Almuric - Robert E. Howard (trending books to read TXT) 📗

stooped beneath my thrust and drove

the spear through the calf of my leg. Maddened by the pain, I dealt

him a stroke that split his skull to the chin, and then a carbine

stock descended on my head. I partially parried the blow, else it had

smashed my skull. But even so, it beat down on my crown with

thunderous and murderous impact, and the lights went out.

 

I came to with the impression that I was lying in a small boat which

was rocking and tossing in a storm. Then I discovered that I was bound

hand and foot, and being borne on a litter made of spear-shafts. Two

huge warriors were bearing me between them, and they made no effort to

make the traveling any easier for me. I could see only the sky, the

hairy back of the warrior in front of me, and by drawing back my head

the bearded face of the warrior behind. This person, seeing my eyes

open, growled a word to his mate, and they promptly dropped the

litter. The jolt set my damaged head to throbbing, and the wound in my

leg to hurting abominably.

 

“Logar!” bawled one of them. “The dog is conscious. Make him walk,

if you must bring him to Thugra. I’ve carried him far as I’m going

to.”

 

I heard footsteps, and then above me towered a giant form and a face

that seemed familiar. It was a fierce, brutal face, and from the

corner of the snarling mouth to the rim of the square jaw, ran a livid

scar.

 

“Well, Esau Cairn,” said this individual, “we meet again.”

 

I made no reply to this obvious comment.

 

“What?” he sneered, “do you not remember Logar the Bonecrusher, you

hairless dog?”

 

He punctuated his remarks by a savage kick in my ribs. Somewhere

there rang out a feminine shriek of protest, the sound of a scuffle,

and Altha broke through the ring of warriors and fell to her knees

beside me.

 

“Beast!” she cried, her beautiful eyes blazing. “You kick him when

he is helpless, when you would not dare face him in fair battle.”

 

“Who let this Kothan cat loose?” roared Logar. “Thal, I told you to

keep her away from this dog.”

 

“She bit my hand,” snarled the big warrior, striding forward, and

shaking a drop of blood from his hairy paw. “I’d as soon try to hold a

spitting wildcat.”

 

“Well, haul him to his feet.” directed Logar. “He walks the rest of

the way.”

 

“But he is wounded in the leg!” wailed Altha. “He cannot walk.”

 

“Why don’t you finish him here?” demanded one of the warriors.

 

“Because that would be too easy!” roared Logar, red lights

flickering in his bloodshot eyes. “The thief struck me foully with a

stone, from behind, and stole my poniard.”—here I saw that he was

wearing it once more at his girdle. “He shall go to Thugra, and there

I’ll take my time about killing him. Drag him up!”

 

They loosened my legs, none too gently, but the wounded one was so

stiff I could hardly stand, much less walk. They encouraged me with

blows, kicks, and prods from spears and swords, while Altha wept in

helpless fury, and at last turned on Logar.

 

“You are both a liar and a coward!” she screamed. “He did not strike

you with a stone—he beat you down with his naked fists, as all men

know, though your slaves dare not acknowledge it—”

 

Logar’s knotty fist crashed against her jaw, knocking her off her

feet, to fall in a crumpled heap a dozen feet away. She lay without

moving, blood trickling from her lips. Logar grunted in savage

satisfaction, but his warriors were silent. Moderate corporal

correction for women was not unknown among the Guras, but such

excessive and wanton brutality was repugnant to any warrior of average

decency. So Logar’s braves looked glum, though they made no verbal

protest.

 

As for me, I went momentarily blind with the red madness of fury

that swept over me. With a blood-thirsty snarl I jerked convulsively,

upsetting the two men who held me; so we all went down in a heap. The

other Thugrans came and boosted us up, glad to vent their outraged

feelings on my carcass, which they did lustily, with sandal heels and

sword hilts. But I did not feel the blows that rained upon me. The

whole world was swimming red to my sight, and speech had utterly

failed me. I could only snarl bestially as I tore in vain at the

thongs which bound me. When I lay exhausted, my captors hauled me up

and began beating me to make me walk.

