“As I came through the door, a great man-net fell on me, entangling my sword arm, and binding my limbs, and a dozen great rogues sprang on me. Well, mayhap my taking was not so easy as they had thought. Two of them were swinging on my already encumbered right arm so I could not use my sword, but I kicked one in the side and felt his ribs give way, and bursting some of the net’s strands with my left hand, I gored another with my dagger. He had his death thereby and screamed like a lost soul as he gave up the ghost.
“But by Valka, there were too many of them. At last they had me stripped of my armor”–Delcartes saw the king wore only a sort of loin cloth–“and bound as you see me. The devil himself could not break these strands–no, scant use to try to untie the knots. One of the men was a seaman and I know of old the sort of knots they tie! I was a galley slave once, you know.”
“But what can I do?” wailed the girl, wringing her hands.
“Take a heavy piece of marble and flake off a sharp sliver,” said Kull swiftly. “You must cut these ropes–”
She did as she was bid and was rewarded with a long thin piece of stone, the concave edge of which was as keen as a razor with a jagged edge.
“I fear I will cut your skin, sire,” she apologized as she began work.
“Cut skin, flesh and bone, but get me free!” snarled Kull, his ferocious eyes blazing. “Trapped like a blind fool! Oh, imbecile that I am! Valka, Honan and Hotath! But let me get my hands on the rogues–how came you here?”
“Let us talk of that later,” said Delcartes rather breathlessly. “Just now there is time for haste.”
Silence fell as the girl sawed at the stubborn strands giving no heed to her own tender hands which were soon lacerated and bleeding. Slowly, strand by strand the cords gave way; but there was still enough to hold the ordinary man helpless, when a heavy step sounded outside the door.
Delcartes froze. A voice spoke: “He is within, Gonda, bound and gagged and helpless. With him some Valusian wench that we caught wandering about the Garden.”
“Then be on watch for some gallant,” spoke another voice, a harsh, grating one, as the tone of a man accustomed to being obeyed. “Likely she was to meet some fop here. You–”
“No names, no names, good Gonda,” broke in a silky Valusian voice. “Remember our agreement–until Gomlah mounts the throne, I am simply–the Masked One.”
“Very good,” grunted the Verulian. “You have done a good night’s work, Masked One. None but you could have done it, for of us all only you knew how to obtain the royal signet. Only you could so closely counterfeit Tu’s writing–by the way, did you kill the old fellow?”
“What matter? Tonight, or the day Gomlah mounts the throne–he dies. The matter is that the king lies helpless in our power.”
Kull was racking his brain to remember–whose voice was that of the traitor? The voice was familiar but he could not place it. And Gonda–his face grew grim. A deep conspiracy indeed, if Verulia must send the commander of her royal armies to do her foul work. The king knew Gonda well, and had aforetime entertained him in the palace.
“Go in and bring him out,” said Gonda. “We will take him to the old torture chamber. I have questions to ask of him.”
The door opened admitting one man; the giant who had captured Delcartes. The door closed behind him and he crossed the room, giving scarcely a glance to the girl who cowered in a corner. He bent over the bound king, took him by leg and shoulder to lift him bodily–there came a sudden loud snap, as Kull, throwing all his iron strength into one convulsive wrench, broke the remaining strands which bound him.
He had not been tied long enough for all circulation to be cut off and his strength affected. As a python strikes his hands shot to the giant’s throat–shot, and gripped like a steel vise.
The giant went to his knees. One hand flew to the iron fingers at his throat, the other to his dagger. His fingers sank like steel into Kull’s wrist, the dagger flashed from its sheath–then his eyes bulged, his tongue sagged out. The fingers fell away from the king’s wrist, and the dagger slipped from a nerveless grip. The Verulian went limp, his throat literally crushed in that terrible grip. Kull, with one terrific wrench, broke his neck and releasing him, tore the sword from its sheath. Delcartes had picked up the dagger.
The whole combat had taken only a few flashing seconds and had caused no more noise than might have resulted from a man lifting and shouldering a great weight.
“Hasten!” called Gonda’s voice impatiently from the door, and Kull, crouching tiger-like just inside, thought quickly. He knew that there were at least a score of conspirators in the Gardens. He knew also, from the sound of the voices, that there were only two or three outside the door at the moment. This room was not a good place to defend. In a moment they would be coming in to see what was the delay. He reached a decision and acted promptly.
He beckoned the girl. “As soon as I have gone through the door, run out likewise and run up the stairs which lead away to the left.” She nodded trembling and he patted her slim shoulders reassuringly. Then he whirled and flung open the door.
To the men outside, expecting the Verulian giant with the helpless king on his shoulders, appeared an apparition which was dumfounding in its unexpectedness. Kull stood in the door; Kull, half naked, crouched like a great human tiger, his teeth bared in the moonlight in a snarl of battle fury, his terrible eyes blazing–the long blade whirling like a wheel of silver in the moon.
Kull saw Gonda, two Verulian soldiers, a slim figure in a black mask–a flashing instant and then he was among them and the dance of death was on. The Verulian commander went down in the king’s first lunge, his head cleft to the teeth, in spite of his helmet. The Masked One drew and thrust, his point raking Kull’s cheek; one of the soldiers drove at the king with a spear, was parried and the next instant lay dead across his master. The other soldier broke and ran, hallooing lustily for his comrades. The Masked One retreated swiftly before the headlong attack of the king, parrying and guarding with an almost uncanny skill. He had no time to launch an attack of his own; before the whirlwind ferocity of Kull’s charge he had only time for defense. Kull beat against his blade like a blacksmith on an anvil, and again and again it seemed as though the long Verulian steel must inevitably cleave that masked and hooded head, but always the long slim Valusian sword was in the way, turning the blow by an inch or stopping it within a hair’s breadth of the skin, but always just enough.
Then Kull saw the Verulian soldiers running through the foliage and heard the clang of their weapons and their fierce shouts. Caught here in the open, they would get behind him and spit him like a rat. He slashed once more, viciously, at the retreating Valusian, and then backing away, turned and ran fleetly up the stairs, at the top of which Delcartes already stood.
There he turned at bay. He and the girl stood on a sort of artificial promontory. A stair led up and a stair had once led down the other way, but now the back stair had long since crumbled to decay. Kull saw that they were in a cul-de-sac. There was no escape, for on each side was a sheer wall some fifty feet in height. These walls were cut deep with ornate carvings but–“Well,” thought Kull, “here we die. But here many others die, too.”
The Verulians were gathering at the foot of the stair, under the leadership of the mysterious masked Valusian. The bell rang then. Kull took a fresh grip on his sword hilt and flung back his head–an unconscious reversion to days when he had worn a lion like mane of hair. A wild freedom swept over him and he laughed with such ringing joy that the soldiers at the foot of the stairs stared up at him, gaping.