Against his will, Kailash felt his gaze being drawn to her. Invisible fingers gripped his head, turning it toward her. He clenched his lids shut, sensing that he could nothmust nothlook into her eyes.
She laughed again, more cruelly than before. "It matters not. I am with child. My scion grows quickly within me. Before the waning of this moon, the first of a new race of Mutare will be born. Your miserable body and its warm red blood will satisfy the hunger of my child. With a simple gesture, I could stop your heart. Instead, I shall relish your cries of agony as I feast upon your living flesh. For a human, you are strong. You will live for some time, until I rip the beating heart from your body and drink its juices. Look upon me, upon the beautiful face of death!"
With a choking gasp, Kailash's eyes opened wide and stared at Azora.
Her eyes were wide, red-black pools that drew him in. He was powerless to pry his gaze from them. His slashed, bleeding jaw hung slackly open.
His limbs were leaden, immovable. He fell dumbly to the floor, still conscious and still struggling. He gripped his sword so tightly that it stayed clenched in his paralyzed fist. His eyes, wide with terror, were still riveted to Azora's face.
The priestess's crimson lips drew back over rows of daggerlike black teeth. With inhuman strength, she shredded his mail vest as if it were gauze. Her malevolent eyes bored into his eyes as she tore a strip of flesh from his exposed chest and brought it to her mouth. Kailash could not even move his lips and throat to scream.
As Azora reached for his chest again, Kailash heard a loud, angry hiss from behind her. The priestess whirled, momentarily breaking her eye contact with the hillman. The wounded spider had locked its fangs around her ankle.
"Man-blood you told Xim," it wheezed angrily through its fangs. "Now you take from Xim! Blood is for Xim!"
Shrieking in fury, the priestess directed her gaze at the hideous spider and made a short, violent motion with her right hand. The spider flattened instantly, as if struck by an immense mallet. Azora kicked the pulpy remains away with her foot.
Kailash, released from her gaze, realized that he had regained control of his limbs. Shocked, but reacting with instincts that had pulled him through countless deadly border wars, the hillman adjusted his grip on the heavy-bladed sword and rammed it into the nearest targethAzora's distended, pulsing belly. His strength and fury drove the wide blade through, until its sharpened steel point protruded from her spine. A violent shudder shook her body.
Kailash's heart raced. Had he slain her? How could it be possible? His brief, wild hope was dashed as she moved slowly, drawing the three-foot length of steel from the ghastly ruins of her abdomen. Kailash jerked the blade through her fingers, dismayed to see that she did not bleed.
A foul-smelling ichor dripped from her belly, but she took no notice of it. Backing into the corner, Kailash raised his sword and waited.
Azora felt her belly, then screamed with rage. "The child is destroyed!" She turned her face toward him, her eyes burning hot and red like the very fires of hell. "Scum! Your pitiful blade is less to me than the sting of a mosquito. You will suffer as no human wretch has! With every drop of blood I draw from you, I will wring more agony than any human has endured!"
Kailash again felt his body freeze. She gestured, and the blade jumped from his grasp, rising into the air. With a flick of her wrist, the darkly stained length of steel plunged downward through the hillman's side. An unseen hand of incredible strength pushed it through him, burying the sword deep into the stone floor under him. Kailash's brain pounded with agony; his muscles, denied by their paralysis, could not even recoil from the blow. Sweat poured from his body as blood spurted from the wound.
"No vital organs were pierced," the priestess told him mockingly. "Your death will take days, like the death of a rabbit in a hunter's trap."
Maliciously, she gestured at the sword-hilt, rocking it back and forth and fraying the wound. Reaching down, she placed her hand on the ugly gash. Her palm burst out in flames, and she seared the wound shut around the blade. The sickening odor of charred flesh and blood filled the room. Kailash felt his mind disconnecting from his body, retreating from the scene in the room that had become a grisly torture chamber.
When the door burst open, finally succumbing to the pounding of the gargoyles outside, he was scarcely aware of it. In his dreamlike state, he could see but neither smell, taste, hear, nor feel. Three gargoyles rushed in past the smashed door, moved to the corner, and surrounded Azora and the prone hillman. To Kailash's surprise, they attacked the priestess.
