Unceremoniously Conan propped a foot on the edge of Leovigild's rude cot and leaned forward, crossing his arms upon his knee. "We grow weary of Totila's tame spell-caster, lilma. Our good Rerin, here, thinks he knows a good way to strike at him."
"That would be a fine deed," Leovigild said. "But how may a plain warrior deal with one who has dark powers in his hands?"
"Rerin," said Alcuina, "tell Leovigild and these warriors what you told me this evening."
The old man stood forth and stroked his gray beard. "I have now observed much of this man, lilma, far more than I ever wished. His form of wizardry is something far, far different from my own. I seek to use the properties of the plants, stones, and beasts of our land to aid my queen for the good of us all. I use my spells to gain the help of the gods and spirits of the forest and the streams. These supernatural beings are not hostile to men if they are given the proper respect, and by my spells they may be persuaded to help us by
moderating the cold and snows of winter, making the beasts of the forest plentiful to the hunters, and causing the streams to teem with fish for the nets of fishermen. They cause the cattle, sheep, swine, and horses to be fruitful and bear many young. Others of these benevo-lent spirits help me to stop the onset of pestilence and speed the healing of the injured, such as these warriors, whose honorable wounds have brought them to this place." He waved a hand gracefully to include all the bloodied, bandaged, but uncomplaining men who occupied the cots and the pallets in the straw.
"lilma, the Hyperborean, is a different breed of wiz-ard." His mien became solemn and baleful. "He does not seek to help men to prosper amid the dangers of nature. He seeks power for himself. He knows, though, that knowledge and skill may gain him only so much. True power over men is wielded by the arms of warriors, and for this reason he has attached himself to a kinga rising battle chiefwho must give lilma much of the credit for his ascent to power.
"For such power as this wizard wishes to control, the small gods and spirits are of little use. Some time, long ago, lilma struck a dreadful bargain. He trafficked with the great powers of the worlds beyond ours. Until recently these were worlds I had only glimpsed in trance state. The beings of these worlds can grant great puis-sance to a mortal man, but at a terrible price. His mind, his very soul, are forever changed. When such a dark bargain is struck, there is an exchange. The wizard of this world gives some part of himself, some crucial part of his soul that is forever accursed. In return he receives one or more spirit helpers, familiars that greatly expand his powers and act as go-betweens in his dealings with the other worlds."
"The magpies!" Leovigild said.
"Exactly," said Rerin solemnly. "Of course, they are not true magpies. They are demons of another world, but they could not maintain their true form in this world, nor would they want to, for one of the tasks of such familiars is to spy and bring knowledge back to their master, and it is best for them not to attract attention. In all the lore I have studied, birds or bats have been the favored forms that familiars take. This gives them wide-ranging powers, all the great sky as their field so that they can bring back to their master whatever he needs to know. Of all birds, the scavenger birds such as magpies, crows, and ravens are most favored, for whoever takes notice of them? A hawk or eagle always draws attention. A wren or sparrow looks out of place in certain areas, and owls are not seen in the day. But the scavengers are everywhere."
Conan broke into the lengthy recitation. "Tonight, I go on a magpie hunt."
"If lilma is deprived of his familiars," Rerin said, "he must lose much of his power."
"I hold," Alcuina said, "that Conan should take other warriors with him. It is not meet that one man should venture into such peril alone."
"Some of us are willing to go with him," said Siggeir. But there was a hesitation in his voice that said that his heart would not be in such a venture.
"Nay," said Conan, "if it were a fight with men, the more the better, but I go against two birds and a wizard. There is no advantage in numbers in such a fight. Besides, it will be done at night, and none here except me have any skill at night fighting."
"We fought the liches at night," Siggeir said, "al-
though it is true that we built up fires so we could see to ply our weapons. What manner of men choose to fight at night, when one cannot tell friend from foe, and no one can witness the deeds of the valiant?"
"Picts," said Conan with a grim smile.
"Picts?" Leovigild said. "Who are they?"
"They are a folk who love to fight at all hours," said the Cimmerian. "And they have a rare skill at night-battle. There are others who are good in the dark Afghuiis, Himelian hillmen, the pygmies of southern Rushbut the Picts are the best. I have fought them and lived among them."
