"Conan―what―?" Elashi began.
"Bats, behind us!" Conan said.
The bats, more than a dozen strong, boiled through the green light toward them. They were in a fairly wide cave, though it had begun to narrow where Conan and the others stood. A few more paces and they could attain a short tunnel that would force the oncoming bats to fly in tandem to enter it.
Tull pulled his knife and Elashi her sword, while Lalo bent for a fist-sized rock.
"Into the tunnel," Conan ordered. "I shall hold them until you are inside."
"Conan―" Elashi began.
"Do as I say, quickly!"
The three obeyed, and Conan could hear the fear in their thoughts, along with their reluctance to leave him alone to face the bats. They had no intention of deserting him, and he smiled grimly at the power of knowing their minds. He raised his sword for the first cut.
The first bat to arrive felt the shock of cold iron slicing through him but realized his mistake too late. Entrails spilled as the dying creature careened into a stalagtite and expired.
The second and third attackers fared no better as a backstroke with the sharped blue iron took one's head from its furry shoulders and the return stroke sheared the hindquarters from the other.
There were too many of them, though. Before Conan could ready the sword for another cut, four of the bats barreled into him. They were much smaller and lighter than he, but the weight and momentum of their number were enough to knock him from his feet. He stabbed upward as he fell, skewering one of the bats.
One of the other attackers dragged its claws over Conan's shoulder, drawing blood to fill the gouges. Conan grabbed the thing's neck with his free hand and squeezed. Small bones and cartilage cracked wetly as the Cimmerian tossed the strangled bat away from him.
Behind the frantic fluttering of the bats, Conan saw the form of the Harskeel. He might have suspected that one was still around.
The Harskeel darted toward Conan, a thin blade drawn for action, but it could not get close enough to bring its blade into play―the flurry of bats darting hither and yon impeded.it.
Behind him, Conan heard Tull, Elashi, and Lalo yell.
"We are coming, Conan!"
As Conan punched one of the bats square in the face with his knotted fist, shattering that poor creature's teeth and jaw, he thought that the odds now seemed more in their favor. A few more bats, one man; they could deal with those―Something screamed.
It was an unearthly sound, like nothing the Cimmerian had ever heard; a grating, screeching roar that made the skin of his neck chill and bump. It came from above, that horrible shriek. He risked a glance upward and noticed that the bats and the Harskeel did the same.
A flying monster swooped down toward him. It had a long, thin head and a mouth filled with teeth the size of a man's fingers, and its wings seemed to stretch halfway across the breadth of the cave.
Conan jerked his sword back to strike at the thing―Crom, it was huge!―but one of the bats, trying to get away from the descending horror, flitted behind him just as the Cimmerian cocked the blade and started to shift his grip on the handle. The edge of the blued iron bit into the bat's skull, effectively stopping further voluntary activity by the bat; unfortunately, the blade stuck in the wet bone, and the weight of the bat was enough to pull the sword from a startled Conan's too-loose grip Time to leave, Conan thought. He turned to sprint toward his friends, but it was too late. The talons of the flying monster closed upon him, one claw gripping his arm like an iron band, the other snagging in the leather of his belt. Conan felt himself lifted into the air as easily as a newborn child picked up by its mother. The flapping of the great wings fanned the air, stirring up a stinging spray of rocky grit and mold from the cavern floor.
"Run!" Conan yelled to his friends.
In answer, Lalo took aim and hurled his rock. Unfortunately, his aim was less than perfect and the rock struck Conan on the thigh.
"Go!" Conan yelled.
Conan was already too high for his friends to reach. They needed no further urging. The three of them ran for the small exit tunnel as Conan was lifted yet higher into the. air by the demonic flying beast.
Beneath him, the Harskeel screamed in a voice that started deep but quickly rose to a woman's shrillness. "Noooooo!"
The monster bearing Conan banked to the left and flapped away. Conan did not struggle. To be dropped from this altitude upon the rocky floor could hardly help his cause. Better to see where this thing would end its flight than to be dashed to jelly upon the surface below.
