DEATH.
The chakan howled and reared upright. It flung up it's hands and threw back its head, still howling, unseeing eyes aimed at the stars. Blood started from its mouth, eyes, and ears, and it began to tremble in all its limbs.
Then its hair began to smolder, and stinking, greasy smoke poured from its limbs and body. It staggered, fell, pushed itself up onto hands and knees and spewed blood. The smoke grew thicker, and Scyra saw hair curling and frizzing to ashes that blew away on a wind that seemed to come from within the chakan. The stench grew until she turned her head away and gagged, all but ready to spew herself.
With a final gurgle, the chakan fell facedown and lay still. Smoke continued to curl up from the corpse as Conan knelt beside the litter and drew Scyra to her feet. She allowed her head to rest against his massive chest, savoring the pleasure of no longer being alone, but careful to keep the hand with the crystal well away from the Cimmerians body.
She stepped back from him and saw the other two chakans lying dead, their corpses sprouting arrows and spears in profusion. A Bamula lay among them, his head at an impossible angle to his shoulders and one arm torn from its socket.
"I¦ thank you."
"Thank your father, too," Conan told her.
"My
"He's doing some wizardly business with that cursed statue. He'll do more once you're no longer among the Picts," He gripped her hand, then recoiled as his fingers touched the Crystal of Thraz.
"Pardon," she said. "It¦ I think it is awake now."
"What are you using it for, besides ill-wishing chakans'?"
"I was ill-wishing their master, the shaman Vurag Yan. I do not know if the wish reached him through the chakan."
Carefully not touching the crystal this time, Conan lifted her onto one shoulder. "Tell me more later, when we've no Picts within stabbing distance."
"You asked."
"So I did, and that's never wise to do with a witch, when you may not like the answer!"
The next moment he was running up the slope, with the surviving Bamulas laboring hard to keep up with his hillman's pace.
**
Conan carried Scyra all the way to the boulders, then set her on her feet and went to cover the rearguard. This was easy enough, as no Pict dared pass to either side of the statue to approach the cave. A few bold archers were shooting, but making wretched practice against the dazzling thunderbolts from the image.
The reek of sweat joined that of the sulphur and charred flesh as the Bamulas arrived. Conan had just counted the last man in when a new outburst of Pictish war cries split the night.
"Do they never give up?" Vuona asked, trying to put an arm around him.
Conan noticed that she had the other arm around Govindue, who was not protesting.
"Not easily," the Cimmerian said and gently removed the woman's arm.
"Best we three not all stand together. Even arrows can find such an easy target, and they may not have emptied their quivers of spells."
From what Scyra said, the Picts had little magick left in them, at least for tonight. But from the cries, it sounded as if they had so many fresh warriors that they hardly needed the aid of spells.
Scyra came out and listened to the cries. "The Snakes have come again, in strength. They are not attacking, though. I think¦ there. Listen."
Conan heard a peculiar, irregular beat, five or six drums all sounding together. The cries faded, leaving the drums to rule the night, along with the thunderbolts from the statue.
"That is the call to a parley," Scyra said. "I think the Snakes will offer the Owls safe passage from the land, in return for an alliance against us."
Conan spat. "That for Pictish intrigues. Will they be fit to stand against us and the statue both?"
Scyra said nothing, only stood closer to the Cimmerian. By the light of the thunderbolts, however, he read the answer in her face.
"Crom! The next time a woman runs through a wizard's door, I'll let him slam it behind her!" He looked down at Scyra. "I hope your father realizes that he's our best hope now."
"What the gods allow him to do will be done."
"Then let's hope they're feeling generous toward both him and us tonight!"
***
To Scyra, Lysenius seemed to have cast no spells during her absence, except perhaps one on himself. She did not care for the vacant eyes and the slack lips. But with what wits her father had left, he gathered to greet her. His embrace was hearty, though she could feel the chill in his flesh and the trembling in his arms and hands.
"I intend to free us of the Picts," Lysenius said. "With the help of the Crystal of Thraz
"I myself must use it if it is to help us," Scyra said.
