Almuric by Robert E. Howard (dark academia books to read .txt) đź“–
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hairy friends, the Guras, worship?”
“They worship Thak; at least they acknowledge Thak as the creator
and preserver. They have no regular ritual of worship, no temples,
altars or priests. Thak is the Hairy One, the god in the form of man.
He bellows in the tempest, and thunders in the hills with the voice of
the lion. He loves brave men, and hates weaklings, but he neither
harms nor aids. When a male child is born, he blows into it courage
and strength; when a warrior dies, he ascends to Thak’s abode, which
is a land of celestial plains, river and mountains, swarming with
game, and inhabited by the spirits of departed warriors, who hunt,
fight and revel forever as they did in life.”
She laughed. “Stupid pigs. Death is oblivion. We Yagas worship only
our own bodies. And to our bodies we make rich sacrifices with the
bodies of the foolish little people.”
“Your rule cannot last forever,” I was moved to remark.
“It has lasted since beyond the gray dawn of Time’s beginning. On
the dark rock Yuthla my people have brooded through ages uncountable.
Before the cities of the Guras dotted the plains, we dwelt in the land
of Yagg. We were always masters. As we rule the Guras, so we ruled the
mysterious race which possessed the land before the Guras evolved from
the ape: the race which reared their cities of marble whose ruins now
affright the moon, and which perished in the night.
“Tales! I could tell you tales to blast your reason! I could tell
you of races which appeared from the mist of mystery, moved across the
world in restless waves, and vanished in the midst of oblivion. We of
Yugga have watched them come and go, each in turn bending beneath the
yoke of our godship. We have endured, not centuries or millenniums,
but cycles.
“Why should not our rule endure forever? How shall these Gura-fools
overcome us? You have seen how it is when my hawks swoop from the air
in the night on the cities of the apeman. How then shall they attack
us in our eyrie? To reach the land of Yagg they must cross the Purple
River, whose waters race too swiftly to be swum. Only at the Bridge of
Rocks can it be crossed, and there keen-eyed guards watch night and
day. Once, the Guras did try to attack us. The watchers brought word
of their coming and the men of Yagg were prepared. In the midst of the
desert they fell on the invaders and destroyed them by thirst and
madness and arrows showering upon them from the skies.
“Suppose a horde should fight its way through the desert and reach
the rock Yuthla? They have the river Yogh to cross, and when they have
crossed it, in the teeth of the Akki spears, what then? They could not
scale the cliffs. No; no foreign foe will ever set foot in Yugga. If,
by the wildest whim of the gods, such a thing should come to pass”—
her beautiful features became even more cruel and sinister—“rather
than submit to conquest I would loose the Ultimate Horror, and
perish in the ruins of my city,” she whispered, more to herself than
to me.
“What do you say?” I asked, not understanding.
“There are secrets beneath the velvet coverings of the darkest
secrets,” she said. “Tread not where the very gods tremble. I said
nothing—you heard nothing. Remember that!”
There was silence for a space, and then I asked a question I had
long mulled over: “Whence come these red girls and yellow girls among
your slaves?”
“You have looked southward from the highest towers on clear days,
and seen a faint blue line rimming the sky far away? That is the
Girdle that bands the world. Beyond that Girdle dwell the races from
which come those alien slaves. We raid across the Girdle just as we
raid the Guras, though less frequently.”
I was about to ask more concerning these unknown races, when a timid
tap came on the outer door. Yasmeena, frowning at the interruption,
called a sharp question, and a frightened feminine voice informed her
that the lord Gotrah desired audience. Yasmeena spat an oath at her,
and bade her tell the lord Gotrah to go to the devil.
“No, I must see the fellow,” she said rising. “Theta! Oh, Theta!
Where has the little minx gone? I must do my own biddings, must I? Her
buttocks shall smart for her insolence. Wait here, Ironhand. I’ll see
to Gotrah.”
She crossed the cushion-strewn chamber with her lithe, long stride,
and passed through the door. As it closed behind her, I was struck by
what was nothing less than an inspiration. No especial reason occurred
to me to urge me to feign drunkenness. It was intuition or blind
chance that prompted me. Snatching up the crystal jug which contained
the golden wine, I emptied it into a great golden vessel which stood
half hidden beneath the fringe of a tapestry. I had drunk enough for
the scent to be on my breath.
Then, as I heard footsteps and voices without, I extended myself
quickly on a divan, the jug lying on its side near my outstretched
hand. I heard the door open, and there was an instant’s silence so
intense as to be almost tangible. Then Yasmeena spat like an angry
cat. “By the gods, he’s emptied the jug? See how he lies in brutish
slumber! Faugh! The noblest figure is abominable when besotted. Well,
let us to our task. We need not fear to be overheard by him.”
