The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  “What does this mean?” asked Achilea. Even as she spoke, an owl swooped upon the mouse just below them. The owl’s passage was absolutely silent, but the mouse voiced a shrill squeak in the instant before its neck was broken by the bird’s beak. A few men near the fire turned to look toward the sound, and the two warriors froze into even greater stillness than before. The owl flew off with its prey, and the men returned their attention to their dinner and their tasks.

  “You see that man in the red boots nearest the fire?” Conan whispered.

  “Your friend from Zardas?”

  “Aye, it is he. That man in the turban next to him―he seems to be the one in authority.”

  She studied the man. His clothing was purple: a vaunting, royal color for one riding the desert with villainous-looking companions. “So it appears.” she agreed.

  “We must work our way closer if we would hear anything,” he said. “We will loop to the north and come in from that direction.”

  ‘It will cost us time,” she protested. “We can crawl around the end of this dune, through that gully of sand and to yonder outcropping of rock without being seen.”

  “We could,” Conan told her, “but in the morning, they might see signs of our passing. They came down from the north upon our trail and it is unlikely that they will retrace their steps in the morning. Even if someone goes out to scout their back trail, our tracks will be so mixed with theirs and our own from the day before that only a Pict trailmaster could sort them out.”

  “Aye, that would be the most prudent. If we must be cautious, let us be cautious all the way.”

  They crawled back down the slope of the dune and trotted to the north crouched low, hands on hilts to hold their weapons still.

  “What mink you about that fire?” Achilea asked as they cut to the west.

  “Sorcery,” he said in a sour voice. “It is a wizard we have on our trail.”

  ‘It seems a good kind of magick to have when crossing the desert,” she said. “Fire without fuel. If he can magick up water as well, they have had an easy crossing.”

  “There is no such thing as good magick,” Conan insisted..

  “Traffic with uncanny powers bothers you?” she asked, sounding amused. “I dislike it when it is used against me, but magick in my own favor is like any other sort of advantage.”

  “If you use magick,” he said stolidly, “the price always proves to be greater than the advantage.”

  “Have it your own way,” she said with a shrug, the thick muscles of her shoulders rolling beautifully in the moonlight. “It is nothing to me. Ah, here we are.”

  They had come upon a multitude of tracks left by their own camels and those of the followers. They turned to walk back south through the midst of the tracks. When they came within sight of the tethered camels, they paused. Between the ever-shifting feet of the camels, they could see winking the light of the uncanny fire. About half of the beasts knelt, their ungainly legs folded beneath them.

  “We can best work our way closer through the camels,” Conan said. “There is little other cover.”

  “Will they not be alarmed and give us away?” Achilea was still uncomfortable around the beasts.

  She would have had no qualms about going among horses.

  “By this time, we smell like camels, too,” he reassured her, “Besides, camels make noise all night They should take no notice if we are careful. The sentry on this side patrols back and forth about a hundred paces. I will work my way close and go in when he gets near to his next turn. You come in after me on the turn after.”

  “And if we are discovered?”

  “They are too many to fight. Pick a direction and run into the desert. We will rendezvous back at our campsite.”

  “Very well,” she said. “Go ahead.”

  Stealthy as a stalking cat in high grass, the Cimmerian worked his way toward the sentry. As he drew nearer, he saw dial the man was not one born to the desert. He wore long trousers and a padded jacket, not desert robes, and cradled in his arms was a crossbow. The weapon was all but unknown in these regions. He hummed as he walked, his eyes sweeping the desert beyond the firelight at intervals.

  This as well revealed that he was foreign to these parts. They were the habits of a soldier accustomed to walking sentry atop the walls of a keep. A desert tribesman did far less walking and more listening. In the desert night, the ears were of exceedingly more use than the eyes.

  The regular beat was another sign of inexperience. On a castle wall, it was of no account, but on a perimeter vulnerable to infiltration, it was a gift to an enemy, telling him exactly which way the man would be facing, and when. Conan waited until the sentry was ten paces from his turning point, facing away from him, and he slithered on his belly into the herd of camels. A few of the beasts looked his way, but they maintained their attitude of bored indifference.

