Conan stumbled sideways, still gripping the hilt of the scimitar with both hands, and delivered a savage kick to his opponent's chest. His boot landed with terrific force, slamming Gulbanda back off his steel in a cloud of ochre dust. The dead man reeled backwards, recovered his balance and came forward again without an instant's hesitation. Both sword and dagger swung in their sheaths at Gulbanda's belt. He had forgotten their use.
"Death," wheezed Gulbanda, coming toward the Cimmerian with his claw-like hands held out to grasp and rend. Icy gray moonlight shone full in his face as cracked lips peeled back from broken teeth and a pale scar parted the filthy thatch of beard.
Recognition and horror drove a frigid spike through Conan's belly. His heel slipped on stone and the Cimmerian realized that he was standing on the rim of the precipice. He flourished the scimitar in a moon-glittering figure eight, trying to make Gulbanda keep his distance. But the dead man did not fear his steel. He drew up short a moment, then dove headlong for the barbarian's throat.
Conan braced his feet and lashed the scimitar from right to left in a brutal, vertical cut that struck Gulbanda's outstretched left arm at the elbow. Fibrous flesh and dried bone split under the impact. The severed limb flew from its bloodless stump even as the dead man's body slammed into Conan's, knocking him backward and sending both combatants hurtling over the edge of the cliff.
There was a moment of sick vertigo as the pair dropped into darkness; then Conan twisted in midair, shoving Gulbanda out and away from him.
The barbarian's falling body scraped against the cliff face in a small explosion of dirt and gravel. He clawed frantically at the wall, striving to slow his fall, struck the floor of the dry wash on his side, and blacked out.
There was an indeterminate time of darkness and silence during which Conan's consciousness struggled to rise, like a swimmer trapped beneath the surface of a black lake. At some point came the distant and dream-like sound of feminine screams, but they faded back into the heavy silence and it was as if they had never been.
The Cimmerian sat up carefully, sand spilling from his hair. He had landed in the sculpted sand of the dry wash, which had cushioned the impact somewhat. His ribs ached abominably and his head spun. The scimitar lay at the base of the cliff, a crescent of silver in the gray rubble. Conan lunged for it, grasped it, and stood up unsteadily.
Standing in the shadow of the cliff, he watched the world reel. He shook his head in a leonine fashion, trying to clear it. Though it felt as if every inch of his body had been bruised by hammers, he seemed to have suffered no serious injury.
Gulbanda had fallen only a few paces away. He lay on his back, bent and broken over a small boulder. He writhed weakly but ceaselessly, like an insect on a pin. Bent backwards almost double over the boulder that had snapped his spine, his remaining hand clawed listlessly at the air.
Conan's senses cleared and he stepped forward, gazing in fearful awe at his deathless adversary. Something small crawled from the shadow of the boulder and into the silvery moonlight. Gulbanda's severed left hand groped spider-like across the ground, dragging the dead weight of its forearm behind it. A surge of fresh horror lifted the hair on the back of the Cimmerian's neck. The hand moved blindly away from Gulbanda's helpless body. Conan bent forward and plucked the dagger from the dingy sheath on his foe's girdle. Then he took two quick steps forward, knelt and drove the blade through the thing's wrist, pinning the grisly limb to the earth. The pallid fingers clenched and unclenched in the sand.
"Death," hissed a voice, little more than a feeble whisper, yet as cold and piercing as an arctic blast. "Death."
Conan straightened. The breeze picked up, strangely warm, blowing his dark mane back from his face. He looked down upon the prone and broken form of Gulbanda of Shem.
"Death," sighed the dead man.
"Certainly," said Conan and, lifting the scimitar, hewed off Gulbanda's head. The body jerked and slowed, but never ceased its restless movement. Gulbanda's skull struck the packed sand and rolled behind the boulder. The barbarian turned away and sheathed his sword in one smooth motion. He strode to the base of the cliff and began, with swift and certain movements, to climb it.
