"I had thought all would be at the steading," commented Hrut.
Cormac shook his head. "Brulla spoke of a gathering of clans; they have come from all the isles of the Hjaltlands and probably landed on all sides of the island-listen!"
The clamor of battle grew louder as the fighters penetrated deeper into the mazes of the forest, but from the way Wulfhere and his Vikings had come there sounded a long-drawn yell like a pack of running wolves, swiftly rising higher and higher.
"Close ranks!" yelled Cormac, paling, and the Danes had barely time to lock their shields before the pack was upon them. Bursting from the thick trees a hundred Picts whose swords were yet unstained broke like a tidal wave on the shields of the Danes.
Cormac, thrusting and slashing like a fiend, shouted to Wulfhere: "Hold them hard-I must find Brulla. He will tell them we are foes of Thorwald and allow us to depart in peace!"
All but a handful of the original attackers were down, trodden under foot and snarling in their death throes. Cormac leaped from the shelter of the overlapping shields and darted into the forest. Searching for the Pictish chief in that battle-tortured forest was little short of madness, but it was their one lone chance. Seeing the fresh Picts coming up from behind them had told Cormac that he and his comrades would probably have to fight their way across the whole island to regain their galley. Doubtless these were warriors from some island lying to the east, who had just landed on Golara's eastern coast.
If he could find Brulla-he had not gone a score of paces past the glade when he stumbled over two corpses, locked in a death-grapple. One was Thorwald Shield-hewer. The other was Brulla. Cormac stared at them and as the wolf-yell of the Picts rose about him, his skin crawled. Then he sprang up and ran back to the glade where he had left the Danes.
Wulfhere leaned on his great ax and stared at the corpses at his feet. His men stolidly held their position.
"Brulla is dead," snapped the Gael. "We must aid ourselves. These Picts will cut our throats if they can, and the gods know they have no cause to love a Viking. Our only chance is to get backto our ship if we can. But that is a slim chance indeed, for I doubt not but that the woods are full of the savages. We can never keep the shield-wall position among the trees, but-"
"Think of another plan, Cormac," said Wulfhere grimly, pointing to the east with his great ax. There a lurid glow was visible among the trees and a hideous medley of howling came faintly to their ears. There was but one answer to that red glare.
"They've found and fired our ship," muttered Cormac. "By the blood of the gods, Fate's dice are loaded against us."
Suddenly a thought came to him.
"After me! Keep close together and hew your way through, if needs be, but follow me close!"
Without question they followed him through the corpse-strewn forest, hearing on each hand the sound of fighting men, until they stood at the forest fringe and gazed over the crumbled stockade: at the ruins of the steading. By merest chance no body of Picts had opposed their swift march, but behind them rose a frightful and vengeful clamor as a band of them came upon the corpse-littered glade the Danes had just left.
No fighting was going on among the steading's ruins. The only Norsemen in sight were mangled corpses. The fighting had swept back into the forest whither the close-pressed Vikings had retreated or been driven. From the incessant clashing of steel within its depths, those who yet remained alive were giving a good account of themselves. Under the trees where bows were more or less useless, the survivors might defend themselves for hours, though, with the island swarming with Picts, their ultimate fate was certain.
Three or four hundred tribesmen, weary of battle at last, had left the fighting to their fresher tribesmen and were salvaging what loot they could from the embers of the storehouses.
"Look!" Cormac's sword pointed to the dragon ship whose prow, driven in the sands, held her grounded, though her stern was afloat. "In a moment we will have a thousand yelling demons on our backs. There lies our one chance, wolves-Hakon Skel's Raven. We must hack through and gain it, shove it free and row off before the Picts can stop us. Some of us will die, and we may all die, but it's our only chance!
The Vikings said nothing, but their fierce light eyes blazed and many grinned wolfishly. Touch and go! Life or death on the toss of the dice! That Was a Viking's only excuse for living!
"Lock shields!" roared Wulfhere. "Close ranks! The flying-wedge formation-Hrut in the center."
"What-!" began Hrut angrily, but Cormac shoved him unceremoniously between the mailed ranks.
"You have no armor," he growled impatiently. "Ready old wolf? Then charge, and the gods choose the winners!"