Kailash would not have been thus surprised had he but known of the gargoyles' true origin and purpose. They were ancient creatures, born of an age predating the Mutare. The serpent-people of Valusia had bred the gargoyles to serve as guardians. From a sorcerer in Stygia, Skauraul had wrung secrets of mastery and used them to control the beasts. Azora knew nothing of these secrets, nor was she aware that her spells had no power over the gargoyles. Their simple minds lacked the human and animal emotions that much of Azora's sorcery depended on.
Eyes blazing, Azora faced the onrushing gargoyles, gesturing wildly with her hands. She cursed when the beasts continued to press her. They knew only that she was an intruder. Hundreds of years before, Skauraul had ordered them to destroy all intruders. Before Azora could react, they carried out this order relentlessly. In a frenzy of thrashing claws and gnashing fangs, they seized the priestess and tore her to pieces. She had no blood, but the substance of her body was pulled apart by their vicious onslaught. Regaining control of his body, Kailash turned away from the carnage.
He knew that his situation was hopeless. Azora had pinned him like an insect to the stone floor. Yet when he looked for his blade, he saw that it was lying beside him. Had it been an illusion? The chest wounds were real enough. Blood still trickled from the ugly gashes she had torn in his flesh, but his side was unmarked. The gargoyles would be after him next. Lurching painfully to his feet, the hillman brandished his sword and prepared for their attack.
His strength had ebbed, and he was dizzy from the loss of blood. He no longer felt the pain in his foot. His leg had gone numb from the knee down. In spite of these injuries, his Kezankian stubbornness kept him from laying down to die. Before this chamber became his tomb, he vowed to send a few of these scaly beasts back to hell. Grimly, he prayed silently to Mitra and braced himself for his final battle.
In the chamber below, Conan also faced several of the beasts. He jumped onto the pile of gargoyle stone at the base of the door, aiming a slash at the beast on his right. With unexpected agility, the gargoyle dodged the blow and launched itself at the Cimmerian. Momentarily off balance, the barbarian could not raise his blade to meet the onrushing beast. As he braced himself for the impact, the gargoyle on his left reached for the amulet with its daggerlike talons. Unexpectedly, the beast froze in mid-swipe as its talons brushed against the amulet's glowing surface.
The scaly horror turned instantly to stone, as Conan was slammed against the door by a rib-bruising impact with the other gargoyle.
The battered door burst open, too weak to withstand the combined weight of the two assailants. They spilled into the room beyond, in a confusing jumble of human and reptilian limbs. The amulet skittered away as Conan hit the floor. The gargoyle's massive torso pinned down his sword-arm, but he had somehow managed to keep his sword in hand.
Grunting and writhing, Conan grappled with the beast. The immense creature outmatched even the powerfully muscled Cimmerian; its arms were twice the thickness of his. Using all of his skill and speed, Conan knew that he could do no more than temporarily keep the beast from strangling him. His sword was useless in such close quarters; he let go of its hilt. The broad-bladed dagger at his belt was unreachable. In desperation, he cast his gaze about the room, searching for a weapon with which to give himself an advantage.
His red-misted eyes settled on the tip of the barbed spike that had snapped as the door burst open. It was wedged point-up betwee
n the doorjamb and a large piece of rubble. Wrenching his pinned arm from underneath the beast, Conan fought for a solid hold on the gargoyle's rough, scaly hide. One of the creature's hands gripped his throat, and its talons were digging in, tearing the skin and slicing into the thick cords of muscle on Conan's bull neck. The beast's other hand was wrapped around Conan's left forearm.
The thews in Conan's right arm bulged as he tightened his grip on the gargoyle. Heaving, he shifted his weight and flipped the beast over onto the tip of the outthrust spike. The sharp, barbed shaft sank into the beast's short neck. The skewered gargoyle convulsed once, then again, before turning to stone.
Shaking from his exertions and breathing erratically, Conan rose to his feet. His neck was a ruin of ripped muscle and torn flesh. A red fog clouded his vision, and he felt light-headed from lack of breath. His only thought was to recover his sword and the amulet, and to help Kailash if the hillman still lived. The other room had become strangely silent.
