{"id":372,"date":"2016-05-26T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T07:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/?page_id=372"},"modified":"2024-10-19T08:09:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T08:09:00","slug":"annexe-ii-9-gods-of-the-north","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/?page_id=372","title":{"rendered":"Annexe II.9 \u2013 Gods of the North"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source\u00a0: http:\/\/gutenberg.net.au\/ebooks06\/0600751.txt<\/a>, consult\u00e9 le 26\/08\/2015.<\/p>\n

Title: Gods of the North\r\nAuthor: Robert E. Howard\r\n* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *\r\neBook No.:  0600751.txt\r\nEdition: 1\r\nLanguage: English\r\nCharacter set encoding: Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit\r\nDate first posted: May 2006\r\nDate most recently updated: May 2006\r\n\r\nThis eBook was produced by: Richard Scott and Colin Choat\r\n\r\nProject Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions\r\nwhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice\r\nis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular\r\npaper edition.\r\n\r\nCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the\r\ncopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this\r\nfile.\r\n\r\nThis eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions\r\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\r\nof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at\r\nhttp:\/\/gutenberg.net.au\/licence.html\r\n\r\n\r\nTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http:\/\/gutenberg.net.au\r\n\r\n\r\nTitle: Gods of the North\r\nAuthor: Robert E. Howard\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAcross the red drifts and mail-clad forms, two figures glared at each\r\nother. In that utter desolation only they moved. The frosty sky was\r\nover them, the white illimitable plain around them, the dead men at\r\ntheir feet. Slowly through the corpses they came, as ghosts might come\r\nto a tryst through the shambles of a dead world. In the brooding\r\nsilence they stood face to face.\r\n\r\nBoth were tall men, built like tigers. Their shields were gone, their\r\ncorselets battered and dinted. Blood dried on their mail; their swords\r\nwere stained red. Their horned helmets showed the marks of fierce\r\nstrokes. One was beardless and black\u00admaned. The locks and beard of\r\nthe other were red as the blood on the sunlit snow.\r\n\r\n\"Man,\" said he, \"tell me your name, so that my brothers in Vanaheim\r\nmay know who was the last of Wulfhere's band to fall before the sword\r\nof Heimdul.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not in Vanaheim,\" growled the black-haired warrior, \"but in Valhalla\r\nwill you tell your brothers that you met Conan of Cimmeria.\"\r\n\r\nHeimdul roared and leaped, and his sword flashed in deathly arc. Conan\r\nstaggered and his vision was filled with red sparks as the singing\r\nblade crashed on his helmet, shivering into bits of blue fire. But as\r\nhe reeled he thrust with all the power of his broad shoulders behind\r\nthe humming blade. The sharp point tore through brass scales and bones\r\nand heart, and the red-haired warrior died at Conan's feet.\r\n\r\nThe Cimmerian stood upright, trailing his sword, a sudden sick\r\nweariness assailing him. The glare of the sun on the snow cut his eyes\r\nlike a knife and the sky seemed shrunken and strangely apart. He\r\nturned away from the trampled expanse where yellow-bearded warriors\r\nlay locked with red-haired slayers in the embrace of death. A few\r\nsteps he took, and the glare of the snow fields was suddenly dimmed. A\r\nrushing wave of blindness engulfed him and he sank down into the snow,\r\nsupporting himself on one mailed arm, seeking to shake the blindness\r\nout of his eyes as a lion might shake his mane.\r\n\r\nA silvery laugh cut through his dizziness, and his sight cleared\r\nslowly. He looked up; there was a strangeness about all the landscape\r\nthat he could not place or define--an unfamiliar tinge to earth and\r\nsky. But he did not think long of this. Before him, swaying like a\r\nsapling in the wind, stood a woman. Her body was like ivory to his\r\ndazed gaze, and save for a light veil of gossamer, she was naked as\r\nthe day. Her slender bare feet were whiter than the snow they spurned.