Authors: Poul Anderson
The next division of the royal army, sword-wheeled chariots, rolled forward.
Arrows sleeted from above. Horses, drivers, even heavy-armoured fighters fell, transfixed, dead or helpless. Wild, hallooing dirkmen got in among them, hamstringing, leaping up on cartbeds to grapple and slash. The entire Taian host was in onslaught. Conan saw banners sway and go down, he saw the Stygian column
writhe along the miles like a broken-backed snake.
'Bêlit, Bêlit!' he shouted, and hewed.
'Senufer!' Falco echoed as his blade scythed.
They cleared a space around themselves, red-running, piled high with mangled corpses and moaning wounded. Hundreds more Taians had sought to the banner of the Sun and the gleam of the ax. They cut their own way in among the Stygian cavalry. Sakumbe barrelled through the tumult, his knobkerrie a blur of violence. He had a trick of hitting a rider on the kneecap or a horse on the nose, then, while pain blinded the victim, sliding in the knife that his left hand gripped.
Suddenly Conan had nobody to fight. He looked around him. Everywhere, Taians swarmed over bodies trampled into shapelessness. Their wolf-howls exulted, their steel shook off blood in showers. A few succoured injured comrades or keened briefly over the dead. More harried Stygian lancers across the hillsides, baying at them, loping faster than exhausted beasts could stumble.
Farther on, abandoned chariots cluttered the road. Some careened empty behind panicked horses. Farther still, chaos ramped, scores of human maelstroms in which rebels closed with infantry, weapon-clink, clangour, shrieking.
In front of this, however, and behind the chariots, a Stygian regiment stood firm inside a low wall of slain Taians. They surrounded the golden coach, and over their heads floated the banner of the Serpent.
Conan gestured his close companions to him, Daris, Falco, and stark Ruma, who had commanded the reinforcements here at the van, and who had his Clan Farazi to avenge. 'Those must be their crack troops,' the Cimmerian said, pointing. 'Of the king's household, I suppose, and doubtless of Shuat's legion, too, who have experience in these parts. They could not be knocked over by surprise.' He frowned. 'In fact, we have won this encounter, but I think mainly because the enemy was light on horse and wheels. He did not foresee much need for them. His foot is hard pressed, aye, but could well rally, pull itself together, and cast our irregulars back.'
'What should we do?' asked Ruma.
Conan threw a glance across the swarming hillmen. Laughter growled from his breast. 'Why, attack,' he said. 'Break yonder shield-burg, scatter what soldiers we do not kill, stick Mentuphera's head on a pole and bear it onward. If that doesn't break the will of his army, I know nothing about warfare.'
Falco whooped, tossed his sabre glittering through the air, caught and brandished it.
Daris looked troubled. 'If we try and fail,' she said, 'I fear – I know my own folk – I fear the word may fly among them that you do not bear the true Ax, and they will be the ones who flee.'
Faith blazed from Ruma. 'But it is the Ax, and Conan the Wielder!' he cried.
The Cimmerian hefted his weapon. 'I have no more doubt, myself,' he said quietly. 'Shall we marshal our warriors?'
That took a while, shouting, horn-blowing, exhorting. The king's men watched stolidly, swords, spears, bows at hand, ranks unshaken. The scattered fights beyond them raged on. Sometimes a Stygian band went under, sometimes it sent its Taian assailants reeling away and joined another group. Conan rode up a hill to oversee the entire business. Yes, he thought, if he had not overwhelmed their lord, soon, his enemies would re-form and the day would become theirs.
Well, that was not going to happen. He returned. No weariness or hurt was in him, though he had taken his share of flesh wounds. He burned with lust of battle; his single wish was to strike down those creatures that stood between him and Bêlit.
He, Daris, and Falco were the last of their company who remained mounted. He supposed his stallion could wreak ample harm while he chopped from above; but if he ended afoot, no matter, as long as the Ax played like a live thing in his hands. Hoy-ah!
The Taians were ready, not a regiment but a pack and perhaps the more terrible for that. Dans' banner lifted proud. Conan took the lead. Ax raised like a torch, he touched spurs to his mount. Hooves banged on stone. Trot became canter. The Stygians lowered pikes and nocked arrows to bowstrings.
Pain swooped upon Conan.
