Bran Mak Morn: The Last King Page 3

  �y birth I am a Norseman.� A savage, blood-lusting yell went up from the crouching horde and in an instant they surged forward. A single motion of the chief� hand sent them slinking back, eyes blazing. His own eyes had never left my face.

  �y tribe are fools,�said he. �or they hate the Norse even more than they do the Romans. For the Norse harry our shores incessantly; but it is Rome that they should hate.� �ut you are no Pict!� � am a Mediterranean.� �f Caledonia?� �f the world.� �ho are you?� �ran Mak Morn.� �hat!�I had expected a monstrosity, a hideous deformed giant, a ferocious dwarf built in keeping with the rest of his race.

  �ou are not as these.� � am as the race was,�he replied. �he line of chiefs has kept its blood pure through the ages, scouring the world for women of the Old Race.� �hy does your race hate all men?�I asked curiously. �our ferocity is a by-word among the nations.� �hy should we not hate?�His dark eyes lit with a sudden fierce glitter. �rampled upon by every wandering tribe, driven from our fertile lands, forced into the waste places of the world, deformed in body and in mind. Look upon me. I am what the race once was. Look about you. A race of ape-men, we that were the highest type of men the world could boast.� I shuddered in spite of myself at the hate that vibrated in his deep, resonant voice.

  Between the lines of warriors came a girl, who sought the chief� side and nestled close to him. A slim, shy little beauty, not much more than a child. Mak Morn� face softened somewhat as he put his arm about her slender body. Then the brooding look returned to his dark eyes.

  �y sister, Norseman,�he said. � am told that a rich merchant of Corinium has offered a thousand pieces of gold to any who brings her to him.� My hair prickled for I seemed to sense a sinister minor note in the Caledonian� even voice. The moon sank below the western horizon, touching the heather with a red tinge, so that the heath looked like a sea of gore in the eery light.

  The chief� voice broke the stillness. �he merchant sent a spy past the Wall. I sent him his head.� I started. A man stood before me. I had not seen him come. A very old man he was, clad only in a loin cloth. A long white beard fell to his waist and he was tattooed from crown to heel. His leathery face was creased with a million wrinkles, his hide was scaly as a snake�. From beneath sparse white brows his great strange eyes blazed, as though seeing weird visions. The warriors stirred restlessly. The girl shrank back into Mak Morn� arms as if frightened.

  �he god of War rides the night wind,�spoke the wizard suddenly, in a high eery voice. �he kites scent blood. Strange feet tramp the roads of Alba. Strange oars beat the Northern Sea.� �end us your craft, wizard,�commanded Mak Morn imperiously.

  �ou have displeased the old gods, chief,�the other answered. �he temples of the Serpent are deserted. The white god of the moon feasts no more on man flesh. The lords of the air look down from their ramparts and are not pleased. Hai, hai! They say a chief has turned from the path.� �nough.�Mak Morn� voice was harsh. �he power of the Serpent is broken. The neophytes offer up no more humans to their dark divinities. If I lift the Pictish nation out of the darkness of the valley of abysmal savagery, I brook no opposition by prince or priest. Mark my words, wizard.� The old man raised great eyes, weirdly alit, and stared into my face.

  � see a yellow haired savage,�came his flesh-crawling whisper. � see a strong body and a strong mind, such as a chief might feast upon.� An impatient ejaculation from Mak Morn.

  The girl put her arms about him timidly and whispered in his ear.

  �ome characteristics of humanity and kindliness remain still with the Picts,�said he, and I sensed the fierce self-mockery in his tone. �he child asks me that you go free.� Though he spoke in the Celtic language, the warriors understood, and muttered discontentedly.

  �o!�exclaimed the wizard violently.

  The opposition steeled the chief� resolution. He rose to his feet.

  � say the Norseman goes free at dawn.� A disapproving silence answered him.

  �are any of ye to step upon the heath and match steel with me?�he challenged.

  The wizard spoke, �ark ye, chief. I have outlived a hundred years. I have seen chiefs and conquerors come and go. In midnight forests have I battled the magic of the Druids. Long have ye mocked my power, man of the Old Race, and here I defy ye. I bid ye unto the combat.� No word was spoken. The two men advanced into the fire-light which threw its fitful gleam into the shadows.