 

“You can beat me to death,” I snarled, finding my voice at last,

“but I won’t move until some of you see to the girl.”

 

“The slut’s dead,” growled Logar.

 

“You lie, you dog!” I spat. “You miserable weakling, you couldn’t

hit hard enough to kill a new-born babe!”

 

Logar bellowed in wordless fury, but one of the others, panting from

his exertions of hammering me, stepped over to Altha, who was showing

signs of life.

 

“Let her lie!” roared Logar.

 

“Go to the devil!” snarled his warrior. “I love her no more than you

do, but if bringing her along will make that smooth-skinned devil walk

of his own accord, I’ll bring her, if I have to carry her all the way.

He’s not human; I’ve pummeled him till I’m ready to drop dead, and

he’s in better shape than I.”

 

So Altha, wobbly on her legs and very groggy, accompanied us as we

marched to Thugra.

 

We were on the road several days, during which time walking was

agony to my wounded leg. Altha persuaded the warriors to let her

bandage my wounds, and but for that I very probably should have died.

I was marked in many places by the gashes received in the haunted

ruins, battered and bruised from head to foot by the beating the

Thugrans gave me. Just enough food and water was given me to keep me

alive. And so, dazed, weary, harassed by thirst and hunger, crippled,

stumbling along over those endless rolling plains, I was even glad at

last to see the walls of Thugra looming in the distance, even though I

knew they spelled my doom. Altha had not been badly treated on the

march, but she had been prevented from giving me aid and comfort,

beyond bandaging my wounds, and all through the nights, waking from

the beastlike sleep of utter exhaustion, I heard her sobbing. Among

the hazy, tortured impression of that dreary trek, that stands out

most clearly—Altha sobbing in the night, terrible with loneliness and

despair in the immensity of shadowed world and moaning darkness.

 

And so we came to Thugra. The city was almost exactly like Koth—the

same huge tower-flanked gates, massive walls built of rugged green

stone, and all. The people, too, differed none in the main essentials

from the Kothans. But I found that their government was more like an

absolute monarchy than was Koth’s. Logar was a primitive despot, and

his will was the last power. He was cruel, merciless, lustful and

arrogant. I will say this for him: he upheld his rule by personal

strength and courage. Thrice during my captivity in Thugra I saw him

kill a rebellious warrior in hand-to-hand combat—once with his naked

hands against the other’s sword. Despite his faults, there was force

in the man, a gusty, driving, dynamic power that beat down opposition

with sheer brutality. He was like a roaring wind, bending or breaking

all that stood before him.

 

Possessed of incredible vitality, he was intensely vain of his

physical prowess—in which, I believe, his superiority of personality

was rooted. That was why he hated me so terribly. That was why he lied

to his people and told them that I struck him with a stone. That was

why, too, he refused to put the matter to test. In his heart lurked

fear—not of any bodily harm I might do him, but fear lest I overcome

him again, and discredit him in the eyes of his subjects. It was his

vanity that made a beast of Logar.

 

I was confined in a cell, chained to the wall. Logar came every day

to curse and taunt me. It was evident that he wished to exhaust all

mental forms of torment before he proceeded to physical torture. I did

not know what had become of Altha. I had not seen her since first we

entered the city. He swore that he had taken her to his palace and

described to me with great detail the salacious indignities to which

he swore he subjected her. I did not believe him, for I felt he would

be more likely to bring her to my cell and torture her before me. But

the fury into which his obscene narrations threw me could not have

been much more violent if the scenes he described had been enacted

before me.

 

It was easy to see that the Thugrans did not relish Logar’s humor,

for they were no worse than other Guras, and all Guras possess, as a

race, an innate decency in regard to women. But Logar’s power was too

complete for any to venture a protest. At last, however, the warrior

who brought me food told me that Altha had disappeared immediately

after we reached the city, and that Logar was searching for her, but

unable to find her. Apparently she had either escaped from Thugra, or

was hiding somewhere in the city.

 

And so the slow days crawled by.