The Harskeel's rage evaporated in an instant as it realized that which had dropped upon it from the monster above was none other than Conan's blood. Only a few drops, to be sure, but certainly that would be enough? And the sword lay embedded in one of the dead bats on the ground, not three paces away!
The Harskeel had started for the fallen sword when Red alighted upon the floor in its path.
"Stand aside," the Harskeel ordered.
"We are done trucking with you," Red said, fluttering his wings in apparent anger. "Give us our spell, now!"
. "Certainly, certainly, in a moment. I only need fetch that―"
"Now!"
It was too much. To be thwarted by a fool of a bat when its goal lay within reach was too much. The Harskeel whipped its blade around in a flat arc, all the strength of its shoulder and upper arm in the blow. Red's head spewed blood as it looped through the air and fell, to bounce twice upon the cavern floor.
There were perhaps five or six bats still unin jured. They glanced at one another, then at the Harskeel.
"Anyone else in a hurry?"
No one, it seemed, was in a hurry.
The Harskeel walked to Conan's fallen blade and wrenched it free of the dead bat. The words of the spell came to it, firmly set in its memory after all the years of searching. The few drops of Conan's blood were carefully scraped onto the tip of the blue iron, and the point of the sword was just as carefully drawn down the Harskeel's body by its trembling hands, making a thin furrow from the top of its head to its crotch.
The last words of the spell came from the Harskeel's throat.
The air around it began to shimmer, and the Harskeel felt a surge of joy. It was going to work! Already it could feel itself―no, themselves―begin to separate into two beings. The male half focused on the right, the female half on the left, as the furrow―drawn by the blade and the blood of a truly brave man―combined with the magic of the spell to widen, forming two people where before there had been one.
The remaining bats watched in awe. The Harskeel laughed, the sound now coming from two throats and two mouths. Success! It had killed hundreds, slain indiscriminately, robbed, cheated, stolen, and finally, finally after all the years, it had achieved its―no, not its―their goal! The lovers would now become two, as they had been before.
Stretching apart as might a strand of elastic clay, what had been split finally into two. A mo merit later, a man stood facing a woman. Their smiles were radiant.
"What is this?" came a voice from behind them.
The man and the woman turned. The man held Conan's blade, the woman the thin sword that had been the Harskeel's.
They found themselves facing none other than Katamay Rey.
"Who are you?" the wizard demanded to know.
"None of your affair," the woman said.
"Hold your tongue," the man standing next to her said.
"After all these years? I will not!"
"It was your hasty speech that got us into this mess originally," the man said.
"I beg your pardon! It was you who―"
"Silence!" the wizard yelled. "I have not the time for this bickering."
"If we are fast enough, we can take him," the woman said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "Do not be a fool," the man whispered back.
"Now!" she yelled. The woman leaped toward the wizard, the sword held ready to cut him down. Half a step behind her, the man who had recently b
een joined with her managed to shake his head as he jumped to follow her. One more killing would hardly cause them problems.
A pair of cyclopes stood behind Rey, but at some distance. They would not be able to intervene in time.
The wizard raised his hands and waggled his fingers, and he spoke four hard-edged and harsh words.' '
Even as he gathered himself for the final leap to chop down the wizard, the man who had been half of the Harskeel felt himself slow, as if his feet had become liquid. He chanced a quick glance down, and in an almost detached manner noted that this was indeed so―his feet had become fluid. Even as he looked, his lower legs sank into the puddle that had been his feet. There was no pain, but a foul odor came from the ooze.
The man twisted his body to look at the woman with whom he had been perversely intimate for so long. Her lower half now consisted of an identical ooze, and she sank rapidly into this bubbling pool of high stench, looking quite puzzled.
"Now look what you have done!" she said, her voice a wail.
"I? I have done?"
It was the man's last speech, and in a moment the words were followed by his final thought: curse all the gods!
An instant later the two who had been the Harskeel of Loplain were nothing but bubbling puddles of stinking slime upon the floor of the cave.
