The burning eyes of Muntha.s.sem Khan blazed into his. The skull-like face chuckled with a ghastly imitation of mirth.
"The Heart protects, in very truth-but only him who knows how to invoke its power!" the satrap gloated, chuckling as the Cimmerian strove to summon strength into his iron limbs again. Conan set his jaw and fought grimly, savagely against the tide of chill and fetid darkness that poured in black rays from the demonic crystal and slowly blurred his mind. Strength drained from his limbs as wine from a slashed wineskin; he sank to his knees, then slumped at the foot of the dais. He felt his consciousness shrink to a tiny, lone point of light lost in a vast abyss of roaring darkness; the last spark of will wavered like a candle-flame in a gale. Hopeless, yet with the fierce, indominable determination of his savage breed, he fought on...
7. Heart and Hand
A woman screamed. Startled, Muntha.s.sem Khan jerked at the unexpected sound. His attention flickered away from Conan-his focus broke-and in that brief instant the slim white form of a nude girl with dark flashing eyes and a black torrent of foaming curls ran on swift feet across the pave from the shadow of a column to the side of the helpless Cimmerian.
Through the roaring haze, Conan gaped at her. Hildico?
Swift as thought, she knelt by his side. One white hand dipped into his pouch and emerged, clutching the Heart of Tammuz. She sprang lithely to her feet and hurled the counter-talisman at Muntha.s.sem Khan.
It caught him full between the eyes with an audible thud. Eyes filming, he sank bonelessly into the cushioned embrace of his black throne. The Hand of Nergal slid from nerveless fingers to clank against the marble step.
In the instant the talisman fell from the satrap"s grip, the spell that bound Atalis and Prince Than in webs of scarlet agony snapped. Pale, shaken, exhausted, they were whole. And Conan"s mighty strength poured back into his sprawled body. Cursing, he leapt to his feet. One hand caught Hildico"s rounded shoulder and spun her away, out of danger, while with his other he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his sword from the marble pave.
Poised, he was ready to strike.
But he stopped, blinking with astonishment. At either side of the satrap"s body lay the two talismans. And from both arose weird shapes of force.
From the Hand of Nergal, a darkly shimmering web of evil radiance spread-a glow of darkness, like the sheen of polished ebony. The foetor of the Pit was its unholy breath, and the bone-deep chill of interstellar s.p.a.ce was its blighting touch. Before its subtle advance, the orange glare of the torches faded. It grew larger, fringed with writhing tentacles of radiant blackness.
But a nimbus of golden glory strengthened about the Heart of Tammuz and rose, forming a cloud of dazzling amber fire. The warmth of a thousand honey-hearted springs flowed from it, negating the arctic chill, and shafts of rich gold light cleaved the inky web of Nergal. The two cosmic forces met and fought. From this battle of the G.o.ds, Conan retreated with reluctant steps, joining his shaken comrades. He stood with them, staring with awe at the unimaginable conflict. Trembling, the nude form of Hildico shrank into the shelter of his arm.
"How did you get here, girl?" he demanded. She smiled wanly, with frightened eyes.
"I awoke, recovering from my swoon, and came into the Master"s chamber, Ending it empty. But within the Master"s crystal of seership I saw your simulacra enter the satrap"s hall and watched as he awoke and faced you. I, I followed-and finding you in his power, chanced all on a try for the Heart..."
"Lucky for all that you did," Conan acknowledged grimly. Atalis clutched his arm.
"Look!
The golden fog of Tammuz was now a giant, flashing figure of intolerable light, dimly manlike in configuration but huge as those Colossi hewn from the stone cliffs of Shem by age-forgotten hands.
The dark shape of Nergal, too, had swelled into giant proportions. It was now a vast, ebon thing, brutal, hulking, misshapen, more like to some stupendous ape than manlike. In the foggy hump that was its brutlelike head, slitted eyes of malignant fire blazed like emerald stars.
