“The ears of Cos are long, priest,” replied the young chieftainess.
“He wonders why you do not come to make report to him of your explorations, instead of sitting in a wine-shop with a great bull of a stranger.”
“Call me bull, and I will gore you,” said Hok, getting up and kicking back his bench.
The eagle-faced man turned pale and shrank away, while Maie hastily interposed. “Do him no harm, Hok; he is a priest, full of wisdom and authority.”
“Does the authority allow him to insult strangers?” demanded Hok. He glared wrathfully, and the priest slunk away. Maie stared at her guest from the wilderness. Her dark eyes were full of light, half fearful, half admiring.
“Come,” she said. “Cos has spies who have told him of us. He is jealous. We had better both go to see him. Are you afraid?”
Hok feared nothing, and said so. They left and climbed again, to the highest level of the city, a grand terrace overlooking the rising clumps of houses, the wall at the foot of the height, and the fertile valley beyond.
This terrace was carpeted with green grass, and tufted with trees and flowering bushes. Hok wondered still more when he learned that all this planting was by man’s labor, as in the fields of grain and vegetables below. Among the shrubbery loomed a great cube of a building, white-pigmented with lime, which Maie called a palace; to one side was a wall, with a gate. The two came to this gate, were admitted by a sentry in armor, and entered.
They stood in a courtyard, paved with white gravel, and completely surrounded by spike-crowned walls, with the blue sky above. At the side where the great building abutted, was a canopy of striped fabric, raised on poles against the warm sun. Beneath the canopy was set a chair, of carved and gilded wood; and upon that chair, flanked on either side by a dozen sentries braced to attention, sat Cos, the master of Tlanis.
CHAPTER III
Defiance and Doom
HOK stared at Cos, and was deeply disappointed. This man, who ruled more land than one could cross in many days’ journey, and more people than one could count in weeks, who could hold back supplies of food from the mouths of hungry tribes, he had already judged as unkind. Now that Cos was in view, Hok saw plainly that he was neither brave nor strong; and courage, strength and fairness were, to Hok, the criterions of chieftainship.
Cos was flabby and bunch-bellied, with sleek, soft calves and biceps. His beard, trained into black curls, cascaded down his bare, dark chest. In the midst of the gleaming thicket of hair showed a plump red mouth, like a spoiled fruit—the mouth of an idle sensualist. His eyes, set as close as a spider’s, had shifty lights, detracting from the proud power of brow and nose. He wore bracelets, fillet, and girdle of hammered gold, and his kilt and sandals were embroidered with small glittering stones of red, blue and green.
Maie bowed before him with ceremonious respect. “Hail, Lord of Tlanis,” she spoke. “I am come from my explorations, to give you news of unknown wild lands toward the north. Men live there, and other creatures. I have brought with me one such man, himself a master of peoples.”
“With whom you prefer to loll and drink,” Cos added poutingly. His spider-eyes wandered to Hok. “Give account of yourself, stranger.”
Hok did so. Cos listened, with disdainful hostility at first, then with almost greedy interest. As Hok told about his enemies, the hairy, halfhuman Gnorrls, Cos exclaimed delightedly, and began to ask questions.
“I have heard a little about this race you call Gnorrls,” he said at last. “You say they are very strong creatures? And cunning, though less wise than men? . . . Good. I will send soldiers to encounter them.”
“To kill the Gnorrls?” suggested Hok.
“Hmmmmm . . . No. Not kill them. Capture them. They are strong beyond human strength, and wise enough to learn, but not to overthrow. I will have them brought here, for slaves.” Cos licked his loose lips over the prospect of conquest, as a hungry man might relish the thought of good food. “And now, cave-man,” he went on, “tell of your own people.”
Hok amplified his first remarks about his kinsmen and followers, living and hunting in the country they had wrested in fierce combat from overwhelming spawns of Gnorrls. Cos listened eagerly, as before, then shook his gold-circled head. “I do not think I will enslave your tribe,” he said.
“It is well not to try,” Hok assured him.
“They would make bad slaves, I am sure,” continued Cos. “They are proud, wise, fierce-tempered.” He mentioned those characteristics as though they were faults. “No, not for slaves. My men will kill them all, and take their country.”
