A familiar smell began to tickle the Cimmerian's nostrils. Not one he remembered with pleasure, on the whole, although the giant fungi had certainly saved him and Valeria on their first journey underground. But when one has fed off something for so long, the smell lingers in memory.
They were approaching another cave full of the giant fungi. Conan wondered what purpose that might serve, as the Golden Serpent was plainly a meat-eater. Emwaya was too lost in speaking with her father to answer to anything save a shout in her ear, and Conan had no wish to break her bond with Dobanpu.
The floor sloped more sharply downward now, and the patches of green blood were not only thicker, but fresher. The warriors had to slow their onrush, to avoid stepping in the still-fuming green patches of death and agony. One warrior was unlucky enough to go down nonetheless, but leaped up at once, holding a blistered hand over his head like a trophy.
"It bleeds! It bleeds, and does not stop! Come, brothers, and we shall make it bleed to death!"
Then the tunnel bent sharply, and now the blood smeared the walls as well as the floor. Conan took the lead again, with Valeria just behind him. Around this bend, the serpent might be lying in wait, even if Dobanpu was alive and well, as he seemed to be, judging by the way Emwaya looked.
Then a sudden battering-ram stroke of the serpent's head caught an unsuspecting warrior to Conan's left. No teeth pierced the man, but the horn caught his shoulder and hurled him against the wall. Conan heard his skull crack.
The Cimmerian leaped and thrust in the same motion. His sword slashed deep through scales into the flesh under the serpent's throat. The scales parted, and blood spurted from a gash a sword's length wide, deeper than any wound the beast had taken thus far.
This time, the hiss was nearly a roar, with an ugly, bubbling note.
Blood sprayed Conan, Valeria, Emwaya, and several warriors. As it had not done before, it stung. Conan blinked his eyes clear, wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, and glanced at his sword-blade. There was no harm to it as far as he could see.
Then they heard Dobanpu calling from beyond the serpent, "Have fire ready! When I lead the beast among the earth-fruits, you must cast fire upon them!"
Conan and Valeria spent no time in wondering at the sense of Dobanpu's call. The serpent now writhed in a broader patch of tunnel, half-choked with the fungi. Emwaya's eyes also discouraged questions.
"Flint and steel to the fore! And a torch! Hurry!" Valeria shouted.
A man ran up from the baggage bearers. Valeria struck a spark with flint and steel into the dried, oil-soaked grass at the head of one of the torches. It blazed up, with flame that was no natural yellow or orange, but a violet hue as sickening as the serpent's blood, as sickening as the magic the creature used for eating life-force.
Valeria held the torch at arm's length as the serpent backed slowly deeper into the fungus. Conan stood beside her, sword and spear alike ready. He saw Dobanpu raise a hand and fling what seemed to be a gobbet of the serpent's own blood into its face. He saw the serpent lunge forward, then halt, its head buried deep in a mass of the fungi as tall as two men.
Before Dobanpu or Emwaya could speak, Valeria flung the torch. It soared over the serpent's back and plunged into the piled fungi.
Flames puffed up, of the same virulent purple hue as the torch-flame.
Thick smoke of similar color rose above them. The Golden Serpent quivered from nose to tail, then flung its head up as if trying to pierce the ceiling to seek the open sky.
It failed. As the monster rose, Conan saw that smoke and flames were pouring from those wounds still open. Green blood turned black; then golden scales around the wounds also blackened. Smoke rose up from throat and body, and at last began pouring from the eyes.
When smoke belched from the serpent's mouth, Conan threw an arm around Valeria's shoulders and drew her close. He could feel her shuddering.
He sheathed his sword, dropped his spear, and drew Emwaya close with his other arm.
They stood that way as the flames they had kindled with the aid of Dobanpu's magic devoured both the fungi and the Golden Serpent. The brute was tenacious of its life to the end. Not until the scales were mostly fallen from the flesh did it stop writhing. Even then Conan thought he heard a faint scraping in the middle of the roaring flames, as if the serpent were still twitching feebly.
