Conan had no quarrel with the Fish-Eaters, and indeed wondered why they called him a demon-bringer. "Fear makes folly," was all he could think of.
"Ha!" he thundered. His bull's roar beat down the Fish-Eater's cries.
Heads turned, but for the moment, no spears flew.
"I am no demon, but in those trees is something worse than any demon I ever saw. It could eat lions. It will eat you and your children if we do not slay it now!"
That was as far as Conan went before the Fish-Eaters started shouting again as they had before. The Cimmerian felt a mighty urge to leave those fools and the bear to amuse one another and make his own way to safety.
But he had insulted the Fish-Eaters to make peace with the Bamulas. He owed it to them not to add injury to insult.
In the next moment, the matter was taken out of Conan's hands. The bear lunged and crashed into view, streaming blood and roaring now like a volcano in full eruption. Its growls drowned out the Fish-Eaters and its charge turned their cries at Conan to howls of fear, then of agony.
Two Fish-Eaters died in that first charge. Others were wounded, either by lighter swipes of the paws or by their fleeing comrades knocking them down and trampling them. Spears flew, but few struck and none drove deep.
The bear whirled, striking with left and right paws in succession, like a human adept at the pankration. More bloody furrows opened in black skins, but there were some stout hearts under those skins. Conan saw one man”no, boy”run in with a long-tined fishing trident and thrust it deep into the bear's unhurt leg.
Then the lad died screaming as the creature whirled, bending like a bow to clamp its jaws across his belly. The screams ended as the fangs reached his vitals. The bear tossed its head, then flung the corpse away and turned to seek new victims.
Conan saw that the Fish-Eaters might fight with the courage of despair but had neither weapons nor craft to contend with the beast. Nor would it be easy for him to best it in the open, where it could whirl about in its own length to face and strike seemingly in every direction.
An icy chill ran down the Cimmerian's spine, even in the heat of the jungle night. Had the dying Vendhyan spoken the plain truth, that demons had a gate through which to send men and beasts where nature would not allow them?
Demonsent or no, however, the bear was flesh and blood. It could be slain, and with the battle-fury upon him, Conan knew that if it was not, he would not see another sunrise.
The Fish-Eaters were making a wide circle around the bear, some braver than others darting in to drag away the bodies of their dead. The most courageous of all thrust their spears, but their courage only cost them their lives. The bear still had one eye, much vigor, and a hide too thick for the light spears of the Fish-Eaters.
Conan waited only long enough to be sure that the Fish-Eaters saw him.
Whether they could tell him from the bear, he could not be sure.
Whether they would check their throws even if they could was still more doubtful.
The one thing Conan did not doubt was that a warrior's honor demanded the creatures death.
Spears did fly as he plunged at the bear, but two missed and he plucked one out of the air. A fourth only grazed one shoulder blade. Then he was moving too fast for the Fish-Eaters to follow him as he closed with the bear, sword in one hand, spear raised high in the other.
He was also moving too fast for the bear. It was slow to turn to face him, and Conan let out a roar of triumph. That roar seemed to finally put the beast in fear. It shook its head in confusion and pain, as if its wounds were finally besting its fighting spirit.
Conan dared to close. He flung the spear from just outside touching distance, and it pierced fur and hide. The bear turned, snapping with blood-dripping jaws at the shaft in its side. Doing so, it offered the Cimmerian the back of its neck.
Even a good broadsword driven by both of Conan's arms was unequal to slaying the bear at one blow, and from that, the Cimmerian nearly died.
The bear forgot the spear, remembered his old foe, and spun, both paws striking at Conan, who was leaping backward after his sword-blow. One paw struck him, and fortunately it was the right paw, from which he had already sheared half the claws. Otherwise he would have been gutted like a sheep carcase and flung down upon the bodies of the dead Fish-Eaters.
That was the bear's last blow. Blood gushed from its neck wound, staining the already much-stained white fur. It lay down, then settled its head on its paws. It growled a final defiance as one Fish-Eater drew close, then rolled over on its side.
