by Roland Green
A fool or two were still mounted, gaping about them so that Conan expected to see an arrow sprout from their throats at any moment. He opened his mouth to curse them, but Farad spoke first.
Or rather, he roared like an angry lion. "Sons of hornless rams and bald ewes, dismount and climb! We draw the Turanians in to their deaths. They are near-women, weaned on the vomit of diseased dogs. A few more dead and they will turn tail!"
Conan scarcely believed that himself and doubted that Farad did either. But the words made the last Afghulis dismount and begin to climb. As they did, a bold Turanian rode toward the cleft—then pitched out of the saddle, dead before he struck the ground. A second arrow took his mount in the throat, and horse and would-be hero mingled their blood on the rocks.
At least one Afghuli archer had found a secure vantage and was using the height to give his shafts useful additional range. Conan saw the advancing Turanian line waver, then halt as if a ditch yawned fathoms deep before them. None wished to be the next to die; none doubted that there were enough archers ahead to bring death wherever they wished.
Perhaps the Turanians could be pricked by enough arrows into acting like the low creatures Farad had named them.
And perhaps whales might grow feathers.
More likely, the Turanians would surround the rocks at a safe distance and send messengers for aid. If they did not close in before the aid arrived—
Conan put the "ifs" firmly out of his mind as a score of Turanians dismounted and began to climb the slope on foot. Others shot from their saddles, aiming at the climbing Afghulis. Many arrows cracked and sparked on rocks. No Afghulis fell, and one man snatched up a double handful of arrows, then made a vulgar gesture with them at the archers below.
Sword in hand, Conan raced for the entrance to the cleft. Arrows now rose from the Turanian ranks, to whistle about his ears. None struck the swift-moving Cimmerian, and the arrows ended abruptly when two came down in the ranks of the Turanian foot. Curses now filled the air instead of arrows; and for a moment Conan dared hope that the Turanians would make war on one another.
The hope faded a moment later, but before it vanished, Conan had reached the mouth of the cleft and counted the horses within. Some bore wounds and all would need rest and, if possible, water before they could move on, but all lived. Then, moving swiftly, he sought a place to wait for the Turanians.
Conan did not have to wait for long.
The Lady of the Mists stared at the cup before her. It could only be a fanciful notion, or perhaps a sending of some hostile magic, that the cup was staring back at her.
Ten captives—ten vessels of the life essence was a better name for them here and now—had stood before the Lady. All ten had given their life essence into what lay within the cup—and even the Lady did not care to search too hard for a name for that.
In magic, a true name commonly gave one power over him whose name one knew. With what lay within the cup, the Lady judged—nay, to be truthful, feared—that knowing its name would give it power, to reach out and command her.
What might come of that, she did not know, nor did she have the slightest wish to find out.
The Lady knelt, bowed her head, twined her fingers across her breasts, and touched the sigil-bearing cup lid with her thoughts. It wavered, then floated, still lightly as thistledown, to resume its place atop the cup. No sound came, not even the faintest rattle.
A bubbling sigh, as of some vast and unwholesome creature in its last moment of life, loud enough to raise echoes although there were none to give ear to them. Then the last of the crimson glow seemed to drain into the stone floor of the chamber, as if a cup of wine had been flung down upon sand.
The chamber returned to its natural colors, but the mind of the Lady of the Mists did not return to the natural world. She could not allow that until the ritual was altogether complete.
As the Mist took life essences into itself, it gained more and more awareness. Soon it would be able to touch the Lady's mind, or at least seek to do so. She knew quite well what could happen if it succeeded, and had therefore no intention of allowing this to happen. She might in time bind the Mist so that a linking of flesh-mind and Mist-mind would be prudent, but that time was far away.
The Lady rose and held both hands before her in a beckoning gesture. The two Maidens who had brought the cup entered the chamber, followed by two more, similarly clad.