"Is that still the truth?"
"It was not the truth the first time I said it," she replied. She could not meet her father's eyes. "Now I believe it to be the truth. If you try to bond with it, you may die, and surely your spell will not take effect."
"Why am I not surprised, Scyra, that you lied to me for my own good?"
her father asked.
"Perhaps because it was not the first time I did so, although never before in so great a matter," Scyra answered. She raised her eyes, and her heart lifted at the wry smile on her fathers face.
"If I cannot use the crystal, then I must find some other means of commanding the statue. For that, I need blood. A warrior's blood, above all."
Conan frowned. It made him look not merely menacing, but terrible.
Scyra put a hand on her father's arm, lest he make matters worse by flinching away from the grim Cimmerian giant.
"Why don't you come right out and ask for my blood?" Conan said in a surprisingly even voice. "I thought the statue had already taken enough for itself."
"Not the blood of a man without a ghost-voice," Lysenius said. "I must ask, and pray that you will not shed my blood in reply. It will do you no harm, save by chance."
"Sorcery seems a pretty chancy business, and I've yet to meet wizard or witch who wouldn't lie to advance themselves. Scyra, what say you?"
"I have no truth-sense."
"I didn't ask that. You know your father better than I."
"Yes, Scyra. Speak freely."
"In your place, Conan, I would give the blood."
He nodded, and Scyra knew that the nod was as good as a solemn oath from a lesser man. "How much?"
Lysenius drew a small silver dagger. "Enough to cover the blade of this knife, but it must be from a fresh cut."
"Hack away, Scyra," Conan said. "But be quick about it. The Picts may gossip all night. They may also attack before we're done with this witchery."
Scyra drew her own dagger, tested the edge on her thumb, then drew a line down the Cimmerian's arm, over bruises, small cuts already clotted over, and half a score of old scars. This man, she realized, had seen more war and battle than any two men twice his age.
The blood welled out, of a normal human color. Somehow, she had been expecting it to be green, or sparkling like certain Nemedian wines, or otherwise apart from nature.
***
Between offering his blood for a sorcerer's tricks and taking his chances with the Picts, Conan would have preferred to be drinking the cheapest wine in the lowest tavern in Aghrapur. Lacking that choice, and his people likewise, he chose to aid the sorcerer. Three of his men had died already tonight. If the Owls and Snakes made common cause against him, he would be lucky to escape the wilderness with three yet living.
Smeared thin, enough blood to cover the dagger was no great loss. He'd lost as much several times in his youth when his beard began to sprout and his mastery of the art of shaving was yet uncertain.
But giving your true name or anything from your body to some sorcerers gave them ultimate power over you. Power that Lysenius might not gain, and if he did, might not use”but who could be sure?
Conan was sure of one thing. He could slay both Lysenius and his daughter before they could unman him or the Bamulas. If wizardry offered a worse death than de
ath among the Picts, he would choose the latter.
The thud of Pictish drums floated into the cave. Bowenu came back to report that the Picts had neither fled nor advanced. They seemed in great strength at the foot of the hill and in the forest around it.
"Excellent," Lysenius said. "The more that are on hand, the fewer to impede your passage afterward."
Bowenu looked from Lysenius to Conan, then made to Conan the Bamula gesture of inquiring about madness. Conan shrugged and returned the Bamula gesture for ignorance. This did not seem to raise Bowenu's spirits.
Scyra was trying not to smile at the exchange. Conan shot her a sour look. "What's so funny, woman?"
"Yes, indeed," Lysenius said. "Dignity, please, Scyra. It honors those about to die."
Conan did not ask who those might be. He would know soon enough.
It did not improve his temper to be sitting and waiting while sorcerers who called themselves his friends finished the battle. He wanted to have a hand in the final victory himself, and with Pictish blood on his sword instead of his own on a sorcerer's dagger.
