Conan the Rebel

by Poul Anderson

  But there was nothing worth its attention in the hills near Rasht; and lowland Stygians would not notice any sign of the thousands who were gathered to ambush them.

  'Let's go,' said Conan. He and his companions slithered off until they could safely walk upright.

  In a hollow beyond the crest, about a hundred horsemen and as many foot waited. More could not be assembled at one spot without betraying their presence. Few except these were mounted, but groups of comparable size lurked everywhere above the valley. Their scheme was to fall on the Stygians at numerous points, split the column into segments, and, when it was thus in disarray, fight a whole set of simultaneous battles until it was destroyed.

  Conan's gang would go first, meeting the enemy head-on; that would give signal and inspiration to the rest. Therefore his men had better gear than their kilted fellows: helmets, breastplates or byrnies, in some cases reinforced gauntlets or greaves or vambraces or other armour. Daris sprang to the saddle, herself wearing naught but tunic and leather cap, bow and quiver, dirk sheathed at the belt she had come to believe was lucky. From a lean grey clansman she took the banner she would carry: woven in the temple of Mitra, hung from a crossarm, a sunburst golden upon heaven-blue.

  'About time,' grumbled Sakumbe. 'It's been a weary while, and not a woman for any of us, no, not even much beer. The plunder today had better be good.'

  Conan grinned. The Suba were with him partly because he alone could talk to them, through their leader – but partly, too, because he knew their kind for grand fighters, and they would make his band the more conspicuous and fearsome. Their dark hides drank down the upland light, their alien outfits were somehow doubly menacing. 'Well,' said the Cimmerian, 'I dare say the king of Stygia does not travel like a beggar. What would you think of tableware made from precious metals and gems, or rare wines and spices, or silken raiment, or chests of money? Help yourselves!'

  Sakumbe gave a villainous chuckle and addressed his followers. They cheered, save for Gonga the witch doctor. That gaunt man stood armed for combat, but he had painted his cicatriced body in eldritch patterns, he wore a necklace of human teeth and fingerbones, a wand and rattle and pouch of magical stuffs hung at his waist.

  Falco edged close to Daris. The Ophirite had regained strength, was free of pain, but still rather lame. He insisted this made no difference as long as he sat his fine grey Stygian gelding. Besides cuirass and plumed morion, he had found a flamboyant scarlet cape to hang on his slender frame. The lance in his grasp quivered like an aspen in springtime.

  Himself agleam in chainmail and winged helmet, breeks tucked into steel-capped boots with gilt spurs, Conan turned to Ausar. He became as grave as the Taian. 'Now the storm rises,' he said, 'and none may foreknow the wind's path. May we meet again, victorious. If not, then I thank you for your kindness, chieftain, and ask that Mitra take you home to him.'

  'My thanks are to you, the thanks of all Taia,' answered Ausar. 'Whatever comes, while this folk live, the memory of you will abide.'

  They embraced. The native would lead an assault on the Stygian rearguard, lest it execute a flanking manoeuvre. For a moment, father and daughter clasped hands, before he departed.

  Conan mounted. For him, the rebels had captured a splendid charger, a great black stallion that whickered and pranced in eagerness. He patted the warm neck. 'So, so,' he murmured, 'you will have your fill of action today, I promise.' Muscles surged under his thighs, and he moved toward his destined hour.

  Daris rode her mare on his right, standard rippling above her. Falco was at her other hand. Incredibly to any who did not know him, Sakumbe's swag-bellied form kept easy pace afoot on the left. His tribesmen were close behind, heading up spearmen, axmen, swordsmen, archers, slingers. In front of these, to either side of the Cimmerian, lancers rode in the wedge formation favoured by Taians. They would be no match for skilled Stygian cavalry; but

  they hoped they could keep it busy until reinforcements arrived and then, perhaps, dismount to fight in their customary wise.

  Stones rattled. Tawny grass and dusty shrubs rustled. Harness creaked and jingled. The sounds of the enemy grew louder.

  Conan had not imagined he could burst upon his foe as if out of nowhere. He had, though, studied a route beforehand over which it was safe to go fast. Without that, his entire company might be picked off by arrows on its way. As he crossed the hillcrest, he broke into a trot.

  Downward! In minutes, the army below was no parade of ants seen in entirety; it was troopers whose weapons he mad out, it was sunlight reflected blindingly off a gilt war chariot and coach that must be the king's, it was the royal standard he meant to cast down, it was shouts and trumpeted alarms and a first sinister whistle of missiles.

