I came to with the impression that I was lying in a small boat which was rocking and tossing in a storm. Then I discovered that I was bound hand and foot, and being borne on a litter made of spear-shafts. Two huge warriors were bearing me between them, and they made no effort to make the traveling any easier for me. I could see only the sky, the hairy back of the warrior in front of me, and by drawing back my head the bearded face of the warrior behind. This person, seeing my eyes open, growled a word to his mate, and they promptly dropped the litter. The jolt set my damaged head to throbbing, and the wound in my leg to hurting abominably.
“Logar!” bawled one of them. “The dog is conscious. Make him walk, if you must bring him to Thugra. I’ve carried him far as I’m going to.”
I heard footsteps, and then above me towered a giant form and a face that seemed familiar. It was a fierce, brutal face, and from the corner of the snarling mouth to the rim of the square jaw, ran a livid scar.
“Well, Esau Cairn,” said this individual, “we meet again.”
I made no reply to this obvious comment.
“What?” he sneered, “do you not remember Logar the Bonecrusher, you hairless dog?”
He punctuated his remarks by a savage kick in my ribs. Somewhere there rang out a feminine shriek of protest, the sound of a scuffle, and Altha broke through the ring of warriors and fell to her knees beside me.
“Beast!” she cried, her beautiful eyes blazing. “You kick him when he is helpless, when you would not dare face him in fair battle.”
“Who let this Kothan cat loose?” roared Logar. “Thal, I told you to keep her away from this dog.”
“She bit my hand,” snarled the big warrior, striding forward, and shaking a drop of blood from his hairy paw. “I’d as soon try to hold a spitting wildcat.”
“Well, haul him to his feet.” directed Logar. “He walks the rest of the way.”
“But he is wounded in the leg!” wailed Altha. “He cannot walk.”
“Why don’t you finish him here?” demanded one of the warriors.
“Because that would be too easy!” roared Logar, red lights flickering in his blood-shot eyes. “The thief struck me foully with a stone, from behind, and stole my poniard.”—here I saw that he was wearing it once more at his girdle. “He shall go to Thugra, and there I’ll take my time about killing him. Drag him up!”
They loosened my legs, none too gently, but the wounded one was so stiff I could hardly stand, much less walk. They encouraged me with blows, kicks, and prods from spears and swords, while Altha wept in helpless fury, and at last turned on Logar.
“You are both a liar and a coward!” she screamed. “He did not strike you with a stone—he beat you down with his naked fists, as all men know, though your slaves dare not acknowledge it—”
Logar’s knotty fist crashed against her jaw, knocking her off her feet, to fall in a crumpled heap a dozen feet away. She lay without moving, blood trickling from her lips. Logar grunted in savage satisfaction, but his warriors were silent. Moderate corporal correction for women was not unknown among the Guras, but such excessive and wanton brutality was repugnant to any warrior of average decency. So Logar’s braves looked glum, though they made no verbal protest.
As for me, I went momentarily blind with the red madness of fury that swept over me. With a blood-thirsty snarl I jerked convulsively, upsetting the two men who held me; so we all went down in a heap. The other Thugrans came and boosted us up, glad to vent their outraged feelings on my carcass, which they did lustily, with sandal heels and sword hilts. But I did not feel the blows that rained upon me. The whole world was swimming red to my sight, and speech had utterly failed me. I could only snarl bestially as I tore in vain at the thongs which bound me. When I lay exhausted, my captors hauled me up and began beating me to make me walk.
“You can beat me to death,” I snarled, finding my voice at last, “but I won’t move until some of you see to the girl.”
“The slut’s dead,” growled Logar.
“You lie, you dog!” I spat. “You miserable weakling, you couldn’t hit hard enough to kill a new-born babe!”
Logar bellowed in wordless fury, but one of the others, panting from his exertions of hammering me, stepped over to Altha, who was showing signs of life.
“Let her lie!” roared Logar.
“Go to the devil!” snarled his warrior. “I love her no more than you do, but if bringing her along will make that smooth-skinned devil walk of his own accord, I’ll bring her, if I have to carry her all the way. He’s not human; I’ve pummeled him till I’m ready to drop dead, and he’s in better shape than I.”
So Altha, wobbly on her legs and very groggy, accompanied us as we marched to Thugra.
We were on the road several days, during which time walking was agony to my wounded leg. Altha persuaded the warriors to let her bandage my wounds, and but for that I very probably should have died. I was marked in many places by the gashes received in the haunted ruins, battered and bruised from head to foot by the beating the Thugrans gave me. Just enough food and water was given me to keep me alive. And so, dazed, weary, harassed by thirst and hunger, crippled, stumbling along over those endless rolling plains, I was even glad at last to see the walls of Thugra looming in the distance, even though I knew they spelled my doom. Altha had not been badly treated on the march, but she had been prevented from giving me aid and comfort, beyond bandaging my wounds, and all through the nights, waking from the beastlike sleep of utter exhaustion, I heard her sobbing. Among the hazy, tortured impression of that dreary trek, that stands out most clearly—Altha sobbing in the night, terrible with loneliness and despair in the immensity of shadowed world and moaning darkness.
And so we came to Thugra. The city was almost exactly like Koth—the same huge tower-flanked gates, massive walls built of rugged green stone, and all. The people, too, differed none in the main essentials from the Kothans. But I found that their government was more like an absolute monarchy than was Koth’s. Logar was a primitive despot, and his will was the last power. He was cruel, merciless, lustful and arrogant. I will say this for him: he upheld his rule by personal strength and courage. Thrice during my captivity in Thugra I saw him kill a rebellious warrior in hand-to-hand combat—once with his naked hands against the other’s sword. Despite his faults, there was force in the man, a gusty, driving, dynamic power that beat down opposition with sheer brutality. He was like a roaring wind, bending or breaking all that stood before him.
Possessed of incredible vitality, he was intensely vain of his physical prowess—in which, I believe, his superiority of personality was rooted. That was why he hated me so terribly. That was why he lied to his people and told them that I struck him with a stone. That was why, too, he refused to put the matter to test. In his heart lurked fear—not of any bodily harm I might do him, but fear lest I overcome him again, and discredit him in the eyes of his subjects. It was his vanity that made a beast of Logar.
I was confined in a cell, chained to the wall. Logar came every day to curse and taunt me. It was evident that he wished to exhaust all mental forms of torment before he proceeded to physical torture. I did not know what had become of Altha. I had not seen her since first we entered the city. He swore that he had taken her to his palace and described to me with great detail the salacious indignities to which he swore he subjected her. I did not believe him, for I felt he would be more likely to bring her to my cell and torture her before me. But the fury into which his obscene narrations threw me could not have been much more violent if the scenes he described had been enacted before me.