Conan the Marauder (24 page)

"It is a fine sight," Bartatua acknowledged, "but I hope to be remembered for yet better things. When other cities hear of the fate of Sogaria, they will be more amenable to reason."

"Where do we march next, Ushi-Kagan?' asked a Gerul chieftain, his green serpent tattoos writhing weirdly in the flickering red light.

Bartatua smiled inwardly. Already his men were looking forward to new conquests. "My plans shall be known only to myself, my friend," he said. "But it will be soon. We shall not tarry long in this place. Only long enough to gather our loot. Slaves will carry the loot to a place I have chosen, far out on the steppe near a great lake. There I shall establish a capital such as the world has never seen. It shall be a great metropolis where the warriors of all the tribes may come and enjoy the loot of the whole world!"

The men growled their enthusiasm for this new idea. Bartatua knew that he had them in the palm of his hand. They would follow him anywhere, and would make his slightest wish their command.

"My capital," he continued, "will not be a mere marketplace for farmers and herdsmen, merchants and artisans. It will be a gathering of all the booty and tribute of the world for the greatest warrior race beneath the Everlasting Sky. Besides the warriors, it will have no inhabitants except the pick of the world's most beautiful slaves, whose only purpose will be to do the bidding of the warriors!"

The growls now changed to wild cheering as this extraordinary vision took form in their minds. At that moment they truly believed that they would soon be lords of the earth and that the Ushi-Kagan, Bartatua, would lead them to that conquest.

"Come my friends," Bartatua said. "The feast is laid within, and we have many years of triumph and feasting before us."

Laughing and shouting, they went into the tent. The slaves began placing platters before the chiefs, filling their wine cups and bestowing whatever services were called for. At last the commanders were beginning to realize that this was their due, that soon even every humble warrior of Hyrkania would live like a lord, and the chiefs would be kings. The Ushi-Kagan, Bartatua, would be a god.

It was with this cheering thought that Bartatua held out his cup—the gold-mounted skull of an enemy—to be filled with wine. As he brought the exotically worked golden rim to his lips, he felt that at last his destiny was at hand.

A sudden silence swept over the tent. Bartatua looked up to see a bird flying in circles beneath the roof. In whispers the superstitious tribesmen speculated upon the meaning of this omen. Bartatua frowned at this trifling incident that threatened to mar his moment of triumph.

The creature seemed to be an ordinary pigeon, but as it flew above Bartatua's table, it stopped and hovered like a hummingbird. Men gasped and snatched at their weapons as the bird began to change form. Others grasped amulets and yammered protective spells.

Bartatua sat calmly sipping wine from the skull. Above him now floated the ghostly form of a man swathed in strange robes. He wore a turban, and his beard was forked. Within the phantom Bartatua could just discern the shape of the hovering bird.

"Kagan Bartatua of the Hyrkanian horde of the Ashkuz," intoned a booming voice, "know that I am the great mage, Khondemir of Turan. I now occupy your City of Mounds with a strong force of cavalry. If you would save the sacred tombs of your ancestors, come and do battle, else we shall raze your mounds to the level of the steppe. If you would have proof of what I say, see that which the bird bears. Come and give battle, or be accursed as a sacrilegious coward forever!"

With these words, the image began to fade and the bird dropped dead upon the table before the Kagan. The chiefs leaped to their feet and began to babble excitedly. Those who were of the Ashkuz were especially agitated.

"Kagan," shouted an Ashkuz chief, "what does this mean? Can this unclean creature truly hold hostage the holy place of our ancestors?"

Bartatua raised a hand and when there was silence, he spoke calmly. "I know something of this Khondemir. He is a rogue who is wanted by King Yezdigerd of Turan for treason. Doubtless he has taken refuge within Sogaria. This is some trick, a casting from the city. The wizard knows that the only thing that might cause us to lift our siege would be a threat to our holy place. This is a ruse, nothing more."

"Still," said a Gerul chieftain, "there was that column of cavalry that left the city before we laid our siege. They went north; the signs were there for all to see. And they never returned."

