Rahan. Episode Seventy-three. By Roger Lecureux. The Blue Eye. A Puke (TM) Comic.

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Rahan.

Episode Seventy-three.

By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret.

The Blue Eye.

Yes it is Rahan! It is him.
The son of fierce ages, or the reflection of Rahan in the blue pupil of Toungna, which had made him “Undead”!

It was at the beginning of the "Season-of-Green-Leaves" that Rahan was surprised by fishermen, while he was practicing throwing his knife.

Look at his hair! At his eyes!
They have the color of the sky.
Like the ones of Tougna!

See! It is natural that he is twice as skillful as Tougna, since he has two blue colored eyes!
That his skill was attributed to the color of his eyes greatly amused the son of Crao.
Rahan has known countless hunters who had blue eyes! Some were skilled, others were not!

A little later.
We have captured a hunter, Tougna!
He is capable, at thirty paces, of throwing his knife.

In a bamboo smaller than this Finger!

The leader of the fishermen had the curious peculiarity of having one brown eye and the other blue! Which gave his face an unusual and worrying appearance.
No man is more skillful than Tougna!

Page Two.

In anger, Tougna threw his javelin, slicing right through a fish that was drying in the sun.
See what Tougna can do with his clear eye!

Rahan can do better.
If you wanted to land this fish.
It has to be done this way!
The knife flew away and his ivory blade cut the fine vine!

You want to humiliate me in front of mine, “hair of fire”!
You deserve to die!

No, Tougna! Clan law forbids us from taking the lives of “Those Who Walk Upright!”

Eh? It is true.
But it does not forbid us from keeping this hunter captive.
Until his natural death!
Let us throw him into the Cave of the forgotten!

Page Three.

The son of Crao was dragged onto a low cliff, and pushed into a gully.

A fall followed.

From which he only emerged unscathed by a miracle.
This underground tomb well deserved its name “Cave-of-the-forgotten”

It offers no other way out than the opening from which the daylight faintly fell, but this hole was inaccessible!

A narrow crack in the granite wall allowed him to see the village of the fishers.
This vision would henceforth be the only one the captive would have of the outside world.

Thus began his terrible torture.
Rahan will never escape!
His bones will rot in this cave as these have rotted!

Page Four.

And days follow days.
Sometimes, through the narrows, a few fish were thrown at him, and a little water was poured over him.
Gently.

Once he tried to hold on to this vine.
But it was brutally torn from him.
Do not do that again, "Fire Hair"! Ever! Otherwise, food will be scarce!

The world of the son of Crao was now limited to the skeletons lying in the darkness.
And the opening.
And the fissure.

The crack! Every Morning, Tougna came to observe his Captive there.
You are Strong, Rahan!
Maybe your body will resist for a long time!
But reason will abandon you!

Tougna is convinced, and he has persuaded his people that his skill comes from “His blue eye!”
And that stupid monster is jealous of Rahan who has two!

Page Five.

One day the tormentor went so far as to return his precious knife.
You can always try to dig through the cliff! Ha-ha-ha!

The weapon only served to eliminate his beard, which irritated the son of Crao.
If this knife was useless to him.

He found with it, a sort of companion.
Turn.
Turn.
Alas, Rahan will never be able to obey you like before!

Obsessed by the eternal darkness of his grave, he imagined the golden landscapes.
The wonderful skies that he would never see again.

And the “Season-of-yellow-leaves” followed that of the “Green-Leaves”.
The resistance of the captive astounded the fishermen, and amazed some.

Page Six.

This is perhaps why, one day, the vine which was lowering the calabash of water did not come back up!
Does Rahan have an ally?
Will he soon be free?
He no longer dares to believe it!

His throat tight, he hoisted himself towards the opening, rising towards it.

That was when Tougna's laughter rang out!
Ha-ha-ha! Tougna was right to be wary.

A traitor wanted to help you “Fire hair.”
But Tougna arrived in time!
And Rahan fell back into the “cave of oblivion”!

The anger of Tougna was great that day.
“Hair of Fire” never begs for our pity and yet you admire his courage, do you not!

But since some deceivers want to help him, it will be Tougna who will now bring the food to the captive!
The torture of the son of fierce ages was going to become even more terrible!

Page Seven.

To get out of his grave he had imagined everything, tried everything.
The bones from which he had thought he could make steps had collapsed under his weight.

And the opening offered no hold for the grappling hook he had made.

He marked each day with a sign on the rock. And his signs were now innumerable.
How long has Rahan been here? How many days and nights?
As numerous as rushes in a marsh?

The trees are beginning to become bare, heralding the “leafless season."
Faced with Rahan's resistance, Tougna's jealousy became hatred.

Betraying clan law without his people being aware, he more and more often abandoned the pittance on the cliff instead of throwing it to the captive!

Page Eight.

Many more days passed.
Tormented by hunger and thirst, the son of Crao.

Felt himself weakening and his reason wavered sometimes.

And he found himself more and more often confiding in his ivory knife.
Do you remember the happy times? When we were both free?

He then saw himself in the green valleys, free!

The idea of killing himself had sometimes crossed his mind.

You will end Rahan's suffering!

No! Rahan must last until the end!
Until his last breath!

Page Nine.

As the storms increased, the clan of fishermen abandoned the shore and retreated to a plateau.
But Tougna continued his visits!
You no longer have the strength to stand up, “Fire-Hair”!
Ha-ha-ha! Your end is near!

But one morning the tormentor did not come.
And Rahan heard the "Great River" roar.
He saw the waves rising towards the sky.

The clan took refuge on a height to escape the fury of the waves.

The tidal wave surged with fantastic violence, submerged the shore, and launched an assault on the cliff.

And suddenly.
Oh!
Rahan may be saved!
The water cascaded through the crack, seeped through the ground, and rose, and rose, and rose.

Page Ten.

The innumerable marks, each of which represented a day of suffering, disappeared.
The water was still rising!

Rise again great river!
Rise!
Rise!

Nature, so often hostile to Rahan, came to his aid! He soon swam under the opening.

“Freedom” was up there.
Liberty was at the end of this long inaccessible opening, into which he now rose.

The water suddenly stopped rising.
But it did not matter to him.
The grappling hook that had been prepared for many days could finally be used.
And.

Ra-ha-ha!
Never had the clamor of victory thundered with such force!
He finally saw the sky again! And the horizon! And the great river!

Page Eleven.

The flood was already receding.
And the fishers there screamed at the miracle.
Since nothing got the better of Rahan, you will have to fight him, Tougna!

We will finally know if one eye the color of the sky is worth two!
The tormentor hesitated.
But the harpoons of his people spurred him towards the cliff from which the son of fierce ages descended, still dazzled by the day, and staggering a little.

They were soon face to face.
You are going to die, "Fire hair"!
Rahan has never killed a man before, but the one who stole three seasons of his life is no man!

The tormentor raised his harpoon and the hatred in his blue eyes gave way to fear.
Rahan too, was also ready to throw his ivory knife!

He thought of these three seasons of suffering.
No Tougna did not deserve the title of man!
So? Should he let himself be killed by this monster?
The color of his eyes would have nothing to do with it.
But Rahan knew he would be the quickest and most skillful.