Three days after his hurried departure from Anshan, Conan sat cross-legged in the trail where it looped over the rock ridge to follow the slope down to the village of Kushaf.
“I would stand between you and death,” he said to the man who sat opposite him, “as you did for me when your hill wolves would have massacred us.”
The man tugged his purple-stained beard reflectively. He was broad and powerful, with gray-flecked hair and a broad belt bristling with knife and dagger hilts. He was Balash, chief of the Kushafi tribesmen and overlord of Kushaf and its neighboring villages. But he spoke modestly:
“The gods favor you! Yet what man can pass the spot of his death?”
“A man can either fight or flee, and not sit on a rock like an apple in a tree, waiting to be picked. If you want to take a long chance of making your peace with the king, you can go to Anshan “
“I have too many enemies at court In Anshan, the king would listen to their lies and hang me up in an iron cage for the kites to eat. Nay, I will not go!”
“Then take your people and find another abode. There are places in these hills where not even the king could follow you.”
Balash glanced down the rocky slope to the cluster of mud-and-stone towers that rose above the encircling wall. His thin nostrils expanded, and into his eyes came a dark flame like that of an eagle surveying its eyrie.
“Nay, by Asura! My clan has held Kushaf since the days of Bahram. Let the king rule in Anshan; this is mine!”
“The king will likewise rule in Kushaf,” grunted Tubal, squatting behind Conan with Hattusas the Zamorian.
Balash glanced in the other direction where the trail disappeared to the east between jutting crags. On these crags, bits of white cloth were blown out by the wind, which the watchers knew were the garments of archers and javelin men who guarded the pass day and night.
“Let him come,” said Balash. “We hold the passes.”
“He’ll bring ten thousand men, in heavy armor, with catapults and other siege gear,” said Conan. “He’ll burn Kushaf and take your head back to Anshan.”
“That will happen which will happen,” said Balash.
Conan fought down a rising anger at the fatalism of these people. Every instinct of his strenuous nature was a negation of this inert philosophy. But, as they seemed to be deadlocked, he said nothing but sat staring at the western crags where the sun hung, a ball of fire in the sharp, windy blue.
Balash dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand and said: “Conan, there is something I would show you. Down in yonder ruined hut outside the wall lies a dead man, whose like was never seen in Kushaf. Even in death, he is strange and evil. I think he is no natural man at all, but a demon. Come.”
He led the way down the slope to the hovel, explaining: “My warriors came upon him lying at the base of a cliff, as if he had fallen or been thrown from the top. I made them bring him here, but he died on the way, babbling in a strange tongue. They deem him a demon, with good cause.”
“A long day’s journey southward, among mountains so wild and barren not even a goat could dwell among them, lies the country we call Drujistan.”
“Drujistan!” echoed Conan. “Land of demons, eh?”
“Aye! An evil region of black crags and wild gorges, shunned by wise men. It seems uninhabited, yet men dwell there men or devils. Sometimes a man is slain or a child or woman stolen from a lonely trail, and we know it is their work. We have followed and glimpsed shadowy figures moving through the night, but always the trail ends against a blank cliff, through which only a demon could pass. Sometimes we hear drums echoing among the crags, or the roaring of the fiends. It is a sound to turn men’s hearts to ice. The old legends say that among these mountains, thousands of years ago, the ghoul-king Ura built the magical city of Yanaidar, and that the deadly ghosts of Ura and his hideous subjects still haunt the ruins. Another legend tells how, a thousand years ago, a chief of the Ilbarsi hillmen settled in the ruins and began to repair them and make the city his stronghold; but in one night he and his followers vanished, nor were they ever seen again.”
They reached the ruined hut, and Balash pulled open the sagging door. A moment later, the five men were bending over a figure sprawled on the dirt floor.
It was a figure alien and incongruous: that of a stocky man with broad, square, flat features, colored like dark copper, and narrow, slanting eyes an unmistakable son of Khitai. Blood clotted the coarse black hair on the back of his head, and the unnatural position of his body told of shattered bones.
“Has he not the look of an evil spirit?” asked Balash.
