The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  within, black stone masses, equally ruinous; yet somehow the shapes kept a hint of the inhuman, too low and narrow for the length, sides slanting at curious angles up to roofs grotesquely decorated. Legend said that most of the city had been underground; it whispered that those vaults and passages were to this day inhabited. A number of monoliths and twisted columns were standing, whether isolated or in groups. At the middle of the city loomed the form of a dolmen, a prehistoric tomb, but built of polished ebon slabs so huge that no man could tell how they had been raised into place.

  There, Conan recalled from Parasan's words, was where the axe of Varanghi awaited him. Despite his ill humour, despite the primitive fears that surged beneath a hard-held determination, hit pulse leaped. He drew sword and swung it on high for an oriflamme. 'Onward!' he trumpeted, and spurred his horse to a canter.

  His men lifted a ragged cheer and followed. They too felt qualms, but they were all volunteers; if nothing else, the honour of their clans forbade them to be daunted.

  As the troop advanced, a wind sprang up. It whined across illimitable wastes, it plucked at garments and sucked at throats and lungs. Dust devils whirled. Grit scudded; Conan crunched it between his teeth.

  Faster than he thought should be possible, haze boiled over the horizon and across the sky. The sun reddened, dimmed, vanished. Driving darkness hid his goal. The storm lacerated his skin and well-nigh choked off his breath, before he drew a flap of his burnoose around for a veil. His horse stumbled, whinnying in pain. He rowelled the animal savagely and pushed on. If nothing else, he thought amidst the shrill howling, the hiss of dust and sand in flight, his party must find shelter till the weather died down: and where was that but in Pteion?

  Blurred vastness appeared to right and left, pieces of the city wall. He flogged his horse to go in between. Though he got some relief beyond, with those ancient defences for a windbreak, the air was still acrid and murky, and the red-black gloom was thicker still. Ahead, he vaguely made out one or two of the buildings he had seen from afar. A look over his shoulder revealed the nearest of his followers. Those farther back were lost to sight, but doubtless each man kept in view the ones immediately before him. Wind yelled. No - that screech was something different! Conan twisted round in his saddle and saw what came out of the night suddenly laid on this ground, move toward him in attack.

  XVII

  Quest of the axe

  At first it seemed a troop of human soldiers advanced in a strangely stiff formation from the inner city. The question flashed through him how they could have arrived this fast, when the closest well-populated region in Stygia was remoter than Thuran. He reined in and signalled his men to draw nigh, dismount, secure their animals, prepare for combat. The highlanders had no cavalry tradition. He kept his own stirrups, and gestured Falco to do the same. Theirs were trained war-horses captured from the enemy. A couple of skilled horseback fighters ought to count for much, when yonder force had nobody riding.

  Again a horn screamed, like none that Conan had ever heard ,' before. Overtones ripped at his nerves. The noise did not come from the foe, but from above. The barbarian glanced up. Though scudding dust choked off vision within yards, he thought he glimpsed a deeper darkness in motion there, as if great wings wheeled and soared.

  The strangers came onward. Now Conan saw their front ranks I more clearly. He stiffened. Terror stabbed him. Daris, also still in the saddle, stifled a scream. Falco called on his gods. The Taians wailed.

  Those were not living men, they were dried corpses. Some bore archaic helmets and cuirasses over blackened skin, most wore only cerements gone ragged during millennia. In many, bones jutted through desiccated flesh. The sunken faces were unstirring, empty of expression; what eyes remained were dull, tearless, unwinking; I breasts drew no breath, hearts did not beat behind ribs. Legs moved puppet-like. The company was armed with shortswords of antique shape or spears whose heads flared in the same fashion.

  hundred or more. The shuffle of their feet was the single sound they made.

  'Ghosts, ghosts,' Daris moaned. 'The tombs of Pteion have yielded their dead to go against us.'

  Aye, thought Conan fleetingly, in this unnatural gloom all sun-shunning horrors could come forth. But who had raised it before raising them? How could anyone in Stygia have known the Taian plan? A second shock pierced him as he remembered what he had earlier chosen to forget, the eagle outside Ausar's tent.

  Tyris the guide screamed. 'Mitra, forgive me that I entered this unholy place!' Conan heard an answering babble among the warriors. He glanced back, saw them assembled but in an array that wavered. At any instant, somebody would bolt. Then blind panic would seize the rest and stampede them forth to perish in the desert.