Conan saw the light go out of the bears remaining eye, and he was all but tempted to sing a death-song for it, as for a vanquished human foe.
Snatched from its own land and flung out here in the stifling jungle, it had done its best to live and had met death with a warrior's courage.
Then the Fish-Eaters were all around the bear, blocking Conan's view of it, thrusting with spears and hammering it with clubs¦ all except one man, older and slighter than most of his comrades, and wearing an elaborate feathered headdress taller than he was.
This one pointed a cunningly wrought stick at Conan and shouted: "The demons war among themselves! Kill Amra and we will be done with them!
He has slain his rebellious servant. Now it is his turn to die!"
At least that was the sense that came to the Cimmerian. It took a while for it to reach the Fish-Eaters, deafened by rage, bloodlust, and triumph.
It took no time at all for Conan to realize that the Fish-Eaters'
gratitude would take the form of spears in his gizzard. That was a reward he had no mind to wait to collect.
"Crom!" he snarled and spat on the ground. The Fish-Eater chief jumped back, as if he expected to see flames arise where the Cimmerian spat.
Then he jumped again as Conan snatched up a spear.
That was not enough. Conan's throw sent the spear clean through the fancy headdress, impaling it like bait on a fisherman's hook. The spear flew on to sink deep into a tree trunk and stand there quivering, with the headdress dangling from the shaft.
Before the Fish-Eaters stopped gaping at the sight, the Cimmerian turned his back on them and strode off toward the stream. If the bear had left any fish at all from the ruined trap, he would carry off a few for food on his journey to the Bamulas.
Before he reached the stream, the thunder came again, a single clap, followed by a long rumble dying away into the ordinary sounds of the jungle night. Conan halted, weapons ready, looking back on his trail for signs of pursuit by Fish-Eaters, bears, demons, or anything else.
He saw nothing and heard no unnatural sounds, nor any further thunder.
The bear might be dead, but whatever had brought it to the Black Kingdoms from the frozen lands of the north was still abroad in the jungle.
Four
"So the Fish-Eaters did not follow you?" a Bamula whom Conan did not recognize asked.
Conan's brows drew together. He fought an urge to loosen a few of the fellow's teeth. Under their dark skin the folk of the Black Kingdoms had every virtue and every vice he had met elsewhere. One vice was asking questions asked ten times before, merely to hear the sound of their own voices.
"Is this a counting-house in Shem or a council hut of warriors of the Bamulas?" the Cimmerian growled. He looked at Kubwande. "Or has someone forgotten to tell others what I told him?"
Kubwande spread his hands in a placating gesture. "I have told as many as have asked."
"Well, the next time hold them down and shout it in their ears, or I will do it for you," Conan said. He grinned, to take the menace from the words.
The Bamula warriors did not relax their guard. Stout fighters every one of them, they knew that none of them could have done half of what Amra had done. This made him the master of any warrior at the council, even if less than half of his tale was true.
"The Fish-Eaters did not follow," Conan went on, measuring the silence.
"But if you think this means they bear me a
ny goodwill or expect me to be their man among the Bamulas, think again. Or use your heads for brewpots, for they hold no wits!"
His look invited anyone who wanted to take the insult seriously to do so, as long as he had mourners enough for proper rites afterward. None of the Bamulas accepted the invitation, and after a moment more of silence, Idosso let out a gusty laugh. Beer-laden breath washed over the Cimmerian as the Bamula chief shook and quivered.
"Of course the Fish-Eaters would not follow this lion among men," he said at last. "They have the courage of she-goats, if that. And to think of a lion obeying the commands of such goats! Sooner think of me doing it!"
That signaled the other Bamulas to join the laughter. Conan looked around at the faces, noting how they watched Idosso. Clearly, these were the warriors and petty chiefs loyal to the big qamu. Just as clearly, both Idosso and his followers expected Conan to join their ranks in return for their offering safety among their tribe.
In that, too, the folk of the Black Kingdoms were like all other men Conan had met and fought.
