The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (5 page)

Suddenly the sound came again, faintly. It was as if a cat were clawing its way up the wall, outside. Kane listened, and then came a sound as if someone were fumbling at the shutters. The Puritan rose, and sword in hand, crossed the room suddenly and flung them open. The world lay sleeping to his gaze. A late moon hovered over the western horizon. No marauder lurked outside his window. He leaned out, gazing at the window of the chamber next his. The shutters were open.

Kane closed his shutters and crossed to his door; went out into the corridor. He was acting on impulse as he usually did. These were wild times. This tavern was some miles from the nearest town – Torkertown. Bandits were common. Someone or something had entered the chamber next his, and its sleeping occupant might be in danger. Kane did not halt to weigh pros and cons but went straight to the chamber door and opened it.

The window was wide open and the light streaming in illumined the room yet made it seem to swim in a ghostly mist. A short evil-visaged man snored on the bed and he Kane recognized as John Redly, the man who had betrayed the necromancer to the soldiers.

Then his gaze was drawn to the window. On the sill squatted what looked like a huge spider, and as Kane watched, it dropped to the floor and began to crawl toward the bed. The thing was broad and hairy and dark, and Kane noted that it had left a stain on the window sill. It moved on five thick and curiously jointed legs and altogether had such an eery appearance about it, that Kane was spellbound for the moment. Now it had reached Redly's bed and clambered up the bedstead in a strange clumsy sort of manner.

Now it poised directly over the sleeping man, clinging to the bedstead, and Kane started forward with a shout of warning. That instant Redly awoke and looked up. His eyes flared wide, a terrible scream broke from his lips and simultaneously the spider-thing dropped, landing full on his neck. And even as Kane reached the bed, he saw the legs lock and heard the splintering of John Redly's neck bones. The man stiffened and lay still, his head lolling grotesquely on his broken neck. And the thing dropped from him and lay limply on the bed.

Kane bent over the grim spectacle, scarcely believing his eyes. For the thing which had opened the shutters, crawled across the floor and murdered John Redly in his bed was a
human hand
!

Now it lay flaccid and lifeless. And Kane gingerly thrust his rapier point through it and lifted it to his eyes. The hand was that of a large man, apparently, for it was broad and thick, with heavy fingers, and almost covered by a matted growth of ape-like hair. It had been severed at the wrist and was caked with blood. A thin silver ring was on the second finger, a curious ornament, made in the form of a coiling serpent.

Kane stood gazing at the hideous relic as the tavern-keeper entered, clad in his night shirt, candle in one hand and blunderbuss in the other.

“What's this?” he roared as his eyes fell on the corpse on the bed.

Then he saw what Kane held spitted on his sword and his face went white. As if drawn by an irresistible urge, he came closer – his eyes bulged. Then he reeled back and sank into a chair, so pale Kane thought he was going to swoon.

“God's name, sir,” he gasped. “Let that thing not live! There be a fire in the tap room, sir –”

Kane came into Torkertown before the morning had waned. At the outskirts of the village he met a garrulous youth who hailed him.

“Sir, like all honest men you will be pleasured to know that Roger Simeon the black magician was hanged this dawn, just as the sun came up.”

“And was his passing manly?” asked Kane somberly.

“Aye, sir, he flinched not, but a weird deed it was. Look ye, sir, Roger Simeon went to the gallows with but one hand to his arms!”

“And how came that about?”

“Last night, sir, as he sat in his cell like a great black spider, he called one of his guards and asking for a last favor, bade the soldier strike off his right hand! The man would not do it at first, but he feared Roger's curse, and at last he took his sword and smote off the hand at the wrist. Then Simeon, taking it in his left hand, flung it far through the bars of his cell window, uttering many strange and foul words of magic. The guards were sore afraid, but Roger offered not to harm them, saying he hated only John Redly that betrayed him.

“And he bound the stump of his arm to stop the blood and all the rest of the night he sat as a man in a trance and at times he mumbled to himself as a man that unknowing, talks to himself. And, ‘To the right,' he would whisper, and ‘Bear to the left!' and, ‘On, on!”

