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

>One leg was across, when a figure sprang out of the shadows, yelling a

warning. The watchman had not been as drowsy as I had expected.

 

He leaped at me, the starlight glinting on his spear. With a

desperate twist of my body, I avoided the whistling blade, though the

effort almost toppled me from the wall. My out-thrown hand gripped his

lank hair as he fell against the coping with the fury of his wasted

thrust, and jerking myself back into balance, I dealt him a crushing

buffet on the ear with my clenched fist. He crumpled, and the next

instant I was over the wall.

 

Ghor was bellowing like a bull in the river, mad to know what was

taking place above him, and in the dim light the Akkas were swarming

like bees out of their stony hives. Leaning over the barrier I

stretched Ghor the shaft of the watchman’s spear, and he came heaving

and scrambling up beside me. The Akkas had stared stupidly for an

instant; then realizing they were being invaded, they rushed, howling

madly.

 

As Ghor sprang to meet them, I leaped to the great windlass that

controlled the bridge. I heard the Bear’s thunderous war cry boom

above the squalling of the Akkas, the strident clash of steel and the

crunch of splintered bone. But I had no time to look; it was taking

all my strength to work the windlass. I had seen five Akkas toiling

together at it; yet in the stress of the moment I accomplished its

lowering single-handed, though sweat burst out on my forehead and my

muscles trembled with the effort. But down it came, and the farther

end touched the other bank in time to accommodate the feet of the

warriors who sprang up and rushed for it.

 

I wheeled to aid Ghor, whose panting gasps I still heard amidst the

clamor of the melee. I knew the din in the lower town would soon rouse

the Yagas and it was imperative that we gain a foothold in Akka before

the shafts of the winged men began to rain among us.

 

Ghor was hard pressed when I turned from the bridge-head. Half a

dozen corpses lay under his feet, and he wielded his great sword with

a berserk lustiness that sheared through flesh and bone like butter,

but he was streaming blood, and the Akkas were closing in on him.

 

I had no weapon but Gotrah’s dagger, but I sprang into the fray and

ripped a sword from the sinking hand of one whose heart my slim blade

found. It was a crude weapon, such as the Akkas forge, but it had edge

and weight, and swinging it like a club, I wrought havoc among the

swarming blue men. Ghor greeted my arrival with a gasping roar of

pleasure, and redoubled the fury of his tremendous strokes, so that

the dazed Akkas momentarily gave back.

 

And in that fleeting interval, the first of the Guras swarmed across

the bridge. In an instant fifty men had joined us. But there the

matter was deadlocked. Swarm after swarm of blue men rushed from their

huts to fall on us with reckless fury. One Gura was a match for three

or four Akkas, but they swamped us by numbers. They crushed us back

into the bridge mouth, and strive as we could, we could not advance

enough to clear the way for the hundreds of warriors behind us who

yelled and struggled to come to sword-strokes with the enemy. The

Akkas pressed in on us in a great crescent, almost crushing us against

the men behind us. They lined the walls, yelling and screaming and

brandishing their weapons. There were no bows or missiles among them;

their winged masters were careful to keep such things out of their

hands.

 

In the midst of the carnage dawn broke, and the struggling hordes

saw their enemies. Above us, I knew, the Yagas would be stirring.

Indeed I thought I could already hear the thrash of wings above the

roar of battle, but I could not look up. Breast to breast we were

locked with the heaving, grunting hordes, so closely there was no room

for sword-strokes. Their teeth and filthy nails tore at us beastlike;

their repulsive body odor was in our nostrils. In the crush we writhed

and cursed, each man striving to free a hand to strike.

 

My flesh crawled in dread of the arrows I knew must soon be raining

from above, and even with the thought the first volley came like a

whistling sheet of sleet. At my side and behind me men cried out,

clutching at the feathered ends protruding from their bodies. But then

the men on the bridge and on the farther bank, who had held their fire

for fear of hitting their comrades in the uncertain light, began

loosing their carbines at the Akkas. At that range their fire was

devastating. The first volley cleared the wall, and climbing on the

bridge rails the carbineers poured a withering fusillade over our

heads into the close-massed horde that barred our way. The result was

appalling. Great gaps were torn in the struggling mob, and the whole

horde staggered and tore apart. Unsupported by the mass behind, the

front ranks caved in, and over their mangled bodies we rushed into the

narrow streets of Akka.

 

Opposition was not at an end. The stocky blue men still fought back.

Up and down the streets sounded the clash of steel, crack of shots,

and yells of pain and fury. But our greatest peril was from above.

 

The winged men were swarming out of their citadel like hornets out

of a nest. Several hundred of them dropped swiftly down into Akka,

swords in their hands, while others lined the rim of the cliff and

poured down showers of arrows. Now the warriors hidden in the

shrub-masked ditches opened fire, and as that volley thundered, a rain of

mangled forms fell on the flat roofs of Akka. The survivors wheeled

and raced back to cover as swiftly as their wings could carry them.