\r\nShe laughed down at the bewildered warrior. Her laughter was sweeter\r\nthan the rippling of silvery fountains, and poisonous with cruel\r\nmockery.\r\n\r\n\"Who are you?\" asked the Cimmerian. \"Whence come you?\"\r\n\r\n\"What matter?\" Her voice was more musical than a silver-stringed harp,\r\nbut it was edged with cruelty.\r\n\r\n\"Call up your men,\" said he, grasping his sword. \"Yet though my\r\nstrength fail me, they shall not take me alive. I see that you are of\r\nthe Vanir.\"\r\n\r\n\"Have I said so?\"\r\n\r\nHis gaze went again to her unruly locks, which at first glance he had\r\nthought to be red. Now he saw that they were neither red nor yellow\r\nbut a glorious compound of both colors. He gazed spell-bound. Her hair\r\nwas like elfin-gold; the sun struck it so dazzlingly that he could\r\nscarcely bear to look upon it. Her eyes were likewise neither wholly\r\nblue nor wholly grey, but of shifting colors and dancing lights and\r\nclouds of colors he could not define. Her full red lips smiled, and\r\nfrom her slender feet to the blinding crown of her billowy hair, her\r\nivory body was as perfect as the dream of a god. Conan's pulse\r\nhammered in his temples.\r\n\r\n\"I can not tell,\" said he, \"whether you are of Vanaheim and mine\r\nenemy, or of Asgard and my friend. Far have I wandered, but a woman\r\nlike you I have never seen. Your locks blind me with their brightness.\r\nNever have I seen such hair, not even among the fairest daughters of\r\nthe \u00c6sir. By Ymir--\"\r\n\r\n\"Who are you to swear by Ymir?\" she mocked. \"What know you of the gods\r\nof ice and snow, you who have come up from the south to adventure\r\namong an alien people?\"\r\n\r\n\"By the dark gods of my own race!\" he cried in anger. \"Though I am not\r\nof the golden haired \u00c6sir, none has been more forward in sword-play!\r\nThis day I have seen four score men fall, and I alone have survived\r\nthe field where Wulfhere's reavers met the wolves of Bragi. Tell me,\r\nwoman, have you seen the flash of mail out across the snow-plains, or\r\nseen armed men moving upon the ice?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have seen the hoar-frost glittering in the sun,\" she answered. \"I\r\nhave heard the wind whispering across the everlasting snows.\"\r\n\r\nHe shook his head with a sigh.\r\n\r\n\"Niord should have come up with us before the battle joined. I fear he\r\nand his fighting-men have been ambushed. Wulfhere and his warriors lie\r\ndead.\r\n\r\n\"I had thought there was no village within many leagues of this spot,\r\nfor the war carried us far, but you can not have come a great distance\r\nover these snows, naked as you are. Lead me to your tribe, if you are\r\nof Asgard, for I am faint with blows and the weariness of strife.\"\r\n\r\n\"My village is further than you can walk, Conan of Cimmeria,\" she\r\nlaughed. Spreading her arms wide, she swayed before him, her golden\r\nhead lolling sensuously, her scintillant eyes half shadowed beneath\r\ntheir long silken lashes. \"Am I not beautiful, oh man?\"\r\n\r\n\"Like Dawn running naked on the snows,\" he muttered, his eyes burning\r\nlike those of a wolf.\r\n\r\n\"Then why do you not rise and follow me? Who is the strong warrior who\r\nfalls down before me?\" she chanted in maddening mockery. \"Lie down and\r\ndie in the snow with the other fools, Conan of the black hair. You can\r\nnot follow where I would lead.\"\r\n\r\nWith an oath the Cimmerian heaved himself up on his feet, his blue\r\neyes blazing, his dark scarred face contorted. Rage shook his soul,\r\nbut desire for the taunting figure before him hammered at his temples\r\nand drove his wild blood fiercely through his veins. Passion fierce as\r\nphysical agony flooded his whole being, so that earth and sky swam red\r\nto his dizzy gaze. In the madness that swept upon him, weariness and\r\nfaintness were swept away.