'Fool!' Hathor-Ka barked. Then, more gently: 'No, you are just ignorant in these things. If I were content to acquiesce to the will of the gods, I would be a mere priestess. Instead, I have chosen to be a sorceress, to control events and even to compel the very gods to my will! If these gods or powers seek to play a deep game with me, then I shall seek to play better.'
Moulay was willing to obey his mistress no matter what happened, but the thought of crossing swords with the gods brought forth sweat on his usually undampened brow. 'And what of this northland god, this Crom, of which the barbarian spoke? Has Crom any power?'
'I have read somewhat of these northern deities,' Hathor-Ka said as she donned the light robes held out by her chamber slaves. 'They are real gods, if minor ones, but nothing to compare with our Father Set.' She made the Sign of the Serpent, which was echoed by the others in the room.
'Ymir of the Northlanders and Crom of the Cimmerians are little more than giants who have attained godhood through millennia of being the strongest beings in their cold northern wastelands. They have no sorcerous secrets, and they take little interest in the doings of men. They pay scant attention even to their worshippers. The true gods, the gods of the South, connive and plot ceaselessly to gain yet more power over the Earth. It is through manipulation of this power lust among the great gods that we sorcerers gain our power.'
Talk like this made Moulay uncomfortable. 'But,' he said, 'if these northland gods are weak, why is this most important of events to take place upon Crom's mountain?'
Hathor-Ka was silent for a while. Then: 'I have wondered that myself.
There are many more fitting locations here in the South. However, the gods no doubt have some reason for choosing this place. There must have been a good cause for that chapter of Skelos to be lost even from the few known volumes thought to be complete. It is as if the gods wish that only sorcerers of the first rank could find the writings, then make their way to the remote corner of the Earth, where they could try their skill at gaining ultimate power.'
'Then why not Thoth-Amon?' said Moulay, greatly daring. 'He is held by all to be a wizard of the first rank.'
To his relief, instead of growing wroth, Hathor-Ka merely wrinkled her brow in thought. 'It may be that the powers have some other fate planned for Thoth-Amon.'
VIII
The Gathering of the Clans
For the first time since he was a boy, Conan drove the cattle down to the wintering place. Instead of a sword he bore a wand in his hand to whip the recalcitrant kine down from the high pastures, where the lowering clouds promised snow. With his kin, Milach and Dietra and Chulainn, he carried his portion of the roof poles on a brawny shoulder down to their new quarters.
Strangely, these things he had chaffed under and hated as a youth felt
proper and even reassuring now, and he did not even resent it when his elders from time to time treated him like a child. This, too, was Cimmerian custom. If a fight portended, then he and Milach and Chulainn would draw their weapons and be fellow warriors together. Otherwise Milach and Dietra might treat Conan and Chulainn like youths.
Conversely, Conan and Milach might behave like contemporaries while Chulainn became the inept child. And always, within the household Dietra would treat all the menfolk as infants, whereas on the battlefield she would be sent back to the high glens while the men, from striplings to oldsters, plied their weapons among the foemen.
They found themselves to be among the last clansmen who had gathered to make up the winter village. This wintering's gather of the clan was as large as any Conan could remember, some three or four hundred clansmen all in one place. The Cimmerians were not a numerous folk as the southerners reckoned such things, but they made up in quality what they lacked in numbers. Every man was a fighting man, even the one-handed artisan who was quite willing to use that hand to wield a weapon. The women were tall and strong; their children were active and grew up young.
Despite the Nordheimer appelation of 'blackhairs,' not all Cimmerians had hair of that somber hue, though dark hair predominated. While most had eyes of grey or blue, brown eyes were not completely unknown. What distinguished the Cimmerians from their neighbour tribes was their strength, their sturdy physique, their language, and, above all, their relentless willingness to fight to the last drop of blood.
Conan and his kin drove their cattle into the common ground among the other livestock and closed the gate poles behind them. There they would graze all winter, if the snows were not too severe. In the spring they would be sorted out according to their brands. This had been Cimmerian custom from time out of mind.
