Bran Mak Morn: The Last King Page 8

Bran� eyes roved the field. A mist of blood hovered over all, where the victorious barbarians were looting the dead, while those Romans who had escaped slaughter by throwing down their swords and now stood under guard, looked on with hot smoldering eyes.

  �y kingdom �my people �are saved,�said Bran wearily. �hey will come from the heather by the thousands and when Rome moves against us again, she will meet a solid nation. But I am weary. What of Kull?� �y eyes and brain were mazed with battle,�answered Cormac. � thought to see him vanish like a ghost into the sunset. I will seek his body.� �eek not for him,�said Bran. �ut of the sunrise he came �into the sunset he has gone. Out of the mists of the ages he came to us, and back into the mists of the eons has he returned �to his own kingdom.� Cormac turned away; night was gathering. Gonar stood like a white specter before him.

  �o his own kingdom,�echoed the wizard. �ime and Space are naught. Kull has returned to his own kingdom �his own crown �his own age.� �hen he was a ghost?� �id you not feel the grip of his solid hand? Did you not hear his voice �see him eat and drink, laugh and slay and bleed?� Still Cormac stood like one in a trance.

  �hen if it be possible for a man to pass from one age into one yet unborn, or come forth from a century dead and forgotten, whichever you will, with his flesh-and-blood body and his arms �then he is as mortal as he was in his own day. Is Kull dead, then?� �e died a hundred thousand years ago, as men reckon time,�answered the wizard, �ut in his own age. He died not from the swords of the Gauls of this age. Have we not heard in legends how the king of Valusia traveled into a strange, timeless land of the misty future ages, and there fought in a great battle? Why, so he did! A hundred thousand years ago, or today!

  �nd a hundred thousand years ago �or a moment agone! �Kull, king of Valusia, roused himself on the silken couch in his secret chamber and laughing, spoke to the first Gonar, saying: �a, wizard, I have in truth dreamed strangely, for I went into a far clime and a far time in my visions, and fought for the king of a strange shadow-people!�And the great sorcerer smiled and pointed silently at the red, notched sword, and the torn mail and the many wounds that the king carried. And Kull, fully woken from his �ision�and feeling the sting and the weakness of these yet bleeding wounds, fell silent and mazed, and all life and time and space seemed like a dream of ghosts to him, and he wondered thereat all the rest of his life. For the wisdom of the Eternities is denied even unto princes and Kull could no more understand what Gonar told him than you can understand my words.� �nd then Kull lived despite his many wounds,�said Cormac, �nd has returned to the mists of silence and the centuries. Well �he thought us a dream; we thought him a ghost. And sure, life is but a web spun of ghosts and dreams and illusion, and it is in my mind that the kingdom which has this day been born of swords and slaughter in this howling valley is a thing no more solid than the foam of the bright sea.� A Song of the Race

  A Song of the Race

  High on his throne sat Bran Mak Morn

  When the sun-god sank and the west was red;

  He beckoned a girl with his drinking horn,

  And, �ing me a song of the race,�he said.

  Her eyes were as dark as the seas of night,

  Her lips were as red as the setting sun,

  As, a dusky rose in the fading light,

  She let her fingers dreamily run

  Over the golden-whispered strings,

  Seeking the soul of her ancient lyre;

  Bran sate still on the throne of kings,

  Bronze face limned in the sunset� fire.

  �irst of the race of men,�she sang,

  �ar from an unknown land we came,

  From the rim of the world where mountains hang

  And the seas burn red with the sunset flame.

  �irst and the last of the race are we,

  Gone is the old world� gilt and pride,

  Mu is a myth of the western sea,

  Through halls of Atlantis the white sharks glide.�

  An image of bronze, the king sate still,

  Javelins of crimson shot the west,

  She brushed the strings and a murmured thrill

  Swept up the chords to the highest crest.

  �ear ye the tale that the ancients tell,

  Promised of yore by the god of the moon,

  Hurled on the shore a deep sea shell,

  Carved on the surface a mystic rune:

  �As ye were first in the mystic past

  Out of the fogs of the dim of Time,

  So shall the men of your race be last

  When the world shall crumble,�so ran the rhyme.

