Almuric by Robert E. Howard (best e book reader txt) ๐
I examined the dagger with much interest. A more murderous weapon I have never seen. The blade was perhaps nineteen inches in length, double-edged, and sharp as a razor. It was broad at the haft, tapering to a diamond point. The guard and pommel were of silver, the hilt covered with a substance somewhat like shagreen. The blade was indisputably steel, but of a quality I had never before encountered. The whole was a triumph of the weapon-maker's art, and seemed to indicate a high order of culture.
From my admiration of my newly acquired weapon, I turned again to my victim, who was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness. Instinct caused me to sweep the grasslands, and in the distance, to the south, I saw a group of figures moving toward me. They were surely men, and armed men. I caught the flash of the sunlig
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and the gallows that awaited me, rather than face the nameless terrors
with which imagination peopled my new-found world. But I was soon to
learn that those thews I now despised were capable of carrying me
through greater perils than I dreamed.
A slight sound behind me brought me around to stare amazedly at the
first inhabitant of Almuric I was to encounter. And the sight, awesome
and menacing as it was, yet drove the ice from my veins and brought
back some of my dwindling courage. The tangible and material can never
be as grisly as the unknown, however perilous.
At my first startled glance I thought it was a gorilla which stood
before me. Even with the thought I realized that it was a man, but
such a man as neither I nor any other Earthman had ever looked upon.
He was not much taller than I, but broader and heavier, with a great
spread of shoulders, and thick limbs knotted with muscles. He wore a
loincloth of some silklike material girdled with a broad belt which
supported a long knife in a leather sheath. High-strapped sandals were
on his feet. These details I took in at a glance, my attention being
instantly fixed in fascination on his face.
Such a countenance it is difficult to imagine or describe. The head
was set squarely between the massive shoulders, the neck so squat as
to be scarcely apparent. The jaw was square and powerful, and as the
wide thin lips lifted in a snarl, I glimpsed brutal tusklike teeth. A
short bristly beard masked the jaw, set off by fierce, up-curving
mustaches. The nose was almost rudimentary, with wide flaring
nostrils. The eyes were small, bloodshot, and an icy gray in color.
From the thick black brows the forehead, low and receding, sloped back
into a tangle of coarse, bushy hair. The ears were small and very
close-set.
The mane and beard were very blue-black, and the creatureโs limbs
and body were almost covered with hair of the same hue. He was not,
indeed, as hairy as an ape, but he was hairier than any human being I
had ever seen.
I instantly realized that the being, hostile or not, was a
formidable figure. He fairly emanated strengthโhard, raw, brutal
power. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh on him. His frame was
massive, with heavy bones. His hairy skin rippled with muscles that
looked iron-hard. Yet it was not altogether his body that spoke of
dangerous power. His look, his carriage, his whole manner reflected a
terrible physical might backed by a cruel and implacable mind. As I
met the blaze of his bloodshot eyes, I felt a wave of corresponding
anger. The strangerโs attitude was arrogant and provocative beyond
description. I felt my muscles tense and harden instinctively.
But for an instant my resentment was submerged by the amazement with
which I heard him speak in perfect English!
โThak! What manner of man are you?โ
His voice was harsh, grating and insulting. There was nothing
subdued or restrained about him. Here were the naked primitive
instincts and manners, unmodified. Again I felt the old red fury
rising in me, but I fought it down.
โI am Esau Cairn,โ I answered shortly, and halted, at a loss how to
explain my presence on his planet.
His arrogant eyes roved contemptuously over my hairless limbs and
smooth face, and when he spoke, it was with unbearable scorn.
โBy Thak, are you a man or a woman?โ
My answer was a smash of my clenched fist that sent him rolling on
the sward.
The act was instinctive. Again my primitive wrath had betrayed me.
But I had no time for self-reproach. With a scream of bestial rage my
enemy sprang up and rushed at me, roaring and frothing. I met him
breast to breast, as reckless in my wrath as he, and in an instant was
fighting for my life.
I, who had always had to restrain and hold down my strength lest I
injure my fellow men, for the first time in my life found myself in
the clutches of a man stronger than myself. This I realized in the
first instant of impact, and it was only by the most desperate efforts
that I fought clear of his crushing embrace.
The fight was short and deadly. The only thing that saved me was the
fact that my antagonist knew nothing of boxing. He couldโand didโ
strike powerful blows with his clenched fists, but they were clumsy,
ill-timed and erratic. Thrice I mauled my way out of grapples that
would have ended with the snapping of my spine. He had no knack of
avoiding blows; no man on Earth could have survived the terrible
battering I gave him. Yet he incessantly surged in on me, his mighty
hands spread to drag me down. His nails were almost like talons, and I
was quickly bleeding from a score of places where they had torn the
skin.
Why he did not draw his dagger I could not understand, unless it was
because he considered himself capable of crushing me with his bare
handsโwhich proved to be the case. At last, half blinded by my
smashes, blood gushing from his split ears and splintered teeth, he
did reach for his weapon, and the move won the fight for me.
