He rushed in, thrusting viciously; but Kull, recognizing him, shattered his sword with a tremendous short chop and, with a push, sent him reeling back to sprawl on the floor. The king took in his left arm the sword of Ascalante and the outlaw only saved his life by ducking Kull’s axe and bounding backward. One of the hairy bandits dived at Kull’s legs hoping to bring him down in that manner, but after wrestling for a brief instant at what seemed a solid iron tower, he glanced up just in time to see the axe falling, but not in time to avoid it. In the interim one of his comrades had lifted a sword with both hands and hewed downward with such downright sincerity that he cut through Kull’s shoulder plate on the left side, and wounded the shoulder beneath. In an instant the king’s breast plate was full of blood.
Volmana, flinging the attackers to right and left in his savage impatience, came ploughing through and hacked savagely at Kull’s unprotected head. Kull ducked and the sword whistled above, shaving off a lock of hair–ducking the blows of a dwarf like Volmana is difficult for a man of Kull’s height.
Kull pivoted on his heel and struck from the side, as a wolf might leap, in a wide level arc–Volmana dropped with his whole left side caved in and the lungs gushing forth.
“Volmana!” Kull spoke the word rather breathlessly. “I’d know that dwarf in Hell–”
He straightened to defend himself from the maddened rush of Ridondo who charged in wild and wide open, armed only with a dagger. Kull leaped back, axe high.
“Ridondo!” his voice rang sharply. “Back! I would not harm you–”
“Die, tyrant!” screamed the mad minstrel, hurling himself headlong on the king. Kull delayed the blow he was loath to deliver until it was too late. Only when he felt the bite of steel in his unprotected side did he strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation.
Ridondo dropped with a shattered skull and Kull reeled back against the wall, blood spurting through the fingers which gripped his wounded side.
“In, now, and get him!” yelled Ascalante, preparing to lead the attack.
Kull placed his back to the wall and lifted his axe. He made a terrible and primordial picture. Legs braced far apart, head thrust forward, one red hand clutching at the wall for support, the other gripping the axe on high, while the ferocious features were frozen in a death snarl of hate, and the icy eyes blazed through the mist of blood which veiled them. The men hesitated; the tiger might be dying but he was still capable of dealing death.
“Who dies first?” snarled Kull through smashed and bloody lips.
Ascalante leaped as a wolf leaps–halted almost in mid-air with the unbelievable speed which characterized him, and fell prostrate to avoid the death that was hissing toward him in the form of a red axe. He frantically whirled his feet out of the way and rolled clear just as Kull recovered from his missed blow and struck again–this time the axe sank four inches into the polished wood floor close to Ascalante’s revolving legs.
Another desperado rushed at this instant, followed half heartedly by his fellows. The first villain had figured on reaching Kull and killing him before he could get his axe out of the floor, but he miscalculated the king’s speed, or else he started his rush a second too late. At any rate the axe lurched up and crashed down and the rush halted abruptly as a reddened caricature of a man was catapulted back against their legs.
At that moment a hurried clanking of feet sounded down the hall and the rogues in the door raised a shout: “Soldiers coming!”
Ascalante cursed and his men deserted him like rats leaving a sinking ship. They rushed out into the hall–or limped, splattering blood–and down the corridor a hue and cry was raised, and pursuit started.
Save for the dead and dying men on the floor, Kull and Ascalante stood alone in the royal bed room.
Kull’s knees were buckling and he leaned heavily against the wall, watching the outlaw with the eyes of a dying wolf.
“All seems to be lost, particularly honor,” he murmured. “However the king is dying on his feet–and–” whatever other cogitation might have passed through his mind is not known for at that moment he ran lightly at Kull just as the king was employing his axe arm to wipe the blood from his half blind eyes. A man with a sword at the ready can thrust quicker than a wounded man out of position can strike with an axe that weighs his weary arm like lead.