It was briefly and plainly said, even for that age of scant diplomacy and frank statements. Hok glared at this evil, greedy wielder of great numbers and wealth. He wished that he had not told of his people. Anger grew against himself and Cos. Into his throat rose a deep growl of challenge.
“I will go to prepare my people for war,” he announced, and turned toward the gate. Cos made a finger-wagging motion. The line of sentries at his left deployed, spears at the ready, to cut off Hok’s departure.
“Stay where you are, chief of the stone-chippers,” commanded Cos. “My own soldiers will bear the news of war to your land. Be thankful if you yourself escape.”
Hok’s anger burst like a hurricane. “Unsay those words!” he roared. “Otherwise, you will not live to speak others!” And his big stone axe, stirring in his bulky fist, lifted its blue head like a threatening snake.
Cos grinned, and made another languid motion. The guardsman at his right elbow moved forward.
Hok swung to face this new challenger. The man was beard-tufted and lank, with not half of Hok’s volume of muscle; but he threatened the cave-man with a strange device.
It looked like an apple or melon, a round smooth sphere of bronze. From a small hole in it protruded what looked like a twisted, blackened rag, hanging free as the soldier poised it in his ready right hand. The left hand lifted something else—a smouldering saucer of oily fool, like a lamp, not more than a hand’s breadth from the dangling tip of the rag.
“Have a care, stone-chipper,” chuckled Cos in his curly beard. “If you threaten me, I will sweep you away with the weapon of thunder and lightning.”
“Thunder! Lightning!” echoed Hok, in unbelieving scorn. “Do not lie. Only Sky-Dwellers wield such things.”
“Ah,” said Cos, “and I am as great as the Sky-Dwellers. Ghirann the Many-Legged made their secret of destruction mine.”
“It is true, Hok,” muttered Maie fearfully, close to his ear. “The lightning-stuff is made by the slaves of Ghirann’s priest—it has long been known and used in Tlanis.”[4]
But Hok did not show the slightest fear or hesitation. He addressed the soldier: “I will take that fruit-thing from you, and your hand and arm along with it.”
“Oh, show the fool,” snapped Cos, and the soldier, dipping his fuse into the fiery saucer, lifted and flung the bomb.
Maie shrieked and sprang frantically away; but Hok, still holding his axe in his right hand, shot up his left, caught the flying missile as it came toward his face and hurled it instantly back, as he had hurled the spear a few days before.
There was a fearsome roar, a blinding flash, a cloud of soot-black smoke; and through it Hok could see that Cos had been knocked from his throne-chair, his beard half singed away, while four of the twelve men on his right hand sprawled, burnt and broken, in death.
“See!” yelled Hok. “I have given you back your evil magic!” And he charged at the overthrown Cos.
But the rest of the sentries rushed at him from either hand. They levelled bronze-tipped spears at his heart as they closed in. Hok emitted a short, fierce spurt of laughter, and swept the blade of his axe horizontally in front of him. Its keen-flaked edge found and shore away the heads of three spears, and he sprang into the gap thus made. His swooping weapon bit through a helmet, and through the skull beneath it to the nose-bridge, and as he strove to wrench loose the wedged flint, the others wer
e upon him.
“Take him alive!” roared Cos, starting to his feet; and a score and more of hands clutched at Hok’s body and shoulders. He strove and cursed, kicking and buffeting. With one full-armed swing of his fist he smashed a bearded jaw, with a grasp and a wrench he dislocated a shoulder. But the soldiers were too many for him, and in the end he lay prone on the gravel, his wrists and ankles bound by the belts of the sentries.
Cos now dared grin and exult. “The hero of the forest lies at my feet,” he sneered, “So will his people, when my soldiers march upon them. Take him away.”
“Where, master?” panted a sentry.
“Where but to the sea-barrier above?” replied Cos. “Let him enter the dwelling of Ghirann our god, whose food is the blood of the wicked and proud—Ghirann the Many-Legged, the Terrible, who has waited over-long for sacrifice from Cos, his brother!”
“Not Ghirann!” ventured a shaky voice—Maie, who had stood apart and marvelled at the strength and fierceness of Hok. “Stop and think, Cos! Might not the courage of this prisoner merit a better death?”