He took one look at his bent sword before casting it aside, drawing the broad-bladed dagger from its sheath in his belt. The short hairs on the back of his neck suddenly rose, and in spite of the desert heat, he felt a wave of icy cold pass over him.
Before him stood a black-garbed man, barefoot and weaponless. A small fire enveloped his right hand, illuminating his ageless face and dark, flinty eyes. Conan fought down an instinctive fear of sorcery and tightened his hand around the hilt of his dagger. He clearly faced a demon, or a sorcerer of some kind. In spite of the heat in the room, a deep chill crawled down his spine.
"I would welcome you were I a gracious host," the man said, smiling almost imperceptibly. "I am not. As for my wife, whom you have traveled so far to meet, she is indisposed."
Conan gauged the distance to the sorcerer and readied his dagger for a throw. He trusted his aim, and he prayed that a blade through the heart would finish this black-eyed devil. Even as he tensed his arm and drew it back, the devil's sorcery lifted him from the stone floor.
"Yuzmek," Skauraul whispered, gesturing upward. "Akmak."
The iron outer doors swung open with a crash, and Conan was propelled out of the room, through the air. The Cimmerian reached for the door frame as he flew past it, but the motion simply set him spinning.
Skauraul rose him up high into the air, past the tower steps, and over the bed of spikes that rose threateningly from the sand.
"Azalmak-delmek."
As the Mutare spoke, Conan plummeted toward an upthrust iron spike.
He could see the gleaming tip rushing toward him. The sharpened shaft ran through his leg, grated past the bone, but missed his vitals.
Grunting from the excrutiating pain, Conan gripped the shaft to keep it from tearing out. His iron will and vitality kept him from passing out.
He turned his face to the sorcerer, who stood in the doorway, gloating.
"Insect!" the mage raved. "A hundred warriors like you could do nothing to stop me. Suffer the fate of fools who lack the wit to fear me! You may live until nightfall, if the vultures overlook you." Skauraul turned, his cold laugh ringing out at Conan from the tower chamber.
Thousands of years before, when Skauraul's reign of terror was at its apex, Cimmerians were a race unknown in the civilized world. So it was that the Mutare had never encountered a barbarian, else he would never have left so dangerous a foe alive.
With a howl of animal rage, Conan channeled all his might into the arm that still gripped the dagger. His aim was true, and Skauraul did not see the silvered steel as it hissed through the air like an arrow from a longbow. The broad, foot-long blade struck the Mutare from the side, shearing through his ribs. The dagger had no crossguard, so the raw force of Conan's throw buried it to the pommel.
Conan's attack would have been a last, futile gasp, as no normal blade could harm a Mutare. But fate had guided the Cimmerian's hand in King Eldran's palace armory. The ancient, broad blade that Conan had chosen had been forged from a unique silver spike. The spike had been a holy relic from Pelishtia, forged into a dagger by King Nathouk and given as a gift to King Maelcinis of Brythunia. Nathouk had taken the spike from the tomb of Deranassib, the holy man who had slain Skauraul. The white-haired Deranassib had appeared in Conan's strange dream.
Skauraul clutched at his side and doubled over, drawing his breath in sharply. He spun around and howled. His unearthly scream rang out across the desert, and before the echoes had faded, the Mutare had crumbled to grains of sand. The blade lay smoldering in the doorway, its metal edges orange-red as if just taken from a smithy's forge. A chance wind swept across the steps to the doorway, scattering the small pile of sand.
Clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw muscles ached, Conan threw his weight forward, snapping the barbed shaft that had speared his leg. He drew it completely through the wound, each inch bringing fresh waves of pain. Finally the barb was out. He threw it down in disgust, making a tourniquet of his sword-belt to stem the crimson flood from the wound.
Limping, he went up the steps into the tower.
From Lamici's cloak, he tore a few strips and bandaged the ghastly hole in his thigh. The dagger looked far too hot to handle; its blade was glowing more brightly than before, the red glare turned a yellow-orange. As he went to look for Kailash, it began hissing and smoking. The heat filled the room, baking Conan like a loaf in an oven.
