Conan the Usurper

NINE: Wolves Beyond the Border

The revolution progresses with hurricane speed. While knights and sergeants in gleaming mail clash in charge and countercharge on the Aquilonian plains, civil war rages along the Pictish frontier between the partisans of Conan and those of Numedides. The Picts, naturally, see their opportunity. Here is the tale of some of the events of that strife-torn land, as told by one of the survivors of the conflict; for the Hyborian Age was a time of stirring events in many times and places, not merely those in which Conan was present.

It was the mutter of a drum that awakened me. I lay still amidst the bushes where I had taken refuge, straining my ears to locate it, for such sounds are illusive in the deep forest. In the dense woods about me, there was no sound.

Above me, the tangled vines and brambles bent close to form a massed roof, and above them loomed the higher, gloomier arch of the branches of the great trees.

Not a star shone through that leafy vault. Low-hanging clouds seemed to press down upon the very treetops. There was no moon; the night was as dark as a witch’s hate.

The better for me. If I could not see my enemies, neither could they see me. But the whisper of that ominous drum stole through the night: thrum! thrum! thrum! …a steady monotone that grunted and growled of nameless secrets. I could not mistake the sound. Only one drum in the world makes just that deep, menacing, sullen thunder: a Pictish war-drum, in the hands of those wild painted savages who haunt the wilderness beyond the border of the Westermarck.

And I was beyond that border, alone, and concealed in a brambly covert in the midst of the great forest, where those naked fiends have reigned since Time’s earliest dawn.

Now I located the sound; the drum was beating westward of my position and, I believed, at no great distance.

Quickly I girt my belt more firmly, settled war-axe and knife in their beaded sheaths, strung my heavy bow, and made sure that my quiver was in place at my left hip …groping with my fingers in the utter darkness …and then I crawled from the thicket and went warily toward the sound of the drum.

That it personally concerned me I did not believe. If the forest men had discovered me, their discovery would have been announced by a sudden knife in my throat, not by a drum beating in the distance. But the throb of the war-drum had a significance no forest-runner could ignore. It was a warning and a threat, a promise of doom for those invaders whose lonely cabins and axe-marked clearings menaced the immemorial solitude of the wilderness. It meant fire and torture, flaming arrows dropping like falling stars through the darkness, and the red axes crunching through skulls of men and women and children.

So through the blackness of the nighted forest I went, feeling my way delicately among the mighty boles, sometimes creeping on hands and knees, and now and then my heart in my throat when a creeper brushed across my face or groping hand. For there are huge serpents in that forest, which sometimes hang by their tails from branches and so snare their prey. But the creatures I sought were more terrible than any serpent, and as the drum grew louder I went as cautiously as if I trod on naked swords. And presently I glimpsed a red gleam among the trees and heard a mutter of barbaric voices mingling with the snarl of the drum.

Whatever weird ceremony might be taking place yonder under the black trees, it was likely that they had outposts scattered about the place; and I knew how silent and motionless a Pict could stand, merging with the natural forest even in dim light, and unsuspected until his blade was through his victim’s heart. My flesh crawled at the thought of colliding with one such grim sentry in the darkness, and I drew my knife and held it extended before me. But I knew not even a Pict could see me in that blackness of tangled forest-roof and cloud-massed sky.

The light revealed itself as a fire, before which silhouettes moved like black devils against the red fires of Hell. And presently I crouched close among the dense tamarack and looked into a black-walled glade and the figures that moved therein.

There were forty or fifty Picts, naked but for loincloths and hideously painted, who squatted in a wide semicircle, facing the fire, with their backs to me. By the hawk feathers in their thick black manes, I knew them to be of the Hawk Clan, or Onavaga. In the midst of the glade there was a crude altar made of rough stones heaped together, and at the sight of this my flesh crawled anew.

For I had seen these Pictish altars before, all charred with fire and stained with blood, in empty forest glades. And, though I had never witnessed the rituals wherein these things were used, I had heard the tales told about them by men who had been captives among the Picts, or spied upon them even as I was spying.

A feathered shaman was dancing between the fire and the altar, a slow, shuffling dance indescribably grotesque, which caused his plumes to swing and sway about him. And his features were hidden by a grinning scarlet mask that looked like a forest-devil’s face.

In the midst of the semicircle of warriors squatted one with the great drum between his knees, and as he singed it with his clenched fist it gave forth that low, growling rumble which is like the mutter of distant thunder.

Between the warriors and the dancing shaman stood one who was no Pict. For he was as tall as I, and his skin, light in the play of the fire. But he was clad only in doeskin loinclout and moccasins, and his body was painted, and there was a hawk feather in his hair. So I knew he must be a Ligurean, one of those light-skinned savages who dwell in small clans in the great forest, generally at war with the Picts but sometimes at peace and allied with them. Their skins are white as an Aquilonian’s. The Picts are a white race, too, in that they are not black or brown or yellow; but they are black-eyed and black-haired and dark of skin. Neither they nor the Ligureans are spoken of as “white” by the people of Westermarck, who only designate thus a man of Hyborian blood.

Now, as I watched, I saw three warriors drag a man into the ring of the firelight …another Pict, naked and bloodstained, who still wore in his tangled mane a feather that identified him as a member of the Raven Clan, with whom the Hawkmen were ever at war. His captors cast him down upon the altar, bound hand and foot, and I saw his muscles swell and writhe in the firelight as he sought in vain to break the rawhide thongs which prisoned him.

Then the shaman began dancing again, weaving intricate patterns about the altar and the man upon it; and he who beat the drum wrought himself into a fine frenzy, thundering away like one possessed of a devil. And suddenly, down from an overhanging branch dropped one of those great serpents of which I have spoken. The firelight glistened on its scales as it writhed toward the altar, its beady eyes glittering and its forked tongue darting in and out; but the warriors showed no fear, though it passed within a few feet of some of them. And that was strange, for ordinarily those serpents are the only living creatures a Pict fears.

The monster reared its head up on arched neck above the altar, and it and the shaman faced one another across the prone body of the prisoner. The shaman danced with a writhing of body and arms, scarcely moving his feet, and as he danced, the great serpent danced with him, weaving and swaying as though spell bound, and from the mask of the shaman rose a weird wailing that shuddered like the wind through the dry reeds along the sea-marshes. And slowly the great reptile reared higher and higher and began looping itself about the altar and the man upon it, until his body was hidden by its shimmering folds, and only his head was visible, with that other terrible head swaying close above it.

The shrilling of the shaman rose to a crescendo of infernal triumph, and he cast something into the fire. A great green cloud of smoke billowed up and rolled about the altar, so that it almost hid the pair upon it, making their outlines indistinct and illusive. But in the midst of that cloud I saw a hideous writhing and changing …those outlines melted and flowed together horribly, and for a moment I could not tell which was the serpent and which the man. A shuddering sigh swept over the assembled Picts like a wind moaning through nighted branches.

Then the smoke cleared away and the snake lay limply on the altar, and I thought both were dead. But the shaman seized the neck of the serpent and unlooped the limp trunk from about the altar and let the great reptile ooze to the ground, and he tumbled the body of the man from the stones to fall beside the monster, and cut the rawhide thongs that bound wrist and ankle.

Then he began a weaving dance about them, chanting as he danced and swaying his arms in mad gestures. And presently the man moved. But he did not rise. His head swayed from side to side, and I saw his tongue dart out and in again. And, Mitra! he began to wriggle away from the fire, squirming along on his belly, as a snake crawls!

And the serpent was suddenly shaken with convulsions and arched its neck and reared up almost its full length, and then fell back, loop on loop, and reared up again vainly, horribly like a man trying to rise and stand and walk upright, after being deprived of his limbs.

The wild howling of the Picts shook the night, and I was sick where I crouched among the bushes, and fought an urge to retch. I understood the meaning of this ghastly ceremony now. I had heard tales of it. By black, primordial sorcery that spawned and throve in this primal forest, that painted shaman had transferred the soul of a captured enemy into the foul body of a serpent. It was the revenge of a fiend. And the screaming of the blood-mad Picts was like the yelling of all Hell’s demons.

And the victims writhed and agonized side by side, the man and the serpent, until a sword flashed in the hand of the shaman and both heads fell together …and, gods! it was the serpent’s trunk which but quivered and jerked a little and then lay still, and the man’s body which rolled and knotted and thrashed like a beheaded snake. A deathly faintness and weakness took hold of me, for what civilized man could watch such black diabolism unmoved? And these savages, smeared with war-paint, howling and posturing and triumphing over the ghastly doom of a foe, seemed not human beings at all to me, but foul fiends of the black night whom it were a duty and an obligation to slay.

The shaman sprang up and faced the ring of warriors and, ripping off his mask, threw up his head and howled like a wolf. And as the firelight fell full on his face, I recognized him, and with that recognition all horror and revulsion gave way to red rage, and all thought of personal peril and the recollection of my mission, which was my first obligation, was swept away. For that shaman was old Teyanoga of the South Hawks, he who burned alive my friend Jon Gaiter’s son.

In the lust of my hate I acted almost instinctively …whipped up my bow, notched an arrow, and loosed, all in an instant. The firelight was uncertain, but the range was not great, and we of the Westermarck live by the twang of the bow. Old Teyanoga yowled like a cat and reeled back, and his warriors howled with amaze to see a shaft quivering suddenly in his breast.

The tall, light-skinned warrior wheeled, and for the first time I saw his face …and, Mitra! he was a Hyborian.