Like an avalanche the steel-tipped wedge shot from the trees and raced toward the beach. The Picts looting the ruins turned with howls of amazement, and a straggling line barred the way to the water's edge. But without slacking gait the flying shield-wall struck the Pictish line, buckled it, crumpled it, hacked it down and trampled it under, and over its red ruins rushed upon the beach.
Here the formation was unavoidably broken. Waist-deep in water, tripping among corpses, harried by the rain of arrows that now poured upon them from the beach, the Vikings gained the dragon ship and swarmed up its sides, while a dozen giants set their shoulders against the prow to push it off the sands. Half of them died in the attempt, but the titanic efforts of the rest triumphed and the galley began to give way.
The Danes were the bowmen among the Viking races. Thirty of the eighty-odd warriors who followed Wulfhere wore heavy bows and quivers of long arrows strapped to their backs. As many of these as could be spared from oars and sweeps now unslung their weapons and directed their shafts on the Picts wading into the water to attack the men at the prow. In the first light of the rising sun the Danish shafts did fearful execution, and the advance wavered and fell back. Arrows fell all about the craft and some found their marks, but crouching beneath their shields the warriors toiled mightily, and soon, though it seemed like hours, the dragon ship rolled and wallowed free, the men in the water leaped and caught at chains and gunwale, and the long oars drove her out into the bay, just as a howling horde of wolfish figures swept out of the woods and down the beach. Their arrows fell in a rain, rattling harmlessly from shield-rail and hull as the Raven shot toward the open sea.
"Touch and go!" roared Wulfhere with a great laugh, smiting Cormac terrifically between the shoulders. Hrut shook his head. To his humiliated anger, a big carle had been told off to keep a shield over him, during the fight.
"Many brave warriors are dying in yonder woods. it pains me to desert them thus, though they are our foes and would have put me to death."
Cormac shrugged his shoulders. "I, too, would have aided them had I seen a way. But we could have accomplished naught by remaining and dying with them. By the blood of the gods, what a night this has been! Golara is rid of her Vikings, but the Picts paid a red price! All of Thorwald's four hundred are dead now or soon will be, but not less than a thousand Picts have died outright in the steading and the gods only know how many more in the forest."
Wulfhere glanced at Hrut where he stood on the poop, outstretched hand on the sword whose reddened point rested on the deal planking. Unkempt, bloodstained, tattered, wounded, yet still his kingly carriage was unabated.
"And now that you have rescued me so boldly against incredible odds," said he, "what would you have of me besides my eternal gratitude, which you already have?"
Wulfhere did not reply; turning to the men who rested on their oars to gaze eagerly and expectantly up at the group on the poop, the Viking chief lifted his red axe and bellowed: "Skoal, wolves! Yell hail for Thorfinn Eaglecrest, king of Dane-mark!"
A thunderous roar went up to the blue of the morning skies that startled the wheeling sea gulls. The tattered king gasped in amazement, glancing quickly from one to the other, not yet certain of his status.
"And now that you have recognized me," said he, "am I guest or prisoner?"
Corm
ac grinned. "We traced you from Skagen, whence you fled in a single ship to Helgoland, and learned there that Thorwald Shield-hewer had taken captive a Dane with the bearing of a king. Knowing you would conceal your identity, we did not expect him to know that he had a king of the Danes in his hands.
"Well, King Thorfinn, this ship and our swords are yours. We be outlaws, both from our own lands. You cannot alter my status in Erin, but you can inlaw Wulfhere and make Danish ports free to us."
"Gladly would I do this, my friends," said Thorfinn, deeply moved. "But how can I aid my friends, who cannot aid myself? I, too, am an outcast, and my cousin Eric rules the Danes."
"Only until we set foot on Danish soil!" exclaimed Cormac. "Oh, Thorfinn, you fled too soon, but who can foresee the future? Even as you put to sea like a hunted pirate, the throne was rocking under Eric's feet. While you lay captive on Thorwald's dragon ship, Jarl Anlaf fell in battle with the Jutes and Eric lost his greatest supporter. Without Anlaf, his rule will crumble overnight and hosts will flock to your banner!"
Thorfinn's eyes lighted with a wondrous gleam. He threw his head back as a lion throws back his mane and flung up his reddened sword into the eye of the rising sun.
