The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume One: Crimson Shadows Page 24

  At the same moment the wild men of Connacht again hurled a desperate charge against the Dublin Danes. O’Hyne and Dubhgall fell together and the Dublin men were battered backward, disputing every foot. The whole field melted into a mingled mass of slashing battlers without rank or formation. Among a heap of torn Dalcassian dead, Murrogh came at last upon Jarl Sigurd. Behind the Jarl stood grim old Rane Asgrimm’s son, holding the raven banner. Murrogh slew him with a single stroke. Sigurd turned, and his sword rent Murrogh’s tunic and gashed his chest, but the Irish prince smote so fiercely on the Norseman’s shield that Jarl Sigurd reeled backward.

  Thorleif Hordi had picked up the banner, but scarce had he lifted it when Black Turlogh, his eyes glaring, broke through and split his skull to the teeth. Sigurd, seeing his banner fallen once more, struck Murrogh with such desperate fury that his sword bit through the prince’s morion and gashed his scalp. Blood jetted down Murrogh’s face, and he reeled, but before Sigurd could strike again, Black Turlogh’s ax licked out like a flicker of lightning. The Jarl’s warding shield fell shattered from his arm, and Sigurd gave back for an instant, daunted by the play of that deathly ax. Then a rush of warriors swept the raging chiefs apart.

  “Thorstein!” shouted Sigurd. “Take up the banner!”

  “Touch it not!” cried Asmund. “Who bears it, dies!” Even as he spoke, Dunlang’s sword crushed his skull.

  “Hrafn!” called Sigurd desperately. “Bear the banner!”

  “Bear your own curse!” answered Hrafn. “This is the end of us all.”

  “Cowards!” roared the Jarl, snatching up the banner himself and striving to gather it under his cloak as Murrogh, face bloodied and eyes blazing, broke through to him. Sigurd flung up his sword–too late. The weapon in Murrogh’s right hand splintered on his helmet, bursting the straps that held it and ripping it from his head, and Murrogh’s left-hand sword, whistling in behind the first blow, shattered the Jarl’s skull and felled him dead in the bloody folds of the great banner that wrapped about him as he went down.

  Now a great roar went up, and the Gaels redoubled their strokes. With the formation of shields torn apart, the mail of the Vikings could not save them; for the Dalcassian axes, flashing in the sun, hewed through chain-mesh and iron plates alike, rending linden shield and horned helmet. Yet the Danes did not break.

  On the high ramparts, King Sitric had turned pale, his hands trembling where he gripped the parapet. He knew that these wild men could not be beaten now, for they spilled their lives like water, hurling their naked bodies again and again into the fangs of spear and ax. Kormlada was silent, but Sitric’s wife, King Brian’s daughter, cried out in joy, for her heart was with her own people.

  Murrogh was striving now to reach Brodir, but the black Viking had seen Sigurd die. Brodir’s world was crumbling; even his vaunted mail was failing him, for though it had thus far saved his skin, it was tattered now. Never before had the Manx Viking faced the dreaded Dalcassian ax. He drew back from Murrogh’s onset. In the crush, an ax shattered on Murrogh’s helmet, knocking him to his knees and blinding him momentarily with its impact. Dunlang’s sword wove a wheel of death above the fallen prince, and Murrogh reeled up.

  The press slackened as Black Turlogh, Conn and young Turlogh drove in, hacking and stabbing, and Dunlang, frenzied by the heat of battle, tore off his helmet and flung it aside, ripping off his cuirass.

  “The Devil eat such cages!” he shouted, catching at the reeling prince to support him, and even at that instant Thorstein the Dane ran in and drove his spear into Dunlang’s side. The young Dalcassian staggered and fell at Murrogh’s feet, and Conn leaped forward to strike Thorstein’s head from his shoulders so that it whirled grinning still through the air in a shower of crimson.

  Murrogh shook the darkness from his eyes. “Dunlang!” he cried in a fearful voice, falling to his knees at his friend’s side and raising his head.

  But Dunlang’s eyes were already glazing. “Murrogh! Eevin!” Then blood gushed from his lips and he went limp in Murrogh’s arms.

  Murrogh leaped up with a shout of demoniac fury. He rushed into the thick of the Vikings, and his men swept in behind him.

