Conan The Valiant

by Roland Green

  Raihna stripped off her tunic, used it to roughly wipe her oozing wounds, then tossed it aside. Bare to the waist, she raised her weapons again.

  "You won't distract them that way," Conan said, laughing. "You might distract Bora, though."

  Bora certainly seemed not to mind fighting in the presence of two splendid and nearly unclothed women. His eye for targets was still keener than his eye for the women. As the Transformed knocked down by the latest kill struggled to its feet, a stone caught it in the eye. The stone was sharp and reached the brain. The Transformed fell, kicked wildly, but did not rise. Other Transformed held back until the kicking ceased.

  "That's five down or out against your scratches and tunic," Conan said. "How many left?"

  "Oh, not more than forty or so."

  "Then we should be finished by breakfast."

  "Yes, but whose breakfast?"

  With howls and scrabbling feet, the Transformed came on again.

  Eremius suspected that his face was streaming sweat, as if he had been in a steam bath. He knew that pain racked his joints so that it needed real effort to stand.

  Nearly all his magic was pouring into the duel with Illyana. The little he could spare for the Transformed was barely enough to keep them attacking without turning on one another. Those who took wounds or lost their courage had to do without his help.

  This should not be. It could not be, unless Illyana had become greater than he. That was impossible. She did not have it in her to become so.

  Eremius turned against Illyana even the little magic he was sparing to ease the pain in his joints. He almost cried out, like a man on the rack. He eased his pain with the thought that this addition of strength might be enough to let him try piercing the veil around Illyana's Jewel.

  He tried and failed.

  Only after he abandoned the effort, when he could barely stand, did he realize that the failure had told him what he wanted to know. Illyana's Jewel was utterly in harmony with her, defending both her and itself against him. How had she achieved this harmony?

  Eremius thought he knew the answer. When he allowed himself to contemplate it, he knew fear as well, for the first time in many years.

  Both Conan and Raihna were bleeding from a dozen minor wounds. Their muscles twitched and ached, their breaths rasped, and neither of them had enough intact clothing to garb a tavern dancer.

  They fought on, because the Transformed did so. Illyana chanted and the Jewel-light danced and flickered. Bora's sling flung stone after stone, always swiftly, often with effect.

  It was still mostly Conan's fight and Raihna's. Neither any longer kept count of the Transformed maimed or slain. Neither kept count of the times they had saved the other's life.

  These matters were of small importance, compared with the oncoming Transformed. There had to be an end of them, to be sure, but would that end come before Conan and Raihna reached the end of their strength?

  Already Raihna's dagger was blunted from thrusting through scales, and her sword was kinked. Conan's sword showed as many nicks as if he had been chopping wood with it. They might soon lose the power to harm the Transformed even if they still possessed the strength.

  It seemed to Conan that the Transformed were somewhat thinner on the ground. It also seemed that the intervals between attacks were growing longer. It was not impossible that the tide of battle was flowing their way.

  Would it flow fast enough? They could still lose everything, if the Transformed broke through in sufficient strength to slay Illyana.

  Another Transformed—no, two of them—charged the opening. Conan dashed the sweat from his eyes. Matters were not well, when he could hardly count the number of his opponents!

  The Transformed facing Conan bore several wounds and an arrow, relics of previous exchanges. It stumbled against the barricade, flinging all its more-than-human weight against the stones. One of them shifted, then another.

  With a rattle and a crash, the barricade subsided in a cloud of dust. The second Transformed leaped through the dust. Raihna met him with a desperate lunge. Her sword bent almost double. Conan hewed at the Transformed's neck, but it had the speed to elude him. It leaped between the two defenders, shrugged off a stone from Bora's sling, and lunged at Illyana.

  The talons were only an arm's length from the sorceress when she leaped up and back. Conan would have sworn that she floated into the air. He did not doubt what he saw leaping from the Jewel—emerald fire, a spearthrust of eye-searing light.

