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Title: Skulls in the StarsAuthor: Robert E.Howard* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0600851h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: May 2006Most recent update: Oct 2020This eBook was produced by Matthias Kaether, Colin Choat and Roy Glashan.Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printededitions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless acopyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks incompliance with a particular paper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to checkthe copyright laws for your country before downloading orredistributing this file.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost norestrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-useit under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia Licensewhich may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go tohttp://gutenberg.net.au
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Weird Tales, January 1929, with "Skulls in the Stars"
Across the fen sounded a single shriek ofterrible laughter.
He told how murders walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,
With crimson clouds before their eyes
And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain.
—Hood.
THERE are two roads to Torkertown. One, theshorter and more direct route, leads across a barren upland moor,and the other, which is much longer, winds its tortuous way in andout among the hummocks and quagmires of the swamps, skirting thelow hills to the east. It was a dangerous and tedious trail; soSolomon Kane halted in amazement when a breathless youth from thevillage he had just left, overtook him and implored him for God'ssake to take the swamp road.
"The swamp road!" Kane stared at the boy.
He was a tall, gaunt man, was Solomon Kane, his darkly pallidface and deep brooding eyes, made more sombre by the drabPuritanical garb he affected.
"Yes, sir, 'tis far safer," the youngster answered to hissurprised exclamation.
"Then the moor road must be haunted by Satan himself, for yourtownsmen warned me against traversing the other."
"Because of the quagmires, sir, that you might not see in thedark. You had better return to the village and continue yourjourney in the morning, sir."
"Taking the swamp road?"
"Yes, sir."
Kane shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
"The moon rises almost as soon as twilight dies. By its light I can reach Torkertown in a few hours, across the moor."
"Sir, you had better not. No one ever goes that way. There areno houses at all upon the moor, while in the swamp there is thehouse of old Ezra who lives there all alone since his maniaccousin, Gideon, wandered off and died in the swamp and was neverfound—and old Ezra though a miser would not refuse youlodging should you decide to stop until morning. Since you must go,you had better go the swamp road."
Kane eyed the boy piercingly. The lad squirmed and shuffled hisfeet.
"Since this moor road is so dour to wayfarers," said thePuritan, "why did not the villagers tell me the whole tale, insteadof vague mouthings?"
"Men like not to talk of it, sir. We hoped that you would takethe swamp road after the men advised you to, but when we watchedand saw that you turned not at the forks, they sent me to run afteryou and beg you to reconsider."
"Name of the Devil!" exclaimed Kane sharply, the unaccustomedoath showing his irritation; "the swamp road and the moorroad—what is it that threatens me and why should I go milesout of my way and risk the bogs and mires?"
"Sir," said the boy, dropping his voice and drawing closer, "webe simple villagers who like not to talk of such things lest foulfortune befall us, but the moor road is a way accurst and hath notbeen traversed by any of the countryside for a year or more. It isdeath to walk those moors by night, as hath been found by somescore of unfortunates. Some foul horror haunts the way and claimsmen for his victims."
"So? And what is this thing like?"
"No man knows. None has ever seen it and lived, but late-farershave heard terrible laughter far out on the fen and men have heardthe horrid shrieks of its victims. Sir, in God's name return to thevillage, there pass the night, and tomorrow take the swamp trail toTorkertown."
Far back in Kane's gloomy eyes a scintillant light had begun toglimmer, like a witch's torch glinting under fathoms of cold greyice. His blood quickened. Adventure! The lure of life-risk anddrama! Not that Kane recognized his sensations as such. Hesincerely considered that he voiced his real feelings when hesaid:
"These things be deeds of some power of evil. The lords ofdarkness have laid a curse upon the country. A strong man is neededto combat Satan and his might. Therefore I go, who have defied himmany a time."
"Sir," the boy began, then closed his mouth as he saw thefutility of argument. He only added, "The corpses of the victimsare bruised and torn, sir."
He stood there at the crossroads, sighing regretfully as hewatched the tall, rangy figure swinging up the road that led towardthe moors.
THE sun was setting as Kane came over the brow of the low hillwhich debouched into the upland fen. Huge and blood-red it sankdown behind the sullen horizon of the moors, seeming to touch therank grass with fire; so for a moment the watcher seemed to begazing out across a sea of blood. Then the dark shadows camegliding from the east, the western blaze faded, and Solomon Kanestruck out, boldly in the gathering darkness.
The road was dim from disuse but was clearly defined. Kane wentswiftly but warily, sword and pistols at hand. Stars blinked outand night winds whispered among the grass like weeping spectres.The moon began to rise, lean and haggard, like a skull among thestars.
Then suddenly Kane stopped short. From somewhere in front of himsounded a strange and eery echo—or something like an echo.Again, this time louder. Kane started forward again. Were hissenses deceiving him? No!
