CHAPTER 21: DRUMS OF PERIL
Confirmation Of The war came when the army of
Poitain, ten thousand strong, marched through the southern passes with waving
banners and shimmer of steel. And at their head, the spies swore, rode a giant
figure in black armor, with the royal lion of Aquilonia worked in gold upon the
breast of his rich silken sur-coat. Conan lived! The king lived! There was no
doubt of it in men's minds now, whether friend or foe.
With the news of the invasion from the south there
also came word, brought by hard-riding couriers, that a host of Gundermen was
moving southward, reinforced by the barons of the northwest and the northern
Bossonians. Tarascus marched with thirty-one thousand men to Galparan, on the
river Shirki, which the Gundermen must cross to strike at the towns still held
by the Nemedians. The Shirki was a swift, turbulent river rushing southwestward
through rocky gorges and canyons, and there were few places where an army could
cross at that time of the year, when the stream was almost bank-full with the
melting of the snows. All the country east of the Shirki was in the hands of
the Nemedians, and it was logical to assume that the Gundermen would attempt to
cross either at Galparan, or at Tanasul, which lay to the south of Galparan.
Reinforcements were daily expected from Nemedia, until word came that the king
of Ophir was making hostile demonstrations on Nemedia's southern border, and to
spare any more troops would be to expose Nemedia to the risk of an invasion
from the south.
Amalric and Valerius moved out from Tarantia with
twenty-five thousand men, leaving as large a garrison as they dared to
discourage revolts in the cities during their absence. They wished to meet and
crush Conan before he could be joined by the rebellious forces of the kingdom.
The king and his Poitanians had crossed the
mountains, but there had been no actual clash of arms, no attack on towns or
fortresses. Conan had appeared and disappeared. Apparently he had turned
westward through the wild, thinly settled hill country, and entered the
Bossonian marches, gathering recruits as he went. Amalric and Valerius with
their host, Nemedians, Aquilonian renegades, and ferocious mercenaries, moved
through the land in baffled wrath, looking for a foe which did not appear.
Amalric found it impossible to obtain more than
vague general tidings about Conan's movements. Scouting-parties had a way of
riding out and never returning, and it was not uncommon to find a spy crucified
to an oak. The countryside was up and striking as peasants and country-folk
strike -- savagely, murderously and secretly. All that Amalric knew certainly
was that a large force of Gundermen and northern Bossonians was somewhere to
the north of him, beyond the Shirki, and that Conan with a smaller force of
Poitanians and southern Bossonians was somewhere to the south-west of him.
He began to grow fearful that if he and Valerius
advanced farther into the wild country, Conan might elude them entirely, march
around them and invade the central provinces behind them. Amalric fell back
from the Shirki valley and camped in a plain a day's ride from Tanasul. There
he waited. Tarascus maintained his position at Galparan, for he feared that
Conan's maneuvers were intended to draw him southward, and so let the Gundermen
into the kingdom at the northern crossing.
To Amalric's camp came Xaltotun in his chariot
drawn by the uncanny horses that never tired, and he entered Amalric's tent
where the baron conferred with Valerius over a map spread on an ivory camp
table.
This map Xaltotun crumpled and flung aside.
"What your scouts cannot learn for you,"
quoth he, "my spies tell me, though their information is strangely blurred
and imperfect, as if unseen forces were working against me."
"Conan is advancing on the Shirki river with
ten thousand Poitanians, three thousand southern Bossonians, and barons of the
west and south with their retainers to the number of five thousand. An army of
thirty thousand Gundermen and northern Bossonians is pushing southward to join
him -- They have established contact by means of secret communications used by
the cursed priests of Asura, who seem to be opposing me, and whom I will feed
to a serpent when the battle is over -- I swear it by Set!
"Both armies are headed for the crossing at
Tanasul, but I do not believe that the Gundermen will cross the river. I
believe that Conan will cross, instead, and join them."
"Why should Conan cross the river?"
"Because it is to his advantage to delay the
battle. The longer he waits, the stronger he will become, the more precarious
our position. The hills on the other side of the river swarm with people
passionately loyal to his cause -- broken men, refugees, fugitives from
Valerius's cruelty. From all over the kingdom men are hurrying to join his
army, singly and by companies. Daily, parties from our armies are ambushed and
cut to pieces by the countryfolk. Revolt grows in the central provinces, and
will soon burst into open rebellion. The garrisons we left there are not
sufficient, and we can hope for no reinforcements from Nemedia for the time
being. I see the hand of Pallantides in this brawling on the Ophirean frontier.
He has kin in Ophir.
"If we do not catch and crush Conan quickly
the provinces will be in blaze of revolt behind us. We shall have to fall back
to Tarantia to defend what we have taken; and we may have to fight our way
through a country in rebellion, with Conan's whole force at our heels, and then
stand siege in the city itself, with enemies within as well as without. No, we
cannot wait. We must crush Conan before his army grows too great, before the
central provinces rise. With his head hanging above the gate at Tarantia you
will see how quickly the rebellion will fall apart."
"Why do you not put a spell on his army to
slay them all?" asked Valerius, half in mockery.
Xaltotun stared at the Aquilonian as if he read
the full extent of the mocking madness that lurked in those wayward eyes.
"Do not worry," he said at last.
"My arts shall crush Conan finally like a lizard under the heel. But even
sorcery is aided by pikes and swords."
"If he crosses the river and takes up his
position in the Goralian hills he may be hard to dislodge," said Amalric.
"But if we catch him in the valley on this side of the river we can wipe
him out. How far is Conan from Tanasul?"
"At the rate he is marching he should reach
the crossing sometime tomorrow night. His men are rugged and he is pushing them
hard. He should arrive there at least a day before the Gundermen."
