The Other Tales of Conan

by Howard, R. E.

  At length, doubling both legs and driving them into the thing’s belly with every ounce of strength remaining to him, Conan tore himself free. He staggered to his feet, dripping gore. As the demon shuffled toward him again, swinging its apelike arms for another grapple, Conan, with both hands on his hilt, swung his sword in a desperate arc. The blade bit into the monster’s neck, half severing it. The mighty blow would have decapitated two or even three human foes at once, but the demon’s tissues were tougher than those of mortal men.

  The demon staggered back and crashed to the floor. As Conan stood panting, with dripping blade, Diana threw her arms about his neck. “I’m so glad I prayed to Ishtar to send you “

  “There, there,” said Conan, comforting the girl with rough caresses. “I may look ready for the grave, but I can still stand “

  He broke off, eyes wide. The dead thing rose, its malformed head wobbling on its half-severed neck. It lurched to the door, tripped over the still-unconscious body of the Negro servant woman, and staggered out into the night.

  “Crom and Mitra!” gasped Conan. Pushing the girl aside, he growled: “Later, later! You’re a good lass, but I must follow that thing. That’s the demon of the night they talk about, and by Crom, I’ll find out where it comes from!”

  He reeled out, to find his horse gone. A length of rein attached to the hitching ring told that the animal had broken its tether in panic at the demon’s appearance.

  Moments later. Conan reappeared in the square. As he rammed his way through the crowd, which had burst into a roar of excitement, he saw the monster stagger and fall in front of the tall Kordafan wizard in Tuthmes’ group. In its final throes, it laid its head at the sorcerer’s feet.

  Screams of rage arose from the crowd, which recognized the monster as the demon that for years had terrified Meroe from time to time. Although the guardsmen still struggled to keep the space around the torture stake open, hands reached from the sides and back to pull Muru down. In the confused uproar, Conan caught a few snatches of speech: “Slay him! He is the demon’s master! Kill him!”

  A sudden hush fell. In the clear space, Ageera had suddenly appeared, his shaven head painted to resemble a skull. It was as if he had somehow bounded over the heads of the crowd to land in the clearing.

  “Why slay the tool and not the man who wields it?” he shrieked. He pointed at Tuthmes. “There stands he whom the Kordafan served! At his command, the demon slew Amboola! My spirits have told me, in the silence of the temple of Jullah! Slay him, too!”

  As more hands dragged down the screaming Tuthmes, Ageera pointed toward the platform on which sat the queen. “Slay all the lords! Cast off your bonds! Kill the masters! Be free men again and not slaves! Kill, kill, kill!”

  Conan could barely keep his feet in the buffeting of the crowd, which surged this way and that, chanting: “Kill, kill, kill!” Here and there a screaming lord was brought down and torn to pieces.

  Conan struggled toward his mounted guards, by means of whom he still hoped to clear the square. Then, over the heads of the mob, he saw a sight that changed his plans. A royal guardsman, standing with his back to the platform, turned about and hurled his spear straight at the queen, whom he was supposed to protect. The spear went through her glorious body as if through butter. As she slumped in her seat, a dozen more spears found their mark in her. At the fall of their ruler, the mounted guardsmen joined the rest of the tribesmen in the massacre of the ruling caste. Moments later, Conan, battered and disheveled but leading another horse, appeared at his dwelling. He tied the animal, rushed inside, and brought a bag of coins out of its hiding place.

  “Let’s go!” he barked at Diana. “Grab a loaf of bread! Where in the cold Hells of Niflheim is my shield? Ah, here!”

  “But don’t you want to take those nice things.”

  “No time; the browns are done for. Hold my girdle while you ride behind me. Up with you, now!”

  With its double burden, the horse galloped heavily through the Inner City, through a rabble of looters and rioters, pursuers and pursued. One man, who leaped for the animal’s bridle, was ridden down with a shriek and a snapping of bones; others scrambled madly out of the way. Out through the great bronze gates they rode, while behind them the houses of the nobility blazed up into yellow pyramids of flame. Overhead lightning flashed, thunder roared, and rain came pelting down like a waterfall.