Far out, there pealed a whisper of frightful laughter. Andagain, closer this time. No human being ever laughed likethat—there was no mirth in it, only hatred and horror andsoul-destroying terror. Kane halted. He was not afraid, but for thesecond he was almost unnerved. Then, stabbing through that awesomelaughter, came the sound of a scream that was undoubtedly human.Kane started forward, increasing his gait. He cursed the illusivelights and flickering shadows which veiled the moor in the risingmoon and made accurate sight impossible. The laughter continued,growing louder, as did the screams. Then sounded faintly the drumof frantic human feet. Kane broke into a run.
Some human was being hunted to death out there on the fen, andby what manner of horror God only knew. The sound of the flyingfeet halted abruptly and the screaming rose unbearably, mingledwith other sounds unnameable and hideous. Evidently the man hadbeen overtaken, and Kane, his flesh crawling, visualized someghastly fiend of the darkness crouching on the back of itsvictim—crouching and tearing.
Then the noise of a terrible and short struggle came clearlythrough the abysmal silence of the night and the footfalls beganagain, but stumbling and uneven. The screaming continued, but witha 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 beingenacted within a very short distance of him, to judge by the easewith which the sounds reached him. But this hellish half-lightveiled all in shifting shadows, so that the moors appeared a hazeof blurred illusions, and stunted trees and bushes seemed likegiants.
Kane shouted, striving to increase the speed of his advance. Theshrieks of the unknown broke into a hideous shrill squealing; againthere was the sound of a struggle, and then from the shadows of thetall grass a thing came reeling—a thing that had once been aman—a gore-covered, frightful thing that fell at Kane's feetand writhed and grovelled and raised its terrible face to therising moon, and gibbered and yammered, and fell down again anddied in its own blood.
The moon was up now and the light was better. Kane bent abovethe body, which lay stark in its unnameable mutilation, and heshuddered—a rare thing for him, who had seen the deeds of theSpanish Inquisition and the witch-finders.
Some wayfarer, he supposed. Then like a hand of ice on his spinehe was aware that he was not alone. He looked up, his cold eyespiercing the shadows whence the dead man had staggered. He sawnothing, but he knew—he felt—that other eyes gave backhis stare, terrible eyes not of this earth. He straightened anddrew a pistol, waiting. The moonlight spread like a lake of paleblood over the moor, and trees and grasses took on their propersizes.
The shadows melted, and Kane saw! At first he thought it only ashadow of mist, a wisp of moor fog that swayed in the tall grassbefore him. He gazed. More illusion, he thought. Then the thingbegan to take on shape, vague and indistinct. Two hideous eyesflamed at him—eyes which held all the stark horror which hasbeen the heritage of man since the fearful dawn ages—eyesfrightful and insane, with an insanity transcending earthlyinsanity. The form of the thing was misty and vague, abrain-shattering travesty on the human form, like, yet horriblyunlike. The grass and bushes beyond showed clearly through it.
Kane felt the blood pound in his temples, yet he was as cold asice. How such an unstable being as that which wavered before himcould harm a man in a physical way was more than he couldunderstand, yet the red horror at his feet gave mute testimony thatthe fiend could act with terrible material effect.
Of one thing Kane was sure; there would be no hunting of himacross the dreary moors, no screaming and fleeing to be draggeddown again and again. If he must die he would die in his tracks,his wounds in front.
Now a vague and grisly mouth gaped wide and the demoniaclaughter again shrieked out, soul-shaking in its nearness. And inthe midst of that threat of doom, Kane deliberately levelled hislong pistol and fired. A maniacal yell of rage and mockery answeredthe report, and the thing came at him like a flying sheet of smoke,long shadowy arms stretched to drag him down.
Kane, moving with the dynamic speed of a famished wolf, firedthe second pistol with as little effect, snatched his long rapierfrom its sheath and thrust into the centre of the misty attacker.The blade sang as it passed clear through, encountering no solidresistance, and Kane felt icy fingers grip his limbs, bestialtalons tear his garments and the skin beneath.
He dropped the useless sword and sought to grapple with his foe.It was like fighting a floating mist, a flying shadow armed withdaggerlike claws. His savage blows met empty air, his leanly mightyarms, in whose grasp strong men had died, swept nothingness andclutched emptiness. Naught was solid or real save the flaying,apelike fingers with their crooked talons, and the crazy eyes whichburned into the shuddering depths of his soul.
Kane realized that he was in a desperate plight indeed. Alreadyhis garments hung in tatters and he bled from a score of deepwounds. But he never flinched, and the thought of flight neverentered his mind. He had never fled from a single foe, and had thethought occurred to him he would have flushed with shame.
