We covered the final paces to the cave with more haste than dignity, and with small regard for a proper formation. Once inside, with the rain no longer battering on our helmets until it addled our wits, I quickly arrayed the men. Sentries at the mouth of the cave, sentries toward the rear, the driest and cleanest place for the wounded, and those neither standing sentry nor tending the wounded allowed to strip and dry their weapons, armor, and clothes.
I set myself to counting our resources in the matter of food and water.
Each of us had come out with two days' salt meat and hard bread, and a full water-bottle besides the ones we were to fill. If the Picts did not cut us off from the streams, the rills would be swollen full by the rain, and there might be water toward the rear of the cave, which seemed to lead far into the rocks. Such rocks in Pictland were usually honeycombed with underground springs and”
"Captain! To the rear!"
It was one of the rear sentries, a clear-headed Bossonian who would not have let confusion or fear show in his voice without good cause. I ordered all to their feet and all weapons readied, and went to stand beside the sentry.
At the edge of the torchlight, I saw worked stone. It was far too fine to be Pictish work, and far too fresh to have come down from the time of the old Hyborian invasions. I thought I could make out lintels, doorways, benches of living rock, and unwholesomely sinuous figures.
I lit another torch and remembered that this had best be the last I used, or we might not be able to signal the camp when the rain ceased.
The spread of the light extended. I saw that the sinuousity of the figures was no fancy; the worship of Set had once found a home in this cave. I recognized Stygian hieroglyphs and even more arcane signs, of which I neither knew nor wished to know the meaning.
I strode farther to the rear, saw that the cave made a bend, and moved on until I could look beyond the bend into what appeared to be a chamber. Something tall and upright loomed at the outer edge of the light. I took two more steps”
"Crom!"
It was not an image of the Great Serpent, as I had feared. It was the life-sized image of a warrior of gigantic stature, in a strange mix of weapons and garb, half-Pictish and half-Black Coast, with a stout Hyborian broadsword at his waist.
Nor was it hard to put a name to that warrior. On three different campaigns I had seen the same face, older, weathered, the square-cut mane of hair gray, the face adorned with a mustache and in time, a beard, but none other than the one I beheld on the image.
The soft, swift tread of a hunting-panther sounded behind me, and I turned to see Sabaros. He had removed his hood and undone his hair, and I saw in the torchlight that it was jet black. Nor was there any more doubt about the hue of his eyes. They were blue, the same blue as the ice I had once seen in a cave in Gunderland, and fixed on the image with an intensity that seemed to make them glow with an inner light.
It struck me that I had not been wrong to invoke the chief god of Cimmeria and patron of our late king. It likewise struck me that Sabaros of the Black Dragons could doubtless, far more easily than I, put a name to his father.
None of this told me, however, what an image of Conan was doing here in a cave where no civilized man had ever set foot. Stygian sorcerers were civilized only by courtesy, and rumor named some of them not quite wholly men.
Suddenly the cave seemed less a refuge, and the rain”and even the Picts outside”less a peril.
One
The Black Coast, many years earlier:
The man passed through the shadows beneath the great trees by the Umfangu as silently as a lion on the hunt. Indeed, there was much of the lion in his soft-footed tread, the mane of black hair that swept to wide, bronzed shoulders, and the eyes that searched endlessly about him for either prey or rival.
Those eyes, however, had never graced a lion's face, nor that of a man in the Black Kingdoms. They were chill-blue northern eyes, with an intensity in their gaze that might have made a real lion cautious.
Certainly they had done so with more than a few men, and those who had not learned caution from the ice-blue gaze had mostly died before they'd had time for a second lesson.
Now the man's steps took him away from the riverbank and the stout trees there. He approached a small clearing, where a forest giant had toppled years ago, bearing to the ground all in its path. The robust life of the jungle already had saplings and vines mounting the dead tree, but through the gap overhead, sunlight still reached the jungle floor more freely than elsewhere.
