The Other Tales of Conan

by Howard, R. E.

  In the canyon, men collapsed from weariness, lying down upon the rock heedless of the proximity of their late foes or sitting with their backs against boulders and crags. Most were wounded. All were blood-spattered, disheveled, and bloodshot of eye, in ragged garments and hacked and dented armor. Many had lost their weapons. Of the hundreds of warriors who had gathered for the battle in Yanaidar in the dawn, less than half emerged from the city. For a time the only sounds were those of heavy breathing, the groans of the wounded, the ripping of garments as men made them into crude bandages, and the occasional clink of weapons on the rock as they moved about.

  Though he had been fighting, running, and climbing most of the time since the previous afternoon, Conan was one of the first on his feet. He yawned and stretched, winced at the sting of his wounds, and stalked about, caring for his own men and gathering them into a compact mass. Of his squad of Zuagirs, he could find only three including Antar. Tubal he found, but not Codrus.

  On the other side of the canyon, Balash, sitting with his leg swathed in bandages, ordered his Kushafis in a weak voice. Gotarza collected his guardsmen. The Yezmites, who had suffered the heaviest losses, wandered about like lost sheep, staring fearfully at the other gathering groups.

  “I slew Zahak with my own hands,” explained Antar, “so they have no high officer to rally them.”

  Conan strode over to where Balash lay. “How are you doing, old wolf?”

  “Well enough, though I cannot walk unaided. So the old legends are true after all! Every so often, the ghouls issue from chambers under Yanaidar to devour any men so rash as to have taken up residence there.” He shuddered. “I do not think anybody will soon try to rebuild the city again.”

  “Conan!” called Gotarza. “We have things to discuss.”

  “I’m ready,” growled Conan. To Tubal he said: “Gather the men into formation, with those least wounded and best armed on the outside.” Then he strode over the rock-littered canyon floor to a point halfway between his group and Gotarza’s. The latter came forward too, saying:

  “I still have orders to fetch you and Balash back to An-shan, dead or alive.”

  “Try it,” said Conan.

  Balash called from his sitting-place: “I am wounded, but if you try to bear me off by force, my people will harry you through the hills till not one lives.”

  “A brave threat, but after another battle you would not have enough men,” said Gotarza. “You know the other tribes would take advantage of your weakness to plunder your village and carry off your women. The king rules the Ilbars because the Ilbarsi tribes have never united and never will.”

  Balash remained silent for a moment, then said: “Tell me, Gotarza, how did you find whither we had gone?”

  “We came to Kushaf last night, and the prickle of a skinning knife persuaded a boy of the village to tell us you had gone into Drujistan and guide us on your trail.

  In the light before dawn, we came up to that place where you climb a cliff by a rope ladder, and the fools in their haste did not draw it up after-them. We bound the men you had left to guard your horses and came up after you.

  “But now to business. I have nought against either of you, but I have swom an oath by Asura to obey the commands of Kobad Shah, and I will obey them while I can drew breath. On the other hand, it seems a shame to begin a further slaughter when our men are so weary and so many brave warriors have fallen.”

  “What had you in mind?” growled Conan.

  “I thought you and I might settle the question by single combat. If I fall, you may go your ways, as there will be none to stop you. If you fall, Balash shall return to Anshan with me. You may be able to prove your innocence at that,” Gotarza added to the Kushafi chief. “The king shall know of your part in ending the cult of the Hidden Ones.”

  “Not from what I know of Kobad’s mad suspiciousness,” said Balash. “But I’ll agree, as no city-bred Iranistani dog could worst Conan in such a duel.”

  “Agreed,” said Conan shortly, and turned back to his men. “Who has the biggest sword?”

  He hefted several and chose a long, straight one of Hyborian pattern. Then he faced Gotarza. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” said Gotarza, and came on with a rush.

  The two blades flashed and clanged in a whirl of steel, so fast that the onlookers could not see clearly what was happening. The warriors leaped, circled, advanced, retreated, and ducked decapitating slashes, while the blades continued their din, never stopping for a second. Slash parry thrust cut lunge parry they went. Never in Yanaidar’s thousands of years had those crags looked down upon so magnificent a display of swordsmanship.

