'And who might we be fighting?' Chulainn asked.
'To begin with, the lurking swine on the other side of this cairn.' With this, Conan sprang up the mossy-side of the pile of stones next to them.
Chulainn, Cimmerian to the bone, spent not an instant in standing dumbfounded, but scrambled up the cairn behind his companion before Conan's sword was fully drawn. At the crest of the cairn they saw two crouching forms waiting with polearms ready to hew down unwary passersby. These scarce had time to look up as the two blackhaired Cimmerians descended on them.
The shapes below seemed roughly human albeit misshapen; but the hiss loosed from the throat of the first came from no human larynx. Conan was swinging as he leaped down, and his sharp blade ploughed through the skull of his chosen target before his feet touched earth.
Chulainn landed too far from his foe, and the creature lunged at him with a broad-bladed glaive on a short pole. Chulainn sidestepped the clumsy weapon and replied with a thrust of his spear, which barely penetrated the scaly hide over the monster's chest. With an enraged hiss the creature spun unexpectedly, and a long, thick tail lashed around, caught Chulainn in the side, and sent him tumbling against the cairn. The glaive came up for a deathblow, but Chulainn rolled aside and Conan's sword skewered the creature from back to front. With a vicious hiss the serpent-thing expired.
'Crom!' Conan said, wiping his blade. 'It takes some real force to push a blade through these things. They grow their own armour.'
Chulainn staggered painfully to his feet. 'I am sorry, Conan,' he wheezed. 'I know we needed one for questioning. I thought I had that one, but my spear would not go in.'
'We'd have had no answers from these beauties,' Conan said. With his dirk he pricked forth the tongue of one. It was long, thick, and forked. 'If these things have a language, it is one no man understands, I'll wager.
Tongues like this could form no human words, save, perhaps, the secret speech of the serpent priests of Set.'
'Set?' Chulainn said. 'Is that a god?'
'Aye, and an evil one. Set may be behind these things, for all the sorcerers of Stygia are minions of that vile god.' Chulainn could sense behind Conan's steady-spoken words a deeply ingrained horror of the supernatural.
'Surely this Set cannot challenge Father Crom on his own mountain,'
Chulainn said.
'Wager no coins on what gods and demons can or cannot do,' Conan observed. 'At least we know this lot die if you strike hard enough.
Remember that trick with the tail, though. That kind of blow can take an honest fighting man by surprise. I'd like to get a better look at these things. But we dare not strike a light this close to Ben Morgh.'
'I wonder if these were posted here,' Chulainn said, 'or if they were sent to intercept us.'
'I would give a great deal to know that myself,' Conan said. Did their enemy know that they were coming? The thought was unsettling.
Abruptly, Conan turned and began walking so fast in the direction of the mountain that Chulainn had trouble keeping up with him. 'Now, about that light in the sky,' he continued as if the incident with the two lizard-things had never transpired. 'In the South I have seen a kind of black stone burned for fuel. It comes from the ground, where there is no wood or peat, but a thick and stinking smoke comes from it, and I see no smoke up there.'
They had almost reached the upper end of the Field of the Dead when they saw a figure seated atop a small cairn, perhaps one of the oldest monuments in the ancient burial place. The trespasser sat motionless, a cold breeze fluttering what appeared to be tattered garments, but the travelers could see only its outline against the bloodred sky. Two swords hissed snakelike from sheaths as the Cimmerians strode to within ten
paces of the cairn.
'Speak swiftly if you do not want your blood to feed some old chief of our race,' Conan demanded.
The creature shifted on its seat and cackled. 'Say, northerner, you like to buy another amulet? I sell, very cheap.'
For several seconds Conan stood speechless, rooted in one spot. 'Crom!'
he said at last.
'No, just Cha the fortuneteller. Crom live higher up.' The Khitan mountebank jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Ben Morgh.
'You know this oldster, Conan?' Chulainn asked. He had not been able to understand the exchange.
Cha turned his face to the younger Cimmerian. 'Conan and I old friends,' he said in mangled Cimmerian.
'Is it human?' Chulainn asked. 'It talks worse than a Pict.'