  An hour later, the rain had slackened to a drizzle. The horse moved at a slow walk, picking its way through the darkness.

  “We’re still on the Stygian road,” grumbled Conan, striving to pierce the dark with his gaze. “When the rain stops, we’ll stop, too, to dry off and get a little sleep.”

  “Where are we going?” said the high, gentle voice of Diana.

  “I don’t know; but I’m tired of the black countries. You cannot do anything with these people; they are as hidebound and as thick-headed as the barbarians of my own north country the Cimmerians and Aesir and Vanir. I am minded to have another try at civilization.”

  “And what about me?”

  “What do you want? I’ll send you home or keep you with me, whichever you like.”

  “I think,” she said in a small voice, “that in spite of the wet and everything, I like things as they are.”

  Conan grinned silently in the darkness and urged the horse to a trot.

  11. HAWKS OVER SHEM

  Following the events of the story The Snout in the Dark, Conan, dissatisfied with his accomplishments in the black countries, wanders northward across the deserts of Stygia to the meadowlands of Shem. During this trek, his reputation stands him in good stead. He presently finds himself in the army of King Sumuabi of Akkharia, one of the southerly Shemitish city-states. Through the treachery of one Othbaal, cousin of the mad King Akhirom of Pelishtia, the Akkharian forces are ambushed and wiped out.all but Conan, who survives to track the renegade to Asgalun, the Pelishti capital.

  The tall figure in the white cloak wheeled, cursing softly, hand at scimitar hilt Not lightly did men walk the nighted streets of Asgalun, capital of Shemitish Pelishtia. In this dark, winding alley of the unsavory river quarter, anything might happen.

  “Why do you follow me, dog?” The voice was harsh, slurring the Shemitic gutturals with the accents of Hyrkania.

  Another tall figure emerged from the shadows, clad, like the first, in a cloak of white silk but lacking the other’s spired helmet.

  “Did you say, ‘dog’?” The accent differed from the Hyrkanian’s.

  “Aye, dog. I have been followed.”

  Before the Hyrkanian could get further, the other rushed with the sudden blinding speed of a pouncing tiger. The Hyrkanian snatched at his sword. Before the blade cleared the scabbard, a huge fist smote the side of his head. But for the Hyrkanian’s powerful build and the protection of the camail of ring mail that hung down from his helmet, his neck might have been broken. As it was, he was hurled sprawling to the pavement, his sword clattering out of his grasp.

  As the Hyrkanian shook his head and groped back to consciousness, he saw the other standing over him with drawn saber. The stranger rumbled: “I follow nobody, and I let nobody call me dog! Do you understand that, dog?”

  The Hyrkanian glanced about for his sword and saw that the other had already kicked it out of reach. Thinking to gain time until he could spring for his weapon, he said: “Your pardon if I wronged you, but I have been followed since nightfall. I heard stealthy footsteps along the dark alleys. Then you came unexpectedly into view, in a place most suited for murder.”

  “Ishtar confound you! Why should I follow you? I have lost my way. I’ve never seen you before, and I hope never to.”

  A stealthy pad of feet brought the stranger round, springing back and wheeling to keep both the Hyrkanian and the newcomers before him.

  Four huge figures loomed menacingly in the shadows, the dim starlight glinting on curved blades. There was also a glimmer of white teeth and eyeballs against dark skins.

 
; For an instant there was tense stillness. Then one muttered in the liquid accents of the black kingdoms: “Which is our dog? Here be two clad alike, and the darkness makes them twins.”

  “Cut down both,” replied another, who towered half a head above his tall companions. “We shall then make no mistake and leave no witness.”

  So saying, the four Negroes came on in deadly silence.

  The stranger took two long strides to where the Hyrkanian’s sword lay. With a growl of “Here! he kicked the weapon at the Hyrkanian, who snatched it up; then rushed upon the advancing blacks with a snarling oath.

  The giant Kushite and one other closed with the stranger while the other two ran at the Hyrkanian. The stranger, with that same feline speed he had shown earlier, leaped in without awaiting attack. A quick feint, a clang of steel, and a lightning slash sheared the head of the smaller black from his shoulders. As the stranger struck, so did the giant, with a long forehand sweep that should have cut the stranger in two at the waist.