The horrid shock of that surprise held me paralyzed for a moment and had almost undone me. For the Picts instantly sprang up and rushed into the forest like panthers, seeking the foe who shot that arrow. They had reached the first fringe of bushes when I jerked out of my spell of amaze and horror. I sprang up and raced away in the darkness, ducking and dodging among the trees, which I avoided more by instinct than otherwise, for it was dark as ever. I knew the Picts could not strike my trail, but must hunt as blindly as I fled. And presently, as I ran northward, heard behind me a hideous howling, whose blood-mad fury was enough to freeze the blood even of a forest-runner. And I believed that they had plucked my arrow from the shaman’s breast and discovered it to be a Hyborian’s shaft. That would bring them after me with fiercer blood-lust than ever.

I fled on, my heart pounding from fear and excitement, and the horror of the nightmare I had witnessed. And that a Hyborian should have stood there as a welcome and evidently honored guest …for he was armed; I had seen knife and hatchet at his belt …was so monstrous that I wondered if, after all, the whole thing had been a nightmare. For never before had a Hyborian observed the Dance of the Changing Serpent save as a prisoner, or as a spy, as I had. And what monstrous thing it portended I knew not, but I was shaken with foreboding and horror at the thought.

And because of my horror I went more carelessly than is my wont, seeking haste at the expense of stealth and occasionally blundering into a tree I could have avoided had I taken more care.

And I doubt not it was the noise of this blundering progress which brought the Pict upon me, for he could not have seen me in that pitch-darkness.

Behind me sounded no more yells, but I knew that the Picts were ranging like fire-eyed wolves through the forest, spreading in a vast semicircle and combing it as they ran. That they had picked up my trail was evidenced by their silence, for they never yell except when they believe that only a short dash is ahead of them, and feel sure of their prey.

The warrior who heard the sounds of my flight could not have been one of that party, for he was too far ahead of them. He must have been a scout, ranging the forest to guard against his comrades’ being surprised from the north.

At any rate, he heard me running close to him, and came like a devil of the black night. I knew of him first only by the swift pad of his naked feet, and when I wheeled I could not even make out the dim bulk of him, but only heard the soft thudding of those inexorable feet, coming at me unseen in the darkness.

They see like cats in the dark, and I knew he saw well enough to locate me, though doubtless I was only a dim blur in the darkness. But my blindly upswung hatchet met his falling knife, and he impaled himself on my knife as he lunged in, his death-yell ringing like a peal of doom under the forest-roof. And it was answered by a ferocious clamor to the south, only a few hundred yards away; and then they were racing through the bushes, giving tongue like wolves certain of their quarry.

I ran for it in good earnest now, abandoning stealth entirely for the sake of speed and trusting to luck that I should not dash out my brains against a tree trunk in the darkness.

But here the forest opened up somewhat; there was no underbrush, and something almost like light filtered in through the branches, for the clouds were clearing a little. And through this forest I fled like a damned soul pursued by demons, hearing the yells at first rising higher and higher in bloodthirsty triumph, then edged with anger and rage as they grew fainter and fell away behind me; for in a straightaway race no Pict can match the long legs of a forest-runner. The desperate risk was that there were other scouts or war-parties ahead of me who, hearing my flight, could easily cut me off; but it was a risk I had to take. But no painted figures started up like phantoms out of the shadows ahead of me; and presently, through the thickening growth that betokened the nearness of a creek, I saw a glimmer far ahead of me and knew it was the light of Fort Kwanyara, the southernmost outpost of Schohira.

Perhaps, before continuing with this chronicle of the bloody years, it might be well were I to give an account of myself, and the reason why I traversed the Pictish wilderness, by night and alone.

My name is Gault Hagar’s son. I was born in the province of Conajohara. But two years before this tale, the Picts broke over the Black River and stormed Fort Tuscelan and slew all within save one man, and drove all the settlers of the province east of Thunder River.

Conajohara became again part of the wilderness, haunted only by wild beasts and wild men. The people of Conajohara scattered throughout the Westermarck, in Schohira, Conawaga, or Oriskonie; but many of them …my family among them …went southward and settled near Fort Thandara, an isolated outpost on the Warhorse River. There they were later joined by other settlers for whom the older provinces were too thickly inhabited, and presently there grew up the district known as the Free Province of Thandara, because it was not like the other provinces, which were royal grants to great lords east of the marches and settled by them, but cut out of the wilderness by the pioneers themselves without aid of the Aquilonian nobility. We paid no taxes to any baron. Our governor was not appointed by any lord, but we elected him ourselves, from our own people, and he was responsible only to the king. We manned and built our forts ourselves, and sustained ourselves in war as in peace. And Mitra knows war was a constant state of affairs, for there was never peace between us and our savage neighbors, the wild Panther, Alligator, and Otter tribes of Picts.

But we throve, and seldom questioned what went on east of the marches in the kingdom whence our grand-sires had come. Scarcely had we become settled, however, when events in Aquilonia did touch upon us in the wilderness. Word came of civil war, and a fighting man risen to wrest the throne from the ancient dynasty. And sparks from that conflagration set the frontier ablaze, and turned neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. And it was because knights in their gleaming steel were fighting and dying on the plains of Aquilonia that I was hastening alone through the stretch of wilderness that separated Thandara from Schohira, with news that might well change the destiny of all the Westermarck.

Fort Kwanyara was a small outpost, a square block-house of hewn logs with a palisade, on the bank of Knife Creek. I saw its banner streaming against the pale rose of the morning sky and noted that only the ensign of the province floated there. The royal standard that should have risen above it, flaunting the golden serpent, was not in evidence. That might mean much or nothing. We of the frontier are careless about the delicate punctilios of custom and etiquette, which mean so much to the knights beyond the marches.

I crossed Knife Creek in the early dawn, wading through the shallows, and was challenged by a picket on the other bank, a tall man in the buckskins of a ranger. When he knew I was from Thandara: “By Mitra!” quoth he, “your business must be urgent, that you cross the wilderness instead of taking the longer road.”

For Thandara was separated from the other provinces, as I have said, and the Little Wilderness lay between it and the Bossonian Marches. A safe road ran around it into the Marches and thence to the other provinces, but it was a long and tedious road.

Then he asked for news from Thandara, but I told him I knew little of the latest events, having just returned from a long scout into the country of the Otter-men. This was a lie, but I had no way of knowing Schohira’s political color and was not inclined to betray my own until I knew. Then I asked him if Hakon Strom’s son was in Fort Kwanyara, and he told me that the man I sought was not in the fort, but was at the town of Schondara, which lay a few miles east of the fort.

“I hope Thandara declares for Conan,” said he with an oath, “for I tell you plainly it is our political complection. And it is my cursed luck which keeps me here with the handful of rangers who watch the border for raiding Picts. I would give my bow and hunting shirt to be with our army, which lies even now at Thenitea on Ogaha Creek, waiting for the onslaught of Brocas of Torh with his damned renegades.”

I said naught but was astounded. This was news indeed. For the Baron of Torh was lord of Conawaga, not Schohira, whose patron was Lord Thasperas of Kormon.

“Where is Thasperas?” I asked, and the ranger answered, a thought shortly: “Away in Aquilonia, fighting for Conan.” And he looked at me narrowly as if he had begun to wonder if I were a spy.

“Is there a man in Schohira,” I began, “who has such connections with the Picts that he dwells, naked and painted, among them, and attends their ceremonies of blood-feast and …”

I checked myself at the fury that contorted the Schohiran’s features.

“Damn you,” says he, choking with passion, “what is your purpose in coming here to insult us thus?”

And indeed, to call a man a renegade was the direst insult that could be offered along the Westermark, though I had not meant it that way. But I saw the man was ignorant of any knowledge concerning the renegade I had seen, and not wishing to give out information, I merely told him that he misunderstood my meaning.

“I understand it well enough,” said he, shaking with passion. “But for your dark skin and southern accent, I would deem you a spy from Conawaga. But spy or no, you cannot insult the men of Schohira in such a manner. Were I not on military duty, I would lay down my weapon-belt and show you what manner of men we breed in Schohira.”

“I want no quarrel,” said I. “But I am going to Schondara, where it will not be hard for you to find me, if you so desire. I am Gault Hagar’s son.”

“I will be there anon,” quoth he grimly. “I am Otho Gorm’s son, and they know me in Schohira.”

I left him striding his post along the bank and fingering his knife hilt and hatchet as if he itched to try their edges on my head, and I swung wide of the small fort to avoid other scouts or pickets. For in these troubled times, suspicion might fall on me as a spy very easily. Nay, this Otho Gorm’s son was beginning to turn such thoughts in his thick noodle when they were swept away by his personal resentment at what he mistook for a slur. And having quarreled with me, his sense of personal honor would not allow him to arrest me on suspicion of being a spy …even had he thought of it. In ordinary times, none would think of halting or questioning a Hyborian crossing the border …but everything was in a mad whirl now; it must be, if the patron of Conawaga was invading the domain of his neighbors.

The forest had been cleared about the fort for a few hundred yards in each direction, forming a solid green wall. I kept within this wall as I skirted the clearing, and met no one, even when I crossed several paths leading from the fort. I headed eastward, avoiding clearings and farms, and the sun was not high in the heavens when I sighted the roofs of Schondara.

The forest ran to within less than half a mile of the town, which was a handsome one for a frontier village, with neat houses mostly of squared logs, some painted, but also some fine frame buildings, which is something we have not in Thandara. But there was not so much as a ditch or a palisade about the village, which was strange to me. For we of Thandara build our dwelling places for defense as much as shelter, and while there was not then a village in the width and breadth of the province —the land being but newly settled— yet every cabin was like a tiny fortress.

