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

tell you he lies!” one bull’s bellow rose above the tumult. “We

all know that Logar the Bonecrusher is not the man to be thrashed and

stripped by a smooth-skinned hairless brown man like this. Ghor the

Bear might be a match for Logar. No one else.”

 

“Well, there’s the poniard,” someone pointed out.

 

The clamor rose again, and in an instant the disputants were yelling

and cursing, and brandishing their hairy fists in one another’s faces,

hands fumbled at sword hilts, and challenges and defiances were

exchanged freely.

 

I looked to see a general throat-cutting, but presently one who

seemed in some authority drew his sword and began banging the hilt on

the rude bench, at the same time drowning out the voices of the others

with his bull-like bellowing.

 

“Shut up! Shut up! Let another man open his mouth and I’ll split his

head!” As the clamor subsided and the disputants glared venomously at

him, he continued in a voice as calm as if nothing had occurred. “It’s

neither here nor there about the poniard. He might have caught Logar

sleeping and brained him, or he might have stolen it, or found it. Are

we Logar’s brothers, that we should seek after his welfare?”

 

A general snarl answered this. Evidently the man called Logar was

not popular among them.

 

“The question is, what shall we do with this creature? We’ve got to

hold a council and decide. He’s evidently uneatable.” He grinned as he

said this, which was apparently meant as a bit of grim humor.

 

“His hide would make good leather.” suggested another in a tone that

did not sound as though he was joking.

 

“Too soft,” protested another.

 

“He didn’t feel soft while we were carrying him in,” returned the

first speaker. “He was hard as steel springs.”

 

“Tush,” deprecated the other. “I’ll show you how tender his flesh

is. Watch me slice off a few strips.” He drew his dagger and

approached me while the others watched with interest.

 

All this time my rage had been growing until the chamber seemed to

swim in a red mist. Now, as I realized that the fellow really intended

trying the edge of his steel on my skin I went berserk. Wheeling, I

gripped the chain with both hands, wrapping it around my wrists for

more leverage. Then, bracing my feet against the floor and walls I

began to strain with all my strength. All over my body the great

muscles coiled and knotted; sweat broke out on my skin, and then with

a shattering crash the stone gave way, the iron ring was torn out

bodily, and I was catapulted on my back onto the floor, at the feet of

my captors who roared with amazement and fell on me en masse.

 

I answered their bellows with one strident yell of blood-thirsty

gratification, and heaving up through the melee, began swinging my

heavy fists like caulking mallets. Oh, that was a rough-house while it

lasted! They made no attempt to knife me, striving to swamp me with

numbers. We rolled from one side of the chamber to the other, a

gasping, thrashing, cursing, hammering mass, while with the yells,

howls, earnest profanity, and impact of heavy bodies, it was a perfect

bedlam. Once I seemed to catch a fleeting glimpse of the door thronged

with the heads of women similar to the one I had seen, but I could not

be sure; my teeth were set in a hairy ear, my eyes were full of sweat

and stars from a vicious punch on the nose, and what with a gang of

heavy forms romping all over me my sight was none too good.

 

Yet, I gave a good account of myself. Ears split, noses crumpled and

teeth splintered under the crushing impact of my iron-hard fists, and

the yells of the wounded were music to my battered ears. But that

damnable chain about my waist kept tripping me and coiling about my

legs, and pretty soon the bandage was ripped from my head, my scalp

wound opened anew and deluged me with blood. Blinded by this I

floundered and stumbled, and gasping and panting they bore me down and

bound my arms and legs.

 

The survivors then fell away from me and lay or sat in positions of

pain and exhaustion while I, finding my voice, cursed them luridly. I

derived ferocious satisfaction at the sight of all the bloody noses,

black eyes, torn ears and smashed teeth which were in evidence, and

barked in vicious laughter when one announced with many curses that

his arm was broken. One of them was out cold, and had to be revived,

which they did by dumping over him a vessel of cold water that was

fetched by someone I could not see from where I lay. I had no idea

that it was a woman who came in answer to a harsh roar of command.

 

“His wound is open again,” said one, pointing at me. “He’ll bleed to

death.”

 

“I hope he does,” snarled another, lying doubled up on the floor.

“He’s burst my belly. I’m dying. Get me some wine.”

 

“If you’re dying you don’t need wine,” brutally answered the one who

seemed a chief, as he spat out bits of splintered teeth. “Tie up his

wound, Akra.”

 

Akra limped over to me with no great enthusiasm and bent down.

 

“Hold your damnable head still,” he growled.

 

“Keep off!” I snarled. “I’ll have nothing from you. Touch me at your

peril.”

 

He exasperatedly grabbed my face in his broad hand and shoved me

violently down. That was a mistake. My jaws locked on his thumb,

evoking an ear-splitting howl, and it was only with the aid of his

comrades that he extricated the mangled member. Maddened by the pain,

he howled wordlessly, then suddenly gave me a terrific kick in the

temple, driving my wounded head with great violence back against the

massive bench leg. Once again I lost consciousness.

