Conan, head spinning, got to his feet. Rexor lay sprawled in a pool of blood, the great sword beyond his convulsive grasp. Recovering the weapon, the Cimmerian youth searched through the pervasive smoke for Valeria and the princess. He saw the girl-thief back among the charred draperies striving to control their unwilling captive.
As he started forward, an ominous creaking above his head caused Conan to glance up. The supports of the pavilion, along which little flames ran like luminous mice, had begun to crumble; one beam, then another, fell. The stone column upon which the roof pole rested cracked, spilling broken bits of stone across the polished floor.
Pausing no longer, the barbarian rushed to Valeria’s aid. Yasimina was struggling to flee and, despite her skill and determination, Valeria’s strength was fading. As Conan reached his exhausted comrade-in-arms, the roar of collapsing masonry resounded through the fast-emptying chamber. The malachite pillar gave way and toppled, pinning Rexor to the ground, while crumpled tent cloth, half-burned beams, and broken roof tiles nearly entombed the fallen man.
The spectacular collapse of the fantastic setting and the prolonged rumble of its destruction distracted Valeria; and, in that single moment, Yasimina wrenched her arms free and sped away. The Cimmerian sprang after her. In a few long strides, he caught up with her and whirled her around.
The besotted girl, screeching imprecations, clawed at Conan’s face.
Aware of the danger to the princess as well as to her rescuers should more guards arrive, Conan abandoned his code of barbaric chivalry and slapped her hard across her face. Amazed, the hysterical girl fell silent, offering no further resistance as he scooped up her slender body, tossed her over one brawny shoulder, and ran for the exit, with Valeria at his heels.
They zigzagged through the chamber, dodging piles of smouldering rubble and terrified groups of the faithful, who belatedly sought their way through the smoke to the safety of their leader’s inner corridors. Near the stairs up which they had come, Conan and Valeria found Subotai crouched behind an urn, an arrow at the ready lest other anthropoid guards should seek entry to the burning ruin, which had once been a pleasure garden in a vaulted cave.
As his companions emerged from the acrid haze, Subotai shouted, “This way, ere the fire spreads and cuts us oil!”
Bounding down the narrow stairs, they returned to the huge cavern wherein dwelt the families of the apelike servitors of Thulsa Doom. They hurried across the bridge just in time to hide behind a boulder when a contingent of the guard clattered past on their way to fight the fire. Melting into the gloom, Valeria and Subotai led the Cimmerian and his unconscious burden along the narrow passage among the enshrouding rocks towards the cleft through which they had made their entrance. And all the while, the great drums beat out their frenzied chant of Doom! Doom! Doom!”
Behind them, where once had stood the pavilion of pleasure, the fire and chaos subsided. The singed and wearied fire fighters fell back and stood with bowed and humble heads as Thulsa Doom strode from the inner reaches of his fortress mountain, his body clad in armour, his head returned to mortal guise, his eyes blazing with fury. The leader of the beast-guard stepped forward to salute him.
“Thank Set you live, Master!” he cried. “We knew our god would keep you safe from harm!”
The cult leader nodded briefly, then anger suffused his slit-eyed, pallid face. “Where is the priestess Yasimina? Why is she not here to welcome me?”
A heap of rubble moved; a groan issued forth. At Doom’s command, the guards lifted up charred timbers and tore away the smouldering remains of once-lovely furnishings. Willing hands helped Rexor to rise. Bloody and battered, he stood before the leader of the cult.
Doom’s wrath flared. “Know you where is the princess?”
“The man you crucified and others—they killed three guards; they cut me; they carried her off while I was helpless!”
“Infidels! Assassins! Purveyors of death!” the cult leader hissed. “They have violated my sanctum; they have defiled our holy place. They shall die in lakes of blood! Seek them out, good Rexor, and bring them to me, alive or dead! Go.”
Rexor saluted and turned away. Followed by his § lumbering beast-men, he vanished among the curls of smoke that rose above the dying coals.
Through the great cavern the invaders fled, their footsteps muffled by the beating of the incessant drums. They did not pause to watch the bubbling cauldron with its grisly contents. They did not notice the beast-men feasting in the firelight. They prayed to their separate gods that the stalagmites which sheltered them would save them from the casual glance of some sated dweller of the cave.