Off to the right of the village stood a fort, in the midst of a meadow, with palisade and ditch, and a ballista pivot-mounted on a raised platform. This structure was somewhat larger than Fort Kwanyara, but I saw few heads moving above the parapet, either helmeted or capped. And only the spreading-winged hawk of Schohira flapped on the standard. And I wondered why, if Schohira were for Conan, they did not fly the banner he had chosen …the golden lion on a black field, the standard of the regiment he commanded as a mercenary general of Aquilonia.

Away to the left, at the edge of the forest, I saw a large house of stone set amidst gardens and orchards, and knew it for the estate of Lord Valerian, the richest landowner in western Schohira. I had never seen the man, yet knew he was wealthy and powerful. But now the Hall, as it was called, seemed deserted.

The town seemed curiously deserted, likewise; at least of men, though there were women and children in plenty, and it seemed to me that the men had assembled their families here for safety. I saw few able-bodied men. As I went up the street, many eyes followed me suspiciously, but none spoke except to reply briefly to my questions.

At the tavern only a few old men and cripples huddled about the ale-stained tables and conversed in low tones. Al conversation ceased as I loomed in the doorway in my worn buckskins, and all turned to stare at me silently.

More significant silence when I asked for Hakon Strom’s son, and the host told me that Hakon was ridden to Thenitea shortly after sun-up, where the militia-army lay encamped, but would return shortly. So, being hungry and weary, I ate a meal in the taproom, aware of those questioning eyes fixed upon me, and then lay down in a corner on a bearskin the host fetched for me, and slept. And was so slumbering when Hakon Strom’s son returned, close upon sunset He was a tall man, rangy and broad-shouldered like most Westlanders, and clad in buckskin hunting shirt and fringed leggings and moccasins like myself. Half a dozen rangers were with him, and they sat them down at a board close to the door and watched him and me over the rims of their ale jacks.

When I named myself and told him I had a word for him, he looked at me closely and bade me sit with him at a table in the corner where mine host brought us ale foaming in leathern jacks.

“Has no word come through of the state of affairs in Thandara?” I asked.

“No sure word; only rumors.”

“Very well,” said I. “I bring you word from Brant Drago’s son, governor of Thandara, and the council of captains, and by this sign you shall know me for a true man.” And so saying I dipped my finger in the foamy ale and with it drew a symbol on the table, and instantly erased it. He nodded, his eyes blazing with interest.

“This is the word I bring you,” quoth I: “Thandara has declared for Conan and stands ready to aid his friends and defy his enemies.”

At that he smiled joyfully and grasped my brown hand warmly with his own rugged fingers.

“Good!” he exclaimed. “But it is no more than I expected.”

“What man of Thandara could forget Conan?” said I. “Nay, I was but a stripling in Conajohara, but I remember him when he was a forest-runner and a scout there. When his rider came into Thandara, telling us that Poitain was in revolt, with Conan striking for the throne, and asking our support …he asked no volunteers for his army, merely our loyalty …we sent him one word: ‘We have not forgotten Conajohara.’ Then came Baron Attellius over the marshes against us, but we ambushed him in the Little Wilderness and cut his army to pieces. And now I think we need fear no invasion in Thandara.”

“I wish I could say the same for Schohira,” he said grimly. “Baron Thasperas sent us word that we could do as we chose …he has declared for Conan and joined the rebel army. But he did not demand western levies. Nay, both he and Conan know the Westermarck needs every man it has to guard the border. He removed his troops from the forts, however, and we manned them with our own foresters. There was some little skirmishing among ourselves, especially in the towns like Coyaga, where dwell the landholders, for some of them held to Numedides …well, these loyalists either fled away to Conawaga with their retainers, or else surrendered and gave their pledge to remain neutral in their castles, like Lord Valerian of Schondara. The loyalists who fled swore to return and cut all our throats. And presently Lord Brocas marched over the border. In Conawaga the landowners and Brocas are for Numedides, and we have heard pitiful tales of their treatment of the common people who favor Conan.”

I nodded, not surprised. Conawaga was the largest, richest, and most thickly settled province in all the Westermarck, and it had a comparatively large and very powerful class of titled landholders …which we have not in Thandara and by the favor of Mitra never shall.

“It is an open invasion for conquest,” said Hakon. “Brocas commanded us to swear loyalty to Numedides …the dog! I think the bleak-jowled fool plots to subdue all the Westermarck and rule it as Numedides’ viceroy. With an army of Aquilonian men-at-arms, Bossonian archers, Conawaga loyalists, and Schohira renegades, he lies at Coyaga, ten miles beyond Ogaha Creek. Thenitea is ful of refugees from the eastern country he has devastated. We do not fear him, though we are outnumbered. He must cross Ogaha Creek to strike us, and we have fortified the west bank and blocked the road against his cavalry.”

“That touches upon my mission,” I said. “I am authorized to offer the services of a hundred and fifty Thandaran rangers. We are all of one mind in Thandara and fight no internal wars; and we can spare that many men from our war with the Panther Picts.”

“That will be good news for the commandant of Fort Kwanyara!”

“What?” quoth I. “Are you not the commandant?”

“Nay,” said he, “it is my brother, Dirk Strom’s son.”

“Had I known that, I would have given my message to him,” I said. “Brant Drago’s son thought you commanded Kwanyara. However, it does not matter.”

“Another jack of ale,” quoth Hakon, “and we’ll start for the fort so that Dirk shall hear your news first-hand. A plague on commanding a fort! A party of scouts is good enough for me.”

And in truth Hakon was not the man to command an outpost or any large body of men, for he was too reckless and hasty, though a brave man and a gay rogue.

“You have but a skeleton force left to watch the border,” I said. “What of the Picts?”

“They keep the peace to which they swore,” answered he. “For some months there has been peace along the border, except for the usual skirmishing between individuals of both races.”

“Valerium Hall seemed deserted.”

“Lord Valerian dwells there alone alone except for a few servants. Where his fighting men have gone, none knows. But he has sent them off. If he had not given his pledge, we should have felt it necessary to place him under guard, for he is one of the few Hyborians to whom the Picts give heed. If it had entered his head to stir them up against our borders, we might be hard put to it to defend ourselves against them on one side and Brocas on the other. The Hawks, Wildcats, and Turtles listen when Valerian speaks, and he has even visited the towns of the Wolf Picts and come away alive.”

If that were true, it were strange indeed, for all men knew the ferocity of the great confederacy of allied clans known as the Wolf Tribe, which dwelt in the west beyond the hunting grounds of the three lesser tribes he had named. Mostly they held aloof from the frontier, but the threat of their hatred was ever a menace along the borders of Schohira.

Hakon looked up as a tall man in trunk-hose, boots, and scarlet cloak entered the taproom.

“There is Lord Valerian now,” he said.

I stared, started, and was on my feet instantly.

“That man?” I ejaculated. “I saw that man last night beyond the border, in a camp of the Hawks, watching the Dance of the Changing Snake!”

Valerian heard me and whirled, going pale. His eyes blazed like those of a panther.

Hakon sprang up, too. “What are you saying?” he cried. “Lord Valerian gave his pledge …”

“I care not!” I exclaied fiercely, striding forward to confront the tall noble.

“I saw him where I lay hidden among the tamarack. I could not mistake that hawklike face. I tell you he was there, naked and painted like a Pict …”

“You lie, damn you!” cried Valerian, and whipping aside his cloak he caught at the hilt of his sword. But before he could draw it I closed with him and bore him to the floor, where he caught at my throat with both hands, blaspheming like a madman. Then there was a swift stamp of feet, and men were dragging us apart, grasping my lord firmly, who stood white and panting with fury, still clutching my neckcloth, which had been torn away from my throat in the struggle.

“Loose me, you dogs!” he raved. “Take your peasant hands from me! I’ll cleave this liar to the chin …”

“Here is no lie,” I said more calmly. “I lay in the tamarack last night and watched while old Teyanoga dragged a Raven chief’s soul from his body and forced it into that of a tree-serpent. It was my arrow which struck down the shaman. And I saw you there …you, a Hyborian, naked and painted, accepted as one of the clan.”

“If this be true …” began Hakon.

“It is true, and there is your proof!” I exclaimed. “Look there! On his bosom!”

His doublet and shirt had been torn open in the scuffle; and there, dim on his naked breast, showed the outline of the white skull which the Picts paint only when they mean war against the Hyborians. He had sought to wash it off his skin, but Pictish paint stains strongly.

“Disarm him,” said Hakon, white to the lips.

“Give me my neckcloth,” I demanded, but his lordship spat at me, and thrust the cloth inside his shirt.

“When it is returned to you it shall be knotted in a hangman’s noose about your rebel neck,” he snarled.

Hakon seemed undecided.

“Let us take him to the fort,” I said. “Give him in custody of the commander. It was for no good purpose that he took part in the Dance of the Snake. Those Picts were painted for battle. That symbol on his breast means he intended to take part in the war for which they danced.”

“But, great Mitra, this is incredible!” exclaimed Hakon. “A Hyborian, loosing those painted devils on his friends and neighbors?”

My lord said naught. He stood there between the men who grasped his arms, livid, his thin lips drawn back in a snarl that bared his teeth, but all hell burned like yellow fire in his eyes, where I seemed to sense lights of madness.

But Hakon was uncertain. He dared not release Valerian, and he feared what the effect might be on the people if they saw the lord being led to a captive to the fort.

“They will demand the reason,” he argued, “and when they learn he has been dealing with the Picts in their war-paint, a panic might well ensue. Let us lock him into the gaol until we can bring Dirk here to question him.”

