Conan the Rebel (22 page)

'Then see to it that they don't get at you.' Conan raked spurs. His steel flashed on high. 'Crom, Varuna, Bêlit!'

Falco swallowed hard and galloped beside him. Hooves

The riders hit them. Conan's sword flamed downward. He struck a misshapen cranium, felt the force jar back through hit shoulders, saw inky blood spout. He must have missed a tiny brain, for the creature did not die; but it fell, yammering, and prattled obscenely.

Another ghoul sprang from the left, to grab him and drag him from the saddle. His left fist smashed into the flat nose. Checked in mid-leap, the attacker fell under the horse, which trampled it, Hooves lashed and kicked. More beings seethed around. Their howls and cackles drowned out the weather. Conan struck from side to side as fast as they came in reach. His horse screamed when claws raked flanks, but fought the more furiously. Nearby, Falco' sabre whined, sliced, stabbed; his shield guarded him on the left against creatures that pounced at him; his own beast reared, smashed, bit, whinnied terrifyingly loud.

Then the riders had broken those disordered ranks and were beyond. They went several yards, slammed to a stop, and looked back. The ghouls milled witless. Some were already tearing at the slain. Conan charged. His lion roar echoed from wall to wall. Panic-smitten, the ghouls fled, streamed back into the house of the skull, left none but their dead and mewling wounded.

Conan returned. 'I thought best to scatter those vermin before they forget the lesson we taught them,' he said. 'Are you all right?' 'They never touched me, praise the kind gods,' Falco replied, breathless. 'You?' 'The same.'

'But I fear for our poor animals.'

'They will bear us a while more. If their wounds get inflamed beyond healing, we will give them the last mercy. Now, onward.'

Deeper into the necropolis the pair rode. From lightless doorways and murky porticos, eyes glistened, they heard voices chitter and feet scuttle, but nothing emerged. 'Keep alert,' Conan warned. 'I doubt Master Tothapis has emptied his whole bag of tricks.'

The streets twisted and intertwined in maddening chaos. He must ever note landmarks – a cockscomb roof, a stump of pillar, a statue eroded to shapelessness – lest he lose direction in the drifting dust. It helped that he could short-cut across buildings which had collapsed to rubble heaps. He swore when a deepening of the gloom ahead proved to be a wall squarely across his path. Which way around would be shorter? It was impossible to see. Well, most I reckoned right luckier than left. Conan chose it.

The wall ended after about a hundred yards. He and Falco confronted a broad, bare space. Low dunes hid pavement, but this must in its time have been a plaza like that in Luxur, for two enormous ruins stood on either side. Their ebon masses gave less protection from the whistling, scudding storm than had the narrower streets, though they did give some. The far end of the square seemed to be open; Conan got an impression of a broad avenue and of shapes which stood along it, but the murk obscured too much for him to be sure.

Still, as nearly as he could tell, that way pointed straight at the dolmen. He clucked to his weary steed, stroked a mane that sweat had plastered to the neck, and started across. He and Falco were halfway over when the boy yelled.

'Crom!' exploded from Conan. He fought to control a destrier that suddenly plunged, bucked, and whinnied in terror. Falco's had gone just as unruly. What they saw coming woke primordial instincts. How many aeons had yonder monsters been locked in enchanted sleep before they were wakened to walk the earth again, ravenous?

From the right-hand edifice bounded an animal akin to a hyena but the size of a bull. Stiff pelt bristled, mouth grinned and slavered around yellow fangs, a howl like a maniac's laughter shuddered through the wind. It paused at the doorway, studied the scene with snuffing nose, cocked ears, intelligent eyes, and loped ahead.

From the left-hand structure stalked a beast on two long, taloned legs. Though the body stooped forward, counterbalanced by a great cudgel of a tail, the blunt reptile head lifted twice a man's height. Small forelimbs were bent, claws laid together in a parody of prayer. Scales on back and sides sheened steel-grey through dimness; the belly sagged white. When it saw prey, the saurian hissed and hastened.

'Stay by me,' Conan snapped. 'We'll see if we can outspeed them.' He nearly broke his horse's neck, but got the hysterical brute pointed toward the avenue opposite and slacked its reins. It shot off. Blind instinct made Falco's follow.

