Conan the Marauder (15 page)

"What!" said Conan scornfully. "Are these the men who just slew six times their number of enemies, now standing in fear of a bundle of filth?" He glared at them, and they would not meet his eyes. "Which shaman did this?"

"We saw no one, captain," said Guyak. "The shamans can make themselves invisible. But in this camp, none can work magic without the permission of Danaqan."

"Where is the snag-toothed old villain?" the Cimmerian demanded. "I shall wring his scrawny neck for him."

The men would say nothing. With a blistering curse, Conan seized a flaming brand from the nearest fire and strode to the pole. He held the brand beneath the bundle, which began to smoke and catch flame. Then his hair rose as the bundle began to twist and writhe. From inside came a hideous screaming, and the thong burned through, dropping the thing to the ground where it ceased to burn.

Slowly the bundle unfolded into a bat-winged homunculus, as black as the midnight sky and perhaps two feet tall. It hissed at Conan, baring a double row of sharp, needle teeth. It was entirely hairless, with eyes like burning black coals. Smoke continued to rise from the thing as it advanced. The Hyrkanians jabbered in fear and backed away.

The creature squalled and launched itself at the Cimmerian. Conan ripped out his sword, slicing upward and cutting through the little demon, splitting it in twain as easily as if it had been made of smoke. The sundered halves rejoined and once again the thing came toward him. He slashed it in two sideways. This time, as it sought to re-form, he speared the still-smoking bundle Mi the tip of his sword and jammed its tattered remnants into the fire.

The winged homunculus hissed loudly and began to spin in ever-tightening circles in mid-air. As the last bits of the bundle were consumed by the flames, the creature faded into black smoke, then disappeared entirely.

"The thing was naught but a phantom," Conan said contemptuously. "It was a conjurer's trick, no more substantial than fog."

"No, captain," said Guyak. "It was an ulu-bekh. A spirit of the air, it obeys the shaman. Shamans have great powers over the spirits."

"You are like children!" Conan barked. "Your shamans are nothing but mountebanks and frauds who keep you cowed with their trickery.'' He saw that his words were having little effect. Efforts to convince them would be of no avail. Once men were persuaded of anything supernatural, mere facts and demonstration would accomplish nothing.

"Go to your beds," he ordered. "The magic show is over for this night.''

Slowly, muttering among themselves, they obeyed. Rustuf and Fawd joined Conan in the tent they shared. Fawd passed Conan a wineskin as the three sat cross-legged upon the floor and the Cimmerian washed the day's accumulation of trail dust from his throat.

"On the morrow," he said, "I shall cut down the whole pack of these shamans. Bartatua should promote me for it. They are no friends of his."

"It is an attractive idea," Rustuf said. "But what wizard ever lived who did not let it be known that his death would bring a curse on everyone nearby?"

"It is true," said Fawd. "Ask these tribesmen and they will all tell you that if a shaman dies by violence, disaster must befall the horde. Shamans must have it so for they have many enemies. If you move openly against the shamans, the tribesmen will kill you."

"But how can I control my men if they believe I am accursed and unlucky? And what have I done to earn the enmity of these filthy conjurers? I have not attacked them." The Cimmerian grew more morose by the minute. He detested sorcery at the best of times, but it was especially galling to be stymied by such petty, contemptible medicine men.

"I think," Conan said, "that it is time for me to pay these bone-rattling magicians a visit."

"You may not have to go far," said Rustuf. "Unless I am much mistaken, I hear the drum of a shaman drumming nearby."

The three rose and walked noiselessly from the tent. The drum was being played quietly, but it was no more than a score of paces away. They trod lightly to a spot where a knot of Conan's men sat in a circle around a lire. Close to the fire sat the old shaman, Danaqan, near him an effeminate boy. With his fingertips the hoy was softly tapping on a drum made of human skin stretched over the open top of a human skull. The eye sockets of the skull were inlaid with silver and they glinted evilly in the firelight.

