Proud Kery of Broina felt like a ghost himself;
shade of a madman flitting hopelessly to the
citadel of Earth's disinherited ... to recapture the
resonant pipes of Killorn—weapon of the gods—before
they blared forth the dirge of the world.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories November 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The third book of the Story of the Men of Killorn. How Red Bram foughtthe Ganasthi from the lands of darkness, and Kery son of Rhiach wasangered, and the pipe of the gods spoke once more.
Now it must be told of those who fared forth south under Bram the Red.This was the smallest of the parties that left Killorn, being fromthree clans only—Broina, Dagh, and Heorran. That made some thousandwarriors, mostly men with some women archers and slingers. But thepipe of the gods had always been with Clan Broina, and so it followedthe Broina on this trek. He was Rhiach son of Glyndwyrr, and his sonwas Kery.
Bram was a Heorran, a man huge of height and thew, with eyes like blueice and hair and beard like a torch. He was curt of speech and had noclose friends, but men agreed that his brain and his spirit made himthe best leader for a journey like this, though some thought that hepaid too little respect to the gods and their priests.
For some five years these men of Killorn marched south. They wentover strange hills and windy moors, through ice-blinking clefts ingaunt-cragged mountains and over brawling rivers chill with the cold ofthe Dark Lands.
They hunted and robbed to live, or reaped the grain of foreigners, andcheerfully cut down any who sought to gainsay them. Now and again Bramdickered with the chiefs of some or other city and hired himself andhis wild men out to fight against another town. Then there would behard battle and rich booty and flames red against the twilight sky.
Men died and some grew weary of roving and fighting. There was a sickhunger within them for rest and a hearthfire and the eternal sunsetover the Lake of Killorn. These took a house and a woman and stayed bythe road. In such ways did Bram's army shrink. On the other hand mostof his warriors finally took some or other woman along on the march andshe would demand more for herself and the babies than a roof of cloudsand wind. So there came to be tents and wagons, with children playingbetween the turning wheels. Bram grumbled about this, it made his armyslower and clumsier, but there was little he could do to prevent it.
Those who were boys when the trek began became men with the years andthe battles and the many miles. Among these was the Kery of whom wespeak. He grew tall and lithe and slender, with the fair skin and slantblue eyes and long ash-blond hair of the Broina, broad of forehead andcheekbones, straight-nosed, beardless like most of his clan.
He was swift and deadly with sword, spear, or bow, merry with hiscomrades over ale and campfire, clever to play harp or pipe and makeverses—not much different from the others, save that he came of theBroina and would one day carry the pipe of the gods. And while thelegends of Killorn said that all men are the offspring of a goddesswhom a warrior devil once bore off to his lair, it was held that theBroina had a little more demon blood in them than most.
Always Kery bore within his heart a dream. He was still a striplingwhen they wandered from home. He had reached young manhood among hoofsand wheels and dusty roads, battle and roaming and the glimmer ofcampfires, but he never forgot Killorn of t