"Good!" Amalric smote the table with his
clenched fist. "I can reach Tanasul before he can. I'll send a rider to
Tarascus, bidding him follow me to Tanasul. By the time he arrives I will have
cut Conan off from the crossing and destroyed him. Then our combined force can
cross the river and deal with the Gundermen."
Xaltotun shook his head impatiently.
"A good enough plan if you were dealing with
anyone but Conan. But your twenty-five thousand men are not enough to destroy
his eighteen thousand before the Gundermen come up. They will fight with the
desperation of wounded panthers. And suppose the Gundermen come up while the
hosts are locked in battle? You will be caught between two fires and destroyed
before Tarascus can arrive. He will reach Tanasul too late to aid you."
"What then?" demanded Amalric.
"Move with your whole strength against
Conan," answered the man from Acheron. "Send a rider bidding Tarascus
join us here. We will wait his coming. Then we will march together to
Tanasul."
"But while we wait," protested Amalric,
"Conan will cross the river and join the Gundermen."
"Conan will not cross the river,"
answered Xaltotun.
Amalric's head jerked up and he stared into the
cryptic dark eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"Suppose there were torrential rains far to
the north, at the head of the Shirki? Suppose the river came down in such flood
as to render the crossing at Tanasul impassable? Could we not then bring up our
entire force at our leisure, catch Conan on this side of the river and crush
him, and then, when the flood subsided, which I think it would do the next day,
could we not cross the river and destroy the Gundermen? Thus we could use our
full strength against each of these smaller forces in turn."
Valerius laughed as he always laughed at the
prospect of the ruin of either friend or foe, and drew a restless hand jerkily
through his unruly yellow locks. Amalric stared at the man from Acheron with
mingled fear and admiration.
"If we caught Conan in Shirki valley with the
hill ridges to his right and the river in flood to his left," he admitted,
"with our whole force we could annihilate him. Do you think -- are you
sure -- do you believe such rains will fall?"
"I go to my tent," answered Xaltotun,
rising. "Necromancy is not accomplished by the waving of a wand. Send a
rider to Tarascus. And let none approach my tent."
That last command was unnecessary. No man in that
host could have been bribed to approach that mysterious black silken pavilion,
the door-flaps of which were always closely drawn. None but Xaltotun ever
entered it, yet voices were often heard issuing from it; its walls billowed
sometimes without a wind, and weird music came from it. Sometimes, deep in
midnight, its silken walls were lit red by flames flickering within, limning
misshapen silhouettes that passed to and fro.
Lying in his own tent that night, Amalric heard
the steady rumble of a drum in Xaltotun's tent; through the darkness it boomed
steadily, and occasionally the Nemedian could have sworn that a deep, croaking
voice mingled with the pulse of the drum. And he shuddered, for he knew that
voice was not the voice of Xaltotun. The drum rustled and muttered on like deep
thunder, heard afar off, and before dawn Amalric, glancing from his tent,
caught the red flicker of lightning afar on the northern horizon. In all other
parts of the sky the great stars blazed whitely. But the distant lightning
flickered incessantly, like the crimson glint of firelight on a tiny, turning blade.
At sunset of the next day Tarascus came up with
his host, dusty and weary from hard marching, the footmen straggling hours
behind the horsemen. They camped in the plain near Amalric's camp, and at dawn
the combined army moved westward.
Ahead of him roved a swarm of scouts, and Amalric
waited impatiently for them to return and tell of the Poitanians trapped beside
a furious flood. But when the scouts met the column it was with the news that
Conan had crossed the river!
"What?" exclaimed Amalric. "Did he
cross before the flood?"
"There was no flood," answered the
scouts, puzzled. "Late last night he came up to Tanasul and flung his army
across."
"No flood?" exclaimed Xaltotun, taken
aback for the first time in Amalric's knowledge. "Impossible! There were
mighty rains upon the headwaters of the Shirki last night and the night before
that!"
"That may be your lordship," answered
the scout. "It is true the water was muddy, and the people of Tanasul said
that the river rose perhaps a foot yesterday; but that was not enough to
prevent Conan's crossing."
Xaltotun's sorcery had failed! The thought
hammered in Amalric's brain. His horror of this strange man out of the past had
grown steadily since that night in Belverus when he had seen a brown, shriveled
mummy swell and grow into a living man. And the death of Orastes had changed
lurking horror into active fear. In his heart was a grisly conviction that the
man -- or devil -- was invincible. Yet now he had undeniable proof of his
failure.
Yet even the greatest of necromancers might fail
occasionally, thought the baron. At any rate, he dared not oppose the man from
Acheron -- yet. Orastes was dead, writhing in Mitra only knew what nameless
hell, and Amalric knew his sword would scarcely prevail where the black wisdom
of the renegade priest had failed. What grisly abomination Xaltotun plotted lay
in the unpredictable future. Conan and his host were a present menace against
which Xaltotun's wizardry might well be needed before the play was all played.
They came to Tanasul, a small fortified village at
the spot where a reef of rocks made a natural bridge across the river, passable
always except in times of greatest flood. Scouts brought in the news that Conan
had taken up his position in the Goralian hills, which began to rise a few
miles beyond the river. And just before sundown the Gundermen had arrived in
his camp.
Amalric looked at Xaltotun, inscrutable and alien
in the light of the flaring torches. Night had fallen.
"What now? Your magic has failed. Conan
confronts us with an army nearly as strong as our own, and he has the advantage
of position. We have a choice of two evils: to camp here and await his attack,
or to fall back toward Tarantia and await reinforcements."