“It is dangerous to compromise with a situation like this,” I answered bluntly. “But it is for you to decide. You are in command here.”

So we took his lordship out the back door, secretly. It being dusk by that time, we reached the gaol without being noticed by the people, who indeed stayed indoors mostly. The gaol was a small affair of logs, somewhat apart from the town, with four cells, and one only occupied, that by a fat rogue who had been imprisoned overnight for drunkenness and fighting in the street. He stared to see our prisoner. Not a word said Lord Valerian as Hakon locked the grilled door upon him and detailed one of the men to stand guard. But a demon fire burned in his dark eyes as if behind the mask of his pale face he were laughing at us with fiendish triumph.

“You place only one man on guard?” I asked Hakon.

“Why more?” said he. “Valerian cannot break out, and there is no one to rescue him.”

It seemed to me that Hakon was prone to take too much for granted; but after all, it was none of my affair, so I said no more.

Then Hakon and I went to the fort, and there I talked with Dirk Strom’s son, the commander, who was in command of the town in the absence of Jon Marko’s son, the governor appointed by Lord Thasperas. Jon Marko’s son was now in command of the militia-army, which lay at Thenitea. Dirk looked sober indeed when he heard my tale, and said he would come to the gaol and question Lord Valerian as soon as his duties permitted, though he had little belief that my lord would talk, for he came of a stubborn and haughty breed. He was glad to hear of the men Thandara offered him, and told me that he could find a man to return to Thandara accepting the offer, if I wished to remain in Schohira a while, which I did.

Then I returned to the tavern with Hakon, for it was our purpose to sleep there that night, and set out for Thenitea in the morning. Scouts kept the Schohirans posted on the movements of Brocas, and Hakon, who had been in their camp that day, said Brocas showed no signs of moving against us, which made me believe that he was waiting for Valerian to lead his Picts against the border. But Hakon still doubted, in spite of all I had told him, believing Valerian had but visited the Picts through friendliness as he often did. But I pointed out that no Hyborian, however friendly to the Picts, was ever allowed to witness such a ceremony as the Dance of the Snake; he would have to be a blood-member of the clan.

I awakened suddenly and sat up in bed. My window was open, both shutters and pane, for coolness, for it was an upstairs room, and there was no tree nigh by which a thief might gain access. But some noise had awakened me, and now, as I stared at the window, I saw the starlit sky blotted out by a bulky, misshapen figure. I swung my legs off the bed, demanding to know who it was, and groped for my hatchet; but the thing was on me with frightful speed.

And before I could even rise, something was around my neck, choking and strangling me. Thrust almost against my face was a dim, frightful visage, but all I could make out in the darkness was a pair of flaming red eyes and a peaked head. My nostrils were filled with a bestial reek.

I caught one of the thing’s wrists, and it was hairy as an ape’s and thick with iron muscles. But then I had found the haft of my hatchet, and I lifted it and split that misshapen skull with one blow. It fell clear of me, and I sprang up, gagging and quivering in every limb. I found flint, steel, and tinder and struck a light and lit a candle, and glared wildly at the creature lying on the floor.

In form it was like a man, gnarled and misshapen, covered with thick hair. Its nails were long and black, like the talons of a beast, and its chinless, low-browed head was like that of an ape. The thing was a chaken, one of those semi-human beings which dwell deep in the forests.

There came a knocking on my door, and Hakon’s voice called to know what the trouble was, so I bade him enter. He rushed in, ax in hand; his eyes widened at the sight of the thing on the floor.

“A chakan!” he whispered. “I have seen them, far to the west, smelling out trails through the forests …the damned bloodhounds! What is that in his fingers?”

A chill of horror crept along my spine as I saw the creature still clutched a neckcloth in his fingers …the cloth which he had tried to knot like a hangman’s noose about my neck.

“I have heard that Pictish shamans catch these creatures and tame them and use them to smell out their enemies,” he said slowly.

“But how could Lord Valerian so use one?”

“I know not,” I answered. “But that neckcloth was given to the beast, and according to its nature it smelled my trail out and sought to break my neck. Let us go to the gaol, and quickly.”

Hakon roused his six rangers, and we hurried there and found the guard lying before the open door of Valerian’s empty cell with his throat cut. Hakon stood like one turned to stone, and then a faint call made us turn, and we saw the white face of the drunkard peering at us from the next cell.

“He’s gone,” quoth he. “Lord Valerian’s gone. Hark’ee: an hour agone while I lay on my bunk, I was awakened by a sound outside, and saw a strange dark woman come out of the shadows and walk up to the guard. He lifted his bow and bade her halt, but she laughed at him, staring into his eyes, and he became as one in a trance. He stood staring stupidly …and, Mitra! she took his own knife from his girdle and cut his throat, and he fell down and died. Then she took the keys from his belt and opened the door, and Valerian came out. and laughed like a devil out of Hell, and kissed the wench, and she laughed with him. And she was not alone, for something lurked in the shadows behind her …some vague, monstrous being that never came into the light of the lantern hanging over the door. I heard her say best to kill the fat drunkard in the next cell, and by Mitra I was so nigh dead of fright I knew not if I were even alive. But Valerian said I was dead drunk, and I could have kissed him for that word. So they went away, and as they went he said he would send her companion on a mission, and then they would go to the cabin on Lynx Creek, and there meet his retainers, who had been hiding in the forest ever since he sent them from Valerian Hall. He said that Teyanoga would come to them there and they would cross the border and go among the Picts and bring them back to cut all our throats.”

Hakon looked livid in the lantern light.

“Who is this woman?” I asked curiously.

“His half-breed Pictish mistress,” he said. “Half Hawk Pict and half Ligurean. They call her the Witch of Skan-daga. I have never seen her, never before credited the tales whispered of her and Lord Valerian. But it is the truth.”

“I thought I had slain old Teyanoga,” I muttered. “The old fiend must bear a charmed life …I saw my shaft quivering in his breast. What now?”

“We must go to the hut on Lynx Creek and slay them all,” said Hakon. “If they loose the Picts on the border, there will be the devil to pay. We can spare no more men from the fort or the town. We are enough. I know not how many men there will be on Lynx Creek, and I do not care. We will take them by surprise.”

He released the drunkard to carry word to the fort of what had befallen, and we set out at once through the starlight. The land lay silent, lights twinkling dimly in the houses. To the westward loomed the black forest, silent, primordial, a brooding threat to the people who dared it.

We went in single file, bows strung and held in our left hands, hatchets swinging in our right hands. Our moccasins made no sound in the dew-wet grass.

We melted into the woods and struck a trail that wound among oaks and alders.

Here we strung out with some fifteen feet between each man and the next, Hakon leading; and-presently we dipped down into a grassy hollow and saw light streaming faintly from the cracks of shutters that covered a cabin’s windows.

Hakon halted us and whispered for the men to wait, while we crept forward and spied upon them. We stole up and surprised the sentry …a Schohiran renegade, who must have heard our stealthy approach but for the wine which staled his breath. I shall never forget the fierce hiss of satisfaction that breathed between Hakon’s clenched teeth as he drove his knife into the villain’s heart. We left the body hidden in the tall, rank grass and stole up to the very wall of the cabin and dared to peer in at a crack.

There were Valerian, with his fierce eyes blazing, and a dark, wildly beautiful girl in doeskin loinclout and beaded moccasins, and her blackly burnished hair bound back by a gold band, curiously wrought. And there were half a dozen Schohiran renegades …sullen rogues in the woolen breeches and jerkins of fanners, with cutlasses at their belts; three forest-runners in buckskins, wild-looking men; and half a dozen Gunderman guards, compactly-built men with yellow hair cut square and confined under steel caps, corselets of chain mail, and polished leg-pieces. They were girt with swords and daggers …fair-skinned men with steely eyes and an accent differing greatly from that of the Westermarck. They were sturdy fighters, ruthless and well-disciplined, and very popular as guardsmen among the landowners of the frontier.

Listening there, we heard them all laughing and conversing. Valerian was boastful of his escape; the renegades, sullen and full of oaths and curses for their former friends; the forest-runners, silent and attentive; the Gundermen, careless and jovial, which joviality thinly masked their utterly ruthless natures. And the half-breed girl, whom they called Kwarada, laughed and plagued Valerian, who seemed grimly amused. And Hakon trembled with fury as we listened to the boasting of Valerian:

“… getting out was as easy as cracking an egg. But, by Mitra, I’ve sent a visitor to that cursed Thandaran traitor that shall do his proper business for him! And when I shall have roused the Picts and led them across the border to smite the rebels from the west, while Brocas attacks from Coyaga, all his kind shall get their just deserts.”

Then we heard a light patter of feet and hugged the wall close. The door opened, and seven Picts entered, horrific figures in paint and feathers. They were led by old Teyanoga, whose breast was bandaged, whereby I knew my shaft had but fleshed itself in those massive muscles. And wondered if the old demon were really a werewolf which could not be killed by mortal weapons as he boasted and many believed.

We lay close there, Hakon and I, and heard Teyanoga say in broken Aquilonian:

“You want Hawks, Wildcats, Turtles strike across border. If we strike now, Wolf-men ravage our land while we fight in Schohira. Wolf-men very strong, very many. Hawks, Wildcats, Turtles must clasp hands with Wolfmen.”

“Well,” said Valerian, “when will you make this treaty with the Wolfmen?”

“Chiefs of all four tribes meet tonight on edge of Ghost Swamp. Make talk-talk with Wizard of Swamp. All do what Wizard say.”

“Hm,” said Valerian, “ ’tis not yet midnight. If we step lively, we can reach Ghost Swamp in two hours. We shall go forthwith, to see if I cannot persuade the Wizard to induce the Wolves to join the other tribes.”

