Swords & Heroes Story #1

A Hiss from the Mound by B. Harlan Crawford

May 28, 2024

Ben Crawford launches our new project with a Native/Early American saga that has its roots in this land from ages past. Think Lovecraftian epochs. Add a splash of swashbuckling pirate fare, an impassioned ancient guardian, a reluctant adventurer and his savior - along with snakes, let us not forget the snakes! - and we have tale that’s sure to shiver your timbers! - Ed.

This week, we present Story #1, A Hiss from the Mound by B. Harlan Crawford.

A Hiss from the Mound by B. Harlan Crawford

— I —

Kugar-Gaha slithered naked in his own blood to the obscene clay altar centered in the clearing he and his followers had hacked through the forest only a few moons gone. Without acknowledging his entrails spilling wetly from the wide gash in his belly, he turned to face his hulking, wolf hide clad attacker.

“Bastard!” he hissed through bloody teeth. He weakly raised a shaking, becrimsoned hand and gestured to the still writhing carcass of a colossal, copper scaled snake that wound in and out of the surrounding trees. “You may have slain the Great Serpent’s avatar with your gleaming devil-blade, but Father Yig will yet crush you in his grinding coils!”

Rothull of the Aesir slowly closed in on the shorn-pated witch doctor, gripping a yard of bloodied steel in his right fist. His long tawny hair and beard were clotted with gore, and he dragged a mangled left leg behind him. Thrice his swarthy blood-brother, Achak, sought to support him, and thrice was he rebuffed.

Now he loomed over Kugar-Gaha and raised his sword high.

“Wait!” croaked Kugar-Gaha.

Rothull’s laugh was grim and humorless. “Wait? You would beg mercy? By Ymir, I’ll give you the same mercy you showed them!” Rothull pointed with his sword to the pit that lay behind the clay altar, wherein lay the bodies of fifty-three maidens of the Beaver folk, strangled and stacked like cordwood.

“Nay, heathen! I ask not for mercy, I wish only to warn you. You who have mixed your mongrel blood with the sacred blood of Yig’s avatar are now forever bound to it! A part of the Snake-Father’s spirit will dwell here now, and a part of yours is doomed to dwell here with it as well!”

“Yig!” Rothull spat bloodily. “Snake-Father! Set! I travel across a whole ocean and still find a land plagued by snake worshippers! To hell with you all!”

Kugar-Gaha would have heaped more curses upon the Aesir, but ere he could make further utterance, Rothull chopped up his skull as one might chop up a tuber or beet.

Copper skinned, raven haired Achak waited patiently for his brother to vent his rage, propped up by his stone-tipped spear. He had shared many adventures with this strange white man in the years since his people, the White Stags, pulled the yellow bearded man half dead from the waves, and knew it was best to let him satiate the raging devil-spirit dwelling in him.

At length, he spoke, addressing Rothull by the name Achak had given to him in reference to the sword of steel the Aesir wielded.

“It is done, Longclaw! You have slain the giant snake, and we braves have slain the last of this fiend’s warriors. All that remains is to bury the dead. Alas! Had we only arrived in time to save the Beaver folk! All of their braves fell in battle with the snake-worshippers, and you see yonder what became of their women! The few that survive will join us and become White Stags.”

“It is well,” said Rothull. He then groaned and leaned against the altar, grasping his savaged leg. Achak came to his side.

“Rest, Longclaw. I will have the women come and see to that leg!”

“It does smart, by Ymir! That thing’s scales are sharp as razors!”

The two men turned and gazed upon the serpent in question. The great horned wedge of its head was pointed at the altar. Its dead yellow eyes still gleamed abysmally in the light of the burning huts of the snake-worshipers.

Achak shuddered.

“What of the curse the dog uttered ere he died, Longclaw?”

“Eh? About my soul being bound to that things? Bah! I care not for the blathering of some snake-worshipping fiend! But I will say this: if my soul is doomed to be bound here with that scaly devil, I welcome it! If it ever drags itself out of hell again, I’ll be here to send it right back, by Ymir!”

