Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  Yulita turned to Godric with level eyes.

  “Genghis Khan is at our gates,” said she. “Go to him.” And turning she walked swiftly into a nearby doorway.

  “What did she mean?” asked old Roogla wonderingly.

  Godric growled deep in his throat. “Bring my armor and my sword. I go to seek Genghis Khan — but not as she thought.”

  Roogla grinned and his beard bristled. He smote Godric a blow that had rendered a lesser man senseless.

  “Hai, wolf-brother!” he roared; “we’ll give Genghis a fight yet! We’ll send him back to the desert to lick his wounds if we can only keep three men in the army from fleeing! They can stand behind us and hand us weapons when we break our swords and axes, while we pile up Mongol dead so high that the women on the battlements will look up at them!”

  Godric smiled thinly.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  “To grow old cowed in a conquered land,

  With the sun itself discrowned,

  To see trees crouch and cattle slink —

  Death is a better ale to drink,

  And by high Death on the fell brink,

  That flagon shall go round.”

  — Chesterton

  GODRIC’S ARMOR had been mended cleverly, he found, the rents in hauberk and helmet fused with such skill that no sign of a gash showed. The knight’s armor was unusually strong, anyway, and of a weight few men could have borne. The blades that had wounded him in the battle of the defiles had hacked through old dents. Now that these were mended, the armor was like new. The heavy mail was reinforced with solid plates of steel on breast, back and shoulders and the sword belt was of joined steel plates a hand’s breadth wide. The helmet, instead of being merely a steel cap with a long nasal, worn over a mail hood, as was the case of most Crusaders, was made with a vizor and fitted firmly into the steel shoulder-pieces. The whole armor showed the trend of the times — chain and scale mail giving way gradually to plate armor.

  Godric experienced a fierce resurge of power as he felt the familiar weight of his mail and fingered the worn hilt of his long, two-handed sword. The languorous illusive dreaminess of the past weeks vanished; again he was a conqueror of a race of conquerors. With old Roogla he rode to the main gates, seeing on all hands the terror that had seized the people. Men and women ran distractedly through the streets, crying that the Mongols were upon them; they tied their belongings into bundles, loaded them on donkeys and jerked them off again, shouting reproaches at the soldiers on the walls, who seemed as frightened as the people.

  “Cowards!” old Roogla’s beard bristled. “What they need is war to stiffen their thews. Well, they’ve got war now and they’ll have to fight.”

  “A man can always run,” answered Godric sardonically.

  They came to the outer gates and found a band of soldiery there, handling their pikes and bows nervously. They brightened slightly as Roogla and Godric rode up. The tale of the Norman’s battle with the Hian bandits had lost nothing in the telling. But Godric was surprized to note their fewness.

  “Are these all your soldiers?”

  Roogla shook his head.

  “Most of them are at the Pass of Skulls,” he growled. “It’s the only way a large force of men can approach Jahadur. In the past we’ve held it easily against all comers — but these Mongols are devils. I left enough men here to hold the city against any stray troops that might climb down the cliffs.”

  They rode out of the gates and down the winding mountain trail. On one side rose a sheer wall, a thousand feet high. On the other side the cliff fell away three times that distance into a fathomless chasm. A mile’s ride brought them to the Pass of Skulls. Here the trail debouched into a sort of upland plateau, passing between two walls of sheer rock.

  A thousand warriors were encamped there, gaudy in their silvered mail, long- toed leather boots and gold-chased weapons. With their peaked helmets with mail drops, their long spears and wide- bladed scimitars, they seemed war-like enough. They were big men, but they were evidently nervous and uncertain.

  “By the blood of the devil, Roogla,” snapped Godric, “have you no more soldiers than these?”

  “Most of the troops are scattered throughout the empire,” Roogla answered. “I warned Chamu Khan to collect all the warriors in the empire here, but he refused to do so. Why, Erlik alone knows. Well, a man can always die.”