“He’s no demon, whether he was a wizard in life or not,” answered Conan. “He’s a Khitan, from a country far to the east of Hyrkania, beyond mountains and deserts and jungles so vast you could lose a dozen Iranistans in them. I rode through that land when I soldiered for the king of Turan. But what this fellow is doing here I cannot say “
Suddenly his blue eyes blazed and he tore the bloodstained tunic away from the squat throat. A stained woolen shirt came into view, and Tubal, looking over Conan’s shoulder, grunted explosively. On the shirt, worked in thread so crimson it might at first glance have been mistaken for a splash of blood, appeared a curious emblem: a human fist grasping a hilt from which jutted a knife with a wavy blade.
“The flame knife!” whispered Balash, recoiling from that symbol of death and destruction.
All looked at Conan, who stared down at the sinister emblem, trying to recapture a vague train of associations it roused dim memories of an ancient and evil cult, which used that symbol. Finally he said to Hattusas:
“When I was a thief in Zamora, I heard rumors of a cult called the Yezmites that used such a symbol. You’re a Zamorian; what know you of this?”
Hattusas shrugged. “There are many cults whose roots go back to the beginnings of time, to the days before the Cataclysm. Often rulers have thought they had stamped them out, and often they have come to life again. The Hidden Ones or Sons of Yezm are one of these, but more I cannot tell you. I meddle not in such matters.”
Conan spoke to Balash: “Can your men guide me to where you found this man?”
“Aye. But it is an evil place, in the Gorge of Ghosts, on the borders of Drujistan, and –”
“Good. Everybody get some sleep. We ride at dawn.”
“To Anshan?” asked Balash.
“No. To Drujistan.”
“Then you think ?”
“I think nothing yet.”
“Will the squadron ride with us?” asked Tubal. “The horses are badly worn.”
“No, let the men and horses rest. You and Hattusas shall go with me, together with one of Balash’s Ktishafis for a guide. Codrus commands in my absence, and if there’s any trouble as a result of my dogs’ laying hands on the Kushafi women, tell him he is to knock their heads in.”
II. The Black Country
Dusk mantled the serrated skyline when Conan’s guide halted. Ahead, the rugged terrain was broken by a deep canyon. Beyond the canyon rose a forbidding array of black crags and frowning cliffs, a wild, haglike chaos of broken black rock.
“There begins Drujistan,” said the Kushafi. “Beyond that gorge, the Gorge of Ghosts, begins the country of horror and death. I go no farther.”
Conan nodded, his eyes picking out a trail that looped down rugged slopes into the canyon. It was a fading trace of the ancient road they had been following for many miles, but it looked as though it had often been used of late.
Conan glanced around. With him were Tubal, Hattusas, the guide and Nanaia the girl. She had insisted on coming because, she said, she feared to be separated from Conan among all these wild foreigners, whose speech she could not understand. She had proved a good traveling companion, tough and uncomplaining, though of volatile and fiery disposition.
The Kushafi said: “The trail is well-traveled, as you see. By it the demons of the black mountains come and go. But men who follow it do not return.”
&nb
sp; Tubal jeered. “What need demons with a trail? They fly with wings like bats!”
“When they take the shape of men they walk like men,” said the Kushafi. He pointed to the jutting ledge over which the trail wound. “At the foot of that slope we found the man you called a Khitan. Doubtless his brother demons quarreled with him and cast him down.”
“Doubtless he tripped and fell,” grunted Conan. “Khitans of the desert are unused to climbing, their legs being bowed and weakened by a life in the saddle. Such a one would easily stumble on a narrow trail.”
“If he was a man, perhaps,” said the Kushafi. “But Asura!”
All but Conan jumped, and the Kushafi snatched at his bow, glaring wildly. Out over the crags, from the south, rolled an incredible sound a strident, braying roar, which vibrated among the mountains.
“The voice of the demons!” cried the Kushafi, jerking the rein so that his horse squealed and reared. “In the name of Asura, let us be gone! ‘Tis madness to remain!”
“Go back to your village if you’re afraid,” said Conan. “I’m going on.” In truth, the hint of the supernatural made the Cimmerian’s nape prickle too, but before his followers he did not wish to admit this.
