Nearer came the spreading hands. Conan strained harder than ever, but the resistance seemed to increase with every inch the Magus advanced toward him.
And then Nanaia screamed a long, high, piercing shriek, as of a soul being flayed in h.e.l.l.
The Magus half-turned, and in that instant his eyes left Conan"s. It was as if a ton had been lifted instantly from Conan"s back. Virata snapped his gaze back to Conan, but the Cimmerian knew better than to meet his eyes again. Peering through narrowed lids at the Magus" chest, Conan made a disembowelling thrust with his knife. The attack met only air as the Kosalan avoided it with a backward bound of superhuman litheness, then turned and ran toward the door, crying:
"Help! Guard! To me!"
Men were yelling and hammering against the door on the far side. Conan waited until the Magus" fingers were clawing at the bolts. Then he threw the knife so that the point struck Virata in the middle of his back and drove through his body, pinning him to the door like an insect to a board.
8. Wolves at Bay
Conan strode to the door and wrenched out his knife, letting the body of the Magus slip to the floor. Beyond the door the clamor grew, and out in the garden the Zuagirs were bawling to know if he was safe and loudly demanding permission to join him. He shouted to them to wait and hurriedly freed the girl, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a piece of silk from a divan to wrap around her. She clasped his neck with a hysterical sob, crying:
"Oh, Conan, I knew you would come! They told me you were dead, but I knew they could not slay you-"
"Save that till later," he said gruffly. Carrying the Kus.h.i.tes" swords, he strode back to the balcony and handed Nanaia down through the window to the Zuagirs, then swung down beside her.
"And now, lord?" said the Zuagirs, eager for more desperate work.
"Back the way we came, through the secret pa.s.sage and out the door to h.e.l.l."
They started at a run across the garden, Conan leading Nanaia by the hand. They had not gone a dozen paces when ahead of them a clang of steel vied with the din in the palace behind them. l.u.s.ty curses mingled with the clangor, a door slammed like a clap of thunder, and a figure came headlong through the shrubbery. It was the Zuagir they had left on guard at the gilded door. He was swearing and wringing blood from a slashed forearm.
"Hyrkanian dog? at the door!" he yelled. "Someone saw us kill the Kus.h.i.tes and ran for Zahak. I sworded one in the belly and slammed the door, but they"ll soon have it down!"
"Is there a way out of this garden that does not lead through the palace, Antar?" asked Conan.
"This way!" The Zuagir ran to the north wall, all but hidden in ma.s.ses of foliage. Across the garden they could hear the gilded door splintering under the onslaught of the nomads of the steppes. Antar slashed and tore at the fronds until he disclosed a cunningly-masked door set in the wall. Conan slipped the hilt of his knife into the chain of the antiquated lock and twisted the heavy weapon by the blade.
His muscles knotted: the Zuagirs watched him, breathing heavily, while the clamor behind them grew. With a final heave Conan snapped the chain.
They burst through into another, smaller garden, lit with hanging lanterns, just as the gilded door gave way and a stream of armed figures flooded into the Paradise Garden.
In the midst of the garden into which the fugitives had come stood the tall, slim tower Conan had noticed when he first entered the palace. A latticed balcony extended out a few feet from its second storey. Above the balcony, the tower rose square and slim to a height of over a hundred yards, then widened out into a walled observation platform.
"Is there another way out of here?" asked Conan.
"That door leads into the palace at a place not far from the stair down to the dungeon," said Antar, pointing.
"Make for it, then!" said Conan, slamming the door behind him and wedging it with a dagger. "That might hold it for a few seconds at least."
They raced across the garden to the door indicated, but it proved to be closed and bolted from the inside. Conan threw himself against it but failed to shake it.
Vengeful yells reached a crescendo behind them as the dagger-wedged door splintered inward. The aperture was crowded with wild faces and waving arms as Zahak"s men jammed there in their frantic eagerness.
The tower!" roared Conan. "If we can get in there..."
The Magus often made magics in the upper chamber," panted a Zuagir running after Conan. "He let none other than the Tiger in that chamber, but men say arms are stored there. Guards sleep below-"
"Come on!" bellowed Conan, racing in the lead and dragging Nanaia so that she seemed to fly through the air. The door in the wall gave way altogether, spilling a knot of Hyrkanians into the garden, falling over one another in their haste. From the noise that came from every other direction, it would be only a matter of minutes before men swarmed into the Garden of the Tower from all its apertures.
As Conan neared the tower, the door in the base opened as five bewildered guards came out They yelped in astonishment as they saw a knot of men rushing upon them with teeth bared and eyes blazing in the light of the hanging lanterns. Even as they reached for their blades, Conan was upon them. Two fell to his whirling blade as the Zuagirs swarmed over the remaining three, slashing and stabbing until the glittering figures lay still in puddles of crimson.
