Into the milling chaos, the Final Guard marched forward—swinging their blood-drenched weapons with all the tireless precision of harvestmen reaping with scythes. It was a red harvest. The street ran with human gore; crushed bodies buried the pavement. Creatures of stone, the Final Guard bore the ponderous mass of living statues. As they had earlier marched across the bottom of the sea, so now they waded into a human sea. Their tread struck the paving with the heavy impact of a draft horse’s hooves. Those who stumbled in the press were crushed beneath their feet; others, unable to flee, were smashed against the wall by the relentless advance of the Final Guard.
Writhing back upon itself like the coils of a wounded python, the Royal Zingaran Army halted its advance, turned about in a broken rout. It left a trail of crushed red things behind it, and, marching upon the trail as if on parade, century after century of the Final Guard, marching out of the sea and out of the abyss of time.
Twelve
To Follow the Road of Kings
At the third barricade, Conan fought on with the ferocity of a wounded lion. The scales of battle had tipped against the rebels; defeat was certain, escape improbable. The soldiers had driven past the barricade in a human avalanche, forcing the rebels back to their last line of defense. Sifino had gone down somewhere in their retreat; Carico, his wounded thigh bleeding again, swung his great axe with faltering strength. Most of the defenders were slain; some few had fought clear of the melee and fled. Leading those who remained in a final stand, Conan fought savagely to throw back the Zingaran advance—dealing death all about him without a thought for his own hide. They might kill him, but Conan vowed they would not again make him a prisoner. When he fell, those who saw would know by the dead piled about him that a Cimmerian did not sell his life cheaply.
Flung up in a frantic effort, the third barricade was too flimsy to withstand their rush for long. Already Korst’s soldiers hurtled through ragged gaps in the bulwark. If anything, their very numbers held them back as much as the failing rebel defense—so many attackers had swarmed into Eel Street that by now they were too crowded together to fight as effectively. But the fighting would soon be over.
At the uproar behind him, Conan at first thought Korst’s soldiers had again outflanked their line of defense and had come upon the rebels from behind. But as cheers and glad shouts echoed from the rear, Conan risked a glance to learn the cause.
Mordermi, rapier brandished gallantly in his good hand, left shoulder impressively bandaged, rode at the head of his men. Fresh defenders rushed to relieve the exhausted handful who still held the barricade. The outlaw leader had committed his reserve—and to judge from the excited mob who surged behind him, Mordermi must have rallied those who had manned the barricades elsewhere.
Letting other bodies take his place in the thick of the fighting, Conan greeted his friend with a bloody handclasp. “You’re as pretty as a king’s victory monument,” Conan grinned wearily. “But you may have waited too late. Korst has too many men; he’s cut into us too far.”
“Mitra, you northern barbarians are a gloomy lot!” Mordermi laughed, sheathing his sword to embrace the Cimmerian’s shoulders. “Korst is in a trap, not us. The cat has crept too far into the rathole! In a moment you’ll see.”
Conan remembered Carico’s specious talk of the city taking arms for the rebel cause. “Then Santiddio…?”
“Not Santiddio,” Mordermi informed him. “Callidios.”
“What can that lotus-dreamer…!”
“You saw,” Mordermi said in a tone of reproof. “Sandokazi verified his words. The Final Guard.”
“Stone devils that guard their king’s bones at the bottom of the sea!”
“Not any longer. Callidios has summoned them forth.”
“How can that Stygian renegade command such demons!”
“Well, Conan,” said Mordermi, “if I knew that, then I wouldn’t need Callidios, would I?”
“You mean you’ve let yourself get sucked in by that madman’s lies!”
“Look,” Mordermi pointed.
Conan stared.
It was difficult to discern much of what was taking place beyond the barricade. Thick smoke obscured what little light there was, and the barricade itself blocked out most of the street beyond. It was the sudden shift in the spirit of the attackers that Conan felt. A moment ago their cries had been imbued with the jubilation of impending triumph. Now there was a distinct note of fear. The arrival of Mordermi’s reinforcements could not have inspired this abrupt sense of terror.