  It struck the Transformed. One claw raked Illyana's shoulder, without drawing blood. Then the flesh was boiling off the Transformed's bones, like stew in an untended pot. A wave of indescribable stench swept over Conan, making him blink and reel. When he saw clearly again, only smoking bones on the cave floor remained of the Transformed.

  Illyana stood, fingering a shoulder that Conan knew should have been gaping nearly to the bone. The smooth flesh was unmarred. Unbidden and unwelcome, the thought of how he had held that flesh close to him entered his mind.

  As if she shared the thought, Illyana smiled.

  "I should not have been able to do that. The Jewels—" Whatever she might have wanted to say about the Jewels went unuttered. Instead her face turned grim. "I do not know how often I can do that. I can certainly do it often enough to let you and Raihna attack."

  "With what?" the swordswoman exclaimed, holding out her crippled weapons.

  Illyana seemed uncaring. "Eremius has drawn closer and the Transformed are weaker. If you attack now, with Bora and me guarding your backs, you may slay Eremius. The second Jewel will come to us. Victory will be ours."

  Conan wanted to shake the sorceress. "We'll win no victory with blades too dull to cut butter!"

  For the first time, Illyana seemed to notice the weapons in her friends' hands. Her eyes clouded for a moment. Then she rested a hand on Conan's sword, stretching out the other with fingers spread so it touched both Raihna's sword and dagger.

  Conan fought the urge to snatch his blade out of Illyana's hands. Sorcery had been too close for too long already. To fight with an ensorceled blade—

  Illyana chanted, and Raihna's sword straightened. The nicks vanished from the edge of Conan's sword. A point returned to her dagger. Bright sharp edges gleamed on all of them.

  "Crom!"

  The Cimmerian god was not one to answer prayers or hear them with patience. For once in his life Conan almost regretted this.

  Conan raised his sword, testing the balance and sighting along the magically-restored edge. It seemed as good as new, Ensorceled or not, it was also the only weapon at hand.

  He still felt nearly as much fear of Illyana as of the Transformed when he led Raihna out of the cave.

  Eremius struggled to understand what had come to pass in the cave. Illyana lived and the Transformed had died in a way that even the power of her Jewel should not have allowed.

  He abandoned the struggle when the Cimmerian burst from the cave. Understanding he did not need, when life itself was in peril. Withdrawing his power from the duel against Illyana, he sought to shield, then rally the Transformed.

  For a moment he thought he had succeeded. Emerald fire blazed along the thin line of the Transformed. Two were not swift enough to leap clear; the flesh flew from their bones amid howls.

  The other Transformed recoiled at those howls. They did not recoil far. They saw that the fire held their enemies away from them, and began to regain their courage. Eremius cast his thoughts at them furiously, forming them into a solid mass, then urging them forward.

  They were approaching the line of fire when Illyana appeared at the mouth of the cave. Eremius's thoughts leaped from battle to her awesome beauty, every bit of it revealed to him.

  A moment later, he saw his doom revealed as well. Illyana raised a hand, and the line of fire vanished. She gripped Bora's arm with the other hand, then let him wind up with his sling.

  Only one stone flew, but the Transformed howled as if each saw a stone flying s
traight at it. Their solid line broke up. The Cimmerian and the swordswoman plunged into the fleeing remnants.

  At first they had to fight a way. Then the Transformed realized that their foes would attack only those in their path. To leave the path of humans who seemed invincible was a simple matter, a few steps, then a few steps more, each step taken more swiftly.

  Not all of the Transformed fled like dead leaves before a gale, but few enough fought. The Cimmerian and the Bossonian came down the hill like avenging gods.

  Eremius tore the ring from his arm. He still would not dare the spells that offered the last chance with the Jewel so close to his flesh. He cast it to the ground. The gold rang on the stones, and the ringing seemed to go on, filling his ears like the tones of. a mighty gong.

  The sorcerer clapped his hands to his ears. Shutting out the sound, he tried to array his thoughts once more, for the last spells.

  If he succeeded, no more would be needed.

