Conan rested his hand on his sword hilt for the reassurance that honest steel could give.
"It is also said that the beast itself labored on the dam," Thyrin said. "But that is a tale at best. None but the Star Brothers were close to the dam while it rose¦ or at least none who lived to tell of what they saw."
"Sorcerers like their secrets to die with them," Conan said. "Even if that's not one of the laws of magic, they all act as if it were!"
The two men fell silent in their hiding place behind a pigsty. It smelled no sweeter than any other pigsty, but that would drive away the odd passerby. The pigs were awake, grunting and squealing in unease at the alarm. Their noise would hide any small sounds that Conan and Thyrin might make as they waited.
Conan hoped that the waiting would not be long. They were in a race with the warriors, the Star Brothers, the beast, and the princess and her rescuers, all of them striving for victory”which meant life itself.
The mist over the dam swirled thickly. Conan heard the surging of mighty waters against the dam and thought he saw something rise into the mist. It might have been a trick of the vapor. It might also have been a tentacle.
If it were a tentacle, it was as long as a small ship and as thick as a man's body. It also seemed to have gaping, sucking mouths scattered all along its length.
Darkness hid Aybas's party most of the way to the dam, and they hardly needed silence. The walls of the valley caught the sounds of the drums and the trumpets, to say nothing of the cries and screams of the Pougoi. They cast the noise back and forth, raising echoes that thundered among the rocks until it seemed that they were thundering in Aybas's very head.
Aybas ceased to worry about being heard. Two-score oxen could have marched across the valley unnoticed amid this uproar.
He began, rather, to worry about the valley itself. Behind the dam, he knew, was a lake large enough to drown the whole valley if the dam ever released it. He had heard of loud sounds shattering rock and unleashing snowslides, unaided by any magic.
He hastened forward to speak to Marr, passing Chienna on the way. The princess was striding along with grim determination, for all that sweat sheened her face and matted her hair. She might not be bred to the hill life, like Wylla, but she would be no burden tonight!
As Aybas overtook Marr, he saw the man lift the pipes to his lips.
Their music went unheard in the din filling the valley, but Aybas felt every hair of his head and beard prickle like the quills of a hedgehog.
They were still prickling when the piper led them up to the base of the dam. They rose even higher when two vast figures loomed out of the darkness, until Aybas recognized Conan and Thyrin.
Wylla gave a faint cry and hurled herself into her father's arms.
Raihna looked as if she wanted to do the same to Conan, but the Cimmerian appeared as grim as his cold northern god Crom.
"Best save the greetings and tales until we're safe away," he said.
"We've seen no warriors on our trail. What of you?"
Aybas and Raihna shook their heads. Conan seemed to ease a trifle.
"Friend Marr, if you can tame the beast, now's the time to prove it.
Raihna, you stand with me and Thyrin."
Aybas began to protest against having laid upon him the burden of taking Chienna to safety if the rear guard fell to the beast. He did not think himself equal to it.
Yet he had given his oath to the Cimmerian. The Cimmerian, in turn, was giving his trust to Aybas, trust in the Aquilonian's prowess as well as his honor. Aybas had betrayed much in his life, but he would not of his own will betray that trust. The Cimmerian, Aybas decided, could have given lessons to many of those whom Aybas had served on how to be a captain in war.
Marr nodded, then looked at the sprawled figure lying beneath a bush.
"Is Oyzhik fit to walk?"
"With a barrel of wine in him?" Thyrin growled. "We have no time for jests."
"As you say." The piper began to play again. This time Aybas heard the music: sharp little notes with a weird tone to them, sounding as if they came from a vast distance.
Whatever they were, they had power over Captain Oyzhik's limbs. They writhed, then lifted him to hands and knees, and finally onto his feet.
His eyes were wide open but unseeing, and he lurched like an ill-constructed puppet in the hands of an ill-taught puppeteer.
The piper stopped playing, and Oyzhik sank to his knees. But it was only to spew, which he did thoroughly and foully. Aybas stepped back to save his boots and saw the Cimmerian doing the same. It was hard to judge which disgusted Conan more, the drunken Oyzhik or the piper's magic.
