Conan cursed himself for failing in his battle plan to foresee the extent of the enemy's sorcery. Besides enhancing their deadliness and threatening to devastate his side's morale, their utter inhumanity seemed to exempt the snakeworshipers from the ordinary requirements of command. Even now, having broken through the main ring of besiegers circling the camp, he could see no sign of a central leader-or of generals or reserves, or even of petty officers to marshal the attack. The cultists seemed to throw themselves forward, sustaining their effort with a tireless, unquestioning unanimity; possibly they harked to the voice of immortal Set himself, hissing assurances ceaselessly in their ears.
Whatever their mystical unity, it appeared to leave the counterfeit warlord no place wherein to strike a fatal blow. Ordering his charioteer to wheel back through the thinning straggle of enemies, he reconnoitered toward camp. There he saw the escape corridor widened and the supply train and rear guard finally moving forward-an army intact and mobile, but lacking an objective! Rasping with ill temper, he ordered his charioteer to turn eastward again.
"At least we broke free of the camp," Evadne remarked to him. "With these thousands pressing us, it could have been a death-trap." Her archery had long since diminished to occasional stray shots; now she stooped over her bow to fit a new string to it, using a razored arrow-tip to slice away the loops of the old frayed one.
"Aye. 'Tis best to keep our army on the move, if it prevents the bulk of the enemy from converging on us at once." Conan gazed past the wheeling, skirmishing cavalry toward the southern flank of the army, where cultists still threw themselves against the Nemedians' close-knit line. "But we must find a target worth attacking. We spend our strength too freely against these unending hordes." He stepped up onto the grillwork of the chariot, steadying himself by grasping a harness rope as he scanned the field. "Ah, there, driver! Forward quickly, past those stunted trees. I want that man!"
The momentary splendor of sunrise had faded to a smoky radiance in the east, yellow-brown where the orb's light trickled through a dark, formless ceiling of mist and smoke. The sky's sooty translucence made it seem likely that before another hour had passed, they would no longer be able to tell direction by means of the sun. Yet the jaundiced day permitted visibility a good way across the plain. By its light to eastward, a crowd of figures could be seen straggling through the tall grass. The foremost of them, a stout warrior, moved to meet the chariot with the same numb steadiness the other cultists showed, but his silver-bright armor drew attention.
Evadne stared his way, exclaiming to Conan, "Why, that is Ulf, late the squire of Edram Castle! The old scalawag!" Smoothly she nocked a hard-pointed shaft to her bow, sighting on the breastplate of the distant, shambling figure.
"No, feather him not!" Conan clutched her shoulder to spoil her aim. "We need a captive to guide us to these hell-fiends' leader. Ulf is a recent convert to their cause, and he may not yet be so far gone as the rest. Swing near him, driver-take care not to trample him." .
The fat warrior, tardy for the camp siege, plodded doggedly forward, dragging his long-bladed sword along the ground: As the chariot bore down on him, he perked up, his gait changing to a lumbering trot, his weapon lifted two-handed in readiness. Then the horses thundered by, blowing the nearby grass blades flat with the wind of their passing. As the chariot followed around on one wheel, Conan launched himself from the platform to strike the man full on, body to body, forearm to throat. The squire's raised sword sailed off into a bush as the two armored bodies rolled on the turf, grunting and clanking.
"Ulf! Yield, old tyrant!" Growling with effort, Conan forced his weight atop the struggling squire. "You are my captive, and we will have speech together if you value your nose!" With a convulsive movement, he drew his dagger and held it poised before the supine man's face.
"Sa setha Efanissa!" Ulf spat out the ritual syllables at Conan, his slitted tongue lashing and sibilating against dry, cracked lips. "Hathassa fa Sathan!"
"Enough!" Forcing down a spasm of revulsion at the sight, Conan smote the butt of his dagger against the temple of his enemy's helm, causing the stubble-jowled head to rattle within. "You are Squire Ulf, late of Edram Castle! You may have been a black-hearted rogue, but you were a man! And a man you still are, or shall be-if I have to sew up that forked tongue of yours myself! Now answer me, who is the leader of the snakecult?"
