The leader with the flag had gotten back onto his horse and kicked its sides to make it run forward. Then the worst thing happened. The leader lowered his pole with the flag on it, and the end of it went right through Papa.
It was like a spear too, but longer than the hoe. When it went into Papa, he bellowed like a bull and fell over on his side. The yellow flag was all crumpled against his chest, and it began to turn red.
Tamsin screamed when she saw it, but no one heard, because the bearded man’s horse screamed too, and all the mercenaries were yelling and cheering around their leader. After that, she understood that she had to keep quiet. She watched as the mercenary pulled his spear out of Papa, straightened the bloody flag, and raised it over his head again, without even getting off his horse.
After that, the mercenaries took more things from the cottage and loaded them into the ox cart, driving it and the other animals back up the meadow. The last thing they did was to take fire out of the kitchen hearth and spread it onto die roofs of all the buildings, laughing all the time. They had found Papa’s wine, and one of them raised his bottle, calling out, “A toast to King Typhas and his generous subjects!”
As they rode away, the buildings roared with fire and began to cave in. Tamsin hid Ninga’s face against her side so that the doll would not have to look.
II
The Treasure Pit
“Work, you mewling, miserable wretches!” The Brythunian guardsman’s taunts echoed down from the catwalk high above the rocky chasm. “Dig and grovel, and send the fruits of your toil up in yonder baskets! Else there will be no rinds and crusts to gnaw for your supper tonight!”
The mine was a crude open working, a broad, deep quarry yawning like a pale grave under the chill northern sky. Its walls were steep, formed of brittle, ragged shale. Its shape was irregular, because the vast pit tended to widen itself informally as its sides were undercut, either in planned cavings or unexpected landslides.
Such occurrences, whether foreseen or not, were ever a threat to the miners who toiled below. Even so, since every labourer was a convict, the many deaths and injuries were regarded as unimportant. The products of the mine were in any case so prized, its raw gold and varieties of gemstones so valuable, that any amount of death and suffering would have been deemed worthwhile in obtaining them.
“I tell you, Conan, do not cut too deeply into the base of the south wall. The cliff will require stoping. This rotten stone will not sustain a tunnel, as many have learned to their sorrow.”
The warning voice was that of Tjai, Conan’s fellow prisoner and toiler in the quarry’s depths. He was an Ilbarsi hillman, hailing from far to the south-eastward; having made the mistake of travelling to Sargossa to find his fortune, he had found more than he could have wished. As fellow foreigners from remote but equally savage tribes, the two convicts had discovered a mutual bond, apart from the others—the dregs and sweepings of Brythunia’s town gutters, who made up most of the mine’s labour draft. Crom only knew how Tjai had come to wander so many hundreds of leagues from his home; but the hillman’s canniness and lean, wiry toughness rivalled the Cimmerian’s own fierce stamina.
Conan himself was not quite sure where in the world he was, and exactly how he had been brought there. After his arrest and imprisonment in the capital, the world had changed; scatterings of white lotus dust cast into his face by his warders had temporarily blinded and paralysed him. His captivity after that had become a hazy, drug-slaked stupor.
He knew only that, chained together with a half-score other drugged captives, he had travelled countless leagues in the hold of some wooden conveyance, either a wagon or a barge. None of the prisoners had known much, or been lucid enough to tell it, except that they were bound for a slave mine in the north of the country: a remote place of fantastic wealth, from which none ever returned.
Conan now rued the dim awareness that even while lying in a groggy, paralytic state, he had found those rumours tantalizing. He cursed himself, along with all the fickle bitch-fates, because on the one occasion when he might have escaped—when he was being strapped across the back of a mule for a night passage over rugged mountain trails— he had lacked either the strength or the spirit to break free of his captors, slay one or two of them, and drag himself away into the brush. Instead, his weak, bleary will had been lulled by the notion that because his destination was a mere work camp and not a prison, escape would be possible at any time. After all, he had temporized, it might pay to learn the location of the mine and, over a period of days, pilfer some of its wealth.
In truth, knowing the whereabouts of such a rich lode— or even the transport routes by which its product was carried to civilization—would have been a boon to a skilled and daring thief. But without any real knowledge and the freedom to exploit it, the advantage melted away to nothing. The mine was a well-kept state secret, and had proved more escape-proof than any prison cell Conan had yet been shut up in.
