Now Wobeku stood among the twelve warriors surrounding Chabano, and all thirteen pairs of eyes were fixed on the torchlit path from whence six men were approaching. The newcomers wore the ceremonial garb of God-Men, with complete cloaks and headdresses of crimson and sapphire feathers, loinguards of leather tooled and gilded, wrist braces of silver, and staves that seemed to be worth a good herd of cattle each.
One of the God-Men wore the less ornate garb of a Silent Brother but bore the First Speaker's oxhide shield, with its ornaments of Golden Serpents, eight of them forming a pattern it was best not to look upon for long. If one did, one began to think that the serpents lived, or at least that their eyes glowed green.
The five companions of the approaching First Speaker divided, three placing themselves on one side of their leader and two on the other.
The First Speaker himself advanced toward Chabano. He seemed to have no fear of being within reach of so many spears, but then, perhaps his magic gave him good assurance.
What the Living Wind was, not even the Kwanyi wished to ask, lest they receive disquieting answers. That it made the God-Men powerful, all knew so well that there was no need for questions on that matter.
Wobeku followed the lead of Chabano and his companions in clashing his spear against his shield, in the salute of honor to a Paramount Chief.
The First Speaker returned the salute by thrusting the butt of his staff deep into the earthwhereupon Wobeku felt as if the ground under his feet had turned for a moment red-hot.
Again Wobeku followed the lead of those around him; none of them so much as flinched. Yet he noticed that Chabano seemed more wary, and the First Speaker was unsmiling; it seemed that the man was displeased, and moreover, ready to make his displeasure felt.
"Hail, Geyrus, First Speaker to the Living Wind!" Chabano said, laying his spear and shield on the ground. For a moment, Wobeku thought the chief would prostrate himself, but he did not even kneel.
He rose to his full height and crossed his arms on his chest.
"Hail, Chabano," Geyrus said in a chill voice barely above a whisper.
"First Speaker," Chabano said sharply, "you have summoned me. I have come. You, it seems, are here in anger. What cause is there for this anger?"
"You have lied to me," Geyrus said.
Wobeku was not the only man to suck in his breath. Any common man calling Chabano a liar to his face would have thrown his life away. He would be fortunate to die on the spot, instead of suffering impalement or worse.
"If so, I have done so with good cause," Chabano snapped.
That seemed an equally grave insult to Geyrus. Staves rose, and the faces under the headdresses looked more like demon-lodge masks than Wobeku found pleasant. He had sometimes wondered which would have the victory in a contest of swiftly thrown spears and swiftly cast spells.
He had not expected to learn the answer by being part of such a battle himself.
Geyrus seemed to struggle with the urge not to strike Chabano dead on the spot, and mastered it. His tone was still harsh when he replied.
"Oh. Am I worthy of the knowledge of what cause you claim for lying to the Speakers to the Living Wind?"
"Yes. There are those in your caves on Thunder Mountain whose eyes and ears serve our enemies. It is best we find ways of speaking the truth to each other without their hearing it."
To Wobeku, that made perfect sense. To Geyrus, however, it seemed to be an insult almost past bearing. Wobeku gripped his spear until his knuckles grew pale in fear of what he saw on the First Speaker's face.
Yet nothing passed the man's lips. At least not until the rage left his countenance. His shoulders sagged then, and he seemed to age ten years before Wobeku's eyes.
"Do you trust your own folk?" he asked, as one might ask the price of a goat.
"Yes," Chabano replied. One could almost see his chest swell with pride at the loyalty of the Kwanyi.
"Then let us go to your nearest village, and there we will see to this speaking of the truth. If there have been lies told"
"Silence!" Chabano roared. Geyrus did not take offense; he seemed to realize, as did Wobeku, that the order was not aimed at him. It was aimed at the warriors around Chabano. Several of them were from that "nearest village," and their faces said plainly that they did not care to host God-Men.
Chabano's power, it seemed, was not without limits.
"Great Chief" one warrior began.
