Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (30 page)

Nearer to me were scattered groups of warriors, pursuing the fleeing Pictish men and any Pictish women who had not dissapeared into the forest.

The screams of women rose above the clash of swords and the savage war-cries.

And then I heard my name called.

�erak! Merak!� And I saw who called me. Mea-lah struggled in the arms of a huge Norseman who carried her as if she was an infant.

Her beautiful dark eyes were wide, her lovely face white with terror and the horror of fear. Her soft arms were out-streched to me, appealingly, imploringly.

And I saw the red mist of rage and charged the Norseman, silently, savagely.

The Norseman, turning, saw but a Pict armed with a long bronze dagger, rushing at him.

With a roaring laugh, he shifted the struggling girl, and holding her helpless under one mighty arm, with the other raised a great sword to exterminate the presumptious Pictish fool that dared to charge a Norseman.

He was arrogantly over-confident and could not have gaged the speed at which I was coming. The great sword had scarcely reached the highest point of its upward arc, when I darted in under his arm and stabbed him thrice, driving the dagger through crevices in his corselet of iron.

With a bellow he staggered backward, his sword spinning from his grasp. He crashed to the ground, his thick, yellow beard pointing upward, the girl dropping from his arms as he fell.

I snatched her up and pushed her toward the forest. Without pausing to see whether sh made for it or not, I turned to meet the rush of three other Norsemen, who were charging down upon me with savage shouts.

But I had learned one thing. I was much quicker than the Norsemen and lighter on my feet.

As they swept down upon me, I ducked under the side-swing of a sword and tripped the wielder so that he fell sprawling. The flat of another� sword struck me a staggering blow across the head but I rallied and lunging forward, I plunged my dagger to the hilt in the Norseman� breast, wrenching it out as he fell.

The other Viking had stopped several yards away and was poising a long spear over his shoulder to throw.

I flung my dagger with all my force against his breast. As he lunged forward he hurled the spear but the shaft only struck me a glancing blow on the forest.

I staggered and someone caught me, supporting me. It was Mea-lah.

My senses were reeling, but I caught her by the hand and we fled into the forest.

The Norsemen did not care to follow the Picts into the thick forest and soon we were safe.

Then I leaned against a great tree, spent and weak, but happy.

And then I felt soft arms about my neck, soft hair falling about my face and rippling down over my shoulders, a soft, slender, girl-ish form clinging and nestling in my arms, soft lips against mine. Mea-lah.

I was Lakur the archer in the land of Kita. We were a war-like people and many and many a time have I marched through the great gates of Carchemish, with hundreds and sometimes thousands, of bowmen and swordmen and spearmen and chariot drivers.

We fought in defense of our country, for the most part, and we had wars enough at that.

Sometimes the armies came back through the great gates of Carchemish, straggling, defeated; more often with long trains of loot-filled wains and captives, strong men, handsome children and young women for slaves.

In the first-mentioned event, old men and women and the soldiers of the city manned the wall and prepared to hold the city.

In the latter, the whole great populace turned out and made a gala day and the loot was distributed and the slaves sold.

Speaking of slaves, there was a proverb, �etter a slave among the Hittites than a free man in Assyria.� For we Hittites were famous for our mild treatment of prisoners and slaves. Fierce and savage we were in war, but in peace we were a fair and just people. We had none of the Semitic cruelty, and we were of a different race than the other tribes of Canaan.

It is not recorded in history that captives taken in war begged to be sold among the Hittites but it is the truth.

It was no law that caused the indulgence of slaves, but the leniency of the Hittite nature. I cannot explain why the Hittites were more kindly disposed than the other tribes of Canaan but the fact remains that they were.

Once we marched through the gates of Carchemish to oppose a mighty army that came from the East across the desert, laying waste the country as they came.

Assyrians they were, the warriors of of the fiercest and most war-like nation that early Asia ever knew.

They were led by a great general, a mighty man of valour, whose skill was so great that few tribes dared resist his army, and whose savage cruelty surpassed his skill and valour.

