by John Shirley
Atanequ continued his ivory carving and nodded his shaggy head.
“In the name of King Vaal I seek your aid,” said the captain. He waved a hand toward the two curtained litters and the soldiers awaiting him at the village edge. “A high priest of the elk-goddess Yhoundeh, blessed be her name, came to Iqqua by ship twenty days past. A vision has led him to discover in our humble city the holy Daughter of Yhoundeh, a maiden of unsurpassed beauty and purity. This priest, who stands close in the confidence of the King of Uzuldaroum, claims to have found this holy virgin in the personage of Quarha, daughter of his majesty Vaal. In order to seal the fragile peace between our cities, the king has agreed to give his only daughter to Yhoundeh as requested. She must be taken to the Great Temple in Uzuldaroum, there to honor the goddess that is her new mother, and she must arrive before the Festival of Springtime. Yet the sea has grown wild and dangerous as the Season of Storms falls upon us. Therefore we have no choice but to escort the high priest and the Daughter of Yhoundeh across the Eiglophian Mountains and the southern wilderness to gain the capitol in time. In order to do this, we require a guide. King Vaal has instructed me to call upon your honor, Atanequ. I ask you to guide us across the black mountains. For this deed your tribe will be rewarded with fame, wealth, and precious stones. The king has also instructed me to take your head if you should refuse. What is your answer, Great Hunter?”
Atanequ sat his curved mace on its head and stood up to face the Captain of Iqqua. The hunter’s head and shoulders towered above the armored Oolzar, but there was no trace of fear in the captain’s eyes. His scimitar would meet the hunter’s mace if it must, and one of the two men would lie dead in moments, if the chieftain refused the king’s command.
Atanequ’s dark eyes scanned the purple horizon. He sniffed the winds that blew from the region of the deadly mountains. Oolzar awaited his answer with steady breaths and a cool hand.
After a moment Atanequ picked up his ivory mace and slung it across his shoulder.
“The snows fall early in the high pass,” he said. His voice was deep as an icy canyon, frosted with the bitterness of his recent loss. “The sooner we depart, the better our chances.”
With that simple agreement the pact was made. Atanequ set off in the company of the Iqquan soldiers and their two litter-borne passengers, one a high priest of Uzuldaroum, the other a daughter of both a goddess and a king. Atanequ held no belief in the gods of the cities. His people worshipped nameless gods that were forces of nature: fire, wind, rain, and frost. The spirit-animals of the wild tundra and deep forests were also their deities. Yet he understood the worship of Yhoundeh the Elk Goddess and the importance of honoring the religion of Uzuldaroum, even in a land as far removed from the capitol as humble Iqqua. Whatever men believed, they made real by their beliefs. So if the kings of the two cities believed that the journey of this princess to some southern temple would unite their lands in a lasting peace, then such belief was true enough.
The procession travelled south across hill and valley, fording shallow rivers and scattering herds of yellow bison in their wake. For several days Atanequ led them toward the highlands where the great, dark peaks of the Eiglophian commanded the sky with ice-clad crowns. He saw little of the two who rode in the litters, but he caught glimpses of the priest and the princess at night when the caravan gathered around a raging fire to keep warm. The priest was an old man in gaudy robes alive with dangling gemstones and hoops of platinum. His bald head was topped by an elaborate headdress that seemed too complex and heavy for his skinny neck to bear. Yet he wore it proudly as he squinted into the dancing flames and chewed on the dried blubber that was a northern soldiers’ traveling fare.
The first two times Atanequ saw the princess she was little more than a slight figure wrapped in snow-white robes and a cloak made from the hide of a snow tiger. Yet the third time he saw her was by an accident of fate. He stumbled across her path between the crude tents that formed the nightly encampment. He had slept alone each night, removed from the laughter and ribald humor of the marchers, as well as the stern gaze of Oolzar. Yet tonight the full moon had pulled him from sleep and sent him walking beneath the stars. He smelled rain on the wind, and was glad to be far from the smell of his dead wife’s ashes for the first time.
