The Dark Man and Others, page 12
“Look!” cried Brunhild sharply, halting and pointing. “The spires of Bal-Sagoth!”
Through the trees the warriors caught a glimmer, white and shimmery, and apparently far away. There was an illusory impression of towering battlements, high in the air, with, fleecy clouds hovering about them. The sight woke strange dreams in the mystic deeps of the Gael’s soul, and even Athelstane was silent as if he too were struck by the pagan beauty and mystery of the scene.
So they progressed through the forest, now losing sight of the distant city as tree tops obstructed the view, now seeing it again. And at last they came out on the low shelving banks of a broad blue lagoon and the full beauty of the landscape burst upon their eyes. From the opposite shores the country sloped upward in long gentle undulations which broke like great slow waves at the foot of a range of blue hills a few miles away. These wide swells were covered with deep grass and many groves of trees, while miles away on either hand there was seen curving away into the distance the strip of thick forest which Brunhild said belted the whole island. And among those blue dreaming hills brooded the age-old city of Bal-Sagoth, its white walls and sapphire towers clean-cut against the morning sky. The suggestion of great distance had been an illusion.
“Is that not a kingdom worth fighting for?” cried Brunhild, her voice vibrant. “Swift now—let us bind this dry wood together for a raft. We could not live an instant swimming in
- that shark-haunted water.”
At that instant a figure leaped up from the tall grass on the other shore—a naked, brown-skinned man who stared for a moment, agape. Then as Athelstane shouted and held up the grim head of Groth-golka, the fellow gave a startled cry and raced away like an antelope.
“A slave Gothan left to see if I tried to swim the lagoon,” said Brunhild with angry satisfaction. “Let him run to the city and tell them—but let us make haste and cross the lagoon before Gothan can arrive and dispute our passage.”
Turlogh and Athelstane were already busy. A number of dead trees lay about and these they stripped of their branches and bound together with long vines. In a short time they had built a raft, crude and clumsy, but capable of bearing them across the lagoon. Brunhild gave a frank sigh of relief when they stepped on the other shore.
“Let us go straight to the city,” said she. “The slave has reached it ere now and they will be watching us from the walls. A bold course is our only one. Thor’s hammer, but I’d like to see Gothan’s face when the slave tells him Brunhild is returning with two strange warriors and the head of him to „ whom she was given as sacrifice!”
“Why did you not kill Gothan when you had the power?” asked Athelstane.
She shook her head, her eyes clouding with something akin to fear: “Easier said than done. Half the people hate Gothan, half love him, and all fear him. The most ancient men of the city say that he was old when they were babes. The people believe him to be more god than priest, and I myself have seen him do terrible and mysterious things, beyond the power of a common man.
“Nay, when I was but a puppet in his hands, I came only to the outer fringe of his mysteries, yet I have looked on sights that froze my blood. I have seen strange shadows flit along the midnight walls, and groping along black subterranean corridors in the dead of night I have heard unhallowed sounds and have felt the presence of hideous beings. And once I heard the grisly slavering bellowings of the nameless Thing Gothan has chained deep in the bowels of the hills on which rests the city of Bal-Sagoth.”
Brunhild shuddered.
“There are many gods in Bal-Sagoth, but the greatest of all is Gol-goroth, the god of darkness who sits forever in the Temple of Shadows. When I overthrew the power of Gothan,
I forbade men to worship Gol-goroth, and made the priests hail, as the one true deity, A-ala, the daughter of the sea—myself. I had strong men take heavy hammers and smite the image of Gol-goroth, but their blows only shattered the hammers and gave strange hurts to the men who wielded them. Gol-goroth was indestructible and showed no mar. So I desisted and shut the doors of the Temple of Shadows which were opened only when I was overthrown and Gothan, who had been skulking in the secret places of the city, came again into his own. Then Gol-goroth reigned again in his full terror and the idols of A-ala were overthrown in the Temple of the Sea, and the priests of A-ala died howling on the red-stained altar before the black god. But now we shall see!”
“Surely you are a very Valkyrie,” muttered Athelstane. “But three against a nation is great odds—especially such a people as this, who must assuredly be all witches and sorcerers.”