Then, like a miracle, a patch of starlit sky swam into view. Conan grunted with relief as they squeezed through the cleft and found themselves on the selfsame ledge from which they had breached the Mountain of Power. The same waterfall thundered nearby, a welcome change from the pounding drumbeats within the cavern.
XV
The Parting
The clean night air caressed the bruised and weary bodies of both rescuers and rescued. A faint breeze toyed with the long hair of Princess Yasimina like the fingers of a lover, and the girl stirred on the Cimmerian’s broad shoulder.
“With a little luck,” panted Subotai, “we can be away from this accursed place before they discover us.”
Valeria whispered, “I think they missed us in the dark And are searching some other passage.”
Grimly, Conan shook his sable mane. “I hear their minor rattling in the cavern. We must hurry.”
He shifted Yasimina’s inert form so that she lay across Ins back with her arms falling over his shoulders. “Tie her wrists together, Valeria. I’ll need both of my hands to lumber down the rocks.”
The girl-thief undid her girdle and bound the fabric wound the limp wrists of the princess, muttering the while, "If the wench slips down your back, she’ll strangle you.” Conan grinned. “I’ll save that privilege, girl, for you alone.” And, with shoulders hunched, he grasped the rocky pinnacle and felt for the nearest boulder on the rude stairs that led to safety.
As the barbarian started his cautious descent, full consciousness returned to Yasimina. Her drug-induced dreams faded, to be replaced by a nightmare of reality. A torrent of falling water seemed about to engulf her. A bottomless black chasm yawned below, and she was being propelled into it on the greasy, ill-smelling back of a giant. Above her, silhouetted on the ledge, stood a man with arrow nocked in a taut bowstring and a woman warrior with a dirk gripped in her hand.
Yasimina screamed, and her sharp scream tore the tapestry of night.
Conan rumbled a curse on Osric and all his household, adding savagely, “Be still, unless you want to die.”
But the princess, more in terror than defiance, cried hysterically: “Master, Master, save me! Lord Doom, save me!”
Conan, balancing himself precariously on a small rectangle of rock, released one handhold long enough to slap the face that nestled against his neck. Stunned, the girl fell silent. But too late.
Sentry fires on the top of the mountain began to glow. Faces peered into the dark void. Missiles whispered past him and clattered on the rocks below; whether they were weapons or mere stones, he could not tell. One glanced from his shoulder, forcing a grunt of pain through his clenched teeth. Thus, urged to greater speed by necessity, Conan completed his descent and, taking shelter behind a stunted tree, ventured to look up in search of his companions.
Valeria, as agile as a mountain goat, was working her way down the rocky stairs. Subotai, still on the ledge, was taking aim at some object high above him on the mountain. As Conan watched, an arrow winged upward, arced, and struck. With a hideous howl, a beast-man tottered and then fell, thrashing, into his signal fire.
Another arrow sped along the pathway of the first. Another guard, pierced in the chest, staggered on the brink of the precipice. He fell, shrieking, into the gorge, hurtled down the narrow throat of stone, and plunged into the waterfall before the e
cho of his cries ceased to reverberate.
Even as Conan watched, the first beast-men to discover the cleft began to squeeze through the slender opening.
Distracted by the eerie sound of echoing cries, they hesitated on the ledge to make dull-witted inquiry into the source of the bizarre and hollow sound. That hesitation provided Subotai the moment he needed to swing over the ledge and crouch on the stair-like rocks. Then, as they returned to the cavern to report the strange happening, the Hyrkanian clambered down the boulders and joined his fellows where the land rolled out more gently.
“Erlik boil them all in oil!” muttered Subotai, as he inspected his scraped knuckles and raw palms. “That time, I thought it was the end of me.”
“Let’s find the horses before the devils sound the alarm,” said Valeria. “We crossed the stream somewhere hereabouts.”
They strove to pierce the darkness and discover the air-filled skins on which they had crossed the fast-moving water; but the wilderness of jagged rocks and boulders was lull of nooks and crannies, whose dark recesses the starlight could not penetrate. At length they abandoned the fruitless search.
