Conan the Barbarian (20 page)

With her blade flashing like a serpent’s tongue, she faced an enormous warrior clad in iron-studded leather. Although he was not young, his face was as grim as death, and the muscles of his sword arm looked as strong as bands of steel. He was flanked by four hairy guards, carrying spiked wooden clubs, and menace glowed in their bestial eyes.

“Rexor!” trilled Princess Yasimina. “Rexor, save me! Save me for our Master who loves me!”

Kneeing the princess to the floor, Valeria crouched to avoid a blow from a guardsman’s mace. Then, with lightning speed, she sprang. Her tulwar licked out, and death was on its point. The guard staggered and clutched his throat, whence blood spurted out between his hairy fingers.

Leaping, twisting, dodging, Valeria circled the guards, avoiding blows of the maces that would have smashed her like an insect. A second guard lumbered forward, snarling and growling, but the lithe girl feinted and thrust into the opening between the leathern plates of the brute’s armour. The anthropoid grunted, clutched his tom belly, and then collapsed. Her blade, now crimson-stained, caught another In the neck. Shrieking horribly, he rushed forward. Valeria lumped aside, allowing the momentum of his forward thrust to carry him into a burning drapery in the centre of the room.

Then Rexor and the remaining guard closed in on her. As they backed her into a comer, she knew that she was boxed in and soon would be denied the speed that was the basis of her successes. Just then Conan, like a stalking jungle beast, glided between two blazing draperies, his lather’s great sword held in two bronze fists. The beast-man turned at the Cimmerian’s approach, but Conan’s heavy sword sheared through his armour and dropped him to his knees with a split skull.

As Valeria moved toward Doom’s first lieutenant, Conan roared: “There goes the princess! Catch her! Leave Rexor to me!”

The giant’s eyes flashed red at the sight of the young Cimmerian. He had left Conan broken and hung on the Tree of Woe; now he was whole and hale. But Rexor had no time to ponder the miracle; the great sword clenched in Conan’s hands was upraised in preparation for a mighty down stroke.

Two blades clashed together with the fury of a tempest. A shower of sparks signalled a ringing crash as Rexor’s weapon, responding to the impact of Atlantean steel on lesser iron, clattered on the marble floor. Rexor hurled his hilt at Conan’s head; and, as the Cimmerian ducked, the cultist warrior sprang forward and wrapped unrelenting arms around his huge antagonist.

Conan dropped his father’s sword, for it was useless at such close quarters, and met his opponent’s wrestling grip with undiminished strength. The two giants staggered about the burning room, unmindful of the smoke and flames, their powerful thews swelling as they matched two wills of iron. Relentlessly, they clawed and gouged and kicked at one another. When at last Rexor gripped Conan’s throat, his massive fingers bit like the jaws of a steel trap into the Cimmerian’s corded neck. Conan, fighting for life-giving air, managed to pry one gross finger loose and bent it back until the bone cracked. With a howl of pain and fury, Rexor released his grasp and hurled the younger man against the central pillar.

While Conan, half stunned, sagged against the malachite column, struggling to gather his wits, Rexor stooped for the great sword forged by the Cimmerian’s father so long ago. Just then one of the leopards, maddened by the fire and smoke, snapped the chain that bound it to the pillar, pounced on Rexor’s back, and bore him to the ground. The stricken man fought in vain against the sharp claws of the animal. At length, he fell screaming to the pave, while the frantic cat leaped away, its broken chain clattering along the marble tiles as it made its way to safety.

Conan, head spinning, got to his feet. Rexor lay sprawled in a pool of blood, the great sword beyond his convulsive grasp. Recovering the weapon, the Cimmerian youth searched through the pervasive smoke for Valeria and the princess. He saw the girl-thief back among the charred draperies striving to control their unwilling captive.

As he started forward, an ominous creaking above his head caused Conan to glance up. The supports of the pavilion, along which little flames ran like luminous mice, had begun to crumble; one beam, then another, fell. The stone column upon which the roof pole rested cracked, spilling broken bits of stone across the polished floor.

Pausing no longer, the barbarian rushed to Valeria’s aid. Yasimina was struggling to flee and, despite her skill and determination, Valeria’s strength was fading. As Conan reached his exhausted comrade-in-arms, the roar of collapsing masonry resounded through the fast-emptying chamber. The malachite pillar gave way and toppled, pinning Rexor to the ground, while crumpled tent cloth, half-burned beams, and broken roof tiles nearly entombed the fallen man.