“He would merit a worse one, if I could invent it,” growled Cos. “Take him away, soldiers, and let me hear this night that Ghirann has feasted full upon his blood and body.”
CHAPTER IV
The Cave of Ghirann
UP the face of the cliff above the city ran a sloping way, cut slantwise, like a crossbelt on a giant’s chest; and up that way the detail of soldiers shoved and dragged the bound chieftain. Hok could not tear loose from his bonds, and so he stopped trying. Philosophically he looked out across the scene below—the huddled city, the cultivated lands beyond, and the valley afar, all groves and plains and slopes. Surely this was the land of fruits and dalliances, a paradise where winter never came—and it was ruled by Cos, the selfish and cowardly tyrant.
Hok’s greatest regret at the time was that he had not fleshed his stone axe in the scornful face of Cos . . .
Regretting, he was borne to the top of the great barrier-cliff under which Tlanis nestled.
Even though Maie had told him that the sea flowed higher by far than the tallest roof in the city, it was a surprise to come out upon a rocky shore, with the limitless blue waters beating almost at one’s feet. The top of the mountainous barrier now appeared as a vast extending causeway, losing itself in foggy distances to either direction, with the sea close at hand on one side, the valley far below on the other. The slanting upward trail had taken Hok and his captors well beyond the position of Tlanis, so that the peak now appeared at a distance. In the other direction they proceeded, toward a square-built stone hutch or house.
Hok, as he hobbled along, gazed once to landward. He realized, for the first time, how deep the valley truly was—a sort of sky-pointing cavern. No wonder that things were always green and warm here, he mused.
And then the sentries were hailing someone who came from the square stone house.
It was the tall, eagle-faced priest in long robes, with whom Hok had come close to quarrelling in the wine-shop. He grinned sardonically when he saw the prisoner and heard the report.
“I knew he was meat for Ghirann when first I saw him,” he informed the guards, fingering his tag of beard. “Leave him in my charge.” To Hok he said, “Come with me, you meat for the god.”
Hok, his ankles hobbled with a leather thong, raged unavailingly as the priest shoved and chivvied him along the rocky shore to the stone building. From the doorway came another man to meet them—a filthy, tousle-haired creature in a red kilt, with vacant eyes and a twitching, slobbering mouth. Hok gazed with loathing; his own people were accustomed, for the sake of mercy and practicality, to kill the feeble minded.[5] But this creature, apparently a favored companion of his new guard, danced and gibbered, gnashing long yellow fangs.
“Is tills Ghirann, who is to eat me?” Hok demanded of the priest. “It is to be expected that the people of Tlanis would worship a crazy man.”
The priest turned pale with anger at the slur, but then smiled harshly. “Ghirann has touched his mind, and made him holy,”[6] he explained. “There is always such a one, in the service of the god. But Ghirann himself, the Many-Legged Hungry One, will appear even more strange to you—for the little time you will see him.”
With the scrawny hand of the priest urging him forward and the mad acolyte jigging and twittering, Hok came to the house, but was pushed around it instead of entering the curtained door. Then he saw that the stonework was only an augmentation of a rocky protuberance, apparently the mouth of a cave. A smaller opening, full of blackness and closed by a grating of wire-bound wood, faced away from the sea.
“You will go in there,” said Hok’s captor. “The cave runs far back, into the salt water. And Ghirann lives within, silent and hungry.”
“Free me of these bonds,” said Hok, “and I will face and fight Ghirann, or any other living thing.”
“You would resist a god’s hunger? I overlook the blasphemy,” said the priest; and, to the madman, “Open.” The grating was drawn back, and Hok pushed in, so violently that he fell full-sprawl upon wet, smooth rock. To the imbecile’s giggle was added the bitter, superior chuckling of the priest. Then the grating fell in place again, and was fastened with a heavy bronze hook.
Hok lay still, trying to pierce the gloom with his eyes. That the hole was closed up suggested that Tlanis did not care to have its god emerge—it might devour worshippers as well as sacrifices. When would it appear? Hok gritted his teeth and his beard stiffened. Would he, who had come safe out of the clutches of tiger, lion, bear, wolf and Gnorrl, be eaten at last by a monster called the “Many-Legged” ? If only he were free, to fight for his life with his mighty hands . . .