"We are ruined if we wait," answered
Xaltotun. "Cross the river and camp on the plain. We will attack at
dawn."
"But his position is too strong!"
exclaimed Amalric.
"Fool!" A gust of passion broke the
veneer of the wizard's calm. "Have you forgotten Valkia? Because some
obscure elemental principle prevented the flood do you deem me helpless? I had
intended that your spears should exterminate our enemies; but do not fear: it
is my arts shall crush their host. Conan is in a trap. He will never see
another sun set. Cross the river!"
They crossed by the flare of torches. The hoofs of
the horses clinked on the rocky bridge, splashed through the shallows. The
glint of the torches on shields and breast-plates was reflected redly in the
black water. The rock bridge was broad on which they crossed, but even so it
was past midnight before the host was camped in the plain beyond. Above them
they could see fires winking redly in the distance. Conan had turned at bay in
the Goralian hills, which had more than once before served as the last stand of
an Aquilonian king. Amalric left his pavilion and strode restlessly through the
camp.
A weird glow flickered in Xaltotun's tent, and
from time to time a demoniacal cry slashed the silence, and there was a low
sinister muttering of a drum that rustled rather than rumbled.
Amalric, his instincts whetted by the night and
the circumstances, felt that Xaltotun was opposed by more than physical force.
Doubts of the wizard's power assailed him. He glanced at the fires high above
him, and his face set in grim lines. He and his army were deep in the midst of
a hostile country. Up there among those hills lurked thousands of wolfish
figures out of whose hearts and souls all emotion and hope had been scourged
except a frenzied hate for their conquerors, a mad lust for vengeance. Defeat
meant annihilation, retreat through a land swarming with blood-mad enemies. And
on the morrow he must hurl his host against the grimmest fighter in the western
nations, and his desperate horde. If Xaltotun failed them now --
Half a dozen men-at-arms strode out of the
shadows. The firelight glinted on their breast-plates and helmet crests. Among
them they half led, half dragged a gaunt figure in tattered rags. Saluting,
they spoke: "My lord, this man came to the outposts and said he desired
word with King Valerius. He is an Aquilonian."
He looked more like a wolf -- a wolf the traps had
scarred. Old sores that only fetters make showed on his wrists and ankles. A
great brand, the mark of hot iron, disfigured his face. His eyes glared through
the tangle of his matted hair as he half crouched before the baron.
"Who are you, you filthy dog?" demanded
the Nemedian. "Call me Tiberias," answered the man, and his teeth
clicked in an involuntary spasm. "I have come to tell you how to trap
Conan."
"A traitor, eh?" rumbled the baron.
"Men say you have gold," mouthed the
man, shivering under his rags. "Give some to me! Give me gold and I will
show you how to defeat the king!" His eyes glazed widely, his
outstretched, upturned hands were spread like quivering claws.
Amalric shrugged his shoulders in distaste. But no
tool was too base for his use.
"If you speak the truth you shall have more
gold than you can carry," he said. "If you are a liar and a spy I
will have you crucified head-down. Bring him along."
In the tent of Valerius, the baron pointed to the
man who crouched shivering before them, huddling his rags about him.
"He says he knows a way to aid us on the
morrow. We will need aid, if Xaltotun's plan is no better than it has proved so
far. Speak on, dog."
The man's body writhed in strange convulsions.
Words came in a stumbling rush:
"Conan camps at the head of the Valley of
Lions. It is shaped like a fan, with steep hills on either side. If you attack
him tomorrow you will have to march straight up the valley. You cannot climb the
hills on either side. But if King Valerius will deign to accept my service, I
will guide him through the hills and show him how he can come upon King Conan
from behind. But if it is to be done at all, we must start soon. It is many
hours' riding, for one must go miles to the west, then miles to the north, then
turn eastward and so come into the Valley of Lions from behind, as the
Gundermen came."
Amalric hesitated, tugging his chin. In these
chaotic times it was not rare to find men willing to sell their souls for a few
gold pieces.
"If you lead me astray you will die,"
said Valerius. "You are aware of that, are you not?"
The man shivered, but his wide eyes did not waver.
"If I betray you, slay me!"
"Conan will not divide his force," mused
Amalric. "He will need all his men to repel our attack. He cannot spare
any to lay ambushes in the hills. Besides, this fellow knows his hide depends
on his leading you as he promised. Would a dog like him sacrifice himself?
Nonsense! No, Valerius, I believe the man is honest."
"Or a greater thief than most, for he would
sell his liberator," laughed Valerius. "Very well. I will follow the
dog. How many men can you spare me?"
"Five thousand should be enough,"
answered Amalric. "A surprize attack on their rear will throw them into
confusion, and that will be enough. I shall expect your attack about
noon."
"You will know when I strike," answered
Valerius. As Amalric returned to his pavilion he noted with gratification that
Xaltotun was still in his tent, to judge from the blood-freezing cries that
shuddered forth into the night air from time to time. When presently he heard
the clink of steel and the jingle of bridles in the outer darkness, he smiled
grimly. Valerius had about served his purpose. The baron knew that Conan was
like a wounded lion that rends and tears even in his death-throes. When
Valerius struck from the rear, the desperate strokes of the Cimmerian might
well wipe his rival out of existence before he himself succumbed. So much the
better. Amalric felt he could well dispense with Valerius, once he had paved
the way for a Nemedian victory.
The five thousand horsemen who accompanied
Valerius were hard-bitten Aquilonian renegades for the most part. In the still
starlight they moved out of the sleeping camp, following the westward trend of
the great black masses that rose against the stars ahead of them. Valerius rode
at their head, and beside him rode Tiberias, a leather thong about his wrist
gripped by a man-at-arms who rode on the other side of him. Others kept close
behind with drawn swords.