  But, despite his size, the stranger moved even faster than the blade as it hissed through the night air. He dropped to the ground in a crouch so that the scimitar passed over him. As he squatted in front of his antagonist, he struck at the black’s legs. The blade bit into muscle and bone. As the black reeled on his wounded leg and swung his sword up for another slash, the stranger sprang up and in, under the lifted arm, and drove his blade to the hilt in the Negro’s chest blood spurted along the stranger’s wrist The scimitar fell waveringly, to cut through the silken kaffia and glance from the steel cap beneath. The giant sank down dying.

  The stranger tore out his blade and whirled. The Hyrkanian had met the attack of his two Negroes coolly, retreating slowly to keep them in front of him. He suddenly slashed one across the chest and shoulder so that he dropped his sword and fell to his knees with a moan. As he fell he gripped his foe’s knees and hung on like a leech. The Hyrkanian kicked and struggled in vain. Those black arms, bulging with iron muscles, held him fast, while the remaining Negro redoubled the fury of his strokes.

  Even as the Kushite swordsman drew breath for a stroke that the hampered Hyrkanian could not have parried, he heard the rush of feet behind him. Before he could turn, the stranger’s saber drove through him with such fury that the blade sprang half its length out of his chest, while the hilt smote him fiercely between the shoulders. Life went out of him with a cry.

  The Hyrkanian caved in the skull of his other antagonist with his hilt and shook himself free of the corpse. He turned to the stranger, who was pulling his saber out of the body it transfixed.

  “Why did you come to my aid after nearly knocking my head off?” he asked.

  The other shrugged. “We were two men beset by rogues. Fate made us allies. Now, if you like, well take up our quarrel again. You said I spied upon you.”

  “I see my mistake and crave your pardon,” answered the Hyrkanian promptly. “I know now who has been skulking after me.”

  He wiped and sheathed his scimitar and bent over each corpse in turn. When he came to the body of the giant, he paused and murmured: “Soho! Keluka the Sworder! Of high rank the archer whose shaft is paneled with pearls!” He wrenched from the limp black finger a heavy, ornate ring, slipped the ring into his sash, and laid hold of the garments of the dead man. “Help me to dispose cf this carrion, brother, so that no questions shall be asked.”

  The stranger grasped a bloodstained jacket in each hand and dragged the bodies after the Hyrkanian down a reeking black alley, in which rose the broken curb of a ruined and forgotten well. The corpses plunged into the abyss and struck far below with sullen splashes. With a light laugh the Hyrkanian turned.

  “The gods have made us allies,” he said. “I owe you a debt.”

  “You owe me naught,” answered the other in a surly tone.

  “Words cannot level a mountain. I am Farouz, an archer of Mazdak’s Hyrkanian horse. Come with me to a more seemly spot, where we can converse in comfort. I hold no grudge for the buffet you dealt me, though, by Tarim! my head still rings from it.”

  The stranger grudgingly sheathed his saber and followed the Hyrkanian. Their way led through the gloom of reeking alleys and along narrow, winding streets. Asgalun was a contrast of splendor and decay, where opulent palaces rose among the smoke-stained ruins of buildings of forgotten ages. A swarm of suburbs clustered about the walls of the forbidden inner city where dwelt King Akhirom and his nobles.

  The two men came to a newer and more respectable quarter, where the latticed windows of overhanging balconies almost touched one another across the street.

  “All the shops are dark,” grunted .the stranger. “A few days ago the city was lighted like day, from dusk to sunrise.”

  “One of Akhirom’s whims. Now he has another, that no lights shall burn in Asgalun. What his mood will be tomorrow, Pteor only knows.”

  They halted before an iron-bound door in a heavy stone arch, and the Hyrkanian rapped cautiously. A voice challenged from within and was answered by a password. The door opened, and the Hyrkanian pushed into thick darkness, drawing his companion with him. The door closed behind them, A heavy leather curtain was pulled back, revealing a lamplit corridor and a scarred old Shemite.

  “An old soldier turned to wine-selling,” said the Hyrkanian. “Lead us to a chamber where we can be alone, Khannon.”

