it in the hinder parts and on the ham, shearing away the flesh from
the thigh bone, and his sword came with a clank against the brazen
claws of its foot. So with a horrid bellow it turned on Juss, rearing
like a horse; and it was three heads greater than a tall man in stature
when it reared aloft, and the breadth of its chest like the chest of
a bear. The stench of its breath choked Juss’s mouth and his senses
sickened, but he slashed it athwart the belly, a great round-armed
blow, cutting open its belly so that the guts fell out. Again he
hewed at it, but missed, and his sword came against the rock, and was
shivered into pieces. So when that noisome vermin fell forward on
him roaring like a thousand lions, Juss grappled with it, running in
beneath its body and clasping it and thrusting his arms into its inward
parts, to rip out its vitals if so he might. So close he grappled it
that it might not reach him with its murthering teeth, but its claws
sliced off the flesh from his left knee downward to the ankle bone,
and it fell on him and crushed him on the rock, breaking in the bones
of his breast. And Juss, for all his bitter pain and torment, and for
all he was well nigh stifled by the sore stink of the creature’s breath
and the stink of its blood and puddings blubbering about his face and
breast, yet by his great strength wrastled with that fell and filthy
man-eater. And ever he thrust his right hand, armed with the hilt and
stump of his broken sword, yet deeper into its belly until he searched
out its heart and did his will upon it, slicing the heart asunder like
a lemon and severing and tearing all the great vessels about the heart
until the blood gushed about him like a spring. And like a caterpillar
the beast curled up and straightened out in its death spasms, and it
rolled and fell from that ledge, a great fall, and lay by Brandoch
Daha, the foulest beside the fairest of all earthly beings, reddening
the pure snow with its blood. And the spines that grew on the hinder
parts of the beast went out and in like the sting of a new-dead wasp
that goes out and in continually. It fell not clean to the snow, as by
the care of heaven was fallen Brandoch Daha, but smote an edge of rock
near the bottom, and that strook out its brains. There it lay in its
blood, gaping to the sky.
Now was Juss stretched face downward as one dead, on that giddy edge of
rock. Mivarsh had saved him, seizing him by the foot and drawing him
back to safety when the beast fell. A sight of terror he was, clotted
from head to toe with the beast’s blood and his own. Mivarsh bound his
wounds and laid him tenderly as he might back against the cliff, then
peered down a long while to know if the beast were dead indeed.
When he had gazed downward earnestly so long that his eyes watered
with the strain, and still the beast stirred not, Mivarsh prostrated
himself and made supplication saying aloud, “O Shlimphli, Shlamphi,
and Shebamri, gods of my father and my father’s fathers, have pity of
your child, if as I dearly trow your power extendeth over this far and
forbidden country no less than over Impland, where your child hath
ever worshipped you in your holy places, and taught my sons and my
daughters to revere your holy names, and made an altar in mine house,
pointed by the stars in manner ordained from of old, and offered up my
seventh-born son and was minded to offer up my seventh-born daughter
thereon, in meekness and righteousness according to your holy will; but
this I might not do, since you vouchsafed me not a seventh daughter,
but six only. Wherefore I beseech you, of your holy names’ sake,
strengthen my hand to let down this my companion safely by the rope,
and thereafter bring me safely down from this rock, howsoever he be a
devil and an unbeliever; O save his life, save both their lives. For
I am sure that if these be not saved alive, never shall your child
return, but in this far land starve and die like an insect that dureth
but for a day.”
So prayed Mivarsh. And belike the high Gods were moved to pity of his
innocence, hearing him so cry for help unto his mumbo-jumbos, where no
help was; and belike they were not minded that those lords of Demonland
should there die evilly before their time, unhonoured, unsung.
Howsoever, Mivarsh arose and made fast the rope about Lord Juss,
knotting it cunningly beneath the arms that it might not tighten in the
lowering and crush his breast and ribs, and so with much ado lowered
him down to the foot of the cliff. Thereafter came Mivarsh himself down
that perilous wall, and albeit for many a time he thought his bane was
upon him, yet by good cragsmanship spurred by cold necessity he gat him
down at last. Being down, he delayed not to minister to his companions,
who came to themselves with heavy groaning. But when Lord Juss was come
to himself he did his healing art both on himself and on Lord Brandoch
Daha, so that in a while they were able to stand upon their feet,
albeit something stiff and weary and like to vomit. And it was by then
the third hour past noon.