  He rose in his saddle and his great voice roared through the hills:

  “Men of Black Cathay, you know me of old! But here beside me is one you know only by word of mouth; a chief out of the West who will fight beside you today. Now take heart, and when Genghis comes up the defile, show him Black Cathayans can still die like men!”

  “Not so fast,” growled Godric. “This pass looks impregnable to me. May I have a word as to the arranging of the troops?”

  Roogla spread his hands. “Assuredly.”

  “Then set men to work rebuilding that barricade,” snapped Godric, pointing to the wavering lines of stone, half tumbled down, which spanned the pass.

  “Build it high and block that gate. There’ll be no caravans passing through today. I thought you were a soldier; it should have been done long ago. Put your best bowmen behind the first line of stone. Then the spearmen, and the swordsmen and ax-fighters behind the spearmen—”

  The long hot day wore on. At last far away sounded the deep rattle of many kettledrums, then a thunder of myriad hoofs. Then up the deep defile and out onto the plateau swept a bizarre and terrible horde. Godric had expected a wild, motley mass of barbarians, like a swarm of locusts without order or system. These men rode in compact formation, of such as he had never before seen; in well ordered ranks, divided into troops of a thousand each.

  The tugh, the yak-tail standards, were lifted above them. At the sight of their orderly array and hard-bitten appearance, Godric’s heart sank. These men were used to fierce warfare; they outnumbered his own soldiers by seven times. How could he hope to hold the pass against them even for a little while? Godric swore deeply and fervently and put the hope of survival from him; thereafter during the whole savage fight, his one idea was to do as much damage to the enemy as he possibly could before he died.

  Now he stood on the first line of fortifications and gazed curiously at the advancing hosts, seeing stocky, broad-built men mounted on wiry horses, men with square flat faces, devoid of humor or mercy, whose armor was plain stuff of hardened leather, lacquer, or iron plates laced together. With a wry face he noted the short, heavy bows and long arrows. From the look of those bows he knew they would drive shafts through ordinary mail as if it were paper. Their other weapons consisted of spears, short-handled axes, maces and curved sabers, lighter and more easily handled than the huge two-handed scimitars of the Black Cathayans.

  Roogla, standing at his shoulder, pointed to a giant riding ahead of the army.

  “Subotai,” he growled, “a Uriankhi — from the frozen tundras, with a heart as cold as his native land. He can twist a spear shaft in two between his hands. The tall fop riding beside him is Chepe Noyon; note his silvered mail and heron plumes. And by Erlik, there is Kassar the Strong, sword-bearer to the khan. Well — if Genghis himself is not here now, he soon will be, for he never allows Kassar long out of his sight — the Strong One is a fool, useful only in actual combat.”

  Godric’s cold gray eyes were fixed on the giant form of Subotai; a growing fury stirred in him, not a tangible hatred of the Uriankhi but the fighting rage one strong man feels when confronted by a foe his equal in prowess. The knight expected a parley but evidently the Mongols were of a different mind. They came sweeping across the boulder-strewn plateau like a wind from Hell, a swarm of mounted bowmen preceding them.

  “Down!” roared Godric, as shafts began to rain around him. “Down behind the rocks! Spearmen and swordsmen lie flat! Archers return their fire.”

  Roogla repeated the shout and arrows began to fly from the barricades. But the effort was half-hearted.
The sight of that onrushing horde had numbed the men of Jahadur. Godric had never seen men ride and shoot from the saddle as these Mongols did. They were barely within arrow flight, yet men were falling along the lines of stone. He felt the Jahadurans wavering — realized with a flood of blind rage that they would break before the Mongol heavy cavalry reached the barricade.

  A bowman near him roared and fell backward with an arrow through his throat and a shout went up from the faltering Black Cathayans.

  “Fools!” raged Godric, smiting right and left with clenched fists. “Horsemen can never take this pass if you stand to it! Bend your bows and throw your shoulders into it! Fight, damn you!”

