Toj could not have foreseen a better outcome if he had schemed for days. He would in any case keep his appointment with Jade, but she would receive an unexpected surprise from the Guild master of
Assassins.
A measure of feeling reached his arms and hands, and his fingers itched to wield the shaken. At this short range, he could throw them even from his awkward position without missing the mark.
Conan steered his mount cautiously through the slew of skeletal warriors, wary for any stirrings among them. He fully expected them to rise up and attack, but on horseback, he would have little difficulty charging past them. He intended to plunge straight through the building’s broad opening and hurl the magicked dagger at Thoth-amon before the Stygian could stop him. Failing that, he would see if his sword might deal a death-blow. Crom, a man could not cower forever in fear of the shadows of sorcery!
As he thundered past scores of sprawled remains, he spotted the huge battering ram lying before the crumbling ruins of a marble gate. Strange, that some of these warriors lay with their hands pinned beneath the ram.
He divined their purpose too late to check his headlong charge.
Four skeletons jerked suddenly to their feet and set the spike end of the battering ram’s head to meet Conan’s charge. He took the only way out—by leaping from the saddle.
The iron point grazed his side as he pitched from his saddle and thumped to the hard-packed sand. Startled, his horse veered away and missed impalement by a hands-breadth. Frantically trotting away, the beast crushed two skeletons beneath its hooves.
Scores of other skeletons rose like puppets on strings, jerking suddenly to their feet, swords and shields at ready.
“Crom’s teeth!” Conan bellowed, forcing his bruised limbs to stand. He eyed the menacing horde warily, searching for the thinnest group. There would he strike in hopes of breaking through their mass.
Slowly they shuffled toward him, clumsy but minacious. Conan could hew them down by the dozens, but he reasoned that it would be harder work than a battle against foes of flesh and blood. He would have to behead them, and possibly cripple them as well. Were there but a few score of them, he would attempt it. But two hundred or so would wear him down; he would bleed and tire eventually while they hacked mindlessly.
Like well-drilled soldiers, they advanced in a formation, flanking him, offering no weak point to attack.
“Erlik blast your foul soul, Stygian!” Conan shouted. “Send a thousand of your mindless minions against me, and I’ll still spit on your bloodied corpse ere the sun rises!”
With that, he filled the desert air with the hair-raising Cimmerian war-cry, and threw himself into the thick of the advancing army.
Stygian? Tevek raised an eyebrow. So this marauder must have known whom he followed into the ruins. Of course, that was of no consequence now. The necromancer gave his minions specific, if simple, orders and then entirely withdrew his vision from them. They would barricade the temple’s doorway while surrounding the intruder. No mere swordsman could survive their onslaught. Without the smallest flicker of doubt, Tevek focused his attention entirely upon the overturned statue.
The Jackal lifted the curiously carved idol from the floor and hefted it. “Grrr—” came the scraping growl from the Acheronian’s jawbone. “Urrrmmm. Rrreyg.”
Tevek strode toward him and frowned. Speech—without necromantic aid? How could it be?
“Aaawd.” The Jackal hoisted the god high above his shoulders, as if displaying a trophy. “Grrrimmm... Grrrey... God.”
Through the broken roof, the deep hues of dusk cast dull, indigo shadows into the now-dim chamber. The necromancer unwound his gauzy blindfold and blinked, fascinated by the inexplicable sight before him.
“Grrim Grrey God is... mine!” the Jackal grated.
Outside, the thin ribbon of the sun dipped below the horizon, further darkening the temple.
“The Grim Grey God is mine!”
“Incredible,” mumbled Tevek as he gaped at the Jackal, who was no longer a thing of bone and sinew. Organs, muscle, and flesh now sheathed the huge frame, naked but for its breastplate and sword. His biceps rippled; in enormous hands he held the idol aloft. Ferocious, bloodshot eyes glowered from a ruddy, pockmarked face. Thick, brutish lips twisted into a hungry smile.
The necromancer cleared his throat. “Lay down the god and sleep,” he said firmly.
The Jackal lowered the statue carefully to the floor, then rose to his full height and took a step toward Tevek.
