Conan and the Shaman's Curse

by Sean A. Moore

  Swarming, stinging bugs surrounded him in a buzzing cloud. Serpents infested the floor of the jungle, reminding him of the unpleasant fate Khertet had planned for him in Stygia. Fortunately, these fork-tongued creatures apparently sought other prey. He gave them a wide berth and none molested him. Birds chattered in the trees, and he welcomed their voices. Some dove into the jungle from their high perches, snatching up small snakes in their beaks and taking them elsewhere to feast.

  Conan was tempted to feed as they did, but he would only eat snake meat as a last resort. He had noted a greenish-brown fruit that hung from thick vines overhead, which he could reach with a jump. As he considered this, a big, broad-winged bird neatly plucked an apple-sized piece of this fruit from a low vine, perching on a nearby limb to pick at its meat. Conan decided he would try a bite. Birds often naturally avoided poison.

  A running leap gave him the loft he needed, and he pulled one of the lumpy-skinned fruits from that same vine. It tasted strange, vaguely like an unripened coconut, but his famished belly welcomed even its bitter meat, pulpy seeds, and thick milk. The peel or shell he discarded. Feeling no ache in his guts, he choked down a few more of the things while hastening along the path. He frowned, noting a lessening of the light that filtered down to him through the layers of leaves above. He must be past the centre of the island by now, after hours of walking. Vines had begun to clog the trail. There were more fruits here but fewer birds.

  He rounded a sharp bend, encountering a drooping, vine-choked thicket that blocked his way. The fruits, somewhat larger on these stalks, clustered thickly. He kicked them to knock them aside and several burst open... spewing forth hundreds of tiny, wriggling spiders.

  The pale green hatchlings spilled out in glistening clumps, some falling onto him in thick, squirming blobs. He leaped forward in revulsion, wiping their pulpy green bodies from his skin and nearly doubling over in nausea—he had eaten three of those spider eggs! Leaning against the mossy trunk of a thick tree, he retched violently, looking up just in time to catch a slight, rapid movement, at the edge of his vision.

  Directly overhead, from the thick limb of a tree, an immense, ocherous spider dangled. It was easily twice Conan’s size. Dull green hair sprouted from its bulbous, bloated body and long, spiny legs. Its crimson eyes burned with the malevolence of a creature who bent its cunning to a single, bestial purpose... sucking the life from any warm-blooded prey within reach of its flexing, dripping mandibles.

  “Baal and Pteor!” Conan swore. What foul hell-furnace had belched up this freakish monstrosity? Crouching, he sprang away from those cruel pincers before they dropped onto him. As if anticipating his leap, the hideous beast spread its forelegs, unfolding a net woven from pearly strands.

  Conan’s jump carried him right into it.

  Instantly swathed in thick, sticky webs, he twisted in mid-leap, narrowly avoiding the pouncing spider. Once again he bemoaned his lack of a sword. The enormous arachnid spun to face him, its bulky body heaving as it lurched for its struggling prey. The Cimmerian thrashed and kicked, but the clinging strands held him more securely than steel chains. Straining until veins pulsed red at his temples and blood pounded hotly in his head, Conan tore free his arms.

  The spider’s mandibles snapped shut, clamping his waist in a grip that wrenched the very breath from Conan’s lungs. Gasping and kicking, he watched in horror as its hollow-pointed teeth dribbled milky yellow slime into dozens of puncture wounds. How long did he have before that venom struck him down?

  No—he refused to die in the belly of this beast!

  Infuriated, the Cimmerian shot out his hands, seizing a mandible in each of his mighty fists and pulling with every muscle his corded arms could bring to bear. Conan’s chest heaved, his sinews bulging like rope beneath his sweat-drenched skin.

  A dull throb spread through his abdomen, numbing him as insidious poison coursed through his web-bound body. He felt the agonizing pressure of the jagged jaws, locked around his lower ribs, squeezing with force that threatened to crack his bones and crush his vitals.

  The gasping Cimmerian gathered the shreds of strength that lingered in his limbs, forcing his brawny arms to work. Slowly, torturously, the pincers pulled away from his ravaged sides. With a heave that tightened his muscles into quivering knots, he jerked the poison-smeared mandibles apart, forcing them backward.

