Conan the Swordsman

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Horror ignited a bright flame of anger in the breast of the proud barbarian girl.

  'Think you that a daughter of a hundred chiefs would mate with one of your abominable race? Rather would I fling myself into the nearest gorge than dwell within your house! Release me, or these walls will tremble to the thunder of a thousand Khozgari spears!"

  A mocking smile parted the pale li ps of the ancient, pallid face.

  "You are a headstrong hussy ! No spears reach through the Bhambar mists. No mortal lives who dares to cross these mountains. Come to your senses, girl! Should you persist in stubbornness, no easy leap from a cliffs edge will be your fate. Your body will, instead, be used to nourish the most ancient inhabitant of this forgotten land—one who is bound in serfdom to the People of the Summit.

  "He it was who helped smite down the Turanian king who once endeavored to conquer our domain. Then we, ourselves, were strong and could do battle. Now we are few, our number dwindling through the centuries to a bare dozen who dwell here guarded by our cliff apes.

  "Still we have no fear of enemies, for the ancient one lives, ready to come forth when peril threatens. You shall gaze upon his countenance. Then choose your fate!"

  The aged man arose, shaking back the folds of kaftan, and clapped his clawlike hands. At the summons, two other white-faced, skull-eyed men entered the room, bowed, and grasped a pair of handles set into the stone wall. Two massive door halves rolled smoothly back, revealing a chamber filled with billowing mist . Like a scudding cloud, it swirled into the room, and as it thinned revealed the vague outline of a huge, unmoving shape.

  As the mist roiled out, the girl perceived the thing inside. She screamed and fainted. Then the heavy doors were closed.

  -

  Conan, hidden behind a grave mound, fretted with impatience. During his long wait, ho sign of life had appeared around the forbidding tower. Had he not scented the reek of musky ape, he would have deemed the tower to be deserted. Tensely he fondled the hilt of his scimitar and ran a hand along the curve of his bow.

  At length a figure strode to the battlements and gazed out upon the crumpled brown terrain. Conan could not discern details at so great a distance, but the lean contours beneath the flowing robe revealed a human shape. Conan's mouth curved in a grim half-smile.

  With a single motion, he drew and loosed an arrow; and the figure on the battlement flung up its arms and toppled, limp as a broken doll, over the crenellated wall into the depths below. He nocked another arrow and waited.

  This time he had not long to wait. A pierced stone portal slowly opened, and a group of apes ran out, padding splayfooted along the narrow walkway. Conan loosed again and yet again, his marksmanship unerring. His merciless hail of arrows pitched them one after another into the shadowy gorge. But still the apes came on, with lolling tongues and slavering jaws.

  Conan shot his last arrow and flung the bow aside. He rushed, sword raised, to meet the two that still defended the narrow, cliffside path. Ducking, he avoided the sword-thrust of the first and lunged, shearing through flesh and bone. The remaining ape proved quicker. Conan had scarcely time to wrench his reddened blade from the hairless corpse and parry a vicious swipe aimed at his head. He staggered at the impact of the great ape's blow and fell to his knees.

  He saw with horror the dizzy ing depths of the precipice that beckoned him to doom. The ape's dull mind perceived the situation, and the creature rushed forward to sweep him into the bottomless abyss.

  Still on his knees, Conan feinted swiftly and lashed out with a disembowling thrust, too fast for the eye to follow. His adversary, bellowing, pitched forward and, trailing a receding cry, plummeted into the shadowy depths.

  Surefooted as a mountain goat, Conan dashed up the unprotected walkway and reached the open portal. Something hissed past his head as he threw himself sidewise, and in swift retaliation, he thrust his scimitar at a black-clad figure lurking in the gloom of the entrance. A muted gurgle was followed by the clatter of a fallen weapon.

  Conan bent down to peer at the corpse. A tall, skeletal man with a curiously stiff face stared up at him through sightless eyes. He saw that the face was covered by a peculiar mask of some translucent substance. He snatched it off and studied it.