"It is no manner for men to fight," said Siggeir haughtily.
"Nonetheless," Alcuina said quietly, "someone must carry out this task, and it is Conan who has this skill. And if it is to be done, my champion is the one who deserves that honor."
"I wish you well, Conan," Leovigild said. "If any can defeat lilma's familiars, it must be you."
The sliver of a crescent moon was rising over the hills to the east when Conan betook himself to the walk atop the palisade. The small band gathered atop the wall stared in wonder at the Cimmerian's bizarre appearance. He was dressed all in black wolfskins, and he had blackened his face and arms with a mixture of wax and soot. The buckles and metal fittings on his swordbelt had been wrapped in dark cloth to hide them and to muffle any sound they might make. A strip of leather about his brow held his shoulder-length hair in place.
"It is time," he said.
"Father Ymir watch over you," Rerin said.
Conan grinned without mirth. "Crom is my god. It is said that he and Ymir are not on the best of terms. When the fighting begins, I trust to my sword arm."
"The huntsmen say they are not far," said Alcuina, with her sure grasp of practicalities, "but moving slowly, as you predicted. Good fortune, Cimmerian, but use caution. This is but a sally to weaken lilma. The true battle is yet to come, and I shall have need of your services at that time."
"Fear not, Alcuina," said Conan, "I'll not deprive you of my services untimely." He sprang to the top of the palisade, hesitated for a moment, then leaped outward, ignoring the rope that had been hung from a post. There was always a possibility that Totila had sent a scout to watch the gate, so it had been decided that Conan should leave from the opposite wall.
He landed lightly, taking the shock on bent knees, with the assurance of perfect balance. The faint moonlight transformed the snow-covered field into a mantle of cloth of silver. In the distance, he could barely discern the standing stones.
The huntsmen had said that Totila's force was com-ing through the eastern uplands. Conan set off in that direction, traveling at a mile-eating trot that he could maintain all night. Within minutes he was in the forest, and he moved amid the pines with as much assurance as he had upon the plain, his eyes as keen as an owl's in the dimness.
At the end of four hours Conan was still not breathing heavily. He slowed, knowing that Totila's force could not be far. It was the smell of smoke on the still air that told him he was near his destination. The smell of smoke led him toward the glow of banked fires in the distance.
A rough count of the fires gave him an estimate of the enemy's strength. The war-band was larger than he had anticipated. Totila must be a man of force and ability to have mobilized so many men in the depths of winter.
Conan scouted the periphery of the camp, probing for weak points and the location of the leaders. As he had anticipated, there were no sentries posted. A hardened robber-band such as Totila's would consider such precautions to be weak and effeminate. After a full circuit, he had seen no tent or bower set up within the camp. Apparently Totila slept upon the ground, wrapped in his cloak the same as his warriors. He led by example. That was another thing to remember.
This night, though, Conan's quarry was not Tot
ila. The wizard lilma would be somewhere close by, and Conan would wager that the wizard was not sleeping in his cloak like a common warrior. The air was nearly still, but there was the faintest of breezes apparent to the Cimmerian's sharp senses. He crept a short distance downwind and sat with his back to a tree, his eyes closed and, to any casual observer, asleep. He was not asleep. He was sorting through sense-impressions with the concentration and attention to detail of a Zamoran inquisitor.
There were few sounds to study, but the smell of smoke lay heavy in the air. Most came from the low-burning embers of the warriors' fires, and it had the sharp tang of common pine wood. Soon, though, he sorted another smell. It was smoke, but not that of pine alone. This smoke had other smells he did not recognize, possibly herbs and bark. It was for this that he had been searching.
Conan rose and began to follow the scent-trail. It led him upwind of the camp, into a small fold between two low hills. Now he could hear sounds as well, strange rattlings and croakings. He spied a large clump of brush on one slope and made his way toward it. Dropping to his belly, he crawled the rest of the way beneath the overhanging bushes. A few minutes of this slow progress brought him to the source of the sounds and the strange smoke.