  A bestial cry burst from Conan’s foam-flecked lips as he wrenched the pincers asunder, splitting the misshapen head into slime-spewing halves and ripping the jaws from its tom ruin. He shucked them at the tiling’s convulsing body.

  “Crawl back to Hell!” he panted, watching sludge ooze from the spider as its legs thrashed in a macabre dance of death. Squeals and hisses issued from its tom maw like the shrieks of a devilish choir.

  Staggering, Conan overbalanced and toppled to the path. With his numb, aching arms, he dragged himself toward a tree, spending the last of his power to prop himself up against its trunk.

  He sank against the moss-covered bark, exhausted. He could not stop his pounding heart from pumping the spider’s virulent poisons deeper into his vitals. Moments later, Conan’s chin dropped to his heaving chest. His eyes glazed over as dusk wrapped the dense jungle in a shroud of indigo.

  X

  Ten Prowlers on the Path

  As dawn broke, the morning sun’s rays turned the jungle’s dew-covered leaves into a glittering sea of emeralds. Jukona scarcely noticed the beauty of his surroundings; to him, the jungle was a hostile land of death, fraught with peril at every step. The elders told of a time long ago, beyond the memory of even Y’Taba’s great-grandfather... an age when the Ganaks had actually lived in the Deadlands.

  Jukona had always doubted this tale. The Deadlands were said to teem with creatures so strange, so vile, that only the most evil of gods could have brought them into being. As Jukona crept more deeply into the jungle, he wondered if even the evil gods had forsaken the Deadlands.

  His ancestral marks—painted with the milk of vanukla fruits—kept away most of the insects. Their warding powers seemed unaffected by the jungle. He had stepped on a well-concealed snake, and the sting of its teeth lingered in his foot. The elders told tales of long-toothed serpents whose bite brought death, but Jukona’s attacker did not have the curving fangs described in those stories. He slowed his progress to a crawl, carefully scanning the ground for other slithering creatures.

  The Ganak women were better suited to tracking, but Jukona would not ask Sajara—his daughter—to enter the Deadlands. The women were hunters and watchers, at least those women unable to bear children or unwilling to join with a mate. They were not warriors. Only in ancient times, when the winged children of Ezat invaded Ganaku for food, had the women been compelled to fight.

  Jukona shuddered at the thought of a Kezati horde descending onto his village. He hoped he would never see such an event come to pass. The Ganak people depended on their warriors to protect the very young and the very old. In a few years, another forty or fifty boys would reach the age of induction and set their feet upon the warrior’s path. Until then, Jukona and his seven warriors would be all that stood between the Kezati and the tribe.

  Ngomba had been right about one thing: the recent attack on the Kezati had taken a severe toll. Jukona had led two hundred men in the invasion of the Stone Isle, where the winged ones nested in dark caves. Only thirty warriors survived that savage battle, rowing like the wind to meet the final wave of Kezati on the shore of bones. Thirty would not have been enough, but the gods had sent the pale-skinned stranger and his mighty weapon.

  Confused by Ngomba’s speech, Jukona had left the stranger to the mercy of the gods. He should have known that Ngomba’s claim was false, that the weapon was not the atnalga, but his wisdom failed him when Ngomba seized the small warrior’s weapon. Jukona was pleased that the stranger had found the secret marks in the sand and followed them to Ganaku.

  To the Deadlands.

  Thickets of trees and towering leafy pl
ants separated the Ganak village from the jungle, where the Deadlands lay brooding. Not even the hunters and watchers dared enter the dark heart of the island, which had spawned the most nightmarish legends ever told by the elders. For generations, the Deadlands had swallowed the few Ganaks who dared enter. Some of the bravest and strongest had disappeared there.

  Jukona knew the way; his grandfather had told him how to find the old path. Thus far, the way had been as described. Near the edge of the village, alongside the river, grew a tree of three trunks. Starting beside the tree, he had walked directly toward the afternoon sun, counting thirty paces of three steps each. Now he could see the path.

