Conan and The Gods of The Mountains

by Roland Green

  The breeze now held a chill hint of yet more rain. Conan was sweating in spite of this. So was Aondo, and the sweat of both men was pouring onto the already-smooth drumhead, causing their footing to be even less certain.

  More than Aondo's sweat was making the Cimmerian fight to remain on his feet. At unpredictable intervals, the Ichiribu warrior would fling himself down on his knees, or even on his belly, then slap the drumhead with both massive hands to begin his rise. These gestures gave the drumhead whole new kinds of movement, also unpredictable.

  Conan himself foreswore such tricks. He learned swiftly that no movement of the drumhead put him in much danger of losing his footing… as long as he was prepared for it, at least, which meant feet well spread and legs ready to be either loose or rigid, as the drumhead demanded.

  The drum-dance was unlike anything the Cimmerian had done before. But it called on skills that he had honed for a good few years, until they were as keen as the edge of his broadsword. From the yarn of these skills, he could weave victory.

  Or at least he could avoid defeat. With his fine tricks, Aondo was wasting strength that Conan was saving. Yet the warrior seemed no slower or weaker than he had at the beginning of the duel. What,

  Conan wondered, would be the judgment of the Ichiribu if the drum-dance ended with both men still on the drum, unable to move a finger?

  He laughed, and laughed again when he saw that this made Aondo frown. No doubt the man was cudgeling his wits to guess what trick the Cimmerian might be preparing. Conan laughed a third time, at Aondo's folly. The man would only take his attention from his opponent's next move, which was the surest way to lose.

  For Conan, the world had shrunk to the drumhead and the man who stood on it with him. So had his concentration on his foe always been foremost in a fight for life, since he was old enough to win by skill rather than by sheer youthful strength, and perhaps with the favor of merciful gods. So it would be tonight.

  Conan leaped high, twisted in the air, came down on all fours, and rolled. Rolling, he rolled again onto his hands and knees, thrust hands and feet hard against the drumhead, and rebounded into the air. When he landed, he was standing again.

  He was also close to the edge of the drum. Aondo gave a ragged roar of triumph as he saw victory glimmering close. He, in turn, leaped insensately, making the drumhead dance madly.

  Conan deliberately allowed the movement of the drumhead to shift him perhaps a spear's length toward the rim. He was in no danger from anything save the frame giving way. By custom, that ended the duel until the carpenters had finished repairing the timbers.

  Aondo, however, was in danger of exhausting himself if he continued to leap about like a flea on a hot griddle without driving Conan off the drumhead. He seemed to have forgotten an ancient law of fighting: do not, if you can help it, wager your chances of victory on something you can do only once.

  Just as deliberately, Conan shifted his footing, so that now the leaping drumhead slowly pushed him away from the rim. The thunder of the drum was outshouting the wind; soon it would outshout any thunder roaring down from above. Conan wondered how the folk watching could bear the sound, and saw that they had indeed widened their circle.

  Valeria and Emwaya were standing side by side now, within arm's reach of one of the torches blazing atop poles thrust into the ground. Conan spared Valeria a glance and a wave, saw her return the wave, then whirled to see Aondo trying to close the distance between them,

  It broke laws, customs, and taboos of every kind for one dancer to touch another. Yet crowding close to your opponent was allowed. If it gave him less space to move, it might even give you victory.

  It might also provoke him into striking you, thereby losing. Conan would wager much that some such thought was in Aondo's mind. Yet the warrior had his face set in a sweat-dripping mask of such ferocity that it appeared he might be ready to strike the first blow.

  Conan saw this plainly, then set the notion aside. Such a victory would not be honorable or give him and Valeria a sure place among the Ichiribu. Also, Aondo might be too good a warrior to die merely because he could not guard his temper.

  If Valeria's fate had not been linked to his own, the Cimmerian would have utterly rejected the notion. As it was, he would leave such a trick for when he might truly need to save both himself and his companion.