He saw no help for it now, but that his form should lie therebeside the fragments of the other victim, but the thought held noterrors for him. His only wish was to give as good an account ofhimself as possible before the end came, and if he could, toinflict some damage on his unearthly foe.
There above the dead man's torn body, man fought with demonunder the pale light of the rising moon, with all the advantageswith the demon, save one. And that one was enough to overcome theothers. For if abstract hate may bring into material substance aghostly thing, may not courage, equally abstract, form a concreteweapon to combat that ghost?
Kane fought with his arms and his feet and his hands, and he wasaware at last that the ghost began to give back before him, and thefearful laughter changed to screams of baffled fury. For man's onlyweapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself,and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand.
Of this Kane knew nothing; he only knew that the talons whichtore and rended him seemed to grow weaker and wavering, that a wildlight grew and grew in the horrible eyes. And reeling and gasping,he rushed in, grappled the thing at last and threw it, and as theytumbled about on the moor and it writhed and lapped his limbs likea serpent of smoke, his flesh crawled and his hair stood on end,for he began to understand its gibbering.
He did not hear and comprehend as a man hears and comprehendsthe speech of a man, but the frightful secrets it imparted inwhisperings and yammerings and screaming silences sank fingers ofice into his soul, and heknew.
THE HUT of old Ezra the miser stood by the road inthe midst of the swamp, half screened by the sullen trees whichgrew about it. The walls were rotting, the roof crumbling, andgreat pallid and green fungus-monsters clung to it and writhedabout the doors and windows, as if seeking to peer within. Thetrees leaned above it and their grey branches intertwined so thatit crouched in semi-darkness like a monstrous dwarf over whoseshoulder ogres leer.
The road, which wound down into the swamp among rotting stumpsand rank hummocks and scummy, snake-haunted pools and bogs, crawledpast the hut. Many people passed that way these days, but few sawold Ezra, save a glimpse of a yellow face, peering through thefungus-screened windows, itself like an ugly fungus.
Old Ezra the miser partook much of the quality of the swamp, forhe was gnarled and bent and sullen; his fingers were like clutchingparasitic plants and his locks hung like drab moss above eyestrained to the murk of the swamplands. His eyes were like a deadman's, yet hinted of depths abysmal and loathsome as the dead lakesof the swamplands.
These eyes gleamed now at the man who stood in front of his hut.This man was tall and gaunt and dark, his face was haggard andclaw-marked, and he was bandaged of arm and leg. Somewhat behindthis man stood a number of villagers.
"You are Ezra of the swamp road?"
"Aye, and what want ye of me?"
"Where is your cousin Gideon, the maniac youth who abode withyou?"
"Gideon?"
"Aye."
"He wandered away into the swamp and never came back. No doubthe lost his way and was set upon by wolves or died in a quagmire orwas struck by an adder."
"How long ago?"
"Over a year."
"Aye. Hark ye, Ezra the miser. Soon after your cousin'sdisappearance, a countryman, coming home across the moors, was setupon by some unknown fiend and torn to pieces, and thereafter itbecame death to cross those moors. First men of the countryside,then strangers who wandered over the fen, fell to the clutches ofthe thing. Many men have died, since the first one.
"Last night I crossed the moors, and heard the flight andpursuing of another victim, a stranger who knew not the evil of themoors. Ezra the miser, it was a fearful thing, for the wretch twicebroke from the fiend, terribly wounded, and each time the demoncaught and dragged him down again. And at last he fell dead at myvery feet, done to death in a manner that would freeze the statueof a saint."
The villagers moved restlessly and murmured fearfully to eachother, and old Ezra's eyes shifted furtively. Yet the sombreexpression of Solomon Kane never altered, and his condor-like stareseemed to transfix the miser.
"Aye, aye!" muttered old Ezra hurriedly; "a bad thing, a badthing! Yet why do you tell this thing to me?"
"Aye, a sad thing. Harken further, Ezra. The fiend came out ofthe shadows and I fought with it over the body of its victim. Aye,how I overcame it, I know not, for the battle was hard and long butthe powers of good and light were on my side, which are mightierthan the powers of Hell.
"At the last I was stronger, and it broke from me and fled, andI followed to no avail. Yet before it fled it whispered to me amonstrous truth."
Old Ezra started, stared wildly, seemed to shrink intohimself.
"Nay, why tell me this?" he muttered.
"I returned to the village and told my tale," said Kane, "for Iknew that now I had the power to rid the moors of its curseforever. Ezra, come with us!"
"Where?" gasped the miser.
"To the rotting oak on the moors."
Ezra reeled as though struck; he screamed incoherently andturned to flee.
On the instant, at Kane's sharp order, two brawny villagerssprang forward and seized the miser. They twisted the dagger fromhis withered hand, and pinioned his arms, shuddering as theirfingers encountered his clammy flesh.
