The Other Tales of Conan

by Howard, R. E.

  Although Nestor had all the usual mercenary’s lust for unearned wealth, he was not rash. Years of soldiering in the kingdoms between Zamora and his homeland had taught him caution. As he paused, weighing the dangers of his alternatives, a sight made him stiffen. Close to the wall, he sighted the figure of a man, slinking toward the gate. Although the man was too far away to recognize faces in the moonlight, there was no mistaking that panther-like stride. Conan!

  Filled with rising fury, Nestor started forward. He walked swiftly, holding his scabbard to keep it from clanking. But, quietly though he moved, the keen ears of the barbarian warned him. Conan whirled, and his sword whispered from its sheath. Then, seeing that only a single foe pursued him, the Cimmerian stood his ground.

  As Nestor approached, he began to pick out details of the other’s appearance. Conan was well over six feet tall, and his threadbare tunic failed to mask the hard lines of his mighty thews. A leathern sack hung by a strap from his shoulder. His face was youthful but hard, surmounted by a square-cut mane of thick black hair.

  Not a word was spoken. Nestor paused to catch his breath and cast aside his cloak, and in that instant Conan hurled himself upon the older man.

  Two swords glimmered like lightnings in the moonlight as the clang and rasp of blades shattered the graveyard silence. Nestor was the more experienced fighter, but the reach and blinding speed of the other nullified this advantage. Conan’s attack was as elemental and irresistible as a hurricane. Parrying shrewdly, Nestor was forced back, step after step. Narrowly he watched his opponent, waiting for the other’s attack to slow from sheer fatigue. But the Cimmerian seemed not to know what fatigue was.

  Making a backhand cut, Nestor slit Conan’s tunic over the chest but did not quite reach the skin. In a blinding return thrust, Conan’s point glanced off Nestor’s breastplate, plowing a groove in the bronze.

  As Nestor stepped back from another furious attack, a stone turned under his foot. Conan aimed a terrific cut at the Gunderman’s neck. Had it gone as intended, Nestor’s head would have flown from his shoulders; but, as he stumbled, the blow hit his crested helm instead. It struck with a heavy clang, bit into the iron, and hurled Nestor to the ground.

  Breathing deeply, Conan stepped forward, sword ready. His pursuer lay motionless with blood seeping from his cloven helmet. Youthful overconfidence in the force of his own blows convinced Conan that he had slain his antagonist. Sheathing his sword, he turned back toward the city of the ancients.

  The Cimmerian approached the gate. This consisted of two massive valves, twice as high as a man, made of foot-thick timbers sheathed in bronze. Conan pushed against the valves, grunting, but without effect. He drew his sword and struck the bronze with the pommel. From the way the gates sagged, Conan guessed that the wood of the doors had rotted away; but the bronze was too thick to hew through without spoiling the edge of his blade. And there was an easier way.

  Thirty paces north of the gate, the wall had crumbled so that its lowest point was less than twenty feet above the ground. At the same time, a pile of tailings against the foot of the wall rose to within six or eight feet of the broken edge.

  Conan approached the broken section, drew back a few paces, and then ran forward. He bounded up the slope of the tailings, leaped into the air, and caught the broken edge of the wall. A grunt, a heave, and a scramble, and he was over the edge, ignoring scratches and bruises. He stared down into the city.

  Inside the wall was a cleared space, where for centuries plant life had been waging war upon the ancient pavement. The paving slabs were cracked and upended. Between them, grass, weeds, and a few scrubby trees had forced their way.

  Beyond the cleared area lay the ruins of one of the poorer districts. Here the one-story hovels of mud brick had slumped into mere mounds of dirt. Beyond them, white in the moonlight, Conan discerned the better-preserved buildings of stone the temples, the palaces, and the houses of the nobles and the rich merchants. As with many ancient ruins, and aura of evil hung over the deserted city.

  Straining his ears, Conan stared right and left. Nothing moved. The only sound was the chirp of crickets.