"Woe to you all!" the old man was saying to the assemblage. "It is an evil thing that the Kagan has devoted a foreign slave to the rank of officer among us. This man has no family, clan or tribe. His ancestors are not entombed in a sacred burial place on the steppe. His gods are not our gods. The spirits of the endless steppe row angry. They will bring the storms of hail and lightning if you continue to follow the foreigner. They will bring the great grass fires, and the smoke will darken the Everlasting Sky. You must not—"

The shaman's voice faltered and died away as a hand fell heavily upon his shoulder. It was a very large, battle-scarred hand, and he tried to shrug it off, but the thumb was curled around the back of his neck and began to squeeze. A terrible pain shot up the old man's neck, although the hand had barely flexed.

"Friend Danaqan," said Conan heartily, "there seems to be some misunderstanding between us. I wish only to serve the Kagan as best I may. If I have inadvertently given offence to your gods, please tell me how I may make restitution to them. You are a mighty shaman,! one who speaks directly with the spirit world. Surely you can settle things between the gods and me."

The shaman tried to rise, but another squeeze of the powerful fingers caused him to cease his struggle. "It may be," he said hesitantly, "that something could be arranged. My magic is strong and the spirits listen to me."

"Good!" Conan approved. "Come, walk with me and we will discuss this privily. There should be no I enmity between reasonable men of goodwill such as I we."

The fingers dug into the old man's shoulder and hauled him erect. "Yes," Danaqan managed to grate out, "let us speak together, foreign captain."

Conan smiled at his men. "Now get you to bed, for we are off again upon the Kagan's business on the morrow. This good shaman and I shall settle matters and all shall be fair again."

His men looked relieved, but the boy with the skull-drum had a countenance full of fear. Conan favoured him with a bone-chilling glare, and the kohl-outlined eyes ' rolled up in his head, the drum fell from his hands, and the boy keeled over sideways in a dead faint.

"He seems to be in a spirit trance," Conan said. "Do not wake him lest the spirits be angered."

He led the old shaman from the firelight until they were at the very edge of the camp, near the line of sentries. There Conan placed his palm in the middle of the shaman's back and thrust him forward, sending him I sprawling upon his face. The old man sprang to his feet and began to gesture at the Cimmerian, growling out I spells in a deep, sepulchral voice. Conan slapped him with his open palm, sending the shaman flying several

paces through the air to land in a rattle of bones and amulets.

"Who was it?" Conan demanded. "Who bought you, shaman? Who paid you to place your piddling curses on me? I'll have the answers out of you, so you might as well speak now."

"Cursed foreigner! You shall die—" The old man's evil eyes bulged as Conan ripped his sword from its sheath and slashed out and down in a single motion too swift to see. The ragged, filthy clothes began to shred away from the Hyrkanian's body. Strings of charms and amulets dropped to the ground, and the old shaman looked in horror for signs of damage to himself. The moonlight revealed that his withered flesh was untouched.

"It could have been through flesh and bone, wizard," Conan said. "I could have hewn your filthy, cowardly heart in twain. Think upon that while I decide where next to strike."

"It was the Vendhyan woman," Danaqan said in a defeated voice. "The Kagan's concubine came to us, desiring your life."

"And secret murder is your trade," Conan said. "She came to a poor craftsman. Why does she want me dead?"

The man shrugged. "She is jealous. You have risen too far too fast. The Kagan favours you, and she would that he has no other favourites, only herself."

"Then I must speak to her as well. I hope that she will see reason as readily as you, shaman. I know now that your paltry spells cannot harm me. I suspect that you will next try poison. I urge you to reconsider. Even a powerful poison can take hours to kill a strong man. The moment I feel a bellyache, I shall come and kill you, along with the rest of your scurvy breed. Go now, and be glad that you found me in a merciful mood."

As he walked back to his tent, Conan was satisfied that he was safe from the shaman for the moment. He was glad that he had decided to handle the problem himself instead of taking it to Bartatua. The difficulty had originated in the Kagan's very tent. He shook his head. King, priest, concubine. It was deadly to stand within such a triangle. Here things were as corrupt as in any civilized court.

As he entered his tent, Rustuf and Fawd looked up from where they sat passing a wineskin back and forth.

"How went it?" Rustuf asked.

