Evadne's speech was interrupted by a bulkier shape looming at her side: that of Conan, effortlessly mounting the wheel-spokes and stepping into the cart. As he placed an arm across her shoulders to steady her, whispers flew among the troops at the sight of this handsome couple standing limned in torchlight.
"Troopers," Conan's timbrous voice carried out over the throng, "I come before you not as a baron ..."
At this a buzz of bemused assent issued from his listeners, since rumor held that, indeed, he was not one.
". . . or even as a Nemedian."
Again, at Conan's hesitancy, there sounded earnest agreement from the throng, for the accents of his speech corroborated his words.
"I stand before you as a man."
Although murmurs still coursed through the crowd, there was none who could gainsay this, so the troops stood patiently awaiting his next pronouncement.
"As a man, I know good from evil. Or I try to know it. I surely can recognize a great and growing evil when it tweaks me in the face." He paused uncertainly again as his listeners nodded and murmured, affirming the wisdom of his words.
"I have marched with you in these past days. I know, as you know, that what we face here is wholly, utterly evil. It is the way of the serpent." The muttering of the troopers grew heartfelt, with occasional strident yells of agreement. Conan's next words had to be shouted to be heard.
"As a man, I know enough to set my boot heel on the head of a viper!"
Without further oration, he turned and was gone, helping Evadne down from the bed of the wagon. He left the troops in a turmoil, cheering, jostling and waving fists in the air. A chant of "Favian" was set up somewhere, to die away just as quickly in disputes over the truth of the name.
Whether the soldiers had enjoyed his speech for its sentiment or for its brevity was unclear, even to those who liked it best. The hubbub was due in part, certainly, to the eve-of-battle toasting; tots of rum were promptly dispensed from heavily guarded casks around the camp. The northerner tossed off the one that was handed to him and sat down again in the torchlight, disregarding the thoughtful, resentful stares and whispers of Sigmarck and Ottislav. Evadne, saying nothing, settled down close by his side.
Conan was pensive, pondering recent events. After passing the ruin of Edram Castle and making their first night's camp in the wasted lands, it had taken another day's brisk march to draw near the creeping edge of the devastation. The ashes of cottage and barn had grown gradually warmer, the air darker and fouler with smoke, and then, toward dusk, their scouts had reported finding the enemy. No refugees, no trailing supply lines, just swarms of footborne ravagers bearing crude weapons, torches and firepots through the fields. Even now, by night, distant red-lit underbellies of cloud could be glimpsed where fires flared to southward and eastward.
Conan still hoped to find Ludya, or to send word for her. Yet he was forming the eerie conviction that no living human remained between himself and the Varakiel, long leagues to northward. Nor were there yet any bodies. In the chapel-yard of the ravaged village of Kletsk, even the new graves had been ruptured, their soil upturned and their tenants vanished with the rest of the townsfolk.
At these odd circumstances, superstitious fears beset the troops. Worst was their dread of the vipers that seemed so strangely prevalent in these damp lowlands; fortunately, none of the men had-yet been bitten. Desertions had been surprisingly few, and were less likely this deep in enemy territory. The troops seemed ready to fight-more so, possibly, than were their leaders.
Now they awaited the dawn to face a foe they knew nothing about. The barons, confident of victory, had formed only the vaguest battle plan: march forth at first light, attack from the flank and the rear, and rely on the snake-cultists' relative lack of weapons, armor and training to defeat them. Conan himself knew no better approach. If the Nemedian companies kept their formations tight and mobile amidst a scattered enemy, there was no reason why their few hundred troops could not vanquish ten thousand and more.
And so the Cimmerian sat brooding late into the night, pondering the turbulent events in Dinander and the strange turn of fortune that had brought him to his present station. Of course, he reminded himself, he could still make his escape. Never would it be easier than now; he need merely stray beyond the torchlight on an errand of nature, and fail to return.
But he knew he would stay; he had spoken truth to the soldiers earlier. He found himself confronted with an evil well worth the battling; also, there was the dwindling hope of finding his old love. But even more, he sensed a dawning of unknown potentials; if he survived this battle, where would it leave him situated with the barons and thralls of Nemedia?