  The horn above the storm laughed.

  Conan never knew whether sheer desperation drove out his own fear, or the smouldering anger of his journey burst into flame. Battle fury took hold of him. He spurred forward. 'Hai, Crom!' he roared. 'Varuna of the Lightning! Wakonga mutusi! Bêlit, Bêlit!'

  A cadaver in the front line jerkily raised its spear and thrust at him. The point glanced off the chain mail beneath his slit kaftan, which he had donned this morning. He struck it aside. His mount pushed on at his behest, into the throng. He leaned over. The sword blazed in his hand. He felt steel hit, meet less resistance than from living muscle, and shear on through. A head flew free, struck the sand, rolled to a halt. Hideously, the body did not bleed or fall -but it tottered about, spear flailing, as might a decapitated insect.

  Conan reared his charger. Hooves came down, crushed bone, smashed a form to shapelessness that writhed. He smote at a helmet. The impact clanged dully, split age-eaten metal, did not reach the skull but broke a fragile neck. That head lolled as the owner continued striking. Conan hewed off the sword arm.

  Falco had plucked up heart and ridden into the fray. His sabre whirred. Daris, inexperienced in this sort of fighting, nonetheless kept her steed a-dance on the fringes and wielded a spear.

  Yet the dead were not feeble. Slow, awkward, they felt no pain,

  lost no blood, could only be disabled by the shrewdest of blows. Gashes reddened the horses, surrounded by thrusters and stabbers. The riders began to take flesh wounds, and might at any moment receive worse. Meanwhile most of the deathling troop had rustled past them and fallen on the Taians.

  'Break through!' Conan cried to Falco. In a right-and-left hail of sword-cuts, thunder of kicks and stampings, they did. The corpses they had fought did not pursue, but went on to join battle against the clansmen. Dismembered pieces jerked and squirmed at their rear.

  Conan drew deep, shaken breaths through a fold of his burnoose. Shielding eyes with hands, he looked toward the combat. It raged loud and frightful, men sustained slashes and stabs, men fell dead and they moved no more. But the Taians held fast. War cries and panted clan chants defied hooting wind and sibilant red dust. He had shown them that a strong arm and an undaunted heart could meet even such as these.

  'Shall we attack from behind?' Falco asked. Ardour burned in his eyes.

  'No,' Conan decided. 'We would only be two more, and the outcome of that fight is odds-on at best. Also, we know not what further devilments the enemy has at his beck. Best we take this chance to seek the axe. If Parasan spoke sooth, that is a weapon to use against hell itself.'

  Daris drew nigh. 'It is fitting that the three of us go,' she said. Her look upon Conan pleaded, May I again be your comrade?

  The Cimmerian shook his head. 'No, best you stay here and encourage the men. Some will see Falco and me leave, and wonder, and their will could break yet. If you abide, though, their princess, I descendant of Varanghi - do you understand?'

  Pain tightened her lips, but she nodded. 'Yes. Mitra ward you.' I Unable to say more, she trotted off.

  Conan stared after her for a second before he clipped, 'Let's begone,' and led the way on into the city. Sight and sound of the battle were soon lost.

  Black walls lined a buried street. Though l
ow and sloping, they gave added protection from the storm. One could see some more than on a moonlit night when demons may wander abroad. Swords unsheathed, Conan and Falco made for the giant dolmen by memory, observation, and sense of direction rather than vision.

  'I have heard,' said the Ophirite, 'that after Pteion was abandoned by the living, it was used for several generations as a burial ground.'

  Conan wondered momentarily what they had been like in life, those men whose dead bodies he had hacked asunder. Had they also laughed, loved, drunk deep, fared afar, begotten, sorrowed, wished for immortality? Were their liches mere machinery used by a sorcerer - Tothapis, surely Tothapis! - or were their souls still trapped within?

  Ahead on his left, he saw a portal yawn wide. Carved in the stone above it, time-blurred by recognizable, was an out-sized human skull. Abruptly he halted and cursed. Figures were issuing thence.

