Almuric by Robert E. Howard (best e book reader txt) 📕

It was past sunrise when we started back on the long trek toward

Koth, swinging far to the west to avoid the devil city from which we

had escaped. The sun came up unusually hot. The air was breathless,

the light morning wind blew fitfully, and then died down entirely. The

always cloudless sky had a faint copperish tint. Altha eyed that sky

apprehensively, and in answer to my question said she feared a storm.

I had supposed the weather to be always clear and calm and hot on the

plains, clear and windy and cold in the hills. Storms had not entered

into my calculation.

The beasts we saw shared her uneasiness. We skirted the edge of the

forest, for Altha refused to traverse it until the storm had passed.

Like most plains-dwellers, she had an instinctive distrust of thick

woods. As we strode over the grassy undulations, we saw the herds of

grazers milling confusedly. A drove of jumping pigs passed us,

covering the ground with gargantuan bounds of thirty and forty feet. A

lion started up in front of us with a roar, but dropped his massive

head and slunk hurriedly away through the tall grass.

I kept looking for clouds, but saw none. Only the copperish tint

about the horizons grew, discoloring the whole sky. It turned from

light color to dull bronze, and from bronze to black. The sun

smoldered for a little like a veiled torch, veining the dusky dome

with fire, then it was blotted out. A tangible darkness seemed to

hover an instant in the sky, then rush down, cloaking the world in

utter blackness, through which shone neither sun, moon, nor stars. I

had never guessed how impenetrable darkness could be. I might have

been a blind, disembodied spirit wandering through unlighted space,

but for the swish of the grasses under my feet, and the soft warm

contact of Altha’s body against mine. I began to fear we might fall

into a river, or blunder against some equally blind beast of prey.

I had been making for a mass of broken boulders, such a formation as

occasionally occurs on the plains. Darkness fell before we reached

them, but groping on, I stumbled upon a sizable rock, and placing my

back to it, drew Altha against it and stood sheltering her with my

body as well as I could. Out on the dark plains breathless silence

alternated with the sounds of varied and widespread movement—rustling

of grass, shuffle of padded hoofs, weird lowing and low-pitched

roaring. Once a vast herd of some sort swept by us, and I was thankful

for the protection of the boulders that kept us from being trampled.

Again all sounds ceased and the silence was as complete as the

darkness. Then from somewhere came a weird howling.

“What’s that?” I asked uneasily, unable to classify it.

“The wind!” she shivered, snuggling closer to me.

It did not blow with a steady blast; here and there it swept in mad

fitful gusts. Like lost souls it wailed and moaned. It ripped the

grasses near us, and finally a puff of it struck us squarely, knocking

us off our feet and bruising us against the boulder behind us. Just

that one abrupt blast, like a buffet from an unseen giant’s fist.

As we regained our feet I froze. Something was passing near our

refuge—something mountain-huge, beneath whose tread the earth

trembled. Altha caught me in a desperate clutch, and I felt the

pounding of her heart. My hair prickled with nameless fear. The

thing was even with us. It halted, as if sensing our presence. There

was a curious leathery sound, as of the movement of great limbs.

Something waved in the air above us; then I felt a touch on my elbow.

The same object touched Altha’s bare arm, and she screamed, her taut

nerves snapping.

Instantly our ears were deafened by an awful bellow above us, and

something swept down through the darkness with a clashing of gigantic

teeth. Blindly I lashed out and upward, feeling my sword-edge meet

tangible substance. A warm liquid spurted along my arm, and with

another terrible roar, this time more of pain than rage, the invisible

monster shambled away, shaking the earth with its tread, dimming the

shrieking wind with its bellowing.

“What was it, in God’s name?” I panted.

“It was one of the Blind Ones,” she whispered. “No man has ever seen

them; they dwell in the darkness of the storm. Whence they come,

whither they go, none knows. But look, the darkness melts.”

“Melts” was the right word. It seemed to shred out, to tear in long

streamers. The sun came out, the sky showed blue from horizon to

horizon. But the earth was barred fantastically with long strips of

darkness, tangible shadows floating on the plain, with broad spaces of

sunlight between. The scene might have been a dream landscape of an

opium-eater. A hurrying deer flitted across a sunlight band and

vanished abruptly in a broad streamer of black; as suddenly it flashed

into light and sight again. There was no gradual shaking into

darkness; the borders of the torn strips of blackness were as

clear-cut and definite as ribbons of ebony on a background of gold and

emerald. As far as I could see, the world was stripped and barred with

those black ribbons. Sight could not pierce them, but they were

thinning, dividing, vanishing.

Directly before one of the streamers of darkness ripped apart and

disappeared, revealing the figure of a man—a hairy giant, who stood

glaring at me, sword in hand, as surprised as I. Then several things

happened all at once. Altha screamed: “A Thugran!” the stranger leaped

and slashed, and his sword clanged on my lifted blade.

I have only a brief chaotic memory of the next few seconds. There

was a whirl of strokes and parries, a brief clanging of steel; then my

sword-point sank under his heart and stood out behind his back. I

wrenched the blade free as he sank down, and stood glaring down at him

bewilderedly. I had secretly wondered what the outcome would be when I

was called upon to face a seasoned warrior with naked steel. Now it

had occurred and was over with, and I was absolutely unable to

remember how I had won. It had been too fast and furious for conscious

thought; my fighting instincts had acted for me.

A clamor of angry cries burst on me, and wheeling I saw a score of

hairy warriors swarming out from among the rocks. It was too late to

flee. In an instant they were on me, and I was the center of a

whirling, flashing, maelstrom of swords. How I parried them even for a

few seconds I cannot say. But I did, and even had the satisfaction of

feeling my blade grate around another, and sever the wielder’s

shoulder bone. A moment later one