The Conquering Sword of Conan (39 page)

So Valerian said they would go to the Ghost Swamp and see if they could not persuade the Wizard to induce the Wolves to join the others. At that Hakon told me to crawl back and get the others, and I saw it was in his mind that we should attack, outnumbered as we were, but so fired was I by the infamous plot to which we had listened that I was as eager as he. I stole back and brought the others, and as soon as he heard us coming, he sprang up and ran at the door to beat it in with his war-axe.

At the same instant others of us burst in the shutters and poured arrows into the room, striking down some, and set the cabin on fire.

They were thrown into confusion, and made no attempt to hold the cabin. The candles were upset and went out, but the fire lent a dim glow. They rushed the door and some were slain then, and others as we grappled with them. But presently all fled into the woods except those we slew, Gundermen, renegades and painted Picts, but Valerian and the girl were still in the cabin. Then they came forth and she laughed and hurled something on the ground that burst and blinded us with a foul smoke, through which they escaped.

All but four of our men had been slain in the desperate fighting, but we started instantly in pursuit, sending back one of the wounded men to warn the town.

The trail led into the wilderness.

The Black Stranger
Synopsis A

Conan the Cimmerian, vengefully following a Pictish war-party which had raided
and killed among the Aquilonian settlements on Black River, was captured by Picts,
and carried by them to their far western home-land. The ferocious Cimmerian killed
the chief and escaped, fleeing toward the west, pursued by the enraged Picts.
Throwing them off the trail, he discovered a path that wound up a cliff and
following it, discovered a cave where stood a great ebony table about which sat dead
men. He stepped into the cave and was instantly fighting for his life.

On a wide stretch of beach, backed against a deep forest, stood the settlement
of a Zingara nobleman who had fled with his servant and his neice and taken refuge
there. His retainers had built log houses and surrounded them with a stockade.
None ventured far into the forest because they feared the ferocious Picts. But the
neice was seated on the sand south of the promontory which rose beyond the bay,
when her companion, a flaxen-haired Ophirean waif she had picked up, came
running across the sand, naked and dripping from a plunge into the ocean, and cried
that a ship was coming. The Zingara girl saw as she went up the gentle slope, and
with the younger girl hurried to the fort, as they called it. The nobleman instantly
called in his retainers from the fishing boats and the tiny fields along the forest edge,
and ran up the banner of Zingara. The ship sailed into the bay and broke out the
flag of the Barachan pirates, and a Zingaran recognized the ship as that of a noted
pirate. The pirates came ashore and attacked the fortress, and had almost swarmed
over the stockade, when another ship hove in sight, and broke out the colors of
Zingara. But the pirate had already recognized it as the craft of a Zingaran
buccaneer, and fearing to be trapped between two foes, he took his men aboard and
sailed away up the coast.

The Zingaran anchored and came ashore with most of his men, but the
nobleman distrusted him and refused to allow him to bring his men in the stockade.
They camped on the beach, the Zingaran sent them out wine, and the buccaneer
came into the nobleman’s hall. He told the buccaneer that his ship had been wrecked
in a storm, and that the increasing menace of the Picts made it imperative that he
take his band away. The buccaneer offered to take them all off in return for a
treasure which he said was hidden in the vicinity – and for the hand of the neice.
The nobleman refused that angrily, and denied all knowledge of the treasure. The
buccaneer than told of a treasure hidden by a pirate centuries before, or a century,
at least. He offered to have his men aid the nobleman’s men in finding the treasure.
Then they would sail away to some foreign port, where he would marry the neice
and give up his wild ways. While they were arguing, the neice stole away to find the
little Ophirean girl had slipped out and returned to the beach to find a prized bracelet. She brought her into the banquet hall, and the girl informed the nobleman
that she had seen a black man land on the beach in a queer craft. The nobleman
instantly seemed seized with madness, and had the girl cruelly whipped, until he
saw she was telling the truth. Then he agreed to the terms set forth by the
buccaneer. The neice took the child and retired in horror to her room; she and the
younger girl were about to flee in desperation to the woods, when they heard
stealthy footsteps outside the door which terrified them. The child said it was the
black man she had seen come ashore. Before dawn a terrible storm arose which
wrecked the buccaneer’s ship on the rocky shore.