Chabano turned and struck the man across the face with an open hand.
Then he snatched the man's spear from his grip, broke it across his knee, and pointed at the ground. The man flung his shield on the jungle floor and prostrated himself on it.
Chabano did not lift a weapon. Instead, he brought one heavy foot down hard on the man's back, several times. Each time the breath huffed out of the man, and Wobeku saw him biting his lip until it bled.
"Be grateful for my mercy," Chabano said. "You will carry a spear again for the war, but avoid my sight until then."
The warrior rose, unaided, for his comrades drew back from him as if he carried pox on his skin. Bent and stumbling like one sick or aged, he lurched down the path and out of sight.
Wobeku did not watch him go. His instincts told him that this clash was not yet done, and that the heart of the matter was still Geyrus's will.
He did not dare watch the First Speaker too closely, but he tried to follow the man's eyes from one warrior to another. If Geyrus raised his staff, or if his eyes lingered on one man longer than on the others…
Neither staff nor eyes gave Wobeku a clue. But he was fortunate nonetheless. He was well out to the left of Chabano and so could see the men behind the chief without appearing to look at them. There were three of them, and now one of them was breathing with unnatural slowness. His eyes seemed to have turned crimson and sapphire. His spear was rising into throwing position, as if drawing his arms with it.
Then suddenly the spear leaped up. The warrior leaped with itor rather, his death-grip on the weapon drew him with it until his feet no longer touched the ground.
Those who saw the spectacle were mute from surprise, or perhaps from magic. All except Wobeku.
"Chief! Behind you!" he screamed. The warning did its work. Chabano whirled, flinging up his shield and thrusting with his spear.
The chief's spear only stabbed air. Wobeku, with more time to aim, struck home. His spear sank into the warrior's side, halfway up his rib cage. The man reeled, turned halfway toward Wobeku, and seemed about to laugh at the sight of the Ichiribu warrior cringing away.
Wobeku could not help it. The other's eyes were now pools of crimson-and-sapphire fire, and a faint mist in the same hues seemed to cling to both his weapon and his hands. Then the crimson of the God-Men's magic gave way to the crimson of blood, pouring from the man's side and mouth. He choked, reeled again, and fell with the spear still protruding from his side.
Wobeku knew that the man would shortly have company in death: Chabano and all his companions. Nor would Chabano seek to escape that fate by fleeing. It would be futile. Geyrus would have his life, no matter where he fled.
Wobeko himself also had fled once before. It was not in him to do so again, any more than he could have slain the bidui boys.
He was so concerned with meeting a warrior's death that he did not see Chabano step forward, perhaps with the same thought in his mind. The chief had his spear raised, and the muscles of his right arm tautened as he made ready to hurl it into Geyrus's throat.
Wobeku saw the First Speaker raise his staff in both hands, holding it out in front of him. He saw Chabano's spear stop as if it had encountered the rock of a mountain. He saw the iron point begin to smokeand a chill hand seemed to grip his heart and bowels as he saw that the smoke was crimson and blue.
Then he saw the Silent Brother stride up, swing his staff high in both hands like a woman swinging a mortar, and bring it down across the First Speaker's staff.
Wobeku knew in the next moment that death
had come for him. Flames shot up from the First Speaker's staff. They also rose from the Speaker himself, as if his body were a pile of straw. They were of all colors and no colors, without smoke but not without heat.
The leaves above the First Speaker turned brown and would have burned had they not been sodden with rain. Common, lawful smoke rose from the jungle floor where the heat seared the mat of dead leaves and vines.
Somehow the color of the smoke consoled Wobeku for his coming death. He would not die in a place abandoned by the gods.
Then a moment came when he began to think that he might not die after all. Chabano staggered back, dropping his spear with its half-melted point but seeming otherwise unharmed. He stumbled over Wobeku's victim and nearly fell, but two of his warriors caught him.
Three others, Wobeku among them, saw that the flames enveloped the two staves and the First Speaker, but not the Silent Brother. They also saw that this did not please the other Speakers. Indeed, they were staring with their pale eyes at the spectacle as if it went against all they had been taught was possible.