  The bowmen had split to either side, and through the gap the flying swordsmen swept. Now if ever was the time to break the charge, but the Jahaduran bowmen loosed wildly or not at all and behind them the spearmen were scrambling up to flee. Old Roogla was screaming and tearing his hair, cursing the day he was born, and not a man had fallen on the Mongols’ side. Even at that distance Godric, standing upright on the barricade, saw the broad grin on Subotai’s face. With a bitter curse he tore a spear from the hand of a warrior near by and threw every ounce of his mighty-thewed frame into the cast.

  It was too far for an ordinary spearcast even to carry — but with a hum the spear hissed through the air and the Mongol next to Subotai fell headlong, transfixed. From the Black Cathayan ranks rose a sudden roar. These riders could be slain after all! And surely no mortal man could have made that cast! Godric, towering above them on the barricade, like a man of iron, suddenly assumed supernatural proportions in the eyes of the warriors behind him. How could they be defeated when such a man led them? The quick fire of Oriental battle-lust blazed up and sudden courage surged through the veins of the wavering warriors.

  With a shout they pulled shaft to ear and loosed, and a sudden hail of death smote the charging Mongols. At that range there was no missing. Those long shafts tore through buckler and hauberk, transfixing the wearers. Flesh and blood could not stand it. The charge did not exactly break, but in the teeth of that iron gale the squadrons wheeled and circled away out of range. A wild yell of triumph rose from the Jahadurans and they waved their spears and shouted taunts.

  Old Roogla was in ecstasies, but Godric snarled a mirthless laugh. At least he had whipped courage into the Black Cathayans. But here, he knew, he and Roogla and all the others would leave their corpses before the day was over. And Yulita — he would not allow himself to think of her. At least, he swore, a red mist waving in front of his eyes, Subotai would not take her.

  The yak tails were waving, the kettledrums beating for another charge. This time the bowmen rode out more warily, loosing a perfect rain of shafts. At Godric’s order his men did not return the fire, but sheltered themselves behind their barricade; he himself stood contemptuously upright, trusting to the strength of his half-plate armor. He became the center of the fire, but the long shafts glanced harmlessly from his shield or splintered on his hauberk.

  The horsemen wheeled closer, drawing harder on their heavy bows, and at Godric’s word the Jahadurans answered them. In a short fierce exchange the men in the open had the worst of it. They galloped out of range with several empty saddles, but Godric had not let his attention stray from the real menace — the heavily armed cavalry. These had approached at a rapid trot while the arrow fire was being exchanged, and now they struck in the spurs and came like a bolt from a crossbow.

  Again the sweeping rain of arrows met and broke them, though this time their momentum carried them to within a hundred feet of the barricades. One rider broke through to the lines and Godric saw a wild figure, spurting blood and hewing madly at him. Then as the Mongol rose in his stirrups to reach the knight’s head, a dozen spears, thrusting over the backs of the bowmen, pierced him and hurled him headlong.

  Again the Mongols retreated out of range, but this time their losses had been severe. Riderless horses ranged the plateau, which was dotted with still or writhing forms.

  Already the Jahadurans had inflicted more damage on the men of Genghis Khan than the Mongols were accustomed to. But from the way the nomads ranged themselves for the third charge, Godric knew that this time no flight of arrows would stop them. He spared a moment’s admiration for their courage.

  The supply of arrows was running low. Black Cathay, as in all things pertaining to war, had neglected the manufacture of war-arrows. A large number of shafts remaining in the quivers of the archers were hunting-arrows, good only at short range.

  This time there was no great exchange between the bowmen. The archers of Subotai mingled themselves among the front ranks of the swordsmen, and when the charge came, a sheet of arrows preceded it.

  “Save your shafts!” roared Godric, gripping the ax he had chosen from the arms of Jahadur. “Back, archers — spearmen, on the wall!”

  The next moment the headlong horde broke like a red wave on the barricade. Evidently they had misjudged the strength of those stone lines, not knowing them newly reinforced — had expected to shatter them by sheer weight and velocity and to ride through the ruins. But the strengthened walls held.

