Conan the Guardian

by Roland Green

“My—Livia...” Harphos said, trailing off as his legs began to weave of their own will. “I—the sorcerer left a spell behind, to make anyone afraid. He left more, too.” He described the image of his mother—or began to describe it, because Livia raised one hand to silence him and put the other over her mouth.

  When she had command of herself again, the blue eyes seemed less cold. “What do you think has become of your mother?”

  “I do not know,” Harphos said. “But it seemed to me that your enemies might have become mine. I thought you might know at least whether she is alive or dead.”

  “We do not,” Livia said. “But I think we may know who does.”

  “Lord Akimos?”

  For the first time she smiled, then nodded. “I would be surprised if he knew nothing.”

  “Then let us call—”

  “I do not think he will answer any questions put to him by lawful means. As for other means—before we can use those, we must free Captain Conan.”

  Did something pass over the big Iranistani steward’s face at those words? Harphos reminded himself to find some Truth-Teller, or make it if he could find none ready to hand.

  “Where is he held?”

  Now it was Livia’s turn to tell a tale. Harphos listened, his legs growing weak again until Reza pushed a stool under him. When Lydia was finished, Harphos was staring at the floor, so she would not see the look on his face.

  He would rather have bones broken than return to that house where sorcery’s horrors now reigned. But he would rather be flayed alive than have Livia think him a coward.

  “Then—if some of your men can return with me to the house—”

  “What about the sorcery?” Reza growled.

  “There is a way into the cellar that does not go through the rest of the house. All we need is in the cellar, and most of it one man can carry. I will be that man, since I have protected myself a trifle.”

  The sun came out in Livia’s face, and if Harphos had not been sitting down he would have fallen in a heap. To keep that look on his beloved’s face, flaying alive would be a small price!

  XIII

  The guard at the door to the House of Charof was alone, as indeed he was expected to be. The devices for keeping those within from escaping were so numerous and so cunning that a single guard was considered sufficient. His duty was to stay awake (and if wise, sober) and mark those entering and leaving on a wax tablet hung by the door.

  He stretched his legs halfway across the tunnel, and his arms halfway to the ceiling. Then he stiffened, as light footsteps sounded from just out of sight up the stairs.

  He rose and drew his short sword.

  “Who is there?”

  “Only a friend.” The voice was female, and more a girl’s than a woman’s. A moment later the source of the voice came into view.

  She could hardly be more than seventeen, but was well-formed for all that. Her tunic was threadbare, patched, and stained, and the guard would have wagered a month’s pay that she wore nothing under it. Certainly she wore nothing on her feet, or on her head to conceal a mass of dark brown hair.

  “A friend, you say?” The guard didn’t sheathe his sword, but he let the point drop.

  “Well, one who may be a friend, in time.”

  “I haven’t seen you above.”

  “When was your last time above Himgos’s Door?” The guard laughed and shook his head. The girl smiled.

  “That long? Then I don’t wonder you haven’t seen me. I came to the kitchen only five days ago.”

  The guard nodded. That explained her being a stranger, and also clad like an escaped prisoner. The cooks and scullions in the Watchhouse had starvation wages and took their revenge by offering only starvation fare. The guard remembered better meals aboard ships a month at sea!

  “Well, if you have nothing better to do, shall we see if we can be friends?” The guard hoped his cloak would be all the padding she needed, because if she needed more between her and the floor a fine chance might slip past....

  “Surely.” She sidled past him, brushing her hip against his and trailing long fingers across his arm. Then she sat down and thrust a hand into the bosom of her tunic. It came out with a small bottle. Clear glass, it plainly revealed what it held—vintage fire wine.

  The girl held the bottle out. As she did, her tunic slipped off first one shoulder, then off the other. Slowly it crept down toward her breasts, then past them, to her waist.

  He had been right. She wore nothing under the tunic. He took a step forward—then thunder crashed and lightning blazed in his head. His next step forward was a boneless stumble, and after that he crashed face-down onto the floor.