The man was only a spears length from the edge of the sunlight when he halted, studying a patch of ferns. With the woods-wisdom gained by many hard lessons, some few not easily survived, he knew that he must watch from some other place today. The ferns would hold traces of his presence far too long.
Left or right? Left, he decided. That would take him away from the trail that entered the clearing on the far side. Never had he seen more than a handful of the natives”nor any animal he could not face barehanded”come down that trail. Never, likewise, did the jungle cease to hold deadly surprises for the unwary.
Now he moved even more silently than before, and more cautiously. His steps took him from a root that would bear little trace of his passing to dry ground that could be brushed clean of footprints, and from there on to a swinging vine that kept him entirely clear of the ground for six good paces. The vine sagged under his massive weight, but neither broke nor left other traces of his passing.
At last the man reached his goal. The blue eyes narrowed as he studied the clearing, finding no changes and no movement. He settled into the roots of another giant tree, so completely still that his massive limbs might have been part of the roots themselves.
The eyes would have revealed life to anyone drawing close enough. That revelation would have come too late for any foe, however. A broadsword lay across the calloused knees, a stout dagger hung from the thong of a rawhide breechclout, and two handmade spears leaned against one of the roots. Any or all of these weapons would have drunk a foe's lifeblood before the man recognized danger.
In this also, the man was like a lion. Indeed, his name in these lands was "Amra"”the lion. Fairly earned in battle, too, although he did not care to let his thoughts dwell long on those battles.
His birth-name, though, matched those eyes of northern ice. He was called Conan, and his native land was bleak Cimmeria.
***
Kubwande, son of D'beno, bore a headdress as well as a loinguard of zebra-hide. These marked him as an iqako”a Bamula title best translated as "lesser war chief."
He also bore a stout boar-hide shield, two spears with sharp bog-iron points, and a war club carved with signs against witchcraft. He wore anklets of feathers dyed with berries and roots known best to the Bamulas' wizards. He expected that before this day's sunset, he might need all of these weapons and protections.
Not only was this hunting party on the trail of wild boar”nearly as cunning and well-armed as the great cats for leaving empty places in the huts of the Bamulas”but also Kubwande was hunting under the leadership of qamu (greater war chief) Idosso.
The qamu was not Kubwande's mortal enemy, because even Idosso knew that a man must sleep sometime. While he sleeps, it is as well if those who wish his death are too few to overcome those who guard him. It was no secret between the two warriors that Idosso wished to be the next war chief of the Bamulas and that Kubwande wished someone else would be so honored. But this did not make for blood-feud between them, as yet.
Indeed, Kubwande was ready to see Idosso honored by gods and men alike¦
if he would but give ear to Kubwande's advice.
Kubwande still thought it was somehow fitting to hunt boar in Idosso's company. The man was larger than all but a handful among the Bamulas, as strong as he was large, fierce of temper, but not without some cunning. A dangerous man to judge lightly, as two hand'sworth of the bleached skulls of enemies outside Idosso's huts made plain to all but fools.
; Being no fool, Kubwande intended that his skull should remain upon his shoulders. This meant giving Idosso no cause for a chiefs' bout unless there was a chance of victory.
Or perhaps that the battle not be to the death? Kubwande knew that Idosso had enemies among the kin of those he had slain. Those kin might not fight Idossa themselves, but some of them had the ear of greater chiefs. Kubwande was no mealie-bearer girl but a seasoned warrior more useful to the Bamulas alive than dead.
It would all be as the gods wished, of course, but Kubwande was one to go about his life as he wished until the gods told him otherwise. Today he wished a good hunt, with a fine boar at the end of it, and a feast of roast pork whose flavor not even Idosso's presence would be able to spoil.
Kubwande licked his lips at that thought, aimed an imaginary spear at an imaginary boar some fifty paces off to the right, and sank the spear deep between the shoulder blades. The boar took two steps, then went to its knees, rolled over on its side, and died kicking in the dead ferns”
"Kubwande!" Idosso called. "Are we at peace with the Fish-Eaters?"
