Almuric, Robert E. Howard [love books to read .txt] 📗

in his frame must have

been splintered.

 

A clamor of voices rang on my ears, and turning, I saw a horde of

hairy figures rushing toward me. I heard my own name bellowed by a

thousand tongues. I had found the men of Koth.

 

A hairy giant was alternately pumping my hand and beating me on the

back with blows that would have staggered a horse, while bellowing:

“Ironhand! By Thak’s jawbones, Ironhand! Grip my hand, old war-dog!

Hell’s thunders, I’ve known no such joyful hour since the day I broke

old Khush of Tanga’s back!”

 

There was old Khossuth Skullsplitter, somber as ever, Thab the

Swift, Gutchluk Tigerwrath—nearly all the mighty men of Koth. And the

way they smote my back and roared their welcome warmed my heart as it

was never warmed on Earth, for I knew there was no room for

insincerity in their great simple hearts.

 

“Where have you been, Ironhand?” exclaimed Thab the Swift. “We found

your broken carbine out on the plains, and a Yaga lying near it with

his skull smashed; so we concluded that you had been done away with by

those winged devils. But we never found your body—and now you come

tumbling through the skies locked in combat with another flying fiend!

Say, have you been to Yugga?” He laughed as a man laughs when he

speaks a jest.

 

“Aye to Yugga, on the rock Yuthla, by the river Yogh, in the land of

Yagg,” I answered. “Where is Zal the Thrower?”

 

“He guards the city with the thousand we left behind,” answered

Khossuth.

 

“His daughter languishes in the Black City,” I said. “On the night

of the full moon, Altha, Zal’s daughter, dies with five hundred other

girls of the Guras—unless we prevent it.”

 

A murmur of wrath and horror swept along the ranks. I glanced over

the savage array. There were a good four thousand of them; no bows

were in evidence, but each man bore his carbine. That meant war, and

their numbers proved it was no minor raid.

 

“Where are you going?” I asked.

 

“The men of Khor move against us, five thousand strong,” answered

Khossuth. “It is the death grapple of the tribes. We march to meet

them afar off from our walls, and spare our women the horrors of the

war.”

 

“Forget the men of Khor!” I cried passionately. “You would spare the

feelings of your women—yet thousands of your women suffer the

tortures of the damned on the ebon rock of Yuthla! Follow me! I will

lead you to the stronghold of the devils who have harried Almuric for

a thousand ages!”

 

“How many warriors?” asked Khossuth uncertainly.

 

“Twenty thousand.”

 

A groan rose from the listeners.

 

“What could our handful do against that horde?”

 

“I’ll show you!” I exclaimed. “I’ll lead you into the heart of their

citadel!”

 

“Hai!” roared Ghor the Bear, brandishing his broadsword, always

quick to take fire from my suggestions. “That’s the word! Come on, sir

brothers! Follow Ironhand! He’ll show us the way!”

 

“But what of the men of Khor?” expostulated Khossuth. “They are

marching to attack us. We must meet them.”

 

Ghor grunted explosively as the truth of this assertion came home to

him and all eyes turned toward me.

 

“Leave them to me,” I proposed desperately. “Let me talk with them—”

 

“They’ll hack off your head before you can open your mouth,” grunted

Khossuth.

 

“That’s right,” admitted Ghor. “We’ve been fighting the men of Khor

for fifty thousand years. Don’t trust them, comrade.”

 

“I’ll take the chance,” I answered.

 

“The chance you shall have, then,” said Gutchluk grimly. “For there

they come!” In the distance we saw a dark moving mass.

 

“Carbines ready!” barked old Khossuth, his cold eyes gleaming.

“Loosen your blades, and follow me.”

 

“Will you join battle tonight?” I asked. He glanced at the sun. “No.

We’ll march to meet them, and pitch camp just out of gunshot. Then

with dawn we’ll rush them and cut their throats.”

 

“They’ll have the same idea,” explained Thab. “Oh, it will be great

fun!”

 

“And while you revel in senseless bloodshed,” I answered bitterly,

“your daughters and theirs will be screaming vainly under the tortures

of the winged people over the river Yogh. Fools! Oh, you fools!”

 

“But what can we do?” expostulated Gutchluk.

 

“Follow me!” I yelled passionately. “We’ll march to meet them, and

I’ll go on to them alone.”

 

I wheeled and strode across the plain, and the hairy men of Koth

fell in behind me, with many headshakes and mutterings. I saw the

oncoming mass, first as a mingled blur; then the details stood out—

hairy bodies, fierce faces, gleaming weapons—but I swung on

heedlessly. I knew neither fear nor caution; my whole being seemed on

fire with the urgency of my need and desire.

 

Several hundred yards separated the two hosts when I dashed down my

single weapon—the Yaga dagger—and shaking off Ghor’s protesting

hands, advanced alone and unarmed, my hands in the air; palms toward

the enemy.

 

These had halted, drawn up ready for action. The unusualness of my

actions and appearance puzzled them. I momentarily expected the crack

of a carbine, but nothing happened until I was within a few yards of

the foremost group, the mightiest men clustered about a tall figure

that was their chief—old Bragi, Khossuth had told me. I had heard of

him, a hard, cruel man, moody and fanatical in his hatreds.