It was as though a million fiery needles pierced skin, flesh, veins. He was burning alive. His guts cramped, wave after wave of agony. His muscles jerked, gone berserk, trying to snap the bones underneath them. Black mists rolled across his eyesight, it thundered in his ears, graveyard stenches assailed his nostrils. His heart skipped crazily in its rib cage, and for the first time in his life he feared his own death.
The Ax clattered to earth. A moment afterward, he himself toppled and sprawled struggling before his men. Horror went through them like a night wind. They stopped in their tracks.
Daris sprang from her stirrups, forgetting the banner of the Sun, which also fell in the dust. Frantic, she knelt beside him, sought to hold him, suffered the buffets of his uncontrolled hands. 'Conan, Conan, what is wrong?' she quavered. 'In Mitra's name, speak to me! This is your own Daris who calls, Daris who loves you -'
He heard her dimly, as if from the far side of a hurricane. He could find no answer for her, in the terror and torment that were his universe.
The Taians wavered. Weapons sank, bodies shuddered, mouths gaped. Ruma shook his spear above his head. 'Stand fast!' he yelled. 'I will kill the first man who runs!'
Falco on his horse lifted sabre and said, dry-throated, 'Or I will kill him for you, Ruma.'
The tears of Daris dropped on Conan's contorted face. 'Come back,' she pleaded. 'I call you in – in the name of Bêlit. Come back to Bêlit.'
In the midst of his hell, he heard. Something awoke in him; somehow he could remember, understand, and speak. The words tore from him one by one, each as mighty an effort as ever he had made: 'My... folly... I met... Nehekba... in Pteion... She washed... me... and bore away... a cloth... full of my blood and -' He could say no more, he could only arch his back and gasp.
A Taian wailed and pelted off. Ruma cast his spear. The man went down. White-faced, Falco rode over to give him the mercy stroke. The clansmen moaned but stayed where they were. The massed Stygians regarded them with satisfaction.
From above the helmets of these, up over the Serpent banner, swept a shining shape. A brazen chariot without wheels or tongue, it bore a woman. Filmy garments and sable tresses fluttered behind her. At her throat glistened a mirror. In her hands was a small waxen image, which she tortured with twisting and a poniard and the flame of a taper as she laughed. High she flew and then downward and forward.
Throughout the slaughterous miles, noise diminished. The Taians at the front quailed. In a minute they would all break and run, fear-crazed.
'Senufer!' Falco shrieked.
Conan glimpsed her through the darkness that beset him. She seemed the very Derketa leading a troop of ghost-women in flight across the underworld. 'Nehekba,' he groaned.
Daris grew aware that somebody had joined her beside the Cimmerian. She looked at Sakumbe. 'I hear some,' the Negro said in his atrocious Stygian. Sweat of terror pearled across brow and paunch, but he spoke stoutly. 'I see what. She got body magic on him. Him blood in her doll. She hurt. Soon she kill.'
Daris slumped in despair. 'Then her whole scheme was to lure us into this,' she replied, dull-voiced, 'that our faith and will be crushed forever – oh Conan!' She sought to kiss the stricken man, but he tossed about too wildly.
'Senufer, darling Senufer,' Falco called like a sleepwalker.
He wheeled his grey horse about and struck spurs deep. Across the dead he galloped, in among the wreckage of the chariots, toward where Nehekba hovered. Conan's vision cleared, his pain sank a little, and he saw. Surely the witch wrought that, for him to witness this last betrayal.
She signalled the Stygian archers to hold their fire as Falco came in range. She lowered her vehicle to just above the road, joyful, left hand clasping Conan's. image but right held out to welcome the youth who sped her way. When they kissed, that would be the last bite of the adder in the Taian heel. A Stygian soldier would bring the Ax of Varanghi to the altar of Set.
'Falco, welcome!' she sang.
The rider drew rein before her. For a pulse-beat he stared into the lustre of her eyes.
His sabre flew. She had a moment to see the steel in her bosom, and to scream. Blood ran, impossibly brilliant under the sun, but not much; it was as if a god did not wish her beauty defiled, but found it enough that her heart be pierced. She sank and was suddenly quite small. The chariot boomed to earth.
Falco left his blade where it was. He retrieved the image of Conan and raked his horse's ribs. Back he thundered. 'Here,' he said, and gave the thing into the hand of Daris. Then he rode slowly aside and dismounted.
Sakumbe yelled at Gonga. The witch doctor trod from a rebel band that stood dumbstruck, wonder-smitten. Down the road, the king's soldiers panted and shuddered.
