Young Thongor (11 page)

And the blackness swallowed him up.

* * * *

The guardian of the gate had not, after all, deserted his post. For the youth found him just within the shadow of the barbican, face-down in a puddle of congealing gore.

The youth dropped to his knees, dabbling his fingers in the dead man’s blood. Then he raised his wet fingers to his nostrils and sniffed keenly. At this height, and in this cold, dry air, fresh-shed blood cools swiftly and soon dries to brown scum. But the blood of the corpse was still damp. The man had been murdered, the boy guessed, a little more than two hours before.

On swift, silent feet the youth prowled the gloomy halls and chambers of the citadel, finding, here and there, more bodies, but nothing that lived. Neither did he find any evidence of battle—no signs which would have indicated that the castle of Barak Redwolf had been attacked by a force of warriors.

The men of Jomsgard Keep had been struck down one by one by something that had come upon them in silence and in stealth, out of the black shadows—

These thoughts were passing through the mind of the youth as he entered the inner hall of the keep.

He stepped through the gateposts and froze motionless, scarce daring to breathe.

For the blade of the knife which a small but firm hand held at his naked throat was sharp and cold as the kiss of death!

2

Terror in the Night

Flames still flickered upon the hearthstone of Barak Redwolf. They had not yet slumped to glowing coals.

By their orange light the youth was able to see the foeman who held him at bay.

Or—
foewoman
.

His eyes widened incredulously, and he uttered a short laugh. For a slim, long-legged girl held the knife at his throat—a girl younger, if anything, than himself.

Her skin was clear bronze, tanned by the sun and her cheeks were reddened by the icy winds. Her tresses, which lay in twin thick braids across her slender shoulders, were sun-golden. Her huge, long-lashed eyes were blue as sapphires. She wore rude garments of tanned leather, belted around her with chains of silver, and her feet were shod with buskins of supple hide. Clasped about her slim throat she wore gleaming amber beads, warm against her clear skin. She was very young—breathtakingly lovely—and very, very frightened.

The last was discernible from the way her firm young breasts rose and fell beneath her tunic, panting with quick, short, shallow breaths.

“Come, girl,” the youth growled shortly, “take your sting away before you slice my gullet. I am no enemy to such as you. What in the name of all the gods has befallen here?”

The knife did not move from his throat; neither did the girl take her eyes from his face.

“Who are you, and why are you here?” she demanded, panting breathlessly. “Swift, now! And speak true, or my blade will drink your blood—”

“My name is Thongor, the son of Thumithar,” the youth said.

“Where do you come from?” the girl demanded fiercely.

Thongor took a breath to steady himself. The girl’s knife just touched his skin, and the blade lay along the great artery of the throat. One false word, one twitch of her hand, and his heart’s blood would encrimson the rushes which lay strewn about the stone-paved floor beneath his feet.

“I am a Valkarthan, of the Black Hawk people,” he said.

“How did you enter here?”

He arched his black brows. “The door was open; the captain of the gate lay dead in a pool of his own blood. I walked in to discover what thing had slain the man and left the gates ajar. Come: put away your knife; I am newly come to Jomsgard, and had nothing to do with whatever has struck here…”

The girl took her knife from his throat, although she did not put it away. Thongor rubbed his throat, wincing. Then he walked over to the fire and threw off his cloak of furs. The firelight gleamed on the thews of his bare, muscular torso. The girl followed him with her eyes.

“I am Ylala, the daughter of Thogar the Smith, of the White River people,” she said at length, in a listless voice.

He said nothing, rubbing his palms together briskly before the burning logs. He was a lean, wolfish boy of perhaps seventeen with sturdy shoulders and strong arms: the corded muscles that rippled beneath his bronzed hide gave just a hint of the massive strength that would be his with manhood.

“My people pay tribute to Barak Redwolf, that our hides and furs and ivory may pass to the Southlander tradesmen,” the girl said. “When times are hard, and there is no gold with which to pay, we pay in tribute of slaves. This year, the times were hard. I am the tribute,” she said simply.

Thongor lifted his head and stared at her. His own people would have starved to the last babe rather than give a daughter of the tribe into slavery to such as the Baron of Jomsgard. Her limpid eyes fell before his stare, and her cheeks crimsoned. He said nothing, and after a moment he turned his scowling eyes from her.

By the glow shed by the leaping flames he could see the full length of the hall. Great benches of rough wood lined the walls; a rack near the door contained spears; bows and quivers full of arrows hung on iron hooks between brackets which held guttering torches.

There was only one dead body in the hall, and it lay at the foot of the low dais on which stood the chair of Barak Redwolf. It had been too dark in the antechamber beyond the half-open gate for Thongor to have made out the manner in which the gate captain had been murdered. Now, examining the figure which lay sprawled at the foot of the dais, he felt faintly sick.

He had seen men die in a variety of ways, but never a corpse like this.

The man had been
crushed
to death.

He nudged the corpse with his foot.

“Barak?”

The girl glanced over, then shuddered. “No; he was a bigger man, with a narrow head, amber eyes like a beast, and red hair. I think that man was Bothon, one of the chieftains.”

“Where are all the rest of them?”

The girl shrugged.

“Where were you when these men died?”

The girl gestured to the back of the hall. “There is a room back there where they put me. I was brought here this day with dawn. Barak looked me over and liked what he saw. This…was to have been my…my bridal night…”

“Well, you were spared that, at least,” the youth grunted. “But—you heard nothing, saw nothing?”

