The Shadow Of The Hunt

  By

  Robert E. Howard

  Prologue

  A CALM held the great warship in a level ring of the landless sea. The brass and gold work glittered in the sun, the idle sails flapped against the mast. On the high-flung poop three men sipped wine and conversed idly. Save for one feature, they were types as far apart as might be imagined, but in one way they were alike: each had the appearance of the born warrior.

  Athelstane the Saxon was a giant; six and a half feet he towered from his sandals of bull's hide to his shock of flaxen hair. His crisp beard was as golden as the massive armlets he wore, his eyes large, calm and grey. He wore a corselet of scale mail and even as he drank and talked, he held across his knees his two-handed broadsword in its worn sheath.

  Don Roderigo del Cortez was tall, dark and spare, clad in plain, unornamented armor. His dark eyes were deep and somber, his manner stately and courteous. He wore no beard but a thin mustache, and his only arm was a long narrow sword-forerunner of the rapier.

  Turlogh Dubh O'Brien was not as tall as either of his companions, though he was well over six feet. His dark face was clean shaven, his black hair cropped short. From under heavy black brows gleamed his volcanic eyes-blue, and full of shifting gleams like clouds passing across some deep blue lake. Long-limbed, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, his every motion betokened his iron strength and cat-like litheness. He was, in some ways, more the complete fighting man than his friends, for he possessed a dynamic quickness the Saxon lacked, and sheer strength beyond the power of the slender Spaniard.

  He was armed in black, closely-worked chain mail, and a green girdle held a long dirk at his hip. Close by in a weapon rack rested more of his arms: a plain vizorless helmet with a mail drop, a round buckler with a keen spike in the center, and a single-handed axe. This axe partook of the lethal quality of its owner; with its keen single edge, perfectly made handle of oak that would notch a sword, it was the weapon of a master. It was lighter than most of the axes of the age, and built on different lines. A short keen spike on the back and one on the top of the head added to its deadly appearance.

  "Don Roderigo," rumbled Athelstane, refilling his goblet, "what of these Easterners we are sailing against? Thor's blood, I have crossed steel with all the war-men of the Western world, but these I have not seen. Many of my comrades have fared to Mikligaard, but not L"

  "The Saracens are brave and cruel warriors, good sir," answered the Don. "They fight with javelins and curved sabers. And they hate our fair Lord Christ, for they hold to Muhammad."

  "As I gather it," pursued Athelstane, "east, whither we are sailing, lies the neck of water which divides Europe from Africa. The infidel Saracens hold both Africa and the greater part of Spain. And beyond lies, on one side of the Middle Sea, Italy and Greece, and on the other the eastern part of Africa and Holy Land which the Arab jackals defile. And thereabouts is Constantinople, or Mikligaard as the Vikings name it-and beyond, what?"

  Don Roderigo shook his head. "Beyond lies Iran-Persia-and the wilderness wherein swarm pagan Turks and Tatars. Beyond-they tell wild tales of Hind and Cathay-but who knows? Between lies deserts and mountains full of pagans and evil spirits, dragons and-"

  Turlogh suddenly interrupted with a shake of his head. "There are no dragons, Don Roderigo, though truth to tell there are many perils for the wanderer, both from beast and men."

  The others glanced curiously at him. It was not often the Gaelic outcast opened his lips to speak of his long wanderings. But now it was his mood.

  "I was some seven years younger," said he, "when I sailed one day from Erin on a raid-by my axe, it was a lengthy raid, for it was more than three years ere I set foot again on Irish land. Mind you, Athelstane, in those days of my outlawry I had a ship of my own; aye, and a crew."

  "I remember," muttered the Saxon. "My Viking comrades had scathe thereby and villages smoked on England's western coast. But what of the unknown lands to the east whereof I spoke?"

  "If you land on the south-easternmost coast of the Baltic Sea," answered Turlogh O'Brien, "and wander southward and eastward, you will come to a great inland sea-the Caspian Sea. Between them lie a vast land of forest and rivers, and wide, rolling plains, with few trees but grown with tall grass-a vast, grey, desolate land-"

  Across the leaden, grey steppes, beneath the grey, leaden sky flew a few herons. As far as eye could reach stretched the drab, waving grass, ruffled by a chill wind. A few scanty clusters of stunted trees broke the monotony and in the distance there was discernible the outline of a great river that wound, serpent-like, through the wilderness. Reeds grew tall and thick there and waterfowl circled above.