“Without your men? It is madnessl At least send back for your followers.”
Conan’s eyes narrowed like those of a hunting wolf. “Not this time. For scouting and spying, the fewer the better. I think I’ll have a look at this land of demons; I could use a mountain stronghold.” To Nanaia he said: “You had better go back, girl.”
She began to weep. “Do not send me away, Conan! The wild mountaineers will ravish me.”
He glanced down her long, well-muscled figure. “Anyone who tried it would have a task. Well, come on then, and do not say I didn’t warn you.”
The guide wheeled his pony and kicked it into a run, calling back: “Balash will weep for you! There will be woe in Kushaf! Aie! Ahai!”
His lamentations died away amidst the clatter of hoofs on stone as the Kushafi, flogging his pony, topped a ridge and vanished.
“Run, son of a noseless dam!” yelled Tubal. “We’ll brand your devils and drag them to Kushaf by their tails!” But he fell silent the instant the victim was out of hearing.
Conan spoke to Hattusas: “Have you ever heard a sound like that?”
The lithe Zamorian nodded. “Yes, in the mountains of the devil worshipers.”
Conan lifted his reins without comment. He, too, had heard the roar of the ten-foot bronze trumpets that blared over the bare black mountains of forbidden Pathenia, in the hands of shaven-headed priests of Erlik.
Tubal snorted like a rhinoceros. He had not heard those trumpets, and he thrust his horse in ahead of Hattusas so as to be next to Conan as they rode down the steep slopes in the purple dusk. He said roughly: “Now that we have been lured into this country of devils by treacherous Kushafi dogs who will undoubtedly steal back and cut your throat while you sleep, what have you planned?”
It might have been an old hound growling at his master for patting another dog. Conan bent his head and spat to hide a grin. “We’ll camp in the canyon tonight. The horses are too tired for struggling through these gulches in the dark. Tomorrow we shall explore. I think the Hidden Ones have a camp in that country across the gorge. The hills hereabouts are but thinly settled. Kushaf is the nearest village, and it’s a hard day’s ride away. Wandering clans stay out of these parts for fear of the Kushafis, and Balash’s men are too superstitious to explore across the gorge. The Hidden Ones, over there, could come and go without being seen. I know not just what we shall do; our destiny is on the knees of the gods.”
As they came down into the canyon, they saw that the trail led across the rock-strewn floor and into the mouth of a deep, narrow gorge, which debouched into the canyon from the south. The south wall of the canyon was higher than the north and more sheer. It swept up in a sullen rampart of solid black rock, broken at intervals by narrow gorge mouths. Conan rode into the gulch into which the trail wound and followed it to the first bend. He found that this bend was but the first of a succession of kinks. The ravine, running between sheer walls of rock, writhed and twisted like the track of a serpent and was already filled with darkness.
“This is our road tomorrow,” said Conan. His men nodded silently as he led them back to the main canyon, where some light still lingered. The clang of their horses’ hoofs on the flint seemed loud in the sullen silence.
A few score of paces west of the trail ravine, another, narrower gulch opened into the canyon. Its rocky floor showed no sign of any trail, and it narrowed so rapidly that Conan thought it ended in a blind alley.
Halfway between these ravine mouths, near the north wall, a tiny spring bubbled up in a natural basin of age-hollowed rock. Behind it, in a cavelike niche in the cliff, dry wiry grass grew sparsely. There they tethered the weary horses. They camped at the spring, eating dried meat and not risking a fire, which might be seen by hostile eyes.
Conan divided his party into two watches. Tubal he placed on guard west of the camp, near the mouth of the narrower ravine, while Hattusas had his station close to the mouth of the eastern ravine. Any hostile band coming up or down the canyon, or entering it from either ravine, would have to pass these vigilant sentries.
Darkness came swiftly in the canyon, seeming to flow in waves down the black slopes and ooze out of the mouths of the ravines. Stars blinked out, cold, white, and impersonal. Above the invaders brooded the great dusky bulks of the broken mountains. Conan fell asleep wondering idly what grim spectacles they had witnessed since the beginning of time.