The two newcomers brought long shoulder poles, from which hung a stout harness of leather that might have seemed gilded to an unknowing eye. The "gilding" was in truth the trace of a spell so old that no one could say what folk had first cast it. It bound what lay within the cup, and likewise the life essences, so that they might travel safely through the natural world outside the chamber to their destination.
The Maidens stood, two before and two behind, resting the poles on their shoulders. Then they closed their eyes, as the Lady of the Mists raised her hands again, and this time chanted softly.
The cup lurched into the air, not light as thistledown now but more like a gorged vulture trying to find safety in the air as the hyenas approach. It lurched and wobbled from side to side as the Lady's magic commanded it across the spear's length of rock floor that separated it from the harness.
"Huk!" the Lady said. It was neither word, nor spell. It sounded more like the spitting of the king of all asps. The cup wavered once more, then settled into place in the harness.
Without anyone raising a hand, let alone setting it upon the leather, the harness wound itself tightly about the cup. In moments the contents could not have spilled had it been full to the brim with the finest Poitanian vintages.
There was no other way to deal with the cup when the life essences seethed within it. The Lady remembered one foolish Maiden, it seemed years ago, who had tried to steady the cup with her bare hand.
She drew back naught but a charred stump; and when she held the ruined limb close to her eyes, they smouldered and charred in their sockets too. She did not, however, die. There were in the end uses for her, even though she could not surrender her life essence to the Mist.
Her injuries had too greatly wounded her life essence, but she still had her life. Before it left her, many of the soldiers without had sated themselves so thoroughly that the mere thought of a woman was unknown to them for some days.
The four Maidens now bearing the cup seemed to have profited by their sister's fate. They stood as might temple images, waiting to come to life at a magical command.
The command came—once again, at the raised hand of the Lady of the Mists. The little procession strode out of the cave, the Maids falling swiftly into step as precisely as any soldiers, then turned right. Before them lay the path along the side of the valley, to the cave known as the Eye of the Mist.
Arrows cracked on the rocks at the entrance to the cleft as Conan shifted his position. He sought a place where he could see and strike without being seen or attacked, and so far, none had come to hand.
Meanwhile, arrows continued to fly. Those he could reach without exposing himself, the Cimmerian gathered up. He and his Afghulis had begun this race for life with full quivers. They had reached the rocks with half-empty ones.
The Afghulis were returning the Turanian complements in kind. Some men and rather more horses fell on the slope. Riderless mounts careered about, tangling the ranks of those still mounted. The Afghulis might not be archers equal to the horsemen of Turan, but they held high ground that hid them while they shot down on men in the open.
No command made the Turanians withdraw, only the common consent of those at the forefront that they had fought enough for one day. The horsemen backed down the slope, like the tide ebbing from the harbor of Argos. They had the courage to keep their faces to the invisible enemy, for all that they left behind another half-score of comrades.
Some of the bolder spirits, who dismounted and took cover behind dead horses, paid for their courage within moments. Three died in the space of as many breaths, and Con
an recognized the wild cry of triumph from above as issuing from Farad's throat.
The Turanian tide receded somewhat farther, not quite out of bowshot but far enough so that the archers above ceased shooting. Conan considered using some of his captured arrows to urge the enemy back even farther, then decided that wisdom lay elsewhere.
Sooner or later the Turanians would see the horses and nerve themselves to strike for them. Their hope would be to snatch the beasts and hold their enemies in place while reinforcements arrived.
Their fate would be to run the gauntlet of more arrows from on high, then to face a surprise encounter with the Cimmerian on ground of his own choosing. There would be fewer and more cautious Turanians after such an affray.
Conan set a dozen arrows within easy reach, then removed his boots for more silent movement. On the bare rock outside it was hot enough to bake bread or even burn his leather-tough feet, but here in the cleft, shadows made the rock bearable. He drew a whetstone and a wad of moss soaked in oil from a pouch on his belt and honed from the blade of his broadsword a few nicks that none but a seasoned warrior who was also the son of a blacksmith could have seen.
