Warriors in Bronze by George Shipway Read Free Book Online

He'll return of his own accord.'
    The dog sniffed the scree ahead, and whined. 'Look - he says it's close in front. We'll search in the fringe of the forest.'
    We resumed a scrambling climb, the dog panting eagerly in the lead. I reached for a jutting rock to steady my balance, heard a sound like the whup of a whip and Echion's choking cry. I turned quickly, slipped and fell. The spearman writhed on his back; an arrow transfixed his shoulder.
    Hairy creatures closed on me and bayed; my nostrils flinched from a frightful stench. Wild animals, I thought in panic, and tugged at my sword. Hands twisted the hilt from my hold, flung my body over and ground my face on the rocks. I was dragged by the legs uphill; jagged stones scored gashes on face and ribs.
    The agonizing haul seemed endless; my head struck rocks which knocked me dizzy; I crashed like a log from ledge to ledge and the air was slammed from my lungs. I saw nothing but the ground scraping painfully past my face, heard only the animal grunts of those who held me fast.
    Foliage closed overhead and screened the cloud-smeared sun­light. My captors flung me against an oak tree's bole. Blearily I wiped away the blood that stung my eyes. I lay in a glade on level ground, a giant step which nature had carved in the hill­side, and at last saw the enemy clearly. Men in the guise of beasts, clad every one in goatskins. Thirty or forty in all. Matted filthy hair and tangled beards, bare furry legs and cal­loused feet. Their stink was almost palpable, a solid essence of goat.
    They gathered round me, babbling. A spear point pricked my chest. Weakly I thrust it aside. One of the creatures stooped and shouted in my face; I flinched from a blast of rancid breath. He spouted a torrent of speech; dazedly I strove to understand. A word here and there was familiar, the rest in­comprehensible as the bray of the goats they herded. I tried to vanquish terror, and swallowed the bile in my throat.
    They ripped away my kilt and left me naked. Somebody grabbed my genitals and wrenched; I squirmed and yelped in agony; the brutes guffawed. A body thumped beside me, an arrow shaft protruded from the shoulder. Echion, conscious and in pain, eyes bulging and affrighted in a face like a bloody mask. A savage trod on his chest, grabbed the shaft in both his hands and pulled. The barb came free attached to a gobbet of flesh. Echion shrieked and fainted.
    One of the creatures dragged by the tail the carcase of my wretched dog, squatted on the ground and quickly skinned it. He used, I noticed dully, a knife of stone ground sharp at the edges. All their weapons were stone, daggers and spearheads and arrows. He cast the pelt aside and hacked the corpse in pieces, tore out liver and guts and handed chunks to his fellows. Greedily they devoured the raw flesh, tearing with their teeth and champing, blood smearing greasy beards. The dog, though large, could not feed all; the men deprived gesticu­lated angrily and growled like hungry wolves. The man who had questioned me before - or so I assumed; so hairy-featured were they all you could not tell them apart - vigorously prodded his spear on my breastbone and yelled unintelligible words. Numbly I shook my head. He reversed the spear and slammed the haft across my skull. The treetops reeled in a crazy dance and the day went dark.
    Sense and feeling filtered back; I forced my eyelids apart. The stinking brutes had withdrawn some paces distant; a trio squatting on the ground rubbed sticks to make a fire, others filled up waterskins from a trickle that ran through the glade. I saw clean-shaven faces, blinked away the mist that hazed my sight and realized they were women, filthy uncouth harridans clothed in goatskins like the men. A multitude of goats browsed scanty herbage between the trees and stood erect with forefeet against trunks to strip the lower branches. There was also a tribe of rangy, half-starved dogs, yellow-eyed and feroci­ous. Neither they nor the