Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/22

 Tuathan boat larger than their own. It held half a dozen warriors, with giant Dagda himself crouched at its prow.

"Turn and try to lose them in the mists!" cried Brian Cullan, desperate at the last-minute menace to his hopes.

Goban obeyed, swerving their racing craft so sharply that its gunwhale [sic] dipped up sea. But turn and twist as they might, the other craft and Dagda's angry, booming voice hung close behind them.

"No use, Cuchulain!" cried Goban hopelessly. "They'll board us in a moment. And we cannot fight our own—"

He suddenly stopped, his face for a moment wild and startled as he peered through the mist beyond Cullan.

"The Fomorians!"

A dozen sharklike metal craft were rushing out of the mists upon them from the direction of Mruun. Cullan glimpsed them, loaded with dark Fomorian warriors in black helmets and mall, yelling now in savage joy.

There was no chance for either Cullan's nor Dagda's craft to escape the ring that suddenly closed upon them. Flame-swords flared and clashed, men screamed and died in the mist, as the boats came together.

Cullan had his own sword out, triggering the deadly force into its blade as he struck across the gunwales at the wolfish, brutal figures looming through the mist. He «aw Fomorian faces twist in agony as his blade touched bodies and loosed the destroying force on them.

"Slay not the outworlder Cuchulain!" yelled a captain in the Fomorian boat attacking them. "Remember Tethra's orders!"

Take him alive to torture with Fand? Cullan struck fiercely at the dark warriors who now were piling into his boat.

He glimpsed Dagda's craft rammed and sinking, the bellowing TuaLhan giant pitched into the sea. Then, from his unguarded side, a Fomorian sword-hilt crashed against the base of his neck. And Brian Cullan felt himself sliding into blackness.

He awoke, his head aching violently; to a silence that seemed amazing transition from the roar and shock of battle.

Cullan opened his eyes. He was in a dark stone chamber, windowless but chill with icy mists, lighted by a pulsing ocher radiance.

"Goban, what happened?" he stammered to the man supporting him. Then he saw that it was not Goban but huge Dagda, his shock head bare.

"Goban died a warrior's death in the fight," boomed the giant. "So did my men—but the cursed Fomorians picked me out of the water like a helpless fish as I sank in my mail."

Brian Cullen felt a pang, at the news of the brave Tuatha captain's death. Then he looked wonderingly around the dank room.

"We're in the castle of Tethra?" he husked.

"Aye, that we are," said Dagda grimly. His massive face was black with rage. "Captured like children by Tethra's dark devils! Outworlder, your crazy expedition hither has led us into a trap where I'll die without ever fighting in the last grand battle."

He strode the room furiously. "See how this ocher radiance shrouds all the castle? It is no more light, but a shield of force that Tethra's science has flung forth to ward the lightning-loosing weapons of my people. Yes, the struggle will be bitter. And I to take no part in it!"