People of the Dark Robert Ervin Howard Page 9

  Kane came to the black slaves and after some difficulty released them.

  “Take up these weapons which the warriors dropped in their haste,” said he, “and get you home. This is an evil place. Get ye back to your villages and when the next Arabs come, die in the ruins of your huts rather than be slaves.”

  Then they would have knelt and kissed his feet, but he, in much confusion, forbade them roughly. Then as they made preparations to go, one said to him: “Master, what of thee? Wilt thou not return with us? Thou shalt be our king!”

  But Kane shook his head.

  “I go eastward,” said he. And so the tribespeople bowed to him and turned back on the long trail to their own homeland. And Kane shouldered the staff that had been the rod of the Pharaohs and of Moses and of Solomon and of nameless Atlantean kings behind them, and turned his face eastward, halting only for a single backward glance at the great mausoleum that other Solomon had built with strange arts so long ago, and which now loomed dark and forever silent against the stars.

  THE GODS OF BAL–SAGOTH

  Weird Tales, October 1931

  1. Steel in the Storm

  The play was quick and desperate; in the momentary illumination a ferocious bearded face shone before Turlogh, and his swift ax licked out, splitting it to the chin. In the brief, utter blackness that followed the flash, an unseen stroke swept Turlogh’s helmet from his head and he struck back blindly, feeling his ax sink into flesh, and hearing a man howl. Again the fires of the raging skies sprang, showing the Gael the ring of savage faces, the hedge of gleaming steel that hemmed him in.

  Back against the mainmast Turlogh parried and smote; then through the madness of the fray a great voice thundered, and in a flashing instant the Gael caught a glimpse of a giant form — a strangely familiar face. Then the world crashed into fire-shot blackness.

  Consciousness returned slowly. Turlogh was first aware of a swaying, rocking motion of his whole body which he could not check. Then a dull throbbing in his head racked him and he sought to raise his hands to it. Then it was he realized he was bound hand and foot — not an altogether new experience. Clearing sight showed him that he was tied to the mast of the dragon ship whose warriors had struck him down. Why they had spared him, he could not understand, because if they knew him at all, they knew him to be an outlaw — an outcast from his clan, who would pay no ransom to save him from the very pits of Hell.

  The wind had fallen greatly but a heavy sea was flowing, which tossed the long ship like a chip from gulf-like trough to foaming crest. A round silver moon, peering through broken clouds, lighted the tossing billows. The Gael, raised on the wild west coast of Ireland, knew that the serpent ship was crippled. He could tell it by the way she labored, plowing deep into the spume, heeling to the lift of the surge. Well, the tempest which had been raging on these southern waters had been enough to damage even such staunch craft as these Vikings built.

  The same gale had caught the French vessel on which Turlogh had been a passenger, driving her off her course and far southward. Days and nights had been a blind, howling chaos in which the ship had been hurled, flying like a wounded bird before the storm. And in the very rack of the tempest a beaked prow had loomed in the scud above the lower, broader craft, and the grappling irons had sunk in. Surely these Norsemen were wolves and the blood-lust that burned in their hearts was not human. In the terror and roar of the storm they leaped howling to the onslaught, and while the raging heavens hurled their full wrath upon them, and each shock of the frenzied waves threatened to engulf both vessels, these sea-wolves glutted their fury to the utmost — true sons of the sea, whose wildest rages found echo in their own bosoms. It had been a slaughter rather than a fight — the Celt had been the only fighting man aboard the doomed ship — and now he remembered the strange familiarity of the face he had glimpsed just before he was struck down. Who —?

  “Good hail, my bold Dalcassian, it’s long since we met!”

  Turlogh stared at the man who stood before him, feet braced to the lifting of the deck. He was of huge stature, a good half head taller than Turlogh who stood well above six feet. His legs were like columns, his arms like oak and iron. His beard was of crisp gold, matching the massive armlets he wore. A shirt of scale-mail added to his war-like appearance as the horned helmet seemed to increase his height. But there was no wrath in the calm gray eyes which gazed tranquilly into the smoldering blue eyes of the Gael.

  “Athelstane, the Saxon!”

