by Roland Green
The messenger ran up to Seyganko as if his loin-guard had caught fire or a leopard swam the lake to pursue him. Before the man could speak, Seyganko saw what none among the Ichiribu had seen in many years—Dobanpu Spirit-Speaker running.
He ran up to Seyganko at a fine pace for a man his age and waited only long enough to catch his breath before speaking. "We must launch the canoes at once. There is more danger than I had thought."
"You do not think, father of Emwaya, if you believe we can launch the canoes now. Hardly half of them are loaded, and more than a third of the warriors are not yet on the shore."
"Then we set out with what is ready to hand."
Seyganko realized the depth of his anger only when he felt the shaft of the trident in his hand crack. He forced himself to speak more calmly.
"Who is in danger?"
"Those who have gone below. I must be closer to them than I am here, to aid Emwaya against the peril."
"What peril?" Seyganko did not have it in him to call his betrothed's father a liar, as Dobanpu did not have it in him to lie. But he would be cursed if he would fling the tribe half-ready into battle without knowing whither he flung it!
"What lives beneath the lake—where Emwaya found no life—it lives, wakes, and moves upon those who have gone below. Emwaya will need my aid if the warrior's weapons are to slay it."
Seyganko knew that these near riddles were as much as he would hear without forfeiting time he and his warriors might not have. Still—
"Dobanpu, take a canoe and six of the strongest paddlers ready to hand. Guide them where you wish. I will order the others to gather as swiftly as possible, then come after you with two more canoes."
Dobanpu also seemed to realize that he could expect no more. He departed at a brisk trot.
Seyganko raised his voice, calling the messengers and drummers of the fanda to him. As he ran down to the shore, Dobanpu's canoe was already pushing out into the lake, and the drummers were hard at work. The rattle and boom of the talking drums rolled across shore and water as Seyganko leaped into a canoe and seized the nearest paddle.
Twenty or thirty picked warriors would be enough to guard Dobanpu against any human foe. It was drawing on toward sunset, and the Kwanyi feared the lake even more by night than by day.
As for other foes—if Dobanpu was not their equal, then the fewer warriors the Ichiribu lost, the better. The tribe would not long outlive their Spirit-Speaker, but the warriors could still take a good toll of Chabano's men. That would give them honor among the gods, and the thanks of those tribes downriver whom the Kwanyi might then be too weak to conquer.
Seyganko's paddle dipped deep as he raised his voice in the oldest and most potent of the Ichiribu war chants.
Ryku heard the signal drums from the lookout post on what the Kwanyi called Great Gourd Hill. It neither grew large gourds nor had the shape of one, so Ryku had always wondered how it came by its name.
It was, however, the perfect spot for a keen-eyed watcher to look all the way to the island of the Ichiribu. With a trifle of aid from Ryku, some of the watchers had gained more than human sight; they could even see canoes putting out from the island.
This, the drums told him, was just what was happening. Ryku placed the wooden tablet he had been studying in the herb-steeped deer hide that protected it from both damp and magic alike. He wrapped the hide about the tablet and put it in the carved chest that stood in one corner of his chamber. That chest was the one thing he had brought with him when he came to Thunder Mountain. It was a gift from the man whom he had called Father, and always made him feel less clanless and kinless.
Now the very gods could not do that. He was First Speaker to the Living Wind, for all that he seldom used the title. His clan and his kin were alike not of this earth, and thus it must be. Had he risen to the rank of Speaker by other means, he might have felt some kinship with the other Speakers, but as matters stood, they also were alien and untrustworthy.
Ryku stepped out of his chamber, touched the pouch at his belt for good luck, and unbound the reed curtain over his door. The hanging fell back across the door as he turned and walked away, toward the Cave of the Living Wind.
The slithering ended in a crash that sounded like a battering ram striking a stone wall. In the next moment, Conan knew that his ears had not lied.