  Aondo had closed the distance still more in the time Conan had needed to decide. Now the Cimmerian could almost reach out and touch him. Aondo was too tall to leap over, so Conan waited until the warrior leaped.

  Then he stamped hard, both feet thundering on the drumhead. Aondo came down on the vibrating hide, swayed, and in struggling for balance, turned away from Conan.

  The moment his opponent's eyes were elsewhere, Conan took his longest leap of the duel. He came down six good paces on the other side of Aondo. Now it was the warrior who had his back to the edge of the drum.

  Conan opened the distance still more, seeing Aondo again ready to lash out in madness and fury, thereby ending his life with dishonor. Then, just as the Cimmerian thought the madness seemed to be ebbing from the warrior's face, a woman's shrill scream pierced the drum-thunder.

  Valeria was standing beside Emwaya, eyes fixed on the drum, when she felt rather than saw the young woman move. Emwaya seemed almost to float two or three paces without touching the ground. As she came into Valeria's sight, the pirate saw that Emwaya's face was drawn.

  Then, suddenly, Dobanpu's daughter broke into a sweat equal to that of the two duelists, threw up a hand, seemed to pluck something from the air, and screamed.

  Valeria drew sword and dagger with deadly speed and scant regard for those standing close. A circle opened around her and Emwaya, as if the Ichiribu wizard's daughter had suddenly burst into flames.

  Instead, Emwaya was staggering, shaking her hand, and opening and shutting her mouth without making a sound. Valeria saw her eyes roll up until only the whites showed, then saw her fall to her knees, hands shaking uncontrollably, arms beginning to spasm.

  "Snake!" someone shouted.

  Valeria whirled, trying to look in all directions at once and slash to pieces anything that looked remotely like a serpent. As she did so, she saw a red, swollen patch on Emwaya's hand—the hand, she recalled, that Emwaya had used to pluck something from the air.

  Instantly, Valeria altered the object of her search. She was not looking for a man or a weapon. Rather, she was looking for a certain cast of countenance. Assassins had a look that was hard to mistake for anything else. Assassins who had just struck down the wrong person had an even more distinctive look, unless they were adepts of a kind she did not expect to find among the Ichiribu.

  She found a face that bore that look, a face she recognized, although she could not put a name to it. The man was frantically scrabbling to hide an object he held in his hands behind the women in front of him.

  Valeria knew what fate awaited her and Conan if she slew an innocent from the ranks of the Ichiribu. So she reversed her dagger and threw it hilt-first. The hilt was of the best Nemedian artistry, with a weighted pommel intended to do just such work as she had put it to.

  The man—Wobeku, she remembered his name now—saw his danger in time to avoid the worst of it. He ducked, the dagger struck a glancing blow and flew off into the crowd, and a cry warned Valeria of trouble to come. For the moment reckless of danger, she raised her sword and screamed curses and warnings in every tongue she could command.

  The Ichiribu might not understand, but they knew a madwoman when they heard one. They made a path for Valeria, where she wanted it. She lunged forward just as Wobeku raised what had to be a blowgun.

  Neither steel nor blowgun dart found its mark. Golden fire was suddenly all about her, raining from the sky like water. Her blade seemed to slice deep into a thick wall of honey, and eye-searing sparks flew from the steel.

  At the same moment, the golden fire wrapped itself around something small, which had to be the dart hurled at Valeria. It ha
d no metal in it, let alone good Aquilonian steel; it emitted a pale green flash and was gone.

  Then the golden fire arched high, forming a bow linking Emwaya's hand to the blowgun held by Wobeku. It was Wobeku's turn to show the whites of his eyes, and also to drop the blowgun and take to his heels.

  The golden fire brightened until Valeria had to first squint, then close her eyes. It brightened still more until she wanted to drop her sword and clap her hands over her face. She heard screams all around her, and hoped none of them were Emwaya's.

  As the golden light poured over the hilltop, Conan was sure of two things: Aondo had known of the treachery; Dobanpu was at work fighting it.