  “Aye — it’s been a long day since you gave me this,” the giant indicated a thin white scar on his temple. “We seem fated to meet on nights of fury — we first crossed steel the night you burned Thorfel’s skalli. Then I fell before your ax and you saved me from Brogar’s Picts — alone of all the folk who followed Thorfel. Tonight it was I who struck you down.” He touched the great two-handed sword strapped to his shoulders and Turlogh cursed.

  “Nay, revile me not,” said Athelstane with a pained expression. “I could have slain you in the press — I struck with the flat, but knowing you Irish have cursed hard skulls, I struck with both hands. You have been senseless for hours. Lodbrog would have slain you with the rest of the merchant ship’s crew but I claimed your life. But the Vikings would only agree to spare you on condition that you be bound to the mast. They know you of old.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Ask me not. The storm blew us far out of our course. We were sailing to harry the coasts of Spain. When chance threw us in with your vessel, of course we seized the opportunity, but there was scant spoil. Now we are racing with the sea-flow, unknowing. The steer sweep is crippled and the whole ship lamed. We may be riding the very rim of the world for aught I know. Swear to join us and I will loose you.”

  “Swear to join the hosts of Hell!” snarled Turlogh. “Rather will I go down with the ship and sleep forever under the green waters, bound to this mast. My only regret is that I can not send more sea-wolves to join the hundred-odd I have already sent to purgatory!”

  “Well, well,” said Athelstane tolerantly, “a man must eat — here — I will loose your hands at least — now, set your teeth into this joint of meat.”

  Turlogh bent his head to the great joint and tore at it ravenously. The Saxon watched him a moment, then turned away. A strange man, reflected Turlogh, this renegade Saxon who hunted with the wolf-pack of the North — a savage warrior in battle, but with fibers of kindliness in his makeup which set him apart from the men with whom he consorted.

  The ship reeled on blindly in the night, and Athelstane, returning with a great horn of foaming ale, remarked on the fact that the clouds were gathering again, obscuring the seething face of the sea. He left the Gael’s hands unbound but Turlogh was held fast to the mast by cords about legs and body. The rovers paid no heed to their prisoner; they were too much occupied in keeping their crippled ship from going down under their feet.

  At last Turlogh believed he could catch at times a deep roaring above the wash of the waves. This grew in volume, and even as the duller-eared Norsemen heard it, the ship leaped like a spurred horse, straining in every timber. As by magic the clouds, lightening for dawn, rolled away on each side, showing a wild waste of tossing gray waters, and a long line of breakers dead ahead. Beyond the frothing madness of the reefs loomed land, apparently an island. The roaring increased to deafening proportions, as the long ship, caught in the tide rip, raced headlong to her doom. Turlogh saw Lodbrog rushing about, his long beard flowing in the wind as he brandished his fists and bellowed futile commands. Athelstane came running across the deck.

  “Little chance for any of us,” he growled as he cut the Gael’s bonds, “but you shall have as much as the rest —”

  Turlogh sprang free. “Where is my ax?”

  “There in that weapon-rack. But Thor’s blood, man,” marveled the big Saxon, “you won’t burden yourself now —”

  Turlogh had snatched the ax and confidence flowed like wine through his veins at the familiar feel of the
slim, graceful shaft. His ax was as much a part of him as his right hand; if he must die he wished to die with it in his grip. He hastily slung it to his girdle. All armor had been stripped from him when he had been captured.

  “There are sharks in these waters,” said Athelstane, preparing to doff his scale-mail. “If we have to swim —”

  The ship struck with a crash that snapped her masts and shivered her prow like glass. Her dragon beak shot high in the air and men tumbled like tenpins from her slanted deck. A moment she poised, shuddering like a live thing, then slid from the hidden reef and went down in a blinding smother of spray.

  Turlogh had left the deck in a long dive that carried him clear. Now he rose in the turmoil, fought the waves for a mad moment, then caught a piece of wreckage that the breakers flung up. As he clambered across this, a shape bumped against him and went down again. Turlogh plunged his arm deep, caught a sword-belt and heaved the man up and on his makeshift raft. For in that instant he had recognized the Saxon, Athelstane, still burdened with the armor he had not had time to remove. The man seemed dazed. He lay limp, limbs trailing.

