'Outside, I ran to my horse. All the others stood out of my way, for I was a sight to horrify a dragon! I rode to the crest of a hill near the village, and below me, I saw my sister rousing the others to pursue, flogging laggards with her whip. I raised the child above my head and screamed defiance at her.
Then I rode away,
'For months, I lived alone as an animal, nursing my child and living by my skills as a hunter. Then my sisters of my wilderness year found me. They were sick of Briseis and would rather follow me as outlaws. There were a score of them then. Lombi, Payna and Ekun are all that survive. So now you know. Even Jeyba, who was closer to me than any other man since Aethelwulf, never knew the whole story.'
'What became of the bairn?' Conan asked.
'It was not a life an infant could survive,' she said. 'I gave him to a family of hunters in the mountains and visited him from time to time over the years, I named him Wulf for his father, since we have no male names among my people. He is about twelve years old now, if he lives. Time to begin his warrior training.'
Conan was silent for a minute. Then: 'Achilea, you are the greatest woman I have ever known. Not just great in size and strength and courage, but in heart. You are the only true queen I have ever known, and ere now, I have known women who sat upon thrones. Had I been Aethelwulf, I would have fought your whole nation to keep you.'
She smiled, leaned forward, and their lips met. He crushed her to him, and her own arms, scarcely less powerful than his, returned the embrace. If tigers kissed, it would have been like the kiss of the Amazon and the Cimmerian. Then they broke apart.
'Come,' she said. 'Let us get our weapons and go die together.' She sounded truly happy. The last sliver of sun disappeared beneath the horizon.
They entered the city with their swords bare in their hands. Conan and Achilea were in the lead, with the three wild women close behind. Well behind them followed me men of Arsaces, nervous but ready with sword, bow and crossbow. Last of all came Arsaces himself, with his crystalline homunculus perched upon his shoulder like a pet bird.
'A slow and cautious man, our Arsaces,' Conan said with a wolfish scowl.
'It is doubtless the best course when dealing with the foes he faces,' Achilea said, 'Give me clean bloodshed and bare steel any time.'
'Aye, I― What is that?' There was a rustling, flapping noise all around them. The Cimmerian halted.
'It is just the whirlwind-demons beginning their night’s work,' Arsaces shouted from behind them.
'Pay them no mind and proceed.'
Proceed they did, but as for ignoring the demons, that was impossible. There came sounds of stone being rent and broken, glass being shattered, and an indescribable hissing noise. Dominating all was a choking stench of acid that soon had them coughing as a yellow fog came rolling down the walls of the high buildings, behaving more like a thin liquid than proper smoke. It formed an ankle-high layer upon the street, and the skin of their feet began to sting and burn.
'Crom, let’s get out of this!' Conan said, sprinting for the nearest stairway. Achilea and her women ran like fallow deer and the warriors shuffled along behind, lumbered by their armour and desert robes.
The wizard strode along in a dignified manner, ignoring all discomfort.
In the higher elevations of the city, the air was still clear. Soon they were at the great plaza before the temple. The temple door stood open and they could see lights flickering within.
'We’ll have company soon,' Conan said. 'Are you ready?'
'I am always ready,' Achilea said, her long fingers flexing on the rough grip of her sword. Behind them, the hired warriors waited, and atop the buildings that fringed the plaza, other creatures gathered.
'I hate the idea of fighting on the same side as those things,' the Cimmerian muttered.
'When you are gravely outnumbered,' Achilea pointed out, 'you cannot be picky about your allies.'
'Let’s go,' Conan said. The time for hesitation was past. For good or ill, it was time to commence the night’s work. They had gone no more than a dozen paces when warriors came boiling from within the temple. The shouted and gave voice to hideous, ululating war cries, and the air began to hum with crossbow bolts, few of which found targets in the uncertain light. Many of the underground warriors waved torches and these produced a multitude of shifting shadows, further confusing the sight.