"Play us false and you die instantly,"
Valerius pointed out. "I do not know every sheep-path in these hills, but
I know enough about the general configuration of the country to know the
directions we must take to come in behind the Valley of Lions. See that you do
not lead us astray."
The man ducked his head and his teeth chattered as
he volubly assured his captor of his loyalty, staring up stupidly at the banner
that floated over him, the golden serpent of the old dynasty.
Skirting the extremities of the hills that locked
the Valley of Lions, they swung wide to the west. An hour's ride and they
turned north, forging through wild and rugged hills, following dim trails and
tortuous paths. Sunrise found them some miles northwest of Conan's position,
and here the guide turned eastward and led them through a maze of labyrinths
and crags. Valerius nodded, judging their position by various peaks thrusting
up above the others. He had kept his bearings in a general way, and he knew
they were still headed in the right direction.
But now, without warning, a gray fleecy mass came
billowing down from the north, veiling the slopes, spreading out through the
valleys. It blotted out the sun; the world became a blind gray void in which
visibility was limited to a matter of yards. Advance became a stumbling,
groping muddle. Valerius cursed. He could no longer see the peaks that had
served him as guide-posts. He must depend wholly upon the traitorous guide. The
golden serpent drooped in the windless air.
Presently Tiberias seemed himself confused; he
halted, stared about uncertainly.
"Are you lost, dog?" demanded Valerius
harshly.
"Listen!"
Somewhere ahead of them a faint vibration began,
the rhythmic rumble of a drum.
"Conan's drum!" exclaimed the
Aquilonian.
"If we are close enough to hear the
drum," said Valerius, "why do we not hear the shouts and the clang of
arms? Surely battle has joined."
"The gorges and the winds play strange
tricks," answered Tiberias, his teeth chattering with the ague that is
frequently the lot of men who have spent much time in damp underground
dungeons. "Listen!"
"They are fighting down in the valley!"
cried Tiberias. "The drum is beating on the heights. Let us hasten!"
He rode straight on toward the sound of the
distant drum as one who knows his ground at last. Valerius followed, cursing
the fog. Then it occurred to him that it would mask his advance. Conan could
not see him coming. He could be at the Cimmerian's back before the noonday sun
dispelled the mists.
Just now he could not tell what lay on either
hand, whether cliffs, thickets or gorges. The drum throbbed unceasingly,
growing louder as they advanced, but they heard no more of the battle. Valerius
had no idea toward what point of the compass they were headed. He started as he
saw gray rock walls looming through the smoky drifts on either hand, and
realized that they were riding through a narrow defile. But the guide showed no
sign of nervousness, and Valerius hove a sigh of relief when the walls widened
out and became invisible in the fog. They were through the defile; if an ambush
had been planned, it would have been made in that pass.
But now Tiberias halted again. The drum was
rumbling louder, and Valerius could not determine from what direction the sound
was coming. Now it seemed ahead of him, now behind, now on one hand or the
other. Valerius glared about him impatiently, sitting on his war-horse with
wisps of mist curling about him and the moisture gleaming on his armor. Behind
him the long lines of steel-clad riders faded away and away like phantoms into
the mist. "Why do you tarry, dog?" he demanded. The man seemed to be
listening to the ghostly drum. Slowly he straightened in his saddle, turned his
head and faced Valerius, and the smile on his lips was terrible to see.
"The fog is thinning, Valerius," he said
in a new voice, pointing a bony finger. "Look!"
The drum was silent. The fog was fading away.
First the crests of cliffs came in sight above the gray clouds, tall and
spectral. Lower and lower crawled the mists, shrinking, fading. Valerius
started up in his stirrups with a cry that the horsemen echoed behind him. On
all sides of them the cliffs towered. They were not in a wide, open valley as
he had supposed. They were in a blind gorge walled by sheer cliffs hundreds of
feet high. The only entrance or exit was the narrow defile through which they
had ridden.
"Dog!" Valerius struck Tiberias full in
the mouth with his clenched mailed hand. "What devil's trick is
this?" Tiberias spat out a mouthful of blood and shook with fearful
laughter.
"A trick that shall rid the world of a beast!
Look, dog!" Again Valerius cried out, more in fury than in fear. The
defile was blocked by a wild and terrible band of men who stood silent as
images -- ragged, shock-headed men with spears in their hands -- hundreds of
them. And up on the cliffs appeared other faces -- thousands of faces -- wild,
gaunt, ferocious faces, marked by fire and steel and starvation. "A trick
of Conan's!" raged Valerius.
"Conan knows nothing of it," laughed
Tiberias. "It was the plot of broken men, of men you ruined and turned to
beasts. Amalric was right. Conan has not divided his army. We are the rabble
who followed him, the wolves who skulked in these hills, the homeless men, the
hopeless men. This was our plan, and the priests of Asura aided us with their
mist. Look at them, Valerius! Each bears the mark of your hand, on his body or
on his heart!
"Look at me! You do not know me, do you, what
of this scar your hangman burned upon me? Once you knew me. Once I was lord of
Amilius, the man whose sons you murdered, whose daughter your mercenaries
ravished and slew. You said I would not sacrifice myself to trap you? Almighty
gods, if I had a thousand lives I would give them all to buy your doom!
"And I have bought it! Look on the men you
broke, dead man who once played the king! Their hour has come! This gorge is
your tomb. Try to climb the cliffs: they are steep, they are high. Try to fight
your way back through the defile: spears will block your path, boulders will
crush you from above! Dog! I will be waiting for you in hell!"