"Skoal!" he cried. "Head for Dane-mark, my friends, and may Thor fill our sail!"
"Aim her prow eastward, carles," roared Wulfhere to the men at the sweeps. "We go to set a new king on the throne of Dane-mark!"
THE TEMPLE OF ABOMINATION
"Easy all," grunted Wulfhere Hausakliufr. "I see the glimmer of a stone building through the trees… Thor's blood, Cormac! are you leading us into a trap?"
The tall Gael shook his head, a frown darkening his sinister, scarred face.
"I never heard of a castle in these parts; the British tribes hereabouts don't build in stone. It may be an old Roman ruin-"
Wulfhere hesitated, glancing back at the compact lines of bearded, horn-helmeted warriors. "Maybe we'd best send out a scout."
Cormac Mac Art laughed jeeringly. "Alaric led his Goths through the Forum over eighty years ago, yet you barbarians still start at the name of Rome. Fear not; there are no legions in Britain. I think this is a Druidic temple. We have nothing to fear from them-more especially as we are moving against their hereditary enemies."
"And Cerdic's brood will howl like wolves when we strike them from the west instead of the south or east," said the Skull-splitter with a grin. "It was a crafty idea of yours, Cormac, to hide our dragon-ship on the west coast and march straight through British country to fall on the Saxons. But it's mad, too."
"There's method in my madness," responded the Gael. "I know that there are few warriors hereabouts; most of the chiefs are gathering about Arthur Pendragon for a great concerted drive. Pendragon-ha! He's no more Uther Pendragon's son than you are. Uther was a black-bearded madman-more Roman than Briton and more Gaul than Roman. Arthur is as fair as Eric there. And he's pure Celt-a waif from one of the wild western tribes that never bowed to Rome. It was Lancelot who put it into his head to make himself king-else he had still been no more than a wild chief raiding the borders."
"Has he become smooth and polished like the Romans were?"
"Arthur? Ha! One of your Danes might seem a gentlewoman beside him. He's a shock-headed savage with a love for battle." Cormac grinned ferociously and touched his scars. "By the blood of the gods, he has a hungry sword! It's little gain we reivers from Erin have gotten on his coasts!"
"Would I could cross steel with him," grunted Wulfhere, thumbing the flaring edge of his great axe. "What of Lancelot?"
"A renegade Gallo-Roman who has made an art of throat-cutting. He varies reading Petronius with plotting and intriguing. Gawaine is a pure-blooded Briton like Arthur, but he has Romanish leanings. You'd laugh to see him aping Lancelot-but he fights like a blood-hungry devil. Without these two, Arthur would have been no more than a bandit chief. He can neither read nor write."
"What of that?" rumbled the Dane. "Neither can I… Look-there's the temple.
They had entered the tall grove in whose shadows crouched the broad, squat building that seemed to leer out at them from behind a screening row of columns.
"This can be no temple of the Britons," growled Wulfhere. "I thought they were mostly of a sickly new sect called Christians."
"The Roman-British mongrels are," said Cormac. "The pure Celts hold to the old gods, as do we of Erin. By the blood of the gods, we Gaels will never turn Christian while one Druid lives!"
"What do these Christians?" asked Wulfhere curiously.
"They eat babies during their ceremonies, it is said."
"But 'tis also said the Druids burn men in cages of green wood."
"A lie spread by Caesar and believed by fools!" rasped Cormac impatiently. "I laud not the Druids especially, but wisdom of the elements and ages is not denied to them. These Christians teach meekness and the bowing of the neck to the blow."
"What say you?" The great Viking was sincerely amazed. "Is it truly their creed to take blows like slaves?"
"Aye-to return good for evil and to forgive their oppressors."
The giant meditated on this statement for a moment. "That is not a creed, but cowardice," he decided finally. "These Christians be all madmen. Cormac, if you recognize one of that breed, point him out and I will try his faith." He lifted his axe meaningfully. "For look you," he said, "that is an insidious and dangerous teaching which may spread like rust on the wheat and undermine the manhood of men if it be not stamped out like a young serpent under heel."
"Let me but see one of these madmen," said Cormac grimly, "and I will begin the stamping. But let us see to this temple. Wait here-I'm of the same belief as these Britons, if I am of a different race. These Druids will bless our raid against the Saxons. Much is mummery, but their friendship at least is desirable."