  Turlogh O'Brien gazed out across the wastes and the gloomy desolation entered into his soul. Then he started. Out of the growth about the river broke four figures, which his keen eyes made out as horsemen, racing toward him-one in advance of the others. Turlogh held in his hand the reins of a great roan stallion. Now he mounted swiftly, unslung axe and buckler and rode into a sparse clump of trees which stood nearby. He did not believe the oncoming riders were coming to attack him; their attitude was such as to make him believe that the three behind pursued the fourth. And the Gael was curious to know what manner of men inhabited this wilderness.

  They approached swiftly and soon Turlogh saw that his surmise was correct. The man in front swayed in his saddle, and one arm dangled limply. He guided his steed with the other hand and held a broken sword between his teeth. He was tall and young and he rode like the wind, his shock of yellow hair flying in the breeze. But the pursuers were swiftly closing the gap. They were shorter in stature than he they hunted, and mounted on smaller, nimbler steeds. As they approached the Celt's refuge, Turlogh saw they were very dark, were clad in light silvered mail shirts and wore turbans. They bore light round shields and curved scimitars.

  Turlogh's mind was made up in an instant. This was none of his quarrel; but yonder three armed men hunted a wounded warrior, who was certainly of a tribe more akin to Turlogh's own people, than the pursuers. These were

  Turks, the Gael decided, though he had supposed their ranges to lie considerably more to the south. An instinctive hatred burned up in his breast. It was the old, old feud between Aryan and Turanian, so strong that it sends the distant descendants of primitive warriors at each others' throats.

  Now the yellow-haired youth thundered past the scanty grove, and now the foremost of the pursuers was almost abreast it. A lifted scimitar gleamed in a dark hand and a fierce yell of triumph rose to the skies-to be changed to a gasp of surprise as an unexpected shape shot from the trees.

  Like a bolt from a catapult, the great roan crashed full against the steed of the Turk. There was no time to rein about and avoid the impact. Striking from the side, the heavier horse hurled the lighter off its feet and headlong, flinging the rider underfoot where a lashing hoof dashed out his brains.

  Turlogh reined about to meet the onset of the remaining Turks who howled like wolves in amazement and rage, but assailed him from either side. The Gael spurred to meet the nearest, ere the other could come at him from the other side. The curved scimitar lashed at Turlogh's head, but the Gael, guiding his horse with his knees, caught the blade on his shield and struck almost simultaneously. The keen edge bit through the turban and split the shaven skull beneath. As the Turk slumped from his saddle, Turlogh wheeled back to parry the scimitar that already hovered over him. The yellow-haired youth had seen the fray and was charging back to his rescuer's aid, but the fight was over before he could reach it.

  The remaining Turk charged in from Turlogh's left, howling and hacking like a madman, believing the Gael could not reach him with his red axe without turning his steed or shifting the weapon to his left hand. But as he plunged in, slashing, the yellow-haired youth saw a trick of battle of which he had never heard. Turlogh rose in his stirrups, twisted in his saddle and reversed the usual procedure. He parried the whistling blade with his axe and struck with his buckler as a boxer strikes with a heavy cestus. The Turk's howl of triumph broke in a ghastly gurgle as the spike in the center of the shield tore his jugular vein. Blood flooded Turlogh's buckler and the Turk lurched to the earth where he died, clawing at his red-dabbled beard.

  Turlogh turned to see the wounded youth reining his steed near. He spoke in a tongue the Gael could understand:

  "I thank you, brother, whoever you are. These dog-brothers had carried my head back to Khogar Khan, had it not been for you. Four of them started me among the reeds of the river. One I slew-by Saint Piotr, he'll never eat sunflower seeds again. But they shattered my sword and broke my arm and I fled perforce. Tell me your name, that we may be brothers."

