Conan and the Shaman's Curse (26 page)

The stalker’s unearthly wail filled the air with deafening tones. The enraged monster flailed about with its forelegs, whipping its head from side to side, trying to dislodge the deadly spike. Its eyes glowed like a pair of huge, hot coals, wisps of smoke rising from their red-orange surfaces. The stalker’s head glowed, swelling, changing from green to a scarlet blister as its frenzied spasms weakened and its shrieking subsided. Its head burst in a messy spray of steaming pink muck, splashing the walls with scorched matter so foul it made Conan’s eyes bum. The gigantic body collapsed, twitching feebly; its head naught but a ragged, smoking stump.

The floor collapsed beneath it, giving way with booming crack.

Trapped in the centre of the room, Conan had no place to go but down. He slid forward, feeling the sickening rush of weightlessness as the supporting stones dropped away from him.

Sajara’s fingers hooked onto the ledge they had used to enter the ruined chamber.

Conan threw out his hand, nearly dislocating his shoulder. His fingers brushed Sajara’s calf before grasping her ankle.

She winced as the Cimmerian’s mass nearly tore her hand from its grip on the ledge. They swayed together like a pendulum, their combined weight gradually forcing her fingers to straighten.

Sajara held on with waning strength, slipping downward slowly, inexorably. She craned her neck and shouted at Conan, her pained expression telling of the strain she was under. Her words were lost in the booming crash of chests bursting against the crystalline fountain, and the din of rocky debris pelting floors and walls. The opal throne struck a ledge on its way down; spinning, it shattered against the floor in a shower of iridescent shards.

Staring down along the wall, Conan saw the ledge beneath them. It looked wider than the one above... a silent, stony dare. His sweaty hand relaxed its hold on Sajara’s ankle; he braced himself to grab that beckoning edge, hands sliding along the wall as he plummeted. His clutching fingers at last encountered it, breaking his fall. He clung to it for a moment, savouring the reassuring feel of unyielding stone.

Without Conan weighing her down, Sajara manoeuvred along the thin ribbon of rock, improving her hold. Moving hand over hand, she descended the ledge, pulling herself up when it widened sufficiently.

The clattering and crashing subsided, leaving only a dull ringing in Conan’s ears. He hauled himself up onto the stone ledge and sat there, tilting his head backward against the wall and panting from exhaustion. After catching his breath, he stared down at the jumble of stones atop the stalker’s crushed carcass. Coins gleamed everywhere, sprinkled across the chamber like golden drops of dew. The contents of the other chests were buried beneath the wreckage.

Conan joined Sajara, his eyes flashing a silent thanks to her for hanging on. She wiped her brow and smiled at him.

“Gods, but that was close. We’d be filling that beast’s belly were it not for the atnalga. But now we must prolong our stay in this damned tower and pick through yon pile there to retrieve that strange sword. Surely it survived the fall.”

“Twice we have escaped death in the jaws of a stalker,” Sajara mumbled. She seemed dazed by their harrowing escape. “Although you are not the chosen one, the gods must hold you high in favour. Either that, or your Crom bestowed upon you a measure of fortune far beyond that granted to most men.”

“Ha! Spend an eve at my side in a gambling den whilst I roll the dice and you’ll say otherwise. Ill fortune follows at my heels like a stray hound seeking food. This time, though, the bones rolled and came up winners. But what we need now is haste, girl! The sunlight fades, and our task awaits us. With luck”—he almost bit his tongue as he said it—“we can rejoin the others before sunset.” Before a stalker finds them was the unspoken fear that stewed in the back of Conan’s mind.

XVII

The Ranioba

“Y’Taba, another night comes. Why have they not returned?” Jukona fretted, pacing in the dirt outside the door to Y’Taba’s hut.

“Be at peace, Jukona. A sky of clouds clears not while one stares up at it. Worry will not serve you as well as rest— you have not slept since the morning of their departure.” “The Deadlands will devour my daughter, and Conan, and the others. I should have accompanied them,” he groaned, ignoring the spirit-leader’s admonishment.

“To what end? Those whom you have sworn to defend are here—our women, our children, the elders, and your handful of warriors, wounded or dying but yours to protect. If the Kezati come—”

“Then they will face not one warrior but two,” a sombre voice sounded from the doorway to the hut, causing the two old men to turn and stare. Ngomba strode up to them, muscles rippling under the afternoon sun. He looked like anyone but a man who a few days ago had lain upon a deathbed. Aside from some scabs and bruises, his body showed no evidence of the beating it had taken. His bright, fierce eyes radiated exuberance.