Behind him, in the shadow of the boulder, Gulbanda's head lay blinking up at the cold stars, lips twisting soundlessly as he called for a death that would not come.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Conan came over the rim of the cliff in a low crouch. He scanned the long slope rising before him. After assuring himself that there was no one about, he looked to the sky, wondering how long he had lain senseless at the base of the cliff. The night sky was already half obscured by the dense clouds unfurling from the west. The stars wavered and disappeared before their leading edge as they raced across the heavens. An unnaturally warm breeze rolled through the canyons, growing slowly in strength as it moaned among the crags.
The Cimmerian dropped to one knee beside the sprawled form of Heng Shih. The Khitan lay facedown, his bulky body partially covered by dirt and gravel. Conan gave him a firm shake and Heng Shih stirred feebly, then sat up. He looked about himself wildly, eyes wide with panicked surmise.
"By Ymir," rambled the barbarian. "And you said that I had a hard head."
The Khitan ran a wide hand over the side of his shaven skull, touching gingerly above his left ear, where the skin was already beginning to swell and discolor. He stood up slowly, shaking the dirt from his clothing. He fixed his gaze upon Conan.
"That was an old friend of Shakar the Keshanian, come back to settle a score," said Conan, answering the unspoken query.
Heng Shih frowned uncertainly, setting a hand upon his hilt.
"Don't worry about him. He's done. Let's check the camp. I fear the worst." The Cimmerian turned suddenly and started up the treacherous slope with long, quick strides. The Khitan kept pace, though he fought off waves of dizziness with every step. The wind had picked up, throwing dust into their eyes and striving with invisible hands to thrust them back down the incline.
The camp was deserted.
Heng Shih stumbled into the center of the encampment, staring about with grim desperation, dismay apparent in his every movement. All three of the tents were empty and one had collapsed. Its crumpled fabric rippled and flapped forlornly with each fresh gust. The eroded stone of the hilltop showed no sign of struggle, but Conan pointed wordlessly to where the hill dropped away into the clearing. Two pale forms lay still in the darkness there. Heng Shih ran haltingly toward them, then slowed, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that they were not the bodies of Neesa and the Lady Zelandra.
The corpses of two Stygian mercenaries lay not ten paces apart. The nearest of the pair had a charred blot for a face. Curls of steam rose from empty, blackened eye sockets and were torn away by the wind. The second soldier gripped with both hands the hilt of the dagger that had pierced his throat.
Heng Shih stared down at the dead men, then noticed that Conan had knelt beside the fallen tent. The Cimmerian was examining a bit of cloth that bore dark stains. He stood and held it out to the Khitan.
The wind toyed with the discolored fabric, tossing it about, but Heng Shih could see that it was the bloodstained remnants of Zelandra's turban.
He walked stiffly to Conan and tore the scrap from the barbarian's grasp. His face hardened into a mask of stone. The blood on the fabric had not yet congealed, and it came away on his fingers. He let the remains of the turban fall from his hands. The wind whipped the tattered cloth away into the night and the growing storm.
Heng Shih unsheathed his scimitar and started down the hill toward the narrow canyon that led to the Palace of Cetriss.
"Hold!" Conan's voice rang out above the wind like the clangor of steel on steel. "Don't be a fool."
Heng Shih drew to a halt, his back to the Cimmerian, then turned slowly to face him. The Khitan's eyes held a bleakness that was terrible to behold. He placed his right hand on the center of his broad breast, and then held it out in the direction of Ethram-Fal
's lair.
"Yes," said the barbarian, "I understand." He bent over, rummaging in the crumpled remains of the fallen tent, and came up with a jug of wine. He plucked out the cork with his teeth, spat it away and offered the bottle to Heng Shih.
"Have a drink and heed me well. Your mistress is alive, else the Stygians would have left her here as they did the bodies of their comrades. If you walk into their stronghold you'll be butchered like a sheep and leave Zelandra alive in the hands of the Stygian wizard. Is that what you want?"
The Khitan shook his head painfully, shoulders slumping as the cruel tension wracking his body loosened its grasp.
"I thought not. Now, look to the sky. This is no ordinary storm that comes upon us, but a sandstorm out of hell itself. I've seen a few in my time on the desert, but never one that filled the heavens like this one. The damn thing probably sprang up around Harakht and has been growing larger over every league it's traveled. It should give us fine cover."
