Each had a sword and dagger, and each carried a Turanian recurved bow and quiver of well-made arrows. Their faces under the helmets and bodies under the armor were good to look at. The sure grace of their movements and the stillness in their eyes made it clear no man but a fool would hope for more, and fools would meet weapons the women knew well how to use.
Northern folk had tales of shield-maidens, daughters of the gods, who roamed the earth seeking the souls of dead warriors, or so the captain had heard. He had thought them barbarians' fancies once; now he was not so sure. All of the Lady's Maidens had the same look, of being able to see into a man's soul and judge him.
It was that look, as much as their weapons and armor, that had kept the Maidens untouched. That, and knowing that what the Lady had done to disobedient archers would be as a child's tantrum to what she would do in defense of her Maidens.
"Any children?" the dark Maiden said.
"None."
"As well. Strong spirits are needed to feed the Mist."
"The strongest spirit, we freed back near the village. We could not force the potion down him without risking hurt to our people, and pursuit seemed closer than usual."
Why was he explaining himself to this madwoman, servant of a greater madwoman? Perhaps because he had seen her on guard more often than any other, and she looked less grim than most. The fair one, now”a man's hand would freeze on touching her, long before his manhood was anywhere near her.
'This is not well."
"It did not seem my decision, to sacrifice the Lady's servants."
"That is wisdom."
They continued to speak as the raiders filed past. Some of the prisoners had enough awareness to open their eyes and look about them, but the point of a sword in the back was enough to discourage laggards.
At last the tail of the column vanished among the rocks, and Muhbaras was alone on the mountainside with the Maidens.
"You are well, I trust?" the fair one said. Not for the first time, she made a question about the captain's health sound like a death sentence.
"I am well, and fit to come within," he replied, returning to ritual phrases.
Which I would not do if I did not think your mistress needed my men more than they need her!
-
One
The desert lay north of Zamboula, south of Khauran, west of the mighty realm of Turan, now burgeoning in its strength under the lash of its bold new King Yezdigerd. It belonged to none of these.
Indeed, the land belonged to no one. Even names on it were few, and those mostly oases. The nomads were divided among a score of tribes, seldom at peace with one another; each tribe had its own names for the wadis, the depressions, the dunes.
The harsh sky and its blazing sun might have leached all the color from the land. The sand lay pale ochre and umber, the rocks seemed baked white as bones, and even the sparse vegetation was pallid and dusty.
Well off to the north, dust trails crept above the horizon. Still farther, barely visible, rose patches of deeper green. Together they told of caravan routes and cultivated lands. Only in the crystalline air of the desert would they have been visible at all, for they were a good day's ride on a stout horse.
Nearer at hand, a man standing on a well-placed dune might have seen another dust cloud rising to the sky. Before long, he would have seen the dark shapes of more than a dozen riders at the base of the cloud, growing even as he watched.
Remaining beyond bowshot, he would have taken them for a band of nomad warriors. Their garb was certainly that of the nomads, or of any man who braves a forge-hot desert journey”loose, flowing robes from crown to toe. All were well armed, mostly with long, curved swords or bows.
Closer up, a man who knew the tribes of the East might have doubted that these men were native to the desert. One saw silver on the hilts of some weapons, tattoos on bronzed cheeks, and subtle differences in the tooled leather of the saddles and bridles. Yet most of the men and their mounts could have ridden into a nomad camp without drawing a second glance.
All except one, the leader. Few deserts ever spawned a man so gigantic, who needed a horse larger than any nomad ever bestrode to carry him even at a trot. Nor did those ice-blue eyes first open under any desert sun, and the blade that rode at the man's hip was as straight as his broad back.
Conan of Cimmeria was riding for Koth, with fourteen loyal Afghulis sworn to see him safely to that destination. Perhaps also they had hopes of plucking loot from the war in Koth.