At dawn, just as the storm was clearing away, far up the coast a pirate met a
stranger on the beach and was killed by him; the stranger took a map from his
girdle.

The nobleman swore it was the black stranger who had raised the storm, a
curse on his house, and the buccaneer said his men would build a ship. But just then
the pirate sailed into the bay and demanded a parley. Protected by a point of land,
he had ridden out the storm. He thought a Zingaran had killed his mate and stolen
the map; he offered a trade; if they would give him the map, he would take off as
many as he could and set them ashore some safe place. But while they argued Conan
entered, and told them he had killed the man and stolen and map, and destroyed it.
He did not need it, because he had found the treasure. He offered the plan: he and
the captains would go after the treasure, leaving their men on the beach. They
would divide it equally. The pirate was short of supplies. The nobleman would give
them supplies; the pirate would take him off in the ship. The nobleman and the
buccaneer would be left to build their own ship. After much wrangling, Conan and
the sea-rovers made through the woods to the cave he had discovered where he
hoped to trap them in the poison gas that filled it; but one of the nobleman’s men
had hurried before them and was found dead in it, and the pirate accused Conan of
trying to get he and the buccaneer out of the way to seize his ship and crew. In the
fight that followed, the Picts attacked them, infuriated by the black stranger having
murdered a Pict and stuck a gold chain stolen by the black man that night in the fort
from the nobleman.

Conan joined forces with the others and they fought their way back to the fort,
where they were besieged by hundreds of howling Picts. The black man got among
them and killed a buccaneer, whereupon buccaneers and pirates fell to fighting and
the Picts swarmed over the wall. Conan, running into the hall to rescue the girls,
saw the nobleman hanging from a beam, and the black man gloating over him. He
hurled a chair and knocked the thing down, then seized the girls and took shelter in
a corner of the stockade. The pirate and buccaneer were killed in the red massacre;
and Conan, with the girls, got away and fled in the pirate ship anchored in a bay on
the coast.

The Black Stranger
Synopsis B

Conan the Cimmerian, pursued by savages in the forests near the western coast of the Pictish Wilderness, takes refuge in a cavern which contains the bodies of Tranicos, a pirate admiral, and his eleven captains, and the treasure hidden by them a hundred years before.

On the coast, not far from the cavern, stands a small settlement founded by Count Valenso Korzetta, a Zingaran nobleman who has fled to this naked land to escape a mysterious enemy. The destruction of his galleon by a storm has marooned the whole party at that spot.

Strom, a Barachan pirate, searching for the treasure of Tranicos, arrives in the bay, and believing Valenso to be in possession of the treasure, attacks the fort. While the fight is in progress another ship sails into the bay, commanded by Black Zarono, a buccaneer, also hunting the treasure. Fearing to be caught between two enemies Strom sails away and takes refuge in a cove several miles distant.

Zarono strikes a truce with Valenso, and makes him a proposal that night in the fort, having learned that Valenso knows nothing about the treasure of Tranicos, which Strom and Zarono both know is hidden somewhere near the bay. Zarono proposes that he and the Count join forces, secure the treasure and then sail to some civilized country in Zarono’s ship. In return Zarono demands the hand of Valenso’s neice, Belesa. The Count refuses, furiously, when he is thrown into a state of panic by Tina, Belesa’s young protege, who tells him of a strange black man who has come out of the sea, and taken refuge in the forest. Valenso almost goes mad with fear, and agrees to Zarono’s proposal, despite his neice’s horrified protests.