So he sat until long after Ottislav and Sigmarck had drunk their fill and retired to their tents, when the only lights remaining were a few dim tapers marking the sentries' routes. Evadne dozed near him, curled on the ground, a horse blanket drawn across her chilly mail; she tended to stay close to Conan and her few faithful guard officers, in this camp full of lusty foreign males. Now, as the outlander sat brooding, she stirred in the starless, smoky dimness and spoke to him.
"Perhaps you were right, Conan. I despised you yesterday, but now I understand you better." Fresh from her rest, and without the tension of public discourse, her voice sounded pleasantly soft. "This battle we face may be more important than any politics, even more important than Dinander itself."
"It will be all-important to us, if we are to die in it." As he spoke, Conan scanned the darkness for any last sign of distant fires; he saw none.
"No, do not think of death. Just lead your troops well." She sat up, hugging the blanket around herself. "You primed them well tonight; now they will follow you more loyally as Conan than they ever would as Favian. Be yourself, do not trouble to play a role."
"The role is outworn anyway." For the tenth time that night, Conan tilted his cup to his lips to make sure it was empty.
"You no longer need it. I have seen you fight fiercely, both for and against our cause. You have the prowess to be a strong leader in battle."
"Aye, if nowhere else!" Conan's gloom lay on him as black and heavy as the night shrouding the camp. "But you, Evadne . . ." he turned to her . . . "you have the wit to govern a land at peace, to steer the destinies of courts and kingdoms. Pray you, take care in battle tomorrow; stand apart with the barons and see that they don't betray us. You are too valuable to be sacrificed in the front line."
At these words Evadne stiffened beneath her blanket. "I am a warrior, remember! I did not bring an end to the Einharson tyranny with honeyed words, but with bloodied steel. My place is among our troops."
She halted abruptly in her speech as a footfall sounded nearby; when one of the officers stepped into the light and saluted, followed closely by an infantryman, her steel dirk winked back into its scabbard. Conan, likewise, laid down his sword and spoke a greeting. "Yes, Rudo. What is it?"
"Co . . . Milord Baron, we sent forth roving patrols as you ordered. Now this sentry"-Rudo pushed the footsoldier forward-"brings a report of enemy movements to eastward."
"Yes? What did you see, then? Speak, man!" Conan admonished him.
"Milord, we saw nothing. They carried no lights, and we dared not show ours. But we heard footsteps -a great many, moving steadily on both sides of us. Also, a strange sound . . . it may have been just their feet sliding through tall grass, but it sounded like . . . like hissing snakes." The sentry choked to a halt, flustered. "We ... we made our way back to camp by following a ditch. They must have seen the camp lights earlier, I think they mean to strike at dawn."
"Crom! I told Sigmarck his torchlight ceremony was a mistake!" Conan reached out to extinguish the flickering taper, then thought better of it. "Rudo, what about the other approaches to the camp?"
"No word yet. The last patrol we dispatched to westward is overdue."
"Hell's gnawing fiends! Rudo, alert the barons! And you, man, make the rounds of the officers' tents. Have them bid the troopers ready t
hemselves quietly, without lights. Full armor. And tell them to lace their buskins up high against serpents!"
Conan strode to his tent, followed closely by Evadne-for they shared the same pavilion, a chaste curtain strung between their cots. As he fumbled for greaves and bassinet with which to complete his armor, her whisper came to him through the cloth: "There is little in this fight for a crack Nemedian legion to fear. The snakeworshipers can scarcely have mastered military tactics and drill."
"Only enough to raze Edram Castle." Feeling for the tent post, he clutched his steel buckler to prevent it from clattering to the floor.
"Well, at least they have lost the advantage of surprise." He heard the soft clink of her chain-mail being arranged.
"Aye. But if they are not utter fools, they have surrounded us by now."
"Conan, do you remember what you once said at the Manse? About us being two of a kind?" Her whisper in the darkness was made even softer by a faint huskiness in her voice. "Tonight I saw that like me, you have a knack for leadership. I know you better now. Perhaps there could be profit in a union between us. ..."
"By Ishtar! You women are seized by lust at the strangest times!" Conan's ill-restrained astonishment gusted through the tent. "I would oblige you, Evadne, but it could scarcely be managed in this armor."