While they rested, beholding where the beast mantichora lay in his
blood, Juss spake and said, “It is to be said of thee, O Brandoch Daha,
that thou to-day hast done both the worst and the best. The worst,
when thou wast so stubborn set to fare upon this climb which hath come
within a little of spilling both thee and me. The best, whenas thou
didst smite off his tail. Was that by policy or by chance?”
“Why,” said he, “I was never so poor a man of my hands that I need turn
braggart. ’Twas handiest to my sword, and it disliked me to see it
wagging. Did aught lie on it?”
“The sting of his tail,” answered Juss, “were competent for thine or my
destruction, and it grazed but our little finger.”
“Thou speakest like a book,” said Brandoch Daha. “Else might I scarce
know thee for my noble friend, being berayed with blood as a buffalo
with mire. Be not angry with me, if I am most at ease to windward of
thee.”
Juss laughed. “If thou be not too nice,” he said, “go to the beast
and dabble thyself too with the blood of his bowels. Nay, I mock not;
it is most needful. These be enemies not of mankind only, but each of
other: walking every one by himself, loathing every one his kind living
or dead, so that in all the world there abideth nought loathlier unto
them than the blood of their own kind, the least smell whereof they do
abhor as a mad dog abhorreth water. And ’tis a clinging smell. So are
we after this encounter most sure against them.”
• • • • •
That night they camped at the foot of a spur of Avsek, and set forth at
dawn down the long valley eastward. All day they heard the roaring of
mantichores from the desolate flanks of Ela Mantissera that showed now
no longer as a pyramid but as a long-backed screen, making the southern
rampart of that valley. It was ill going, and they somewhat shaken. Day
was nigh gone when beyond the eastern slopes of Ela they came where the
white waters of the river they followed thundered together with a black
water rushing down from the south-west. Below, the river ran east in a
wide valley dropping afar to tree-clad depths. In the fork above the
watersmeet the rocks enclosed a high green knoll, like some fragment of
a kindlier clime that over-lived into an age of ruin.
“Here, too,” said Juss, “my dream walked with me. And if it be ill
crossing there where this stream breaketh into a dozen branching
cataracts a little above the watersmeet, yet well I think ’tis our only
crossing.” So, ere the light should fade, they crossed that perilous
edge above the water-falls, and slept on the green knoll.
That knoll Juss named Throstlegarth, after a thrush that waked them
next morning, singing in a little wind-stunted mountain thorn that
grew among the rocks. Strangely sounded that homely song on the cold
mountain side, under the unhallowed heights of Ela, close to the
confines of those enchanted snows which guard Koshtra Belorn.
No sight of the high mountains had they from Throstlegarth, nor, for
a long while, from the bed of that straight steep glen of the black
waters up which now their journey lay. Rugged spurs and buttresses shut
them in. High on the left bank above the cataracts they made their way,
buffeted by the wind that leaped and charged among the crags, their
ears sated with the roaring sound of waters, their eyes filled with the
spray blown upward. And Mivarsh followed after them. Silent they fared,
for the way was steep and in such a wind and such a noise of torrents
a man must shout lustily if he would be heard. Very desolate was that
valley, having a dark aspect and a ghastful, such as a man might look
for in the infernal glens of Pyriphlegethon or Acheron. No living thing
they saw, save at whiles high above them an eagle sailing down the
wind, and once a beast’s form running in the hollow mountain side. This
stood at gaze, lifting up its foul human platter-face with glittering
eyes bloody and great as saucers; scented its fellow’s blood, started,
and fled among the crags.
So fared they for the space of three hours, and so, coming suddenly
round a shoulder of the hill, stood on the upper threshold of that
glen at the gates of a flat upland valley. Here they beheld a sight
to darken all earth’s glories and strike dumb all her singers with
its grandeur. Framed in the crags of the hillsides, canopied by blue
heaven, Koshtra Pivrarcha stood before them. So huge he was that even
here at six miles’ distance the eye might not at a glance behold him,
but must sweep back and forth as over a broad landscape from the
ponderous roots of the mountain where they sprang black and sheer from
the glacier, up the vast face, where buttress was piled upon buttress
and tower upon tower in a blinding radiance of ice-hung precipice and
snow-filled gully, to the lone heights where like spears menacing high
heaven the white teeth of the summit-ridge cleft the sky. From right to
left he filled nigh a quarter of the heavens, from the graceful peak
of Ailinon looking over his western shoulder, to where on the east the
snowy slopes of Jalchi shut in the prospect, hiding Koshtra Belorn.