* * *
Twenty-one
Deek's appearance accompanied by a cyclops caused no small stir amongst his kind.
"―D-d-deek! Wh-wh-what i-is th-this―?"
"―h-h-how c-came y-you b-by on-one-eye―?"
"―a-are y-you c-crazy―?"
But a short demonstration that first ensnared some of their folk and then turned the floor to oiled ice beneath others of them stirred them even more.
"―b-by all the g-g-gods―!"
"―r-r-emove th-th-this st-stuff―!"
"Think they are ready to listen?" Wikkell asked.
"S-so it w-w-would s-s-seem."
So the worms listened as Deek and Wikkell out lined their scheme. While there was no generalized rush to mount a revolution against the witch, voices that had been still before now were heard. That there was dissatisfaction with Chuntha's rule no one doubted; that there might be a chance to void that rule had never been thought likely. But if all of the giant worms joined with all of the cyclopes, perhaps such a thing was possible. Deek and Wikkell's possession of the two talismans they had purloined indicated that the witch and the wizard did indeed have vulnerable spots.
The discussion heated up and the talks were not short; in the end, though, the worms reached a consensus: if Deek and Wikkell could guarantee participation by the one-eyes, well, then, certainly the worms would be willing to fight alongside of them.
Deek and Wikkell looked at each other, and each knew the jubilation the other must feel. Success!
Well, to be sure, it was only half successful; still, with the worms' promise in hand, they had a potent weapon to sway the cyclopes to their argument.
Leaving the worms' chambers, Deek and Wikkell went to visit the cyclopes.
As his captor flew through the caves on its huge, leathery wings, Conan wondered which of the two magical rulers was responsible for his plight. That either the witch or the wizard had sent this beast was apparent. And it also seemed that he was wanted alive, else he would surely be dead by now. The flying monster merely had to loosen its grip and allow the fall to do the deed.
The answer to the Cimmerian's question was not long in coming. That tickle of words inside Conan's head came again: We shall be home soon, my beautiful barbar.
Definitely female, that voice, and since it seemed to come from the toothed reptile carrying him, Conan figured that the witch was somehow within the form of the creature.
Indeed. As the cave's walls seemed to close in and the floor grew closer, the thing holding him turned and swooped down familiar tunnels, reaching at last the entrance to Chuntha's chambers. Two large worms stood guard over the portal. Conan could not be certain that those two were the same he had seen before, since all of the worms looked alike to him, but he suspected it was so.
The creature settled to the floor-, loosing its grip on the Cimmerian but remaining within the reach of the worms. A hasty move might be repaid with a slap of one of those massive tails, and Conan did not desire to discover how powerful such a stroke might be.
Any thoughts of quick escape fled when the scaled reptile suddenly altered its shape. After a shimmer in the air, Conan beheld the form of the witch for the first time. He had expected a crone, wrinkled and crusty, bent with ages of evil, speaking in a cracked and raspy cackle, but that was not what he beheld, not at all.
Crom, she was beautiful! And naked! Her face, her breasts, her long and well-formed legs, her dark, silky hair… everything about her was altogether lovely.
The witch's smile was sensual and full of invitation.
"I have been searching for you for too long a time," she said. "We have much to… discuss."
Conan stared at the naked woman. Surely a woman who looked like this could not be as bad as he had been led to believe?
"Come," she said. "Into my chambers. You must be tired from your fight with the bats. You can lie down on my bed and… relax."
Relaxing was not high upon Conan's list of desired activities at the moment. Hardly. A man could not stand next to such a woman and think of rest, save in the most abstract of futures. Rest? Later. Much later. Added to his thoughts came the feathery touch of that mindspeech he had begun to hear recently: We shall lie together on my bed, strong one, and I shall show you pleasure beyond any you have ever known.
Chuntha turned, and the view from behind was as lovely as that from the front. Conan watched her walk away. Actually, it was more of sway than a walk, and the muscles moved under her smooth and silky skin in a most interesting manner.
