Conan the Rebel (16 page)

Jehanan sought to deny a fellow who proffered grubby confections off a tray. 'Ah,' that Stygian leered. 'I know. You want numi.' From a flowing sleeve, he produced a packet. 'Finest numi. Burn it, breathe the smoke, get lovely dreams and feel wonderful. Just two silver stellars.' Jehanan whitened.

'Three lunars,' proposed Conan's pest. The barbarian was about to cast the gimcrack he had onto the street, when he realized what a scene that would bring on. Already, curious denizens had paused to watch. They included a mounted guardsman a few yards off. Somehow Daris had been eased onto the live camel. It lurched to its feet. The owner grabbed the bridle and trotted off, tongue clacking.

'For three lunars, three camels and two necklaces,' Conan heard. The seller of sweetmeats and drugs beamed and suggested, 'You would like to meet my sister. Young, beautiful, very, very good. Take numi, feel fine, make love to her, be happy. Come.' He plucked at the Shemite's robe. Jehanan's breath rasped, his fists doubled.

'Hold!' Conan roared. 'We must go on. No time. Here, I will take your toy for three lunars. Daris, Jehanan, for everything's sake, give those scoundrels a ransom and let us get out of here!'

'You are buying three camels and two necklaces,' the vendor told him. 'One more necklace for one more lunar will bring you luck.'

Conan opened his purse and shuffled forth money. The wingboat was well supplied with Stygian coinage. Daris terminated her ride by paying over what she guessed the camel driver would have expected for an entire day. Jehanan's hand shook as he bought himself free; even that Stygian was subdued by the look he got and bowed before he slipped off.

More of the kind converged on the travellers.' See, behold what I offer!... You are my father and my mother!... Alms, baksheesh, for the love of the gods!'

'I have heard about this, but never quite believed it,' Daris said, breathless.

'And I have met something of the sort before, but naught to match,' Conan answered.

'We were mistaken,' Jehanan said. 'We must stride straight forward, fast, scowling, fists closed and at our sides, looking neither to right nor to left.'

Conan gripped his shoulder. 'You can speak so well, now?' the Cimmerian murmured. 'O brother of Bêlit, you are unwounded in your heart!'

The peddlers and beggars presently quit and disappeared into the ruck. Conan wondered how to get rid of the gewgaws that had been thrust upon him. If he gave them to any of the naked children who scampered and scrambled around, that would bring a fresh horde. In the Street of Jars, he managed surreptitiously to drop them into a large specimen.

Soon afterward, his party entered quite a different sort of thoroughfare. At the middle of Luxur, royal generations had built a grandiose complex reserved for the great and their attendants. The palace, the fane of Set, the barracks and parade grounds of the king's household troops, the archives, the office buildings for his counsellors and their staffs, surrounded a broad plaza. Across the way from the latter stood a row of aristocratic mansions, some of which held foreign embassies. Toward this row, as Conan's band approached from the north, led the Avenue of Kings. Broad and smoothly paved, it displayed a double line of olden monarchs in stone; inscriptions on bases reiterated the haughtiness on images. Behind them reared buildings whose walls were of granite, not clay, and painted in symbols of the gods. Here traffic was scant and dignified – a lord or lady borne in her litter, a couple of well-born boys off to school under ward of their pedagogue, a scribe bearing the apparatus of his trade, an occasional priest, official, wealthy merchant, military officer, liveried servant, veiled wife, delivery-man bringing wares that had been ordered. These cast sidelong glances at three plebeian strangers, but raised no inquiry. Falco had said, 'Behave as if you have a proper errand there, and everybody will take for granted you do. Who would dare carry defiance into the citadel of Stygia?' Conan's pulse knocked. He was almost at his goal. The avenue ended at a cross street, less imposing though also clean, quiet, flagged. This was flanked by town houses on whose flat roofs blossomed gardens. Narrow lanes went between them. Beyond, above, Conan saw higher structures, those that surrounded the royal plaza, rise massive. Here there were just a few people. Stillness hung heavy as the gathering warmth. Shadows lay blue.

He turned right. Several entrances down, one façade displayed a lion in gold, rampant, blinding bright. That was the Ophirite embassy, he knew. He hastened his stride.

A Stygian who had been slowly pacing by suddenly halted and stared. He snatched a whistle hung at his neck and blew. The noise whined loud.