“Let’s follow along this bank until we reach the flatlands,” said Conan, picking up Yasimina and slinging her over his left shoulder once again.
“But the stream grows wider there, and we desert men are little used to swimming,” objected the Hyrkanian.
“Well, do the best you can,” snapped Valeria. “We’ll have our hands full with that stupid girl.”
With Subotai in the lead, the three adventurers picked I heir way along the unfamiliar bank of the precipitous stream. They walked in silence, thankful for the cover of the moonless night and grateful that they had eluded Doom and his apelike sentinels. The burden in Conan’s arms slowed their progress, but at least the sleeping princess would not summon another contingent of the guard.
Too soon, it seemed, the light of dawn suffused the sky, driving away the friendly stars. Nesting birds rose squawking above the foliage that masked their path, revealing to any who might look their whereabouts. Valeria, bringing up the rear, became apprehensive.
“I see a roadway or a path circling round the mountain-side,” she murmured. “What purpose do you think it serves?”
“It leads to a lookout platform for the guards, I have no doubt,” rumbled the Cimmerian. “They had sentries all along the way when I made the climb along with the pilgrim sheep.”
No sentries are about this morn,” said Subotai cheerfully. “We’re near the horses now, once we get across this millpond. The water’s so calm that even I can paddle my way across.”
“I’ll help Conan with the pitch-haired wench.” Valeria waded into the pool, shattering the surface like a broken mirror.
“Pray Crom she doesn’t screech again,” muttered the barbarian as he placed the princess on the supporting arms of his companion. When the cold water wakened her, Conan glared at Yasimina and growled: “Say just one word, and I’ll drown you here myself.”
Together Valeria and Conan towed the whimpering princess across the still water. Subotai meanwhile had splashed his way across and emerged on the grassy bank to stand guard as Conan and Valeria dragged the terror-stricken girl away from the water’s edge and then threw themselves, panting, face-down on a grassy knoll.
With his thief’s unceasing vigilance, Subotai’s eyes patrolled the mountain path that led to the look-out platform. “Let’s go, Conan, ere they sniff us out—oh, Erlik! Look you yonder!”
He pointed to the sinuous trail on the hillside above them, whereon appeared a group of marching figures.
“By Crom, it’s Doom and Rexor with a squad of their sub-humans,” muttered Conan.
“They’ve discovered us,” breathed Valeria. “Doom’s pointing us out.”
Rexor appeared to give orders; the beast-men nodded in agreement. Soon they began to scramble down the pathless waste, howling as they came. Although no spark of intelligence gleamed from their pig-like eyes, their hairy arms were huge as they closed in, waving upraised weapons —clubs, maces, and sharpened axes. The sun’s first rays lit up their slavering jaws and bounced off the metal studding on their leathern armour.
The three companions took their battle stance, with Valeria guarding Conan’s back, while Subotai, whipping out his light tulwar, shielded Conan’s left. And then the brutes were upon them. Working together, they ducked, twisted, slashed, and thrust. Each parried blows aimed at one of the others, like a flawless fighting team. Moved by love and desperation, in the ecstasy of combat, Conan and Valeria fought more skilfully than they had ever fought before, or ever would again.
Bones cracked under Conan’s sledge-hammer blows. Wood flowed at the touch of Valeria’s darting sword. A beast-man fell; then another and another. One seized Subotai’s tulwar with a bare hand. Ignoring the pain as the razor-sharp edge sheared through skin and tendons, the creature tore the slender scimitar from the Hyrkanian’s grasp, then raised his axe for the kill. As Subotai leaped back, cursing, Conan laid open the beast-man’s belly.
With his back against a boulder, Subotai reached around for his bow, nocked an arrow, and released. Although the bowstring was wet and the arrow’s flight unsteady, another attacker staggered off, clutching a shaft half-buried in his flesh. As suddenly as it began, the fight was over. Growling, the remaining brutes shuffled off. Like whipped dogs, they made their dispirited way up the hill to the look-out post where still stood the cult leader and his henchman.