  The girl pulled her dress up, pulled the cork from the bottle, and sprinkled a few drops over the guard. Sergeant Talouf leaped down the last three steps and knelt beside the guard. Practised fingers retrieved the keys from the guard’s belt and his own dagger from the corner. Thrown to strike hilt-first, the dagger had laid the guard out as neatly as anyone could ask.

  “That’s a waste of good fire wine, you know,” Talouf said.

  “The worse he smells, the less they’ll suspect,” Gisela said. “I’d like him deep in dung, for the way he looked at me—”

  “Gisela,” came a voice from the stairs. “Men will look at you whether you will or no, unless you hide yourself in a cell.”

  Gisela flashed a mocking grin as Lady Livia descended the stairs. Flanking her were two of Conan’s men and two of her own, all wearing the tunics and sandals of Guardians. Bringing up the rear was Harphos, wearing the same garb but with a captain’s badge on his belt and the badge of a healer on the shoulder of his tunic. A bulging leather bag was slung over one shoulder.

  “I bow to my lady’s vast experience in such matters, of course,” Gisela said.

  “Vandar, best you thrash this impudent wench at least once a week until she can keep a civil tongue,” Livia said.

  Vandar grunted. “Like as not, shed serve me as Talouf served the guard.”

  “No, the dagger would go point-first,” Gisela said.

  “Enough chatter,” Talouf said. He picked a key nearly the length of a child’s arm, thrust it into the lock, and turned it. Metal screamed and stone grated against stone, chains clanked, and a distant hissing floated up from somewhere far below.

  When silence reigned again, the door to the House of Charof stood open. A narrow drawbridge had swung down, spanning a gap that ran from wall to wall. Looking down, Talouf saw rock plunging down into darkness. As he stepped onto the drawbridge, he thought he saw something moving in the darkness far below. He knew he heard the hissing again.

  He could barely breathe until he felt solid rock under his feet again, and the others were no slower. All except Harphos, who stopped and peered down into the darkness with his near-sighted eyes.

  “Curse you, Har—Captain. What are you looking for, the Treasure of Gilmi?’1

  “I’m trying to discover what sort of beast is down there. If I know, I may have something to quiet it.”

  Talouf forced his mouth closed. If Harphos wanted permission to try sleeping draughts on serpents, he could ask it of Captain Conan. The sergeant was a great believer in either cold steel or a fleet pair of heels as the solution to most problems, and not at all a believer in encouraging madmen!

  Conan’s stomach had reached the point of rumbling peevishly, but it took more than that to sap his strength or slow him. So he was off his pallet and ready for any aid or menace the moment he heard voices outside.

  Then he heard the unmistakable sound of picks in the lock.

  “Talouf?”

  “Captain?”

  “Here.”

  “Are you shackled?”

  “Free as a bird.”

  “The gods be thanked.”

  That voice made Conan miss a breath. Livia, here? Was she a prisoner too, or had she insisted on coming with this rescue party? Knowing Livia, Conan suspected the second, and doubted that anyone would have dar
ed stand against her.

  The clinking and clicking of well-wielded picks went on. Then it stopped, and curses took its place.

  “That fatherless last lock—” Talouf growled.

  “How big is it?”

  “Finger-thick—”

  “We don’t have much time. Stand back.” Conan took a deep breath, found purchase for his feet on the rough stone floor, then set his shoulder against the door and pushed.

  He pushed until the veins started from forehead and neck and sweat sluiced from him like water in a mill-race. But he could feel something giving, and from outside he heard shouts.

  He drew back, caught his breath, set his back against the door, and pushed again. Metal groaned, then squealed, then yielded with a ghastly scream.

  Conan felt a chill on his spine as he thought of all who might have died here, with just such screams on their lips. Neither gods nor priests could help much with ghosts, if a man could not stay away from their haunts.

  The door grated open. Conan stepped out, to see Livia throw the hood of her cloak back from her face and take a step forward. At that, Harphos’s face twisted.

  With a deep bow, Conan caught Livia’s hands in his own, lifted them to his lips, and kissed both of them.