He was wary of turning his gaze from the Turanians, but thought the risk worth running. The Afghulis higher up the rocks would give sufficient warning of any attack for the Cimmerian to make ready for it.
His weapons prepared, Conan crept to a spot between two boulders and crouched there, as silent as a leopard watching a baboon's water hole and as ready to strike. He saw the Turanians spreading out. He stood or squatted within bowshot, but behind such rocks and stunted trees as offered shelter.
The rest had drawn well back into the open. From the way they signaled by blasts of trumpets and wav-ings of banner, Conan judged that a good part of the band was out of sight, throwing a ring around the rocks—a ring their captain no doubt intended to hold the Afghulis as tightly as an iron collar held a slave.
With the back of his hand, Conan wiped sweat and dust from a scarred, muscle-corded neck that had in its time known a slave's collar as well as silken robes and the golden chains of honor. If fresh horsemen came up to replace the score or more dead or past fighting, the Turanians might do as they intended.
How best to draw them into an attack that would reduce their numbers and courage further? Conan examined the rocks at the mouth of the cleft with as much care as he would have considered the body of a woman waiting in his bed. Perhaps more—the rocks would not grow impatient if he looked too long without acting.
He counted the rocks that were loose, counted others that were small enough to lift or even throw, found some that were both. He turned his gaze to the slope. Then he lay on his back behind a rock that a battering ram could not have moved, cupped his hands about his mouth, and called to Farad.
"How fare you?" He spoke in a tongue of northern Vendhya not unknown to Farad or many other Afghulis, but rarely spoken in Turan.
"Well enough, Conan. We are only short of Turanian dogs we can kill easily."
There spoke the Afghuli warrior who would die rather than admit a weakness—one of many reasons why the Cimmerian found the Afghulis kindred spirits. The rocks aloft had to be hotter still than the slope, and the Afghulis had only a single water bottle apiece. Conan vowed that once the Turanians had been further bloodied enough to learn caution, he would search the cleft for some trace of a spring.
"I hope to do something about that before any of us are much older. How many do they have on the far side of the rocks?"
The sun was a trifle lower in the sky before Farad answered. It appeared that no one had thought to count the enemy behind. Conan hoped that the men above had at least a sentry or two watching their rear. One fault the Afghulis had, and one reason they did not rule in Vendhya and Iranistan at least, was despising anyone not a hillman. They would not readily be-lieve a Turanian could climb rocks, until he did so and opened their throats with a keen blade.
From Farad's answer, it seemed likely that the Turanians had lost one in three of their number in the chase, to say nothing of foundered horses and men bearing wounds that would drain strength if not life. If they lost as many again, their captain (if he lived) might not be able to hold them here long enough for help to arrive.
Even if they held, they would be spread thin. Too thin, the Cimmerian suspected, to resist a stealthy attack at night by men who were masters of fighting in the dark more than almost any other form of war.
Conan waited, as motionless and patient as if he had been one of the rocks himself. He wanted sun, thirst, wounds, and fear to play on the Turanians until their wits and limbs alike were less sound than before.
The sun had sunk beyond the crest of the rocks before Conan judged that the enemy was ready for his bait. Sheathing his sword and dagger but leaving bow and quiver, he crept farther into the cleft, close to the horses.
Even without water, the shade had done them some good. They stood quietly, staring at the Cimmerian. His mare raised her head with an all but human look of curiosity and boredom.
'Time to sing," Conan said. He raised his voice in a sharp, wordless command that any horse bred in these lands could understand. The mare tossed her head, dried foam flew, and she let out a sharp neigh.
By twos and threes, the other mounts joined in.
Conan bared his teeth, white in his dust-caked face, and scrambled back to his watching post.
The grin widened as he saw the Turanians coming to life, some of them leaping up as if they'd lain on ants' nests. The Afghulis above held their fire.