Kubwande did not start, but knew shame, and moreover, that the shame was just. His attention had not been where it belonged.
"The Fish-Eaters are no great peril even when they are enemies,"
Kubwande said. "Nor do I think they have much stomach to be so, after our last battle with them."
Idosso grinned, showing front teeth bearing the ritual carvings of one who had slain a lion with a spear. It was Idosso who had led the last Bamula war party against the Fish-Eaters, and slain with his own hands six of their warriors.
Kubwande thought that any man who could be so easily turned by flattery was not a good choice for war chief, but the vice had its uses. Keeping peace among the hunters today was not the least of them.
It was time to watch behind. Kubwande and six other warriors halted, turned to face back down the trail, and raised spears. One blew a bone whistle. Its eerie call drew equally eerie replies from birds, but none from humans or spirits.
To finish the ritual, Kubwande raised his war club, whirled it three times around his head, and flung it down the trail. It struck a tree so hard that the club bounced back and fell almost at his feet.
The signs were all good. Nothing they need fear was on their trail.
While hunting boar, that was just as well.
***
Conan the Cimmerian could sleep as readily as any cat, but he remained wakeful as he lay among the tree roots, watching the clearing. He was not in one of his regular hiding places, each chosen carefully, then set about with snares and traps that none could pass through without waking him.
He was half a day from the nearest of those refuges, in land claimed by the tribe called the Fish-Eaters. The Fish-Eaters could hardly have been a menace even if they wished to be, but fear can make weaklings deadly.
Also, the Bamulas had taken to wandering in the Fish-Eaters' land as if it were their own. No one on the Black Coast despised the Bamulas.
Conan knew of them only by what their enemies said, but there had been several warriors from tribes hostile to the Bamulas aboard Tigress. The Bamulas had offered a good price for those warriors, or so Belit had said, but she refused.
"I will sell no one to the Bamulas," she added. "If I deal with them at all, I will buy”and at the same price I pay the Stygians."
Blood and steel, death and fear, were the coin Belit used against the Stygians, until her own end. Now the clean seas held her ashes and those of Tigress; the jungles along the Zarkheba River held the bones of her crew, Conan's erstwhile comrades; and the Cimmerians mind held¦
what?
Memories of sharing more than he had ever dreamed he could share with a woman, far more than a shared bed”although those memories alone would have given many men wakeful nights. Memories that made her¦ call her a cherished comrade and one would not be far off the mark.
Nor, the Cimmerian thought, would Belit's spirit disdain the name.
Anymore than her body had disdained his embraces, or her warriors Conan's leadership¦
It had been a good time, and now it was past. No son of Cimmeria spent much time mourning what was gone forever”the harsh northern land allowed few luxuries, and that one least of all. Moreover, Conan had sent Belit home to the ocean aboard the ship in which she took such pride, and of which she had made so fearful a name along the Stygian shores.
The slate was clean. But he had known when he put the torch to Tigress that it would be a good long while before he set foot aboard ship again. With his memories and weapons, his knowledge of the Black Coast gained from his comrades aboard Tigress, and a sailors kitbag slung over one shoulder, he had plunged inland.
A footfall that none but a hunter, human or animal, could have heard ended Conan's brief reverie. He moved only his head, having contrived his position so that he need move nothing else to study the whole clearing.
The footfalls continued, light, sure, and drawing closer. The Cimmerian raised a finger to test the scant breeze. The finger said again what his ears had already told him, that the visitors were coming down the path.
Now he could count their number by ear. More than one, all but certainly. Not enough to fear, even if they were not Fish-Eaters.
