The Hyborian Age Page 4

in amazement, into the glitteringouter world.

  Arus no doubt thought that he was making converts right and left,because the Picts listened to him, and refrained from smiting him withtheir copper axes. But the Pict was little calculated to seriouslyregard teachings which bade him forgive his enemy and abandon thewarpath for the ways of honest drudgery. It has been said that he lackedartistic sense; his whole nature led to war and slaughter. When thepriest talked of the glories of the civilized nations, his dark-skinnedlisteners were intent, not on the ideals of his religion, but on theloot which he unconsciously described in the narration of rich citiesand shining lands. When he told how Mitra aided certain kings toovercome their enemies, they paid scant heed to the miracles of Mitra,but they hung on the description of battle-lines, mounted knights, andmaneuvers of archers and spearmen. They harkened with keen dark eyes andinscrutable countenances, and they went their ways without comment, andheeded with flattering intentness his instructions as to the working ofiron, and kindred arts.

  Before his coming they had filched steel weapons and armor from theBossonians and Zingarans, or had hammered out their own crude arms fromcopper and bronze. Now a new world opened to them, and the clang ofsledges re-echoed throughout the land. And Gorm, by virtue of this newcraft, began to assert his dominance over other clans, partly by war,partly by craft and diplomacy, in which latter art he excelled all otherbarbarians.

  Picts now came and went freely into Aquilonia, under safe-conduct, andthey returned with more information as to armor-forging andsword-making. More, they entered Aquilonia's mercenary armies, to theunspeakable disgust of the sturdy Bossonians. Aquilonia's kings toyedwith the idea of playing the Picts against the Cimmerians, and possiblythus destroying both menaces, but they were too busy with their policiesof aggression in the south and east to pay much heed to the vaguelyknown lands of the west, from which more and more stocky warriorsswarmed to take service among the mercenaries.

  These warriors, their service completed, went back to their wildernesswith good ideas of civilized warfare, and that contempt for civilizationwhich arises from familiarity with it. Drums began to beat in the hills,gathering-fires smoked on the heights, and savage sword-makers hammeredtheir steel on a thousand anvils. By intrigues and forays too numerousand devious to enumerate, Gorm became chief of chiefs, the nearestapproach to a king the Picts had had in thousands of years. He hadwaited long; he was past middle age. But now he moved against thefrontiers, not in trade, but in war.

  Arus saw his mistake too late; he had not touched the soul of the pagan,in which lurked the hard fierceness of all the ages. His persuasiveeloquence had not caused a ripple in the Pictish conscience. Gorm wore acorselet of silvered mail now, instead of the tiger-skin, but underneathhe was unchanged--the everlasting barbarian, unmoved by theology orphilosophy, his instincts fixed unerringly on rapine and plunder.

  The Picts burst on the Bossonian frontiers with fire and sword, not cladin tiger-skins and brandishing copper axes as of yore, but inscale-mail, wielding weapons of keen steel. As for Arus, he was brainedby a drunken Pict, while making a last effort to undo the work he hadunwittingly done. Gorm was not without gratitude; he caused the skull ofthe slayer to be set on the top of the priest's cairn. And it is one ofthe grim ironies of the universe that the stones which covered Arus'sbody should have been adorned with that last touch of barbarity--above aman to whom violence and blood-vengeance were revolting.

  But the newer weapons and mail were not enough to break the lines. Foryears the superior armaments and sturdy courage of the Bossonians heldthe invaders at bay, aided, when necessary, by imperial Aquiloniantroops. During this time the Hyrkanians came and went, and Zamora wasadded to the empire.

  Then treachery from an unexpected source broke the Bossonian lines.Before chronicling this treachery, it might be well to glance briefly atthe Aquilonian empire. Always a rich kingdom, untold wealth had beenrolled in by conquest, and sumptuous splendor had taken the place ofsimple and hardy living. But degeneracy had not yet sapped the kings andthe people; though clad in silks and cloth-of-gold, they were still avital, virile race. But arrogance was supplanting their formersimplicity. They treated less powerful people with growing contempt,levying more and more tributes on the conquered. Argos, Zingara, Ophir,Zamora and the Shemite countries were treated as subjugated provinces,which was especially galling to the proud Zingarans, who often revolted,despite savage retaliations.

