Worms of the Earth | Page 8

toward
him with a supple twist of her whole body.
"I seek a Door," he answered, chin resting on his fist. "I have a song to
sing to the worms of the earth!"
She started upright, a jar falling from her hands to shatter on the hearth.
"This is an ill saying, even spoken in chance," she stammered.
"I speak not by chance but by intent," he answered.
She shook her head. "I know not what you mean."

"Well you know," he returned. "Aye, you know well! My race is very
old--they reigned in Britain before the nations of the Celts and the
Hellenes were born out of the womb of peoples. But my people were
not first in Britain. By the mottles on your skin, by the slanting of your
eyes, by the taint in your veins, I speak with full knowledge and
meaning."
Awhile she stood silent, her lips smiling but her face inscrutable.
"Man, are you mad," she asked, "that in your madness you come
seeking that from which strong men fled screaming in old times?"
"I seek a vengeance," he answered, "that can be accomplished only by
Them I seek."
She shook her head.
"You have listened to a bird singing; you have dreamed empty
dreams."
"I have heard a viper hiss," he growled, "and I do not dream. Enough of
this weaving of words. I came seeking a link between two worlds; I
have found it."
"I need lie to you no more, man of the North," answered the woman.
"They you seek still dwell beneath the sleeping hills. They have drawn
apart, farther and farther from the world you know."
"But they still steal forth in the night to grip women straying on the
moors," said he, his gaze on her slanted eyes. She laughed wickedly.
"What would you of me?"
"That you bring me to Them."
She flung back her head with a scornful laugh. His left hand locked like
iron in the breast of her scanty garment and his right closed on his hilt.
She laughed in his face.

"Strike and be damned, my northern wolf! Do you think that such life
as mine is so sweet that I would cling to it as a babe to the breast?"
His hand fell away.
"You are right. Threats are foolish. I will buy your aid."
"How?" the laughing voice hummed with mockery.
Bran opened his pouch and poured into his cupped palm a stream of
gold.
"More wealth than the men of the fen ever dreamed of."
Again she laughed. "What is this rusty metal to me? Save it for some
white-breasted Roman woman who will play the traitor for you!"
"Name me a price!" he urged. "The head of an enemy--"
"By the blood in my veins, with its heritage of ancient hate, who is
mine enemy but thee?" she laughed and springing, struck catlike. But
her dagger splintered on the mail beneath his cloak and he flung her off
with a loathsome flit of his wrist which tossed her sprawling across her
grass-strewn bunk. Lying there she laughed up at him.
"I will name you a price, then, my wolf, and it may be in days to come
you will curse the armor that broke Atla's dagger!" She rose and came
close to him, her disquietingly long hands fastened fiercely into his
cloak. "I will tell you, Black Bran, king of Caledon! Oh, I knew you
when you came into my hut with your black hair and your cold eyes! I
will lead you to the doors of Hell if you wish--and the price shall be the
kisses of a king!
"What of my blasted and bitter life, I, whom mortal men loathe and fear?
I have not known the love of men, the clasp of a strong arm, the sting
of human kisses, I, Atla, the were-woman of the moors! What have I
known but the lone winds of the fens, the dreary fire of cold sunsets,
the whispering of the marsh grasses?--the faces that blink up at me in

the waters of the meres, the foot-pad of night--things in the gloom, the
glimmer of red eyes, the grisly murmur of nameless beings in the night!
"I am half-human, at least! Have I not known sorrow and yearning and
crying wistfulness, and the drear ache of loneliness? Give to me,
king--give me your fierce kisses and your hurtful barbarian's embrace.
Then in the long drear years to come I shall not utterly eat out my heart
in vain envy of the white-bosomed women of men; for I shall have a
memory few of them can boast--the kisses of a king! One night of love,
oh king, and I will guide you to the gates of Hell!"
Bran eyed her somberly; he reached forth