They were nearly across the plaza when Conan heard a scream of agony and a triumphant whoop. He cast a look over his shoulder. The giant hyena had overhauled the Ophirite's mount. A slash had laid open the hindquarters. As the horse stumbled, the hyena snapped onto its throat. Gullet torn out, the charger went down in a red fountain, rider beneath. The saurian lumbered close behind.

Conan forgot his errand. A Cimmerian did not abandon a way- J brother while the least hope flickered. He sheathed his sword and sprang from the saddle. In a ball of rubbery muscle, he hit the sand, rolled a few times, and bounced to his feet. The hyena worried the dead horse, snarling and slobbering. Falco, leg pinned under that weight, lay still.

Conan sidled off at an angle. His intention was to keep the saurian's attention locked to his own steed, overlooking him. It worked. The colossus marched on by. Its pace was deliberate, earthshaking, but each step was so long that the speed matched any gallop. Mammal and reptile vanished in the streaming dust.

Conan drew blade and pounded toward the hyena. That beast saw him, raised its grisly head, coughed a warning. 'Aye,' the warrior taunted, 'I am about to rob you of your food.' The hyena left its prey and stood in front, mane erect. Blood dripped from jaws that could halve a man in a bite.

Behind it, Conan saw Falco sit up and strive to work himself free. The barbarian rejoiced. His companion must have been feigning, not to attract a casual snap. Maybe the two of them could retreat after all, leaving the carnivore to its meat.

No! Conan had come too near. The creature howled and ' charged.

Conan braced himself. The hyena's head gaped nearly level with his own. Through sleeting dust, he stared down a huge maw, he I caught a rankness of breath, he felt each thud of paws in his foot-soles. His sword went over his shoulder. As the foe came in reach, he smote.

The edge bit through nose and muzzle. The hyena bayed, ear-piercingly, and withdrew. Buried deep in bone, the sword was torn from Conan's grasp. The hyena dashed to and fro, crying its pain, while blood rivered from its snout. But the injury was not mortal. It remembered who had smitten it, halted, growled utter hatred, and advanced stiff-legged. Conan drew his dirk and prepared to die.

Falco limped from the rear, sabre in hand. Again the Cimmerian saw a chance. He must hold the monster's entire notice on himself. 'Nice doggie,' he crooned. 'Come here, I have something for you, doggie.'

The titan bunched muscles for a leap. Falco lurched alongside. His sabre went in between ribs. The hyena yowled, louder than the gale, and bore off the Ophirite's weapon, too.

Out of hasty red gloom trod an enormous shape. Conan's horse must have escaped in a maze of streets. The saurian had come back in search of easier game.

As the hyena turned on its newest tormentor, Conan attacked. His left hand grabbed wiry hair, yanked it aside. His right drove home the dirk. With every last spark of strength that was in him, he slashed. Blood jetted. He had found a major vein. He did not retrieve this weapon either, for the jaws clashed after him and he sprang back barely in time. The hyena crumpled to the sand and threshed, ululating, geysering. The reptile beheld and approached.

Conan sought Falco. 'Lean on me,' the older human directed, for the younger moved haltingly. 'We don't want to go too fast, lest we draw yon dragon's heed. But if we are careful – he has a good deal more food there, waiting for him, than is on us.'

They made their way onward. Behind them, impervious to every bite, the saurian crouched down and began to devour the hyena.

That sight and its gruesome noises were soon lost in the tempest. Conan stopped. 'How are you, lad?' he asked.

Falco grimaced. 'I don't think anything is broken,' he said. 'The sand cushioned me a little.' Sweat studded his skin.

Conan knelt and made a quick examination. 'No,' he agreed, 'but you seem to have a twisted ankle, and from there to halfway along the thigh, your right leg is one solid bruise. Also, I see your dirk is what we have left for armament.' He rose and sighed. 'Never have I felt more unwelcome than here. Well, I can help you hobble along. It shouldn't be far now.'

Fine, drifting sand had already buried tracks. In the night it made, Conan saw that this avenue had once been stately. The rubble of mansions that formerly stood well back sloped in windows to the feet of a double row of tall monoliths still lining the way. Millennia had scoured off most of the hieroglyphs chiselled into their darkling sides. What blurred traces they glimpsed made Conan and Falco grateful for that.

They slogged on. Wind screamed, grit assailed eyes and nostrils, murk walled off the world, exhaustion dragged. From time to time Falco drew a sharp breath, but else he kept manfully silent.