 

But they were more deadly in defense than in attack. From every

casement, tower and battlement above they rained their arrows; a hail

of death showered Akka, striking down foe and serf alike. Guras and

Akkas took refuge in the stone-roofed huts, where the battling

continued in the low-ceilinged chambers until the gutters of Akka ran

red. Four thousand Guras battled four times their number of Akkas, but

the size, ferocity and superior weapons of the apemen balanced the

advantage of numbers.

 

Across the river Khossuth’s carbineers kept up an incessant fire at

the towers of Yugga, but with scant avail. The Yagas kept well

covered, and their arrows, arching down from the sky, had a greater

range and accuracy than the carbines of the Guras. But for their

position among the ditches, Khossuth’s men would have been wiped out

in short order, and as it was, they suffered terribly. They could not

join us in Akka; it would have been madness to try to cross the bridge

in the teeth of that fire.

 

Meanwhile, I ran straight for the temple of Yasmeena, cutting down

those who stood in my way. I had discarded the clumsy Akka sword for a

fine blade dropped by a slain Gura, and with this in my hand I cut my

way through a swarm of blue spearmen who made a determined stand

before the temple. With me were Ghor, Thab the Swift, Than

Swordswinger and a hundred other picked warriors.

 

As the last of our foes were trampled under foot, I sprang up the

black stone steps to the massive door, where the bizarre figure of the

Akka priest barred my way with shield and spear. I parried his spear

and feinted a thrust at his thigh. He lowered the great gold-scrolled

shield, and before he could lift it again I slashed off his head,

which rolled grinning down the steps. I caught up the shield as I

rushed into the temple.

 

I rushed across the temple and tore aside the golden screen. My men

crowded in behind me, panting, bloodstained, their fierce faces

lighted by the weird flame from the altar jewel. Fumbling in my haste,

I found and worked the secret catch. The door began to give,

reluctantly. It was this reluctance which fired my brain with sudden

suspicion, as I remembered how easily it had opened before. Even with

the thought I yelled, “Back!” and hurled myself backward as the door

gaped suddenly.

 

Instantly my ears were deafened by an awful roar, my eyes blinded by

a terrible flash. Something like a spurt of hell’s fire passed so

close by me it seared my hair in passing. Only my recoil, which

carried me behind the opening door, saved me from the torrent of

liquid fire which flooded the temple from the secret shaft.

 

There was a blind chaotic instant of frenzy, shot through with awful

screams. Then through the din I heard Ghor loudly bellowing my name,

and saw him stumbling blindly through the whirling smoke, his beard

and bristling hair burned crisp. As the lurid murk cleared somewhat, I

saw the remnants of my band—Ghor, Thab and a few others who by

quickness or luck had escaped. Than Swordswinger had been directly

behind me, and was knocked out of harm’s way when I leaped back. But

on the blackened floor of the temple lay three-score shriveled forms,

burned and charred out of all human recognition. They had been

directly in the path of that devouring sheet of flame as it rushed to

dissipate itself in the outer air.

 

The shaft seemed empty now. Fool to think that Yasmeena would leave

it unguarded, when she must have suspected that I escaped by that

route. On the edges of the door and the jamb I found bits of stuff

like wax. Some mysterious element had been sealed into the shaft which

the opening of the door ignited, sending it toward the outer air in a

rush of flame.

 

I knew the upper trap would be made fast. I shouted for Thab to find

and light a torch, and for Ghor to procure a heavy beam for a ram.

Then, telling Than to gather all the men he could find in the streets

and follow, I raced up the stair in the blackness. As I thought, I

found the upper trap fastened—bolted above, I suspected; and

listening closely, I caught a confused mumbling above my head, and

knew the chamber must be filled with Yagas.

 

An erratic flame bobbing below me drew my attention, and quickly

Thab reached my side with a torch. He was followed by Ghor and a score

of others, grunting under the weight of a heavy loglike beam, torn

from some Akka hut. He reported that fighting was still going on in

the streets and buildings, but that most of the Akka males had been

put to the sword, and others, with their women and children, had

leaped into the river and swum for the south shore. He said some five

hundred swordsmen were thronging the temple.

 

“Then burst this trap above our heads,” I exclaimed, “and follow me

through. We must win our way into the heart of the hold, before the

arrows of the Yagas on the tower overwhelm Khossuth.”

 

It was difficult in that narrow shaft, where only one man could

stand on each step, but gripping the heavy beam like a ram, we swung

it and dashed it against the trap. The thunder of the blows filled the

shaft deafeningly, the jarring impact stung our hands and quivered the

wood, but the trap held. Again—and again—panting, grunting, thews

cracking, we swung the beam—and with a final terrific drive