The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'Last of all came fifty young warriors, all of them volunteers. A framework was built for each man and his horse. The horse was slain and then transfixed through the body from tail to neck with a wooden stake. This stake was placed across the framework so that the horse's hooves dangled a few inches from the ground. Then the youth was strangled and likewise impaled, the stake holding him upright and its lower end fitted into a socket in the stake running lengthwise through the horse. Then horse and man were harnessed and armed to stand guard for eternity. This was done to fifty young men of good family. Is this not the mark of a mighty race of conquerors?'

  'I think you admire them, wizard!' she said scornfully.

  'Indeed I do,' he said. 'Once my people, the Turanians, were such a race, savage and ruthless, holding only contempt for lesser breeds. In time, though, they became weak, absorbed by the softness of the civilizations they conquered. Yes, these Hyrkanians are crude, but they have the virtues of the uncivilized. They respect only strength: the power of arms and the power of magic. Their way with enemies is to crush them utterly. They honour their dead with blood sacrifice and think nothing of slaying other peoples by the thousands, simply to be rid of them. Such a people, with proper leadership, can shake the earth.'

  'Then let us hope,' said Ishkala, 'that they never have that leadership.'

  That night Ishkala grew restless. There were faint sounds from the camp around her. The nearby Sogarian Red Eagles were subdued, conversing in quiet voices by their small fires. Their spirits were oppressed by the eerie surroundings, the ghastly mounted skeletons, and the brooding mounds of the Kagans.

  Somewhat louder were the villainous Turanians, encamping by themselves in a different sector of the City of Mounds. More adventurous or merely more irreverent, they did not seem to be so suggestible. A few of the hardier souls had had a go at breaking into some of the mounds in search of rich funeral goods, but soon gave up after a few hours of unaccustomed manual labour.

  Ishkala rose from her pallet and dressed in her darkest robes, with a black veil wound about her head and face. She knew not what she sought, but she did not want to attract attention to herself. She extinguished her candle and pushed aside the curtain that served her for a door. The Sogarians did not look up from their fires or their conversations, and she slipped silently from their midst.

  She was not certain why, but she wanted to find out what the Turanians were up to. Since leaving the city, nothing that had happened to her had made any sense. Why did the mage need her here for his magic-making? Why had they been joined by a thousand Turanian rogues?

  Carefully she picked her way around the countless human bones that gleamed white in the moonlight. They were merely dry bones, she knew, but she avoided them as if they bore some defilement. She walked around the looming mounds and shuddered at their tall, skeletal standards. Her imagination peopled the uncanny scene with a ghostly horde of horsemen, Kagans and their hideous retinues of strangled concubines and their impaled horses and guards.

  Preoccupied with her hyper-imaginative thoughts, Ishkala collided with a wooden framework and set a skeletal horse swaying as if with unnatural life. She barely suppressed a scream as the beast's skull shook at her, and she looked up to see a human skull leering from beneath a widespreading helmet of antique design.

  She hurried past the dead sentry and circled the titanic mound he guarded, the final resting place of an Ushi-Kagan of generations past. Ahead she heard the raucous sounds of the Turanian encampment. Everywhere there flickered fires of brushwood and dried dung, gathered from the steppe. She had heard Jeku complain that at this rate, the Turanians would exhaust all the available fuel within a few days.

  She skirted the Turanian camp, listening to the rough songs and brawling voices. Once she stumbled over something lying on the ground and found that it was a corpse. The dead man wore Turanian garb, and there was a gaping wound in his flank. A trail of blood glistened in the moonlight, revealing that he had been dragged thither and left. Evidently the Turanians did not consider their late companion worth the trouble of burial.

  Somewhere in the sprawling camp she hoped to find the command group. Perhaps she might overhear something of use. She had little faith in Khondemir's powers of magic and hoped that she might find evidence to persuade Jeku to abandon this mad venture and return to the city.

  She saw a large and ornate tent a little apart from the others. Next to its entrance was a small shrine of Mitra, a lump of gummy incense smoking in its brass bowl. Before it burned a fire, and in the light of the fire sat a circle of men. All were Turanian, but these had the dress and aspect of high-born men, unlike the bulk of the force. Even so, they bore a general brutality of look and manner, suggesting that they were embittered exiles, or disinherited sons of the aristocracy.