They camped that evening on the left moraine of the High Glacier of
Temarm. Long spidery streamers of cloud, filmy as the gauze of a lady’s
veil, blew eastward from the spires on the ridge, signs of wild weather
aloft.
Juss said, “Glassy clear is the air. That forerunneth not fair weather.”
“Well, time shall wait for us if need be,” said Brandoch Daha. “So
mightily my desire crieth unto me from those horns of ice that, having
once looked on them, I had as lief die as leave them unclimbed. But of
thee, O Juss, I make some marvel. Thou wast bidden inquire in Koshtra
Belorn, and sure she were easier won than Koshtra Pivrarcha, going
behind Jalchi by the snowfields and so avoiding her great western
cliffs.”
“There is a saw in Impland,” answered Juss, “‘Ware of a tall wife.’
Even so there lieth a curse on any that shall attempt Koshtra Belorn
that hath not first looked down upon her; and he shall have his death
or ever he have his will. And from one point only of earth may a man
look down on Koshtra Belorn; and ’tis from yonder unascended tooth
of ice where thou seest the last beam burn. For that is the topmost
pinnacle of Koshtra Pivrarcha. And it is the highest point of the
stablished earth.”
They were silent a minute’s space. Then Juss spake: “Thou wast ever
greatest amongst us as a mountaineer. Which way likes thee best for our
climbing up him?”
“O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “on ice and snow thou art my master.
Therefore give me thy rede. For mine own choice and pleasure, I have
settled it this hour and more: namely to ascend into the gap between
the two mountains, and thence turn westward up the east ridge of
Pivrarcha.”
“It is the fearsomest climb to look on,” said Juss, “and belike the
grandest, and for both counts I had wagered it thy choice. That gap
hight the Gates of Zimiamvia. It, and the Koshtra glacier that runneth
up to it, lieth under the weird I told thee of. It were our death to
adventure there ere we had looked down upon Koshtra Belorn; which done,
the charm is broke for us, and from that time forth it needeth but
our own might and skill and a high heart to accomplish whatsoever we
desire.”
“Why then, the great north buttress,” cried Brandoch Daha. “So shall
she not behold us as we climb, until we come forth on the highest tooth
and overlook her and tame her to our will.”
So they supped and slept. But the wind cried among the crags all night
long, and in the morning snow and sleet blotted out the mountains. All
day the storm held, and in a lull they struck camp and came down again
to Throstlegarth, and there abode nine days and nine nights in wind and
rain and battering hail.
On the tenth day the weather abated, and they went up and crossed the
glacier and lodged them in a cave in the rock at the foot of the great
north buttress of Koshtra Pivrarcha. At dawn Juss and Brandoch Daha
went forth to survey the prospect. They crossed the mouth of the steep
snow-choked valley that ran up to the main ridge betwixt Ashnilan
on the west and Koshtra Pivrarcha on the east, rounded the base of
Ailinon, and climbed from the west to a snow saddle some three thousand
feet up the ridge of that mountain, whence they might view the buttress
and choose their way for their attempt.
“’Tis a two days’ journey to the top,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “If
night on the ridge freeze us not to death, I dread no other hindrance.
That black rib that riseth half a mile above our camp, shall take us
clean up to the crest of the buttress, striking it above the great
tower at the northern end. If the rocks be like those we camped on,
hard as diamond and rough as a sponge, they shall not fail us but by
our own neglect. As I live, I ne’er saw their like for climbing.”
“So far, well,” said Juss.
“Above,” said Brandoch Daha, “I’d drive thee a chariot until we come
to the first great kick o’ the ridge. That must we round, or ne’er
go further, and on this side it showeth ill enough, for the rocks
shelve outward. If they be iced, there’s work indeed. Beyond that, I’ll
prophesy nought, O Juss, for I can see nought clear save that the ridge
is hacked into clefts and steeples. How we may overcome them must be
put to the proof. It is too high and too far to know. This only: where
we would go, there have we gone until now. And by that ridge lieth, if
any way there lieth, the way to this mountain top that we crossed the
world to climb.”
• • • • •
Next day with the first paling of the skies they arose all three and
set forth southward over the crisp snows. They roped at the foot of the
glacier that came down from the saddle, some five thousand feet above
them, where the main ridge dips between Ashnilan and Koshtra Pivrarcha.
