Conan The Hero (20 page)

“Stand ready at the trigger,” he told one of his apprentices. “Do not loose the shaft until I command it.” The burnoosed man gave a reverent nod. He gripped the hand-lever projecting upward and backward from the base of the arrow, whose shaft was fletched with the black pinions of giant cliff-condors.

Azhar stepped forward with his mortar full of oily ink and his charmed pestle. These would allow him to steer the window, in the unlikely event that the enemy’s defenses were down.

He hesitated to place his head into the deadly swath of the great bow; but the duty was his alone. After a final, silent prayer to Tarim, he moved past the weapon and knelt before its loophole, holding the magical implements ready in his hands. Squinting against the shimmering glare, he looked into the aperture.

What he saw there, none of the onlookers could ever say. They watched him peer inside with a rapt expression, the gray light of the aether reflecting dimly on his face. A moment later the light darkened, and something shot through the opening—an immense spider, some said later, but most agreed that it was a dark, hairy hand clutching at Azhar’s face. The sorcerer drew back with a cry, causing the evil thing’s grip to slip down to his shoulder, then to his arm.

The demon-hand withdrew into the eye of the millstone and was not seen again; but catastrophically, it drew with it Azhar’s arm. The slightly built man, in trying to break free, dashed his mortar and its oily contents to the floor. Thrash and cry out as he might, he could not get loose; instead his arm was drawn deeper into the hole. His assistants ran to his aid, seizing his other arm and hauling on it, all the while shouting and slipping in the spilled oil. In spite of their efforts, the chief mage was pulled inexorably into the millstone. First his elbow, then his shoulder disappeared into the fist-sized hole, causing lacerations to his arm and dislodging some of the embedded glass. Then, relentlessly, the wizard continued to be drawn in, his head forced back by the stone’s rough embrace, his neck bending aside to the agonized accompaniment of his shrieks and the crack of ribs.

Seeing his regally turbaned head double back hideously against his spine, and hearing his screams silenced at last by strangulation or death, the others released their grip on his arms and legs. They backed away, watching with horrified fascination as his head disappeared, impossibly, into the blood-slimed hole, followed by his collapsed chest. And then his hips, folding in upon themselves with ghastly crunching sounds before the dread, inexplicable suction.

One of the gaping watchers must have murmured “Loose!” or else the still-waiting acolyte’s trembling hand slipped on the lever; for the arbalest discharged its arrow, driving Azhar’s vanishing shins and sandaled feet ahead of it into the foreign void.

After the weapon’s twang, the stone itself split with a thunderous crack. Its fragments sagged to the floor in a mass of rubble, closing the mystic window for the last time.

From pale morning dreams Conan woke with a start. A monkey’s shrill scolding, it must have been—enough to cause him a chill ever since his sojourn in Phang Loon’s castle. But the play of sunbeams through the leaf-screened window of the hut, the gentle twittering of birds, and the fragrance of flowers were enough to soothe his fears gradually. He stretched, causing the broad hammock to shift beneath him and confirming, to his immense satisfaction, that his leg offered him no pain.

Sariya stirred beside him on the tightly stretched canvas, murmuring softly even though she was not fully awake. Her hip, half-draped by the filmy coverlet, made a luscious curve against the blazing-green radiance of the window, while her long black hair cascaded wantonly from her small, silk-covered pillow. After appreciating her beauty, Conan linked his fingers behind his head and lay back, enjoying the morning peace.

The room was no longer decked with cut blossoms. Sariya had adorned it with living plants gathered for diverse uses: snare-leaved and sticky-petaled blossoms for catching vexatious insects, shrubs and ferns to sweeten and enrich the air, thorny vines outside the window to discourage thieving by apes, birds, and children, and aromatic herbs valued as medicine and seasoning. The hut’s main room had become a show-place, furnished with rare bits of Venji wickerwork, weaving, and earthenware, all on Conan’s middling sergeant’s pay. And Sariya’s boar-skull talisman still adorned their roof-pole, garlanded now by jungle vines decked with multicolored blossoms.

The hammock shifted beneath him, and a delicate saffron hand slid across his chest. “Mmm, you are awake. And you are well today…” Her question was really a statement, made with the gentle force of suggestion.

“Yes, I am well. I think I will return to my duties at the fort. But I must be careful of my wounds.”

Sariya laughed softly, caressing him. “That is not what you said last night! I feared that you would shake the hut down.”