  'It will not be long now, my friends,' said one. Ishkala recognised him as Bulamb, the leader who had greeted Khondemir when the two columns had met. 'Soon the weary years of exile will be over and we will be great lords again, as is our right.'

  'I wish I had your sanguine confidence in the mage,' said another. His beard was dyed crimson in the fashion of an obscure Mitran sect from northern Turan.

  'Have you no faith, Rumal?' Bulamb asked him.

  'I believe in Lord Mitra and in my right to the lordship of Sultanapur. The wizard showed signs of great power when first he raised his rebellion against the usurper, Yezdigerd.' At mention of the hated name, all spat upon the ground. 'But two years ago the insurrection failed and we fled to such refuge as we could find. I follow him because we have no other claimant to the throne, but I cannot share your confidence.'

  'You should show more spirit,' Bulamb admonished. 'Two years ago we were forced to act before we were ready. The revelations of a turncoat betrayed us, and Khondemir's carefully prepared spells came to naught. Great wizardry is as much a matter of timing as is that of a military campaign. Even so, the spell of pestilence by which he prevented the royal army from pursuing us saved our lives. Do any here deny that?' He glared about fiercely.

  'It is true,' said a greying man in splendid armour. 'They would have had us between the mountains of Jebail and the Lake of Tears had it not been for the foul-breathed spirit the mage sent among the cavalry as they slept in camp. Not a man fit to ride by morning, and two thousand of them dead within ten days. It was a fell working of magic, but it bought us time to get away with our lives.'

  'And a starveling life as bandits ever since,' said the red-bearded Rumal.

  'That is now almost over,' promised Bulamb. 'Here, la this place of ghosts and powerful spirits, our lord shall work such a spell as no wizard has performed in a thousand years. With the powers he shall summon and the reinforcements he shall procure for us, we will ride into Agrapur in triumph!' His black eyes burned with fanaticism combined with a near-maniacal greed. 'We shall seize back the purple towers and fertile lands of our nation from those who reviled us and cast us out. Oar Lord Khondemir shall deliver into our hands those who mocked us and drove us from our rightful inheritance, that we may slay them, or torture them, or put them to use as chained slaves, whatever our pleasure may be!'

  Ferocious cheers greeted Bulamb's tirade, and even the most downcast of the group seemed to take renewed spirit. A slave went among them, refilling their jewelled cups with rich Turanian wine. While they were preoccupied with their talk of greed and vengeance, Ishkala slipped away.

  Now she had something to take to Captain Jeku. Somehow, she had no idea of just how, Khondemir planned to seize the throne of Turan. What all this could have to do with the siege of Sogaria she could not guess, but she was certain that her father wished to maintain peaceful relations with King Yezdigerd. The mad schemes of Khondemir must be abandoned.

  'Where are you going, my pretty?' Her heart rose into her throat as someone grasped her arm. She was whirled around to face an ugly, pockmarked Turanian, reeking of wine. He favoured her with a spittle-laden grin as he jerked away her veil. His squinting eyes widened at t
he beauty thus revealed. 'I thought to find some spy sneaking about our camp. I never thought to § catch such a prise.'

  The man dragged her within the light of the nearest fire. The others looked up in wonder and drunken stupefaction. 'Look,' crowed her captor, 'at what I, Hazbal, have taken captive.' He ripped away her dark robe, revealing her pale limbs for all to appreciate. She wore only the brief tunic of sheer fabric that she had donned for bed.

  'Let me go, you Turanian swine!' she said. 'I am the royal Princess Ishkala, and the Red Eagles will flay you to the bone for this!'

  The man threw back his head for a great gap-toothed laugh in which the others joined. 'Princess, is it? Think you that your father's rank means aught to us? Not a. man here can keep count of his death sentences. We'll' hang no higher and burn no longer for having a bit of sport with a princess!' He grasped her tunic and ripped ! it from neck to waist.

