The Complete Hok the Mighty Page 19

  A little shred of new moon rose, showing him his river, the bluffs and, as he drew near, great sleeping encampments of the enemy. He pressed close to the river to avoid these and so come undiscovered to the waterside shelf that gave narrow ingress to the hidden beach where his clan had once lived happily.

  TOWARD the outward approach of that shelf he made his way, but paused. The wind blew downstream, and toward him. His distended nostrils caught the musky odor of Gnorrl—alive and close at hand. A sentinel bode there, proof enough that something of importance lay beyond. That something of importance would be Romm, and the Gnorrl chiefs who would make up his retinue and command-staff.

  Hok came close to the rocks, pressed his big, supple body against them, and gingerly peered around the corner with one eye. There was light enough to see the guard—a big young Gnorrl, standing up to block the way, but quite evidently sleepy. The creature leaned its burly shagginess against the side of the runway, and supported itself with the butt of its javelin—weariness brought stupidity, Hok knew.

  The lone adventurer drew back, unstrung his bow, pouched his arrow, and slung them both behind him. Instead he took his stabbing-spear in both hands, and again moved close to the entrance of the runway. The Gnorrl was within leaping reach.

  Hok peered, gauged positions, distances, and above all the exact spot where the brute’s wide, chinless jaw merged into the bull-neck. Then, with the smooth swiftness of a huge cat, he sprang from shelter and forward, his spear darting ahead of him and thrusting home, with all of his weight and force behind it.

  The dull eyes of the Gnorrl opened, the slab-lipped mouth gaped; but then the flint point found its mark—the hairy protuberance in the center of the broad gullet, which has come to be called the Adam’s apple. The spearhead split that lump of cartilage and killed the warning cry before it could be voiced.

  Driven on by Hok’s grim charge, the spear drove through windpipe, muscle, the bone and marrow of the spine at the back. Down flopped the slackening bulk of the sentry, and Hok, planting his moccasin-sole on the shaggy breast, wrenched his spear free. A lunging kick sent the carcass from the edge of the runway and into the quiet fast flow of the river.

  Again Hok paused, listened and sniffed. No other guard waited at the far end of the passage, and he continued along it. Beyond, the light was better, and he could see the sandy space where once had been gathered his people’s homes and possessions.

  But the huts were torn down now, lying in ruins. The level sand, once as clean and smooth as the cave-wives could make it, was foul with the remains of cooking-fires, heaps and scatterings of spoiled food, kindling, and all other untidiness of the Gnorrls. It was strewn, too, with sleeping figures, who sprawled and snored grumblingly—the chief individuals of the great Gnorrl invasion that lay bivouacked on the nearby plains.

  As he hoped, none had been astir save the guard he had dealt with just now. And there was but one fire—up above his head, just within the wide mouth of the grotto he once had inhabited.

  DELICATE-FOOTED as a stalking wildcat for all his size and weight, Hok picked his way among the sleepers. One of them he had to step across, at the foot of the slanting pathway to the grotto, and even as he bestrode this figure it moved and moaned as in a dream. Hok froze tensely, his blood-drenched spearhead dangling within a hand’s breadth of the open mouth; but then the Gnorrl subsided into deeper slumber, and Hok passed on. Like a blond shadow he stole up to the floor-level of the grotto and gazed in.

  The fire was small but bright, made with pine knots; and before it sat a single figure, back toward him. Hok saw a shock of hair the color of a sky at sunset, protruding above a wolfskin robe that seemed to be drawn across humped shoulders to fend off the night’s chill.

  Romm!

  HERE was the settlement of old scores, the defeat of the Gnorrls, literally within stabbing distance of him. Romm, living, had brought about this dire invasion, this threat to the very life of the human race; Romm, dead, would mean the crumbling of the top-heavy Gnorrl army, its return to a mere unpleasant and solvable problem. Hok’s hands tightened on his spear-shaft, and he moved forward, upon the floor of the grotto. A rush, a stab—and away up the path to the top of the bluff, a dash through the sleeping hosts, and back to Oloana in triumph!