“Bah!” cried Brunhild contemptuously, “there are many sorcerers, it is true, but though the people are strange to us, they are mere fools in their own way, as are all nations. When Gothan led me captive down the streets they spat on me. Now watch them turn on Ska, the new king Gothan has given them, when it seems my star rises again! But now we approach the city gates—be bold but wary!”
They had ascended the long swelling slopes and were not far from the walls which rose immensely upward. Surely, thought Turlogh, heathen gods built this city. The walls seemed of marble and with their fretted battlements and slim watchtowers, dwarfed the memory of such cities as Rome, Damascus and Byzantium. A broad white winding road led up from the lower levels to the plateau before the gates and as they came up this road, the three adventurers felt hundreds of hidden eyes fixed on them with fierce intensity. The walls seemed deserted; it might have been a dead city. But the impact of those staring eyes was felt.
Now they stood before the massive gates, which to the amazed eyes of the warriors seemed to be of chased silver.
“Here is an emperor’s ransom!” muttered Athelstane, eyes ablaze. “Thor’s blood, if we had but a stout band of reavers and a ship to carry away the plunder!”
“Smite on the gate and then step back, lest something fall upon you,” said Brunhild, and the thunder of Turlogh’s ax on the portals woke the echoes in the sleeping hills.
The three then fell back a few paces and suddenly the mighty gates swung inward and a strange concourse of people stood revealed. The two white warriors looked on a pageant of barbaric grandeur. A throng of tall, slim, brown-skinned men stood in the gates. Their only garments were loincloths of silk, the fine work of which contrasted strangely with the near-nudity of the wearers. Tall waving plumes of many colors decked their heads, and armlets and leglets of gold and silver, crusted with gleaming gems, completed their ornamentation. Armor they wore none, but each carried a 105 light shield on his left arm, made of hard wood, highly polished, and braced with silver. Their weapons were slim-bladed spears, light hatchets and slender daggers, all bladed with fine steel. Evidently these warriors depended more on speed and skill than on brute force.
At the front of this band stood three men who instantly commanded attention. One was a lean hawk-faced warrior, almost as tall as Athelstane, who wore about his neck a great golden chain from which was suspended a curious symbol in jade. One of the other men was young, evil-eyed; an impressive riot of colors in the mantle of parrot-feathers which swung from his shoulders. The third man had nothing to set him apart from the rest save his own strange personality. He wore no mantle, bore no weapons. His only garment was a plain loincloth. He was very old; he alone of all the throng was bearded, and his beard was as white as the long hair which fell about his shoulders. He was very tall and very lean, and his great dark eyes blazed as from a hidden fire. Turlogh knew without being told that this man was Gothan, priest of the Black God. The ancient exuded a very aura of age and mystery. His great eyes were like windows of some forgotten temple, behind which passed like ghosts his dark and terrible thoughts. Turlogh sensed that Gothan had delved too deep in forbidden secrets to remain altogether human. He has passed through doors that had cut him off from the dreams, desires and emotions of ordinary mortals. Looking into those unwinking orbs Turlogh felt his skin crawl, as if he had looked into the eyes of a great serpent
Now a glance upward showed that the walls were thronged with silent dark-eyed folk. The stage was set; all was in readiness for the swift, red drama. Turlogh felt his pulse quicken with fierce exhilaration and Athelstane’s eyes began to glow with ferocious light.
Brunhild stepped forward boldly, head high, her splendid figure vibrant. The white warriors naturally could not understand what passed between her and the others, except as they read from gestures and expressions, but later Brunhild narrated the conversation almost word for word.
“Well, people of Bal-Sagoth,” said she, spacing her words slowly, “what words have you for your goddess whom you mocked and reviled?”
“What will you have, false one?” exclaimed the tall man, Ska, the king set up by Gothan; “you who mocked at the customs of our ancestors, defied the laws of Bal-Sagoth, which are older than the world, murdered your lover and defiled the shrine of Gol-goroth? You were doomed by law, king and god and placed in the grim forest beyond the lagoon-”
“And I, wh© am likewise a goddess and greater than any god,” answered Brunhild mockingly, “am returned from the realm of horror with the head of Groth-golka!”
