“Bran,” Liuba began, “have I not earned a bounty for my aid to you?”
“Of course,” Bran laughed shortly, watching the barrow below them. “You’ve save my life and all that I hold sacred.”
“I said there must be a price.”
“I’ll pay it gladly.”
Liuba’s foce was troubled. “It isn’t right. Our battles were the same. Your enemies were as my own.”
“I’m going down there,” Bran decided. “Another minute first, to be certain Nero doesn’t lurk within the rowans.”
“You won’t find Nero there,” Liuba whispered. “But it’s too much of a coincidence that he would take such pains to hide his trail, then double back to this…”
“In truth, I led you here to pay a price.”
Bran dismounted, intending to slip into the clearing on foot. He scarcely listened to what the girl was saying.
Liuba’s eyes were strange when she dismounted to stand before him. “You must go with me, Bran Mak Morn.”
Bran frowned at her in vexation. “But I’m already here, Liuba.” The girl was a mystery.
She took his shoulders in a grip of cold steel. Bran marvelled at the flame of moonlight on her pale face.
“We are both of us bound to the circle of our fates,” Liuba told him, drawing close.
Bran thought it was scarcely the moment for their first kiss, but the woman seemed possessed of a strange mood. Her lips were cold. So were her teeth.
Their horses, untethered, shrilled in sudden fright, bolted away for the clearing below.
Bran started to push her away, but the effort was too much. The grass was cold on his back.
A moment of strange ecstasy, and of sudden fear…
***
“Hold! Nightwalker! Lamia! Away to your abode!” Gonar’s voice thundered from a dream. The wizards eyes burned, and he brandished his ashen staff like a menacing wand. “I command you go by the all-potent names of…”
What manner of gods or devils were these? Bran mused in dream. Names he had never heard-or had he, long ago?
“Fools!” spat Liuba. “We’ll settle the debt another day, Bran Mak Morn!”
Blackness…
***
Gonar was shaking him. Bran pushed him away, sat up unsteadily. Another nightmare…? No, Morgain was hugging him and crying like a lost child.
The three of them crouched alone on the grass below Kestrel Scaur. Bran’s neck pained him, and when he touched it, he saw that he must have taken a small cut there during the battle.
Morgain carried on like an idiot, and the tattooed priest was chattering disjointedly about something. Bran found he could follow with difficulty.
“I thought it was a trap of some sort. Atla crawling to me, saying she didn’t care if I took her life, that you had ridden into the night with the woman whose pristine body she had seen lying on the barrow slab when they broke into the sealed tomb, that an army of ghosts had marched behind her to rout Nero’s legion.
“I thought the witch lied, for she said she risked her life out of love for you. But Morgain believed her, and strange things were told by those who pursued the last of the legionaries onto the moors. After Atla fled into the night, I remembered the dim legend of the warrior-sorceress, Liuba, who was a queen of the Pictish clans of lost Atlantis. She was driven forth in the great wars of the clans, so the tale runs-hunted down and entombed at last in an ensorcelled barrow that was doubly guarded by a ring of sacred rowans to keep her from walking by night.” Bran stared at the wizard, wondering which of them was mad. “And how was it this Liuba of Atlantean legend met her death?”
“She never died,” said Gonar.
AFTERWORD
For those who keep track of such things, the three tales of Bran Mak Morn chronicled in the collection, Worms of the Earth (Zebra Books: 1975), can be considered as having taken place at the beginning of the third century, roughly as follows: “Men of the Shadows” in 205; “Worms of the Earth” in 206; “Kings of the Night” in 207. During this period Hadrian’s Wall had been reconstructed, Rome had regained control of the South, and the new provincial governor, L. Alfenus Senecio, had petitioned the emperor, Septimius Severus, to send an expedition to subdue the untamed Caledonians. This novel, Legion from the Shadows, takes place in spring of 208, on the eve of Severus’ arrival in Eboracum to assume personal command of the conquest of the North.
The disappearance of the Ninth Legion, one of the great mysteries of history, has been subject to much conjecture and controversy. Without dwelling on this discussion, best evidence would indicate that Legio IX Hispana was annihilated in some military disaster in northern Britain approximately 118-130 A.D. For purposes of this novel, I have accepted the latter date.
As much as possible I have attempted to remain true to the historical framework, seeking at the same time to preserve Howard’s own fictional concepts. The informed reader will be aware that the Picts of Howard’s imagination bear little resemblance to the Picts as revealed by modern archeology. For purposes of fantasy, let us assume that Howard’s Picts are indeed a lost race as he portrayed them-vanished now from history, and confused by archeologists with some vastly different people. The serious reader is referred to any of the numerous historical works pertaining to Roman Britain and to the legions. I found the following recent books of great value: Brittannia-A History of Roman Britain by Sheppard Frere; Roman Britain by I. A. Richmond; The Roman Imperial Army by Graham Webster; The Army of the Caesars by Michael Grant.
I am particularly indebted to Scott Connors, whose brilliant study, “The Riddle of the Black Seal” (Nyctalops: January/February 1975), explored Arthur Mach-en’s influence on Howard in the latter author’s adoption of the concepts of the Black Stone and of a hidden cave-dwelling race of subhuman dwarves. These tales of Arthur Machen which so strongly influenced Howard in this theme include “The Novel of the Black Seal,” “The Shining Pyramid,” and to a lesser extent “The Red Hand.” They are available in recent paperback collections of Machen’s stories, and I recommend them along with Connors’ article to the serious Howard fan.
Finally, I have tried to weld a synthesis of Howard’s numerous allusions-often fragmentary and contradictory-both to the Picts and to the Worms of the Earth. Both are a favorite and recurrent theme of Howard’s fantasy work. For those interested in Howard’s various treatments of the Picts, the Black Stone, and the serpent-folk (beyond the stories available in Worms of the Earth), I suggest the following of his stories:
“The Little People” (Probably Howard’s earliest treatment of the theme-a modern tale in which the Picts are the dread survival of an underground race).
“The Children of the Night” (A modern tale of racial memories in which the Picts have driven the Mongoloid serpent-race into hiding-mentions the existence of the cult of Bran Mak Morn).
“People of the Dark” (A modern tale of racial memories in which reincarnated lovers and rivals confront the last degenerate survival of the serpent-folk).
“The Valley of the Lost” (A tale of the American West in which a Texas gunfighter discovers survivals of the serpent-race dwelling in a lost cavern).
“The Black Stone” (A modern tale of age-old demon-worship connected to a prehuman black monolith in Hungary-mentions the Picts and the older Mongoloid race they overcame).