Ere the brighter stars were swallowed in the light of morning they
were cutting their way among the labyrinthine towers and chasms of the
ice-fall. Soon the new daylight flooded the snowfields of the High
Glacier of Temarm, dyeing them green and saffron and palest rose. The
snows of Islargyn glowed far away in the north to the right of the
white dome of Emshir. Ela Mantissera blocked the view north-eastward.
The buttress that bounded their valley on the east plunged it in shadow
blue as a summer sea. High on the other side the great twin peaks of
Ailinon and Ashnilan, roused by the warm beams out of their frozen
silence of the night, growled at whiles with avalanches and falling
stones.
Juss was their leader in the ice-fall, guiding them now along high
knife-edges that fell away on either hand to unsounded depths,
now within the very lips of those chasms, along the bases of the
ice-towers. These, five times a man’s height, some square, some
pinnacled, some shattered or piled with the ruins of their kind, leaned
above the path, as ready to fall and overwhelm the climbers and dash
their bones for ever down to those blue-green secret places of frost
and silence where the chips of ice chinked hollow as Juss pressed
onward, cutting his steps with Mivarsh’s axe. At length the slope eased
and they walked out on the unbroken surface of the glacier, and passing
by a snow-bridge over the great rift betwixt the glacier and the
mountain side came two hours before noon to the foot of the rock-rib
that they had scanned from Ailinon.
Now was Brandoch Daha to lead them. They climbed face to the rock,
slowly and without rest, for sound and firm as the rocks were the holds
were small and few and the cliffs steep. Here and there a chimney gave
them passage upward, but the climb was mainly by cracks and open faces
of rock, a trial of main strength and endurance such as few might
sustain for a short while only: but this wall was three thousand feet
in height. By noon they gained the crest, and there rested on the rocks
too weary to speak, looking across the avalanche-swept face of Koshtra
Pivrarcha to the corniced parapet that ended against the western
precipices of Koshtra Belorn.
For some way the ridge of the buttress was broad and level. Then it
narrowed suddenly to the width of a horse’s back, and sprang skyward
two thousand feet and more. Brandoch Daha went forward and climbed a
few feet up the cliff. It bulged out above him, smooth and holdless. He
tried it once and again, then came down saying, “Nought without wings.”
Then he went to the left. Here hanging glaciers overlooked the face
from on high, and while he gazed an avalanche of ice-blocks roared down
it. Then he went to the right, and here the rocks sloped outward, and
the sloping ledges were piled with rubbish and the rocks rotten and
slippery with snow and ice. So having gone a little way he returned,
and, “O Juss,” he said, “wilt take it right forth, and that must be
by flying, for hold there is none: or wilt go east and dodge the
avalanche: or west, where all is rotten and slither and a slip were our
destruction?”
So they debated, and at length decided on the eastern road. It was an
ill step round the jutting corner of the tower, for little hold there
was, and the rocks were undercut below, so that a stone or a man loosed
from that place must fall clear at a bound three or four thousand feet
to the Koshtra glacier and there be dashed in pieces. Beyond, wide
ledges gave them passage along the wall of the tower, that now swept
inward, facing south. Far overhead, dazzling white in the sunshine,
the broken glacier-edges and splinters jutted against the blue, and
icicles greater than a man hung glittering from every ledge: a sight
heavenly fair, whereof they yet had little joy, hastening as they had
not hastened in their lives before to be out of the danger of that
ice-swept face.
Suddenly was a noise above them like the crack of a giant whip, and
looking up they beheld against the sky a dark mass which opened like
a flower and spread into a hundred fragments. The Demons and Mivarsh
hugged the cliffs where they stood, but there was little cover. All
the air was filled with the shrieking of the stones, as they swept
downwards like fiends returning to the pit, and with the crash of them
as they dashed against the cliffs and burst in pieces. The echoes
rolled and reverberated from cliff to distant cliff, and the limbs of
the mountain seemed to writhe as under a scourge. When it was done,
Mivarsh was groaning for pain of his left wrist sore hurt with a stone.
The others were scatheless.
Juss said to Brandoch Daha, “Back, howsoever it dislike thee.”
Back they went; and an avalanche of ice crashed down the face which
must have destroyed them had they proceeded. “Thou dost misjudge me,”
said Brandoch Daha, laughing. “Give me where my life lieth on mine own
might and main; then is danger meat and drink to me, and nought shall
turn me back. But here on this cursed cliff, on the ledges whereof a
cripple might walk at ease, we be the toys of chance. And it were pure
folly to abide upon it a moment longer.”
“Two ways be left us,” said Juss. “To turn back, and that were our
shame for ever; and to essay the western traverse.”
