Conan the Barbarian (21 page)

“It leads to a lookout platform for the guards, I have no doubt,” rumbled the Cimmerian. “They had sentries all along the way when I made the climb along with the pilgrim sheep.”

No sentries are about this morn,” said Subotai cheerfully. “We’re near the horses now, once we get across this millpond. The water’s so calm that even I can paddle my way across.”

“I’ll help Conan with the pitch-haired wench.” Valeria waded into the pool, shattering the surface like a broken mirror.

“Pray Crom she doesn’t screech again,” muttered the barbarian as he placed the princess on the supporting arms of his companion. When the cold water wakened her, Conan glared at Yasimina and growled: “Say just one word, and I’ll drown you here myself.”

Together Valeria and Conan towed the whimpering princess across the still water. Subotai meanwhile had splashed his way across and emerged on the grassy bank to stand guard as Conan and Valeria dragged the terror-stricken girl away from the water’s edge and then threw themselves, panting, face-down on a grassy knoll.

With his thief’s unceasing vigilance, Subotai’s eyes patrolled the mountain path that led to the look-out platform. “Let’s go, Conan, ere they sniff us out—oh, Erlik! Look you yonder!”

He pointed to the sinuous trail on the hillside above them, whereon appeared a group of marching figures.

“By Crom, it’s Doom and Rexor with a squad of their sub-humans,” muttered Conan.

“They’ve discovered us,” breathed Valeria. “Doom’s pointing us out.”

Rexor appeared to give orders; the beast-men nodded in agreement. Soon they began to scramble down the pathless waste, howling as they came. Although no spark of intelligence gleamed from their pig-like eyes, their hairy arms were huge as they closed in, waving upraised weapons —clubs, maces, and sharpened axes. The sun’s first rays lit up their slavering jaws and bounced off the metal studding on their leathern armour.

The three companions took their battle stance, with Valeria guarding Conan’s back, while Subotai, whipping out his light tulwar, shielded Conan’s left. And then the brutes were upon them. Working together, they ducked, twisted, slashed, and thrust. Each parried blows aimed at one of the others, like a flawless fighting team. Moved by love and desperation, in the ecstasy of combat, Conan and Valeria fought more skilfully than they had ever fought before, or ever would again.

Bones cracked under Conan’s sledge-hammer blows. Wood flowed at the touch of Valeria’s darting sword. A beast-man fell; then another and another. One seized Subotai’s tulwar with a bare hand. Ignoring the pain as the razor-sharp edge sheared through skin and tendons, the creature tore the slender scimitar from the Hyrkanian’s grasp, then raised his axe for the kill. As Subotai leaped back, cursing, Conan laid open the beast-man’s belly.

With his back against a boulder, Subotai reached around for his bow, nocked an arrow, and released. Although the bowstring was wet and the arrow’s flight unsteady, another attacker staggered off, clutching a shaft half-buried in his flesh. As suddenly as it began, the fight was over. Growling, the remaining brutes shuffled off. Like whipped dogs, they made their dispirited way up the hill to the look-out post where still stood the cult leader and his henchman.

Three pairs of weary eyes followed the guards’ flight up the rough terrain. Three pairs of eyes lifted to see the regal figure of Thulsa Doom standing, legs wide-spread, attended by his first lieutenant. With lightning speed, Doom grasped a serpent, which was coiled about his neck; and, with a twisting motion, he stretched the viper out into a scale-covered arrow. Then, receiving a strung bow from Rexor’s attentive hand, he drew the shaft, which but a moment sooner had been a living snake;, and shot.

Straight for Conan’s heart the envenomed arrow sped. Swifter still was the leap of the warrior woman, as she made herself a living shield to protect the man she loved. Thus the death-dealing arrow tip entered Valeria’s breast and came to rest protruding between her slender shoulder blades.

As Valeria crumpled, Conan caught her; and, falling to his knees, he cradled her in his powerful arms. Then he looked up and glared with hate-filled eyes at his life-long enemy. Doom stood watching his lieutenant unstring the great bow. A thin and evil smile spread across his cruel face.

Rexor grinned his admiration. He shouted, “Your shot was straight and true, Master. Death to the infidel!”

The thin smile turned into an inhuman grimace. Across the open space his answer carried, “Death to all who stand against me!”

Turning on his heel, Doom walked away.