  The warrior danced all around Conan, maneuvering the Cimmerian so that he had to either face the light or turn his back on his opponent. That would have mattered little in most fights; the Cimmerian's hearing could all but pick out the fall of a single leaf.

  Now the footfalls of his enemy were lost in a din that seemed like the end of the world: the drum booming, the crowd screaming in fear and rage, and thunder that seemed to rise from the earth as well as roll from the sky. Conan closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and judged Aondo's position from the reek of the man's sweat.

  His judgment was flawed, but good enough. Aondo brushed the Cimmerian's arm. In that moment, he might have gripped and thrown Conan with none to see it. Aondo's wits were unequal to such a stratagem. He had been led to expect a helpless opponent, but had found Conan nothing of the kind, and his own vision dimmed as well.

  Then the golden fire diminished until the human eye could endure it. Conan opened his eyes, sprang high and to one side, and deliberately dropped to his knees.

  Aondo gave a bull roar, mingling fury and triumph, and hurled himself at the Cimmerian. A gasp of horror at the broken taboo rose from all around the drum.

  Conan did not meet Aondo body to body. Instead, he dropped even farther, slamming the drumhead with his massive chest. Aondo's balance vanished. He tried to recapture it by flinging himself forward, on top of Conan, who turned a complete somersault that took him forward out from under the warrior's lunge.

  The big tribesman saw that nothing would save him from going over the edge. This time his roar was pure fury. In turn, he somersaulted as he flew over the rim of the drum. He landed almost between two spear-armed warriors rushing forward to restrain him.

  They might as well have tried to restrain a mad elephant. One gigantic fist broke a spear with a single blow, another stretched the other warrior senseless on the ground. Aondo kicked the fallen man in the ribs for good measure, then put his head down and plunged through the crowd.

  Even the warriors gave way for him, but closed ranks again to bar Conan's path as the Cimmerian leaped down from the drum in pursuit. He raised a fist, ready to add to the numbers of those lying senseless.

  Valeria pushed through the crowd from the other side, with some help from the hilt of her sword and a deftly wielded elbow. Then she yelped in surprise as Conan threw his arms around her.

  "Gods above, Conan! You're worse than the rack or Mokossa with the oil!"

  He held her at arm's length, staring into her eyes to be sure that reason and life still burned there. Then he laughed raggedly.

  "That scream wasn't yours?"

  "Not the first one, at least. It was Emwaya crying out. She caught a poisoned blowgun dart aimed at me."

  Conan felt strength flowing back into his limbs, but his wits seemed as slow as Aondo's. "Darts?"

  "It was Wobeku," Valeria said, then continued with an explanation that gradually penetrated Conan's understanding. By the time she was finished, he had regained not only strength, but breath.

  "Where's my sword?"

  "Conan—"

  The Cimmerian picked Valeria up with a hand under each armpit and held her with her feet off the ground. "Woman, I asked for my sword. I wish to use it to kill Aondo and Wobeku. Is that so hard to understand, or have you taken something to addle your wits?"

  Valeria threw her head back and laughed until Conan had to join her, which broke his grip. She landed lightly and turned.

  "Conan, here is your sword."

  It was Seyganko holding out the Cimmerian's blades, belt, and sheathes. Behind him stood a half dozen Ichiribu warriors, none of them carrying less than two spears and a trident, and many carrying clubs, throwing sticks, or cords with stones knotted into the end.

  Conan's first thought was that he had forfeited his life in some way, and that they were handing his weapons back to him so that he might wage an honorable fight at the end. Then he saw that the bleak looks of the warriors were not aimed at him. All except Seyganko's, at least.

  Conan prudently armed himself before speaking. "Seyganko, I hope I may join your warriors in pursuing those dishonorable—"

  "The Ichiribu will judge their dishonor even more harshly than you, I swear," Seyganko said. Indeed, he swore several oaths that Conan knew well to be highly potent in the Black Kingdoms, and several more the Cimmerian did not know but which rang true.

  His help in the pursuit would plainly be unwelcome. What else was there to do?"

  "How fares Emwaya?"

