The People of the Black Circle

by Robert E. Howard

  4 An Encounter in the Pass

  Yasmina Devi could never clearly remember the details of her abduction.The unexpectedness and violence stunned her; she had only a confusedimpression of a whirl of happenings--the terrifying grip of a mightyarm, the blazing eyes of her abductor, and his hot breath burning onher flesh. The leap through the window to the parapet, the mad raceacross battlements and roofs when the fear of falling froze her, thereckless descent of a rope bound to a merlon--he went down almost at arun, his captive folded limply over his brawny shoulder--all this was abefuddled tangle in the Devi's mind. She retained a more vivid memory ofhim running fleetly into the shadows of the trees, carrying her like achild, and vaulting into the saddle of a fierce Bhalkhana stallion whichreared and snorted. Then there was a sensation of flying, and the racinghoofs were striking sparks of fire from the flinty road as the stallionswept up the slopes.

  As the girl's mind cleared, her first sensations were furious rage andshame. She was appalled. The rulers of the golden kingdoms south of theHimelians were considered little short of divine; and she was the Deviof Vendhya! Fright was submerged in regal wrath. She cried out furiouslyand began struggling. She, Yasmina, to be carried on the saddle-bow of ahill chief, like a common wench of the market-place! He merely hardenedhis massive thews slightly against her writhings, and for the first timein her life she experienced the coercion of superior physical strength.His arms felt like iron about her slender limbs. He glanced down at herand grinned hugely. His teeth glimmered whitely in the starlight. Thereins lay loose on the stallion's flowing mane, and every thew and fiberof the great beast strained as he hurtled along the boulder-strewntrail. But Conan sat easily, almost carelessly, in the saddle, ridinglike a centaur.

  'You hill-bred dog!' she panted, quivering with the impact of shame,anger, and the realization of helplessness. 'You dare--you _dare_! Yourlife shall pay for this! Where are you taking me?'

  'To the villages of Afghulistan,' he answered, casting a glance over hisshoulder.

  Behind them, beyond the slopes they had traversed, torches were tossingon the walls of the fortress, and he glimpsed a flare of light thatmeant the great gate had been opened. And he laughed, a deep-throatedboom gusty as the hill wind.

  'The governor has sent his riders after us,' he laughed. 'By Crom, wewill lead him a merry chase! What do you think, Devi--will they payseven lives for a Kshatriya princess?'

  'They will send an army to hang you and your spawn of devils,' shepromised him with conviction.

  He laughed gustily and shifted her to a more comfortable position in hisarms. But she took this as a fresh outrage, and renewed her vainstruggle, until she saw that her efforts were only amusing him. Besides,her light silken garments, floating on the wind, were being outrageouslydisarranged by her struggles. She concluded that a scornful submissionwas the better part of dignity, and lapsed into a smoldering quiescence.

  She felt even her anger being submerged by awe as they entered the mouthof the Pass, lowering like a black well mouth in the blacker walls thatrose like colossal ramparts to bar their way. It was as if a giganticknife had cut the Zhaibar out of walls of solid rock. On either handsheer slopes pitched up for thousands of feet, and the mouth of the Passwas dark as hate. Even Conan could not see with any accuracy, but heknew the road, even by night. And knowing that armed men were racingthrough the starlight after him, he did not check the stallion's speed.The great brute was not yet showing fatigue. He thundered along the roadthat followed the valley bed, labored up a slope, swept along a lowridge where treacherous shale on either hand lurked for the unwary, andcame upon a trail that followed the lap of the left-hand wall.

  Not even Conan could spy, in that darkness, an ambush set by Zhaibartribesmen. As they swept past the black mouth of a gorge that openedinto the Pass, a javelin swished through the air and thudded home behindthe stallion's straining shoulder. The great beast let out his life in ashuddering sob and stumbled, going headlong in mid-stride. But Conan hadrecognized the flight and stroke of the javelin, and he acted withspring-steel quickness.

  As the horse fell he leaped clear, holding the girl aloft to guard herfrom striking boulders. He lit on his feet like a cat, thrust her into acleft of rock, and wheeled toward the outer darkness, drawing his knife.

  Yasmina, confused by the rapidity of events, not quite sure just whathad happened, saw a vague shape rush out of the darkness, bare feetslapping softly on the rock, ragged garments whipping on the wind of hishaste. She glimpsed the flicker of steel, heard the lightning crack ofstroke, parry and counter-stroke, and the crunch of bone as Conan's longknife split the other's skull.

  Conan sprang back, crouching in the shelter of the rocks. Out in thenight men were moving and a stentorian voice roared: 'What, you dogs! Doyou flinch? In, curse you, and take them!'

  Conan started, peered into the darkness and lifted his voice.

  'Yar Afzal! Is it you?'

  There sounded a startled imprecation, and the voice called warily.

  'Conan? Is it you, Conan?'

  'Aye!' the Cimmerian laughed. 'Come forth, you old war-dog. I've slainone of your men.'