For a macabre interval of time, the battle shuddered to a halt. Both sides sensed the chill breath of alien horror. Men in the fury of combat virtually froze in midstride; weapons that were slashing for an enemy’s flesh drifted to a halt as if the air had turned to glass and imprisoned them. Conan, who had seen men locked in combat roll from atop a city wall and never pause in their struggle until they smashed to the earth, could not credit his eyes now. Truly sorcery had cast its foul shadow upon this field of battle, and although its spell might have swung the scythe of defeat from his comrades to their enemy, Conan suddenly knew in his heart that he should never have returned to Kordava with Callidios undrowned.
The screams began.
At first the soldiers who paused before the barricade sought to turn from the attack to discover what manner of disaster had struck those to the rear. Panic claimed the attackers, as they struggled to retreat along Eel Street. Then they knew what terror had engendered such cries from veteran warriors—and with that came the knowledge that retreat was impossible.
The Final Guard marched into Eel Street.
In another moment, the soldiers were fleeing back toward the barricade, seeking only to escape the inhuman warriors who stalked them. They rushed the barricade in blind panic. Fear made them heedless of the defenders there. They almost carried the barricade now in their panic, for even the bravest warrior has the instinct of self-preservation in combat, and does not witlessly fling himself upon the blades of his foemen, as these soldiers did now.
Conan, who had looked upon massacre from both sides, turned away from the slaughter in disgust. To kill an enemy who has lost his will to defend himself was not the way Cimmerians made war.
“Stop them!” he growled to Mordermi.
“Don’t worry,” Mordermi misread his meaning. “Callidios can control them.”
“I mean, stop this butchery! Let Korst’s men surrender.”
“My people need a victory,” Mordermi shrugged. “And we’ve suffered much from Rimanendo’s dogs.”
Conan swore, but by now the issue was past. No more of the soldiers struggled across the barricade. Along Eel Street resounded the heavy stamp of marching feet, muffled suggestively to the barely audible snap of crushed bone. Out of the darkness, the ebony ranks of the Final Guard lumbered into view.
They halted before the barricade—at attention, awaiting further commands. The rebels paused in the flush of their victory to gape anxiously upon their demonic allies. Jubilant shouts died into whispers of fear.
Mordermi took charge of the situation.
“Look upon them, my friends!” he shouted, riding forward unafraid. “These are the allies who have been summoned to bring victory to our cause. With the assistance of my valued friend and counselor, the noted wizard Callidios, I have brought forth from the age of legends an army of indestructible warriors. You have seen for yourselves how such warriors can aid us. Salute them now, my friends—our allies in our war of liberation, the Final Guard!”
The cheers were ragged at first. Then, perhaps in reaction to earlier fear, swelled into a deafening ovation.
Mordermi let it build to a pitch, then raised his arm for silence.
“General Korst has fled with his pack of killers to the kennel of his master. Even now Rimanendo quakes in his ermine robes as he learns of our victory, and he prays that his soldiers and his palace walls may protect him from the wrath of the people he has misruled. But tell me, my friends. Can h
is soldiers and his walls protect the tyrant from the justice of the people!”
Mordermi waited as the chorus of NO! reached a crescendo.
“Then take arms now, my friends! With our invincible allies before us, we march to depose a depraved tyrant and his corrupt court! The hour of our liberation is at hand!”
The wild march through the streets of Kordava that followed upon Mordermi’s harangue, for all the heady emotion and excitement of the moment, never quite lost the quality of a nightmare to Conan.
