In boyish bravado, Govindue made an obscene gesture at the hillmen.
"Govindue, son of Bessu, gives you this greeting to take back to your women. Maybe they will regret the better man you slew, and take your parts to put on my grave."
The Picts did not understand a word of the Bamula speech, but they understood that they were being insulted, and they howled with fury.
One nocked an arrow.
Then the odds changed in a moment, as a stone flung seemingly from nowhere crushed the archers throat. A demon's howl made the surviving Picts flinch, even as the dying archer toppled. They were looking about them to see what had risen from the earth when Conan stormed through the trees and into their midst.
Against Conan, three Picts had no more chance than three goats against a lion. None of them ran, so they died all the more swiftly. Conan threw a spear that impaled one Pict through the back of the neck, until the spearhead burst from his mouth in a shower of blood and teeth. He threw another stone that caught a second Pict just above his loincloth.
The Pict stumbled and ran into a tree hard enough to knock himself senseless.
This left the last Pict alone, with nothing to do but fight. He did this with a warrior's courage, but he faced both Govindue's spear and the descending sweep of Conan's sword. The Bamula spear pierced the Pict's thigh in the same moment as the Aquilonian steel sheared through shoulder and ribs into the man's belly.
Conan put his foot on the last Pict's ribs and jerked his sword free.
His grin was a leopards.
"Never throw that close to a swordsman."
"Forgive me, Conan."
"I will, since you didn't hit me. Now let's see what your father and his friends have left of the rest of these ill-smelling rockscrabblers."
"Who are they, Conan?"
"A folk called the Picts. What more I know, I'll tell you all later."
As if to remind them of further work at hand, the drums sounded again from farther down the hill. Only briefly, however”the clash of weapons and the war cries of both peoples swiftly drowned them out. Amidst these sounds, Govindue was sure he heard men's death-cries as well.
He needed no second command to follow Conan.
***
Conan knew enough about the Picts to have some notions about fighting them. He also had his strength, speed, and instincts, all honed like a fine sword by many years' fighting in more than a dozen lands against a score of different enemies. Some of those foes were hillmen like the Picts, although the Pictish Wilderness was more heavily wooded than the Ilbars Mountains or the wastes of northern Iranistan.
Conan led Govindue across the slope just inside the tree line. They could have gone faster in the open, at least until the first Pictish archer made good practice against them. The trees hid them and the Picts from each other, and Conan trusted that he was a match for any Pict they might stumble across at close range. More than a match, with a second pair of eyes and another fighting arm at his back, each ruled by sharp, if youthful, wits.
Dead Elephant Village would be well-led, if no more demons came to further ruin it before Govindue was of age to succeed his father as chief.
Conan judged correctly in thinking that the Picts had a second party opposite the one Govindue found. Thus placed, the Picts could have caught the Bamulas in a deadly hail of arrows from both sides as the warriors came uphill. More than once, Conan had laid such an ambush himself. Just as often, he had fought his way out of one, commonly carrying dead or wounded comrades and, at times, a few holes in his own hide. Ambushes were no mystery to him.
Govindue, however, had drawn the first band of Picts out of their intended position. Then Bamula and Cimmerian together had slain them so swiftly and silently that their comrades below had no idea of what had befallen them. Fierce but ill-disciplined warriors, they were shooting from behind their trees at the Bamulas behind theirs, when Conan and Govindue came down upon them.
Again the attack had the force of a rockfall crashing onto a hut. This time, however, the Picts had greater strength and less courage. Some turned at bay, desperate as wolves, bold in their refusal to retreat from only a handful. Others turned to flee. The two crossed one another's path, hurled curses and stones, and sometimes came to blows.
Conan and Govindue waded into the confusion, slashing, thrusting, and flailing about with total impartiality between the two factions.
Neither courage nor fleetness of foot helped those Picts who found themselves within striking distance of the pair.
