Almuric by Robert E. Howard (dark academia books to read .txt) đź“–
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the spear through the calf of my leg. Maddened by the pain, I dealt
him a stroke that split his skull to the chin, and then a carbine
stock descended on my head. I partially parried the blow, else it had
smashed my skull. But even so, it beat down on my crown with
thunderous and murderous impact, and the lights went out.
I came to with the impression that I was lying in a small boat which
was rocking and tossing in a storm. Then I discovered that I was bound
hand and foot, and being borne on a litter made of spear-shafts. Two
huge warriors were bearing me between them, and they made no effort to
make the traveling any easier for me. I could see only the sky, the
hairy back of the warrior in front of me, and by drawing back my head
the bearded face of the warrior behind. This person, seeing my eyes
open, growled a word to his mate, and they promptly dropped the
litter. The jolt set my damaged head to throbbing, and the wound in my
leg to hurting abominably.
“Logar!” bawled one of them. “The dog is conscious. Make him walk,
if you must bring him to Thugra. I’ve carried him far as I’m going
to.”
I heard footsteps, and then above me towered a giant form and a face
that seemed familiar. It was a fierce, brutal face, and from the
corner of the snarling mouth to the rim of the square jaw, ran a livid
scar.
“Well, Esau Cairn,” said this individual, “we meet again.”
I made no reply to this obvious comment.
“What?” he sneered, “do you not remember Logar the Bonecrusher, you
hairless dog?”
He punctuated his remarks by a savage kick in my ribs. Somewhere
there rang out a feminine shriek of protest, the sound of a scuffle,
and Altha broke through the ring of warriors and fell to her knees
beside me.
“Beast!” she cried, her beautiful eyes blazing. “You kick him when
he is helpless, when you would not dare face him in fair battle.”
“Who let this Kothan cat loose?” roared Logar. “Thal, I told you to
keep her away from this dog.”
“She bit my hand,” snarled the big warrior, striding forward, and
shaking a drop of blood from his hairy paw. “I’d as soon try to hold a
spitting wildcat.”
“Well, haul him to his feet.” directed Logar. “He walks the rest of
the way.”
“But he is wounded in the leg!” wailed Altha. “He cannot walk.”
“Why don’t you finish him here?” demanded one of the warriors.
“Because that would be too easy!” roared Logar, red lights
flickering in his bloodshot eyes. “The thief struck me foully with a
stone, from behind, and stole my poniard.”—here I saw that he was
wearing it once more at his girdle. “He shall go to Thugra, and there
I’ll take my time about killing him. Drag him up!”
They loosened my legs, none too gently, but the wounded one was so
stiff I could hardly stand, much less walk. They encouraged me with
blows, kicks, and prods from spears and swords, while Altha wept in
helpless fury, and at last turned on Logar.
“You are both a liar and a coward!” she screamed. “He did not strike
you with a stone—he beat you down with his naked fists, as all men
know, though your slaves dare not acknowledge it—”
Logar’s knotty fist crashed against her jaw, knocking her off her
feet, to fall in a crumpled heap a dozen feet away. She lay without
moving, blood trickling from her lips. Logar grunted in savage
satisfaction, but his warriors were silent. Moderate corporal
correction for women was not unknown among the Guras, but such
excessive and wanton brutality was repugnant to any warrior of average
decency. So Logar’s braves looked glum, though they made no verbal
protest.
As for me, I went momentarily blind with the red madness of fury
that swept over me. With a blood-thirsty snarl I jerked convulsively,
upsetting the two men who held me; so we all went down in a heap. The
other Thugrans came and boosted us up, glad to vent their outraged
feelings on my carcass, which they did lustily, with sandal heels and
sword hilts. But I did not feel the blows that rained upon me. The
whole world was swimming red to my sight, and speech had utterly
failed me. I could only snarl bestially as I tore in vain at the
thongs which bound me. When I lay exhausted, my captors hauled me up
and began beating me to make me walk.
“You can beat me to death,” I snarled, finding my voice at last,
“but I won’t move until some of you see to the girl.”
“The slut’s dead,” growled Logar.
“You lie, you dog!” I spat. “You miserable weakling, you couldn’t
hit hard enough to kill a new-born babe!”
Logar bellowed in wordless fury, but one of the others, panting from
his exertions of hammering me, stepped over to Altha, who was showing
signs of life.
“Let her lie!” roared Logar.
“Go to the devil!” snarled his warrior. “I love her no more than you
do, but if bringing her along will make that smooth-skinned devil walk
of his own accord, I’ll bring her, if I have to carry her all the way.
He’s not human; I’ve pummeled him till I’m ready to drop dead, and
he’s in better shape than I.”
So Altha, wobbly on her legs and very groggy, accompanied us as we
marched to Thugra.
