aside, revealing a long leather thong bound snugly about her upper leg—and revealing quite a lot of naked, curvaceous leg at the same time.
    The Professor flushed, and hastily averted his gaze, trying to remind himself that the innocent jungle maid had never learned the puritanical trait of shame at the exposing of her bare body. To her way of thinking, her body was young and healthy and in no wise ugly or deformed: why, then, be ashamed of it or strive to conceal it behind thick garments?
    Ignoring the Professor’s flush of outraged modesty, the girl untied the thong, revealing a crude sling.
    “Like this,” said Darya, fitting one of the smooth stones into the thickest place in the thong. Then, whirling the makeshift sling about her head, she loosed the stone with a practiced flip of her hand.
    The flat stone whizzed through the air, striking the trunk of a nearby tree with much the impact of a bullet. Indeed, the flat edge of the stone remained imbedded in the hard wood until Darya pried it loose, showing it to the Professor.
    He pursed his lips in a silent whistle of approval.
    “David and Goliath, eh, my dear? Remarkable!” he wheezed.
    The savage girl, of course, did not understand his Biblical allusion; but she sensed the approval and admiration in his voice, and smiled.
    Then she sobered, looking wistfully back along the way they had come. Her perfect breasts rose and fell in a deep, disconsolate sigh. It did not take a mind-reader to ascertain the direction of her thoughts.
    “You are thinking of Eric, are you not, my dear?” murmured the old man sympathetically. “Indeed, I am, too…I fear that we shall both miss the dear boy…ah, if only he had not turned back to delay the pursuit, he might be standing here with us now…and I, for one, would feel a lot more secure, I can assure you! Your skill with the sling is remarkable; but it will hardly serve to halt a charging dinosaur—”
    “The men of my people have slain a goroth with such, ere now!” the girl informed him with flashing eyes, lifting her small, stubborn chin challengingly.
    A goroth is an aurochs, and an aurochs is a prehistoric bull. The feat which Darya described was a remarkable one.
    The Professor nodded. “I am quite impressed, my girl…but nonetheless, let us hope the larger saurians do not stray into these portions of the jungle—eh? What are you doing now—?”
    His voice rose to a treble, for without a sign or word the jungle maid had reached up and slipped the strap of her brief fur garment off one rounded shoulder; the garment dropped about her waist and she shrugged out of it with a lithe twist of her flawless hips. Beneath the furs she wore nothing at all.
    “Really, my dear young woman, what do you think you are doing?” the Professor gasped, blushing scarlet to the tips of his ears and hastily averting his eyes from the tempting expanse of bare girl-flesh so artlessly exposed to his gaze.
    “’Darya shall bathe now,” said the girl, gesturing at the pool.
    “Really! You might have asked me to turn my back!”
    “Why?” the jungle girl asked, frankly curious, glancing down at herself as if to see what had alarmed the old man. The women of her tribe were accustomed to wear brief fur or hide garments for the sake of comfort, rather than modesty; and, for the life of her, the girl could see nothing wrong with the nudity of her flawless young body.
    The Professor uttered a strangled croak, and hurriedly turned his back upon the scene. Shrugging with a little humorous frown, as if to say that she would never understand the ways of these strangers who wore so much clothing, the girl turned and slipped into the pool. Dunking herself to the shoulders she bent down, scooped up a double handful of the wet sand from the pool bottom, and began to scrub herself