The Hyborian Age Page 3

curious race of intelligent, though stunted, aborigines,conquered by them among the mountains east of Vilayet, on their westwarddrift. The Shemites are generally of medium height, though sometimeswhen mixed with Stygian blood, gigantic, broadly and strongly built,with hook noses, dark eyes and blue-black hair. The Stygians are talland well made, dusky, straight-featured--at least the ruling classes areof that type. The lower classes are a down-trodden, mongrel horde, amixture of negroid, Stygian, Shemitish, even Hyborian bloods. South ofStygia are the vast black kingdoms of the Amazons, the Kushites, theAtlaians and the hybrid empire of Zembabwe.

  Between Aquilonia and the Pictish wilderness lie the Bossonian marches,peopled by descendants of an aboriginal race, conquered by a tribe ofHyborians, early in the first ages of the Hyborian drift. This mixedpeople never attained the civilization of the purer Hyborians, and waspushed by them to the very fringe of the civilized world. The Bossoniansare of medium height and complexion, their eyes brown or grey, and theyare mesocephalic. They live mainly by agriculture, in large walledvillages, and are part of the Aquilonian kingdom. Their marches extendfrom the Border Kingdom in the north to Zingara in the southwest,forming a bulwark for Aquilonia against both the Cimmerians and thePicts. They are stubborn defensive fighters, and centuries of warfareagainst northern and western barbarians have caused them to evolve atype of defense almost impregnable against direct attack.

  Five hundred years later the Hyborian civilization was swept away. Itsfall was unique in that it was not brought about by internal decay, butby the growing power of the barbarian nations and the Hyrkanians. TheHyborian peoples were overthrown while their vigorous culture was in itsprime.

  Yet it was Aquilonia's greed which brought about that overthrow, thoughindirectly. Wishing to extend their empire, her kings made war on theirneighbors. Zingara, Argos and Ophir were annexed outright, with thewestern cities of Shem, which had, with their more eastern kindred,recently thrown off the yoke of Koth. Koth itself, with Corinthia andthe eastern Shemitish tribes, was forced to pay Aquilonia tribute andlend aid in wars. An ancient feud had existed between Aquilonia andHyperborea, and the latter now marched to meet the armies of her westernrival. The plains of the Border Kingdom were the scene of a great andsavage battle, in which the northern hosts were utterly defeated, andretreated into their snowy fastnesses, whither the victoriousAquilonians did not pursue them. Nemedia, which had successfullyresisted the western kingdom for centuries, now drew Brythunia andZamora, and secretly, Koth, into an alliance which bade fair to crushthe rising empire. But before their armies could join battle, a newenemy appeared in the east, as the Hyrkanians made their first realthrust at the western world. Reinforced by adventurers from east ofVilayet, the riders of Turan swept over Zamora, devastated easternCorinthia, and were met on the plains of Brythunia by the Aquilonianswho defeated them and hurled them flying eastward. But the back of thealliance was broken, and Nemedia took the defensive in future wars,aided occasionally by Brythunia and Hyperborea, and, secretly, as usual,by Koth. This defeat of the Hyrkanians showed the nations the real powerof the western kingdom, whose splendid armies were augmented bymercenaries, many of them recruited among the alien Zingarans, and thebarbaric Picts and Shemites. Zamora was reconquered from the Hyrkanians,but the people discovered that they had merely exchanged an easternmaster for a western master. Aquilonian soldiers were quartered there,not only to protect the ravaged country, but also to keep the people insubjection. The Hyrkanians were not convinced; three more invasionsburst upon the Zamorian borders, and the Lands of Shem, and were hurledback by the Aquilonians, though the Turanian armies grew larger ashordes of steel-clad riders rode out of the east, skirting the southernextremity of the inland sea.

  But it was in the west that a power was growing destined to throw downthe kings of Aquilonia from their high places. In the north there wasincessant bickering along the Cimmerian borders between the black-hairedwarriors and the Nordheimir; and the AEsir, between wars with the Vanir,assailed Hyperborea and pushed back the frontier, destroying city aftercity. The Cimmerians also fought the Picts and Bossonians impartially,and several times raided into Aquilonia itself, but their wars were lessinvasions than mere plundering forays.