  �f I conquer, the Serpent coils again, the Wild-cat screeches again, and thou art my slave forever. If thou dost conquer, my arts are thine and I will serve thee.� Wizard and chief faced each other. The lurid flame-flares lit their faces. Their eyes met, clashed. Yes, the combat between the eyes and the souls behind them was as clearly evident as though they had been battling with swords. The wizard� eyes widened, the chief� narrowed. Terrific forces seemed to emanate from each; unseen powers in combat swirled about them. And I was vaguely aware that it was but another phase of the eon-old warfare. The battle between Old and New. Behind the wizard lurked thousands of years of dark secrets, sinister mysteries, frightful nebulous shapes, monsters half hidden in the fogs of antiquity. Behind the chief, the clear strong light of the coming Day, the first kindling of civilization, the clean strength of a new man with a new and mighty mission. The wizard was the Stone Age typified; the chief, the coming civilization. The destiny of the Pictish race, perhaps, hinged on that struggle.

  Both men seemed in the grasp of terrific effort. The veins stood out upon the chief� forehead. The eyes of both blazed and glittered. Then a gasp broke from the wizard. With a shriek he caught at his eyes, and slumped to the heather like an empty sack.

  �nough!�he gasped. �ou conquer, chief.�He rose, shaken, submissive.

  The tense, crouching lines relaxed, sat in their places, eyes fixed on the chief. Mak Morn shook his head as if to clear it. He stepped to the boulder and sat him down, and the girl threw her arms about him, murmuring to him in a gentle, joyous voice.

  �he Sword of the Picts is swift,�mumbled the wizard. �he Arm of the Pict is Strong. Hai! They say a mighty one has risen among the Western Men.� �aze ye upon the ancient Fire of the Lost Race, Wolf of the Heather! Aai, hai! They say a chief has risen to lead the race onward.� The wizard stooped above the coals of the fire which had gone out, muttering to himself.

  Stirring the coals, mumbling in his white beard, he half droned, half sang a weird chant, of little meaning or rhyme, but with a kind of wild rhythm, remarkably strange and eery.

  ��r lakes agleam the old gods dream;

  Ghosts stride the heather dim.

  The night winds croon; the eery moon

  Slips o�r the ocean� rim.

  From peak to peak the witches shriek.

  The gray wolf seeks the height.

  Like gold sword sheath, far o�r the heath

  Glimmers the wandering light.�

  The ancient stirred the coals, pausing now and then to toss on them some weird object, keeping time with his motions with his chant.

  �ods of heather, gods of lake,

  Bestial fiends of swamp and brake;

  White god riding on the moon,

  Jackal-jawed, with voice of loon;

  Serpentgod whose scaly coils

  Grasp the Universe in toils;

  See, the Unseen Sages sit;

  See the council fires alit.

  See I stir the glowing coals,

  Toss on manes of seven foals.

  Seven foals all golden shod

  From the herds of Alba� god.

  Now in numbers one and six,

  Shape and place the magic sticks.

  Scented wood brought from afar,

  From the land of Morning Star.

  Hewn from limbs of sandal-trees,

  Brought far o�r the Eastern Seas.

  Sea-snakes�fangs, see now, I fling,

  Pinions of a sea-gull� wing
.

  Now the magic dust I toss,

  Men are shadows, life is dross.

  Now the flames crawl, ere they blaze,

  Now the smokes rise in a haze.

  Fanned by far off ocean-blast

  Leaps the tale of distant past.�

  In and out among the coals licked the thin red flames, now leaping in swift upward spurts, now vanishing, now catching the tinder thrown upon it, with a dry crackle that sounded through the stillness. Wisps of smoke began to curl upward in a mingling, hazy cloud.

  �imly, dimly glimmers the starlight,

  Over the heather-hill, over the vale.

  Gods of the Old Land brood o�r the far night,

  Things of the Darkness ride on the gale.