  Choked with short fronds and young trees, the way to the Deadlands revealed itself in the fading sunlight. Here, near the outer edge of the jungle, the trees did not press close as in the Deadlands. Drawing a deep breath and exhaling slowly, Jukona set his feet upon the winding way that he hoped would lead him to the stranger. His eyes scoured the leaf-littered sward for any signs of passage, even the slightest trace of a footstep.

  Enormous insect clouds clustered around him, sometimes probing his flesh before the vanukla’s scent turned them away. The birds here were larger than those who dwelt near the village, and their beaks and hooked talons likened them to the Kezati.

  The sight of these winged predators instinctively stirred hatred inside him. If he had brought his boat stick with him, he might have chanced a few blows at these small brothers of his enemies. Unfortunately, the boat sticks were too long and clumsy to wield in the confines of this jungle. A hunter’s spike, like those carried by the women, would have served him better. Warriors never carried the spikes, which were of no use against the long reach and diving attacks of the Kezati.

  A rustle in the trees nearby froze Jukona’s legs. He swivelled toward the source, straining to see if something lurked there. Crouching, he crept toward the sound. Despite his girth, Jukona moved with the stealth instinctive among men weaned in wild lands. He thought he heard the rustle again, but the wind gods had begun to murmur, and their breath stirred the trees. Reaching the coppice beside the path, he studied the ground. His patient sweep of the jungle floor revealed thick-bladed grasses that marked a suspicious patch.

  A patch shaped like a large foot.

  He searched for other signs of passage, wondering who—or what—had passed by him. The stranger’s feet had not been so large, not as he could recall. Jukona fidgeted with his lock of white hair, staring at the silent trees. A hundred tales of foul beasts, flesh-eating demons, and fierce monsters rose in his mind, and he broke into a chilling sweat. Did creatures from the Deadlands prowl this path, seeking victims?

  Jukona swallowed the knot of fear in his throat and stood, throwing back his shoulders. He would not abandon the stranger. Not again. He was warrior-leader of the Ganaks, and he would face whatever trials the gods had in store for him. With muscles tensed, Jukona forged ahead, ignoring the increasing winds and the rain that had begun to fall.

  When the wind gods argued among themselves, their mothers shed tears that drove away the insects and brought cool relief from the sun. Jukona welcomed the soft rain. Its waters would wash away his scent while its sounds hid his footfalls from the ears of stalking predators. In their tales of the Deadlands, the elders had spoken of monsters who struck without warning—who could tear a warrior in half before he even heard them attack.

  He quickened his pace, the elders’ voices still echoing in his mind and weighing heavily upon his spirit.

  Through slitted eyes, Ngomba watched Jukona. He had followed the warrior-leader through the jungle, relying on Jukona to show him the way to the Deadlands. Ngomba had nearly given himself away a few moments ago; he would not step so clumsily again. Jukona was old, but the passage of years had not dulled his hearing.

  The young warrior distanced himself from the path, lowering his head. He kept one eye on Jukona and the other on the jungle, watching for the children of Damballah. The bite of the evil god’s serpents brought death. Sometimes one made its way into the village, killing a Ganak before its presence was detected. Ngomba was not as clumsy as Jukona. That old white-haired fool had blundered not too long ago, stepping onto a serpent and suffering an ankle bite for his carelessness. Jukona was fortunate that the serpent had not been a venomous child of the evil god.

  Ngomba moved with powerful but stealthy strides, easily matching Jukona’s timid pace. He did not believe the wild fables of the Deadlands. The elders were full of such dreams and told them only to frighten children. Stinging serpents were the real menace here. Many times he had considered a foray into the Deadlands, but he had never found cause to risk the serpents—until now.

  When he found the stranger, he would challenge him—if the stranger still lived—and make the weapon his own by right of victory. Jukona would find the body and lay the blame upon the beasts of the Deadlands. The Ganak needed the stranger’s weapon; it was their only hope against the doom that would soon come, borne on the wings of Ezat’s ravening children.

  Ngomba’s people had cast him out, but he would not abandon them. He would wait for the day of redemption. On that day, he—Ngomba—would save the Ganaks from the folly of Y’Taba and Jukona. They would welcome him back. Sajara would become his mate, and he would become spirit-leader. The Ganaks would flourish under his strong leadership, and their children would not need to fear the Kezati.