They streamed up out of the Pit, the despised and down-trodden citizens of the shadow world—their numbers swelling with each step of the way. Carico, too lame to walk, yielded to his pride and Conan’s urging and rode astride a horse—after making Conan promise to ride beside him to catch him if he fell off. As they moved through the city, Santiddio actually led a crowd of several thousand, marching behind the banner of the White Rose. Conan wondered how many had rallied to Santiddio’s people’s army before news of the Pit’s victory spread throughout Kordava. Santiddio greeted them boisterously—out of character for him—and he and Carico consoled one another that Avvinti was not here to share the hour. Mordermi—accompanied by Sandokazi until her brother joined them—rode on ahead of the steadily growing procession.
Of Callidios there was no sign, but his presence was felt beyond doubt. The Final Guard, one thousand silent demons of death, marched before the rebel throng.
They moved through Kordava at will, meeting no resistance. Men and women either ran out to join their ranks, or remained discreetly behind locked doors as the banner of the White Rose streamed past. General Korst, disengaging from the impossible combat with the Final Guard, had fled the massacre of the Pit with as many men as he could save. Behind the fortress walls of Rimanendo’s palace Korst sought to regroup his men for a stand against the rebels and their inhuman allies. But the disaster at the Pit had been too demoralizing for the king’s army. Fugitives from the massacre had carried tales of their comrades that all too convincingly relayed the horror of that slaughter. To stand against a human opponent was one matter; to face the unstoppable forces of black sorcery quite another. The Royal Zingaran Army deserted in entire companies of officers and men.
King Rimanendo had ruled too long as a corrupt and hated tyrant. The Zingarans had endured his reign not from loyalty to their monarch, but out of fear. Now the heroes of the White Rose had brought forth a power greater than Rimanendo’s army. It was the despot’s time to know fear—a time his rebellious subjects intended to make mercifully brief. Deserted by all those who had the chance and wit to flee, King Rimanendo cowered in his opulent chambers, while the last of his faithful dogs prepared a hopeless defense.
Their march upon Rimanendo’s palace was unchecked. Only as they approached the fortress barracks was there any show of armed resistance, and this from a small garrison who either had not heard or did not believe the lurid tales of the rebels’ demon army. The front ranks of the Final Guard mowed the garrison down almost without breaking stride; the soldiers might as well have tried to check an avalanche by fending it off barehanded. The short, bloody spectacle only inflamed the mob all the more—as those who had not seen before now witnessed the awesome destructive power of the Final Guard.
Conan remembered the massacre of the Gundermen at Venarium, in which he had taken part several years before. The Cimmerian clans had united to annihilate this fort town that the Aquilonians built to colonize the southern marches of Cimmeria. Men, women and children were butchered; Venarium burned to the ground. For Conan it was a glorious memory. The massacre he now participated in would remain forever in his memory as well, but Conan knew he would never glory in its remembrance.
The wall that encircled the royal palace displayed a steel crown of weapons and armor, scintillant in the torchlight and the sullen glow of the distant conflagration that yet ravened the waterfront. The stars were blinded by a veil of smoke.
Perhaps the fortress walls gave them confidence. Whatever the case, it was evident that General Korst had no thoughts of surrendering the palace to the rabble. From atop the walls, iron-barbed arrows streaked downward into the mob. Behind the battlements, petraries flung a hail of stones full into the advancing throng. Men and women howled in agony and rage, as death swept the rebel horde—suddenly reminding them that Mordermi was leading them to battle, not in a holiday procession. Recoiling from the deadly barrage of arrows and stones, the rebels sought the cover of adjacent buildings.
Conan backed his mount into the cover of a buttress, watched to see what effect stone missiles would have against the Final Guard. The petraries hurled missiles ranging from baskets of rocks the size of a man’s fist to single stones of fifty to sixty pounds. The smaller stones pelted the Final Guard with no more effect than a barrage of snowballs. An instant later a small boulder smashed full into the breast and shoulders of one of the guardsmen—toppling the stone devil to the ground under its impact. The missile broke into shards, bounding away; the warrior of living stone picked himself up, unscathed. Its movement was so natural that Conan would not have been surprised to see it dust the rock dust from its jet breastplate.
