Pain ripped through the Cimmerian, pain such as he had never known. Skin flayed from muscle, muscle torn from bone, bone ground to powder and the whole thrown into molten metal, then the torturous cycle began again. And again. And … .
Conan found himself on the ground, on hands and knees, every muscle quivering with the effort of not falling flat on his face. Through blurred eyes he saw that he still clutched his pouch in a death-grip. He still had his means of escape from the Inner Circle, and in some fashion he had survived touching the barrier, but one thought dominated his swirling brain, the desperate need to regain his feet, to be ready to face the monster’s next attack. His broadsword lay before him. Lurching forward, he grabbed the worn leather hilt, and almost let the blade fall. The leather was cracked and blistering hot.
Abruptly sound crashed in on him, crackling and hissing like a thousand chained lightning bolts, and Conan realized that he had been deaf. Shakily he scrambled to his feet … and stood staring.
The beast lay across the barrier, twitching as scintillating arcs of power rose from one part of its body to strike another. Flames in a hundred hues lanced from the already blacking hulk.
A grin began on the Cimmerian’s face, and died as he stared at the barrier. He was no longer within the Inner Circle. How he had survived crossing the barrier—perhaps the monstrous vitality of the beast had absorbed the greater part of the deadly force, partially shielding him—did not matter. What mattered was that he had but enough of the required powder to cross that boundary once. Did he enter again, he would never leave.
In silence he turned his back on the still-jerking body of the beast, on the Inner Circle, a dark light in his eyes that boded ill.
XXI
Akeba and the others were huddled around a tiny fire when Conan strode out of the Blasted Lands, wiping glittering black blood from his blade with the shredded remnants of his cloak. The Cimmerian announced his presence by tossing the bloody rag into the fire, where it flared and gave off thick, acrid smoke.
All three men leaped, and Sharak wrinkled his nose. “Phhaw! What Erlik-begotten stench is that?”
“We will return to the yurts,” Conan said, slamming his sword home in its shagreen sheath, “but only briefly. I must get Samarra’s help to reenter the Inner Circle.”
“Then you found nothing,” Akeba said thoughtfully. He eyed the dried blood on Conan’s tattered tunic, the pouch crudely tied to his swordbelt, as he added, “Are you certain you want to go back, Cimmerian? What occurred in there?”
Tamur spoke. “No!” Everyone looked at him; he scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand before speaking further. “It is a taboo place. Do not speak of what happened within the barriers. It is taboo.”
“Nonsense,” Sharak snorted. “No harm can there be merely in the hearing. Speak on, Conan.”
But the Cimmerian was of no mind to waste time in talk. The night was half gone. With a curt, “Follow me,” he started off into the night. The others kicked dirt over the fire and hurried after.
As soon as they arrived at Samarra’s yurt, Conan motioned the rest to wait and ducked inside.
The interior was dark; not so much as a single lamp was lit, and the big charcoal fire was coal ash. Strange, Conan thought. Samarra, at least, would have remained awake to hear what he had found. Then the unnatural silence of the yurt struck him. There was a hollow emptiness that denied the presence of life. His broadsword eased into his hand almost of its own accord.
He started across the carpets, picking his way among the scattered cushions. Suddenly his foot struck something firmer than a cushion, yet yielding. With a sinking of his stomach, he knelt; his fingers felt along a woman’s contours, the skin clammily cold.
“Conan! Look out!” Akeba shouted from the entrance.
Conan threw himself into a diving roll, striking something that bounced away with a clatter of brass, and came up in a wary crouch with his sword at the ready. Just as he picked out the shadow of what could have been a man, something hummed from the entrance and struck it. Stiffly the dim shape toppled to the ground with a thud.
“It’s a man,” Akeba said uncertainly. “At least, I think it’s a man. But it did not fall as a man falls.”
Conan felt around him for what he had knocked over. It was a lamp, with only half the oil spilled. Fumbling flint and steel from his pouch, he lit the wick. The lamp cast its light on the body he had stumbled over.