But what a captain wanted for himself had to give way to what those who followed him needed. That was a lesson he had learned in the rude school of the battlefield, as well as from more civilized teachers”Belit not least among them. He could sit and wait without anger now”but not yet with pleasure.
It seemed for a long while that nothing had happened, natural or magickal, except for louder drumming from the Picts. Conan did not much like that; it now sounded less like a parley than like whipping up the courage of warriors for a desperate charge. The thunderbolts still crashed and sizzled, and the witchfire still glowed, but the statue was not all-conquering. Enough Picts past it and”
The air in the cave turned a familiar golden hue and began to swirl toward the cave mouth as if a giant were sucking it out. Conan went with the golden wind because he had no choice. His strength was as a child's against that wind.
He fetched up hard against a boulder, and for a moment he feared the wind would reach down behind the stone and pluck him out, to carry him onward to the hillside. Instead, he sat with his back braced against the rock, snatching at ankles and wrists as the Bamulas struggled past.
One by one he pulled them from the wind, or they found their own niches, or on some outcropping they took a death-grip that the wind could not break.
Conan did not dare move to look at what was happening beyond. He saw the golden light swamp the blue of the witchfire, so that even the blazing thunderbolts from the statue were lost in the new light. The whole mouth of the cave now seemed the mouth of a giant's forge, whose fire burned stark gold.
Everyone in the cave knew the moment when the golden wind reached the Picts. None could have imagined that such screams could come from human throats, even Picts', and there were hundreds of men screaming at once.
It seemed to Conan that the wind might be rending the warriors limb from limb, or disemboweling them, or crushing them slowly under massive weights”but they would not have been screaming so had they been crushed.
How long the screaming went on, Conan could never afterward say. In time, the golden wind ceased to blow and darkness returned to the mouth of the cave. It was a deeper darkness than before, and the statue had fallen silent. As cautiously as a cat sneaking past fierce watchdogs, Conan crawled farther out into the boulders, then onto the hillside.
It was the hour of false dawn. When he regained his night-sight, he saw a hillside bare of living Picts. The statue's prey still lay there, now cold ashes, and scattered weapons showed where living Picts had been before they departed.
Departed, along with a good part of the forest at the foot of the hill.
The ground there was churned as if by a giant plow, and Conan's eyes made out gaping holes, that looked as if trees two men thick and a hundred years old had been plucked from the ground like carrots.
If Owls or Snakes remained alive, they were either running or, if very hardy, lying in wait on the new edge of the forest. Conan doubted the second. He would not have huddled beside that nightmare of churned ground for the wealth of a kingdom. Besides, if they were there, they were out of bowshot of the cave mouth. The statue remained, now lifeless to all appearances, but it would be a bold Pict who dared approach it tonight.
Conan left Govindue to watch the hill and went back inside the cave. It had been long since he'd heard a sound from Lysenius or Scyra. He no longer feared treachery. Instead he feared that they might not be alive to receive his thanks. He and the Bamulas owed to Lysenius their best chance of seeing another sunrise.
***
Lysenius coughed again. Scyra moistened a clean rag with the last of the water and wiped the fresh blood from his lips.
"It¦ does no¦ good, Scyra. I asked¦ too much of this old body."
"You aren't old, Father."
"It's¦ too late for lies," Lysenius said. His gaze shifted, and Scyra saw a shadow fall on the cave floor. Conan stepped up beside her, then knelt.
"Our thanks, Lysenius. What did you do with the Picts?"
"Oh¦ took them with¦ the world-walker. More power than ever before.
Everyone out there¦ gone."
"You must not talk, Father."
"I¦ suppose not. Be¦ be wiser than I have been."
They waited for Lysenius to speak more, but those were his last words.
After a while, Scyra closed his eyelids and crossed his hands”hideously burned where his rings had melted from the power of the spell”across his chest.
"Scyra, gather whatever you need to take and be ready to move out. We can chant for your father or do whatever other rites he needs when we're beyond reach of the Picts."
"They will not come here soon, Conan." She stood up and leaned against him. His arms went around her with unexpected gentleness, which was her great need now.
