Conan the Guardian

by Roland Green

  Akimos cursed aloud, then commanded himself to cease. “How likely is an attack by the villagers?” He disliked asking an underling like Partab for advice, but the man had been leader of the raiding parties. He knew the villages and their folk better than any other man with Akimos.

  “If they know our weakness, quite possible. If the men in the castle have ways of sending messages to the villagers, they will know.”

  “And how likely are the messages?”

  “I do not think Reza would be likely to think of that himself, or Harphos, or Lady Livia. But Conan is a different matter.”

  Conan, it seemed to Akimos, had been a different matter since the day he came to Argos—and mostly in Akimos’s path! He almost said that aloud.

  But the words never left his lips, because from the castle above came a nightmarish din. First the rumble of falling stones, then screams and cries of fear and pain, and finally a hissing like all the serpents in the world at once.

  The Lesser Watcher knew when the mind of the Great Watcher ceased. It was close to joining its comrade in search of sky-food when that happened.

  It waited in a chamber of the Caves of Zimgas deep underground, until it knew that the Great Watcher would not wake again. Then swiftly it began to retrace its route through the Caves, and beyond that through other tunnels toward another opening to the sky.

  Beyond that opening would lie more sky-food. The need for that was greater than ever, for the whole work of bringing into being more Watchers now fell to the Lesser Watcher.

  But there was also another need that would be served by devouring the two-legged creatures that were the best source of sky food. In a man, that need would have been called vengeance.

  The first men in Castle Tebroth to meet the Lesser Watcher were the sentries at the barricade to the cellar. There were only three of them and all bore minor wounds. Reza was ready to believe in the Watchers. He was not ready to believe in anything that could make its way through that pile of stones.

  The three men paid for Reza’s mistake with their lives. They heard a faint hiss, a louder rumble, and finally a crash like a mason splitting a stone block. Indeed, that was very nearly what they had heard.

  The Lesser Watcher had transformed itself into a living battering ram, with a head hard as armour and massive legs to drive the head against the stones. The stones flew in all directions under the blows. One of them fell on a sentry, crushing the life out of him before he could even scream.

  The other two sentries had time to grip their weapons before they died, without striking a blow. The Lesser Watcher’s head divided, both halves opened mouths, and both mouths snapped shut.

  The two sentries did scream as they died, and the screams warned everyone not already roused by the; noise of the Lesser Watcher’s emergence. One look at the Lesser Watcher as it lumbered into view persuaded the defenders that safety lay only in flight.

  So some ran madly out the gateway, not caring who or what might lie ahead so long as they could flee what lay behind. Most ran for crumbling stairs and sprinted up them to the walls, towers, or keep.

  When they had put twenty or thirty steps between them and the Lesser Watcher, they began to breathe more easily. After all, such a creature as that could hardly climb stairs, still less a wall or the outside of a tower.

  Livia watched in horror as her men learned otherwise. The Lesser Watcher squatted beside one wall, and turned itself into a vast, hard-shelled, almond-shaped mass. From that mass a neck rose, until it reached the level of the top of the wall. Then a head with fanged jaws sprouted on that neck, like some hideous flower, and began roving up and down the wall, plucking screaming men like a boy stripping a bush of berries.

  Livia tried to shut her ears to the cries of her men dying. She contrived to silence herself only by thrusting her fist into her mouth. Madness would have seized her, except for a lingering hope that the women and children might yet be safe.

  At last the Lesser Watcher turned a deep shade of crimson and seemed to be less eager for prey. By now its shell was a pincushion of spears, arrows, and stones flung at it. Reza tapped her on the shoulder.

  “My lady, there are tales that fire in some way had power against the Watchers.”

  “Do we have any fire arrows?”

  “No, but there are burning brands.”

  Livia said nothing. Burning brands would need men to carry them close to the Watcher, and she could not see how such men would live—above all, Reza, who would surely lead them. But nothing else seemed to offer the slightest hope.

