Conan the Marauder (31 page)

A thousand Hyrkanians, howling the shrill war cry of the steppes, were piling onto the Turanians. Conan saw a man claw at a shield with his bare hands, climbing over its rim to attack the man behind it. The defender thrust his sword into his enemy's bowels, toppling backward as the dying Hyrkanian's teeth sank into his throat.

The gateway became a scene of demented slaughter as men fought with no hope or thought of quarter. The footing grew treacherous as blood and spilled entrails carpeted the grass and the pile of bodies grew deeper. Fallen weapons threatened the feet of unwary combatants.

Not wishing to linger in an environment so unfavourable, Conan sprang over the heap of corpses, landed catlike with his feet firmly planted, and with two blows of his sword felled two men who bore down upon him from right and left. He looked about, to see that he was standing within the City of Mounds. Bartatua stood beside him, and screaming Hyrkanians were pouring into the breach. The defenders were falling back in disorder, and the true slaughter had begun.

As the blood-maddened horde smote and slew, Conan sprinted after a fleeing Turanian who had mounted the horse of a fallen defender. The Cimmerian discarded his shield to run the faster, and without breaking stride, he re-sheathed his sword. The Turanian was headed toward the centre of the City of Mounds. Conan wanted a live man to question, and soon there would be none.

The rider circled a low mound, giving Conan the opportunity he needed. He ran to the top of the mound and from there he leaped to the shoulders of the Turanian, toppling him to the grass. The man's eyes started from their sockets with terror as Conan presented a dagger to his throat.

"If you would live, speak quickly," the Cimmerian growled. "Where are Khondemir and the Sogarian princess?"

"There!" gasped the man, pointing upward. "Atop the highest mound! The Vendhyan woman is with them. He makes mighty magic!"

Conan's gaze followed the pointing finger. "Crom!" he half-whispered. He released the man to escape or die, and paid no attention as the Turanian scrambled away. Conan was entranced by the spectacle above him, and his battle lust turned to horror.

The sun was down and the stars were appearing, but above the great mound was a single, boiling black cloud. In its centre was a glare so red that blood was colourless by comparison. All around the necropolis the sounds of battle were tapering off as the terrible sight overhead filled men with a fear greater than that of mere death.

Within the red glare writhed something, a vast, hulking form of unutterable blackness.

"What is it?" said a voice beside Conan. He turned to see Bartatua standing at his side. The Ushi-Kagan was bloodied to the shoulders but he seemed to be unwounded. He stared upward with the same mixture of awe and fear that Conan felt.

"The wizard is up there," Conan said. "He works some terrible spell. He must be summoning a nightmare creature from another world with which to slay us all. Lakhme is up there with him."

The Ushi-Kagan's face knotted with rage. "He works his unclean arts upon the tomb of our first ancestor! Come, Conan, we still have killing to do!"

Bartatua strode for the great mound and Conan went beside him, leaping up the steep grassy side of the mound. As they ascended, the cloud above grew blacker and the red glare clarified, revealing a portion of the creature that lurked behind its veil. A pair of slit-pupiled eyes, larger than shields, stared out above a nest of huge tentacles. It was some unthinkably vast cephalopod, and its body hulked gigantic in the red distance. It bore the vague likeness of a spiral shell.

A smell as of an incomprehensibly ancient sea bed washed down the sides of the mound, and the huge tentacles pushed against the veil, seeking a way into the world of men. As Conan and the Ushi-Kagan gained the crest of the mound, they saw two human forms silhouetted against the redness. A third form lay supine before them. The taller of the two standing forms raised a hand aloft, revealing the glitter of a dagger.

As the hand paused in its ascent, Conan ripped his sword from its sheath and cast it sideways, the blade flashing in a horizontal spin.

In the fading light, Lakhme stared aghast at the slaughter below. "Hurry, wizard!" she urged, "or soon there will be no army left to carry you in triumph to Aghrapur!"

"All shall be over soon," he assured her. He had been chanting for several minutes in words for which human vocal equipment was never intended. "There is but one formality to attend to, and I shall have full control of our visitor."

Lakhme shuddered as the hideous thing took form above them. She knew not whether it was god or demon, but it represented power in a form that frightened even her. The girl who lay upon the altar had stared in horror as the thing took form, but at last her eyes had rolled back to expose only crescents of white and she lay unconscious as her terrible fate approached consummation.

"In a moment," Khondemir said, exultation writ upon his face, "I shall rip forth her heart, and this Lord of the Deep shall be my servant. Bartatua and all the hordes of Hyrkania shall be my slaves!" He raised the knife with unholy glee as the demon pushed against the last resistance of the veil.

The wizard stared at the naked girl stretched upon the altar. It would be a single stroke below the left breast, plunging in, then ripping across to open a great rent. Within an instant he would reach into the wound and tear forth the still-beating heart, to proffer it in unholy propitiation to the dark god above him.

"To thee, oh lord of all power!" he cried, as something whirred past his head.

With a triumphant howl, he brought his hand streaking down toward the prone girl. He stared in total incomprehension as, slowly, he realized that he no longer held the dagger. It took another moment's thought to understand that he no longer had a right hand. His eyes gazed in horror as blood spouted from the stump of his wrist and flowed over Ishkala's white flesh. Then the first tentacle wrapped around his body.