  Conan, too, had heard the tales of the doom that haunted Larsha. Although the supernatural roused panicky, atavistic fears in his barbarian’s soul, he hardened himself with the thought that, when a supernatural being took material form, it could be hurt or killed by material weapons, just like any earthly man or monster. He had not come this far to be stopped from a try at the treasure by man, beast, or demon.

  According to the tales, the fabled treasure of Larsha lay in the royal palace. Gripping his scabbarded sword in his left hand, the young thief dropped from the inner side of the broken wall. An instant later, he was threading his way through the winding streets toward the center of the city. He made no more noise than a shadow.

  Ruin encompassed him on every side. Here and there the front of a house had fallen into the street, forcing Conan to detour or to scramble over piles of broken brick and marble. The gibbous moon was now high in the sky, washing the ruins in an eery light. On the Cimmerian’s right rose a temple, partly fallen but with the portico, upheld by four massive marble columns, still intact. Along the edge of the roof, a row of marble gargoyles peered down-statues of monsters of bygone days, half demon and half beast.

  Conan tried to remember the scraps of legend that he had overheard in the wineshops of the Maul, concerning the abandonment of Larsha. There was something about a curse sent by an angered god, many centuries before, in punishment for deeds so wicked that they made the crimes and vices of Shadizar look like virtues.

  He started for the center of the city again but now noticed something peculiar. His sandals tended to stick to the shattered pavement, as if it were covered with warm pitch. The soles made sucking noises as he raised his feet.

  He stooped and felt the ground. It was coated with a film of a colorless, sticky substance, now nearly dry.

  Hand on hilt, Conan glared about him in the moonlight But no sound came to his ears. He resumed his advance. Again his sandals made sucking noises as he raised them. He halted, turning his head. He could have sworn that similar sucking noises came to his ears from a distance. For an instant, he thought they might be the echoes of his own footsteps. But he had passed the half-ruined temple, and now no walls rose on either side of him to reflect the sound.

  Again he advanced, then halted. Again he heard the sucking sound, and this time it did not cease when he froze to immobility. In fact, it became louder. His keen hearing located it as coming from directly in front of him. Since he could see nothing moving in the street before him, the source of the sound must be in a side street or in one of the ruined buildings.

  The sound increased to an indescribable slithering, gurgling hiss. Even Conan’s iron nerves were shaken by the strain of waiting for the unknown source of the sound to appear.

  At last, around the next corner poured a huge, slimy mass, leprous gray in the moonlight. It glided into the street before him and swiftly advanced upon him, silent save for the sucking sound of its peculiar method of locomotion. From its front end rose a pair of hornlike projections, at least ten feet long, with a shorter pair below. The long horns bent this way and that, and Conan saw that they bore eyes on their ends.

  The creature was, in fact, a slug, like the harmless garden slug that leaves a trail of slime in its nightly wanderings. This slug, however, was fifty feet long and as thick through the middle as Conan was tall. Moreover, it moved as fast as a man could run. The fetid smell of the thing wafted ahead of it.

  Momentarily paralyzed with astonishment, Conan stared at the vast mass of rubbery flesh bearing down upon him. The slug emitted a sound like that of a man spitting, but magnified many times over.

  Galvanized into action at last, the Cimmerian leaped sideways. As he did so, a jet of liquid flashed through the night air, just where he had stood. A tiny droplet struck his shoulder and burned like a coal of fire.

  Conan turned and ra
n back the way he had come, his long legs flashing in the moonlight. Again he had to bound over piles of broken masonary. His ears told him that the slug was close behind. Perhaps it was gaining. He dared not turn to look, lest he trip over some marble fragment and go sprawling; the monster would be upon him before he could regain his feet.

  Again came that spitting sound. Conan leaped frantically to one side; again the jet of liquid flashed past him. Even if he kept ahead of the slug all the way to the city wall, the next shot would probably hit its mark.

  Conan dodged around a corner to put obstacles between himself and the slug. He raced down a narrow zigzag street, then around another corner. He was lost in the maze of streets, he knew; but the main thing was to keep turning corners so as not to give his pursuer another clear shot at him. The sucking sounds and the stench indicated that it was following his trail. Once, when he paused to catch his breath, he looked back to see the slug pouring around the last corner he had turned.