\r\n\r\nHe spoke no word as he drove at her, fingers spread to grip her soft\r\nflesh. With a shriek of laughter she leaped back and ran, laughing at\r\nhim over her white shoulder. With a low growl Conan followed. He had\r\nforgotten the fight, forgotten the mailed warriors who lay in their\r\nblood, forgotten Niord and the reavers who had failed to reach the\r\nfight. He had thought only for the slender white shape which seemed to\r\nfloat rather than run before him.\r\n\r\nOut across the white blinding plain the chase led. The trampled red\r\nfield fell out of sight behind him, but still Conan kept on with the\r\nsilent tenacity of his race. His mailed feet broke through the frozen\r\ncrust; he sank deep in the drifts and forged through them by sheer\r\nstrength. But the girl danced across the snow light as a feather\r\nfloating across a pool; her naked feet barely left their imprint on\r\nthe hoar\u00adfrost that overlaid the crust. In spite of the fire in his\r\nveins, the cold bit through warrior's mail and fur-lined tunic; but\r\nthe girl in her gossamer veil ran as lightly: as gaily as if she\r\ndanced through the palm and rose gardens of Poitain.\r\n\r\nOn and on she led, and Conan followed. Black curses drooled through\r\nthe Cimmerian's parched lips. The great veins in his temples swelled\r\nand throbbed and his teeth gnashed.\r\n\r\n\"You can not escape me!\" he roared. \"Lead me into a trap and I'll pile\r\nthe heads of your kinsmen at your feet! Hide from me and I'll tear\r\napart the mountains to find you! I'll follow you to hell!\"\r\n\r\nHer maddening laughter floated back to him, and foam flew from the\r\nbarbarian's lips. Further and further into the wastes she led him. The\r\nland changed; the wide plains gave way to low hills, marching upward\r\nin broken ranges. Far to the north he caught a glimpse of towering\r\nmountains, blue with the distance, or white with the eternal snows.\r\nAbove these mountains shone the flaring rays of the borealis. They\r\nspread fan-wise into the sky, frosty blades of cold flaming light,\r\nchanging in color, growing and brightening.\r\n\r\nAbove him the skies glowed and crackled with strange lights and\r\ngleams. The snow shone weirdly, now frosty blue, now icy crimson, now\r\ncold silver. Through a shimmering icy realm of enchantment Conan\r\nplunged doggedly onward, in a crystalline maze where the only reality\r\nwas the white body dancing across the glittering snow beyond his\r\nreach--ever beyond his reach.\r\n\r\nHe did not wonder at the strangeness of it all, not even when two\r\ngigantic figures rose up to bar his way. The scales of their mail were\r\nwhite with hoar-frost; their helmets and their axes were covered with\r\nice. Snow sprinkled their locks; in their beards were spikes of\r\nicicles; their eyes were cold as the lights that streamed above them.\r\n\r\n\"Brothers!\" cried the girl, dancing between them. \"Look who follows! I\r\nhave brought you a man to slay! Take his heart that we may lay it\r\nsmoking on our father' board!\"\r\n\r\nThe giants answered with roars like the grinding of ice-bergs on a\r\nfrozen shore and heaved up their shining axes as the maddened\r\nCimmerian hurled himself upon them. A frosty blade flashed before his\r\neyes, blinding him with its brightness, and he gave back a terrible\r\nstroke that sheared through his foe's thigh. With a groan the victim\r\nfell, and at the instant Conan was dashed into the snow, his left\r\nshoulder numb from the blow of the survivor, from which the\r\nCimmerian's mail had barely saved his life. Conan saw the remaining\r\ngiant looming high above him like a colossus carved of ice, etched\r\nagainst the cold glowing sky. The axe fell, to sink through the snow\r\nand deep into the frozen earth as Conan hurled himself aside and\r\nleaped to his feet. The giant roared and wrenched his axe free, but\r\neven as he did, Conan's sword sang down. The giant's knees bent and he\r\nsank slowly into the snow, which turned crimson with the blood that\r\ngushed from his half-severed neck.\r\n\r\nConan wheeled, to see the girl standing a short distance away, staring\r\nat him in wide-eyed horror, all the mockery gone from her face. He\r\ncried out fiercely and the blood-drops flew from his sword as his hand\r\nshook in the intensity of his passion.\r\n\r\n\"Call the rest of your brothers!