The Cimmerian wielded a spear in his left hand and his sword in the right. He thrust an axe-man through the shoulder and split his skull as the man dropped his axe. Reversing the sequence, he hamstrung an archer who had turned his back, then rammed the spear between the man's shoulder blades. The spear stuck in the Pict's ribs. Conan put one foot on the small of the Pict's back, snapping the man's spine in the process, and jerked his spear free.
Then, in a single motion, the Cimmerian whirled, smashing the spear butt-first into a Pict's jaw. As the man reeled back, two of his comrades valiantly tried to close with Conan and give their friend time to flee.
They failed. The Pict stumbled and fell before he completed three steps. At the same time, Conan's sword whistled left, right, left, in three cuts. The neck of one man gaped so that his head lolled like a drunkards. The other screamed and clutched at his thigh, dropping guard and weapon. Conan split his head with a fourth stroke.
Govindue had nothing except a bent-headed spear, but he killed one Pict and drove a second back. A third came on to the attack, shrieking like the spawn of demons and wielding a rude stone-headed axe. Govindue leapt in under the swing of the axe and slammed his spear up against the Picts arms.
The Pict howled and dropped the axe. Govindue shifted his grip and thrust hard before the Pict could draw clear. Blood oozed from around the spearshaft, and sprayed from the Picts mouth as the breath tore from his punctured chest. He jerked until he twisted the spear from Govindue's grasp.
Conan kicked at the Pict but the man fell back, taking the spear with him. The Cimmerian stood guard against two more Picts while the boy picked up the axe and tested its balance.
"Near enough to a war club," Govindue said. He swung furiously, with more energy than skill. One of the Picts chose that moment to lunge forward. The axe caught him across the bridge of his nose and he fell, without even a scowl crossing his ruined face.
By now, Conan and his companion had cleared a respectable space about them, empty of living, or at least of fighting, Picts. Howls and cries from among the trees suggested the nearness of other Picts, and also foretold that the Bamulas downhill were fighting their way toward the Cimmerian.
It was as well, Conan realized, that the demon's gate did not fuddle the wits of those who passed through it, or change them into demons. If the Bamulas had walked through the gate too bemused to fight until after the Picts had sprung the ambush, he might have been facing a long and solitary search of the wilderness for Vuona.
Now he had twenty or more comrades to help him search for the girl, fight the Picts, and seek out the master of the demon's gate. There was loss with the gain: the twenty would be harder to hide than one, few of them were used to northern lands or cold weather, and some might not be wholly trustworthy.
Conan signaled to Govindue to open the gap between themselves, and they worked their way down the hill. The arrows came thicker now that the Picts below had no fear of hitting friends who were either slain or fled. But the Picts were less than polished archers. A score of men in any Turanian band of mounted bowmen would have been their masters. They trusted to showering foes with arrows and had ill success when they needed to rely on sharpshooting.
A tree at a time, Conan and Govindue worked their way into the ranks of the remaining Picts. They slew three, and in time the remainder abandoned their archery, once more afraid of hitting comrades. Conan picked up a bow and used it to good effect. He told Govindue to watch for other bows, and a
lso for fallen arrows still fit for use.
"We will be in this land long enough to need some meat, and the bow outreaches the spear for hunting," Conan said.
"You have fought before in this land?" Govindue asked.
"In ones enough like it that what I remember from them is worth doing here," Conan replied. "Also, men come from many lands to serve the Aquilonians along the Pictish frontier, and talk freely when their service is done."
"The gods grant that is enough," Govindue said. For a moment, he looked close to his age, the courageous boy far from home rather than the seasoned warrior.
Conan slapped him on the shoulder. "Hurry with that arrow hunt," he said. "I'll watch for any Picts fool enough to linger."
***
Before the thud of the Pictish drums faded from Scyra's ears, the unmistakable din of a battle replaced it. The sorcerer's daughter at once went to ground. Picts this far inside her father's lands were rare; a battle was unheard of. Learning who was fighting whom and bringing the knowledge back to her father would go far to earn her a pardon for leaving the caves.