“Sleep.” Tevek repeated. “Sleep!” He then released the spectral cord that tied him to the dead one’s spirit. He had not anticipated the strength of this one, the life-force that yet surged within those bones. Here was a rare phenomenon, one mentioned in only the most obscure and discredited of the ancient tomes. Of course! He had sensed that powerful aura when sweeping the sands and should have known it then—Blackblade was a revenant.
His spirit was possessed of such pure evil that it could, if disturbed or awakened, return for a time to its corporeal form and haunt the place of its death. The god-relic itself may have triggered the awakening, or it might have been Tevek’s summons. He had sensed something powerful within this one, but the possibility that the Jackal might be a revenant had never occurred to him.
Tevek cursed his oversight. Revenants could be destroyed, but not controlled. Revenants crossed the border from death to life by sheer force of will—they regrew all the organs and flesh that they had possessed in life. Blackblade lived again.
Corded leg-muscles flexed, and knees bent. The giant Acheronian took another stride forward.
The necromancer swiftly gathered his will and let energy flow into him from the Black Ring. “Ereskigal, Lord of the Shadowrealm, take the soul of he who was named Dhurkhan—ahh!”
“Blackblade,” croaked the deep, harsh voice. He gripped the hilt of his ponderous sword. Its point stood out an arm’s length between the necromancer’s shoulder blades. Thick, dark blood trickled down its dull length, spattering the floor with droplets and staining the scarred flesh of the huge hands.
Blackblade laughed, a sound like that of a rock-slide. Then he turned away from Tevek, as if the necromancer was unworthy of further attention. He kicked at the skull that had belonged to Solnarus, shattering it. Ivory shards scattered across the floor. “Where are your threats now, your cowardly tricks, your pitiful pleas to your frail and spineless god?” Another mocking laugh rang out across the chamber.
A moist wheeze issued from Tevek’s throat, and he raised his hand to blast the Jackal with the Black Ring’s full force. He channelled all the power he could muster, draining himself utterly, letting his ebbing life-force fill the ring.
Blackblade turned at the wheezing sound. He again drove his monstrous sword into Tevek, its edges scraping against Tevek’s ribs. Then he jerked it free, stepped forward, and shoved the necromancer to the sand-covered floor.
Tevek fell with a solid, echoing thump. As he struck the floor, a long, trailing sigh escaped his lips, and he moved no more.
Conan held his formidable sword in a two-handed grip, swinging it as if he were a crazed woodcutter. Its keen edge sheared through brittle shields and awkward parries, through ribs and vertebrae. Twice he was nicked from behind, and he spun as he fought. It was as if he rode upon a madman’s carousel of carnage* each slash threatening to upset his tenuous balance and hurl him to the ground, where the blades of his foes would sink into his vitals and send him howling to the pits of Hell.
A red mist swam in spiralling currents before him; the frenzy of battle boiled the blood in his veins and lent fury to his every stroke. For each spine he severed, he faced anew a slew of stabbing sword-points. He bled from a score of flesh wounds, the crimson flow mixing with the sweat that stung every cut, bringing pain that only further stoked the fire of his rage.
A warrior’s blade slashed across his lower back, and he spun with a backhanded swing that scattered rib-bones and halved the assailant.
The thing toppled backward, its arm chopping mindlessly into the air. Conan could only disable his skeletal foes; they never stopped twitching, and he took care where he stepped. Already his calves had taken the worst of it from downed opponents who simply kept hewing at him.
His backward swing spoiled his balance, and he twisted to recover, his knee bending sideways until he sprawled onto the hard iron of the battering ram’s head.
He rose to his elbows, panting, shaking his head to clear the blood and sweat from his eyes.
A macabre scene spread out before him. Hundreds of spasming skeletons, many still clenching swords, fumbled aimlessly in the sand and on the stone. Conan swallowed a lungful of air and dizzily stood, his heart pumping so violently that he thought it would burst.
Crom! That backstabbing soldier had been the last of them.
The Cimmerian paused to catch his breath and stretch his aching arms. He groped for the cloth sheath that held the Red Asp at his side, finding that it was still securely strapped there.
