The drums, the messengers, and the sightings of his own eyes were giving Chabano uncertain tidings. He nonetheless kept his place at the head of the warriors racing downhill toward the sh.o.r.e.
The drums and his eyes told him that the Ichiribu were on the way across the lake. Messengers told him that by some treachery, or perhaps by some magic, an enemy war band had sprung from the earth and was holding a landing place for the main body of oncoming warriors.
Chabano hoped it was not treachery. It would make enemies for him among the kin of those warriors who had died if trusting Wobeku had shed Kwanyi blood. At least the dead could not number more than a handful, even if Wobeku had contrived their demise.
At Chabano"s back there trotted more than five hundred Kwanyi warriors.
Each bore the shield and three spears he had devised and taught them to use so well. When they reached the sh.o.r.e, it would hardly be a battle at all.
He did wonder that he had not heard from Ryku. The First Speaker certainly had to know all that was happening, including the magic being unleashed- and not all of it by that doddering Spirit-Speaker Dobanpu!
It did not matter greatly. Dobanpu might have power over Wobeku"s blowgun. He would hardly have as much power against five hundred of the Kwanyi"s best. There would be spears through the man"s throat, heart, and belly before he could speak enough spirits to slay a goat!
Conan had led the Ichiribu ambush party up the path from the sh.o.r.e. Now he crouched under an arching root, trying to find the men he had led.
The fewer he found, the better they had learned the art of concealment.
He found one and whistled softly, then pointed to a bush that would hide him better. The man thumped his head three times on the ground.
Conan was ready to curse him for putting courtesy before obedience, but then the man half rolled, half slid into his new hiding place.
He had just vanished when the stamping of many fast-moving feet reached the Cimmerian"s ears. Conan drew his dagger and rested his free hand on a pile of small stones he had chosen from a stream-bed.
This would be close work, too close for swords, and the more silent, the better. If a few-score Kwanyi died before they even knew they faced death, Chabano would have a busy time rallying those who survived before Seyganko had all of his men ash.o.r.e.
That would strain even Chabano"s discipline, although the ambush party would be all but juggling live vipers. But then, most battles ended that way, no matter how one began them.
The sound of the Kwanyi on the march swelled, then began to fade. In moments, silence had taken its place. Few ears but Conan"s could have heard the softer sound of many men breathing, and commands given in whispers instead of in shouts.
"They"re still coming," he murmured to the man next to him. "Pa.s.s the word, and have every man look to his rear as well."
If Chabano had grown suspicious, he might well be halting his main column while light-footed scouts beat the bushes ahead and on either side. The Kwanyi would lose time that way, but they might save warriors. They would certainly put Conan and his men in peril.
Conan whispered another command. "When you attack, forget silence!
Shout and scream, crack your lungs, burst your throats-"
"Make them think a score are a thousand?" his companion whispered back.
The Cimmerian nodded.
Now the sound of marching Kwanyi came again, this time a shuffle as the warriors advanced at a walk. Conan gripped a stone and balanced it, ready to throw.
The first Kwanyi appeared. Conan let him pa.s.s, and likewise the nine men after him. The tenth man took the flung stone in the mouth. He staggered back, spitting blood and teeth, into the reach of another Ichiribu. This one held a short spear, which he thrust into the Kwanyi"s back.
"Yah-haaaaaa!" Conan roared as he leaped onto the path. He thrust over a lunging spear-point and into a man"s chest before the victim could get his shield positioned. He s.n.a.t.c.hed another stone and flung it far up the path, into the shadowy ma.s.s of warriors now crowding forward to the attack.
The faster the warriors crowded forward, however, the less room there was for them to move and fight. Conan had done his best to find a place where the trail was narrow and the ground to either side of it nearly impa.s.sable. Chabano was helping by letting the need for haste rule his judgment.
Conan and half a dozen companions kept the head of the column in play for a good while. A moment came when Conan threw his last stone, heard it strike a shield, and drew his sword. With sword and dagger both leaping in his hands as if they had life of their own, he carved away at the front rank of the Kwanyi.
Through the gap Conan made, his companions plunged, thrusting with spears and lashing about with war clubs. Meanwhile, stones, tridents, fallen branches, and any other weapon that came to hand also made their mark on the Kwanyi flanks.
What Conan hoped the most now was that Chabano himself would come forward. Tribal custom and the Paramount Chief"s own temper would drive him into a duel with Conan. For that duel, there could be only one outcome.