Throwing back his head he laughed until the rocks
rang. Valerius leaned from his saddle and slashed down with his great sword,
severing shoulder-bone and breast. Tiberias sank to the earth, still laughing
ghastlily through a gurgle of gushing blood.
The drums had begun again, encircling the gorge
with guttural thunder; boulders came crushing down; above the screams of dying
men shrilled the arrows in blinding clouds from the cliffs.
CHAPTER 22: THE ROAD TO ACHERON
Dawn was just whitening the east when Amalric drew
up his hosts in the mouth of the Valley of Lions. This valley was flanked by
low, rolling but steep hills, and the floor pitched upward in a series of
irregular natural terraces. On the uppermost of these terraces Conan's army
held its position, awaiting the attack. The host that had joined him, marching
down from Gundennan, had not been composed exclusively of spearmen. With them
had come seven thousand Bossonian archers, and four thousand barons and their
retainers of the north and west, swelling the ranks of his cavalry.
The pikemen were drawn up in a compact
wedge-shaped formation at the narrow head of the valley. There were nineteen
thousand of them, mostly Gundermen, though some four thousand were Aquilonians
of the other provinces. They were flanked on either hand by five thousand
Bossonian archers. Behind the ranks of the pikemen the knights sat, their steeds
motionless, lances raised: ten thousand knights of Poitain, nine thousand
Aquilonians, barons and their retainers.
It was a strong position. His flanks could not be
turned, for that would mean climbing the steep, wooded hills in the teeth of
the arrows and swords of the Bossonians. His camp lay directly behind him, in a
narrow, steep-walled valley which was indeed merely a continuation of the
Valley of Lions, pitching up at a higher level. He did not fear a surprise from
the rear, because the hills behind him were full of refugees and broken men
whose loyalty to him was beyond question.
But if his position was hard to shake, it was
equally hard to escape from. It was a trap as well as a fortress for the
defenders, a desperate last stand of men who did not expect to survive unless
they were victorious. The only line of retreat possible was through the narrow
valley at their rear.
Xaltotun mounted a hill on the left side of the
valley, near the wide mouth. This hill rose higher than the others, and was
known as the King's Altar, for a reason long forgotten. Only Xaltotun knew, and
his memory dated back three thousand years.
He was not alone. His two familiars, silent,
hairy, furtive and dark, were with him, and they bore a young Aquilonian girl,
bound hand and foot. They laid her on an ancient stone, which was curiously
like an altar, and which crowned the summit of the hill. For long centuries it
had stood there, worn by the elements until many doubted that it was anything
but a curiously shapen natural rock. But what it was, and why it stood there,
Xaltotun remembered from of old. The familiars went away, with their bent backs
like silent gnomes, and Xaltotun stood alone beside the stone altar, his dark
beard blown in the wind, overlooking the valley.
He could see clear back to the winding Shirki, and
up into the hills beyond the head of the valley. He could see the gleaming
wedge of steel drawn up at the head of the terraces, the burganets of the
archers glinting among the rocks and bushes, the silent knights motionless on
their steeds, their pennons flowing above their helmets, their lances rising in
a bristling thicket.
Looking in the other direction he could see the
long serried lines of the Nemedians moving in ranks of shining steel into the
mouth of the valley. Behind them the gay pavilions of the lords and knights and
the drab tents of the common soldiers stretched back almost to the river.
Like a river of molten steel the Nemedian host
flowed into the valley, the great scarlet dragon rippling over it. First
marched the bowmen, in even ranks, arbalests half raised, bolts nocked, fingers
on triggers. After them came the pikemen, and behind them the real strength of
the army -- the mounted knights, their banners unfurled to the wind, their
lances lifted, walking their great steeds forward as if they rode to a banquet.
And higher up on the slopes the smaller Aquilonian
host stood grimly silent.
There were thirty thousand Nemedian knights, and,
as in most Hyborian nations, it was the chivalry which was the sword of the
army. The footmen were used only to clear the way for a charge of the armored
knights. There were twenty-one thousand of these, pikemen and archers.
The bowmen began loosing as they advanced, without
breaking ranks, launching their quarrels with a whir and tang. But the bolts
fell short or rattled harmlessly from the overlapping shields of the Gundermen.
And before the arbalesters could come within killing range, the arching shafts
of the Bossonians were wreaking havoc in their ranks.
A little of this, a futile attempt at exchanging
fire, and the Nemedian bowmen began falling back in disorder. Their armor was
light, their weapons no match for the Bossonian longbows. The western archers
were sheltered by bushes and rocks. Moreover, the Nemedian footmen lacked
something of the morale of the horsemen, knowing as they did that they were
being used merely to clear the way for the knights.
The crossbowmen fell back, and between their
opening lines the pikemen advanced. These were largely mercenaries, and their
masters had no compunction about sacrificing them. They were intended to mask
the advance of the knights until the latter were within smiting distance. So
while the arbalesters plied their bolts from either flank at long range, the
pikemen marched into the teeth of the blast from above, and behind them the
knights came on.
When the pikemen began to falter beneath the
savage hail of death that whistled down the slopes among them, a trumpet blew,
their companies divided to right and left, and through them the mailed knights
thundered.
They ran full into a cloud of stinging death. The
clothyard shafts found every crevice in their armor and the housings of the
steeds. Horses scrambling up the grassy terraces reared and plunged backward,
bearing their riders with them. Steel-clad forms littered the slopes. The
charge wavered and ebbed back.
Back down in the valley Amalric reformed his
ranks. Tarascus was fighting with drawn sword under the scarlet dragon, but it
was the baron of Tor who commanded that day. Amalric swore as he glanced at the
forest of lance-tips visible above and beyond the head-pieces of the Gundermen.