“And that should be the bane of any save of me and thee,” said Brandoch
Daha. “And if our bane, why, we shall sleep sound.”
“Mivarsh,” said Juss, “is nought so bounden to this adventure. He hath
bravely held by us, and bravely stood our friend. Yet here we be come
to such a pass, I sore misdoubt me if it were less danger of his life
to come with us than seek safety alone.”
But Mivarsh put on a hardy face. Never a word he spake, but nodded his
head, as who should say, “Forward.”
“First I must be thy leech,” said Juss. And he bound up Mivarsh’s
wrist. And because the day was now far spent, they camped under the
great tower, hoping next day to reach the top of Koshtra Pivrarcha that
stood unseen some six thousand feet above them.
• • • • •
Next morning, when it was light enough to climb, they set forth. For
two hours’ space on that traverse not a moment passed but they were
in instant peril of death. They were not roped, for on those slabbery
rocks one man had dragged a dozen to perdition had he made a slip. The
ledges sloped outward; they were piled with broken rock and mud; the
soft red rock broke away at a hand’s touch and plunged at a leap to the
glacier below. Down and up and along, and down and up and up again they
wound their way, rounding the base of that great tower, and came at
last by a rotten gully safe to the ridge above it.
While they climbed, white wispy clouds which had gathered in the high
gullies of Ailinon in the morning had grown to a mass of blackness that
hid all the mountains to the west. Great streamers ran from it across
the gulf below, joined and boiled upward, lifting and sinking like a
full-tided sea, rising at last to the high ridge where the Demons stood
and wrapping them in a cloak of vapour with a chill wind in its folds,
and darkness in broad noon-day. They halted, for they might not see
the rocks before them. The wind grew boisterous, shouting among the
splintered towers. Snow swept powdery and keen across the ridge. The
cloud lifted and plunged again like some great bird shadowing them with
its wings. From its bosom the lightning flared above and below. Thunder
crashed on the heels of the lightning, sending the echoes rolling among
the distant cliffs. Their weapons, planted in the snow, sizzled with
blue flame; Juss had counselled laying them aside lest they should
perish holding them. Crouched in a hollow of the snow among the rocks
of that high ridge of Koshtra Pivrarcha, Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch
Daha and Mivarsh Faz weathered that night of terror. When night came
they knew not, for the storm brought darkness on them hours before
sun-down. Blinding snow and sleet and fire and thunder, and wild winds
shrieking in the gullies till the firm mountain seemed to rock, kept
them awake. They were near frozen, and scarce desired aught but death,
which might bring them ease from that hellish roundelay.
Day broke with a weak gray light, and the storm died down. Juss stood
up weary beyond speech. Mivarsh said, “Ye be devils, but of myself I
marvel. For I have dwelt by snow mountains all my days, and many I
wot of that have been benighted on the snows in wild weather. And not
one but was starved by reason of the cold. I speak of them that were
found. Many were not found, for the spirits devoured them.”
Whereat Lord Brandoch Daha laughed aloud, saying, “O Mivarsh, I fear me
that in thee I have but a graceless dog. Look on him, that in hardihood
and bodily endurance against all hardships of frost or fire surpasseth
me as greatly as I surpass thee. Yet is he weariest of the three.
Wouldst know why? I’ll tell thee: all night he hath striven against
the cold, chafing not himself only but me and thee to save us from
frost-bite. And be sure nought else had saved thy carcase.”
By then was the mist grown lighter, so that they might see the ridge
for an hundred paces or more where it went up before them, each
pinnacle standing out shadowy and unsubstantial against the next
succeeding one more shadowy still. And the pinnacles showed monstrous
huge through the mist, like mountain peaks in stature.
They roped and set forth, scaling the towers or turning them, now on
this side now on that; sometimes standing on teeth of rock that seemed
cut off from all earth else, solitary in a sea of shifting vapour;
sometimes descending into a deep gash in the ridge with a blank wall
rearing aloft on the further side and empty air yawning to left and
right. The rocks were firm and good, like those they had first climbed
from the glacier. But they went but a slow pace, for the climbing was
difficult and made dangerous by new snow and by the ice that glazed the
rocks.
As the day wore the wind was fallen, and all was still when they stood
at length before a ridge of hard ice that shot steeply up before them
like the edge of a sword. The east side of it on their left was almost
sheer, ending in a blank precipice that dropped out of sight without a
break. The western slope, scarcely less steep, ran down in a white even
sheet of frozen snow till the clouds engulfed it.