‘Galbro!’ ejaculated Zarono. ‘Dead! What—’ With sudden suspicion he thrust his head over the threshold, into the bluish mist that filled the inner cavern. And he screamed, chokingly: ‘There is death in the smoke!’
Even as he screamed, Conan hurled his weight against the four men bunched in the doorway, sending them staggering – but not headlong into the mist-filled cavern as he had planned. They were recoiling at the sight of the dead man and the realization of the trap, and his violent push, while it threw them off their feet, yet failed of the result he desired. Strom and Zarono sprawled half over the threshold on their knees, the boatswain tumbling over their legs, and the executioner caromed against the wall. Before Conan could follow up his ruthless intention of kicking the fallen men into the cavern and holding the door against them until the poisonous mist did its deadly work, he had to turn and defend himself against the frothing onslaught of the executioner who was the first to regain his balance and his wits.
The buccaneer missed a tremendous swipe with his headsman’s sword as the Cimmerian ducked, and the great blade banged against the stone wall, spattering blue sparks. The next instant his skull-faced head rolled on the cavern-floor under the bite of Conan’s cutlass.
In the split seconds this swift action consumed, the boatswain regained his feet and fell on the Cimmerian raining blows with a cutlass that would have overwhelmed a lesser man. Cutlass met cutlass with a ring of steel that was deafening in the narrow cavern. The two captains rolled back across the threshold, gagging and gasping, purple in the face and too near strangled to shout, and Conan redoubled his efforts, in an endeavor to dispose of his antagonist and cut down his rivals before they could recover from the effects of the poison. The boatswain dripped blood at each step, as he was driven back before the ferocious onslaught, and he began desperately to bellow for his companions. But before Conan could deal the finishing stroke the two chiefs, gasping but murderous, came at him with swords in their hands, croaking for their men.
The Cimmerian bounded back and leaped out onto the ledge. He felt himself a match for all three men, though each was a famed swordsman, but he did not wish to be trapped by the crews which would come charging up the path at the sound of the battle.
These were not coming with as much celerity as he expected, however. They were bewildered at the sounds and muffled shouts issuing from the cavern above them but no man dared start up the path for fear of a sword in the back. Each band faced the other tensely, grasping their weapons but incapable of decision, and when they saw the Cimmerian bound out on the ledge, they still hesitated. While they stood with their arrows nocked he ran up the ladder of handholds niched in the rock near the cleft, and threw himself prone on the summit of the crag, out of their sight.
The captains stormed out on the ledge, raving and brandishing their swords, and their men, seeing their leaders were not at sword-strokes, ceased menacing each other, and gaped bewilderedly.
‘Dog!’ screamed Zarono. ‘You planned to poison us! Traitor!’ Conan mocked them from above.
‘Well, what did you expect? You two were planning to cut my throat as soon as I got the plunder for you. If it hadn’t been for that fool Galbro I’d have trapped the four of you, and explained to your men how you rushed in heedless to your doom.’
‘And with us both dead, you’d have taken my ship, and all the loot too!’ frothed Strom.
‘Aye! And the pick of each crew! I’ve been wanting to get back on the Main for months, and this was a good opportunity!
‘It was Galbro’s foot-prints I saw on the trail. I wonder how the fool learned of this cave, or how he expected to lug away the loot by himself.’
‘But for the sight of his body we’d have walked into that death-trap,’ muttered Zarono, his swarthy face still ashy. ‘That blue smoke was like unseen fingers crushing my throat.’
‘Well, what are you going to do?’ their unseen tormentor yelled sardonically.
‘What are we to do?’ Zarono asked Strom. ‘The treasure-cavern is filled with that poisonous mist, though for some reason it does not flow across the threshold.’
‘You can’t get the treasure,’ Conan assured them with satisfaction from his aerie. ‘That smoke will strangle you. It nearly got me, when I stepped in there. Listen, and I’ll tell you a tale the Picts tell in their huts when the fires burn low! Once, long ago, twelve strange men came out of the sea, and found a cave and heaped it with gold and and jewels; but a Pictish shaman made magic and the earth shook, and smoke came out of the earth and strangled them where they sat at wine. The smoke, which was the smoke of hell’s fire, was confined within the cavern by the magic of the wizard. The tale was told from tribe to tribe, and all the clans shun the accursed spot.
