As he rolled to his feet, his gut-muscles spasming to recover breath, he saw a demonstration of the monster’s fighting prowess. Instead of launching itself through the air to grapple with its prey, rending it with teeth and talons as most cats would do, the beast sidled menacingly into combat. It stalked delicately, ponderously, then lunged with lethal suddenness. Its first adversary—the bold young huntress—it dispatched with one mighty forepaw, brushing aside her spear and catapulting her over backward. The blow undoubtedly broke her neck, leaving her crumpled body lying blood-streaked across a boulder.
The next hunter, Jad, drove in yelling from the side with a vicious spear-thrust at the silver-furred neck. But the giant creature, uncannily swift and supple, ducked beneath the spear. The big cat seemed merely to brush up against its attacker with a toss of its shaggy head; Jad staggered back, dropping his weapon and using both hands, vainly, to try to close the terrible rift in his belly opened by the monster’s scything sabre-fang.
While Jad shrieked and fell to his knees, the other young hunter met the same fate. Before he could plant his spear, the cat lunged sideward with a flick of its great head, hardly even troubling to open its jaws. Its long, curved incisor laid the youth open more efficiently than a Hyrkanian cavalry knife could have done. It must have struck his heart, for unlike Jad, who knelt sobbing in pain, he crumpled silently in a shower of blood.
Conan, regaining wind and strength, hacked savagely at the nearest part of the cat, the hind leg, lower to earth and less imposing than its massively muscled forepaws. He felt his ax rebound from the tough hamstring, yet the blow must have caused pain; the rough tail lashed his neck almost hard enough to knock him over. As he edged away, the beast turned to swipe at him. Its hooked claws tore through his trailing mane of hair, jerking his neck cruelly and smearing him with gore, which it was hard to be certain was not his own.
As he stumbled in recoil, Jad’s gasping screams abruptly halted. Aklak had ended his hunt-brother’s hopeless agony, using his heavy stone hatchet, as a good Atupan was sworn to do. He now turned and raised his weapon to meet the sabre-cat's rush. There was no feinting or sidling this time, just a straightforward charge. The huntsman’s ax flashed high in the sun, chopping down hard on one of the sabre-cat's ears. The next moment Aklak’s neck was seized in jaws that gaped impossibly wide, They closed, and his head was nipped clean from his body by the huge scissor-fangs.
Conan, half-blind with blood, rage, and anguish, never thought to turn and run. Survival was no eventuality; death was foregone. His only intent as he sprang forward was to do the greatest injury to his foe. He raised the ax two-handed to hew at the cat’s lower backbone—but before he could complete the swing, the monster wheeled to confront him with its full, dreadful snarl.
The visage before him gaped terrible, a spectre of rage and hideous hunger. Those devil eyes, the bristling, bulging features, and the red-smeared fangs held his soul in a grip as tight and dreadful as the creature’s bone-crunching bite. The sabre-cat's musty stench engulfed him; its guttural roar beat against his face, while its hot, blood-sweet carrion breath washed over him. As it loomed nearer-intent, as it seemed, on paralysing and killing him with a mere look—his arm shot out by its own volition, driving his stone axhead upright between the sabre-fangs into the beast’s bloody, gaping jaws.
The roar became a sputtering cough of rage as the cat tried unsuccessfully to close its mouth. The jaws, wedged open at their widest extent, could not bring their full, terrible strength to bear; the flint ax dug into the ridged pink gums, splintering razor-edged teeth, but did not give. The giant cat raised a paw to swipe at the object lodged in its mouth, but the long fangs at either side were in the way.
The creature shook its massive head, its huge rough tongue bulging and probing to clear away the obstruction.
Conan, meanwhile, groped beside him and found a weapon: his own blood-slimed spear, which had fallen from the gutted carcass of the elk. The haft was slick and difficult to hold, yet he raised it before him just as the sabre-cat finally spewed out the axhead, turned, and lunged at him with a shattering roar.
