The Other Tales of Conan

by Howard, R. E.

  The boy felt his pulses pound. The blood of one born to war seethed within him. Crom, what a sword! With a blade like that, he could more than hold his own against the starving wolves that padded, whined, and waited without. As he reached for the hilt with eager hand, he failed to see the warning flicker that moved within those shadowed eye sockets in the skull-head of the ancient warrior.

  Conan hefted the blade. It seemed as heavy as lead a sword of the Elder Ages. Perhaps some fabled hero-king of old had borne it some legendary demigod like Kull of Atlantis, king of Valusia in the ages before Atlantis foundered beneath the restless sea.

  The boy swung the sword, feeling his thews swell with power and his heart beat faster with pride of possession. Gods, what a sword! With such a blade, no destiny was too high for a warrior to aspire to! With a sword such as this, even a half-naked young barbarian from the raw Cimmerian wilderness might hack his way across the world and wade through rivers of gore to a place among the high kings of earth!

  He stood back from the throne of stone, feinting and cutting the air with the blade, getting the feel of the age-worn hilt against his hard palm. The keen old sword whistled through the smoky air, and the flickering light of the fire glanced in sparkling rays from the planes of the blade to the rough stone walls, whipping along the sides of the chamber like little, golden meteors. With this mighty brand in his grasp, he could face not only the hungry wolves outside but a world of warriors as well.

  The boy expanded his chest and boomed out the savage war cry of his folk. The echoes of that cry thunderously reverberated about the chamber, disturbing ancient shadows and old dust. Conan never paused to think that such a challenge, in such a place, might rouse things other than shadows and dust things that by all rights should have slumbered without interruption through all future eons.

  He stopped, frozen in mid-stride, as a sound an indescribable, dry creaking came from the throne side of the crypt. Wheeling, he saw. and felt the hair lift from his scalp and the blood turn to ice in his veins. All his superstitious terrors and primal night-fears rose howling, to fill his mind with shadows of madness and horror. For the dead thing lived.

  IV. When Dead Men Walk

  Slowly, jerkily, the cadaver rose from its great stone chair and glared at him from its black pits, whence now living eyes seemed to blaze forth with a coldly malignant stare. Somehow by what primeval necromancy the boy Conan could not guess life still animated the withered mummy of the long-dead chief. Grinning jaws moved open and shut in a fearful pantomime of speech. But the only sound was the creaking that Conan had heard, as if the shriveled remains of muscles and tendons rubbed dryly together. To Conan, this silent imitation of speech was more terrible than the fact that the dead man lived and moved.

  Creaking, the mummy stepped down from the dais of its ancient throne and swiveled its skull in Conan’s direction. As its eyeless gaze fixed itself on the sword in Conan’s hand, lurid witch fires burned within the hollow sockets. Stalking clumsily across the chamber, the mummy advanced upon Conan like a shape of nameless horror from the nightmares of a mad fiend. It extended its bony claws to snatch the sword from Conan’s strong young hands.

  Numb with superstitious terror, Conan retreated step by step. The firelight painted the mummy’s black, monstrous shadow on the wall behind it. The shadow rippled over the rough stone. Save for the crackle of the flames as they bit into the pieces of ancient furniture with which Conan had fed the fire, the rustle and creak of the cadaver’s leathery muscles as they propelled it step by faltering step across the crypt, and the panting breath of the youth as he struggled for air in the grip of terror save for these sounds, the tomb was silent.

  Now the dead thing had Conan backed against a wall. One brown claw stretched jerkily out. The boy’s reaction was automatic; instinctively, he struck out. The blade whistled and smote the outstretched arm, which cracked like a broken stick. Still clutching at empty air, the severed hand fell with a dry clack to the floor; no blood spurted from the dry stump of the forearm.

  The terrible wound, which would have stopped any living warrior, did not even slow the walking corpse. It merely withdrew the stump of the maimed arm and extended the other.