  'Hoy-ah!' he roared. 'Taia and freedom!' Reaching down, he loosed the Ax of Varanghi from its fastenings at his saddlebow. It sang and gleamed as he whirled it aloft. Not every such weapon was suitable for use from horseback, but this one lived in his hands, sharp, agile, terrible.

  The valley floor was near. He galloped. His fellow riders came along. The runners fell behind, but they would soon arrive, and meanwhile it was needful to get away from arrows. In yonder crowded space, archers would be well-nigh useless, and no full-scale charge was possible.

  A Taian horseman toppled, a shaft in his throat. He struck the ground and rolled on in puffs of dust. Conan saw from the corner of an eye. He knew that man, had hoisted ale and traded jokes with him in camps where coals grew dim beneath midnight stars, had heard about his wife and children and old mother. Well, Crom gave no man more than the strength to die bravely.

  And now pavement hardened the clatter of hooves. Conan reined his mount around. His saddlemates joined him. Across yards, they confronted the steeds, cuirasses, helmets, levelled lances of a Stygian cavalry ten times their number.

  But the whole ten could not come at him together. If they went much off the highway, they would find themselves stumbling about on the slopes, among treacherous patches of talus, rocks, thorn bushes, rodent holes where an animal could easily break a leg. Again he swung the Ax on high. 'In line, advance!' he shouted, and spurred his destrier.

  The foe trotted forward to meet him, cantered, galloped. Hoof beats rolled like the steady drums behind them. Pennons, plumes, cloaks streamed to their speed. Shields lifted, lances took aim. Men and beasts grew huge in vision.

  According to his orders, Daris dropped behind Conan. Falco closed the gap, shaft held expertly across the neck of his grey.

  In a roar, combat began.

  A point sought Conan's mail-clad breast, to unseat him. Before it could strike, the Ax had sheared through wood. The Stygian got no chance to draw blade. Conan smote him under the jaw, and his head flew free. In a lightning flash of thought, the Cimmerian wondered who this man had been who had the honour of being the first in five hundred years to die beneath the Ax of Varanghi.

  Falco took an attacker in the throat, dropped his lance, whipped forth sabre, positioned shield, and closed with the next nearest foeman. Conan split the skull of a horse; its rider fell under hooves. Falco warded off a sword thrust and removed the fingers that had tried it. There was no more charging, there was affray that milled, pushed, clanged, grunted, yelled, gasped, cursed, sweater, bled, stabbed, slashed, smote.

  Tall on a tall steed, Conan got glimpses of how the battle went elsewhere. As expected, the Stygian riders had mostly overrun the Taian; but an unhorsed mountaineer, or one who had purposely jumped to earth, became twice as deadly, and meanwhile his animal encumbered the way. And now warriors, brown and black, bounded off hillsides into combat.

  The next division of the royal army, sword-wheeled chariots, rolled forward.

  Arrows sleeted from above. Horses, drivers, even heavy-armoured fighters fell, transfixed, dead or helpless. Wild, hallooing dirkmen got in among them, hamstringing, leaping up on cartbeds to grapple and slash. The entire Taian host was in onslaught. Conan saw banners sway and go down, he saw the Stygian column

&n
bsp; writhe along the miles like a broken-backed snake.

  'Bêlit, Bêlit!' he shouted, and hewed.

  'Senufer!' Falco echoed as his blade scythed.

  They cleared a space around themselves, red-running, piled high with mangled corpses and moaning wounded. Hundreds more Taians had sought to the banner of the Sun and the gleam of the ax. They cut their own way in among the Stygian cavalry. Sakumbe barrelled through the tumult, his knobkerrie a blur of violence. He had a trick of hitting a rider on the kneecap or a horse on the nose, then, while pain blinded the victim, sliding in the knife that his left hand gripped.

  Suddenly Conan had nobody to fight. He looked around him. Everywhere, Taians swarmed over bodies trampled into shapelessness. Their wolf-howls exulted, their steel shook off blood in showers. A few succoured injured comrades or keened briefly over the dead. More harried Stygian lancers across the hillsides, baying at them, loping faster than exhausted beasts could stumble.

  Farther on, abandoned chariots cluttered the road. Some careened empty behind panicked horses. Farther still, chaos ramped, scores of human maelstroms in which rebels closed with infantry, weapon-clink, clangour, shrieking.

