Skulls in the Stars | Page 2

east, the
western blaze faded, and Solomon Kane struck out, boldly in the
gathering darkness.
The road was dim from disuse but was clearly defined. Kane went
swiftly but warily, sword and pistols at hand. Stars blinked out and
night winds whispered among the grass like weeping spectres. The
moon began to rise, lean and haggard, like a skull among the stars.

Then suddenly Kane stopped short. From somewhere in front of him
sounded a strange and eery echo--or something like an echo. Again,
this time louder. Kane started forward again. Were his senses deceiving
him? No!
Far out, there pealed a whisper of frightful slaughter. And again, closer
this time. No human being ever laughed like that--there was no mirth in
it, only hatred and horror and soul-destroying terror. Kane halted. He
was not afraid, but for the second he was almost unnerved. Then,
stabbing through that awesome laughter, came the sound of a scream
that was undoubtedly human. Kane started forward, increasing his gait.
He cursed the illusive lights and flickering shadows which veiled the
moor in the rising moon and made accurate sight impossible. The
laughter continued, growing louder, as did the screams. Then sounded
faintly the drum of frantic human feet. Kane broke into a run. Some
human was being hunted to death out there on the fen, and by what
manner of horror God only knew. The sound of the flying feet halted
abruptly and the screaming rose unbearably, mingled with other sounds
unnameable and hideous. Evidently the man had been overtaken, and
Kane, his flesh crawling, visualized some ghastly fiend of the darkness
crouching on the back of its victim crouching and tearing. Then the
noise of a terrible and short struggle came clearly through the abysmal
silence of the night and the footfalls began again, but stumbling and
uneven. The screaming continued, but with a gasping gurgle. The sweat
stood cold on Kane's forehead and body. This was heaping horror on
horror in an intolerable manner. God, for a moment's clear light! The
frightful drama was being enacted within a very short distance of him,
to judge by the ease with which the sounds reached him. But this
hellish half-light veiled all in shifting, shadows, so that the moors
appeared a haze of blurred illusions, and stunted trees, and bushes
seemed like giants.
Kane shouted, striving to increase the speed of his advance. The shrieks
of the unknown broke into a hideous shrill squealing; again there was
the sound of a struggle, and then from the shadows of the tall grass a
thing came reeling--a thing that had once been a man--a gore-covered,
frightful thing that fell at Kane's feet and writhed and grovelled and

raised its terrible face to the rising moon, and gibbered and yammered,
and fell down again and died in its own blood.
The moon was up now and the light was better. Kane bent above the
body, which lay stark in its unnameable mutilation, and he shuddered a
rare thing for him, who had seen the deeds of the Spanish Inquisition
and the witch-finders.
Some wayfarer, he supposed. Then like a hand of ice on his spine he
was aware that he was not alone. He looked up, his cold eyes piercing
the shadows whence the dead man had staggered. He saw nothing, but
he knew--he felt--that other eyes gave back his stare, terrible eyes not
of this earth. He straightened and drew a pistol, waiting. The moonlight
spread like a lake of pale blood over the moor, and trees and grasses
took on their proper sizes. The shadows melted, and Kane saw! At first
he thought it only a shadow of mist, a wisp of moor fog that swayed in
the tall grass before him. He gazed. More illusion, he thought. Then the
thing began to take on shape, vague and indistinct. Two hideous eyes
flamed at him--eyes which held all the stark horror which has been the
heritage of man since the fearful dawn ages--eyes frightful and insane,
with an insanity transcending earthly insanity. The form of the thing
was misty and vague, a brain-shattering travesty on the human form,
like, yet horribly unlike. The grass and bushes beyond showed clearly
through it.
Kane felt the blood pound in his temples, yet he was as cold as ice.
How such an unstable being as that which wavered before him could
harm a man in a physical way was more than he could understand, yet
the red horror at his feet gave mute testimony that the fiend could act
with terrible material effect.
Of one thing Kane was sure; there would be no hunting of him across
the dreary moors, no screaming and fleeing to be dragged down again
and again. If he must die he would die in