The ambush could end the battle, and even the war, in an Ichiribu victory. Conan drew back a trifle, keeping his guard up, shirting about to make himself a difficult target for spears, and seeking for any sign of Chabano.
At last he caught sight of a man who undoubtedly was the chief-in the very same moment that the earth shook underfoot.
Ryku had performed all of the rituals for calling up the Living Wind as if he had sucked them in with his mother"s milk. Pride and courage flowed through him. He knew he courted no danger in performing the rituals alone, such was his power at last.
Yet the colors of the Living Wind had not returned to their normal hues, save briefly. Again there was an umber tint in the crimson, a paleness in the sapphire. The strange sounds and stranger scent were gone, but the memory of them lingered in Ryku"s thoughts. He had to force these thoughts back, as one forced back a boar caught on one"s spear, lest they disturb his confidence.
Now came the most demanding ritual of all. Sending the power of the Living Wind entirely outside Thunder Mountain had been done. It could be done again. If it was done, the Living Wind would fall on the Ichiribu and they would be gone without the wetting of a single Kwanyi spear.
No, Ryku told himself, he would not allow the word "if" in his mind. He would call up the Living Wind and send it forth.
He sat straighter and raised his staff in one hand, a gourd of cunningly mixed herbs in the other. He hung the gourd from the end of the staff and dipped into it, catching a pinch of the herbs between thumb and forefinger.
Ritual and good sense alike told a Speaker to begin with only a small measure of the herbs. Ryku leaned forward, opened thumb and forefinger and let the herbs float out into s.p.a.ce. They vanished almost at once, lost against the swirling colors of the Living Wind, so that he did not know when they reached it.
He did know, though, when the whole cave shook like a gourd flung against a stone wall. He clutched his staff with one hand and reached for the gourd to draw it to safety.
A whirling column of crimson and sapphire, as bright as ever, leaped upward from the Living Wind. It approached the gourd, touched it, then s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the end of Ryku"s staff.
Ryku cried out, rose to his feet and hastened to the ledge to see, amazement bordering on fear sweeping through him, weakening the discipline of his mind. He lunged for the gourd as the column began sinking, taking the gourd with it.
He touched it, too-but the column rose again, and now it had become crimson-and-sapphire flames that wrapped themselves around his wrist.
He cried out, an animal scream of agony, as the flames ate through his wrist.
The pain and his all-encompa.s.sing fear made him forget that he stood on the very brink of the ledge. He staggered, and one foot came down on empty air. He threw out his remaining hand toward the stone, felt fingernails scrabble and break, then plunged.
What Ryku had felt before was as nothing to what he felt when the Living Wind swallowed him. But by then, the roaring of the tumult was too loud for anyone to hear his screams.
"To me! Back down the trail! Now, you goats" b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"
Conan"s shouts rallied the Ichiribu ambushers. Some of them plunged off into the forest, their way back to the path barred by the enemy. At least half of the survivors joined the Cimmerian.
With more speed than dignity, they sprinted down the trail, for all that it was shaking beneath them. A tree toppled across their rear, mercifully striking no one. Conan halted then, letting the others go on while he studied the Kwanyi.
He had been afraid that in a panic to leave the hillside, the enemy would rush his men, sweeping them away by sheer weight of numbers. Now that was not to be, for all that Chabano had taken the lead. They were coming on at a good pace, leaving older warriors and boys to gather up the wounded and dead, and perhaps to protect their line of retreat.
Very surely, Chabano"s death would take not merely the heart, but the head from the Kwanyi... which would all be very well if Conan had the faintest notion of how to bring it about. A personal challenge would only end with the Cimmerian sprouting a score of spears before Chabano even heard him!
The Cimmerian brought up the rear of the ambush party as it ran down the trail to rejoin its comrades. He had never cared for running, but there were times when a good pair of legs was a man"s best weapon.
As the Ichiribu ran, they noticed that the earthquake seemed to have pa.s.sed, but a strange glow was rising into the sky from the direction of Thunder Mountain.
Chabano let a dozen or so warriors go before him, leaping over the fallen tree ahead. This was no time for him to risk a spear from some desperate Ichiribu lying behind the tree.
No spears came. Chabano leaped high, as he had done when a boy. Landing sent a sharp pain through one knee that reminded him he was not a boy, but he did not stumble. His spear was over one shoulder and his shield on the other arm, and he was well in front of his warriors when he saw the sky change color.