Part 32 (1/2)

A feathered sha between the fire and the altar, a slow, shuffling dance indescribably grotesque, which caused his plu and sway about hi scarlet mask that looked like a forest-devil's face

In the reat drum between his knees and as he srowling rumble which is like the mutter of distant thunder

Between the warriors and the dancing shaman stood one as no Pict For he was tall as I, and his skin was light in the play of the fire But he was clad only in doe-skin loin-clout and moccasins, and his body was painted, and there was a hawk-feather in his hair, so I knew he es ell in senerally at ith the Picts, but sometimes at peace and allied with them Their skins are white as an Aquilonian's The Picts are a white race too, in that they are not black nor brown nor yellow, but they are black-eyed and black-haired and dark of skin, and neither they nor the Ligureans are spoken of as ”white” by the people of Westernate thus a man of Hyborian blood

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Now as I watched I saw three warriors drag a ht another Pict, naked and blood-stained, who still wore in his tangled mane a feather that identified him as a member of the Raven Clan, hom the Hawkmen were ever at war His captors cast him down upon the altar, bound hand and foot, and I saw his ht in vain to break the rawhide thongs which prisoned hi intricate patterns about the altar, and the ht hi away like one possessed of a devil And suddenly, dowreat serpents of which I have spoken The firelight glistened on its scales as it writhed toward the altar, its beady eyes glittered, and its forked tongue darted in and out, but the warriors showed no fear, though it passed within a few feet of soe, for ordinarily these serpents are the only living creatures a Pict fears

The monster reared its head up on arched neck above the altar, and it and the shaman faced one another across the prone body of the prisoner The sha his feet, and as he danced, the great serpent danced with hih mes that shuddered like the wind through the dry reeds along the sea-her, and began looping itself about the altar and thefolds, and only his head was visible, with that other terrible head swaying close above it

The shrilling of the shaman rose to a crescendo of infernal triureen cloud of smoke billowed up and rolled about the altar, so that it al their outlines indistinct and illusive But in thethose outlines ether horribly, and for a moment I could not tell which was the serpent and which the h swept over the assehted branches

Then the smoke cleared and ht both were dead But the shaman seized the neck of the serpent and unlooped the lireat reptile ooze to the ground, and he tumbled the body of the man from the stones to fall beside the s that bound wrist and ankle

Then he began a weaving dance about theestures And presently the man moved But he did not rise His head swayed froain And Mitra, he began to wriggle away fro on his belly, as a snake crawls!

And the serpent was suddenly shaken with convulsions and arched its neck and reared up alth, and then fell back loop on loop, and reared up again vainly, horribly like 281

adeprived of his liht, and I was sick where I crouched ae to retch I understood the hastly ceremony now I had heard tales of it By black, primordial sorcery that spawned and throve in the depths of this black primal forest, that painted shaman had trnasferred the soul of a captured enee of a fiend And the screa of all hell's deonized side by side, the man and the serpent, until a sword flashed in the hand of the shaether and Gods, it was the serpent's trunk which but quivered and jerked a little and then lay still, and the man's body which rolled and knotted and thrashed like a beheaded snake A deathly faintness and weakness took hold of me, for hite man could watch such black diabolises, s over the ghastly doom of a foe, seemed not humans at all to me, but foul fiends of the black world whoation to slay

The sha off his mask, threw up his head and howled like a wolf And as the firelight fell full on his face, I recognized hiave place to red rage, and all thought of personal peril and the recollection of ation, ept away For that shaa of the South Hawks, he who burnt alive my friend Jon Galter's son

In the lust of my hate I acted almost instinctively whipped up my bow, nothced an arrow and loosed, all in an instant The firelight was uncertain, but the range was no great, and we of the Westera yowled like a cat and reeled back and his warriors hoith a suddenly in his breast The tall, light- skinned warrior wheeled, and for the first time I saw his face and Mitra, he was a white man!

The horrid shock of that surprize held me paralyzed for a moment and had al up and rushed into the forest like panthers, seeking the foe who fired that arrow They had reached the first fringe of bushes when I jerked out ofup and raced away in the darkness, ducking and dodging a trees which I avoided more by instinct than otherwise, for it was dark as ever But I knew the Picts could not strike my trail, but must hunt as blindly as I fled

And presently, as I ran northward, behind h to freeze the blood even of a forest-runner And I believed that they had plucked my arrow from the shaman's breast and discovered it to be a whitethem after me with fiercer blood-lust than ever

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I fled on,frohtmare I had witnessed And that a white man, a Hyborian, should have stood there as a welcouest for he was armed I had seen knife and hatchet at his belt was so htmare For never before had a whiteSerpent save as a prisoner, or a spy, as I had

