Having entertained this particular train of thinking more than a few times during the boring seasons of his watch, the guard could not be bothered to worry when, from his perch on the wall, he saw a single Pili approaching the village in the silvery moonlight. The guard's beard was shot full of gray and he had been assigned this watch since before that beard had begun to fully sprout. The most dangerous incident he had faced in all that time had been a drunken farmer who threw rotten melons at him. And missed.
The guard had seen lizard men before. They were rare in these parts, to be sure, but probably half a dozen had passed through the gates during his watch at one time or another, so the guard was not one to gape at the sight of a Pili, even one with a decidedly regal bearing such as this one had.
"Alert, the watch!" the Pili called.
"Alert, indeed," the guard called back. "What be your business here?"
"I carry a message for one of the fishmen. Permit me to enter."
Even though the lizard man carried a long spear, the guard felt no particular peril. He tugged at the lever that opened the smaller entrance. Below him, the door began to swing open.
The Pili turned and shouted something into the darkness in a tongue the guard did not understand.
"What . . . ?" the guard began. He stopped when he caught sight of at least a score of spear-carrying lizard men running toward the gate. "Hey!"
The guard tried to reverse the lever. The greenish bronze suddenly seemed slippery in his hands. This was bad business!
"Here!" came a voice.
The guard looked, and saw the first Pili standing below him, inside the gate, The guard was still deciding whether to question, threaten, or plead with the lizard man when the thrown spear struck him solidly in the center of the chest. He was filled with hot pain, but only for an instant. The pain stopped, he became numb, then he could not feel anything.
The guard's final thought was an odd one. After all the years of dullness, something exciting had finally happened.
Kleg awakened after the cloak of night had fallen over the village. He felt much better. He arose, .drenched himself with the bowl of wash water in the room, and thus refreshed, left the room on the inn's third and highest floor, intending to eat another meal before going out.
As the selkie reached the stair landing, he chanced to glance out through the small window cut through the outer wall. The sky's cloth of darkness was pierced by the sharp pinpricks of uncountable stars and easily half the grinning moon, and a cool breeze carried the living odor of the lake through the opening. Kleg felt quite good, until he happened to look down through the window.
There on the narrow street between the inn and the leather shop across it, several figures scurried along. Between the moon's glow and that of a fat-fueled torch mounted on the side of the inn at street level, it was easy for the selkie's sharp eyes to tell that the trotting forms were neither men nor selkies.
They were Pili.
The chill that enveloped Kleg had nothing whatever to do with the night winds blowing through the window.
Pili! How could they be here? Surely the guard would not have admitted an armed band of them! Had they scaled the wall surrounding the village? Broken through the gate?
Never mind that, Kleg. How they got inside is not nearly so important as why they are here: they are after you and not the least doubt of that.
For a moment, Kleg yielded to panic. A score of Pili would move through the village like dung through a worm; it would only take moments for them to find him!
Unbidden, his hand found the pouch of his belt containing the magical talisman. Should they manage to obtain the Seed and somehow spare him, his fate would make a quick death by spear pleasant compared to what He Who Creates would do to him. He had to escape!
Yea, even though it was dark and the weed paths under the water would be most dangerous, he had to get to the lake. In his Changed form, his chances were much better there than in his upright from here. And while the Pili might have managed to breach the village's wall, it would be a cold sun in the desert before they learned how to swim well enough to catch a selkie!
Carefully, Kleg started down the steps.
From below, a voice called out loudly, "We seek a fishman! Is there one here? Speak, or taste my spear!"
"U-u-up-s-stairs," came a quavering response.
Kleg stopped cold. By the Black Depths! He was trapped!
A tall Pili with whom Thayla considered trysting once he got a little older slid down the side of the sand dune from the top and came to rest next to the queen.
"They are coming!" he said.
Thayla nodded. "Exactly as I planned. You know what you are to do."
"Aye, my queen."
"Prepare, then."
The young male nodded and climbed upward, where he rejoined the other two males Thayla had kept with her. The queen herself followed, moving more slowly. She planned to watch from the peak of the hillock as her troops attacked. The numbers on both sides were about equal, but she had the advantage of surprise. Night would help, insofar as confusion went in the dark, but the Pili saw no better than did men, nor was their hearing an improvement.
Well, it did not matter if many or all of her troops died, as long as she got what she wanted.
Now, there was carnage to observe. Doubtless her reptilian ancestors would have been pleased with the smile that thought brought to her lips.
The Queen of the Pili continued to grin as she climbed to a position from which she could watch the slaughter.
Conan slipped away from the others and circled to his right. Perhaps Cheen was right. Perhaps he worried needlessly, like some child afraid of ghosts in the dark. He had seen once again, however, from his confrontation with Crom-if that had been other than a potion-inspired dream-that leaping without looking was fraught with danger. Were it not for that rope about his ankle during the ceremony in the trees, likely his brains would have been dashed all over the roots below. Conan of Cimmeria was not a man to repeat the same mistake once he had grasped the idea of it. One who always used his might and never his wits would likely lead a short life, and he had no intention of so doing.