  "My name is Turlogh Dubh, that is to say, Black Turlogh," answered the Gael. "My clan is the O'Brien, my land Erin. But now i am an outcast from my people and have wandered for many moons."

  "I am Somakeld," said the youth, "and my people are the Turgaslavs, the steppes dwellers. My clan is camped just beyond yonder skyline. Come with me and. let my people welcome you."

  "Let me first see to that arm," said Turlogh, though the youth laughed at the scratch, as he called it. Turlogh, skilled in the dressing of wounds, set the broken bone and bandaged the deep saber slash as well as he could with mud and spiderwebs taken from the stunted trees. Somakeld uttered no murmur of complaint and when the task was done, thanked the Celt with quiet courtesy. Then they rode toward the Slavic camp.

  "How is it you speak my tongue?" asked the la d.

  "I have wandered for months among the great forests," answered Turlogh. "The forest tribes are akin to the steppes dwellers and their tongue is much the same. But tell me this, Somakeld, whence come those Turks we slew? I have seen Tatars, who ride even into the great forests sometimes, but I had thought that the empire of the Turks lies far to the south."

  "Aye, so it does," agreed Somakeld. "But these dogs were driven out by their kin."

  Somakeld spoke at some length, and Turlogh found him to be far more frank and keen witted than the sullen forest people his late wanderings had led him among. Though a youth, the young Slav had journeyed far "-to the yellow sands of the south, where the caravans ply behind Rhoum and Bokhara, east beyond the Blue Sea (the Aral Sea), beyond the northern reaches of the Volga, and west to the great river called the Dnieber." His was a wandering, nomadic tribe and he himself had more than his share of the wanderlust.

  These Turks were wilder, fiercer cousins to the Seljuks before whose onslaught the Arab caliphates of Islam were crumbling. This particular tribe had been overthrown in the incessant border warfare, either by the Persians or by some kindred Turkish clan; Somakeld was not sure. But they had fled the pasture lands of their ancestors and had wandered far beyond the loose boundaries of their race.

  They had come into the steppes where the nomadic outposts of two rival races bickered and mingled; where the easternmost drift of the last Aryan wanderers snarled and snapped at the westernmost drift of the Tatar herders.

  The usual desultory warfare had ensued: skirmishes and raids for women and horses on both sides. The roving bands of Tatars took first one side and then the other as their whims led them. But of late the war had taken on a new aspect. A new khan had arisen among the Turks who held the grazing lands beyond the river. This one was Khogar Khan, who gained his leadership by murdering the former khan. His ambition was great. He dreamed of power-of the sovereignty, not of a waste of grazing land and wandering tribes, but of a great empire, reaching from the heart of the steppes to the Caspian Sea. It was no mad vision, commented Somakeld, who had heard the old men talk of mushroom empires that sprang up almost overnight in the teeming mazes of the East, to sweep across the curve of the world like a prairie fire, and as quickly to burn itself out.

  But Khogar Khan had one obstacle to overcome first: the Turgaslavs, hereditary lords of the steppes. His first, main step must be to crush them.

  Already the Turks, fired by their warlike leader, had routed the Tatar clans in the vicinity, slaying many, forcing some into a sullen subjection and driving the rest away. Now the Moslems were gathering their forces for a powerful drive on their Aryan foes to the west. Riders were scouring the steppes, gathering the Turgaslavic clans. His people had no villages, Somakeld explained, but followed the grass. The various clans of the tribes were scattered wherever fancy might lead them, over a radius of a hundred miles.

  Spies had reported the movements of the Turks, and it was while returning from a distant clan that Somakeld had encountered his hereditary foes. His tribe was not a large one, said the young Turgaslav, but for centuries they had overcome their foes. Once they numbered many thousands, but tribal wars had thinned them and branches of the tribe had split off and wandered westward, there to forget their pastoral life and become tillers of the soil. Somakeld sniffed in disdain.

  "But you, my brother," he exclaimed suddenly, "you have not told me how you have come to wander alone so far from your own pasture land. Surely you were a chief among your own people." Turlogh grinned bleakly. "Once I was a chief in an island far to the west, called Erin. My king was an ancient man and very wise, and his name was Brian Boru. But the great king fell in a mighty battle with red-bearded sea-rovers called Danes, though his people won the battle. Then followed a time of feud and intrigue and the spite of a woman and the jealousy of a kinsman cast me forth from my clan, an outlaw to starve on the heath.