— II —

Engbrecht of Geldern was a handsome man by any measure, and he cut a picturesque figure as well; blue eyed, strongly featured, with a golden beard and head of tawny hair that was wildly unkempt in an appealing fashion. He had the rangy build and corded thews of a man who made his livelihood through woodcraft. His garb was the chaotic combination of beaver hides, buckskins, and linens common to many of the fur trappers who ranged far and wide in the New World collecting pelts for the Hudson’s Bay Company and other European interests.

For all his masculine beauty, the circumstances of his life had led him to take on a solitary temperament. He found the company of others discomfiting, and personal interactions awkward. Thus he preferred to isolate himself in the wilderness, only engaging with his fellow man to trade his pelts for the necessities of life, and cultivating a somewhat friendly relationship with the Iroquois and related native tribes in the area. His experience with women was scant to nonexistent, and some have speculated that this inexperience was what led to his disastrous union with the notorious she-pirate, ‘Mad’ Morwenna Jones.

Engbrecht never knew her by that name. She called herself Mary Purlee when she attached herself to him at a trading post some twenty miles west of Jamestown. The Dutchman was smitten with her immediately, for he had never seen her like before. Her skin was bronzed by foreign suns. Long, straight, ebon hair spilled out from her oversize felt hat and draped her face and shoulders. The gaze of her smoldering dark eyes both enticed and unsettled him.

Her features and figure captivated Engbrecht to the utmost. Though he did not fail to notice her tobacco-stained teeth and general lack of hygiene, or the angry, livid scars that encircled her otherwise flawless neck, he found these to be minor distractions. Her clothing was at odds with her environs: red silk breaches, high leather boots, a gaudy Spanish coat of black and yellow over an ostentatious silken blouse. An overcoat of beaver pelts was her only concession to the local norms. She would speak to him in his native Dutch with an accent he found both barbarous and charming.

Mary covered Engbrecht with attention and affection, and initiated him into feminine mysteries that he never imagined to exist. In no time, the trapper was completely devoted to her, and could refuse her nothing. Critics of this relationship were unable to entirely account for their disapproval as Mary Purlee did not seem overly interested in Engbrecht’s money; in fact, she had a sizable supply of Spanish doubloons that she jealously guarded with a cutlass and a brace of flintlocks.

It was only after Mary Purlee received a surreptitious visit from a cagey lascar that she exercised her influence on Engbrecht, bidding him to guide her deep into the wilderness toward the Ohio River, to a location indicated with esoteric symbols on a crude map sketched on some unidentifiable hide with a rust colored medium.

They set out on a Sunday morning with two mules laden with supplies. Mary pushed them at a breakneck pace, pressing Engbrecht’s endurance and knowledge to the limit. She made no effort to spare herself hardship either, rising before sunrise and trudging over hill and dale each day until the darkness was so complete as to preclude further travel. The trapper sought to learn the purpose of their urgent journey, but Mary would avoid the subject and distract Engbrecht from further inquiry with the same charms that bent him to her will in the first place.

They traveled for about a week, sustaining themselves and avoiding dangers both natural and man-made through the woodcraft and knowledge of Engbrecht. At last they came to the base of a wooded hill that spread across their patch like a wall. Mary gestured upward and to her right.

“There Engbrecht! Mark ye those two gnarled oaks that come together like a rude arch? We’ve arrived within feet of where we need to be! Step lively and crest the hill!”

The Dutchman balked. “Please Mary! It is nearly dark! Let us make camp here!”

Mary spat and snorted derisively. “To hell with that. We’ll camp up there, at the crown of the hill, where our goal should be in sight!”

“Our goal? Will you now tell me what the point of this mad dash through the wilderness is?”

Mary grinned, her eyes flashing ominously. “I’ll show you, darling! Come! Beat me to the top and I’ll let you give me a green gown.”

The suggestion purged the trapper’s misgivings, and provided him with a renewed vigor. He seized the reigns of the mules and charged up the hill at a robust pace. They crested the hill and emerged into a clearing, redly illuminated by the setting sun. Engbrecht had indeed arrived first, and was keenly pleased.

“Hah! I win! Come here wench, and I’ll—”

Mary dexterously avoided is grasping lunge.

“Hold your horses! Look yonder!”