Conan bent over the wounded girl and kissed her pale lips. Then he saw the arrow point protruding from her back and pulled it through, as Valeria, too weak to cry out, gasped in pain. In the barbarian’s hand, the missile became a snake again. Overcome with revulsion, he hurled it into the crystal waters of the somnolent stream.

“Live! You must live,” he whispered. “I need you.” Valeria managed a wan flicker of a smile.

“The wizard... told me... that I must pay the gods....” Valeria’s voice was as faint as the rustle of leaves in a dying breeze. “Now I have... paid.”

Conan held her against his breast, and their wet hair mingled blonde beneath black in the golden light of the rising sun. A wind sprang up from the Vilayet Sea.

“Hold me tight... tighter,” moaned Valeria. “Kiss me... breathe your warm breath into my body....” He kissed her fiercely, hungrily, rocking her limp body as a mother rocks an injured child. Her face turned ashen; her long lashes lay like dark smudges on her waxen cheeks.

“Cold... so cold,” she breathed. “Keep... me... warm...”

Her lips sought his again. Then her hand fell limp on the burgeoning grass.

Conan held her close until Subotai touched his shoulder and silently shook his head. Then he buried his face in her hair.

While the sun still climbed the azure sky, three horsemen reined their lathered beasts beside the shaman’s door. Conan dismounted with the limp form of Valeria in his arms, as Subotai flung himself from the lead mount and hurried to release the thongs that bound the princess to the saddle of her horse.

The ancient witch-man hurried forward to meet them. He peered down at Conan’s fragile burden and touched one dangling wrist. The eyes he raised in answer to Conan’s silent question were sympathetic and devoid of hope. Valeria was dead.

The Cimmerian bore the girl’s slight body into the shaman’s hut. Subotai, pointing to the captive princess, called after him, “I’ll stay outside and guard this baggage. You’ll want to be alone a while.”

With the help of the old hermit, Conan laid Valeria on a blanket and stripped off her soiled and sodden clothing, in order to sponge away the blood and blackened pigment from her pale flesh. The great jewel stolen from the Tower of the Serpent still spilled its frozen fire across the tom breast of the warrior woman.

Glowering, Conan removed the Serpent’s Eye, slung it about his own neck, and tucked it into his tunic.

“That gem,” said the wizard, “how came the woman by it?”

“It’s just a bauble that I gave her,” growled the Cimmerian. “I have no wish to talk about it.”

The shaman shrugged and continued to prepare Valeria for immolation. Together they dressed her in a fine silk shift that she had bought in Shadizar to wear on holidays. They crossed her hands upon her breast, and within them placed her sword. They rubbed sweet-smelling herbs upon her brow and combed her long hair.

“She’s beautiful,” quavered the shaman. “Like a bride.”

“Would that she were!” muttered Conan, hastily leaving the hut to help Subotai to gather firewood along the shores of the Vilayet Sea.

The sun was a fiery ball low in the west when the last piece of driftwood was laid on the funeral pyre. Atop the largest mound it stood, amid the burial places of ancient warriors and kings; and the slabs that marked their resting places formed a guard of honour all around it. Thither Conan carried Valeria and gently laid her down. There in the rosy sunset, she looked very young, a child asleep.

Subotai helped the old wizard up the slope with a lighted taper in his trembling hands. Conan regarded his love with brooding eyes and slowly chanted a mournful Pit-fighter’s song:

Blood and vengeance

My sword is singing

Through bone and flesh.

The way of the warrior

Is ever death.

Having bid Valeria a last adieu, the Cimmerian reached for the flaming torch and, stepping forward,

touched the flame to the dry wood.

The fire licked up around her alabaster beauty, burning with an incandescent brilliance. A breeze, sighing from the sea, lifted her hair in gentle fingers and was gone. Unwavering, the smoke rose into the darkening sky, as if reaching for the evening star.

Conan stood like a figure carved in stone. Subotai cobbed softly, tears running down his cheeks. The wizard, roused from mumbling incantations, stared at him.

“Why weep you so, Hyrkanian? Was she so much to you?” he asked.

Subotai wiped away a tear and cleared his throat.

“She was a friend to me, but she was everything to him,” the small man said. “But he is a Cimmerian and must not weep. So I do weep for him.”

The shaman nodded as he pondered the diverse ways of men from foreign lands.

