The demon's gate might never have existed, for all that Conan could see of it. Nor was there any trace of Vuona. She could not be far ahead of him, but what did the demon's gate do to distance?
Also, what might it have done to her senses? Bare as she was, she could not have passed quickly over this rocky ground even had she been sound of mind and wits. Fuddled by the demon's gate, she might well have fallen down the slope and now be a corpse, battered out of human semblance against the rocks in the rapids.
Conan did not know what gods ruled in this land, nor which of them would help him if petitioned. So he merely asked that cold Crom, if he took care for a warrior's honor, would allow him to return to the Black Kingdoms. That the god would further allow him to find Idosso alive, and to then end the man's life. It was the least he could do for Vuona, he vowed, although he suspected he might have an exceedingly long journey from this land to the lands of the Bamulas.
Having made the vow and seen no signs of disapproval that he recognized, Conan considered how well he was prepared to face this land. He was no worse-clad than he had often been when facing harsher weather. Sandals protected feet, while a belt held weapons and a pouch of pressed meat and beans (hard as wood, as enduring, and tasting hardly better, to Conan's mind).
His weapons were sword and dagger, with the spear now hardly more than a staff or club. Its soft iron head had not met hard mountain rock in friendship or survived intact. He would have given much for a bow, had he thought there was anyone in this land able to accept the offer.
Seeing no bowyers' or fletchers' shops hidden behind the rocks, he resolved to seek out sinew and flint, feathers and branches, to make his own. Also a sling, a weapon he had small use for on the battlefield but one that he had found handy for filling the pot in any wilderness (and for poaching in more civilized lands).
Conan shifted his spear to his left hand and drew his dagger with his right. Then, putting his hillman's knowledge to the test, he began to climb toward the ravine and the sky beyond.
***
Scyra had waited long, but only silence came from her father's chambers. Indeed, the whole cave was more silent than she had ever known it, even when her father had simply fallen asleep in the course of nature.
When he did that, his body at last commanding his sorcery-clouded mind, he always snored. She remembered vividly the snores that raised echoes not only in his chambers, but outside them, when she went in to draw blankets over him.
Scyra's eyes grew moist at the memory, and at other memories from years farther back, before exile, the wilderness, and all that came with it.
Her father had tucked her into bed during the year of her mother's illness. Then she had begun tucking him in, when his grief after Mother's death threatened to unman him.
Had it in fact done so in the end, turning him into what he had become, all but a slave of his own powers? At least she prayed to lawful gods, when she could remember their names, that it was only to his own powers. Had he been grief-stricken beyond common sense, and thought of nothing but avenging his wife (or of at least sending her the message that he loved her, words he had so often left unsaid in life)?
Scyra did not know. She knew only that unless her father called out by voice or spell and said that he was dying, she had to flee this cave for a while. In time, she would return, to be the dutiful daughter while also working along her own paths, to perfect her own magick as well as to master her father's. Not so dutiful as to submit to wedding a Pictish chieftain, but there was much else that she could do before she had to openly refuse that last bargain.
The air in the cave seemed hotter and heavier than usual, and she smelled a pungent hint of sulphur. Eager as she was to flee to the fresh air, she did not do so in foolish haste. She had been spellclad for studying the scrolls, in case she needed to actually cast one to test them. Now she drew on breeches and undertunic, overtunic, belt and dagger, wrapped her auburn hair in a rawhide hood, and pulled over everything a rawhide cloak in the Gunderman style.
Staff in hand, she made her way out of the silence and stink to the outer cave. She paused to salute the votive lamps at the mouth, and to kiss the upheld hilt of her dagger. Then she flattened herself against the wall and sidled toward the daylight.
The Picts were her masters in woodscraft, as they were the masters of most folk, and if they dared to lurk near the cave, they would see her before she saw them. But if the Owls were daring to draw close to the cave, much else had gone awry, and the best she could hope for was to live long enough to bring word of their presence to her father.
If he had not indeed allowed them to close in, echoed in Scyra's mind.
The wind from the cave mouth seemed suddenly to bring more cold than cleansing.
The echo grew louder, and she realized that it was not of the making of her mind. Borne on the wind with it was the sound of Pictish drums.
They were not close, but had the volume of a clan-sized war party at least.
She would still go out, but stay close to the cave. Even a Pict commonly wary of sorcery would lose fear of wizardry and all else in his war-frenzy, and slay what stood before him without caring much what it was.
***
The boy Govindue was glad that everyone believed he was as brave as he wished to appear. Even his father seemed to be deceived. But then, his father had suffered much. He would be slow to believe ill of his only remaining son.
In truth, Govindue (and no doubt the gods) knew that he was both as excited as when he had taken his first woman and as frightened as the first time he had hunted a leopard. He had been fortunate both times, pleasing the woman and killing the leopard. Remembering such good fortune was about all that kept his limbs moving as he trod the road through the demon's gate. It felt like a muddy trail, and adding to Govindue's unease was the feeling that at any moment the mud would turn liquid and he would plunge downward, out of even the golden demon-light and into a darkness without end.