Bartatua remained impassive, but inwardly he was in turmoil. He looked at the dead bird before him. Slowly he detached the message tube tied to one of its legs. He would have preferred to do this when he was alone, but there was no way now to avoid the attention of his chiefs without arousing suspicion. From the tube he drew a tightly rolled coil of parchment. He unrolled it, then spread it to its full size. It was the very finest and thinnest of parchment, made from the dried and stretched intestine of an unborn lamb. It was nearly transparent, and so light that a square four palms in extent could be rolled into the message tube of a pigeon.

As Bartatua puzzled over the parchment, he frowned, then turned deathly pale. "It is true!" he said at last. "This is a map of the route the wizard has taken to the City of Mounds. He has even sketched in the location of the greater mounds so that we would know that he has indeed arrived there."

The assembly erupted into chaos. "What must we do, Kagan?' shouted someone. It did not escape Bartatua's notice that the Ushi had been dropped.

"We must lift the siege," he said. "This catastrophe takes precedence over all other concerns. Pass the order that the men must mount and ride immediately. There will be plenty of time to come back and resume the siege when we have taken care of this threat to our ancestors."

"But my ramp!" cried the Khitan engineer. "They will demolish it while the army is away. When you return, there will not be enough slaves to build another."

"Aye," said a green-tattooed Gerul. "My people will not like this. They have put much effort into this campaign, and you would have them abandon their loot to save your holy place. It will not sit well with them."

Before his eyes Bartatua could see his carefully built alliance breaking up. And along with the breakup was the destruction of his position as Ushi-Kagan. If he would save his nascent empire, it would have to be by a

powerful act of will, and it would have to be accomplished before his chiefs left this tent.

"Silence!" he bellowed. In the shocked stillness he went on in a lower voice. "Think you that this is more than a trifling setback on our march to the lordship of the world? Our ancestors are testing us, to see whether we are worthy of our destiny! They wish to know that our reverence for our honoured dead comes before all else, and we shall prove to them that it is so.

"Sogaria is merely one city. I shall give you the whole world! Somehow this wizard from Turan has learned of our only vulnerability: that we will abandon any enterprise at any time to protect the resting place of our ancestors. Never again shall this thing be done to us. When we began this siege, it was my plan to deal gently with the Sogarians, to spare all those who would surrender, pay tribute and acknowledge me as their master, but no more."

He glared at the assembled chiefs who had fallen silent, intimidated and impressed by his intensity. "I swear by the spirits of our ancestors, and by the Everlasting Sky, that when Sogaria is taken, every surviving man, woman and child of that city shall be driven barefoot across the steppe to the City of Mounds. There they shall repair the desecrated mounds and build new ones for those who fall in this campaign. When the work is done, they will be crucified there, that their spirits may serve our dead through all eternity. Thus shall the whole world learn the fate that befalls any who would desecrate the holy place of the Hyrkanian race!"

He was well satisfied with the ferocious cheers that erupted from his hearers. He had successfully deflected their wrath from himself and turned it against Khondemir, Sogaria and the non-Hyrkanian world in general. His path to world conquest still lay clear before him.

"Now go to your hordes and tell them to mount. We ride within the hour!"

As the chiefs stormed from the tent, the Kagan's concubine came from her listening place behind his throne.

"This is an ill business, my lord," said Lakhme. "But for your quick thinking and powerful speech, our plans might have come down in ruins."

"Aye," he said, glowering, "it was a near thing. I cannot fathom how this could have happened. How did this wizard know of our burial customs? How did he learn the way to the City of Mounds?" The Kagan took his armour from its peg on a tent post and began to strap it on.

"The Turanian is a sorcerer," Lakhme said. "What can be kept secret from such a one? Perhaps he learned from the spirits of the air, which fly about the steppe, seeing all under the sky. Ask your shamans."

He allowed himself a mirthless smile. "I am sorry that the Cimmerian escaped my vengeance, but even in his escape he did me a service. He and his two friends slaughtered half of those bone-rattling frauds. I would no more ask them for advice about a true wizard than I would ask jackals how to fight a lion."

"How will you deal with the sorcerer when we reach the City of Mounds?" she asked, anxious to steer his thoughts away from the night of the Cimmerian's escape. She lived in continual fear that one of the surviving shamans would betray her part in that night's activities. She was plotting a way to poison them all at once.