The first warriors to reach the Cimmerian and the Amazon queen went down amid screams and blood. The hired warriors spread out and made their weapons felt. The underground folk were smaller and at a disadvantage in a hand-to-hand encounter, but their numbers were overwhelming. Two of Arsaces’s warriors went down screaming and another fell soundlessly, a bolt protruding from an eye socket. Then the whirlwind-demons joined the fray.
Conan had fought his way within twenty paces of the temple door when they were surrounded by reeking, flapping, shadowy forms. The Cimmerian could not discern clearly what they looked like, and he was not certain that he wanted to. Within moments, he was being showered by bloody offal that had been shredded by no weapon of steel. The masked warriors fell back in panic-stricken horror and Conan and his companions hewed at their bare backs. This was a desperate fight against overwhelming odds, and there was no place for the niceties of chivalry.
Inside the temple, vapor torches burned in sconces, and huge flames leapt from the upturned hands of the bronze goddess. Standing before the gate to the underworld, Conan saw Abbadas, shouting and haranguing his warriors. His voice betrayed growing fear and panic.
'No! Get back our there, you worms! They are destroying the city and it is not time yet! The Great Spell of Unchanging must be maintained for a while longer!' His words went unheard, for the invading warriors and the whirlwind-demons were already within the temple.
But now the tide of the fight began to shift and resistance stiffened, for the demons could not abide the light of the torches and must perforce lurk within the shadows, snatching at masked guards as they chanced too close. Even so, the panic spread by their presence and, most of all, by their acid stench, prevented any genuine rallying on the part of the underground people. Some tried to run past Abbadas for whatever refuge the lower city had to offer, but he cut down many with his sword and flogged the others back into the fray with a short, thick whip.
'Back, cowards!' he cried. 'We are safe as long as the fires burn high!' Under his repeated shriekings and scourg-ings, the masked warriors formed a thick cordon beneath the feet of the gigantic
idol, thus blocking the door. Conan, Achilea and the few remaining hired warriors carved at the line, inflicting casualties, but there were always oncoming warriors to take the places of the fallen. The battle seemed about to reach a stalemate when a new and horrifying factor entered.
The Adversary dropped from its lurking place at the top of the dome.
Screams of surprise and terror greeted its arrival and for a few paralyzed seconds, the Cimmerian gaped at the thing that he had known as the twins Yolanthe and Monandas and their two unusual camels.
Now it had reverted to the shape natural to it in its own plane. He judged it to mass at least a ton. It was roughly circular, covered with coarse, bristling hair and fringed at its base with short tentacles that glowed crimson and green. It had six long, jointed arms tipped with hooked pincers. Most frightening of all were its eyes. Glaring and slit-pupiled, the three orbs atop the blasphemous form glowed with a hideous intelligence that made the mindless whirlwind-demons seem innocuous by contrast.
For long, tense seconds, the mass of struggling humans stood still and silent, stunned with horror at this new apparition. The tension was shattered when the six long, hairy arms shot out with unnatural swiftness and snatched up six squirming, writhing humans. The pincers pulped diem, and six vertical orifices, lined with curved, thornlike teeth, gaped open upon the body between the arms. The pincers thrust the shredded bodies into the mouths. The orifices closed and the Adversary began, hideously, to grow,
The
voice of Arsaces rose, thundering above the din of the resumed battle, and violet light began to flash around him.
Suddenly, the underground city seemed to Conan to be a good place to visit. With near-maniacal fury, he began to hew at the line before him, his sword a glittering whirlwind that made even lionhearted Achilea stand back in awe of his savagery. Then he was distracted by a blood-chilling scream.
'My queen!'
Conan whirled, and a wave of horror rushed over him. One of the pincers had grasped Ekun and begun to raise her from the floor. Even in the din of battle and panic, he distinctly beard the thick bones of her pelvis snap in the merciless grip.