We were on the road several days, during which time walking was
agony to my wounded leg. Altha persuaded the warriors to let her
bandage my wounds, and but for that I very probably should have died.
I was marked in many places by the gashes received in the haunted
ruins, battered and bruised from head to foot by the beating the
Thugrans gave me. Just enough food and water was given me to keep me
alive. And so, dazed, weary, harassed by thirst and hunger, crippled,
stumbling along over those endless rolling plains, I was even glad at
last to see the walls of Thugra looming in the distance, even though I
knew they spelled my doom. Altha had not been badly treated on the
march, but she had been prevented from giving me aid and comfort,
beyond bandaging my wounds, and all through the nights, waking from
the beastlike sleep of utter exhaustion, I heard her sobbing. Among
the hazy, tortured impression of that dreary trek, that stands out
most clearly—Altha sobbing in the night, terrible with loneliness and
despair in the immensity of shadowed world and moaning darkness.
And so we came to Thugra. The city was almost exactly like Koth—the
same huge tower-flanked gates, massive walls built of rugged green
stone, and all. The people, too, differed none in the main essentials
from the Kothans. But I found that their government was more like an
absolute monarchy than was Koth’s. Logar was a primitive despot, and
his will was the last power. He was cruel, merciless, lustful and
arrogant. I will say this for him: he upheld his rule by personal
strength and courage. Thrice during my captivity in Thugra I saw him
kill a rebellious warrior in hand-to-hand combat—once with his naked
hands against the other’s sword. Despite his faults, there was force
in the man, a gusty, driving, dynamic power that beat down opposition
with sheer brutality. He was like a roaring wind, bending or breaking
all that stood before him.
Possessed of incredible vitality, he was intensely vain of his
physical prowess—in which, I believe, his superiority of personality
was rooted. That was why he hated me so terribly. That was why he lied
to his people and told them that I struck him with a stone. That was
why, too, he refused to put the matter to test. In his heart lurked
fear—not of any bodily harm I might do him, but fear lest I overcome
him again, and discredit him in the eyes of his subjects. It was his
vanity that made a beast of Logar.
I was confined in a cell, chained to the wall. Logar came every day
to curse and taunt me. It was evident that he wished to exhaust all
mental forms of torment before he proceeded to physical torture. I did
not know what had become of Altha. I had not seen her since first we
entered the city. He swore that he had taken her to his palace and
described to me with great detail the salacious indignities to which
he swore he subjected her. I did not believe him, for I felt he would
be more likely to bring her to my cell and torture her before me. But
the fury into which his obscene narrations threw me could not have
been much more violent if the scenes he described had been enacted
before me.
It was easy to see that the Thugrans did not relish Logar’s humor,
for they were no worse than other Guras, and all Guras possess, as a
race, an innate decency in regard to women. But Logar’s power was too
complete for any to venture a protest. At last, however, the warrior
who brought me food told me that Altha had disappeared immediately
after we reached the city, and that Logar was searching for her, but
unable to find her. Apparently she had either escaped from Thugra, or
was hiding somewhere in the city.
And so the slow days crawled by.
It was midnight when I awoke suddenly. The torch in my cell was
flickering and guttering. The guard was gone from my door. Outside,
the night was full of noise. Curses, yells, and shots mingled with the
clash of steel, and over all rose the screaming of women. This was
accompanied by a curious thrashing sound in the air above. I tore at
my bonds, mad to know what was happening. There was fighting in the
city, beyond the shadow of a doubt, but whether civil war or alien
invasion, I could not know.
Then quick light steps sounded outside, and Altha ran swiftly into
my cell. Her hair was in wild disorder, her scanty garment torn, her
eyes ablaze with terror.
“Esau!” she cried. “Doom from the sky has fallen on Thugra! The
Yagas have descended on the city by the thousands! There is fighting
in the streets and on the house tops—the gutters are running red, and
the streets are strewn with corpses! Look! The city is burning!”
Through the high-set barred windows I saw a smoldering glow.
Somewhere sounded the dry crackling of flames. Altha was sobbing as
she fumbled vainly at my bonds. That day Logar had begun the physical
torture, and had had me hauled upright and suspended from the roof by
a rawhide thong bound about my wrists, my toes just touching a huge
block of granite. But Logar had not been so wise. They had used a new
thong of hide, and it had stretched, allowing my feet to rest on the
block, in which position I had suffered no unbearable anguish, and had
even fallen asleep, though naturally the attitude was not conducive to
great comfort.
As Altha worked futilely to free me, I asked her where she had been,
and she answered that she had slipped away from Logar when we had
reached the city, and that kind women, pitying her, had hidden and fed
her. She had been waiting for an opportunity to aid me in escaping.
“And now,” she wailed, wringing her hands, “I
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