Sajara’s eyes shone in the moonlight as she smiled, throwing her arms around Conan’s brawny torso, leaning her head upon his chest. The Cimmerian held her in silence, his thoughts about the events of the morrow distracted by the feel of Sajara’s supple body. She kissed him fiercely, but he pulled away at the sound of a rustle behind them.
Ngomba stood there watching, his face a twisted mask of menace. He gripped his sharpened oar so tightly that tremors ran from his clenched hands to his massively muscled shoulders. “She is mine,” he hissed, savagely baring teeth that gleamed in the moonlight.
“Ngomba, no!” Sajara protested, leaping to her feet. “Do not challenge him—once I loved you but no more. You fight for nothing! Conan saved me and-------------”
“No!” the immense Ganak bellowed, head snapping sideways as if her words had slapped him in the face. Eyes blazing, he turned his face from Sajara back to the Cimmerian. “You are to blame for this, njeni Meet your gods!” Spear out-thrust, Ngomba approached, his dark eyes glittering like icy orbs of polished steel.
Conan immediately adopted a pit-fighter’s stance, ruefully wishing for the sword that rested against the wall in Jukona’s hut. Interposing himself between Ngomba and Sajara, he stood with flexed knees, arms out, ready for the spear. “Get back, girl,” he said. Earlier, he had been willing to forgive the warrior for his offences. But new ire burned hotly in Conan’s breast, flames that could be quenched only in blood. “Ngomba will have neither you nor any other, unless he courts a she-devil in Hell!”
Swifter than a leaping panther, the Cimmerian sprang straight for the spear.
Ngomba’s vicious jab met only air. Conan seized the sharpened oar and jerked it backward, hoping to pull his foe with it. Incredibly, the Ganak warrior kept his balance, wrenching away the spear by brute force and whirling it around in the same motion, slamming it against Conan’s out-thrust head with a loud thwack. Knocked to his knees by a blow that would have split a lesser man’s skull, Conan grunted but grabbed again for the spear, grasping it in both hands and tugging. Straining, legs braced, the warrior played a deadly tug-of-war, the moonlight etching the bulging muscles of their sweaty frames. Ngomba suddenly stopped pulling, instead shoving the spear forward while angling its point toward Conan’s neck.
Craning his head to one side, Conan felt the shaft scrape his neck, its point sliding past him. He flexed his legs and jumped backward, finally upsetting Ngomba’s balance. The Ganak toppled forward, huffing as his fall knocked the breath from his lungs. Conan whipped the blade of the oar against Ngomba’s back, then reversed it in his hands and stepped backward, gripping the spear like a strange quarterstaff. Gasping, Ngomba rolled and sprang to his feet, jumping nimbly to avoid the oar as Conan swept it under him.
Sajara stood rooted in place, unable to tear her eyes from the combatants, her mouth frozen open.
The Cimmerian rained a series of rapid blows on Ngomba’s arms and legs, none of which slowed the Ganak in the least. Like a rabid beast he advanced, seemingly unstoppable. Conan back-pedalled to keep the spear out of reach. The oar pummelled Ngomba again and again. Blood streamed from a cut above his eye, but the brutish warrior kept coming, forcing Conan to retreat toward the village. His heel banged into the vine-wrapped trunk from the tower, which lay where Y’Taba had left it earlier.
Sajara found her voice and began calling for help, rushing toward the two men.
“Stay back!” Conan shouted, eyes flickering toward her. Cocking his arms backward, he switched tactics, lunging at Ngomba to stab him with the spear’s point.
The battered warrior snatched the spear in a deft, powerful motion, ripping it from Conan’s hands. Ngomba brought it down against his knee, snapping it in twain, pouncing onto the Cimmerian while tossing aside the pieces. The Cimmerian twisted, catching Ngomba’s neck in the crook of his arm.
Grunting, Conan tightened his hold, his biceps flexing like iron against the Ganak’s windpipe. Ngomba’s elbow rammed into the Cimmerian’s belly, loosening his arm-lock. Conan coughed, staggering backward. He kicked out, his foot connecting solidly with Ngomba’s groin. The Ganak doubled over, groaning in agony. Reeling, fighting for breath, Conan swept his foot into Ngomba’s jawbone, where it struck with a crunch.
Spitting blood and teeth, the Ganak warrior reached out toward the vine-wrapped trunk, stretching for something that lay just within his reach.