Following her gaze, the Dutchman discerned some sort of low earthwork that wound its way along the clearing in a serpentine fashion. Engbrecht found the feature somewhat familiar.

“That reminds me of the old barrows reared up around Grave Creek. Oddly shaped though. Like a worm or...”

“A snake!” Mary finished for him. “Come, let’s walk its length ere it gets too dark!”

Thus the couple circuited the complex earthwork, Mary all the while consulting her parchment. At length they came to another mound that was separated from the main formation. Mary jabbed a dirty finger into the parchment, and for the first time since their journey began showed it to Engbrecht. She indicated a sketch of a snakelike form, with what could have been a maw opened to swallow an egg shaped object.

“See? The serpent swallows the egg! Within that egg shaped mound, we will find a smaller, duplicate egg. About the size of my head, cast in solid gold.”

The trapper was taken aback. “Gold? Is this some sort of treasure hunt? This is folly! The natives here speak of no golden eggs hidden anywhere!”

“They wouldn’t! The egg was brought here by people who lived ages before the red man!”

“How do you know this?”

Mary grabbed Engbrecht’s arm and drew him close, her tone becoming conspiratorially intense. “I spent a good portion of my youth at the tender mercy of Barbary pirates; it was among them that I heard the first hints of a golden ‘world egg’ worshipped by people that lived long before The Flood. They traveled to the New World long before white men knew of its existence. And left the egg in the mouth of a great serpent.

“Years later, after I’d cut my captor’s throat and struck out on my own, I heard the egg mentioned again and again. By a merchant in Cairo, a Portuguese slaver in Senegal, a witch-doctor in Hispaniola! I found myself marooned in this part of the world and remembered the rumors.

“It was pure luck that I recognized the lascar in Jamestown. We’d sailed together under Van Hoorn. He had a map he claimed showed the location of the egg, but lacked the stomach to pursue it! In the end he sold it to me for a few pieces of eight.”

Mary’s voice grew more intense and unsteady; her eyes began to take on a maniacal glaze. Her grip on the Dutchman’s arm became uncomfortably tight.

Engbrecht became unsettled. “Van Horn? The pirate? Have you…”

“Sailed under the Black Flag?” Mary chuckled and tenderly stroked Engbrecht’s beard, pouting in an exaggerated manner. “Don’t be upset with me, darling, A girl has to make her way as best she can in the cold cruel world! No! Ask me no more questions! Follow”

Pulling him along by the arm, Mary led Engbrecht over the earthwork until they stood in the center of the egg shape. He started to speak, but she shushed him and pressed herself against the trapper, guiding his rough hands into her blouse so he could caress the smooth warm flesh beneath. She whispered purringly in his ear.

“The egg should be directly under us. We will dig it up on the morrow, but now, I think we should pierce the hogshead on the spot where we’ll make our fortune.”

Engbrecht grinned and started to lay Mary upon the grass. Before they could fully engage in lovemaking, a voice rang out in near perfect English, “I don’t advise rolling in that grass, the chiggers are bad hereabouts right now, I’d at least lay a pelt down.”

The Dutchman whirled about, drawing a great knife from his belt, cursing himself for leaving his matchlock with the mules. Mary was better prepared, and drew a bead on the intruder with her flintlocks.

A man stood above them upon the earthworks. He was a native, a sinewy bronze giant of indeterminate age. His raven hair was mostly shaven, save for a coiffed topknot. He was clad in a sort of fringed kilt and a European style linen shirt. His face and arms were painted in elaborate designs and great bone hoops weighed down his earlobes. A large knife and a wooden club where thrust through a coarsely woven sash wound about his waist. He was grinning broadly, and carried the Dutchman’s matchlock casually across his shoulders.

“Iroquois!” muttered Engbrecht.

“Susqueannock, actually,” replied the native. “The Iroquois, with the white men, have damn near wiped us out, that’s why I’m this far west. Looking for spot to settle down where no one is apt to kill me.”

“I’m apt to kill ye now, red man!” Mary snarled. “Better make a damned good account of yerself, or ye’ll have an extra hole or two in that painted head.”

The Indian’s good humor was unabated. He laughed heartily and replied, “I’m Sarangaroro. I came across your trail a few days ago and figured where you were headed. At first, I thought I’d mind my own business, but I could scarcely live with myself if I hadn’t followed to give you a warning.”