  “Very well. I am going down to see to the wounded. If all else fails, I would not have them die alone.”

  If all else failed, she also was doomed. But at least in the sickroom she would not have to watch that doom approaching. With luck, the first knowledge she had of it would be the stones of the tower falling inward, to crush her lifeless before the Watcher began to feed on her—

  Her stomach heaved and she leaned against the wall until the spasm passed. As it did, she was ready to swear that her ears were deserting her also.

  Far down the hill, she heard war cries, the “Onward, ever to battle!” of House Lokhri, and even “Livia of Damaos!”

  Conan and his men would have reached the castle about the same time as the Lesser Watcher but for one unlucky chance.

  As they trotted the last quarter league toward the rear of Akimos’s men, they encountered a band of villagers moving toward the same goal. Each thought the other was reinforcements for Akimos. Both went to ground, and their captains began readying them for both attack and defence.

  It was only after some time had been lost this way that Conan recognized peasant garb, and some of the villagers recognized the Damaos badge. Then the two bands moved out quickly enough, but they were still on the hill when the Lesser Watcher struck.

  For all the havoc it wrought in the castle, the Lesser Watcher was a blessing from the gods for Conan and the villagers. Akimos and his men were so bemused by what might be happening in the castle that they forgot to look to their rear. So Conan had the sixty-odd men who followed him in position for an attack before Akimos knew he had guests.

  Then they went forward, and the hillside dissolved into the chaos of a night battle. Through that chaos stormed Conan, broadsword leaving red ruin everywhere it struck, war cries giving courage to his men and taking it from his foes. That night he was worth ten men in himself, and it was no shame to some of Akimos’s men that they fled up the hill, crying that demons were upon them.

  Then they reached the gateway and found themselves facing a real demon, as the Lesser Watcher thundered toward them.

  Livia watched through the arrow slit in the tower as the Watcher sprouted legs and a spike-studded, eyeless head. Now it looked like a gigantic turtle with eight or ten—no, now twelve—legs. No tail, and the shell was as smooth as glass save where flung brands had left scars.

  The legends were right. Thrust fire into the Watcher’s substance, and it would suffer. Thrust deep enough, and perhaps it would die before it had eaten the castle bare of Livia’s men.

  The brands showered down until they were gone, but by then smoke rose from the Watcher in a score of places. Also until Livia and everyone in the sickroom were half deafened by the Watcher’s cries.

  Then it fell silent and began its transformation. Livia did not know if it was going to attack or seek easier prey elsewhere, prayed that it was the latter, and knew that her prayers would do little enough. So she watched the Lesser Watcher sprout three additional pairs of legs, and lumber off through the gateway. Stones fell from either side as the creature knocked them loose, and a portion of the gateway arch crashed down. But stone blocks larger than a man had no more effect than pebbles; they slid off harmlessly.

  Then she crawled back down from the arrow slit and returned to the work of bandaging wounds, salving bums, and holding the hands of those who had taken hurts only to their minds, not their bodies.

  Akimos cheered his men when h
e saw them running toward the castle. An attack now, when something distracted the defenders, might succeed. Then he cursed them, as he saw them running back.

  The curses died on his lips as he saw what made them run. He planted himself on the path, waving his sword.

  “Rally, rally, men! For the honour of House Peram! For victory over the accursed—!”

  The curses of his fleeing men drowned him out. One man did more than curse. He slashed at Lord Akimos with a short sword. The blow was hasty and clumsy, but chance guided it to Akimos’s neck.

  He felt the blood spurt, then flow down his shoulder and chest. He felt the flow increase, and his strength diminish with the flowing of his blood. In due course he felt that it would be wise to sit down and stop shouting until he regained his strength.

  Akimos had fallen over backward but was not quite dead from loss of blood when the Lesser Watcher marched down the path and devoured him.

  * * *

  Conan’s men held their ground as the Watcher came down the hill toward them. The villagers were not so well led nor so wise in how to fight Watchers. They broke and fled, screaming.