  In front of this, however, and behind the chariots, a Stygian regiment stood firm inside a low wall of slain Taians. They surrounded the golden coach, and over their heads floated the banner of the Serpent.

  Conan gestured his close companions to him, Daris, Falco, and stark Ruma, who had commanded the reinforcements here at the van, and who had his Clan Farazi to avenge. 'Those must be their crack troops,' the Cimmerian said, pointing. 'Of the king's household, I suppose, and doubtless of Shuat's legion, too, who have experience in these parts. They could not be knocked over by surprise.' He frowned. 'In fact, we have won this encounter, but I think mainly because the enemy was light on horse and wheels. He did not foresee much need for them. His foot is hard pressed, aye, but could well rally, pull itself together, and cast our irregulars back.'

  'What should we do?' asked Ruma.

  Conan threw a glance across the swarming hillmen. Laughter growled from his breast. 'Why, attack,' he said. 'Break yonder shield-burg, scatter what soldiers we do not kill, stick Mentuphera's head on a pole and bear it onward. If that doesn't break the will of his army, I know nothing about warfare.'

  Falco whooped, tossed his sabre glittering through the air, caught and brandished it.

  Daris looked troubled. 'If we try and fail,' she said, 'I fear – I know my own folk – I fear the word may fly among them that you do not bear the true Ax, and they will be the ones who flee.'

  Faith blazed from Ruma. 'But it is the Ax, and Conan the Wielder!' he cried.

  The Cimmerian hefted his weapon. 'I have no more doubt, myself,' he said quietly. 'Shall we marshal our warriors?'

  That took a while, shouting, horn-blowing, exhorting. The king's men watched stolidly, swords, spears, bows at hand, ranks unshaken. The scattered fights beyond them raged on. Sometimes a Stygian band went under, sometimes it sent its Taian assailants reeling away and joined another group. Conan rode up a hill to oversee the entire business. Yes, he thought, if he had not overwhelmed their lord, soon, his enemies would re-form and the day would become theirs.

  Well, that was not going to happen. He returned. No weariness or hurt was in him, though he had taken his share of flesh wounds. He burned with lust of battle; his single wish was to strike down those creatures that stood between him and Bêlit.

  He, Daris, and Falco were the last of their company who remained mounted. He supposed his stallion could wreak ample harm while he chopped from above; but if he ended afoot, no matter, as long as the Ax played like a live thing in his hands. Hoy-ah!

  The Taians were ready, not a regiment but a pack and perhaps the more terrible for that. Dans' banner lifted proud. Conan took the lead. Ax raised like a torch, he touched spurs to his mount. Hooves banged on stone. Trot became canter. The Stygians lowered pikes and nocked arrows to bowstrings.

  Pain swooped upon Conan.

  It was as though a million fiery needles pierced skin, flesh, veins. He was burning alive. His guts cramped, wave after wave of agony. His muscles jerked, gone berserk, trying to snap the bones underneath them. Black mists rolled across his eyesight, it thundered in his ears, graveyard stenches assailed his nostrils. His heart skipped crazily in its rib cage, and for the first time in his life he feared his own death.

  The Ax clattered to earth. A moment afterward, he himself toppled and sprawled struggling before his men. Horror went through them like a night wind. They stopped in their tracks.

  Daris sprang from her stirrups, forgetting the banner of the Sun, which also fell in the dust. Frantic, she knelt beside him, sought to hold him, suffered the buffets of his uncontrolled hands. 'Conan, Conan, what is wrong?' she quavered. 'In Mitra's name, speak to me! This is your own Daris who calls, Daris who loves you -'

  He heard her dimly, as if from the far side of a hurricane. He could find no answer for her, in the terror and torment that were his universe.

  The Taians wavered. Weapons sank, bodies shuddered, mouths gaped. Ruma shook his spear above his head. 'Stand fast!' he yelled. 'I will kill the first man who runs!'

  Falco on his horse lifted sabre and said, dry-throated, 'Or I will kill him for you, Ruma.'

  The tears of Daris dropped on Conan's contorted face. 'Come back,' she pleaded. 'I call you in – in the name of Bêlit. Come back to Bêlit.'

  In the midst of his hell, he heard. Something awoke in him; somehow he could remember, understand, and speak. The words tore from him one by one, each as mighty an effort as ever he had made: 'My... folly... I met... Nehekba... in Pteion... She washed... me... and bore away... a cloth... full of my blood and -' He could say no more, he could only arch his back and gasp.