The Turanians knew where the bait was. Now, to get them to take it.
Three
The four Maidens bearing the wine cup marched in step ahead of the Lady of the Mists. This was not easy, as their feet were as bare as the rest of them, but they neither stumbled nor missed a step.
The punishments for Maidens who transgressed were not as grave as those for common folk. The Lady knew that she needed the Maidens' wits and steel alike on guard against her enemies. The Maidens knew that the Lady valued them, and they in turn valued her rewards even more than they feared her punishments.
The peace between the Lady of the Mists and those who served her was uneasy, as often as not. But its uneasiness had not ruined it in three years. No one expected a civil brawl in the valley now, when rumor had it that the Lady's dreams were close to fruition.
Dreams that would make all her friends powerful, even wealthy beyond mortal dreams, and her enemies tormented, shrieking souls beyond all mortal fears.
The Lady walked behind the Maidens, her hands clasped before her slim waist. She was clad as she had been while she drew the life essence of the captives into the cup. She walked with a dignity that seemed to dare the rocks to bruise her bare feet, or the breeze that crept into the valley with the lengthening shadows to chill her bare skin.
She and the Maidens alike walked as if the presence or absence of clothing was beneath their notice and should be likewise beneath the notice of any who saw the women pass. Once only had some foolish soldier ventured a bawdy remark at this procession of well-formed women. His tongue had quite literally cleaved to the roof of his mouth, and only when it was black and stinking did the spell binding it break.
By then, of course, the festering in his mouth had reached his brain. He died raving, and those who heard him lived on with a new respect for the sorcerous power and woman's willfulness of the Lady of the Mists.
The path from the cave ran straight back along the north wall of the valley for some seven furlongs. In places it ran along a ledge carved from the living rock of the Kezankian Mountains. In other places the ledge was built up upon the rock. Sometimes it was built of stones as large as a shepherd's hut, holding together without mortar. In other places curiously thin bricks rose, layer upon layer.
One did not need to count the patches of lichen and hardy vine, silver-shot moss and ancient trees, dwarfed by wind and cold and gnarled by poor soil, to tell that the path was ancient work. An ou
tsider who entered the valley and lived to study it might have offered many different notions about the builders of the path. All would have been partly right, all likewise partly wrong.
At the far end of the path, a flight of wooden steps led down a near-vertical slope, some eighty paces high. Beside the steps a stout wooden beam with a pulley and ropes dangling from it projected out over the drop. The Maidens tied the wine cup, poles, netting, and all, to the pulley, then two of them descended the steps. Their mistress followed, then the cup, lowered on the pulley, and at last the two remaining Maidens, after they had wound in the rope.
All five women ignored the images carved on a smooth rock face just above the wooden beam. All had seen them a score of times, and the Maidens were ignorant of their meaning.
The Lady of the Mists was not ignorant. She knew the marks of the long-dead Empire of Acheron, whose magic yet lived in barbaric corners of the world or in the hands and spells of the mad and the unlawful. She did not care to dwell too long on what these Acheronian carvings might mean.
The Lady of the Mists had many vices, but she was not so foolish as to cast spells with a mind unsettled by shadows of ancient evil.
The women gathered at the bottom of the steps. From where they stood, a path of gravel bordered by more of the curiously thin bricks led off along the floor of the valley. The Maidens lifted the cup and fell into step, while the Lady cast a quick glance into a narrow cleft in the rock at the foot of the stairs.
In that cleft night held sway at all times, but enough light crept in to show the whiteness of bleached bones within. Even without the bones, the distant but unmistakable reek of rotting flesh made nostrils wrinkle and told anyone passing by what lay within.
What came of the life essence of those whose remains lay within, the Lady trusted that she knew. There could be none other within the valley save the Mist itself, or there would be a battle from which the stars and the gods might shrink in dismay.