Mary sneered and took a step forward, keeping the barrels of her pistols trained on the Indian’s head. “Warning? Give yer warning, and then be off!”

Sarangaroro shrugged with apparent nonchalance. “As you wish, woman. Leave the Hill of the Snake at once, and by no means delve into it, for it will bring you both naught but death and damnation!”

— III —

“To hell with your claptrap, Redman!” sneered Mary. “Death and damnation be me mates from old!” She drew a second pistol and pointed it at the Indian’s face. “By God, I’ll send you to meet them if you tarry here!”

“Your anger’s wasted on me, woman. I’ve said my piece and appeased my conscience.” He looked to Engbrecht with some disdain, then back to Mary. “I did not expect that wisdom would dissuade the white man from feeding his greed! Just know there are old powers at work in this place! Powers that might amuse themselves by setting bait for the unwary! Do what you will!”

Mary lowered her pistols, but her face contorted into a rictus of fury. She flushed with anger, causing the scars about her neck to stand out in stark relief.

“Greed? Aye, I’m greedy! I learned at a young age what happens to the weak, to the poor! I went to work in the fields as soon as I could walk, rooting in the dirt and starving while the fruits of my labors were enjoyed by my ‘betters’. Barbary corsairs took me when I was barely a woman, and sold me to the Ottomans. Those curs befouled me in ways you could scarcely imagine. You think yourself ill-used by these Iroquois, Dutch, and Englishmen? Fah! I’ll put the tally of offenses leveled against me beside yours any day, savage!”

Sarangaroro shook his head and turned to go back into the forest. “What you do here today will not erase what was done to you, woman, nor give you any comfort or protection. This place is a warning, and a seal separating our world from the outer gulfs. Don’t be a fool.”

With that he faded into the darkening wood as quietly as he’d appeared.

Engbrecht watched the native depart. When he spoke it was with some unease. “Perhaps we should reconsider digging for this ‘egg’. The man spoke true, there are things in the wild places of this land that are not easily explained, and shouldn’t be scoffed at. I …”

Mary turned on the Dutchman venomously. “Still your tongue and fetch the spades, damn you!”

Stung by his lover’s terseness, Engbrecht sullenly complied.

Darkness fell before they had dug waist deep into the earth, so they had to pause to light a pair of lanterns. Under their scant illumination, they dug deeper. When the hole was roughly as deep as Engbrecht was tall, their spades struck a solid, unyielding barrier. Mary yelped in triumph and stooped down, digging away the earth with her hands. She quickly uncovered a black, glossy object, as big around as a wagon wheel. It was shaped like an overturned saucer.

“Dig under the edges, Engbrecht, until you can grip it! Then we’ll lift it up. There should be something underneath!”

Thus they did, and took up positions across from one another. Mary gathered her legs up beneath her and grasped the edges of the obsidian disc.

“Do as I do, Engbrecht, and then we will lift together. Ready? Heave!”

The twain strained at the disc for what seemed an eternity. Engbrecht’s arms burned, and the sound of his heartbeat in his ears was deafening. He was ready to desist, when suddenly, with a comical sounding pop, the disc came free. They tossed it aside and peered into the narrow shaft that lay revealed.

It seemed to be filled to the rim with a swirling green miasma that was somewhere between a fog and a liquid in consistency. It reeked of rotten flesh and freshly spilled blood, with hints of an unwholesome ophidian scent.

Engbrecht could swear the roiling cloud gave off a sound, a faint subliminal hiss.

Mary plunged her arms into the shaft and felt around.

“’Tis too deep, I can’t reach the bottom. Fetch a rope and we’ll—”

Mary’s command was cut short. For the subtle hiss grew louder and turned to an abyssal shriek. The green mist spewed forth in a column straight up into the sky. Mary and Engbrecht scrambled out of the hole and ran to the top of the earthen ring surrounding the shaft. From there they watched the column of emerald vapor congeal and assume a tangible outline.

“God almighty!” choked Engbrecht.