Later in the night Belesa sees the black man stealing through the corridors of the fort, and realizes that he is no natural human being.

A storm, raised by the black man’s sorcery, destroy’s Zarono’s ship.

The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
Synopsis

Conan, who had been living with a wandering tribe of Zuagirs, Shemitish nomads, wandered into Zamboula, a strange, hybrid city in the desert on the disputed border of Stygia and the Hyrkanian domains. Zamboula was inhabited by Stygians, Shemites, and many mixed breeds, and ruled over by the Hyrkanians. A satrap ruled there, one Jungir Khan, with Hyrkanian soldiers. The city contained and was adjacent too many oases with palm groves. Conan, intending to spend the night at the tavern of one Aram Baksh, was warned by a Shemite tribesman that other desert men and travellers had spent the night at Aram’s house, and never been seen again. He said that no bodies had ever been found on the place, but beyond the city’s outskirts – the city was not wall – there was a hollow with a pit in it where charred human bones had been found. The Shemite believed Aram was was a devil in disguise who had traffic with demons of the desert. Conan gave no heed to the warning, and went to Aram’s house, which was on the outskirts of the city. Aram gave him a room opening onto a street which ran directly into the desert between groves of palms. During the night Conan was awakened by the stealthy opening of the one door, and sprang up to cut down a huge black slave who had stolen into his room. He was a cannibal slave from Darfar, far to the south, and Conan realized that Aram was selling his guests to these beasts. Go into the street, intending to enter the tavern by another door and cut Aram down, he saw three blacks skulking along the street with a captive girl. He attacked them and cut them down, and hid with the girl while a large band of them stole past, headed for the cooking-pit beyond the outskirts. The girl told him she was a dancing girl in the temple of Hanuman, that she loved a young Hyrkanian soldier, and was desired by the priest of Hanuman, a Stygian, Totrasmek. She said the priest by his magic had driven the young soldier, and he had tried to slay her. Fleeing from him she had been seized by the black who skulked about the streets at night, seizing and devouring all they could. As she ceased to talk the mad soldier came upon them and Conan knocked him senseless and bound him. Then lifting him, he followed her to a place in the city where a negro slave – not a cannibal – took charge of the senseless soldier, whom she had first searched for a ring and a great jewel – the only thing he would not give her. She had given him the drug given her by the priest to make him sleep, to steal this jewel. But it had driven him mad. She persuaded Conan to help her kill the priest. They went to the temple of Hanuman and entering, she tried to open the secret door behind the idol, but a hand seized her hair and dragged her through. A monstrous dwarf dragged her before Totrasmek who made her dance naked between four cobras conjured out of smoke. Conan, trying to reach the hidden chamber by another route, killed a giant executioner, and leaning through curtains, slew Totrasmek. She search him after Conan had killed the dwarf, but did not find the jewel. Then she told Conan that she was a famous courtesan of the city, and the young soldier was in reality Jungir Khan, the satrap. They returned and found him dazed but sane, and she told Conan to return to the palace the next morning for his reward. He returned to the house of Aram and gave the tavern-keeper in the hands of the negroes, first slitting his tongue so he could not talk. Then he took to the desert, for he had known the girl and the soldier all along, and had himself stolen the jewel she sought.

Red Nails
Draft

The woman on the horse reined in her weary steed. It stood with its legs wide-braced, its head drooping, as if it found even the weight of the gold-tasseled, red leather bridle too heavy. The woman drew a booted foot out of the silver stirrup and swung down from the gold-worked saddle. She made the reins fast to a tree fork, and turned, hands on her hips, to survey her surroundings.

They were not inviting. Giant trees hemmed in the small pool where her horse had just drunk. Clumps of undergrowth limited the vision that quested under the sombre twilight of the lofty arches formed by intertwining branches. The woman shivered with a twitch of her magnificent shoulders, and then cursed.