  �A man of your race, on peaks that clash,

  Shall gaze on the reeling world below;

  To billowing smoke shall he see it crash,

  A floating fog of the winds that blow.

  �Star-dust falling for aye through space.

  Whirling about in the winds that spin;

  Ye that were first, be the last-most race,

  For one of your men shall be the last of men.�

  Into the silence her voice trailed off,

  Yet still it echoed across the dusk,

  Over the heather the night-wind soft

  Bore the scent of the forest� musk.

  Red lips lifted, and dark eyes dreamed,

  Bats came wheeling on stealthy wings;

  But the moon rose gold and the far stars gleamed,

  And the king still sate on the throne of kings.

  Worms of the Earth

  Worms of the Earth

  �trike in the nails, soldiers, and let our guest see the reality of our good Roman justice!� The speaker wrapped his purple cloak closer about his powerful frame and settled back into his official chair, much as he might have settled back in his seat at the Circus Maximus to enjoy the clash of gladiatorial swords. Realization of power colored his every move. Whetted pride was necessary to Roman satisfaction, and Titus Sulla was justly proud; for he was military governor of Eboracum and answerable only to the emperor of Rome. He was a strongly built man of medium height, with the hawk-like features of the pure-bred Roman. Now a mocking smile curved his full lips, increasing the arrogance of his haughty aspect. Distinctly military in appearance, he wore the golden-scaled corselet and chased breastplate of his rank, with the short stabbing sword at his belt, and he held on his knee the silvered helmet with its plumed crest. Behind him stood a clump of impassive soldiers with shield and spear �blond titans from the Rhineland.

  Before him was taking place the scene which apparently gave him so much real gratification �a scene common enough wherever stretched the far-flung boundaries of Rome. A rude cross lay flat upon the barren earth and on it was bound a man �half naked, wild of aspect with his corded limbs, glaring eyes and shock of tangled hair. His executioners were Roman soldiers, and with heavy hammers they prepared to pin the victim� hands and feet to the wood with iron spikes.

  Only a small group of men watched this ghastly scene, in the dread place of execution beyond the city walls: the governor and his watchful guards; a few young Roman officers; the man to whom Sulla had referred as �uest�and who stood like a bronze image, unspeaking. Beside the gleaming splendor of the Roman, the quiet garb of this man seemed drab, almost somber.

  He was dark, but he did not resemble the Latins around him. There was about him none of the warm, almost Oriental sensuality of the Mediterranean which colored their features. The blond barbarians behind Sulla� chair were less unlike the man in facial outline than were the Romans. Not his were the full curving red lips, nor the rich waving locks suggestive of the Greek. Nor was his dark complexion the rich olive of the south; rather it was the bleak darkness of the north. The whole aspect of the man vaguely suggested the shadowed mists, the gloom, the cold and the icy winds of the naked northern lands. Even his black eyes were savagely cold, like black fires burning through fathoms of ice.

  His height was only
medium but there was something about him which transcended mere physical bulk �a certain fierce innate vitality, comparable only to that of a wolf or a panther. In every line of his supple, compact body, as well as in his coarse straight hair and thin lips, this was evident �in the hawk-like set of the head on the corded neck, in the broad square shoulders, in the deep chest, the lean loins, the narrow feet. Built with the savage economy of a panther, he was an image of dynamic potentialities, pent in with iron self-control.

  At his feet crouched one like him in complexion �but there the resemblance ended. This other was a stunted giant, with gnarly limbs, thick body, a low sloping brow and an expression of dull ferocity, now clearly mixed with fear. If the man on the cross resembled, in a tribal way, the man Titus Sulla called guest, he far more resembled the stunted crouching giant.

  �ell, Partha Mac Othna,�said the governor with studied effrontery, �hen you return to your tribe, you will have a tale to tell of the justice of Rome, who rules the south.� � will have a tale,�answered the other in a voice which betrayed no emotion, just as his dark face, schooled to immobility, showed no evidence of the maelstrom in his soul.

  �ustice to all under the rule of Rome,�said Sulla. �ax Romana! Reward for virtue, punishment for wrong!�He laughed inwardly at his own black hypocrisy, then continued: �ou see, emissary of Pictland, how swiftly Rome punishes the transgressor.� � see,�answered the Pict in a voice which strongly-curbed anger made deep with menace, �hat the subject of a foreign king is dealt with as though he were a Roman slave.� �e has been tried and condemned in an unbiased court,�retorted Sulla.