  'That's too fine a prise for the likes of you, Hazbal,' said a huge man as he leaped to his feet. The speaker was shaven-headed and bare to the sash around his thick waist. Great muscles bulged beneath his fat, and scars laced his face and torso. 'I claim her,' the man grinned, 'by right of rank.'

  'Say you so, Kamchak?' jeered Hazbal. 'You think because I ride in your squadron that you may claim my booty? Well, have her you shall, when I have finished! with her but not before, by Mitra!'

  The shaven-headed man flushed scarlet. 'You would defy me, you petty, crawling carrion worm? I will not endure this!'

  Hazbal shoved Ishkala, causing her to fall in a sprawl I of shapely limbs amid the pack of grinning bandits. In an instant her wrists and ankles were pinioned.

  'Hold the stakes while this game is settled,' cried Hazbal. From his sash he drew a short, curved dagger, shaving-keen on both edges and tapering to a needle point.

  'Yes,' said Kamchak, 'let us dance together, my friend. A little exercise sharpens the appetite for finer things.' He drew a similar dagger and advanced on Hazbal, crouched low and balancing on the balls of his bare feet.

  'Save your breath for you will not draw many more of them, you great tub of pig's offal,' Hazbal warned. The smaller man darted in, his dagger sweeping up to gut his opponent. But Kamchak, despite his bulk, was nimble, and he easily evaded the attack by springing back.

  As the dagger passed by his belly, Kamchak whipped his blade sideways, missing Hazbal's throat but taking a tiny piece from his earlobe. Kamchak smiled broadly as the blood flowed from the trifling wound. 'First blood to me!' he taunted.

  'It will be last blood for me,' said Hazbal with an equally wide smile. His blade described a swift, broad X in the light of the fire, a double feint that caused Kamchak to draw back slightly. As the bulky torso withdrew, Hazbal's dagger plunged downward to slice at the advanced thigh.

  Kamchak's trouser leg parted and blood flowed, but the huge man paid it no heed. As Hazbal's blow carried him forward, his shoulder was exposed for an instant, and Kanichak's blade drew a scarlet line from the tip of the shoulder to the elbow.

  Both men sprang apart to take stock of their wounds and to plan their next attack. The spectators cheered their delight in the blood and the excitement, in the glorious spectacle of two men fighting to the death to be first with the beautiful captive.

  The smiles were gone now and the combatants snarled as they slowly circled one another, crouched like beasts, arms spread with knives ready to cut and stab. They had forgotten the woman and wanted only to kill. Hazbal slid forward and stabbed toward Kamchak's belly. As the bigger man brought his left hand down to block the blow, Hazbal's dagger flicked up and over the blocking arm to lance toward Kamchak's neck.

  Kamchak had not been deceived by the feint at his belly. As Hazbal's knife darted toward his throat, he leaned far to the right and grasped his opponent's sash. Jerking Hazbal forward, the shaven-headed man buried his dagger to the haft in the smaller man's belly, twisting the blade in the wound to thoroughly eviscerate his opponent. As Hazbal fell with a ghastly grimace, Kamchak jerked his knife loose with a sickening sound and laid the edge beneath the other man's ear. With a powerful slash, he severed jugular and windpipe, sending a fountain of blood arcing into the fire, where it burst into a cloud of foul-smelling steam.

  With an evil laugh, Kamchak cleaned his blade on his late opponent's vest as he accepted the plaudits of his companions. They praised his excellent dirksmanship and slapped his back with sycophantic good fellowship.

  Ishkala stared in wide-eyed horror as the huge man advanced upon her. His torso, slick with sweat and blood, gleamed in the lurid firelight. His right arm was red from elbow to fingertips as he resheathed his now-clean dagger. He leered dementedly, ignoring his wounded thigh and reaching for the woman.

  'Haul that carrion away,' he said, grasping Ishkala's jewelled girdle and pulling her to him. The overpowering reek of him turned her stomach, but she took a deep

  breath, preparing to voice the most powerful scream of her life. Surely someone would hear.

  'Stop.' The order, quietly spoken, resulted in instant stillness. Even Ishkala abruptly ceased in mid-breath her effort to scream. Khondemir stepped into the firelight, and a shudder of superstitious dread shook even this hardened pack of killers.

  'Release her,' the mage ordered.

