6 Red Axes of the Border
Conan did not plunge deeply into the forest. A few hundred yards fromthe river, he altered his slanting course and ran parallel with it.Balthus recognized a grim determination not to be hunted away from theriver which they must cross if they were to warn the men in the fort.Behind them rose more loudly the yells of the forest men. Balthusbelieved the Picts had reached the glade where the bodies of the slainmen lay. Then further yells seemed to indicate that the savages werestreaming into the woods in pursuit. They had left a trail any Pictcould follow.
Conan increased his speed, and Balthus grimly set his teeth and kept onhis heels, though he felt he might collapse any time. It seemedcenturies since he had eaten last. He kept going more by an effort ofwill than anything else. His blood was pounding so furiously in hiseardrums that he was not aware when the yells died out behind them.
Conan halted suddenly. Balthus leaned against a tree and panted.
'They've quit!' grunted the Cimmerian, scowling.
'Sneaking--up--on--us!' gasped Balthus.
Conan shook his head.
'A short chase like this they'd yell every step of the way. No. They'vegone back. I thought I heard somebody yelling behind them a few secondsbefore the noise began to get dimmer. They've been recalled. And that'sgood for us, but damned bad for the men in the fort. It means thewarriors are being summoned out of the woods for the attack. These menwe ran into were warriors from a tribe down the river. They wereundoubtedly headed for Gwawela to join in the assault on the fort. Damnit, we're farther away than ever, now. We've got to get across theriver.'
Turning east he hurried through the thickets with no attempt atconcealment. Balthus followed him, for the first time feeling the stingof lacerations on his breast and shoulder where the Pict's savage teethhad scored him. He was pushing through the thick bushes that fringed thebank when Conan pulled him back. Then he heard a rhythmic splashing, andpeering through the leaves, saw a dugout canoe coming up the river, itssingle occupant paddling hard against the current. He was a stronglybuilt Pict with a white heron feather thrust in a copper band thatconfined his square-cut mane.
'That's a Gwawela man,' muttered Conan. 'Emissary from Zogar. Whiteplume shows that. He's carried a peace talk to the tribes down the riverand now he's trying to get back and take a hand in the slaughter.'
The lone ambassador was now almost even with their hiding-place, andsuddenly Balthus almost jumped out of his skin. At his very ear hadsounded the harsh gutturals of a Pict. Then he realized that Conan hadcalled to the paddler in his own tongue. The man started, scanned thebushes and called back something, then cast a startled glance across theriver, bent low and sent the canoe shooting in toward the western bank.Not understanding, Balthus saw Conan take from his hand the bow he hadpicked up in the glade, and notch an arrow.
The Pict had run his canoe in close to the shore, and staring up intothe bushes, called out something. His answer came in the twang of thebow-string, the streaking flight of the arrow that sank to the feathersin his broad breast. With a choking gasp he slumped sidewise and rolledinto the shallow water. In an instant Conan was down the bank and wadinginto the water to grasp the drifting canoe. Balthus stumbled after himand somewhat dazedly crawled into the canoe. Conan scrambled in, seizedthe paddle and sent the craft shooting toward the eastern shore. Balthusnoted with envious admiration the play of the great muscles beneath thesun-burnt skin. The Cimmerian seemed an iron man, who never knewfatigue.
'What did you say to the Pict?' asked Balthus.
'Told him to pull into shore; said there was a white forest runner onthe bank who was trying to get a shot at him.'
'That doesn't seem fair,' Balthus objected. 'He thought a friend wasspeaking to him. You mimicked a Pict perfectly--'
'We needed his boat,' grunted Conan, not pausing in his exertions. 'Onlyway to lure him to the bank. Which is worse--to betray a Pict who'denjoy skinning us both alive, or betray the men across the river whoselives depend on our getting over?'
Balthus mulled over this delicate ethical question for a moment, thenshrugged his shoulder and asked: 'How far are we from the fort?'
Conan pointed to a creek which flowed into Black River from the east, afew hundred yards below them.
'That's South Creek; it's ten miles from its mouth to the fort. It's thesouthern boundary of Conajohara. Marshes miles wide south of it. Nodanger of a raid from across them. Nine miles above the fort North Creekforms the other boundary. Marshes beyond that, too. That's why an attackmust come from the west, across Black River. Conajohara's just like aspear, with a point nineteen miles wide, thrust into the Pictishwilderness.'