‘When I crawled in there to escape the Eagle-Picts, I realized that the old legend was true, and referred to old Tranicos and his men. An earthquake cracked the rock floor of the cavern while he and his captains sat at wine, and let the mist out of the depths of the earth – doubtless out of hell, as the Picts say. Death guards old Tranicos’ treasure!’
‘Bring up the men!’ frothed Strom. ‘We’ll climb up and hew him down!’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ snarled Zarono. ‘Do you think any man on earth could climb those hand-holds in the teeth of his sword? We’ll have the men up here, right enough, to feather him with shafts if he dares show himself. But we’ll get those gems yet. He had some plan of obtaining the loot, or he wouldn’t have brought thirty men to bear it back. If he could get it, so can we. We’ll bend a cutlass-blade to make a hook, tie it to a rope and cast it about the leg of that table, then drag it to the door.’
‘Well thought, Zarono!’ came down Conan’s mocking voice. ‘Exactly what I had in mind. But how will you find your way back to the beach-path? It’ll be dark long before you reach the beach, if you have to feel your way through the woods, and I’ll follow you and kill you one by one in the dark.’
‘It’s no empty boast,’ muttered Strom. ‘He can move and strike in the dark as subtly and silently as a ghost. If he hunts us back through the forest, few of us will live to see the beach.’
‘Then we’ll kill him here,’ gritted Zarono. ‘Some of us will shoot at him while the rest climb the crag. If he is not struck by arrows, some of us will reach him with our swords. Listen! Why does he laugh?’
‘To hear dead men making plots,’ came Conan’s grimly amused voice.
‘Heed him not,’ scowled Zarono, and lifting his voice, shouted for the men below to join him and Strom on the ledge.
The sailors started up the slanting trail, and one started to shout a question. Simultaneously there sounded a hum like that of an angry bee, ending in a sharp thud. The buccaneer gasped and blood gushed from his open mouth. He sank to his knees, clutching the black shaft that quivered in his breast. A yell of alarm went up from his companions.
‘What’s the matter?’ shouted Strom.
‘Picts!’ bawled a pirate, lifting his bow and loosing blindly. At his side a man moaned and went down with an arrow through his throat.
‘Take cover, you fools!’ shrieked Zarono. From his vantage-point he glimpsed painted figures moving in the bushes. One of the men on the winding path fell back dying. The rest scrambled hastily down among the rocks about the foot of the crag. They took cover clumsily, not used to this kind of fighting. Arrows flickered from bushes, splintering on the boulders. The men on the ledge lay prone at full length.
‘We’re trapped!’ Strom’s face was pale. Bold enough with a deck under his feet, this silent, savage warfare shook his ruthless nerves.
‘Conan said they feared this crag,’ said Zarono. ‘When night falls the men must climb up here. We’ll hold the crag. The Picts won’t rush us.’
‘Aye!’ mocked Conan above them. ‘They won’t climb the crag to get at you, that’s true. They’ll merely surround it and keep you here until you all die of thirst and starvation.’
‘He speaks truth,’ said Zarono helplessly. ‘What
shall we do?’
‘Make a truce with him,’ muttered Strom. ‘If any man can get us out of this jam, he can. Time enough to cut his throat later.’ Lifting his voice he called: ‘Conan, let’s forget our feud for the time being. You’re in this fix as much as we are. Come down and help us out of it.’
‘How do you figure that?’ retorted the Cimmerian. ‘I have but to wait until dark, climb down the other side of this crag and melt into the forest. I can crawl through the line the Picts have thrown around this hill, and return to the fort to report you all slain by the savages – which will shortly be truth!’
Zarono and Strom stared at each other in pallid silence.
‘But I’m not going to do that!’ Conan roared. ‘Not because I have any love for you dogs, but because a white man doesn’t leave white men, even his enemies, to be butchered by Picts.’
The Cimmerian’s tousled black head appeared over the crest of the crag.