But even as Ascalante began his thrust, Seno val Dor appeared at the door and flung something through the air which glittered, sang and ended its flight in Ascalante’s throat. The outlaw staggered, dropped his sword and sank to the floor at Kull’s feet, flooding them with the flow of a severed jugular–mute witness that Seno’s war-skill included knife throwing as well. Kull looked down bewilderedly at the dead outlaw and Ascalante’s dead eyes stared back in seeming mockery, as if the owner still maintained the futility of kings and outlaws, of plots and counter-plots.
Then Seno was supporting the king, the room was flooded with men-at-arms in the uniform of the great val Dor family and Kull realized that a little slave girl was holding his other arm.
“Kull, Kull, are you dead?” val Dor’s face was very white.
“Not yet,” the king spoke huskily. “Staunch this wound in my left side–if I die ’twill be from it; ’tis deep but the rest are not mortal–Ridondo wrote me a deathly song there! Cram stuff into it for the present–I have work to do.”
They obeyed wonderingly and as the flow of blood ceased, Kull though literally bled white already, felt some slight access of strength. The palace was fully aroused now. Court ladies, lords, men-at-arms, councillors, all swarmed about the place babbling. The Red Slayers were gathering, wild with rage, ready for anything, jealous of the fact that others had aided their king. Of the young officer who had commanded the door guard, he had slipped away in the darkness and neither then nor later was he in evidence, though earnestly sought after.
Kull, still keeping stubbornly to his feet, grasping his bloody axe with one hand and Seno’s shoulder with another singled out Tu, who stood wringing his hands and ordered: “Bring me the tablet whereon is engraved the law concerning slaves.”
“But lord king–”
“Do as I say!” howled Kull, lifting the axe and Tu scurried to obey.
As he waited and the court women flocked about him, dressing his wounds and trying gently but vainly to pry his iron fingers from about the bloody axe handle, Kull heard Seno’s breathless tale.
“–Ala heard Kaanuub and Volmana plotting–she had stolen into a little nook to cry over her–our troubles, and Kaanuub came, on his way to his country estate. He was shaking with terror for fear plans might go awry and he made Volmana go over the plot with him again before he left, so he might know there was no flaw in it.
“He did not leave until it was late, and then Ala stole away and came to me. But it is a long way from Volmana’s city house to the house of val Dor, a long way for a little girl to walk, and though I gathered my men and came instantly, we almost arrived too late.”
Kull gripped his shoulder.
“I will not forget.”
Tu entered with the law tablet, laying it reverently on the table.
Kull shouldered aside all who stood near him and stood up alone.
“Hear, people of Valusia,” he exclaimed, upheld by the wild beast vitality which was his, fired from within by a strength which was more than physical. “I stand here–the king. I am wounded almost unto death, but I have survived mass wounds.
“Hear you! I am weary of this business! I am no king but a slave! I am hemmed in by laws, laws, laws! I cannot punish malefactors nor reward my friends because of law–custom–tradition! By Valka, I will be king in fact as well as in name!
“Here stand the two who have saved my life! Henceforward they are free to marry, to do as they like!”
Seno and Ala rushed into each others’ arms with a glad cry.
“But the law!” screamed Tu.
“I am the law!” roared Kull, swinging up his axe; it flashed downward and the stone tab
let flew into a hundred pieces. The people clenched their hands in horror, waiting dumbly for the sky to fall.
Kull reeled back, eyes blazing. The room whirled to his dizzy gaze.
“I am king, state and law!” he roared, and seizing the wand-like sceptre which lay near, he broke it in two and flung it from him. “This shall be my sceptre!” The red axe was brandished aloft, splashing the pallid nobles with drops of blood. Kull gripped the slender crown with his left hand and placed his back against the wall. Only that support kept him from falling but in his arms was still the strength of lions.
“I am either king or corpse!” he roared, his corded muscles bulging, his terrible eyes blazing. “If you like not my kingship–come and take this crown!”
The corded left arm held out the crown, the right gripping the menacing axe above it.