And whatit portended I knew not, but I was shaken with foreboding and horror at the thought

And because ofhaste at the expense of stealth, and occasionally blundering into a tree I could have avoided had I taken more care

And I doubt not it was the noise of this blundering progress which brought the Pict upon me, for he could not have seen me in that pitch-darkness

Behind ing like fire-eyed wolves through the forest, spreading in a vast se it as they ran That they had not picked up my trail was evidenced by their silence, for they never yell except when they believe only a short dash is ahead of them, and feel sure of their prey

The warrior who heard the sounds of ht could not have been one of that party, for he was too far ahead of theainst his co surprized fro close to hiht I knew of him first only by the swift faint pad of his naked feet, and when I wheeled I could not evenof those inexorable feet co at me unseen in the darkness

They see like cats in the dark, and I know he saell enough to locate h doubtless I was only a di hatchetknife and he ied in, his death-yell ringing like a peal of doom under the forest-roof And it was answered by a ferocious clamor to the south, only a few hundred yards away, and then they were racing through the bushes giving tongue like wolves, certain of their quarry

I ran for it in good earnest now, abandoning stealth entirely for the sake of speed, and trusting to luck that I would not dash out ainst a tree-stem in the darkness

But here the forest opened up soht filtered in through the branches, for the clouds were clearing a little And through this forest I fled like a da the yells at first rising higher and higher in blood-thirsty triurew fainter and fell 283

away behind s of a white forest- runner The desperate risk was that there were other scouts or war-parties ahead of ht; but it was a risk I had to take But no painted figures started up like phantoh the thickening growth that betokened the nearness of a creek, I saw a gliht of Fort Kwanyara, the southern-most outpost of Schohira

CHAPTER 2

Perhaps, before continuing with this chronicle of the bloody years, it ive an account of myself, and the reason why I traversed the Pictish Wilderness, by night and alone

My naar's son I was born in the province of Conajohara But when I was ten years of age, the Picts broke over Black River and stormed Fort Tuscelan and slew all within save one man, and drove all the settlers of the province east of Thunder River Conajohara becaain part of the Wilderness, haunted only by wild beasts and wild hout the Westera, or Oriskawny, but many of them went southward and settled near Fort Thandara, an isolated outpost on the Warhorse River,them There they were later joined by other settlers for whom the older provinces were too thickly inhabited, and presently there grew up the district known as the Free Province of Thandara, because it was not like the other provinces, royal grants to great lords east of the marches and settled by them, but cut out of the wilderness by the pioneers themselves without aid of the Aquilonian nobility We paid no taxes to any baron

Our governor was not appointed by any lord, but we elected him ourselves, fro We manned and built our forts ourselves, and sustained ourselves in war as in peace And Mitra knoas a constant state of affairs, for there was never peace between us and our savage neighbors, the wild Panther, Alligator and Otter tribes of Picts

But we throve, and seldodorandsires had come But at last events in Aquilonia did touch upon us in the wilderness Word ca man risen to wrest the throne froration set the frontier ablaze, and turned neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother And it was because knights in their glea on the plains of Aquilonia that I was hastening alone through the stretch of wilderness that separated Thandara froe the destiny of all the Westermarck

Fort Kwanyara was a ss with a palisade; on the bank of Knife Creek I saw its banner strea sky, and noted that only the ensign of the province floated there The royal standard that should have risen 284

above it, flaunting the golden serpent, was not in evidence That

We of the frontier are careless about the delicate punctillios of custohts beyond thethrough the shallows, and was challenged by a picket on the other bank, a tall er When he kneas froent, that you cross the wilderness instead of taking the longer road”

For Thandara was separated from the other provinces, as I have said, and the Little Wilderness lay between it and the Bossonian h it into theand tedius road

Then he asked for news from Thandara, but I told hi just returned fro scout into the country of the Otter Schohira's political color, and was not inclined to betray my own until I knew

Then I asked him if Hakon Strom's son was in Fort Kwanyara, and he told ht was not in the fort, but was at the town of Schondara, which lay a few miles east of the fort

”I hope Thandara declares for Conan,” said he with an oath, ”for I tell you plainly it is our political complection And it is ers atch the border for raiding Picts I would giveshi+rt to be with our ar the onslaught of Brocas of Torh with his daht but was astounded This was news indeed For the Baron of Torh was lord of Conawaga, not Schohira, whose patroon was Lord Thasperas of Korer answered, a thought shortly: ”Away in Aquilonia, fighting for Conan” And he looked at un to wonder if I were a spy

”Is there a an, ”who has such connections with the Picts that he dwells, naked and painted a them, and attends their ceremonies of blood-feast and ”