It was the hilt of the atnalga, jutting from the side of the wrecked chest.
The Cimmerian aimed another desperate kick at Ngomba, hoping to stop him before he grabbed the length of black death. But Conan’s hasty move shifted his weight awkwardly, twisting his ankle painfully beneath him. He thumped to the hard ground as Ngomba shouted triumphantly, thick, powerful fingers closing around the atnalga's grip. Whipping it from the trunk, Ngomba rose to his feet and whirled, planting his foot hard on the prone Cimmerian’s ribs.
“No!” Sajara screamed as she raced toward them, arms pumping. Confused murmuring and cries of surprise issued from the huts nearest the roof of celebration, their occupants stirring from deep kuomo-induced slumbering.
Sweat and blood dripped from Ngomba’s fierce face onto Conan, who struggled vainly to dislodge the huge foot holding him down. The Ganak sneered, raising the blade and slashing downward with a murderous blow.
In the corner of his eye, Conan saw Sajara sailing through the air, propelled by a powerful running leap. She was heading straight for them, and in the instant that he realized her intent Conan smashed his mallet-like fists against Ngomba’s ankle. At the same moment Sajara collided with the tall Ganak’s calf. Ngomba’s foot slid across Conan’s sweat-slicked flesh and his stroke went wide, flashing downward toward Sajara’s neck.
The Cimmerian shoved her away as the blade bit deeply into the soil. Ngomba roared, raising the weapon again. Its edge flashed down at Conan, whose legs were pinned under Sajara. He flung up an arm in a futile gesture as the atnalga swept toward him.
Then Ngomba froze, checking the motion in mid-swing, his snarling countenance suddenly tranquil. He stared in wonder at the atnalga and took a step backward, squeezing his eyes shut and pitching forward to his knees. His eyelids lifted slowly a moment later, tears welling in pupils that had changed from a dark brown hue to silver-speckled black. Laying his blade gently upon the ground before him, he covered his face with his hands.
Conan wasted no time getting to his feet. He kicked the blade out beyond Ngomba’s reach and shoved the warrior to the ground, pinning him and seizing his throat, thumbs pressing in. Ngomba offered no resistance, but the Cimmerian’s blood was up; he could show no mercy to one who had tried to kill him, one who had nearly murdered Jukona and Sajara.
“Yes... slay me,” Ngomba wheezed, his body slackening. “The spirits... in the atnalga..He paused, gasping for breath. “... spoke to me. / am... chosen one.”
Conan lessened the pressure on his thumbs, though he did not relax his grip on Ngomba’s throat. He remembered in the tower when the strange voices within the blade had screamed at him, how the touch of that weapon had seared him, nearly sending him to Hell. The Ganak warrior had apparently not felt the fire of the blade. What if he were Kulunga’s chosen one—should he spare the treacherous warrior?
Ngomba coughed. “Spirits commanded me... to yield. atnalga will not serve one... whose heart is... impure.”
A small group of Ganaks, led by Jukona, came running toward them. They stopped in their tracks, staring at the scene.
“By Asusa, what has—” Jukona began.
“Shh!” Sajara rose, raising her hand and pointing toward the two fighters.
“Slay me... man of Cimmeria,” Ngomba pleaded, sensing that Conan’s resolve was ebbing. “Sajara is yours. I am... not worthy of her. I could have saved my people, but my folly has doomed us all.”
Staring into those silver-flecked eyes, Conan took his hands away, letting Ngomba’s head slump to the ground. A seasoned veteran of countless face-to-face battles, Conan h
ad come to recognize a look of hopelessness that creeps into the eyes of an utterly defeated man. He had seen that in the Ganak’s gaze. Though not one to show a foe any mercy, Ngomba had seemed a changed man, not the man with whom Conan had fought. He wondered fleetingly if he would regret his impulse to release the Ganak. He lifted his knee from the prone warrior’s gut and stood, stepping back a few paces.
Sajara looked at him in amazement. “You would spare him?”
Conan nodded. “I am not his executioner. Let him bum in Hell when his gods see fit to end his miserable life.” Stretching and bending down, he worked the stiffness from his twisted ankle. “Though I trust him not, I deem that he hates the Kezati more than me and will fight them to the last.”
