Almuric by Robert E. Howard (dark academia books to read .txt) đź“–
- Author: Robert E. Howard
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all know that Logar the Bonecrusher is not the man to be thrashed and
stripped by a smooth-skinned hairless brown man like this. Ghor the
Bear might be a match for Logar. No one else.”
“Well, there’s the poniard,” someone pointed out.
The clamor rose again, and in an instant the disputants were yelling
and cursing, and brandishing their hairy fists in one another’s faces,
hands fumbled at sword hilts, and challenges and defiances were
exchanged freely.
I looked to see a general throat-cutting, but presently one who
seemed in some authority drew his sword and began banging the hilt on
the rude bench, at the same time drowning out the voices of the others
with his bull-like bellowing.
“Shut up! Shut up! Let another man open his mouth and I’ll split his
head!” As the clamor subsided and the disputants glared venomously at
him, he continued in a voice as calm as if nothing had occurred. “It’s
neither here nor there about the poniard. He might have caught Logar
sleeping and brained him, or he might have stolen it, or found it. Are
we Logar’s brothers, that we should seek after his welfare?”
A general snarl answered this. Evidently the man called Logar was
not popular among them.
“The question is, what shall we do with this creature? We’ve got to
hold a council and decide. He’s evidently uneatable.” He grinned as he
said this, which was apparently meant as a bit of grim humor.
“His hide would make good leather.” suggested another in a tone that
did not sound as though he was joking.
“Too soft,” protested another.
“He didn’t feel soft while we were carrying him in,” returned the
first speaker. “He was hard as steel springs.”
“Tush,” deprecated the other. “I’ll show you how tender his flesh
is. Watch me slice off a few strips.” He drew his dagger and
approached me while the others watched with interest.
All this time my rage had been growing until the chamber seemed to
swim in a red mist. Now, as I realized that the fellow really intended
trying the edge of his steel on my skin I went berserk. Wheeling, I
gripped the chain with both hands, wrapping it around my wrists for
more leverage. Then, bracing my feet against the floor and walls I
began to strain with all my strength. All over my body the great
muscles coiled and knotted; sweat broke out on my skin, and then with
a shattering crash the stone gave way, the iron ring was torn out
bodily, and I was catapulted on my back onto the floor, at the feet of
my captors who roared with amazement and fell on me en masse.
I answered their bellows with one strident yell of blood-thirsty
gratification, and heaving up through the melee, began swinging my
heavy fists like caulking mallets. Oh, that was a rough-house while it
lasted! They made no attempt to knife me, striving to swamp me with
numbers. We rolled from one side of the chamber to the other, a
gasping, thrashing, cursing, hammering mass, while with the yells,
howls, earnest profanity, and impact of heavy bodies, it was a perfect
bedlam. Once I seemed to catch a fleeting glimpse of the door thronged
with the heads of women similar to the one I had seen, but I could not
be sure; my teeth were set in a hairy ear, my eyes were full of sweat
and stars from a vicious punch on the nose, and what with a gang of
heavy forms romping all over me my sight was none too good.
Yet, I gave a good account of myself. Ears split, noses crumpled and
teeth splintered under the crushing impact of my iron-hard fists, and
the yells of the wounded were music to my battered ears. But that
damnable chain about my waist kept tripping me and coiling about my
legs, and pretty soon the bandage was ripped from my head, my scalp
wound opened anew and deluged me with blood. Blinded by this I
floundered and stumbled, and gasping and panting they bore me down and
bound my arms and legs.
The survivors then fell away from me and lay or sat in positions of
pain and exhaustion while I, finding my voice, cursed them luridly. I
derived ferocious satisfaction at the sight of all the bloody noses,
black eyes, torn ears and smashed teeth which were in evidence, and
barked in vicious laughter when one announced with many curses that
his arm was broken. One of them was out cold, and had to be revived,
which they did by dumping over him a vessel of cold water that was
fetched by someone I could not see from where I lay. I had no idea
that it was a woman who came in answer to a harsh roar of command.
“His wound is open again,” said one, pointing at me. “He’ll bleed to
death.”
“I hope he does,” snarled another, lying doubled up on the floor.
“He’s burst my belly. I’m dying. Get me some wine.”
“If you’re dying you don’t need wine,” brutally answered the one who
seemed a chief, as he spat out bits of splintered teeth. “Tie up his
wound, Akra.”
Akra limped over to me with no great enthusiasm and bent down.
“Hold your damnable head still,” he growled.
“Keep off!” I snarled. “I’ll have nothing from you. Touch me at your
peril.”
He exasperatedly grabbed my face in his broad hand and shoved me
violently down. That was a mistake. My jaws locked on his thumb,
evoking an ear-splitting howl, and it was only with the aid of his
comrades that he extricated the mangled member. Maddened by the pain,
he howled wordlessly, then suddenly gave me a terrific kick in the
temple, driving my wounded head with great violence back against the
massive bench leg. Once again I lost consciousness.