Without prompting, Conan followed. He seemed to recall Tull's warnings about the witch, but the memory was dim and distant compared to the reality of the woman he beheld.
The escape tunnel that Tull, Elashi, and Lalo had chosen was instead a dead end. It stopped abruptly at a flat wall, and there was no option save to turn around and retrace their steps.
The three had not gone a dozen paces, however, when they halted again. A pair of cyclopes stood there, blocking the exit. After a moment the cyclopes moved apart, revealing just behind them the form of Katamay Rey.
"Ah, my friends," the wizard said. "You left so abruptly earlier that we did not have time to finish our discussion. And look, another has joined you." Rey nodded at Lalo. "Have I not seen you somewhere before?"
"I have only just dropped in," Lalo said, ever smiling.
"Mm. Of course, I recall. Sent by Chuntha, were you?"
"Not at all, you pea-brained fool."
Startled, the wizard raised one hand, then stopped. "There's something about you… ah, I have it! You are enspelled. My brother Mambaya Rey used to have such a curse at his disposal. Perhaps you know him?"
For once Lalo was struck with silence.
"Well, no matter, no matter. I see that your large companion has left you. Where is he?"
None of the three spoke.
The wizard grinned. "Ah, well, we can discuss this more at our leisure back at my chambers. You will come and visit, will you not?" He waved at the cyclopes flanking him, and they moved toward the three.
Tull and Elashi glanced at each other, and Tull shook his head. A knife and a sword would be of little use against these, and Lalo's wrestling less so. They were captured. Conan was gone. Things did not look good.
Wikkell's people seemed at first a bit more skeptical than had Deek's; still, the presence of the giant worm added to their interest.
"Talk is cheap, brother," one of the Cyclopes said.
"Indeed," Wikkell replied. He lifted the web device and pointed it at the doubting cyclops. The thin spray shot forth.
"Hey!"
In a moment the doubting one was so entangled he could not
move, save to squirm.
"Help me!"
When half a dozen others moved to do so, Wikkell turned the floor into perfect smoothness, and the six slipped and fell and slid hither and yon.
"W-w-we s-seem to h-have g-gotten their a-attention."
"Yes, we have, haven't we?"
Several hours later the discussions came to their conclusion. Yes, the cyclopes would join the worms in overthrowing the witch and the wizard. What exactly was the plan? How was it to be instigated?
Wikkell drew himself up and said, "Deek and I have that all arranged. First you are to choose a war council, with leaders. The worms shall do the same, and the two of us will then present our plan to the leaders of both sides at once, to save repetition. Naturally, Deek and I intend to be commanders of our respective troops."
With that, Wikkell marched away, Deek following. The murmur of the cyclopes as they began to vie for position trailed the two down the corridor.
At a distance at which they would not be overheard, Deek found a patch of speech rock. "Wh what p-p-plan? Th-this i-is th-the f-f-first I-I have h-heard o-of s-s-such a p-p-plan!"
"I had to say something, did I not? Frankly, I felt all along that our chances of ever getting this far were remote at best. I never really believed that we should actually have to mount a war against the witch and the wizard."
"W-w-well, w-we h-h-have c-come t-to i-it. N-n-now wh-what a-are w-we t-to d-d-do?"
"Devise a plan of attack, it would seem. Got any ideas?"
"I-I a-am b-beginning t-t-to r-regret I w-was e-ever h-h-hatched," Deek said. If it is possible for the body of a worm scraping over rock to intone regret, the voice thus produced indeed sounded regretful.
"Cheer up, Deek old slug. We are no worse off than we were before. Who knows? We might even win."
"I-I sh-shall n-not w-w-wager m-my n-n-nest o-on th-that p-p-possibility."
The witch proceeded to a large bed that lay in the center of the room. She climbed onto the bed, crawled to the middle on her hands and knees, then turned and lay upon her back. She smiled at Conan. "Come here, my beautiful barbarian man. I would feel your warmth next to me."
The Conan Compendium Page 86