Any retreat was blocked by a boulder—as was the butt of the spear, which caught against its base. The cat, surging forward, took the bloody point in the fur of its chest. Conan slid his grip back down the haft, shrinking low to avoid the fierce, hooking talons; yet he braced the spear-point steady as the monster’s weight bore down on it.
The pole bent and twisted in his grasp. Then it snapped, and the cat was upon him. Its writhing, clawing weight crushed him against hard stone, and he felt himself dying.
By the time Conan managed to drag himself from beneath the sabre-cat, the sun was low. Once his chest was partially free, enabling him to breathe deeply, his efforts were more successful. Inching clear of the carcass, he saw that the point of his spear must have been driven to the animal’s heart as it fell; the broken stub end was flush with the coarse, silvery chest fur.
He found that he could walk, or at least limp. So he did not linger at the site of the carnage to count the dead, or to drive away the circling, feasting vultures, or to determine how much of the gore encrusting his body was his own. If he himself had died, the tragedy could scarcely be greater, and it might have been more just. He was responsible, after all... having goaded the others into a foolhardy attack, and disobeyed his hunt-chief. How could he confess to Songa that he, Conan, had brought about the death of her adored brother?
The way back to camp was hard. He would not stop lest he lose daylight, or find himself unable to crawl back to his feet after a rest. Even so, night set in before he was in familiar territory, and he lost the trail repeatedly between sunset and moonrise. His pain and hardship and the blackness around him were matched by dark broodings all the way—less dark, however, than what awaited him at camp.
As he approached across the sandy meadow, he saw no fires. The only light was from the half-moon high above the lake, which rippled softly in the chill night-breeze. There was smoke aplenty, though, and the acrid smell of charred wood, hides, and hair. Huts still smouldered dimly, and the avenues between them were strewn with bodies— those of his tribe mates, pierced through with small, tell-tale wounds.
In one of the bodies, that of an elder, the death weapon was broken and had not been retrieved. Conan removed it and examined its two halves in the dim moonlight—a long arrow of passing good craftsmanship. Its fletching was tied on with spun thread, its tip forged of sharp, gleaming steel.
By his count, all, or nearly all, the members of his tribe lay dead, slain by arrow shafts and by keen metal knives. They had been surrounded or tricked, undoubtedly, and massacred with weapons they had never before seen. There lay his mother-in-law, a cudgel still clutched in her slack fist—and lame Glubal, fallen across his hunting-spear, along with two score other men, women, and babes. The Atupans had fought bravely, or tried to... but without success. Markedly absent were any dead attackers or any further hint of their identity.
Also missing was any sign of Songa.
In spite of its dread urgency, the full, gruesome inventory had to wait for morning light, as did any tracking. For the time, he crept with renewed watchfulness into the forest. There he rested, chill and wakeful, bedevilled by grim, silent ghosts.
By dawn’s faint light, Songa had not returned, and none lived to answer his calls. Surveying the butchery, he discovered one further, critical fact. Nothing had been taken from the village, except the single possession proudly worn by most adults: scavenged out of the ruined tower, the odd, ancient amulets that Atupans received on becoming hunters—like the ornament that now girdled Conan’s waist, gritty and blood-grimed.
For these worthless trinkets, so it seemed, Songa’s people and his own had been wiped out. If so, there was no question of where to seek her.
Even if he had not guessed which direction to take, he knew it was impossible to move such a body of men without leaving signs. This was true of men afoot, and especially of civilized
ones. In the faint light, their trail was easy to find.
The track they left was slovenly, an insult to the forest and its spirits. They scuffed and dragged their feet, idly defaced trees and plants with their steel, trod carelessly in one another’s wastes and tracked them into the wilderness. He could read their callowness in their footsteps; worse, he could smell them, and their stench of civilization soured his nostrils.
Before setting out, he bathed himself in the lake, swiftly and determinedly, washing from his abraded skin the blood of the sabre-cat, of his hunt-mates, and of murdered innocents. He daubed himself quickly with coloured clay, in the ritual face and chest stripes for a high hunt, and set out at a lope in the sparse costume of his tribe, bearing Songa’s stone ax and a heavy, hand-thrown spear. The ruined village, fly-buzzing bodies, and circling carrion birds were best left behind as a warning to other tribes.