  Horses hit the barricade with a splintering of bones, and men’s brains were dashed out by the shock. Doubtless they had expected to sacrifice the first line, but the slaughter was greater than they could have reckoned. The second line, hot on the heels of the first, plunged against the wall over its writhing remnants, and the third line piled up on both. The whole line of the barricade was a red welter of dying, screaming horses, lashing hoofs and writhing men, while the blood-maddened Jahadurans yelled like wolves, hacking and stabbing down at the crimson shambles.

  The rear lines ruthlessly trampled down their dying comrades to strike at the defenders, but the ground was thick with dead and wounded and the plunging, writhing horses fouled the hoofs that swept over them.

  Still, some of the Mongols did gain through to the lines and made a desperate effort to clamber over the wall. They died like rats in a trap beneath the lunging spears of the inspired Black Cathayans.

  One, a huge brutal-faced giant, rode over a writhing welter of red torn flesh, reined in close to the barricade and an iron mace in his hands dashed out the brains of a spearman. From both hosts rose a shout of: “Kassar!”

  “Kassar, eh?” growled Godric, stepping forward on the precarious top of the barricade. The giant rose in his stirrups, the clotted mace swung back and at that instant the twenty-pound battle-ax in Godric’s right hand crashed down on the peaked helmet. Ax and helmet shattered together and the steed went to his knees under the shock. Then it reared and plunged wildly away, Kassar’s crumpled body lolling and swaying in the saddle, held by the deep stirrups.

  Godric tossed away the splintered ax-haft and picked up the mace that had fallen on the stones. He heard old Roogla shouting: “Bogda! Bogda! Bogda! Gurgaslan!”

  The whole host of Jahadur took up the shout; thus Godric gained his new name, which means the Lion, and crimson was the christening.

  The Mongols were again in slow, stubborn retreat and Godric brandished the mace and shouted: “Ye be men! Stand to it boldly! Already have you slain more than half your own number!”

  But he knew that now the real death grip was about to be. The Mongols were dismounting. Horsemen by nature and choice, they had realized however that cavalry charges could never take those solid walls, manned by inspired madmen. They held their round, lacquered bucklers before them and swung solidly onward in much the same formation as they had maintained mounted.

  They rolled like a black tide over the corpse-strewn plain and like a black flood they burst on the spear-bristling wall. Few arrows were loosed on either side. The Black Cathayans had emptied their quivers and the Mongols wished only to come to hand-grips.

  The line of barricades became a red line of Hell. Spears jabbed downward, curved blades broke on lances. In the very teeth of the girding steel, the Mongols strove to climb the wall, piling heaps of their own dead for grim la
dders. Most of them were pierced by the spears of the defenders, and the few who did win over the barriers were cut down by the swordsmen behind the spearmen.

  The nomads perforce fell back a few yards, then surged on again. The terrific shocks of their impact shook the whole barricade. These men needed no shouts or commands to spur them on. They were fired with an indomitable will which emanated from within as well as from without. Godric saw Chepe Noyon fighting silently on foot with the rest of the warriors. Subotai sat his horse a few yards back of the mass, directing the movements.

  Charge after charge crashed against the barriers. The Mongols were wasting lives like water and Godric wondered at their unquenchable resolve to conquer this relatively unimportant mountain kingdom. But he realized that Genghis Khan’s whole future as a conqueror depended on his stamping out all opposition, no matter what the cost.

  The wall was crumbling. The Mongols were tearing it to pieces. They could not climb it, so they thrust their spears between the stones and loosened them, tearing them away with bare hands. They died as they toiled, but their comrades trampled their corpses and took up their work.

  Subotai leaped from his horse, snatched a heavy curved sword from his saddle and joined the warriors on foot. He gained to the center of the wall and tore at it with his naked hands, disdaining the down-lunging spears which broke on his helmet and armor. A breach was made and the Mongols began to surge through.