When the cattle had been attended to, Conan and his kinsmen picked up the roof poles from where they had stacked them and found the hut shell Dietra had staked out. For the rest of the day they put up the poles, cut turf for the roof, and stacked peat and dried cow dung outside the door for fuel. Compared to the life Conan had grown accustomed to in the South, this was primitive beyond belief, but he could feel himself gaining strength from it. Milach was right; this was the proper life for a man, even
if a steady diet of it would be too much for one with Conan's wanderlust.
As he set the last of the turves on the roof, Conan looked down and saw a group of men assembling before the door of the stone hut. Some of them he recognised. After unhurriedly packing the last turf into place, Conan slid to the ground. His weapons he had left piled with those of his kinsmen inside the hut, but for the first time in years, in the presence of fierce armed men, he did not feel threatened when unarmed. These were, after all, his kinsmen, even if they did not approve of him.
Conan brushed the dirt from his hands as he walked up to the tall, graying, bearded man who stood before the others. This man looked very much like Conan himself, except for his long, dark beard. His weapons were plain but of the very best quality. In dress he looked like an ordinary clansman, but something set this man apart.
'Greeting, Canach,' Conan said. While he and all the others belonged to the Clan Canach, this man was the Canach, the Canach of Canach, chieftain of the clan.
'Greeting, Conan,' said Canach. 'It has been many winters since we have seen you. Your sept has almost died out. Have you returned to join us once more?'
'For a while, at any rate,' Conan answered him. 'I've a mission to accomplish here in these hills, and I must speak of it before the chiefs.'
'That you shall,' said Canach. 'But you must wait your turn, for there is much to be spoken of when all are gathered. I rejoice to see you, Conan, though there have been hard words between us in the past. This winter we may need all of the clan's best fighting men.'
'Is it to be a spear-wetting, then?' Conan asked. 'It seems a strange season for it.'
'Everything about this business is strange,' Canach said. 'You will hear about it at the gathering this evening.' The chieftain and his sidemen turned and left.
Conan resumed his weapons and walked about the little village, renewing old acquaintances and inquiring after friends and kinsfolk.
Without surprise he found that most of his old friends were dead.
Mortality was always high in the mountains, and Conan's companions had been wild youths like himself, inviting an end to their careers ere they had fairly begun.
Fires were being built all about, for here in the lowland near the Pictish Wilderness, wood was relatively plentiful in this glen that had not been occupied for ten years. Not until late winter would they have to resort to peat for fuel. Around the fires, pots of beer brewed in the lowlands were passed around, and people sang the eerie, dirgelike songs born of this wild land.
As the sun set, its afterglow shone luridly upon the snowcapped crests of the higher elevations. Down in the valley, though, the usual autumn mist and drizzle prevailed, and it would be the passing of another moon before snow blanketed the lowlands. Hunting parties had brought in a few wild boar and stags from the nearby wood-clothed hills, and now the sharp odor of the roasting meat filled the air of t
he village. Among the men impromptu contests were in progress in leaping, foot-racing and stone-throwing. Unlike their Nordheimer or Pictish neighbours, the Cimmerians did not contend among themselves in swordplay or even in stick-fighting, for fighting was a serious matter among them. Cimmerians drew their weapons against another man only with intent to kill.
Before the bonfire in the centre of the village the chiefs and elders sat on the ground, gnawing on beef bones and passing beer jars among themselves. A place was made for Conan at this fire, and a joint of stag was thrust into his hand by a shock-headed girl of fifteen or so, whose fierce grey eyes took in his massive frame from scalp to toes with the unmistakable calculation of a woman sizing up a prospective husband.
Word had gone out that Conan was back, and that he was yet unmarried.
Cimmerian males in their prime were always in short supply.
Conan wrapped a chunk of smoking stag flesh in a flat oatcake and bit into it, chewing the tough but delicious meat and reliving a hundred other highland feastings, when he had fought with the other boys over the leavings of their elders. He washed the good food down with a long draught of Pictish barley beer.
