"That beast has me in a panic," he said. "If you had seen him tear men as I have seen-well, Mitra aid us, but we must fight him now with what the G.o.ds have given us. Come!"
He led them back to the curtained doorway, and peered into the great chamber in time to see Thak emerge from the opposite doorway. It was apparent that the beast-man had suspected something. His small, close-set ears twitched; he glared angrily about him and, approaching the nearest doorway, tore aside the curtains to look behind them.
Nabonidus drew back, shaking like a leaf. He gripped Conan"s shoulder.
"Man, do you dare pit your knife against his fangs?"
The Cimmerian"s eyes blazed in answer.
"Quick!" the Red Priest whispered, thrusting him behind the curtains, close against the wall. "As he will find us soon enough, we will draw him to us. As he rushes past you, sink your blade in his back if you can. You, Murilo, show yourself to him and then flee up the corridor.
Mitra knows, we have no chance with him in hand-to-hand combat, but we are doomed anyway when he finds us."
Murilo felt his blood congeal in his veins, but he steeled himself and stepped outside the doorway. Instantly Thak, on the other side of the chamber, wheeled, glared, and charged with a thunderous roar. His scarlet hood had fallen back, revealing his black misshapen head; his black hands and red robe were splashed with a brighter red. He was like a crimson and black nightmare as he rushed across the chamber, fangs bared, his bowed legs hurtling his enormous body along at a terrifying gait.
Murilo turned and ran back into the corridor and, quick as he was, the s.h.a.ggy horror was almost at his heels. Then as the monster rushed past the curtains, from among them catapulated a great form that struck full on the ape-man"s shoulders, at the same instant driving the poniard into the brutish back. Thak screamed horribly as the impact knocked him off his feet, and the combatants. .h.i.t the floor together. Instantly there began a whirl and thrash of limbs, the tearing and rending of a fiendish battle.
Murilo saw that the barbarian had locked his legs about the ape-man"s torso and was striving to maintain his position on the monster"s back while he butchered it with his poniard. Thak, on the other hand, was striving to dislodge his clinging foe, to drag him around within reach of the giant fangs that gaped for his flesh. In a whirlwind of blows and scarlet tatters they rolled along the corridor, revolving so swiftly that Murilo dared not use the chair he had caught up, lest he strike the Cimmerian. And he saw that in spite of the handicap of Conan"s first hold, and the voluminous robe that lashed and wrapped about the ape-man"s limbs and body, Thak"s giant strength was swiftly prevailing. Inexorably he was dragging the Cimmerian around in front of him. The ape-man had taken punishment enough to have killed a dozen men. Conan"s poniard had sunk again and again into his torso, shoulders, and bull-like neck; he was streaming blood from a score of wounds; but, unless the blade quickly reached some absolutely vital spot, Thak"s inhuman vitality would survive to finish the Cimmerian and, after him, Conan"s companions.
Conan was fighting like a wild beast himself, in silence except for his gasps of effort. The black talons of the monster and the awful grasp of those misshapen hands ripped and tore at him, the grinning jaws gaped for his throat. Then Murilo, seeing an opening, sprang and swung the chair with all his power, and with force enough to have brained a human being. The chair glanced from Thak"s slanted black skull; but the stunned monster momentarily relaxed his rending grasp, and in that instant Conan, gasping and streaming blood, plunged forward and sank his poniard to the hilt in the ape-man"s heart.
With a convulsive shudder, the beast-man stared from the floor, then sank limply back. His fierce eyes set and glazed, his thick limbs quivered and became rigid.
Conan staggered dizzily up, shaking the sweat and blood out of his eyes. Blood dripped from his poniard and fingers, and trickled in rivulets down his thighs, arms, and breast. Murilo caught at him to support him, but the barbarian shook him off impatiently.
"When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die," he mumbled, through mashed lips. "But I"d like a flagon of wine."
Nabonidus was staring down at the still figure as if he could not believe his own eyes. Black, hairy, abhorrent, the monster lay, grotesque in the tatters of the scarlet robe; yet more human than b.e.s.t.i.a.l, even so, and possessed somehow of a vague and terrible pathos.
Even the Cimmerian sensed this, for he panted: "I have slain a man tonight, not a beast. I will count him among the chiefs whose souls I"ve sent into the dark, and my women will sing of him."
Nabonidus stooped and picked up a bunch of keys on a golden chain. They had fallen from the ape-man"s girdle during the battle. Motioning his companions to follow him, he led them to a chamber, unlocked the door, and led the way inside. It was illumined like the others. The Red Priest took a vessel of wine from a table and filled crystal beakers.
As his companions drank thirstily, he murmured: "What a night! It is nearly dawn, now. What of you, my friends?"
"I"ll dress Conan"s hurts, if you will fetch me bandages and the like,"
said Murilo, and Nabonidus nodded, and moved toward the door that led into the corridor. Something about his bowed head caused Murilo to watch him sharply. At the door the Red Priest wheeled suddenly. His face had undergone a transformation. His eyes gleamed with his old fire, his lips laughed soundlessly.
"Rogues together!" his voice rang with its accustomed mockery. "But not fools together. You are the fool, Murilo!"
"What do you mean?" The young n.o.bleman started forward.
"Back!" Nabonidus"s voice cracked like a whip. "Another step and I will blast you!"
Murilo"s blood turned cold as he saw that the Red Priest"s hand grasped a thick velvet rope, which hung among the curtains just outside the door.