The vaporous column had solidified into the form of a colossal, horned serpent; it towered above the pair as high as a ship’s mainmast. It kept the spectral emerald color of the mist, but now there were golden, metallic glistenings about its ghostly scales. The glaucous bones of the creature could be discerned beneath its diaphanous covering. It emitted a deafening, rattling hiss and brought its fanged maw hurtling down upon the puny mortals who had unearthed it.

Engbrecht and Mary leapt aside as the great wedge of the spectral serpent’s head struck the ground between them. The Dutchman scrambled as the fangs, long as a pike, swung about to seize him. Deftly avoiding the jaws of the snake, the trapper regained his feet to see Mary, her form distorted through the eldritch prism of the snake’s head, point her pistols at the ghostly horror and fire.

Engbrecht heard a sharp whistling as a musket ball sped past his head. Simultaneously he felt a firm blow against his thigh that caused him to stumble and roll down the opposite side of the earthwork. As he tumbled, he felt a burning pain start in his leg, and his mind worked out what had transpired.

Mary’s bullets had passed through the snake’s incorporeal body, and one had struck him.

Over the hellish vocalizations of the ghostly serpent, he heard Mary call out, “Frightful sorry, love! Had I known the thing weren’t solid, I’d have been a wee bit more persnickety with me aim!”

— IV —

Engbrecht groaned, biting his lip to suppress a wail of pain as he writhed upon the turf at the edge of the serpent mound. Above him he saw the glowing, spectral serpent coil and thrash, and he heard Mary screaming foul obscenities at the ophidian terror.

Now he tried to staunch the flow of blood from the gunshot wound in his leg. The blood gushed forth at an alarming rate, and already he felt light-headed.

Suddenly a shadow fell across the Dutchman, and a rawhide strap was quickly lashed about his thigh. Sarangaroro knelt over him, applying a tourniquet.

“Keep still white man, lest you bleed out.”

“Christ! What is happening?”

“Your woman shot you in the leg. By accident I think, hard to tell.”

“No! What is that snake! It looks like…a ghost!”

Sarangaroro finished tying the tourniquet and quickly looked over his handiwork, nodding in satisfaction.

“That will hold you for now. The snake? Aye, it’s a ghost of sorts, I suppose. An aspect of one of the vilest menaces from the outer dark. Bound to this site by cosmic hatred and the blackest of evil medicine.”

“How do you know so much about it?” groaned the Dutchman.

“There were hints and rumors of this place among my people. I stumbled across it as I fled the Iroquois. For some time I’ve dabbled in the ancient mysteries to aid my people, so I was able to work strong medicine to divine what lay in the mound.”

More shouted curses from the mound found their way to their ears.

“Mary!” shouted Engbrecht. “We must help Mary!”

“That she-devil doesn’t deserve your devotion, white man, but we can aid her. Aye, and the rest of mankind as well. We can put the ghost-snake back in the mound with the aid of the Great Spirit, and yourself!”

“Me? How can I be of aid?”

“You have already rendered aid. You need do nothing more. I have seen another spirit bound here, one that needs the blood of a white man to act! You have spilled blood aplenty already!”

Sarangaroro scooped up a handful of earth, sodden with the Dutchman’s blood. With this mixture he anointed Engbrecht’s face, as well as his own. All the while crooning in some unidentifiable tongue.

It seemed then to Engbrecht that the world took on a sanguine cast and his surroundings became sharper and more defined. Above him a whirling vortex of spectral, crimson mist congealed from nothingness. It was a mist not unlike that which heralded the arrival of the ghost snake, but instead of filling him with dread; it invoked within him feelings of pride and valor. He became aware of Sarangaroro whispering in his ear.

“Behold! The Great Spirit has arranged for a guardian to be left here, as proof against the Snake! A warrior spilled his blood here long ago while contending with the powers of evil! He spilled blood that still runs in your veins! Do you see? One of YOUR blood, white man!”

The mist congealed and solidified, and Engbrecht perceived within it a figure pulled from the ancient myths and legends of the north. A wild-maned, bearded fighting man, clad in the hides of wolves and deer, gripping a great sword of steel.

This figure stepped forth, standing as high as the tallest of the spruce trees in the surrounding wood. He bellowed, challenging the great serpent in a tongue that had not been uttered upon the earth for over a thousand lifetimes. The serpent coiled about itself and turned its wedge-shaped head toward his hated enemy. It opened its hellish jaws wide and lunged.