Doors to either side of the lion's flew open. Armed soldiers stormed out. 'Halt!' boomed a voice. 'Conan and your companions, halt or be slain!'

'Mitra aid us,' Daris gasped. 'We are betrayed.' 'By witchcraft – Nehekba's, Tothapis' -' Jehanan lifted the he of his kaftan and drew his shorts word. 'Ishtar,' he prayed in his mother tongue, 'let me go bravely, guide me home to you, make me well again that I may abide in your love.'

Conan unslung the ax he had chosen off the boat. It was a Taian weapon, straight-shafted, beaked as well as edged, lively in his hands for all its weight. He spent but an instant feeling sick at the knowledge that he had lost, that he would never again embrace Bêlit and gallant Daris must die beside him, slain by him if that was needful to forestall her capture – Then he was warrior and naught else. His glance flickered. The Stygians had his party boxed between two long house fronts. They were thirty, half of them closing in from either side, four bearing cocked crossbows, the rest blade and shield. Behind the eastern rank, their commander shouted orders: a burly, grizzled man, equipped with sword but otherwise wearing simply a tunic.

'We will charge toward their officer and try to cut through,' the Cimmerian told his friends. 'Back to back after we have closed.'

In Daris' right hand gleamed a dirk, in her left hung the belt she had borne from Khemi. 'If only my father could know whom I fight beside,' she said low. 'He would be almost as honoured as I am.'

XIII

Death and Honour

The wanderers attacked. They did not rush together in a straight line. Separately, crouched down, they bounded in zigzags. Bolts whirred at them but missed targets so swift and unpredictable.

Before the archers could reload, Conan had gotten to the infantry.

Skilled in the use of a battle ax, he held his with left hand near the end of the haft, right near the middle. The Stygian whom he confronted stabbed at him from around a shield-rim. Conan's helve struck the blade downward. Immediately his own weapon swung slantwise above his right shoulder. As it swept back to smite, he shifted his grip at the middle, which had given him close control, down to join the other hand at the end for fullest leverage and driving force. The Stygian brought shield higher to meet that blow. The Cimmerian's whole huge mass and strength were behind it. Metal rang, framework buckled, the swordsman tottered backward. His shield dangled by the straps from a broken arm.

Conan whipped the ax right and struck its pointed beak into the exposed thigh of the foe on that side. The wound was not mortal, but surprise and shock momentarily disabled the man. In that time, Conan turned on the one to his left. Again he parried a sword thrust with his haft. Then, twisting it about in mid-air, he brought it under this man's shield. Weight and his might forced the shield aside. He hewed into a now unprotected knee. The Stygian screamed and sank down to the pavement. Conan whirled his ax aloft and down to ring on the helmet of the other leg-injured man.

Half-stunned, that Stygian also stumbled and fell.

Daris and Jehanan were beside their captain. She snapped her belt at a soldier's hand. The buckle struck so painfully that he dropped his weapon. Jehanan let the Cimmerian ward him for the moment he needed to kill that foeman and take his shield for himself. Rising, the Shemite in turn blocked an assault on Conan.

Though their line had been broken, the Stygians were trained and courageous fighters. Those on the wings dashed to the melee at the centre. Their quarry was surrounded before getting a chance to run onward. The second rank of troopers reached the battle and joined in.

Back to back the three stood. Conan's ax roared, Jehanan's sword stabbed and sliced, Daris' belt flailed and her knife darted. Blood flew, dripped off metal, spread in a scarlet lake over the street. Men yelled, iron clanged. Householders looked out in terror. Among them, above the heads of his enemies, Conan glimpsed a greybeard in flowing Ophirite blouse and trousers, beneath the sign of the golden lion. Lord Zarus, no doubt – mere yards away, but the ambassador might as well have been on the moon.

The Cimmerian thought he was at the end of his own career. Well, he had lived more in his two dozen years on earth than most men could in a century. Let him only first slay so many Stygians that afterward the survivors would never sleep soundly. Then let him be sure that he and his comrades were not dragged back to the vile attentions of sorcerers, but died a clean death here.

The officer drew closer, to exhort his platoon. Conan saw him clearly, and smote still harder in the hope of bursting through the pack around him and cleaving that head. The hope was vain. The Stygians pressed too thickly and savagely for even his power.