 

When I came to myself again I was once more bandaged, shackled by

the wrists and ankles, and made fast to a fresh ring, newly set in the

stone, and apparently more firmly fixed than the other had been. It

was night. Through the window I glimpsed the star-dotted sky. A torch

which burned with a peculiar white flame was thrust into a niche in

the wall, and a man sat on the bench, elbows on knees and chin on

fists, regarding me intently. On the bench near him stood a huge gold

vessel.

 

“I doubted if you’d come to after that last crack,” he said at last.

 

“It would take more than that to finish me,” I snarled. “You are a

pack of cursed weaklings. But for my wound and that infernal chain,

I’d have bested the whole mob of you.”

 

My insults seemed to interest rather than anger him. He absently

fingered a large bump on his head on which blood was thickly clotted,

and asked: “Who are you? Whence do you come?”

 

“None of your business,” I snapped.

 

He shrugged his shoulders, and lifting the vessel in one hand drew

his dagger with the other.

 

“In Koth none goes hungry,” he said, “I’m going to place this food

near your hand and you can eat. But I warn you, if you try to strike

or bite me, I’ll stab you.”

 

I merely snarled truculently, and he bent and set down the bowl,

hastily withdrawing. I found the food to be a kind of stew, satisfying

both thirst and hunger. Having eaten I felt in somewhat better mood,

and my guard renewed his questions, I answered: “My name is Esau

Cairn. I am an American, from the planet Earth.”

 

He mulled over my statements for a space, then asked: “Are these

places beyond the Girdle?”

 

“I don’t understand you,” I answered.

 

He shook his head. “Nor I you. But if you do not know of the Girdle,

you cannot be from beyond it. Doubtless it is all fable, anyway. But

whence did you come when we saw you approaching across the plain? Was

that your fire we glimpsed from the towers last night?”

 

“I suppose so,” I replied. “For many months I have lived in the

hills to the west. It was only a few weeks ago that I descended into

the plains.”

 

He stared and stared at me.

 

“In the hills? Alone, and with only a poniard?”

 

“Well, what about it?” I demanded.

 

He shook his head as if in doubt or wonder. “A few hours ago I would

have called you a liar. Now I am not sure.”

 

“What is the name of this city?” I asked.

 

“Koth, of the Kothan tribe. Our chief is Khossuth Skullsplitter. I

am Thab the Swift. I am detailed to guard you while the warriors hold

council.”

 

“What’s the nature of their council?” I inquired.

 

“They discuss what shall be done with you; and they have been

arguing since sunset, and are no nearer a solution than before.”

 

“What is their disagreement?”

 

“Well,” he answered. “Some want to hang you, and some want to shoot

you.”

 

“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to them that they might let me go,” I

suggested with some bitterness.

 

He gave me a cold look. “Don’t be a fool,” he said reprovingly.

 

At that moment a light step sounded outside, and the girl I had seen

before tiptoed into the chamber. Thab eyed her disapprovingly.

 

“What are you doing here, Altha?” he demanded.

 

“I came to look again at the stranger,” she answered in a soft

musical voice. “I never saw a man like him. His skin is nearly as

smooth as mine, and he has no hair on his countenance. How strange are

his eyes! Whence does he come?”

 

“From the hills, he says,” grunted Thab. Her eyes widened. “Why,

none dwells in the hills, except wild beasts! Can it be that he is

some sort of animal? They say he speaks and understands speech.”

 

“So he does,” growled Thab, fingering his bruises. “He also knocks

out men’s brains with his naked fists, which are harder and heavier

than maces. Get away from there.

 

“He’s a rampaging devil. If he gets his hands on you he won’t leave

enough of you for the vultures to pick.”

 

“I won’t get near him,” she assured him. “But, Thab, he does not

look so terrible. See, there is no anger in the gaze he fixes on me.

What will be done with him?”

 

“The tribe will decide,” he answered. “Probably let him fight a

sabertooth leopard barehanded.”

 

She clasped her own hands with more human feeling than I had yet

seen shown on Almuric.

 

“Oh, Thab, why? He has done no harm; he came alone and with empty

hands. The warriors shot him down without warning—and now—”

 

He glanced at her in irritation. “If I told your father you were

pleading for a captive—”

 

Evidently the threat carried weight. She visibly wilted.

 

“Don’t tell him,” she pleaded. Then she flared up again. “Whatever

you say, it’s beastly! If my father whips me until the blood runs over

my heels, I’ll still say so!”

 

And so saying, she ran quickly out of the chamber.

 

“Who is that girl?” I asked.

 

“Altha, the daughter of Zal the Thrower.”

 

“Who is he?”

 

“One of those you battled so viciously a short time ago.”

 

“You mean to tell me a girl like that is the daughter of a man

like—” Words failed me.

 

“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded. “She differs none from