From a side tunnel to their rear, stones larger than a man rolled in dust and thunder. Smaller stones flew as if hurled from a siege-engine. Some crashed against the far wall, spraying shards in all directions. Others struck flesh. Shards and stones together left three warriors lifeless and two more limping or holding useless arms.
Those two were the first prey of the Golden Serpent as it lunged from its lair into the tunnel.
Its teeth sank into one, and the man howled in agony for a dreadful moment before going limp. The teeth were as long as Conan's fingers, set in a jaw the length of a horse's head, and it hardly mattered if they were venomous or not.
The other man died as a tail thicker than his own body swept him against the wall. He did not scream, but the cracking of skull and crunching of bones were loud enough to tell plainly of his fate.
Other men did cry out, though, at what they saw then. Around the two bodies a sickly green light flickered. It was what one might have seen over a noisome swamp, the sort said to be haunted, one to which wise men gave a wide berth. It was the color of the scum on the most stagnant water of such a swamp. If he had ever seen a less wholesome color in his life, Conan could not remember it.
What he did remember was that Emwaya was in the rear, and that her fate and that of all of them were entwined. He turned back, to reach her just as she leaped from the arms of the men holding her. She ran at the Golden Serpent, raising high overhead one hand and clutching the amulet about her neck with the other.
The creature hissed loudly enough to cause echoes, and its toothed jaws gaped so that Conan had much too clear a view of its mouth. The mouth was green and ridged, except where it was smeared with the blood of the serpent's first victim. Far back in the mouth, the swamp-glow flickered.
A brighter light blazed from the Golden Serpent's many-jeweled eyes. At another time and place, the jewel-light might have been lovely. Now it was only one more horror.
At Emwaya's gesture, the serpent reared half its length from the floor. Its horned muzzle crashed against the ceiling, shaking loose dust and pebbles. Its tail thrashed about, nearly striking down one man bolder than the rest in retrieving his baggage.
From nose to tail, the creature seemed longer than a small galley, and thicker around the middle than a good-sized tree. The golden scales were as large as good pewter serving platters and overlapped as cunningly as was the best Aquilonian plate armor. Some were faded to a pale yellow, even to a near white. Conan saw that many had been cracked, or had even broken clear across, then healed.
The boldest warrior of all ran past Emwaya, shield slung, spear in both hands. He leaped and thrust in a single fluid motion, and his spearhead vanished between two pallid scales.
The Golden Serpent shook like a tree in a gale. Still gripping his spear, the warrior flew into the air, legs waving. The serpent's head dipped, and the jaws closed on one of the man's feet. The warrior did not cry out. Instead, he mustered all his strength to drive the spear in deeper.
He succeeded, in the moment that the serpent's teeth severed his leg halfway up the calf. He screamed then, but did not fall. He remained suspended in the air, held up by nothing anyone could see, while the too-familiar greenish light played about the blood spraying from the stump of his leg.
At last he fell, still gripping the spear. His fall jerked the weapon from the serpent's neck, and greenish blood spurted forth. Where it struck the floor, smoke rose, and where it fell on the corpse of the man crushed by the tail, the flesh charred to ashes and crumbled from the bone.
If Conan had ever doubted the stark horror of the magic lurking in these depths, he doubted no longer. He also doubted that he woul
d ever again put himself in danger for fire-stones.
Emwaya staggered back into his arms, her hands held in front of her in a warding gesture. "Quickly," she whispered. "Have another man throw a spear."
"You!" Conan called. The iron self-command in his voice steadied the warriors. The man addressed drew back and put all the force of his best throw behind the spear. It struck not far from the wound made by the first warrior.
A scale cracked across; this time the blood only oozed out. As Conan watched, the wound from the first spear closed. Only a smear of blood on the serpent's neck showed that it had ever taken any hurt. Another smear was already drying on the floor, not far from the corpse of the man who had lost his foot to the serpent. That man's bones were even now showing through his flesh, and through the green foulness that played over and around it.
Emwaya drew in a great, rasping breath. "We must keep it coming at us, and wound it each time it comes. We must keep our distance, too. It heals itself somewhat each time it is wounded, but not altogether. It will lose strength; I will see to that."