  He paused and remained absolutely still. A few minutes later, Achilea crawled up beside him. This time, they did not exchange words, but began to inch their way nearer to the fire, Conan found a camel kneeling broadside to the fire and he worked his way next to it until he lay alongside, his flank pressed against the camel’s ribs as he inched his head forward to look past the beast, his face beneath its lordly, high-arched neck. Somewhere near him, he knew that Achilea was doing the same. He knew that her tribe’s solitary time in the wilderness had taught the young warrior-women well, for thus far, he had no criticism of her nighttime stalking craft.

  He told himself to forget the woman for the nonce and concentrate upon the men before him, who had finished their meal and now sat upon carpets spread across the sand. They rested their backs against their camel saddles and sipped their pungent herb-tea. He saw that about half were desert men, probably men hired for their expertise in the desert and with camels, for they wore the regalia of at least three different tribes. The rest, like the sentry, had the look of soldiers. Some of them polished armor or cared for weapons, and he saw at least three more crossbows. They were a disparate lot, and he assumed them to be mercenaries. The crossbows were powerful and accurate weapons, but murderously slow to

  reload and doubly so on camelback. The desert people favored snort, fast-shooting bows.

  The rest of the men favored curved swords, long, light lances and small, round shields. As he watched, he saw a man, satisfied that his breastplate was properly polished, slip it into a cloth cover and put it away in a saddle pack. As be had guessed, these men kept their armor packed away while upon the desert. Every military detail was important. Now he studied Vladig and the man in the purple turban.

  Only the Cimmerian’s iron self-control kept him from jumping when, abruptly, the purple-clad man clapped his hands three times, rapidly. The flames died down until there was nothing but a pulsing glow where they had been, Conan saw that the glow came from what looked like a heap of crystals laid upon a flat stone.

  “We’ve no need for heat now,” said the turbaned man. “There is no sense in using magickal essence without need.”

  “As you say, my Lord Arsaces,” Vladig said, speaking not quite as unctuously as Amram. Even so, Conan’s keen ears caught the unmistakable tones of the stooge and toady in the man’s speech, “How much longer?” asked a desert man. “Thy magickal arts have served us well. Lord Arsaces.

  Never have I known men of the sands to penetrate so far into the Empty Lands, but now we near the end of our range. If we would return home with every man and every camel, we must turn around soon.”

  “Wherefore, my friend Dauda?” said Arsaces mildly. “Have I not kept you supplied with fire, needing no wood or brush?” He gestured toward the gently pulsing glow of the crystals. “Have I not found springs for you where even the men of the desert thought there was no water?”

  “You did so, my lord, and we honor you for it, but the gods of the sands are mocked at one’s peril.

  If they should glance in our direction and take note that we have flaunted the deadly barriers they have erect
ed to safeguard their domain, they may take a fearful vengeance.”

  “You exaggerate your importance in the scheme of things, Dauda,” Arsaces said, a faint sneer in his voice. “The gods take no note of the doings of mere mortals, save they be great wizards, able to disturb the profound thoughts of divine beings.”

  “That is not the teaching of our ancestors, magician,” said Dauda with a bit less respect in his voice.

  “We are taught to honor the laws of the gods and to avoid incurring their wrath, lest not only the individual, but the tribe, too, suffers.”

  “Commendable piety,” Arsaces said. “Especially since it comes from raiders, thieves and unhung rogues!”

  Dauda seemed to be unmoved by this calumny. “What care we for the laws of lesser men, of merchants and townsmen? It is the laws of the desert gods to which I refer, and it seems to me that we risk offending them.”

  “No matter,” said Vladig, smoothly interposing his voice into a situation that threatened to turn ugly, “We will reach our destination in a day or two, it that not so, my lord?”

  Arsaces glared at Dauda, then said. “Aye, it is so. No more than two days.”