  His left moccasin took a long stride forward, and with a smooth gliding shove he put the keen flint into the wolfskin, just where a spine should run between the shoulder blades. The seated form seemed to give his weapon no more resistance than an empty bladder, and it fell forward with his shove, into the fire. The red hair blazed up, into rank smoke. Hok clenched his teeth to keep from voicing an exultant cry of victory . . .

  Then, between his own shoulders, a cold, sharp point set itself.

  “Do not move, Hok,” said a quiet, jeering voice he knew. “Being thought a god, I made that dummy so that my worshippers would think I never slept; wakening yonder in the shadows, I saw you attack what you thought was Romm. But Romm lives; and if you so much as breathe deeply, this knife will slide into your heart like a snake.”

  CHAPTER VII

  The Fire and the Arrow

  HOK’S first reaction, even before astonishment, was of chagrin—in his instant of success, he had been trapped like a big rabbit. That moment of self-denunciation kept him from moving, from whirling and trying to grapple Romm; and the same moment gave Romm himself the opportunity to make sure of his captive.

  The roan-head must have held the knife in one hand and a noose of cord in the other. That noose now dropped over Hok’s shoulders, jerked tight, and pinioned him. A half-hitch snapped around Hok’s ankle, and he found himself thrown violently. Then Romm knelt upon his chest, the knife at his throat, while he finished the binding as to elbows, wrists and knees.

  “You may sit up now,” Romm granted at length, and Hok did so, glaring. Romm was quietly exultant, his eyes dancing in their close-set sockets, his teeth grinning like a red-squirrel’s. The renegade ruler of the Gnorrls examined Hok’s weapons—the spear, the axe, the knife and finally the bow. “What is this thing?” he demanded.

  “You pass yourself for a god among these beast-things,” growled Hok. “A god should not ask for information.”

  Romm chuckled in his maddening way, rose to his feet and turned the unstrung stave this way and that. He studied the notch, narrowed his eyes in an effort to gauge purposes, and finally tried to pull the string into place. Romm’s lank arms, though sinewy, did not approach the strength needed to bend that stiff bar of yew. At length he tossed it into a corner. He had not bothered to pry into the otter-skin pouch which Hok still wore, filled with arrows.

  “It looks like a fishing pole, badly made,” he said. “Well, Hok, you fished for me, but it is you who have been hooked and landed.” From the fire he dragged the remains of the dummy he had made to simulate himself—winter leggings stuffed with dried grass, a cross of sticks to support the draped mantle in lifelike manner, and a gourd to which had been stuck, with balsam, tufts pulled from his own thick thatch.

  “I made it to deceive the willing fools you call Gnorrls,” he laughed, “and it did more—it deceived even the wide and brave Hok, and so saved my life.”

  “Why do you not kill me?” challenged Hok.

  “That will come later. Tomorrow the Gnorrls must see you, bound and helpless. They will marvel more greatly at my power—thinking that my wisdom and magic snatched you, the one man they fear, from your hiding in the forest. And among us we will invent for you a death for all to see, and in which a great proportion may share.”

  “Be sure of my death when you see me dead,” warned Hok in the deeps of his chest, and Romm laughed the longer.

  “You are bound, helpless, while I am content to wait for my revenge,” he said, “and there is no reason for us to sleep the rest of this night. Let us talk—about me as a god and you as a doomed man.”

  THE joyful commotion of the wakening Gnorrls offended the sunrise and the blue spring sky; for at dawn Romm had summone
d their chiefs and shown them his prisoner, the giant they called the Slayer From Afar.

  Hok’s reputation and fierce skill had kept his people from being obliterated on the retreat short days ago; only the thought of him had dampened the enthusiasm of the marchers for a bold entry and showdown under the shadows of the trees. And now they had him.

  Because Romm was at his side as he was pushed and dragged up the high trail to the meadow where once he had won a certain javelin-throwing, the Gnorrls did not at once fall on him and tear him to pieces. But Hok knew that death was staring him between the eyes, and that this time the stare would not falter.

  Well, he thought with fierce philosophy, these foul beasts who dared walk upright in grotesque semblance of man should see how a chief died. Meanwhile, his death here and now would stiffen the defense to the south—the vote of the chiefs had promised that.