Then the mud seemed to dry and the golden hue faded from the light. A moment later, Govindue sensed something harder and colder under his feet than he had ever before felt. He had heard of walking on bare rock, with wind colder than the winter rains about you, from certain elders who had reached the Mountains of the Moon and returned. He himself had never left the Bamula lands; he could only believe the tales of the elders as a boy must, to show respect.
Govindue went to his knees, then sprang up and ran. He did not know what lay before or behind, except that any foes who lay before should have a moving target. Also, he could seek out any foes laying ambushes for those who might come behind him.
Govindue ran fifty paces before he realized that the ground was turning into a steep slope. Also, he was bumping into the trunks of stout trees, and their lower branches were lashing him across the face. He halted and studied the limbs.
Instead of leaves, they had clusters of fine needles, and instead of nuts, they had clusters of little brown scales. Once he had seen an old warshirt taken from the body of a Stygian slave-raider, a shirt made of iron scales shaped much like this. Also, he had heard of such trees, again from those elders who had walked in the Mountains of the Moon.
Well, even if the demon's gate had taken them no farther than the Mountains of the Moon they would have a long journey home and not all of them would complete it. They would have to fight hostile tribes, to say nothing of the demons servants who were surely close at hand, ready for their master to call them into use”
Drums sounded from up the hill. The drummers were lost in the trees, but Govindue was accustomed to judging the place of a drummer half a day's march away in the jungle. These were five or six of them, beating small drums and no more than ten spear-throws uphill and to the left.
Thunder rolled, although Govindue saw nothing amiss, neither golden light nor indeed any disturbance of the air. He did see a man stagger into the open and go to his knees. More men followed, until there were nearly as many as he could count on his hands and toes.
Govindue swallowed a cry. He had recognized the first man through the gate. It was his father, Bessu. Others of Dead Elephant Valley were with him, likewise some Greater Bamulas. He recognized Kubwande, and less happily, Idosso.
The boy began to work his way down the slope. He was relieved to see that the warriors seemed to have their wits about them. They had fallen swiftly into silence and had readied their shields and weapons in response to the drums.
His relief faded quickly as he saw his father and Idosso quarreling.
They kept their voices low; he heard no words. But he knew his father's face well enough to read it even from this distance. Also, Kubwande was not taking sides, which weakened Idosso but also Bessu, and indeed, weakened the whole band by allowing the quarrel to go on.
Govindue began moving faster. His place was at his father's side, all the more because his father had followed him through the demon's gate.
He moved so swiftly that on the rocky ground his foot turned and he would have fallen had he not been able to brace himself against a tree.
From a bush ahead, a man rose into view. Govindue saw him clearly, although no one unused to hunting in dense forest would have recognized the form of a man. Govindue not only recognized the form of a man, but saw that he was naked except for a loincloth and a necklace of human teeth. Save where he was tattood or painted, he was brown-skinned, about the hue of some Stygians, and carried a bronze-headed war-axe and a short bow with a quiver of flint-headed arrows.
The man's dark eyes quested about, searching other bushes and trees for the source of the drumming noise. Govindue had the eerie sense that the tree he had sought the moment he slipped was no protection from the man's gaze, let alone his arrows. Did the man have potent magick. What if all his people had the same?
But if the man had magick, it was not enough to reveal Govindue to him.
He needed no magick, however, to see the Bamulas gathered in the open, or to signal to what were likely his comrades. The axe rose and fell three times. Only those behind him could have seen it, they and Govindue. The boy also saw more bushes quivering slightly; the man had at least a hand of comrades. If they all had bows”
If they all had bows, Govindue knew what he must do. He would be alone among at least six of the enemy, and he would die there. But if he died giving a warning, his father and others would live. If in time they knew he had given the warning, the ancestors would be told and would honor him.
Also, Idosso would know what kind of son Bessu had, and perhaps accept his leadership. If Idosso did not, Kubwande might.
The man was rising again, with his bow ready and an arrow in his hand.
Standing, he turned his side to Govindue. He was smaller than the boy, but his exposed side seemed as generous a target as the flank of a buffalo.
Govindue's spear flew. As it struck, Govindue cupped his hands and shouted: "Wayo, wayo, wayo! The enemy comes! Wayo, wayo, wayo, the son of Bessu calls!"
***
Conan had been creeping downhill ever since he reached the ridge and heard the drums. He could have used more time on the high ground spying out the land, but even a brief look had been enough.
This was indeed far from the Black Kingdoms, a higher, colder land way to the north. The trees were pines and firs, giving the terrain a darker hue than that of the jungles of the south. The sky was harsher and the sun milder than in the land of the Bamulas. Far away a line of slate-tinted sapphire slashed across the horizon, a sea very unlike the warm blue of the waters Belit had sailed.
For a moment, Belit seemed to die all over again. Conan shook his head, letting the wind whip his hair about his shoulders”a wind such as he had often felt in his native land, but never on the Black Coast.
The sorrow passed, and grim resolve took its place. The demon's gate had brought him not to some other part of the Black Kingdoms, nor to any party of Vendhya. This was an unknown northern land; his first task after finding Vuona was to make it known. Somewhere under one of those crags or in a stand of straight-boled firs might lie the master of the demon's gate.