  �ye! and the accuser was a Roman, the witnesses Roman, the judge Roman! He committed murder? In a moment of fury he struck down a Roman merchant who cheated, tricked and robbed him, and to injury added insult �aye, and a blow! Is his king but a dog, that Rome crucifies his subjects at will, condemned by Roman courts? Is his king too weak or foolish to do justice, were he informed and formal charges brought against the offender?� �ell,�said Sulla cynically, �ou may inform Bran Mak Morn yourself. Rome, my friend, makes no account of her actions to barbarian kings. When savages come among us, let them act with discretion or suffer the consequences.� The Pict shut his iron jaws with a snap that told Sulla further badgering would elicit no reply. The Roman made a gesture to the executioners. One of them seized a spike and placing it against the thick wrist of the victim, smote heavily. The iron point sank deep through the flesh, crunching against the bones. The lips of the man on the cross writhed, though no moan escaped him. As a trapped wolf fights against his cage, the bound victim instinctively wrenched and struggled. The veins swelled in his temples, sweat beaded his low forehead, the muscles in arms and legs writhed and knotted. The hammers fell in inexorable strokes, driving the cruel points deeper and deeper, through wrists and ankles; blood flowed in a black river over the hands that held the spikes, staining the wood of the cross, and the splintering of bones was distinctly heard. Yet the sufferer made no outcry, though his blackened lips writhed back until the gums were visible, and his shaggy head jerked involuntarily from side to side.

  The man called Partha Mac Othna stood like an iron image, eyes burning from an inscrutable face, his whole body hard as iron from the tension of his control. At his feet crouched his misshapen servant, hiding his face from the grim sight, his arms locked about his master� knees. Those arms gripped like steel and under his breath the fellow mumbled ceaselessly as if in invocation.

  The last stroke fell; the cords were cut from arm and leg, so that the man would hang supported by the nails alone. He had ceased his struggling that only twisted the spikes in his agonizing wounds. His bright black eyes, unglazed, had not left the face of the man called Partha Mac Othna; in them lingered a desperate shadow of hope. Now the soldiers lifted the cross and set the end of it in the hole prepared, stamped the dirt about it to hold it erect. The Pict hung in midair, suspended by the nails in his flesh, but still no sound escaped his lips. His eyes still hung on the somber face of the emissary, but the shadow of hope was fading.

  �e�l live for days!�said Sulla cheerfully. �hese Picts are harder than cats to kill! I�l keep a guard of ten soldiers watching night and day to see that no one takes him down before he dies. Ho, there, Valerius, in honor of our esteemed neighbor, King Bran Mak Morn, give him a cup of wine!� With a laugh the young officer came forward, holding a brimming wine-cup, and rising on his toes, lifted it to the parched lips of the sufferer. In the black eyes flared a red wave of unquenchable hatred; writhing his head aside to avoid even touching the cup, he spat full into the young Roman� eyes. With a curse Valerius dashed the cup to the ground, and before any could halt him, wrenched out his sword and sheathed it in the man� body.

  Sulla rose with an imperious exclamation of anger; the man called Partha Mac Othna had started violently, but he bit his lip and said nothing. Valerius seemed somewhat surprized at himself, as he sullenly cleansed his sword. The act had been instinctive, following the insult to Roman pride, the one thing unbearable.

  �ive up your sword, young sir!�exclaimed Sulla. �enturion Publius, place him under arrest. A few days in a cell with stale bread and water will teach you to curb your patrician pride, in matters dealing with the will of the empire. What, you young fool, do you not realize that you could not have made the dog a more kindly gift? Who would not rather desire a quick death on the sword than the slow agony on the cross? Take him away. And you, centurion, see that guards remain at the cross so that the body is not cut down until the ravens pick bare the bones. Partha Mac Othna, I go to a banquet at the house of Demetrius �will you not accompany me?� The emissary shook his head, his eyes fixed on the limp form which sagged on the black-stained cross. He made no reply. Sulla smiled sardonically, then rose and strode away, followed by his secretary who bore the gilded chair ceremoniously, and by the stolid soldiers, with whom walked Valerius, head sunken.