He stopped suddenly as he recognized the cloaked princess standing nearby, her gaze on the sparkling carpet of stars above the black immensity of the mountain range. The moonlight fell upon her face, and he saw then that the daughter of King Vaal, the daughter of the southern goddess, might have been any woman of his own tribe. Her hair was black and without curls, her cheekbones were sharp, and her eyes slim and dark as midnight. Her skin was the same lovely brown shade of all Iqquan girls. The same russet hue as poor, lost Shwangi.
Atanequ stood silent before the girl, a great black cave-bear looming above a small white lynx. The wind caught her unbraided hair and tossed it about her shoulders, and her head turned to regard Atanequ. In the instant that her eyes met his own, Atanequ knew that he loved her. This was not a conscious thought in his head, for his people had no conception of infatuation or lust. These things were of one substance, a single state of mind that transcended body and soul, and that state was what other men call “love,” but which the tribe of Atanequ called i’imbru. It was simply the condition of being attached to someone other than one’s self, both physically and spiritually. One did not seek such a condition; it fell upon men and women like a sudden rain.
Atanequ was caught in the glow of i’imbru as a stray leaf is caught by a blast of flame (or frost). It was the same spell that had fallen on him when he first saw Shwangi, the magic that gave him no choice but to proclaim her his wife. Yet now the i’imbru was a completely different sensation as well, for this was not a tribal woman who stood before him. This was Quarha, Daughter of Yhoundeh the Elk Goddess, Daughter of King Vaal, the virtuous Princess of Iqqua.
Yet, too, she was only a simple girl.
A thin, tall figure emerged from the shadows. The aged priest with his ridiculous headdress. His keen eyes roamed over the giant frame of Atanequ, then turned to Quarha with suspicion. “Come, Princess,” he said. “Return to your litter and take your rest while you can. The hour is late and you’ll catch a night vapor.”
Atanequ paced about the camp like a dazed hound until sunrise.
Two more days of hill travel brought the procession to the mouth of the upward winding pass. The glossy black slopes of twin mountains rose on either side, sheer facades slick as onyx and bright with sunlight. Small plateaus of scrub and stunted trees dotted the heights, but the highlands were mostly barren. Tiny black lizards crawled between the rocks. Chill winds fell from the upper peaks where the snows never melted and the ice dripped eternally, sending rivulets of freshwater down into ravines and jagged chimneys of rock.
Here the litters were abandoned, for the way must be climbed more than walked. Priest and princess joined the marching slaves and soldiers, although the slaves took turns carrying Princess Quarha on their brutish shoulders, her slim legs wrapped about their sturdy necks. Atanequ longed to carry her thusly, but he knew better than to ask it. He was an unwashed tribesman, unworthy of even speaking to the princess, let alone touching her. So he climbed the snowy stair of the pass ahead of the procession and showed them the way with painstaking grace.
The following day the caravan crossed the middle length of the pass where the snows were knee-deep between steep drifts. After midday dark clouds surrounded the peaks and cast the marchers into gloom. The fierce wind blew curtains of snow into their faces. Night rose up early from the dark gorges, and the stars were lost behind a blanket of stormclouds.
The caravan paused in the pregnant gloom. Atanequ grew wary, for this was the prime hunting weather of the savage Voormis. Soon a cacophony of inhuman howls filled the pass. There was no mistaking these bloodcurdling shrieks as the wails of honest wolves. The Voormis had crept down from their cave aeries and found the caravan.
Twenty soldiers unsh
eathed scimitars while the other twenty knocked arrows in their longbows. The warriors formed a ring about the princess, the slaves, and the shivering priest.
“They will come soon!” Atanequ shouted through the wind. “They are all about us.”
The first of the shaggy beasts rose from a drift of snow, waving clawed arms and gnashing its teeth like a jungle ape giving challenge.
This pass is ours, said the guttural howling. As are your flesh and bones.
Atanequ sent a feathered shaft flying from his great bow. It took the creature in its breast and sent it toppling into the drifts. As if waiting for this signal the barking and roaring Voormis rose up on every side and rushed the ring of soldiers. They loped on all fours like pale, grotesque hounds the size of men. The archers let their arrows fly, and Atanequ felled three more beast-men before the creatures pounced on the outward line of defenders. They tore open the throats of men, sending gouts of crimson across the snow.