HE could see now, a little, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. The cave was large, extending downward rather than up, and the water of the sea filled its bottom so that the ledge on which he lay was none too spacious for his stalwart, helpless body. At some little distance a bluish glow of light showed. Apparently there was a seaward mouth to the cavern, just now under water.
Hok surged with all his strength against his bonds, until his muscles cracked; but the belts and thongs were of stout make, doubled and tripled. Horses could not have burst them apart. He tried to roll toward the water, hoping to soak the leather and so stretch it; but at the very lip of the ledge were wooden pegs, driven deep into the rock. Over them he could not hoist himself.
He turned his attention to the wooden pegs, as a possible cutter or ripper, and scowled. Many years of water-washing had smoothed them, rounded them. No escape there; he rolled back toward the better light under the grated doorway, and studied his bonds.
The soldiers had tied his wrists in front of him, and then had encircled his arms and body with other bands, so that he could not get his strong teeth to the fastenings. His ankles and thighs were similarly fastened together. Drawing up his knees, Hok studied the twisted belt that was drawn tight just above them. Then he grinned, and in inspiration.
Into that belt had been sewn a rough red garnet for ornament. Hok, by straining, extended his wrists a hand’s-breadth from the bonds that held them to his body. He drew up his knees, closer and closer. The wrist-clamping leather rasped against the red stone. Again—again—
Hok had begun to pant by the time he had scraped through the cord on his wrists, but the other bonds were easy to unfasten then. He did not go to the grating at once, but lay at the rim of the ledge, thrusting his arms between the pegs to cool the chafed skin in the water.
And he could see well enough in the cavern’s dimness to realize that he was not alone.
First a ripple of the water; then a blotting away of the blue patch of light, as though a bulk crowded in from the sea; and finally a churning of the surface, a great curved lump of darkness, a thrash of many cable-like limbs—and Ghirann came stalking through the shallows in search of his prey.
Hok, rising on his knee, saw the god of Tlanis plain.
Limbs as pliable as snakes
and as strong as spear-shafts bore Ghirann wrigglingly forward. Above, and centrally, rode a puffy bladder of a body, as large around as Hok’s arms might clasp, liver-dark and smooth. Intent, bright eyes seemed to probe Hok with animous hunger. Ghirann was of a ghastly, baleful dignity, that has impressed younger cultures than worshipping Tlanis.[7]
The god charged, with a churning splash, and Hok did not retreat.
There was grim grappling on the ledge. Ghirann’s legs became arms, embracing Hok’s bare flanks and shoulders, clinging to his flesh with a multitude of round red mouths. In such an embrace had many a luckless victim perished; but Hok was free, and full of battle. His strength was perhaps as great as that of any adversary Ghirann had ever encountered. He wrenched himself free from two of the tentacles, and drove back Ghirann with fierce kicks against the flab by body. Ghirann splashed into the water again, but with two mouth-lined cables still clung to Hok’s waist and thigh. Other tentacles made fast to some anchorage under water. Then Ghirann began to drag his prey from the ledge.
Hok cursed at the drawing pain of the suckers on his flesh, and braced himself against the row of wooden pegs. Ghirann’s dragging arms drew tight across the wet surface of the rock, bent at the angle of his lip. It was a tug-of-war, and a stern one; Hok, with something of embarrassment, knew that Ghirann was stronger than he. When his braced limbs relaxed, he would be whipped into the water.
He dung to a projecting point of rock on the floor, with all his strength. It held for a moment, then started from its bed, as a loose tooth starts from a jaw. Again Hok cursed, but suddenly broke the curse—the yielding of that rock had provided him with a weapon.
The fragment was big, heavy, and had a rough edge. In his great hand he poised it, like the haftless axes of the Gnorrls. Sighting quickly, he struck at the nearest clutching arm of Ghirann, where it was drawn taut against the rock. He felt the tough tissue yield, and struck again, harder still. The tentacle parted like a chopped vine. Hok laughed fiercely in joy of battle, and struck with the edged stone at the other arm that held him. It, too, smashed in twain, and he was free.
The Complete Hok the Mighty Page 7