The Gael strode between the columns and vanished. The Hausakliufr leaned on his axe; it seemed to him that from within came a faint rattle-like the hoofs of a goat on a marble floor.
"This is an evil place," muttered Osric Jarl's-bane. "I thought I saw a strange face peering about the top of the column a moment agone."
"It was a fungus vine grown and twisted about," Black Hrothgar contradicted him. "See how the fungus springs up all about the temple-how it twists and writhes like souls in torment-how human-like is its appearance-"
"You are both mad," broke in Hakon Shorri's son. "It was a goat you saw-I saw the horns that grew upon its head-"
"Thor's blood," snarled Wulfhere, "be silent-listen!"
Within the temple had sounded the echo of a sharp, incredulous cry; a sudden, demonic rapping as of fantastic hoofs on marble flags; the rasp of a sword from its scabbard, and a heavy blow. Wulfhere gripped his axe and took the first step of a headlong charge for the portals. Then from between the columns, in silent haste, came Cormac Mac Art. Wulfhere's eyes widened and a slow horror crept over him, for never till this moment had he seen the steel nerves of the lean, Gael shaken-yet now the color was gone from Cormac's face and his eyes stared like those of a man who has looked into dark, nameless gulfs. His blade dripped red.
"What in the name of Thor-?" growled Wulfhere, peering fearfully into the shadow-haunted shrine.
Cormac wiped away beads of cold sweat and moistened his lips.
"By the blood of the gods," he said, "we have stumbled upon an abomination-or else I am mad! From the inner gloom it came bounding and capering-suddenly-and it almost had me in its grasp before I had sense enough to draw and strike. It leaped and capered like a goat, but ran upright-and in the dim light it was not unlike a man."
"You are mad," said Wulfhere uneasily; his mythology did not include satyrs.
"Well," snapped Cormac, "the thing lies upon the flags within; follow me, and I will prove to you whether I am mad."
He turned and strode through the columns, and Wulfhere followed, axe ready, his Vikings trailing behind him in close formation and going warily. They passed between the columns, which were plain and without
ornamentation of any kind, and entered the temple. Here they found themselves within a broad hall flanked with squat pillars of black stone-and these indeed were carved. A squat figure squatted on the top of each, as upon a pedestal, but in the dim light it was impossible to make out what sort of beings these figures represented, though there was an abhorrent hint of abnormality about each shape.
"Well," said Wulfhere impatiently, "where is your monster?"
"There he fell," said Cormac, pointing with his sword, "and-by the black gods!" The flags lay bare.
"Moon-mist and madness," said Wulfhere, shaking his head. "Celtic superstition. You see ghosts, Cormac!"
"Yes?" snapped the badgered Gael. "Who saw a troll on the beacon of Helgoland and roused the whole camp with shouts and bellowings? Who kept the band under arms all night and kept men feeding the fires till they nearly dropped, to scare away the things of darkness?"
Wulfhere growled uncomfortably and glared at his warriors as if to challenge anyone to laugh.
"Look," said Cormac, bending closer. On the tiling was a wide smear of blood, freshly spilt. Wulfhere took a single glance and then straightened quickly, glaring into the shadows. His men bunched closer, facing outward, beards a-bristle. A tense silence reigned.
"Follow me," said Cormac in a low tone, and they pressed close at his heels as he walked warily down the broad corridor. Apparently no entrance opened between the brooding, evil pillars. Ahead of them the shadows paled and they came forth into a broad circular chamber with a domed ceiling. Around this chamber were more pillars, regularly spaced, and in the light that flowed somehow through the dome the warriors saw the nature of those pillars and the shapes that crowned them. Cormac swore between his teeth and Wulfhere spat. The figures were human, and not even the most perverse and degenerate geniuses of decadent Greece and later Rome could have conceived such obscenities or breathed into the tortured stone such foul life. Cormac scowled. Here and there in the sculpturing the unknown artists had struck a cord of unrealness-a hint of abnormality beyond any human deformity. These touches roused in him a vague uneasiness, a crawling, shuddersome half-fear that lurked white-maned and grisly at the back of his mind…
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