Carefully, carefully, Daris passed the doll to Gonga, and returned to her cherishing of Conan. He lay quiet, breathing hard. The black man squatted. He chanted words, sprinkled powders from his pouch, shook rattle, waved wand. After a minute or two a smile tinged the sternness of his countenance. His Suba waymates, who had lain prostrate, rose when he did, flourished their weapons, and bawled, 'Wakonga mutusi!'
Conan's eyes cleared. He sat up. 'I am well,' he marvelled, like a man whose fever has broken.
'The witch is dead,' Daris wept. 'You are free.'
Gonga drew knife, nicked his wrist, sprinkled a few drops of blood on the image while he chanted. Conan got to his feet. He felt as if he had slept through a long night and awakened to drink from a mountain spring.
Gonga spoke to Sakumbe, who told Conan in the lingua franca, 'He has given you of his own strength, to heal the harm in you. He cannot fight until he has recovered from that. But he will bear the evil thing away, annul the spell, and destroy it.'
Once more, titanic laughter pealed from the Cimmerian. 'Hai, I have other destruction to do this day!' He hugged Daris and Sakumbe to him. 'O faithful friends, I can never truly thank you, but nor can I ever forget!'
He lifted the Ax and soared to the saddle. 'Forward!' he trumpeted. 'In the name of Jehanan!' His men howled joy. Heedless of arrows, they followed him.
Down the length of the embattled highway, word flew of a weapon and a banner once more aloft. Taians rallied for the reaping of men.
It did not fall to the lot of Conan that he slew King Mentuphera, or to that of Ruma that he claimed General Shuat. Those Stygians went down in the ruck, and only the gods knew what warriors took them. Conan was satisfied to slay right and left, and have a crowned head borne before him for a sign, and see the Stygians break.
He did not scorn Falco because the youth sat by the roadside meanwhile and wept.
XX
Vengeance for Bêlit
Brought down from its hiding place, the wingboat lay waiting at Seyan. Six people stood on the dock. Though folk moved about their tasks in town, none came near, for these friends wished to be alone when they said their farewells.
The sun was still below the eastern heights, but heaven there was silvery-gold and elsewhere blue. Mists smoked through cool air above the Styx, veiling its murkiness in white. From purple western mountains the Helu dashed in laughter.
Conan felt no chill, though he wore just a tunic. At his hip were sheathed a dirk and a sword. Solemnly he laid the Ax of Varanghi across both hands and held it forth to Ausar. 'Now this is yours,' he said. 'May it ever ward Taia.'
'Mitra willing, we should have no need of it soon,' the chieftain replied.
His confidence appeared well founded. Rather than perish in a hopeless resistance, the Stygian garrison here had surrendered and was trudging home, disarmed and under guard. Fat Governor Wenamon accompanied it, having ransomed himself with all the wealth he had squeezed from the country. After the disaster at Rasht, the royal army would be in no shape to campaign for some time to come. Besides, the new King Ctesphon was known to lack his father's imperial ambitions.
'You or your descendants will have to fight again at last,' Conan warned. 'Luxur will never recognize your independence.'
Ausar took the Axe. 'True,' he agreed, 'but that matters little if we are in fact a free nation. We can find support in Keshan, Punt, and other neighbouring realms that have reason to distrust Stygia.'
Farasan the high priest was less happy. 'Alas, I fear that will sever our last ties to civilization,' he said. 'We will become entirely a race of barbarian clansmen.'
Conan shrugged. 'What of it?' he answered. 'No irreverence meant, sir, but is not liberty worth any price? Also, frankly, I do not find that much to be said for civilization.'
'As you will,' the old man murmured. 'I dare hope that at least we will keep the light and the grace of Mitra. His blessing be upon you, my son, for what you have wrought in his cause and ours. May your journey back be safe and your arrival gladsome.'
Sakumbe had partly followed the conversation. Perhaps he misunderstood the last words a trifle, for he grinned, slapped the Cimmerian's back, and boomed in the lingua franca, 'Aye, when I reach the Black Coast I will tell them to prepare a nine-day festival of welcome for you, Amra!' The nickname he and his men had bestowed on Conan meant, in their language, 'Lion.'
'I look forward to that,' the Northerner said. 'Surely Bêlit and I will visit you Suba right often.' He sobered. 'However much I long for her, it is sad to bid the rest of you farewell, be-like forever. Daris -'
'Yes?' She turned her face from Falco, with whom she had been conversing.