"Laa . . . larthhh! Larrrhhhh!" The eyes of the haggard man seemed to focus somewhat, and his struggles ceased, but his tongue had difficulty in forming its accustomed sounds. Occasionally, between his efforts, it escaped his mouth to lash crazily against his bleeding lips. "Larrrhh isss priessssst!"
"Good, man, that's better." Leaning closer, Conan braced his knife-holding fist against his captive's chin. "And where can I find this priest Larth of yours? Which way do I ride?"
"Easssstt!" Ulf worked an arm free to wave it behind him, indicating the grassland. "Larrrrhh is eassst. Easssssttt. . . ahh! Aieee!"
Startled at his prisoner's convulsive shrieks, Conan glanced down to see with a shock that a small purple viper had wormed its way from beneath Ulf's breastplate and was sinking its fangs into the unwilling informant's neck. He reached down to flick the serpent aside with his dagger blade, only to discover a second snake's emerald body threading up out of the grass. Its fangs went deep into the hapless squire's cheek.
With a spasm of uncontrollable dread, Conan leaped to his feet, spying more serpentine flickers in the grass all around him. Sheathing his knife, he drew his sword to hack fiercely at those nearest. Then, standing over the gasping, blue-faced Ulf, he raised his weapon high and brought it slashing down. The stroke ended the squire's writhing agonies by severing his head.
"Conan! Beware!" He turned to see an ax-wielding cultist rushing at him through the grass; but before he could raise his sword to meet the charge, the form staggered two steps and collapsed, an arrow jutting from its armpit.
"Why bother to warn me at all, Evadne, if you insist on taking the mark every time . . . Crom!" His grim good nature turned to alarm as he swung around to see that the chariot moved at a near stop a few dozen paces away, suddenly beset by attackers. The driver lay thrashing helplessly a dozen paces in its wake, his neck seized in the jaws of a large serpent that had been hurled onto him as he drove. The chariot-team was rendered nearly immobile by the loss of the reins, and by a cultist who had thrown himself onto the starboard horse, clambering back along its harness toward the fighting-platform. Evadne was preparing to launch an arrow into him, but even as she raised her bow, three more attackers overtook the slow-moving chariot.
"Mannannan's black blood!" Pelting through the grass, Conan roared the war-cry to distract the enemy; but the cultists did not trouble to look back. As the arrow-pierced snakeworshiper slipped from the shying horse's trappings to bump briefly under the chariot's rolling wheel, the foremost of the pursuers vaulted onto the platform. Evadne turned and slashed with her bow to club him off, but he ignored the blow, hacking low and viciously at her with his long-handled scythe.
"Bite steel, dog of Set!" Conan's sword-slash laid open the rearmost harrier's back from nape to kidney, driving him to earth. The Cimmerian trod the writhing corpse underfoot without a glance, dashing for the chariot, where Evadne had no chance to avoid her attacker's sickle-strokes.
"Die, worm-spawn!" The second cultist left one arm clutching the chariot-rail, the rest of his body shorn away bleeding as Conan boarded the car. He was too close behind Evadne's attacker to swing his sword. "Wretch! Go find your father in hell!" The man was already choking on one of Evadne's arrow stabbed shallowly into his throat; now Conan jabbed it deeper, twisting it cruelly as he hurled the creature away behind.
"Conan . . . please ..." Evadne slumped to the floor, clasping reddened hands beneath her heart. "I am slain."
"No, girl, lie still." Searching in vain for a whip or the reins, he used the flat of his gory sword to slap the horses' skittish rumps into a trot. Once the chariot was trundling
faster than the pace of the converging scatter of enemies, he knelt beside Evadne. "Here, let me bind your wound." His throat clenched to see how much blood washed the chariot floor. "I'll take you back-"
"Conan, listen. . . ." The rebel woman's voice was weak, her face waning paler than her blond tresses. "If you survive, you will return to Dinander. Promise me!"
"Yes, Evadne." He reached underneath her to prop her sagging back. "So shall you; we will ride there in triumph. . . ." But it was too late; her head tilted away sightlessly toward the murky sky.