“The walls are thick, the doors were shut, and I was sick with dread,” she whispered. “Sometime before sunfall I heard men yelling and the clump of their boots in the hall. I thought they were all drunk, or at some game or other. Then, when no one came for me, I ventured out. I found a man’s body back there, behind the hall, and then this one here. I—I thought the keep had been attacked, and you, one of the attackers!”

The youth shook his head, long straight black hair brushing his square-jawed face.

“Not I,” he said shortly. “Come—let us explore.”

The girl cast a fearful glance into the deep shadows in the far corners of the hall. From such dark places, perhaps, nameless and unknown terror had struck through all this mighty keep, slaughtering men by dozens. And perhaps it lingered, even yet, in the gloom beyond the fire’s glow. She felt the cold breath of that terror against her nape.

Then she looked up into the boy’s clear, steady gaze. There was grim purpose in that gaze, and curiosity, too. But there was no fear. And suddenly she felt less fearful herself.

She rose to stand beside him. He took down one of the oil-soaked torches from a wall bracket.

Then he took her hand in his.

And they went forward into the darkness together.

3

Dead Man, Laughing

They came at length to a chamber decorated more sumptuously than the rest. The walls were hung with woven cloth in such colours and patterns as the weaver-women of Eobar prefer, and there were small tables of black wood here and there about, carved and set with ivory. There was carpet that had come from the looms of Cadornis, perhaps.

Ylala said that this was the room Barak Redwolf used for his—amusements.

One of the things he used to amuse himself still hung from the ceiling in iron chains.

It was, or had been, a man. An old man with a long thin beard and long thin arms and legs, and not much meat on the rest of him, either. He had been stripped naked and hung by his wrists while Barak did unpleasant things with heated irons to him. The irons still lay in a copper bowl brimful of hot coals, which still glowed amid pink ashes.

Ylala took one look at what the heated irons had done to the old man, then turned aside. Thongor put his arm around her until she stopped shuddering.

“Did you know him?”

She nodded.

“Was he of your tribe?”

“No. He was an old wizard, named Zoran Zar, who lived in a tower in the hills. They brought him in this morning. I heard Barak boasting that he would soon have the secret of his gold out of him. He thought the wizard had a hidden treasure trove. Is he—is he dead?”

“Quite dead,” said Thongor somberly. “There is one thing about him that bothers me.”

“What is that?”

“Look again at his face,” the youth advised.

Steeling herself, the girl looked. Then she paled incredulously and looked away quickly.

Thongor nodded. “I agree,” he grunted.

Instead of being drawn with pain, the wizard’s face wore a most peculiar expression, considering how he had died.

He was
smiling
.

His lips were drawn back, exposing the rotted yellowish stumps of his teeth. His mouth grinned open. It was as if he had been just about to laugh when death took him.

Thongor said nothing. Men do not smile—much less break into laughter—under the caress of red-hot iron. Only the bravest of warriors, the noblest of heroes, can endure such torment with stoicism. And Zoran Zar, surely, had been neither.

It was strange, even uncanny. But there was much about this black castle that struck Thongor as uncanny, and he liked none of it. The gloomy castle, devoid of living inhabitants save for himself and the girl, its dark corridors weird with whispering echoes and crawling shadows, stank to him of magic.

He did not like magic, nor did he like magicians. Young as he was, he had encountered both during his wanderings, to his discomfort. Give him a foe of flesh and blood, and put naked steel in his hand, and he would do battle as bravely as might any full-grown man. But how can you fight ghosts or curses or enchantments with naked steel?

They went on, searching for some sign of life.

Behind them, dangling limply in the iron chains, the dead man hung, turning idly this way and that as a gust of wind moved down the draughty halls. The skull-like face of the old man still bore the rictus of silent laughter.

Thongor wished he knew what had made the old man smile.

* * * *

Within the span of an hour they had searched the keep from cellar to attic and found nothing that lived.

One more corpse, crushed to death as if in the embrace of a giant, they found at the head of the stairs leading up to the watch-tower, but that was all they found, or almost all.

Nowhere was there the slightest sign of battle, nor any token that men had fought against men in the dark halls and empty rooms. No discarded weapons or smashed furniture or spilled blood. Nor had there been any looting, for casks of gems and gold lay in the cellars untouched.

It was inexplicable and frightening.

Returning to the main hall, they stirred up the fire again, piled on fresh logs. Then, while the flames roared up, and Thongor went to close and bar the great gate, Ylala made herself useful in the kitchens.

They ate before the flames, making a good meal from cold fruit, hot meat, fresh bread and rich, succulent gravy. They sampled, at first cautiously, then with enthusiasm, the thin gold wine of the Southlands, made from fermented fruit called
sarn
. Thongor had tasted wine but once before, while a prisoner in the enchanted city of Ithomaar; it had been too heady and exhilarating for one raised on the thin, sour ale of Valkarth. But this wine he liked, as did the girl.

They exchanged few words, feeling uncomfortable with each other. Girls and boys in their tribes were rigidly excluded from each other’s company until of marriageable age. Only in the pits of Ithomaar had Thongor been alone with a girl before, and he did not quite know how to behave. As for Ylala, she kept a demure silence, her eyes downcast, except when he was not looking at her: then she lifted her eyes to his face, which she thought very handsome. To her, he seemed much more manly and serious and responsible than a boy his age should have been.

They slept for what remained of that night to either side of the fire pit, rolled in furs. But neither slept well or deeply; Thongor, because he was disturbed by the nearness of the girl, and by her loveliness; and Ylala, because she could not put out of her mind the thing they had found on the second floor of the castle.