She would balance curiosity with caution, however, lest she die with her knowledge sealed behind her lips. The Picts were her masters in woodscraft, but she was not helpless. One born in the Bossonian Marches knew one tree from another, and ground that hid from ground that revealed.
Scyra formed a picture in her mind of the location of the battle, then judged the best route to follow to see it. She considered casting a spell of invisibility, or at least of confusion, but such a spell would not last long, and might reveal her at the worst possible moment, close to the enemy and defenseless. (The spell of invisibility she had learned needed to be cast spellclad, without so much as a sharp pin from her hair for defense.)
No, the simple prowl of a cat stalking a bird would teach her the most with least danger. She crouched and began to crawl forward on hands and knees, to cross the patch of ground where only bushes offered cover.
Thirty paces farther on, the trees began, reaching all the way up the slope to her goal.
Scyra had covered only fifteen of those paces when she saw something move under a bush. She ceased her crawl and held her breath, waiting for a further movement. It came, and now it seemed unmistakably to have a human source.
She listened for sound from beneath the bush, and also for any sign of lurking Picts. It could be that two tribes of the hillmen were fighting”a band of Snakes or Wolves breaking the taboo against being on the white shaman's land, and a band of Owls defending the holding.
Scyra had no illusion that she would be truly safe with either tribe, but the Snakes would surely kill her, and not mercifully. The Owls might be slow to kill the shaman's daughter, if they recognized her in time.
Quickly she realized that the battle was making too much noise for her to hear any lurking Picts. But this had to be true for Picts listening for her, too. She drew her dagger and crawled toward the bush from which the sounds and movement came.
Branches crackled and gravel sprayed as a dark-skinned figure scrambled frantically into the open. It was just leaping to its feet when Scyra clutched it firmly by both ankles. She was not a trained or accomplished fighter, but she was calm, not terrified, and also sturdily made from birth and strong from years in the wilderness. The figure toppled, almost on top of her. From less than the length of her daggers blade, Scyra stared into the wide, rolling eyes of a dark-skinned young woman.
The sorcerer's daughter would have given ten years of her life now for a spell to both silence the other and persuade her that she faced no enemy. The best Scyra was able to do was to clamp a hand over the woman's mouth and make soothing noises into one ear. The ear, she noticed, showed clotted blood where an earring had been ripped away, and the dark skin bore bruises and grazes. Some of them might be the work of the rocks; others surely were not.
Beyond those minor hurts, the woman seemed unharmed as far as Scyra could judge. She hoped that was far enough, for the woman was of no race she had ever seen, darker than either Pict or Shemite, with rounded features. She was also well-formed”with the look of a girl just come into womanhood”under dust, dead leaves, and bruises.
Was she from the Black Kingdoms far to the south? Most likely, from what Scyra had heard of their folk. But then what was she doing in the Pictish Wilderness, farther from home than Scyra cared to imagine, far even from any shore where a ship might have landed her?
The answer was plain. The world-walker had linked the Black Kingdoms with the Pictish Wilderness, whether by Lysenius's intent or by pure chance. This woman had wandered into it”or been drawn like so many others by the mind-compelling power of the spell. Had she come alone?
The woman wore neither clothing nor weapons. Hardly garb for flinging oneself into the unknown. A madwoman? Scyra looked at her companion's eyes again.
They were still wide and fearful, but no madness as Scyra recognized it showed in them. She pointed at herself. "Scyra," she said.
The other's eyes widened farther. She pointed at her breast. "Vuona,"
she said.
"Vuona," Scyra repeated, pointing at the woman. The dark one nodded vigorously.
All this while, the battle had faded into the back of Scyra's mind. Now it returned to the forefront as a man's death-scream cut through the trees and seemed to soar into the sky like an arrow.
"Wayo, wayo, wayo!" Scyra heard. It came from the direction of the battle, an exuberant chant from a dozen robust male throats. She had heard the victory chants of Picts before, but this was nothing like theirs. Deeper, fuller, and somehow more wholesome, it was like nothing she had ever heard or imagined.
Vuona jumped as if bitten by a serpent.