  “Hold!” cried a voice. Then, as the fight continued: “I said hold!”

  Conan and Gotarza backed away from each other warily and turned to see who was shouting.

  “Bardiya!” cried Gotarza at the stout majordomo, who stood in the notch of the gully that led to the cliff of the rope ladder. “What do you here?”

  “Cease your battle,” said the Iranistani. “I have killed three horses catching up with you. Kobad Shah has died of the poison on the flame knife, and his son Arshak reigns. He has withdrawn all charges against Conan and Balash and urges Balash to resume his loyal protection of the northern frontier and Conan to return to his service. Iranistan will need such warriors, as Yezdigerd of Turan, having dispersed the bands of kozaki, is again sending his armies forth to ravage and subdue his neighbors.”

  “If that’s so,” said Conan, “there will be rich pickings on the Turanian steppe again, and I’m tired of the intrigues of your perfumed court.” He turned to his men. “Those who want to return to Anshan may go; the rest ride north with me tomorrow.”

  “But what of us?” wailed a plumed Hyrkanian guard from Yanaidar. “The Iranistanis will slay us out of hand. Our city is taken by ghouls, our families are slaughtered, our leaders are slain. What will become of us?”

  “Those who like may come with me,” said Conan indifferently. “The others might ask Balash if he’ll accept them. Many of the women of his tribe will be looking for new husbands Crom!”

  Conan’s roving eye had lighted on a group of women in which he recognized Parusati. The sight reminded him of something he had forgotten.

  “What is it, Conan?” said Tubal.

  “I forgot the wench, Nanaia. She’s still in the tower. Now how in Hell am I to get back to rescue her from the ghouls?”

  “You needn’t,” said a voice. One of the surviving Zuagirs who had followed Conan pulled off a bronze helmet, revealing Nanaia’s features as her black hair tumbled down her back.

  Conan started, then laughed thunderously. “I thought I told you to stay oh, well, it’s just as well you didn’t.” He kissed her loudly and spanked her sharply. “One’s for fighting beside us; the other’s for disobedience. Now ceme along. Rouse yourselves, dog-brothers; will you sit on your fat behinds on these bare rocks until you starve?”

  Leading the tall dark girl, he strode into the cleft that led to the road to Kushaf.

  15. DRUMS OF TOMBALKU

  Eventually, Conan beats his way back to the Hyborian lands. Seeking further employment as a condottiere, he joins a mercenary army that a Zingaran, Prince Zapayo da Kova, is raising for Argos. Argos and Koth are at war with Stygia. The plan is that Koth shall invade Stygia from the north, while the Argossean army enters Stygja from the south by sea. Koth, however, makes a separate peace with Stygia, and the mercenary army is trapped in southern Stygia between two hostile forces. Again, Conan is among the few survivors. Fleeing through the desert with a young Aquilonian soldier, Amalric, he is captured by desert nomads while Amalric escapes.

  I.

  Three men squatted beside the water hole, beneath a sunset sky that painted the desert umber and red. One was white, and his name was Amalric; the other two were Ghanatas, their tatters scarcely concealing their wiry black frames. Men called them Cobir and Saidu; they looked like vultures as they crouched beside the water hol
e.

  Nearby, a camel noisily ground its cud and a pair of weary horses vainly nuzzled the bare sand. The men cheerlessly munched dried dates. The black men were intent only on the working of their jaws, while the white man occasionally glanced at the dull-red sky or out across the monotonous level, where shadows were gathering and deepening. He was the first to see the horseman who rode up and drew rein with a jerk that set the steed to rearing.

  The rider was a giant whose skin, blacker than that of the other two, as well as his thick lips and flaring nostrils, told of a heavy predominance of Negro blood. His wide silk pantaloons, gathered in about his bare ankles, were supported by a broad girdle wrapped repeatedly about his huge belly. That girdle also supported a flaring-tipped scimitar, which few men could have wielded with one hand. With that scimitar, the man was famed wherever the dark-skinned sons of the desert rode. He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata.

  Across his saddle a limp shape lay, or rather hung. Breath hissed through the teeth of the Ghanatas as they caught the gleam of pale limbs. It was a white girl who hung face-down across Tilutan’s saddle bow, her loose hair flowing over his stirrup in a rippling black wave.

