Thord uttered a wild shout, and leaped to the side of the raging bull. In under the mighty body he reached, to seize the hoof of the uplifting foreleg. Then, gripping fast the shaggy limb, he heaved with all his strength against the massive white shoulder. Human giant though he was, the Icelander was little more than a child beside the bison; yet so deft and well-timed was his daring act, the bull went over sideways like a falling house.
"Strike, men!" roared Thord, and he leaped aside with Bera. The bull never rose. Already Rolf and Smider and Hervard were upon him, and their lance tips met in his great heart.
"The play ends," said Hoding, and he pointed to the herd, stampeding through a break in the ridge. But he was mistaken. As I hurried forward to examine the wounds in Bera's side, I heard a shout, and looked up just in time to see the herd leader charging into our midst. My shot had only stunned the beast.
Black, who was first to notice the danger, sprang before us and fired two shots. Both struck uselessly into the horny mass of the forehead, and the bull came on, his broad muzzle grazing the earth. In two immense strides he was upon the sergeant, just as the reloaded express came to shoulder. Black was an instant too late. Caught on the gigantic horns, he was flung up and sideways, clear out of the ravine.
Without a moment's check in his mad rush, the bull thundered amongst us like a charging elephant. Thord sprang aside with Bera, and Hoding leaped to confront the huge assailant. But the king's foot slipped on a loose stone, and he barely saved himself from the keen-tipped horns by falling flat. Right across the prostrate man rushed the bull. His vicious lunge grazed harmlessly over the king's shoulder. But swerving in his charge, with an agility I should have thought impossible for such a ponderous beast, he caught Rolf and tossed him as he had tossed Black. Too late Smider hurled his lance deep into the bull's side, and Balderston and I landed three or four bullets that turned the charge into a headlong flight.
"After him - he's hard hit!" shouted Balderston, and with Hervard he sprang away in hot pursuit of the huge fugitive. Smider and I started to follow, but a scream from Thyra turned us back. The girl had darted down with Jofrid to where her brother lay inert, half up the ridge slope.
A glance showed me Black, limping back into the ravine, and Hoding on his feet again, with no other injury than a hoof bruise on his thigh. Bera, too, stood firmly while Thord bound the long wound gashed across her side and back by the up-lunging horn. Only Rolf's injuries seemed serious.
When Smider and I ran up, we found Rolf still senseless, and bleeding from the mouth and ears, so great had been the shock of his fall. Worse still, his leg was doubled under him in a way I did not like. Aside from possible internal injuries, however, I saw that he had suffered nothing more serious than a broken thigh-bone, a simple fracture, easily set. Smider ran to a near-by spring, while Black and I shaped clumsy but effective splints from pieces of drift wood. The two girls supplied linen bandages from their garments. We had the bone in place and everything shipshape before Smider could return. Rolf still continued unconscious.
"Hurry," I called to Smider.
"Here," he answered, and he sprang down the ridge with his leather cap full of water. Jofrid, who was nearest, instantly dashed a few drops into Rolf's face. The injured man moved his head a little, and opened his eyes, clear and bright.
"Good! - his head is all right," I cried. I had feared concussion of the brain. "How do you feel, Rolf?"
"Sore enough, Jan. By Var! the visund tossed me as I would toss a pebble. But the swart carl went first. How did he fare?"
"He stands before you, scathless," answered Jofrid. "The Norns brought him down upon a feather-bush. You struck the bare slope. Lie still, for your leg bone is snapped."
"I might know as much," muttered Rolf, and he gritted his teeth. "Give me drink, Smider."
"Here is better," said Thyra, and she fetched a flask of palm wine. Rolf drained it, and then made an effort to sit up.
"Stay quiet," I ordered. "You must go to the Orm on your back; though I trust the leg is all. I can find no other hurt."
Rolf breathed deeply and moved his uninjured limbs.
"You are right, Jan," he replied. "Now look to the others."
"Yes; Bera was gored. See to her hurt, Jan," added Thyra.
I bent to imprint a kiss on the upturned lips, and then hurried to obey. But my services were not needed. Heedless of his bruised thigh, Hoding had turned to meet Varin and his fellow beaters. Bera failed to hear my inquiry. Thord's rude surgery had stanched her wound, and she stood with him beside the bull that had gored her, listening, with a strange look, while laconically he described the beast's overthrow. I started and almost laughed, so incongruous did it seem to see the Amazon tamed - the grim giantess hanging on Thord's words like a simple maid of sixteen.