  On and on he went, dodging this way and that through the maze of the ancient city. If he could not outrun the slug, perhaps he could tire it. A man, he knew, could outlast almost any animal in a long-distance run. But the slug seemed tireless.

  Something about the buildings he was passing struck him as familiar. Then he realized that he was coming to the half-ruined temple he had passed just before he met the slug. A quick glance showed him that the upper parts of the building could be reached by an active climber.

  Conan bounded up a pile of rubbish to the top of the broken wall. Leaping from stone to stone, he made his way up the jagged profile of the wall to an unruined section facing the street. He found himself on a stretch of roof behind the row of marble gargoyles. He approached them, treading softly lest the half-ruined roof collapse beneath him and detouring around holes through which a man could fall into the chambers below.

  The sound and smell of the slug came to him from the street. Realizing that it had lost his track and uncertain as to which way to turn, the creature had evidently stopped in front of the temple. Very cautiously for he was sure the slug could see him in the moonlight Conan peered past one of the statues and down into the street.

  There lay the great, grayish mass, on which the moon shone moistly. The eye stalks wavered this way and that, seeking the creature’s prey. Beneath them, the shorter horns swept back and forth a little above the ground, as if smelling for the Cimmerian’s trail.

  Conan felt certain that the slug would soon pick up his trail. He had no doubt that it could slither up the sides of the building quite as readily as he had climbed it.

  He put a hand against a gargoyle a nightmarish statue with a humanoid body, bat’s wings, and a reptilian head and pushed. The statue rocked a trifle with a faint crunching noise.

  At the sound, the horns of the slug whipped upward toward the roof of the temple. The slug’s head came around, bending its body into a sharp curve. The head approached the front of the temple and began to slide up one of the huge pillars, directly below the place where Conan crouched with bared teeth.

  A sword, Conan thought, would be of little use against such a monstrosity. Like other lowly forms of life, it could survive damage that would instantly destroy a higher creature.

  Up the pillar came the slug’s head, the eyes on their stalks swiveling back and forth. At the present rate, the monster’s head would reach the edge of the roof while most of its body still lay in the street below.

  Then Conan saw what he must do. He hurled himself at the gargoyle. With a mighty heave, he sent it tumbling over the edge of the roof. Instead of the crash that such a mass of marble would ordinarily make on striking the pavement, there floated up the sound of a moist, squashy impact, followed by a heavy thud as the forward part of the slug’s body fell back to earth.

  When Conan risked a glance over the parapet, he saw that the statue had sunk into the slug’s body until it was almost buried. The great, gray mass writhed and lashed like a worm on a fisherman’s hook. A blow of the tail made the front of the temple tremble; somewhere in the interior a few loose stones fell clattering. Conan wondered if the whole structure were about to collapse beneath him, burying him in the debris.

  “So much for you!” snarled the Cimmerian.

  He went along the row of gargoyles until he found another that was loose and directly over part of the slug’s body. Down it went with another squashing impact. A third missed and shattered on the pavement. A fourth and smaller statue he picked bodily up and, muscles cracking with the strain, hurled outward so that it fell on the writhing head.

  As the beast’s convulsions slowly subsided, Conan pushed over two more gargoyles to make sure. When the body no longer writhed, he clambered down to the street. He approached the great, stinking mass cautiously, sword out. At last, summoning all his courage, he slashed into the rubbery flesh. Dark ichor oozed out, and rippling morions ran through the wet, gray skin. But, even though parts might retain signs of independent life, the slug as a whole was dead.

  Conan was still slashing furiously when a voice made him whirl about. It said:

  “I’ve got you this time!”

  It was Nestor, approaching sword in hand, with a bloodstained bandage around his head in place of his helmet. The Gunderman stopped at the sight of the slug. “Mitra! What is this?”

  “It’s the spook of Larsha,” said Conan, speaking Zamorian with a barbarous accent “It chased me over half the city before I slew it.” As Nestor stared incredulously, the Cimmerian continued: “What do you here? How many times must I kill you before you stay dead?”