Hakon whispered into my ear: “Crawl back and fetch the others, quickly! Tell them to surround the hut and to kindle a fire!”

I saw that it was in his mind that we should attack, outnumbered as we were; but so fired was I by the infamous plot to which we had listened that I was as eager as he. I stole back and brought the others. We clustered about the windows in pairs, one man with his bow drawn and another with his axe raised to beat in the shutters. One man was told off to kindle a fire wherewith to burn the hut. As I rejoined Hakon at the front door, I heard the voice of Valerian from within:

“Come on, men! We must be on our way at once.”

Then came the sound of men rising to their feet and securing their weapons and gear. Hakon, aflame with eagerness, fidgeted in the dark while the man who was kindling the flame fiddled with flint and steel and tinder and twigs. At last the ranger had a neat little blaze going, and others thrust branches into it for torches.

Then Hakon ran at the door and beat it in with his axe, which was no light hatchet of Pictish style but a real battle-chopper, such as armored knights use to smash open each other’s crayfish-shells. At the same instant, others of us burst in the shutters and poured arrows into the room, striking down some. And others applied their torches to the roof, to set the cabin on fire. But the roof was made of overlapping slabs of bark, which was damp from recent rains and so did not kindle in so lively a fashion as we should have liked.

Thrown into confusion, those inside made no attempt to hold the cabin. The candles were upset and went out, but the fire lent a dim glow, by which the rangers continued to shoot into the room.

Valerian and his pack then rushed the door, colliding head-on with Hakon and a knot of rangers, including myself, as we burst in. Some we struck down at the outset; but in an instant they were mingled with us in a grunting, snarling grapple, inside the cabin and out.

I found myself in close embrace with a burly, bareheaded Gunderman in a mail shirt. No doubt he had doffed his helmet against the heat of the cabin and had forgotten to put it on again in his haste. In his right hand he held a short sword; I, in mine, a war-axe. Each grasped the other’s right wrist with his left hand. We strained and sweated and grunted, reeling and scamping about as each strove to wrest his weapon-arm loose for a fatal blow. At last I hooked my leg behind his and sent him sprawling, with me on top of him. In the fall he lost his grip on my wrist but somehow got his hand on the haft of my hatchet and wrenched it loose when my grip was momentarily loosened.

The Gunderman’s first blow with the hatchet glanced from my shoulder, his aim having been disturbed by the foot of one of the battlers, who unwittingly trod on some lower part of his frame. My own free hand happened upon a half-buried stone, about the size of an apple. And I tore it out of the ground and smote my man on the forehead even as he was striking up at me again with my own hatchet.

Feeling his muscles slacken, I took the stone in both hands and brought it down with all my strength upon his skull. I heard the bone crunch, and the man gave one jerk and lay still.

I scrambled to my feet to plunge back into the fray …and lo, there was no more fray. Bodies lay here and there …some of theirs and some of ours …but the surviving Gundermen, renegades, and Picts were, all fleeing into the woods. I saw the backs of several as they fled and heard the whistle of an arrow that one of the surviving rangers sent after them, but what of the haste of the archer and the uncertainty of the light, I do not think the shaft found its mark.

The rascals still much outnumbered us and, had they tried, could have wiped out Hakon’s party; but the surprise and their lack of organization prevented this.

Had Hakon been a craftier war-leader, he would have had us bar the door against the foe’s escape, while fire and arrows did our work for us, instead of helping their flight by breaking it open. But it was ever his way to come to grips with his foe as quickly as might be, without giving much thought to the long-term strategy of the case.

Those rangers who were still on their feet stood panting until someone shouted:

“The cabin! Valerian is there!”

I whirled to see, framed in the doorway no more than a spear’s length away, Lord Valerian and his leman. Even as hands leaped to weapons, Kwarada laughed a shrill witch-laugh and hurled something on the ground. It burst with a bright flame that, going out, left our vision so full of colored spots that we could discern naught in the darkness. And it gave out a foul smoke that veiled the door of the cabin and sent us reeling back, coughing and sputtering as if we had been ducked in Lynx Creek. By the time we could see and breathe again, the pair had vanished.

Hakon moved among his men, taking stock. Two had been slain and two wounded, one in the arm and one in the leg. We had brought down seven of the foe …mostly with our arrows through the windows at the outset …and of these several were still alive, but not for long. Some of Valerian’s men, too, carried wounds away with them. The ranger with the wounded leg was obliged to stay where he was, with his wound bound up, until friends came to carry him back to the village. When the arm of the other wounded ranger had been tied up, Hakon told him:

“Hasten back to Schondara and warn Dirk that the invasion is coming. Tell him to get the people and their movable goods into the fort and to send a squad hither to fetch Karlus home. We are for Ghost Swamp to do what we can. If we return not to Schondara, let them prepare for the worst.”

The ranger nodded and set off at a jog-trot. And Hakon, the two unwounded rangers, and I prepared to follow Valerian and his people. I would have waited for reinforcements; but Hakon, lashed on by the feeling that he had caused Valerian’s escape from the gaol, would brook no delay. We made sure each was well armed; I took the sword of the Gunderman I had slain and replaced the bow I had lost in my flight from the Picts by one that had belonged to a fallen ranger.

Luckily, Hakon and one of the rangers knew the way, having scouted as far as the swamp before; and the stars gave us enough light to keep from falling into holes or getting lost. Soon the roof of leaves again closed over our heads, and we crossed Lynx Creek and plunged into the wilderness.

We walked single file, making no noise other than the occasional snap of a twig or rustle of a branch, such as even a Pict will make when moving at night. A trail of sorts led southwest from the hut, but it had become overgrown until it could scarcely be told from a deer trail.

We went soberly, each absorbed in his own thoughts; for it was no holiday jaunt that we were undertaking. Pictland is a fearsome country at best, full of savage men and equally savage beasts, such as wolves, panthers, and the giant serpents of which I have spoken. And there are said to be other beasts, too, that have vanished from other parts of the earth, such as the great saber-toothed cat, and a beast of the elephant kind. I had never seen an elephant, but my brother once visited Tarantia and beheld such a beast in the menagerie of King Numedides, on a day when the king let the common people walk through his gardens. Now and then, the Picts would bring an ivory tusk from one of these beasts to some trader in the Westermarck.

Even less pleasant neighbors are the swamp-demons, or forest-devils as some call them. These cluster in places like Ghost Swamp. In the daytime they vanished —no man knows whither— but at night they appear, thick as bats, and howl like damned souls in Hell. Nor is howling all they do; more than one borderer has had his throat slashed from ear to ear by the sweep of a swamp-demon’s claws, when he ventured too near one of their infernal assemblies. It was a measure of the power of the Wizard of the Swamp that he dwelt in the midst of one of their favorite haunts.

After a while, we came to Tullian’s Creek, named for a Schohiran settler who lost his head to a Pictish war-party. Tullian’s Creek forms the boundary between Schohira and the Pictish lands. At least, so said the last treaty between the savages and the governor of Schohira, though little heed to the treaty any man of either race paid when he thought that something he desired lay beyond the border.

We crossed Tullian’s Creek, hopping from rock to rock. Beyond the creek, Hakon halted to confer in whispers with the ranger who knew the way. And after some peering about and pushing branches aside, they found a fork in the trail and took the left-hand path, bearing further to the south and hence toward Ghost Swamp. Hakon cautioned us to move more silently, yet at the same time urged us to greater speed.

“We are fain not to be caught near the Pictish camp by the coming of dawn,” he whispered.

Even to the canniest woodsman, speed and silence are opposed qualities; the more a man strives for one, the less he can achieve of the other. Nonetheless, we jogged along that trail at a good pace, dodging branches and avoiding dead sticks as best we could.

And we followed the trail for perhaps two hours. Where the woods thinned, I cast anxious glances to the left, to see if the sky —whereof small patches could be discerned among the leaves— had yet begun to lighten in the east. The sky, however, showed naught but the slowly wheeling fields of stars, and since the moon was new we should not see it more that night. Besides the breathing of the men and the occasional swish of a leaf or crack of a twig, the only sounds were the buzz and click of night insects, and sometimes the rustle of some small wild beast, fleeing through the brush.

Once we all halted and froze at a distant coughing sound. After a time, one of the rangers said: “Panther!” We moved on, as if panthers were of no concern to us. And in truth they were not, for a panther hunts singly and would never attack four grown men. Picts are something else.

Presently Hakon signaled us to halt. And as we stood listening, faint sounds —not those of wild beasts— came to our ears. There was a meager mutter or murmur, barely audible, like the first sounds of an approaching thunderstorm, which a man feels with his bones as much as with his ears. And by straining our eyes, now sharpened to more than their usual keenness by our long immersion in darkness, we could see faint ruddy glows through the tree-trunks.

Now we left the trail and stalked through the woods to the left of it, moving with more stealth than speed. We went bent double, slipping from the cover of a bush to the shadow of a tree and then to a bush again.

Soon we heard the guttural voices of Picts, and Hakon again held up his hand for caution. Then we saw them. Three Picts stood or sat in a group on the trail.

They had been posted as sentinels but were not taking their duties much to heart. They were playing a game with chips of wood, tossing them into the air to see which chips fell bark side up. The Picts murmured, laughed, and now and then cast playful boasts and threats at each other, much as other men would do to relieve boredom.

I wormed to where Hakon lay and breathed: “Shall we attack?”

“Nay,” he replied. “They’d whoop and bring the whole encampment about our ears. I will listen to see if I can pick up news, and then we will go on.”