"How long will it take to die?"
The Golden Serpent hissed in challenge, pain, and defiance. The hiss again raised such echoes that Emwaya could not have made herself heard had she shouted into Conan's ear.
As the serpent withdrew some ten paces or so, Emwaya spoke urgently. "It will die swiftly if my father comes to join his Spirit-Speaking to mine. We can take from it the power to steal life-force, which is how it heals as it does."
Conan thought uncharitable words about sorcerers. It seemed that the breed was always with you when you did not want them and somewhere else when you did.
"Ho!" he shouted, raising his sword. "We've need to fight this beast by retreating before it. Baggage men, take the rear rank. The best spearmen, take the foremost. Guard Emwaya at all costs, and for the love of every god, don't close with the monster!"
Faces showed that the bravest warrior needed no urging on that last point. Conan snatched up a spear from the baggage and joined the rear rank as Valeria ran to stand beside Emwaya.
As if they were all of a single mind, the band drew back ten paces. Encouraged, the serpent lowered its head and came on, but it did not lunge so boldly this time. A spear and a trident flew. The spear sank deep, the trident glanced off the horn on the nose. The trident-thrower would have dashed forward to retrieve his weapon but for Conan's wordless roar that halted him in his tracks.
This was likely enough as strange a battle as Conan had ever fought. Overgrown snakes were not uncommon—too common by half if the wounds he had taken whilst battling them were any measure. But he had not before fought a serpent that had its own magic, nor fought one as leader of a band of warriors.
A good band, too, he thought as he saw one of the slingers wind up and hurl his stone. It flew true, striking one of the blazing green eyes. Conan expected the eye to shatter rather than burst, but it did neither. Instead, it merely quivered like jelly, turned misty and pale for a moment, then blazed green once more.
The creature hissed, and this time, anyone could tell that it was in pain. Emwaya bit her lip until blood came, then screamed out a warning.
"Be ready, everyone. He'll lunge again!"
The warning was life to at least three men. The great head crashed down where they would have been standing had they not joined the retreat. Twenty paces to the rear, the band stood again, save for two men who remained behind to thrust spears in deep. Again Conan's roar saved one from folly as the man struck at the beast's nose with his club. The warrior rejoined his comrades without his club or spear, but with a whole skin.
Then the band put another thirty paces between itself and the Golden Serpent, while Emwaya not only waved both arms, but chanted loud enough to drown out the sound of the creature's hissing. The two spears remained in the wounds longer than before, and the gush of blood that pushed them out also flowed longer.
Victory could be theirs, Conan realized, for all that this was a battle that only a madman could have dreamed. Victory might be the last man of the band standing beside the dead serpent, but they would have it!
Then the hissing raised echoes again, Emwaya called a sharp warning, and the deadly dance began once more.
FIFTEEN
The canoes were not the lightest or the swiftest among those of the Ichiribu, although their canoe-builders were honored among all the tribes around the Lake of Death for their skill. Nor were the paddlers the strongest and most skilled.
Seyganko had simply ordered the first score of paddlers into the first three canoes, and all of them had set out under Dobanpu's guidance. Before long, Seyganko thought he might have done better to have waited, picked the best paddlers and canoes, and then made swifter progress. If they were slow in reaching their destination, Emwaya might die�Dobanpu had made that plain.
A little while later, however, Seyganko saw that the canoes were flying across the water as if the paddlers were tireless gods who never missed a stroke. He looked back to the Spirit-Speaker, sitting in the stern of their canoe, and saw a faint smile on the man's face.
Seyganko felt shame that his mistake had been recognized, but also pride that Dobanpu considered him worthy of help in undoing it. Or was it entirely Emwaya's safety that moved her father?
The paddles indeed flew back and forth so swiftly that as with well-thrown spears, the eye could hardly follow them. Nor did the warriors seem to sweat or grow short of breath. Seyganko remembered uneasily that such spells as doubled a man's strength could also weaken him for some time afterward. These warriors would have to fight as well as paddle before another day's sun had set.