  On the hill of Cabra, Malachi cried out, flinging doubts and plots to the wind. As Brodir had plotted, so had he. He had but to stand aside until both hosts were cut to pieces, then seize Erin, tricking the Danes as they had planned to betray him. But his blood cried out against him and would not be stilled. He gripped the golden collar of Tomar about his neck, the collar he had taken so many years before from the Danish king his sword had broken, and the old fire leaped up.

  “Charge and die!” he shouted, drawing his sword, and at his back the men of Meath gave tongue like a hunting pack and swarmed down into the field.

  Under the shock of the Meathmen’s assault, the weakened Danes staggered and broke. They tore away singly and in desperate slashing groups, seeking to gain the bay where their ships were anchored. But the Meathmen had cut off their retreat, and the ships lay far out, for the tide was at flood. All day that terrific battle had ranged, yet to Conn, snatching a startled glance at the setting sun, it seemed that scarce an hour had passed since the first lines had crashed together.

  The fleeing Northmen made for the river, and the Gaels plunged in after them to drag them down. Among the fugitives and the groups of Norsemen who here and there made determined stands, the Irish chiefs were divided. The boy Turlogh was separated from Murrogh’s side and vanished in the Tolka, struggling with a Dane. The clans of Leinster did not break until Black Turlogh rushed like a maddened beast into the thick of them and struck Mailmora dead in the midst of his warriors.

  Murrogh, still blood-mad, but staggering from fatigue and weakened by loss of blood, came upon a band of Vikings who, back to back, resisted the conquerors. Their leader was Anrad the Berserk, who, when he saw Murrogh, rushed furiously upon him. Murrogh, too weary to parry the Dane’s stroke, dropped his own sword and closed with Anrad, bearing him to the ground. The sword was wrenched from the Dane’s hand as they fell. Both snatched at it, but Murrogh caught the hilt and Anrad the blade. The Gaelic prince tore it away, dragging the keen edge through the Viking’s hand, severing nerve and thew; and, setting a knee on Anrad’s chest, Murrogh drove the sword thrice through his body. Anrad, dying, drew a dagger, but his strength ebbed so swiftly that his arm sank. And then a mighty hand gripped his wrist and drove home the stroke he had sought to strike, so that the keen blade sank beneath Murrogh’s heart. Murrogh fell back dying, and his last glance showed him a tall grey giant looming above, his cloak billowing in the wind, his one glittering eye cold and terrible. But the mazed eyes of the surrounding warriors saw only death and the dealing of death.

  The Danes were all in flight now, and on the high wall King Sitric sat watching his high ambitions fade away, while Kormlada gazed wild-eyed into ruin, defeat and shame.

  Conn ran among the dying and the fleeing, seeking Thorwald Raven. The kern’s buckler was gone, shattered among the axes. His broad breast was gashed in half a dozen places; a sword-edge had bitten into his scalp when only his shock of tangled hair had saved him. A spear had girded into his thigh. Yet now in his heat and fury he scarcely felt these wounds.

  A weakening hand caught at Conn’s knee as he stumbled among dead men in wolf-skins and mailed corpses. He bent and saw O’Kelly, Malachi’s nephew, and chief of the Hy Many. The chief ’s eyes were glazing in death. Conn lifted his head, and a smile curled the blue lips.

  “I hear the war-cry of the O’Neill,” he whispered. “Malachi could not betray us. He could not stand from the fray. The Red Hand–to–Victory!”

  Conn rose as O’Kelly died, and caught sight of a familiar figure. Thorwald Raven had broken from the press and now fled alone and swiftly, not toward the sea or the river, where his comrades died beneath the Gaelic axes, but toward Tomar’s Wood. Conn followed, spurred by his hate.

  Thorwald saw him, and turned, snarling. So the thrall met his former master
. As Conn rushed into close quarters, the Norseman gripped his spear-shaft with both hands and lunged fiercely, but the point glanced from the great copper collar about the kern’s neck. Conn, bending low, lunged upward with all his power, so that the great blade ripped through Jarl Thorwald’s tattered mail and spilled his entrails on the ground.

  Turning, Conn saw that the chase had brought him almost to the king’s tent, pitched behind the battle-lines. He saw King Brian Boru standing in front of the tent, his white locks flowing in the wind, and but one man attending him. Conn ran forward.

  “Kern, what are your tidings?” asked the king.