  Wildly, Conan burst from the wall, swinging his blade in great, smashing strokes. One blow caught the mummy in the side. Ribs snapped like twigs under the impact, and the cadaver was hurled off its feet with a clatter. Conan stood panting in the center of the room clutching the worn hilt in a sweaty palm. With widened eyes he watched as slowly, creakily, the mummy dragged itself to its feet again and began mechanically shuffling toward him, its remaining claw extended.

  V. Duel With the Dead

  Around and around they went, circling slowly. Conan swung lustily but retreated step by step before the unstoppable advance of the dead thing that came on and on.

  A blow at its remaining arm missed as the mummy jerked the member out of the path of the sword; the impetus swung Conan half around and, before he could recover, it was almost upon him. Its claw-hand snatched at him, caught a fold of his tunic, and ripped the rotten cloth from his body, leaving him naked except for sandals and loincloth.

  Conan danced back and swung at the monster’s head. The mummy ducked, and again Conan had to scramble to keep out of its grip. At last he caught it a terrific blow on the side of the head, shearing off one horn of the helm. Another blow sent the helmet itself clanging into a corner. Another bit into the dry, brown skull. The blade stuck for an instant an instant that almost undid the boy, whose skin was scraped by ancient black nails as he frantically tugged his weapon loose.

  The sword caught the mummy in the ribs again, lodged for a nearly fatal second in the spine, and then was jerked loose once more. Nothing, it seemed, could stop it. Dead, it could not be hurt. Always it staggered and shuffled toward him, untiring and unfaltering, even though its body bore wounds that would have laid a dozen stout warriors moaning in the dirt.

  How can you kill a thing that is already dead? The question echoed madly in Conan’s brain. It went round and round until he thought he would go mad with the repetition of it. His lungs labored; his heart pounded as if it were about to burst. Slash and strike as he would, nothing could even slow the dead thing that shuffled after him.

  Now he struck with greater cunning. Reasoning that if it could not walk it could not pursue him, he drove a fierce, backhanded slash against the mummy’s knee. A bone cracked, and the mummy collapsed, groveling in the dust of the cavern floor. But still the unnatural life burned within the mummy’s withered breast. It staggered to its feet again and lurched after the boy, dragging its crippled leg behind it.

  Again Conan struck, and the dead thing’s lower face was shorn away; the jawbone went rattling off into the shadows. But the cadaver never stopped. With its lower face a mere expanse of broken white bone beneath the uncanny glow in its eye sockets, it still shambled after its antagonist in tireless, mechanical pursuit. Conan began to wish he had stayed outside with the wolves rather than sought shelter in this cursed crypt, where things that should have died a thousand years ago still stalked and slew.

  Then something caught his ankle. Off balance, he fell full-length to the rough stone floor, kicking wildly to free his leg from that bony grip. He stared down and felt his blood freeze when he saw the severed hand of the corpse clutching his foot. Its bony claws bit into his flesh.

  Then a grisly shape of nightmare horror and lunacy loomed over him. The broken, mangled face of the corpse leered down into his, and one claw-hand darted towards his throat.

  Conan reacted by instinct. With all his might, he brought both sandaled feet up against the shrunken belly of the dead thing stooping over him. Hurled into the air, it fell with a crash behind him, right in the fire.

  Then Conan snatched at the severed hand, which still gripped his ankle. He tore it loose, rolled to his feet, and hurled the member into the fire after the rest of the mummy. He stopped to snatch up his sword and whirled back toward the fire to find
the battle over.

  Desiccated by the passage of countless centuries, the mummy burned with the fury of dry brushwood. The unnatural life within it still flickered as it struggled erect, while flames ran up its withered form, leaping from limb to limb and converting it into a living torch. It had almost clambered out of the fire when its crippled leg gave way, and it collapsed in a mass of roaring flame. One blazing arm dropped off like a twitching stick. The skull rolled through the coals. Within minutes the mummy was utterly consumed, but for a few glowing coals of blackened bone.

  VI. The Sword of Conan

  Conan let out his breath with a long sigh and breathed deeply once again. The tension drained out of him, leaving him weary in every limb. He wiped the cold sweat of terror from his face and combed back the tangle of his black hair with his fingers. The dead warrior’s mummy was at last truly dead, and the great sword was his. He hefted it again, relishing its weight and power.