  Turlogh remembered that ride through the breaker as a chaotic nightmare. The tide tore them through, plunging their frail craft into the depths, then flinging them into the skies. There was naught to do but hold on and trust to luck. And Turlogh held on, gripping the Saxon with one hand and their raft with the other, while it seemed his fingers would crack with the strain. Again and again they were almost swamped; then by some miracle they were through, riding in water comparatively calm and Turlogh saw a lean fin cutting the surface a yard away. It swirled in and Turlogh unslung his ax and struck. Red dyed the waters instantly and a rush of sinuous shapes made the craft rock. While the sharks tore their brother, Turlogh, paddling with his hands, urged the rude raft ashore until he could feel the bottom. He waded to the beach, half-carrying the Saxon; then, iron though he was, Turlogh O’Brien sank down, exhausted and soon slept soundly.

  2. Gods from the Abyss

  Turlogh did not sleep long. When he awoke the sun was just risen above the sea-rim. The Gael rose, feeling as refreshed as if he had slept the whole night through, and looked about him. The broad white beach sloped gently from the water to a waving expanse of gigantic trees. There seemed no underbrush, but so close together were the huge boles, his sight could not pierce into the jungle. Athelstane was standing some distance away on a spit of sand that ran out into the sea. The huge Saxon leaned on his great sword and gazed out toward the reefs.

  Here and there on the beach lay the stiff figures that had been washed ashore. A sudden snarl of satisfaction broke from Turlogh’s lips. Here at his very feet was a gift from the gods; a dead Viking lay there, fully armed in the helmet and mail shirt he had not had time to doff when the ship foundered, and Turlogh saw they were his own. Even the round light buckler strapped to the Norseman’s back was his. Turlogh did pause to wonder how all his accouterments had come into the possession of one man, but stripped the dead and donned the plain round helmet and the shirt of black chain mail. Thus armed he went up the beach toward Athelstane, his eyes gleaming unpleasantly.

  The Saxon turned as he approached. “Hail to you Gael,” he greeted. “We be all of Lodbrog’s ship-people left alive. The hungry green sea drank them all. By Thor, I owe my life to you! What with the weight of mail, and the crack my skull got on the rail, I had most certainly been food for the shark but for you. It all seems like a dream now.”

  “You saved my life,” snarled Turlogh. “I saved yours. Now the debt is paid, the accounts are squared, so up with your sword and let us make an end.”

  Athelstane stared. “You wish to fight me? Why — what —?”

  “I hate your breed as I hate Satan!” roared the Gael, a tinge of madness in his blazing eyes. “Your wolves have ravaged my people for five hundred years! The smoking ruins of the Southland, the seas of spilled blood call for vengeance! The screams of a thousand ravished girls are ringing in my ears, night and day! Would that the North had but a single breast for my ax to cleave!”

  “But I am no Norseman,” rumbled the giant in worriment.

  “The more shame to you, renegade,” raved the maddened Gael. “Defend yourself lest I cut you down in cold blood!”

  “This is not to my liking,” protested Athelstane, lifting his mighty blade, his gray eyes serious but unafraid. “Men speak truly who say there is madness in you.”

  Words ceased as the men prepared to go into deadly action. The Gael approached his foe, crouching panther-like, eyes ablaze. The Saxon waited the onslaught, feet braced wide apart, sword held high in both hands. It was Turlogh’s ax and shield against Athelstane’s two-handed sword; in a contest one stroke might end either way. Like two great jungle beasts they played their deadly, wary game then —

  Even as Turlogh’s muscles tensed for the death-leap, a fearful sound split the silence! Both men started and recoiled. From the depths of the forest behind them rose a ghastly and inhuman scream. Shrill, yet of great volume, it rose higher and higher until it ceased at the highest pitch, like the triumph of a demon, like the cry of some grisly ogre gloating over its human prey.

  “Thor’s blood!” gasped the Saxon, letting his sword-point fall. “What was that?”

  Turlogh shook his head. Even his iron nerve was slightly shaken. “Some fiend of the forest. This is a strange land in a strange sea. Mayhap Satan himself reigns here and it is the gate to Hell.”

