"When I was a thief in Zamora, I heard rumors of a cult called the Yezmites that used such a symbol. You"re a Zamorian; what know you of this?"
Hattusas shrugged. "There are many cults whose roots go back to the beginnings of time, to the days before the Cataclysm. Often rulers have thought they had stamped them out, and often they have come to life again. The Hidden Ones or Sons of Yezm are one of these, but more I cannot tell you. I meddle not in such matters."
Conan spoke to Balash: "Can your men guide me to where you found this man?"
"Aye. But it is an evil place, in the Gorge of Ghosts, on the borders of Drujistan, and-"
"Good. Everybody get some sleep. We ride at dawn."
"To Anshan?" asked Balash.
"No. To Drujistan."
"Then you think-?"
"I think nothing-yet."
"Will the squadron ride with us?" asked Tubal. "The horses are badly worn."
"No, let the men and horses rest. You and Hattusas shall go with me, together with one of Balash"s Kushafis for a guide. Codrus commands in my absence, and if there"s any trouble as a result of my dogs" laying hands on the Kushafi women, tell him he is to knock their heads in."
2. The Black Country
Dusk mantled the serrated skyline when Conan"s guide halted. Ahead, the rugged terrain was broken by a deep canyon. Beyond the canyon rose a forbidding array of black crags and frowning cliffs, a wild, haglike chaos of broken black rock.
"There begins Drujistan," said the Kushafi. "Beyond that gorge, the Gorge of Ghosts, begins the country of horror and death. I go no farther."
Conan nodded, his eyes picking out a trail that looped down rugged slopes into the canyon. It was a fading trace of the ancient road they had been following for many miles, but it looked as though it had often been used of late.
Conan glanced around. With him were Tubal, Hattusas, the guide-and Nanaia the girl. She had insisted on coming because, she said, she feared to be separated from Conan among all these wild foreigners, whose speech she could not understand. She had proved a good traveling companion, tough and uncomplaining, though of volatile and fiery disposition.
The Kushafi said: "The trail is well-traveled, as you see. By it the demons of the black mountains come and go. But men who follow it do not return."
Tubal jeered. "What need demons with a trail? They fly with wings like bats!"
"When they take the shape of men they walk like men," said the Kushafi.
He pointed to the jutting ledge over which the trail wound. "At the foot of that slope we found the man you called a Khitan. Doubtless his brother demons quarreled with him and cast him down."
"Doubtless he tripped and fell," grunted Conan. "Khitans of the desert are unused to climbing, their legs being bowed and weakened by a life in the saddle. Such a one would easily stumble on a narrow trail."
"If he was a man, perhaps," said the Kushafi. "But- Asura!"
All but Conan jumped, and the Kushafi s.n.a.t.c.hed at his bow, glaring wildly. Out over the crags, from the south, rolled an incredible sound-a strident, braying roar, which vibrated among the mountains.
"The voice of the demons!" cried the Kushafi, jerking the rein so that his horse squealed and reared. "In the name of Asura, let us be gone!
It"s madness to remain!"
"Go back to your village if you"re afraid," said Conan. "I"m going on."
In truth, the hint of the supernatural made the Cimmerian"s nape p.r.i.c.kle too, but before his followers he did not wish to admit this.
"Without your men? It is madness! At least send back for your followers."
Conan"s eyes narrowed like those of a hunting wolf. "Not this time. For scouting and spying, the fewer the better. I think I"ll have a look at this land of demons; I could use a mountain stronghold." To Nanaia he said: "You had better go back, girl."
She began to weep. "Do not send me away, Conan! The wild mountaineers will ravish me."
He glanced down her long, well-muscled figure. "Anyone who tried it would have a task. Well, come on then, and do not say I didn"t warn you."
The guide wheeled his pony and kicked it into a run, calling back: "Balash will weep for you! There will be woe in Kushaf! Aie! Ahai!
His lamentations died away amidst the clatter of hoofs on stone as the Kushafi, flogging his pony, topped a ridge and vanished.