The fire burned to coals and then to ash, and the night wind scattered the ashes far and wide. Through it all, Conan stood motionless. Then, when the last ash vanished, he turned to Subotai and the shaman, saying, “Now we must get ready.”

“Ready for what?” asked Subotai.

“For them to come against us.”

XVI

The Battle

There was little sleep in the shaman’s hut that night. The old wizard huddled in his shabby cloak and watched the young giant whose life had been so dearly bought. Conan sketched battle plans with charcoal on the well-scrubbed hearth. Subotai kept an eye on Yasimina, who lay in the old man’s bed, tied to a bedpost.

When dawn burnished the still waters of the Vilayet Sea, the small house became a beehive of activity. Pallets were rolled up and the stew pot set to warming on its hook above a fresh-lit fire. Subotai slipped out to forage for supplies of war. The old man puttered among his piled effects for remnants of arms and armour or for things that might be so employed.

Yasimina sat on the side of the bed, staring at the Cimmerian. Her eyes sparkled with anger; her rose-petal mouth was inverted by a sneer.

“Enjoy this day, barbarian dog,” she spat, “for it will be your last.”

Conan looked around at her and raised his heavy brows.

“My serpent king knows where you are,” she continued. “He has seen your fire and will come, as surely as the sun has risen in the east. And he will slay you.”

“Are you a prophetess, then?” growled Conan. “I think not—just a foolish girl. I know not why your father loves you so.”

He walked over to the irate princess, seized her chin in his large hand, and glared down into her fiery eyes. Softly, he said: “I was born on a battlefield.... The first sound I heard was a scream.... The prospect of a battle does not frighten me.”

“It frightens me no more!” Yasimina flung back at him. “For my lord will lead his minions to my rescue. My lord... and future husband, Thulsa Doom.”

Conan smiled grimly. “Then you shall see the battle, blow by blow. And be right there to greet him when he comes for you.”

The girl paled slightly as the barbarian untied her from the bedpost and flung her, sack-like, over his shoulder. Striding up the side of the nearest mound, he tethered her.

“Here you can see it all. And he who comes for you can find you readily.”

Subotai called from below, and Conan descended the slope to find the Hyrkanian cradling an armful of bamboo poles. These he dropped with a clatter.

“They’ll do for stakes,” he said, picking one up and slicing an end at an angle to make a crude spear.

“Where did you find them?” asked Conan, beginning to whittle points on the ends of other poles.

“Down by the sea—behind the tall grasses.” Presently, when the last sharpened stake lay on the pile, Subotai said: “Doom’s likely to come directly from the mountain. Should we not dig the trench on the far side of the mound?”

“Aye,” said the Cimmerian, “and we’ll cover it with thin poles strewn with sod.”

“If we have time,” said Subotai dourly. “I’ll fetch shovels from the wizard’s root cellar.”

Soon the two men were hard at work. All morning the earth flew, and the trench took shape. Although the small thief had to rest from time to time, Conan continued like a tireless machine. His mighty muscles, fuelled by implacable hatred and lust for revenge, endowed him with a reserve of power beyond imagining, and he excavated thrice as much as an ordinary man.

The trench was dug and the sharpened poles well-seated when the wizard brought them bread and cheese and a draft of home-brewed beer.

“Do you plan to make your stand here?” he asked.

“Here, or up on yonder mound,” said Conan.

The oldster’s glance followed Conan’s pointing finger. He nodded. “Many battles were fought here in the ancient time,” he said. “At night the shades of the slain chant grisly tales of combat.”

“Today there’ll be a battle like no other—two against many. Old man, if we fall, perhaps you’ll sing a song of us when we are gone,” said Conan.

“Or to us, if we stay a while,” added Subotai cheerfully.

“I’ll take some food and drink to Osric’s spitfire,” said Conan. “We can’t have her a ghost if we hope to claim a ransom.”

Climbing the mound, the barbarian offered Yasimina some of the wizard’s humble food. She made a face at the rude fare and glared at the giver, but Conan noted with amusement that she ate and drank with eager speed.

Still, she was not mollified. After finishing her meal, she taunted him. “It won’t be long now.”

Conan answered, “No, not long.”

Rejoining Subotai, who was busy fashioning arrows to replenish his supply, Conan set about cleaning and sharpening their swords. As he burnished the great Atlantean blade, he thought of his boyhood, of the power of bis arch-enemy, of the skills and cunning that a fighting man must have to overcome weight of numbers and brute force.