When I came to myself again I was once more bandaged, shackled by
the wrists and ankles, and made fast to a fresh ring, newly set in the
stone, and apparently more firmly fixed than the other had been. It
was night. Through the window I glimpsed the star-dotted sky. A torch
which burned with a peculiar white flame was thrust into a niche in
the wall, and a man sat on the bench, elbows on knees and chin on
fists, regarding me intently. On the bench near him stood a huge gold
vessel.
“I doubted if you’d come to after that last crack,” he said at last.
“It would take more than that to finish me,” I snarled. “You are a
pack of cursed weaklings. But for my wound and that infernal chain,
I’d have bested the whole mob of you.”
My insults seemed to interest rather than anger him. He absently
fingered a large bump on his head on which blood was thickly clotted,
and asked: “Who are you? Whence do you come?”
“None of your business,” I snapped.
He shrugged his shoulders, and lifting the vessel in one hand drew
his dagger with the other.
“In Koth none goes hungry,” he said, “I’m going to place this food
near your hand and you can eat. But I warn you, if you try to strike
or bite me, I’ll stab you.”
I merely snarled truculently, and he bent and set down the bowl,
hastily withdrawing. I found the food to be a kind of stew, satisfying
both thirst and hunger. Having eaten I felt in somewhat better mood,
and my guard renewed his questions, I answered: “My name is Esau
Cairn. I am an American, from the planet Earth.”
He mulled over my statements for a space, then asked: “Are these
places beyond the Girdle?”
“I don’t understand you,” I answered.
He shook his head. “Nor I you. But if you do not know of the Girdle,
you cannot be from beyond it. Doubtless it is all fable, anyway. But
whence did you come when we saw you approaching across the plain? Was
that your fire we glimpsed from the towers last night?”
“I suppose so,” I replied. “For many months I have lived in the
hills to the west. It was only a few weeks ago that I descended into
the plains.”
He stared and stared at me.
“In the hills? Alone, and with only a poniard?”
“Well, what about it?” I demanded.
He shook his head as if in doubt or wonder. “A few hours ago I would
have called you a liar. Now I am not sure.”
“What is the name of this city?” I asked.
“Koth, of the Kothan tribe. Our chief is Khossuth Skullsplitter. I
am Thab the Swift. I am detailed to guard you while the warriors hold
council.”
“What’s the nature of their council?” I inquired.
“They discuss what shall be done with you; and they have been
arguing since sunset, and are no nearer a solution than before.”
“What is their disagreement?”
“Well,” he answered. “Some want to hang you, and some want to shoot
you.”
“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to them that they might let me go,” I
suggested with some bitterness.
He gave me a cold look. “Don’t be a fool,” he said reprovingly.
At that moment a light step sounded outside, and the girl I had seen
before tiptoed into the chamber. Thab eyed her disapprovingly.
“What are you doing here, Altha?” he demanded.
“I came to look again at the stranger,” she answered in a soft
musical voice. “I never saw a man like him. His skin is nearly as
smooth as mine, and he has no hair on his countenance. How strange are
his eyes! Whence does he come?”
“From the hills, he says,” grunted Thab. Her eyes widened. “Why,
none dwells in the hills, except wild beasts! Can it be that he is
some sort of animal? They say he speaks and understands speech.”
“So he does,” growled Thab, fingering his bruises. “He also knocks
out men’s brains with his naked fists, which are harder and heavier
than maces. Get away from there.
“He’s a rampaging devil. If he gets his hands on you he won’t leave
enough of you for the vultures to pick.”
“I won’t get near him,” she assured him. “But, Thab, he does not
look so terrible. See, there is no anger in the gaze he fixes on me.
What will be done with him?”
“The tribe will decide,” he answered. “Probably let him fight a
sabertooth leopard barehanded.”
She clasped her own hands with more human feeling than I had yet
seen shown on Almuric.
“Oh, Thab, why? He has done no harm; he came alone and with empty
hands. The warriors shot him down without warning—and now—”
He glanced at her in irritation. “If I told your father you were
pleading for a captive—”
Evidently the threat carried weight. She visibly wilted.
“Don’t tell him,” she pleaded. Then she flared up again. “Whatever
you say, it’s beastly! If my father whips me until the blood runs over
my heels, I’ll still say so!”
And so saying, she ran quickly out of the chamber.
“Who is that girl?” I asked.
“Altha, the daughter of Zal the Thrower.”
“Who is he?”
“One of those you battled so viciously a short time ago.”
“You mean to tell me a girl like that is the daughter of a man
like—” Words failed me.
“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded. “She differs none from
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