As Aybas heaved the pale Oyzhik to his feet, the drums and trumpets suddenly died. Then a single triumphant, brazen call rolled down the valley. Aybas heard shouts and saw Raihna pointing. His eyes followed her hand.
The longhouse of the Star Brother's guards was still blazing, and the fire lit the path leading toward the dam. On that path a score of figures ran, the light glinting on spearheads and drawn blades.
"They've rallied!" Conan exclaimed. "Marr, start Oyzhik climbing.
Raihna, Thyrin, we form the rear guard."
The piper spoke sharply in Oyzhik's ear. Oyzhik almost raised a hand, then turned and all but threw himself at the face of the dam. He fell twice before he found his balance, then swarmed up the rocks and logs with the skill of an ape.
Chienna and Wylla followed. A jutting stub of branch ripped one leg of the princess's trousers from thigh to ankle, but she ignored it. Conan noted the fine limb so exposed, and also that the princess was as tall as Raihna and not much less broad across the shoulders.
A trifle thin-flanked for his taste, perhaps, but she would have been a daunting bride for a little man like Count Syzambry. Indeed, Conan wondered if the count would have survived his wedding night.
Aybas, Wylla, and the piper began their climb, Marr gripping his pipes with one hand and seeking handholds with the other. He made heavy going of the dam face that way, and Aybas and Wylla finally dropped back to help him along.
Now the vanguard was away, safe from all but the beast. Conan nodded to Raihna. She leaped onto a boulder, an arrow already nocked. The shaft whistled toward the line of running men. Before it struck, another was in the air.
Then a huge hand gripped Raihna's shoulder. Conan glared at Thyrin and drew his sword. The other man shook his head.
"Forgive me, Mistress Raihna, Captain Conan. But these are my folk, some of them warriors I have taken into battle. If the Star Brothers have led them astray, perhaps I can lead them aright."
"And perhaps mares will give wine instead of milk," Raihna snapped.
"Let go
"Speak, Thyrin," Conan said. "But swiftly."
Thyrin cupped his hands, and his voice made the drums and trumpets seem like a hush.
"Warriors of the Pougoi! Tonight's work means no harm to you or any of yours. We mean to end the unclean work of Count Syzambry among the tribe, and nothing more. What that demands, we shall do. More than that, we shall not do. Go from this place to your homes, guard them, and leave us to cleanse the honor of the tribe."
The line of running men slowed. Thyrin roared on, telling more of the wickedness of Count Syzambry and the shame brought on the Pougoi by their taking his gold. He did not mention Marr the Piper, the Star Brothers, or much else about what was afoot.
By now the line of running men was writhing like a broken-backed snake.
Some of the men were standing still, others advancing at a walk. A few seemed to be arguing.
Conan also had his bow drawn and an arrow nocked. If Thyrin's notion of talking wits into witlings failed, he and Raihna could have ten arrows into their ranks before they moved again.
Suddenly the shouting was from the warriors, not from Thyrin. Two of them were grappling standing; others were down on the ground. Steel flashed, and someone thrust a spear down from over his head into another man's belly. A bubbling scream split th
e night.
Thyrin grunted, then slapped Conan and Raihna each on the shoulder.
"Fare you well, if we do not meet again," he said.
Raihna's mouth opened into a silent circle. Conan understood. "Bring any men you can rally to a dead man-bear by a many-rooted oak tree hard by the Blasted Lands," he said. "We'll lead them to Eloikas."
"You'll lead them nowhere unless Her Mightiness pardons the whole tribe," Thyrin said. "It's out of dishonor that I lead them, not into Eloikas's service." Then he was running toward the brawling warriors before Conan could think of any more advice, let alone give it.
Raihna cursed Thyrin as she and the Cimmerian began their climb to rejoin their comrades. Conan said nothing. He knew more than she did of what Thyrin might think he owed his tribe, for all that they had wandered down many dark paths lit only by the false light of sorcery.