'Why don't we keep to the canoe and make the trip by water?'
'Because, considering the current we've got to brace, and the bends inthe river, we can go faster afoot. Besides, remember Gwawela is southof the fort; if the Picts are crossing the river we'd run right intothem.'
* * * * *
Dusk was gathering as they stepped upon the eastern bank. Without pauseConan pushed on northward, at a pace that made Balthus' sturdy legsache.
'Valannus wanted a fort built at the mouths of North and South Creeks,'grunted the Cimmerian. 'Then the river could be patrolled constantly.But the Government wouldn't do it.
'Soft-bellied fools sitting on velvet cushions with naked girls offeringthem iced wine on their knees--I know the breed. They can't see anyfarther than their palace wall. Diplomacy--hell! They'd fight Picts withtheories of territorial expansion. Valannus and men like him have toobey the orders of a set of damned fools. They'll never grab any morePictish land, any more than they'll ever rebuild Venarium. The time maycome when they'll see the barbarians swarming over the walls of theEastern cities!'
A week before, Balthus would have laughed at any such preposteroussuggestion. Now he made no reply. He had seen the unconquerable ferocityof the men who dwelt beyond the frontiers.
He shivered, casting glances at the sullen river, just visible throughthe bushes, at the arches of the trees which crowded close to its banks.He kept remembering that the Picts might have crossed the river and belying in ambush between them and the fort. It was fast growing dark.
A slight sound ahead of them jumped his heart into his throat, andConan's sword gleamed in the air. He lowered it when a dog, a great,gaunt, scarred beast, slunk out of the bushes and stood staring at them.
'That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin on the bankof the river a few miles south of the fort,' grunted Conan. 'The Pictsslipped over and killed him, of course, and burned his cabin. We foundhim dead among the embers, and the dog lying senseless among three Pictshe'd killed. He was almost cut to pieces. We took him to the fort anddressed his wounds, but after he recovered he took to the woods andturned wild--What now, Slasher, are you hunting the men who killed yourmaster?'
The massive head swung from side to side and the eyes glowed greenly. Hedid not growl or bark. Silently as a phantom he slid in behind them.
'Let him come,' muttered Conan. 'He can smell the devils before we cansee them.'
Balthus smiled and laid his hand caressingly on the dog's head. Thelips involuntarily writhed back to display the gleaming fangs; then thegreat beast bent his head sheepishly, and his tail moved with jerkyuncertainty, as if the owner had almost forgotten the emotions offriendliness. Balthus mentally compared the great gaunt hard body withthe fat sleek hounds tumbling vociferously over one another in hisfather's kennel yard. He sighed. The frontier was no less hard forbeasts than for men. This dog had almost forgotten the meaning ofkindness and friendliness.
Slasher glided ahead, and Conan let him take the lead. The last tinge ofdusk faded into stark darkness. The miles fell away under their steadyfeet. Slasher seemed voiceless. Suddenly he halted, tense, ears lifted.An instant later the men heard it--a demoniac yelling up the river aheadof them, faint as a whisper.
Conan swore like a madman.
'They've attacked the fort
! We're too late! Come on!'
He increased his pace, trusting to the dog to smell out ambushes ahead.In a flood of tense excitement Balthus forgot his hunger and weariness.The yells grew louder as they advanced, and above the devilish screamingthey could hear the deep shouts of the soldiers. Just as Balthus beganto fear they would run into the savages who seemed to be howling justahead of them, Conan swung away from the river in a wide semicircle thatcarried them to a low rise from which they could look over the forest.They saw the fort, lighted with torches thrust over the parapets on longpoles. These cast a flickering, uncertain light over the clearing, andin that light they saw throngs of naked, painted figures along thefringe of the clearing. The river swarmed with canoes. The Picts had thefort completely surrounded.
An incessant hail of arrows rained against the stockade from the woodsand the river. The deep twanging of the bow-strings rose above thehowling. Yelling like wolves, several hundred naked warriors with axesin their hands ran from under the trees and raced toward the easterngate. They were within a hundred and fifty yards of their objective whena withering blast of arrows from the wall littered the ground withcorpses and sent the survivors fleeing back to the trees. The men in thecanoes rushed their boats toward the river-wall, and were met by anothershower of clothyard shafts and a volley from the small ballistas mountedon towers on that side of the stockade. Stones and logs whirled throughthe air and splintered and sank half a dozen canoes, killing theiroccupants, and the other boats drew back out of range. A deep roar oftriumph rose from the walls of the fort, answered by bestial howlingfrom all quarters.