  “My lady, I rejoice in returning to your service.”

  Harphos’s face visibly eased. Livia looked ready to either scream or weep.

  Vandar, however, had a warrior’s wits. “Your sword, Captain. ’ ’

  Conan belted on the steel. “Have any of you thought of a story to get us all out of here?”

  Harphos showed a pass with more seals than Conan had thought such a small piece of leather could hold. “I doubt that I will have many friends left, when they learn what I did with their gifts. But that’s for the gods to settle.”

  They turned and retraced their steps, Conan in the rear. He was looking back for any signs of pursuit when he heard Talouf curse.

  “The pig-spawned door’s closed, and the drawbridge is up!”

  So it was. Conan looked down into the dark depths, and a long hiss answered him. He looked across the gap, and judged that there was no hope of pulling the drawbridge back down. Even if they could reach the hook, the hinges most likely locked solid when the door was closed.

  Meanwhile, whoever had closed the door must be waiting outside, most likely with more men than the rescue party could face. There would also be all the other doors on the way out, each one guarded.

  In the end, defeat and death waited for the Cimmerian and his men, defeat and disgrace for Livia. Unless they could find another way out....

  Conan peered over the rim of the gap. He could dimly make out coils the thickness of a man’s body writhing at the bottom. More clearly, he saw bronze rungs set in niches on the far side of the gap.

  He sat and began pulling off his boots, then drew his tunic over his head. Conscious of the women’s glances toward him, he belted his sword on over his loinguard.

  “I’m going to see if there’s a way out from the bottom of this pit. I’ve fought bigger serpents than the Guardians’ pet down there, and it’s their hides that have made my shields.”

  Livia opened her mouth. Harphos spoke first.

  “Wait. I have something here.” He fumbled the bag off his shoulder and rummaged in it until his hand came out with a bottle in the style of Khitai.

  “What’s that?” Gisela asked. “A love potion?” Harphos flushed. “A sleeping powder. There’s enough in the bottle to lay six men senseless. Perhaps that will be enough for one serpent.”

  “Serpents are sluggish beasts,” Conan said. “Steel works faster.”

  “Yes, but if the Guardians only find the snake asleep, they’ll not be sure we escaped past it,” Livia put in. “Let him try it. At worst, it may make your work easier.”

  Conan began a sharp reply, that he needed no help in any work with a good sword. Then he remembered that he was captain over some six or seven people, two of them women, one no warrior, and none fit for serpent-wrestling even had they the time.

  “Give me the bottle. If the snake comes close enough, I’ll give him a good dose.”

  “I’ll go—” Harphos began.

  “No, Harphos,” Livia interrupted. “The ladder is on the far side. You are no leaper, like Captain Conan. Nor could he catch you.”

  “Not without us both going down to make snake fodder,” Conan added. “Unless you’re thinking to just leap down and make it easier for me to kill the snake while it’s feeding on you.”

  Harphos turned pale, then flushed as Livia put a hand on his arm. With that settled, Conan gathered himself for a leap, soared over the pit, and caught the topmost rung of the ladder.

  The darkness below instantly came alive with hisses, and now he could make out a monstrous fanged head rising toward him. Nostrils and mouth both gaped wide, and two red eyes the size of melons glared at him over a homed black snout.

  Conan pulled the stopper from the bottle, waited until the snake reared as high as it could, then flung the bottle straight into the gaping maw. The hissing rose to a deafening pitch, and scales grated and squealed on rock as the snake flung itself about.

  Conan drew up his legs as far as they would go and rather hoped that Harphos’s potion would work. That he was the best serpent-fighter in the band did not mean that he did it for his own amusement. Besides, Livia was right about leaving fewer traces of their escape.

  It struck Conan that Livia and Harphos might not make a bad match. At least they could try, if Lady Doris could be silenced by something short of strangling her, and if Harphos did not care that his wife had twice his wits.