  “You shall see how dead I am,” grated Nestor, bringing his sword up to guard.

  “What happened to your soldiers?”

  “Dead in that rock slide you rigged, as you soon shall be.”

  “Look, you fool,” said Conan, “why waste your strength on sword strokes, when there’s more wealth here than the pair of us can carry away if the tales are true? You are a good man of your hands; why not join me to raid the treasure of Larsha instead?”

  “I must do my duty and avenge my men! Defend yourself, dog of a barbarian!”

  “By Crom, I’ll fight if you like!” growled Conan, bringing up his sword. “But think, man! If you go back to Shadizar, they’ll crucify you for losing your command even if you took my head with you, which I do not think you can do. If one tenth of the stories are true, you’ll get more from your share of the loot than you’d earn in a hundred years as a mercenary captain.”

  Nestor had lowered his blade and stepped back. Now he stood mute, thinking deeply. Conan added: “Besides, you’ll never make real warriors of these poltroons of Zamorians!”

  The Gunderman sighed and sheathed his sword. “You are right, damn you. Until this venture is over, well fight back to back and go equal shares on the loot, eh?” He held out his hand.

  “Done!” said Conan, sheathing likewise and clasping the other’s hand. “If we have to run for it and get separated, let’s meet at the fountain of Ninus.”

  The royal palace of Larsha stood in the center of the city, in the midst of a broad plaza. It was the one structure that had not crumbled with age, and this for a simple reason. It was carved out of a single crag or hillock of rock that once broke the flatness of the plateau on which Larsha stood. So meticulous had been the construction of this building, however, that close inspection was needed to show that it was not an ordinary composite structure, lines engraved in the black, basaltic surface imitated the joints between building stones.

  Treading softly, Conan and Nestor peered into the dark interior. “We shall need light,” said Nestor. “I do not care to walk into another slug like that in the dark.”

  “I don’t smell another slug,” said Conan, “but the treasure might have another guardian.”

  He turned back and hewed down a pine sapling that thrust up through the broken pavement. Then he lopped its limbs and cut it into short lengths. Whittling a pile of shavings with his sword, he started a small fire wi
th flint and steel. He split the ends of two of the billets until they were frayed out and then ignited them. The resinous wood burned vigorously. He handed one torch to Nestor, and each of them thrust half the spare billets through his girdle. Then, swords out, they again approached the palace.

  Inside the archway, the flickering yellow flames of the torches were reflected from polished walls of black stone; but underfoot the dust lay inches thick. Several bats, hanging from bits of stone carving overhead, squeaked angrily and whirred away into deeper darkness.

  They passed between statues of horrific aspect, set in niches on either side. Dark hallways opened on either hand. They crossed a throne room. The throne, carved of the same black stone as the rest of the building, still stood. Other chairs and divans, being made of wood, had crumbled into dust, leaving a litter of nails, metallic ornaments, and semi-precious stones on the floor.

  “It must have stood vacant for thousands of years,” whispered Nestor.

  They traversed several chambers, which might have been a king’s private apartments; but the absence of perishable furnishings made it impossible to tell. They found themselves before a door. Conan put his torch close to it.

  It was a stout door, set in an arch of stone and made of massive timbers, bound together with brackets of green-filmed copper. Conan poked the door with his sword. The blade entered easily; a little shower of dusty fragments, pale in the torchlight, sifted down.

  “It’s rotten,” growled Nestor, kicking out. His boot went into the wood almost as easily as Conan’s sword had done. A copper fitting fell to the floor with a dull clank.

  In a moment they had battered down the rotten timbers in a shower of wood dust. They stooped, thrusting their torches ahead of them into the opening. Light, reflected from silver, gold, and jewels, winked back at them.

  Nestor pushed through the opening, then backed out so suddenly that he bumped into Conan. “There are men in there!” he hissed.

  “Let’s see.” Conan thrust his head into the opening and peered right and left. “They’re dead. Come on!”