"I didn't mean that!" Her momentary closeness vanished in a long, unmoving silence. "Although," she finally added, "once this battle is past, you could ask me again."
"I shall, depend on it!" The brisk rattling of his armor-stays revealed his exhilaration at the thought.
In another moment both Sigmarck and Ottislav were before the tent, gruffly demanding Conan's presence. With a last click of his sword-buckle, he strode out to meet them. "Hush, you two," he rasped, "or the enemy will be no more surprised than we are."
"So? What does it matter?" Sigmarck's voice issued low in the night gloom. "Neither of us can do aught in this blackness anyway. We make ready, and come morning, we fight them; what more is there?"
"You intend to wait here behind our flimsy barricade and let them come at us, in all their multitudes? What will you do if they decide not to attack us, but merely stand off and throw fire and snakes into our midst? Or build defenses of their own, and starve us out?"
"Aha, I see that the young baron knows the value of discretion!" Ottislav's laugh fell unpleasantly on Conan's ear. "But how do you expect to run, lad, if we are surrounded? 'Twould be disastrous to be caught by the enemy while sneaking away. . . ."
"Run? I said nothing of running. I mean to attack at first light!" Conan's voice throbbed forcefully in the darkness. "That way we can break the encirclement and hold on to the initiative. What are our cavalry for, if not to attack and keep the foe off balance?"
"But attack whom, and where?" Sigmarck demanded. "To attack outward in all directions at once is madness! It would disperse our force."
"When you fight a serpent, where do you strike? At its head! Once the head is destroyed, the body twitches and dies." Conan's words flowed out swift and sure. "So we press toward the enemy's commanders, who will be somewhere to eastward, near their center. That will be easy once dawn comes: we simply order the men to attack into the rising sun. When we've overrun their first perimeter, we can turn our strength where it will do the most good."
Evadne had come out of the tent to stand close beside Conan. "A clever plan, my baron-but remember, we have the burden of a shared command. I think it might be better to stand on the defensive at first."
"No, wait, there is something to be said for his idea." Smoothly Sigmarck took up the thread of the argument. "After all, our elite companies can certainly hold formation against an unruly mob, and the offensive will give us commanders a degree of control we would otherwise lack. If we can ready the men and horses with a minimum of noise. . . ." He muttered orders to one of his officers, who nodded an acknowledgment and turned away.
"My salute to you, young warlord!" Ottislav chimed in. "Your plan embodies the best Nemedian virtues: ferocity and resourcefulness! I too will back you!"
And so the nighted camp stirred with furtive activity, firefly wisps of tapers the only light. Conan saw to the hitching of his chariot and the most essential of the supply carts. By the time he was finished, a faint, half-illusory radiance was mounting in the eastern sky.
The silence intensified then, as troopers knelt in readiness about the camp. Token forces were assigned to hold the north, west and south perimeters, but only until a breakthrough was signaled to eastward; then they would move forth, following the wagons through the gap made in the encirclement.
False dawn faded, and the light seemed to take forever to return. The waiting would have been easier, the men thought, if only they had some idea of what lurked beyond the low barricade of shrubs and outward-pointed snags.
Conan stood vigilant in his chariot as the dimness spread and then deepened into a faint, muddy smear low in the sky to eastward. Evadne waited beside him, quietly at work in the ghost light, bending and stringing her long, slim bow and lashing extra quivers of arrows to the chariot rail. The driver they had chosen stood by the horses, murmuring softly to quiet them.
Finally sunrays pried through the dense, stale layers of sky at the earth's rim, Smoke-tinged, the light blossomed brighter and more luridly by the moment, brushing orange highlights across the undersides of hanging clouds. Conan saw reflections playing redly on the metal curves of the horses' harness; he heard low grunts and scrapings ahead, as troopers toiled to drag aside movable sections of barricade. He raised his arm high, and his driver swung aboard, taking up the reins; then he lowered his hand, and barked an order. Trumpets shattered the stillness at either side as the chariot leaped forward.