Lakhme watched her ambitions crumble as the wizard was raised high in the air until he was held above the horses'-tail standard of the Ashkuz. He screamed and disgorged hideous noises as the creature plucked an arm from his struggling body and fed it into a fanged mouth in the midst of its nest of tentacles.

Then Bartatua stood before her. "My love," she said desperately, "it was the wizard! He cast his spell over me! Now that he is finished, I am returned to my senses! Let us be away from this place."

The Kagan's hands closed around her slender neck. The thumbs bore into her windpipe and her head swam as the blood flow to her brain was constricted. His face was grim and vengeful, but there was a trace of doubt in his eyes. His powerful bowman's hands could have snapped her neck instantly, but he was unable to bring himself to this final, irrevocable step.

As she struggled for breath, Lakhme panicked. Her hand went to her loincloth and brought out the little thin-bladed dagger and plunged its full length into Bartatua's side. His eyes widened; then their stare became fixed as he fell, bearing her down with him, his hands still locked around her throat. She grasped his fingers and tried to break them away, and then she saw someone standing above her. It was the Cimmerian. He was her only hope now, and she stretched forth a hand, pleading for help.

Conan looked down at his dead friend and at the faithless woman. He knew that he could yet save her. Such was his strength that he could break even Bartatua's death grip. The pleading in her eyes was a terrible thing to see.

He stepped over her writhing body and began to cut the straps that held Ishkala. Above them, the monster was finishing off the last of what had been the wizard, Khondemir, would-be king of Turan. Conan tossed the girl's bloodied body over his shoulder and began to run down the face of the mound. He did not look back at the Vendhyan woman.

At the base of the mound, all was confusion as men knew not whether to fight or flee. The thing above seemed to be satisfied with the sorcerer and was retreating back into its cloud. Conan snatched a cloak from a dead man and wrapped it around Ishkala's pale body. At a steady trot, he headed for the rampart.

In the little gully where he had left Manzur, he found the young poet still securely trussed. "Keep quiet," he ordered as he loosened the young man's bonds. "We must be away from here, and swiftly. Bartatua is dead. So is the Vendhyan woman."

"Ishkala?" Manzur gasped as the gag was untied.

"She is this bundle. She is unharmed, at least in body. We must get to the horses. Now there is enough confusion that we may make our escape, if we move swiftly."

They emerged from the gully and began walking toward the horses. Although there were men all around, they attracted no notice. Many Hyrkanians were coming back from the City of Mounds, aiding or carrying wounded compatriots. The most seriously injured were desperate to mount the horses lest they die afoot in the dark. The unique horrors of their recent battle had left them half drugged.

Conan found his own horse where he had tethered it, a little apart from the others, saddled and bearing his bow and arrows. A packhorse with supplies stood next to it, along with a string of remounts. As the two men mounted, with Ishkala held in the saddle before Conan, they heard an unearthly ululation behind them. It was the mourning cry of the steppes.

"Someone has summoned the courage to ascend the great mound," Conan said. "They have found the body of Bartatua. That should keep them occupied for a good while. Let us be away." Into the gloom rode the three survivors.

On the fifth day of their southward wandering, they saw two riders approaching in the distance. "Who may they be?" asked Ishkala. She rode in a spare tunic of Conan's, her bare legs glossy and dark from exposure to the sun. She had fashioned an impromptu hood from the cloak Conan had earlier wrapped her in.

"We cannot tell until they come closer," the Cimmerian said. "Two men are not much threat." They rode on, and soon Conan grinned as he saw who came to meet them.

"You see, Fawd," said Rustuf to the man who rode beside him. "I told you that this Cimmerian knave would not be done for by a mere dust storm. How goes it, Conan?"

"Very well. Which is to say that I am still alive and moderately healthy."

"Fawd and I plan to ride to the west," Rustuf said. "I long to visit with my brothers of the Kozaki, and Fawd wishes to gaze upon the towers of Aghrapur once more."

"I'll go with you," Conan said. "I was going west when my journey was interrupted by the Hyrkanians."

"Surely, Conan," protested Manzur, "you are coming to Sogaria with us! The prince will heap you with honours. You will be given riches and land, and a high command in the army."

The Cimmerian shook his head. "Just now I wish no further dealings with monarchs, especially one that might remember me as the man who cost him a fort. Nay, I ride west. That is where my destiny lies."

Before they made the final farewells, Manzur took Conan aside. "I am grateful to you, Conan," he said, "but it grieves me that I missed the final battle, and that it was not I who rescued Ishkala."

"I'll warrant you've not told her that," said Conan with a grin, "and I know perfectly well that that is not how your poem will come out when you've finished it. You see, you are not the first poet I have encountered."

As the two young people rode off, the three warriors turned the heads of their mounts westward.

"Bartatua was slain," Conan told them.

"No man is immortal," Rustuf said philosophically. "So perishes another would-be Emperor of the World."

"He could have been," Conan said. "He was a great man, perhaps the greatest I have known. All that defeated him was his love for a worthless woman."

"It's just as well," Rustuf said. "I do not think I would like living in a world with only one king. The first thing you know, he would be enforcing peace so that the flow of taxes would not be interrupted. No, I like a world with many little kings and many little wars. That's the world for a warrior."

"Aye," Conan said. "In a world like that, even men such as we can earn crowns of our own."

Together the three men rode toward the setting sun, across the endless grassy steppe.

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