“Conan,” Tjai now exclaimed, “your ox-brained northern zeal places us both at peril! If we undercut this cliff face much farther, it will slump down of its own weight. It will bury the two of us for our trouble!” Resting his pick-head on a jagged chunk of shale, the Ilbarsi leaned against the handle letting perspiration wash dark runnels down his thin, dusty-olive limbs. “Besides, there is no gold here! If you so crave the sight of the stuff, go help them strip out yonder pocket.” He nodded toward a sunlit comer where a half-dozen ragged prisoners worked with feverish, pointless intensity amid the sparkle of rich yellow ore and watery-pink crystal.
“No, Tjai,” Conan grunted, “bear with me a while longer. Come and help hew away this buttress that so cramps our space in this little cubbyhole. At least we are out of reach of the guards, with their infernal pelting and pestering! Arrh, Crom blast these cheap bronze tools! They lose their edge and scarcely do more than bludgeon the stone!”
The convicts, in their unremitting toil, never left the pit They worked, slept, ate, and voided in its dusty depths, preferring the chill shadows of the southern half by day and the sun-warmed northern side after sunset. Never in Co-nan’s experience was a ladder used, and never did an outside guard or worker descend into the hole. On the rare occasion when the Cimmerian found a rope hanging unattended, he knew better than to swarm up it seeking escape, lest his playful captors cut or unreel the line from above. Tjai had told him of prisoners being dropped to their death or crippled by such wanton tricks.
“Nay, Tjai, you Ilbarsi hound! Do not dig so near that other pillar! It is narrow and fragile, as you can see. Why, a good, hard levering of this timber prop might crack right through it—and see, it supports this whole overburden that looms so massively over our heads! Dig with care, as you yourself have wisely cautioned.”
The mine guards, outfitted with the yellow-tan tunics and fur-trimmed iron caps of elite Brythunian troopers, lived and patrolled along the pit’s lofty rim. Catwalks—narrow plank ramp ways secured by ropes—ringed the quarry’s perimeter and made supervision of the work easier. There were also cabins set at intervals along the edge— porched dwellings that could be hauled back from potential landslide areas on wooden skids.
The guards’ role was to occupy and maintain these structures, and without overmuch concern for any rocks and debris they dislodged on the heads of the toilers below, to watch the prisoners, dispense tools and food, and oversee the hauling out of ore and rock tailings. This latter work was performed by the convicts from beneath, using the rope pulleys and open metal baskets controlled by the guards.
The warders could direct the digging too, if they saw fit, by means of commands shouted down through speaking-trumpets, or by hurling or slinging stones and filth to enforce swift obedience. This kind of close supervision was seldom necessary, unless the workers seemed to be sabotaging the dig.
In actual practice, the guards’ supervision of their prisoners was lax and arbitrary. They could easily speed up labour by controlling the food supply, throwing down grain and hardta
ck only in proportion to the amount of ore and tailings that were hauled up. Water, too, would doubtless have been controlled, had it not been naturally available in the form of an underground stream that flooded a lower fissure of the digging and ran out by an unseen channel. As things stood, a good part of the guards’ time was spent in gambling, whether at lots and dice or on the fall of small pebbles that were slung or tossed at convicts as they toiled in the quarry’s depths.
“Now, Tjai, we must leave this spot.” Stretching his massive shoulders, Conan wiped sweat and dust from his tanned, grimy face. “You were right, ’tis foolhardy to work in such a cloistered hollow, with the paunch of the earth sagging over our heads. I thought I heard the mountain shift just now, didn’t you? Come, fellow, let us flee!” Tossing down his pick-hammer and taking up the end of a spliced, knotted rope that he trailed after him, he led the way out of the broad cul-de-sac the two of them had burrowed into the cliff.
“Ahoy, you dogs, get clear of the wall!” At the Cimmerian’s shout, the nearby workers, without stopping to look or question, threw down their tools and bolted with him. “Tjai and I have heard grumblings, and yon cliff is sure to fell! Come, fellows, save yourselves!” The running, leaping fugitives soon numbered a score and more—bearded dusty hobgoblins, shouting and scrambling over the rock-strewn floor of the chasm into the bright sun at its centre.
