Генри Каттнер - Lands of the Earthquake

He remembered then that he had seen those—those beings—before. Somewhere in her company. As to what they looked like, what they were, his conscious mind had no recollection. He thought he would never know consciously. They were too terribly alien to all that is human. He only knew that they walked upright like men, yet were not men, and that such revulsion went through him at the very thought of them that his mind blanked wholly out….

When he heard the laughter of the Huntsman in the fog, he was almost glad. He got up unsteadily. The dark procession with its lights and bells had vanished into the city and the mist was empty now. The Huntsman laughed again, nearer at hand, and on the heels of his laughter rang out the first cry Boyce had heard from the Huntsman’s pack—a high, shivering scream that made his hair prickle at the roots.

He ran.

This time the hunt was after him in earnest. Twice he heard the pack snuffling almost at his very heels, and the thin, clear screaming of their voices was never long silent in the fog. He ran without direction or purpose for what seemed an endless time, with the sandy plain spinning by featurelessly underfoot. He only knew he must not go near the city and those who had entered it.

Gradually it began to dawn upon him that the Huntsman was deliberately herding him. For the pack gave him breathing–spaces. At intervals the Huntsman’s halloo would ring through the mist and the screaming would die away, and Boyce would fling himself full–length upon the damp sand and go limp with exhaustion.

If they meant to pull him down, they could have done so a dozen times in the hours upon hours that the hunt lasted. They were herding him in some one general direction, for some unfathomable reason of the Huntsman’s own.

Now the ground began to rise in jagged foothills, and Boyce knew he was coming again to mountains. The pack was close behind him. He panted up a steep slope, hearing the voice of the Huntsman and the shuddering screams of the beasts echoing hollowly through the fog.

Then suddenly the ground before him dropped away in a sheer cliff. He paused and looked frantically about. If the Huntsman had driven him deliberately to this spot, then perhaps it was with no other purpose than to trap him more easily for the kill. For he could not go on or go back.

There was a new sound in the fog. A dull, rhythmic clopping that was oddly familiar. Boyce strained his eyes toward it, trying to quiet his painful gasping. But the fog hid the source of the noise and distorted its sound.

A clear, shivering scream from close behind him made Boyce swing around. Out of the greyness a low, lithe shape took form, lifting a snarling face to stare at him. Another and another behind it moved soundlessly forward, like creatures in a dream.

The clop–clopping was louder now. Abruptly the Huntsman’s voice rang out in a high, summoning shout. The beautiful, snarling beasts hesitated. The Huntsman shouted again, and abruptly the pack was gone. Mist closed around them and they vanished like nightmares as they had come.

The Huntsman’s laughter rang out once more, mocking, edged with that inhuman snarl. Then silence.

The rhythmic, half–metallic noise came on. Boyce turned.

Out of the fog that rolled back like a curtain from its shoulders, a huge black charger paced. Upon it rode a man—Boyce’s eyes widened—a man who had ridden straight out of a lost century.

Chain–mail, glistening with moisture, hung in faintly ringing folds upon his great body. A conical helmet with metal–mesh hanging from it framed a harsh face in which eyes of pale blue stared unwinkingly at Boyce. A sword swung at the knight’s waist.

Another enemy, Boyce thought. He glanced back into the fog, but there was no trace of the Huntsman or his pack.

The mounted man said something. Boyce was stunned to find he could understand the language. Not easily, but it was the old French, the tongue spoken by Frenchmen six hundred years ago. The words and inflection were archaic, garbled—but understandable.

“I am a friend,” Boyce said slowly, carefully. “I come in peace.” But his tense muscles did not relax. If the knight charged, perhaps he could dodge aside and somehow wrench the man from the saddle.

“If you ran from the Huntsman, you are no friend of the City dogs,” the knight said, his harsh mouth relaxing a trifle. “You may come in peace with me—at least. Where is your home?”

Boyce hesitated. What would modern place–names mean to this archaic figure?

“Another land,” he said at random. “Far from here, I think.”

The blue eyes widened.

“Beyond the mountains? Or—not a land of blue sky and a bright sun? Not a land named—Normandy?”

Still Boyce hesitated. The knight leaned forward in his saddle.

“By your garments you are no man of this haunted world. And you speak our tongue. By the Rood, stranger—answer! Do you know Paris and Rome? Byzantium? Answer! What world do you come from?”

“I know Paris and Rome, yes,” Boyce said, through his amazement. “But I do not understand—”

The knight clapped his gauntleted hand to his thigh.

“Oh, by all the gods! Now if you were helot to the Huntsman or servant of Satanas himself, I’d take you to Kerak with me! Up—up, man! The pack may return, or other dangers may threaten. We ride a perilous patrol on these marches. Up, I say!”

A mailed hand gripped Boyce’s. The American was swung up, finding a seat behind the knight. The great charger, well trained, scarcely stirred until the armored man spoke a word. Then the horse cantered forward, picking its way delicately through the fog.

“I am Godfrey Morel—Godfrey Long–shanks they call me,” came the hard, firm voice. “Not in my memory has any man come here from the lands of the cross. We were the last. Dear heaven, how my soul has sickened and lusted for a breath of clean wind from Normandy!

“Even the Turk sirocco, hell–hot as it was, would have been grateful, instead of the perfumed stink of this abode of Satanas! Spy or traitor you may be—we can learn that later. But first you will tell me how the world moves—whether we still hold Antioch, and if the Red Lion still leads his Seljuk Turks against our armies.”

About to answer, Boyce paused as an elbow jolted into his ribs.

“Silence now, for a while,” Godfrey Morel said softly. “Kerak is under siege. It is always under siege, but the fight grows hotter of late. We must ride warily. And in silence.”

The war–horse paced on through the thickening mists. Boyce’s throat was dry. Byzantium? Antioch? More than six hundred years had rolled over old Earth since the banners of the Crusaders flaunted on the ramparts of Antioch!

Boyce breathed deeply. This was no stranger or more fantastic than the fantastic questions that seethed in his brain. This world was not Earth—he knew that without any question. The crystal gateway through which he smashed had led him into … what? Her world, yes.

But what and where? He knew it did not matter. Enough that it was here—the girl he could neither forget nor remember, whose image was a scar upon his memory. But for the rest, his questions must go unanswered a while longer.

Godfrey Morel’s armor creaked and rang. Beneath them the great war–horse’s ponderous gait rocked them both to the same rhythm. Himself, and a man who asked after Antioch and the fate of battles six hundred years lost and won. He must not think now of Godfrey Long–shanks’ enigma. His brain was dizzy already with unanswered questions.

The mists blew apart before them and Boyce saw, high on a crag, the towers and bastions of the great grey castle he had glimpsed across the valley. The crimson banner streamed from its keep–height. Briefly through his mind went the wonder that he had come so straight for it. Was that the Huntsman’s doing? And if it was, why?