 

“Stand!” he shouted, lifting his sword. “What trick is this? Who are

you who comes with empty hands in the teeth of war?”

 

“I am Esau Ironhand, of the tribe of Koth,” I answered. “I would

parley with you.”

 

“What madman is this?” growled Bragi. “Than—a bullet through his

head.”

 

But the man called Than, who had been staring eagerly at me, gave a

shout instead and threw down his carbine.

 

“Not if I live!” he exclaimed, advancing toward me his arms

outstretched. “By Thak, it is he! Do you not remember me, Than

Swordswinger, whose life you saved in the hills?”

 

He lifted his chin to display a great scar on his corded neck.

 

“You are he who fought the sabertooth! I had not dreamed you

survived those awful wounds.”

 

“We men of Khor are hard to kill!” he laughed joyously, throwing his

arms about me in a bearlike embrace. “What are you doing among the

dogs of Koth? You should be fighting with us!”

 

“If I have my way there will be no fighting,” I answered. “I wish

only to talk with your chiefs and warriors. There is nothing out of

the way about that.”

 

“True!” agreed Than Swordswinger. “Bragi, you will not refuse him

this?”

 

Bragi growled in his beard, glaring at me.

 

“Let your warriors advance to that spot.” I indicated the place I

meant. “Khossuth’s men will come up on the other side. There both

hordes will listen to what I have to say. Then, if no agreement can be

reached, each side shall withdraw five hundred yards and after that

follow its own initiative.”

 

“You are mad!” Old Bragi jerked his beard with a shaking hand of

rage. “It is treachery. Back to your kennel, dog!”

 

“I am your hostage,” I answered. “I am unarmed. I will not move out

of your sword reach. If there is treachery, strike me down on the

spot.”

 

“But why?”

 

“I have been captive among the Yagas!” I exclaimed. “I have come to

tell the Guras what things occur in the land of Yagg!”

 

“The Yagas took my daughter!” exclaimed a warrior, pushing through

the ranks. “Did you see her in Yagg?”

 

“They took my sister!”—“And my young bride”—“And my niece!” shouts

rose in chorus, as men swarmed about me, forgetful of their enemies,

shaking me in the intensity of their feeling.

 

“Back, you fools!” roared Bragi, smiting with the flat of his sword.

“Will you break your ranks and let the Kothans cut you down? Do you

not see it is a trick?”

 

“It is no trick!” I cried. “Only listen to me, in God’s name!”

 

They swept away Bragi’s protests. There was a milling and stamping,

during which only a kindly Providence kept the nerve-taut Kothans from

pouring a volley into the surging mass of their enemies, and presently

a sort of order was evolved. A shouted conference finally resulted in

approximately the position I had asked for—a semicircle of Khorans

over against a similar formation composed of Kothans. The close

proximity almost caused the tribal wrath to boil over. Jaws jutted,

eyes blazed, hairy hands clutched convulsively at carbine stocks. Like

wild dogs those wild men glared at each other, and I hastened to begin

my say.

 

I was never much of a talker, and as I strode between those hostile

hordes I felt my fire die out in cold ague of helplessness. A million

ages of traditional war and feud rose up to confound me. One man

against the accumulated ideas, inhibitions, and customs of a whole

world, built up through countless millenniums—the thought crushed and

paralyzed me. Then blind rage swept me at the memory of the horrors of

Yugga, and the fire blazed up again and enveloped the world and made

it small, and on the wings of that conflagration I was borne to

heights of which I had never dreamed.

 

No need for fiery oratory to tell the tale I had to tell. I told it

in the plainest, bluntest language possible, and the knowledge and

feeling that lay behind the telling made those naked words pulse, and

burn like acid.

 

I told of the hell that was Yugga. I told of young girls dying

beneath the excesses of black demons—of women lashed to gory ribbons,

mangled on the wheel, sundered on the rack, flayed alive, dismembered

alive—of the torments that left the body unharmed, but sucked the

mind empty of reason and left the victim a blind, mewing imbecile. I

told them—oh God, I cannot repeat all I told them, at the memory of

which I am even now sickened almost unto death.

 

Before I had finished, men were bellowing and beating their breasts

with their clenched fists, and weeping in agony of grief and fury.

 

I lashed them with a last whip of scorpions. “These are your women,

your own flesh and blood, who scream on the racks of Yugga! You call

yourselves men—you strut and boast and swagger, while these winged

devils mock you. Men! Ha!” I laughed as a wolf barks, from the depths

of my bitter rage, and agony. “Men! Go home and don the skirts of

women!”

 

A terrible yell arose. Clenched fists were brandished, bloodshot

eyes flamed at me, hairy throats bayed their anguished fury. “You lie,

you dog! Damn you, you lie! We are men! Lead us against these devils

or we will rend you!”

 

“If you follow me,” I yelled, “few of you will return. You will

suffer and you will die in hordes. But if you had seen what I have

seen, you would not wish to live. Soon approaches the time when the

Yagas will clean their house. They are weary of their slaves. They

will destroy those they have, and fare forth into the world for more.

I have told you of the destruction of Thugra. So it will be with Khor;

so it will be with Koth—when winged devils swoop out of the night.

Follow me to Yugga—I will show you the way. If you are men, follow

me!”

 

Blood burst from my lips in the intensity of my appeal, and as I

reeled back, in a