  The Cimmerian had never seen anything remotely like it nor like the material of which it was fashioned. He tucked it into his sash and strode on into the silent hall.

  Conan moved more warily along a curving corridor that he encountered further on. The stones were damp when he laid a hand upon them, and the clammy air reminded him of the chill of morning fog. Then suddenly the circular passageway widened into a great chamber, where a strange assemblage confronted him .

  Ten black-clad, corpselike people faced him, among whom he saw two women whose stringy, colorless hair framed chalky features. They stood like painted ghosts, save that each held a murderous knife with a sawtoothed edge.

  Behind them on a black-draped catafalque, set in the middle of the chamber, reclined the naked body of a girl whom he recognized as Shanya Motionless she lay, her heavy-lidded eyes closed beneath long fringed lashes, save that her full breasts rose and fell with her even breathing. And Conan knew that she was either drugged or in a faint.

  He gripped his sword more firmly as he studied the spectral group, whose coal-black eyes burned with the fire of c ommi ngled fear and hatred.

  A tall, bald man began to speak. Although his voice was but a whisper borne upon the wind, it carried with bell-like clarity.

  "What is your purpose here? You are no Hyrkanian, nor are you a mountain man, although you wear the* garb of a Turanian."

  "I am Conan, a Cimmerian. That girl is my hostage, and I have come to take her back that I may continue on my journey."

  "Cimmeria—a tongue-twisting name for a land we know not of. Do you jest with us?" whispered the strange man.

  "Had you voyaged to the frozen North, you would know I do not jest. We are a fighting people. With half my tribe at my elbow, I should be ruler of Turan ! " growled Conan.

  "You he," hissed the old man. "The land of the north wind is the edge of the world and stretches beneath a starless, eternal night. The girl is ours by right of conquest. She shall give our race new strength, breeding strong men from her youthful womb. You, who have dared to intrude upon the People of the Summit, shall feed the maw of our defender, the ancient one."

  "If I die, you will precede me into Hell," growled the Cimmerian, raising his sword.

  In answer, the ghostly man struck a silver gong a single blow that reverberated from the rafters. Two men silently left the group and, moving together to the farther wall, grasped the iron handles and began to open the heavy doors. Like a great calla lily unfolding at dawn, a thick white vapor billowed from the opening and swirled toward the center of the room.

  Moving in unison, the beady-eyed ancients passed their left hands across their faces. Before the thickening vapor blotted out his view, Conan saw that each had donned a curious transparent mask like that worn by his earlier assailant.

  Impelled by an instinct as old as time, the barbarian reached into his sash, snatched up the mask, and managed to put it on before the cloying mists swirled and eddied around him, hiding his sable-clad enemies. To his surprise, the substance of the mask hugged the skin of his forehead, cheeks, and lids and lay like gossamer across his very eyes. Looking around the room, he was astounded to discover that he could see clearly, as if a puff of campfire smoke had vanished into the ambient darkness.

  His adversaries had crept forward behind their misty shield, and now two were almost upon him. Moving on a thread of time, Conan's curved steel blade whistled through the damp air of the misty hall.

  It was a massacre. The remnants of a once powerful race stood little chance against the fury of the vengeful Cimmerian. Undulating knives glanced harmlessly off the whirling streak of his restless scimitar. Each time his blade licked out, a dark-robed figure sank dying to the floor. His rough code of chivalry tempted him to s
pare the white-haired crones; but when the women flung themselves upon him in unrelenting frenzy, he returned blow for blow.

  At last Conan stood alone in the vaulted chamber, save for ten supine bodies and the still unconscious gir l. Resting on his long, curved sword, he surveyed the scene with satisfaction. Then one of the bodies writhed and raised a gaunt, accusing hand. The head man, rekindling the last sparks of his departing life, glared and spoke through li ps twisted with pain.