Jehanan howled. 'Ramwas!' It was like the baying of a maddened wolf. 'Ramwas! Ramwas!'

And the Shemite went berserk. Where he had fought with care, ever mindful of his friends and how best he could aid them, he shed all heed for anything. His shield became a weapon of offence, edge chopping, boss crunching. His sword flew about, meteor-swift. He did not seem to feel the wounds he took, and they bled little though many were deep. His face was a gorgon mask from which men shrank back appalled. Striking, trampling, become troll-strong, he broke through their crowd. Dead and wounded strewed his path, hideously mangled in those few seconds.

'Ramwas, remember!' he bayed, and was upon the officer. That man drew sword. Jehanan's shield knocked it loose, to spin and twinkle through yards of air. Jehanan's blade pierced the belly of the Stygian. Keening, the Shemite lifted the transfixed noble straight up over his head and threw him at a wall. The skull shattered, the brains exploded forth.

Conan himself had with a chill recalled who Ram was was. But he remained a lion that saw a way out of the trap. Most soldiers had recoiled in fright and confusion. He charged, Daris beside him. The two who tried to oppose them, he struck down in as many blows.

They reached Jehanan. A human soul had come back into his eyes. His wounds were beginning to open and copiously bleed. A loop of entrail dangled from his ripped, red-soaked kaftan.

'Go,' he croaked. His gesture was at the nearest lane between houses. 'I can hold them for a span... yet.'

'No, Bêlit's brother, we stand together,' Conan protested.

The Shemite met his gaze. 'I am sped. Let me die in... her service. If you should win back... tell her... I loved her.'

Conan clasped the hand of his which clutched the dripping sword. 'I will tell her more,' the Cimmerian vowed, 'that you died a free man.'

'Aye. Freed of this body, let loose to soar. Fare you well, my brother.'

The words had passed in a single minute, while the Stygians milled or stood shaken, leaderless, more than half of their number dead or disabled. Otherwise only the moans of the maimed had voice. But a member of the troop, perhaps a non-commissioned officer, soon raised a shout. He urged them to attack, he slapped their faces and hustled them into formation.

Conan led Daris, on whose cheeks tears ran down through sweat, into the lane. Jehanan took stance at its mouth. 'Come,' he gibed, 'come, dogs, and we will make rat food of you. What, do you reckon three against you to be heavy odds? Why, then, we will meet you one at a time, dear mongrels.' Even then, he sought to give their dazed minds the idea that his comrades stayed with him, lest the soldiers go roundabout in pursuit. He sought to remind them that they were supposed to take the fugitives alive if at all possible, lest crossbow make short work of him.

Conan and Daris departed. The last words they heard from Jehanan were in his native speech. 'Ishtar of the lovers, who descended into hell for her man, receive me home to you...'

The passageway opened on a street as broad as the Avenue of Kings. Opposite were stately, lotus-columned buildings which fronted on the plaza beyond. Few people were in sight, and those all appeared to wear the collars of slaves, who dared not break off whatever errands were theirs. The racket of combat must have drawn freemen to go watch – none from this particular alley, as had been clear to see from the start, but surely elsewhere – unless certain individuals prudently took refuge in a government office.

'We cannot linger,' Conan panted. 'The hue and cry will be out for us very soon, well before we can get to a city gate. We had best hide somewhere till dawn, I suppose, when the laden caravans enter and the warehousemen bring their goods down to the cargo vessels at dock. In that tumult, we will have a chance of slipping out unnoticed.'

Daris regarded his bloodiness and her own. 'Not as we are.'

'No, curse it, we must tend our cuts, wash our garb and ourselves – better yet, get fresh clothes of a different sort – but where? How? And where can we find refuge in a town we know not, when criers will be telling everybody about us, and doubtless about a reward for information?'

Daris squeezed Conan's arm. 'Think,' she urged. 'Let us hark back to everything Falco has told us – no, wait, let me try remembering. I have never been here before, but it is, after all, the royal seat of Stygia, and I was taught about it in my girlhood.' She snapped her fingers. 'Aye! On the left side of the plaza as we stand is a large and famous temple of Set. Behind it lies a walled garden said to be laid out as a maze, where surely is at least one pool. Beneath it are crypts for secret rites. Who would ever think to look for us there?'