'Shall we try to break through?' asked Balthus, trembling witheagerness.
Conan shook his head. He stood with his arms folded, his head slightlybent, a somber and brooding figure.
'The fort's doomed. The Picts are blood-mad, and won't stop untilthey're all killed. And there are too many of them for the men in thefort to kill. We couldn't break through, and if we did, we could donothing but die with Valannus.'
'There's nothing we can do but save our own hides, then?'
'Yes. We've got to warn the settlers. Do you know why the Picts are nottrying to burn the fort with fire-arrows? Because they don't want aflame that might warn the people to the east. They plan to stamp out thefort, and then sweep east before anyone knows of its fall. They maycross Thunder River and take Velitrium before the people know what'shappened. At least they'll destroy every living thing between the fortand Thunder River.
'We've failed to warn the fort, and I see now it would have done no goodif we had succeeded. The fort's too poorly manned. A few more chargesand the Picts will be over the walls and breaking down the gates. But wecan start the settlers toward Velitrium. Come on! We're outside thecircle the Picts have thrown around the fort. We'll keep clear of it.'
They swung out in a wide arc, hearing the rising and falling of thevolume of the yells, marking each charge and repulse. The men in thefort were holding their own; but the shrieks of the Picts did notdiminish in savagery. They vibrated with a timbre that held assurance ofultimate victory.
Before Balthus realized they were close to it, they broke into the roadleading east.
'Now run!' grunted Conan. Balthus set his teeth. It was nineteen milesto Velitrium, a good five to Scalp Creek beyond which began thesettlements. It seemed to the Aquilonian that they had been fighting andrunning for centuries. But the nervous excitement that rioted throughhis blood stimulated him to Herculean efforts.
Slasher ran ahead of them, his head to the ground, snarling low, thefirst sound they had heard from him.
'Picts ahead of us!' snarled Conan, dropping to one knee and scanningthe ground in the starlight. He shook his head, baffled. 'I can't tellhow many. Probably only a small party. Some that couldn't wait to takethe fort. They've gone ahead to butcher the settlers in their beds! Comeon!'
Ahead of them presently they saw a small blaze through the trees, andheard a wild and ferocious chanting. The trail bent there, and leavingit, they cut across the bend, through the thickets. A few moments laterthey were looking on a hideous sight. An ox-wain stood in the roadpiled with meager household furnishings; it was burning; the oxen laynear with their throats cut. A man and a woman lay in the road, strippedand mutilated. Five Picts were dancing about them with fantastic leapsand bounds, waving bloody axes; one of them brandished the woman'sred-smeared gown.
At the sight a red haze swam before Balthus. Lifting his bow he linedthe prancing figure, black against the fire, and loosed. The slayerleaped convulsively and fell dead with the arrow through his heart. Thenthe two white men and the dog were upon the startled survivors. Conanwas animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old racial hate,but Balthus was afire with wrath.
He met the first Pict to oppose him with a ferocious swipe that splitthe painted skull, and sprang over his falling body to grapple with theothers. But Conan had already killed one of the two he had chosen, andthe leap of the Aquilonian was a second late. The warrior was down withthe long sword through him even as Balthus' ax was lifted. Turningtoward the remaining Pict, Balthus saw Slasher rise from his victim, hisgreat jaws dripping blood.
Balthus said nothing as he looked down at the pitiful forms in the roadbeside the burning wain. Both were young, the woman little more than agirl. By some whim of chance the Picts had left her face unmarred, andeven in the agonies of an awful death it was beautiful. But her softyoung body had been hideously slashed with many knives--a mist cloudedBalthus' eyes and he swallowed chokingly. The tragedy momentarilyovercame him. He felt like falling upon the ground and weeping andbiting the earth.
'Some young couple just hitting out on their own,' Conan was saying ashe wiped his sword unemotionally. 'On their way to the fort when thePicts met them. Maybe the boy was going to enter the service; maybe takeup land on the river. Well, that's what will happen to every man, womanand child this side of Thunder River if we don't get them into Velitriumin a hurry.'