"Run, son of a noseless dam!" yelled Tubal. "Well brand your devils and drag them to Kushaf by their tails!" But he fell silent the instant the victim was out of hearing.
Conan spoke to Hattusas: "Have you ever heard a sound like that?"
The lithe Zamorian nodded. "Yes, in the mountains of the devil worshipers."
Conan lifted his reins without comment. He, too, had heard the roar of the ten-foot bronze trumpets that blared over the bare black mountains of forbidden Pathenia, in the hands of shaven-headed priests of Erlik.
Tubal snorted like a rhinoceros. He had not heard those trumpets, and he thrust his horse in ahead of Hattusas so as to be next to Conan as they rode down the steep slopes in the purple dusk. He said roughly: "Now that we have been lured into this country of devils by treacherous Kushafi dogs who will undoubtedly steal back and cut your throat while you sleep, what have you planned?"
It might have been an old hound growling at his master for patting another dog. Conan bent his head and spat to hide a grin. "We"ll camp in the canyon tonight. The horses are too tired for struggling through these gulches in the dark. Tomorrow we shall explore.
"I think the Hidden Ones have a camp in that country across the gorge.
The hills hereabouts are but thinly settled. Kushaf is the nearest village, and it"s a hard day"s ride away. Wandering clans stay out of these parts for fear of the Kushafis, and Balash"s men are too superst.i.tious to explore across the gorge. The Hidden Ones, over there, could come and go without being seen. I know not just what we shall do; our destiny is on the knees of the G.o.ds."
As they came down into the canyon, they saw that the trail led across the rock-strewn floor and into the mouth of a deep, narrow gorge, which debouched into the canyon from the south. The south wall of the canyon was higher than the north and more sheer. It swept up in a sullen rampart of solid black rock, broken at intervals by narrow gorge mouths. Conan rode into the gulch into which the trail wound and followed it to the first bend. He found that this bend was but the first of a succession of kinks. The ravine, running between sheer walls of rock, writhed and twisted like the track of a serpent and was already filled with darkness.
"This is our road tomorrow," said Conan. His men nodded silently as he led them back to the main canyon, where some light still lingered. The clang of their horses" hoofs on the flint seemed loud in the sullen silence.
A few score of paces west of the trail ravine, another, narrower gulch opened into the canyon. Its rocky floor showed no sign of any trail, and it narrowed so rapidly that Conan thought it ended in a blind alley.
Halfway between these ravine mouths, near the north wall, a tiny spring bubbled up in a natural basin of age-hollowed rock. Behind it, in a cavelike niche in the cliff, dry wiry gra.s.s grew spa.r.s.ely. There they tethered the weary horses. They camped at the spring, eating dried meat and not risking a fire, which might be seen by hostile eyes.
Conan divided his party into two watches. Tubal he placed on guard west of the camp, near the mouth of the narrower ravine, while Hattusas had his station close to the mouth of the eastern ravine. Any hostile band coming up or down the canyon, or entering it from either ravine, would have to pa.s.s these vigilant sentries.
Darkness came swiftly in the canyon, seeming to flow in waves down the black slopes and ooze out of the mouths of the ravines. Stars blinked out, cold, white, and impersonal. Above the invaders brooded the great dusky bulks of the broken mountains. Conan fell asleep wondering idly what grim spectacles they had witnessed since the beginning of time.
The razor-keen perceptions of the barbarian had never been dulled by Conan"s years of contact with civilization. As Tubal approached him to lay a hand on his shoulder, Conan awoke and rose to a crouch, sword in hand, before the Shemite even had a chance to touch him.
"What is it?" muttered Conan.
Tubal squatted beside him, gigantic shoulders bulking dimly in the gloom. Back in the shadow of the cliffs, the unseen horses moved restlessly. Conan knew that peril was in the air even before Tubal spoke:
"Hattusas is slain and the girl is gone! Death is creeping upon us in the dark!"
"What?"