"I know not," he said. "His force of cavalry I count as nothing, although if he truly holds the City of Mounds itself, he has a certain advantage."

"What might that be?" she asked. She knew the

answer, but she could not admit it lest Bartatua suspect her collusion with Khondemir.

"No matter," he said. "We shall kill all the foreign-at whatever cost to ourselves. Now prepare yourself. We have a hard ride ahead. This time I'll not be able to spare your ivory skin."

"Do not think of such trifles, my lord," she said. "My only concern now is that you maintain your position as Ushi-Kagan of all the Hyrkanian hordes."

As she made her preparations for departure, Lakhme felt the satisfaction of a plotter whose every plan is coming to fruition. Only one minor factor remained to disturb her confidence. What had happened to the Cimmerian?

XIV

Manzur watched with puzzled fascination as Conan made his preparations for their night's foray. The Cimmerian had reserved some charred sticks from their last fire, and now he began to shave finely powdered soot from their ends. The soot he mixed with rendered fat from the antelope he had killed. When he was satisfied with the mixture, he smeared it over his face and exposed limbs.

"Surely you cannot expect me to cover myself with that nauseating concoction," Manzur said, wrinkling his nose.

"If you wish to accompany me into that camp, you will," Conan told him. "With odds of a thousand to one, our best plan lies in not being seen. We must be as stealthy as Picts. With water and sand, it washes off in minutes. Wounds last far longer, and death longer yet. Also, you will wear no armour. Carry only your sword and dagger, and see that they do not rattle."

Shuddering, Manzur began to smear the foul stuff on his face and arms. To his surprise, the experience was not all that distasteful. In fact, the act brought with it a feeling of taking part in some ancient battle ritual, long lost to civilized peoples. He took out a small looking glass and admired the white flash of teeth in his blackened face. He began to feel very fierce indeed.

Conan caught the look and cautioned the younger man. "Do not think you can take them all on and spirit your Ishkala from their midst. What we seek is knowledge. Once we know their strength, their plans and the state of alliance between the two bands, we will be able to gauge our actions."

It was a disappointment, but Manzur knew that Conan spoke good sense. Still, he continued to spin fantasies in which he snatched Ishkala from the grasp of her enemies, slew the sorcerer, fought his way from the midst of the host against insuperable odds, and made their escape across the trackless steppe. He even began composing a lengthy epic poem lauding his own feat.

They set out as soon as it was dark, but Conan called a halt while they were still on the rampart surrounding the City of Mounds.

"We wait here until the sounds of revelry are well advanced," the Cimmerian explained.

"Why are we here on the Turanian side?" Manzur asked. "Ishkala is almost certainly with the Red Eagles."

"We are not here for her," Conan said. "She is probably safe with the Sogarians for the moment. The wizard must be with the Turanians. Besides, the Red Eagles have posted sentries, and they act as if they know their trade. Soon most of the Turanians will be drunk, asleep or both. Wizards do much of their work at night. This will be a good time to pay the mage a visit."

"Very well," Manzur said. "But this waiting tries my patience."

"Patience is a virtue you must cultivate if you would be a warrior," the Cimmerian told him. "Too great a thirst for battle has been the death of far more warriors and armies than has the reluctance to fight."

Manzur was growing weary of these barbarian preachments. "True glory should be a matter of inspiration, not cold calculation," he said.

"Learn from me," said the Cimmerian, "and you might live longer. I gained my knowledge at a high price. Wounds, chains and slavery were the cost of that learning. If you would temper your rashness with a little thought, you may live to inflict your verses upon your countrymen for many years to come."

Manzur grumbled, but he sat back and rested against the grassy rampart. The sounds of revelry were loud and continuous, mingled with the noise of quarrelling. He closed his eyes.

The Sogarian hero-poet awoke with a start as Conan shook his shoulder. "Awake, mightiest warrior of the age," said the Cimmerian. "We go in now. Keep close behind me and make no sound, no matter what you see. If there is any killing to be done, leave it to me. I can do it silently. Keep your blades loose in their sheaths, but do not draw them unless I draw mine. Now, let us be off."