The man on the dune might have stood watching until not only Conan but the rearmost of the riders was out of sight. Had he done so, however, he would shortly have seen a new dust cloud sprout on the horizon, moving swiftly on the trail of Conan's band. The Cimmerian and his Afghulis were not alone in the desert.
In the forefront of the band, Conan was not the first to see the riders behind. That modest honor went to a rider named Farad, of the Batari tribe. He spurred his mount up beside the Cimmerian's and shouted into the northerner's ear.
"We are followed. Many more than we are, from the dust they make."
Conan turned to look eastward. Farad's eyes were keen and his judgment sound. The riders behind had to be at least fifty, though probably not more than a hundred”which hardly mattered, as even fifty was four times the strength of Conan's band.
Nor did it matter much who they were, unless by some improbable chance they were a caravan gone astray or Zamboulans. Neither was likely to be found in this stretch of desert; more likely by far were nomads or Turanians, and neither would meet Conan and his men as friends.
In some nomad dialects the word "stranger" was also the word for "enemy." Among every nomad tribe, anyone who had wealth to take and no kin to avenge their death was fair game. The horses and weapons of Conan's band would be enough to sign their death warrant with any nomads numerous enough to take them, to say nothing of what Conan bore in a small pouch next to his skin.
That small sack of jewels was all his profit from two years among the Afghulis. That and a whole skin, which he supposed was more than many kept who went among the Afghulis in their native mountains.
Binding the scattered, brawling tribes of the Afghulis into a single host had at first seemed like a good idea. Conan knew his own skill and the prowess of the Afghuli warriors, likewise the weaknesses of every neighboring realm. A united Afghuli people could take their pick.
The Afghulis did not seem to care overmuch for this bright vision. If it meant fighting beside a man whose great-grandfather had insulted theirs, they would rather fight the man (or perhaps the towering foreigner who suggested that they forgive the insult).
It was Conan's luck, not to mention ready blade and stout thews, that kept his hide intact. With little but what he had on his person and no friends but those who owed him blood-debts, he had fled the mountains.
Fighting their way through bandits and bears alike, they came to hear rumors of war in Koth.
Westward they rode, the Afghulis as eager as Conan to try their hand at winning loot and glory from the troubles of Koth. They had to ride well clear of the borders of Turan, however, for in that realm there was a price on Conan's head. Under King Yildiz's mild reign, few Turanians would have cared to gamble their lives on taking Conan's. Yezdigerd was not his father, and knew how to use both fear and greed to make men bold, even foolhardy.
Conan looked eastward again. He thought he saw a second dust cloud on the horizon, but after a mo-ment knew it was only a dust devil, a creature of the wind. But the first cloud had grown larger, and now he thought he saw the glint of sunlight on steel.
The nomads wore no armor. In this land, armored riders were most likely Turanians. Conan looked westward, studying the ground with a practiced eye. He had fought in every kind of land from glacier to jungle, and knew what each offered to a hunted band.
To the west, the desert rolled away under the sun, offering little but sand and scrub. Anywhere in that emptiness, Conan's band would stand out like a pea on a
platter. Once in bowshot, the enemy would have easy prey, unless night came”and it was only early afternoon.
To the north, however, a sprawling gray mass thrust its rocky head above the sand. Any who reached this ridge might lurk in its cracks and crevices until nightfall dimmed the enemy's sight, then slip away. At worst, it offered shelter for archery and ambushes, likewise high ground for a last stand if the odds against escape grew too long.
Conan grinned at the prospect of giving King Yezdigerd a few more widows' pensions to pay. This was the kind of fight that made his blood sing and that had made his name in all Hyborian lands and more than a few others. Long odds, a need for both cunning and strength, and stout brothers-in-arms to tell the tales afterward or keep him company in death if that was his fate.
No one worthy of the name of warrior could complain about the battle Conan faced.