In the narrow fold between the hills was a tent of reindeer hides, and before it sat a man clad in identical skins, with the horns of that beast crowning his headdress. He was chanting softly, shaking a rattle in odd patterns over a tiny fire, which bumed in a multitude of unnatural colors. Conan searched for the source of the clacking and croaking sounds and soon found it.
A few paces from the fire stood the magpies. In the past he had spied them flying high above Alcuina's garth. Then they had behaved like ordinary birds. Now their actions sent a chill of fascinated horror through the Cimmerian. They were croaking and making other, less nameable sounds in time with lilma's chant, and their heads bobbed rhythmically. Occasionally they stepped to right or left, as if in some primitive dance. Most uncannily they moved in perfect lockstep, as if both were controlled by a single will.
What hellish wizard-craft was the Hyperborean brewing now? It would be some devilment to strengthen Totila's hand, or to undermine Alcuina's position. Perhaps even an attempt upon his own life. It was a temptation simply to dash into the clearing and cut the wizard down in midspell. Rerin had warned him against any such foolhardy act. lilma, he had said, was a
cqnan the champion
sorcerer who dealt with dark forces and would assuredly have provided elementary safeguards for his own security. A wizard had trouble enough protecting himself from the demons he manipulated without hav-ing to worry about mere mortal men striking them down. They were at their most vulnerable when in the midst of spell-casting, a task that demanded all their concentration. Like other men, they were vulnerable when asleep. Vulnerable did not mean defenseless. His speculations ceased as he saw a dim, insubstantial form appear above the fire. What might this be?
As lilma chanted and the birds croaked, the figure gained apparent solidity, although it remained suspended over the colored flames as if it had no weight. It had the appearance of a man. The face was indistinct, but it looked to be a young man, with long, yellow hair. It looked, Conan thought, almost like Leovigild. Was the wizard spying upon the youth? That could not be, for this phantom was unbandaged and was dressed in the type of clothes worn for hunting or fighting.
Abruptly lilma's chant broke off, and he waved his hands in a gesture of dismissal. The wraith faded out, and the fire ceased to burn in unnatural colors. As the flames reverted to normal hues, lilma said something to the birds. Conan did not recognize the language, but he heard the note of triumph in the words. Shrewdly, the Cimmerian guessed that the wizard was testing some spell mat he would use at a later time, and now he was confident of his mastery. The magpies bobbed their heads as if in agreement.
Conan's blood chilled as one of the birds turned, its eyes burning brighter than the embers of the fire. Its stare was directed straight toward him. In an instant both birds and the mage were glaring toward him, as if their eyes could penetrate the intervening brush and gloom.
"Who dares to spy upon my rites?" hissed out the wizard.
Without hesitation Conan sprang to his feet and strode into the clearing before the hut. His sword slid from its sheath in a blurring motion, and the sorcerer flinched back, his hands beginning an arcane gesture.
But Conan's blade was not aimed at the Hyperborean. Instead it flashed in the firelight as a blur before striking one of the magpies. The Cimmerian had expected the bird to turn instantly to a mass of blood and feathers, but he was shocked at the solid impact that shook his arm from palm to shoulder. It was as if he had squarely struck some far larger creature.
He wrenched the sword back and whirled a cut at the other bird, but the creature had darted back and was beginning to transform itself into something other than an earthly being. The Cimmerian watched in dread as lilma began a rapid chant and the feathered wings grew. Feathers became glittering scales as the wings grew leathery. The legs lengthened as well, becoming a per-version of human limbs but retaining birdlike feet with bronze talons tipping the hooked toes.
Conan knew that he was seeing the creature's true form now; a hideous combination of man, bird, and reptile, standing a head taller than himself, with a gaping, fanged beak from which a black, serpentlike tongue lolled and writhed and seemed to have a life of its own. Only the burning, hate-filled eyes were the same, freezing Conan with a basilisk stare as it reached for him with the claw-tipped upper joints of its wings.