  Now while the fire smoulders, while smokes enfold it,

  Now ere it leap into clear, mystic flame,

  Harken once more (else the dark gods withhold it),

  Hark to the tale of the race without name.�

  The smoke floated upward, swirling about the wizard; as through a dense fog his fierce yellow eyes peered. As if across far spaces his voice came floating, with a strange impression of disembodiment. With a weird intonation as though the voice were, not the voice of the ancient, but a something detached, a something apart; as if disembodied ages, and not the wizard� mind, spake through him.

  A wilder setting I have seldom seen. Overhead all darkness, scarce a star a-glitter, the waving tentacles of the Northern Lights reaching lurid banners across the sullen sky; sombre slopes stretching away to mingle with vagueness, a dim sea of silent, waving heather; and on that bare, lone hill, the half-human horde crouching like sombre specters of another world, their bestial faces now merging in the shadows, now touched with blood as the fire-light veered and flickered. And Bran Mak Morn sitting like a statue of bronze, his face thrown into bold relief by the light of the leaping flames. And that weird face, limned by the eery light, with its great, blazing yellow eyes, and its long, snow-white beard.

  � mighty race, the men of the Mediterranean.� Savage faces alit, they leaned forward. And I found myself thinking that the wizard was right. No man might civilize those primeval savages. They were untamable, unconquerable. The spirit of the wild, of the Stone Age was theirs.

  �lder than the snow-crowned peaks of Caledon.� The warriors leaned forward, evincing eagerness and anticipation. I sensed that the tale ever intrigued them, though doubtless they had heard it a hundred times from a hundred chiefs and ancients.

  �orseman,�suddenly, breaking the train of his discourse. �hat lies beyond the Western Channel?� �hy, the isle of Hibernia.� �nd beyond?� �he isles that the Celts call Aran.� �nd beyond?� �hy, in sooth I know not. Human knowledge pauses there. No ship has sailed those seas. The learned men call it Thule. The Unknown, the realm of illusion, the edge of the world.� �a ha! That mighty western ocean washes the shores of continents unknown, islands unguessed.

  �ar, far across the great, wave tossed vastiness of the Atlantic lie two great continents, so vast that the smaller would dwarf all Europe. Twin lands of immense antiquity; lands of ancient, crumbling civilization. Lands in which roamed tribes of men wise in all craftmanship, while this land ye call Europe was yet a vast, reptile-haunted swamp, a dank forest known but to apes.

  �o mighty are these continents that they span the world, from the snows of the north to the snows of the south. And beyond them lies a great ocean, the Sea of Silent Waters. *1 Many islands are upon that sea, and those islands were once the mountain peaks of a great land �the lost land of Lemuria.

  �nd the continents are twin continents, joined by a narrow neck of land. The western coast of that northern continent is fierce and rugged. Huge mountains rear skyward. But those peaks were islands upon a time, and to those islands came the Nameless Tribe, wandering down from the north, so many thousand years ago that a man would grow a-weary numbering them. A thousand miles to the north and west had the tribe come into being, there upon the broad and fertile plains close by the northern channels, which divide the continent of the north from Asia.� �sia!�I exclaimed, bewildered.

  The ancient jerked up his head angrily, eyeing me savagely. Then he continued.

  �here, in the dim haze of unnamed past, had the tribe won up from crawling sea-thing to ape and from ape to ape-man and from ape-man to savage.

  �avages they were still when they came down the coast, fierce and war-like.

  �killed in the chase they were, for they had lived by the hunt for untold centuries. Strong built men they were, not tall nor huge, but lean and muscular like leopards, swift and mighty. No nation might stand before them. And they were the first Men.

  �till they clad themselves in the hides of beasts and their stone implements were crudely chipped. Upon the western islands they took their abode, the islands that lay laughing in a sunny sea. And there they had their habitation for thousands and thousands of years. For centuries upon the western coast. The isles of the west were wondrous isles, lapped in sun-lit seas, rich and fertile. There the tribe laid aside the arms of war and taught themselves the arts of peace. There they learned to polish their implements of stone. There they learned to raise grain and fruits, to cultivate the soil; and they were content and the harvest gods laughed. And they learned to spin and to weave and to build them huts. And they became skilled in the working of pelts, and in the making of pottery.