The razor-keen perceptions of the barbarian had never been dulled by Conan’s years of contact with civilization. As Tubal approached him to lay a hand on his shoulder, Conan awoke and rose to a crouch, sword in hand, before the Shemite even had a chance to touch him.
“What is it?” muttered Conan.
Tubal squatted beside him, gigantic shoulders bulking dimly in the gloom. Back in the shadow of the cliffs, the unseen horses moved restlessly. Conan knew that peril was in the air even before Tubal spoke:
“Hattusas is slain and the girl is gone! Death is creeping upon as in the dark!”
“What?”
“Hattusas lies near the mouth of the ravine with his throat cut. I heard the sound of a rolling pebble from the mouth of the eastern ravine and stole thither without rousing you, and lo, there lay Hattusas in his blood. He must have died silently and suddenly. I saw no one and heard no further sound in the ravine. Then I hastened back to you and found Nanaia gone. The devils of the hills have slain one and snatched away the other without a sound. I sense that Death still skulks here. This is indeed the Gorge of Ghosts!”
Conan crouched silently on one knee, straining eyes and ears into the darkness. That the keen-sensed Zamoran should have died and Nanaia been spirited away without the sound of a struggle smacked of the diabolical.
“Who can fight devils, Conan? Let us mount and ride “
“Listen!”
Somewhere a bare foot scuffed the rock floor, Conan rose, peering into the gloom. Men were moving out there in the darkness. Shadows detached themselves from the black background and slunk forward. Conan drew a dagger with his left hand. Tubal crouched beside him, gripping his Ilbarsi knife, silent and deadly as a wolf at bay.
The dim-seen line moved in slowly, widening as it came. Conan and the Shemite fell back a few paces to have the rock wall at their backs and keep themselves from being surrounded.
The rush came suddenly, bare feet slapping softly over the rocky floor, steel glinting dully in the dim starlight. Conan could make out but few details of their assailants only the bulks of them, and the shimmer of steel. He struck and parried by instinct and feel as much as by sight.
He killed the first man to come within sword reach. Tubal sounded a deep yell at the discovery that his foes were human after all and exploded in a burst of berserk ferocity. The sweep of his heavy, three-foot knife was devastati
ng. Side by side, with the wall at their backs, the two companions were safe from attack on rear or flank.
Steel rang sharp on steel and blue sparks flew. There rose the ugly butcher-shop sound of blades cleaving flesh and bone. Men screamed or gasped death gurgles from severed throats. For a few moments a huddled knot writhed and milled near the rock wall. The work was too swift and blind and desperate to allow consecutive thought. But the advantage lay with the men at bay. They could see as well as their attackers; man for man they were stronger; and they knew that when they struck their steel would flesh itself only in hostile bodies. The others were handicapped by their numbers; for, the knowledge that they might kill a companion with a blind stroke must have tempered their frenzy.
Conan ducked a sword before he realized he had seen it swinging. His return stroke grated against mail; instead of hacking through it he slashed at an unprotected thigh and brought the man down. As he engaged the next man, the fallen one dragged himself forward and drove a knife at Conan’s body, but Conan’s own mail stopped it, and the dagger in Conan’s left hand found the man’s throat. Men spurted their blood on him as they died.
Then the rush ebbed. The attackers melted away like phantoms into the darkness, which was becoming less absolute. The eastern rim of the canyon was lined with a faint silvery fire that marked the moonrise.
Tubal gave tongue like a wolf and charged after the retreating figures, the foam of blood lust flecking his beard. He stumbled over a corpse and stabbed savagely downward before he realized it was a dead man. Then Conan grabbed his arm. He almost dragged the mighty Cimmerian off his feet as he plunged and snorted like a lassoed bull.
“Wait, fool!” snarled Conan. “Do you want to ran into a trap?”
Tubal subsided to a wolfish wariness. Together they glided after the vague figures, which disappeared into the mouth of the eastern ravine. There the pursuers halted, peering warily into the black depths. Somewhere far down it, a dislodged pebble rattled on the stone. Conan tensed like a suspicious panther.
“The dogs still flee,” muttered Tubal. “Shall we follow?”
The Other Tales of Conan Page 33