But it was not for one himself a lover to pry into the wooing of others. I turned away to take my first unhurried look at the visund. What giants they were! Even during the fight I had failed to realise their huge bulk. The gigantic black horns spread fully three yards from tip to tip and measured over two feet around at the base. I remembered the guest-cup at the Runehof. It was a visund horn mounted - and these visunds were, in all probability, the descendants of Bos latifrons, the huge fossil bison of the American Pliocene.
Chapter XV. Dwerger.
My wondering examination of the mighty game was soon interrupted. At a word from their king, the Thorlings had started with knife and axe to dress the massive carcasses, - a task far from easy even for these born hunters of the pit. They were working their hardest, when Jofrid came down the ravine side and touched Bera with a trembling hand.
"Princess!" she said pleadingly, "let men at once follow after Hervard and Balderston. They have need of aid."
The giantess did not turn her eyes from Thord.
"All in good time, Vala, she answered respectfully. "We will help them brittle the herd king when the men are done here."
"Brittle!" cried Jofrid wildly - "brittle! - ay; it is brittling - and not of visund! Yet one may live. Follow me, Thorlings!"
The girl's cry rose to a scream, and she darted away down the ravine with wonderful swiftness. With a great shout, the Thorling warriors snatched up their weapons and rushed after, Hoding himself at their head. The Vala had commanded!
Thord, armed with Rolf's lance, was already at the king's side; Black was close behind. I threw out my hand to Smider - "Guard Thyra!" I shouted. One glance at my betrothed, kneeling beside her brother - then I ran after the others.
Half a mile brought us out of the ravine into a grassy plain, bounded on the farther side by a wall of dense red jungle. Dim and shifting as was the weird pit twilight, the trail of the fugitive visund stretched away before us broad and distinct, out across the pallid meadow. Along it fled the Vala with astonishing speed and endurance. Hoding and Thord alone were able to hold their own with her. The rest of us began to lose ground, though Black and I, spurred on by the dread we had caught from Jofrid, forged ahead of the Thorlings. We put the very utmost of our strength into the race, when, midway across the plain, our ears were startled by pistol shots and a horror of fiendish howling. My first thought was of the red beasts; but this frenzied outcry quavered with a semi-human note more fearful even than the werewolf yell.
I looked to see the Vala falter, appalled by the dreadful sound - instead, she fled on as though her little feet were winged. On, on she flew, straight for the thicket whence faint puffs of smoke rose against the red jungle wall and the crack of Balderston's revolver rang out above the howling.
"Las' shot!" gasped Black. My heart was bursting. Yet I followed the negro's crazed rush - past Hoding - past Thord - almost past the Vala. Thord's voice roared above the howls "Dwerger! Fire!"
Up went my rifle, and its heavy report shook the air. If Balderston yet lived, he would know that help was near. But the cunning beast-men already knew. Even as I fired, we saw their misshapen brown figures swarming with apish agility up the face of the jungle. O
ne group, I fancied, bore in their midst a dead or injured fellow. In my excitement I did not perceive that the object they held differed from them in colour.
But at sight of that inert body in the grasp of the clambering beast-men, Jofrid, whose eyes were sharpened by love, or by her vala-power, halted abruptly in her wild flight and stood quivering, her child face drawn and ghastly beneath the evil Orm-crown. I stopped short beside her; but Black rushed on, and after him Thord and Hoding and all the Thorlings except Varin. At my shout, the herald paused to grasp the Vala's arm, and between us we hurried her on, almost bearing the frail little body. She made no resistance, but stared at us with a dazed look, and shook her head.
"Too late!" she moaned. "The dwerger have borne him away."
"We will follow!" I shouted.
"No, skyfarer," answered Varin. "We cannot swing through that forest top, and below is bog that no man may pass."
"Is there then no hope?" I cried in despair.
Jofrid drew a deep breath, and pointed ahead to where the others had halted. "Wait!" she said.