Without the slightest hesitation, Achilea spun on a bare heel and thrust her sword unerringly through the suffering woman’s heart. 'Die clean, my sister!' Her reward was a look of unutterable gratitude that quickly faded. Ekun was dead before her queen’s steel left her heart. With two fingers of her left hand, Achilea wiped the woman’s blood from the tip of her blade and drew a red line from her hairline to her lips. Payna and Lombi reached out to touch the blade and performed the same gesture, The monstrous thing lurched higher, newly fed upon human flesh. Then it was enveloped in a violet net as Arsaces flung his handful of crystals over it. The stones darted about like glittering wasps, trailing glowing strands of light The stumpy tentacles flashed multiple colours, some of them painful for human eyes to behold, as the creature left off devouring human prey to fight its wizardly enemy.
Conan wanted to see no more. He returned to the fray with redoubled fury. In moments, he and Achilea had carved a path through the resisting warriors and were within the idol. Payna and Lombi were close behind. The hired warriors were all dead or had fled, they knew not which. With a last few killing blows, the way to the spiral ramp was open. They ran for it, every stride putting more distance between themselves and the horrors behind.
'Abbadas!' Conan shouted as they ran down the spiral. 'Where are you? Come meet me, dog! See if I die as easily as your murdered queen!' Nothing answered him save his own echo.
Minutes later, they were in the underground warren off the main corridor. With his unerring memory, the Cimmerian guided them through the pathways they had taken in their escape from the city.
They passed many inhabitants, but these drew aside with fear. All the warriors were above, either fighting or dead.
'Which way?' Achilea cried as they came to a fork in the passages.
'Here!' Conan said, taking the one that led to the right From before them came creaking, groaning and hissing sounds. A hundred long strides later, they passed through a doorway and into the
vapor-works. First Conan darted within, closely followed by Achilea. Payna was after her queen, and last was Lombi. At Lombi’s sudden gasp, they runted to see her standing with a stunned expression, looking down at the foot of bloody steel that had suddenly appeared from between her breasts. The blade withdrew and the light in her eyes faded. Stiff-legged, she toppled like a falling tree. Behind her stood Abbadas, holding a stained sword.
The usurper’s mask was off for a change, revealing a hard-planed face whose contours were not quite human. Upon it sat a took of sensual satisfaction as be dabbled his fingers in the blood coating his blade. He raised his wet fingertips to his tongue and licked them, managing to smile at the surviving three while he did so.
'Dog-spawn!' Conan snarled, making for him. He wag stopped by a gesture from Achilea.
'Mine,' was all she said, but she put so much queenly authority into her voice that the berserk Cimmerian and the furious warrior-woman Payna were stopped in their tracks. With leonine tread, Achilea walked toward Abbadas, and as she did, she idly tossed her bloody sword back over her shoulder. It spun end over end and Payna caught it on the fly, as if by long practice.
'Good steel is wasted on the likes of you, you loathsome little wretch!' she said with withering contempt.
Abbadas giggled insanely. 'Die however you want, big woman!' He came for her, putting all his strength into an overhand slash intended to open her from shoulder to hip.
Achilea’s big-knuckled left hand took him by the wrist and stopped the whistling blade cold. The reptilian eyes bulged with amazement, but he had little leisure in which to appreciate her strength as her right forearm swept across the bend of his elbow and her right hand grasped her own forearm as her long right leg swept around behind his body.
With all the power of her arms, shoulders and back, Achilea bent forward, using the usurper’s own forearm as a lever and his elbow as a fulcrum. Had he been able to fall to the floor swiftly enough, he might have bought himself a second’s respite in which to take action, but her steely thigh was behind him, preventing just that. With a sickening series of sounds, the bones of his forearm gave way, his elbow was wrenched apart, his upper arm was torn from his socket as its bone snapped in the middle.
Abbadas screamed and as he did, his left hand snatched his dagger from its sheath at his belt. The deadly steel lanced toward her flank, but her right hand, released from its task, snapped down and took his wrist with an audible smack just as the keen point indented the flesh above her right hip.