  Vladig turned to the desert man. “You see? Just two more days, eh? Our camels still have fat humps, and we ourselves are far from dry. Just two more days, and then we turn back. Is that not acceptable?”

  Dauda’s hand, which had strayed toward his sword-hilt, slowly dropped away. “We can survive another two days, aye. But no more than that.”

  “Enough of this …” Arsaces paused as the crystals before him began to flicker. They looked as if they were giving off tiny sparks and they shifted about restively. “What is this?” he mused.

  “What means it, my lord?” Vladig asked.

  The wizard began to mutter beneath his breath and the crystals shifted more energetically. Conan’s scalp prickled as they rose and assumed a vaguely human shape, crouching and turning in the manner of a man peering around him, trying to see something obscured by distance or darkness. Then it halted and extended a crystalline “arm” toward the direction of the camel herd. Most of the desert men were upset by the uncanny thing and fingered amulets while they muttered counterspells against evil, but Dauda

  looked out toward the herd.

  “Khazim,” he said, “go you and see if anything is among the beasts.”

  “A spy?” Vladig asked.

  “The camels should make more noise if it were,” said Dauda, “but look anyway.”

  The man named Khazim approached the herd, drawing his sword. Two or three others joined him, their weapons ready. One of mem strode toward the camel behind which Conan lay. The Cimmerian knew that at night, men see motion first, shape second, and color not at all. The essence of not being seen at night lay in keeping perfectly still. When he set his mind to it, Conan of Cimmeria could make a stone seem like a lively object. At need, he could allow a fly to walk across the surface of his eyeball without blinking.

  The man strode right by him, seeing no movement, no man-shape, taking no note of the lumpish form next to the camel. He peered about, squinting over his veil. “I see naught here. Is there anything over there, Wakir?”

  “Only my ill-tempered camel. That unholy homunculus is just―awwk!” The man’s exclamation of surprise came as he leapt back. “A sand-demon! And I trod upon it!” Something exploded from the sand at his feet, and then Wakir reeled back with his hands over his face, which had just been soundly rapped by the heavy pommel of a sword. The other men among the herd stood stupefied for a moment.

  “That is no demon!” shouted Arsaces, “It is a man! Take him alive!” Vladig rushed toward the scene of excitement, and Conan cursed beneath his breath as the camel next to him lurched to its feet. Now all the camels were shifting and groaning loudly, frightened at the sudden, unexpected activity erupting in the peaceful night.

  Conan got to his own feet, seeking to keep animals between himself and the questing men. He did not want to draw his blade lest it betray his location with its shine, but he kept his hand around its grip, ready for an instant draw.

  “Here he is!” shouted someone. Conan heard a crunch and a gasp. Then came a ring of steel. There was no help for it now. He could make an easy escape, but Achilea needed a distraction. The men around the crystal “fire” were all on their feet by this time, most of them with their weapons clear. Conan ran straight for them, whipping his sword clear of its sheath, bellowing a Cimmerian battle cry at the top of his formidable lungs.

  Men gaped openmouthed at this unwonted apparition from the depths of the desert night. But they were fierce rogues, and a man loomed before Conan, a shield raised and lance poised. The Cimmerian’s blade crunched the light shield inward as if it had been made of parchment, and the sound of an arm-bone snapping was audible above the man’s scream of surprise and pain. Another came in from Conan’s right and he sent the man to the ground with a backhanded blow, the flat of his blade catching me man across the jaw.

  Arsaces was on his feet, screaming in a tongue Conan did not know. The man made no effort to grasp a weapon, but his arms were raised, fingers crooked into the likeness of talons and clawing at the midnight air as his cries took on an ominous regularity and rhythm. Lights began to flash from his fingertips. Men were racing back from the camel herd to confront this new menace.

  “It is he!” Vladig cried, “The Cimmerian!” Sword in hand, be lurched forward.

  The men were coming from all sides. Deciding that Achilea, if she lived, had had all the distraction she was going to get that night, Conan knew it was time to leave. A blow of his sword and one from his fist sent two men flying and he charged through the space between mem. In seconds, be was beyond the circle of men. Behind him, he heard the twang of a crossbow string, then the whisper of a bolt passing over his shoulder. So much for all their careful preparations.