‘Now listen closely: that’s only a small band down there. I saw them sneaking through the brush when I laughed, a while ago. Anyway, if there had been many of them, every man at the foot of the crag would be dead already. I think that’s a band of fleet-footed young men sent ahead of the main war-party to cut us off from the beach. I’m certain a big war-band is heading in our direction from somewhere.
‘They’ve thrown a cordon around the west side of the crag, but I don’t think there are any on the east side. I’m going down on that side and get in the forest and work around behind them. Meanwhile, you crawl down the path and join your men among the rocks. Tell them to sling their bows and draw their swords. When you hear me yell, rush the trees on the west side of the clearing.’
‘What of the treasure?’
‘To hell with the treasure! We’ll be lucky if we get out of here with our heads on our shoulders.’
The black-maned head vanished. They listened for sounds to indicate that Conan had crawled to the almost sheer eastern wall and was working his way down, but they heard nothing. Nor was there any sound in the forest. No more arrows broke against the rocks where the sailors were hidden. But all knew that fierce black eyes were watching with murderous patience. Gingerly Strom, Zarono and the boatswain started down the winding path. They were halfway down when the black shafts began to whisper around them. The boatswain groaned and toppled limply down the slope, shot through the heart. Arrows shivered on the helmets and breastplates of the chiefs as they tumbled in frantic haste down the steep trail. They reached the foot in a scrambling rush and lay panting among the boulders, swearing breathlessly.
‘Is this more of Conan’s trickery?’ wondered Zarono profanely.
‘We can trust him in this matter,’ asserted Strom. ‘These barbarians live by their own particular code of honor, and Conan would never desert men of his own complexion to be slaughtered by people of another race. He’ll help us against the Picts, even though he plans to murder us himself – hark!’
A blood-freezing yell knifed the silence. It came from the woods to the west, and simultaneously an object arched out of the trees, struck the ground and rolled bouncingly towards the rocks – a severed human head, the hideously painted face frozen in a snarl of death.
‘Conan’s signal!’ roared Strom, and the desperate freebooters rose like a wave from the rocks and rushed headlong toward the woods.
Arrows whirred out of the bushes, but their flight was hurried and erratic, only three men fell. Then the wild men of the sea plunged through the fringe of foliage and fell on the naked painted figures that rose out of the gloom before them. There was a murderous instant of panting, ferocious effort, hand-to-hand, cutlasses beating down war-axes, booted feet trampling naked bodies, and then bare feet were rattling through the bushes in headlong flight as the survivors of that brief carnage quit the fray, leaving seven still, painted figures stretched on the blood-stained leaves that littered the earth. Further back in the thickets sounded a thrashing and heaving, and then it ceased and Conan strode into view, his lacquered hat gone, his coat torn, his cutlass dripping in his hand.
‘What now?’ panted Zarono. He knew the charge had succeeded only because Conan’s unexpected attack on the rear of the Picts had demoralized the painted men, and prevented them from falling back before the rush. But he exploded into curses as Conan passed his cutlass through a buccaneer who writhed on the ground with a shattered hip.
‘We can’t carry him with us,’ grunted Conan. ‘It wouldn’t be any kindness to leave him to be taken alive by the Picts. Come on!’
They crowded close at his heels as he trotted through the trees. Alone they would have sweated and blundered among the thickets for hours before they found the beach-trail – if they had ever found it. The Cimmerian led them as unerringly as if he had been following a blazed path, and the rovers shouted with hysterical relief as they burst suddenly upon the trail that ran westward.
‘Fool!’ Conan clapped a hand on the shoulder of a pirate who started to break into a run, and hurled him back among his companions. ‘You’ll burst your heart and fall within a thousand yards. We’re miles from the beach. Take an easy gait. We may have to sprint the last mile. Save some of your wind for it. Come on, now.’
He set off down the trail at a steady jog-trot; the seamen followed him, suiting their pace to his.
The sun was touching the waves of the western ocean. Tina stood at the window from which Belesa had watched the storm.
‘The setting sun turns the ocean to blood,’ she said. ‘The carack’s sail is a white fleck on the crimson waters. The woods are already darkened with clustering shadows.’