  They pullulated forth like maggots from rotting flesh till they formed a line three or four deep across the way. Conan's throat constricted, and a cold crawling passed over him. The naked, grey-skinned forms were manlike, in a skeletal fashion, but inhumanly long arms ended in great claws, and many squatted on all fours as jackals might while digging up a grave. Bestial too were the hairless heads, point-eared, muzzled, fanged, with eyes aglow like the eyes of owls. They leered, gibbered, let black tongues hang out, pawed the sand, crouched waiting.

  'Ghouls,' Falco groaned. 'What mummies laid away through ages keep them fed?' The hand that drew a Sunsign trembled, the mouth that mumbled a prayer was dry. Thereafter he was able to ask, 'Sh - shall we retreat, try to find a different approach?'

  Conan mastered his own dismay, squeezed it down into a solid lump of loathing. 'No,' he grated, 'this dump must be acrawl with different things just as bad. And we could easily get lost. There's no time to waste. We'll go on through.'

  'I am afraid that a single bite or scratch from those carrion eaters - deadly infection -'

  'Then see to it that they don't get at you.' Conan raked spurs. His steel flashed on high. 'Crom, Varuna, Bêlit!'

  Falco swallowed hard and galloped beside him. Hooves

  The riders hit them. Conan's sword flamed downward. He struck a misshapen cranium, felt the force jar back through hit shoulders, saw inky blood spout. He must have missed a tiny brain, for the creature did not die; but it fell, yammering, and prattled obscenely.

  Another ghoul sprang from the left, to grab him and drag him from the saddle. His left fist smashed into the flat nose. Checked in mid-leap, the attacker fell under the horse, which trampled it, Hooves lashed and kicked. More beings seethed around. Their howls and cackles drowned out the weather. Conan struck from side to side as fast as they came in reach. His horse screamed when claws raked flanks, but fought the more furiously. Nearby, Falco' sabre whined, sliced, stabbed; his shield guarded him on the left against creatures that pounced at him; his own beast reared, smashed, bit, whinnied terrifyingly loud.

  Then the riders had broken those disordered ranks and were beyond. They went several yards, slammed to a stop, and looked back. The ghouls milled witless. Some were already tearing at the slain. Conan charged. His lion roar echoed from wall to wall. Panic-smitten, the ghouls fled, streamed back into the house of the skull, left none but their dead and mewling wounded.

  Conan returned. 'I thought best to scatter those vermin before they forget the lesson we taught them,' he said. 'Are you all right?' 'They never touched me, praise the kind gods,' Falco replied, breathless. 'You?' 'The same.'

  'But I fear for our poor animals.'

  'They will bear us a while more. If their wounds get inflamed beyond healing, we will give them the last mercy. Now, onward.'

  Deeper into the necropolis the pair rode. From lightless doorways and murky porticos, eyes glistened, they heard voices chitter and feet scuttle, but nothing emerged. 'Keep alert,' Conan warned. 'I doubt Master Tothapis has emptied his whole bag of tricks.'

  The streets twisted and intertwined in maddening chaos. He must ever note landmarks - a cockscomb roof, a stump of pillar, a statue eroded to shapelessness - lest he lose direction in the drifting . dust. It helped that he could shortcut across buildings which had

  collapsed to rubble heaps. He swore when a deepening of the gloom ahead proved to be a wall squarely across his path. Which way around would be shorter? It was impossible to see. Well, most I reckoned right luckier than left. Conan chose it.

  The wall ended after about a hundred yards. He and Falco confronted a broad, bare space. Low dunes hid pavement, but this must in its time have been a plaza like that in Luxur, for two enormous ruins stood on either side. Their ebon masses gave less protection from the whistling, scudding storm than had the narrower streets, though they did give some. The far end of the square seemed to be open; Conan got an impression of a broad avenue and of shapes which stood along it, but the murk obscured too much for him to be sure.

  Still, as nearly as he could tell, that way pointed straight at the dolmen. He clucked to his weary steed, stroked a mane that sweat had plastered to the neck, and started across. He and Falco were halfway over when the boy yelled.

  'Crom!' exploded from Conan. He fought to control a destrier that suddenly plunged, bucked, and whinnied in terror. Falco's had gone just as unruly. What they saw coming woke primordial instincts. How many eons had yonder monsters been locked in enchanted sleep before they were wakened to walk the earth again, ravenous?