But impervious to arrows and stones or not, the Final Guard did not stand idle in the face of the barrage. As the soldiers let fly to repel the army of rabble, the Final Guard formed a close column and marched swiftly toward the fortress’ main gate. From the barbican, the hail of missiles intensified—outlined now against the night as vats of flaming oil streamed down upon the attacking demons. The defenders might have poured scented bath water, for all the damage their frantic efforts inflicted upon the silent ranks.
The Final Guard reached the massive gate of the fortress—sturdy timbers braced with thick bars of iron, built to withstand the crushing impacts of a battering ram. The onlookers from both sides of the wall caught their breath and waited.
Sheathing their weapons for a moment, the front ranks of the Final Guard pressed their hands to the stout oaken barrier. For a heartbeat, thews of living stone strained against the handiwork of man. Only for an instant was their advance checked. Then, in a death groan of bending iron bolts and splintering oaken timbers, the fortress gate caved inward. A broken, sagging thing, the gate crashed down upon the defenders who had desperately thrown their shoulders to the creaking portal. Past its splintered wreckage, the Final Guard entered the fortress—dealing death to those whose faith in fortress walls and human weapons was now betrayed.
For only a moment did the crowd hold back in awe. Then, with a hungry roar from ten thousand throats, the people of Kordava rushed into the doomed palace to seek vengeance upon their hated oppressors. The beast was down. Now the pack closed for the kill.
Conan, determined to be in on the finish as well, nudged his mount forward. It was only a short time ago, he reflected, that he had fully expected to lie dead in the blood and filth of the Pit. Now he went to loot a king’s palace.
With the Final Guard striking down all those who stood in their path, the assault on Rimanendo’s fortress had passed the stage of battle and become sheer butchery. There was no quarter from the Final Guard. Those soldiers and retainers who attempted to surrender to Mordermi were pulled to pieces by the mob. Some escaped by shedding their burgundy and gold livery and joining the bloodthirsty crowds; others managed to take advantage of the chaos to get over the wall and flee beyond the reach of the rabble. And some, disdaining flight, rallied together for a final stand—preserving honor if not their lives.
Conan found where General Korst had fallen, with the last of his dreaded Strikers in a hopeless defense of the palace entrance. The mob had passed over their corpses—seeking richer loot for the moment. Conan paused there, respectful of a brave soldier who had served his king to the death.
The blue-black beard was clotted with dark blood, his chest shattered by the crushing blow of a mace, but not all the life had drained from him yet. Korst opened his eyes, returned Conan’s gaze, and recognition showed through the weary p
ain.
“I know you,” Korst said dully. “The Cimmerian mutineer. You escaped the gallows. Mordermi made you his right-hand man.”
“I offered you my sword,” Conan’s tone held rancour still. “You repaid me with a hempen noose. I’ll follow my fortune with Mordermi instead.”
Korst’s eyes looked past Conan. “So once did I follow my fortune. It led me to this. Look upon me, Cimmerian. It may be that you look upon your future self.”
Conan started to retort, then saw that Korst would not hear him.
Pushing throught the throngs of looters who had overrun the royal palace in every room, Conan went looking for Mordermi. He found the victorious outlaw leader battering down the heavy door that gave entrance to Rimanendo’s private chambers. Conan lent his strength to the broken column they had seized for a ram, and the door burst asunder.
Conan was not prepared for the scene that awaited them within.
Frightened out of his drink-clouded wits, King Rimanendo had barricaded himself in his chambers with sycophants and catamites to console him in his terror. These, knowing that Rimanendo’s rule was at an end, had determined to win the favor of Kordava’s new masters by turning upon the fallen monarch.
When Mordermi and Conan strode across the threshold of the king’s chambers, two youths minced toward them from the huddled group within. Their hair was curled and scented, their bare flesh oiled and rouged, and they carried between them a golden tray. Upon the tray was a golden crown, and the crown still rested upon the severed head of Rimanendo.
Conan: Road of Kings Page 12
