Dekanawatha, the high king or warlord of the savage Picts, had fallen in battle. His successor, Sagoyaga, was full of bloodthirsty ambitions. He planned to league all the Pictish tribes, and their neighbours the Ligureans as well, for an invasion of the westernmost Aquilonian provinces. Only the White Druid had enough influence in those wild parts to deter the Pictish chieftain from launching his attack while the king of Aquilonia was busy elsewhere.
So Diviatix had parted from the Aquilonian host as it paused to regroup along the northern borders of Stygia, preparing for Conan's thunderbolt descent into the savannas and jungles of the far South. The Heart of Ahriman had gone with him, since it had to be returned for safekeeping to the great Mitraeum in Tarantia. Conan, no wizard, could not have used it effectively, anyway.
Ere he parted from the Aquilonian host, the druid had used his supernatural powers of divination to detect the refuge whither Thoth-Amon had fled. The Stygian's northern allies, the White Hand of Hyperborea, had been crushed by the Aquilonians at Pohiola the year before. His confederates in the Far East, the Scarlet Circle, had been disorganized by the death of their master, Pra-Eun, the god-king of fabled Angkhor.
Thus there was no refuge left for Thoth-Amon save the forbidden City of Zembabwei. There his last ally, Nenaunir, the supreme wizard-priest of Damballah, ruled three million black barbarians from his skull throne. Thither, after the debacle in the ruins of Nebthu, had Thoth-Amon fled. And thither was Conan fiercely determined to follow.
II
Black-Winged Terror
True to Trocero's prediction, the king of Aquilonia had pressed forward until darkness made it impossible to advance any further. The swift fall of the tropical night had caught them threading their way through the monstrous grasses that cloaked the boundless plain. Luckily, a nearby hummock allowed them to camp out of the far-spread sheet of shallow water. On that knoll, therefore, the army made its camp.
Cooking fires glimmered through the gloom. Fatigued Aquilonian men-at-arms cursed and grumbled, slapping insects, grooming their bedraggled mounts, and trying to dry their rotting boots. Sentries paced the margin of the swamp, exchanging curt passwords. Men sprawled, wearily scrubbing weapons and armour to keep the ever-present rust from gaining a foothold.
At the summit of the hillock rose the black tent of the king. The royal standard dropped from its pole in the steamy, motionless air.
Within, Conan stood, stripped to the waist, scrubbing mud and sweat from his mighty torso with hot water from a bronzen bowl. Moisture glistened in a thin sheen over his rippling thews.
Although the ruler of Aquilonia was in his late fifties, age and the civilised life of court and castle had softened his rugged physique but little. Time had streaked with grey the thick, square-cut mane of coarse black hair and the heavy moustache that swept out from his upper lip like bull's horns. It had given a touch of gauntness to his scarred, heavy-featured face and his neck. His skin, crisscrossed with the scars of many brawls and battles, had become leathery, with an occasional pucker of little wrinkles. But the mighty muscles of arm and shoulder and trunk were still firm, and the corded belly was still flat. He toweled himself dry while his pages set out, on a low folding table, a supper of broiled steak and coarse bread for himself and his son.
The army's supply of beer and wine had given out; so the host, including the king, was compelled to quench its thirst with swamp water. Conan insisted that the water be boiled before drinking. The aged philosopher Alcemides had told him that water so treated was less likely to carry disease. Conan had tried the system, approved it, and ordered it for his army, albeit it brought some grumbles and tapping of foreheads from his knights.
Throwing a loose cloak about his torso, Conan yawned, dismissed the pages, and attacked his simple repast. The exhausting days of plowing through scorching desert sands, hacking through jungles, and splashing across the endless, watery, reed-choked plain had not been without effect on him, even though they had tired him less than almost any man under his command. But, although physically fatigued, he was driven on by his unconquerable urge to have it out with his ancient foe.
Moreover, the wandering decades during which he had brawled and swaggered through a score of kingdoms as a footloose vagabond, thief, pirate, and mercenary soldier had given this northern barbarian a thirst for adventure and conflict which the peace of the last few years had done nothing to assuage. Thus, even when the shadow of fatigue fell upon him, he still gloried in this long trek into lands he had never seen; all the more so because the journey bade fair to end in a final confrontation with his lifelong foe.