She was tall, full-bosomed and large-limbed, with compact shoulders that denoted an unusual strength without detracting anything from the femininity of her appearance. In spite of her garb and bearing, she was all woman. Her garments were incongruous, in view of her present environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches, which stopped a hand’s breadth short of her knees and were upheld by a wide sash worn as a girdle. Flaring topped boots of soft leather came almost to her knees. A low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved silk shirt completed her costume. On one shapely hip she wore a straight double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden hair, cut even with her shoulders, was confined by a cloth-of-gold band.

Against the background of sombre, primitive forest she posed with unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place. She should have had a background of sea-clouds, masts, and wheeling gulls. There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes. And there should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whose deeds are retold in song and ballad wherever sea-farers gather.

She strove to pierce the sullen green roof of the arched branches and see the sky which presumably lay above, but presently gave it up with a muttered oath.

Leaving her horse where he stood she strode off in an eastward direction, glancing back toward the pool from time to time in order to fix her route in her mind. The silence of the forest depressed her. No birds sang in the lofty boughs, nor did any rustling in the underbrush indicate the presence of any small animals. She remembered that this silence had endured for many miles. For nearly a whole day she had travelled in a realm of absolute silence, broken only by the sounds of her own flight.

Ahead of her she saw an outcropping of dark, flint-like rock that sloped upward into what looked like a rugged crag rising among the trees. Its summit was lost to view amidst a cloud of encircling leaves. Perhaps its peak rose above the trees, and from it she could see what lay beyond – if indeed, anything lay beyond but this apparently illimitable forest through which she had ridden for so many days.

A narrow ridge formed a natural ramp that led upward. After she had ascended some fifty feet she could no longer see the ground because of the intervening leaves. The trunks of the trees did not crowd close to the crag, but their smaller branches extended about it, veiling it with their foliage. She climbed on awhile in leafy obscurity, neither able to see above or below her, but presently the leaves thinned, and she came out on a flat shelf-like summit and saw the forest roof stretching away under her feet. That roof – which looked like a floor from her vantage-point – was as impenetrable from above as from below. She glanced westward, in the direction from which she had come. She saw only the rolling green ocean stretching away and away, with only a vague blue line in the distance to hint of the hill-range she had crossed days before, to plunge into this leafy waste.

North and south the view was the same, though the blue hill-line was lacking in those direction. She looked eastward, and stiffened suddenly, as her foot struck something in the litter of fallen leaves which carpeted the low shelf. She kicked some of the leaves aside and looked down on the skeleton of a man. She ran an experienced eye over the bleached frame, but saw no broken bones or any sign of violence. The man seemed to have died a natural death, though why he should have climbed to this difficult pinnacle to die, she could not imagine.

She mounted to the peak and looked eastward. She stiffened. Off to the east, within a few miles, the forest thinned out and ceased abruptly, giving way to a bare plain, where only a few stunted trees grew. And in the midst of that plain rose the walls and towers of a man-made city. The girl swore in amazement. This passed belief. She would not have been surprized to have sighted human habitations of another sort – the beehive-shaped huts of the black people, or the cliff-dwellings of the mysterious brown race which legend declared inhabited some country of this unexplored region. But it was a startling surprize to see a walled city here so many long weeks marches from the nearest outposts of any sort of civilization.

Her thoughts were scattered by the rustling of the leaves below her. She wheeled like a cat, catching at her hilt; and then she froze motionless, staring wide-eyed at the man before her.

He was a tall, powerfully-built man, almost a giant in size. His garb was similar to hers, except that he wore a broad leather belt instead of a girdle. Broadsword and poniard hung from this belt.

“Conan, the Cimmerian!” ejaculated the woman. “What are
you
doing on my trail?”

He grinned hardly, and his fierce blue eyes burned with a light any woman could understand as they ran over her magnificent figure, lingering on the swell of her splendid breasts beneath the light shirt, and the clear white flesh displayed between breeches and boot-tops.