\" he cried. \"I'll give their hearts to\r\nthe wolves! You can not escape me--\"\r\n\r\nWith a cry of fright she turned and ran fleetly. She did not laugh\r\nnow, nor mock him over her white shoulder. She ran as for her life,\r\nand though he strained every nerve and thew, until his temples were\r\nlike to burst and the snow swam red to his gaze, she drew away from\r\nhim, dwindling in the witch-fire of the skies, until she was a figure\r\nno bigger than a child, then a dancing white flame on the snow, then a\r\ndim blur in the distance. But grinding his teeth until the blood\r\nstarted from his gums, he reeled on, and he saw the blur grow to a\r\ndancing white flame, and the flame to a figure big as a child; and\r\nthen she was running less than a hundred paces ahead of him, and\r\nslowly the space narrowed, foot by foot.\r\n\r\nShe was running with effort now, her golden locks blowing free; he\r\nheard the quick panting of her breath, and saw a flash of fear in the\r\nlook she cast over her white shoulder. The grim endurance of the\r\nbarbarian had served him well. The speed ebbed from her flashing white\r\nlegs; she reeled in her gait. In his untamed soul leaped up the fires\r\nof hell she had fanned so well. With an inhuman roar he closed in on\r\nher, just as she wheeled with a haunting cry and flung out her arms to\r\nfend him off.\r\n\r\nHis sword fell into the snow as he crushed her to him. Her lithe body\r\nbent backward as she fought with desperate frenzy in his iron arms.\r\nHer golden hair blew about his face, blinding him with its sheen; the\r\nfeel of her slender body twisting in his mailed arms drove him to\r\nblinder madness. His strong fingers sank deep into her smooth flesh;\r\nand that flesh was cold as ice. It was as if he embraced not a woman\r\nof human flesh and blood, but a woman of flaming ice. She writhed her\r\ngolden head aside, striving to avoid the fierce kisses that bruised\r\nher red lips.\r\n\r\n\"You are cold as the snows,\" he mumbled dazedly. \"I will warm you with\r\nthe fire in my own blood--\"\r\n\r\nWith a scream and a desperate wrench she slipped from his arms,\r\nleaving her single gossamer garment in his grasp. She sprang back and\r\nfaced him, her golden locks in wild disarray, her white bosom heaving,\r\nher beautiful eyes blazing with terror. For an instant he stood\r\nfrozen, awed by her terrible beauty as she posed naked against the\r\nsnows.\r\n\r\nAnd in that instant she flung her arms toward the lights that glowed\r\nin the skies above her and cried out in a voice that rang in Conan's\r\nears for ever after: \"Ymir! Oh, my father, save me!\"\r\n\r\nConan was leaping forward, arms spread to seize her, when with a crack\r\nlike the breaking of an ice mountain, the whole skies leaped into icy\r\nfire. The girl's ivory body was suddenly enveloped in a cold blue\r\nflame so blinding that the Cimmerian threw up his hands to shield his\r\neyes from the intolerable blaze. A fleeting instant, skies and snowy\r\nhills were bathed in crackling white flames, blue darts of icy light,\r\nand frozen crimson fires. Then Conan staggered and cried out. The girl\r\nwas gone. The glowing snow lay empty and bare; high above his head the\r\nwitch-lights flashed and played in a frosty sky gone mad, and among\r\nthe distant blue mountains there sounded a rolling thunder as of a\r\ngigantic war-chariot rushing behind steeds whose frantic hoofs struck\r\nlightning from the snows and echoes from the skies.\r\n\r\nThen suddenly the borealis, the snow-clad hills and the blazing\r\nheavens reeled drunkenly to Conan's sight; thousands of fire-balls\r\nburst with showers of sparks, and the sky itself became a titanic\r\nwheel which rained stars as it spun. Under his feet the snowy hills\r\nheaved up like a wave, and the Cimmerian crumpled into the snows to\r\nlie motionless.\r\n\r\nIn a cold dark universe, whose sun was extinguished eons ago, Conan\r\nfelt the movement of life, alien and unguessed. An earthquake had him\r\nin its grip and was shaking him to and fro, at the same time chafing\r\nhis hands and feet until he yelled in pain and fury and groped for his\r\nsword.\r\n\r\n\"He's coming to, Horsa,\" said a voice. \"Haste--we must rub the frost\r\nout of his limbs, if he's ever to wield sword again.