A grim smile creased his face.
He himself knew something of sorcery from past exploits, and he knew that spell casters faced certain limits. Even Thoth-amon must have expended considerable energy to coordinate that army. The Stygian might be in no better shape than Conan—perhaps he was fatigued enough to be vulnerable.
One throw. One good cast with the Red Asp was all he needed.
Conan rubbed his hands and the dagger’s hilt with sand to clear them of slippery sweat and blood. Grim-faced, he proceeded into the near darkness of the corridor beyond the rubble of the marble door.
Tevek lay upon his back, his neck craned forward at a painful angle. He stared at the carmine blot that spread outward and soaked the breast of his dusty cloak. Time had slowed to a crawl; the Jackal seemed to move but a hair’s breadth with the passing of every dozen laboured beats of Tevek’s slowing heart.
Then his heart pulsed once, weakly, and stopped.
A final exhalation escaped his lungs.
But his mind, though dark and cloudy, still lived.
I am slain, came the thought, moving slowly through mired awareness. All he could feel was the tingling of the Black Ring’s energy within him, bound by the unspent willpower he had gathered before the Jackal’s blade had pierced him.
He had the power within him, and he knew what to do.
Tevek Thul, I summon thee, his slurring spirit murmured to his motionless body.
His corpse obeyed; he explored it, able to command it as any other he had so often raised before. But he realized that he was blind and deaf. Further, his entire body lacked feeling; the sensation of touch had fled with death. He felt no pain from the gaping wound in his chest. At the same time, he realized that movement was more difficult without that feeling. He shook as if caught in the grip of a fever, and for a span he could do no more than twitch.
Soon, however, this awkward phase passed, and he attained a measure of control over his stiff muscles. His vision cleared somewhat, like the lifting of a fog, and he could see the slow-moving, hulking form of the Jackal a few paces distant.
Moments later, a strange exultation flooded through Tevek Thul’s thoughts. He was dead; this much he knew, his body a lifeless chunk of flesh and inert organs. Decay would set in, leaving naught but the purity of bone. But his mind would endure; his essence, though perhaps dulled somewhat, would last forever, possessed of the same emotions he had felt before the Jackal had ended his physical life.
The prospect of immortality brought a renewed sense of purpose to him. He was now more capable than ever of enacting his plan of vengeance. There was much to consider, but he could see all sorts of possibilities. Unencumbered by the earthly bonds of flesh, he would be free to inflict centuries—millennia—of misery upon the mortals who writhed maggot-like in the world of the living.
Tevek’s hearing began to return.
At first, only a discordant ringing filled his ears. Sounds were muted, as if they reached him from a great distance. Then, with sudden clarity, came fervent, almost inhuman, sounds.
The first three of the six words that comprised the true name of the relic had been spoken... by the Jackal!
Blackblade was summoning the Grim Grey God.
Jade’s heart leapt into her throat when, in the distance, she saw Conan spring out of his saddle and narrowly avoid the iron spike levelled at him. She had been wrong to use the Cimmerian, but if she acted now, she might right that wrong. Steadying herself, she turned to pick up her sword and ride after the beset barbarian.
Jade gasped as she glanced at Toj’s prone form, her hand flying to her face.
Toj—alive! His hand groped for something up his sleeve... but how? Between his fingers he held a thin, pointed piece of metal. She watched, frozen for a moment as his arm drew back.
The assassin sneered at her, flicking his wrist.
Before the blade left his fingers, there came a blinding flare of light from behind Jade. Its unbearable brilliance enveloped both thief and assassin.
The lethal missile furrowed Jade’s throat, then soared past, its thrower’s aim spoiled by the white flash.
Gurgling, Toj brought one hand to his eyes to shield them. His other hand took another shaken from his sleeve, and his arm was drawn back preparing to throw whenever his sight returned.
“You must not fail,” tolled a voice behind Jade. There loomed the glowing apparition of Caranthes. From it radiated the unrelenting glare. “Let not the god’s true name be spoken, or all is lost. I can project this image to Nithia, but all it can do is speak. Only you or Conan can bar the gates of Armageddon.”