"Bamula!" she cried. Scyra tried to restrain her. Picts three clans away must have heard that cry, if they had not already heard the battle. Rushing off to where you thought friends were was often a short way to death in a Pictish ambush.
The woman fought with surprising strength, and now Scyra wished for a Pictish war hammer. A good buffet on the head”
"You Bamula?" Scyra asked. Could that be the name of Vuona's tribe? Had a war party come through the demon's gate and fallen among the Picts?
The chant went on, now almost as loud as the battle. Not a Pict could be heard, only the Bamulas. Perhaps it was a case of the Picts falling among the Bamulas?
Silence swallowed the hillside. It lasted long enough for a deep breath, then a new chant was taken up.
"Ohbe Bessu, ohbe Bessu, ohbe Bessu!" The new chant was no softer than the first, but slow and dirgelike. Vuona listened attentively, then scratched a shallow trench in the ground, pushed in a small pine cone, and covered it up.
"Bessu," she said, pointing at the mound.
The victory had not been without cost, it seemed. A warrior named Bessu was honorably dead. Again the chanting sounded more worthy of a warrior than did the Pictish howling.
Vuona pointed up the hill. Scyra sighed. It appeared that the woman wanted to go up there, badly enough to face the arrows of any lurking Picts alone if there was no other way.
Scyra studied her intended path again. At least Vuona would not have to go alone. Then perhaps she might in turn be grateful enough to return to the caves with Scyra, for a hunting smock to cover her skin and lotions for her bruises, if nothing else!
Then, who could know what might follow? Scyra lacked spells for learning Vuona's tongue or teaching her Bossonian, let alone reaching into her thoughts and reading them without words. Those were in scrolls she had never touched, let alone read, if indeed her father had not so firmly embedded them in his memory that he needed no scrolls to cast them.
But if they were embedded in his memory”? Vuona might speak, might see Scyra and Lysenius as friends, might lead the other Bamulas to them”the other Bamulas, who had survived a passage through the demon's gate in a condition to fight Picts!
Scyra had long since vowed to either defeat or win over her father. Old love let her prefer the second.
The Bamulas might give her the key.
Ten
Govindue allowed Conan to lead the way down the hill toward the place of the Bamula warriors. The village lad walked proudly, for this day he had won a name that would last even if this was his final fight. He wondered if Conan's tribe”the Kimmerala, was it?”had the custom of praise-songs, and if Govindue of Dead Elephant Village of the Lesser Bamulas would ever be mentioned in the praise-songs about the fires of the Kimmerala.
It was as well for Govindue that he allowed Conan to lead. The Cimmerian was first to see the leaves trembling, revealing a lurking live Pict where others might have seen only the dead. There was no shortage of dead Picts, and from one of them Conan snatched up a short-handled axe. Not well balanced for a swift throw, it still plunged through the concealing bush.
A pantherlike scream froze all except Conan. He was still moving when the mortally wounded Pict leapt into the open. One arm dangled useless, but the other held a spear and retained its strength and cunning. The spear flew toward the oncoming Bamulas.
Most of the men had the wits or the time to fling themselves to the ground or to raise their shields. Bessu had the wit and the swiftness of eye and hand to fling his own spear, but he had no shield, having given it to a warrior who had lost his. Before he could think to defend himself, the Pict's spear was in his throat.
Bessu fell backward, half-flung by the spear, half-falling as strength deserted his legs. His own spear sank clean through the Pict's broad chest, so that the weapon burst out his back. It was slaying a dead man, but the Bamulas shouted as if Bessu had killed the enemy's war chief.
Govindue knelt beside his father while all the rest joined in the chant of "Wayo, wayo, wayo," then moved on to "Ohbe Bessu___"
"Honor to Bessu." Yes, much honor to a man who had followed his son through the demon's gate and into a strange land, to die there in battle. Honor Bessu would not hear except with his spirit ears. His face was set and his eyes wide and staring; he must have died as he struck the ground.
The Conan Compendium Page 411