  The man called Partha Mac Othna flung a wide fold of his cloak about his shoulder, halted a moment to gaze at the grim cross with its burden, darkly etched against the crimson sky, where the clouds of night were gathering. Then he stalked away, followed by his silent servant.

  II

  In an inner chamber of Eboracum, the man called Partha Mac Othna paced tigerishly to and fro. His sandalled feet made no sound on the marble tiles.

  �rom!�he turned to the gnarled servant, �ell I know why you held my knees so tightly �why you muttered aid of the Moon-Woman �you feared I would lose my self-control and make a mad attempt to succor that poor wretch. By the gods, I believe that was what the dog Roman wished �his iron-cased watch-dogs watched me narrowly, I know, and his baiting was harder to bear than ordinarily.

  �ods black and white, dark and light!�he shook his clenched fists above his head in the black gust of his passion. �hat I should stand by and see a man of mine butchered on a Roman cross �without justice and with no more trial than that farce! Black gods of R�yeh, even you would I invoke to the ruin and destruction of those butchers! I swear by the Nameless Ones, men shall die howling for that deed, and Rome shall cry out as a woman in the dark who treads upon an adder!� �e knew you, master,�said Grom.

  The other dropped his head and covered his eyes with a gesture of savage pain.

  �is eyes will haunt me when I lie dying. Aye, he knew me, and almost until the last, I read in his eyes the hope that I might aid him. Gods and devils, is Rome to butcher my people beneath my very eyes? Then I am not king but dog!� �ot so loud, in the name of all the gods!�exclaimed Grom in affright. �id these Romans suspect you were Bran Mak Morn, they would nail you on a cross beside that other.� �hey will know it ere long,�grimly answered the king. �oo long I have lingered here in the guise of an emissary, spying upon mine enemies. They have thought to play with me, these Romans, masking their contempt and scorn only under polished satire. Rome is courteous to barbarian ambassadors, they give us fine houses to liv
e in, offer us slaves, pander to our lusts with women and gold and wine and games, but all the while they laugh at us; their very courtesy is an insult, and sometimes �as today �their contempt discards all veneer. Bah! I�e seen through their baitings �have remained imperturbably serene and swallowed their studied insults. But this �by the fiends of Hell, this is beyond human endurance! My people look to me; if I fail them �if I fail even one �even the lowest of my people, who will aid them? To whom shall they turn? By the gods, I�l answer the gibes of these Roman dogs with black shaft and trenchant steel!� �nd the chief with the plumes?�Grom meant the governor and his gutturals thrummed with the blood-lust. �e dies?�He flicked out a length of steel.

  Bran scowled. �asier said than done. He dies �but how may I reach him? By day his German guards keep at his back; by night they stand at door and window. He has many enemies, Romans as well as barbarians. Many a Briton would gladly slit his throat.� Grom seized Bran� garment, stammering as fierce eagerness broke the bonds of his inarticulate nature.

  �et me go, master! My life is worth nothing. I will cut him down in the midst of his warriors!� Bran smiled fiercely and clapped his hand on the stunted giant� shoulder with a force that would have felled a lesser man.

  �ay, old war-dog, I have too much need of thee! You shall not throw your life away uselessly. Sulla would read the intent in your eyes, besides, and the javelins of his Teutons would be through you ere you could reach him. Not by the dagger in the dark will we strike this Roman, not by the venom in the cup nor the shaft from the ambush.� The king turned and paced the floor a moment, his head bent in thought. Slowly his eyes grew murky with a thought so fearful he did not speak it aloud to the waiting warrior.

  � have become somewhat familiar with the maze of Roman politics during my stay in this accursed waste of mud and marble,�said he. �uring a war on the Wall, Titus Sulla, as governor of this province, is supposed to hasten thither with his centuries. But this Sulla does not do; he is no coward, but the bravest avoid certain things �to each man, however bold, his own particular fear. So he sends in his place Caius Camillus, who in times of peace patrols the fens of the west, lest the Britons break over the border. And Sulla takes his place in the Tower of Trajan. Ha!� He whirled and gripped Grom with steely fingers.