Kull: Exile of Atlantis (15 page)

As it was, he awakened when Kull’s hand was clapped over his mouth, only to fall back temporarily unconscious as Kull’s fist found his jaw.

The king crouched a moment above his victim, straining his faculties for any sound that might betoken that he had been heard. Utter silence reigned. He stole to the door. Ah, his keen senses detected a low confused mumble as of people whispering–a guarded movement–with one leap Kull hurled the door open and hurled himself into the room. He halted not to weigh chances–there might have been a roomful of assassins waiting for him for all he thought of the thing.

Everything then happened in an instant. Kull saw a barren room, lighted by moonlight that streamed in at the window, he caught a glimpse of two forms clambering through this window, one apparently carrying the other, a fleeting glance of a pair of dark, daring eyes in a face of piquant beauty, another laughing, reckless handsome face–all this he saw confusedly as he cleared the whole room with a tigerish bound, a roar of pure bestial ferocity breaking from his lips at the sight of his foe escaping. The window was empty even as he hurled across the sill, and raging and furious, he caught another glimpse, two forms darting into the shadows of a near by maze of buildings–a silvery mocking laugh floated back to him, another stronger, more mocking. Kull flung a leg over the sill and dropped the sheer thirty feet to the earth, disdaining the rope ladder that still swung from the window. He could not hope to follow them through that maze of streets, which they doubtless knew much better than he.

Sure of their destination, however, he raced toward the gate in the eastern wall, which from the crone’s description was not far distant. However some time elapsed before he arrived and when he did it was only to find Brule and the hag there.

“Nay,” said Brule, “the horses are here but none has come for them.”

Kull cursed savagely. Felgar had tricked him after all and the woman also. Suspecting treachery, the horses at that gate had only served as a blind. Felgar was doubtless escaping through some other gate, then.

“Swift!” shouted Kull. “Haste to the camp and have the men mount! I follow Felgar’s trail.”

And leaping upon one of the horses he was gone. Brule mounted the other and rode toward the camp. The crone watched them go, shaking with unholy mirth. After a while she heard the drum of many hoofs passing the city.

“Ho ho ho! They ride into the sunrise–and who rides back from beyond the sunrise?”

All night Kull rode, striving to cut down the lead the Farsunian and the girl had gained. He knew they dared not remain in Zarfhaana and as the sea lay to the north and Thurania, Farsun’s ancient enemy, to the south, then there lay but one course for them–the road to Grondar.

The stars were paling when the ramparts of the eastern hills rose starkly against the sky in front of the king, and dawn was stealing over the grasslands as Kull’s weary steed toiled up the pass and halted a moment at the summit. Here the fugitives must have passed for these cliffs stretched the whole length of the Zarfhaana’an border and the next nearest pass was many a mile to the north. The Zarfhaana’an in the small tower that reared up in the pass hailed the king, but Kull replied with a gesture and rode on.

At the crest of the pass he halted. There beyond lay Grondar. The cliffs rose as abruptly on the eastern side as they did upon the west and from their feet the grass lands stretched away endlessly. Mile upon countless mile of tall waving savannah land met his eyes, seemingly inhabited only by the herds of buffalo and deer that roamed those wild expanses. The east was fast reddening and as Kull sat his horse the sun flamed up over the savannahs like a wild blaze of fire, making it appear to the king as if all the grass lands were ablaze–limning the motionless horseman against its flame, so that man and horse seemed a single dark statue against the red morning, to the riders who were just entering the first defiles of the pass far behind. Then he vanished to their gaze as he spurred forward.

“He rides into the sunrise,” muttered the warriors.

“Who rides back from the sunrise?”

The sun was high in the sky when the troop overtook Kull, the king having stopped to consult with his companions.

“Have your Picts spread out,” said Kull. “Felgar and the countess will try to turn south any time now, for no man dares to ride any further into Grondar than need be. They might even seek to get past us and win back into Zarfhaana.”

So they rode in open formation, Brule’s Picts ranging like lean wolves far afield to the north and the south.

But the fugitives’ trail led straight onward, Kull’s trained eyes easily following the course through the tall grass, marking where the grass had been trampled and beaten down by the horses’ hoofs. Evidently the countess and her lover rode alone.

And on into the wild country of Grondar they rode, pursuers and pursued.

How Felgar managed to keep that lead, Kull could not understand, but the soldiers were forced to spare their horses, while Felgar had extra steeds and could change from one to another, thus keeping each comparatively fresh.

Kull had sent no envoy to the king of Grondar. The Grondarians were a wild half civilized race, of whom little was known by the rest of the world, save that their raiding parties sometimes swept out of the grass lands to sweep the borders of Thurania and the lesser nations with torch and sword. Westward their borders were plainly marked, clearly defined and carefully guarded, that is by their neighbors, but how far easterly their kingdom extended no one knew. It was vaguely supposed that their country extended to and possibly included that vast expanse of untenable wilderness spoken of in myth and legend as The World’s End.

Several days of hard riding had passed with neither sight of the fugitives or any other human, when a Pictish rider sighted a band of horsemen approaching from the south.

