The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume One: Crimson Shadows Read online

  The Ghost Kings

  The ghost kings are marching; the midnight knows their tread,

  From the distant, stealthy planets of the dim, unstable dead;

  There are whisperings on the night-winds and the shuddering stars have fled.

  A ghostly trumpet echoes from a barren mountainhead;

  Through the fen the wandering witch-lights gleam like phantom arrows sped;

  There is silence in the valleys and the moon is rising red.

  The ghost kings are marching down the ages’ dusty maze;

  The unseen feet are tramping through the moonlight’s pallid haze,

  Down the hollow clanging stairways of a million yesterdays.

  The ghost kings are marching, where the vague moon-vapor creeps,

  While the night-wind to their coming, like a thund’rous herald sweeps;

  They are clad in ancient grandeur, but the world, unheeding, sleeps.

  The Curse of the Golden Skull

  Rotath of Lemuria was dying. Blood had ceased to flow from the deep sword gash under his heart, but the pulse in his temple hammered like kettle drums.

  Rotath lay on a marble floor. Granite columns rose about him and a silver idol stared with ruby eyes at the man who lay at its feet. The bases of the columns were carved with curious monsters; above the shrine sounded a vague whispering. The trees which hemmed in and hid that mysterious fane spread long waving branches above it, and these branches were vibrant with curious leaves which rustled in the wind. From time to time great black roses scattered their dusky petals down.

  Rotath lay dying and he used his fading breath in calling down curses on his slayers–on the faithless king who had betrayed him, and on that barbarian chief, Kull of Atlantis, who dealt him the death blow.

  Acolyte of the nameless gods, and dying in an unknown shrine on the leafy summit of Lemuria’s highest mountain–Rotath’s weird inhuman eyes smoldered with a terrible cold fire. A pageant of glory and splendor passed before his mind’s eye. The acclaim of worshippers, the roar of silver trumpets, the whispering shadows of mighty and mystic temples where great wings swept unseen–then the intrigues, the onslaught of the invaders–death!

  Rotath cursed the king of Lemuria–the king to whom he had taught fearful and ancient mysteries and forgotten abominations. Fool that he had been to reveal his powers to a weakling who, having learned to fear him, had turned to foreign kings for aid.

  How strange it seemed, that he, Rotath of the Moonstone and the Asphodel, sorcerer and magician, should be gasping out his breath on the marble floor, a victim to that most material of all threats–a keen pointed sword in a sinewy hand.

  Rotath cursed the limitations of the flesh. He felt his brain crumbling and he cursed all the men of all the worlds. He cursed them by Hotath and Helgor, by Ra and Ka and Valka.

  He cursed all men living and dead, and all the generations unborn for a million centuries to come, naming Vramma and Jaggta-noga and Kamma and Kulthas. He cursed humanity by the fane of the Black Gods, the tracks of the Serpent Ones, the talons of the Ape Lords and the iron bound books of Shuma Gorath.

  He cursed goodness and virtue and light, speaking the names of gods forgotten even by the priests of Lemuria. He invoked the dark monstrous shadows of the older worlds, and of those black suns which lurk forever behind the stars.

  He felt the shades gather about him. He was going fast. And closing about him in an ever nearing ring, he sensed the tiger taloned devils who awaited his coming. He saw their bodies of solid jet and the great red caverns of their eyes. Behind hovered the white shadows of they who had died upon his altars, in horrid torment. Like mist in the moonlight they floated, great luminous eyes fixed on him in sad accusation, a never ending host.

  Rotath feared, and fearing, his curses rose louder, his blasphemies grew more terrible. With one last wild passion of fury, he placed a curse on his own bones that they might bring death and horror to the sons of men. But even as he spoke he knew that years and ages would pass and his bones turn to dust in that forgotten shrine before any man’s foot disturbed its silence. So he mustered his fast waning powers for one last invocation to the dread beings he had served, one last feat of magic. He uttered a blood-freezing formula, naming a terrible name.

  And soon he felt mighty elemental powers set in motion. He felt his bones growing hard and brittle. A coldness transcending earthly coldness passed over him and he lay still. The leaves whispered and the silver god laughed with cold gemmed eyes.

  EMERALD INTERLUDE

  Years stretched into centuries, centuries became ages. The green oceans rose and wrote an epic poem in emerald and the rhythm thereof was terrible. Thrones toppled and the silver trumpets fell silent forever. The races of men passed as smoke drifts from the breast of a summer. The roaring jade green seas engulfed the lands and all mountains sank, even the highest mountain of Lemuria.

  ORCHIDS OF DEATH

  A man thrust aside the trailing vines and stared. A heavy beard masked his face and mire slimed his boots. Above and about him hung the thick tropic jungle in breathless and exotic brooding. Orchids flamed and breathed about him.

  Wonder was in his wide eyes. He gazed between shattered granite columns upon a crumbling marble floor. Vines twined thickly, like green serpents, among these columns and trailed their sinuous length across the floor. A curious idol, long fallen from a broken pedestal, lay upon the floor and stared up with red, unblinking eyes. The man noted the character of this corroded thing and a strong shudder shook him. He glanced unbelievingly again at the other thing which lay on the marble floor, and shrugged his shoulders.

  He entered the shrine. He gazed at the carvings on the bases of the sullen columns, wondering at their unholy and indescribable appearance. Over all the scent of the orchids hung like a heavy fog.

  This small, rankly grown, swampy island was once the pinnacle of a great mountain, mused the man, and he wondered what strange people had reared up this fane–and left that monstrous thing lying before the fallen idol. He thought of the fame which his discoveries should bring him–of the acclaim of mighty universities and powerful scientific societies.

  He bent above the skeleton on the floor, noting the inhumanly long finger bones, the curious formation of the feet; the deep cavern-like eye-sockets, the jutting frontal bone, the general appearance of the great domed skull, which differed so horribly from mankind as he knew it.

  What long dead artizan had shaped the thing with such incredible skill? He bent closer, noting the rounded ball-and-socket of the joints, the slight depressions on flat surfaces where muscles had been attached. And he started as the stupendous truth was borne on him.

  This was no work of human art–that skeleton had once been clothed in flesh and had walked and spoken and lived. And this was impossible, his reeling brain told him, for the bones were of solid gold.

  The orchids nodded in the shadows of the trees. The shrine lay in purple and black shade. The man brooded above the bones and wondered. How could he know of an elder world sorcery great enough to serve undying hate, by lending that hate a concrete substance, impervious to Time’s destructions?

  The man laid his hand on the golden skull. A sudden deathly shriek broke the silence. The man in the shrine reeled up, screaming, took a single staggering step and then fell headlong, to lie with writhing limbs on the vine-crossed marble floor.

  The orchids showered down on him in a sensuous rain and his blind, clutching hands tore them into exotic fragments as he died. Silence fell and an adder crawled sluggishly from within the golden skull.

  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 his 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, cat-like motion, the Wolf sprang u
pon 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 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 glittering 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 swordsman, 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.