“Do you threaten? Do you command? You who have invoked the Black Gods of R’lyeh! You who have sworn by the Namless Ones! You who have touched the Black Stone and summoned forth the Worms of the Earth!
“King of Pictland! King of fools! You have sought to command powers no human hand can leash! You have opened Doors that are not so easily shut again upon those who waited within! You are stained with the taint! You have called them forth and they will remember! And in their own time they will come to you again!”
The circle of inhuman eyes surged inward. With a growl of desperate wrath, Bran flung himself toward the witch-woman who stood upon the altar-the fine scales of her naked flesh iridescent in its phosphorescence. His sword slashed to still that hateful mockery.
But the steel blade that should have shorn halfhuman flesh from shoulder to belly slowed in its killing stroke-blurred in dream-like motion, twisted impossibly in his grasp. Blade foreshortened, hilt bulged and expanded. The weight in his fist overbalanced him, wrenched his shoulder.
Bran Mak Morn stumbled to his knees before the stone altar. Dread numbing his brain, he saw that it was not a sword he held, but a black stone. In growing horror, he recognized the unearthly hexahedral shape of dense black stone-the size of his clenched fists and heavier than its bulk evidenced. He saw again the familiar cuneiform inscriptions etched into its smooth sides-sixty characters on each hexagonal face.
The Black Stone…
And then they swarmed over him in a biting and clawing wave of dread. But it was not the abhorrent touch of those hell-spawned dwarfish shapes that bore him to the altar that forced a hopeless scream from Bran Mak Morn’s throat. It was the dawning knowledge of the abominable secrets proclaimed by those dagger-like glyphs carven into the stone by no human hand…
2
THE KING WITH THE IRON CROWN
At the choked sound of the sleeper’s moan, the stunted giant who watched beside him started. What nightmarish horror did his king look upon-Bran Mak Morn, whose stoic mask no hardship nor wound had broken? His gnarled hand gently shook the sleeper’s shoulder.
At the first touch Bran’s breath caught in his throat. Quick as a cat strikes, one corded hand caught the watcher’s wrist-thrusting it away, as Bran’s other hand clasped swordhilt and drew.
“Milord!” gasped the other, wincing at the crushing grip that pinned his hairy wrist. “Milord Bran!”
Like the beat of a raven’s wing, the veil of nightmare passed from Bran’s wide-staring eyes. For an instant he clung to the arm of his grizzled comrade and servant, forcing the shadows of hell from his brain.
“Grom,” he muttered, releasing his grip to wipe cold sweat from his brow. “I almost killed you, old war dog.”
He focused his gaze on the mist-hung moors, then added as if to reassure himself: “A nightmare.”
Grom forbore to mention the moan that had escaped his king’s lips. “It will soon be dawn,” he said instead.
Bran Mak Morn rose to his feet, pantherish grace belying the fatigue that cramped his frame. “You let me sleep, Grom. I had no time for sleep.”
“You’ve been dead on your feet since last sunrise,” a new voice cut in. “I told Grom to let you sleep a few hours when you slumped over your untasted meat. A general must have a clear head and an unfaltering arm to lead his men-thus he must spare time for sleep.”
Only if sleep brings rest, mused Bran wearily. He gazed at the cold joint of meat and rind of black bread in distaste. Days of toil had finally sapped even his iron endurance, and sleep had taken him in defiance of his intention.
“Dawn, is it? Then a good morning to you, Gonar,” he sourly greeted the newcomer. “And there’ll be time enough for sleep by nightfall. For many it will be a final sleep.”
“Final sleep for a pack of Roman dogs,” Grom growled. His was the savage lust for slaughter that counts not the toll of his comrades nor the portents of the following day-so long as no enemy lived to see its dawn.
Bran grunted and accepted the wineskin Grom extended. He swallowed a mouthful of the plundered vintage. Then his eyes fell on old Gonar’s hands, and the wine turned sour in his throat. Short hours ago Bran had stood by to watch while the white-bearded wizard hacked upon the chest and belly of a captive legionary-then dug his talon-like fingers into still-throbbing entrails to make augury for the morrow’s battle. That neither king nor wizard had faith in such primitive mummery mattered little to them and less to the Roman. What mattered were the savage yells from the Pictish host that greeted Gonar’s confident augury of victory.
But Bran Mak Morn-whose steel had strewn Roman entrails and gore upon Britain’s rocky soil almost since the youth had strength to wield a blade-scowled at the rusted smears on Gonar’s bony arms, and spat out the taste of wine. He thrust the wineskin back to Grom.
“Come with me, Gonar,” Bran commanded tersely. Sweeping his wolfskin cloak about his shoulders, the Pictish king stalked away in silence. His age-seamed face masking inward concern, the ancient sorcerer followed.
Striding somberly through the Pictish ranks, Bran passed beyond the scatter of campfires and attained the crest of the ridge. There he halted-arms folded across his powerful chest, braced against the horizon. Winds of departing night caught at his cloak, whipped through his long black hair. From the ridge opposite, a promise of light broke over the eastern sky-filling the shadowed valley below with twisting wraiths of mist and touching the blood-red jewel of his iron crown. Bran filled his lungs with a rush of fresh air and let the predawn chill purge the taint of horror from his soul.
“Gonar,” Bran broke the silence, “I would be free of foul sorceries.”
The wizard stood beside him in thought. Gonar well understood the nightmares that haunted his king-and tactfidly declined to remind Bran that he, Gonar, had begged him not to call upon the Children of the Night.
“But by all the gods!” Bran swore fiercely. “I would see this land free of Rome!”
Gonar hugged his long arms across his scrawny chest, matching Bran in pose and brooding mood. Taller than Bran, the wizard had not half his bulk. His lean frame seemed to be no more than bone and sinew; his skin, dry and scaly from age, was marked with cryptic tattoos from head to foot. A white beard fell to his waist, and the eyes in that age-creased face blazed with strange wisdom.
At length the wizard spoke. “I am directly descended from that Gonar who was the greatest sorcerer in the days of Kull of Atlantis, king of Valusia. And though a hundred thousand years and a thousand fathoms of sea have swept Valusia into forgotten myth, there are fewer links in the chain of my ancestry than common minds could grasp. I am old, Bran-I have outlived a hundred years. I have been a priest of the Serpent, the Moon and the Shadow; now I am high counsellor to the first acknowledged king of Pictdom in five hundred years. My brain holds the secrets of elder lore and hidden knowledge that would drive other minds into gibbering oblivion. But for these years and for this wisdom I have had to pay a price.”
Bran Mak Morn stared at the wizard, sombre question in his black eyes.
“Rome is strong,” Gonar said simply. “Her legions rule the world where in past eons our race held dominion. And we are now but a scattering of savage clans, driven into the bleak hills of Caledon.”
The aged priest’s eyes looked into the past, and as he spoke, Bran wondered how much was known to the wizard only as history-and how much was remembered from personal experience.
“It was two and a half centuries ago that the Romans first invaded our shores. Twice the great Caesar hurled his legions across the Channel into Britain. Ha! How we fought him then on the Ceanntish beaches and made the tides run red with Roman blood! Even the seas and the winds and the land itself fought back the invaders! Still the legions marched onward, and though the Britons for a space united under Caswallon-or Cassivellaunus, as the Romans called him-they could not conquer Caesar’s legions. Treachery and cowardice melted away the army of the Britons in the wake of Roman victories, until at last Cassivellaunus had to capitulate. But by the Serpent, we made the conquered soil bitter with Roman blood, and great Caesar was glad to slink back to Gaul with treaties and tribute so dearly won!