But now the Hyrkanians from the Paradise Garden were racing towards the tower too, their armor flashing and their accouterments jingling. The Zuagirs stormed into the tower. Conan slammed the bronze door and shot home a bolt that would have stopped the charge of an elephant, just as the Hyrkanians piled up against the door on the outside.
Conan and his people rushed up the stairs, eyes and teeth gleaming, all but one who collapsed halfway up from loss of blood. Conan carried him the rest of the way, laid him on the floor, and told Nanaia to bandage the ghastly gash made by the sword of one of the guards they had just killed. Then he took stock of their surroundings. They were in an upper chamber of the tower, with small windows and a door opening out on to the latticed balcony. The light from the lanterns in the garden, coming in little twinkles through the lattice and the windows, shone faintly on racks of arms lining the walls: helms, cuira.s.ses, bucklers, spears, swords, axes, maces, bows, and sheaves of arrows. There were enough arms here to equip a troop, and no doubt there were more in the higher chambers. Virata had made the tower his a.r.s.enal and keep as well as his magical oratory.
The Zuagirs chanted gleefully as they s.n.a.t.c.hed bows and quivers from the walls and went out on the balcony. Though several had minor wounds, they began shooting through the holes in the lattice into the yelling mob of soldiery swarming below.
A storm of arrows came back, clattering against the lattice-work and a few coming through. The men outside shot at random, as they could not see the Zuagirs in the shadow. The mob had surged to the tower from all directions. Zahak was not in sight, but a hundred or so of his Hyrkanians were, and a welter of men of a dozen other races. They swarmed about the garden yelling like fiends.
The lanterns, swinging wildly under the impact of bodies stumbling against the slender trees, lit a ma.s.s of twisted faces with white eyeb.a.l.l.s rolling madly upward. Blades flickered lightninglike all over the garden. Bowstrings tw.a.n.ged blindly. Bushes and shrubs were shredded underfoot as the mob milled and eddied. Thump! They had obtained a beam and were using it as a ram against the door.
"Get those men with the ram!" barked Conan, bending the stiffest bow he had been able to find in the racks.
The overhang of the balcony kept the besieged from seeing those at the front end of the ram, but as they picked off those in the rear, those in front had to drop the timber because of its weight Looking around, Conan was astonished to see Nanaia, her sheet of silk wrapped around her waist to make a skirt, shooting with the Zuagirs.
"I thought I told you-" he began, but she only said:
"Curse it, have you nothing I can use as a bracer? The bowstring is cutting my arm to ribbons."
Conan turned away with a baffled sigh and resumed shooting his own bow.
He understood the celerity with which he and his men had been trapped when he heard Olgerd Vladislav"s voice lifted like the slash of a saber above the clamor. The Zaporoskan must have learned of Virata"s death within minutes and taken instant command.
"They bring ladders," said Antar.
Conan peered into the dark. By the light of the bobbing lanterns he saw three ladders coming towards the tower, each carried by several men. He stepped into the armory and presently came out on the balcony again with a spear.
A pair of men were holding the base of one ladder against the ground while two more raised it by walking toward the tower holding the ladder"s uprights over their heads. The ends of the ladder crunched against the lattice.
"Push it over! Throw it down!" cried the Zuagirs, and one started to thrust his sword through the lattice.
"Back!" snarled Conan. "Let me take care of this!"
He waited until several men had swarmed up the ladder. The top man was a burly fellow with an ax. As he swung the ax to hack away the flimsy wooden latticework, Conan thrust his spear through one of the holes, placed the point against a rung, and pushed. The ladder swayed back.
The men on it screamed, dropping their weapons to clutch at the rungs.
Down crashed the ladder and its* load into the front ranks of the besiegers.
"Come! Here"s another!" cried a Zuagir, and Conan hurried to another side of the balcony to push over a second ladder. The third was only half raised when arrows brought down two of the men raising it, so that it fell back.
"Keep shooting," growled Conan, laying down his spear and bending the great bow.
The continuous rain of arrows, to which they could make no effective reply, wore down the spirits of the throng below. They broke and scattered for cover, and the Zuagirs whooped with frantic glee and sent long, arching flights of missiles after them.
In a few moments, the garden was empty except for the dead and dying, though Conan could see the movement of men along the surrounding walls and roofs.
Conan reentered the armory and climbed the stair. He pa.s.sed through several more rooms lined with arms, then came to the magical laboratory of the Magus. He spared only a brief glance at the dusty ma.n.u.scripts, the strange instruments and diagrams, and climbed the remaining flight to the observation platform.
From here he could take stock of their position. The palace, he now saw, was surrounded by gardens except in front, where there was a wide courtyard. All was enclosed by an outer wall. Lower, inner walls separated the gardens somewhat like the spokes of a wheel, with the high outer wall taking the place of the rim.