“By this axe I rule! This is my sceptre! I have struggled and sweated to be the puppet king you wished me to be–to king it your way. Now I use mine own way! If you will not fight, you shall obey! Laws that are just shall stand; laws that have outlived their times I shall shatter as I shattered that one! I am king!”
Slowly the pale faced noblemen and frightened women knelt, bowing in fear and reverence to the blood stained giant who towered above them with his eyes ablaze.
“I am king!”
Swords of the Purple Kingdom
Swords of the Purple Kingdom
I
VALUSIA PLOTS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
A sinister quiet lay like a shroud over the ancient city of Valusia. The heat waves danced from roof to shining roof and shimmered against the smooth marble walls. The purple towers and golden spires were softened in the faint haze. No ringing hoofs on the wide paved streets broke the drowsy silence and the few pedestrians who appeared walking, did what they had to do hastily and vanished indoors again. The city seemed like a realm of ghosts.
Kull, king of Valusia, drew aside the filmy curtains and gazed over the golden window sill, out over the court with its sparkling fountains and trim hedges and pruned trees, over the high wall and at the blank windows of houses which met his glance.
“All Valusia plots behind closed doors, Brule,” he grunted.
His companion, a dark faced, powerful warrior of medium height grinned hardly: “You are too suspicious, Kull. The heat drives most of them indoors.”
“But they plot,” reiterated Kull. He was a tall broad shouldered barbarian, the true fighting build–wide shoulders, mighty chest and lean flanks. Under heavy black brows his cold grey eyes brooded. His features betrayed his birth for Kull the usurper was an Atlantean.
“True, they plot. When did the people ever fail to plot, no matter who held the throne? And they might be excused now, Kull.”
“Aye,” the giant’s brow clouded, “I am an alien. The first barbarian to press the Valusian throne since the beginning of time. When I was a commander of her forces they overlooked the accident of my birth. Now–they hurl it into my teeth–by looks and thoughts, at least.”
“What do you care? I am an alien also. Aliens rule Valusia now, since the people have grown too weak and degenerate to rule themselves. An Atlantean sits on her throne, backed by all the Picts, the empire’s most ancient and powerful allies; her court is filled with foreigners, her armies with barbarian mercenaries–and the Red Slayers–well, they are at least Valusians, but they are men of the mountains who look upon themselves almost as a different race.”
Kull shrugged his shoulders restlessly.
“I know what the people think, and with what aversion and anger the powerful old Valusian families must look on the state of affairs. But what would you have? The empire was worse under Borna, a native Valusian and a direct heir of the old dynasty, than it has been under me. This is the price a nation must pay for decaying–the strong young people come in and take possession, one way or another. I have at least rebuilt the armies, organized the mercenaries and restored Valusia to a measure of her former international greatness. Surely it is better to have one barbarian on the throne, holding the crumbling bands together, than to have a hundred thousand riding red handed through the city streets. Which is what would have happened by now, had it been left to king Borna. The kingdom was splitting under his feet; invasions threatening on all sides, the heathen Grondarians were ready to launch a raid of appalling magnitude–
“Well, I killed Borna with my bare hands that wild night when we rode at the head of the rebels. That bit of ruthlessness won me some enemies, but within six months I had put down anarchy and all counter rebellions, had welded the nation back into one piece, had broken the back of the Triple Federation and crushed the power of the Grondarians–well, now Valusia dozes in peace and quiet, and between naps, plots my overthrow. There has been no famine since my reign, the store houses are bulging with grain, the trading ships ride heavy with cargo, the merchants’ purses are full, the people are fat bellied–but still they murmur and curse and spit on my shadow. What do they want?”
The Pict grinned savagely and with bitter mirth. “Another Borna! A red handed tyrant! Forget their ingratitude. You did not seize the kingdom for their sakes, nor do you hold it for their benefit. Well, you have accomplished a life long ambition and you are firmly seated on the throne. Let them murmur and plot. You are king!”
Kull nodded grimly. “I am king of this purple kingdom! And until my breath stops and my ghost goes down the long Shadow road, I will be king! What now?”
