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.