Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/19

 that be sensed again behind Lugh's words.

"We go to Mruun at once, physically and with weapons?" he cried tensely.

Lugh shook his head. "Not yet. The hosts of the Tuatha are not yet gathered. And I have still a weapon to use against Tethra before we join final battle. But it will take time."

"Time? There is no time!" Cullan retorted passionately. "If you and your warriors won't go, I'm going to Mruun alone!"

He turned to leave the chamber. But giant Dagda grasped him, and held him like a child despite his raging resistance.

"Lock him up," Lugh ordered curtly. "And you guard him, Goban. He is valuable to us for he is part of my plan against Tethra."

Struggling furiously, Cullan was carried bodily out of the chamber and down a corridor. Dagda tossed him into a small room, not unkindly.

"Be not so impatient, outworlder," boomed the giant as he shut and locked the door. "There'll be battle enough for all of us, soon."

Brian Cullan heard the huge Tuathan stride away, leaving Goban on guard outside the locked door. He stood in the small, yellow-lit room, trembling with frustrated rage and dread.

There was a tiny window. He went to it looked out feverishly into the night. Diffused silver radiance now streamed down through the mists, from moons somewhere above the haze. The unreal light washed the gardens and bubble-buildings below this high citadel of Thandara.

Out in the harbor of the city he could see slim boats streaming in through the haze, in numbers. The Tuathan warriors were gathering from all their isles for war.

Cullan gained no hope from the sight. By the time this host was ready to go northward, it would be too late to save Fand from torture and death.

CHAPTER IV

ULLAN turned back from the window, his fists clenched and his dark face savage in the soft yellow light.

"I'll not be locked here like a child while Lugh spins mysterious plots. If they won't go to Mruun, I will!"

But how? How escape from this room, from the citadel? The window was too small, the door locked. There was only one possibility.

He went to the door and called through it, "Goban, I want you to come inside. I give my word not to try to overpower you."

Goban's voice came doubtfully. "I do no doubt your word, Cuchulain. But—"

"Man, the princess Fand's life hinges on it!" Cullan cried.

That swept aside Goban's doubts, as he had known it would. The captain of Fand's guards, like all her warriors, had been fanatically devoted to her. Goban unlocked the door and entered the room.

Cullan spoke rapidly. "Lugh told you that we had seen Fand a prisoner in Mruun. But he did not tell you of all her peril."

Goban's face blanched as he listened to Cullan's tale of hearing Tethra threaten the Tuathan princess with imminent torture.

"The devils of Fomoria!" raged the captain. "If they do that before we get there—"

"They will have done it before your host arrives," pressed Brian Cullan.

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