“True. I am regaining my strength… mmm.” They rolled together, bodies nesting together on the shifting canvas.

Their morning’s trysting was gentle, although Conan sensed in Sariya an earnest seeking that belied her casual jests. Afterward, they wrapped themselves in bright sarongs, took woven buckets in hand, and walked forth into the jungle. Making separate detours, they met by the nearby stream at a waist-deep pond Conan had dammed off. There they bathed, sporting and splashing one another in the cool water. They returned to the hut with buckets brimming, to find a burly figure seated cross-legged in the shade of the porch.

“Juma! ‘Tis long I have waited to see you!” Setting down his water buckets, Conan strode to the uprising trooper and embraced him roughly. “How have you fared, old friend?”

“Busily, with your command as well as my own to look after!” Juma grinned and held his friend away at arm’s length. “But ‘tis good to see you striding so boldly, Conan. Even in a woman’s wrap”—the Kushite’s smirk was tolerant—“you look ten times the man who came crawling from the jungle a fortnight ago.”

“Aye.” Conan nodded good-naturedly, setting his buckets down by the fire-ring. “The trek from the ruined shrine was hellish hard, though it would have been less than an hour’s jog for a healthy man.” Moving to the porch, he dropped his sarong on the matting and walked onward to the door, unabashedly naked. “Have you heard the tale? I could not make the thrice-blasted elephant carry me any farther than the ruins.” He took his leather sword-breeks from inside the hut door, stepped into them, and buckled them across the flat of his belly. “I had to throw myself down from the creature’s back while he nuzzled and slobbered at the ancient carvings. Lucky it is that I found my way back to the fort.” Returning to the fireplace, he settled down on a stone beside the ashes.

“To find you here, after ransacking the taverns and brothels of Tarqheba and giving you up for dead…!” Juma shook his head, squinting in dubiety. “Still, Conan, I would think your story of the elephant as mad as your other ravings of those first days, if I did not know that one of the beasts had saved you before.”

“No, his account is to be believed.” Sariya, coming from the garden with an armful of melons and tubers, laid them on a flat stone and began washing them from a bucket. “The long-nosed ones’ friendship with mankind is based on mutual respect. They have their gods and customs, and were themselves worshiped by humans in Venjipur’s past centuries. Sometimes they aid one who honors the ancient faith, as you have seen.”

“My mate is steeped in the ancient mysteries,” Conan said. He began tenting tinder and dry twigs together from separate covered baskets to build a fire. “If I did not know her so… personally, I would think her a sorceress.”

“She must have some magic about her, to have brought you back from gasping death two times now.” Juma looked from his host to his hostess with simple frankness. “Even your much-boasted barbaric fitness could not have pulled you through those scrapes all by itself.”

Sariya did not meet Juma’s gaze, but spoke with a veiled smile. “My training as priestess of Sigtona was to care for the sick with medicinal herbs, as well as prayers and rituals.” She knelt beside Conan as he struck the flint and cupped his hands to blow the faint spark to life. “But my talents would have meant little without you and Babrak to guard Conan and restrain him during his fevers.”

Juma nodded. “Aye, ‘twas worse than the last time. Even bound hand and foot, your lover was no kitten in his fits of lotus-craving!” He shook his head in grim recollection. “But your herb concoctions helped to soothe him even then, Sariya. If he is truly free of the drug, then he is living, breathing proof of your wizardry!”

Conan, alerted by their talk, had been scanning the surroundings of the hut as he stoked the flames to crackling vigor. Now he arose and walked near Juma, reaching up to the ragged thatching. “Did you bring this?” he asked, taking down a small, leaf-wrapped packet that dangled from the eaves.

“No, I did not. Is it one of Sariya’s fetishes?”

Conan shook his head, unwrapping the dry, papery leaves. He sniffed their contents cautiously, his nostrils flaring at their pungency. Frowning, he strode to the fire and threw the packet in, stepping away briskly to avoid the pale smoke that went feathering skyward.

“Lotus,” he told Juma, walking over to take a seat beside him. “Left for me by a well-wisher—Phang Loon’s agent, no doubt. I find such presents about the place frequently. But no matter.” He shrugged, his face shaded by some faint cloud of memory. “I will catch the scoundrel someday.” He smiled and reached around to clap a hand on Juma’s broad back. ” ‘Tis as good to see you well, old friend, as to be well myself! Tell me, what is the news from the fort?”