Something rumbled. The ground shivered. Sand upon it went sliding in little waves.

Only his leonine instincts and speed saved Conan. He saw a menhir topple, snatched Falco so that a shriek broke from the youth, and bounded clear. The stone smashed into the sand where they had been.

The one opposite fell. Conan barely escaped it likewise. The stark knowledge came – Behind him, the saurian feasted. If he tried some roundabout way, he would likeliest soon be lost in this labyrinthine graveyard full of abominations, and he with a crippled companion and no weapon save a knife. He had no choice but to run the gauntlet ahead of him.

From some unknown wellspring deep in his being, new strength flowed. He lifted Falco, placed the Ophirite across his shoulders, and said, 'Hang on.' Then he ran.

Another monolith boomed down, and another, and another. He dodged, he darted, he zigzagged, feinted, and sprinted. Whoever hovered beyond sight had a Cyclopean mass to magic loose from its ground each time. The wizard sought to lead his quarry, as an archer leads the animal he would shoot. But Conan was no fowl or deer; he had been a hunter himself.

Nonetheless it was touch and go. A stone crashed before him as he swerved. He started to overleap it, and its mate across the avenue descended. He got past, but chips battered his back. A detached part of him considered going behind either row, where the other could not reach him. But no. The rubble would make slow going, with too much chance of tripping. Here the surface was level. He could manoeuvre. He bounded on down the middle of the street.

The menhirs quieted. He had sped between them for yards, when suddenly they fall at once, fore, aft, and to the sides. He had guessed this would happen and made ready. As the nearest pair swept earthward, he gauged exactly where they would land and sprang to a spot within inches. They missed. Conan jeered at the invisible sky and bounded from stone to stone.

And he was out from among them, on another broad square; and in the middle of this rose the dolmen.

'Name of Mitra,' quavered Falco. 'How did you do it?'

'I had to,' Conan said.

The wind fell rapidly. 'I doubt that is because the enemy is giving up,' he added. 'Let's proceed before the next grief gets here.' He trotted on to his goal.

Vertical slabs of black stone sheered too high for him to see the horizontal one that roofed them, through the ruddy night that hung on while dust slowly settled. Before him gaped a cavernous entrance. After his headlong course, he fretted no more about what might lair beyond. Nor did he believe the wizard could bring this tomb down on him. The structure was too massive, it was built to reinforce itself, and besides, within it slept the Ax of Varanghi.

'Against the things we have met,' Falco breathed, 'the good Lord has protected us.'

Conan thought their own actions had had something to do with that but refrained from saying it. He lowered Falco. 'Stand watch here,' he directed. 'I am going in.' The youth regarded him in mute veneration.

The far end of the tomb was shut. Silence closed on Conan as he entered. He heard his footfalls on the undrifted, stone-paved floor echo hollowly back from walls and ceiling lost in darkness. Wings whispered, scales slithered. What light seeped from outside became a distant blur. Yet he did not go on altogether blind: for ahead of him glimmered a blueness.

It waxed as, panther-cautious, he padded forward. Presently he made out what the source was, a crystal globe nested on a great block inscribed with symbols that somehow took the eye down impossible paths and evoked nightmarish visions. Conan wrenched his glance from them. Behind the altar loomed an idol – not of Set, but of something winged and many-tentacled – a god older still? Conan gave the image a snarl and bent his gaze elsewhere.

Yes, at the fringe of illumination, a loop rose from the floor. He went there. The loop, he saw, was actually an ankh, chiselled from the same stone that formed a man-proportioned element of the paving. A thrill coursed through him. This was what Parasan had described, the lid of an immemorial grave wherein the Prophet hid the Ax.

Where had a priest gotten the might to raise anything that heavy? Conan knew not. He straddled the oblong, gripped the ankh, and strained.

His whole power surged. Muscles stood like iron under his byrnie, in arms and legs; tendons drew taut in hands and neck; sweat washed blood and grime downward in runnels. Just the same, he was careful. It would not do to throw out his back; how the devils in hell would laugh! He lifted straight, letting legs and hips take much of the stress, slowly, slowly.

The slab grated free. Pivoting it on end, Conan hauled it vertical, gave it a final tug, jumped aside and saw it fall and break asunder. The noise reverberated through blackness. At once he knelt to stare into the space below.