“I see no sign of a cave-in,” one of the hairy troglodytes declared at last. “What is it, then, another false alarm?” “The northman lost his nerve,” a miner jeered at Conan through gapped, broken teeth. “Get your wits about you, fellow, or you will be climbing these walls in madness— and clawing them down on your head, as better men have done!”
“Pulling them down?” the Cimmerian countered, scowling. “Aye, ’tis an idea. If you dogs want to help, lay hold of this rope!”
Conan held up the rope end he had brought along, drawing it hand over hand to form a taut length running straight into the hollow at the base of the cliff. He threw his whole weight against the line, and Tjai, suddenly grinning, followed suit. Others joined in, until a dozen or more of them had braced their backs to the task, chanting as they would for the daily ore lifting.
“Steady, ready, heave!” Conan shouted, and the team followed through with a lusty cry, making the rope strain and oscillate in the half-shadow.
The result of their effort could scarcely have been foreseen: a creaking of timber, a grating of stone, and then an abrupt slackening and collapse of the line, all resistance gone. Its haulers staggered and cursed, regaining their footing on the broken quarry floor while still gaping backward at the cliff.
There followed stirrings and rattlings from the base of the overhang. A grating shock occurred, sending a man-tall puff of dust jetting out of the hollow, followed by creakings and small rivulets of stone from far above. Then, with a trembling roar, the whole cliff face began to slump down and forward.
The rope-haulers raised their fists and issued a cheer, which was instantly drowned out by the tumultuous din of clashing, fracturing stone; then the miners leaped and scrambled farther away as the slide sent rubble tongues and jagged boulders trundling toward the spot where they stood.
The avalanche roared and thundered, filling the air with its tumult, reverberation, and acrid-smelling dust. Then it ceased, leaving the group of miners cowering at the foot of a broad ramp way formed of loose, smoking rubble stretching up and out of sight into the pall of rolling grey.
“Now upward,” Conan cried, “before the dust settles! Fight your way to the top, and to freedom!”
Leading the charge, he started up the talus slope in great, leaping bounds. He was slowed by the rubble, which gave underfoot and caught at his loose, ill-mended sandals, vastly increasing the effort needed for every step. Seeking out the larger chunks of stone awash on the sea of gravel and shale, he began to leap from one to the next. As he progressed upward, the way grew firmer, if steeper.
Yelling and jabbering on either side of him, seized by the novel and half-forgotten notion of escape, Conan’s fellow convicts swarmed desperately forward. Some of them—the leanest, wiriest veterans at rock-scrabbling— even raced ahead of their leader. Ragged and long-bearded as they were, waving their arms with excitement, their charge resembled more the disgorging of a madhouse or a graveyard than a prison break. The convict Tjai stayed close by Conan’s side, clutching his shoulder for mutual balance in difficult spots, his face alight with hope at the sudden opportunity.
“’Tis a brilliant idea, Conan!” the Ilbarsi gasped along the way. “I did not think you knew the stone that well, to shave things so close—and after such a short time in the pit!”
Conan turned, clasping his comrade’s arm in the legionary double hand grip, the better to haul the smaller man up a cottage-sized boulder. “When I was a lad, I hunted mountain sheep through the alps of my native land. I learned to read the rocks even as the horn-heads do.”
“You learned well, Conan,” Tjai affirmed. Slit-eyed, the Ilbarsi pointed forward and upward. “There, see, through the dust... it looks as if this slide of ours stretches clean to the quarry’s rim!”
“Aye, Crom thump me,” Conan swore devoutly. “But now the thrice-cursed guards have guessed what we are about. Our work begins in earnest.”
Ahead, they could see where the landslide had cut into the mine’s defences. A catwalk was down, one end of it trailing in the sloping rubble, with what looked like the broken body of a guard lying in the stony wrack a little way beneath. Two more guards crouched on the last, sagging horizontal reach of catwalk, outlined against the bright, welcoming sky as they peered down through the roiling dust. Above them, one of the cabins had been partly undermined. Its rounded log-skids sagged out over the precipice, yet it had not fallen.