At that and the sight of our silent, stooping companions, we hurried on through the fern brush into the little glade at the jungle edge. One glance confirmed our worst fears. In the centre of the glade lay the colossal body of the bull, and the sallow blood-spattered grass around him was strewn with a score or more of naked hairy beast-men. All were dead or dying, their inhuman faces contorted with hate and agony. Scattered about or clutched in the apish paws were rude weapons, - unchipped flints, pieces of staghorn, shapeless clubs, and, what were truly formidable, great shark-like teeth, large as a man's hand.
I looked at the bright red on the Thorling weapons, and saw why none of the stricken creatures lacked a fatal wound. The cause of the slaughter was apparent in the mutilated figure which lay across the visund carcass.
"Hervard!" I cried, as Thord gently raised the torn and battered corpse to lay it on the grass. The brave Thorling had gone to seek his seat in Valhalla. Hoding bent over the corpse with the others, even his callous heart softened with pity.
Of all the party, two alone had no thought for the hero. Black stood at the foot of the red jungle, his bloodshot eyes staring up at the crest, his ashen lips pouring forth a torrent of awful blasphemies. But Jofrid was running eagerly about among the scattered beast-men in search of one yet alive. Such as lay on their faces she dragged over with frantic haste. The Thorlings, however, had struck with mad fury. She found only corpses or wretches already in the death-agony. With a cry of despair, she turned upon the Thorlings in fierce anger.
"Fools! - fools!" she screamed. "You have slain them all!"
"Nay; here is one," answered Thord, and he pointed between the horns of the bull.
In an instant the Vala was bending over the huddled brown figure, her finger pointed up at the Orm-crown. A flash of intelligence gleamed from between the creature's half-closed eyelids-. His massive animal jaw dropped open, and he grovelled face down before the Vala, gibbering like a maniac. As he lay extended, I saw for the first time that one of his legs had been shorn clean off by a stroke of Hervard's sword.
Jofrid gave no heed to the wound. In a cold, even voice she uttered a command that brought the beast-man back to his first attitude. Like a trapped wolf, he cowered on his haunches, his slit eyes glaring up at the Orm-crown. The Vala touched the dragonhead significantly, and made a gesture. The beast-man replied with a number of signs so swiftly formed that I could not follow them. Not so the Vala. She raised her head, with a shade of hope in her eyes.
"He lives - he is unharmed!" she cried. "They will not devour him!"
"True, Vala," rejoined Hoding gloomily. "We shall see him again - but at the Orm-blot. You should know the dwerger-right."
"Odin aid him!" cried Jofrid, and she stood white and trembling.
Hoding swung his axe above the dwerger, but checked the stroke and stepped back with a ferocious smile.
"Nay; the wolf-birds shall tear his living flesh," he said.
"Not so," rejoined Thord, and he mercifully slew the wretch with his lance. The weapon was hardly withdrawn, before Hoding's upraised axe threatened the Icelander.
"Ake-Thor!" he bellowed; "who are you to cross my will? - Learn that Hoding's wish is law!"
But if the Thorling looked to see the outlander cringe, he was never so mistaken. Heedless of the great axe, Thord returned the king's ferocious glare with a glance of yet deadlier menace. He stepped back, but only to fling up Rolf's lance. The Lion faced the Boar - death hovered over both. Not an instant too soon did the Vala spring between the furious giants.
"Back!" she commanded, her eyes blazing. "Back, outlander! - and you, Hoding Grimeye, beware the Orm!"
"The Orm!" yelled Hoding, now mad with rage. "Aside - not Hel herself shall stay my hand."
"Ward!" said Jofrid, and the king's chosen bodyguard sprang to face him with upraised sword and levelled lance. Before them Hoding staggered back and dropped his axe. It was not the menacing weapons, - at them alone he would have jeered. The defection of his henchmen - the sudden proof of the Orm power - struck his savage heart with superstitious dread. Then chagrin seized him, - sullen rage and shame that he should thus stand humiliated before servants and outlanders. He gripped his axe and his evil eyes glared upon us with black hatred. But his gaze fell before the Vala's. Utterly cowed, he turned and slunk away, his shaggy head low between the giant shoulders.
"Thord! Thord!" I gasped; "is it not enough that Thyra is with us - that Rolf lies helpless and Frank is borne off to a horrible fate? You have made this brute king our bitter foe."
"Bera will stand with us," answered Thord.