The action shook Conan from his brief paralysis, and he leaped to die attack. Darting between the outstretched claws, he hewed at the shoulder-joint of the left wing. Rerin had said that these creatures, if they were to live in the world of men, must obey certain basic laws of that world. This meant mat they could be injured and killed. The sword struck with a meaty crunch and foul-smelling fluid splattered Conan. He wrenched the blade free and struck like lightning at the opposite shoulder. Unexpectedly he was struck a vicious blow across the face just as his sword sliced into the unnaturally tough flesh. He staggered back, dazed and unaware from where the blow had come. Then he saw the thick tongue lashing back and forth, stained with his own blood.
The demon-bird wailed continuously in an ear-shredding shriek, its wings sagging on their injured shoulders while lilma kept up a demented chanting. Abruptly the creature sprang toward Conan, its taloned feet outstretched like those of a falcon stooping upon a victim. Conan thrust at the thing's belly and felt the blade sink in as claws struck his chest and bore him, backward to the ground. The wide-spread toes tightened, and he felt talons begin to sink into his shoulders and back as he pushed and twisted his sword, now buried deep in the beast's entrails.
The demon-bird leaned forward; its beak gaped wide as the snake-tongue lashed forth. A numbing impact struck Oman's shoulder, and there was a sizzling sound accompanied by a sickening stench of burning hair. The tongue drew back and poised over Conan's face. It was tipped with a circular mouth, rimmed with tiny, jagged teeth, and oozing a foul fluid. He knew
that only his heavy furs had saved him. For that mouth to touch his flesh would be death.
Desperately Conan wrenched his sword from the thing's belly. His shoulders Were too constricted to swing the weapon effectively. As the gaping beak came forward, he jammed the blade between those jaws, turned so that the double edges were against upper and lower beak. Instinctively the demon-bird bit down. The keen edge of the sword sheared through the deadly tongue and the obscene member fell away to writhe upon the ground.
The demon-bird's grip upon Conan loosened as it shrieked out its agony. The Cimmerian wrenched himself free and scrambled away from the thing as it writhed on the ground, its "blood" pumping from its mouth. Gradually the thing began to lose its shape as its strength faded, melting into graying slime that liquified and was drunk by the earth.
Then Conan was struck a heavy blow from behind. Instead of sp
rawling, he rolled as he hit the ground, springing up to face the direction from which the blow had come, sword outstretched to meet the new danger.
The other demon-bird! In his desperate fight he had forgotten the other. It was severely injured, its transformation incomplete. Its right side was cloven, and the dangling right wing still bore the glossy plumage of the earthly bird. It hissed and lurched to the attack.
Conan felt weakened from his ordeal and did not want to contest with the thing's powerful talons and deadly serpent-tongue. As he backed away he heard the continuing chant of the Hyperborean. Holding the creature at a distance with the point of his sword, he risked a glance at the wizard, who stood a few paces behind
him, his eyes shut in concentration as he wove his spell.
Conan continued to back away, his steps taking him toward lilma. When he judged his distance to be right, he whirled and struck out at the mage, continuing the movement into a full spin that ended with him facing the demon-bird again. The move was too swift for the thing to take advantage of his momentarily turned back.
The desperate blow had not severely injured the mage. The distance had been too great, so that only the tip of the blade gouged a superficial cut across the wizard's cheek. But his concentration was broken. The chant faltered as the wizard's eyes widened in amazement, and his hand went to his injured cheek.
As the chant slowed and stopped, the demon-bird sagged in weakness. This was all the advantage Conan needed. Instantly he dashed in, hacking at the thing with swift, powerful blows, which it was now too weak to avoid. He hewed at neck, shoulders, and legs as the beast squalled and began to collapse. As it fell forward he dived out of its way, and then he was on his feet again, slashing at its spine. He continued to rain blows upon the creature until it was a quivering mass of not-flesh that was beginning to change color.
Then he stepped back and looked for lilma. The Cimmerian's chest heaved like a bellows from the exertion of the ferocious battle. It would be good if he could finish things now by slaying the Hyperborean. Without the birds, the wizard had lost much of his bodily protection. But lilma was nowhere to be seen. Conan searched the snow for fresh tracks, but he could discern none. Cursing, he cleaned his fouled blade and sheathed it.
The Conan Compendium Page 478