“Had I not better summon the guard and have him dragged to his
cell?” came Gotrah’s voice. “We cannot afford to take chances with
this secret, which none has ever known except the Queen of Yugga and
her major-domo.”
I sensed that they came and stood over me, looking down. I moved
vaguely and mumbled thickly, as if in drunken dreams.
Yasmeena laughed.
“No fear. He will know nothing before dawn. Yuthla could split and
fall into Yogh without breaking his sottish dreams. The fool! This
night he would have been lord of the world, for I would have made him
lord of the Queen of the world—for one night. But the lion changes
not his mane, nor the barbarian his brutishness.”
“Why not put him to the torture?” grunted Gotrah.
“Because I want a man, not a broken travesty. Besides, his is a
spirit not to be conquered by fire or steel. No. I am Yasmeena and I
will make him love me before I feed him to the vultures. Have you
placed the Kothan Altha among the Virgins of the Moon?”
“Aye, Queen of the dusky stars. A month and a half from this night
she dances the dance of the Moon with the other wenches.”
“Good. Keep them guarded day and night. If this tiger learns of our
plans for his sweetheart, chains and bolts will not hold him.”
“A hundred and fifty men guard the virgins,” answered Gotrah. “Not
even the Ironhand could prevail against them.”
“It is well. Now to this other matter. Have you the parchment?”
“Aye.”
“Then I will sign it. Give me the stylus.”
I heard the crackle of papyrus and the scratch of a keen point, and
then the Queen said:
“Take it now, and lay it on the altar in the usual place. As I
promise in the writing, I will appear in the flesh tomorrow night to
my faithful subjects and worshippers, the blue pigs of Akka. Ha! ha!
ha! I never fail to be amused at the animal-like awe on their stupid
countenances when I emerge from the shadows of the golden screen, and
spread my arms above them in blessing. What fools they are, not in all
these ages, to have discovered the secret door and the shaft that
leads from their temple to this chamber.”
“Not so strange,” grunted Gotrah. “None but the priest ever comes
into the temple except by special summons, and he is far too
superstitious to go meddling behind the screen. Anyway, there is no
sign to mark the secret door from without.”
“Very well,” answered Yasmeena. “Go.”
I heard Gotrah fumbling at something, then a slight grating sound.
Consumed by curiosity, I dared open one eye a slit, in time to glimpse
Gotrah disappearing through a black opening that gaped in the middle
of the stone floor, and which closed after him. I quickly shut my eye
again and lay still, listening to Yasmeena’s quick pantherish tread
back and forth across the floor.
Once she came and stood over me. I felt her burning gaze and heard
her curse beneath her breath. Then she struck me viciously across the
face with some kind of jeweled ornament that tore my skin and started
a trickle of blood. But I lay without twitching a muscle, and
presently she turned and left the chamber, muttering.
As the door closed behind her I rose quickly, scanning the floor for
some sign of the opening through which Gotrah had gone. A furry rug
had been drawn aside from the center of the floor, but in the polished
black stone I searched in vain for a crevice to denote the hidden
trap. I momentarily expected the return of Yasmeena, and my heart
pounded within me. Suddenly, under my very hand, a section of the
floor detached itself and began to move upward. A pantherish bound
carried me behind a tapestried couch, where I crouched, watching the
trap rise upward. The narrow head of Gotrah appeared, then his winged
shoulders and body.
He climbed up into the chamber, and as he turned to lower the lifted
trap, I left the floor with a catlike leap that carried me over the
couch and full on his shoulders.
He went down under my weight, and my gripping fingers crushed the
yell in his throat. With a convulsive heave he twisted under me, and
stark horror flooded his face as he glared up at me. He was down on
the cushioned stone, pinned under my iron bulk. He clawed for the
dagger at his girdle, but my knee pinned it down. And crouching on
him, I gutted my mad hate for his cursed race. I strangled him slowly,
gloatingly, avidly watching his features contort and his eyes glaze.
He must have been dead for some minutes before I loosed my hold.
Rising, I gazed through the open trap. The light from the torches of
the chamber shone down a narrow shaft, into which was cut a series of
narrow steps, that evidently led down into the bowels of the rock
Yuthla. From the conversation I had heard, it must lead to the temple
of the Akkas, in the town below. Surely I would find Akka no harder to
escape from than Yugga. Yet I hesitated, my heart torn at the thought
of leaving Altha alone in Yugga. But there was no other way. I did not
know in what part of that devil-city she was imprisoned, and I
remembered what Gotrah had said of the great band of warriors guarding
her and the other virgins.
Virgins of the Moon! Cold sweat broke out on me as the full
significance of the phrase became apparent. Just what the festival of
the Moon was I did not fully know, but I had heard hints and scattered
comments among the Yaga women, and I knew it was a beastly saturnalia,
in which the full frenzy of erotic ecstasy was reached in the dying
gasps of the wretches sacrificed to the
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