Balthus' knees trembled as he followed Conan. But there was no hint ofweakness in the long easy stride of the Cimmerian. There was a kinshipbetween him and the great gaunt brute that glided beside him. Slasher nolonger growled with his head to the trail. The way was clear beforethem. The yelling on the river came faintly to them, but Balthusbelieved the fort was still holding. Conan halted suddenly, with anoath.
He showed Balthus a trail that led north from the road. It was an oldtrail, partly grown with new young growth, and this growth had recentlybeen broken down. Balthus realized this fact more by feel than sight,though Conan seemed to see like a cat in the dark. The Cimmerian showedhim where broad wagon tracks turned off the main trail, deeply indentedin the forest mold.
'Settlers going to the licks after salt,' he grunted. 'They're at theedges of the marsh, about nine miles from here. Blast it! They'll be cutoff and butchered to a man! Listen! One man can warn the people on theroad. Go ahead and wake them up and herd them into Velitrium. I'll goand get the men gathering the salt. They'll be camped by the licks. Wewon't come back to the road. We'll head straight through the woods.'
With no further comment Conan turned off the trail and hurried down thedim path, and Balthus, after staring after him for a few moments, setout along the road. The dog had remained with him, and glided softly athis heels. When Balthus had gone a few rods he heard the animal growl.Whirling, he glared back the way he had come, and was startled to see avague ghostly glow vanishing into the forest in the direction Conan hadtaken. Slasher rumbled deep in his throat, his hackles stiff and hiseyes balls of green fire. Balthus remembered the grim apparition thathad taken the head of the merchant Tiberias not far from that spot, andhe hesitated. The thing must be following Conan. But the giant Cimmerianhad repeatedly demonstrated his ability to take care of himself, andBalthus felt his duty lay toward the helpless settlers who slumbered inthe path of the red hurricane. The horror of the fiery phantom wasovershadowed by the horror of those limp, violated bodies beside theburning ox-wain.
He hurr
ied down the road, crossed Scalp Creek and came in sight of thefirst settler's cabin--a long, low structure of ax-hewn logs. In aninstant he was pounding on the door. A sleepy voice inquired hispleasure.
'Get up! The Picts are over the river!'
That brought instant response. A low cry echoed his words and then thedoor was thrown open by a woman in a scanty shift. Her hair hung overher bare shoulders in disorder; she held a candle in one hand and an axin the other. Her face was colorless, her eyes wide with terror.
'Come in!' she begged. 'We'll hold the cabin.'
'No. We must make for Velitrium. The fort can't hold them back. It mayhave fallen already. Don't stop to dress. Get your children and comeon.'
'But my man's gone with the others after salt!' she wailed, wringing herhands. Behind her peered three tousled youngsters, blinking andbewildered.
'Conan's gone after them. He'll fetch them through safe. We must hurryup the road to warn the other cabins.'
Relief flooded her countenance.
'Mitra be thanked!' she cried. 'If the Cimmerian's gone after them,they're safe if mortal man can save them!'
In a whirlwind of activity she snatched up the smallest child and herdedthe others through the door ahead of her. Balthus took the candle andground it out under his heel. He listened an instant. No sound came upthe dark road.
'Have you got a horse?'
'In the stable,' she groaned. 'Oh, hurry!'
He pushed her aside as she fumbled with shaking hands at the bars. Heled the horse out and lifted the children on its back, telling them tohold to its mane and to one another. They stared at him seriously,making no outcry. The woman took the horse's halter and set out up theroad. She still gripped her ax and Balthus knew that if cornered shewould fight with the desperate courage of a she-panther.
He held behind, listening. He was oppressed by the belief that the forthad been stormed and taken; that the dark-skinned hordes were alreadystreaming up the road toward Velitrium, drunken on slaughter and mad forblood. They would come with the speed of starving wolves.
Presently they saw another cabin looming ahead. The woman started toshriek a warning, but Balthus stopped her. He hurried to the door andknocked. A woman's voice answered him. He repeated his warning, and soonthe cabin disgorged its occupants--an old woman, two young women andfour children. Like the other woman's husband, their men had gone to thesalt licks the day before, unsuspecting of any danger. One of the youngwomen seemed dazed, the other prone to hysteria. But the old woman, astern old veteran of the frontier, quieted them harshly; she helpedBalthus get out the two horses that were stabled in a pen behind thecabin and put the children on them. Balthus urged that she herself mountwith them, but she shook her head and made one of the younger womenride.
