Adventure Magazine Cover — page 63: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Prisoners of War He flexed his own great muscles, but it “Neither more nor less than any fight,” Tros answered. ‘Tell him, Helma, that a man does what he can do, and neither gods nor men should ask more or expect less!”’ He saw that nothing could be gained by telling ‘Sigurdsen how great the danger was. The Northmen had too recently been beaten to thrill at any thought of a folorn hope. He must make them think their task was easy; so he led off, whistling to himself. And first he returned to Caswallon’s house to rifle the great racks of arms that lined a storeroom near the hall. There was no guard, no lock. He laughed as he served out bows and arrows, laughed again, as he thought of that gold he had won from Ceesar. Fflur was supposed to be guarding it. Tt was probably under her bed! He won- dered where Caswallon’s own treasure lay, all the golden money coined in the mint at Verulam. * “Honesty, unless all other men are honest, is no better than Achilles’ heel!” he re- flected. “Britons are madman. Caswallon is the maddest of them all!” _ He marched his men out through Cas- wallon’s gate slowly, because some limped and had to lean on others, and downhill between the neat, fenced houses, leaving Sigurdsen’s wife and the widow-woman with orders to attach themselves to Conops’ torch-brigade. But Helma he kept with him, since he had no other means of in- structing his men. They marched into a creeping gray mist ascending from the river, that made trees and houses loom like ghost-things from an- other world. Except that once or twice a tied hound bayed at them and cows lowed in the barns as they went by, there was no sign of life until they reached Lud’s Gate with the wooden bridge ‘beyond it. There was a guardhouse built of mud and timber either side the gate, but no lights and only one man fast asleep on a bench within an open guardhouse door. When Tros wakened him he said he was there to entertain belated strangers, and he pulled out a ‘bag of roasted wheat, supposing that Tros and his men wished food and lodging for the night. He was a very old man, trembling with “Nowadays known as St. Albans. _ 61 the river-ague, but Tros pressed him into service since he admitted that he knew every nook and corner of the sparsely wooded land that lay beyond the bridge. Tros decided not to close the town gate, It was ajar when he arrived, because the old man was too thoughtful of his ague to wish to struggle with it if a stranger should seek admittance. Tros flung it wide, and lighted the bronze lamps in both guardhouse win- dows, so that any one coming would know there was no obstruction and might elect to ride full-pelt across the bridge. The wall reached either way into obscu- rity. It was a thing of mud and lumber, useless against battery, but too high for an enemy to waste time climbing if he should see a gap that he might gallop through. Beyond, were occasional clumps of trees that loomed through the drifting mist, a low gurgle from the swamps at the river- edge, and silence. “Now,” said Tros to Helma, “you shall be a widow on your bridal night, or else shall wife it with a man who stands firm in one king’s favor! It seems to me the Britons are all fools, not alone Caswallon. So I think this man who comes to seize Cas- wallon’s throne is no whit wiser than the rest. If 1 am wrong, then you are as good as married to a dead man! But we shall see.” He took Helma and the old guardhouse man across the bridge with him, ignored a clump of trees and undergrowth—since any fool might look for an ambush there—and, after ten minutes’ stumbling over tufted ridge and muddy hollow, chose a short stretch of open country where the road crossed what apparently was level ground. “But he noticed it was not actually level; mist and darkness were deceptive. Fifty feet away to one side the smooth, grazed turf was half a man’s height higher than the road, and from that point it fell away again into a mist-filled hollow. He could have hidden a hundred men there. He glanced at the town gate, wide, im- viting. Lamplight shone across the open- ing, blurred by fog, and he whistled con- tentedly as he realized what a glare Conops’ torches would make, seen from that view- point through the lighter mist uphill. But there was something lacking yet. “Tf they come they will come in a hurry. They will charge the open gate. They will get by before we can check them!” Gomicbooks.com