  There was movement among the rocks, a light flared dimly, and then aflame appeared and came bobbing toward him, and as it approached, afierce bearded countenance grew out of the darkness. The man who carriedit held it high, thrust forward, and craned his neck to peer among theboulders it lighted; the other hand gripped a great curved tulwar. Conanstepped forward, sheathing his knife, and the other roared a greeting.

  'Aye, it is Conan! Come out of your rocks, dogs! It is Conan!'

  Others pressed into the wavering circle of light--wild, ragged, beardedmen, with eyes like wolves, and long blades in their fists. They did notsee Yasmina, for she was hidden by Conan's massive body. But peepingfrom her covert, she knew icy fear for the first time that night. Thesemen were more like wolves than human beings.

  'What are you hunting in the Zhaibar by night, Yar Afzal?' Conandemanded of the burly chief, who grinned like a bearded ghoul.

  'Who knows what might come up the Pass after dark? We Wazulis arenight-hawks. But what of you, Conan?'

  'I have a prisoner,' answered the Cimmerian. And moving aside hedisclosed the cowering girl. Reaching a long arm into the crevice hedrew her trembling forth.

  Her imperious bearing was gone. She stared timidly at the ring ofbearded faces that hemmed her in, and was grateful for the strong armthat clasped her possessively. The torch was thrust close to her, andthere was a sucking intake of breath about the ring.

  'She is my captive,' Conan warned, glancing pointedly at the feet of theman he had slain, just visible within the ring of light. 'I was takingher to Afghulistan, but now you have slain my horse, and the Kshatriyasare close behind me.'

  'Come with us to my village,' suggested Yar Afzal. 'We have horseshidden in the gorge. They can never follow us in the darkness. They areclose behind you, you say?'

  'So close that I hear now the clink of their hoofs on the flint,'answered Conan grimly.

  Instantly there was movement; the torch was dashed out and the raggedshapes melted like phantoms into the darkness. Conan swept up the Deviin his arms, and she did not resist. The rocky ground hurt her slim feetin their soft slippers and she felt very small and helpless in thatbrutish, primordial blackness among those colossal, nighted crags.

  Feeling her shiver in the wind that moaned down the defiles, Conanjerked a ragged cloak from its owner's shoulders and wrapped it abouther. He also hissed a warning in her ear, ordering her to make no sound.She did not hear the distant clink of shod hoofs on rock that warned thekeen-eared hill-men; but she was far too frightened to disobey, in anyevent.

  She could see nothing but a few faint stars far above, but she knew bythe deepening darkness when they entered the gorge mouth. There was astir about them, the uneasy movement of horses. A few muttered words,and Conan mounted the horse of the man he had killed, lifting the girlup in front of him. Like phantoms except for the click of t
heir hoofs,the band swept away up the shadowy gorge. Behind them on the trail theyleft the dead horse and the dead man, which were found less than half anhour later by the riders from the fortress, who recognized the man as aWazuli and drew their own conclusions accordingly.

  Yasmina, snuggled warmly in her captor's arms, grew drowsy in spite ofherself. The motion of the horse, though it was uneven, uphill and down,yet possessed a certain rhythm which combined with weariness andemotional exhaustion to force sleep upon her. She had lost all sense oftime or direction. They moved in soft thick darkness, in which shesometimes glimpsed vaguely gigantic walls sweeping up like blackramparts, or great crags shouldering the stars; at times she sensedechoing depths beneath them, or felt the wind of dizzy heights blowingcold about her. Gradually these things faded into a dreamy unwakefulnessin which the clink of hoofs and the creak of saddles were like theirrelevant sounds in a dream.

  She was vaguely aware when the motion ceased and she was lifted down andcarried a few steps. Then she was laid down on something soft andrustling, and something--a folded coat perhaps--was thrust under herhead, and the cloak in which she was wrapped was carefully tucked abouther. She heard Yar Afzal laugh.

  'A rare prize, Conan; fit mate for a chief of the Afghulis.'

  'Not for me,' came Conan's answering rumble. 'This wench will buy thelives of my seven headmen, blast their souls.'

  That was the last she heard as she sank into dreamless slumber.

  She slept while armed men rode through the dark hills, and the fate ofkingdoms hung in the balance. Through the shadowy gorges and defilesthat night there rang the hoofs of galloping horses, and the starlightglimmered on helmets and curved blades, until the ghoulish shapes thathaunt the crags stared into the darkness from ravine and boulder andwondered what things were afoot.

  A band of these sat gaunt horses in the black pitmouth of a gorge as thehurrying hoofs swept past. Their leader, a well-built man in a helmetand gilt-braided cloak, held up his hand warningly, until the riders hadsped on. Then he laughed softly.

  'They must have lost the trail! Or else they have found that Conan hasalready reached the Afghuli villages. It will take many riders to smokeout that hive. There will be squadrons riding up the Zhaibar by dawn.'

  'If there is fighting in the hills there will be looting,' muttered avoice behind him, in the dialect of the Irakzai.

  'There will be looting,' answered the man with the helmet. 'But first itis our business to reach the valley of Gurashah and await the ridersthat will be galloping southward from Secunderam before daylight.'

  He lifted his reins and rode out of the defile, his men falling inbehind him--thirty ragged phantoms in the starlight.