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

his

first defeat. He recounted our Homeric struggle with a gusto that made

the roof reverberate, and roared his impatient eagerness for us to

fare forth and do battle together against the foes of Koth.

 

He was borne back to his own chamber, still bellowing his admiration

and gory plans for the future, and I experienced a warm glow in my

heart for this great-hearted child of nature, who was far more of a

man than many sophisticated scions of civilization that I had met.

 

And so I, Esau Cairn, took the step from savagery to barbarism. In

the vast domed council hall before the assembled tribesmen, as soon as

I was able, I stood before the throne of Khossuth Skullsplitter, and

he cut the mysterious symbol of Koth above my head with his sword.

Then with his own hands he buckled on me the harness of a warrior—the

broad leather belt with the iron buckle, supporting my poniard and a

long straight sword with a broad silver guard. Then the warriors filed

past me, and each chief placed his palm against mine, and spoke his

name, and I repeated it, and he repeated the name they had given me:

Ironhand. That part was most wearisome for there were some four

thousand warriors, and four hundred of these were chiefs of various

rank. But it was part of the ritual of initiation, and when it was

over I was as much a Kothan as if I had been born into the tribe.

 

In the tower chamber, pacing like a caged tiger while Thab talked,

and later as a member of the tribe, I learned all that the people of

Koth knew of their strange planet.

 

They and their kind, they said, were the only true humans on

Almuric, though there was a mysterious race of beings dwelling far to

the south called Yagas. The Kothans called themselves Guras, which

applied to all cast in their mold, and meant no more than “man” does

on Earth. There were many tribes of Guras, each dwelling in its

separate city, each of which was a counterpart of Koth. No tribe

numbered more than four or five thousand fighting-men, with the

appropriate number of women and children.

 

No man of Koth had ever circled the globe, but they ranged far in

their hunts and raids, and legends had been handed down concerning

their world—which, naturally, they called by a name simply

corresponding to the word “Earth”; though after a while some of them

took up my habit of speaking of the planet as Almuric. Far to the

north there was a land of ice and snow, uninhabited by human beings,

though men spoke of weird cries shuddering by night from the ice

crags, and of shadows falling across the snow. A lesser distance to

the south rose a barrier no man had ever passed—a gigantic wall of

rock which legend said girdled the planet; it was called, therefore,

the Girdle. What lay beyond that Girdle, none knew. Some believed it

was the rim of the world, and beyond it lay only empty space. Others

maintained that another hemisphere lay beyond it. They believed, as

seemed to me most logical, that the Girdle separated the northern and

southern halves of the world, and that the southern hemisphere was

inhabited by men and animals, though the exponents of their theory

could give no proof, and were generally scoffed at as over-imaginative

romanticists.

 

At any rate, the cities of the Guras dotted the vast expanse that

lay between the Girdle and the land of ice. The northern hemisphere

possessed no great body of water. There were rivers, great plains, a

few scattered lakes, occasional stretches of dark, thick forests, long

ranges of barren hills, and a few mountains. The larger rivers ran

southward, to plunge into chasms in the Girdle.

 

The cities of the Guras were invariably built on the open plains,

and always far apart. Their architecture was the result of the

peculiar evolution of their builders—they were, basically, fortresses

of rocks heaped up for defense. They reflected the nature of their

builders, being rude, stalwart, massive, despising gaudy show and

ornamentation, and knowing nothing of the arts.

 

In many ways the Guras are like the men of Earth, in other ways

bafflingly different. Some of the lines on which they have evolved are

so alien to Earthly evolution that I find it difficult to explain

their ways and their development.

 

Specifically, Koth—and what is said of Koth can be said of every

other Gura city:—the men of Koth are, skilled in war, the hunt, and

weapon-making. The latter science is taught to each male child, but

now seldom used. It is seldom found necessary to manufacture new arms,

because of the durability of the material used. Weapons are handed

down from generation to generation, or captured from enemies.

 

Metal is used only for weapons, in building, and for clasps and

buckles on garments. No ornaments are worn, either by men or women,

and there are no such things as coins. There is no medium of exchange.

No trade between cities exists, and such “business” as goes on within

the city is a matter of barter. The only cloth worn is a kind of silk,

made from the fiber of a curious plant grown within the city walls.

Other plants furnish wine, fruit, and seasonings. Fresh meat, the

principal food of the Guras, is furnished by hunting, a pastime at

once a sport and an occupation.

 

The folk of Koth, then, are highly skilled in metalworking, in

silk-weaving, and in their peculiar form of agriculture. They have a

written language, a simple hieroglyphic form, scrawled on leaves like

papyrus, with a daggerlike pen dipped in the crimson juice of a

curious blossom, but few except the chiefs can read or write.