“Why, hell, girl,” he laughed, “don’t you know? Haven’t I made my admiration for you clear ever since I first saw you?”

“A stallion could have made it no clearer,” she answered disdainfully. “But I never expected to encounter you so far from the ale-barrels and meat pots. Did you really follow me from Zarallo’s camp, or were you whipped forth?”

He laughed at her scorn and flexed his mighty biceps.

“You know Zarallo didn’t have enough knaves to whip me out of camp,” he grinned. “Of course I followed you. Lucky thing for you, too, wench! When you knifed that fellow, you lost Zarallo’s friendship, and you earned his brother’s hatred.”

“I know it,” she replied sullenly. “But what else could I do? You know what my provocation was.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “If I’d been there, I’d have knifed him myself. But if a woman must live a man’s life, she must expect such things.”

Valeria stamped her booted foot and swore.

“Why will not men let me live a man’s life?”

Again Conan’s eager eyes roved her.

“Hell, girl, that’s obvious! But you were wise to flee the camp. Zarallo would have had you skinned. The fellow’s brother followed you; faster than you thought. He was not far behind you when I caught up with him. His horse was better than yours. He’d have caught you and cut your throat within a few more miles.”

“Well?” she demanded.

“Well what?” he seemed puzzled.

“What of him?”

“Why, what do you suppose?” he demanded. “I killed him, of course, and left his carcass for the vultures. That delayed me, though, and I almost lost your trail when you crossed the rocky spurs of the hills. Otherwise I’d have caught up with you long ago.”

“And now you think you’ll drag me back to Zarallo’s camp?” she sneered.

“You know better than that,” he retorted. “Come, girl, don’t be such a spitfire. I’m not like that fellow you knifed, and you know it.”

“A penniless vagabond,” she taunted.

He laughed at her.

“What are you? You haven’t enough money to buy a new seat for your breeches. You’re not fooling me with your disdain. You know my reputation. You know I’ve commanded bigger ships and more men than you ever did. As for being penniless – hell, what rover isn’t at times? I’ve been rich a thousand times in my life, and I’ll roll in plunder again. I’ve squandered enough gold in the sea-ports of the world to fill a galleon. You know that, too.”

“Where are the fine ships and the bold lads you commanded, now?” she sneered.

“At the bottom of the sea, and in hell, mostly,” he replied cheerfully. “The Zingaran royal squadron sank my last ship off Toragis – I burned the town of Valadelad, but they caught me before I could reach the Barachas. I was the only man on board who escaped with his life. That’s why I joined Zarallo’s Free Companions. But the gold is scanty and the wine is poor – and I don’t like black women. And that’s all who came to our camp on the Darfar border – rings in their ears and their teeth filed – bah!

“Why did you join Zarallo?”

“Red Ortho killed the captain I was sailing with, and took our ship,” she answered sullenly. “The dog wanted me for his mistress. I jumped overboard one night and swam ashore when we were anchored off the Kushite coast. Off Zabhela it was. There I met a Shemite trader who was also a recruiting agent for Zarallo. He told me that Zarallo had brought his Free Companies south to guard the Darfar border for the Stygians. I joined an east-bound caravan and eventually came to the camp.”

“And now we’ve both left Zarallo to shift for himself,” commented Conan. “It was madness to plunge into the south as you did – but wise, too, for Zarallo’s patrols never thought to look for you in this direction. Only the brother of the man you killed came this way, and struck your trail.”

“And now what do you intend doing?” she demanded.

“Turn west through the forest,” he answered. “I’ve been this far south, but not this far east. Many days’ travelling to the west will bring us to the open savannahs, where the black tribes live. I have friends among them. We’ll get to the coast and find a ship. I’m sick of the jungle myself.”

“Then be on your way,” she advised. “I have other plans.”

“Don’t be a fool,” he answered, showing irritation for the first time. “You can’t survive in this forest.”

“I
have
– for more than a week.”