This time the urge he fought down was to toss his beer in Idosso's face and follow the beer with a good measure of Aquilonian steel. Conan's dagger was much closer to his hand than any of these folk seemed to realize. His patience with their treating him as a witling was also much closer to its end.
No, there was one among them who seemed to see clearly. The one whose name he remembered as Kubwande was nodding. "I doubt that the bear left half the Fish-Eaters fit to walk, let alone fight. And who among us would trail this wounded lion with less than a score of comrades?
Idosso maybe, but who else?"
Everyone seemed to decide that it would flatter Idosso if they agreed with Kubwande. Conan saw heads nodding and hands thrusting gourds and wooden cups of beer toward him. He accepted them all. A man could drink enough of this jungle brew to float Tigress without fuddling his wits, if he had any to begin with.
"More beer!" someone shouted. Others took up the cry, and one man began pounding a drum.
The grass curtain across the door parted and two women entered. Their clothing consisted of heavy ivory earrings and necklaces of scarlet wooden beads. Both were young and slender, just out of girlhood, but one of them moved like a crone of seventy winters.
Looking more closely, Conan recognized the two Fish-Eater women he had allowed Idosso to carry off. The slow-moving one in her turn recognized him. Her look carried a wish that the wrath of all the gods descend on the Cimmerian and the claws and teeth of fifty demons rend him. It was a change from the last time he had seen them, when they seemed to think he might sprout teeth and claws if they yielded to him rather than to Idosso.
"Ho!" Idosso shouted. "Fresh Fish, are you doing as I told you, when you look at a sworn guest that way?"
Conan could recall no guest-oath, but he did not care to call Idosso a liar to his face. The woman clearly recalled much, and none of it agreeable. She knelt, and Idosso surged to his feet, one vast fist clenched to descend in a blow that might have broken the woman's skull or snapped her neck.
The blow never landed. Idosso had touched the Cimmerian's honor too closely already by giving those bruises that Conan now saw on Fresh Fish's otherwise smooth and well-oiled skin. Clearly, the big man's word to treat them well had been worthless, and Conan would not see them suffer further, even to buy peace with the Bamulas. Either the suffering or the peace would end.
Conan's arm shot out and five sinewy fingers clamped on Idosso's wrist.
The Cimmerian let the thrust of Idosso's blow pull him to his feet. In rising, he jerked Idosso off balance. The Bamula would have fallen on his nose at the feet of the women had not the Cimmerian held him in front and Kubwande and others from the rear.
"You dare”!" someone began.
Conan cut him off. "These women came to me. I allowed them to go to you because they seemed to fear me and you promised to treat them honorably. Now it seems that you have given them reason to fear you more than me."
Idosso snarled, shaking himself free of his helpers. "Any man would have done the same. Or is your blood as milky as your skin, Little Lion, that you know nothing of women?"
Conan released his grip and stepped back. The women gaped at him, horror warring with dawning hope on their faces. "If you want to see the color of my blood, Idosso, try to take it," he said. "Or take a Cimmerian at his word, and remember what you promised to these women!"
Idosso looked ready to leap at the Cimmerian, until he caught Kubwande's eye. Then he contented himself with cursing eloquently.
Finally he grabbed each woman by an earring, jerked them to their feet, and all but flung them at Conan. They fell back to their knees, struggling with the pain of their bleeding ears, and each grasped Conan's legs.
"Take them, then, and may you have much joy of a better man's leavings!" Idosso snarled. "Take them, and be out of Bamula lands before nightfall, or
Idosso's threat died unuttered as a sweat-drenched warrior flung himself through the curtain and fell at the chief's feet. The big man gaped at this portent, then Kubwande signed the man to rise.
"What is it?" Idosso demanded.
"The demons struck again," the newcomer gasped. "In Dead Elephant Valley, they have taken a village."
"Taken?" Conan exclaimed. "Carried off, you mean?"
Either the man did not understand him or did not recognize him as one with the right to an answer. Only when Kubwande (again!) signaled did the man begin to speak.