"But they will come," she went on, speaking half to herself and half into the Cimmerians chest. "You will not win free of the wilderness on foot. Not with Vuona and the wounded."
"Perhaps not, but the sooner we begin, the better the odds. Come, Scyra. I wouldn't care to waste your fathers death."
"Nor would I. But I know better how that may be avoided." She felt him stiffen. "No trust in sorcerers even now, Conan?"
"It's been a long night, woman. Whatever you wish, say it quickly."
"I can command the world-walker. With the Crystal of Thraz, I can send you back to the Black Kingdoms. You need hardly walk a step."
"Nor did those Picts, and where are they?"
"Scattered the world over, all too far to ever see their homeland again. But that was my father's intent. I intend to see you safely home!"
"The Black Kingdoms”never mind. I must ask the Bamulas. They have more at stake than I do."
"Ask, while I make ready."
***
Conan was never sure afterward if the Bamulas had come to trust Scyra or if they were so desperate to be done with the Pictish Wilderness that they would have mounted dragons bound for the moon to be out of it. Certainly none, even Kubwande, protested strongly against walking once more through the demon's gate.
"Remember, hold on to me but make your minds blank," Conan said. "Scyra says she can send us anywhere that one of us pictures in our mind. I intend to picture the bank of the Afui
"As long as its the bank," Bowenu said. "I've no wish to swim among the crocodiles."
"I've no wish to repeat myself," Conan said. "Hold your tongue. I will picture the bank of the Afui, and the world-walker should take us there. Anyone who pictures something else may end up there himself, or he may end up nowhere¦ or he may kill us all. So think of nothing, not even the beer you'll drink when we get home, and we may just
The harsh grating sound of rock against rock filled the air. Something loomed up in the mouth of the cave. Then a shadow stretched out across the blue-lit floor as the statue walked into sight.
"Crom!"
The statue walked slowly, like a
man drunk, weary, or sick almost to death. It was blackened, and even burned in places, from the power it had wielded and the blood it had drunk. It also had a new face”the one Conan saw in any mirror.
As one man, he and the Bamulas stood aside as the statue lumbered past and into the cave. It ignored them, and likewise Scyra, who came hurrying out. She stood beside the Cimmerian, who was scowling down at her. He had just noticed that the walls of the cave now showed carvings unmistakably in the Stygian style.
"That”it was not my doing," Scyra said. "The statue and you”your spirit gave you a bond
"I am bonded by Stygian magick to that slab of rock?"
"That slab of rock is the image of a mighty warrior of times past. Why should it not bond to the spirit of a mighty warrior of today?"
Conan saw no reason why it should not, and did not suspect Scyra of flattering him. He also saw no reason why, the decision made to depart, any of those here should wait longer on the edge of unleashed magick.
Unleashed, and clearly not altogether under Scyra's control.
"You're coming with us he began. Her eyes halted him even before her lips formed words.
"I must remain behind here, to cast the spell properly and command it until you are safely passed. If I do otherwise, it could go as much awry as when my father cast it."
"Can you follow us, or at least take yourself to safety?"
"When I have made this cave and my father's body safe, I will think about it."
"Stubborn woman!" He wanted to use harsher terms, but knew they would not move her.
"I think you do not fear such."
The Cimmerian laughed. "Likely enough. I'd not miss Belit half as much if she'd been some docile lap-kitten." He kissed her soundly. "Remember that you're wasted in a wilderness, Scyra, and get yourself out of it as soon as you can."
"As soon as I can”that I swear."
***
Scyra was as good as her word. The golden wind swirled about them, the cave vanished, and before anyone who remembered the Picts could cry out in fear, they were stumbling along the riverbank they had left. Thunder died away, the dizziness faded, and Conan's band looked about them and saw that they were all present.
All, that is, except for Kubwande. They searched up and down the riverbank until men from the village came and nearly ran away again, thinking they were seeing ghosts. Conan's people proved that they were indeed real and pressed the newcomers into the search parties.
The Conan Compendium Page 423