“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 Skull-splitter. 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 bare-handed.”
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 the rest of our women.”
“You mean all the women look like her, and all the men look like you?”
“Certainly—allowing for their individual characteristics. Is it otherwise among your people? That is, if you are not a solitary freak.”
“Well, I’ll be—” I began in bewilderment, when another warrior appeared in the door, saying.
“I’m to relieve you, Thab. The warriors have decide to leave the matter to Khossuth when he returns on the morrow.”
Thab departed and the other seated himself on the bench. I made no attempt to talk to him. My head was swimming with the contradictory phenomena I had heard and observed, and I felt the need of sleep. I soon sank into dreamless slumber.
Doubtless my wits were still addled from the battering I had received. Otherwise I would have snapped awake when I felt something touch my hair. As it was, I woke only partly. From under drooping lids I glimpsed, as in a dream, a girlish face bent close to mine, dark eyes wide with frightened fascination, red lips parted. The fragrance of her foamy black hair was in my nostrils. She timidly touched my face, then drew back with a quick soft intake of breath, as if frightened by her action. The guard snored on the bench. The torch had burned to a stub that cast a weird dull glow over the chamber. Outside, the moon had set. This much I vaguely realized before I sank back into slumber again, to be haunted by a dim beautiful face that shimmered through my dreams.
CHAPTER 3
Table of Contents
I AWOKE AGAIN in the cold gray light of dawn, at a time when the condemned meet their executioners. A group of men stood over me, and one I knew was Khossuth the Skullsplitter.
He was taller than most, and leaner—almost gaunt in comparison to the others. This circumstance made his broad shoulders seem abnormally huge. His face and body were seamed with old scars. He was very dark, and apparently old; an impressive and terrible image of somber savagery.
He stood looking down at me, fingering the hilt of his great sword. His gaze was gloomy and detached.
“They say you claim to have beaten Logar of Thurga in open fight,” he said at last, and his voice was cavernous and ghostly in a manner I cannot describe.
I did not reply, but lay staring up at him, partly in fascination at his strange and menacing appearance, partly in the anger that seemed generally to be with me during those times.
“Why do you not answer?” he rumbled.
“Because I’m weary of being called a liar,” I snarled.
“Why did you come to Koth?”
“Because I was tired of living alone among wild beasts. I was a fool. I thought I would find human beings whose company was preferable to the leopards and baboons. I find I was wrong.”
He tugged his bristling mustaches.
“Men say you fight like a mad leopard. Thab says that you did not come to the gates as an enemy comes. I love brave men. But what can we do? If we free you, you will hate us because of what has passed, and your hate is not lightly to be loosed.”