They were less than halfway up the dam when the witch-thunder rolled across the valley. Confined between the rock walls, it might have been the world cracking apart. Raihna clapped her hands over her ears, and Conan felt as if hot needles were being thrust into his ears.
They reached the top of the dam, however, just as the witch-thunder sounded again. This time it found an echo. From the water beyond the dam there began a long, low hissing.
It went on as Conan and Raihna ran along the top of the dam, which was three hundred paces long; their comrades were barely halfway across.
As they overtook the others, the hiss turned into a scream. The scream turned into a roar, and the lake seemed to catch fire, spewing out shades of crimson and sapphire, emerald and topaz. Its surface heaved and bubbled, then began to steam like a boiling cauldron.
Marr was playing his pipes through all of this, as Conan saw. But his music would have been as a child's cry against the shouting of an army when matched with the roaring of the beast.
Unheard though it might be, the piping seemed to be fulfilling some of its promise. The beast was awake, aware, and furious. That the lake was turning into a cauldron proved that.
Yet the tentacles”indeed, as long as a ship and as thick as a man's body”came nowhere near the people scurrying across the top of the dam.
They reached high enough into the air to have plucked men from the top of pine trees or temple towers. They could easily have swept Conan and his little band into death in any eyeblink.
They did not, and Conan began to feel almost at ease with the presence of Marr and his spells. It was not a feeling that he expected to last.
No doubt the piper would turn against them in the end, or be turned against them by his magic. Also, Conan would feel still more at ease when they were safe away from the beast, for all that the piper's magic had mastered it for now.
Conan and Raihna overtook the others fifty paces from the end of the dam. Wylla stared at them.
"Where is my father?"
"He hoped to win the Pougoi away from Count Syzambry," Conan said.
Wylla crammed one fist into her mouth to stifle a cry and struck Conan in the chest with the other. Aybas put an arm around her shoulders.
"He saw his duty and we see ours," he said. "Both see clearly, even if not alike."
Seen from close at hand, the piper appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Oyzhik looked like a walking corpse. Only the princess was bearing up well, she and her still-sleeping babe. Conan had to lay a hand across the babe's chest to be sure that he was still breathing.
Then, beneath them, the dam shuddered. Conan felt more than heard stones moving, and saw nothing at all. He had been in too many earthquakes, however, to ignore the sensation.
"Run!" he shouted, loud enough to pierce even the outcry of the beast.
"Run for your lives! The dam is breaking!"
He did not need to repeat the warning. The next shuddering joined his words to give wings to everyone's feet. Even Oyzhik reached the far end of the dam at a stumbling run, and the princess might have been racing for a purse of gold.
The path up the cliff lay before them. It was indeed as easy as promised. A child of six could have found a way up it.
So could any number of Pougoi warriors if Thyrin could not keep them off of his friends' trail. Conan studied the cliff, seeking a place where he and Raihna could make a stand against greater numbers. With bows, they could even make their stand beyond reach of the beast's tentacles¦ at least until their quivers were empty, or until the Star Brothers' spells overcame the piper's and sent the beast climbing up the cliff, as it did on the nights of sacrifice”
The dam shuddered for a third time, and this time the shuddering did not end. Conan not only felt but saw rocks moving, and some the size of a man tore entirely loose and crashed down the face of the dam. Dust poured up from long cracks forming amid the stones.
"What keeps you, Conan?" a voice shrieked. "Are you going to spit the beast and roast it for trail rations?"
It was Raihna, all but screaming in his ear. Conan flung her up onto the path, then leaped himself. The solid rock of the cliff was now shaking under his feet, and he nearly fell as he landed.
He did not fall, however, and both he and Raihna overtook the others in moments. None of them paused until they were halfway up the path. Then they stopped to look back.
No one would be pursuing them across the top of the dam any too easily, even should the beast die in the next moment. A gap wider than a royal road lay open in the top of the dam, and water was foaming through it.
Mist seemed to rise even from the foam, and the lake itself was all but invisible.
The fires beneath the water tinted the mist in rainbow hues. Conan thought the beast seemed less fierce now, but certainly the ghostly shapes of monstrous tentacles still danced through the mist at intervals.