“Ngomba! By Asusa, you look fit as ever,” Jukona marvelled.

Y’Taba regarded the young warrior with a stem gaze. “You must be careful, Ngomba. Your vigour may wane when you most need it. To you I say what I said to Jukona: rest.”

“Not while the Kezati hover nearby, waiting to prey upon us. Dreams of them darken my sleep, Y’Taba Spirit-Leader. When I close my eyes I see them hover like winged clouds, waiting to rain down upon us in a storm of beaks and claws. And who shall stand before that rain of doom?” he snapped, jabbing a finger at Jukona. “You?” Snorting, he shook his head disdainfully.

Jukona stiffened, eyes flashing. “Hold your tongue, Ngomba. I have suffered it to wag with your words of scorn, but no more!”

“I see. You will punish me if I do not show proper respect for a warrior-leader who is no longer even fit to follow?” His laugh rang harshly, bitterly.

Jukona’s open palm struck the young warrior’s face with a resounding slap, so forceful that it knocked his head backward.

Snarling, Ngomba balled his huge hands into club-like fists, cocking his arm backward.

Y’Taba caught Ngomba’s fist with a meaty smack, wrapping his hand around it. The imposing spirit-leader bored his eyes into Ngomba’s. “Be silent, insolent one!” Y’Taba boomed, his eyes narrowing in anger. “Once I banished you; I shall do so again if you disobey me. Your heart is true to our people, I think, but your mind is a pit into which I cannot see. You are strong, Ngomba. The gods have granted you a boon that you must not abuse. Apologize to Jukona.”

Ngomba glowered in silence, tugging at his fist to loosen it from the spirit-leader’s powerful grip.

Jukona stood expectantly, his arms folded across his chest.

Y'Taba’s muscles quivered as he forced Ngomba’s arm down. “Apologize,” he insisted. Cords rippled along his forearm, and his biceps bulged as he pushed back the younger warrior’s upraised fist. But if he felt any strain, his voice did not show it.

Ngomba’s lips drew back across his bared teeth. Then his shoulder slumped as he seemed to give up the struggle. “Forgive me, Jukona Warrior-Leader,” he mumbled, bowing his head.

Y’Taba let go, planting his hands on his hips.

“You need me. Our people need me,” Ngomba said to the ground. “You dare not banish me, and if you did I would not go. As for the stranger, Conan, we need him not. If he returns, send him away. If she who will one day be joined with me has perished, I shall not forgive you, Spirit-Leader. You should have not let her go.”

“She is Ranioba, and by our custom the right is hers.” Y’Taba slowly flexed his fingers, setting his jaw as if to conceal a grimace of pain.

Ngomba watched him. “How shall you wash your hands of her blood, Spirit-Leader? How? My heart tells me that like Jukona, you have faded. It is dusk for you, Y’Taba; the sun that was your wisdom is sinking from the sky. But you are still Y’Taba, and you have strength I did not guess at.” He unclenched his hand, rubbing the palm, then shaking his fingers. “So we wait Who will return first? Our enemies, or the stranger who—you say—will save us?” Tight-lipped, he clasped his hands before him, tapping the forefingers together.

Jukona stood impassively, his face a block of chiselled stone.

Y’Taba’s eyes flickered between the trees that bordered his village and the darkening sky that loomed above it. He did not answer the question.

“Where in the blazes of Zandru’s seventh hell are they?” Conan asked, surveying the area by the pool of water as they neared it. The mid-morning sun provided excellent visibility, but he did not see anyone in the expected place.

Sajara quickened her pace. “Maybe they sought shelter—from a stalker, perhaps.”

Conan hurried along the stone pathway, glad to put the tower behind him. The search through the rubble had taken longer than he had hoped, forcing them to stop when the light failed. At first the prospect of spending a night in the tower soured Conan’s mood further. His flaring temper had been more than assuaged when Sajara had, in gratitude, kissed him. Their lips lingered in an embrace that preceded an evening of passion. The beautiful Ganak huntress had herself seemed surprised by desires that Conan awakened in her.

The Cimmerian felt somewhat bruised and battered this morning, but he doubted he would have slept anyway. In spite of the rough comforts of the tower, the amorous encounter had been just what he needed.