Juma kept silent a moment. He watched Sariya’s knife flash, as, kneeling gracefully before a plank, she sectioned the tubers. Then he spoke. “You are the news, Conan. But I did not want to tell you until I was certain you were fit to hear it. You have been recalled to Aghrapur.” He continued watching Sariya, whose knife paused in midair. “Not for punishment, though; and not permanently, I am told. The dispatch says they want to proclaim you a hero and pin a bauble to your turban in a public ceremony. The order is signed by Staff General Abolhassan, issued in the name of the emperor himself.”

“Proclaim me hero… Yildiz himself.” Conan sat inert a moment, watching the middle distance. Then he stirred where he sat, restlessly. Then he swung back his arm and dealt Juma a clap on the shoulder that sent the big man rocking forward, choking and sputtering.

“A hero, by Crom! Now I will have some say around here!” Conan swung to his feet with an effortlessness that remembered no spear-wound. “Now I will hound Phang Loon to the gallows, and keep the weak-livered Jefar Sharif from playing hob with our war! I will advance to the rank of Staff General myself! Hmm,

Abolhassan, I have heard that name before… but no matter! Sariya, I will keep you in noble style and dress you in costlier, scantier garb!” He strode to meet her uprising form and clasp her in a smothering embrace. “This is a great day for us all!”

“A day of peril, you mean.” Still clearing his throat, Juma arose to lean against a bamboo pillar. In response to the others’ surprised looks, he frowned more sternly. “In my view, Conan, ‘twould be hard to imagine a greater catastrophe befalling you! Now you are exposed, and exposure in war means danger.” The burly black grimaced with unease that would have been difficult to feign. “Bethink yourself, Conan—‘twould be safer to lead the point of a light infantry phalanx against archers, cavalry, and fire-throwing elephants. But above all, since you may not be able to squirm out of it, this threat calls for caution—if your wild northern nature includes such a trait!”

“Juma, why rave so?” Conan moved toward his friend, drawing Sariya along at his side in an enfolding arm. “Who am I supposed to be in such pallid fear of, anyway?”

“Why, the very ones you named before! Jefar Sharif, whom you nearly strangled, the warlord Phang Loon, the garrotes, and a dozen others right up to the emperor himself! Is there any Turanian you have not given cause to crave seeing your guts shredded? Can you not understand that for all these enemies, and for as many more imagined rivals, this proud distinction, this great honor our emperor seeks to bestow on you, ahem…” Juma leaned against the pillar, gagging momentarily on his own bitter sarcasm, before he resumed. “Why, it lends urgency and purpose to all their old grudges! They must act swiftly to destroy you, before you unleash your newly empowered wrath on them!” The Kushite thrust himself from the pillar, striding the porch in agitation.

“Worse, it takes you away from your friends on a long, hazardous journey to hostile territory, the treacherous capital! And it leaves Sariya here in jeopardy…”

“Nay, she will travel with me! Won’t you, love…?” Conan looked to the woman he clasped at his side, his speech trailing off at the sorrowful look she turned up to him.

“Oh, Conan, this is a great opportunity for you! You must not let me hold you back—but I cannot leave my duties here. There are sick villagers who need my care for weeks to come, and more needs that will arise later.”

“Aye, I know,” Conan sighed. “And your church school—as before, when I wanted you to come with me to the city.”

“Yes, I must go on teaching the children.”

“So that they can teach their parents, no doubt! Sometimes I wonder what it is that you teach them.” He shook his head, loosening his grip on her shoulders. “The two of you surely know how to turn a triumph into a sorrow.” He looked to Juma, who was sunk too deep in thought to heed his reproach. “But Sariya, will you be safe here without me?”

“Yes.” Gravely, the girl kissed Conan’s shoulder, then knelt to resume her meal preparation. “As before, I can stay with families in the village. They will watch out for me—hide me, if need be. But the rebels have not attacked near here lately.”

“Nay.” Conan moved heavily back to his place on the porch and sat down. “Nor have my enemies. But take care, girl; remember, the ancient shaman Mojurna tried to kill you once! Juma or Babrak can help watch over you if I go north alone.” He turned to the Kushite. “And what of Babrak? I have not seen him in days.” He tried to lighten their glum mood with a smile. “Is he still silent about his adventures in the city?”