  The black giant grinned with a glint of white teeth as he casually cast his captive into the sand, where she lay laxly, unconscious. Instinctively, Gobir and Saidu turned toward Amalric, while Tilutan watched him from his saddle: three black men against one white. The entrance of a white woman into the scene had wrought a subtle change in the atmosphere.

  Amalric was the only one apparently oblivious to the tension. He absently raked back his yellow locks and glanced indifferently at the girl’s limp figure. If there was a momentary gleam in his gray eyes, the others did not catch it.

  Tilutan swung down from his saddle, contemptuously tossing the rein to Amalric.

  “Tend my horse,” he said. “By Jhil, I did not find a desert antelope, but I did find this little filly. She was reeling through the sands and fell just as I approached. I think she fainted from weariness and thirst. Get away from there, you jackals, and let me give her a drink.”

  The big black stretched the girl out beside the water hole and began laving her face and wrists and trickling a few drops between her parched lips. Presently, she moaned and stirred. Cobir and Saidu crouched with their hands on their knees, staring at her over Tilutan’s burly shoulder. Amalric stood a little apart, his interest seeming only casual.

  “She is coming to,” announced Gobir.

  Saidu said nothing but licked his thick lips.

  Amalric’s gaze traveled impersonally over the prostrated form, from the torn sandals to the loose crown of glossy black hair. The girl’s only garment was a silken kirtle, girdled at the waist. It left her arms, her neck, and part of her bosom bare, and the skirt ended several inches above her knees. On the parts revealed, the gaze of the Ghanatas rested with devouring intensity, taking in the soft contours, childish in their white softness, yet rounded with budding womanhood.

  Amalric shrugged. “After Tilutan, who?” he carelessly asked.

  A pair of lean heads turned toward him; bloodshot eyes rolled at the question. Then the black men turned and stared at each other. Sudden rivalry crackled electrically between them.

  “Don’t fight,” urged Amalric. “Cast the dice.” His hand came out from under his worn tunic, and he threw down a pair of dice before them. A clawlike hand seized them.

  “Aye!” agreed Gobir. “We cast—after Tilutan, the winner!”

  Amalric threw a glance toward the giant black, who still bent above his captive, bringing life back into her exhausted body. As Amalric looked, her long-lashed lids parted. Deep violet eyes stared bewilderedly up into the leering face of the black man. An explosive exclamation of pleasure escaped the thick lips of Tilutan. Wrenching a flask from his girdle, he put it to her mouth. Mechanically, she drank the wine. Amalric avoided her wandering gaze; he was one white man to three blacks—any one of them his match.

  Gobir and Saidu bent above the dice; Saidu cupped them in his palm, breathed on them for luck, shook, and threw. Two vulturellike heads bent over the cubes, which spun in the dim light And with the same motion, Amalric drew and struck. The edge sliced through a lean neck, severing the windpipe. Gobir, his head hanging by a thread, fell across the dice, spurting blood.

  Simultaneously Saidu, with the desperate quickness of a desert man, shot to his feet, drew, and hacked ferociously at the slayer’s head. Amalric barely had time to catch the stroke on his lifted sword. The whistling scimitar beat the straight blade down on the white man’s head, staggering him so that he dropped his sword. Recovering, he threw both arms about Saidu, dragging him into close quarters where his scimitar was useless. Under the desert man’s rags, the wiry frame was like steel and rawhide.

  Tilutan, instantly comprehending the matter, had cast the girl down and risen with a roar. He rushed toward the stragglers like a charging bull, his great scimitar flaming in his hand. Amalric saw him coming, and his flesh turned cold. Saidu jerked and wrenched, handicapped by the scimitar he was still futilely seeking to turn against his antagonist Their feet twisted and stamped in the sand; their bodies ground against each other. Amalric smashed his sandaled heel down on the Ghanata’s bare instep, feeling bones give way. Saidu howled and plunged convulsively. They lurched drunkenly about, just as Tilutan struck with a rolling drive of his broad shoulders. Amalric felt the steel rasp the under part of his arm and chug deep into Saidu’s body. The smaller Ghanata gave an agonized scream, and his convulsive start tore him free of Amalric’s grasp.