“Oh, sir, 'twas grisly to hear him, they say, and to see him crouching over the bloody stump of his arm! And as dawn was gray they came and took him forth to the gallows and as they placed the noose about his neck, sudden he writhed and strained as with effort, and the muscles in his right arm which lacked the hand, bulged and creaked as though he were breaking some mortal's neck!

“Then as the guards sprang to seize him, he ceased and began to laugh. And terrible and hideous his laughter bellowed out until the noose broke it short and he hung black and silent in the red eye of the rising sun.”

Solomon Kane was silent for he was thinking of the fearful terror which had twisted John Redly's features in that last swift moment of awakening and life, ere doom struck. And a dim picture rose in his mind – that of a hairy severed hand crawling on its fingers like a great spider, blindly, through the dark night-time forests to scale a wall and fumble open a pair of bedroom shutters. Here his vision stopped, recoiling from the continuance of that dark and bloody drama. What terrible fires of hate had blazed in the soul of the doomed necromancer and what hideous powers had been his, to so send that bloody hand groping on its mission, guided by the magic and will of that burning brain!

Yet to make sure, Solomon asked:

“And was the hand ever found?”

“Nay, sir. Men found the place where it had fallen when it was thrown from the cell, but it was gone, and a trail of red led into the forest. Doubtless a wolf devoured it.”

“Doubtless,” answered Solomon Kane. “And were Simeon's hands great and hairy with a ring on the second finger of the right hand?”

“Aye, sir. A silver ring coiled like unto a snake.'

Red Shadows

Original title: Solomon Kane

Red Shadows

I

T
HE
C
OMING OF
S
OLOMON

The moonlight shimmered hazily, making silvery mists of illusion among the shadowy trees. A faint breeze whispered down the valley, bearing a shadow that was not of the moon-mist. A faint scent of smoke was apparent.

The man whose long, swinging strides, unhurried yet unswerving, had carried him for many a mile since sunrise, stopped suddenly. A movement in the trees had caught his attention, and he moved silently toward the shadows, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of his long, slim rapier.

Warily he advanced, his eyes striving to pierce the darkness that brooded under the trees. This was a wild and menacing country; death might be lurking under those trees. Then his hand fell away from the hilt and he leaned forward. Death indeed was there, but not in such shape as might cause him fear.

“The fires of Hades!” he murmured. “A girl! What has harmed you, child? Be not afraid of me.”

The girl looked up at him, her face like a dim white rose in the dark.

“You – who are – you?” her words came in gasps.

“Naught but a wanderer, a landless man, but a friend to all in need.” The gentle voice sounded somehow incongruous, coming from the man.

The girl sought to prop herself up on her elbow, and instantly he knelt and raised her to a sitting position, her head resting against his shoulder. His hand touched her breast and came away red and wet.

“Tell me.” His voice was soft, soothing, as one speaks to a babe.

“Le Loup,” she gasped, her voice swiftly growing weaker. “He and his men – descended upon our village – a mile up the valley. They robbed – slew – burned –”

“That, then, was the smoke I scented,” muttered the man. “Go on, child.”

“I ran. He, the Wolf, pursued me – and – caught me–” The words died away in a shuddering silence.

“I understand, child. Then –?”

“Then – he – he – stabbed me – with his dagger – oh, blessed saints! – mercy –”

Suddenly the slim form went limp. The man eased her to the earth, and touched her brow lightly.

“Dead!” he muttered.

Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.

“Men shall die for this,” he said coldly.

II

T
HE
L
AIR OF THE
W
OLF

“You are a fool!” The words came in a cold snarl that curdled the hearer's blood.

He who had just been named a fool lowered his eyes sullenly without answer.

“You and all the others I lead!” The speaker leaned forward, his fist pounding emphasis on the rude table between them. He was a tall, rangy-built man, supple as a leopard and with a lean, cruel, predatory face. His eyes danced and glittered with a kind of reckless mockery.

The fellow spoken to replied sullenly, “This Solomon Kane is a demon from hell, I tell you.”

“Faugh! Dolt! He is a man – who will die from a pistol ball or a sword thrust.”