‘What of the seamen on the beach?’ asked Belesa languidly. She reclined on a couch, her eyes closed, her hands clasped behind her head.
‘Both camps are preparing their supper,’ said Tina. ‘They gather driftwood and build fires. I can hear them shouting to one another – what is that?’
The sudden tenseness in the girl’s tone brought Belesa upright on the couch. Tina grasped the window-sill, her face white.
‘Listen! A howling, far off, like many wolves!’
‘Wolves?’ Belesa sprang up, fear clutching her heart. ‘Wolves do not hunt in packs at this time of the year—’
‘Oh, look!’ shrilled the girl, pointing. ‘Men are running out of the forest!’
In an instant Belesa was beside her, staring wide-eyed at the figures, small in the distance, streaming out of the woods.
‘The sailors!’ she gasped. ‘Empty-handed! I see Zarono – Strom—’
‘Where is Conan?’ whispered the girl.
Belesa shook her head.
‘Listen! Oh, listen!’ whimpered the child, clinging to her. ‘The Picts!’
All in the fort could hear it now – a vast ululation of mad exultation and blood-lust, from the depths of the dark forest.
That sound spurred on the panting men reeling toward the palisade. ‘Hasten!’ gasped Strom, his face a drawn mask of exhausted effort. ‘They are almost at our heels. My ship—’
‘She is too far out for us to reach,’ panted Zarono. ‘Make for the stockade. See, the men camped on the beach have seen us!’ He waved his arms in breathless pantomime, but the men on the strand understood, and they recognized the significance of that wild howling, rising to a triumphant crescendo. The sailors abandoned their fires and cooking-pots and fled for the stockade gate. They were pouring through it as the fugitives from the forest rounded the south angle and reeled into the gate, a heaving, frantic mob, half-dead from exhaustion. The gate was slammed with frenzied haste, and sailors began to climb the firing-ledge, to join the men-at-arms already there.
Belesa confronted Zarono.
‘Where is Conan?’
The buccaneer jerked a thumb toward the blackening woods; his chest heaved; sweat poured down his face. ‘Their scouts were at our heels before we gained the beach. He paused to slay a few and give us time to get away.’
He staggered away to take his place on the firing-ledge, whither Strom
had already mounted. Valenso stood there, a somber, cloak-wrapped figure, strangely silent and aloof. He was like a man bewitched.
‘Look!’ yelped a pirate, above the deafening howling of the yet unseen horde.
A man emerged from the forest and raced fleetly across the open belt.
‘Conan!’
Zarono grinned wolfishly.
‘We’re safe in the stockade; we know where the treasure is. No reason why we shouldn’t feather him with arrows now.’
‘Nay!’ Strom caught his arm. ‘We’ll need his sword! Look!’
Behind the fleet-footed Cimmerian a wild horde burst from the forest, howling as they ran – naked Picts, hundreds and hundreds of them. Their arrows rained about the Cimmerian. A few strides more and Conan reached the eastern wall of the stockade, bounded high, seized the points of the logs and heaved himself up and over, his cutlass in his teeth. Arrows thudded venomously into the logs where his body had just been. His resplendent coat was gone, his white silk shirt torn and blood-stained.
‘Stop them!’ he roared as his feet hit the ground inside. ‘If they get on the wall, we’re done for!’
Pirates, buccaneers and men-at-arms responded instantly, and a storm of arrows and quarrels tore into the oncoming horde.
Conan saw Belesa, with Tina clinging to her hand, and his language was picturesque.
‘Get into the manor,’ he commanded in conclusion. ‘Their shafts will arch over the wall – what did I tell you?’ As a black shaft cut into the earth at Belesa’s feet and quivered like a serpent-head, Conan caught up a longbow and leaped to the firing-ledge. ‘Some of you fellows prepare torches!’ he roared, above the rising clamor of the battle. ‘We can’t fight them in the dark!’
The sun had sunk in a welter of blood; out in the bay the men aboard the carack had cut the anchor chain and the Red Hand was rapidly receding on the crimson horizon.
The Complete Chronicles of Conan: Centenary Edition Page 110