The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane Read online

  The tavern-keeper filled their goblets.

  “Here's to Simeon's soul, God ha' mercy on the wretch, and may he fail in the vengeance he swore to take on you.”

  John Redly started, swore, then laughed with reckless bravado. The laughter rose emptily and broke on a false note.

  Solomon Kane awoke suddenly and sat up in bed. He was a light sleeper as becomes a man who habitually carries his life in his hand. And somewhere in the house had sounded a noise which had roused him. He listened. Outside, as he could see through the shutters, the world was whitening with the first tints of dawn.

  Suddenly the sound came again, faintly. It was as if a cat were clawing its way up the wall, outside. Kane listened, and then came a sound as if someone were fumbling at the shutters. The Puritan rose, and sword in hand, crossed the room suddenly and flung them open. The world lay sleeping to his gaze. A late moon hovered over the western horizon. No marauder lurked outside his window. He leaned out, gazing at the window of the chamber next his. The shutters were open.

  Kane closed his shutters and crossed to his door; went out into the corridor. He was acting on impulse as he usually did. These were wild times. This tavern was some miles from the nearest town – Torkertown. Bandits were common. Someone or something had entered the chamber next his, and its sleeping occupant might be in danger. Kane did not halt to weigh pros and cons but went straight to the chamber door and opened it.

  The window was wide open and the light streaming in illumined the room yet made it seem to swim in a ghostly mist. A short evil-visaged man snored on the bed and he Kane recognized as John Redly, the man who had betrayed the necromancer to the soldiers.

  Then his gaze was drawn to the window. On the sill squatted what looked like a huge spider, and as Kane watched, it dropped to the floor and began to crawl toward the bed. The thing was broad and hairy and dark, and Kane noted that it had left a stain on the window sill. It moved on five thick and curiously jointed legs and altogether had such an eery appearance about it, that Kane was spellbound for the moment. Now it had reached Redly's bed and clambered up the bedstead in a strange clumsy sort of manner.

  Now it poised directly over the sleeping man, clinging to the bedstead, and Kane started forward with a shout of warning. That instant Redly awoke and looked up. His eyes flared wide, a terrible scream broke from his lips and simultaneously the spider-thing dropped, landing full on his neck. And even as Kane reached the bed, he saw the legs lock and heard the splintering of John Redly's neck bones. The man stiffened and lay still, his head lolling grotesquely on his broken neck. And the thing dropped from him and lay limply on the bed.

  Kane bent over the grim spectacle, scarcely believing his eyes. For the thing which had opened the shutters, crawled across the floor and murdered John Redly in his bed was a human hand!

  Now it lay flaccid and lifeless. And Kane gingerly thrust his rapier point through it and lifted it to his eyes. The hand was that of a large man, apparently, for it was broad and thick, with heavy fingers, and almost covered by a matted growth of ape-like hair. It had been severed at the wrist and was caked with blood. A thin silver ring was on the second finger, a curious ornament, made in the form of a coiling serpent.

  Kane stood gazing at the hideous relic as the tavern-keeper entered, clad in his night shirt, candle in one hand and blunderbuss in the other.

  “What's this?” he roared as his eyes fell on the corpse on the bed.

  Then he saw what Kane held spitted on his sword and his face went white. As if drawn by an irresistible urge, he came closer – his eyes bulged. Then he reeled back and sank into a chair, so pale Kane thought he was going to swoon.

  “God's name, sir,” he gasped. “Let that thing not live! There be a fire in the tap room, sir –”

  Kane came into Torkertown before the morning had waned. At the outskirts of the village he met a garrulous youth who hailed him.

  “Sir, like all honest men you will be pleasured to know that Roger Simeon the black magician was hanged this dawn, just as the sun came up.”

  “And was his passing manly?” asked Kane somberly.

  “Aye, sir, he flinched not, but a weird deed it was. Look ye, sir, Roger Simeon went to the gallows with but one hand to his arms!”

  “And how came that about?”