  From the right-hand edifice bounded an animal akin to a hyena but the size of a bull. Stiff pelt bristled, mouth grinned and slavered around yellow fangs, a howl like a maniac's laughter shuddered through the wind. It paused at the doorway, studied the scene with snuffing nose, cocked ears, intelligent eyes, and loped ahead.

  From the left-hand structure stalked a beast on two long, taloned legs. Though the body stooped forward, counterbalanced by a great cudgel of a tail, the blunt reptile head lifted twice a man's height. Small forelimbs were bent, claws laid together in a parody of prayer. Scales on back and sides sheened steel-grey through dimness; the belly sagged white. When it saw prey, the saurian hissed and hastened.

  'Stay by me,' Conan snapped. 'We'll see if we can outspeed them.' He nearly broke his horse's neck, but got the hysterical

  brute pointed toward the avenue opposite and slacked its reins. It shot off. Blind instinct made Falco's follow.

  They were nearly across the plaza when Conan heard a scream of agony and a triumphant whoop. He cast a look over his shoulder. The giant hyena had overhauled the Ophirite's mount. A slash had laid open the hindquarters. As the horse stumbled, the hyena snapped onto its throat. Gullet torn out, the charger went down in a red fountain, rider beneath. The saurian lumbered close behind.

  Conan forgot his errand. A Cimmerian did not abandon a way- J brother while the least hope flickered. He sheathed his sword and sprang from the saddle. In a ball of rubbery muscle, he hit the sand, rolled a few times, and bounced to his feet. The hyena worried the dead horse, snarling and slobbering. Falco, leg pinned under that weight, lay still.

  Conan sidled off at an angle. His intention was to keep the saurian's attention locked to his own steed, overlooking him. It worked. The colossus marched on by. Its pace was deliberate, earthshaking, but each step was so long that the speed matched any gallop. Mammal and reptile vanished in the streaming dust.

  Conan drew blade and pounded toward the hyena. That beast saw him, raised its grisly head, coughed a warning. 'Aye,' the warrior taunted, 'I am about to rob you of your food.' The hyena left its prey and stood in front, mane erect. Blood dripped from jaws that could halve a man in a bite.

  Behind it, Conan saw Falco sit up and strive to work himself free. The barbarian rejoiced. His companion must have been feigning, not to attract a casual snap. Maybe the two of them could retreat after all, leaving the carnivore to its meat.

  No! Conan had come too near. The creature howled and ' charged.

  Conan braced himself. The hyena's head gaped nearly lev
el with his own. Through sleeting dust, he stared down a huge maw, he I caught a rankness of breath, he felt each thud of paws in his foot-soles. His sword went over his shoulder. As the foe came in reach, he smote.

  The edge bit through nose and muzzle. The hyena bayed, ear-piercingly, and withdrew. Buried deep in bone, the sword was torn from Conan's grasp. The hyena dashed to and fro, crying its pain, while blood rivered from its snout. But the injury was not mortal. It remembered who had smitten it, halted, growled utter hatred, and advanced stiff-legged. Conan drew his dirk and prepared to die.

  Falco limped from the rear, sabre in hand. Again the Cimmerian saw a chance. He must hold the monster's entire notice on himself. 'Nice doggie,' he crooned. 'Come here, I have something for you, doggie.'

  The titan bunched muscles for a leap. Falco lurched alongside. His sabre went in between ribs. The hyena yowled, louder than the gale, and bore off the Ophirite's weapon, too.

  Out of hasty red gloom trod an enormous shape. Conan's horse must have escaped in a maze of streets. The saurian had come back in search of easier game.

  As the hyena turned on its newest tormentor, Conan attacked. His left hand grabbed wiry hair, yanked it aside. His right drove home the dirk. With every last spark of strength that was in him, he slashed. Blood jetted. He had found a major vein. He did not retrieve this weapon either, for the jaws clashed after him and he sprang back barely in time. The hyena crumpled to the sand and threshed, ululating, geysering. The reptile beheld and approached.

  Conan sought Falco. 'Lean on me,' the older human directed, for the younger moved haltingly. 'We don't want to go too fast, lest we draw yon dragon's heed. But if we are careful - he has a good deal more food there, waiting for him, than is on us.'

  They made their way onward. Behind them, impervious to every bite, the saurian crouched down and began to devour the hyena.

  That sight and its gruesome noises were soon lost in the tempest. Conan stopped. 'How are you, lad?' he asked.