  �ar to the west, across the roaming waves, lay the vast, dim land of Lemuria. And anon came fleets of canoes bearing strange raiders, the half-human Men of the Sea. Perhaps from some strange sea-monster had those sprung, for they were scaly like unto a shark and they could swim for hours under the water. Ever the tribe beat them back but often they came, for renegades of the tribe fled to Lemuria. To the east and the south great forest stretched away to the horizons, peopled by ferocious beasts and ferocious ape-men.

  �o the centuries glided by on the wings of Time. Stronger and stronger grew the Nameless Tribe, more skillful in craftmanship; less skilled in war and the chase. And slowly the Lemurians fared on the upward climb.

  �hen, upon a day, a mighty earth-quake rocked the world. Sky mingled with sea and the land reeled between. With the thunder of gods at war, the islands of the west plunged upward and lifted from the sea. And lo, they were mountains upon the new-formed western coast of the northern continent. And lo, the land of Lemuria sank beneath the waves, leaving only a great mountainous island, surrounded by many isles which had been her highest peaks.

  �nd upon the western coast, mighty volcanos roared and bellowed and their flaming spate rushed down the coast and swept away all traces of the civilization that was being conceived. From a fertile vineyard the land became a desert.

  �astward fled the tribe, driving the ape-men before them, until they came upon broad and rich plains far to the east. There they abode for centuries. Then the great ice-fields came down from the Arctics and the tribe fled before them. Then followed a thousand years of wandering.

  �own into the southern continent they fled, ever driving the beast-men *2 before them. And finally, in a great war, they drove them forth entirely. Those fled far to the south and by means of the marshy islands that then spanned the sea, crossed into Africa, thence wandering up into Europe, where there were then no men, except ape-men.

  �hen the Lemurians, the Second Race, came into the northern land. Far up the scale of life had they made their way and they were a swart, strange race; short, broad men were they, with strange eyes like unto unknown seas. Little they knew of cultivation or of craft, but they possessed strange knowledge of curious architecture and from the Nameless Tribe had they learned to make implements of polished obsidian and jade and argillite.

  �nd ever the great ice fields pushed south and ever the Nameless Tribe wandered before them. No ice came into the southern continent nor even near it, but it was a dank, swampy land, serpent-haunted. So they made them boats and sailed to the sea-girt land of
Atlantis. Now the Atlanteans *3 were the Third Race. They were physical giants, finely made men, who inhabited caves and lived by the chase. They had no skill in artizanship, but were artists. When they were not hunting or warring among themselves, they spent their time in painting and drawing pictures of men and beasts upon the walls of their caverns. But they could not match the Nameless Tribe in craft, and they were driven forth. They, too, made their way to Europe, and there waged savage warfare with the beast-men who had gone before them.

  �hen there was war among the tribes and the conquerors drove forth the conquered. And among those was a very wise, very ancient wizard and he put a curse upon the land of Atlantis, that it should be unknown to the tribes of men. No boat from Atlantis should ever gain another shore, no foreign sail should ever sight the broad beaches of Atlantis. Girt by unsailed seas should the land lie unknown until ships with the heads of serpents should come down from the northern seas and four hosts should battle on the Isle of Sea-fogs and a great chief should rise among the people of the Nameless Tribe.

  �o those crossed to Africa, oaring from island to island, and went up the coast until they came to the Middle Sea *4 which lay enjeweled amid sunny shores.

  �here did the tribe abide for centuries, and grew strong and mighty, and from thence did they spread all over the world. From the Afric deserts to the Baltic forests, from the Nile to the peaks of Alba they ranged, growing their grain, grazing their cattle, weaving their cloth. They built their crannogs in the Alpen lakes; they reared their temples of stone upon the plains of Britain. They drove the Atlanteans before them, and they smote the red-haired reindeer men.

  �hen from the North came the Celts, bearing swords and spears of bronze. From the dim lands of Mighty Snows they came, from the shores of the far North Sea. And they were the Fourth Race. The Picts fled before them. For they were mighty men, tall and strong, lean built and gray eyed, with tawny hair. All over the world Celt and Pict battled, and ever the Celt conquered. For in the long ages of peace, the tribes had forgotten the arts of war. To the waste places of the world they fled.