  “The foreigners flee,” answered Conn, “but Murrogh has fallen.”

  “You bring evil tidings,” said Brian. “Erin shall never again look on a champion like him.” And age like a cold cloud closed upon him.

  “Where are your guards, My Lord?” asked Conn.

  “They have joined in the pursuit.”

  “Let me then take you to a safer place,” said Conn. “The Gall fly all about us here.”

  King Brian shook his head. “Nay, I know I leave not this place alive, for Eevin of Craglea told me last night I should fall this day. And what avails me to survive Murrogh and the champions of the Gael? Let me lie at Armagh, in the peace of God.”

  Now the attendant cried out, “My king, we are undone! Men blue and naked are upon us.”

  “The armored Danes,” cried Conn, wheeling.

  King Brian drew his heavy sword.

  A group of blood-stained Vikings were approaching, led by Brodir and Prince Amlaff. Their vaunted mail hung in shreds; their swords were notched and dripping. Brodir had marked the king’s tent from afar, and was bent on murder, for his soul raged with shame and fury and he was beset by visions in which Brian, Sigurd, and Kormlada spun in a hellish dance. He had lost the battle, Ireland, Kormlada–now he was ready to give up his life in a dying stroke of vengeance.

  Brodir rushed upon the king, Prince Amlaff at his heels. Conn sprang to bar their way. But Brodir swerved aside and left the kern to Amlaff, as he fell upon the king. Conn took Amlaff ’s blade in his left arm and smote a single terrible blow that rent the prince’s hauberk like paper and shattered his spine. Then the kern sprang back to guard King Brian.

  Then even as he turned, Conn saw Brodir parry Brian’s stroke and drive his sword through the ancient king’s breast. Brian went down, but even as he fell he caught himself on one knee and thrust his keen blade through flesh and bone, cutting both Brodir’s legs from under him. The Viking’s scream of triumph broke in a ghastly groan as he toppled in a widening pool of crimson. There he struggled convulsively and lay still.

  Conn stood looking dazedly around him. Brodir’s company of men had fled, and the Gaels were converging on Brian’s tent. The sound of the keening for the heroes already rose to mingle with the screams and shouts that still came from the struggling hordes along the river. They were bringing Murrogh’s body to the king’s tent, walking slowly–weary, bloody men, with bowed heads. Behind the litter that bore the prince’s body came others–laden with the bodies of Turlogh, Murrogh’s son; of Donald, Steward of Mar; of O’Kelly and O’Hyne, the western chiefs; of Prince Meathla O’Faelan; of Dunlang O’Hartigan, beside whose litter walked Eevin of Craglea, her golden head sunk on her breast.

  The warriors set down the litters and gathered silently and wearily about the corpse of King Brian Boru. They gazed unspeaking, their minds dulled from the agony of strife. Eevin lay motionless beside the body of her lover, as if she herself were dead; no tears stood in her eyes, no cry or moan escaped her pallid lips.

  The clamor of battle was dying as the setting sun bathed the trampled field in its roseate light. The fugitives, tattered and slashed, were limping into the gates of Dublin, and the warriors of King Sitric were preparing to stand siege. But the Irish were in no condition to besiege the city. Four thousand warriors and chieftains had fallen, and nearly all the champions of the Gael were dead. But more than seven thousand Danes and Leinstermen lay stretched on the blood-soaked earth, and the power of the Vikings was broken. On Clontarf their iron reign was ended.

  Conn walked toward the river, feeling now the ache of his stiffening wounds. He met Turlogh Dubh. The madness of battle was gone from Black Turlogh, and his dark face was inscrutable. From head to foot he was splattered with crimson.

  “My Lord,” said Conn, fingering the great copper ring about his neck, “I have slain the man who put this thrall-mark on me. I would be free of it.”

  Black Turlogh took his red-stained ax-head in his hands and, pressing it against the ring, drove the keen edge through the softer metal. The ax gashed Conn’s shoulder, but neither heeded.