Conan waited. If the Bamulas were thrusting their hunting parties this deep into Fish-Eater land, it was worth knowing. It was not worth a fight; only in tales to amuse children did a single hero defeat a whole tribe. But peaceful oblivion in the depths of the jungles of the Black Coast would be as much past as Belit, and”
Three women stepped into the clearing. Each carried a jug on her head and a basket on one hip, slung from the opposite shoulder. The sling thong was all the women wore above the waist, and below it they wore only cloths wrapped from hips to knees. Nor did any of them look the worse for being thus revealed. A well-formed woman never hurt a man's eye, no matter what hue her skin might be.
The women set down their jugs, unslung their baskets, and placed all of them in a rough circle in the middle of the clearing. Then they knelt and prostrated themselves seven times toward the offerings. An earring raw gold dangled from each woman's left ear, and one them had a ring of ivory and gold in her nose.
They rose, breasts bobbing in a manner that would have made a stone statue stare wide-eyed, and looked about them. Conan wondered what they were expecting, awaiting, or perhaps hoping for.
He decided that it was probably not him leaping from his hiding place.
He had yet to meet a woman who warmed readily to a man who began by scaring her out of her wits.
The vigil lasted, as did the silence. Conan had just noticed that the girl with the nose ring also had blue feathers woven into her tightly curled hair, when his instincts warned him of something else.
The silence had lasted too long and grown too complete. The normal din of the jungle had ceased, and it did that only at the appearance of something unknown or hostile.
Neither Conan nor the girls had provoked the jungle life. This said little about the new presence, but what it did say made Conan slide from his watching place, lifting a spear as he moved. A snake might have envied the smoothness and silence of his movement; certainly it drew no response from the women.
Then something unheard even by the Cimmerian made all three of them whirl. A moment later they had vanished up the path, with only the last flicker of the last woman's skirt lingering briefly in Conan's vision.
If it had not been for the jugs and baskets in the clearing, he might have thought the women had been a dream, risen from bad wine or an empty belly.
There was no wine in this jungle, although the native beer was robust enough to satisfy a drinking man's thirst. But an empty belly was another matter. Conan's stomach chose that moment to rumble, reminding him to check his snares on the road homeward. In this steaming forest, snared animals died quickly, and more quickly still became unfit to eat.
The thought of beer turned Conan's eyes back to the
jugs. It could do no harm to see what the women had left behind, and if it looked doubtful, there were plenty of apes to test it for poison.
Conan's eyes roamed ceaselessly around the clearing as he crossed it to the offerings. His long arms barely bent twigs or disturbed leaves as he reached in for baskets and jugs. With one of each in either hand, he withdrew into the shadows, walking backward as if each step was made on a carpet of spiderweb stretched over a bottomless pit.
Invisible in the shadows again, he drew the bark stopper from the jug.
Its contents smelled like beer, surely enough, and felt like it on the back of his hand. Moreover, when he cautiously licked that hand”
It was then that the Cimmerian noticed the sign on both the jugs and the baskets. It was the Fish-Eaters' sign of an offering to an unknown spirit. The tribe had five chief gods, each with his own sign, and a sixth sign for spirits, good or evil, who came from none of the five.
Beer and mealie-bread, fruit and dried fish, would be a welcome addition to his diet. They would also be stolen from something as near a god as made no difference.
No lover of priests or believer in their babble, the Cimmerian doubted the gods cared much for what men did or left undone. He had also spoken truly to Belit when he said of the gods, "I would not tread on their shadow," and who could say how hard he was treading on whose shadow with this little theft?
There were wise thieves and foolish thieves, and Conan walked the forests of the Black Coast only because years ago in Zingara, he had learned the difference. He would be a wise thief and return the offerings from whence they had come.
He had just risen to take the first return step when a woman's scream sounded from well down the trail. Then Conan heard war cries”some of them Bamula, some in no tongue he recognized”fierce gruntings, and another scream.
As he snatched for weapons, Conan let the offerings fall from his hand; let the spirits pick them up if they so wished. A single leap took him over the other offerings and the tree trunk. Vines looped serpent-like around his legs but he pulled free, without sound and almost without slowing.
The Conan Compendium Page 402