His only remaining problem was to be sure that the battle would be on his chosen ground, not that of the
Turanians. A good deal of open desert lay between Conan's men and the ridge, bare of cover but likely full of holes and cracks that could catch a horse's leg and doom its rider.
Conan had read a few books on the art of war, and thought most of them tried to make into wizardry something that was for the most part common sense. In none of them had he found one maxim he knew to be true: The horse that has never stumbled before will stumble when you are riding for your life.
He waved toward the ridge, while turning in the saddle to shout at the Afghulis. "We'll perch there until nightfall. Archers, to the rear, but I'll gut the man who wastes arrows." The Afghulis were mostly not the finished horse-archers of Turan, among the best in the world; but their pursuers would make a large target.
The archers reined in a trifle, the rest dug in spurs, and dust swirled around Conan's band as it re-formed for its last ride. Dust also swirled, higher and thicker than before, to their rear. Conan cast a final look behind him, thought he recognized Turanian banners, then put his head down and his heels in to ride for his life.
In a bare rock chamber in the wall of the Valley of the Mists, a woman sat cross-legged and alone on a bearskin thrown across a Turanian rug.
Before her stood a tall wine cup of gilded bronze, with four handles and a broad base displaying archaic, even ancient runes known only among sorcerers and talked of in whispers even among them.
The Lady was as bare as the chamber, save for a necklace, bracelets, and coronet of fresh mountain creeper. A Maiden had plucked it in the night and brought it to the chamber before dawn, where it had remained in cool shadows. It was still so fresh that the last drops of dew trickled from the crinkled gray-green leaves down between the Lady's breasts.
The Lady of the Mists”she did not choose to remember any other name”reached under the bearskin and drew out a heavy disk of age-blackened bronze. One could barely make out under the patina of centuries the sigil of Kull of Atlantis.
The Lady knew not whether some potent Atlantean spell still lurked in the bronze. She only knew that nothing else that had come into her hands so readily let her work her own.
That was as well. Workers in magic did best and lived longest (if they cared for that, as the Lady did) if they worked most with the magic they knew and commanded”as well as any mortal could command power from the realms of night.
She shifted her position with the languid grace of a cat half-roused from sleep, until she could reach the cup. She set the bronze disk atop the cup, so that it rested a hairsbreadth below the rim, completely covering the cup.
The movement sent more dew trickling between her breasts. No living man would have gazed on those breasts unstirred, nor did the rest of the Lady's form repel the eye any more than her breasts. She could have filled her bed more readily than most women, had she sought that”or had her eyes been other than they were.
They were of human size and shape, but of a golden hue seen in no race of men. She also had the vertical pupils of a cat, and these were a nightmare black against the yellow.
Any man seeing the Lady's form would have judged her human, and judged truly. Then, coming closer, a glimpse of her eyes would have changed his mind and likely sent him fleeing, faster than anything but the Lady's laughter could pursue. Or, if she took offense, the Lady's magic.
The Lady pressed a finger to the cup, moving it to see if its bronze seal was well in place. No rattle greeted her. She smiled, and her eyes narrowed, like those of a cat looking, as they so often do, into a world beyond human knowledge.
Then she rested both hands lightly on the bronze and began to sing. The cup quivered at first, then steadied, but around cup and Lady alike a crimson light began to spread.
Conan was now as careful not to look to his rear as any Aquilonian knight leading a charge. He did not do it for the knight's reasons of not wishing to show doubt that those sworn to him would follow steadfastedly in his wake.
The Cimmerian kept his eyes to the front or the side because there lay the ridge that offered the only hope of safety, as well as any number of hidden dangers. The holes of burrowing rodents to snap a horse's leg like a rotten twig, soft sand to bring horse and man down together, nests of asps to give a lingering death if disturbed”these could end the race as thoroughly as being overtaken by the Turanians.
So could nomads or Turanians lying in ambush.
The nomads held no love for the Turanians, and even less now in the face of Yezdigerd's growing strength. That would not stay their hands for a moment if they thought they could buy a Turanian captain's goodwill with the heads of the Cimmerian and his following.