Conan thrust the wine at Heng Shih, who finally accepted it. The Cimmerian ducked into one of the two standing tents, leaving the big Khitan standing alone with the bottle. He squinted at it, took a sip and cast it aside. The crockery shattered on stone. He had no time for such things.
The barbarian emerged from the tent carrying his leather ￠ helmet, a coil of rope, and two of Neesa's silk shirts. As Heng Shih watched, Conan donned the helmet, looped the rope over a brawny shoulder, then tossed one of the shirts to him. The Khitan caught it before the wind snatched the garment away, and stared at it without comprehension.
"We'll do as I said earlier. I'll lead us across the canyon tops to the sorcerer's fortress. The storm will not make it any easier for us, but it is our only real chance. Tie the shirt around your head so that it covers your mouth and nose. Leave a thin space to see through. It will provide a little protection from the sand."
Heng Shih stood in place lifelessly, glancing from the shirt in his hands to the place where the ragged tops of the canyon walls met the lowering belly of the storm. The wind whipped through the camp and rushed away into darkness.
"Come on," said Conan, knotting the shirt at the base of his bull neck.
Heng Shih nodded, then began wrapping the silken shirt around his head.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The moon's last light was quenched before rolling clouds. The wind raged past the climbers, bearing a scourge of sand that tore at their clothing and abraded their exposed skin. Despite the absent moon, an ethereal yellow half-light, vaporous and sickly, illuminated the storm-wracked sky. Heng Shih could just make out the form of Conan silhouetted against it as the Cimmerian drew himself up the irregular stone wall.
Heng Shih stood upon a narrow ledge, embracing the cliff face beneath the climbing barbarian. He scarcely dared move in the ceaseless wind.
Twenty feet below lay a scattered carpet of sharp boulders. The Khitan pressed his forehead against the hard stone, still warm from the sun's rays, waiting for Conan to reach safety and lower the rope.
They had proceeded in this fashion for hours. Heng Shih had entertained hopes that the tops of the canyons would be fairly level, at least allowing for occasional expanses of easy travel. It was not so. The upper portions of the canyon walls broke into a wildly uneven collection of jagged rock formations. They hadn't traveled forward as far as they climbed up and down over the canyon walls.
Conan had chosen an initial approach that took them across the canyon rim at its lowest point, and then dropped them into a gorge packed with huge boulders. Finding a path out of that jumble seemed to have taken half the night. From there they had made their way over a series of steep ridges. Nowhere did the stone afford much in the way of hand or footholds. The two men had developed a pattern: Conan climbed ahead, often disappearing entirely into the swirling sand; then the rope would come trailing down out of the yellow-tinged darkness, and Heng Shih would clamber up its length.
The far side of each ridge was generally shorter and less steep than its leading edge, as the canyons they flanked grew deeper and drew farther back into the highlands. Inevitably, the men would find themselves at the base of another almost sheer wall and be forced to climb once again. Heng Shih's pride goaded him to keep pace with Conan, but he soon discovered that his skill in scaling stone was no match for a Cimmerian hillman's.
Now the Khitan stood panting on his little ledge and waited for the rope. He blinked through the slender gap in sand-crusted silk. His lungs fought for air and his legs throbbed from exertion. The muscles around each knee were defined in every fiber by pain. Steeling himself, he thought of Zelandra and looked up for the rope. Conan had long since vanished into the whirling sandstorm above.
Heng Shih was all but blinded, but when he shifted position against the rock face to ease his cramping knees, his hand brushed against something. It was the rope. Visibility had grown so poor that it had fallen beside him without even being noticed. The Khitan seized the rope, set his teeth, and began to climb.
As he approached the summit, the huge form of the Cimmerian, loomed above him, etched against the tawny darkness of the sky. Heng Shih dragged himself over the rim, grateful that the stone was moderately level. Conan bent over him and yelled above the storm.
"Are you all right?"
The Khitan nodded and stood, resisting an impulse to check the bandages wrapped around his midsection beneath his clothing. The wound throbbed dully from strain, but he did not think he had reopened it.