  A Taian wailed and pelted off. Ruma cast his spear. The man went down. White-faced, Falco rode over to give him the mercy stroke. The clansmen moaned but stayed where they were. The massed Stygians regarded them with satisfaction.

  From above the helmets of these, up over the Serpent banner, swept a shining shape. A brazen chariot without wheels or tongue, it bore a woman. Filmy garments and sable tresses fluttered behind her. At her throat glistened a mirror. In her hands was a small waxen image, which she tortured with twisting and a poniard and the flame of a taper as she laughed. High she flew and then downward and forward.

  Throughout the slaughterous miles, noise diminished. The Taians at the front quailed. In a minute they would all break and run, fear-crazed.

  'Senufer!' Falco shrieked.

  Conan glimpsed her through the darkness that beset him. She seemed the very Derketa leading a troop of ghost-women in flight across the underworld. 'Nehekba,' he groaned.

  Daris grew aware that somebody had joined her beside the Cimmerian. She looked at Sakumbe. 'I hear some,' the Negro said in his atrocious Stygian. Sweat of terror pearled across brow and paunch, but he spoke stoutly. 'I see what. She got body magic on him. Him blood in her doll. She hurt. Soon she kill.'

  Daris slumped in despair. 'Then her whole scheme was to lure us into this,' she replied, dull-voiced, 'that our faith and will be crushed forever – oh Conan!' She sought to kiss the stricken man, but he tossed about too wildly.

  'Senufer, darling Senufer,' Falco called like a sleepwalker.

  He wheeled his grey horse about and struck spurs deep. Across the dead he galloped, in among the wreckage of the chariots, toward where Nehekba hovered. Conan's vision cleared, his pain sank a little, and he saw. Surely the witch wrought that, for him to witness this last betrayal.

  She signalled the Stygian archers to hold their fire as Falco came in range. She lowered her vehicle to just above the road, joyful, left hand clasping Conan's. image but right held out to welcome the youth who sped her way. When they kissed, that would be the last bite of the adder in the Taian heel. A Stygian soldier would bring the Ax of Varanghi to the altar of Set.

  'Falco, welcome!' she sang.

  The rider d
rew rein before her. For a pulse-beat he stared into the lustre of her eyes.

  His sabre flew. She had a moment to see the steel in her bosom, and to scream. Blood ran, impossibly brilliant under the sun, but not much; it was as if a god did not wish her beauty defiled, but found it enough that her heart be pierced. She sank and was suddenly quite small. The chariot boomed to earth.

  Falco left his blade where it was. He retrieved the image of Conan and raked his horse's ribs. Back he thundered. 'Here,' he said, and gave the thing into the hand of Daris. Then he rode slowly aside and dismounted.

  Sakumbe yelled at Gonga. The witch doctor trod from a rebel band that stood dumbstruck, wonder-smitten. Down the road, the king's soldiers panted and shuddered.

  Carefully, carefully, Daris passed the doll to Gonga, and returned to her cherishing of Conan. He lay quiet, breathing hard. The black man squatted. He chanted words, sprinkled powders from his pouch, shook rattle, waved wand. After a minute or two a smile tinged the sternness of his countenance. His Suba waymates, who had lain prostrate, rose when he did, flourished their weapons, and bawled, 'Wakonga mutusi!'

  Conan's eyes cleared. He sat up. 'I am well,' he marvelled, like a man whose fever has broken.

  'The witch is dead,' Daris wept. 'You are free.'

  Gonga drew knife, nicked his wrist, sprinkled a few drops of blood on the image while he chanted. Conan got to his feet. He felt as if he had slept through a long night and awakened to drink from a mountain spring.

  Gonga spoke to Sakumbe, who told Conan in the lingua franca, 'He has given you of his own strength, to heal the harm in you. He cannot fight until he has recovered from that. But he will bear the evil thing away, annul the spell, and destroy it.'

  Once more, titanic laughter pealed from the Cimmerian. 'Hai, I have other destruction to do this day!' He hugged Daris and Sakumbe to him. 'O faithful friends, I can never truly thank you, but nor can I ever forget!'

  He lifted the Ax and soared to the saddle. 'Forward!' he trumpeted. 'In the name of Jehanan!' His men howled joy. Heedless of arrows, they followed him.