  Ngomba’s eyes burned with the fire of his pride as he stalked Jukona, every silent step bringing him closer to his destiny.

  Conan woke up in Hell, dead from the spider’s bite. He lay in the torture pit of some nameless fiend, trussed in unyielding bonds while a thousand invisible imps jabbed at his flesh with fiery needles. He moaned in the darkness, struggling to move, but his leaden limbs refused to obey.

  His eyelids lifted, and he realized the cloying blackness surrounding him was merely the jungle at night. Conan’s eyes rapidly adjusted to the sparse light from pale moonbeams, filtering through the treetops. The searing pain in his sides issued from the deep grooves dug by the spider’s vice-like jaws. Conan could barely feel his fingers and toes. His legs and arms might as well have been sticks, carved to resemble human limbs.

  A few feet away lay the spider’s carcass, fouling the air with a reek as potent as a sea of festering sewage. A trail of greasy, congealed muck glistened in the faint light, spreading from its halved head to where it had crawled to die.

  Nauseated by the unholy stench, the Cimmerian made a vain effort to rise. A dull ache had begun throbbing in his legs, spreading slowly to his sides. Perhaps the spider’s venom was slowly releasing its grip on his muscles. He hoped it would ebb quickly. Lying motionless against the tree, he was easy prey for anything that happened along the path.

  He lay there sweating, listening to the leaves rustle in the wind. In the silence of the jungle, even his breathing seemed loud. As time passed, he managed to loosen his jaw and even crane his neck to peer at his dark surroundings. Glad to avert his eyes from the spider, he scanned the shadowy trees for any signs of movement, but the jungle seemed to be slumbering.

  The moon’s light was unsettling, and he wondered if the shaman’s curse would at any moment seize him. How satisfied that old Kaklani shaman would have been, had he known that his dying spell dealt Conan a blow far worse than any sword stroke. From beyond the grave, that shaman held Conan’s mind and body in invisible chains.

  As a youth Conan had endured the bonds of slavery, when the Hyrkanians had captured him. He had become the property of his cruel masters, and for too long he had suffered the agony of captivity. Of all the villainous scum Conan had known in his life, none were more despicable than slavers. They had driven him to near madness, until he had attempted an escape that no sane man would have considered. He remembered the exultation of the day when his arms had tom loose the chains of his bondage—chains that had, ironically, served as weapons to slay his captors and win his freedom.

  The shaman’s spell-fetter
s would not break so easily. Experience, however, had taught Conan that one mage could undo the work of another. He hated the idea of seeking help from a spell caster, but for now he could see no other option.

  When the paralysis ebbed from his limbs, the moon’s light had faded. Conan worked himself free of the webbing, pleasantly surprised to find that its stretchy strands had weakened. Freeing his legs, he rose. A tree lent him support until his balance returned.

  Conan resumed his course, following his path. He often looked up, to see if any other spiders lurked overhead, ready to drop their insidious webs upon him. The path veered left, and Conan’s foot landed squarely on a fallen tree limb. His ankle twisted, and he fell sideways, caught off balance.

  Rolling on the sward, he came face to face with a large human skull. In the shifting shadows of the jungle, its gaping mouth seemed to move, and its eye sockets stared at him, resentful of his intrusion.

  Cracked bones lay in a scattered heap nearby.

  Conan propped himself up on his elbows, his eyes narrowing. A waist-high pile of skeletons—Ganak, judging from their size—blocked the path.

  He picked up a loose rib and examined it curiously, squinting and running his fingers along a peculiar series of deep grooves in the bone. He recognized immediately the work of the spider’s deadly mandibles. But the sheer size of the bone pile whispered to him, suggesting that no single spider could account for so many large, strong victims.

  The thought made his flesh crawl. Conan did not fear any man or beast that could be slain by steel. With his bare hands, he had overcome one of these things. But weakened as he was, still foggy from the venom, he had no wish to face what could well be a score of those crawling creatures.

  His ankle was sore but serviceable. He backed up, moving with a silence that would have shamed a stalking panther. Leaves about him rustled softly, freezing him in place. A bright moonbeam sliced through the dense fronds overhead, casting light upon the ghastly mound of skeletons.