“But what do you intend doing?”

“That’s none of your affair,” she snapped.

“Yes, it is,” he answered calmly. “I’ve followed you this far, do you think I’ll turn around and ride back empty handed? Be sensible, wench; I’m not going to harm you.”

He stepped toward her, and she sprang back, whipping out her sword.

“Keep back, you barbarian dog! I’ll spit you like a roast pig!”

He halted, reluctantly.

“Do you want me to take that toy away from you and spank you with it?” he demanded.

“Words!” she mocked, lights like the sun on blue water dancing in her reckless eyes, and he knew it was the truth. No living man could disarm Valeria of the Brotherhood with his bare hands. He scowled; his feelings were a chaotic mixture of conflicting emotions. He was angry, yet he was amused and full of admiration. He was itching with eagerness to seize that splendid figure and crush it in his iron arms, yet he greatly desired not to hurt the girl. He was torn between a desire to shake her, and a desire to caress her. He knew if he came nearer her sword would be sheathed in his heart. He had seen Valeria kill too many men to have any illusions about her. He knew she was as quick and ferocious in attack as a she-tiger. He could draw his broadsword and disarm her, beat the blade out of her hand, but the thought of drawing a sword on a woman, even without intent of injury, was extremely repugnant to him.

“Blast your soul, you hussy,” he exclaimed in exasperation. “I’m going to take your –” He started toward her, his anger making him reckless, and she poised herself for a thrust when a startling interruption came.

“What’s that?”

Both of them started, and Conan wheeled like a cat, his great sword flashing into his hand. Valeria recoiled, even as she poised for her thrust. Back in the forest had risen a hideous medley of screams – the screams of terrified or agonized horses. Mingled plainly with their screams came the snap of breaking bones.

“Lions are slaying the horses!” cried Valeria.

“Lions, hell!” snorted Conan, his eyes blazing. “Did you hear a lion roar? Neither did I! Listen at those bones snap – not even a lion could make that much noise killing a horse. Follow me – but keep behind me.”

He hurried down the natural ramp and she followed, their personal feud forgotten in the code of the adventurers, the instinct to unite against common peril.

They descended into the screen of leaves and worked their way downward through the green veil. Silence had fallen again over the forest.

“I found your horse tied by the pool back there,” he muttered, treading so noiselessly that she no longer wondered how he had surprized her on the crag. “I tied mine beside it and followed the tracks of your boots. Watch, now!”

They had emerged from the belt of leaves and stared down into the lower reaches of the forest. Above them the green roof spread its dusky canopy. Below them the sunlight filtered in just enough to make a grey twilight. The giant trunks of trees less than a hundred yards away looked dim and ghostly.

“The horses should be beyond that thicket,” whispered Conan, making no more sound than a breeze moving through the branches.
“Listen!”

Valeria had already heard, and a chill crept through her veins so she unconsciously laid her white hand on her companion’s muscular brown arm. From beyond that thicket came the noisy crunching of bones and the loud rending of flesh.

“Lions wouldn’t make that noise,” whispered Conan. “Something’s eating our horses, but it’s not a lion – look there!”

The noise stopped suddenly, and Conan swore softly. A suddenly risen breeze was blowing from them directly toward the spot where the unknown monster was hidden.

The thicket was suddenly agitated and Valeria clutched Conan’s arm hard. Ignorant of jungle-lore, she yet knew that no animal she had ever seen could have shaken the thicket like that.

“An elephant wouldn’t make that much disturbance,” muttered Conan, echoing her thought. “What the devil –” his voice trailed away in the stunned silence of incredulous amazement.

Through the thicket was thrust the head of nightmare and horror. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-like snout. Huge eyes, like those of a cobra a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth. The head was farther extended, on a long, scaled neck, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled a titan’s body, a gigantic reptilian torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated back-bone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tip-toe. A dragon-like tail trailed out behind the monstrosity.