  Tilutan roared a furious oath and, wrenching his steel free, hurled the dying man aside. Before he could strike again, Amalric, his skin crawling with the fear of that great curved blade, had grappled with him.

  Despair swept over Amalric as he felt the strength of the Negro. Tilutan was wiser than Saidu. He dropped the scimitar and, with a bellow, caught Amalric’s throat with both hands. The great black fingers locked like iron. Amalric, vainly striving to break their grip, was borne down with the Ghanata’s great weight pinning him to the earth. The smaller man was shaken like a rat in the jaws of a dog. His head was savagely smashed against the sand. As in a red mist he saw the furious race of the Negro, the thick lips writhed back in a ferocious grin of hate, the teeth glistening.

  “You want her, you white dog!” the Ghanata snarled, mad with rage and lust. “Arrgh! I break your neck! I tear out your throat! I—my scimitar! I cut off your head and make her kiss it!”

  With a final ferocious smash of Amalric’s head against the hard-packed sand, Tilutan, in an excess of murderous passion, half-lifted his antagonist and hurled him down. Rising, the black ran, stooping, and caught up his scimitar from where it lay, a broad crescent of steel in the sand. Yelling in ferocious exaltation, he turned and charged back, brandishing the blade on high. Amalric— dazed, shaken, and sick from the manhandling he had received—rose to meet him.

  Tilutan’s girdle had become unwound in the fight, and now the end dangled about his feet. He tripped, stumbled, and fell headlong, throwing out his arms to save himself. The scimitar flew from his hand.

  Amalric, galvanized, caught up the scimitar with both hands and took a reeling step forward. The desert swam darkly to his gaze. In the dusk before him, be saw Tilutan’s face go slack with a premonition of doom. The wide mouth gaped; the whites of the eyeballs rolled up. The black froze on one knee and one hand, as if incapable of further motion. Then the scimitar fell, cleaving the round head to the chin. Amalric had a dim impression of a black face, divided by a widening red line, fading in the thickening shadows. Then darkness caught him with a rush.

  Something cool and soft was touching Amalric’s face with gentle persistence. He groped blindly, and his hand closed on something warm, firm, and resilient As his sight cleared, he looked into a soft, oval face, framed in lustrous black hair. As in a trance, he gazed unspeaking, hungrily dwelling on each detail of the full, red lips, the dark, violet eyes, and the alabaste
r throat With a start, he realized that the vision was speaking in a soft, musical voice. The words were strange, yet possessed of an elusive familiarity. A small, white hand, holding a dripping bunch of silk, was passed gently over his throbbing head and his face. Dizzily, he sat up.

  It was night, under star-splashed skies. The camel still munched its cud; a horse whinnied restlessly. Not far away lay a hulking figure with its cleft head in a horrible puddle of blood and brains.

  Amalric looked up at the girl who knelt beside him, talking in her gentle, unknown tongue. As the mists cleared from his brain, he began to understand her. Harking back into half-forgotten tongues he had learned and spoken in the past, he remembered a language used by a scholarly class in a southern province of Koth.

  “Who—are—you, girl?” he asked in slow and stumbling speech, imprisoning a small hand in his own hardened fingers.

  “I am Lissa.” The name was spoken with almost the suggestion of a lisp. It was like the rippling of a slender stream. “I am glad you are conscious. I feared you were not alive.”

  “A little more and I shouldn’t have been,” he muttered, glancing at the grisly sprawl that had been Tilutan. The girl, shuddering, refused to follow his glance. Her hand trembled and, in their nearness, Amalric thought he could feel the quick throb of her heart.

  “It was horrible,” she faltered. “like an awful dream. Anger—and blows—and blood—”

  “It might have been worse,” he growled.

  She seemed sensitive to every changing inflection of voice or mood. Her free hand stole timidly to his own.

  “I did not mean to offend you. It was very brave for you to risk your life for a stranger. You are noble as the northern knights about which I have read.”

  He cast a quick glance at her. Her wide dear eyes met his, reflecting only the thought that she had spoken. He started to speak, then changed his mind and said another thing.