Conan turned to speak to Marr. He did not expect an answer, or even wish the man to cease whatever magic he was working against the beast.
He did want to assure himself that the piper still heard human voice, thought. Conan opened his mouth, but before words reached his tongue, the piper staggered as if struck on the head. Then he toppled sideways.
Only Conan's hand gripping his tunic kept him from falling, and had he fallen, he would have rolled off the path and down the cliff toward the lake.
Screams told Conan that others had not been so fortunate. He clutched Wylla's ankle as she sprawled face down, then held on until she dug in fingers and toes so as to keep her place.
Raihna needed no help, and Aybas had fallen sitting. He was cursing and rubbing his rump, but no man cursing so loudly could be hurt.
Oyzhik was doomed. Barely aware of the world around him, sensible only through the piper's magic, he had no hope when that magic ceased. Conan saw the traitorous captain roll down the hill toward a vertical drop, arms and legs outflung like those of a child's doll.
The captain never took the final plunge. A tentacle lunged out of the mist. Even its tip was enough to wind around Oyzhik three times. Conan saw blood spurt as the appendage crushed his chest and belly. Mouths opened in the tentacle to suck in the blood. Then tentacle and prey vanished into the mist.
As Oyzhik vanished, Conan realized that he had not seen the princess or her babe. He braced himself against a stunted tree and examined the slope. At least there was no place where falling rocks could have crushed them. The Cimmerian also saw no place where they could have fetched up safe once they began rolling”
A dark-haired head seemed to rise from the ground, and a long, shapely arm waved frantically. Conan thanked the gods that his eyes had deceived him, and he plunged down the slope.
He reached the princess only a few paces ahead of Raihna. They were both ready, swords drawn, when another tentacle took shape out of the mist. The beast roared almost as loudly as before, sensing prey. Then it roared louder as both Conan and Raihna slashed at the tentacle. The beast was flesh and blood. It could feel pain and cry out.
Conan and Raihna gave the creature a good deal of pain in the next few moments. Conan had never swung
a blade so fast or so hard in his life, for all that each blow jarred his arm from wrist to shoulder.
The tentacle was writhing now, in rhythm with the roars of the beast.
Greenish ichor spurted from the wounds, and yellow foam drooled from the mouths, inundating the Cimmerian's arm, making his grip on the sharkskin hilt of his sword uncertain. The stench made the pigsty seem like a lady's perfumed dressing chamber.
Then the last rag of flesh that held the end of the tentacle to the main body gave way under a furious stroke from Raihna. The main body of the tentacle drew back, and not only mist but foam spewed up from the lake as the beast roared.
The princess was handing something up over the edge of the drop, a fleece-wrapped bundle that Conan realized carried Prince Urras, awake now that Marr's spells no longer held him asleep.
"Hold on to him and I'll pull you both up!" Conan shouted.
"Mistress Raihna! Take the babe!" The princess was adamant, and Raihna responded to her appeal. Before Conan could reach for Chienna's hands, Raihna knelt, picked up the babe, and darted up the slope.
Conan knelt in turn, gripped long-fingered hands, and heaved. The princess was no dainty court lady, and it burdened even the Cimmerian's muscles to haul her bodily onto more level ground.
It also did Chienna's attire no good. Conan had seen tavern dancers at the end of their dance wearing less than she wore now. He had also seen tavern dancers less worthy of being so clad. With the greater part of her clothes in rags, she no longer appeared so thin-flanked.
The princess seemed to want to throw herself into the Cimmerian's arms, but she only gripped his shoulders with both hands and laid her head on his chest. They were standing thus when Raihna's voice shrilled from above.
"It's coming again!"
Conan contemplated the tentacle reaching for them. He contemplated the battered sword in his hand. He contemplated the princess and gave her a firm shove on the rump with his free hand. She scrambled up the slope toward where Wylla held her babe as Raihna leaped down for a last stand beside Conan.
Then the ground upended both Conan and Raihna as if they were children tossed in a blanket. They fell and landed sprawling, but not rolling.
The Conan Compendium Page 355