It very likely was. Wobeku snatched a spear from a warrior too gape-jawed and wide-eyed to tell one end of it from another, raised the weapon, and threw it.
This time he took his victim, the Speaker just to the right of Geyrus, in the throat. The man dropped his staff, went to his knees, clawed at his torn throat and the spear in it, then bent so far forward that his headdress fell off. As it struck the jungle floor, so did he, toppling onto his side and kicking out what remained of his life.
Wobeku's swiftness seemed to restore life to the other warriorsthat, and a few sharp words from Chabano in the tone that meant disobedience could yield death. In moments, the remaining Speakers were surrounded by warriors holding spear-points at their throats or stomachs. The warriors kept them motionless until the First Speaker was only ashes on the jungle floor.
The Silent Brother gathered the staves from the surviving Speakers'
unresisting hands, then spoke to them in a tongue Wobeku did not understand. He only sensed in the voice age beyond anything he had dreamed of. It held echoes of times before Atlantis, of times even before the gods had judged that men, not beasts, should rule the earth.
This done, the Silent Brother turned and knelt to Chabano. It seemed to Wobeku that he would have prostrated himself had that not meant setting down his armful of staves or turning his eyes from the Speakers. The Ichiribu renegade also noticed for the first time that the Silent Brother's eyes had the pallid hue of a full Speaker's.
Chabano looked from Wobeku to the Silent Brother and nodded. Respect for a chief was all very well, yet keeping those Speakers bound by fear, never mind of what, was more needed now.
"I am Ryku," the Silent Brother said. Understanding came to Wobeku.
Such a name had come to his ears without his knowing what it meant. So had tales of Chabano's spy on Thunder Mountain, although these were whispered. Ryku and the spy, it seemed, were one and the same.
"Hail, Ryku, friend to the Kwanyi," Wobeku said. It seemed the least foolish thing he could say.
"You are not of the Kwanyi," Ryku said. "Are you the eyes and ears of Chabano among the Ichiribu?"
"Before I answer that question," Chabano said with dangerous mildness, "you must answer one."
"Ask, my chief."
Chabano seemed to take the words at their value and to ignore Ryku's tone. "What did you say to your comrades?"
"I told them that if they did not swear obedience to me in all matters concerning aid to the Kwanyi, I would allow your warriors to slay them here and now."
"And did they swear?" Chabano waved a hand, and warriors' hands tightened on spear-shafts.
Whatever the Speakers swore, they swore it fervently and at length.
Before the oath was half over, Ryku bade the Kwanyi warriors to lower their spears. When it was done, he spoke a sharp word and the Speakers scurried off up the trail as fast as their aged legs could carry them.
Chabano looked eloquently at his warriors, and they retreated with similar speed in the opposite direction. The chief, the God-Man, and the spy were alone in the jungle.
"My thanks to both of you," Chabano said. "A chief's thanks is worth much, and it will be worth more the longer I rule." He cast a sharp look at Wobeku. "Although had you been as swift some time ago as you were today, you would not be here."
Ryku asked that this be explained; Chabano acceded to the request with a mildness that amazed the fugitive warrior. But then, even a Paramount Chief did not stand upon rank with a God-Man who seemed to have made himself a full Speaker upon his own whim.
Or was it that becoming a God-Man was easier than the tribes had been led to believe? That would have been a cheering thought, had Wobeku wished to follow in Ryku's footsteps.
As his ambition was to be high among the Kwanyi when they ruled all this land, he was not so cheered. Fumble-fingered God-Men would not be of much use to the Kwanyi in the face of Dobanpu's Spirit-Speaking.
Dobanpu's mastery was no tale, and the vengeance he would wreak on Wobeku would be no light one!
TWELVE
The Ichiribu and the Kwanyi took time to gird themselves for battle.
This did not entirely arise because of each of their new allies, although those played a part.