Meanwhile, they were crossing the Lake of Death at a speed never before known, save to birds. At a shout from Dobanpu, Seyganko raised his paddle, and the men of his canoe ceased their efforts. The other two canoes drew up alongside and also drifted to a stop.
Then, before Seyganko could speak or even move, Dobanpu stood up in the stern of the canoe, gripped the amulet about his neck tightly, and flung himself overboard. He cut the water without a sound, not even the faint clooop of a diving fisherbird. For a moment, they saw his legs thrusting him down into the depths; then those depths swallowed him.
A clamor arose from those warriors who had breath left with which to speak.
"Why, the old fool!"
"Where is he going?"
"He'll drown!"
"No, the lionfish will have him first!"
"He can't swim!"
Seyganko shouted for silence. "My woman's father can swim, that is certain. There are no hungry fish in this part of the lake, because of the very thing he has gone to fight. As for the rest—I would not call any Spirit-Speaker a fool. Not when I thought he might come back and remember what I said.
"And if you still think otherwise, keep your tongue between your teeth. Or have you forgotten who may be listening over there?" Seyganko pointed at the Kwanyi shore. Those who had not already fallen silent did so now.
The Golden Serpent had taken the lives of two more warriors before Conan's band mastered the art of fighting it. That made ten dead or hurt past fighting, and the rest were growing uneasy. Facing a foe who could not be gravely hurt, and—it seemed—not be killed, for all that Emwaya promised otherwise, was nothing to hearten a warrior.
Yet the warriors lost none of their speed or cunning. They darted about the serpent like flies about a horse's head, stinging with the same remorseless persistence. Some even sang war songs between lunges at the serpent, until Conan commanded them to save their breath.
This disciplined courage pleased Conan, although it did not altogether surprise him. He had known for years that the Black Kingdoms raised warriors fit to stand in battle anywhere in the world. He had not expected to find so many this far inland, but he rejoiced that he had. Perhaps there would be more than one man left standing when the Golden Serpent breathed its last.
A cry rose as Emwaya stumbled on the glassy floor. But Valeria was standing over her, swor
d in one hand, a borrowed spear poised to throw in the other. Five more warriors were in front of Emwaya before Conan was able to count them. The young woman herself shook her head and clenched her teeth, but her hair had saved her skull, and her hands continued their movements, fighting the Golden Serpent's unnatural life.
She was on her feet in the next moment, and Conan saw that the serpent had not lunged for her or her defenders. Was it learning the dangers of well-wielded iron, or was its strength finally ebbing?
Conan knew the perils of believing that a foe was weak or foolish. Yet he found it hard to believe that anything short of Thunder Mountain itself could resist the battering his band had given the Golden Serpent.
Suddenly thunder crashed once more through the tunnel. Conan swore that he saw the Golden Serpent rise a handbreadth from the floor. He knew that he saw shields snatched from warriors' arms and cracks appear in the ceiling. Then fragments of stone rattled down everywhere about them, and a dripping-wet Dobanpu stood before them—on the far side of the Golden Serpent.
The serpent might have been shaken. The warriors certainly were. Yet the beast was swift to coil and lunge at Dobanpu. The Spirit-Speaker stood to meet the assault, only fingering his amulet. Valeria and a half-score of warriors cried out in horror, and Conan himself was not silent.
The lunge fell short of Dobanpu. An arm's length from the man, the great fanged head was dragged to a stop, as if a noose had tightened about it or the air had turned solid. Dobanpu raised a hand, and coruscating golden light arched from Emwaya to him. It sank into him and vanished, leaving no trace except for perhaps an odd glow in his eyes, and Conan could not be sure that was not a trick of the light.
Then Dobanpu turned, and with a speed startling for a man of his age, ran down a side tunnel that no one had noticed before. Again men gasped in horror, but Emwaya only frowned.