This was no land for any man who cared to live without eyes in the back of his head and his hand close to the hilt of his sword. Conan had lived no other way for more years than he had fingers, and in their feud-ridden land the Afghulis sucked in wariness with their mothers'
milk.
"Conan!" The call rose above the thunder of hooves. "The Turanians send a band ahead, faster than the rest!"
Conan recognized the voice. It was Farad, first man among the Afghulis.
He shouted back, without turning his head.
"They think to wolf-pack us. Time for the archers to make them think again."
"Or stop thinking at all!" Farad shouted back, battle-joy in his cry.
"Wolf-packing" was a pursuer's sending one band after another to force the pursued to a pace their mounts could not sustain. In time the pursued would have stumbling, foaming, dying mounts, at the mercy of the last fresh riders of the pursuer.
It suggested that the Turanians were regularly sworn horsemen of the host, or at worst the better sort of irregular, such as Conan himself had led during his service in Turan. Neither was often found this far into the desert”or rather, had not been found here before Yezdigerd took the throne of Turan, with ambitions to take everything else he could lay his hands on.
The ground began to rise before Conan's eyes. He studied it. Was there a ravine off to the right that led to the base of the ridge and offered shelter from arrows? The Cimmerian slowed to a trot, patting the neck of his foam-flecked horse reassuringly.
"Not much farther, lady," he muttered to the horse. Not much farther to at least brief safety or a swift death. They would find nothing else under this desert sun.
The ravine was narrow and its floor studded with rocks thrusting up wildly, as if flung down by a mad giant. No passage there, at least no swift one”and while the Afghulis were threading their way through the rocks, the Turanians could seize one side of the ravine and send down a hail of arrows.
Conan's men would reach the rocks in the open or not at all.
The Cimmerian's spurs went in again. The mare whickered in protest, blew foam from her mouth, and gathered her legs under her.
"Come on, you sons of dogs!" Conan roared. "Or are you going to lie down for Turanians, of all the pox-ridden folk on earth!"
On staggering horses, some leaving trails of blood, the Afghulis followed. Conan risked a look behind
and saw that the first band of the wolf pack had fallen back. Fallen back, moreover, onto ground already well adorned with fallen men and horses. Some still struggled, as the rest of the Turanians rode on past or sometimes over them.
The ridge loomed ahead. Conan drove spurs deeper. The mare responded with what had to be the last of her strength. Gravel and sand flew up about her hooves, like foam from the ram of a war galley.
Another look back. The center of the Turanians was advancing in a solid mass, but on either flank bands were breaking off.
So they were going to surround the ridge, were they? No one but a fool would fail to do that, and fools did not command Turanian horsemen all that often. More than one captain and more than one book on war had told Conan what his own sense said: Never trust your enemy to be a witling.
The thud of the mare's hooves on the ground changed pitch. The ground was harder now, with rock just under the sand and gravel. The other riders reached the hard ground, and half a hundred hooves drummed their way toward the rough ground.
Behind, the Turanian horns gave tongue again, and this time a drum joined them. Conan spat from a desert-dry and dust-filled mouth. The drum was no good news; often as not, the Turanians used it to summon up reinforcements.
Let them summon all the host of Turan. We can still give them a battle those who survive it will not forget.
The vanguard of the Turanians breasted the slope, and sunlight flamed on mail sleeves as half a score of archers nocked and drew as one man.
The crimson glow spread from the cup until, to one looking into the chamber, the Lady might have seemed embedded in the heart of a gigantic ruby. Only her lips moved with the murmuring of her spell, and her breast with her shallow breathing. A keen eye might have seen a tremor in a finger or the muscle of one bare and supple thigh, but otherwise the Lady might have been the image of a sorceress at her magic, carved by a master sculptor.
The Conan Compendium Page 545