Samarra lay on her back, dead eyes staring up at the roof of the yurt. Blended determination and resignation were frozen on her features.
“She knew,” Conan murmured. “She said if I entered the Blasted Lands many would die.”
With a sigh he moved the light to the shape that had fallen so strangely. Akeba’s arrow stood out from the neck of a yellow-skinned man in black robes, his almond eyes wide with disbelief. Conan prodded the body with his sword, and started in surprise. The corpse was as hard as stone.
“At least she took her murderer with her,” Conan growled. “And avenged your Zorelle.”
“’Tis not he, though he is very like,” Akeba said. “I will remember to my tomb the face of the man who killed my daughter, and this is not he.”
Conan shifted the light again, back to Samarra. “I could have saved her,” he said sadly, though he had no idea of how. “Had she told me … Yasbet!”
Leaping to his feet, he searched furiously through the other curtained compartments of the yurt. The structure was a charnel house. Slaves, male and female alike, lay in tangled heaps of cold flesh. None bore a wound, any more than did Samarra, but the face of each was twisted in horror. Nowhere did he find Yasbet.
When he returned to Akeba, Conan was sick to his stomach. Many would die if he entered the Blasted Lands. Samarra had said there were many branchings of the future. Could she not have found one to avoid this?
“Jhandar sent more than this one to follow us,” he told the Turanian. “Yasbet is gone, and the others are dead. All of them.”
Before Akeba could speak, Tamur stuck his head into the yurt. “There are stirrings … .” His eyes lit on Samarra’s body in the pool of lamp light. “Kaavan One-Father protect us! This is the cause! We will all be gelded, flayed alive, impaled—”
“What are you talking about?” Conan demanded. “The cause of what?”
“The yurts of the other shamans,” Tamur replied excitedly. “Men are gathering there, even though none like to venture into the night this close to the Blasted Lands.”
Akeba grunted. “They must have sensed the death of one of their own.”
“But they’ll not find us standing over the bodies,” Conan said, pinching the lamp wick between his fingers. The dark seemed deeper once that small light was gone. He started for the door flap.
Outside, Sharak leaned on his staff and peered toward the distant torches that were beginning to move toward Samarra’s yurt. The mutters of the men carrying those lights made a constant, angry hum. The old astrologer jumped when Conan touched his shoulder. “Do we return to the Blasted Lands, Conan, we must do it now. This lot will take it unkindly, our wandering their camp at night.”
“Yasbet is gone,” Conan told him quietly, “taken or slain. Samarra is dead.” Sharak gasped. Conan turned away, and Sharak, after one quick glance at the approaching torches, fell silently in behind the others.
As four shadows they made they made their way between the dark yurts, out onto the plain, and hurried toward their camp, ignoring as best they could the rising tumult behind them. Then a great shout rose, a cry of rage from a hundred throats.
Akeba quickened his pace to come abreast of Conan. “They have found her,” the Turanian said, “but may not think we slew her.”
“We are strangers,” Conan laughed mirthlessly. “What would your soldiers do if a princess of Aghrapur were murdered, and there were outlanders close to hand?”
The Turanian sucked air between his teeth. “Mitra send us time to get to our horses.”
Wit
h no more words the four men broke into a run, Conan and Akeba covering the ground with distance-eating strides. Tamur ran awkwardly, but with surprising speed. Even Sharak kept up, wheezing and puffing, and finding breath to complain of his years.
“Awake!” Tamur cried as they ran into their dark camp. The fires had burned low. “To your horses!” Nomads rolled instantly from their blankets, booted and clothed, seized their weapons, and stared at him blankly. “We must flee!” Tamur shouted to them. “We stand outside the laws!” Leaping as if pricked, they darted for the horses. Tamur turned to Conan, shaking his head. “We shall not escape. We ride reedy coastal stock. Those who pursue will be astride war mounts. Our animals will drop before dawn, while theirs can maintain a steady pace all the way to the sea.”
“The pack horses,” Conan said. “Will they carry men?”
Tamur nodded. “But we have enough mounts for everyone.”