Conan listened to a tale of a village assaulted by beasts out of a nightmare. They had the forms of apes but the scales and sharp teeth of gigantic lizards, as well as the ravenous appetite of starving lions. A score of the villagers were dead, as many more hurt, huts, grain stores, and livestock ruined, and altogether as much harm done as a band of hostile warriors could have contrived.
He also saw the eyes of warriors searching him for some sign of foreknowledge. It seemed that the Fish-Eaters were not the only ones who suspected him of being such an utter fool as to deal with demons!
Conan muttered curses under his breath, wishing himself and the women a long way from the land of the Bamulas. But wishes were not fishes, nor even Fish-Eaters in strength enough to protect the women should he return them to their kin and tribe.
The Cimmerian added curses on the whole race of women, except one whose spirit now walked with the spirits of other valiant warriors. Without the two wenches, there'd be no cause for him to quarrel with Idosso. It would be his choice, to stay among the Bamulas or to set his feet to the nearest trail and blink the smoke of their huts from his eyes for all time.
"Idosso, my friend," Conan said. "It is too great an honor, these two fine women. I must do something more to earn it before I can take them with a good heart."
"So?" Idosso's growl was still that of a bear's, but one disturbed from sleep rather than enraged or hungry.
"So I think we'd best all be on our way to Dead Elephant Valley and see this demon's work," Conan went on. "If I help the Bamulas fight these demon-spawn, then I will take the women for my household. But by Crom, I will earn that household before I take any women to it! Conan of Cimmeria accepts nothing like a bone thrown to a dog, and the Bamulas had best remember that!"
It took much less than Conan's knowledge of men's eyes to read those of the Bamulas. Surely this quest will prove Amra either a great warrior or a friend of demons, all the eyes said.
Only Kubwande's were unreadable. Conan measured the lesser chief, wondering if his life among the Bamulas might be easier if the man was not quick enough to escape one of these demon-spawned lizard-apes.
But to every man his fate. Conan would accept his when Crom sent it, and not push another into death's path when that other had as yet done him no harm.
Then he looked down at the women. Their eyes were even easier to read than those of the warriors. The women's eyes held a wish that Conan be found worthy of some rank that would allow him to protect them. A short while at Idosso's m
ercy seemed to have left them indifferent to whether he was black or white, brown or purple, yellow like the folk of Khitai or spotted like the Dog Men of old tales, if only he could stand between them and the Bamula chief.
Conan drew the women to their feet and rested one brawny arm lightly across each set of slender shoulders. "Well," he growled to the assembled warriors. "What say the Bamulas? Or are they going to stand gawping, until I have to find my own spears and mealies and make the journey with only these wenches for help?"
After that, it seemed that the Bamulas could not swear to the bargain fast enough.
***
In the Pictish lands of the north, Lysenius had exhausted his curses.
This was as well, as he had likewise exhausted his daughter Scyra's patience. She had even ventured to speak sharply to him about wasting his strength and frightening those Picts within hearing.
"Any Picts that close are weaklings!" was his reply. "Best I frighten them to death, before they breed weakling sons!"
"Some of them are sure to do so," Scyra said, smiling. "How many of them can marry me?"
Then her smile faded as her father cuffed her, not angrily but not lightly either. "No jesting, girl. There're ten clans that would follow us if their chiefs had hopes of getting sons from you."
She held the shadow of the smile on her face until her father turned away. Even then she did not ease her stance or lower her head until she heard his footsteps passing out of the chamber, down the passage¦
Down the passage to the other chamber, where he would wrestle with his Stygian scrolls. Wrestle not altogether in vain, and always with great earnestness, as he sought true mastery of the spell of the world-walker. He wished not to merely use the spell about the world at random, but to master it so that he could pluck anything (or anyone) he wished from one chosen place and send it to another.
The girl shivered from more than the chill of the cave. She had heard in her father's nighttime mutterings hints that blood-sacrifices might help one master this and other spells. The blood of near-kin, by preference”and she was the only kin her father had yet living in all the world, let alone in this cold land to which she had followed him because she would have been doomed as he in the land where they were born.
The Conan Compendium Page 405