That was the Golden Serpent's last sign of life. Smoke was rising so thickly now that Conan and others were binding strips of cloth across their mouths and noses. Some wetted the strips as well. Emwaya stared into the smoke, with it plain on her face that she feared for her father.
Then the smoke eddied and disgorged the staggering figure of Dobanpu.
He was coughing like a man in the grip of lung-fever, and so nearly blind that he all but spitted himself on Valeria's sword as he rushed up. Valeria and Emwaya held the Spirit-Speaker while he coughed his lungs clear, then gave him water. When he could speak, he nodded his thanks and then gasped:
"We must hasten from here! I do not know how long this fire will burn, nor how much smoke it will yield. The whole underground may become unfit for life."
"I rejoice!" Valeria cried. "We are saved from the Golden Serpent only to stifle like rabbits in a burrow!"
"Save your breath for running," Emwaya said, "and you may not find yourself short of it!" It was the first time in a long while that she had spoken with her old sharpness. Conan took that as a favorable omen; Valeria seemed to think otherwise.
She did follow Emwaya's advice nonetheless. Like the others, she was silent as they hurried back up the tunnel, the smoke thickening behind them.
"Wobeku," the Kwanyi warrior said, "a messenger has come from the watchers of the great crack in the earth."
Wobeku sat up and shook sleep from his head. One of these days, they might use some honorific for him. At least they had given over calling him "the chief's Ichiribu."
"What is the message?"
"He smells smoke."
"Smoke, as from a fire?"
"So he said."
Wobeku rose and girded himself for battle. When that was done, he was fully awake. It was also then that he noticed that the jungle was more silent than usual. Many of the common night birds and insects did not live down by the Kwanyi shore, but the jungle was neither lifeless nor silent under the moon.
Until now. Wobeku felt a chill in his loins. He sensed that he was about to be called on to fight a foe not wholly of this earth.
"See that the drums warn Chabano and Ryku," he ordered. "Have the guards at the lesser crack drive the logs we have ready into it." That would be of no avail against unearthly foes, but if anyone human tried to come through that crack, he would face a long night of ax-work before he succeeded.
"Gather the guards about the great crack," he concluded. "Not too close, but every man is to be fully armed. The baggage boys and the women are to take the trail back to the villages. At once!"
The man almost made the gesture of respect to a chief before he remembered to whom he was making it. Instead, he nodded and ran off.
Wobeku did not run, but he moved at a brisk trot as he headed down the trail toward what he knew might be his last battle. The drums were talking before he was halfway to his post.
SIXTEEN
Conan's band would have gladly run from the smoke faster than they had run from the Golden Serpent. There was no need to stop and thrust a spear at the swirling purple wall hard on their heels.
If only they could breathe! Heat followed the smoke, and long tendrils of both smoke and heat seemed to clutch at the fleeing men like jungle vines. Conan ventured a look behind him, took one of the tendrils squarely in the face, and nearly coughed himself into a fit.
His feet kept moving by a will of their own, however, until his wits ruled them again. He did not falter or fall, and neither did most of the band. Those who did, their comrades lifted and carried along.
No one wanted to see a comrade overtaken by this new peril. It was i
mpossible to imagine living within that purple murk, even had not strange shapes lurked there. Conan had seen them, Valeria had seen them, and even Emwaya and Dobanpu admitted they were there.
The two Spirit-Speakers did not, however, say what those shapes might be. That was about as much as Conan expected of any sorcerer, and he was not much for being rude to those who had saved his life. So he followed Emwaya's advice to keep his breath for running.
"Here we turn," Dobanpu called. He pointed at a narrow slit in the wall to the right. Dried mud lay on the floor about it, and a smell of jungle rot warred with the smoke-reek.
As an escape route, it looked unpromising. But Dobanpu seemed confident, and so far, he had proven trustworthy. Also, Conan had no wish to wait for the fire to burn itself out. Already there was more smoke and heat than all the fungi in all these caves could have produced. Magic was in this fire, magic of a kind that sensible men escaped as quickly as possible, even if they did have a momentarily friendly sorcerer in company.