He had hoped his retirement would draw the knights out in a charge down the
slopes after him, to be raked from either flank by his bowmen and swamped by
the numbers of his horsemen. But they had not moved. Camp-servants brought
skins of water from the river. Knights doffed their helmets and drenched their
sweating heads. The wounded on the slopes screamed vainly for water. In the
upper valley, springs supplied the defenders. They did not thirst that long,
hot spring day.
On the King's Altar, beside the ancient, carven
stone, Xaltotun watched the steel tide ebb and flow. On came the knights, with
waving plumes and dipping lances. Through a whistling cloud of arrows they
plowed to break like a thundering wave on the bristling wall of spears and
shields. Axes rose and fell above the plumed helmets, spears thrust upward,
bringing down horses and riders. The pride of the Gundermen was no less fierce
than that of the knights. They were not spear-fodder, to be sacrificed for the
glory of better men. They were the finest infantry in the world, with a
tradition that made their morale unshakable. The kings of Aquilonia had long
learned the worth of unbreakable infantry. They held their formation unshaken;
over their gleaming ranks flowed the great lion banner, and at the tip of the
wedge a giant figure in black armor roared and smote like a hurricane, with a
dripping ax that split steel and bone alike.
The Nemedians fought as gallantly as their
traditions of high courage demanded. But they could not break the iron wedge,
and from the wooded knolls on either hand arrows raked their close-packed ranks
mercilessly. Their own bowmen were useless, their pikemen unable to climb the
heights and come to grips with the Bossonians. Slowly, stubbornly, sullenly,
the grim knights fell back, counting their empty saddles. Above them the
Gundermen made no outcry of triumph. They closed their ranks, locking up the
gaps made by the fallen. Sweat ran into their eyes from under their steel caps.
They gripped their spears and waited, their fierce hearts swelling with pride
that a king should fight on foot with them. Behind them the Aquilonian knights
had not moved. They sat their steeds, grimly immobile.
A knight spurred a sweating horse up the hill
called the King's Altar, and glared at Xaltotun with bitter eyes.
"Amalric bids me say that it is time to use
your magic, wizard," he said. "We are dying like flies down there in
the valley. We cannot break their ranks."
Xaltotun seemed to expand, to grow tall and
awesome and terrible.
"Return to Amalric," he said. "Tell
him to reform his ranks for a charge, but to await my signal. Before that
signal is given he will see a sight that he will remember until he lies
dying!"
The knight saluted as if compelled against his
will, and thundered down the hill at breakneck pace.
Xaltotun stood beside the dark altarstone and
stared across the valley, at the dead and wounded men on the terraces, at the
grim, blood-stained band at the head of the slopes, at the dusty, steel-clad
ranks reforming in the vale below. He glanced up at the sky, and he glanced
down at the slim white figure on the dark stone. And lifting a dagger inlaid
with archaic hieroglyphs, he intoned an immemorial invocation:
"Set, god of darkness, scaly lord of the
shadows, by the blood of a virgin and the sevenfold symbol I call to your sons
below the black earth! Children of the deeps, below the red earth, under the
black earth, awaken and shake your awful manes! Let the hills rock and the
stones topple upon my enemies! Let the sky grow dark above them, the earth
unstable beneath their feet! Let a wind from the deep black earth curl up
beneath their feet, and blacken and shrivel them -- "
He halted short, dagger lifted. In the tense
silence the roar of the hosts rose beneath him, borne on the wind.
On the other side of the altar stood a man in a
black hooded robe, whose coif shadowed pale delicate features and dark eyes
calm and meditative.
"Dog of Asura!" whispered Xaltotun, his
voice was like the hiss of an angered serpent. "Are you mad, that you seek
your doom? Ho, Baal! Chiron!"
"Call again, dog of Acheron!" said the
other, and laughed. "Summon them loudly. They will not hear, unless your
shouts reverberate in hell."
From a thicket on the edge of the crest came a
somber old woman in a peasant garb, her hair flowing over her shoulders, a
great gray wolf following at her heels.
"Witch, priest and wolf," muttered
Xaltotun grimly, and laughed. "Fools, to pit your charlatan's mummery
against my arts! With a wave of my hand I brush you from my path!"
"Your arts are straws in the wind, dog of
Python," answered the Asurian. "Have you wondered why the Shirki did
not come down in flood and trap Conan on the other bank? When I saw the
lightning in the night I guessed your plan, and my spells dispersed the clouds
you had summoned before they could empty their torrents. You did not even know
that your rain-making wizardry had failed."
"You lie!" cried Xaltotun, but the
confidence in his voice was shaken. "I have felt the impact of a powerful
sorcery against mine -- but no man on earth could undo the rain-magic, once
made, unless he possessed the very heart of sorcery."
"But the flood you plotted did not come to
pass," answered the priest. "Look at your allies in the valley,
Pythonian! You have led them to the slaughter! They are caught in the fangs of
the trap, and you cannot aid them. Look!"
He pointed. Out of the narrow gorge of the upper
valley, behind the Poitanians, a horseman came flying, whirling something about
his head that flashed in the sun. Recklessly he hurled down the slopes, through
the ranks of the Gundermen, who sent up a deep-throated roar and clashed their
spears and shields like thunder in the hills. On the terraces between the hosts
the sweat-soaked horse reared and plunged, and his wild rider yelled and
brandished the thing in his hands like one demented. It was the torn remnant of
a scarlet banner, and the sun struck dazzlingly on the golden scales of a
serpent that writhed thereon.
"Valerius is dead!" cried Hadrathus
ringingly. "A fog and a drum lured him to his doom! I gathered that fog,
dog of Python, and I dispersed it! I, with my magic which is greater than your
magic!"