A grey-haired elder sitting next to him said, 'Greetings kinsman. I knew your father and grandfather.'
'And I remember you, Anga,' Conan said.
The old man frowned slightly. 'You've picked up an odd accent, living in foreign places.'
'They say much the same of me in the South,' said Conan with a shrug.
'It seems I'm destined to speak no tongue to perfection!'
Unlike their Æsir and Vanir neighbours, who were boisterous to the point of insanity in their feastings, the Cimmerians remained solemn even on the most joyous occasions. The warriors did not stand up and boast, nor did they fight, no matter how freely the beer flowed.
As soon as his immediate appetite was satisfied, Conan found himself longing for a good brawl, but no blood flowed. 'At an Æsir feasting,' he told his neighbours, 'there would be steel drawn by now, and the songs would shake the rafters, and the fighting men would be proclaiming the names of chiefs they had slain.'
Unimpressed, Anga said, 'It is good, then, that you have come back to a place where men know how to comport themselves.'
'Yes,' said a man with a long, sad face, who sat on Conan's other side, 'who but a fool or a coward boasts of the men he has slain? What boots it that the dead foeman be a chief? Friend or foe, the measure of a fighter is in his arm and heart. I have engaged many a lowland swineherd who wounded me sorely, and I have seen chiefs fall to the sword of a youth on his first bloodletting.' Others nodded and complimented the wisdom of these words.
'Still,' Conan persisted, 'in other lands they know the value of merriment. There is song and the music of harp and flute. There are dancing girls and jugglers and beast trainers. Here, our songs sound as if we were mourning the dead.'
The others looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign tongue.
'Never mind,' he said disgustedly, 'you would never understand.'
Conan saw Chulainn walking about at the edge of the firelight, and he excused himself, taking a pot of beer from the circle. He walked to the young man and thrust the pot into his hand.
'Here, cousin,' Conan said, 'drink some of this. A man should not be
long-faced on the first night in winter quarters.'
Chulainn took a brief drink and handed the vessel back. 'My thanks, cousin,' he said shortly.
'Look, kinsman,' Conan said, 'I have heard somewhat about the lass.
You are not the first to lose one. Gather your friends together, and we'll go get you another.'
'I want only Bronwith,' Chulainn said levelly. 'We plighted our troth.'
'Well,' Conan grumbled uncomfortably, 'from what I heard, your vow is canceled. Even Crom will not hold you to a pledge made to the dead.'
'I do not know that she is dead,' Chulainn insisted. 'Her body was not among those at the steading.'
'Are you certain?' Conan asked. 'They say the bodies were in no condition—'
'She was not there!' Chulainn said vehemently. 'I would have known!'
'Still, she is lost to you. You might as well give her up.'
'Never,' said the young man. 'I swore to her by Crom that I would come for her, and neither her kinsmen nor the demons of the sky or the mountains can keep me from bringing her home.'
Conan was about to comment on the unwisdom of lightly making oaths in the name of Crom, but the memory of his own recent indiscretion stayed him. 'How will you find her? Once they have been led to the coast in chains, captives never come back; you know that well.'
'They were not led to the coast this time. This was no slave raid of the Vanir. It was some work of demons or madmen. The captives were herded northeast.'
'Northeast?' Conan pondered, drinking deeply of the beer as he considered the geographical possibilities of his country. 'Toward Asgard, then? Or Hyperborea?'
'No. There are many good low roads and passes to those lands, or to the Border Kingdom. We tracked them for days, and their way led always
higher, into the loftiest crags, where only the white goats live.'
'Up near Ben Morgh,' Conan muttered, his scalp crawling.
'Yes. We were within sight of the peak of the sacred mount, just below the Field of the Dead, when a dense cloud descended. We could not see so much as a hand before our noses. It was no natural mountain mist, but a cloud black as a Van's heart, yet there was no smell of smoke. I would have gone on, by feel alone if need be, but my companions would have none of it. They bore me bodily back.'