  But the Picts were growing amazingly in population and power. By astrange twist of fate, it was largely due to the efforts of one man, andhe an alien, that they set their feet upon the ways that led to eventualempire. This man was Arus, a Nemedian priest, a natural-born reformer.What turned his mind toward the Picts is not certain, but this much ishistory--he determined to go into the western wilderness and modify therude ways of the heathen by the introduction of the gentle worship ofMitra. He was not daunted by the grisly tales of what had happened totraders and explorers before him, and by some whim of fate he came amongthe people he sought, alone and unarmed, and was not instantly speared.

  The Picts had benefited by contact with Hyborian civilization, but theyhad always fiercely resisted that contact. That is to say, they hadlearned to work crudely in copper and tin, which were found scantily intheir country, and for which latter metal they raided into the mountainsof Zingara, or traded hides, whale's teeth, walrus tusks and such fewthings as savages have to trade. They no longer lived in caves andtree-shelters, but built tents of hides, and crude huts, copied fromthose of the Bossonians. They still lived mainly by the chase, sincetheir wilds swarmed with game of all sorts, and the rivers and sea withfish, but they had learned how to plant grain, which they did sketchily,preferring to steal it from their neighbors the Bossonians andZingarans. They dwelt in clans which were generally at feud with eachother, and their simple customs were blood-thirsty and utterlyinexplicable to a civilized man, such as Arus of Nemedia. They had nodirect contact with the Hyborians, since the Bossonians acted as abuffer between them. But Arus maintained that they were capable ofprogress, and events proved the truth of his assertion--though scarcelyin the way he meant.

  Arus was fortunate in being thrown in with a chief of more than usualintelligence--Gorm by name. Gorm cannot be explained, any more thanGenghis Khan, Othman, Attila, or any of those individuals, who, born innaked lands among untutored barbarians, yet possess the instinct forconquest and empire-building. In a sort of bastard-Bossonian, the priestmade the chief understand his purpose, and though extremely puzzled,Gorm gave him permission to remain among his tribe unbutchered--a caseunique in the history of the race. Having learned the language Arus sethimself to work to eliminate the more unpleasant phases of Pictishlife--such as human sacrifice, blood-feud, and the burning alive ofcaptives. He harangued Gorm at length, whom he found to be aninterested, if unresponsive listener. Imagination reconstructs thescene--the black-haired chief, in his tiger-skins and necklace of humanteeth, squatting on the dirt floor of the wattle hut, listening intentlyto the eloquence of the priest, who probably sat on a carven,skin-covered block of mahogany provided in his honor--clad in the silkenrobes of a Nemedian priest, gesturing with his slender white hands as heexpounded the eternal rights and justices which were the truths ofMitra. Doubtless he pointed with repugnance at the rows of skulls whichadorned the walls of the hut and urged Gorm to forgive his enemiesinstead of putting their bleached remnants to such use. Arus was thehighest product of an innately artistic race, refined by centuries ofcivilization; Gorm had behind him a heritage of a hundred thousand yearsof screaming savagery--the pad of the tiger was in his stealthy step,the grip of the gorilla in his black-nailed hands, the fire that burnsin a leopard's eyes burned in his.

  Arus was a practical man. He appealed to the savage's sense of materialgain; he pointed out the power and splendor of the Hyborian kingdoms, asan example of the power of Mitra, whose teachings and works had liftedthem up to their high places. And he spoke of cities, and fertileplains, marble walls and iron chariots, jeweled towers, and horsemen intheir glittering armor riding to battle. And Gorm, with the unerringinstinct of the barbarian, passed over his words regarding gods andtheir teachings, and fixed on the material powers thus vividlydescribed. There in
that mud-floored wattle hut, with the silk-robedpriest on the mahogany block, and the dark-skinned chief crouching inhis tiger-hides, was laid the foundations of empire.

  As has been said, Arus was a practical man. He dwelt among the Picts andfound much that an intelligent man could do to aid humanity, even whenthat humanity was cloaked in tiger-skins and wore necklaces of humanteeth. Like all priests of Mitra, he was instructed in many things. Hefound that there were vast deposits of iron ore in the Pictish hills,and he taught the natives to mine, smelt and work it intoimplements--agricultural implements, as he fondly believed. Heinstituted other reforms, but these were the most important things hedid: he instilled in Gorm a desire to see the civilized lands of theworld; he taught the Picts how to work in iron; and he establishedcontact between them and the civilized world. At the chiefs request heconducted him and some of his warriors through the Bossonian marches,where the honest villagers stared