Literature they have none; they know nothing of painting, sculpturing,

or the “higher” learning. They have evolved to the point of culture

needful for the necessities of life, and they progress no further.

Seemingly defying laws we on Earth have come to regard as immutable,

they remain stationary, neither advancing nor retrogressing.

 

Like most barbaric people, they have a form of rude poetry, dealing

almost exclusively with battle, mayhem and rapine. They have no bards

or minstrels, but every man of the tribe knows the popular ballads of

his clan, and after a few jacks of ale is prone to bellow them forth

in a voice fit to burst one’s eardrums.

 

These songs are never written down, and there is no written history.

As a result, events of antiquity are hazy, and mixed with improbable

legends.

 

No one knows how old is the city of Koth. Its gigantic stones are

impervious to the elements, and might have stood there ten years or

ten thousand years. I am of the opinion that the city is at least

fifteen thousand years old. The Guras are an ancient race, in spite of

their exuberant barbarism which gives them the atmosphere of a new

young people. Of the evolution of the race from whatever beast was

their common ancestor, of their racial splittings off and tribal

drifts, of their development to their present condition, nothing

whatever is known. The Guras themselves have no idea of evolution.

They suppose that, like eternity, their race is without beginning and

without end, that they have always been exactly as they are now. They

have no legends to explain their creation.

 

I have devoted most of my remarks to the men of Koth. The women of

Koth are no less worthy of detailed comment. I found the difference in

the appearance of the sexes not so inexplicable after all. It is

simply the result of natural evolution, and its roots lie in a fierce

tenderness on the part of the Gura males for their women. It was to

protect their women that they first, I am certain, built those brutish

heaps of stone and dwelt among them; for the innate nature of the

Gura male is definitely nomadic.

 

The woman, carefully guarded and shielded both from danger and from

the hard work that is the natural portion of the women of Earthly

barbarians, evolved by natural process into the type I have described.

The men, on the other hand, lead incredibly active and strenuous

lives. Their existence has been a savage battle for survival, ever

since the first ape stood upright on Almuric. And they have evolved

into a special type to fit their needs. Their peculiar appearance is

not a result of degeneration or underdevelopment. They are, indeed, a

highly specialized type, finely adapted to the wild life they follow.

 

As the men assume all risks and responsibility, they naturally

assume all authority. The Gura woman has no say whatever in the

government of the city and tribe, and her mate’s authority over her is

absolute, with the exception that she has the right to appeal to the

council and chief in case of oppression. Her scope is narrow; few

women ever set foot outside the city in which they are born, unless

they are carried off in a raid.

 

Yet her lot is not so unhappy as it might seem. I have said that one

of the characteristics of the Gura male is a savage tenderness for his

women. Mistreatment of a woman is very rare, not tolerated by the

tribe.

 

Monogamy is the rule. The Guras are not given to hand-kissing and

pretty compliments, and the other superficial adjuncts of chivalry,

but there is justice and a rough kindness in their dealing with women,

somewhat similar to the attitude of the American frontiersman.

 

The duties of the Gura women are few, concerned mainly with

child-bearing and child-rearing. They do no work heavier than the

manufacturing of silk from the silk plants. They are musically

inclined, and play on a small, stringed affair, resembling a lute, and

they sing. They are quicker-witted, and of much more sensitive mind

than the men. They are witty, merry, affectionate, playful and docile.

They have their own amusements, and time does not seem to drag for

them. The average woman could not be persuaded to set foot outside the

city walls. They well know the perils that hem the cities in, and they

are content in the protection of their ferocious mates and masters.

 

The men are, as I have said, in many ways like barbaric peoples on

Earth. In some respects they resemble, I imagine, the ancient Vikings.

They are honest, scorning theft and deceit. They delight in war and

the hunt, but are not wantonly cruel, except when maddened by rage or

bloodlust. Then they can be screaming fiends. They are blunt in

speech, rough in their manners, easily angered, but as easily

pacified, except when confronted by an hereditary enemy. They have a

definite, though crude, sense of humor, a ferocious love for tribe and

city, and a passion for personal freedom.

 

Their weapons consist of swords, daggers, spears, and a firearm

something like a carbine—a single-shot, breech-loading weapon of no

great range. The combustible material is not powder, as we know it.

Its counterpart is not found on Earth. It possesses both percussion

and explosive qualities. The bullet is of a substance much like lead.

These weapons were used mainly in war with men; for hunting, bows and

arrows were most often used.

 

Hunting parties are always going forth, so that the full force of

warriors is seldom in the city at once. Hunters are often gone for

weeks or months. But there are always a thousand fighting men in the

city to repel possible attack, though it is not often that the Guras

lay siege to a hostile city. Those cities are difficult to storm, and

it is impossible to starve out the inhabitants, since they produce