At a word from her, Athelstane held up the great beaked head, and a low whispering ran about the battlements, tense with fear and bewilderment
“Who are these men?” Ska bent a worried frown on the two warriors.
“They are iron men who have come out of the sea!” answered Brunhild in a clear voice that carried far; “the beings who have come in response to the old prophecy, to overthrow the city of Bal-Sagoth, whose people are traitors and whose priests are false!”
At these words the fearful murmur broke out afresh all up and down the line of the walls, till Gothan lifted his vulture-head and the people fell silent and shrank before the icy stare of his terrible eyes.
Ska glared bewilderedly, his ambition struggling with his superstitious fears.
Turlogh, looking closely at Gothan, believed that he read beneath the inscrutable mask of the old priests face. For all his inhuman wisdom, Gothan had his limitations. This sudden return of one he thought well disposed of, and the appearance of the white-skinned giants accompanying her, had caught Gothan off his guard, Turlogh believed, rightly. There had been no time to properly prepare for their reception. The people had already begun to murmur in the streets against the severity of Ska’s brief rule. They had always believed in Brunhild’s divinity; now that she returned with two tall men of her own hue, bearing the grim trophy that marked the conquest of another of their gods, the people were wavering. Any small thing might turn the tide either way.
“People of Bal-Sagoth!” shouted Brunhild suddenly, springing back and flinging her arms high, gazing full into the faces that looked down at her, “I bid you avert your doom before it 107 is too late! You cast me out and spat on me; you turned to darker gods than I! Yet all this will I forgive if you return and do obeisance to me! Once you reviled me—you called me bloody and cruel! True, I was a hard mistress—but has Ska been an easy master? You said I lashed the people with whips of rawhide—has Ska stroked you with parrot feathers?
“A virgin died on my altar at the full tide of each moon—but youths and maidens die at the waxing and the waning, the rising and the setting of each moon, before Gol-goroth, on whose altar a fresh human heart forever throbs! Ska is but a shadow! Your real lord is Gothan, who sits above the city like a vulture! Once you were a mighty people; your galleys filled the seas. Now you are a remnant and that is dwindling fast! Fools! You will all die on the altar of Gol-goroth ere Gothan is done and he will stalk alone among the silent ruins of Bal-Sagoth!
“Look at him!” her voice rose to a scream as she lashed herself to an inspired frenzy, and even Turlogh, to whom the words were meaningless, shivered. “Look at him where he stands there like an evil spirit out of the past! He is not even human! I tell you, he is a foul ghost, whose beard is dabbled with the blood of a million butcheries—an incarnate fiend out of the mist of the ages come to destroy the people of Bal-Sagoth!
“Choose now! Rise up against that ancient devil and his blasphemous gods, receive your rightful queen and deity again and you shall regain some of your former greatness. Refuse, and the ancient prophecy shall be fulfilled and the sun will set on the silent and crumbled ruins of Bal-Sagoth!”
Fired by her dynamic words, a young warrior with the insignia of a chief sprang to the parapet and shouted: “Hail to A-ala! Down with the bloody gods!”
Among the multitude many took up the shout and steel clashed as a score of fights started. The crowd on the battlements and in the streets surged and eddied, while Ska glared, bewildered. Brunhild, forcing back her companions who quivered with eagerness for action of some land, shouted: “Hold! Let no man strike a blow yet! People of Bal-Sagoth, it has been a tradition since the beginning of time that a king must fight for his crown! Let Ska cross steel with one of these warriors! If Ska wins, I will kneel before him and let him strike off my head! If Ska loses, then you shall accept me as your rightful queen and goddess!”
A great roar of approval went up from the walls as the people ceased their brawls, glad enough to shift the responsibility to their rulers.
“Will you fight, Ska?” asked Brunhild, turning to the king mockingly. “Or will you give me your head without further argument?”
“Slut!” howled Ska, driven to madness, “I will take the skulls of these fools for drinking-cups, and then I will rend you between two bent trees!”