Kane motioned them to follow, and turning strode up the trail,followed by the villagers, who found their strength taxed to theutmost in their task of bearing their prisoner along. Through theswamp they went and out, taking a little-used trail which led upover the low hills and out on the moors.
THE sun was sliding down the horizon and old Ezra stared at itwith bulging eyes—stared as if he could not gaze enough. Farout on the moors reared up the great oak tree, like a gibbet, nowonly a decaying shell. There Solomon Kane halted.
Old Ezra writhed in his captor's grasp and made inarticulatenoises.
"Over a year ago," said Solomon Kane, "you, fearing that yourinsane cousin Gideon would tell men of your cruelties to him,brought him away from the swamp by the very trail by which we came,and murdered him here in the night."
Ezra cringed and snarled.
"You cannot prove this lie!"
Kane spoke a few words to an agile villager. The youth clamberedup the rotting bole of the tree and from a crevice, high up,dragged something that fell with a clatter at the feet of themiser. Ezra went limp with a terrible shriek.
The object was a man's skeleton, the skull cleft.
"You—how knew you this? You are Satan!" gibbered oldEzra.
Kane folded his arms.
"The thing I fought last night told me this thing as we reeledin battle, and I followed it to this tree.For the fiend isGideon's ghost."
Ezra shrieked again and fought savagely.
"You knew," said Kane sombrely, "you knew what thing did thesedeeds. You feared the ghost of the maniac, and that is why youchose to leave his body on the fen instead of concealing it in theswamp. For you knew the ghost would haunt the place of his death.He was insane in life, and in death he did not know where to findhis slayer; else he had come to you in your hut. He hates no manbut you, but his mazed spirit cannot tell one man from another, andhe slays all, lest he let his killer escape. Yet he will know youand rest in peace forever after. Hate hath made of his ghost asolid thing that can rend and slay, and though he feared youterribly in life, in death he fears you not at all."
Kane halted. He glanced at the sun.
"All this I had from Gideon's ghost, in his yammerings and hiswhisperings and his shrieking silences. Naught but your death willlay that ghost."
Ezra listened in breathless silence and Kane pronounced thewords of his doom.
"A hard thing it is," said Kane sombrely, "to sentence a man todeath in cold blood and in such a manner as I have in mind, but youmust die that others may live—and God knoweth you deservedeath.
"You shall not die by noose, bullet or sword, but at the talonsof him you slew—for naught else will satiate him."
At these words Ezra's brain shattered, his knees gave way and hefell grovelling and screaming for death, begging them to burn himat the stake, to flay him alive. Kane's face was set like death,and the villagers, the fear rousing their cruelty, bound thescreeching wretch to the oak tree, and one of them bade him makehis peace with God. But Ezra made no answer, shrieking in a highshrill voice with unbearable monotony. Then the villager would havestruck the miser across the face, but Kane stayed him.
"Let him make his peace with Satan, whom he is more like tomeet," said the Puritan grimly. "The sun is about to set. Loose hiscords so that he may work loose by dark, since it is better to meetdeath free and unshackled than bound like a sacrifice."
As they turned to leave him, old Ezra yammered and gibberedunhuman sounds and then fell silent, staring at the sun withterrible intensity.
They walked away across the fen, and Kane flung a last look atthe grotesque form bound to the tree, seeming in the uncertainlight like a great fungus growing to the bole. And suddenly themiser screamed hideously:
"Death! Death! There are skulls in the tars!"
"Life was good to him, though he was gnarled and churlish andevil," Kane sighed. "Mayhap God has a place for such souls wherefire and sacrifice may cleanse them of their dross as fire cleansthe forest of fungus things. Yet my heart is heavy within me."
"Nay, sir," one of the villagers spoke, "you have done but thewill of God, and good alone shall come of this night's deed."
"Nay," answered Kane heavily. "I know not—I know not."
THE sun had gone down and night spread with amazing swiftness,as if great shadows came rushing down from unknown voids to cloakthe world with hurrying darkness. Through the thick night came aweird echo, and the men halted and looked back the way they hadcome.
Nothing could be seen. The moor was an ocean of shadows and thetall grass about them bent in long waves before the faint wind,breaking the deathly stillness with breathless murmurings.
Then far away the red disk of the moon rose over the fen, andfor an instant a grim silhouette was etched blackly against it. Ashape came flying across the face of the moon—a bent,grotesque thing whose feet seemed scarcely to touch the earth; andclose behind came a thing like a flying shadow—a nameless,shapeless horror.
A moment the racing twain stood out boldly against the moon;then they merged into one unnameable, formless mass, and vanishedin the shadows.
Far across the fen sounded a single shriek of terriblelaughter.
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