His deeply bronzed skin turned red, and he reluctantly abandoned his search for Kailash; injured, the hillman could not have withstood the four gargoyles. The last sound he had heard from Kailash had been the horrible scream of a dying man. At least he had avenged his friend's death, and fulfilled his promise to the hillman.
Conan hurried out of the smoking tower, retrieving the last water-skin as he left. When his foot struck a small, metallic object, he unthinkingly scooped it up as he rushed out. Later, he would wonder how he came to hold the amulet.
The dagger on the floor was now glowing white-hot, and the room had begun to shake. When Conan reached the edge of the spike-bed outside the tower, the stone walls rumbled ominously.
A sudden explosion rocked the tower, and the stone slabs cracked and collapsed with an earsplitting roar, as if a god had smote the structure with a mighty hammer. Skauraul's fortress began crumbling into dust, as its maker had done only minutes before.
Conan continued his trek toward the outer walls with as much speed as he could muster. When he reached the ruined gates, only a broken stone ring and a pile of crumbling stone remained where the tower had once risen proudly.
The Cimmerian sighed. So much for the treasure he had hoped to find. He felt fortunate to have escaped with his life. Bowing his head to shield his face from the sun, he began the grueling journey to the north.
Twenty-one
A Parting of Ways -
Conan remembered little of his arduous trek through the desert. He had numbly traversed the sandy wasteland until it was far behind him. His water-skin had been empty for over a day. Barbaric endurance had kept his legs moving, one stride at a time, until he reached the southern tip of the Path of the Serpent.
Near the path, he had found water and a haven for sleep, refreshing his mind. His body still ached from the punishment he had endured at the fortresshhe limped badly, and the leg wound was healing poorly. He shrugged this off; he had suffered worse in the past. Conan knew that he would reach Brythunia in spite of these wounds.
When he returned to Pirogia, he would tell Eldran his tale. He was certain that the king would give him a horse, supplies, and maybe even gold. He would bid Yvanna farewell; he smiled, for the first time in days, at this thought. Then he would leave for Zamora.
His mind occupied with these pleasant thoughts, the Cimmerian reached Innasfaln unmolested in several days of easy travel. He decided to stay at Malgoresh's inn for the night, in spite of the unpleasant memories the place held for him. A few tankards of ale would raise his spirits, by Crom! The innkeeper might even find him a horse.
He pushed open the ta
proom's new, pitch-smeared wooden door and strode in. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun had already begun to set.
A few locals looked up from their ale cups, then just as quickly looked away. At the back of the room, Conan saw the innkeeper's familiar face.
Malgoresh was leaning forward, intently conversing with two patrons who sat with their backs to the Cimmerian.
"Ale, by Crom!" he said as he reached the table.
Malgoresh looked up, and his jaw dropped in surprise. "By Hanuman's furry member 'tis Conan!" He smiled broadly.
One of the men at the table made a choking sound, spat out a mouthful of ale, and slammed down his tankard with a crash. He spun around to face the Cimmerian. Conan, in turn, felt a wave of shock engulf him.
"Kailash! By Crom and all the spirits of my fathers, I thought you were dead!"
He extended a scarred hand to the Kezankian, who grasped it. The hillman stood up slowly and pounded Conan on the shoulder with his free hand. The Cimmerian saw that Kailash's left leg was gone from the knee down. In its place was a freshly fashioned leg of wood.
"A thousand times I prayed to Mitra, hoping you might have escaped,"
the hillman said elatedly. "What befell you in the fortress?"
'Tell me your tale first. The last sound I heard from you was the scream of a man on the torturer's rack!" Conan sat down heavily on the bench.
Grinning, Malgoresh slammed fresh mugs of ale down on the table before them, as Kailash related the grisly events of his encounter with Azora and Xim.
"The beasts tore her into a thousand pieces and scattered the bits about. Gods, what a sight! They came for me next. I could barely raise my sword to defend myself. One beast I slew by luck and a well-placed sword-thrust. The next tore my leg off like the wing of a fly!" He thumped the wooden stump with a finger. "While he devoured it, I stuck my blade down his maw. He turned to stone like the other, but my sword was stuck. Then the third gargoyle suddenly turnedhas if being summonedhand went out, back down the stairs.
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