"A sailor so long, and clumsy with knots? Conan, you have seagull dung where other men have their wits!"
Yet he could hear beneath the indignation relief and grat.i.tude. Valeria would die before admitting either, of course, so it was best if she never had to.
As for the Cimmerian, he would rather die than leave Valeria. He had s.n.a.t.c.hed her from the nightmare halls of Xuchotl, saving her from becoming a sacrifice on behalf of the aged witch Tascela. He would not be done until they reached not merely the coast, but the sight of a Hyborian ship. Between them and that happy moment lay Crom only knew what perils.
Crom only knew-and of all the G.o.ds Conan had ever heard of, the cold, grim lord of the Cimmerians was the least likely to answer the questions of mewling humans.
It took all four Monkey warriors now to carry the hunter"s litter. They were well up the slopes of Thunder Mountain, although not on any trail the hunter remembered. This proved little, as he had been this far up the mountain only four times in his life, for ordeals and ceremonies that demanded the presence of G.o.d-Men.
He still would have gladly walked, even with the help of a staff, or with a tuqa leaf to ease the pain of his ankle. He cared little for the sweat and sore muscles of the Monkey warriors, but he cared very much about not being helpless. He thought of asking for the staff and a wad of the painkilling leaves, but one look at the grim face of the Monkey leader slew that thought at once. The Monkey warrior might have been the image of a yaquele, save for the sweat flowing down him.
Also, the hunter knew he could not walk far even with such aid without risking damage to his ankle beyond the powers of the G.o.d-Men to heal.
The Kwanyi had small use for a hunter who could no longer hunt. He would be as a child so young that he had no right to anything-not even to food should it grow scarce. The worst that the G.o.d-Men or the Monkey leader-even Chabano himself-might do would be swifter, less painful, and more honorable than such a fate.
The hunter lay back and closed his eyes. Presently he felt the soft, cold touch of mist on his cheek and heard the cry of the mountain eagle as it soared in the chill sky found only above the tree line.
Conan"s long arm whipped the sling up and over. At the high point of its arc, the slung stone leaped across the little stream and into the monkey-laden tree on the other side. The monkeys" chattering turned into shrieks of rage and fear. They scattered, leaves, twigs, and birds" nests tumbling in their wake.
One monkey neither cried out nor fled. Struck a deadly blow by the stone, it toppled from its branch, bounced from a second, then stuck firmly in the crotch of a third. From ground to the dead monkey was the height of six men taller than Conan.
The Cimmerian cursed the whole race of monkeys and the inventor of the sling. Then he saw that Valeria was kicking off her boots.
"Guard my back, Conan. I will have our dinner down in a trice."
Warned of leeches, Valeria leaped the stream, though Conan saw her wince at the pain this gave her feet. Then she was climbing the tree with almost the agility of the vanished monkeys, in the manner Conan had seen on the Black Coasts-body and legs at nearly right angles, arms gripping the tree as if it were a lover, well-formed hindquarters in the air.
She moved surely, fingers and toes seeking out the tiniest rough patches in the bark. The angle of the trunk was just enough to allow her to climb as she did, and it was not long before she reached the monkey. A slap to the branch did nothing; the branch was too thick.
Valeria climbed another arm"s length, crawled out onto the branch, and pushed the dead monkey off.
It thumped into a patch of ferns. Conan crossed the stream, thrust his sword into the patch, and withdrew it with the monkey spitted on the point.
"What is there to make you uneasy?" Valeria called.
"In this jungle, less than ferns can hide serpents. An asp bite won"t kill as fast as the Apples of Derketa, but it"s just as sure."
"You, Cimmerian, are as heartening as a priest of Set preparing me for sacrifice."
"Don"t kill the bearer of bad news, good lady. It was not my advances that drove you from Sukhmet, nor my idea that you should flee into this jungle."
Perched where she was, Valeria could not draw her dagger. Instead, she made a face to frighten trolls and reached about her for something to throw. Finding nothing, she suggested that the Cimmerian harbored unlawful pa.s.sions for sheep, then started back down.
She took the descent with more care and bent over farther-too far, as she learned, for her trousers. There was a sharp ripping sound, and Valeria suddenly had nothing between her rump and the jungle air.
She finished the descent with as much dignity as she could manage, then hastily backed against the tree. Her face dared Conan to so much as smile. He controlled the urge to roar with laughter with some difficulty.
"Thank you, Valeria," he said when he could trust his voice.
"You are welcome, I suppose," she replied. "A tree is not so far different from a mast, and I have been climbing those since before I was a woman." She glared at him. "Or do you think I was foolish, only to prove I could haul and draw my share?"
"I said nothing."
"Conan, you can say more with a moment"s silence than most men can with talking from sunrise to nightfall." She glanced at the monkey. Its dead eyes stared back at her, and she looked away.
"If you will make the fire, I will skin it. I doubt it much differs from a fish."
"It does, but there"ll be no fire."
"No... fire?" She said the word as if it were a solemn curse.
Conan shook his head. "We"ve nothing by which to strike a spark, nothing to burn if we struck it, and no knowledge of who might see the fire or smell the smoke."
"Eat the monkey raw?"
"Not uncommon in these lands. Monkeys eat much as we do, so their flesh is commonly wholesome."
"But... raw?"
"Raw."
Valeria gagged, but there was nothing in her stomach to come up. She leaned against the tree and braced one hand against it.
"If I had known that, Conan, I"d have left your cursed monkey for the kites and the ants!"
"Not wise, Valeria. Go hungry too long and the kites and the ants"ll make their meal off of you."
This time she did bend over, heaving until her face was pale. Then she remained kneeling, sweat-sodden hair veiling her. Conan gently lifted her to her feet.
"Come, Valeria. Find somewhere to sit, and I will do the honors with a knife. I know which parts taste best uncooked, and I"ll also do better work with the skin."
"The skin? Oh, to wear." To Conan"s relief, she no longer seemed mazed in her wits.
"Just so, unless you"d rather walk bare-a.r.s.e all the way through the jungle-"
She threw a stick at him.
The hunter knew that the voices he heard above him were those of the G.o.d-Men. In the last corner of his mind that remained human, he knew he should be afraid.
He was not, although he did remember having been afraid when the Monkey warriors carried him up the last few paces of the hill to the G.o.d House. The door of the house was of ironwood logs, planked with slabs of mahogany, and on the planks was painted the crimson-and-sapphire spiral of the G.o.d-Men.
The fear had gone briefly when the door opened and only common men came forth, in loincloths and headdresses dyed with the same spiral. They had lifted the hunter"s litter and borne him within the G.o.d House, leaving the Monkey warriors standing in the evening rain.
Then the hunter had not only been unafraid; he had been ready to laugh...
at the disappointment on the faces of the Monkey warriors. No doubt they had dreamed of being greeted as heroes.
It was when he saw the first of the G.o.d-Men that he was again afraid, but not for long. The eyes of the G.o.d-Man were entirely white, like those of a man struck blind with the eye-rot and doomed to be cast into the forest for the beasts to devour if no one would feed and shelter him.
Yet the G.o.d-Man moved as surely as if he could count every leg on an ant in the dimmest corner of the chamber where the hunter lay. He wore only a loinguard that might have been of snakeskin, figured in hues of rose and vermilion.