The tent flap was twitched aside as a youth entered. Conan grunted and waved the boy to a seat across from him. 'The mounts?' he inquired gruffly.
'I've groomed them. Father. But your camel tried to bite me.'
'You have to learn to handle the brutes.'
Prince Conn sighed. 'I miss your black Ymir.'
'So do I. When we get home, I'll make the Kothians and Ophireans return him, if I have to tum their kingdoms inside out.'
The Aquilonians' horses had been lost at Nebthu when the Kothian and Ophirean contingents had deserted, taking the Aquilonians' mounts with them. Conan's men had been forced to use captured Stygian horses and camels after the rout of the Stygians by the Black Sphinx of Nebthu, together with some additional mounts they had bought from the Zuagirs.
Conan beamed fondly as the boy tore into the steak with his strong white teeth. Father and son clearly bore the stamp of the same lineage. The boy had the square-cut, coarse mane of straight black hair, the scowling brows, the fierce eyes of volcanic blue, and the stubborn jaw of his mighty sire. Scarce into his teens, Conn was already much taller than most Aquilonians of his own age. He still, however, lacked head and shoulder of his father's towering height.
When Conan had first led the Aquilonian army across the borders of his realm into Zingara and thence through Shem into demon-haunted Stygia, he had left his son behind in Tarantia with his family. Since the war involved a struggle against the wizards of the Black Ring, Conan urgently needed the help of the Heart of Ahriman, kept under guard in a crypt below the temple of Mitra. Hence swift messengers had been sent to Tarantia to fetch the great talisman and also to fetch Conan's heir, Prince Conn.
Conan had thereafter kept the boy near him, against all advice from his sagest councilors, who argued that the future of the dynasty should not be thus endangered. Conan felt that little was to be gained by pampering and protecting the future King of Aquilonia, except to make a weakling out of him. A future king, he firmly believed, should have the taste of battle in his guts before the heavy weight of crown responsibilities robbed him of the carefree pleasures of manslaying. Better for the next king of Aquilonia to learn of warfare in the field itself, than from dusty books and scholarly historians.
Their repast completed, the two Cimmerians were ready for rest. First, however, Conan meant to tour the camp. He would sleep better if he knew that all was secure. He did not bother to dress. Instead, he cast off his cloak and slipped a freshly-oiled mailshirt on over his half-naked torso. He donned a leathern baldric and hauled on boots, freshly cleaned and polished by his pages. As he thrust aside the tent flap and, followed by Conn, strode out into the twilight, a sudden uproar arose.
Trumpets roared; horses screamed; feet thudded. Over all sounded a strange booming sound which Conan could not identify. It reminded him, more than anything, of the boom of sails as they filled with a gusty wind—a sound familiar to him from his piratical days with the Barachan freebooters and the Zingaran buccaneers.
Just above the horizon, half obscured by damp mists, hung the pallid crescent of a sickle moon. The first stars had appeared overhead—but beneath the stars, circling and swooping to strike at running men, was a swarm of black-winged horrors. In the gathering dark they looked like a horde of monstrous, flame-eyed bats!
III
From Time's Dawn
About Conan, where for a few heartb
eats he stood in slackjawed amazement, a cordon of archers was posted with shafts nocked. Straight for them hurtled a black monstrosity, as big in the body as a lion, with a long, curved neck and a serpentlike head. Its elongated jaws opened to show rows of needle-sharp fangs, and its eyes burned like coals from hell.
The batlike wings of the flying demon blotted out the sky. Straight for them swooped the monster, extending clawed, birdlike feet to grasp. As one man, the Bossonian archers drew and loosed. Arrows whistled through the night air and thudded into their target. Some sank into its broad, scaly breast where heavy wing-muscles bulged with each downstroke of the vast pinions.
The monster voiced a hoarse screech and veered aside. As it did so, a human figure toppled from its back to thud on the earth almost at Conan's feet. The figure was that of a tall, muscular black in a plumed headdress, with a necklace of claws, a loincloth of monkey fur, and a leopard-skin cloak slung about his shoulders. The feathered butts of two Bossonian arrows, protruding from his rib cage, showed how he had died.