  If he failed, no more would be possible.

  Conan had never run so fast in his life, at least after a long battle. Hillman though he was, he feared his legs would betray him. To stumble now would be worse than fatal, it would be humiliating.

  At last he felt level ground under his feet. Ahead he saw Eremius, Jewel-ring at his feet and hands clasped over his ears. What the sorcerer heard that Conan did not, the Cimmerian neither knew nor cared.

  He only knew that in another score of paces, he could snatch up the Jewel-ring.

  Conan had covered half the distance when the Jewel-ring leaped into the air. It did not glow, not with the dazzling emerald fire of before. It did something far worse.

  It sang.

  It sang with a sad, plaintive note in a voice that uttered no words but somehow held enormous power to paint pictures in Conan's mind. Conan saw a deep-bosomed Cimmerian wench and himself grappled in love before a blazing fire. He saw a snug hut, with children playing before that same fire. He saw dark-haired boys, their features stamped with his own, learning the art of the hunt and the blade from their father. He saw himself with grizzled hair, passing judgments in village disputes.

  All that he had turned his back on, the Jewel seemed to say, could be his. He need only turn his back on Eremius.

  Conan slowed his pace. He had turned his back on Cimmeria with open eyes, but now those eyes were threatening to blur with sorrow for what he had lost. He knew this was no natural sorrow, but the power of it was sweeping away the last of his knowledge.

  Another presence hammered its way into Conan's mind. Illyana's Jewel was crying out a song of triumph.

  Equally dazzling pictures entered his mind—riding at the head of an army through a city of towering buildings with gilded roofs, under a sky of northern blue. White clouds shone, flowers showered down upon him, clinging to the mane of his steed, the cheers and chants of the crowd drowned out the babble of the Cimmerian village meeting.

  As if slamming a door in the face of intruders, Conan willed both Jewels out of his mind. It did not matter which offered what rewards. Both alike seemed to think that he could be bought. Both were wrong, and their masters with them.

  Conan needed no urging to overthrow the creator of the Transformed. What he might see fit to do with Illyana could be left until later.

  Conan's sword lunged. Its point darted through the ring. The sharp blade leaped toward the sky, where the mist was gathering again. The ring and its Jewel slid down the blade to the hilt.

  "Run, people!"

  The last thing Conan saw as he himself turned to run, was Eremius slumping to the ground, his face in his hands.

  Twenty-two

  THEY WERE HALFWAY out of the valley when Illyana stumbled and fell, to all appearances senseless. Conan laid an ear next to her lips and felt her breathing. Then he handed the Jewel-ring to Raihna, who slipped it on her left arm. Sheathing his sword, the Cimmerian lifted the sorceress and continued the climb.

  "Let me go on ahead and find an easier path, Captain," Bora said. "You are hillborn like me, but I have not fought hand to hand with the Transformed this night."

  "Not yet," Raihna said. "We may well have heard the last of Eremius. About his creations—"

  From the swirling mist in the valley came wild cries, inhuman in their quality but clearly from a human throat. Rage, terror, and pain blended horribly in the cries.

  Then the howls of the Transformed rose in a nightmare chorus, swallowing the human cries.

  "What in Mitra's name was that?" Bora gasped.

  "As Raihna said, we've heard the last of Master Eremius," Conan said. "I'd wager that was him, making a light supper for some of his Transformed."

  Bora shuddered. "Keep your sling loaded and ready," Conan added. "It's the only weapon we have left for striking from a distance."

  "It's also the only weapon we have that Illyana didn't ensorcel," Raihna said, almost meditatively. Conan stared at her in dawning surprise.

  "That matters to you?"

  "After what I've seen these past few days—even Illyana's magic smells other than it once did. And anything flowing from the Jewels…" She shook her head. "I will think on it, when I have wits to spare."

  They scrambled out of the valley in silence. They also moved in darkness, for which Conan was grateful. Darkness and the resurgent mist hid them from the Transformed, and the Jewels slept. They might have been as exhausted as their rescuers, or even their new mistress.