The two forces came together with a thunderous, shattering roar like colliding worlds. The very walls shook at the fury of their meeting.
Some half-forgotten sense within their flesh told the four that t.i.tanic cosmic forces strove and fought. The air was filled with the bitter stench of ozone. Foot-long sparks of electric fire crackled and snapped through the roiling fury as the golden G.o.d and the shadowy demon came together.
Shafts of unendurable brilliance tore through the clotted, struggling shadow-form. Bolts of blazing glory ripped it into shreds of drifting darkness. For a moment the dark web enshrouded, and dimmed, the golden flashing shape -but for a moment, only. Another roar of earth-shattering thunder, and the black one dissolved before the embrace of intolerable brightness. Then it was gone. And for a moment the figure of light towered above the dais, consuming it like a funeral pyre-then it, too, was gone.
Silence reigned in the thunder-riven hall of Muntha.s.sem Khan. Upon the blasted dais, both talismans had vanished -whether reduced to atoms by the fury of the cosmic forces that had been released here, or transported to some far place to await the next awakening of the beings they symbolized and contained, none could say.
And the body upon the dais? Naught of it was left, save for a handful of ashes.
"The heart is always stronger than the hand," Atalis said softly, in the ringing silence.
Conan reined the great black steed with a rough but masterly hand. It trembled, eager to be off, hooves ringing on the cobbles. He grinned, his barbaric blood thrilling to the might of the superb mare. A vast cloak of crimson silk belled from his broad shoulders, and his coat of silvered iron mesh mail glittered in the morning light.
"You are determined, then, to leave us, Conan?" asked Prince Than, resplendent in his robes as new satrap of Yaralet
"Aye! The Satrap"s Guard is a tame place, and I hunger for this new war King Yildiz is mounting against the hill tribes. A week of inaction, and I"ve had a bellyfull of peace! So fare you well, Than, Atalis!"
He tugged sharply on the reins, drawing the black mare about, and cantered out of the courtyard of the seer"s house, while Atalis and the prince watched benignly.
"Odd that a mercenary like Conan would accept less in payment than he could get," the new satrap commented. "I offered him a chest full of gold-enough to support him for life. But he would take only one small sack, together with the horse he found on the battlefield and his pick of arms and garments. Too much gold, he said, would only slow him down."
Atalis shrugged-then smiled, pointing to the far end of the courtyard.
A slim Brythunian girl with long mane of black curls appeared in a doorway. She came up to Conan, who drew the mare to a halt; he bent to speak with her. They exchanged a few words; then he reached down and caught her supple waist and swung her up before him onto the saddle.
She sat sideways, clinging with both arms to his burly neck, her face buried in his breast.
He swung about, flung up one brawny arm, grinned back at them in farewell, and rode off with the lithe girl clasped before him.
Atalis chuckled. "Some men fight for things other than gold," he observed.
The City of Skulls ------------------.
Conan remains in Turanian service for about two years, becoming an expert horseman and archer and traveling over the immense deserts, mountains, and jungles of Hyrkania, as far as the borders of Khitai.
One such journey takes him to the fabled kingdom of Mem, a comparatively unknown land between Vendhya to the south, Hyrkania to the north and west, and Khitai to the east.
1. Red Snow
Howling like wolves, a horde of squat, brown warriors swept down upon the Turanian troop from the foothills of the Talakma Mountains, where the hills flattened out into the broad, barren steppes of Hyrkania. The attack came at sunset. The western horizon streamed with scarlet banners, while to the south the invisible sun tinged the snows of the higher peaks with red.
For fifteen days, the escort of Turanians had jogged across the plain, fording the chill waters of the Zaporoska River, venturing deeper and ever deeper into the illimitable distances of the East. Then, without warning, came the attack.
Conan caught the body of Hormaz as the lieutenant slumped from his horse, a quivering, black-feathered arrow protruding from his throat.