Wobeku found that while the warriors kept their distance, few doubted him. He had, after all, saved Chabano, the Paramount Chief whom all had followed for twelve years. Even those who followed Chabano out of fear more than from love knew that the Kwanyi would be doomed without him.
The man who saved him had placed the tribe greatly in his debt.
Ryku was also regarded with some gratitude, but likewise with more than a little fear. He also had saved Chabano, and moreover, had cast down the greatest of the God-Men. In so doing, however, he had made himself a yet greater God-Man.
It was as well for Ryku that he did not go among the warriors more often than when Chabano summoned him. He remained, nine days out of ten, in seclusion on Thunder Mountain, putting the Speakers, the Silent Brothers, and the servants and slaves in as much order as his powers and the time allowed. Had he come to the villages too often, someone might have served him as Wobeku had served one of the Speakerswhich would have saved the Kwanyi a deal of trouble in days to come, but they were only a tribe of stout fighters, not seers who could foretell the future.
Conan had a busy time among the Ichiribu, for all that most of them thought him favored by the gods, if not in truth sent by them.
The Kwanyi had been invincible on land since Chabano had taught them the art of fighting in a line, with the tall shield and the great spear that a man could thrust as well as throw. It was not to be expected that the Ichiribu could learn that art, even from the Cimmerian, well enough and soon enough to face their foes in full array.
So Conan set about teaching them how to use their old weapons in new ways. They had a fair number of archers and slingers, who could gall and torment the flanks of the Kwanyi ranks. Their fishing tridents were not despicable weapons against the Kwanyi spear, either, if they could contrive to fight two warriors against one.
Valeria also taught them how to fight from their canoes with more skill than before. What she did not know about the handling of small boats, it was probably not given to menor womento know. Even the most seasoned fishermen of the Ichiribu soon said loudly that Conan's shield-woman and vowed lover was worth almost as much as the Cimmerian himself.
"We must be the ants, and the Kwanyi the warthog," Conan said, until even Seyganko wearied of hearing it for all that he knew it was true.
"They are a bigger warthog than we can be. Fight them tusk to tusk, and we are doomed. Sting them a thousand times, and the doom will be theirs."
The skill the Ichiribu showed in learning what he taught left Conan in good heart. He would have been still more confident had the matter of marching through the tunnels not remained dangling in the wind.
Dobanpu agreed that if the
spirits allowed, this would be a cunning and deadly trick, that of making warriors sprout from the ground. He would not say more, other than that he waited for a sign from the spirits.
He continued to demur, and Conan's temper grew short. "Is it the spirits who've turned mute?" he asked Emwaya one morning. "Or is it your father?"
"If I knew the answer to that, it would still not help us," the girl replied. "No man can force the spirits, and my father is almost as difficult to make speak when he chooses to be silent."
"If he chooses to be silent for too long, he may be choosing the end of his folk," Valeria snapped. Both the visitors could see that Emwaya herself was uneasy at her father's reluctance to speak. Neither doubted that she told the truth.
"He knows this also," Emwaya said, and withdrew with as much dignity as she could contrive,
"Wizards!" Conan said. He made the word sound like a particularly foul obscenity. Then he looked at the sky. The sun shone, although through a haze that promised rain for later in the day.
The rainy season drew closer with each sunrise, and Conan was of a mind to leave the tribes of the Lake of Death to their own devices if Dobanpu did not speak before the downpour began in earnest. The rivers would run high then, and the rain would make pursuit difficult.
"If you have no work before noon, let us take a canoe and go fishing,"
Valeria suggested. "One of the large ones, I think."
Conan laughed. The large canoes, they had discovered, were something of a burden for two paddlers. But they were also broad of beam. With a sleeping mat or two laid in the bottom, they made a good place for hot loving.
They paddled closer to the Kwanyi-held shore than usual on a fishing expedition. This was not Conan's notion, still less Valeria's. It had come from Emwaya, who had appeared at the shore as they were loading the fishing gear and mats into the canoe.
"May I come with you?" she had asked.
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