'He's human,' Conan told him. 'In his own way.' He turned back to the Khitan. 'Why did you pretend to be a mere seller of amulets and charms, Khitan?'
'What the matter?' demanded Cha in tones of hurt outrage. 'You not like my amulet? Bet you not be here right now if not for my amulet!'
Conan thumbed the keen edge of his sword. 'I do not like being played with, Khitan,' he said in a low, dangerous voice. 'That bitch Hathor-Ka played me for a fool, and now I find you have done the same.'
'From the start I tell you you just playing-piece for the gods,' Cha said.
'You mad now because it true?'
'True or not,' Conan growled, 'I feel like killing somebody for it, and you're handy.' He started to ascend the small cairn.
'Wait,' the Khitan said hastily. 'You need me, and I need you.'
Conan paused. 'Why do I need you?' he asked suspiciously.
'Because I very great magician, while you just fighter. Up there'—he pointed toward the glowing crest of Ben Morgh—'is great magic. Bad magic. You need more than swords to fight magic.'
'From the look of this,' Conan growled, 'we'll need more than your piddling amulets.'
'No fear,' the Khitan said, smiling teeth showing in the dimness, 'my magic plenty powerful. How you think I get here?'
'I was about to ask that.' Conan looked puzzled. 'Chulainn, I last saw this little beggar in Khorshemish, a city many weeks of travel to the south, yet here he is ahead of me. How did you do it, mountebank?'
'Easy,' the Khitan said, descending from the cairn and adjusting his rags. 'I flew on a dragon. Now, you want to go up the mountain?'
Mystified, the two Cimmerians trudged on uphill alongside the shabby Khitan sorcerer.
The Field of Chiefs lay silent and deserted in the first grey light of dawn. No clan farmed here, and none grazed its cattle and sheep amid the eerie, strangely carven stones of the field. So mossy were they grown that one could stand in their midst for a great while before noticing the geometric patterns wrought upon their surfaces, and even longer before realizing that the geometry thus represented was not the same as that taught by the wise men of Aquilonia. The Cimmerians knew nothing of geometry, canny or uncanny, and had never noticed that particular strangeness.
The stones lay scattered about the little plain—odd, humped forms, upon which the moss seemed to grow equally upon all sides, unlike ordinary moss. In the centre of the field towered the Standing Stone. It was a stark shaft of black rock and no such stone was native to these mountains. Its surface was rough and pitted, but no moss grew upon its surface. According to immemorial legend, this stone had been a missile in a long-ago war between Crom and Ymir. Ymir, god of the Nordheimers, had challenged Crom for the suzerainty of the North. Ymir, who was lord of storms and king of the frost giants, had sent a terrible, freezing winter, and many thousands of Crom's subjects had died. When he thought that Crom was sufficiently weakened, Ymir and his giants had marched upon Cimmeria. Crom, unweakened, had torn the great stone from a
mountaintop in Hyperborea, still glowing from the heat of the internal flames of that mountain. It had arced for many leagues through the air and landed in this spot, directly before the advancing army, so close that it singed Ymir's beard. The Nordheimer god, seeing that Crom was in no way weakened, had turned in his tracks and gone home. After that time Crom had made sure to imbue his people with the extraordinary endurance of extremes of cold and heat that so characterized the Cimmerians.
&
nbsp; The boy thought of this legend as he climbed the Standing Stone, his fingers and toes finding easy purchase on the rough surface. Cimmerians are climbers from birth and this one swarmed up the side of the vertical stone as swiftly as a civilised youth would have climbed a stair, and he reached the top without the slightest trace of breathlessness. He was the first to arrive. He had awakened in the dark of night and had stolen from the camp in order to arrive here ahead of his kinsmen. Now he would be able to tell his grandchildren that he was first among the clansmen to reach the Standing Stone upon this hosting. If he survived the fighting.
The youth wore the blue face paint of Clan Tunog and little else. Despite the biting wind he did not trouble himself with a cloak and only a wolfskin loincloth eased the bite of a wide belt heavy with the weight of sword and dagger. He had left his spear leaning against the base of the stone. His long black hair streamed like a banner in the breeze as he stood in the alert half-crouch of the mountain-bred warrior. Had he known it, an artist of the civilised lands would have considered him to be the very picture of the savage, warlike north, but he neither knew nor cared about such things. He slitted his gaze against the wind and awaited the coming of the clans.