  “Last night, sir, as he sat in his cell like a great black spider, he called one of his guards and asking for a last favor, bade the soldier strike off his right hand! The man would not do it at first, but he feared Roger's curse, and at last he took his sword and smote off the hand at the wrist. Then Simeon, taking it in his left hand, flung it far through the bars of his cell window, uttering many strange and foul words of magic. The guards were sore afraid, but Roger offered not to harm them, saying he hated only John Redly that betrayed him.

  “And he bound the stump of his arm to stop the blood and all the rest of the night he sat as a man in a trance and at times he mumbled to himself as a man that unknowing, talks to himself. And, ‘To the right,' he would whisper, and ‘Bear to the left!' and, ‘On, on!”

  “Oh, sir, 'twas grisly to hear him, they say, and to see him crouching over the bloody stump of his arm! And as dawn was gray they came and took him forth to the gallows and as they placed the noose about his neck, sudden he writhed and strained as with effort, and the muscles in his right arm which lacked the hand, bulged and creaked as though he were breaking some mortal's neck!

  “Then as the guards sprang to seize him, he ceased and began to laugh. And terrible and hideous his laughter bellowed out until the noose broke it short and he hung black and silent in the red eye of the rising sun.”

  Solomon Kane was silent for he was thinking of the fearful terror which had twisted John Redly's features in that last swift moment of awakening and life, ere doom struck. And a dim picture rose in his mind – that of a hairy severed hand crawling on its fingers like a great spider, blindly, through the dark night-time forests to scale a wall and fumble open a pair of bedroom shutters. Here his vision stopped, recoiling from the continuance of that dark and bloody drama. What terrible fires of hate had blazed in the soul of the doomed necromancer and what hideous powers had been his, to so send that bloody hand groping on its mission, guided by the magic and will of that burning brain!

  Yet to make sure, Solomon asked:

  “And was the hand ever found?”

  “Nay, sir. Men found the place where it had fallen when it was thrown from the cell, but it was gone, and a trail of red led into the forest. Doubtless a wolf devoured it.”

  “Doubtless,” answered Solomon Kane. “And were Simeon's hands great and hairy with a ring on the second finger of the right hand?”

  “Aye, sir. A silver ring coiled like unto a snake.'

  Red Shadows

  Original title: Solomon Kane

  Red Shadows

  I

  THE COMING OF SOLOMON

  The moonlight shimmered hazily, making silvery mists of illusion among the shadowy trees. A faint breeze whispered down the valley, bearing a shadow that was not of the moon-mist. A faint scent of smoke was apparent.

  The man whose long, swinging strides, unhurried yet unswerving, had carried him for many a mile since sunrise, stopped suddenly. A movement in the trees had caught his attention, and he moved silently toward the shadows, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of his long, slim rapier.

  Warily he advanced, his eyes striving to pierce the darkness that brooded under the trees. This was a wild and menacing country; death might be lurking under those trees. Then his hand fell away from the hilt and he leaned forward. Death indeed was there, but not in such shape as might cause him fear.

  “The fires of Hades!” he murmured. “A girl! What has harmed you, child? Be not afraid of me.”

  The girl looked up at him, her face like a dim white rose in the dark.

  “You – who are – you?” her words came in gasps.

  “Naught but a wanderer, a landless man, but a friend to all
in need.” The gentle voice sounded somehow incongruous, coming from the man.

  The girl sought to prop herself up on her elbow, and instantly he knelt and raised her to a sitting position, her head resting against his shoulder. His hand touched her breast and came away red and wet.

  “Tell me.” His voice was soft, soothing, as one speaks to a babe.

  “Le Loup,” she gasped, her voice swiftly growing weaker. “He and his men – descended upon our village – a mile up the valley. They robbed – slew – burned –”

  “That, then, was the smoke I scented,” muttered the man. “Go on, child.”

  “I ran. He, the Wolf, pursued me – and – caught me–” The words died away in a shuddering silence.

  “I understand, child. Then –?”