  “Most of the chambers are empty,” grumbled Khannon, limping before them. “I’m a ruined man. Men fear to touch the cup, since the king banned wine. Pteor smite him with gout!”

  The stranger glanced curiously into the larger chambers that they passed, where men sat at food and drink. Most of Khannon’s customers were typical Pelishthi: stocky, swarthy men with hooked noses and curly blue-black beards. Occasionally one saw men of the more slender type that roamed the deserts of eastern Shem, or Hyrkanians or black Kushites from the mercenary army of Pelishtia.

  Khannon bowed the two men into a small room, where he spread mats for them. He set before them a great dish of fruits and nuts, poured wine from a bulging skin, and limped away muttering.

  “Pelishtia has come upon evil days, brother,” drawled the Hyrkanian, quaffing the wine of Kyros. He was a tall man, leaniy but strong built. Keen black eyes, slightly aslant, danced restlessly in a face with a yellowish tinge. His hawk nose overhung a thin, black, drooping mustache. His plain cloak was of costly fabric, his spired helmet was chased with silver, and jewels glittered in the hilt of his scimitar.

  He looked at a man as tall as himself, but who contrasted with him in many ways. The other had thicker limbs and greater depth of chest: the build of a mountaineer. Under his white kaffia his broad brown face, youthful but already seamed with the scars of brawls and battles, showed smooth-shaven. His natural complexion was lighter than that of the Hyrkanian, the darkness of his features being more of the sun than of nature. A hint of stormy fires smoldered in his cold blue eyes. He gulped his wine and smacked his lips.

  Farouz grinned and refilled his goblet. “You fight well, brother. If Mazdak’s Hyrkanians were not so infernally jealous of outsiders, you’d make a good trooper.”

  The other merely grunted.

  “Who are you, anyway?” persisted Farouz. “I’ve told you who I am.”

  “I am Ishbak, a Zuagir from the eastern deserts.”

  The Hyrkanian threw back his head and laughed loudly, bringing a scowl to the face of the other, who said: “What’s so funny?”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “Do you say I lie?” snarled the stranger. Farouz grinned. “No Zuagir ever spoke Pelishtic with an accent like yours, for the Zuagir tongue is but a dialect of Shemitish. Moreover, during our fight with the Kushites, you called upon strange gods.Crom and Manannan.whose names I have heard before from barbarians of the far North. Fear not; I am in your debt and can keep a secret”

  The stranger half started up, grasping his hilt. Farouz merely took a sip of wine. After an instant of tension the stranger sank back. With
an air of discomfiture he said: “Very well. I am Conan, a Cimmerian, late of the army of King Sumuabi of Akkharia.”

  The Hyrkanian grinned and stuffed grapes into his mouth. Between chews he said: “You could never be a spy, friend Conan. You are too quick and open in your anger. What brings you to Asgalun?”

  “A little matter of revenge.”

  “Who is your enemy?”

  “An Anaki named Othbaal, may the dogs gnaw his bones!”

  Farouz whistled. “By Pteor, you aim at a lofty target! Know you that this man is the general of all King Akhirom’s Anakian troops?”

  “Crom! It matters as little to me as if he were a collector of offal.”

  “What has Othbaal done to you?”

  Conan said: “The people of Anakia revolted against their king, who’s an even bigger fool than Akhirom. They asked help of Akkharia. Sumuabi hoped they would succeed and choose a friendlier king than the one in power, so he called for volunteers. Five hundred of us marched to help the Anakim. But this damned Othbaal had been playing both sides. He led the revolt to encourage the king’s enemies to come out into the open, ard then betrayed the rebels into the arms of this king, who butchered the lot.

  “Othbaal also knew we were coming, so he set a trap for us. Not knowing what had happened, we fell into it. Only I escaped with my life, and that by shamming death. The rest of us either fell on the field or were put to death with the fanciest tortures the king’s Sabatean torturer could devise.” The moody blue eyes narrowed. “I’ve fought men before this and thought no more of them afterwards, but in this case I swore I’d pay back Othbaal for some of my dead friends. When I got back to Akkharia I learned that Othbaal had fled from Anakia for fear of the people and had come here. How has he risen so high so fast?”