  If Oloana could know that he was lost, and slip back to safety . . .

  As if reading part of the thought, Romm spoke her name. “Do not be concerned for Oloana, your wife,” he said, and smiled. “I myself shall comfort her for your loss.”

  Hok growled wordlessly, like a wolf, and it pleased Romm. “Yes, not all your people will die. I would be lonesome as one man, even though a god among the Gnorrls. The warriors will fall in battle, as they would wish. Such children as we capture can be reared and taught to obey me. And the women—a few—especially Oloana—”

  Bound as he was, Hok sprang at him. It took the abhorrent hard hands of seven Gnorrls to hold him from knocking Romm down with the impact of his straining body, and for a moment the godly arrogance of the roan-head was tremblingly near a break. Only when Hok was thrust safely back did Romm find the note of mockery again. “Nothing you can do will save yourself, Hok—nor Oloana.”

  By that time Hok had gained his self-control back. His heart was white-hot within him, like a stone in the midst of a pit-fire; but there was clarity of thought within him also, the determination to foresee and find and use the chance that must exist, however slim, for a turning of the tables.

  They had come to the middle of the meadow. Rich green grass showed through the higher patches of winter-killed weeds and cane, and to north and south ran thicket-like belts of brush. Where Hok was halted, with uncountable Gnorrls swarming close in great hairy droves and knots, some of the horde were planting a great upright pole. Around about the beast-people blackened the level space for two javelin-flights in every direction, and the bright air grew heavy with the foul scent of them.

  Hok’s guards pushed his back against the pole. Others bound him fast with two turns of rawhide thong. One Gnorrl brought its knobby arms full of wood, which it arranged at Hok’s feet.

  Romm leaned on a staff—it was Hok’s unstrung bow, that had so mystified him the night before. “You see the death I have planned?” he queried. “Slow fire—to roast, not burn . . . the Gnorrls believe that what they eat will give them its peculiar virtue. And so, when you are roasted, these Gnorrls will eat you!”

  HE had stepped close, and the last words he flung out with his nose close to Hok’s. The bound man gazed in disgust at Romm; and deliberately, as one who reckons with the results of his action, he spat in the renegade’s face.

  Every Gnorrl roared furiously, the whole of them as with one earth-shaking voice. There was a rush from all sides, but Romm flung up his arms and barked a single commanding syllable. The beast-men gave back grumpily, and Romm wiped the spittle from his flushed face. Then his toothy grin returned. Slowly he shook his head.

  “It will not work,” he said, in a voice like water under ice. “My friends here almost did as you hoped—tore you to pieces quickly and mercifully. But no. You will roast.”

  Hok let his gaze wander past Romm. He was bound so that his face turned south, toward the defense position of his people, toward the thicket where he had left Oloana. Many broad, brutal faces, with blub lips and chinless jaws and shaggy bodies, ranged before him to watch his miserable death. Beyond them was the green and brown of the meadow grass, more distant clumps and . . . yes . . . Oloana. That was her head, thrusting craftily out of some willows . . .

  With a glowing coal of dead wood, Romm was igniting the fuel heaped at Hok’s feet. Smoke rose, then a licking tongue of flame that scorched the captive’s shank, mounted higher and singed the lion’s skin he wore. The end was upon him . . . and Oloana was in the open, moving behind the backs of the intent Gnorrls, well within fair javelin-range.

  “Oloana!” Hok roared, suddenly and at the top of his great lungs. “Throw a javelin—kill me! Then run!”

  And she threw it. The shaft sang and shone in the air, came coasting over the heads of the Gnorrls, past the bending back of Romm, and struck—not Hok, but the stake to which he was tied, just beside his flank.

  On the instant, Romm straightened and whirled. He, and every chattering Gnorrl, saw Oloana, poising her other javelin.

  Pointing, the roan-head bellowed orders to his Gnorrls. It was as though Hok could understand perfectly; he was urging his followers to rush after the woman he coveted, capture her and bring her unhurt to him. Like a stampeding herd of cattle, the Gnorrl pack dashed past and away from the bound man at the burning stake, and in his eagerness for Oloana Romm ran with them.