Jofrid turned to him slowly - "You are right. Bera of the Orm will keep guest-troth even against her brother. But though she were with him, you should go unharmed. Yet beware lest yourselves break the guest-peace. As guests, the Orm wards you; as slayers, he will devour you."
"And Frank?" I questioned.
"Odin aid him! - none other can. When the dwerger swarm from Niflheim, they will fetch him for the Orm-blot."
"Sacrifice!" I cried. "But he, too, is a guest - and the Orm-law -"
"This also is the Orm-law, and the dwerger-right - the over-law: Naught may come between the Snake and his chosen victims."
"We shall see," muttered Thord - "we shall see."
And Black turned his anguished face to us with a look of iron resolve - "We'll see!" he echoed hoarsely.
Somehow the firm words, the stern, set features of the two brought me hope. At the worst, we should die with Balderston - and not as victims,
Chapter XVI. The Orm.
We did not long delay among the slain dwerger. At a sign from the Vala, Hervard's torn corpse was raised on a litter of lances, and we followed after the gloomy figure of the king. We could see the giant body bend and sway, the great arms outstretch with clenched fists, as the savage spirit within writhed under the goad of shame and impotent anger. But was his anger impotent? Once in the ravine he halted and stared morosely back at us. Then he wheeled and hurried on as though urged by a sudden purpose.
"Thyra!" I cried. My fear pictured Smider, perhaps even Bera, surprised and cut down, Rolf murdered, and my betrothed dragged off into the Ormvol jungles. I thought the brute king capable of any crime, however black. But I failed to allow for the Orm-dread - the grim terror that stalked in his footsteps and chilled his heart with its clammy touch.
As we approached, we heard the king's voice, harsh and angry, and Bera's, no less fierce. Then we came in sight of the two, and Hoding, with a curse, strode off along the mammoth road.
I need hardly tell with what mingled joy and bitterness I ran forward to the group on the ridge slope, and told of Hervard and Balderston.
They buried Hervard on the ridge crest, and heaped above his grave a cairn of heavy boulders. It was a well-deserved monument, for of all Thorlings the gallant herald most fully possessed the nobler qualities of the heathen Northman. Thord himself brought the c
apstone of the cairn, a boulder that no two others could lift. As he lowered it in place, Varin turned about to Jofrid.
"Vala," he said, "the mound is built. Shall we now brittle the visund?"
Jofrid shuddered. "No!" she cried, "no; they are cursed! Away from this bloody spot!"
"A litter for the Runeman!" commanded Bera, and while two Thorlings fetched Jofrid's litter, the others made a stronger one of crossed branches. Padded with the tiger skins, Rolf could not have wished for a better couch.
It was a sad journey to Hela Gard. We hurried along the mammoth trail with hardly a stop for food or rest, no longer thrilling with the weird pit wonders, - indifferent alike to the white forests, the blood-red jungles, the fire-flowers, the strange insect and bird forms, the grotesque animals. Once only we turned aside, to avoid a mammoth herd. We did not overtake Hoding.
So sunken was I in the thought of Balderston's captivity, even our approach to the Orm scarcely roused me from my apathy. It was otherwise, however, when, turning down a side trail from the "Fire Street," we passed beneath a cyclopean archway hewn ages since through a lofty ridge of obsidian. We had reached our destination.
On the farther side the ridge walled in with its semicircular sweep a terrace of basalt, level as a floor and polished by the age long trample of savage worshippers. Black and smooth and dully shining, it extended without a break to where, three hundred yards away, its brink overhung the gloomy void of Niflheim. Beyond that unguarded edge rolled the vapours of the nether pit, - the exhalations of Hela Pool, whose blue death-glow nickered far below in the uttermost abyss.
The terrace shone with a beautiful light, like the first rosy flush of sunrise. But its source was not the feeble sunrays struggling down through the miles of vapours. Scattered everywhere over the terrace were half-rotted logs, from which sprang great fungi, loathsome in shape and texture, yet aglow with rosy phosphorescence. They were dwerger tribute to the Orm, borne up from the depths of Niflheim. To the left fire-flowers glowed along the crest of the lofty wall which fenced off the castle of the Thorling king. The edifice was a rude unshapely mass, planned, like a Norman keep, solely for its strength as a fortress, and was too commonplace to call for a second glance.
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