  "Barbarian curl" he hissed. "You have destroyed our race. But you shall not live to savor your victory. The ancient one will strip the meat from your foul bones and suck the marrow from their innards. Give me strength, O Ancient One ..."

  As Conan watched in fascination, the lean man with a hideous groan rose to his knees and exerted his last powers. He struggled, half crawling, to the scarcely opened doors, and with a clawlike hand tugged at one of the twin handles on the pair of heavy doors. With a roll of thunder, the door opened wide.

  Conan's hair rose on his nape as he glimpsed the hulking form within the cavernous chamber. Huge and many-limbed was the body, and spiderlike, or like an egg with legs. Its stalked eyeballs and gaping jaw exuded an almost tangible power of evi l for it was a thing conceived in the dark eons before man 5 ever walked the earth.

  Mastering his horror, the Cimmerian flung himself forward and scooped up the body of Shanya, while a clawed and hairless limb fumbled at the other door to enlarge the opening. Bearing the limp body of the girl upon his shoulder, he sprinted down the long corridor leading to the outer portal. A wheezing snuffle followed him.

  Conan had almost transversed the elongated walkway, balancing precariously in his great haste, when he ventured to look back. The monster, running agilely on its ten powerful legs, had reached the midpoint of the narrow path.. Panting, Conan forced himself onward until he stood between two pyramidal grave mounds. Gently laying the unconscious girl at the foot of one mound, he turned to give battle.

  Conan met the first onrush of the monster with a savage cut at one of the grasping limbs, but his blade splintered against the impenetrable horny hide of the creature. Although it fell back for a moment, it came on again with its weaving gait.

  Desperate, Conan cast about for any weapon, and his eyes fastened upon the nearest mound of rounded stones. Flexing his great muscles, he lifted one of the spherical boulders above his head. And, straining his mighty thews, he hurled it at the terrible apparition that was almost upon him.

  The forgotten spells chanted by unremembered Turanian sorcerers over the graves of long-dead chieftains had not lost their power against a monster that roamed the mountains before mankind was young. For, with a bloodcurdling shriek, the creature, half paralyzed, tugged at a limb crushed beneath insensate rock.

  Conan snatched up a second boulder and flung it; pushed yet another, rolling it toward the thrashing monster; and hurled still another. Then the undermined pyramid of ponderous stones collapsed in a hurtling avalanche, which carried the many-limbed creature down into the abyss in a cloud of dust and shards.

  -

  Conan wiped his sweaty brow with a hand that trembled as much from revulsion as from exertion. He heard a stirring behind him and swung around. Shanya's eyes were open, and she gazed around her in bewilderment.

  "Where am I? Where is the white-faced, evil man?" She shuddered. "He was going to feed me to ..."

  Conan's voice broke in roughly upon her. "I cleaned up that nest of mummified robbers. Their evil thing I returned to the abyss whence it came. Lucky for you that I arrived in time to save your pretty skin."

  Shanya's emerald eyes flashed with haughty anger.

  "I should have managed to outwit them. My father would have saved me."

  Conan grunted. "Had he found his way hither, that monster would have made mincemeat of his warriors. Only by luck I discovered a weapon that could kill the overgrown cockroach. Now we must move fast. I have to be in Samara before week's end. And I still need you as a hostage. Come!"

  Shanya stared at the rugged barbarian as he stood outlined against the indigo sky, one strong arm outstretched to help her rise. Her green eyes softened. For a moment her lids drooped, and she blushed, suddenly aware of her nakedness. Then she tossed her proud head, shrugged her bare shoulders, and said:

  "I will come, Conan, not as your hostage, but as your guide to the border region. You saved my life, and you shall have safe conduct through Khozgari country as your reward."

  Conan caught a new, warm undertone in her now-gentled voice, as she added with a ghost of a smile: "It will be interesting to learn something of the ways of a northern barbarian."

  Shanya stretched her splendid body, rose-tinted by the setting sun, and reached for his outstretched hand.