Where e�e the Assyrian army went, looting, murder, fire and rapine were. They slew men, women and children, sparing only the most beautiful of the young women for slaves and concubines.

They were, for a time, the lords of Asia, except for the Hittites.

We marched to meet the Assyrian army and we met it leagues from Khita. Such was the custom of the Hittites, never to fight a battle within their boundaries, and thus spare the people of Khita the horrors of an invading army, and in case of defeat to give them time to gain walled cities.

We did not join battle at once with the Assyrians. Our camp was pitched on a slope, theirs on the plains; and the plain was white with their tents.

They greatly outnumbered us, but we held the stragetic position, for at the foot of the slope whereon we camped, were many ravines and gulchs and huge boulders.

The Assyrians did not care to attack us there until they had supplied themselves with provisions and had looked to their weapons. Not for nothing had the Hittites held their own against all hostile nations for more than eight hundred years.

Nor did we care to sally out against them so we rested and raised fortifications and strung bows and sharpened swords and the Assyrians looted and ravaged on the plain and the smoke of burning cities and villages rose to the skies with the screeches of murdered men and children and the screams of women.

With the coming of the dark Asian night, many scouts and spies stole forth from the Hittite camp to spy among the Assyrians, to learn their numbers and if possible their plans.

I, Lakur the bowman, was one the spies.

It was a difficult business and full of risk for the spies. The Assyrians had many sentries stationed about the camp and some of the Hittites were discovered and went down, fighting, beneath the Assyrian sword.

But some of them gained the Assyrian camp and among them, I.

I entered the camp stealthily, now gliding noiselessly from shadow to shadow, now creeping forward on my hands and knees, now lying flat, scarcely daring to breathe as an Assyrian passed close by.

At last I found myself close to a large tent which seemed the pavilion of some chief.

I crept close to it, keeping ever in its shadow and daring greatly, cut a small slit in the cloth with my dagger.

Peering in with great caution, I saw that the tent was occupied by three or four women, one of them a captive, the others slaves but Assyrian women.

There was a stake driven into the dirt floor of the tent and beside this the captive woman crouched, her wrists bound to the stake. She was little more than a girl, a slender, beautiful girl, who, for her aristocratic features and daintiness, might have been the daughter of a great chieftain or a king.

Her eyes were wide with terror and her golden hair fell in confusion about her bare shoulders. Her single, robe-like garment was torn in places and a bruise showed on her soft round arm, showing that she had been roughly used.

As I watched, the tent-flap parted and an Assyrian warrior strode in. He was a chief, a tall, large man, heavily bearded, with a harsh, cruel face. The captive girl shrank away from him with a low cry of fright.

He smiled cruelly and drove the slave women from the tent.

Then he approached the girl and unbinding her hands, raised her to her feet.

I could not understand their language but I could tell that she was pleading frantically, piteously. The Assyrian only laughed at her.

He drew her close to him and kissed her roughly, again and again. Then he thrust her from him with such force that she fell prostrate on the tent-floor. She lay there, her slim form shaken with sobs. The Assyrian sneered and lifting her again in his arms, crushed her to him, gazing lustfully into her eyes, ignoring her weeping and pleas.

I wondered how any man could find it in him to mis-use so dainty and helpless a girl as she.

But cruelty was a predominant trait of the the Assyrians. The Assyrian was but playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse.

The girl� hand, pushing against her captor, as she struggled in his arms as her bore her to a couch in the corner of the tent, touched the hilt of a dagger in his girdle.

Instantly she snatched it out and tried to stab the Assyrian with it. But he was too quick for her. He wrested the dagger from her hand and flung it across the tent. Then, his expression changed from sneering laughter to cruel rage, he hurled her to the tent-floor at his feet.

He snatched up a chariot-whip and with one savage jerk, tore the girl� garment from her body, and brought the whip down across her soft, snowy shoulders. A red welt appeared upon her dainty skin but she did not cry out. She only hid her face in her hands and waited, shuddering, for the next blow.