He knelt with her for a long moment, cradling her slack, almost weightless body against the jolting of the cart. Finally he lay her down gently and climbed to his feet, taking up his sword in blood-grimed hands.
He stood numb in the chariot, scarcely aware of the hissing, grimacing snakeworshipers who jogged after him in pursuit. Far to eastward, a column of smoke rose into the murky sky. Glancing back toward the camp, he saw a few cavalry, all of them blackmailed troops of Dinander, riding down stray enemies. Farther beyond, he could hear trumpets skirling, calling masses of troops together under the raised banners, hanging slack in the airless morning, of Sigmarck and Ottislav.
How like the swinish barons to stop and look after their own interests at the first opportunity, instead of pressing onward as agreed! Perhaps, had they not lagged so far behind, Evadne might yet be alive; he shook his head bitterly, blaming himself nevertheless for her death. At all events, her dying wish still whispered in his brain. He must now turn back to protect the interests of his troops, lest the warriors of Dinander be callously scattered and sacrificed to the enemy.
But as he turned to the front, his chariot suddenly pitched and stopped short, hurling him sharply against the rail. The horses of the team reared and lunged to both sides at once, terrified by the sight of a naked, dancing warrior decked with living snakes, who had sprung out of the low sedges directly in front of them.
Struggling for footing on the blood-slick, heaving platform, Conan abruptly found his arms pinioned as two of the hissing, chattering pursuers hurled themselves simultaneously atop him. He twisted to break free, but a third snake-eyed attacker leaped aboard to straddle all three, wielding high a stone-headed hammer. It plunged swiftly downward, striking the northerner's helm with an odd, stunning silence. Again, silently, it rose and fell; then again, as if Conan's skull were the head of a spike being patiently driven into the chariot timbers. With the hammer's fourth stroke, the numb silence exploded to engulf everything.
CHAPTER 16
The Head of the Serpent
Ravening flame consumed all. It spread and flowed like a mighty cataract, writhed as exquisitely as a tortured animal and sent blazing rootlets and blossoms creeping forth with tireless, plantlike energy. From its fury and withering heat, Conan knew that the Set-cult had triumphed. It's unquenchable holocaust had engulfed not only the Nemedian plain, but the entire world of men. Mad, surging flames now danced their ultimate victory; they would continue to do so for all eternity.
And yet, perhaps not everything was destroyed, for deep within the flames there hovered a ghost. Dim and remote, at times distorted or melted entirely by shimmering heat, the face was nonetheless beautiful. Dark-shadowed, gleaming eyes like dusky wells of dream; delicately round, blush-tinted cheeks; lips stained deeply red, as from tasting the juice of pomegranates. The face gazed forth beatifically from the fire, radiating at once the complacency of total knowledge and the passion of boundless desire.
Was it lost Evadne? No, this visage was framed by black curls that gloomed as night to her day-bright tresses. Yet it was a familiar face, and a loved one. It smiled serenely from the flames as if witnessing the world's fate and accepting it utterly, blissfully.
Ludya.
The shock of the name brought Conan more fully to consciousness as he lay stuck with congealed blood to the bed of the motionless chariot. He shut his eyes, their pupils scorched dry by the heat of the campfire, and learned that even the least flick of his eyelids sent tremors of discomfort throbbing through his skull. When he tried to raise his head from its lolling, crook-necked posture at the edge of the platform, all the unfelt pain and din of the hard-swung stone sledgehammer caught up with him at once.
He lay still then, trying to fix his aching, echoing brain on one certain fact: across the fire-circle from him sat a painted, smiling girl, and that girl was Ludya.
As his misery gradually diminished, he sensed movements nearby. A languid voice drifted toward him.
"Oh, indeed, this is a fine chariot! Better by far than our rickety old haycart." It was a boyish contralto, speaking guilelessly and sweetly, though at times it cracked with the huskiness of approaching manhood. "At long last I can transport you in the fashion you deserve, Milady! We will pile it thick with cushions and soft tapestries for your comfort."
"That will be fine, Lar." The answering murmur caused Conan to stir again with recognition. Consequently he suffered a new wave of pain, though less intensely than before.