  “Then – he – he – stabbed me – with his dagger – oh, blessed saints! – mercy –”

  Suddenly the slim form went limp. The man eased her to the earth, and touched her brow lightly.

  “Dead!” he muttered.

  Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.

  “Men shall die for this,” he said coldly.

  II

  THE LAIR OF THE WOLF

  “You are a fool!” The words came in a cold snarl that curdled the hearer's blood.

  He who had just been named a fool lowered his eyes sullenly without answer.

  “You and all the others I lead!” The speaker leaned forward, his fist pounding emphasis on the rude table between them. He was a tall, rangy-built man, supple as a leopard and with a lean, cruel, predatory face. His eyes danced and glittered with a kind of reckless mockery.

  The fellow spoken to replied sullenly, “This Solomon Kane is a demon from hell, I tell you.”

  “Faugh! Dolt! He is a man – who will die from a pistol ball or a sword thrust.”

  “So thought Jean, Juan and La Costa,” answered the other grimly. “Where are they? Ask the mountain wolves that tore the flesh from their dead bones. Where does this Kane hide? We have searched the mountains and the valleys for leagues, and we have found no trace. I tell you, Le Loup, he comes up from hell. I knew no good would come from hanging that friar a moon ago.”

  The Wolf strummed impatiently upon the table. His keen face, despite lines of wild living and dissipation, was the face of a thinker. The superstitions of his followers affected him not at all.

  “Faugh! I say again. The fellow has found some cavern or secret vale of which we do not know where he hides in the day.”

  “And at night he sallies forth and slays us,” gloomily commented the other. “He hunts us down as a wolf hunts deer – by God, Le Loup, you name yourself Wolf but I think you have met at last a fiercer and more crafty wolf than yourself! The first we know of this man is when we find Jean, the most desperate bandit unhung, nailed to a tree with his own dagger through his breast, and the letters S.L.K. carved upon his dead cheeks.Then the Spaniard Juan is struck down, and after we find him he lives long enough to tell us that the slayer is an Englishman, Solomon Kane, who has sworn to destroy our entire band! What then? La Costa, a swordsman second only to yourself, goes forth swearing to meet this Kane. By the demons of perdition, it seems he met him! For we found his sword-pierced corpse upon a cliff. What now? Are we all to fall before this English fiend?”

  “True, our best men have been done to death by him,” mused the bandit chief. “Soon the rest return from that little trip to the hermit's; then we shall see. Kane can not hide forever. Then – ha, what was that?”

  The two turned swiftly as a shadow fell across the table. Into the entrance of the cave that formed the bandit lair, a man staggered. His eyes were wide and staring; he reeled on buckling legs, and a dark red stain dyed his tunic. He came a few tottering steps forward, then pitched across the table, sliding off onto the floor.

  “Hell's devils!” cursed the Wolf, hauling him upright and propping him in a chair. “Where are the rest, curse you?”

  “Dead! All dead!”

  “How? Satan's curses on you, speak!” The Wolf shook the man savagely, the other bandit gazing on in wide-eyed horror.

  “We reached the hermit's hut just as the moon rose,” the man muttered. “I stayed outside – to watch – the others went in – to torture the hermit – to make him reveal – the hiding-place – of his gold.”

  “Yes, yes! Then what?” The Wolf was raging with impatience.

  “Then the world turned red – the hut went up in a roar and a red rain flooded the valley – through it I saw – the hermit and a tall man clad all in black – coming from the trees–”

  “Solomon Kane!” gasped the bandit. “I knew it! I –”

  “Silence, fool!” snarled the chief. “Go on!”

  “I fled – Kane pursued – wounded me – but I outran – him – got – here – first–”

  The man slumped forward on the table.

  “Saints and devils!” raged the Wolf. “What does he look like, this Kane?”

  “Like – Satan –”

  The voice trailed off in silence. The dead man slid from the table to lie in a red heap upon the floor.

  “Like Satan!” babbled the other bandit. “I told you! 'Tis the Horned One himself! I tell you –”

  He ceased as a frightened face peered in at the cave entrance.