'Well,' Conan said, 'it may be that you and I shall soon have work to do together. Wait until I have spoken with the chiefs.'
'Work?' said Chulainn. 'What work?'
Before Conan could answer, an elder rose and, standing in the firelight, sounded a long, deep blast on an ancient horn. This was the great summoning horn, a cherished treasure of the Canach. It was carved in one piece from the long, curled horn of some great beast unknown to these mountains, and was wrought with curious figures and runes over its whole surface. Clan legend had it that the horn had belonged to the first Canach.
Conan and Chulainn moved closer to the fire, where the clan chiefs sat.
Canach was there, along with the heads of the largest septs and families, and the oldest and most prestigious warriors, although many of these were but simple householders whose fame and position in the clan were due to their skill and prowess rather than to clan position. Others were there as well, and these drew Conan's surprised attention. One, seated next to Canach, was a middle-aged man with hair braided in the long temple plaits of the Raeda. Another's face was painted battle-ready blue, as was the custom of the Tunog. Conan wondered what brought these chieftains to this gathering, for among the ever-feuding clans of Cimmeria, peaceful meeting ordinarily took place only at the midwinter fair or the fair held in early spring.
Canach rose to his feet and held both hands high. The great horn blasted twice and all fell silent.
'Clansmen of Canach!' the chieftain shouted. 'All of us, not just Clan Canach, but all the clans of Cimmeria, face a grave new danger. Not since Veharium have we stood in such peril. We must stand together and fight
together lest we perish one by one. It is decreed that all feuds must cease during this time of mutual danger. There must be no vengeance-slaying, no feud-wiving, and no cattle-raiding until the clan chieftains declare the peril past.'
A babble of dismay swelled like a wind among the audience, for in the long, dull months of winter these were the principle diversions of the clansmen. The great horn blew once more for silence.
'You have all heard by now of the feud-wiving undertaken by young Chulainn and his cousins, my own son among them, and of what they found in Murrogh land. After my son told me of what they found, I travelled among the clans, bearing the white shield of peace, to learn whether there had been other such incidents.' As he paused his listeners waited silent an
d enthralled. It had been many years since a chief had borne the white shield. 'I learned of many … at least a hundred steadings wiped out. These who sit beside me will tell you their stories.' He turned to the man with the long temple plaits and spoke the accustomed formula: 'Rorik of Clan Raeda, I bid you speak to my clansmen.'
The man stood. 'I am Rorik,' he began, 'brother of Raeda of Raeda, and I come bearing the white shield. In the ten moons past, six households of Clan Raeda were annihilated. Forty men and women were slain, and at least as many children borne away into the high mountains. Clan Raeda will not raise sword against other Cimmerians until this danger is gone from among us.' With these simple words Rorik sat down.
'Twyl of Tunog,' Canach said, 'speak to my clansmen.'
The blue-faced man stood and leaned upon the shaft of his spear. 'I am Twyl, a senior war counsellor of Tunog, and I come bearing the white shield. In this summer four homesteads of the Tunog were destroyed, with the loss of thirty slain or abducted. Across our border two households of the Lacheish were destroyed. We men of Tunog have painted our faces for war, and we will not wash it off until this danger is no more. Until that time we make peace with all the clans.' The Tunog chief resumed his seat.
'From what Chulainn and my son and the others have said,' Canach intoned, 'this danger comes from the high mountains near Ben Morgh. It is not enough that these unclean creatures slay the living, but they also defile our dead, for only through the Field of the Dead can they enter or leave that area. It matters little what manner of creatures these are. They
are our enemies. They walk on Cimmerian land, and they must die.'
'Have any caught sight of these demons and lived?' asked a grizzle-bearded warrior.
'A boy of Raeda was herding sheep near one of the houses when it was struck,' Rorik said. 'He ran to see what the commotion was about. From a high cliff he saw the steading cloaked in a strange black mist, such as he had never before seen. He lay on his belly to watch until, in time, the black cloud moved away, to the northeast. He heard from within the cloud the wails of the young. Later he saw the ruined huts and corpses left behind.
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