  “Now I am truly free,” said Conn, flexing his mighty arms. “My heart is heavy for the chiefs who have fallen, but my mind is mazed with wonder and glory. When will ever such a battle be fought again? Truly, it was a feast of the ravens, a sea of slaughter…”

  His voice trailed off, and he stood like a statue, head flung back, eyes staring into the clouded heavens. The sun was sinking in a dark-ocean of scarlet. Great clouds rolled and tumbled, piled mountainously against the smouldering red of the sunset. A wind blew out of them, biting, cold, and, borne on the wind, etched shadowy against the clouds, a vague, gigantic form went flying, beard and wild locks streaming in the gale, cloak billowing out like great wings–speeding into the mysterious blue mists that pulsed and shimmered in the brooding North.

  “Look up there–in the sky!” cried Conn. “The grey man! It is he! The grey man with the single terrible eye. I saw him in the mountains of Torka. I glimpsed him brooding on the walls of Dublin while the battle raged. I saw him looming above Prince Murrogh as he died. Look! He rides the wind and races among the tall clouds. He dwindles. He fades into the void! He vanishes!”

  “It is Odin, god of the sea-people,” said Turlogh sombrely. “His children are broken, his altars crumble, and his worshippers fallen before the swords of the South. He flees the new gods and their children, and returns to the blue gulfs of the North which gave him birth. No more will helpless victims howl beneath the daggers of his priests–no more will he stalk the black clouds.” He shook his head darkly. “The Grey God passes, and we too are passing, though we have conquered. The days of the twilight come on amain, and a strange feeling is upon me as of a waning age. What are we all, too, but ghosts waning into the night?”

  And he went on into the dusk, leaving Conn to his freedom–from thralldom and cruelty, as both he and all the Gaels were now free of the shadow of the Grey God and his ruthless worshippers.

  The Song of the Last Briton

  The sea is grey in the death of day,

  Behind me lifts the night.

  I’ll flee no more from the ancient shore

  Where first I saw the light.

  The Saxons come and the Saxons go

  With the ebb and flow of the tide;

  Their galleys loom, grim shapes of doom,

  But here shall I abide.

  My castles rust in crimson dust,

  Red ruin tossed in the drift–

  But the sea is grey, and the wolf ’s at bay,

  And the ravens circle swift.

  Come from the mists of the Northern Sea

  Where the smoke blue hazes melt.

  Your dead shall lie where here I die,

  The last unconquered Celt.

  Worms of the Earth

  “Strike in the nails, soldiers, and let our guest see the reality of our good Roman justice!”

  The speaker wrapped his purple cloak closer about his powerful frame and settled back into his official chair, much as he might have settled back in his seat at the Circus Maximus to enjoy the clash of gladiatorial swords. Realization of power colored his every move. Whetted pride was necessary to Roman satisfaction, and Titus Sulla was justly proud; for he was military governor of Eboracum and answerable only to the emperor of Rome. He was a strongly built man of medium height, with
the hawk-like features of the pure-bred Roman. Now a mocking smile curved his full lips, increasing the arrogance of his haughty aspect. Distinctly military in appearance, he wore the golden-scaled corselet and chased breastplate of his rank, with the short stabbing sword at his belt, and he held on his knee the silvered helmet with its plumed crest. Behind him stood a clump of impassive soldiers with shield and spear–blond titans from the Rhineland.

  Before him was taking place the scene which apparently gave him so much real gratification–a scene common enough wherever stretched the far-flung boundaries of Rome. A rude cross lay flat upon the barren earth and on it was bound a man–half naked, wild of aspect with his corded limbs, glaring eyes and shock of tangled hair. His executioners were Roman soldiers, and with heavy hammers they prepared to pin the victim’s hands and feet to the wood with iron spikes.

  Only a small group of men watched this ghastly scene, in the dread place of execution beyond the city walls: the governor and his watchful guards; a few young Roman officers; the man to whom Sulla had referred as “guest” and who stood like a bronze image, unspeaking. Beside the gleaming splendor of the Roman, the quiet garb of this man seemed drab, almost somber.

  He was dark, but he did not resemble the Latins around him. There was about him none of the warm, almost Oriental sensuality of the Mediterranean which colored their features. The blond barbarians behind Sulla’s chair were less unlike the man in facial outline than were the Romans. Not his were the full curving red lips, nor the rich waving locks suggestive of the Greek. Nor was his dark complexion the rich olive of the south; rather it was the bleak darkness of the north. The whole aspect of the man vaguely suggested the shadowed mists, the gloom, the cold and the icy winds of the naked northern lands. Even his black eyes were savagely cold, like black fires burning through fathoms of ice.