The spectacular collapse of the fantastic setting and the prolonged rumble of its destruction distracted Valeria; and, in that single moment, Yasimina wrenched her arms free and sped away. The Cimmerian sprang after her. In a few long strides, he caught up with her and whirled her around.

The besotted girl, screeching imprecations, clawed at Conan’s face.

Aware of the danger to the princess as well as to her rescuers should more guards arrive, Conan abandoned his code of barbaric chivalry and slapped her hard across her face. Amazed, the hysterical girl fell silent, offering no further resistance as he scooped up her slender body, tossed her over one brawny shoulder, and ran for the exit, with Valeria at his heels.

They zigzagged through the chamber, dodging piles of smouldering rubble and terrified groups of the faithful, who belatedly sought their way through the smoke to the safety of their leader’s inner corridors. Near the stairs up which they had come, Conan and Valeria found Subotai crouched behind an urn, an arrow at the ready lest other anthropoid guards should seek entry to the burning ruin, which had once been a pleasure garden in a vaulted cave.

As his companions emerged from the acrid haze, Subotai shouted, “This way, ere the fire spreads and cuts us oil!”

Bounding down the narrow stairs, they returned to the huge cavern wherein dwelt the families of the apelike servitors of Thulsa Doom. They hurried across the bridge just in time to hide behind a boulder when a contingent of the guard clattered past on their way to fight the fire. Melting into the gloom, Valeria and Subotai led the Cimmerian and his unconscious burden along the narrow passage among the enshrouding rocks towards the cleft through which they had made their entrance. And all the while, the great drums beat out their frenzied chant of Doom! Doom! Doom!”

Behind them, where once had stood the pavilion of pleasure, the fire and chaos subsided. The singed and wearied fire fighters fell back and stood with bowed and humble heads as Thulsa Doom strode from the inner reaches of his fortress mountain, his body clad in armour, his head returned to mortal guise, his eyes blazing with fury. The leader of the beast-guard stepped forward to salute him.

“Thank Set you live, Master!” he cried. “We knew our god would keep you safe from harm!”

The cult leader nodded briefly, then anger suffused his slit-eyed, pallid face. “Where is the priestess Yasimina? Why is she not here to welcome me?”

A heap of rubble moved; a groan issued forth. At Doom’s command, the guards lifted up charred timbers and tore away the smouldering remains of once-lovely furnishings. Willing hands helped Rexor to rise. Bloody and battered, he stood before the leader of the cult.

Doom’s wrath flared. “Know you where is the princess?”

“The man you crucified and others—they killed three guards; they cut me; they carried her off while I was helpless!”

“Infidels! Assassins! Purveyors of death!” the cult leader hissed. “They have violated my sanctum; they have defiled our holy place. They shall die in lakes of blood! Seek them out, good Rexor, and bring them to me, alive or dead! Go.”

Rexor saluted and turned away. Followed by his § lumbering beast-men, he vanished among the curls of smoke that rose above the dying coals.

Through the great cavern the invaders fled, their footsteps muffled by the beating of the incessant drums. They did not pause to watch the bubbling cauldron with its grisly contents. They did not notice the beast-men feasting in the firelight. They prayed to their separate gods that the stalagmites which sheltered them would save them from the casual glance of some sated dweller of the cave.

Then, like a miracle, a patch of starlit sky swam into view. Conan grunted with relief as they squeezed through the cleft and found themselves on the selfsame ledge from which they had breached the Mountain of Power. The same waterfall thundered nearby, a welcome change from the pounding drumbeats within the cavern.

XV

The Parting

The clean night air caressed the bruised and weary bodies of both rescuers and rescued. A faint breeze toyed with the long hair of Princess Yasimina like the fingers of a lover, and the girl stirred on the Cimmerian’s broad shoulder.

“With a little luck,” panted Subotai, “we can be away from this accursed place before they discover us.”

Valeria whispered, “I think they missed us in the dark And are searching some other passage.”

Grimly, Conan shook his sable mane. “I hear their minor rattling in the cavern. We must hurry.”