  Koth was practically tributary, being under Aquilonia's 'protection'against the Hyrkanians. But Nemedia the western empire had never beenable to subdue, although the latter's triumphs were of the defensivesort, and were generally attained with the aid of Hyperborean armies.During this period Aquilonia's only defeats were: her failure to annexNemedia; the rout of an army sent into Cimmeria; and the almost completedestruction of an army by the AEsir. Just as the Hyrkanians foundthemselves unable to withstand the heavy cavalry charges of theAquilonians, so the latter, invading the snow-countries, wereoverwhelmed by the ferocious hand-to-hand fighting of the Nordics. ButAquilonia's conquests were pushed to the Nilus, where a Stygian army wasdefeated with great slaughter, and the king of Stygia sent tribute--onceat least--to divert invasion of his kingdom. Brythunia was reduced in aseries of whirlwind wars, and preparations were made to subjugate theancient rival at last--Nemedia.

  With their glittering hosts greatly increased by mercenaries, theAquilonians moved against their old-time foe, and it seemed as if thethrust were destined to crush the last shadow of Nemedian independence.But contentions arose between the Aquilonians and their Bossonianauxiliaries.

  As the inevitable result of imperial expansion, the Aquilonians hadbecome haughty and intolerant. They derided the ruder, unsophisticatedBossonians, and hard feeling grew between them--the Aquiloniansdespising the Bossonians and the latter resenting the attitude of theirmasters--who now boldly called themselves such, and treated theBossonians like conquered subjects, taxing them exorbitantly, andconscripting them for their wars of territorial expansion--wars theprofits of which the Bossonians shared little. Scarcely enough men wereleft in the marches to guard the frontier, and hearing of Pictishoutrages in their homelands, whole Bossonian regiments quit the Nemediancampaign and marched to the western frontier, where they defeated thedark-skinned invaders in a great battle.

  This desertion, however, was the direct cause of Aquilonia's defeat bythe desperate Nemedians, and brought down on the Bossonians the cruelwrath of the imperialists--intolerant and short-sighted as imperialistsinvariably are. Aquilonian regiments were secretly brought to theborders of the marches, the Bossonian chiefs were invited to attend agreat conclave, and, in the guise of an expedition against the Picts,bands of savage Shemitish soldiers were quartered among the unsuspectingvillagers. The unarmed chiefs were massacred, the Shemites turned ontheir stunned hosts with torch and sword, and the armored imperial hostswere hurled ruthlessly on the unsuspecting people. From north to souththe marches were ravaged and the Aquilonian armies marched back from theborders, leaving a ruined and devastated land behind them.

  And then the Pictish invasion burst in full power along those borders.It was no mere raid, but the concerted rush of a whole nation, led bychiefs who had served in Aquilonian armies, and planned and directed byGorm--an old man now, but with the fire of his fierce ambition undimmed.This time there were no strong walled villages in their path, manned bysturdy archers, to hold back the rush until the imperial troops could bebrought up. The remnants of the Bossonians were swept out of existence,and the blood-mad barbarians swarmed into Aquilonia, looting andburning, before the legions, warring again with the Nemedians, could bemarched into the west. Zingara seized this opportunity to throw off theyoke, which example was followed by Corinthia and the Shemites. Wholeregiments of mercenaries and vassals mutinied and marched back to theirown countries, looting and burning as they went. The Picts surgedirresistibly eastward, and host after host was trampled beneath theirfeet. Without their Bossonian archers the Aquilonians found themselvesun
able to cope with the terrible arrow-fire of the barbarians. From allparts of the empire legions were recalled to resist the onrush, whilefrom the wilderness horde after horde swarmed forth, in apparentlyinexhaustible supply. And in the midst of this chaos, the Cimmeriansswept down from their hills, completing the ruin. They looted cities,devastated the country, and retired into the hills with their plunder,but the Picts occupied the land they had over-run. And the Aquilonianempire went down in fire and blood.

  Then again the Hyrkanians rode from the blue east. The withdrawal of theimperial legions from Zamora was their incitement. Zamora fell easy preyto their thrusts, and the Hyrkanian king established his capital in thelargest city of the country. This invasion was from the ancientHyrkanian kingdom of Turan, on the shores of the inland sea, butanother, more savage Hyrkanian thrust came from the north. Hosts ofsteel-clad riders galloped around the northern extremity of the inlandsea, traversed