  Conan looked at her with appreciation. "By the bones of Crom! Perhaps dallying a few days along the* way will be worth a week in the guardhouse!"

  -

  SHADOWS IN THE D ARK

  After mercenary service in various countries and a spell of piracy with the black corsairs of the Kushite coast, Conan adventures in the black kingdoms. Returning north, he soldiers, first in Shem and then in the small Hyborian kingdom of Khoraja. Following the events of "Black Colossus," in which he defeats the armies of the terrible Natohk, a long-dead sorcerer revived by magic, Conan settles down as general of the armies of Khoraja. He is now in his late twenties. But complications arise. The princess-regent, Yasmela, whose lover he had thought to be, is too preoccupied with affairs of state to have time for him. Her brother, King Khossus, has been treacherously seized and imprisoned by the hostile king of Ophir, leaving Khoraja in perilous plight.

  In the Street of Magicians in the Shemitish city of Eruk, practitioners of the arcane arts put away their paraphernalia and began to close their shops. The scryers wrapped up their crystal balls in lambs' wool; the pyromancers extinguished the flames in which they saw their visions; and the sorcerers mopped pentacles from the worn tiles of their floors.

  Rhazes the astrologer was likewise busied with the closing of his stall when an Eruki in kaftan and turban approached him, saying:

  "Do not close just yet, friend Rh azes! The king has bid me get a final word from you ere you set out for Khoraja."

  Rh azes, a large, stout man, grunted his displeasure, then hid his feelings behind a suave smile. "Step in, step in, most eminent Dathan. What would His Majesty at this late hour?"

  "He fain would know what the stars foretell about the fates of neighboring kings and kingdoms."

  "You have brought my proper fee in silver?" asked the astrologer.

  "Certainly, good sir. The king has found your prognostications worthy, and hence is loath to lose you."

  "Were he so loath, why did he not do somewhat to abate the envy of my Eruki colleagues toward a foreigner and curb their harassments? But it is now too late for that; I'm off for Khoraja at dawn."

  "Will naught persuade you otherwise?"

  "Naught; for a greater prize awaits me there than this small city-state affords."

  Dathan frowned. "Odd. Travelers say that Khoraja is much impoverished by the vanquishing of Natohk, may he fry in Hell."

  Rhazes ignored this comment. "Now let's consult the stars. Pray, sit."

  Dathan took a chair. Rhazes set before him a boxlike brazen object with slip rings and dials upon it s vertical faces. Through apertures along its sides, a multitude of brass gear wheels were plain for all to see.

  The astrologer made adjustments, then slowly turned a silver knob affixed to the outer end of a protruding shaft. He watched the dials intently until they -reached a setting of his choosing. At length he spoke:

  "I see portentous changes. The star of Mitra will soon conjoin with the star of Nergal, which is in the ascendance. Aye, changes there shall be in Khoraja.

  "I see three persons, all royal, either now, or formerly, or yet in times to come. One is a beautiful woman, caught in a web like unto a spider's. Another is a young man of high estate surrounded by walls of mass
ive stone.

  "The third is a mighty man, older than the other but still youthful, and of vast and sanguinary prowess. The woman urges him to join her in the web, but he destroys it utterly. Meanwhile the young man beats his fists in vain against the wall.

  "Now strange shapes move upon the astral plane. Witches ride the clouds by the fight of a gibbous moon, and the ghosts of drowned men bubble up from stagnant swamps. And the Great Worm tunnels beneath the earth to seek the graves of kings."

  Rhazes shook his head as if emerging from a trance. "So tell your master that changes portend in Khoraja and in the land of Koth. Now pray excuse me; I must finish my preparations for the coming journey. Farewell, and may your stars prove auspicious ! "

  -

  Through the halls of the royal palace of Khoraja, on marble floors beneath vaults and domes of lapis lazuli, strode Conan the Cimmerian. With a thud of boot heels and a jingle of spurs, he came to the private apartments of Yasmela, princess-regent of the kingdom of Khoraja.