"What matters it?" roared Xaltotun, a
terrible sight, his eyes blazing, his features convulsed. "Valerius was a
fool. I do not need him. I can crush Conan without human aid!"
"Why have you delayed?" mocked
Hadrathus. "Why have you allowed so many of your allies to fall pierced by
arrows and spitted on spears?"
"Because blood aids great sorcery!"
thundered Xaltotun, in a voice that made the rocks quiver. A lurid nimbus
played about his awful head. "Because no wizard wastes his strength
thoughtlessly. Because I would conserve my powers for the great days to be,
rather than employ them in a hill-country brawl. But now, by Set, I shall loose
them to the uttermost! Watch, dog of Asura, false priest of an outworn god, and
see a sight that shall blast your reason for evermore!"
Hadrathus threw back his head and laughed, and
hell was in his laughter.
"Look, black devil of Python!"
His hand came from under his robe holding
something that flamed and burned in the sun, changing the light to a pulsing
golden glow in which the flesh of Xaltotun looked like the flesh of a corpse.
Xaltotun cried out as if he had been stabbed.
"The Heart! The Heart of Ahriman!"
"Aye! The one power that is greater than your
power!"
Xaltotun seemed to shrivel, to grow old. Suddenly
his beard was shot with snow, his locks flecked with gray.
"The Heart!" he mumbled. "You stole
it! Dog! Thief!"
"Not I! It has been on a long journey far to
the southward. But now it is in my hands, and your black arts cannot stand
against it. As it resurrected you, so shall it hurl you back into the night
whence it drew you. You shall go down the dark road to Acheron, which is the
road of silence and the night. The dark empire, unreborn, shall remain a legend
and a black memory. Conan shall reign again. And the Heart of Ahriman shall go
back into the cavern below the temple of Mitra, to burn as a symbol of the power
of Aquilonia for a thousand years!"
Xaltotun screamed inhumanly and rushed around the
altar, dagger lifted; but from somewhere -- out of the sky, perhaps, or the
great jewel that blazed in the hand of Hadrathus -- shot a jetting beam of
blinding blue light. Full against the breast of Xaltotun it flashed, and the
hills re-echoed the concussion. The wizard of Acheron went down as though
struck by a thunderbolt, and before he touched the ground he was fearfully
altered. Beside the altar-stone lay no fresh-slain corpse, but a shriveled
mummy, a brown, dry, unrecognizable carcass sprawling among moldering
swathings.
Somberly old Zelata looked down.
"He was not a living man," she said.
"The Heart lent him a false aspect of life, that deceived even himself. I
never saw him as other than a mummy."
Hadrathus bent to unbind the swooning girl on the
altar, when from among the trees appeared a strange apparition -- Xaltotun's
chariot drawn by the weird horses. Silently they advanced to the altar and
halted, with the chariot wheel almost touching the brown withered thing on the
grass. Hadrathus lifted the body of the wizard and placed it in the chariot.
And without hesitation the uncanny steeds turned and moved off southward, down
the hill. And Hadrathus and Zelata and the gray wolf watched them go -- down
the long road to Acheron which is beyond the ken of men.
Down in the valley Amalric had stiffened in his
saddle when he saw that wild horseman curvetting and caracoling on the slopes
while he brandished that blood-stained serpent-banner. Then some instinct
jerked his head about, toward the hill known as the King's Altar. And his lips
parted. Every man in the valley saw it -- an arching shaft of dazzling light
that towered up from the summit of the hill, showering golden fire. High above
the hosts it burst in a blinding blaze that momentarily paled the sun.
"That's not Xaltotun's signal!" roared the baron. "No!"
shouted Tarascus. "It's a signal to the Aquilonians! Look!"
Above them the immobile ranks were moving at last,
and a deep-throated roar thundered across the vale.
"Xaltotun has failed us!" bellowed
Amalric furiously. "Valerius has failed us! We have been led into a trap!
Mitra's curse on Xaltotun who led us here! Sound the retreat!"
"Too late!" yelled Tarascus.
"Look!"
Up on the slopes the forest of lances dipped,
leveled. The ranks of the Gundermen rolled back to right and left like a
parting curtain. And with a thunder like the rising roar of a hurricane, the
knights of Aquilonia crashed down the slopes.
The impetus of that charge was irresistible. Bolts
driven by the demoralized arbalesters glanced from their shields, their bent
helmets. Their plumes and pennons streaming out behind them, their lances
lowered, they swept over the wavering lines of pikemen and roared down the
slopes like a wave.
Amalric yelled an order to charge, and the
Nemedians with desperate courage spurred their horses at the slopes. They still
outnumbered the attackers.
But they were weary men on tired horses, charging
uphill. The onrushing knights had not struck a blow that day. Their horses were
fresh. They were coming downhill and they came like a thunderbolt. And like a
thunderbolt they smote the struggling ranks of the Nemedians -- smote them,
split them apart, ripped them asunder and dashed the remnants headlong down the
slopes.
After them on foot came the Gundermen, blood-mad,
and the Bossonians were swarming down the hills, loosing as they ran at every
foe that still moved.
Down the slopes washed the tide of battle, the
dazed Nemedians swept on the crest of the wave. Their archers had thrown down
their arbalests and were fleeing. Such pikemen as had survived the blasting
charge of the knights were cut to pieces by the ruthless Gundermen.
In a wild confusion the battle swept through the
wide mouth of the valley and into the plain beyond. All over the plain swarmed
the warriors, fleeing and pursuing, broken into single combat and clumps of
smiting, hacking knights on rearing, wheeling horses. But the Nemedians were
smashed, broken, unable to re-form or make a stand. By the hundreds they broke
away, spurring for the river. Many reached it, rushed across and rode eastward.