CHAPTER 15
The Thousand-Tongued Serpent
At first they saw nothing in the dimness but brush-mottled meadowland spreading before the paling smudge of sunrise. Then the riders felt the muffled jolting of hooves and chariot-wheels laboring over low, unseen obstacles. At last, arising from the knee-high grass all around, a few dim shapes appeared, growing to a swarm and then a host as the camp's besiegers broke from concealment on all sides.
In a moment they loomed so thick before the straining chariot-team that they slowed the battle-car's progress. The horses whinnied with rage and fear as they plunged to obey the charioteer's lashing whip. Conan struck out fiercely with a javelin clutched in either hand, stabbing ahead and sideward at the half-seen, converging figures; the attackers pressed so near that there was no need to cast his weapons. Beside him he heard Evadne's bow twanging steadily, plied with desperate swiftness.
From the rear, the thunder of hoofbeats continued as the cavalry erupted out of camp. Screams, curses and the clang of weapons told how quickly it was engaged. Yet those horsemen who galloped in the body-littered wake of the chariot soon overtook it, veering left and right to broaden the attack front.
Conan, straining and striking from his fighting platform, listened behind him with a worried ear. Finally, on hearing a distant, spreading clamor born of a hundred throats, he smiled in grim satisfaction. The infantry were being ordered forward; at last the battle was fully joined. Plying javelins with remorseless vigor, piercing each dim target as it flashed by, he searched ahead in the dawning light for sign of the enemy commanders.
He saw none, but what he did see almost made him, regret looking too closely. Now that the sun's full intensity broke over the plain, spearing it with violet rays and seeming to kindle the easterly grasses into a band of smoldering orange, it revealed more starkly the nature of the foes he had been striking at. Looming against the sunrise, tall-shadowed in the low, crimson light, these were beings who had long since forsaken their humanity.
He had expected to face gaunt disciples of Set, mad-eyed and tongue-slit like the pitiful youth he had seen in Ulf s tower. But here were veritable demons: hissing, grimacing things leaping at him out of the dawn, knowing no regard for their own lives or those of their comrades. Their
picks and scythes were terrible enough, flashing high against the red sky to strike dartingly at men and horses. But many of the attackers also bore snakes as weapons, or wore them as adornment, looped around their necks, writhing in their filthy garments or plaited into their lank, straggling hair.
To compound the menace, the lunges and grimaces of the cultists had a supernaturally fluid, reptilian quality; and Conan swore that some of the wrathful eyes flashing past him bore vertical, slitted pupils, like those of serpents.
But the greatest horror came as one of the reckless attackers transfixed himself on the point of Conan's spear. At the fatal instant, the man's mouth opened in a rage of agony; but instead of a tongue, there darted forth from his lips a green-headed asp, a living snake rooted in the wretch's mouth, striking vainly and repeatedly with its tiny fangs at the shaft of the javelin that transfixed its writhing, gasping host. Conan quickly relinquished the spear and its horrid burden, groping behind him with an unsteady hand for a fresh weapon as more attackers loomed beyond the fallen thing.
Gazing around the wheeling, converging horde of enemies, he glimpsed a new wave of serpent-tongued fighters, and he could tell from Evadne's gasps of consternation that the lurid daylight was revealing hideous sights to her as well. The effect was most telling on the horses, who tended to balk or shy at the sight of snakes. Fortunately, all four of the chariot-team were armor-masked and narrowly blinkered. Herd instinct, or sheer momentum, augmented by their driver's deft handling, kept them moving through the press of battle, if unsteadily. The passengers saw several nearby cavalrymen stopped in their tracks, thrown from their saddles or dragged down by mobs of snake-teeming foes.
The Nemedian infantry, slower in overtaking the main attack front, must needs meet the demonic horde face-to-snarling-face; consequently its ranks suffered the worst from the cultists' jabbing blades and fangs. A favorite tactic of the snake-tongued fighters was to parry or clutch their adversary's weapon with one hand, heedless of injury from its edge, while wresting aside the swordsman's shield or buckler with the other hand. Then, leering hideously and pressing intimately close in the thick of battle, they would open their lips in a venomous kiss. The agile tongue-vipers, long and sufficiently slender to penetrate a breathing-slit or an eyehole, found a tightly visored helm no obstacle. Their bite, to all appearances, was agonizingly fatal.
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