“What if,” Conan said slowly, “when our horses are about to fall, we change to horses that, if tired somewhat from running, have at least not carried a man? And when those are ready to fall … .” He looked at the others questioningly. He had heard of this in a tavern, and tavern tales were not always overly filled with truth. “We have several extra mounts for each man. Even these war mounts cannot outrun them all, can they?”
“It could work,” Tamur breathed. “Kaavan One-Father watch over us, it could work.”
Akeba nodded. “I should have thought of that. I’ve heard this is done on the southern frontier.”
“But the trade goods,” Sharak complained. “You’ll not abandon—”
“Will you die for them?” Conan cut him off, and ran for the hobbled pack horses. The others followed at his heels, the old astrologer last and slowest.
The nomads wasted no time once Conan’s idea was explained to them, hastily fumbling in the dark with bridles, finishing just as roaring horsemen burst from the among the Hyrkanian yurts. Conan wasted but a single moment in thought of the gold from their trading, and the greater part of his own gold, hidden in a bale of tanned hides, then he scrambled onto his mount with the others, lashing it into a desperate gallop. Death rode on their heels.
As they entered the tall, scrub-covered sand dunes on the coast, four men rode double, and no spare horses were left. The sweat-lathered mounts formed a straggling line, but no man pressed his horse for fear of the animal’s collapse. In the sky before them the sun hung low; the two-days’ journey had consumed less than one with the impetus of saving their lives.
Conan’s shaggy mount staggered under him, but he could hear the crash of waves ahead. “How much lead do we have?” he asked Akeba.
“Perhaps two turns of the glass, perhaps less,” the Turanian replied.
“They held their animals back, Cimmerian, when they saw they would not overtake us easily,” Tamur added. His breath came in pants almost as heavy as those of his mount. He labored the beast with his quirt, but without real force. “Ours will not last much longer, but theirs will be near fresh when they come up on us.”
“They’ll come up on empty sand,” Conan laughed, urging his shaggy horse to the top of a dune, “for we’ve reached the ship.” Words and laughter trailed away as he stared at the beach beyond. The sand was empty, with only the cold remains of fires to show he had come to the right place. Far out on the water a shape could be seen, a hint of triangularity speaking of Foam Dancer’s lateen sail.
“I never trusted that slime-spawn Muktar,” Akeba muttered. “The horses are played out, Conan, and we’re little better. This stretch of muddy sand is no fit place to die, if any place is fit, but ’tis time to think of taking a few enemies with us into the long night. What say you, Cimmerian?”
Conan, wrestling with his own thoughts, said nothing. So far he had come in his quest for a means to destroy Jhandar, and what had come of it? Samarra dead, and all her slaves. Yasbet taken by Jhandar’s henchmen. Even in small matters the gods had turned their faces from him. The trade goods for which he had spent his hundred pieces of gold—and hard-earned gold it was, too, for the slaying of a friend, even one ensorceled to kill—were abandoned. Of the gold but two pieces nestled in his pouch with flint, steel, Samarra’s pouch and a bit of dried meat. And now he had fallen short by no more than half a turn of the glass. Muktar had not even waited to discover that Conan lacked the coin to pay for his return voyage. Though, under the circumstances, a show of steel would have disposed of that quibble.
“Are you listening?” Akeba demanded of him. “Let us circle back on our trail to the start of the dunes. We can surprise them, and with rest we may give a good account of ourselves.” Muttering rose among the Hyrkanians.
Still Conan did not speak. Instead he chewed on a thought. Yasbet taken by Jhandar’s henchmen. There was something of importance there, could he but see it. A faint voice within him said that it was urgent he did see it.
“Let us die as men,” Tamur said, though his tone was hesitant, “not struggling futilely, like dungbeetles seized by ants.” Some few of his fellows murmured approval; the rest twitched their reins fretfully and cast anxious backward glances, but kept silent.
The Turanian’s black eyes flicked the nomad scornfully; Tamur looked away. “No one who calls himself a man dies meekly,” Akeba said.