"What treachery is this?" cried Murilo. "You swore-"
"I swore I would not tell the king a jest concerning you! I did not swear not to take matters into my own hands if I could. Do you think I would pa.s.s up such an opportunity? Under ordinary circ.u.mstances I would not dare to kill you myself, without sanction of the king, but now none will ever know. You will go into the acid vats along with Thak and the nationalist fools, and none will be the wiser. What a night this has been for me! If I have lost some valuable servants, I have nevertheless rid myself of various dangerous enemies. Stand back! I am over the threshold, and you cannot possibly reach me before I tug this cord and send you to h.e.l.l. Not the gray lotus, this time, but something just as effective. Nearly every chamber in my house is a trap. And so, Murilo, fool that you are-"
Too quickly for the sight to follow, Conan caught up a stool and hurled it. Nabonidus instinctively threw up his arm with a cry, but not in time. The missile crunched against his head, and the Red Priest swayed and fell facedown in a slowly widening pool of dark crimson.
"His blood was red, after all," grunted Conan.
Murilo raked back his sweat-plastered hair with a shaky hand as ne leaned against the table, weak from the reaction of relief.
"It is dawn," he said. "Let us get out of here, before we fall afoul of some other doom. If we can climb the outer wall without being seen, we shall not be connected with this night"s work. Let the police write their own explanation."
He glanced at the body of the Red Priest where it lay etched in crimson, and shrugged his shoulders.
"He was the fool, after all; had he not paused to taunt us, he could have trapped us easily."
"Well," said the Cimmerian tranquilly, "he"s travelled the road all rogues must walk at last. I"d like to loot the house, but-I suppose we"d best go."
As they emerged from the dimness of the dawn-whitened garden, Murilo said: "The Red Priest has gone into the dark, so my road is clear in the city, and I have nothing to fear. But what of you? There is still the matter of that priest in the Maze, and-"
"I"m tired of this city anyway," grinned the Cimmerian. "You mentioned a horse waiting at the Rats" Den. I"m curious to see how fast that horse can carry me into another kingdom. There"s many a highway I want to travel before I walk the road Nabonidus walked this night."
The Hand of Nergal ------------------.
Conan has enjoyed his taste of Hyborian intrigue. It is clear to him that there is no essential difference between the motives of the palace and those of the Rats" Den, whereas the pickings are better in higher places. With his own horse under him and a grubstake from the grateful-and thoughtful-Murilo, the Cimmerian sets out to look over the civilized world, with an eye to making it his oyster.
The Road of Kings, which winds through the Hyborian kingdoms, at last leads him eastward into Turan, where he takes service in the armies of King Yildiz. He does not at first find military services congenial, being too self-willed and hot-tempered to submit easily to discipline.
Moreover, being at this time an indifferent horseman and archer, in a force of which the mounted bowman is the mainstay, he is relegated to a low-paid, irregular unit. Soon, however, a chance arises to show his true mettle.
1. Black Shadows
"Crom!"
The oath was torn from the young warrior"s grim-set lips. He threw back his head, sending his tousled shock of black hair flying, and lifted his smouldering blue eyes skyward. They widened in sheer astonishment.
An eery thrill of superst.i.tious awe ran through his tall, powerfully-built body, which was burnt brown by fierce wasteland suns, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, lean of waist, long of leg, and naked save for a rag of cloth about his loins and high-strapped sandals.
He had entered the battle mounted, as one of a troop of irregular cavalry. But his horse, given him by the n.o.bleman Murilo in Corinthia, had fallen to the foemen"s arrows at the first onset and the youth had fought on afoot. His shield had been smashed by the enemy"s blows: he had cast it aside and battled with sword alone.
Above, from the sunset-smouldering sky of this bleak, wind-swept Turanian steppe, where two great armies were locked in a fury of desperate battle, came horror.
The field was drenched in sunset fires and bathed in human blood. Here the mighty host of Yildiz, king of Turan, in whose army the youth served as a mercenary, had fought for five long hours against the iron-shod legions of Muntha.s.sem Khan, rebellious satrap of the Zamorian Marches of northern Turan. Now, circling slowly downwards from the crimson sky, came nameless things whose like the barbarian had never seen or heard of before in all his travels. They were black, shadowy monsters, hovering on broad, arch-ribbed wings like enormous bats.
The two armies fought on, unseeing. Only Conan, here on this low hill, ringed about with the bodies of men his sword had slain, saw them descending through the sunset sky.
Leaning on his dripping blade and resting his sinewy arms for a moment, he stared at the weird shadow-things. For they seemed to be more shadow than substance-translucent to the sight, like wisps of noisome black vapor or the shadowy ghosts of gigantic vampire bats. Evil, slitted eyes of green flame glared through their smoky forms.
And even as he watched, nape-hairs p.r.i.c.kling with a barbarian"s dread of the supernatural, they fell upon the battle like vultures on a field of blood-fell and slew.
Screams of pain and fear rose from the host of King Yildiz, as the black shadows hurtled amongst their ranks. Wherever the shadow-devils swooped, they left a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse. By the hundred they came, and the weary ranks of the Turanian army fell back, stumbling, tossing away their weapons in panic.
"Fight, you dogs! Stand and fight!" Thundering angry commands in a stern voice, a tall, commanding figure on a great black mare sought to hold the crumbling line. Conan glimpsed the sparkles of silver-gilt chain mail under a rich blue cloak, and a hawk-nosed, black-bearded face, kingly and harsh under a spired steel helm that caught the crimson sun like a polished mirror. He knew the man for King Yildiz"
general, Bakra of Akif.
With a ringing oath, the proud commander drew his tulwar and laid about him with the flat of the blade. Perhaps he could have rallied the ranks, but one of the devil-shadows swooped on him from behind. It folded vaporous, filming wings about him in a grisly embrace and he stiffened. Conan could see his face, suddenly pale with staring, frozen eyes of fear-and he saw the features through the enveloping wings, like a white mask behind a veil of thin, black lace.