  Such of Akimos’s men as were left mostly followed them. Some were still of a mind to fight, others were merely doing the same as the villagers—putting as many leagues between them and the monster as they could.

  A few stout-hearted servants of House Peram tried both to hold their ground and to sustain the fight against Conan’s men. But they were outnumbered three to one, apart from the worth of the Cimmerian. They were dead, taken, or in flight before the Lesser Watcher had finished consuming Akimos’s corpse.

  “Conan, we have to send men into the castle and bring Livia out,” Harphos exclaimed.

  “How are we going to send them around that?” Conan growled, pointing his sword at the Lesser Watcher. It had now sprouted three heads, with only small toothless mouths but huge glaring red eyes. It seemed content to remain where it was while it sought further prey, but Conan had no doubt what it would do when it found some.

  “We cannot leave Livia!” Harphos all but screamed.

  “We cannot, but she cannot leave her people and the wounded in the castle,” Conan snapped. “It will be all or none with her, she’s that kind of captain. Since it can’t be all until we’ve killed that—”

  “Conan, I will go alone if—”

  Conan gripped Harphos’s shoulder. The young man wriggled like a fish on a hook but could not pull free.

  “You’ll go nowhere. If you go up that path and end up eaten, Reza will have my blood if Livia doesn’t. Stay, or must I have you bound?”

  Harphos sighed. “Conan, there are moments when I think you understand my bride better than I do myself.” “Women being what they are, similar situations have been known to happen,” Conan said. “But it’s not the woman I know so much as the war captain.”

  He clapped Harphos on the shoulder in a friendlier fashion. “Now, let’s be about finding the makings of brands and fire. A good bonfire up its craw, and this Watcher’ll go the way of the first!”

  Harphos nodded and began calling men to him. Talouf came up to stand beside the Cimmerian, as the young man went off.

  “How long is that thing going to wait for us, Captain?” the sergeant asked.

  “The gods only know and I haven’t talked to them of late,” the Cimmerian said with a shrug. “If it ate the castle empty, it may need to go slowly for a while, like a gorged lion.”

  He did not add what he’d heard, that when gorged the Watchers could split in two, each new Watcher with all the dreadful power of the old one. That was one reason he’d refused to send men up past the Watcher to save those in the castle. If no one stood between the Watcher and the open countryside and it then split, two Watchers would be roaming at large, devouring everything in their path.

  It had not needed Captain Khadjar to teach Conan one important lesson about war. When you had your enemy before you, you fought him then and there if you could. You did not sit on your arse until he fled, then chase after him like an old hound after a young rabbit!

  Conan and Talouf were almost alone facing the Watcher when Conan saw a dark-clad figure making its way down the slope above the monster. The moon was out now, giving just enough light to make out the figure as small and slight, with a hint of sharp features.

  Skiron? Had the sorcerer come to take command of the Watcher, turn it from a witless monster into a weapon? Conan watched the figure’s stumbling progress, measuring distances. He might—no, could—reach the sorcerer and slay him, but he’d never escape past the Watcher.

  Well, any man’s time came sooner or later, mostly the sooner for those who lived by their swords and wits, and that was no surprise to Conan. He had done his best, and if Crom did not call that best good enough, then that was the god’s affair!

  Conan stalked forward. He had gone ten paces, when Talouf called from behind him.

  “Captain, look!”

  A crack was showing along the Watcher’s back. It reached the head, then stretched backward, toward the spiked tail.

  Toward the spiked tails. Two of them, each with spikes longer than a man’s arm, each flailing hard enough to drive those spikes through plate armour.

  The Watcher was dividing.

  Conan did not know what this did to his chances of escaping. He knew it made it even more important to cut Skiron down before he mastered both Watchers.

  Conan broke into a run, bellowing the war cries of half a dozen lands as he flourished his sword. He did not see Talouf breaking into a run to follow him. His eyes were wholly on the Watcher and on the dark figure now close to it, raising its arms in the unmistakable gesture of a sorcerer about to cast a spell.