Atanequ cast his bow aside and took up his great ivory mace. He waded into the thick of the Voormis, crushing skulls and breastbones, sweeping the creatures from his path. They squealed like speared boars as the heavy tusk pulped their brains and splintered their spines. At the center of the defending circle, the princess stood arm-in-arm with the frightened priest. She did not scream as many other women would have done.
Atanequ fought like a devil. He felled Voormi after Voormi, ignoring the rents their grasping claws made in his flesh. They tore through the boiled hides that encased his skin, but they never lived long enough to sink their claws deep. More of the shaggy ones descended on the pass, and the slaves gathered about the princess waving spears given them by the soldiers. They would be Quarha’s last defense if the warriors failed to repel the beast-men.
The men of Iqqua died swiftly, the claws of the Voormis too quick for their blades, too strong against their shields. Captain Oolzar managed to slay a heap of the hairy cannibals, yet none of his troops were his equal at combat. Brave men perished in red agony as their leader fought on.
As Atanequ smashed the skull of a raging Voormi into red mist, he heard the princess screaming at last. This distraction turned his head long enough for a bloated Voormi to slam itself into him. Its claws dug deep into his arms as it tumbled with him across the snows. It breathed a hellish stink into his face as the earth fell away beneath them.
Locked in a death-grip with the snarling creature, Atanequ toppled over the edge of a deep fissure. How far the fall must be he could not know, yet he strove to strangle the life from the stinking Voormi even while they twisted and fell. The white earth rushed upward to greet him. The wind rushed from his lungs as darkness stole away his senses.
~*~
He woke gasping in the darkness of true night, smothered by snow. His flailing arms discovered the dead body of the Voormi next to him, its bull neck broken. Atanequ dug himself from the deep snow that had swallowed him. He realized dimly that the snow drift had saved his life, for the fall had been great. His bones ached and his flesh was bruised, but he was whole. The stormclouds had parted and moonlight found its way into the wide crevice. Ice-slick walls of rock rose about him.
Taking from his belt a pair of long iron knives, he used them as spikes to climb the icy wall. After hours of painful work he topped the lip of the fissure and saw the bloodstained snows and the mutilated remains that filled the pass. All of the soldiers and their captain were dead, and the valiant slaves as well. Many were missing arms and legs, grisly trophies taken by the Voormis to be eaten raw in their cavernous lairs. The bellies of men were gnawed open, the bones of rib cages glinting obscenely in the moonlight. The Voormis had feasted before departing. Many of their own shaggy corpses lay among the dead, yet not nearly enough.
A man who had never before witnessed the slaughter-work of the Voormis would have sickened at the sight of the massacre, but Atanequ steeled himself to the carnage and searched for the body of the princess. He found no trace of her but a white cloak spotted with blood. Though he could not tell if it were her own blood or that of her defenders. A slight groaning drew his attention, and he found the priest lying beneath the gnawed body of a slave. The old man had lost his headdress, and his fine robes were torn and soiled. Claws had raked his face and chest. His wounds were deep and bloody, but he had refused to die.
“Great Hunter,” called the priest. “Help me…”
Atanequ rolled the carcass away and helped him to stand. The priest fondled an elk-shaped amulet about his neck and mumbled a prayer to Yhoundeh. Fresh blood spilled from his wounds across his spoiled vestments.
“She is gone,” said the priest. “They have taken her.” Atanequ wrapped crude bandages about the man’s cheek and chest. The old one was made of sterner stuff than he had guessed. Perhaps the codger had once been a warrior before turning to religious duty. The muscles of his wiry arms were lean and hard. He took up a broken spear and leaned on it as staff. His eyes met those of Atanequ, and there were indefinable emotions brimming there. “They have taken the Daughter of Yhoundeh.”
“Alive?” asked the hunter. “Are you certain?”
The priest nodded.
Atanequ’s eyes scanned the battleground again for any sign of Quarha’s corpse, which he desperately did not want to see. Yet if the beasts had taken her alive, it could only be for one purpose. The Voormis had a single nefarious reason for abducting human women. They did not breed with them, being more likely to devour them. Abducting a woman both whole and unharmed meant nothing less than a sacrifice for their subterranean god. They would give her to the Toad God of Black N’Kai, who slumbered in the deep world beneath the mountains, waking once every generation to devour living tributes.