"Up!" Conan shouted, pointing at the gap. It was a measure of his authority, or of their desperation, that four warriors plunged in without hesitation. Four more followed, carrying the rope ladders and other climbing gear. Before any more could go, Emwaya darted in.
Dobanpu's howl caused her to thrust her head back into view. "Father, I can climb faster than you. Who knows what lies above, or what arts we may need against it? Be ready to help me if I call."
Then she vanished. Dobanpu looked about wildly, no longer a sorcerer, but a father seeing his child plunge into danger. "Valeria!" Conan called. "I'll take the rear. You join the vanguard and see to Emwaya!"
Valeria left with the next handful of warriors. The men were, in fact, now disappearing so fast that Conan wondered if the way to the surface was easier than he had dared believe. If they found stairs
"Conan!" Valeria called. "There are stairs up to the surface, and open sky above! Make haste!"
Conan needed no urging. The tendrils of smoke seemed to curl about his ankles, then his knees, then his waist. He drew his sword and hacked at them as if they were living foes, and saw them retreat. But his sword was growing hot to his touch, and he knew that if the main mass of smoke surrounded him, he was lost.
Dobanpu shouted three harsh syllables, then reeled against the wall as if the blood had rushed from his head. Conan watched the wall of smoke draw back as the Golden Serpent had done, and felt the heat diminish.
Then he all but flung the Spirit-Speaker through the gap and followed him.
The stairs were there, andincrediblythe Cimmerian could indeed see stars shining above. He dragged Dobanpu toward the rise, but the Spirit-Speaker held back.
"I must restore the guardian spells on these stairs," he gasped, "or the smoke-bringer will follow us, catch us halfway up, burn us in mid-stride"
"As you wish," Conan said. Arguing with a sorcerer was more futile than fighting with one. The Cimmerian had won battles with many sorcerers, but had won arguments with few.
This spell called for more than three times three syllables. When Dobanpu was done, the gap behind them was yet dark with smoke, but the tendrils did not escape. The air in the stairwell remained musty but clean as Conan and the Spirit-Speaker mounted.
They had just caught up with the rearmost warrior when, from above, Emwaya screamed.
The scream floated across the dark lake to Seyganko's canoe. Everyone in the three leading canoes heard it, but only Seyganko heard it in his mind. He desperately sought a message in the scream.
Emwaya! What is the danger? Where are you?
No answer came. He knew that for her cry to reach him this far out in the lake, she had to be close to the shore. Also, she had to be on or close to the surface of the earth.
This gave neither knowledge nor consolation. He thrust his paddle in deep and looked behind him. Then he gave his war cry with all the breath in his body, and thrust again with his paddle.
Without magic, with nothing but their strength and their sweat, the other warriors were overtaking him. A hundred of the Ichiribu's best fighters had gone to the mainland, to defend the herds and crops. Of the rest, four hundred had taken to their canoes to challenge the Kwanyi on their own shore. Only a handful remained behind to guard the island.
As if Seyganko's war cry had been a signal, torches sparked to life in the bows of the oncoming canoes. It seemed as though a line of fire was advancing across the lake behind Seyganko.
He held his paddle aloft like a spear until the leading canoes were almost abreast of his craft. Then he tossed the paddle, caught it, and gave his war cry again. This time, the warriors gave it back to him so that it seemed to fill the night and the lake, from shore to shore. If the Kwanyi had not known what was coming, they could hardly be ignorant of it now.
Seyganko began paddling again. The brief sense of triumph left him as he realized that he had heard nothing more from Emwaya, neither with his ears nor with his mind.
Conan took the stairs two at a time, for all that they were crumbling and moss-grown. Once he nearly missed his footing and fell back. He gripped a root with one hand and caught himself in time so as not to squash Dobanpu like a grape.
The stairs ended at a man's height from the surface, but to picked Ichiribu warriors, that distance was but a child's leap; they had already reached solid ground by the time Conan joined them.
The first thing he saw was a warrior falling with a Kwanyi spear in his thigh. Conan snatched the man's shield and drew his own sword, then whirled, searching for Emwaya and Valeria.