  Athelstane looked uncertain. He was more pagan than Christian and his devils were heathen devils. But they were none the less grim for that.

  “Well,” said he, “let us drop our quarrel until we see what it may be. Two blades are better than one, whether for man or devil —”

  A wild shriek cut him short. This time it was a human voice, blood-chilling in its horror and despair. Simultaneously came the swift patter of feet and the lumbering rush of some heavy body among the trees. The warriors wheeled toward the sound, and out of the deep shadows a half-naked woman came flying like a white leaf blown on the wind. Her loose hair streamed like a flame of gold behind her, her white limbs flashed in the morning sun, her eyes blazed with frenzied terror. And behind her —

  Even Turlogh’s hair stood up. The thing that pursued the fleeing girl was neither man nor beast. In form it was like a bird, but such a bird as the rest of the world had not seen for many an age. Some twelve feet high it towered, and its evil head with the wicked red eyes and cruel curved beak was as big as a horse’s head. The long arched neck was thicker than a man’s thigh and the huge taloned feet could have gripped the fleeing woman as an eagle grips a sparrow.

  This much Turlogh saw in one glance as he sprang between the monster and its prey who sank down with a cry on the beach. It loomed above him like a mountain of death and the evil beak darted down, denting the shield he raised and staggering him with the impact. At the same instant he struck, but the keen ax sank harmlessly into a cushioning mass of spiky feathers. Again the beak flashed at him and his sidelong leap saved his life by a hair’s breadth. And then Athelstane ran in, and bracing his feet wide, swung his great sword with both hands and all his strength. The mighty blade sheared through one of the tree-like legs below the knee, and with an abhorrent screech, the monster sank on its side, flapping its short heavy wings wildly. Turlogh drove the back-spike of his ax between the glaring red eyes and the gigantic bird kicked convulsively and lay still.

  “Thor’s blood!” Athelstane’s gray eyes were blazing with battle lust. “Truly we’ve come to the rim of the world —”

  “Watch the forest lest another come forth,” snapped Turlogh, turning to the woman who had scrambled to her feet and stood panting, eyes wide with wonder. She was a splendid young animal, tall, clean-limbed, slim and shapely. Her only garment was a sheer bit of silk hung carelessly about her hips. But though the scantiness of her dress suggested the savage, her skin was snowy white, her loose hair of purest gold and her eyes gray. Now she spoke hastily, stammering
ly, in the tongue of the Norse, as if she had not so spoken in years.

  “You — who are you men? When come you? What do you on the Isle of the Gods?”

  “Thor’s blood!” rumbled the Saxon; “she’s of our own kind!”

  “Not mine!” snapped Turlogh, unable even in that moment to forget his hate for the people of the North.

  The girl looked curiously at the two. “The world must have changed greatly since I left it,” she said, evidently in full control of herself once more, “else how is it that wolf and wild bull hunt together? By your black hair, you are a Gael, and you, big man, have a slur in your speech that can be naught but Saxon.”

  “We are two outcasts,” answered Turlogh. “You see these dead men lining the strand? They were the crew of the dragon ship which bore us here, storm-driven. This man, Athelstane, once of Wessex, was a swordsman on that ship and I was a captive. I am Turlogh Dubh, once a chief of Clan na O’Brien. Who are you and what land is this?”

  “This is the oldest land in the world,” answered the girl. “Rome, Egypt, Cathay are as but infants beside it. I am Brunhild, daughter of Rane Thorfin’s son, of the Orkneys, and until a few days ago, queen of this ancient kingdom.”

  Turlogh looked uncertainly at Athelstane. This sounded like sorcery.

  “After what we have just seen,” rumbled the giant, “I am ready to believe anything. But are you in truth Rane Thorfin’s son’s stolen child?”

  “Aye!” cried the girl, “I am that one! I was stolen when Tostig the Mad raided the Orkneys and burned Rane’s steading in the absence of its master —”

  “And then Tostig vanished from the face of the earth — or the sea!” interrupted Athelstane. “He was in truth a madman. I sailed with him for a ship-harrying many years ago when I was but a youth.”