“Will one of you tell me what has happened here?” Jukona demanded, his fists planted on his hips. He was bleary-eyed from his kuomo excesses but did not slur his words. “And what has become of Y’Taba and Nyona?”
Conan and Sajara exchanged blank looks as Ngomba finally picked himself up.
“The vugunda no longer waits near the hut of Y’Taba.” A prune-faced, yellow-painted elder commented. “They may have gone together, perhaps to speak where their words cannot be heard by others.”
“It was strange that they spoke but little to each other this night,” Jukona said absently, ruminating. “Well, I would hear your account now, though Y’Taba should know of this at once.” He watched Ngomba with a stony-faced look as the downcast warrior stood in place, shoulders slumping, arms dangling at his sides.
Wordlessly, Ngomba shuffled over to the dropped atnalga and picked it up, still hanging his head in shame. He shuffled over to the bench at the edge of the place of gathering and sat down.
Incredulous stares followed him as the Ganaks watched the once-proud youth.
Sajara and Conan began their recounting of the fight, eliciting a raised eyebrow from Jukona when he learned of Sajara’s affection for Conan.
Y’Taba, Nyona, and her stalker did not return to the village.
XIX
Four Against Hundreds
A sliver of indigo appeared on the horizon, brightening to a band of azure as the rising sun overpowered the sinking moon.
Conan munched absently on a large chunk of raw fish, spitting its bones onto the ground near the roof of celebration. Weary from his pitched clash with Ngomba, he had managed to fall asleep last night—without dreaming—and felt rested, though a few bruises and aches lingered from his scuffling. In hand-to-hand combat, these Ganak warriors were fearsome foes.
Jukona seemed surprisingly energetic in spite of the staggering amount of kuomo he had quaffed. He sat nearby, glancing up at the morning sky. Though he spoke no more of it, Conan could see that Y’Taba’s absence worried the old warrior-leader.
“You have my blessing to become joined with Sajara, if you wish it,” he said unexpectedly.
Conan choked on his food. “We have not decided,” he said, clearing his throat. “But she is Ranioba. Would she not forgo this role if she were to take a husband?”
He nodded. “This is our way. Y’Taba could forbid the joining since you are not Ganak, but I do not think he would object, after all that you have done.”
Conan looked away, watching the Ganaks go about their morning routine. Women and children worked diligently, cleaning the catch brought in by the hunters that morning, cracking open clams and oysters to dig out the meat inside, and smashing coconuts with stones to drain their milk into large, bowl-shaped clamshells. The kuomo stock had nearly run dry after last night’s swilling. Boys and girls worked together to fashion nets used in the snaring of fish. Elders milled around the place of gathering, sometimes huddling into groups to discuss matters of importance.
One of the wounded Ganak warriors was able to walk, though not without some assistance from his woman. Another still tossed in the throes of fever, his condition worsening, while the others lacked the strength to do aught but nibble their food and sip water.
Ngomba sat by herself upon a large stone, fashioning a new oar to replace the broken one. The young Ganak had regained some of his composure, though he maintained an embarrassed silence, avoiding Conan and Sajara altogether. He seemed absorbed in his work on the oar, a process that Conan realized took a very long time indeed when all one had was tools of stone and shell. The atnalga rested nearby; either Ngomba deemed its blade unsuitable for the working of wood, or its usefulness in that process had not dawned on him.
Remembering that his own blade needed some tending, he laid it across his knees and began scraping at it with a shell of shape and size appropriate for smoothing out minute nicks and honing its edge. If the Akbitanan blade had one drawback, it was the difficulty of sharpening and conditioning. It needed oiling, too... he supposed that the fish carcasses would provide a functional amount. Conan was mainly just passing time while he waited for Y’Taba to return.
Sajara, Makiela, Avrana, and Kanitra emerged from a tall patch of reeds near the place of gathering, returning from their scouting foray. The wounded women had healed quickly, courtesy of the yagneb leaves and Y’Taba’s considerable skill.
Jukona looked at his daughter, his face inquisitive, but Sajara simply shook her head. They had sought for any signs of Y’Taba or Nyona, first studying the tracks leading away from Y’Taba’s hut, then scaling trees near the village’s edge. Makiela had been convinced from the onset that Y’Taba had ridden with Nyona on the stalker, but none could say to where they had gone.