  Time seemed to stretch toward the end of the world as Conan waited for the potion to take effect. He also drew his sword, as the snake was striking to within an arm’s length of his feet. If the potion had no effect, or was slow—

  Sparks flew as the fangs scraped rock. Then the snake reared back until its gaping maw was pointing straight up. Green foam bubbled up in its gullet, and its tongue thrashed frantically. Then with a sound like an iron gate closing, the jaws slammed shut. A moment later the whole immense length of the serpents seemed to lose all its bones. It slumped down into the shadows and lay still.

  Balancing haste against prudence, Conan counted to ten, then pried a chunk of mortar loose from the wall and dropped it on the snake’s head. He might as well have dropped it into a well.

  “Well done, Harphos. I’m climbing down to make sure. Talouf, did I see a rope under your tunic?”

  “Would I go out without a rope, or Lady Livia without a tunic?”

  “Mind your tongue—” Harphos began, before Livia said something Conan did not hear but which certainly silenced the man.

  Conan scrambled down the ladder, landing in ankle-deep black ooze, foul to the nose and still fouler to the touch. But a glance told him that his efforts had not been wasted. A tunnel led away into darkness, a tunnel that rose slightly.

  Conan stepped over the motionless serpent. “Talouf, the rope!” The Cimmerian raised his arms, but as he did he took one final look down the tunnel.

  It was as well that he did. A hiss like all the geysers of Vanaheim erupting together echoed from the stone, and the darkness came alive. Conan leaped backward, his sword slashing at the monstrous scaled head that thrust itself out of the tunnel at him.

  “There’s two of them!” Harphos squalled.

  “Tell Conan something he doesn’t know,” came Livia’s voice, then the Cimmerian was too busy with his opponent to hear what went on above. The serpent’s surprise at finding its mate still gave Conan a. heartbeat’s worth of time, which he put to good use. He sprang backward over the sleeping serpent, crouched with his sword over his head, then slashed two-handed at the exposed neck of the other monster.

  Palm-sized scales tinted in cinnamon and rose parted, and the pale flesh under them. But the snake had taken no vital hurt, and now it knew that its opponent was not to be despised. Serpents, Conan knew, we
re mostly sluggish of wits, but they did not live to grow this large without knowing how to fight.

  Man and serpent settled into a deadly duel. The pit was too narrow to let the serpent throw its coils around Conan. So it struck at the Cimmerian time after time, with a speed that would have been deadly against any lesser opponent, seeking a grip with its teeth.

  Each time it struck, Conan’s steel was there, slicing scales and flesh. Sometimes the strike carried it past the Cimmerian, to lunge with the force of a battering ram against the stones. Conan saw mortar and even whole stones start from the walls under those blows. It began to look like a race between the serpent’s knocking itself senseless and its bringing the whole pit down on top of them both!

  With a rumble and a crash, a stone plunged from the top of the pit. It bounced off the snake, then off the wall, nearly took off Conan’s sword arm, then buried itself in the muck. Before he could curse, a second stone followed.

  This one struck the snake on its horned nose. It uncoiled and struck upward, hissing in a greater frenzy than ever. It also exposed its throat to Conan.

  With all the strength of his iron arms and all the speed in his legs, the Cimmerian struck. His sword slashed through scales and flesh to reach the serpent’s life. Blood fountained for a moment as the creature seemed to rear higher still, then like its mate it seemed to lose all strength. Conan was barely able to leap aside in time, as the serpent came crashing down on its sleeping mate.

  “Did one of you throw those stones?” he shouted.

  A small voice broke the silence. “Yes,” Gisela said. “I thought—”

  “If that’s what you do when you think, Crom spare me when you don’t!” Conan snapped. “Talouf, let’s be down and out of here.”

  The pile of serpents made a slippery landing place, but everyone made their way down the rope without mishap, except for Gisela. She slipped, caught her tunic on one of the nose horns, and landed in the muck bare as a babe.

  Vandar stripped off his own tunic to clothe her, as she tried vainly to wipe the muck from her legs and buttocks.

  “Pheugh!” Livia said, wrinkling her nose. “What did those beasts—Conan, what are you doing?”