The boy's keen eyes caught the first movement just as the rising sun peered over the mountain crest to the east, flooding the Field of Chiefs with a bloody light. From several directions he saw lone runners converging upon his point of vantage. These were the best runners of each clan, bearing their Bloody Spears ahead of the main body. Within minutes the field was black with dark-haired warriors, for the Cimmerians do not march stolidly to battle like civilised armies, but instead run at the mile-eating trot of the high valleys.
As they neared, each runner cast his spear at the great stone in accordance with an ancient custom no longer understood but still
practiced at such times. 'Greeting, warriors!' called the youth atop the stone.
A Raeda with plaited hair looked up and grinned. 'I had hoped to be first. You arose early this morning, I'll wager.'
''You would win,' the youth called. 'Come on up and see such a sight as few men ever behold in a lifetime!' The young runners scaled the stone with the agility of monkeys and soon crowded together on the treacherous footing as casually as Aquilonian loungers in the great square of Tarantia.
'They come!' said one. 'Raeda, Tunog, Canach, Lacheish, Dal Claidh, all the clans in one place. Was there ever such a sight?'
One pointed to the northeast, where a long file of men were trotting through a narrow pass, their spearbearer at their head. 'Yonder come the wild Galla, by the look of their topknots. I have never laid eyes upon a man of that clan. They are said to be uncommonly fond of battle.' This was an awesome pronouncement coming from a Cimmerian.
'Ahh,' exulted a youth whose temples were shaven in the fashion of Clan Lacheish, 'does not the light of morning glitter most fairly upon the spearpoints of such a host?'
Now a grizzled chieftain reached the base of the stone and he stood with fists on hips, staring up at the boys. 'You've gazed your fill, now come down from there. There's little fighting to be found atop the Stone, and much work to be done down here.'
As the young men descended the stone several other chiefs joined the one who had hailed them. Among them was Canach. As the chief who had called for the hosting, he was leader of the clansmen, at least as far as any one man could lead the wild tribes of Cimmeria, even in time of peace.
'We gather quickly,' he said with approval. 'We'll not have long to wait before we set forth. Even the Galla have arrived early on the first day.'
'The Galla travel faster than most,' said Raeda. 'Others will be arriving throughout the day. Some of the lowland clans may not arrive until the morrow.'
'I hope that they do not take longer than the midday to arrive,' Canach said. 'I feel that time is important now. We must set off before the sun is
much past its zenith tomorrow, with or without all the clans.'
Throughout the day the men gathered. There was no making of speeches. All knew why they were there and they were ready to fight. No more need be said. They sat talking around small fires, some of them eating from their scant supply of marching rations. By nightfall the last of the clans had arrived. All the able fighting men of Cimmeria, save only Conan and Chulainn, were present for the hosting at the Standing Stone.
Canach was sitting at a fire with his fellow chiefs when a final group arrived, and these were not Cimmerians. 'Foreigners come,' a man said quietly. Canach stared into the dimness outside the circle of firelight. He heard the faint click and jingle of arms, sounds that the Cimmerians did not make even when fully armed. Ordinarily, these sounds would have had him reaching for his weapons, but this time he was certain that those who approached were not foes.
Three men stepped within the firelight. 'I was told that I would find the chieftains here,' said the tallest. Like the others, the speaker had long yellow hair and beard. Unlike the Cimmerians this man and his followers wore helmets adorned with horns short enough to be clear of a sword blow, and coats of iron or bronze scales. They also wore many ornaments of gold set with gems.
Canach and the others stood, but their hands did not stray near their weapons. 'We are the chieftains of Cimmeria,' said Tunog, oldest of the chiefs. His snowy hair and beard contrasted weirdly with his blue-painted face.
'You are the Æsir warband Conan spoke of?' asked Canach.
'We are,' said the leader. 'I am Wulfhere, son of Hjalmar, and a prince among the Garlingas when I am not an outlaw. Just now I am under outlawry for a manslaying. My men are outlaws as well. I left most of them at the edge of your camp.'
