The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (28 page)

“Death is a blue flame dancing over corpses.”

S
OLOMON
K
ANE

I

S
WORDS
C
LASH AND A
S
TRANGER
C
OMES

The blades crossed with a sharp clash of venomous steel; blue sparks showered. Across those blades hot eyes burned into each other – hard inky black eyes and volcanic blue ones. Breath hissed between close locked teeth; feet scruffed the sward, advancing, retreating.

He of the black eyes feinted and thrust as quick as a snake strikes. The blue-eyed youth parried with a half turn of a steely wrist and his counter stroke was like the flash of summer lightning.

“Hold, gentlemen!” The swords were struck up and a portly man stood between the combatants, jeweled rapier in one hand, cocked hat in the other.

“Have done! The matter is decided and honor satisfied! Sir George is wounded!”

The black-eyed man with an impatient gesture put behind him his left arm from which, from a narrow wound, blood was streaming.

“Stand aside!” cried he furiously and with an oath. “A wound – a scratch! It decides nothing! 'Tis no matter. This must be to the death!”

“Aye, stand aside, Sir Rupert,” said the victor, quietly, but his hot blue eyes were sparks of steel. “The matter between us can be settled only by death!”

“Put up your steel, you young cockerels!” snapped Sir Rupert. “As magistrate I command it! Sir physician, come and look to Sir George's wound. Jack Hollinster, sheathe your blade, sirrah! I'll have no bloody murders in this district an' my name be Rupert d'Arcy.”

Young Hollinster said nothing, nor did he obey the choleric magistrate's command, but he dropped his sword point to the earth and with head half lowered, stood silent and moody, watching the company from under frowning black brows.

Sir George had hesitated, but one of his seconds whispered urgently in his ear and he sullenly acquiesced, handed his sword to the speaker and gave himself up to the ministrations of the physician.

It was a strange setting for such a scene. A low level land, sparsely grown with sickly yellow grass, now withered, ran to a wide strip of white sand, strewn with bits of driftwood. Beyond this strip the sea washed grey and restless, a dead thing upon whose desolate bosom the only sign of life was a single sail hovering in the distance. Inland, across the bleak moors there could be seen in the distance the drab cottages of a small village.

In such a barren and desolate landscape, the splash of color and passionate life there on the beach contrasted strangely. The pale autumn sun flashed on the bright blades, the jeweled hilts, the silver buttons on the coats of some of the men, and the gilt-work on Sir Rupert's vast cocked hat.

Sir George's seconds were helping him in his coat, and Hollinster's second, a sturdy young man in homespun, was urging him to don his. But Jack, still resentful, put him aside. Suddenly he sprang forward with his sword still in his hand and spoke, his voice ringing fierce and vibrant with passion.

“Sir George Banway, look to yourself! A scratch in the arm will not blot out the insult whereof you know! The next time we meet there will be no magistrate to save your rotten hide!”

The nobleman whirled round with a black oath, and Sir Rupert started forward with a roar: “Sirrah! How dare you –”

Hollinster snarled in his face and turning his back, strode away, sheathing his sword with a vicious thrust. Sir George made as if to follow him, his dark face contorted and eyes burning like hot coals, but his friend whispered again in his ear, motioning seaward. Banway's eyes wandered to the single sail which hung as if suspended in the sky and he nodded grimly.

Hollinster strode along the beach in silence, bareheaded, hat in one hand and his coat slung over his arm. The bleak wind brought coolness to his sweat-plastered locks and it seemed he sought coolness for a turmoiled brain.

His second, Randel, followed him in silence. As they progressed along the beach, the scenery became more wild and rugged; gigantic rocks, grey and moss-grown, reared their heads along the shore and straggled out to meet the waves in grim jagged lines. Further out a rugged and dangerous reef sent up a low and continuous moaning.

Jack Hollinster stopped, turned his face seaward and cursed long, fervently and deep-throated. The awed listener understood the burden of his profanity to be regret at the fact that he, Hollinster, had failed to sink his blade to the hilt in the black heart of that swine, that jackal, that beast, that slanderer of innocence, that damned rogue, Sir George Banway!