  They left the mist behind in the Valley of the Demons. By the time Bora saw the Lord of the Winds towering against the stars, Illyana could walk again. She was also shivering, naked against the night wind.

  Bora realized that whatever her magic had done to keep her warm was passing. He stripped off his shirt and handed it to her. She donned it eagerly, then inclined her head as graciously as a queen.

  "We are grateful," she said. Conan frowned and seemed about to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Once again they moved on in silence.

  The endurance of his companions surprised Bora.

  The Cimmerian and Raihna had to be close to the end of their strength. Illyana had battled Eremius, no less formidable an opponent than the Transformed, and could hardly be accustomed to walking barefoot across mountainsides.

  At dawn, they were almost in sight of where they left their baggage. They emptied their waterskins, slung them again, and turned on to the last slope.

  All at once Conan held up a warning hand.

  "Stop. Everyone hide. I'm going on alone." He spoke softly, as if hostile ears might be close.

  "We wish to know—" Illyana began.

  Again Conan frowned. Then he said with elaborate courtesy, "You shall know the moment I do. Until then, I ask your good will."

  Raihna and Conan exchanged glances. Then Raihna put her hand to the small of Illyana's back and gently pushed her toward a stand of scrubby bushes. As Bora followed the women, Conan was already scrambling down the slope by a route that hid him from below. Once more Bora was amazed at how silently so large a man could move.

  Bora had barely time to become impatient before Conan returned as silently as he went. The first knowledge Bora had of his return was a soft bird whistle. Then the black-maned head thrust into the bushes.

  "Six of those half-witted humans Eremius used as scouts. They're sitting around our baggage. Swords and spears, no bows. They look a bit more alert than most, but no match for us."

  "Must we slay more of the Master's servants?" asked Illyana. She sounded almost petulant.

  Conan shrugged. "I suppose we could leave them to the army, like the Transformed. But do you want to walk all the way back to Fort Zheman clothed as you are?"

  "That might not be necessary."

  "By Erlik's beard! How—?"

  "Do not blaspheme."

  If Illyana had spoken in Stygian, Conan could not have looked blanker. This time it was Raihna who frowned, then spoke.

  "Forgive us, mistress. We think only of your comfort."

  "That is hon
orable. Very well. We give our consent." Illyana waved a languid hand downhill. "Do your duty."

  Once again Bora had the notion he was listening to a queen. A queen—or at least a ruler, consisting of a woman and one of the Jewels.

  Not both Jewels. Please, gods, not both.

  Bora cudgeled his thoughts into order and began seeking slingstones under the bushes.

  A Cimmerian battle cry seemed to stun half the men. The rest leaped up. That made them the first to die, as their attackers struck. Conan hewed down two, and Raihna the third.

  One of the sitting men fell over, ribs crushed and heart stopped by a slingstone. His comrades now rose, one to run, the other to thrust at Conan with his spear. The Cimmerian had to give ground for a moment, then hacked through the spearshaft with his sword.

  The man had enough of the shaft left to raise it like a fighting staff. He caught Conan's first slash, then tried to kick the Cimmerian in the knee.

  This display of skill and courage neither altered nor greatly delayed the man's fate. Raihna slipped under the guard of his improvised staff with her dagger. He reeled back, thigh pouring blood, and did not look up as Conan's sword descended.

  Bora looked for the man who had fled, and saw him already far enough to make a kill chancy. Then he looked around him. Conan would doubtless have noted any sentries, who indeed could not have been very alert. A second pair of eyes never harmed the chances of victory, as Conan's Captain Khadjar said.

  Had Bora seen Master Eremius walking up the hill, he could hardly have been more surprised.

  "Yakoub!"

  The Cimmerian whirled. Bora pointed. The Cimmerian's sword leaped up.

  "Good morning, Captain Conan," Yakoub said. He sounded as calm as if they were meeting to visit a tavern. Then he looked at the bodies of his men. For a moment the calm broke and his face showed naked grief.