His useless right arm flopped to his side as her left hand went around his neck, and with a surge of brute strength, she lifted him from the floor, bringing his face within inches for her own. She smiled at him ferociously as she squeezed. His eyes bulged yet farther and began to turn red as blood sprang first from his ears, then from his nostrils and mouth. The dagger fell from his nerveless fingers and there were several very faint, popping noises. She dropped the corpse to the floor at her feet, where, like a beheaded snake, it quivered and flopped for a while as foamy blood bubbled from its mouth, propelled by the last wind from its dying lungs.
Conan whistled in appreciation at the feat. 'Crom, woman! Remind me never to get on your bad side!'
She ignored the comment and walked to the body of Lombi. There she knelt and placed her fingers in the corpse’s blood and then drew another line beside the first on her face. Payna repeated the ritual.
Conan cut a scrap of cloth from the clothing of the dead Abbadas and wiped his blade, then resheathed it. Looking around him, he saw that all the workmen and slaves had fled the vapor-works save the hulking, tiny-headed slaves, who stood about with their mouths open, lacking anyone to tell them what to do.
He found the great master wheel, its six slaves standing slack in their chains. 'Turn this thing!' be ordered. They stared at him, no slightest glimmer of comprehension in their eyes.
'Crom and Llyr and all their brood!' be swore, laying his own hands to the wheel and wrenching at it. Achilea and Payna joined him and added their efforts. All their strength would not budge it.
'May I be of assistance?'
Conan turned to see Amram standing near, his hands clasped behind him and an expression of studious innocence upon his face. 'I was wondering when you would show up,' he said.
'May I inquire why you do this?' asked Amram.
'We have been so instructed by a wizard named Arsaces, who even now battles something above that he calls the Adversary,' Conan replied, jabbing a thick finger upward.
'Arsaces!' the small man said, wincing. 'That is one I would rather not meet just now.'
'You need not,' Conan said. 'Just get these slaves to shut off the vapor to the city.'
'Very well.' The little man spoke a few odd-sounding words and the slaves put their malformed hands to the spokes and began to push. Clearly, the wheel was seldom turned, for it squealed in protest as it began to move. The slaves plodded like sailors hauling up an anchor with a ship’s capstan, and slowly the constant hissing of the vapor-works began to subside. In a few minutes, it ceased entirely.
'Good,' Conan announced. 'Now tell them to break it'
'I beg your pardon?' Amram said politely.
'Tell them to break the wheel, Set curse you!' barked the Cimmerian. 'I want this machine disabled!'
'You needn’t shout,' sniffed the little man. 'Clear
instructions will suffice,' He spoke further words in the same language as before. Stolidly, the slaves shuffled to one side of the wheel, as far as their chains would allow, and they put their shoulders beneath it and strained upward with their massive legs and backs. With a screech of tortured metal, the great wheel began to tilt. Then it snapped from its shaft and clanged to the stone floor.
'Will that be satisfactory?' Amram inquired.
'It is what Arsaces wanted,' Conan told him. 'Now the whirlwind-demons can come down here and destroy the underground city.'
Amram closed his eyes and seemed to be having trouble swallowing some large object. 'The whirlwind-demons, you say?' he said at last, his voice trembling. 'We cannot stay here!'
'And it is a cursed certainty we cannot go back up!' Conan said. 'Not to the horror we left above in the temple!'
'And I am heartily sick of the desert!' Achilea said, towering over the chameleon wizard. 'So, Amram, or Firagi, or whatever you name is, guide us to me river!'
'Yes,' he said, one hand kneading the other. 'Yes, I think that would be the best idea all around.
But to destroy this marvelous ancient city, with all its riches, all its secrets! What ‘a loss!'
'It should have died ages ago,' said Conan, 'Forget about it and lead on.'
'Follow me, then,' Amram said. They trailed after him and as they hurried through the dimmed city, he wailed his woeful displeasure. 'Five years I have worked toward this! It was to have made me rich beyond the wildest imaginings of a miser. The lore of Janagar would have catapulted me to the highest order of mages!'
The Conan Chronology Page 420