Conan turned his attention back to his sword, tossing aside the shell when he realized that the tempered steel was grinding it away. He wondered if a whetstone would have fared any better. Glancing toward the chest of tomes salvaged from the tower, he supposed he should start browsing through them.
Jukona watched with interest. “What do you call those?” he asked, pointing at the bent sheaf of weathered pages in Conan’s hand.
“Books,” Conan replied in a surly tone. His mood was worsening as the morning wore on.
Wrinkling his brow, Jukona gawked at the faint scribblings. Conan’s curt manner, however, put off any further questions he might have phrased.
Indeed, throughout the village, the only conversations that seemed to continue were those of the elders. A web of tension seemed to have entrapped the Ganaks in its invisible bonds. On everyone’s mind was Y’Taba’s mysterious absence, the imminent Kezati threat, the strangeness of Ngomba, or any combination of all three.
Conan dropped the fourth book in annoyance, its contents as undecipherable as the previous one. Age, heat, and humidity had combined to render these tomes into pulpy masses of stained, crumbling parchment. Some of them practically disintegrated at his touch, though the first and second volumes had contained informative if unexciting scrawlings.
A shout of excitement from Makiela turned heads throughout the throng. At first, Conan could not see it, but moments later the speck on the horizon became distinguishable as a swiftly flying stalker. It sped through the sky above the jungle, bearing its riders to the place of gathering. Ganaks everywhere dropped what they were doing and flocked toward the mound upon which Dawakuba set down. Even Ngomba trailed behind the others. Conan noted that he brought the atnalga with him.
Y’Taba climbed off, somewhat shakily, his usual confident demeanour returning when his feet touched the soil. Nyona remained upon her immense winged mount, peering back toward the sky above the jungle. The stalker’s eyes swivelled in that direction as well, antennae twitching like windblown reeds.
Darkness ringed the spirit-leader’s drooping eyes, marking a sleepless night. But if he were weary, his manner did not show it. He raised a hand to still the murmuring. “Forgive me for departing in the night,” he began. “Nyona Ranioba and I had much to discuss; we tarried longer than planned.” He surveyed the villagers with a reassuring smile before adopting his usual sombre expression. “Of what we spoke, there is no time to relate. Our enemies of old approach even now. Our day of victory is at hand!” Gasps ripp
led through the gathering, though some of the villagers accepted the news with stoic silence.
“Nyona Ranioba saw the Kezati coming from afar as we flew over the Deadlands. Even in the distance, the sky was thick with them, but do not despair. Though we do not have the atnalga, the mighty Asusa and Muhingo War God have bestowed upon us the means to defeat the children of
Ezat. Conan, Ngomba, Nyona, and Dawakuba...”
“Y’Taba,” Jukona interjected, “perhaps we do have the atnalga."
The spirit-leader paused, face clouding. “How, Jukona? Hasten your tongue!”
Jukona pointed to Ngomba, shrugging. “He fought Conan and nearly slew him with the atnalga, but the spirits within it stayed his hand, and then Conan spared his life. Ngomba said the spirits will not serve him, for his heart is impure, but they suffer him to bear the blade. He is the chosen one after all!”
Y’Taba’s eyes narrowed, his gaze burning into Ngomba’s strangely transformed eyes. “What say you, Ngomba?”
“I have failed, spirit-leader. I shall wield the atnalga against the Kezati, but the spirits who empower it have become silent. They spoke to me once, commanding me to yield and calling me unworthy. Perhaps they have fled.” Conan noticed that Nyona looked upon Ngomba with affection that seemed unwonted between two strangers. But words she had uttered before, words he thought had been a slip of her tongue, tickled in his ears. He rubbed his chin contemplatively, recent events taking on new meanings. An intriguing notion had arisen, but it was too outrageous for him to vouch. Besides, he had other matters to concern him. With an inward groan, he realized that Y’Taba’s fulfilment of their bargain would be postponed until the battle was done.
“We shall soon see, Ngomba.” Y’Taba’s tone seemed to soften for a moment, his expression unreadable as he regarded the young warrior. “The women and children must seek safety with the elders. Sajara, prepare your huntresses. Hasten! The Kezati will strike as before, I do not doubt. We must ready our spirits also. Nyona, who accompanies you astride the back of the mzuri vugunda?" “Alone we shall fly,” she smiled, “as one we fight, and swifter with no burden of two.”
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