  For an instant he thought of spending the night in the tomb. He was deathly tired. Outside, the wolves and the cold waited to bring him down, and not even his wilderness-bred sense of direction could keep him on his chosen course on a starless night in a strange land.

  But then revulsion seized him. The smoke-filled chamber stank, now, not only of the dust of ages but also of the burning of long-dead human flesh a strange odor, like nothing Conan’s keen nostrils had ever detected before, and altogether revolting. The empty throne seemed to leer at him. That sense of presence that had struck him when he first entered the inner chamber still lingered in his mind. His scalp crawled and his skin prickled when he thought of sleeping in this haunted chamber.

  Besides, with his new sword, he was filled with confidence. His chest expanded, and he swung the blade in whistling circles.

  Moments later, wrapped in an old fur cloak from one of the chests and holding a torch in one hand and the sword in the other, he emerged from the cave. There was no sign of the wolves. A glance upward showed that the sky was clearing. Conan studied the stars that glimmered between patches of cloud, then once more set his footsteps to southward.

  2. THE HALL OF THE DEAD

  Becoming fed up with the City of Thieves (and vice versa) Conan wanders westward to the capital of Zamora, Shadizar the Wicked. Here, he hopes, the pickings will be richer. For a time he is indeed, more successful in his thievery than he had been in Arenjun although the women of Shadizar quickly relieve him of his gains in return for initiating him into the arts of love. Rumors of treasure send him to the nearby ruins of ancient Larsha, just ahead of the squad of soldiers sent to arrest him.

  The gorge was dark, although the setting sun had left a band of orange and yellow and green along the western horizon. Against this band of color, a sharp eye could still discern, in black silhouette, the domes and spires of Shadizar the Wicked, the city of dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery the capital of Zamora.

  As the twilight faded, the first few stars appeared overhead. As if answering a signal, lights winked on in the distant domes and spires. While the light of the stars was pale and wan, that of the windows of Shadizar was a sultry amber, with a hint of abominable deeds.

  The gorge was quiet save for the chirping of nocturnal insects. Presently, however, this silence was broken by the sound of moving men. Up the gorge came a squad of Zamorian soldiers five men in plain steel caps and leather jerkins, studded with bronze buttons, led by an officer in a polished bronze cuirass and a helmet with a towering horsehair crest. Their bronze-greaved legs swished through the long, lush grass that covered the floor of the gorge. Their harness creaked and their weapons clanked and tinkled. Three of them bore bows and the other two, pikes; short swords hung at their sides and bucklers were slung across their backs. The officer was armed with a long sword and a dagger.

  One of the soldiers muttered: “If we catch this Conan fellow alive, what will they do with him?”

  “Send him to Yezud to feed to the spider god, I’ll warrant,” said another. “The question is, shall we be alive to collect that reward they promised us?”

  “Not afraid of him, are you?” said a third.

  “Me?” The second speaker snorted. “I fear naught, including death itself. The question is, whose death? This thief is not a civilized man but a wild barbarian, with the strength of ten. So I went to the magistrate to draw up my will “

  “It is cheering to know that your heirs will get the reward,” said another. “I wish I had thought of that.”

  “Oh,” said the first man who had spoken, “they’ll find some excuse to cheat us of the reward, even if we catch the rascal.”

  “The prefect himself has promised,” said another. “The rich merchants and nobles whom Conan has been robbing raised a fund. I saw the money a bag so heavy with gold that a man could scarce lift it. After all that public display, they’d not dare to go back on their word.”

  “But suppose we catch him not,” said the second speaker. “There was something about paying for it with our heads.” The speaker raised his voice. “Captain Nestor! What was that about our heads “

  “Hold your tongues, all of you!” snapped the officer. “You can be heard as far as Arenjun. If Conan is within a mile, he’ll be warned. Cease your chatter, and try to move without so much clangor.”

