Round and round his head, Bram Forest whirled the whip-sword. Retoc could--just--block the motion, the death-laden circle, with his own blade. He became accustomed to it. He used all his effort, all his skill to block it.
Then, abruptly, Bram Forest raised his sword-arm and brought it down from high over his head.
And died screaming, his head and torso split from crown to navel.
Bram Forest rushed to Bontarc, stretched out on the sand, and with his own hand stemmed the bleeding.
Bylanus the Golden Ape said: "All Tarth is yours to command if you wish it, Bram Forest."
"No, Bylanus. Take your people back to your world and live in peace. We of Tarth thank you."
Bylanus smiled. "I thought you would say that."
"Portox was a great scientist," Bram Forest said. "But he thought too much of revenge. The ancient wrong is righted."
"Then you'll spare Abaria?" gasped the delegate of the assembled Tarthian nobles, who had come to the meeting called by Bylanus that night.
"My fight was with Retoc and the Abarian army. Retoc is dead, the army decimated and disbanded. My fight with Abaria is over."
Bram Forest took Ylia's hand. "I'd like to see a great nation rise again on the Plains of Ofrid."
Bontarc, his arm bandaged, said: "My people will help you build. And, with your wayfarers as a nucleus maid Ylia...."
"It will be a small nation at first," Ylia said.
"It will grow, so long as Tarth knows peace," Bontarc told her.
"Tarth will know nothing but peace from now on," Bram Forest promised.
It was a promise which he knew all of them would keep.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quest of the Golden Ape, by Ivar Jorgensen and Adam Chase