  Seyganko seemed to struggle for self-command. Then: "She is in the hands of her father and the gods. It would have been an easier matter to heal her had Wobeku not dropped the weapon that wounded her. It would also have been child's play to destroy him."

  The fallen weapon of Wobeku was something the Cimmerian did not altogether understand. But then, the whole thing reeked of magic, so perhaps he lost nothing thereby. He resolved not to treat Wobeku as helpless prey merely because the man was weaponless, and continued his attention to Seyganko.

  "As it stands, Wobeku has fled," Seyganko continued, "and Emwaya lies without suffering, but also in much danger in spite of her father's best skill. If you think your gods have power in this land, pray to them."

  Conan nodded. Seyganko lifted a hand, and one of his warriors gave him a spear. "I swear by this weapon—this bringer of death to the treacherous— that I will not harm you or your shield-woman. Whatever comes of tonight, you and she may leave these lands unharmed. But if Emwaya dies, do not think to find a friend in me, or in any who follow me."

  Seyganko whirled then, as lightly as a dust devil of the Kozaki steppes. The band strode off into the darkness, which seemed twice as deep now that the golden fire was gone.

  Wobeku ran as though the Living Wind was howling at his heels. He knew that there would be no hiding on the island; the women and children would gladly join the hunt for him if necessary. Indeed, imagining what the women would do to him if Emwaya died nearly made him stumble.

  He prayed, as much as he had the breath to do, that he would either reach his hidden canoe or that the warriors would catch him before the women did. He crossed the ridge above the north shore of the island before he realized that his prayer had been answered. Now it was all downhill to the canoe.

  The easier going made it possible to trade speed for silence. It was hard to believe that any warriors could have crossed the island in time to be beating him to the shore, but men often died from what they did not believe. Wobeku kept away from the trails, and from slopes with loose stones or thick brush that might betray him with the sound of his passage.

  It helped more than a little that halfway down the slope the rain began in earnest. The lightning flashed about him as brightly as the golden spirit-fire Dobanpu had hurled.

  The God of Manhood deliver him! He had missed both victory and death so narrowly that he wanted to howl like a hyena at the thought. Had Emwaya not caught the dart, Valeria would now be dead. Dobanpu would never have spoken to the spirits for her, and her death would have been the end of Conan. Even had they not been spirit-bonded, clearly the two were vowed companions, and the heart would have gone out of the big man, leaving Aondo with an easy victory.

  Had Wobeku not then dropped the blowgun, however, Dobanpu would have turned the death tearing through Emwaya's body bac
k on him! He would be dying the death of the cobra's bite, knowing—if he knew anything—that when he breathed his last, the whole tribe would be cheering and drinking ale, Emwaya most of all!

  He did stumble, in fear and fury, and nearly went full length on the rain-slick ground. The misfortune was his salvation, though.

  From where the canoe was hidden, two boys sprang up, spears held ready. They were just old enough to guard the flocks and carry the lesser spears, the bidui boys, as the Ichiribu called them.

  It was taboo for a full warrior such as Wobeku to slay them, or even to fight them. Wobeku had not broken any taboos as yet tonight, as Valeria was clanless, if not a witch. He also did not care to start making any transgressions now. Worse things than being given to the women would come to him if he slew these boys, and most of them would come after he died.

  Wobeku crept forward with his hunter's skill, using the bushes for cover, and also to protect himself somewhat from the rain still pouring down. The thunder and rain drowned out any sound he made.

  Closer to his canoe, he saw that the craft was safe, even if half filled with rainwater. A smaller canoe was drawn up on the shore next to it. The boys must have been caught in the downpour and paddled for shore, then seen the hidden canoe and thought it marked a secure landing place.

  Bold boys, to be out on the lake after dark, especially on a night like this, with a drum-duel being fought on the hill. They would not frighten easily. Did he have anything with him—?

  The brush crackled and crunched behind Wobeku, as if a great stone was rolling downhill. He looked behind him, nearly fell out from beneath the bush, and cursed aloud.