Sajara, for her part, also seemed to be in much better spirits. When the dawn’s bright light filled the tower’s interior, they had resumed their search and located the atnalga beneath a heap of splintered wood. Conan had found some interesting object among the debris, which he tucked into the pouches he had originally fashioned for the rubies. After divining that those crimson gemstones represented eyes in a carven image of Kahli, he had given up his plan to pry them loose. Such treasures bore the stench of black magic upon them, and his experiences with such loot had brought nothing but trouble in the past. He might return for them one day, but for now he was content with some of the baubles retrieved from Jhaora’s hoard.

He had also picked up the small chest. One side of it had been smashed, but not too badly, and he stuffed it with a few books that remained more or less intact. A casual flipping of pages revealed some interesting contents, further brightening the Cimmerian’s mood.

Carefully they placed the atnalga into the chest and wrapped the burst comers with vines to secure it.

Laughing and joking, they left the tower with renewed hope. Only now a new concern had arisen.

“If anything happened to them, we shall see the signs,” Conan said.

When they reached the area by the spring of water, they drank their fill quickly before searching the place for signs of the Ganak women. While Sajara splashed water on her face, Conan studied the dirt and rubbed his jaw in bewilderment.

“No signs of a struggle, but I count four sets of footprints leading toward the doorway.”

“Four?” Sajara was at his side in a few supple strides.

“Come on. We’ll follow them.”

They hurried toward the tall, arched exit, slowing when they heard the wall.

“Did they—” Sajara began.

Conan raised a finger to his lips, then pointed at the doorway.

Outside, a shadow lay across it... a colossal shadow with an all-too-familiar shape.

Conan whispered. “That portal is too narrow for the thing to come through. We’re safe enough, but...”

“Makiela... Kanitra... Avrana,” she moaned. “No. It cannot be.”

“Aye, I hope not,” Conan said fervently. “What of this fourth set of footprints?”

“Sajara?”

They both nearly fell over backward in surprise when a head appeared in the doorway.

“Makiela!” shouted Sajara.

“By Crom, what—”

Makiela walked into view, followed by Avrana and Kanitra. “Sajara!” they called out. “Do not worry. We are safe.”

The shadow shifted its position, unmistakably belonging to a stalker.

Sajara rushed through the archway, Conan following her and cursing. Ranioba and her hunters hugged briefly while the Cimmerian gaped at the green-bodied monstrosity. He stayed back a few paces, respectful of the creature’s astonishing speed. His sword was in his hand by instinct.

Astride the stalker’s neck sat an old Ganak woman with a sun-wrinkled face. Her skin was not painted in typical Ganak fashion, though she wore a necklace similar to Sajara’s. A braid of grey hair swept down past her waist; tied to the end of it was a white, cylindrical seashell the size of a man’s forefinger. Smiling down at them, she turned, revealing that her left arm was entirely gone.

The old woman’s smile turned into a stare as Conan walked into view. She seemed as startled by his appearance as he was by hers.

Sajara blinked, her eyes registering both recognition and disbelief. “Nyona Ranioba!”

“Yes, child. Your eyes were ever keen, as befits a Ranioba. Though when I last beheld you, you were a girl with only a stub of hair. Has it been so long? It has, I suppose. The passing of sun to moon means little to us here. There is much to tell, but first”—she waggled a finger at Conan—“I must know by what name this one is called, and from where he has come. My tale is for the ears of Ganaks, not njeni!”

“He is called Conan, from the land of Cimmeria that lies faraway. He is not njeni! He fought the Kezati with our warrior-leader, drank kuomo with our spirit-leader, and he has saved me and these others from death—more than once.” She glared at Makiela. “As Makiela should have told you,” she added in an icy tone.

“There was not a chance—” Makiela began to protest. “Nyona Ranioba came to us just after sunrise, Sajara.” Kanitra offered.

Nodding, Avrana joined in. “We were about to explain why we had come to the Deadlands when—”

“Silence, children!” the old woman commanded. “Sajara, speak. The rest of you, hold your tongues.” Conan was burning to know why the stalker did not simply devour them all, but he suspected that this strange Ganak rider would brook no further interruptions. He stood uneasily, fidgeting with his sword while Sajara related an abbreviated account of recent events, beginning with Conan’s arrival at Ganaku. Nyona seldom interrupted for more details, seeming curiously well-informed of much that had transpired—particularly in the Deadlands.