Gothan laid a hand on his arm and whispered in his ear, but Ska had reached the point where he was deaf to all but his fury. His achieved ambition, he had found, had faded to the mere part of a puppet dancing on Gothan’s string; now even the hollow bauble of his kingship was slipping from him and this wench mocked him to his face before his people. Ska went, to all practical effects, stark mad.
Brunhild turned to her two allies. “One of you must fight Ska.”
“Let me be the one!” urged Turlogh, eyes dancing with eager battle-lust. “He has the look of a man quick as a wildcat, and Athelstane, while a very bull for strength, is a thought slow for such work—”
“Slow!” broke in Athelstane reproachfully. “Why, Turlogh, for a man my weight—”
“Enough,” Brunhild interrupted. “He must choose for himself.”
She spoke to Ska, who glared red-eyed for an instant, then indicated Athelstane, who grinned joyfully, cast aside the bird’s head and unslung his sword. Turlogh swore and stepped back. The king had decided that he would have a better chance against this huge buffalo of a man who looked slow, than against the black-haired tigerish warrior, whose catlike quickness was evident
“This Ska is without armor,” rumbled the Saxon. “Let me likewise doff my mail and helmet so that we fight on equal terms-
“No!” cried Brunhild. “Your armor is your only chance! I tell you, this false king fights like the play of summer lightning! You will be hard put to your own as it is. Keep on your armor, I say!”
“Well, well,” grumbled Athelstane, “I will—I will. Though I say it is scarcely fair. But let him come on and make an end of it”
The huge Saxon strode ponderously toward his foe, who warily crouched and circled away. Athelstane held his great sword in both hands before him, pointed upward, the hilt somewhat below the level of his chin, in position to strike a blow to right or left, or parry a sudden attack.
Ska had flung away his light shield, his fighting-sense telling him that it would be useless before the stroke of that heavy blade. In his right hand he held his slim spear as a man holds a throwing-dart, in his left a light, keen-edged hatchet. He meant to make a fast, shifty fight of it, and his tactics were good. But Ska, having never encountered armor before, made his fatal mistake in supposing it to be apparel or ornament through which his weapons would pierce.
Now he sprang in, thrusting Athelstane’s face with his spear. The Saxon parried with ease and instantly cut tremendously at Skas legs. The king bounded high, clearing the whistling blade, and in midair he hacked down at Athelstane s bent head. The light hatchet shivered to bits on the Vikings helmet and Ska sprang back out of reach with a blood-lusting howl.
And now it was Athelstane who rushed with unexpected quickness, like a charging bull, and before that terrible onslaught Ska, bewildered by the breaking of his hatchet, was caught off his guard—flat-footed. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the giant looming over him like an overwhelming wave and he sprang in, instead of out, stabbing ferociously. That mistake was his last. The thrusting spear glanced harmlessly from the Saxon’s mail, and in that instant the great sword sang down in a stroke the king could not evade. The force of that stroke tossed him as a man is tossed by a plunging bull. A dozen feet away fell Ska, king of Bal-Sagoth, to lie shattered and dead in a ghastly welter of blood and entrails. The throng gaped, struck silent by the prowess of that deed.
“Hew off his head!” cried Brunhild, her eyes flaming as she clenched her hands so that the nails bit into the palms. “Impale that carrion s head on your sword-point so that we may carry it through the city gates with us as token of victory!”
But Athelstane shook his head, cleansing his blade: “Nay, he was a brave man and I will not mutilate his corpse. It is no great feat I have done, for he was naked and I full-armed. Else it is in my mind, the brawl had gone differently.”
Turlogh glanced at the people on the walls. They had recovered from their astonishment and now a vast roar went up: “A-ala! Hail to the true goddess!” And the warriors in the gateway dropped to their knees and bowed their foreheads in the dust before Brunhild, who stood proudly erect, bosom heaving with fierce triumph. Truly, thought Turlogh, she is more than a queen—she is a shield woman, a Valkyrie, as Athelstane said.
Now she stepped aside and tearing the golden chain with its jade symbol from the dead neck of Ska, held it on high and shouted: “People of Bal-Sagoth, you have seen how your false king died before this golden-bearded giant, who being of iron, shows no single cut! Choose now—do you receive me of your own free will?”