The sand of the slope was finer than that upon which they had been walking, and Conan stepped upon it carefully to avoid having it cheep birdlike under his sandals. The wind was at his back, and it carried tiny sharp teeth of sand that bit at his exposed flesh and sought to burrow beneath his clothing. The odor of the desert was dry and lifeless, and his nostrils detected no sign of the lizard musk he recalled from the cage and caves.
Halfway up the slope, Conan's sharp blue eyes caught sight of three dark splotches above him, at the peak of the dune. At first he thought the shapes some type of plant, but as he cautiously climbed upward, he realized that he was mistaken.
The three forms were Pili warriors, and they were intent on something on the other side of the dune.
Conan could easily guess what that something was: the Tree Folk, walking into a trap.
Taking care to avoid scraping the blade on the scabbard, the Cimmerian drew his sword. He was nearly upon the three, who had risen from prone to half crouches, when the night wind at his back gave him away.
"Gah, what is that stink?" one of the Pili answered.
"Not I," a second said.
"It smells familiar," the third said. "Like . . . it is a man!"
The three started to turn.
No more need for stealth. Conan churned up the slope, the sand chee-cheeing under his sandals.
He bellowed a warning: "Pill! On the dune tops! Pili! Beware!"
The yell was replaced by the exclamations of the startled Pili.
The nearest of the three lunged up, and the angle of the dune gave him momentum as he stabbed at Conan with his spear. The Cimmerian dodged, slow in the dry mire, but quick enough to avoid the thrust. The Pili's lunge turned into a fall, then a helpless, uncontrolled tumble as he flew down the side of the dune, screaming as he went.
T
he second Pili managed only to lift his weapon before Conan's blued-iron blade whistled in the night air and cleaved the lizard man open from one side of his neck to the opposite shoulder. He sprouted his life's blood into the dry sand, which drank it eagerly.
The third Pili stood to flee, but not fast enough. The point of Conan's sword found and entered the Pili's back and exited through the lizard man's heart and sternum. Conan lifted his right foot and used it to shove the dying Pili from his blade, and this one tumbled down the opposite side of the dune toward the startled Tree Folk below.
Conan took in the scene: the Tree folk, warned by his yell, were already climbing the hill toward him, to take the high ground. Several Pili charged down other dunes, waving spears and yelling. As Conan watched, one of the Tree Folk took a thrown spear in the leg. Little Hok was halfway up the dune by now, with Cheen right behind him. One of the Tree Folk spun and hurled a spear, and was rewarded by a scream from the Pili who caught the point in the belly.
Conan grinned. A simple battle, odds nearly even, now this was something he understood! He yelled wordlessly and charged down the dune, sword raised to smite the enemies below.
Chapter THIRTEEN
Keg searched for options and found them few. Below in the main room of the ramshackle inn, an unknown number of Pili had just discovered his whereabouts. He was on the third floor with only one stairway leading down. He could go down the stairs to a likely death. He could hide and hope to avoid being discovered, or he could develop wings and escape; otherwise he would have to leap to the cobblestones below and that would cost him broken legs at the least and probably worse.
Things did not look promising.
From his belt, Kleg drew the long dagger he habitually carried and resolved to sell his life for as much Pili blood as he could. He did not know if He Who Creates could reach across the death barrier to the Gray Lands, but were such a thing possible, certainly it would happen; did Kleg die here this night, he meant to show he had struggled valiantly in his master's service before falling.
Suddenly there came a loud crash. The inn shook, as though rattled by an earth tremor, and the voices of those below raised into a frantic, panicked babble. Came up the stairs screams and the sounds of breaking furniture and general chaos. .
What in the world . . . ?
Cautiously, Kleg stole down the stairs, dagger in hand.
When he rounded the final turning on the second-story landing, he saw a chair fly past the base of the stairwell, followed by a Pili-sans head.
Something was definitely amiss here.
Kleg descended further, and what he beheld was indeed a frightening sight.
The east wall of the inn was more or less collapsed, the ceiling above canting down over a massive hole to the outside; half a dozen Pili scrabbled around the wrecked room, jabbing their spears at a nightmare.
The monster they fought looked to be part toad, part bear, and perhaps leavened with dog or wolf, but it was huge! Its gaping maw was lined in the front with needlelike teeth that tapered to solid plates of flat molars in the back. The beast chewed something, and Kleg's stomach roiled as he realized that what it chewed was the remains of a Pili's head. The. morsel crunched wetly in the monster's jaws.
The jabs of the Pili's spears did not seem to affect it much, if at all, and as Kleg watched, the thing lunged forward, very quickly for such a large creature, and bit the leg from another Pili.
The lizard man screamed, but the beast was apparently as unaffected by this as it was by the spears, which sank into its flesh but drew no blood. The mottled gray-green monster chewed on the leg as a cow chews on her cud, oblivious to all else.
There was a mostly clear pathway to the inn's door, and Kleg decided that there would never be a better time for him to depart. He sprinted toward the exit.
The Pili were too busy to notice him, but Kleg's run did draw the attention of the monster, whose red eyes turned to follow the selkie's dash for freedom.
The knowledge came suddenly to Kleg; the thing was here for him!