The invaders’ track led north and west, along ridges flanking the river, toward the Atupans’ summer hunting ground. The slayers’ progress was rapid and forced, without rests; obviously they guessed they were in danger from survivors or neighbouring tribes. The band had a mission, clearly, and a leader’s discipline. They gnawed dry figs and oat-cakes as they walked, strewing stems and crumbs in their path. They also hunted along the way—with small success, since the bones cast into their previous night’s campfire were few and tiny, the remains of mere vermin.
At a stream crossing, Conan found something more valuable than any diadem: pressed into the damp clay of the bank was a single footprint, shapely and unbloodied. It told him that Songa was alive, that she was being used as guide, as he had hoped, to lead them to the treasure.
Thereafter Conan redoubled his pace. He did not stop to hunt or to glean food, and he forgot his bruises and gashes, sprinting to make up the single day’s lead. He sought out short cuts, pausing only to scale vantage points and scan the country ahead. His speed of overtaking them was aided by several false branches in the trail, where Songa had tried to lead the marchers back upon themselves in a circle.
Their leader was watchful, Conan judged. Doubtless he maltreated Songa to make her obey. Still, she resisted, knowing Conan would follow, and expecting Aklak too, no doubt, along with the rest of the party. Again Conan cursed the fate, or the folly, that had ended his hunt-mates’ lives.
At any rate, if he could creep near and rescue his mate, it might be wise to let the rest of the slayers live... for a time at least, while he and Songa made good their escape. Songa had friends among the other Atupan tribes; they could raise a war party, obtain their revenge, and then resume their lives together.
But the first need was to overtake her. This unseen commander pressed his murderers harshly indeed, leading them on a cruel forced march. Many of their footprints began to show lameness, and some were blood-spotted by the time Conan overtook the band—near dusk, at the ruined tower that was their goal. The tower’s vines now hung dead and brown, rattling dryly in autumn gusts. Brittle fallen leaves lay underfoot, making Conan’s approach all the more difficult as he crept toward the low crevice that served as an entry.
Most of the band seemed to have gone inside seeking treasure; only two sentries were posted, one on either flank of the jagged, buckled doorway. They wore no armour or military uniforms. Mere border ruffians, they looked to be, dressed in ill-made hide breeches and loose, woven shirts. One boasted a fur cap and poorly lasted town boots, whose uneven prints had occasionally been visible bringing up the
rear of the party; the other one distinguished himself with shapeless buskins and a mangy fur vest, familiar to Conan only because it had shed some of its rotten hair in clumps along the trail.
The two stood motionless, with pike-axes grounded beside them, conversing intermittently in what sounded like coarse Brythunian. They were not in any particular attitude of alertness, but more in subdued dread, or morbid fascination. As Conan crept nearer, he discovered why: before them, in the weeds near the base of the tower, dead bodies were laid in a row.
Two of them, their heads split and shapeless, were ill-dressed ruffians very like the two sentries. The third, pale in the gathering dusk—though darkly stained with blood that had seeped from several arrow wounds—was Songa.
“A regular devil-cat, she,” the hatted, booted sentry was saying. “Quiet as a stone monkey she was, the whole way. But tricky... ah yes, sly as a vixen cub, you can bet on it! ’ ’ The fur-hatted sentry was obviously fond of his topic. “But Dolphas, he wouldn’t let us touch her.”
“Wanted her for himself, you ask me,” the other guard muttered.
The first man shrugged. “That may be the way it was. Who am I to say?”
He shook his fur-capped head and said no more. Conan waited, crouching, for the silence to stop buzzing in his ears.
Impulsively, the first sentry resumed speaking. “Then, finally we get here and the lads want to have sport with her—natural enough. But she, the hellcat, grabs a battle-ax and chops ’em in the noggin!” He shook his head again, his most animated gesture so far, though his voice droned on gloatingly. “Would have chopped a good many more, too, if our bows wasn’t strung and ready.”
“’Tis a shame, even so,” the other sentry grumbled. “A sorry waste of a woman, you ask me.”