"He saw wisdom at last. However, I think it would be a good idea if we three were to keep fast horses close at hand from now on."

"I always do," Rustuf said.

IX

As the sun began to lower, the city of Sogaria shut its gates for the final time, not to be reopened until the enemy were no longer in Sogarian territory. Trumpets brayed and gongs tolled out their thunder as the huge wooden valves closed and the great locking-beams slid across to settle into their iron-bound brackets. Masons began to sheathe the gateways with dressed stone. From now on only small sally ports, each capable of admitting a single file of horsemen, would be permitted to remain, for they were easy to defend against enemy incursion.

Atop the walls, citizens impressed into the defence forces stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the soldiers who readied the engines that would drop hot oil and weighty missiles upon the attackers. From the highest towers of the city, lookouts kept watch for the terrible raiders from the steppes.

At last a cry arose from those atop the wall. To the west, a column of horsemen advanced along the crest of a low range of hills. Then, to the south, another, wider column advanced up a broad highway. Fingers pointed to the north, where countless horsemen stood looking down from the great escarpment that defined the beginning of the steppe country.

The innumerable mounted savages were a terrifying sight, but the wiser and more-experienced of the city people knew that they were not the greatest threat. The real danger would be in the innocuous-looking rabble of siege workers, who would slowly, laboriously, undermine the walls of Sogaria, fill in its ditches and carry the ladders to scale its walls.

And many there wondered where was the wing of Red Eagles that had left the city some days before, led by the Turanian wizard, Khondemir.

At that moment Khondemir and his escort were crossing the Steppe of Famine, an aptly named stretch of dry plain where water was rare and grazing was sparse. The pack train slowed progress, but it carried the grain the horses required, else every day hours would be lost while the mounts scattered wide in search of forage.

The Princess Ishkala rode in her lurching carriage, thoroughly miserable and frightened. She wondered what glorious plot her devoted but foolhardy lover, Manzur, had hatched to rescue her. She knew him better than to expect him to do her bidding and remain in Sogaria until she should return.

Her thoughts on that prospect were no less troubled. The wizard, Khondemir, was remote and cold, and his manner toward her was little more than civil. She heard strange sounds from within his tent each night. In the mornings he released a pigeon, a small tube attached to its leg. Each evening a different bird would arrive and he would carry it into his tent. No one ever saw what messages the birds carried. Messenger pigeons were common enough, she thought, but what manner of bird could find its way to an ever-moving column?

She leaned from her carriage and signalled to Captain Jeku, commander of the escort. The glittering officer rode to her side and saluted with his short silver-mounted whip. "Yes, my lady?"

"Captain, what think you of the Turanian, Khondemir?"

"Think, my lady?" He frowned as if at some utterly alien concept. "Why should I think about him? I have been given orders to escort him to a destination that he shall choose. That is what I am doing."

"Of course," she said impatiently, "I realize that you must obey my father's orders. But does it not seem odd to you that Khondemir keeps sending out and receiving messenger pigeons?"

The captain looked away uncomfortably. "I know naught of the ways of wizards, my lady. As long as he does nothing treasonous to my prince, I'll not interfere with him."

Resignedly she sat back within her heavily padded carriage and shut the curtain. She had been raised in a palace, and her new surroundings appeared decidedly odd. The carriage was luxurious compared to the circumstances endured by the troopers outside, but she had not even a single maid here. She missed the company more than the help, for her requirements were very few on this trek.

It was on the sixth day of the slow journey that she heard the troopers shouting, and the sound of trumpets and drums. From earlier drills she knew that the trumpet call was the alert, signifying enemy in sight. The troopers outside were not behaving as if this were a drill, but were forming battle order in deadly earnest.

"What is it?" she called as Jeku rode past her carriage.

"The savages come, Princess," he called. "Stay within your carriage. We shall protect you."

From what she had heard of the Hyrkanians, she doubted that even the bravest of Sogarian cavalry would be much protection. She got out and climbed to the top of the carriage, taking a seat beside the driver. Near her were Jeku and his staff. The Red Eagles were formed up in four ranks, facing the approaching horsemen. At a call from Jeku, all lances were lowered toward the enemy.