  “Kane?”

  “Aye.” The Wolf was too much at sea to lie. “Keep close watch, La Mon; in a moment the Rat and I will join you.”

  The face withdrew and Le Loup turned to the other.

  “This ends the band,” said he. “You, I, and that thief La Mon are all that are left. What would you suggest?”

  The Rat's pallid lips barely formed the word: “Flight!”

  “You are right. Let us take the gems and gold from the chests and flee, using the secret passageway.”

  “And La Mon?”

  “He can watch until we are ready to flee. Then – why divide the treasure three ways?”

  A faint smile touched the Rat's malevolent features. Then a sudden thought smote him.

  “He,” indicating the corpse on the floor, “said, ‘I got here first.' Does that mean Kane was pursuing him here?” And as the Wolf nodded impatiently the other turned to the chests with chattering haste.

  The flickering candle on the rough table lighted up a strange and wild scene. The light, uncertain and dancing, gleamed redly in the slowly widening lake of blood in which the dead man lay; it danced upon the heaps of gems and coins emptied hastily upon the floor from the brass-bound chests that ranged the walls; and it glittered in the eyes of the Wolf with the same gleam which sparkled from his sheathed dagger.

  The chests were empty, their treasure lying in a shimmering mass upon the blood-stained floor. The Wolf stopped and listened. Outside was silence. There was no moon, and Le Loup's keen imagination pictured the dark slayer, Solomon Kane, gliding through the blackness, a shadow among shadows. He grinned crookedly; this time the Englishman would be foiled.

  “There is a chest yet unopened,” said he, pointing.

  The Rat, with a muttered exclamation of surprize, bent over the chest indicated. With a single, catlike motion, the Wolf sprang upon him, sheathing his dagger to the hilt in the Rat's back, between the shoulders. The Rat sagged to the floor without a sound.

  “Why divide the treasure two ways?” murmured Le Loup, wiping his blade upon the dead man's doublet. “Now for La Mon.”

  He stepped toward the door; then stopped and shrank back.

  At first he thought that it was the shadow of a man who stood in the entrance; then he saw that it was a man himself, though so dark and still he stood that a fantastic semblance of shadow was lent him by the guttering candle.

  A tall man, as tall as Le Loup he was, clad in black from head to foot, in plain, close-fitting garments that somehow suited the somber face. Long arms and broad shoulders betokened the swordsm
an, as plainly as the long rapier in his hand. The features of the man were saturnine and gloomy. A kind of dark pallor lent him a ghostly appearance in the uncertain light, an effect heightened by the satanic darkness of his lowering brows. Eyes, large, deep-set and unblinking, fixed their gaze upon the bandit, and looking into them, Le Loup was unable to decide what color they were. Strangely, the Mephistophelean trend of the lower features was offset by a high, broad forehead, though this was partly hidden by a featherless hat.

  That forehead marked the dreamer, the idealist, the introvert, just as the eyes and the thin, straight nose betrayed the fanatic. An observer would have been struck by the eyes of the two men who stood there, facing each other. Eyes of both betokened untold deeps of power, but there the resemblance ceased.

  The eyes of the bandit were hard, almost opaque, with a curious scintillant shallowness that reflected a thousand changing lights and gleams, like some strange gem; there was mockery in those eyes, cruelty and recklessness.

  The eyes of the man in black, on the other hand, deep-set and staring from under prominent brows, were cold but deep; gazing into them, one had the impression of looking into countless fathoms of ice.

  Now the eyes clashed, and the Wolf, who was used to being feared, felt a strange coolness on his spine. The sensation was new to him – a new thrill to one who lived for thrills, and he laughed suddenly.

  “You are Solomon Kane, I suppose?” he asked, managing to make his question sound politely incurious.

  “I am Solomon Kane.” The voice was resonant and powerful. “Are you prepared to meet your God?”

  “Why, Monsieur,” Le Loup answered, bowing, “I assure you I am as ready as I ever will be. I might ask Monsieur the same question.”