“Aye, she would have been something,” the fur-hatted one said. “Ferocious, these forest wenches are. ’Tis like having sport with a wild animal.” He peered down at the bodies in the gathering dimness. “Even now.. He exhaled raggedly. “But Dolphas says not to touch her.’
“He still wants her for himself, you ask me.”
“What say you, there?” The gruff voice sounded just behind the sentries’ shoulders, making both of them start. “Talking on guard duty?” Firelight reflected from inside the archway, growing gradually more visible as sunset waned; now it was partly blocked as a burly form emerged. “Nay, nothing, Captain Dolphas! Just staying alert.” “Hmmph.” The big man’s growl was one of suspicion. “What of the forest? Any noises out there?” His gaze swept the trees, passing directly over Conan’s crouching form without awareness.
“Nay, Sire, nothing to report.”
“Captain,” the fur-hatted one asked, “will we have relief to go and eat our supper?”
“Aye, in good time. The kettle is warming.” Dolphas climbed out through the broken arch. “No great hurry just now. The jewels have all been gathered up for our return trip.” Stepping out between his men, he turned back to look at them. “Remember, you two, any pilfering means death! Report what treasure you find, and you will be paid fairly.”
“Aye, Sire.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Just you remember it!” The commander strode out toward the tree line, barely glancing aside at the row of bodies. He loosened the front of his trousers, making ready to void into the bushes.
Conan’s ax whispered through the air, striking him a glancing blow on the temple. He grunted softly and sagged forward, unconscious. Conan caught him on his free arm, but there was a rustling of leaves as his body sank to earth.
“Captain, what is it?”
“Be you all right, Sire?”
In the darkness, they mistook Conan, striding forward, for their returning captain. The first sentry received Conan’s stone spear tip in his throat, choking on it with a gargle of blood. The second man started forward, pike raised, only to meet a hurtling stone ax that split both skull and fur hat. Man and weapon dropped to the ground with a clang.
“Dolphas, is that you?” a voice called from within the tower. “Come back in and cast the dice, Captain, before we divide up your winnings!” A shadow loomed dark against fire-lit stone, then receded.
Conan picked up the fallen pike-ax. It was strongly made, with a keen, narrow head and forged-steel haft. A civilized weapon. With this, he could stand outside the tower entry and smite down his enemies one by one as they came forth—until the others climbed to the top and dropped loose stones on his head.
Steel had it
s uses, some more efficient than others.
Groping in the dimness, he explored the stonework of the crumbling arch. The lintel, a long, loaf-shaped piece spanning the door’s width, lay at chest level. He raised the pike-ax, driving its pointed end into the loose, eroded stonework at one side.
“Hello, Captain? Are you out there?”
Heaving his whole weight against the pike-head, Conan bore it sideways, levering the lintel-stone outward with a heavy, grinding rasp. A dim shape appeared in the doorway; an instant later, as the stone gave way, the man disappeared in a chaos of rubble and dust. Volumes of masonry began to sag into the archway, while high overhead, a grating, rumbling sound commenced.
Snatching up his weapons, Conan whirled and ran for the forest.
Behind him, inside the tower, shouting and screaming began—faint, muffled noises that were quickly drowned out by the thunder of falling stone as the ancient tower fell in on itself.
Later, when the waxing moon rose, it lit a greater desolation than before. The jumble of stone and broken trees lay dusty-pale, motionless now and silent except for faint groans from one edge of the pile.
“Captain Dolphas.” Above the wounded man, whose leg and arm were pinned under a battered-down tree trunk, a shadow loomed.
“Who... who are you?” the gruff voice rose. One hand slid for a knife-hilt, obviously through long habit, but returned empty.
“Nay, the question is, who are you?" The muscular, near-naked man knelt beside the officer.
“You speak Brythunian! You are no savage! Why do you paint yourself like one?”
“I ask. You answer.” The questioner loomed closer. “Why are you here? Who sent you?”
“Sent me? Why, no one. I am just an adventurer, an explorer. Are any of my friends yet alive?”
Conan the Savage Page 20