The Assyrian� treatment of his fair captive had angered me, but I had interfered for I felt I could not chance discovery by the camp. But now my rage was too much.

Gloating over the girl and deciding where the whip would strike next, the Assyrian did not hear the cloth of the tent part as I ripped a seven foot slash. He did not me as I charged silently across the tent. I was nearly upon him before he turned.

His eyes went wide and then narrowed to slits as he saw me.

� Hittite!�he hissed as he snatched a short sword from his girdle. Before he could use it, my dagger glittered in the light of the tent as I struck once.

The Assyrian swayed and pitched backward, his sword falling from his hand.

A moment I stood over him, alert for any sound. But I heard none except the sound of the warriors gambling and revelling in other tents or by the great camp-fires.

I turned to the girl. She was still crouching, gazing first at me and then at the body of the Assyrian. Her eyes lighted as she saw he could harm her no more, and then filled with doubt as she looked at me.

I raised her to her feet and spoke reassuringly to her and though she did not understand my language, some of the fear faded from her lovely face. Then she glanced at herself and her cheeks went crimson and she averted her eyes with shame.

A long cloak such as Assyrian chiefs wore lay on a couch and I picked it up and draped it about the girl.

Then I went to the front of the tent and peered out. No one was near. Replacing my dagger and drawing my short sword, I took the girl by the hand and motioning for silence, led her through the slit I had made in the tent. Her presence would hamper my escape, but what sense or right would there have been to have rescued her from one Assyrian and to have left her in the power of several thousand of them?

Silently we made our way in the direction I led. I had seen groups of horses tied here and there within the camp and it was toward some of them that I was making my way.

We had much a-do to avoid the warriors and stay out of the lights of the fires but at last we reached a place where several horses were tethered. Two Assyrians sat near, dicing.

Chancing all upon one cast, I caught up the girl with one arm and landed amongst the horses with a single panther leap.

They reared and plunged but the tethers held and in an instant I was on the back of one, holding the girl close. With three slashes of my sword I parted the tethers and the next moment was doing my best to keep my seat as my horse stampeded wildly across the camp with the others.

The Assyrians had sat, gaping at me, almost dazed by my sudden appearance and swift actions. But now their presence of mind returned and they sprang up, shouting wildly.

In a moment the whole camp was in an up-roar. Men rushing about, shouting, (as I learned after) some that there was mutiny in the camp, some that the Hittites were upon them.

Men slashed at me with swords and a few arrows were aimed at me. But fire-light is deceptive and I passed through the entire Assyrian camp without having received a scratch. Neither had the horse nor the girl.

As I dashed past the last line of tents, I was aware that someone was close behind me, on a horse and riding like the wind.

Half turning I raised my sword but the horseman swept up beside me and I could see he was unarmed.

�eep your sword for Assyrians!�he shouted, in the tongue of Khita, � am your friend whether you are Hittite, Bashanite, or devil! All I ask is to accompany you.� I could tell he was no Assyrian.

�ome if you wish.�I answered.

That was a ride! I shall never forget it.

A ride worth remembering, it was, sweeping along on a horse scarce less swift than the night-wind that struck against my face, blowing about my face and my shoulders the soft hair of the girl I carried before me; and and the strange horseman riding at my elbow.

A wild ride and the stranger made it still wilder by chanting a barbaric war-cry until I bade him be silent lest he betray us to the Assyrians.

I had no desire to recieve an arrow from a sentry of my own nation nor did I wish to throw the camp into a panic.

So instead of riding straight for the Khitan camp, I sheered off and circled about it, stopping at a point some distance from the camp and a greater distance from the Assyrian camp, of course, though not as distant as I could have wished.

I dismounted and lifted the girl from the horse. She clung to me and I knew she was frightened. I tried to reassure her as best I knew and then spoke to the stranger, �e will await here until dawn and then enter the Hittite camp.� �ood.�he answered.