“And now,” he snarled, “it's like the villain will never meet me in fair combat again, having tasted my steel, but by God –”

“Calm yourself, Jack,” honest Randel squirmed uneasily; he was Hollinster's closest friend but he did not understand the black furious moods into which his comrade sometimes fell. “You drubbed him fairly; he got the worst o' it all around. After all, you'd hardly kill a man for what he did –”

“No?” Jack cried passionately. “I'd hardly kill a man for that foul insult? Well, not a man, but a base rogue of a nobleman whose heart I'll see before the moon wanes! Do you realize that he publicly slandered Mary Garvin, the girl I love? That he befouled her name over his drinking cup in the tavern? Why –”

“That I understand,” sighed Randel, “having heard the full details not less than a score of times. Also I know that you threw a cup of wine in his face, slapped his chops, upset a table on him and kicked him twice or thrice. Troth, Jack, you've done enough for any man! Sir George is highly connected – you are but the son of a retired sea-captain – even though you have distinguished yourself for valor abroad. Well, after all Jack, Sir George need not have fought you at all. He might have claimed his rank and had his serving men flog you forth.”

“An' he had,” Hollinster said grimly with a vicious snap of his teeth, “I had put a pistol ball between his damned black eyes – Dick, leave me to my folly. You preach the right road I know – the path of forbearance and meekness. But I have lived where a man's only guide and aid was the sword at his belt; and I come of hot wild blood. Just now that blood is stirred to the marrow by reason of that swine-nobleman. He knew Mary was my beloved, yet he sat there and insulted her in my presence – aye, in my very teeth! – with a leer at me. And why? Because he has monies, lands, titles – high family connections and noble blood. I am a poor man and a poor man's son, who carries his fortune in a sheath at the belt-side. Had I, or had Mary been of high birth, he had respected –”

“Pshaw!” broke in Randel. “When did George Banway ever respect – anything? His black name hereabouts is well deserved. He respects his own desires.”

“And he desires Mary,” moodily growled the other. “Well, mayhap he'll take her as he's taken many another maid hereabouts. But first he'll kill John Hollinster. Dick – I would not appear churlish but mayhap you'd better leave me for a space. I am no fit companion to anyone and I need solitude and the cold breath of the sea to cool my burning blood.”

“You'll not seek Sir George –” Randel hesitated.

Jack made a gesture of impatience. “I'll go the other way, I promise you. Sir George went home to coddle his scratch. He'll not show his face for a fortnight.”

“But Jack, his bullies are of unsavory repute. Is it safe for you?”

Jack grinned and the grin was wolfish in spite of his open and frank countenance.

“'Twould be no more than I could ask. But no fear; if he strikes back
that
way – 'twill be in the darkness of midnight – not in open day.”

Randel walked away toward the village, shaking his head dubiously, and Jack strode on along the beach, each step taking him further away from the habitations of man and further into a dim realm of waste lands and waste waters. The wind sighed through his clothing, cutting like a knife, but he did not don his coat. The cold grey aura of the day lay like a shroud over his soul and he cursed the land and the clime.

His soul hungered for the far warm southern lands he had known in his wanderings, but a face rose in his visions – a laughing girlish face crowned with golden curls, in whose eyes lay a warmth which transcended the golden heat of tropic moons and which rendered even this barren country warm and pleasant.

Then in his musings another face rose – a dark mocking face, with hard black eyes and a cruel mouth curled viciously under a thin black mustache. Jack Hollinster cursed sincerely.

A deep vibrant voice broke in on his profanity.

“Young man, your words are vain and worldly. They are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Jack whirled, hand shooting to hilt. He had thought he was alone. On a great grey boulder there sat a Stranger. This man rose as Jack turned, unwrapping a wide black cloak and laying it over his arm.

Hollinster gazed at him curiously. The man was of a type to command attention and something more. He was inches taller than Hollinster who was considerably above medium height. There was no ounce of fat or surplus flesh on that spare frame, yet the man did not look frail or even too thin. On the contrary. His broad shoulders, deep chest and long rangy limbs betokened strength, speed and endurance – bespoke the swordsman as plainly as did the long unadorned rapier at his belt. The man reminded Jack, more than anything else, of one of the great gaunt grey wolves he had seen on the Siberian steppes.