'Crom's blood, the things are tame!' roared Conan. 'Shoot the riders off their backs!'
More of the dragon shapes swooped toward them, claws extended; and each carried a plumed black rider. Some of the riders hurled javelins down among the Aquilonians. A horse, disemboweled by a slash of monster claws, screamed in its death throes; a dragon, bristling with shafts, flapped heavily away from the camp, losing altitude.
Pallantides bellowed commands. Archers took up formations. Men ran to calm the terrified horses and camels.
Conan stared at the sky. He had heard of the monstrous winged reptiles in his travels. Dim legends came drifting down from the dawn of time, of an age of reptiles that had long preceded the rise of man from the beast. Elder myths and moldering tablets in age-lost cities told of such monstrosities, survivors from that forgotten age: wyverns, they were called.
Another black-winged wyvern swooped toward them, its deadly claws spread wide. Conan roared his terrible Cimmerian war cry. Catching Conn by the shoulder, with a sudden thrust he hurled the boy flat. Then, setting both hands on the hilt of his great sword, he whirled it so that its blade bit into the monster's neck, half severing it. Blood spurted, black in the moonlight; a rank reptilian stench filled the air.
The wyvern flapped its huge wings, one of which knocked Conan down. The flying reptile staggered through the air across the camp to crash into one of the campfires, scattering live coals in a shower of sparks. Its dying struggles knocked men over like tenpins. The rider on its back leaped off at the moment of impact but then went down under a shower of weapons wielded by vengeful Aquilonians.
Scrambling to his feet, Conan watched the fall of the wyvern and the death of its rider. His eyes narrowed to a slitted glare. So this was the source of the legend of the flying men of Zembabwei! Terrified travelers had hinted of a monstrous horror of elder witchcraft. They spoke of topless towers with neither door nor window. Thence came the belief that the men of the forbidden city were winged like birds.
The truth, however, was just as appalling—that the Zembabwans bred and trained these survivors of a forgotten age as their steeds. By what art the black warriors effected this marvel, Conan could not guess; but it must make them almost invincible. How could any earthbound army combat winged monsters striking from the sky?
Down from the night sky hurtled the winged monstrosities, to rip asunder man or beast and rise again on beating wings before others could rally to the rescue. The darkness baffled the skill even of the Bossonian archers. As the moon set, they could not see to aim at their foes until the latter loomed suddenly close in the ruby light of the fires.
Growling a bloody oath to his primaeval Cimmerian god, the kink of Aquilonia rallied his men against these forces of darkness. Even as he bellowed commands, a booming of wings behind him and a rush of displaced air warned him of another attack. But before he could even turn, a tremendous blow caught him in the back. The extended claws of the wyvern closed upon him and snatched him from the surface of the ground.
As Conan gathered his wits and the wind tore past him, he realised with a silent curse that the force of the impact had knocked the sword from his hand. He clawed desperately at his girdle for the long poniard he usually wore at his waist, but found nothing. Alas that in his haste to check the camp's security before turning in, he had neglected to clasp about his body the broad leathern girdle—which now reposed on a folding camp stool in his tent!
Then, as he glanced at the dark ground sinking away below him, he realised that not even the dagger would have done him any good. Even if he had been able to twist his body far enough in the grip of the dragon's claws to stab the creature mortally, he was already a hundred feet above the camp. If he slew the wyvern, he would fall to his death from such a height. He thanked Crom, at least, for his shirt of ring mail, which protected his hide from the huge claws of the dragon.
From the camp, dropping beneath him, came a hoarse bellow in the voice of Amric, captain of the royal guard: 'Archers, hold your shafts!'
A cry from behind him caused Conan to crane his neck to see. At the sight, he cursed again. A second wyvern was flying in tandem with the first. In its talons, like a doll borne by an eagle, was the body of Prince Conn.
'The King!' came a despairing wail from many throats below.