The i’imbru blazed like a hot fire in the heart of Atanequ.
“I must find her,” he told the priest. “Before they give her to Tsathoggua.”
In ancient times all of Hyperborea worshipped the heinous Toad God. Humanity had turned away from Tsathoggua only when the Ice Demon sent his glacier to devour the continent. According to beliefs spread by the priests of Uzuldaroum and adopted by Iqqua, only the power of Yhoundeh prevented the world from falling to the Ice Demon’s spell. Yet one day, when men at last had lost their faith in the Elk Goddess, the ice would find its way further south. Iqqua would be the first city to fall beneath the Ice Demon, followed by Uzuldaroum, and the last remnants of humankind.
Atanequ followed the tracks and spoor of the Voormis across the pass and up the frozen slopes. The priest refused to stay behind. Ignoring the pain of his terrible wounds, he climbed behind Atanequ. The hunter thought the old man might be insane, but perhaps they both were mad. Perhaps the priest, too, felt the pull of i’imbru connecting him to Quarha.
The trail was easy to follow since the Voormis were filthy and unconcerned with stealth. Fresh-gnawed bones and foul-smelling offal marked their path. As a grey sun rose to replace the dying moon, the searchers found the mouth of a cave warren where the fecal stench of the Voormis was palpable. Atanequ unstrapped the ivory mace from his back and gave the priest one of his long knives. They plunged into the cavern without a word between them.
How long they searched through the labyrinth of descending and twisting tunnels Atanequ could not say. It could have been hours or days. They fought roaming packs of Voormis, which the hunter beat to pulp with his mace. They skirted sunken chambers where chittering female Voormis gathered to birth and feed their hairy offspring. Bits of tangled fabric from the princess’ robe led them closer to where she must be taken for sacrifice. Somewhere in the heart of the hollow mountain was a temple dedicated to the Toad God, and to that temple the hunter’s path must go.
Twice the two explorers faced massive onrushes of Voormis that threatened to overwhelm them by sheer numbers. Yet the bleeding priest fought like a madman with knife and broken spear, while the swift mace of Atanequ splattered brains and bones across the tunnel walls. Eventually the Voormis learned to flee Atanequ’s blood-soaked visage and the red shado
w at his back muttering prayers to an unknown deity.
At last the searchers came upon a broad cavern of massive stalagmites where the great stone idol of Tsathoggua squatted above a bowl-shaped altar filled with black pitch. Volcanic flames leaped from black fissures to light the cavern-temple. The hollow chanting of the Voormis had drawn them to this place, and the shaggy cannibals danced about the temple, caught in the throes of their strange and ineffable rites.
A black, oily substance dripped from the fanged maw of the toad-idol directly into the altar bowl, as if the Toad God were drooling a dark spittle in anticipation of his offering. On a crude block of stone before the idol and its drool-cup altar lay the unconscious body of Quarha, stripped of her royal garments and pale from the frigid air of the caverns. The marks of misuse lay upon her body in the form of bruises and scratches, but she seemed alive. Atanequ surmised her calm state to be the result of a drugged slumber. No doubt the Voormis would awaken her at the climax of the ceremony, so their god could enjoy his prey alive and wriggling.
The hunter fell upon the dancing Voormis like a whirlwind, spinning ivory death. Clouds of blood-mist erupted in his wake, and the priest scrambled behind him slicing the throats of entranced Voormis with dagger and spear. The shaggy ones were so engrossed in their ceremony that they did not resist Atanequ’s advance toward the altar.
A dozen pulped Voormis marked the hunter’s wake as he stood before the slab of granite where the princess lay helpless. Atanequ took up her slight body and placed it across his left shoulder, wielding his tusk-mace now with one arm. Yet no Voormis raced forward to challenge him. The beast-men writhed on the floor like a clutch of serpents, foaming at the mouth and spewing guttural invectives. Their chanting had become a chorus of groaning, grunting obscenities.
As the hunter turned from the altar stone with his precious burden, the black substance in the bowl leapt upward like a pillar of smoke. It swirled and extended oily tendrils, while two coal-bright eyes kindled at the tip of its serpentine head. It towered over the altar bowl like a great, black python of darkness, and the old priest regarded it with utter horror.