He remained where he was, one ear cocked toward the Picts. And I listened, too; but my knowledge of the Pictish tongue was mere smattering. While I could catch an occasional word, there were not enough of these to string together in a meaningful statement. I thought, however, that I caught the name “Valerian,” at least what I took to be our renegade lord’s name as mangled by a Pictish tongue.

Hakon listened for a while longer, then nodded to himself in a satisfied way and signed us to follow him. And we began to move again toward the glow of the campfires, when an appalling sound made us start back. Coming from our left, it was a hoarse, screaming roar, as if some giant blew a trumpet fouled with spittle.

Then came a great crashing as the source of the sound made off. And I caught a glimpse of it …one of those beasts of the elephant kind whereof I have spoken, as tall as two tall men, one atop the other. Its two long tusks, nearly straight, reached almost to the ground, and I think it bore a coat of short hair, but that was impossible to determine by starlight in so short a glimpse. I am told that they sleep standing up, as horses often do, and no doubt this one had been awakened from its midnight slumber by our sound and scent.

I have never heard of one of these beasts straying so far east, near the borders of the Westermarck; and thus Hakon and I are the only men in the Westermarck to claim to have seen a Pictish elephant alive.

The results of the encounter were, however, disastrous to us. In his surprise, Hakon backed into the ranger behind him, who in turn leaped back and bumped the second ranger with such force that the latter went sprawling. I escaped a similar overthrow only by an agile bound. Al this leaping and bumping and falling aroused the Picts, and the next thing I knew was the twang of Hakon’s bow as he loosed at the first one.

I turned to see the three of them bounding toward us, leaping the bushes like deer, flourishing their weapons, and barking commands and exhortations. Hakon’s shaft caught one fairly in the throat, but the other two were instantly upon us.

One hurled a short javelin and reached for his hatchet.

I snatched at my quiver but, ere I could notch an arrow, one of the Picts was already too close. So I swung my bow in both hands against the side of the Pict’s head. As the savage reeled from the blow, I dropped the bow and went for the Gunderman’s sword. And as I closed with the Pict, I blocked a blow of his hatchet with my left arm while sinking the short blade into his vitals with a long, low thrust. Still the fellow fought. When another thrust failed to bring him down, I aimed a cut at his neck that half severed it. And down he went at last.

Panting, I looked about to see that only Hakon and I remained on our feet. Hakon was wrenching his heavy axe out of the skull of the other Pict. Of our rangers, one lay dead with his skull split by the Picts hatchet, while the other sat with his back against a tree, gripping the shaft of the javelin, the head of which was buried in his belly.

Hakon cursed under his breath. The whole fight had taken scarce a dozen heartbeats, yet three Picts and two rangers were dead or mortally wounded. Our only bit of good fortune was that the Picts had attacked so suddenly that none had given a war-whoop.

There had been some guttural exclamations; but the Picts in the camp had doubtless heard the scream of the elephant, known it for what it was, and attributed the subsequent sounds of fight to the crashing retreat of the beast. At any rate, none came to investigate.

Hakon whispered: “There are only two of us left, and each must do what he can though it cost him his life. We must slay Valerian and the Wizard. The Picts said that Valerian had gone to Ghost Swamp to consult with the Wizard of the Swamp and the chiefs of the various tribes. He has left most of his men in camp with the Picts. Let us circle the encampment and strike the trail that leads thence to the swamp. You shall lie in wait beside the trail and, if Valerian comes along it, slay him. I will go into the swamp itself and seek to slay the Wizard, and Valerian, too, if I catch him.”

“Friend Hakon,” I protested, “you are taking most of the peril upon yourself. As an officer, your life is worth more to our people than mine. I am no more cowardly than most men; let me invade the swamp while you watch by the trail.”

For to enter the swamp was plainly the more perilous of the two tasks, since a man faced not only the hazard of the Picts but also those of swamp-demons, alligators, and unseen bog-holes.

“Nay,” said Hakon. “I have seen this swamp before, and you have not.” And when I would have argued, he silenced me by reminding me that he was in command.

Then quoth the wounded ranger in a weak, gasping voice: “Leave me not to fall into the hands of the Picts! When they find these bodies, they will be in a fury for revenge.”

“We cannot carry you …” began Hakon, but the ranger said:

“Nay, I meant that not. I am done for, with this spear in my guts. Give me a quick death ere you go!”

So Hakon drew his knife and quickly cut his comrade’s throat, while I turned my eyes away. The hard necessities of warfare sometimes go against the grain; but it had been no mercy to leave the man for the savages to torture.

It soon appeared that the Picts had planned to go directly from the council at Ghost Swamp to the attack on Schondara. In the camp, hundreds of warriors lay snoring on rude beds of boughs or under hastily built huts and lean-tos, while dying campfires sent up lazy coils of blue smoke. No women or children were in sight, showing that this was a war party and not a simple tribal assembly.

There were in fact four separate camps, one each for the Hawk, Wildcat, and Turtle tribes and a larger one for the Wolfmen. These camps were scattered irregularly, so that in trying to skirt one we nearly ran into another. But at last we had threaded our way past all of them and picked up the trail to the swamp.

As before, we scouted beside the trail instead of on it. The camps proved farther from Ghost Swamp than we had expected. Doubtless the Pictish warriors, fearless though they were, had not cared to sleep any closer to the haunts of the swamp-demons than they had to.

But at last we found a place where a clump of young pines grew beside the trail, and around their bases a great mass of ferns. This, we decided, would be the site for the ambuscade. And so I stretched myself out on my belly, with bow strung and arrow notched on the ground before me, while Hakon went away down the gentle slope toward Ghost Swamp. And as I looked that way, I could see patches of brightness through the trees that told of open water.

The night was now far spent, and I feared lest dawn come upon us ere we had accomplished our tasks. Did this happen, I planned to crawl back away from the trail to some thicker covert, lie up there during the day, and then try again, if the Picts were still encamped here. Thirst would become a problem before the day was out, but I should cope with that when I came to it.

Time crawled. I strained my eyes and ears, hoping for Valerian and his escort to appear out of the gloom along the trail; but all was silent save for the hum of gnats and the grunt of a bull alligator from the direction of the swamp. Even the swamp-demons chose not to howl this night.

A man cannot, however, keep his attention screwed up to the sticking-point forever. I had been up nearly all the night, and had hiked ten or fifteen miles, and had fought two skirmishes, slaying a man in each one. For all my good intentions, nature had its way with me. It seemed to me that I let my heavy eyelids droop but an instant, when a heavy, muscular form landed on top of me and a chorus of hideous yells made the forest ring about me.

I started awake, too mazed with sleep to struggle with much effect. Several Picts had pounced upon me, four of them seizing my four limbs while another crouched on my back.

And before I could do more than curse them by Mitra and Ishtar, they had stripped me of weapons and bound my wrists and ankles, giving me a few cuffs and kicks for good measure. I became aware that the sky was much lighter than when I had dozed off, showing that some little time had passed.

There were sounds of chopping, and presently a Pict appeared with a pole he had just cut from a sapling. This was thrust between my arms and between my legs.

Two brawny Picts hoisted the ends of the pole to their shoulders and set out briskly toward the swamp, with Gault Hagar’s son dangling from the pole between them like a huntsman’s quarry. The rest followed, speaking in deep, grunting tones. Some even laughed, a thing Picts rarely do, since they deem open mirth undignified and reserve it for such worthy occasions as the torture of a captive.

At first I was too cast down by the shame of letting myself be surprised, and by my apprehensions of the fate awaiting me, to heed much save my own misery. But then I recollected that I was not dead yet, and that last-minute changes of fortune were not unknown in the world. And so I began to watch about me for any thing or circumstance that might provide a means of escape.

Dawn was breaking when we reached the borders of Ghost Swamp. By craning my neck, I saw the vast, stagnant waters of the swamp, broken by clumps of reeds and other water plants. Wisps of mist rose ghostlike from the still waters, which reflected the cloud-flecked blue of the dawning sky. Here and there, trunks of dead trees stood up like petrified witches.

We jogged out on a tongue of land that extended into the water. From the end of this point, my bearers splashed into the water. They followed a line of stepping stones, placed so that their tops were just below the surface of the water. We crossed another stretch of boggy land, and more stepping stones, and so at last we came to the place of the Wizard of the Swamp.

The Wizard dwelt on an isle, which rose a little higher above the level of the waters than does most of the land in that malevolent marsh. On this small elevation, among the trees that crowned it, rose a circle of huts, like those the Picts build in their villages. As we approached the hillock, one of the Picts of my party ran ahead, so that by the time I arrived, all those present had turned out to greet me. The ground was littered with gourds; no doubt the chiefs had spent the night in guzzling weak Pictish beer as well as in talk.

Those on the isle were the Wizard himself, Valerian and a few of his retainers, Kwarada, Teyanoga, and a score of Picts. Feathers and paint identified the Picts as the chiefs of the Turtles, Hawks, Wildcats, and Wolves, all of them yawning and bleary-eyed from their nightlong session. Valerian grinned like a Pictish idol when he saw me.

“The rebel from Thandara!” he cried. “By Mitra, you are a persistent devil; would all those on the side of His lawful Majesty were as firm in their virtue as you are in your villainy! Do but wait, my fine friend; we shall have rare sport with you and your fellow traitor. You shall learn the price of treason to your natural lords.”

The Picts who were carrying me slipped the pole from their shoulders and dropped me heavily to the dank ground. As I rolled over, I saw that the stake had been driven into the earth in the center of the circle of huts. And to this, Hakon Strom’s son was bound.