Certainly the beast was no friend to the Pili. Could it have been sent by the Tree Folk?
Kleg reached the door and ran through it into the street. A small crowd had gathered and was moving toward the inn.
"Hey, whut's alla noise about . . . ?"
". . . god's cursed racket in there . . . ?"
". . . watch it, fool!"
Kleg ignored the people, save for the one he banged into during his flight, and he only paid enough attention to that one to shove him roughly aside. If these idiots wished to enter the inn, so much the better. They would make fodder for the thing therein, and perhaps keep it from following him.
It did not seem likely that the Tree Folk had fielded such a monster, and since it was not one of the Pili's pets, then the logical conclusion was that He Who Creates had sent it. But why? To help Kleg? Or to devour him? Mayhaps the magical talisman that bumped at his waist could survive a trip in the belly of the beast quite easily and that was He Who Creates' intent in sending it.
Kleg did not know the answers to his questions, nor was he interested in waiting here to find out. That hideous monster gobbling up Pili as if they were sweetmeats did not look to be something with which you could reason.
Kleg ran toward the docks, trusting to speed instead of stealth now. If he could but reach the water, he would be safe!
Another thought thrust itself into his consciousness all of a moment. If He Who Creates had sent the beast after him, could not He have also sent others? Things that could even now be waiting in the Sargasso for Kleg?
The running selkie slowed, coming to a stop.
Uh-oh. He could have gone forever without that thought.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps in this case what he did not know would hurt him. Perhaps it would eat him.
Kleg turned and walked into an alleyway between a smith's shop and a half-fallen temple. Before he ran pell-mell to the water and threw himself into a set of jaws like those destroying the inn, perhaps he had better think on this for a while.
Rage enveloped Thayla. Her trap was falling apart before her eyes! Someone had given the alarm! The essence of her attack was off, the surprise gone, and even now, the Tree Folk scooted up a dune ahead of her soldiers, largely untouched. Where were the three who were supposed to be at the summit of that hill?
There one of them was-Gods, he was flying down the hill, falling, rolling, and what was-oh, no, it was that barbarian human! He stood there at the crest, waving his sword and yelling. Now he was charging downward, and the Tree Folk were turning to join him.
In the dark, bodies fell, Pili and human; there came the hard clatter of spears, the screams of wounded. And Conan laid about with that sword, chopping her troops down as a Pili clears brush, back and forth, back and forth, by the great Green Dragon.
It was a rout. More Pili were down than men, and whatever advantage the Pili might have had fled like the sand before a windstorm. Another of her troops dropped, cut nearly in half by that berserk man she had taken to her bed. Yet another ate a spear thrown by one of the tree dwellers. Her warriors were the ones being slaughtered, not the men, and Thayla watched in horror as it happened.
It came to her as Conan chased the last of her troops that she herself was in danger. Might not they look for other Pill?
Thayla slid down from her perch on the dune. Best not to be found if they looked.
As she hurried to find a place to hide, the Queen of the Pili was filled with a bitter blend of fear and loathing and anger.
Now what was she going to do?
Conan chased the fleeing Pili and caught him after a short sprint. The heavy iron sword sang a song of death in the night as it chopped the Pili's head from his shoulders. The lizard man collapsed, spouting crimson into the thirsty sands.
The Cimmerian turned, his own blood coursing rapidly within him, searching for more opponents.
Alas, there were no more Pili to be slain.
"Conan, a
re you unharmed?"
He looked up to see Cheen scurrying toward him.
"Aye. What of the others?"
The two of them began a check of the Tree Folk. They had lost five of their party to Pili spears. A. quick count showed nearly a dozen of the lizard men were now corpses.
"Should we search for others?" Hok said to his sister.
"I think not," Cheen said. "Our goal is ahead and I would not delay here. What say you, Conan?"
The Cimmerian was busy with his honing stone, touching up the blade of his sword. As he polished out a nick on the edge with the stone, he nodded at Cheen. "Aye, let us continue onward. II is unlikely that we will be troubled by such as these again." He waved the sharpened sword at the bodies on the sand. "Before the queen realizes we have slain her troops, we will be well out of their territory."
After a quick burial of their dead and attention to the wounds of the living, the group departed the scene of the battle.
Swirling through. the quiet halls, Dimma felt within him a sense of frustration. He had done all he could do, he reasoned. His Prime selkie would die before failing, he had sent as much help as was like to be useful, and all he could do now was wait. After five hundred years, a few days was nothing, and yet Dimma could feel the end of his torture almost as if he had flesh and was feeling the touch of a woman. Were he solid, he could venture forth himself, could brave any winds, could go and see for himself what was transpiring. Alas, in his current form, even a stray breeze would drive him before it as a shepherd does lambs, and there was nothing h,. could do about it, despite his most powerful magicks.
It enraged hire, his helplessness, and he intended to revenge himself upon the world when he again wore the flesh. That he should suffer so for hundreds of years needed payment, and the payment would be in rivers of blood and mountains of bone. Those who had taken their bodies for granted would suffer because he, Dimma, had not been able to enjoy that simple pleasure. Not until his rage was spent would he be content to rest and think about what he would do next.
The Conan Compendium Page 99