Engbrecht marveled at the spectral contest that played out before him. The snake sought to crush the spectral warrior in its coils and pierce him with its saber-like fangs, while the ghostly fighting man strove to cut the snake with his sword and throttle it with his bare hands.

The phantasmagorical spectacle, combined with loss of blood, proved too much for the Dutchman, and he slipped away into merciful oblivion.

— V —

Gradually, Engbrecht recovered awareness, first detecting the scent of wood smoke and roasting meat, then the glow of sunlight through his eyelids, and the sound of a crackling fire.

He struggled to a sitting position, groaning as the pain of his injured leg reasserted itself. Through swollen, bleary eyes he beheld Sarangaroro, squatting before a blazing fire, roasting a piece of venison. The Indian turned to grin at him.

“Good morning! Or good day to be more precise! You’ve slept like a dead man and the sun is high. I’ll have breakfast finished in a moment.”

The awareness of his surroundings and the memory of the previous night suddenly barreled into the Dutchman’s mind. He thrashed about and wailed.

“Mary! Where is Mary! God help me, did the ghost snake kill her?”

Sarangaroro crept over and pressed the hysterical trapper back into his blankets.

“Calm yourself, white man, before you set that wound to bleeding again! That raven-haired slattern is alive and no doubt well. While the Ghost Snake contended with the Spirit Warrior, she took the opportunity to take one of your mules and steal away into the forest.”

Engbrecht groaned and fell back onto the blankets, covering his face with his hands.

“No! A woman will not survive long in the wilderness! She will perish.”

Sarangaroro snorted and returned to his place by the fire.

“That woman will survive just fine, I’ll wager! You still care for her, though she cared little for you and merely used you to facilitate her trek to this place?”

“The further we traveled into the wood, the clearer it was she was using me, but I loved her and cared not. I thought once she had what she desired, she would resume her affection for me. I was foolish.”

The Indian sliced of a strip of venison and offered it up to Engbrecht on the tip of his knife.

“Eat. Don’t reproach yourself overmuch about the girl; we have all been made fools of over a woman at one time or another. Besides, she must have held you in some regard, she left you the other mule.”

Not seeing the humor in Sarangaroro’s observation, Engbrecht took the proffered meat and chewed it wearily.

“Where are we, and how did I get here? What transpired on the mound?”

“The Ghost Snake and Spirit Warrior fought until the sun rose, and then both faded away like the fog. The Warrior seemed to be gaining the upper hand, I am not sure. Then I built a travois and used the remaining mule to bring you here, to my camp.”

Engbrecht looked about. There was a rude shelter of limbs and branches built between two trees behind him, and the remaining mule grazed placidly nearby.

The trapper lay still, chewing the venison. He waited for the throbbing pain in his leg to subside. At length he spoke again.

“I thank you Sarangaroro. No one would begrudge you had you left me to bleed out by that damned mound. Mary and I unleashed a horror on the world, through her greed and my foolishness.”

Sarangaroro shook his head and stretched out on the ground by the fire. He rummaged about his clothing and produced a pipe and tobacco. In short order he was smoking with great relish. Expelling a great cloud of pungent smoke, he addressed the Dutchman.

“I bear you no hatred, white man. There are few I hate so much as to leave them to die when I could help. I think you’d do the same for me, unless I misjudge your character. If you want to thank me, do so by sticking to hunting and trapping, and dig no more into old mounds. And find yourself a more even-tempered woman.”

Sarangaroro took another long draw on his pipe, then offered it to Engbrecht.

“As to the other matter, I doubt the Ghost Snake will cause much trouble as long as the Spirit Warrior stands watch over the Serpent Mound.”

~** ** **~

B. Harlan Crawford is a lapsed musician, sub-par artist, would-be purveyor of the sort of low-brow schlock that is ruining culture globally. He festers loathsomely at his home with his wife, cat, and two dogs. Further reading penned by Mr. Crawford and be found on Amazon and at The Library of the Schlock Lords here: https://thelibraryoftheschlocklords.blogspot.com/

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