  From the camp came the continuing syllables of Arsaces’s roaring chant. He wondered where Achilea was.

  There were the sounds of footsteps chasing him for a while. Then a voice he recognized as belonging to the man named Dauda called out: “Come back! That one ran like an antelope and you’ll not

  catch him. Sentries! Were you asleep?”

  “What of the other one?” called a voice faint with the distance.

  “Escaped as well,” said a disgusted voice.

  “I still say it was a demon!”

  “Demons do not fight with steel, fool!” said Dauda.

  “The one who charged us was the man I spoke to in Zardas,” said Vladig. “I’ll wager the other was that sword-bearing wench.”

  “No woman did this to me!” cried a man with an edge of pain in his voice.

  Conan chuckled as he slowed to a walk. If they had accomplished little else with their foray, at least they had sown consternation and confusion among their followers. He knew that Achilea had made her escape, but he was concerned that she might have been wounded. No one back there claimed to have landed a blow upon her, but many things can happen in the confusion of a fight, especially one that takes place in darkness.

  He shook off the worry. There was no sense brooding upon that which he could not help. The sounds died away behind him. All but one. He stopped, listening and wondering what it might be. It was a keening, screeching sound, unlike anything he had ever heard, and it sent unpleasant ripples down his spine. Then he realized what it was: the chant of the wizard Arsaces, rising to a truly inhuman scale.

  Suddenly, it seemed a very good idea to get back to their camp as swiftly as possible. Conan began to trot. Then he broke into a run. He knew that running at night on such treacherous terrain was most unwise. Even a man with his great strength of limb and perfect balance could fall should a stone turn under his foot. He might step into an unseen hole and shatter his ankle. He could tread upon a swift, venomous viper and pay the price for disturbing it. Most awful of all, be might run out onto the powdery quicksand that could swallow a man mounted upon a camel. Going at headlong sp
eed, he could find himself knee-deep hi it without a chance of making his way to firmer sand.

  But just now he was ready to risk the lesser danger to escape the greater. For he knew that the wizard was up to some baleful magick, and it was certainly aimed at him. But if the mage did not know exactly where the Cimmerian was, he might have difficulty in directing his spell with accuracy. At least, Conan consoled himself with the thought. He had little choice. He feared no enemy who came at him with steel, but magicks were something else.

  As he ran, the moonlit landscape dimmed before his eyes. This was a puzzling thing. He glanced up at the moon and his blood ran cold, for the silvery orb had turned blood-red. Even as he looked, the stars began winking out, first the dimmer ones, then the brighter. He slowed to a trot as the whole desert grew dimmer and finally he began to walk. If it was unwise to run across the desert by moonlight, it was folly itself to do so in utter darkness.

  For true blackness was coming, no doubt of it. What wizard was so powerful that he could extinguish the moon and the stars? Surely, only me greatest of gods could do such a thing! Even as the thought came to him, he felt something gently sifting down upon him and he wiped a hand across his skin, where the stuff was collecting upon the sooty grease that streaked him. Mystified, he rubbed the gritty powder between thumb and fingertips. It was sand.

  Now he understood, after a fashion: The wizard had raised a sandstorm, but it was a sandstorm without wind. What could this portend? One thing he knew: In the desert, sand could be as deadly as any other of its multitude of hazards, and not just quicksand. The Cimmerian continued to walk toward the camp, and as he went, he stripped some of the rags from his sword and fashioned a veil to cover his mouth and nostrils, for already he was breathing sand.

  Soon he was walking slowly, putting one foot carefully before the other, his eyes slitted so that his lashes would filter out me worst of the sand. Even this was not effective with such fine powder, and constantly he had to blink away grains that got through. Even worse, he was no longer certain of his direction. He had an almost preternatural sense of direction, far more acute than that of a civilized man, honed by many years spent in every sort of wilderness, from the ice-fields of Asgard to the dense,