The pair stood between two natural pillars of crooked and weathered stone that thrust skyward like the broken, skeletal fingers of some buried giant. Heng Shih leaned his weight against the nearest and stared doggedly ahead, trying to get some idea of the nature of the next section of terrain. He felt confident the canyon they had followed to the Palace of Cetriss was located somewhere to their right, and that the palace itself lay more or less in front of them. He couldn't hazard a guess as to how much farther they had to travel.
"Look!" shouted Conan, his voice half smothered by the roar of the wind. "The palace!" The barbarian extended a hand, pointing above and ahead of them. Heng Shih tried to stare through the blowing dust.
A dark mass, huge and angular, faded in and out of view in the weird yellow half-light. It seemed less than a league away, yet the space between the looming phantom and the two men was a sand-lashed void that made estimations of distance impossible.
"We'll go down here, along that ledge, and then up atop the palace.
We're almost there." Conan wrapped the rope in coils around his brawny arm while Heng Shih peered skeptically ahead, trying to identify the features that the Cimmerian had described. He abandoned his efforts when Conan moved forward, off the level top of the ridge, and down its uneven rear slope. The Khitan followed, keeping his comrade's broad back in view while stepping carefully on the treacherous stone.
The slope bottomed out into a narrow crevasse packed with broken slabs of fallen rock. Conan descended, leaping nimbly from one boulder to the next, avoiding the gaps and irregularities that could trap and break an ankle or even a leg. He made his way .along the crevasse floor to their right, with Heng Shih keeping close through sheer force of will.
The narrow passage was abruptly sheared off. The crevasse opened out from a smoothly vertical stone wall into a vast, open expanse seething with windblown sand. Conan crouched on a boulder at the opening's rim, looking down. Heng Shih caught up and stood gasping at his side.
"Below is the courtyard we saw when scouting the canyon!" bellowed Conan. "With luck, that thin ledge running along the courtyard wall will take us to a point where we can scale the palace roof."
The open space of the courtyard was a raging maelstrom of shrieking wind. Airborne sand and dust made it impossible to see more than a few paces ahead. One look down inspired a strange vertigo. The courtyard's floor might have been thirty feet down or three hundred. Heng Shih could just make out the slender ledge that Conan had indicated. It began six feet from, and six feet below, t
he opening in which they stood. The natural pathway stretched along the courtyard wall, leading up into the storm. Its width varied, but seemed to afford space enough to walk upon. The Khitan's stomach lurched as he realized that he and his companion would have to jump from the crevasse mouth along the courtyard wall to reach the stone path. The ledge abruptly appeared much narrower to his eyes.
The barbarian set his feet, bent his knees, and then leapt out into open air. He landed cat-like upon the ledge. The Cimmerian put his back to the rock face and walked along the shelf with seeming ease, quickly disappearing from sight.
Heng Shih followed with intense deliberation, perching carefully on the boulder at the edge. He did not look down. It wasn't really much of a leap, he reasoned. A one-legged man could do it if the ground were level. Heng Shih took a deep breath and jumped. He lit on a ledge, but overestimated his leap and struck the canyon wall with force enough to rebound slightly. His hands scrabbled desperately on the stone, miraculously finding a handhold; and seizing it, pulling himself back in tight against the wall.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, for a moment drowning out the sound of the wind. He allowed himself no time to recover, or to think on how he stood unsteadily upon a crumbling bit of stone suspended above a howling abyss. He proceeded along the precarious shelf, following Conan.
The ledge proved easy enough to negotiate for the first twenty or thirty paces; then it narrowed and became a rising series of sharp and irregular steps. Heng Shih half stumbled on the first, stopped to slap the dust from his improvised mask, and then began to climb. At the fifth step the path narrowed to nothing, disappearing into the cliff face. Heng Shih clung to the rock and looked in all directions. The courtyard's natural wall continued ahead, but without the benefit of the slightest foothold. The stone shone smooth as polished crystal.
Where was Conan? The thought battered the Khitan with the force of a blow. He peered frantically into the roiling storm below. Had the Cimmerian fallen? What could he do now?
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