Three pairs of weary eyes followed the guards’ flight up the rough terrain. Three pairs of eyes lifted to see the regal figure of Thulsa Doom standing, legs wide-spread, attended by his first lieutenant. With lightning speed, Doom grasped a serpent, which was coiled about his neck; and, with a twisting motion, he stretched the viper out into a scale-covered arrow. Then, receiving a strung bow from Rexor’s attentive hand, he drew the shaft, which but a moment sooner had been a living snake;, and shot.
Straight for Conan’s heart the envenomed arrow sped. Swifter still was the leap of the warrior woman, as she made herself a living shield to protect the man she loved. Thus the death-dealing arrow tip entered Valeria’s breast and came to rest protruding between her slender shoulder blades.
As Valeria crumpled, Conan caught her; and, falling to his knees, he cradled her in his powerful arms. Then he looked up and glared with hate-filled eyes at his life-long enemy. Doom stood watching his lieutenant unstring the great bow. A thin and evil smile spread across his cruel face.
Rexor grinned his admiration. He shouted, “Your shot was straight and true, Master. Death to the infidel!”
The thin smile turned into an inhuman grimace. Across the open space his answer carried, “Death to all who stand against me!”
Turning on his heel, Doom walked away.
Conan bent over the wounded girl and kissed her pale lips. Then he saw the arrow point protruding from her back and pulled it through, as Valeria, too weak to cry out, gasped in pain. In the barbarian’s hand, the missile became a snake again. Overcome with revulsion, he hurled it into the crystal waters of the somnolent stream.
“Live! You must live,” he whispered. “I need you.” Valeria managed a wan flicker of a smile.
“The wizard... told me... that I must pay the gods....” Valeria’s voice was as faint as the rustle of leaves in a dying breeze. “Now I have... paid.”
Conan held her against his breast, and their wet hair mingled blonde beneath black in the golden light of the rising sun. A wind sprang up from the Vilayet Sea.
“Hold me tight... tighter,” moaned Valeria. “Kiss me... breathe your warm breath into my body....” He kissed her fiercely, hungrily, rocking her limp body as a mother rocks an injured child. Her face turned ashen; her long lashes lay like dark smudges on her waxen cheeks.
“Cold... so cold,” she breathed. “Keep... me... warm...”
Her lips sought his again. Then her hand fell limp on the burgeoning grass.
Conan held her cl
ose until Subotai touched his shoulder and silently shook his head. Then he buried his face in her hair.
While the sun still climbed the azure sky, three horsemen reined their lathered beasts beside the shaman’s door. Conan dismounted with the limp form of Valeria in his arms, as Subotai flung himself from the lead mount and hurried to release the thongs that bound the princess to the saddle of her horse.
The ancient witch-man hurried forward to meet them. He peered down at Conan’s fragile burden and touched one dangling wrist. The eyes he raised in answer to Conan’s silent question were sympathetic and devoid of hope. Valeria was dead.
The Cimmerian bore the girl’s slight body into the shaman’s hut. Subotai, pointing to the captive princess, called after him, “I’ll stay outside and guard this baggage. You’ll want to be alone a while.”
With the help of the old hermit, Conan laid Valeria on a blanket and stripped off her soiled and sodden clothing, in order to sponge away the blood and blackened pigment from her pale flesh. The great jewel stolen from the Tower of the Serpent still spilled its frozen fire across the tom breast of the warrior woman.
Glowering, Conan removed the Serpent’s Eye, slung it about his own neck, and tucked it into his tunic.
“That gem,” said the wizard, “how came the woman by it?”
“It’s just a bauble that I gave her,” growled the Cimmerian. “I have no wish to talk about it.”
The shaman shrugged and continued to prepare Valeria for immolation. Together they dressed her in a fine silk shift that she had bought in Shadizar to wear on holidays. They crossed her hands upon her breast, and within them placed her sword. They rubbed sweet-smelling herbs upon her brow and combed her long hair.
“She’s beautiful,” quavered the shaman. “Like a bride.”
“Would that she were!” muttered Conan, hastily leaving the hut to help Subotai to gather firewood along the shores of the Vilayet Sea.
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