He found them by a tree lifted half off the ground by its gnarled, twisted roots, each root thicker than the Golden Serpent. Valeria was hacking at the spears of half a dozen Kwanyi warriors, while two other warriors already had Emwaya. Had their comrades so eager to close with Valeria not blocked them, they would have by now made off with the girl.
The warriors whirled to face Conan, tangling their shields one with another in their haste. This was fatal to one warrior left unshielded.
Conan brusquely slashed the man's head from his shoulders, then leaped back to give him room to fall.
The rest of the Kwanyi formed their shield-line. In the next moment, they learned that others besides themselves could master that art, and not only by the tutelage of Chabano the Great. Conan beat down one spear with his sword, hooked his shield around the edge of a second man's spear, and kicked upward. He was barefooted, but his soles were as tough as leather and the kick had all the power of his leg behind it.
The man screamed and reeled against a comrade, who fell out of position. Conan feinted at that man, forcing him to raise his shield.
Then he slashed under the shield, taking the man's leg below the knee.
A spear thrust past Conan's ribs, nearly gouging his side, and he whirled again to chop the spear-shaft in two with his sword. Then he charged the man like a bull, driving the shield back against his opponent's chest until the man lowered it to see clearly. The man's last sight was of Conan's broadsword descending to split his headdress, hair, and skull.
Valeria cut down another opponent, and the last of the Kwanyi warriors took only a brief look at the odds they faced after the death of their friends before fleeing into the night. Conan swung his shield hard into the back of one man holding Emwaya and heard the spine crack. Valeria leaped on the other, jerked his head back with fingers twined in his hair, and slashed his throat.
Emwaya stood free, clasping her arms across her breasts, her eyes on the ground for a moment. Then she seemed to shrug a great weight from her shoulders.
"Father?"
Dobanpu strode up and put out a hand to touch his daughter as if not quite believing she was real. She gripped the hand and smiled.
"I am well, I think."
"Time to be sure later," Dobanpu said. He gripped his amulet with one hand and his belt pouch with the other. "The God-Men may not be what they were. I have sensed quarrels that perhaps have weakened them. But if they still command the L
iving Wind"
Kwanyi war cries interrupted him. Conan threw down the shield, wiped his sword on it, and drew his dagger.
"The Living Wind can wait. Someone close at hand still commands warriors!" He pushed Emwaya into her father's arms, then called to Valeria.
"Find a path to the shore and see if we can draw back toward it. This place is worthless now. We want our backs to the water!"
Fleet-footed as ever, Valeria vanished into the night. From the jungle beyond, Kwanyi warriors came bursting through the undergrowth.
Wobeku led the warriors attacking the enemy who had sprung from the earth. Not only his honor drove him forward to that place; he knew that if the Kwanyi gained the victory with him at their head, he would have a warrior's name among them.
Had he run faster, he might have plunged among the Ichiribu before they could order their ranks. He would then have died but would have won with his life sufficient time for his comrades to strike the scattered enemy. Then not even the Cimmerian's swiftness, skill, and steel might have saved them.
Wobeku instead brought his men to the field as Chabano had taught. He put them into their proper line before he ordered the advance, and only darted out ahead of it at the last moment.
Behind him, the Kwanyi line came out of the trees somewhat disordered by encounters with the underbrush. The first volley of light spears went mostly astray. One spear even gouged Wobeku's leg. He howled out his fury at that fool in a war cry and let the Kwanyi come up with him.
A swung stone cracked against his shield. Wobeku stepped forward and ducked his head. This time, the stone-swinger looped the line around the top of Wobeku's shield and jerked. Wobeku did not let go of the shield. Instead, he let himself be drawn forward, then leaped and lunged. The stone-swinger died with Wobeku's spear in his belly.
"Yaygo!" Wobeku cried, the ritual proclamation of a man's first kill of a battle.
The next moment, someone nearly won the right to cry that over him. The Kwanyi at his right suddenly vanished, fallen into the crack in the earth. An Ichiribu warrior darted forward in his place, locking shields with Wobeku and thrusting desperately over, under, and around.
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