Breaking out of a half-clinch, he straightened out of his defensive
crouch and drew his dagger. And as he did so, I hooked my left into
his belly with all the might of my heavy shoulders and powerfully
driving legs behind it. The breath went out of him in an explosive
gasp, and my fist sank to the wrist in his belly. He swayed, his mouth
flying open, and I smashed my right to his sagging jaw. The punch
started at my hip, and carried every ounce of my weight and strength.
He went down like a slaughtered ox and lay without twitching, blood
spreading out over his beard. That last smash had torn his lip open
from the corner of his mouth to the rim of his chin, and must surely
have fractured his jawbone as well.
Panting from the fury of the bout, my muscles aching from his
crushing grasp, I worked my raw, skinned knuckles, and stared down at
my victim, wondering if I had sealed my doom. Surely, I could expect
nothing now but hostility from the people of Almuric. Well, I thought,
as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat. Stooping, I despoiled my
adversary of his single garment, belt and weapon, and transferred them
to my own frame. This done, I felt some slight renewal of confidence.
At least I was partly clothed and armed.
I examined the dagger with much interest. A more murderous weapon I
have never seen. The blade was perhaps nineteen inches in length,
double-edged, and sharp as a razor. It was broad at the haft, tapering
to a diamond point. The guard and pommel were of silver, the hilt
covered with a substance somewhat like shagreen. The blade was
indisputably steel, but of a quality I had never before encountered.
The whole was a triumph of the weapon-makerโs art, and seemed to
indicate a high order of culture.
From my admiration of my newly acquired weapon, I turned again to my
victim, who was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness.
Instinct caused me to sweep the grasslands, and in the distance, to
the south, I saw a group of figures moving toward me. They were surely
men, and armed men. I caught the flash of the sunlight on steel.
Perhaps they were of the tribe of my adversary. If they found me
standing over their senseless comrade, wearing the spoils of conquest,
their attitude toward me was not hard to visualize.
I cast my eyes about for some avenue of escape or refuge, and saw
that the plain, some distance away, ran up into low green-clad
foothills. Beyond these in turn, I saw larger hills, marching up and
up in serried ranges. Another glance showed the distant figures to
have vanished among the tall grass along one of the river courses,
which they must cross before they reached the spot where I stood.
Waiting for no more, I turned and ran swiftly toward the hills. I
did not lessen my pace until I reached the foot of the first
foothills, where I ventured to look back, my breath coming in gasps,
and my heart pounding suffocatingly from my exertions. I could see my
antagonist, a small shape in the vastness of the plain. Further on,
the group I was seeking to avoid had come into the open and were
hastening toward him.
I hurried up the low slope, drenched with sweat and trembling with
fatigue. At the crest I looked back once more, to see the figures
clustered about my vanquished opponent. Then I went down the opposite
slope quickly, and saw them no more.
An hourโs journeying brought me into as rugged a country as I have
ever seen. On all sides rose steep slopes, littered with loose
boulders, which threatened to roll down upon the wayfarer. Bare stone
cliffs, reddish in color, were much in evidence. There was little
vegetation, except for low stunted trees, of which the spread of their
branches was equal to the height of the trunk, and several varieties
of thorny bushes, upon some of which grew nuts of peculiar shape and
color. I broke open several of these, finding the kernel to be rich
and meaty in appearance, but I dared not eat it, although I was
feeling the bite of hunger.
My thirst bothered me more than my hunger, and this at least I was
able to satisfy, although the satisfying nearly cost me my life. I
clambered down a precipitous steep and entered a narrow valley,
enclosed by lofty cliffs, at the foot of which the nut-bearing bushes
grew in great abundance. In the middle of the valley lay a broad pool,
apparently fed by a spring. In the center of the pool the water
bubbled continuously, and a small stream led off down the valley.
I approached the pool eagerly, and lying on my belly at its
lush-grown marge, plunged my muzzle into the crystal-clear water. It, too,
might be lethal for an Earthman, for all I knew, but I was so maddened
with thirst that I risked it. It had an unusual tang, a quality I have
always found present in Almuric water, but it was deliciously cold and
satisfying. So pleasant it was to my parched lips that after I had
satisfied my thirst, I lay there enjoying the sensation of
tranquility. That was a mistake. Eat quickly, drink quickly, sleep
lightly, and linger not over anythingโthose are the first rules of
the wild, and his life is not long who fails to observe them.
The warmth of the sun, the bubbling of the water, the sensuous
feeling of relaxation and satiation after fatigue and thirstโthese
wrought on me like an opiate to lull me into semislumber. It must have
been some subconscious instinct that warned me, when a faint swishing
reached my ears that was not part of the rippling of the spring. Even
before my mind translated the sound as the passing of a heavy body
through the tall grass, I whirled on my side, snatching at my poniard.
Simultaneously my ears were stunned with a deafening roar, there was
a rushing through the air, and a giant form crashed down where I had
lain an instant before, so close to me that its outspread talons raked
my thigh. I had no time to
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