“They are of our blood,” Tamur muttered, and the soldier snorted.
“Mitra’s Mercies! This talk of blood has never stayed one Hyrkanian’s steel from another’s throat that I have seen. It’ll not stay the hands of those who follow us. Have you forgotten what they will do to those they take alive? Gelded. Flayed alive. Impaled. You told us so. And you hinted at worse, if there can be worse.”
Tamur flinched, licking his lips and avoiding Akeba’s gaze. Now he burst out, “We stand outside the law!” A mournful sigh breathed from the other nomads. Tamur rushed breathlessly on. “We are no longer shielded by the laws of our people. For us to slay even one of those sent by the shamans would be to foul and condemn our own spirits, to face an eternity of doom.”
“But you didn’t kill Samarra,” Akeba protested. “Surely your god knows that. Conan, talk to this fool.”
But the Cimmerian ignored all of them. The barest glimmerings of hope flickered in him.
“We will face the One-Father having broken no law,” Tamur shouted.
“Erlik take your laws! You were willing to disobey the edict against revenging yourself on Jhandar.” Akeba’s thin mouth twisted in a sneer. “I think you are simply ready to surrender. You are all dogs! Craven women whining for an easy death!”
Tamur recoiled, hand going to the hilt of his yataghan. “Kaavan understands revenge. You Turanians, whose women have watered your blood for a thousand years with the seed of western weaklings, understand nothing. I will not teach you!”
Steel slid from scabbards, and was arrested half-drawn by Conan’s abrupt, “The ship! We will use the ship.”
Akeba stared at him. Some of the Hyrkanians moved their horses back. Madmen were touched by the gods; slaying one, even in self-defense, was a sure path to ill luck.
Sharak, clinging tiredly to his mount with one hand and his staff with the other, peered ostentatiously after Foam Dancer. The vessel was but a mote, now. “Are we to become fish, then?” he asked.
“The galley,” Conan said, his exasperation clear at their stupidity. “How much before us could Jhandar’s henchmen have left the camp? And they had no reason to ride as we did, for no one was pursuing them. Their galley may still be waiting for them. We can rescue Yasbet and use it to cross the sea again.”
“I’d not wager a copper on it,” Akeba said. “Most likely the galley is already at sea.”
“Are the odds better if you remain here?” Conan asked drily. Akeba looked doubtful. He ran an eye over the others; half the nomads still watched him warily. Sharak seemed lost in thought. “I’ll not wait here meekly to be slaughtered,” Conan announced. “You do what you will.” Turning his horse to the south, he booted it into a
semblance of a trot.
Before he had gone a hundred paces Sharak caught up to him, using his staff like a switch to chivy his shaggy mount along. “A fine adventure,” the astrologer said, a fixed grin on his parchment face. “Do we take prisoners when we reach the galley? In the sagas heroes never take prisoners.”
Akeba joined them in a gallop; his horse staggered as he reined back to their pace. “Money is one thing,” the Turanian said. “My life I’m willing to wager on long odds.”
Conan smiled without looking at either of them, a smile touched with grimness. More hooves pounded the sand behind him. He did not look around to see how many others had joined. One or all, it would be enough. It had to be. With cold eyes he led them south.
XXII
One horse sank to its knees, refusing to go on, as they passed the first headland, and another fell dead before they were long out of sight of the first. Thick scrub grew here in patches too large to ride around. There were no paths except those forced by the horses.
Conan grimaced as yet another man mounted double. Their pace was slower than walking. Keeping their strength was important if they were to face the galley’s crew, or Jhandar’s henchmen, but the horses were at the end of theirs. And time was important as well. They must reach the ship before Yasbet’s captors did, or at least before they sailed, and before the pursuing Hyrkanians overtook them. The nomads would have little difficulty following their tracks down the coast.
Reaching a decision, he dismounted. The others stared as he removed his horse’s crude rope bridle and began to walk. Sharak pressed his own mount forward and dropped off beside the big Cimmerian.
“Conan,” Akeba called after him, “what—”