  Skiron did not notice the Cimmerian until he began shouting war cries. Even then he gave the man little thought. Ten Conans together would be no match for two Watchers, each of them commanded by a spell to feed and divide, feed and divide, until they were as numerous as ants and as hungry as starving tigers.

  Then they would plague the land of Argos until another spell brought them to heel. The man who cast that spell could command his own price, and the archons themselves would bestow enough gold to found a dozen schools of magic! Akimos might be dead, but not Skiron’s hopes.

  He felt the spell building in him, and he knew that as it did it was drawing its strength from his own body. He had few of the materials needed to cast it without draining himself. His mute servant had gone into the night, perhaps into the maw of the first Watcher, and with him all of Skiron’s apparatus. That would not matter, if commanding the Watchers bought him the time to regain his strength and restore his apparatus.

  So he poured out his strength, careless of whether he finished the spell-casting a drained husk or not. He was also careless of other things, such as the Cimmerian running up the hill toward the Watcher.

  As Conan approached, two of the Watcher’s heads sprouted teeth and lunged for him. He slashed at their muzzles with his sword, then danced back out of reach. Skiron saw only dimly the speed of Conan’s arm and feet, and did not believe what he saw.

  Then he saw clearly the Cimmerian running up the hill toward him. The Watcher’s third head also sprouted teeth and lunged for the Cimmerian, but only struck the rocks behind him. Loose rock poured down the slope and dust rose to half-veil the Watcher.

  Skiron felt sweat break out on his skin, carving paths in the dust that caked it. While he built his spell over the Watcher, it had less than its usual swiftness. Was his spell also slowing its division?

  The sorcerer continued the spell as he pondered these questions. What finally drew him away from the spell was seeing Conan’s approach. A few more paces and he would be within sword’s reach.

  A simple spell would suffice, for a simple threat. Skiron’s hands danced and Conan’s sword flew from his hand. It arched high and one of the Watcher’s heads darted at it, plucking it out of the air like a bird snatching an insect on the wing.

  Unease filled
Skiron. That was swift movement in the Watcher—and Conan was still coming.

  Unease turned to fear. Skiron began to back away, but a lamb might as well have tried to back away from a wolf.

  Conan reached the sorcerer and grappled him barehanded. Skiron squalled in terror as he felt himself raised high over the Cimmerian’s head. Then fear stopped his mouth and breath as the Cimmerian flung him at the Watcher.

  It did not blind his eyes. They saw all three heads dart up, the mouths gaping open. They saw the teeth coming down. They even saw the teeth sinking into his flesh before first pain and then death blinded them forever.

  Conan drew his dagger and set his back against the rock as the Watcher’s heads tore Skiron apart. No doubt the monster would be after him soon enough. The sorcerer could hardly be more than a morsel, and with the spell broken the Watcher would be too swift for even a Cimmerian to escape.

  At least he had ended Skiron’s life and, he hoped, lessened the danger of there being more than one Watcher. Those who came up the hill with fire and steel to finish the work would have an easier task, and some of them might live to tell Livia—

  The Watcher shuddered, and the crack now stretching from head to tail widened. Smoke poured out, so thick and foul that Conan was too busy covering nose and mouth to see what was under it.

  The smoke was heavy, like a sea fog. It flowed down around the Watcher as well as rising toward Conan. The Cimmerian felt a moment’s inward chill as the reeking grey tendrils brushed his skin.

  But there was no magic in the smoke, only a gagging odour worse than Conan had smelled even from the first Watcher. He tried to make out what was happening to the Watcher behind the veil of smoke, but it was now so thick that he might have been trying to look through a brick wall.

  Then there was a sound like all the rotten fruit in Argos flung down at once on to a stone floor. Blue light seared Conan’s eyes, piercing the smoke but blinding him at the same time. He pressed his face into the rock as a reeking wind roared past him, stinging his skin with gravel and grit and unspeakable fragments of the Watcher.