'She's with child,' grunted the old woman. 'I can walk--and fight, too,if it comes to that.'
As they set out, one of the women said: 'A young couple passed along theroad about dusk; we advised them to spend the night at our cabin, butthey were anxious to make the fort tonight. Did--did--'.
'They met the Picts,' answered Balthus briefly, and the woman sobbed inhorror.
They were scarcely out of sight of the cabin when some distance behindthem quavered a long high-pitched yell.
'A wolf!' exclaimed one of the women.
'A painted wolf with an ax in his hand,' muttered Balthus. 'Go! Rousethe other settlers along the road and take them with you. I'll scoutalong behind.'
Without a word the old woman herded her charges ahead of her. As theyfaded into the darkness, Balthus could see the pale ovals that were thefaces of the children twisted back over their shoulders to stare towardhim. He remembered his own people on the Tauran and a moment's giddysickness swam over him. With momentary weakness he groaned and sank downin the road; his muscular arm fell over Slasher's massive neck and hefelt the dog's warm moist tongue touch his face.
He lifted his head and grinned with a painful effort.
'Come on, boy,' he mumbled, rising. 'We've got work to do.'
A red glow suddenly became evident through the trees. The Picts hadfired the last hut. He grinned. How Zogar Sag would froth if he knew hiswarriors had let their destructive natures get the better of them. Thefire would warn the people farther up the road. They would be awake andalert when the fugitives reached them. But his face grew grim. The womenwere traveling slowly, on foot and on the overloaded horses. Theswift-footed Picts would run them down within a mile, unless--he tookhis position behind a tangle of fallen logs beside the trail. The roadwest of him was lighted by the burning cabin, and when the Picts came hesaw them first--black furtive figures etched against the distant glare.
Drawing a shaft to the head, he loosed and one of the figures crumpled.The rest melted into the woods on either side of the road. Slasherwhimpered with the killing lust beside him. Suddenly a figure appearedon the fringe of the trail, under the trees, and began gliding towardthe fallen timbers. Balthus' bow-string twanged and the Pict yelped,staggered and fell into the shadows with the arrow through his thigh.Slasher cleared the timbers with a bound and leaped into the bushes.They were violently shaken and then the dog slunk back to Balthus' side,his jaws crimson.
No more appeared in the trail; Balthus began to fear they were stealingpast his position through the woods, and when he heard a faint sound tohis left he loosed blindly. He cursed as he heard the shaft splinteragainst a tree, but Slasher glided away as silently as a phantom, andpresently Balthus heard a thrashing and a gurgling; then Slasher camelike a ghost through the bushes, snuggling his great, crimson-stainedhead against Balthus' arm. Blood oozed from a gash in his shoulder, butthe sounds in the wood had ceased for ever.
The men lurking on the edges of the road evidently sensed the fate oftheir companion, and decided that an open charge was preferable to beingdragged down in the dark by a devil-beast they could neither see norhear. Perhaps they realized that only one man lay behind the logs. Theycame with a sudden rush, breaking cover from both sides of the trail.Three dropped with arrows through them--and the remaining pairhesitated. One turned and ran back down the road, but the other lungedover the breastwork, his eyes and teeth gleaming in the dim light, hisax lifted. Balthus' foot slipped as he sprang up, but the slip saved hislife. The descending ax shaved a lock of hair from his head, and thePict rolled down the logs from the force of his wasted blow. Before hecould regain his feet Slasher tore his throat out.
Then followed a tense period of waiting, in which time Balthus wonderedif the man who had fled had been the only survivor of the party.Obviously it had been a small band that had either left the fighting atthe fort, or was scouting ahead of the main body. Each moment thatpassed increased the chances for safety of the women and childrenhurrying toward Velitrium.
Then without warning a shower of arrows whistled over his retreat. Awild howling rose from the woods along the trail. Either the survivorhad gone after aid, or another party had joined the first. The burningcabin still smoldered, lending a little light. Then they were after him,gliding through the trees beside the trail. He shot three arrows andthrew the bow away. As if sensing his plight, they came on, not yellingnow, but in deadly silence except for a swift pad of many feet.
He fiercely hugged the head of the great dog growling at his side,muttered: 'All right, boy, give 'em hell!' and sprang to his feet,drawing his ax. Then the dark figures flooded over the breastworks andclosed in a storm of flailing axes, stabbing knives and ripping fangs.