The countryside was up behind them; the people hunted them like wolves. Few
ever reached Tarantia.
The final break did not come until the fall of
Amalric. The baron, striving in vain to rally his men, rode straight at the
clump of knights that followed the giant in black armor whose surcoat bore the
royal lion, and over whose head floated the golden lion banner with the scarlet
leopard of Poitain beside it. A tall warrior in gleaming armor couched his
lance and charged to meet the lord of Tor. They met like a thunderclap. The
Nemedian's lance, striking his foe's helmet, snapped bolts and rivets and tore
off the casque, revealing the features of Pallantides. But the Aquilonian's
lance-head crashed through shield and breast-plate to transfix the baron's
heart.
A roar went up as Amalric was hurled from his
saddle, snapping the lance that impaled him, and the Nemedians gave way as a
barrier bursts under the surging impact of a tidal wave. They rode for the
river in a blind stampede that swept the plain like a whirlwind. The hour of
the Dragon had passed.
Tarascus did not flee. Amalric was dead, the
color-bearer slain, and the royal Nemedian banner trampled in the blood and
dust. Most of his knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them
down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers
he raged through the melee, conscious of but one desire -- to meet Conan, the
Cimmerian. And at last he met him.
Formations had been destroyed utterly, close-knit
bands broken asunder and swept apart. The crest of Trocero gleamed in one part
of the plain, those of Prospero and Pallantides in others. Conan was alone. The
house-troops of Tarascus had fallen one by one. The two kings met man to man.
Even as they rode at each other, the horse of
Tarascus sobbed and sank under him. Conan leaped from his own steed and ran at
him, as the king of Nemedia disengaged himself and rose. Steel flashed
blindingly in the sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of
armor as Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous
stroke of Conan's broadsword.
The Cimmerian paced a mail-shod foot on his
enemy's breast, and lifted his sword. His helmet was gone; he shook back his
black mane and his blue eyes blazed with their old fire.
"Do you yield?"
"Will you give me quarter?" demanded the
Nemedian.
"Aye. Better than you'd have given me, you
dog. Life for you and all your men who throw down their arms. Though I ought to
split your head for an infernal thief," the Cimmerian added.
Tarascus twisted his neck and glared over the
plain. The remnants of the Nemedian host were flying across the stone bridge
with swarms of victorious Aquilonians at their heels, smiting with the fury of
glutted vengeance. Bossonians and Gundermen were swarming through the camp of
their enemies, tearing the tents to pieces in search of plunder, seizing
prisoners, ripping open the baggage and upsetting the wagons.
Tarascus cursed fervently, and then shrugged his
shoulders, as well as he could, under the circumstances.
"Very well. I have no choice. What are your
demands?"
"Surrender to me all your present holdings in
Aquilonia. Order your garrisons to march out of the castles and towns they
hold, without their arms, and get your infernal armies out of Aquilonia as
quickly as possible. In addition you shall return all Aquilonians sold as
slaves, and pay an indemnity to be designated later, when the damage your
occupation of the country has caused has been properly estimated. You will
remain as hostage until these terms have been carried out."
"Very well," surrendered Tarascus.
"I will surrender all the castles and towns now held by my garrisons
without resistance, and all the other things shall be done. What ransom for my
body?"
Conan laughed and removed his foot from his foe's
steel-clad breast, grasped his shoulder and heaved him to his feet. He started
to speak, then turned to see Hadrathus approaching him. The priest was as calm
and self-possessed as ever, picking his way between rows of dead men and
horses.
Conan wiped the sweat-smeared dust from his face
with bloodstained hand. He had fought all through the day, first on foot with
the pikemen, then in the saddle, leading the charge. His surcoat was gone, his
armor splashed with blood and battered with strokes of sword, mace and ax. He
loomed gigantically against a background of blood and slaughter, like some grim
pagan hero of mythology.
"Well done, Hadrathus!" quoth he
gustily. "By Crom, I am glad to see your signal! My knights were almost
mad with impatience and eating their hearts out to be at sword-strokes. I could
not have held them much longer. What of the wizard?"
"He has gone down the dim road to
Acheron," answered Hadrathus. "And I -- I am for Tarantia. My work is
done here, and I have a task to perform at the temple of Mitra. All our work is
done here. On this field we have saved Aquilonia -- and more than Aquilonia.
Your ride to your capital will be a triumphal procession through a kingdom mad
with joy. All Aquilonia will be cheering the return of their king. And so,
until we meet again in the great royal hall -- farewell!"
Conan stood silently watching the priest as he
went. From various parts of the field knights were hurrying toward him. He saw
Pallantides, Trocero, Prospero, Servius Galannus, their armor splashed with
crimson. The thunder of battle was giving way to a roar of triumph and acclaim.
All eyes, hot with strife and shining with exultation, were turned toward the
great black figure of the king; mailed arms brandished red-stained swords. A confused
torrent of sound rose, deep and thunderous as the sea-surf: "Hail, Conan,
king of Aquilonia!"
Tarascus spoke.
"You have not yet named my ransom."
Conan laughed and slapped his sword home in its
scabbard. He flexed his mighty arms, and ran his blood-stained fingers through
his thick black locks, as if feeling there his re-won crown.
"There is a girl in your seraglio named
Zenobia."
"Why, yes, so there is."
"Very well." The king smiled as at an
exceedingly pleasant memory. "She shall be your ransom, and naught else. I
will come to Belverus for her as I promised. She was a slave in Nemedia, but I
will make her queen of Aquilonia!"