  The group of men around the fire fell back, leaving Ishkala and her Turanian bandit-captor standing alone. She expected Kamchak to obediently let her go, but the man was in no mood for any such action. He had just slain a rival in hand-to-hand combat for this woman, and he was not going to surrender his prise at the behest of some posturing sorcerer.

  'Release her?' The Turanian's voice rose to a shriek and his head shook uncontrollably, showering Ishkala with sweat and spittle. 'I took this woman by my own hand, wizard. Get thee elsewhere with your chantings and spells! Or else get a dagger and fight with me for her, as Hazbal did.' The powerful arm tightened around Ishkala's waist, squeezing the breath from her.

  'The knife, is it?' said Khondemir. 'Very well, the knife it shall be.'

  The wizard raised one long-fingered hand, and light flashed in a multitude of colours from the lacquered nails as the fingers performed an unearthly dance. Ishkala watched closely, but she could not quite credit her own eyes, for surely human fingers were not capable of such contortions. So hypnotized was she by the uncanny motions that she barely noticed when the arm fell from her waist, releasing her.

  Kamchak stood as if stunned, body and face slack. Slowly one hand went to his sash and closed around the handle of his dagger. He drew it, an inch at a time.

  Ishkala thought the man was preparing to attack the mage, and she could not decide which of the two she would rather see dead. When Kamchak had the dagger drawn, though, he stared at it as if he had never seen it before. As he held it high before him, his eyes opened wide with horror, and Ishkala realised that the man's body was no longer under his control. With torturous slowness, Kamchak reversed the dagger in his grip and took its handle in both hands.

  The wizard's fingers continued their unnatural dance as the Turanian placed the tip of the knife against the flesh of his lower belly. With a look of utter madness upon his sweating face, the bandit began to thrust the blade in. He screamed bloodcurdlingly as the tip of the weapon disappeared beneath his skin, and continued to scream as the blade slowly penetrated. As he thrust, there was little blood, no more than a trickle beneath the initial cut. Then he twisted the dagger, bringing its convex edge upward. Gradually he began to drag the blade toward his breastbone.

  As the weapon made its ghastly path up the capacious belly, the cut below widened and a mixture of blood and entrails spilled out. For a moment the knife was halted by the solidity of the breastbone. Then, impossibly, it continued its progress with a clearly audible rending of bone, separating sternum and collarbones and splitting the larynx. When at last Kamchak fell backward into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks together with a cloud of foul smoke, the dagger was lodged in his lower jaw.

  There was utter
silence except for the sizzling and popping noises the fire made. The men dared not move as they eyed the wizard with horror. Khondemir stood as still as a statue, his fingers now at rest, although their

  tips still glowed faintly. Behind him now stood Bulamb, drawn by the commotion.

  'What has happened here, lord?' said Bulamb.

  'There has been a slight breach of discipline,' said the mage. 'I trust there will be no more such lamentable lapses.'

  'There shall be none, lord,' Bulamb assured him.

  'Princess,' said Khondemir, 'come with me.' He beckoned with his still-glowing fingers and she obeyed. She was not under compulsion, but she had just seen demonstrated the utter futility of defying the wizard. From the nerveless hand of a Turanian onlooker she took her robe and veil and resumed the garments, then followed the wizard from the firelight.

  They passed through the camp to an open space near the earthen rampart, where Khondemir had pitched his tent. The wizard said nothing as he went within, and the princess meekly followed. The interior of the tent was unexpectedly lavish, with low, folding tables, carpets and hangings. A small brazier cast up scented smoke, and several finely wrought bronze lamps illuminated the scene. She saw many books and parchments spread upon the tables, and a number of curious instruments of bronze, silver and crystal, some of them glittering with gold and jewels. These she took to be wizardly paraphernalia. Gratefully she noted that there seemed to be no spirits, familiars, or other supernatural creatures about.

  'Why, Princess, were you in the Turanian camp in the dark of night?' The wizard's look was severe, but Ishkala determined not to be intimidated.

  'And wherefore not? I am a princess of royal blood, wizard, and I am not accustomed to explaining my actions to any but my father, the prince.' She hoped that her regality hid her fear.