Jade cursed and lifted her thin-bladed sword.
Still blinded, the assassin hurled his shaken at the source of the oath. It clanged against the edge of her blade, striking sparks.
“Vermin,” she hissed, muscles flexing as she swung her weapon like a headsman’s ax. “May your foul soul sear in Hell with that of every wretch you ever murdered!”
Toj lifted his arm reflexively and tried desperately to roll away, but the icy grip of the Red Asp slowed him.
Jade’s keen blade sheared through his forearm, lopping it off at the wrist. She drove the point downward with strength born of fury.
A howl of agony was tom from Toj’s throat. His remaining hand seized the blade that transfixed his heart, but he did not feel its edge bite into his palm. All he knew was the pain of defeat, the pain of death that he had so often inflicted. None of his antidotes could save him.
His body convulsed once and was still.
“Hasten!” boomed the scintillating apparition. “Ride swiftly, for the true name is upon the lips of one who would speak it. You and Conan must silence the speaker. I cannot warn the Cimmerian, for the god radiates too strong an aura of Chaos for me to project my image inside the ruins. Go!”
Jade launched herself into the saddle, her fever. forgotten. “Conan!” she cried, digging her boots into the flanks of her mount.
As she raced toward the marble walls, she saw that a swirling distortion had formed there, like the shadowy image of a cyclone, though no wind stirred the air. The sky itself seemed to tingle with dark energy that set her nerves on edge. Her horse dashed toward the heaps of splintered bone, toward the black maw of the temple into which Conan had disappeared.
“Now let the rest of the name be spoken.” Blackblade’s voice hammered the air, each syllable striking a deafening blow in the spacious temple. With his sword in one hand and the idol in the other, he poised statue-like in the temple, as if the work of a demented sculptor. “Skaoa... Utlagi... Iolagi,” he growled, his tongue stumbling over syllables no human throat was ever meant to utter again—the names Xaltotun had ripped from the throat of a tortured priest of Ibis, so long ago.
“Stay your sorcery, Thoth—Crom!” bellowed Conan as he burst into the inner sanctum. His eyes swept the scene. At his feet lay a crumpled, be-robed shape, facedown on the floor. Before him stood a giant—a juggernaut in armour—who
held aloft an incredible statue, a masterpiece of iridescent pearl. Whence came this titan... had he slain the great Thoth-amon? Momentarily disoriented, Conan stood speechless, rooted in place.
“Eh?” Blackblade swivelled his red-rimmed eyes to stare with fury at he who had dared to interrupt him. Already, a strange swirl of darkness emanated from the statue, rising up and expanding as it surged through the broken roof. “You dare face me! Leave now or die, crushed like an insect beneath the heel of Dhurkhan Blackblade, mightiest warrior ever born!” He set down the pearl idol and charged forward, blade extended.
A chilling laugh rose from Conan’s throat, and he lifted his sword in his right hand. “Many have made that claim, braggart. Join them all in Hell!” He gripped the Red Asp in his left hand and cocked it for a throw.
The crumpled form stirred at his feet, reaching forward, mumbling. Thoth-amon—alive?
Conan saw the familiar copper ring, coiled around the finger of that groping hand. Not dead, it seemed. The Cimmerian could not risk a throw of the Asp. He plunged it into the back of the prone robed figure and bounded aside, out of the path of the onrushing giant.
Blackblade’s first blow landed with a deafening clangour.
Conan nearly dropped his sword. The impact travelled through his arm to his shoulder and snapped his head backward. His blade snapped in half, the tempered steel slashing his face as it flew past him.
Recognizing that Blackblade relied entirely upon brute strength, Conan instantly changed tactics. He made a desperate parry, then lunged under the Acheronian’s guard, prepared for Blackblade’s savage riposte.
When the warlord’s sword bore down on him, Conan threw himself to the floor. He felt a rush of air from the huge blade. His legs scissored out, knocking Blackblade off balance. The giant swayed; his knees buckled, but he managed to swing his sword as he toppled.
Conan and the Grim Grey God Page 23