Valerian, still looking at me, jerked his head toward Hakon. “He thought he could slink past the Wizard’s guard of swamp-demons,” he said.

Hakon and I exchanged glances but saw naught to be gained by speech at that moment. The Wizard gave orders in Pictish, and some Picts went back over the causeway of stepping stones. Others began digging a hole in the earth near the stake to which Hakon was tied.

The Wizard was a strange-looking being: aged, bent, and scrawny, with a brown skin almost as dark as that of a Kushite, a mop of white hair, and a long, silky white beard. His features were unlike those of any man I had ever seen. His nose was broad and flat, his forehead and chin sloped back, and his eyes were hidden beneath brows of such pronounced beetle that they seemed to look out of black caverns. He could have been a hybrid of man and chakan. Now I understood the tales repeated in the Westermarck, that the Wizard was neither Pict nor Ligurean, but the last survivor of a race that had dwelt in the land before the Picts overran it.

Truly, the Pictish wilderness harbors many strange survivors from bygone times.

Like the Picts, the Wizard was naked but for a deerskin clout. Instead of painted designs such as the Picts wore, he bore on his chest and back a design of small scars, arranged in lines and circles, he said something to the Picts, who took away the pole whereby they had borne me and jerked me to my feet. And he came close and stared up into my face, his little black eyes sparkling out of the depths of those cavernous eye-sockets. Then he turned away for more talk with the Picts.

Presently the Picts that had left the isle returned with a length of tree trunk, which they trimmed with their axes to a suitable length. The other Picts had meanwhile dug the hole to more than knee-deep. They placed one end of the log in this hole and shoveled the earth back in, holding the log upright. They stamped the earth and pounded it with war-clubs and the handles of their spades to make it firm, and soon had a twin of Hakon’s stake.

At a word from the Wizard, they dragged me to the stake. While a couple of brawny savages held my arms, another one cut my bonds with his knife. Then they stripped me to my loincloth, slammed me against the stake, and began binding me with long rawhide thongs.

I pretended not to resist, but while they were tying me I stiffened my body and tensed my muscles. The Picts did not seem to notice; mayhap they thought I was showing my white man’s pride. Soon they had me bound to the stake, with my arms hanging at my sides, as rigidly as a Stygian mummy.

The chiefs and Valerian and his mistress were clustered about the Wizard, talking. One small Turtle chief, however, approached me with an evil smirk. And he suddenly whipped his hatchet from his belt and hurled it, turning over and over, right at my face.

I gave myself up for gone, but the copper blade thudded into the wood just above my head, so that the handle touched my forehead.

The Turtle chief and some other Picts broke into cries of triumph, vaunting their pleasure at having made me flinch. One of the early stages of Pictish torture is to shoot arrows and throw axes and knives at the prisoner, missing him as closely as possible. If he winces, that scores a point for his tormentors; if he withstands the missiles without flinching, that scores a point for him. It is a foolish sort of game, but I would have resisted the temptation to flinch, rather than give them the satisfaction, had I had any warning of the fellow’s intentions.

But this deed started a great argument among the Picts. And two or three of them sided with the chief who had thrown the hatchet, while the others opposed. The thrower and his friends kept repeating the Pictish word for “now,” while the others said “anon.” One Pict was busily whittling small wooden spikes or splinters, a hand’s breadth long, for the evident purpose of sticking them into the captives’ hides and igniting them.

At last the Wizard sided with those saying “anon.” I turned my head toward Hakon’s stake and asked:

“What is their dispute? The question of when we shall be put to the torment?”

“Aye,” said Hakon. “That little Turtle and his friends wish to practice their art upon us now, while the others prefer to save us until after the sack of Schondara. The Wizard says we are his, to do with as he pleases, and he will tell them when they may have us.”

“If he has anything worse than Pictish tortures in mind …” I said, shuddering as I remembered the Dance of the Changing Serpent

And now the Wizard and all the chiefs disappeared into the huts; Valerian and Kwarada entered one. Two common Picts were left to stand guard over us, while the rest jogged off toward the encampment.

“They will catch some sleep ere setting forth on the attack,” quoth Hakon. “From what I heard, they mean to move out around noon and reach Schondara just after dark.”

“They would naturally prefer not to attack in daylight, with darts from the ballista whizzing about their ears,” I said.

“From the hints I picked up,” said Hakon. “They have some other weapon in mind …something the wizard has readied for them.” He turned to one of the sentries. “Ho there, you!” he said, still speaking Aquilonian. “How about a little of that beer your chiefs were making so free with last night?”

Both Picts looked blankly at him and turned back to each other.

When Hakon repeated his question in Pictish, their eyes lighted with understanding if not with friendly feelings. One of the twain growled a surly “Nay,” while the other spat on the ground.

“At least I think they understand us not,” said Hakon, speaking our own tongue again. “Have you any thoughts for getting us out of here?”

“Not yet, but I feel one coming,” I said. “It will have to wait until the chiefs have departed. And let us not talk too much, lest these scoundrels become suspicious.”

We spent a weary morning, bound to those accursed stakes and tormented by thirst, flies, and the cutting pressure of our bonds. Hakon suffered no little from sunburn, though I being naturally swarthy was less affected. Both of us bore many wicked bruises from the fights we had fought.

The chiefs snored in their huts. From the direction of the encampment came the murmur of voices as the warriors awoke.

At last, when the sun stood high overhead, the Wizard emerged from his hut and blew a whistle, made from what appeared to be a length of human arm-bone. Soon Valerian and all the Picts reappeared, yawning and stretching. There was much hustle and bustle. While some ate a quick repast, others thumbed and whetted the edges of their weapons.

At length the Wizard called them all together. From his hut he dragged out a huge leathern sack with its mouth lashed tightly closed and several long leather thongs trailing from it. And something distended the sack to its greatest size, but we could not tell what this something was. It could not be heavy, since the old sorcerer dragged the sack by himself, unaided. The sack was like a bladder blown full of air and then tied to keep the air from escaping, but on a vastly larger scale.

The Wizard gave directions while the Picts manipulated the sack. They tied it by the thongs to the end of a forked pole, twelve or fourteen feet long. At last the whole lot of them trailed off, a couple of the common Picts bearing the pole with the mysterious bag on their shoulders. The same two who had guarded us during the morning were left behind to guard us some more. Their glowering faces and muttered curses showed how much they liked missing the assault on Schondara and the killing, raping, and looting to which they had looked fondly forward.

When the last of the chiefs’ party had vanished into the trees that walled Ghost Swamp, the Wizard shuffled close to Hakon, peered into his face, and tested his bonds. And he did the same with me. We returned stare for stare, and the Wizard walked away and sat down cross-legged between two of the huts. And he worked some form of divination with little flat pieces of. bone. He would toss a fistful of them into the air and study the pattern they made as they fell, then sweep them up and try over. He began to croon some chant in his cracked old voice, in a tongue that I did not recognize but that was certainly not Pictish.

Of the two Picts left behind to guard us, one sat with his back to a hut and fell asleep. The other paced up and down impatiently, betimes practicing thrusts with his knife and blows with his stone-headed war-club at the empty air. He leaped and whirled, crouching, feinting, and striking. When he tired of this, he sat down beside his comrade and tried to start a conversation; but the other Pict only grunted.

Then the active Pict poked the other in the ribs and said softly: “Look yonder!” He indicated the Wizard, who still sat cross-legged before his strips of bone. But now he no longer picked them up and tossed them; he sat immobile, gazing out across the swamp.

The two Picts rose lithely and padded over to the Wizard. And they peered into his face, and one of them whistled and snapped his fingers. No slightest movement made the Wizard. He had gone into a trance, sending his soul across nighted gulfs to seek out arcane knowledge.

The Picts conversed earnestly in low tones, glancing first at the Wizard and then at us. From the occasional word I caught, I judged the drift of their speech to be that, since the Wizard was now insensible, they should abandon their post to race after their fellow tribesmen, arriving at Schondara in time for the massacre.

Presently the taller of the two …the active one …strode purposefully toward Hakon and me, swinging his war-club. Evidently he meant to brain us ere leaving, lest we escape in his absence. Meeting his glittering gaze, I filled my lungs and opened my mouth to shout to the Wizard, who if he bore us no tender feelings at least did not wish us slain just yet. I knew not whether my shout would rouse him from his trance, but it was the only course of resistance open to me.

As I did so, the shorter Pict called out, and the taller one halted. After more argument, both turned their backs on the Wizard’s isle and splashed off across the causeway.

“We are rid of them, at least,” muttered Hakon, “but how in the seven hells shall we get out of these bonds? Those who tied us up were no tenderfeet.”

“Watch and see,” I murmured.

I had relaxed all my muscles, so that the loops of rawhide embraced me a shade less firmly. And now I began moving my arms and hands up and down inside their bonds, striving to work the loops down toward my hips.

The sun declined toward the west, the flies buzzed, the Wizard sat still as a statue; and still I worked at the loops, sweat pouring down my face and my mouth a cavity full of desert dust. And at last one loop shifted down to where I could engage it with the nail of my right little finger. This was not much, but with further shrugging motions I managed to get the nails of the first and third fingers over it, and then at last that of the middle finger.

No longer having to go round my right hand, the loop relaxed a trifle, and soon I was able to work it down below my left hand as well.

The afternoon wore on; a flight of hundreds of ducks soared over the swamp; but still I chafed and worried at my bonds. And then I found one forearm free, and then another. With my freed hands I worked the loops that bound my upper arms up over my shoulders… And then I was free!

I stood for an instant, rubbing my limbs and wincing at the prickly pains. I looked toward the Wizard, but he moved not.