Conan was looking for any sign of Vuona's passage when he heard the drums. He at once resolved to seek out the drummers and watch them from hiding. If they appeared friendly, he could learn their land and ways around a fire, and over meat and ale seek their help in finding Vuona.
He doubted that any tribe inhabiting such a land as this would refuse help in the hunt, and abundant meat had a way of loosening tongues.
If they were hostile, on the other hand, he would make one a prisoner, then learn as much in a less friendly manner. He might then know Vuona was doomed, but also from whom to take vengeance.
The last of the befuddlement had left the Cimmerian's head. He stalked down the hill with the silent grace of a hillman on the prowl, never bringing his foot down where anything might snap or roll. He passed in silence through gaps between trees one would have sworn would not pass a squirrel, and all this while moving swiftly as well. It was not long before he was in sight of the first of the folk of the drum, and knew his enemy.
They were Picts, which meant "enemy" to any Cimmerian. Conan had learned much from men who had fought in the Pictish Wilderness, both Cimmerians and those of other races. Many of them bore scars, likewise the memories of friends hideously slain; none bore any goodwill toward the Picts.
"Which is something no god would ask anyway," Conan remembered one mercenary in Argos saying. "Because the Picts bear nobody any goodwill, including mostly one another, I think. If they'd better weapons, they might do us all a favor and kill one another off. As it is, they'll be a plague long after my grandson's a graybeard."
Masters of woodscraft, the Picts were, lightly armed, and certainly no match for Conan in single combat. But they would be a hundred to his one in this land, and they had bows.
The drums continued, the rattle and thud shifting as if the drummers or the wind or both were on the move. Conan judged that he was upwind of the main body of the Picts and that the breeze would hide any slight noises he made.
He wanted to close with them unseen and unheard, before they launched their attack. If their intended victims were civilized, he would know who might be grateful for his aid. If this was only a brawl between Pictish clans, neither side would be a friend to strangers, but one side might yield a talkative prisoner. Also, the Pictish prisoner would save Conan the work of making a bow for himself.
He judged where the flank of the Picts would be by where he would have placed hillmen himself when launching such an ambush. Nor was he wrong.
A solid mass of Picts was not slow to appear, well-hidden from below but naked to the keen blue eyes studying them from above.
Conan was about to drop to his knees to crawl closer, when he saw a slim, dark figure rise from cover farther down the slope. Fugitive sunlight sparked on a spearhead as the slim figure threw. A Pict thrashed out his life, and Conan heard a Bamula war cry.
The cry was still echoing on the wind when the Picts close to Conan leapt up and charged downhill. In the next moment, the Cimmerian recognized the village boy, Govindue, as the spear-thrower. Now the lad was facing his last moments of life, with only one who might deserve the name of friend to share them with him.
Conan gave the wildest of all Cimmerian war cries, and his legs were churning even as his sword flew from its scabbard. Then he was on his way downhill, crashing through bushes like a rolling stone, leaping boulders, altogether like an avalanche about to strike the Picts.
Nine
Govindue did not see Conan for some while after the Cimmerian began hammering his way into the rear of the Picts. There were too many trees and not a few Picts between him and Conan. Also, the Picts were busy trying to kill him and he wa
s equally busy trying to stay alive.
The boy's first man-kill had certainly drawn the attention of all the Picts about him. They sprang into the open, snatched up bows, nocked arrows, and shot. Those without bows threw spears. Only his fleetness of foot and a few intervening trees saved Govindue from being brought down at once.
Instead, he opened a gap of thirty paces or more between himself and the Picts. As he ran, he sought a hiding place. It was not in the gods to give him one where these smelly, snarl-haired hillfolk might not see him.
But perhaps he could find someplace that would let him fight them on more equal terms, even killing a few more of them before they brought him down. He had only one more spear besides his war club, but he might be able to capture a weapon from some dead foe.
He had already done better than he would have expected, killing one enemy, drawing others on to him, and still being alive. If he lived only a little longer, the songs they made of his deeds would not console his father for being sonless, but would make his death-rites more pleasing.
A spear rattled against a branch and plunged into a bush an arm's length from Govindue. He risked a look backward, and nearly paid for that look with his life. His foot came down on a branch so rotted that it snapped under even his youthful weight. A broken stub gouged his ankle.
Seeing his prey slowed, the leading Pict slowed in his turn. That mistake cost him dearly, giving the boy just time to snatch up the mis-aimed spear, judge its balance, and throw.
The Pict was snatching his bow from his back when the spearhead drove into his ribs. He threw up his hands and fell across the path of his comrades, blood spurting from his mouth as he choked and coughed out his life. At last his thrashing limbs were still. Four live, full-armed Picts faced a Bamula lad with only spear and war club left to make the songs about him worth hearing.
That they would be sung, Govindue had no doubt. Behind him, the trees gave way to open slopes, with broad spaces where a rat would have trouble hiding. Boulders crowned the hill, but the hillmen would bring him down one way or another long before he reached the rocky shelter.
The Conan Compendium Page 410