\"\r\n\r\n\"He won't open his left hand,\" growled another. \"He's clutching\r\nsomething--\"\r\n\r\nConan opened his eyes and stared into the bearded faces that bent over\r\nhim. He was surrounded by tall golden-haired warriors in mail and\r\nfurs.\r\n\r\n\"Conan! You live!\"\r\n\r\n\"By Crom, Niord,\" gasped the Cimmerian. 'Am I alive, or are we all\r\ndead and in Valhalla?\"\r\n\r\n\"We live,\" grunted the \u00c6sir, busy over Conan's half-frozen feet. \"We\r\nhad to fight our way through an ambush, or we had come up with you\r\nbefore the battle was joined. The corpses were scarce cold when we\r\ncame upon the field. We did not find you among the dead, so we\r\nfollowed your spoor. In Ymir's name, Conan, why did you wander off\r\ninto the wastes of the north? We have followed your tracks in the snow\r\nfor hours. Had a blizzard come up and hidden them, we had never found\r\nyou, by Ymir!\"\r\n\r\n\"Swear not so often by Ymir,\" uneasily muttered a warrior, glancing at\r\nthe distant mountains. \"This is his land and the god bides among\r\nyonder mountains, the legends say.\"\r\n\r\n\"I saw a woman,\" Conan answered hazily. \"We met Bragi's men in the\r\nplains. I know not how long we fought. I alone lived. I was dizzy and\r\nfaint. The land lay like a dream before me. Only now do all things\r\nseem natural and familiar. The woman came and taunted me. She was\r\nbeautiful as a frozen flame from hell. A strange madness fell upon me\r\nwhen I looked at her, so I forgot all else in the world. I followed\r\nher. Did you not find her tracks? Or the giants in icy mail I slew?\"\r\n\r\nNiord shook his head.\r\n\r\n\"We found only your tracks in the snow, Conan.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then it may be I am mad,\" said Conan dazedly. \"Yet you yourself are\r\nno more real to me than was the golden-locked witch who fled naked\r\nacross the snows before me. Yet from under my very hands she vanished\r\nin icy flame.\"\r\n\r\n\"He is delirious,\" whispered a warrior.\r\n\r\n\"Not so!\" cried an older man, whose eyes were wild and weird. \"It was\r\nAtali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead\r\nshe comes, and shows herself to the dying! Myself when a boy I saw\r\nher, when I lay half-slain on the bloody field of Wolraven. I saw her\r\nwalk among the dead in the snows, her naked body gleaming like ivory\r\nand her golden hair unbearably bright in the moonlight. I lay and\r\nhowled like a dying dog because I could not crawl after her. She lures\r\nmen from stricken fields into the wastelands to be slain by her\r\nbrothers, the ice-giants, who lay men's red hearts smoking on Ymir's\r\nboard. The Cimmerian has seen Atali, the frost-giant's daughter!\"\r\n\r\n\"Bah!\" grunted Horsa. \"Old Gorm's mind was touched in his youth by a\r\nsword cut on the head. Conan was delirious from the fury of battle--\r\nlook how his helmet is dinted. Any of those blows might have addled\r\nhis brain. It was an hallucination he followed into the wastes. He is\r\nfrom the south; what does he know of Atali?\"\r\n\r\n\"You speak truth, perhaps,\" muttered Conan. \"It was all strange and\r\nweird \u00ad by Crom!\"\r\n\r\nHe broke off, glaring at the object that still dangled from his\r\nclenched left fist; the others gaped silently at the veil he held up--\r\na wisp of gossamer that was never spun by human distaff.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTHE END<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source\u00a0: http:\/\/gutenberg.net.au\/ebooks06\/0600751.txt, consult\u00e9 le 26\/08\/2015. Title: Gods of the North Author: Robert E. Howard * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0600751.txt Edition: 1 Language: English Character set encoding: Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)–8 bit Date first posted: May 2006 Date most recently updated: May 2006 This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott and Colin Choat … Continuer la lecture de Annexe II.9 \u2013 Gods of the North<\/span>  →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-372","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurent.di-filippo.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}