Worms of the Earth | Page 5

isle, which sheltered strange life
long before Rome rose from the marshes of the Tiber?"
"Bran, there are weapons too foul to use, even against Rome!"
Bran barked short and sharp as a jackal.
"Ha! There are no weapons I would not use against Rome! My back is
at the wall. By the blood of the fiends, has Rome fought me fair? Bah! I
am a barbarian king with a wolfskin mantle and an iron crown, fighting
with my handful of bows and broken pikes against the queen of the
world. What have I? The heather hills, the wattle huts, the spears of my
shock-headed tribesmen! And I fight Rome--with her armored legions,
her broad fertile plains and rich seas--her mountains and her rivers and
her gleaming cities--her wealth, her steel, her gold, her mastery and her
wrath. By steel and fire I will fight her--and by subtlety and
treachery--by the thorn in the foot, the adder in the path, the venom in
the cup, the dagger in the dark; aye," his voice sank somberly, "and by
the worms of the earth!"
"But it is madness!" cried Gonar. "You will perish in the attempt you
plan--you will go down to Hell and you will not return! What of your
people then?"
"If I can not serve them I had better die," growled the king.
"But you can not even reach the beings you seek," cried Gonar. "For
untold centuries they have dwelt apart. There is no door by which you
can come to them. Long ago they severed the bonds that bound them to
the world we know."
"Long ago," answered Bran somberly, "you told me that nothing in the
universe was separated from the stream of Life--a saying the truth of
which I have often seen evident. No race, no form of life but is

close-knit somehow, by some manner, to the rest of Life and the world.
Somewhere there is a thin link connecting those I seek to the world I
know. Somewhere there is a Door. And somewhere among the bleak
fens of the west I will find it."
Stark horror flooded Gonar's eyes and he gave back crying, "Woe! Woe!
Woe! to Pictdom! Woe to the unborn kingdom! Woe, black woe to the
sons of men! Woe, woe, woe, woe!"
Bran awoke to a shadowed room and the starlight on the window- bars.
The moon had sunk from sight though its glow was still faint above the
house tops. Memory of his dream shook him and he swore beneath his
breath.
Rising, he flung off cloak and mantle, donning a light shirt of black
mesh-mail, and girding on sword and dirk. Going again to the
iron-bound chest he lifted several compact bags and emptied the
clinking contents into the leathern pouch at his girdle. Then wrapping
his wide cloak about him, he silently left the house. No servants there
were to spy on him--he had impatiently refused the offer of slaves
which it was Rome's policy to furnish her barbarian emissaries.
Gnarled Grom had attended to all Bran's simple needs.
The stables fronted on the courtyard. A moment's groping in the dark
and he placed his hand over a great stallion's nose, checking the nicker
of recognition. Working without a light he swiftly bridled and saddled
the great brute, and went through the courtyard into a shadowy side
street, leading him. The moon was setting, the border of floating
shadows widening along the western wall. Silence lay on the marble
palaces and mud hovels of Eboracum under the cold stars.
Bran touched the pouch at his girdle, which was heavy with minted
gold that bore the stamp of Rome. He had come to Eboracum posing as
an emissary of Pictdom, to act the spy. But being a barbarian, he had
not been able to play his part in aloof formality and sedate dignity. He
retained a crowded memory of wild feasts where wine flowed in
fountains; of white-bosomed Roman women, who, sated with civilized
lovers, looked with something more than favor on a virile barbarian; of

gladiatorial games; and of other games where dice clicked and spun and
tall stacks of gold changed hands. He had drunk deeply and gambled
recklessly, after the manner of barbarians, and he had had a remarkable
run of luck, due possibly to the indifference with which he won or lost.
Gold to the Pict was so much dust, flowing through his fingers. In his
land there was no need of it. But he had learned its power in the
boundaries of civilization.
Almost under the shadow of the northwestern wall he saw ahead of him
loom the great watchtower which was connected with and reared above
the outer wall. One corner of the castle-like fortress, farthest from the
wall, served as a