A faltering stride took me to the side of Hakon. His bindings were even more complete than mine had been. Having been stripped, I had no knife wherewith to cut him loose. As I worked at his thongs, he muttered:

“We shall be all night at this rate, Gault. See if you cannot find a blade of some sort.”

I gnawed at his bonds, but progress seemed as slow that way as trying to slide them off him. Then I took his advice and searched the huts, one after another.

But the Wizard’s guests had taken all their gear with them. In the Wizard’s own hut I found simple cooking utensils and a lot of magical paraphernalia; but naught with a real cutting edge. The only weapon was a bow of curious design and a quiver full of arrows. When I examined the arrows, I saw that they would be of no use. They had chisel-shaped heads of stone and were evidently meant for fowling, not for bringing down bigger game like men.

I remembered that the Wizard wore a knife at his girdle. This, it seemed, was the only real weapon left in the Wizard’s isle. There was nothing to do but try to take it from him.

As I stole up, the Wizard still sat in his trance. Moving stealthily, I snatched a handful of his white hair, jerked his head around, and dealt him a mighty buffet on the jaw with the fist of my free hand.

The blow knocked the old man over. For an instant his body twitched and thrashed, like that of a beheaded serpent; but then it began to move with purpose. By this time I had clamped my hands upon his throat and squeezed with all my might. But the Wizard struggled up, with more strength than one would have believed his skinny frame could hold. He punched and clawed and kicked, seeming to be made of steel wires and rawhide thongs. His dirty thumbnail groped for my eyes until I sank my teeth into his thumb.

For an instant his deep-set eyes met mine, and suddenly I felt my soul being drawn out of my body. Something within me told me that I was on the wrong side.

It told me to release my hold and do whatever the Wizard asked, for he was my rightful master. But I closed my eyes and continued to squeeze.

We were up, then down, then up again, rolling over and over. He fumbled for his knife and got it out, but by that time he was fast weakening and only succeeded in giving me a scratch along the ribs. Then I got my knee on his knife hand and forced it into the dirt. All this while I continued to squeeze his windpipe, lest he utter some frightful spell and damn my soul to hells everlasting.

Little by little the thrashings of the Wizard died away. Even after his body lay limply in the dirt, I continued to press my thumbs into his throat, not wishing him to come to life of a sudden after I released him.

When I could no longer detect any heartbeat or other sign of life, I took the Wizard’s knife and cut his throat. Then I hastened to free Hakon. He stood for a moment, rubbing his limbs and cursing.

“What was in that bag?” I asked.

“The Wizard put all the demons of the swamp in it,” he said. “When the Picts rush the fort, they will thrust that long pole over the stockade. Then one of them will pull one of those trailing thongs, and the bag will open. The swamp-demons will swarm out and slay every human being they see who is on his feet.”

“Why will they not also slay Valerian and his savages?”

“The Wizard has also put a spell on the demons, so they will attack only those who are upright. Therefore, as soon as the bag is opened, the Picts will throw themselves flat on the ground, until the massacre is over and the demons have departed for their swampy home.”

“We must still try to stop them,” I said. “But Mitra curse it, there is not a weapon in the place, save the old man’s knife here. I do not count a bow with a set of birding arrows in the Wizard’s hut.”

“Those were better than naught,” said he grimly. “Even a fowling shaft can inflict a nasty wound, if driven hard from close range. You must carry the bow, though. The Picts twisted my arm when they captured me so that I could not draw a steady shaft just now.”

And so Hakon and I, naked but for our loincloths and moccasins, set out across the causeway in pursuit of Valerian’s savage army. I bore the Wizard’s bow, and Hakon his knife.

When we crossed Tullian’s Creek we went cautiously, lest the Picts should have left a rear guard to watch. Across Lynx Creek we went more carefully yet, but no Picts did we come upon. There was no sign of Karlus at the hut, so he had evidently been rescued. We saw indications of the Picts’ passage …here a feather fallen from some brave’s topknot; there a moccasin whose thong had broken …but of the savages themselves there was no sign.

We did not come upon them until after sunset, when we reached the fields surrounding Schondara. The Picts were strung out in a great crescent around these clearings. Lying behind clumps of ferns, scarcely daring to breathe, we saw Valerian, his mistress, and other chiefs, together with the bag and its pole, in the center of the array. All were lying or squatting just inside the cover of the trees that fringed the fields.

In the distance, Schondara showed no lights; it seemed that the village had received its warning and was aware of the lurking foes. The fort showed lights, and from it came a buzz of sound: the speech of crowded people and the complaints of their animals. At least, in the fort, the villagers could put up a fight; but the Picts still outnumbered them many times over and should be able to carry the fort by force of numbers even if the Wizard’s spells did not work.

Behind us, faintly visible through the trees, a silvery crescent moon sank toward the horizon, above which the departing sun had left bands of orange and yellow and apple-green. Overhead the stars were coming out Hakon whispered: “If they will hold the attack until it is a little darker, do you think you can get within easy bowshot of that bag?”

“Why?” I asked. “What good will that do?”

“Try it and see.”

Then I understood Hakon’s plan and was astonished by the daring of it. And presently we wriggled forward like serpents until we were behind a huge old oak.

I rose slowly, holding my breath lest I draw the attention of the nearest Picts, who were a mere twenty paces in front of me, lying behind cover even as we had been doing.

Slowly I drew a fowler’s arrow and notched it. As the darkness deepened by imperceptible degrees, a drum began to boom nearby. And from the fort came the clang of the alarm gong. I thought I could even hear the clicking sound of the ballistas being cocked.

With a rustling sound, the Picts rose to their feet and gathered in clumps behind their war-chiefs. A murmur of guttural talk ran up and down the crescent, despite the barking demands of the chiefs for silence.

Then the drum changed its beat to a quick one-two. Two Picts raised the pole with the bag, so that it towered, swaying, over their heads.

“Now!” breathed Hakon.

I sighted on the bag and breathed a prayer to Mitra. I had never shot this bow; the light was poor; the bag wobbled from side to side.

The drum beat changed again. Whistles and rattles sounded; sharp commands ran down the line. With a frightful ululation of whoops, hundreds of Picts streamed out of the forest toward the village and the fort, yelling like fiends.

I shot. As soon as I released my shaft, I knew I had shot awry and snatched at the quiver for a second. But the bag, swaying back and forth on its pole, chose to wobble into the path of my arrow. The shaft struck home with a sound like a bursting drumhead.

The Picts holding the pole started forward with the rest, then paused, gazing fearfully upward. A rending sound came from the bag, whence swirled a great smoky mass.

“Down flat!” yelled Hakon in my ear, pulling my arm as he threw himself down. I needed no second reminder, but joined him prone on the forest floor.

The bag sagged and drooped, losing all its plumpness. The cloud that had issued from it spread out over the far-flung Pictish force, which was now racing across fields, trampling crops, toward Schondara. And as the cloud spread, it took on a lumpy appearance, as if solidifying into solid masses. The dark masses condensed into living creatures …tall, thin beings with birdlike legs and lower parts and half-human heads and upper portions. Each had long, skinny arms ending in hands armed with huge, curved claws. As tall as a man, each demon was accompanied by a weird, flickering glow, as if the being were bathed in the cold flames of marsh fire.

I have no idea how many of the things there were. I hid my face, lest my eye meet that of a demon and he draw nigh. There may have been a hundred or five hundred.

Shrieking and howling, the demons raced hither and yon, at every stride striking down a Pict with a sweep of those talons. Shrieking even louder than the swamp-demons, the Picts ran for their lives in all directions; but the demons were faster. Near us one Pict, his head shorn clean off by a sweep of demoniac claws, took two steps without it ere he fell into the brush.

A few Picts remembered to throw themselves flat. But the great majority, taken by surprise and not having received the expected command to drop to earth, panicked and fled. That was fatal; after them bounded the furious demons on their long birds’ legs, swifter than any man could run.

One by one the flickering nimbi that veiled the swamp-demons faded away, as the devils vanished into the forest At last there was no living creature in sight.

Hakon and I arose, stretched our stiff muscles, and headed for Schondara. A Pict popped up in front of us, like a startled rabbit. Instead of coming for us with a whoop and a flourish of his war-axe, he turned his head away, pretending not to see us, and jogged off into the forest I blame him not. The thing we had just seen was enough to blast the courage of even so fierce and warlike a folk as the Picts.

We found Valerian’s head and left arm, and then the rest of him, lying beside the pole with the leathern bag. The head we took with us for proof of our tale. Kwaiada we did not see.

A ranger met us at the edge of Schondara; Dirk Strom’s son, puzzled by the scattering of the Pictish host, had sent the man out to scout. When he heard our tale, he ran back to the fort, shouting the good news. Presently we were being carried on the shoulders of a yelling, cheering throng into the fort and around the crowded courtyard.

But the picture I best remember is the face of Otho Gorm’s son, standing with his back to the outer stockade in the torchlight. He had come to Schondara after all, to pursue his quarrel with me. And now he stood with utter dumbfoundment writ on his foolish face, watching Hakon and me being hailed as the saviors of the province! I would have twitted him about it, but he slipped out and went back to Fort Kwanyara that night, rather than have to eat his hasty words.

And then came the news that the wretched Numedides was dead, and Conan was king. Since then the border has been more peaceful than ever within living memory; for all know, on both sides of the boundary, that King Conan means what he says and will stand for no trifling with treaties, either by the savages or by us. Thandara now has thriving towns and villages.

But I must admit that life was more exciting in the old days, when there was no law save as each borderer could make his own.