  The officer was a broad-shouldered man of medium height and powerful build; daylight would have shown his eyes to be gray and his hair light brown, streaked with gray. He was a Gunderman, from the northernmost province of Aquilonia, fifteen hundred miles to the west. His mission to take Conan dead or alive troubled him. The prefect had warned him that, if he failed, he might expect severe punishment perhaps even the headsman’s block. The king himself had demanded that the outlaw be taken, and the king of Zamora had a short way with servants who failed their missions. A tip from the underworld had revealed that Conan was seen heading for this gorge earlier that day, and Nestor’s commander had hastily dis patched him with such troopers as could be found in the barracks.

  Nestor had no confidence in the soldiers that trailed behind him. He considered them braggarts who would flee in the face of danger, leaving him to confront the barbarian alone. And, although the Gunderman was a brave man, he did not deceive himself about his chances with this ferocious, gigantic young savage. His armor would give him no more than a slight edge.

  As the glow in the western sky faded, the darkness deepened and the walls of the gorge became narrower, steeper, and rockier. Behind Nestor, the men began to murmur again: “I like it not. This road leads to the ruins of Larsha the Accursed, where the ghosts of the ancients lurk to devour passers-by. And in that city, ‘tis said, lies the Hall of the Dead “

  “Shut up!” snarled Nestor, turning his head. “If “

  At that instant, the officer tripped over a rawhide rope stretched across the path and fell sprawling in the grass. There was the snap of a spring pole released from its lodgment, and the rope went slack.

  With a rumbling roar, a mass of rocks and dirt cascaded down the left-hand slope. As Nestor scrambled to his feet, a stone the size of a man’s head struck his corselet and knocked him down again. Another knocked off his helmet, while smaller stones stung his limbs. Behind him sounded a multiple scream and the clatter of stone striking metal. Then silence fell.

  Nestor staggered to his feet, coughed the dust out of his lungs, and turned to see what had befallen. A few paces behind him, a rock slide blocked the gorge from wall to wall. Approaching, he made out a human hand and a foot projecting from the rubble. He called but received no reply. When he touched the protruding members, he found no life. The slide, set off by the pull on the rope, had wiped out his entire squad.

  Nestor flexed his joints to learn what harm he had suffered. No bones appeared to be broken, although his corselet was dented and he bore several bruises. Burning with wrath, he found his helmet and took up the trail alone. Failing to catch the thief would have been bad enough; but if he also had to confess to the loss of his men, he
foresaw a lingering and painful death. His only chance now was to bring back Conan or at least his head.

  Sword in hand, Nestor limped on up the endless windings of the gorge. A light in the sky before him showed that the moon, a little past full, was rising. He strained his eyes, expecting the barbarian to spring upon him from behind every bend in the ravine.

  The gorge became shallower and the walls less steep. Gullies opened into the gorge to right and left, while the bottom became stony and uneven, forcing Nestor to scramble over rocks and underbrush. At last the gorge gave out completely. Climbing a short slope, the Gunderman found himself on the edge of an upland pleateau, surrounded by distant mountains. A bowshot ahead, bone-white in the light of the moon, rose the walls of Larsha. A massive gate stood directly in front of him. Time had bitten scallops out of the walls, and over it rose half-ruined roofs and towers.

  Nestor paused. Larsha was said to be immensely old. According to the tales, it went back to Cataclysmic times, when the forebears of the Zamorians, the Zhemri, formed an island of semicivilization in a sea of barbarism.

  Stories of the death that lurked in these ruins were rife in the bazaars of Shadizar. As far as Nestor had been able to learn, not one of the many men who, in historic times, had invaded the ruins searching for the treasure rumored to exist there, had ever returned. None knew what form the danger took, because no survivor had lived to carry the tale.

  A decade before, King Tiridates had sent a company of his bravest soldiers, in broad daylight, into the city, while the king himself waited outside the walls. There had been screams and sounds of flight, and then nothing. The men who waited outside had fled, and Tiridates perforce had fled with them. That was the last attempt to unlock the mystery of Larsha by main force.