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.