  "But though I was no longer one of the Dal Cais, my heart was still bitter against the Danes who had ravaged my land for centuries and I drew to me certain masterless men and outlaws like myself, and by devious ways we took a galley from the Danes."

  And with swift words Turlogh sought to picture for the young Slav that red phase in his restless and battle-haunted life.

  His ship was The Raven which he re-named Crom's Hate after an old heathen Celtic god. Trickery and savage fighting won her, and the scum of the seas manned her. Not one of her crew but had a price on his head. To Turlogh flocked rogues and thieves and murderers, whose only virtue was the reckless abandon of desperate men who have nothing to live for.

  Irish outlaws, Scottish criminals, runaway Saxon thralls, Welsh Freebooters, gallow's birds from Brittany-these steered and rowed Crom's Hate and fought and looted at their savage lord's command. There were men with cropped ears and slit noses, men with brands on face arid shoulder, men whose limbs bore the marks of rack and shackle. They were without love and without hope and they fought like blood-hungry devils.

  Their only law was the word of Turlogh O'Brien, and that law was adamantine. There was no sentiment between them; they snarled about him like wolves and he cursed them for the vermin they were. But they feared and respected his ferocity and fighting prowess and he recognized their desperate savagery. He made no attempt to impose his will upon them in ways of other leaders whose hand is not against the world. He demanded of them only that they follow him and fight like demons when he gave the word. Nor did he give an order twice. In the hellish environments in which he found himself, all the slumbering tiger awoke in the Gaelic chief and of all the red-handed crew he himself was the most terrible.

  When he gave an order, a man obeyed instantly or drew his weapon as swiftly. For the penalty of disobedience or hesitancy was an instant dashing out of the mutineer's brains beneath the savage chieftain's axe. Men who had followed Turlogh O'Brien in the days before his outlawry would have gaped at him now as he stood on the bloodstained poop of Crom's Hate, eyes blaring and axe dripping, yelling commands to his motley horde in a voice that was like the maddened yell of a panther.

  He was a pirate who preyed on pirates. Only when his supplies were at ebb would he swoop down and harry the fertile coasts of England, Wales or France. The almost insane hatred for the Vikings that burned in his heart sent him ravaging the strongholds of the raiders in the Hebrides, the Orkneys and even on the coasts of the Scandinavian mainlands. When driving sleet and winter gales lashed the western seas, Turlogh and his tatterdemalions rode the bitter wind, freezing, starving, suffering, to fall on their foes with torch and sword.

  It was a hard service the Gael offered the men who came to him from chains or the shadow of the gallows. He promised them only a hard, bitter life, ceaseless toil and warfare and a bloody death. But he gave them a chance to strike back at the world and to glut themselves in slaughter-and men followed him.

  When even the stout Norsemen had their longships in the shiphouses and were pent in sturdy skallies, drinking ale and listening to the skalds, Turlogh and his thieves roamed the foaming wastes, to smite their enemies in their security and leave smoldering embers of strong steadings.

  It was a day in deep winter. A bitter gale lashed the Baltic, driving before it a stinging sleet that froze on mast and rower's bench. Waves burst clear across the low waist of the dragon-ship, drenching the rowers and clotting their beards with ice. Even these men, inured to all hardships, who lived like wolves, were on the point of collapse. On the foredeck, with one hand on the arching prow that terminated in a dragon's head, Turlogh O'Brien strained his eyes, striving to pierce the veil of sleet and freezing spray.

  There was ice on Turlogh's mail, and blood that caked his shoes was frozen stiff. But he gave no heed; at birth he had been flung into a snowdrift to decide his right to live. He was harder than a wolf. And now his heart burned in him so fiercely that no outer cold could harm him.

  He had ventured far this voyage, and he had left smoldering ruins slaked in crimson, on the coasts of Jutland and the shores that hem the Skaggerack. Not content, he had swept on up into the Baltic and now believed he was in what was called by some the Gulf of Finland.

 

1 2