"It will have to be cleansed first," the boyish voice said. "One of its riders, a woman, spilled her life's blood into it, so I am told. A sad waste-now she can never join us." The speaker moved closer to Conan's inert form. "But life still lingers in this man. Even if he fails to recover from his wound, he can be reclaimed to our cause."
Feeling a soft, tentative prod at the unarmored skin of his arm, Conan stirred, or tried to. "Wretched scut. . . I'll drag you . . . screaming to hell first!"
His threat was scarcely audible, blurred by his gasps as he slowly heaved himself onto his side. He groped among blinding, pulsating curtains of agony for his dagger. But he found none, and the insolent, piping voice would not retreat. He realized that he was out of doors and that it was day, though the dim lowering of the sky made the fire seem bright.
"For shame, fellow! Your threats do not swerve me. Why must you Hyborians ever practice violence?" Lar shifted impatiently before the flames, his voice cracking as it grew self-righteous. "Your unprovoked attack costs many lives on both sides-taking countless souls who would have rejoiced to serve our cause." He shook his tousled head resignedly. "You will never stop us, of course, but still I mourn the loss. It would be so much easier if you would simply try to understand."
"Understand!" Grasping the chariot rail, Conan dragged himself to a sitting position. "Talking of losses, your host moves through the countryside like a locust swarm-slaying and burning what and whom you do not steal!" He blinked hazily at the frail figure outlined by the licking flames, to see it suddenly joined by the burly silhouettes of two peasant guards.
"A common delusion." Lar cast his voice across the fire to where Ludya sat encushioned as his audience. "Like most people in these decadent times, you overvalue transient, temporal things. You have forgotten the strength of true devotion. Before it, material goods and personal obligations are as nothing."
Conan did not reply. He was occupied in holding himself upright, swallowing the deep draughts of pain that pulsed from his throbbing skull, flexing his fingers and toes to test them for sensation. Then, under the incurious eyes of Lar and his guards, he set about prying the dented, split helmet away from his skull, probing carefully at the broken steel where it was embedded in the clotted mess of hair and scalp. Finally, agonizingly, it came free, and he prodded gingerly above his ear to make certain that his brain did not lie open to the sky.
No, he decided, the wound would heal, if only Crom granted him life for another fortnight. He cast away the shattered husk of helmet and focused his slowly clearing vision on his captors.
The boy had none of the monstrousness that Conan had expected to find in the cult's prophet. He seemed strangely innocent, enough so to disarm the Cimmerian's natural impulse of mayhem toward him. He was, after all, only a child, hovering at the brink of the mystic transformation to manhood. A fine-featured, yellow-haired lad, slightly arrogant perhaps, and looking almost effeminate in his cape of gold-embroidered purple and his heavy gold cha
plet. But he moved with a careless lightness of limb that bespoke an easy conscience, boding no conceivable threat to the onlooker. His hulking guardians, one dressed as a smith and the other as a fur-trapper, appeared to be stolid, mindless types. They stood ready to obey, albeit without speed or initiative. Like their leader, they showed none of the bestial marks of Set, though for all Conan knew, their shut mouths might harbor nimble snake-tongues.
They waited with their young master before the fire, in the meadow in the midst of the trackless plain. Overhead stretched a taciturn sky whose cloudy, smoky expanse betrayed neither time nor direction. The camp's appurtenances were few: a tent painted with serpents and other mystic symbols, a battered ox-cart decked with faded pillows and tapestries, an open chest of food and wine-jugs, and Conan's own chariot.
His weary horses were tethered nearby, grazing with several other mounts along a shallow, meandering stream. Across the brushy grassland came no sign of the roving cult-hordes, no echo of battle cries or trumpets. The horrors of the morning could have been a dream, except for the blood that caked the Cimmerian's armor and stained the chariot where he sat.
Finally, tardily, Conan shifted his attention to the other person present. He felt a reluctance to turn his gaze on her, greater even than his disinclination to stare into the blinding heart of the fire. This hesitancy, amounting almost to a fear, came not only from her stunning beauty, but from her inexplicable, evil presence here. He met her sloe eyes cautiously and found them staring back at him with some of the same blithe innocence as the young cult-leader's.
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