'Sit,' said Canach, gesturing graciously toward the bare ground. 'We would offer you food and drink, but we came with but little by way of refreshment.'
'We came better prepared,' said Wulfhere. He reached back and one of his men handed him a bulging skin of wine. Wulfhere upended jt and took
a long pull, then offered it to the Cimmerians.
Canach shook his head, as did the other chiefs. 'Thank you, but we'd not have our kinsmen see us drinking while they went dry.'
They sat for a while in silence. Unlike their cousins the Vanir, the Æsir were not unceasingly hostile to the Cimmerians. Æsir and Cimmerian fought only most of the time. Indeed, there had been spans as lengthy as a year when the two peoples were at peace. Each looked upon the other with a certain disdain, but with a wary respect for the fighting prowess of the other. The Æsir were as tall as the Cimmerians on the average, but they often had a somewhat heavier build. Like all northern peoples they were strong and fierce, but unlike the Cimmerians they were fond of feasting, revelry, and drunkenness. They loved adorning themselves with bright ornaments, preferably stolen from someone else. The Cimmerians considered them to be shamelessly self-indulgent. There was an old Cimmerian proverb about these people: 'The only good thing about the Æsir and the Vanir is that they kill so many of each other.' Indeed, where enmity between Cimmerian and. Vanir was ferocious, that between Æsir and Vanir was maniacal. This was in spite of the fact that the Æsir and Vanir worshipped the same gods, spoke the same tongue, and had almost identical customs. In fact, the only noticeable difference between the two was the colour of their hair—Vanir red and Æsir yellow. But then, civilised men have fought over differences less significant.
'Have these demons plagued you as they have us?' asked the shaven-templed chief of Lacheish.
'They have,' Wulfhere confirmed. 'Three steadings that I know of wiped out, all of them in the border country up near your folk. At first some thought it was your raiding, but we soon saw that this was no work of Cimmerians. Until your runner came, though, we had no idea where to go to get our vengeance. Were you willing to wait, you could have the whole Æsir race here to aid you.'
'We'd as soon not have the whole Æsir nation on our land,' said Canach with a faint smile, 'even in alliance.'
'We'll have to make do, then,' said Wulfhere. 'Whatever our numbers
, this threat must be eliminated and we must have vengeance.'
All the others nodded. This was the language that all northerners understood.
X
On the Mountain of Crom
'Why do they take my people prisoner?' demanded Conan of the slight magician who walked through the snow beside him.
'He who do this preparing great sorcery, great spell, want maybe great sacrifice.'
'Like the Vanir?' Chulainn asked. 'They buy the favour of Ymir with sacrifices in their sacred groves.'
'Maybe so,' Cha said, 'but I think much more. Not buy favour of god, but give evil spell much force. Earth, sky, stars, planets, all in strange order. Many spells, not used in thousand years, possible now.'
'I understand nothing of this,' Conan said, 'but you say you, too, know nothing.'
'Mortal man know nothing for sure,' Cha agreed, 'all is illusion. Duke Li say—'
'Enough of your eastern maunderings!' Conan barked. 'From now on, if you have no plans to contribute, keep your thoughts to yourself. Warn us if some sorcerous danger lies ahead. We will take care of the rest without your aid.'
'You not trust me?'
'I trust nobody who claims to fly on dragons,' Conan said.
They continued to climb, forced to breathe deeply in the thinning air.
As their path wound higher, Conan noticed that the snow disappeared from the ground, and the air seemed distinctly warmer. Soon he saw that his companions' breath no longer steamed from mouth and nostril.
'It's getting warmer,' Conan said.
'Even a northern barbarian has powers of perception,' Cha said,
chuckling. 'Am I not good teacher, to bring this out in you?'
'Will your amulets cure a split skull, Khitan?' Conan asked, grasping his hilt.
'You true barbarian, all right,' Cha mumbled. 'One answer for everything.'
'One answer is all you need for most questions,' Conan said.
'Do all Khitans talk as much as this one?' Chulainn asked.
The Conan Chronology Page 185