  EVEN before they had left him, Hok was alone, forgotten in the chase. He stiffened himself against the bite of the rising flame, and the wedged javelin-point rasped his ribs. Into his mind came inspired hope.

  Writhing hard to the other side, he drew the rawhide that held him as taut as he could. A strand of it fell across the sharp edge of the javelin’s head. The burning fire quickened his struggles and jerks. Rasped and stretched, the cord frayed, then parted. Another floundering heave, and Hok fell free, still bound as to hands and feet, but away from the fire.

  His wrists he lifted to his mouth, tearing with his strong teeth at the confining leather. A thought’s space more and that, too, parted. Then he was freeing his feet and knees, and stood erect.

  Oloana had thrown her second javelin at Romm, and had missed—the shaft quivered in the earth, not a dozen paces from where Hok stood, and Romm raged in the midst of his great yelling cloud of Gnorrls. Hok saw his wife running beyond—not fast enough. She might distance the clumsy beast-folk, but not Romm.

  He still felt fire; the otter-skin quiver, which had gone to the stake behind his hip, was ablaze, together with the arrows it held. He tore the thing from him, dropped it. Within reach of his hand lay his bow—Romm had laid it down to kindle the fire.

  No time to lose; Hok’s brain did a lurid sum in addition. Oloana fled, the Gnorrls pursued, he had the bow and flaming arrows. Could he—Snatching up the yew staff, he bent and strung it. From the smouldering quiver he whipped a straight arrow, that sprouted fire like a blossom. With a quick drawing pluck, he haled the shaft to its burning head, and sped it away—neither at Oloana nor at the Gnorrls, but at the ground between them.

  It sang up through the air, then down. It dived into a shaggy bunch of reedy grass, killed by this winter but still standing, just as Oloana cleared that very spot. And the grass tore up in flames, bounding high and fierce.

  The foremost Gnorrls cowered back. To them it was as if that fire had leaped magically from earth’s heart.

  Then, as if in beneficent alliance with Hok in his lone fight against myriads, breeze rose from the south and hurled the greatening fire in a charging sheet upon the army of the Gnorrls.

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Death of a God

  HOK had only half-hoped for such a result of his shot; but, seeing the leap and rush of the fire, he saw and knew the chance that had come to him. He caught up other arrows, still burning, and sent them skimming away, to kindle other blazes in a line with the first. Before the Gnorrls could recover their initial panic and divide to dash around the first small grass-fire after Oloana, he had made a burning face between her and them—a fence that rose high and hot from several different points, and moved menacingly upon
the shaggy host.

  The Gnorrls retreated, and so did Romm. Hok, cut off from his wife by both Gnorrls and fire, ran, too—faster than any. He gained the top of a rise where the grass grew shorter, and felt that he had time to pause. He looked back.

  At a good four ten-tens of paces, Romm had halted his hosts. They stood in their tracks, clumped around him, although the rising conflagration pressed close behind them. Why did Romm do this suicidal thing? . . . but as Hok asked himself that, the answer became clear. The renegade was kneeling, to twirl something between his hands—a fire-stick! That was it, Romm was making fire, with a hard wood spindle on a soft slab—fire in front of him, when at his back was a blaze like a forest of glowing heat!

  Hok’s mystified scowl faded, for he knew Romm’s intention. The same wind that brought burning death upon the Gnorrls from the south would carry this new fire ahead of them, giving them a burned-off refuge.[10] Hok leaped up and down upon his knoll, and bawled at the top of his lungs:

  “Romm! I am free—free! I am going to kill you!”

  Not until that moment had Romm realized that his prisoner was escaping. He straightened quickly, yelled a reply that Hok could not catch, then seized a javelin and rapidly wound it with his cord. With an explosive jerk he sped the weapon at Hok—it fell many paces short, and Hok laughed his loudest. Romm had a gesture of helpless disgust, then dropped to his knees and resumed his fire-making.

  Hok had one arrow left. The fire had gone out on its bone-shod tip. Putting it to the string, he planted his feet, clamped the arrow-butt between his grasping fingers, and drew with all his strength. For a moment he paused with bow at full bend, gauging air currents, elevations, direction. He dared not miss . . . he let the arrow fly.