As the ground sank further and was lost in midst and darkness, the second wyvern drew up abreast of its fellow, affording Conan a clearer view of his son. On its back the other beast bore a black warrior, plumed and befurred, grasping the reins in one hand and a feather-tufted spear in the other.
As Conan's gaze shifted to the burden the creature carried, young Conn waved frantically to him. It was too dark to make out expressions, while the sough of rushing air and the drumming thunder of vast wings would have drowned all speech. But Conan's answering wave carried an unspoken message.
On and on they flew. Burdened by the Cimmerian's great weight, the wyvern carrying Conan seemed to have trouble maintaining altitude. A score of times it began to sink toward the darkling plain below. Every time, a sharp command from its rider and a whack of his spear shaft sent it labouring upward again.
Weary with his exertions, Conan even dozed for a time. This did not require superhuman courage; the grip of the reptile's claws, if far from comfortable, was not acutely painful. But where a lesser man might have been paralyzed with terror, Conan was sustained by a crude, fatalistic philosophy developed in his wandering years. According to his belief, when one's situation is utterly hopeless, one might as well not waste one's strength in worrying. Instead, one should leave one's fate to the gods and save one's strength for a more promising moment.
IV
The Topless Towers
The swift waxing of the tropical dawn shining on his heavy eyelids, together with a change in the rhythm of the wyvern's labouring wings, awakened Conan. He glanced downward.
Hundreds of feet below, the grass-matted plain had given way to tropical jungle, still veiled in the purple gloom of night. On the misty horizon, the dawn lit up the sky like the blaze of a furnace. A minor river snaked its way through the thick jungle. On the inner side of one serpentine curve of this stream, the greenery had been hacked down to make room for cultivated fields. And in the midst of this tract of farmland lay a fantastic city.
All of stone it was, walled about with megalithic ramparts. Inside the wall, soaring into the ruddy glow of the dawn, rose a score of more queer, curve-walled towers, like colossal chimneys. Conan's keen gaze, raking these enigmatic structures, confirmed the legend of the towers without doors or windows. Moreover, the towers had no roofs; black emptiness yawned where their roofs would have been.
Conan felt a tingle of supernatural awe. With a sword in his strong right hand, he would fearlessly face any peril or foe. But the uncanny—the sorcerous—roused primal superstitious dread in the breast of the giant Cimmerian. The heritage of his savage ancestors awoke within him at the cold breath of the eerie and th
e Unknown.
His long years of wandering had carried him over much of the length and breadth of the known world. From snowy Asgard to the black kingdoms beyond Kush in the South, from the wild shores of Pictland in the West to legended Khitai in the mysterious East, he had brawled and battled and buccaneered his red road. Once, nearly twenty years before, he had briefly penetrated the kingdom of Zembabwei. He had stopped at the twin kings' northern capital to take service as a guard to a northward-bound caravan. But never had he seen the Forbidden City, Old Zembabwei, itself: a city from which foreigners were rigidly excluded.
From many mouths he had heard hints and rumours of the Forbidden City in the trackless jungles to the south. There, it was said men worshiped Set, the Old Serpent, under the name of Damballah. The black altars of Damballah ran crimson with the blood of human sacrifices. It was whispered that, on the night of sacrifice, the very moon itself burned red with the blood of those whose souls were offered up in pain and torment to the Old Serpent.
The flying wyvern descended in a slow spiral into Zembabwei. No man of the West could say for certain when this ancient city had been built. Surely it was long ago, perhaps before the advent of man on this planet. Legends hinted that the bloodsoaked cornerstone of Old Zembabwei had been laid by the uncanny serpent-men of Valusia, those children of Set and Yig and dark Han and serpent-bearded Byatis, who had ruled the quaking fens and thick fern-jungles of the prehuman world. Kull, the great hero-king, reputed founder of Conan's own race, crushed the remnants of the serpent folk, who had outlived their age to linger into the era of Atlantis and Valusia. But that was an age ago.
Such things did not matter to Conan at this grim moment. Well he knew that the uncanny city was a haunt of primal terrors and a sinkhole of the blackest sorcery. It was a fitting lair for Thoth-Amon, the devil-priest of Stygia, to crawl to in order to lick his wounds. This, Conan thought, would be the last battle.
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