A slave bowed deeply: “Delcartes, daughter of the great house of bora Ballin, desires audience, most high majesty!”
A shadow crossed the king’s brow. “More supplication in regard to her damnable love affair!” he sighed to Brule. “Mayhap you’d better go.” To the slave, “Let her enter the presence.”
Kull sat in a chair padded with velvet and gazed at Delcartes. She was only some nineteen years of age, and clad in the costly but scanty fashion of Valusian noble ladies, she presented a ravishing picture, the beauty of which even the barbarian king could appreciate. Her skin was a marvelous white, due partly to many baths in milk and wine, but mainly a part of her heritage of loveliness. Her cheeks were tinted naturally with a delicate pink and her lips were full and red. Under delicate black brows brooded a pair of deep soft eyes, dark as mystery, and the whole picture was set off by a mass of curly black silky hair which was partly confined by a slim golden band.
Delcartes knelt at the feet of the king and clasping his sword-hardened fingers in her soft slim hands, she looked up into his eyes, her own eyes luminous and pensive with appeal. Of all the people in the kingdom, Kull preferred not to look in the eyes of Delcartes. He saw there at times a depth of allure and mystery, of which he knew not even herself was aware. She knew something of her powers, this spoiled and pampered child of aristocracy, but her full powers she little guessed, because of her extreme youth. But Kull who was wise in the ways of men and of women, realized with some uneasiness that with maturity, Delcartes was bound to become a terrific power in the court and the land, either for good or bad.
“But your majesty,” she was wailing now, like a child begging for a toy. “Please let me marry Dalgar of Farsun! He has become a Valusian citizen, he is high in favor at court, as you say yourself, then why–”
“I have told you,” said the king with patience. “It is nothing to me whether you marry Dalgar, Brule or the devil! But your father does not wish you to marry this Farsunian adventurer and–”
“But you can make him let me!” she cried.
“The house of bora Ballin I number among my staunchest supporters,” answered the Atlantean, “and Goron bora Ballin, your father, among my closest friends. When I was a friendless gladiator he befriended me. He lent me money when I was a common soldier, and he espoused my cause when I struck for the throne. Not to save this right hand of mine would I force him into an action to which he is so violently opposed, or interfere in his family affairs.”
Delcartes had not yet learned that some men cannot be
moved by feminine wiles. She pleaded, coaxed and pouted. She kissed Kull’s hands, wept on his mighty breast, perched on his knee and argued, all much to his embarrassment–but without avail. Kull was sincerely sympathetic but adamant. To all her appeals and blandishments he had one answer: that it was none of his business, that her father knew better what she needed and that he, Kull, was not going to interfere.
At last Delcartes gave it up as a bad job and left the presence with bowed head and dragging steps. As she emerged from the royal chamber, she met her father coming in. Goron bora Ballin, guessing his daughter’s purpose in visiting the king, said nothing to her, but the look he gave her spoke eloquently of spankings to come. The girl climbed miserably into her sedan chair, feeling as if her load was too heavy for any one girl to bear. Then her deeper nature asserted itself. Her dark eyes smoldered with rebellion and she spoke a few quick words to the slaves who carried her chair.
Count Goron stood before his king meanwhile, and his features were frozen into a mask of formal deference. Kull noted that expression and it hurt him. Formality existed between himself and all his subjects and allies except the Pict, Brule, and the ambassador Kananu, but this studied formality was a new thing in Count Goron of the bora Ballin and Kull guessed at the reason.
“Your daughter was here, Count,” said he abruptly.
“Yes, your majesty.” The tone was impassive and respectful.
“You probably know why. She wants to marry Dalgar of Farsun.”
The Count made a stately inclination of his head. “If your majesty so wishes, he has but to say the word.” His features froze into harder lines.
Kull, stung, rose and strode across the chamber to the window, where once again he gazed out at the drowsing city. Without turning he said: “Not for half my kingdom would I interfere with your family affairs, nor force you into a course unpleasant to you.”
Kull: Exile of Atlantis Page 17