He shifted Yasimina’s inert form so that she lay across Ins back with her arms falling over his shoulders. “Tie her wrists together, Valeria. I’ll need both of my hands to lumber down the rocks.”

The girl-thief undid her girdle and bound the fabric wound the limp wrists of the princess, muttering the while, "If the wench slips down your back, she’ll strangle you.” Conan grinned. “I’ll save that privilege, girl, for you alone.” And, with shoulders hunched, he grasped the rocky pinnacle and felt for the nearest boulder on the rude stairs that led to safety.

As the barbarian started his cautious descent, full consciousness returned to Yasimina. Her drug-induced dreams faded, to be replaced by a nightmare of reality. A torrent of falling water seemed about to engulf her. A bottomless black chasm yawned below, and she was being propelled into it on the greasy, ill-smelling back of a giant. Above her, silhouetted on the ledge, stood a man with arrow nocked in a taut bowstring and a woman warrior with a dirk gripped in her hand.

Yasimina screamed, and her sharp scream tore the tapestry of night.

Conan rumbled a curse on Osric and all his household, adding savagely, “Be still, unless you want to die.”

But the princess, more in terror than defiance, cried hysterically: “Master, Master, save me! Lord Doom, save me!”

Conan, balancing himself precariously on a small rectangle of rock, released one handhold long enough to slap the face that nestled against his neck. Stunned, the girl fell silent. But too late.

Sentry fires on the top of the mountain began to glow. Faces peered into the dark void. Missiles whispered past him and clattered on the rocks below; whether they were weapons or mere stones, he could not tell. One glanced from his shoulder, forcing a grunt of pain through his clenched teeth. Thus, urged to greater speed by necessity, Conan completed his descent and, taking shelter behind a stunted tree, ventured to look up in search of his companions.

Valeria, as agile as a mountain goat, was working her way down the rocky stairs. Subotai, still on the ledge, was taking aim at some object high above him on the mountain. As Conan watched, an arrow winged upward, arced, and struck. With a hideous howl, a beast-man tottered and then fell, thrashing, into his signal fire.

Another arrow sped along the pathway of the first. Another guard, pierced in the chest, staggered on the brink of the precipice. He fell, shrieking, into the gorge, hurtled down the narrow throat of stone, and plunged into the waterfall before the echo of his cries ceased to reverberate.

Even as Conan watched, the first beast-men to discover the cleft began to squeeze through the slender opening.

Distracted by the eerie sound of echoing cries, they hesitated on the ledge to make dull-witted inquiry into the source of the bizarre and hollow sound. That hesitation provided Subotai the moment he needed to swing over the ledge and crouch on the stair-like rocks. Then, as they returned to the cavern to report the strange happening, the Hyrkanian clambered down the boulders and joined his fellows where the land rolled out more gently.

“Erlik boil them all in oil!” muttered Subotai, as he inspected his scraped knuckles and raw palms. “That time, I thought it was the end of me.”

“Let’s find the horses before the devils sound the alarm,” said Valeria. “We crossed the stream somewhere hereabouts.”

They strove to pierce the darkness and discover the air-filled skins on which they had crossed the fast-moving water; but the wilderness of jagged rocks and boulders was lull of nooks and crannies, whose dark recesses the starlight could not penetrate. At length they abandoned the fruitless search.

“Let’s follow along this bank until we reach the flatlands,” said Conan, picking up Yasimina and slinging her over his left shoulder once again.

“But the stream grows wider there, and we desert men are little used to swimming,” objected the Hyrkanian.

“Well, do the best you can,” snapped Valeria. “We’ll have our hands full with that stupid girl.”

With Subotai in the lead, the three adventurers picked I heir way along the unfamiliar bank of the precipitous stream. They walked in silence, thankful for the cover of the moonless night and grateful that they had eluded Doom and his apelike sentinels. The burden in Conan’s arms slowed their progress, but at least the sleeping princess would not summon another contingent of the guard.

Too soon, it seemed, the light of dawn suffused the sky, driving away the friendly stars. Nesting birds rose squawking above the foliage that masked their path, revealing to any who might look their whereabouts. Valeria, bringing up the rear, became apprehensive.

“I see a roadway or a path circling round the mountain-side,” she murmured. “What purpose do you think it serves?”