Kull halted his force and waited. There rode up and halted at a distance a band of some four hundred Grondarian warriors, fierce, leanly built men, clad in leather garments and rude armor.

Their leader rode forth. “Stranger, what do ye in this land?”

Kull answered, “We pursue a disobedient subject and her lover and we ride in peace. We have no dispute with Grondar.”

The Grondarian sneered. “Men who ride in Grondar carry their lives in their right hands, stranger.”

“Then by Valka,” roared Kull, losing patience, “my right hand is stronger to defend than all Grondar is to assail! Stand aside ere we trample you!”

“Lances at rest!” came Kelkor’s curt voice; the forest of spears lowered as one, the warriors leaning forward.

The Grondarians gave back before that formidable array, unable, as they knew, to stand in the open the charge of fully armed horsemen. They reined aside, sitting their horses sullenly as the Valusians swept by them. The leader shouted after them.

“Ride on, fools! Who ride beyond the sunrise–return not!”

They rode, and though bands of horsemen circled their tracks, at a distance like hawks, and they kept a heavy guard at night, the riders came not nearer nor were the outriders molested in any way.

The grass lands continued with never a hill or forest to break their monotony. Sometimes they came upon the almost obliterated ruins of some ancient city, mute reminders of the bloody days when, ages and ages since, the ancestors of the Grondarians had appeared from nowhere in particular and had conquered the original inhabitants of the land. They sighted no inhabited cities, none of the rough habitations of the Grondarians, for their way led through an especially wild, unfrequented part of the land. It became evident that Felgar intended not to turn back; his trail led straight east and whether he hoped to find sanctuary somewhere in that nameless land or whether he was seeking merely to tire his pursuers out, could not be said.

Long days of riding and then they came to a great river meandering through the plain. At its banks the grass lands came to an abrupt halt and beyond, on the further side, a barren desert stretched to the horizon.

An ancient man stood upon the bank and a large, flat boat floated on the sullen surface of the water. The man was aged but mightily built, as huge as Kull himself. He was clad only in ragged garments, seemingly as ancient as himself but there was something kingly and awe-inspiring about the man. His snowy hair fell to his shoulders and his huge white beard, wild and unkempt, came almost to his waist. From beneath white, lowering brows, great luminous eyes blazed, undimmed by age.

“Stranger, who have the bearing of a king,” said he to Kull, in a great deep resonant voice, “would ye cross the river?”

“Aye,” said Kull, “if they we seek crossed.”

“A man and a girl rode my ferry yesterday at dawn,” was the answer.

“Name of Valka!” swore Kull, “I could find it in me to admire the fool’s courage! What city lies beyond this river, ferryman?”

“No city lies beyond,” said the elder man. “This river marks the border of Grondar–and the world!”

“How!” ejaculated Kull. “Have we ridden so far? I had thought that the-desert-which-is-the-end-of-the-world was part of Grondar’s realm.”

“Nay. Grondar ends here. Here is the end of the world; beyond is magic and the unknown. Here is the boundary of the world; there begins the realm of horror and mysticism. This is the river Stagus and I am Karon the Ferryman.”

Kull looked at him in wonder, little knowing that he gazed upon one who should go down the dim centuries until myth and legend had changed the truth and Karon the ferryman had become the boatman of Hades.

“You are very aged,” said Kull curiously, while the Valusians looked on the man with wonder and the savage Picts in superstitious awe.

“Aye. I am a man of the Elder Race, who ruled the world before Valusia was, or Grondar or Zarfhaana, riders from the sunset. Ye would cross this river? Many a warrior, many a king have I ferried across. Remember, they who ride beyond the sun-rise, return not! For of all the thousands who have crossed the Stagus, not one has returned. Three hundred years have passed since first I saw the light, king of Valusia. I ferried the army of King Gaar the Conqueror when he rode into World’s End with all his mighty hosts. Seven days they were passing over yet no man of them came back. Aye, the sound of battle, the clash of swords clanged out over the waste lands for a long while from sun to sun, but when the moon shone all was silence. Mark this, Kull, no man has ever returned from beyond the Stagus. Nameless horrors lurk in yonder lands and terrible are the ghastly shapes of doom I glimpse beyond the river in the vagueness of dusk and the grey of early dawn. Mark ye, Kull.”

Kull turned in his saddle and eyed his men.

“Here my commands cease,” said he. “As for myself I ride on Felgar’s trail if it lead to Hell and beyond. Yet I bid no man follow beyond this river. Ye all have my permission to return to Valusia, nor shall any word of blame ever be spoken of you.”

Brule reined to Kull’s side.

“I ride with the king,” he said curtly and his Picts raised an acquiescing shout. Kelkor rode forward.

“They who would return, take a single pace forward,” said he.

The metal ranks sat motionless as statue.

“They ride, Kull,” grinned Brule.

A fierce pride rose in the king’s savage soul. He spoke a single sentence, a sentence which thrilled his warriors more than an accolade.

“Ye are men.”

Karon ferried them across, rowing over and returning until the entire force stood on the eastern bank. And though the boat was heavy and the ancient man rowed alone, yet his clumsy oars drove the unwieldy craft swiftly through the water and at the last journey he was no more weary than at the start.