He lowered the body to the ground; then, shouting a curse, the young Cimmerian ripped his broad-bladed tulwar from its scabbard and turned with his comrades to meet the howling charge. For most of a month, he had ridden the dusty Hyrkanian plains as part of the escort. The monotony had long since begun to chafe him, and now his barbaric soul craved violent action to dispell his boredom.
His blade met the gilded scimitar of the foremost rider with such terrific force that the other"s sword snapped near the hilt. Grinning like a tiger, Conan drew his sword in a back-handed slash across the bowlegged little warrior"s belly. Howling like a doomed soul on the red-hot floors of h.e.l.l, his opponent fell twitching into a patch of blood-spattered snow.
Conan twisted in his saddle to catch another slashing sword on his shield. As he knocked the foeman"s blade aside, he drove the point of his tulwar straight into the slant-eyed, yellowish face that snarled into his, watching the enemy"s visage dissolve into a smear of ruined flesh.
Now the attackers were upon them in force. Dozens of small, dark men in fantastic, intricate armor of lacquered leather, trimmed with gold and flashing with gems, a.s.sailed them with demoniac frenzy. Bows tw.a.n.ged, lances thrust, and swords whirled and clashed.
Beyond the ring of his attackers, Conan saw his comrade Juma, a gigantic black from Kush, fighting on foot; his horse had fallen to an arrow at the first rush. The Kus.h.i.te had lost his fur hat, so that the golden bangle in one ear winked in the fading light; but he had retained his lance. With this, he skewered three of the stocky attackers out of their saddles, one after another.
Beyond Juma, at the head of the column of King Yildiz"s troop of picked warriors, the commander of the escort, Prince Ardashir, thundered commands from atop his mighty stallion. He wheeled his horse back and forth to keep between the foe and the horse-litter which bore his charge. This was Yildiz"s daughter, Zosara. The troop were escorting the princess to her wedding with Kujula, the Great Khan of the Kuigar nomads.
Even as Conan watched, he saw Prince Ardashir clutch at his fur-cloaked chest. As if conjured up by magic, a black arrow had sprouted suddenly from his gemmed gorget. The prince gaped at the shaft; then, stiff as a statue, he toppled from horseback, his jewel-crusted, spiked helmet falling into the blood-spotted snow.
Thereafter, Conan became too busy to notice anything but the foes that swept howling around him. Although little more than a youth, the Cimmerian towered several inches above six feet. The swarthy attackers were dwarfed by comparison with his clean-limbed height. As they whirled around him in a snarling, yelping ring, they looked like a pack of hounds attempting to pull down a kingly tiger.
The battle swirled up and down the slope, like dead leaves whirled by autumnal gusts. Horses stamped, reared, and screamed; men hacked, cursed, and yelled. Here and there a pair of dismounted men continued their battle on foot. Bodies of men and horses lay in the churned mud and the trampled snow.
Conan, a red haze of fury thickening before his eyes, swung his tulwar with berserk fury. He would have preferred one of the straight broadswords of the West, to which he was more accustomed. Nevertheless, in the first few moments of the battle, he wreaked scarlet havoc with the unfamiliar weapon. In his flying hand, the glittering steel blade wove a shimmering web of razor-edged death about him. Into that web no less than nine of the sallow little men in lacquered leather ventured, to fall disemboweled or headless from their s.h.a.ggy ponies. As he fought, the burly young Cimmerian bellowed a savage war chant of his primitive people; but soon he found that he needed every last bit of breath, for the battle grew rather than lessened in intensity.
Only seven months before, Conan had been the only warrior to survive the ill-fated punitive expedition that King Yildiz had launched against a rebellious satrap of northern Turan, Muntha.s.sem Khan. By means of black sorcery, the satrap had smashed the force sent against him. He had-so he thought-wiped out the hostile army from its high-born general, Bakra of Akif, down to the lowliest mercenary foot soldier.
Young Conan alone had survived. He lived to penetrate the city of Yaralet, which was writhing under the magic-maddened satrap"s rule, and to bring a terrible doom on Muntha.s.sem Khan.