“Ho there, you prisoners, get on back!” a voice came down to them, funnelled through cupped hands. “Do not venture near the rim, on pain of death!”
“Aye, rascals, take your stenchy hides back down into the pit,” the other guard called less officiously. “You lackeys have a sorry mess of stone to clean up!”
As Conan climbed, hard, round pebbles began to shatter near him: slung stones, each one easily large enough to kill or maim. Slingers could be seen on the balcony of the guard cabin, with more now appearing at the unbroken edge of the quarry. Their barrage intensified, and just ahead, a crunching, despairing cry rang out. One of the white-bearded convicts clutched his shoulder and fell, rolling a dozen man-lengths down the rubble slope to lie moaning, his arm bloodied and one leg twisted crazily beneath him.
This, however, did not halt the others. It only hastened their climb. Some, with wild eyes set on the cliff edge, scrambled past the dangling end of catwalk and its two defenders; but Conan headed straight for it, with Tjai following close behind him.
Slipping and scrabbling in the rubble, the Cimmerian grabbed hold of a trailing end of rope and used it to haul himself up all the faster. When he reached the hanging wooden slats, he gained some protection against the bombardment of stones; they smote and dinted the thin planks, thudding down heavily at his feet.
The two catwalk guards were armed only with long daggers, which they now used to saw at the thick, tarred cordage, working to cut away the dangling portion of catwalk where it trailed into the pit.
“Tjai, grab hold! Stoutly, now!” Seized by a sudden, devilish inspiration, the two tugged and swung on the slack ropes. The men on the unstable footing above clutched for their lives, and one of them, taken by surprise, overtoppled. Flailing and calling out piteously as he fell, he ended in the netting just above Conan’s head, while his long, sharp poniard tumbled almost into the Cimmerian’s lap.
“Aha, fellow, and welcome!” But the man was dead, his neck twisted in cordage. Hauling the corpse down, Conan laid hold of the makeshift ladder. “Now we must climb, and fast!”
Clamping the weapon in his teeth, oblivious of the stones that still cracked and thudded onto the scree around him, Conan set
his toes into the narrow interstices of the dangling catwalk planks. He scaled it spiderlike, mounting toward the level section and the lone guard who now gaped down at him in fear.
“Mount to the rim, and freedom!” the shouts from the other convicts rang down. “Onward, fellows! Fight! Aiahh!”
The cries and screams of the escapees echoed from the cliff as they charged the summit, wading into the thick hail of projectiles. A few lay slack or twitching on the rocks, while the surviving score or so straggled toward the last, man-high crest of the slope, which was topped by a dozen or more vigorous defenders.
Conan, meanwhile, swarmed the catwalk like a ship’s rat following the scent of rancid beef. Tjai flanked him, creeping up the loose netting with equal agility. The guard above paused in sawing at the ropes, as if debating whether to bolt from his station and flee up the sagging span. Conan’s snarled curses were unintelligible, issuing as they did from knotted lips clenched around a sharp steel blade.
Of a sudden, a new turmoil broke out along the cliff side. Barely stopping to crane his neck, Conan saw the desperate guards trigger a new avalanche. Its keystone was the guard cabin, cut loose from its moorings and toppled over the side by a group of Imperials who now stood waving and cheering. Made of beams and light timbers, the wooden hovel sagged and split apart on its sliding journey. But in its wake, shaken loose by the impact, came a slather of loose stones that no climber could dodge or resist. Those convicts at the centre of the rush were bowled over by a tide of shifting rubble; some of them were knocked sprawling, others vanished entirely from sight.
The guards, howling in exultation, turned to face the few remaining prisoners. It began to seem that none would escape the pit after all.
Snarling his inarticulate rage, Conan hauled himself up the last few planks of the rope walk and seized the tunic collar of the remaining, wide-eyed Brythunian—just as the man’s dagger finally sawed through the rope at the side of the catwalk, causing the web of cordage to sag free and reshape itself. Conan’s one-handed grip was broken; he fell backward, losing his hold on the dagger but not on the guard. Bowling Tjai loose as they tumbled, the two enemies rolled off the sagging netting at the bottom and pitched headlong into the sliding, churning avalanche.
Conan the Savage Page 2
