Conan did not plunge deeply into the forest. A few hundred yards from
the river, he altered his slanting course and ran parallel with it.
Balthus recognized a grim determination not to be hunted away from the
river which they must cross if they were to warn the men in the fort.
Behind them rose more loudly the yells of the forest men. Balthus
believed the Picts had reached the glade where the bodies of the slain
men lay. Then further yells seemed to indicate that the savages were
streaming into the woods in pursuit. They had left a trail any Pict
could follow.
Conan increased his speed, and Balthus grimly set his teeth and kept on
his heels, though he felt he might collapse any time. It seemed
centuries since he had eaten last. He kept going more by an effort of
will than anything else. His blood was pounding so furiously in his
eardrums that he was not aware when the yells died out behind them.
Conan halted suddenly. Balthus leaned against a tree and panted.
'They've quit!' grunted the Cimmerian, scowling.
'Sneaking--up--on--us!' gasped Balthus.
Conan shook his head.
'A short chase like this they'd yell every step of the way. No. They've
gone back. I thought I heard somebody yelling behind them a few seconds
before the noise began to get dimmer. They've been recalled. And that's
good for us, but damned bad for the men in the fort. It means the
warriors are being summoned out of the woods for the attack. These men
we ran into were warriors from a tribe down the river. They were
undoubtedly headed for Gwawela to join in the assault on the fort. Damn
it, we're farther away than ever, now. We've got to get across the
river.'
Turning east he hurried through the thickets with no attempt at
concealment. Balthus followed him, for the first time feeling the sting
of lacerations on his breast and shoulder where the Pict's savage teeth
had scored him. He was pushing through the thick bushes that fringed the
bank when Conan pulled him back. Then he heard a rhythmic splashing, and
peering through the leaves, saw a dugout canoe coming up the river, its
single occupant paddling hard against the current. He was a strongly
built Pict with a white heron feather thrust in a copper band that
confined his square-cut mane.
'That's a Gwawela man,' muttered Conan. 'Emissary from Zogar. White
plume shows that. He's carried a peace talk to the tribes down the river
and now he's trying to get back and take a hand in the slaughter.'
The lone ambassador was now almost even with their hiding-place, and
suddenly Balthus almost jumped out of his skin. At his very ear had
sounded the harsh gutturals of a Pict. Then he realized that Conan had
called to the paddler in his own tongue. The man started, scanned the
bushes and called back something, then cast a startled glance across the
river, bent low and sent the canoe shooting in toward the western bank.
Not understanding, Balthus saw Conan take from his hand the bow he had
picked up in the glade, and notch an arrow.
The Pict had run his canoe in close to the shore, and staring up into
the bushes, called out something. His answer came in the twang of the
bow-string, the streaking flight of the arrow that sank to the feathers
in his broad breast. With a choking gasp he slumped sidewise and rolled
into the shallow water. In an instant Conan was down the bank and wading
into the water to grasp the drifting canoe. Balthus stumbled after him
and somewhat dazedly crawled into the canoe. Conan scrambled in, seized
the paddle and sent the craft shooting toward the eastern shore. Balthus
noted with envious admiration the play of the great muscles beneath the
sun-burnt skin. The Cimmerian seemed an iron man, who never knew
fatigue.
'What did you say to the Pict?' asked Balthus.
'Told him to pull into shore; said there was a white forest runner on
the bank who was trying to get a shot at him.'
'That doesn't seem fair,' Balthus objected. 'He thought a friend was
speaking to him. You mimicked a Pict perfectly--'
'We needed his boat,' grunted Conan, not pausing in his exertions. 'Only
way to lure him to the bank. Which is worse--to betray a Pict who'd
enjoy skinning us both alive, or betray the men across the river whose
lives depend on our getting over?'
Balthus mulled over this delicate ethical question for a moment, then
shrugged his shoulder and asked: 'How far are we from the fort?'
Conan pointed to a creek which flowed into Black River from the east, a
few hundred yards below them.
'That's South Creek; it's ten miles from its mouth to the fort. It's the
southern boundary of Conajohara. Marshes miles wide south of it. No
danger of a raid from across them. Nine miles above the fort North Creek
forms the other boundary. Marshes beyond that, too. That's why an attack
must come from the west, across Black River. Conajohara's just like a
spear, with a point nineteen miles wide, thrust into the Pictish
wilderness.'
'Why don't we keep to the canoe and make the trip by water?'
'Because, considering the current we've got to brace, and the bends in
the river, we can go faster afoot. Besides, remember Gwawela is south
of the fort; if the Picts are crossing the river we'd run right into
them.'
* * * * *
Dusk was gathering as they stepped upon the eastern bank. Without pause
Conan pushed on northward, at a pace that made Balthus' sturdy legs
ache.
'Valannus wanted a fort built at the mouths of North and South Creeks,'
grunted the Cimmerian. 'Then the river could be patrolled constantly.
But the Government wouldn't do it.
'Soft-bellied fools sitting on velvet cushions with naked girls offering
them iced wine on their knees--I know the breed. They can't see any
farther than their palace wall. Diplomacy--hell! They'd fight Picts with
theories of territorial expansion. Valannus and men like him have to
obey the orders of a set of damned fools. They'll never grab any more
Pictish land, any more than they'll ever rebuild Venarium. The time may
come when they'll see the barbarians swarming over the walls of the
Eastern cities!'
A week before, Balthus would have laughed at any such preposterous
suggestion. Now he made no reply. He had seen the unconquerable ferocity
of the men who dwelt beyond the frontiers.
He shivered, casting glances at the sullen river, just visible through
the bushes, at the arches of the trees which crowded close to its banks.
He kept remembering that the Picts might have crossed the river and be
lying in ambush between them and the fort. It was fast growing dark.
A slight sound ahead of them jumped his heart into his throat, and
Conan's sword gleamed in the air. He lowered it when a dog, a great,
gaunt, scarred beast, slunk out of the bushes and stood staring at them.
'That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin on the bank
of the river a few miles south of the fort,' grunted Conan. 'The Picts
slipped over and killed him, of course, and burned his cabin. We found
him dead among the embers, and the dog lying senseless among three Picts
he'd killed. He was almost cut to pieces. We took him to the fort and
dressed his wounds, but after he recovered he took to the woods and
turned wild--What now, Slasher, are you hunting the men who killed your
master?'
The massive head swung from side to side and the eyes glowed greenly. He
did not growl or bark. Silently as a phantom he slid in behind them.
'Let him come,' muttered Conan. 'He can smell the devils before we can
see them.'
Balthus smiled and laid his hand caressingly on the dog's head. The
lips involuntarily writhed back to display the gleaming fangs; then the
great beast bent his head sheepishly, and his tail moved with jerky
uncertainty, as if the owner had almost forgotten the emotions of
friendliness. Balthus mentally compared the great gaunt hard body with
the fat sleek hounds tumbling vociferously over one another in his
father's kennel yard. He sighed. The frontier was no less hard for
beasts than for men. This dog had almost forgotten the meaning of
kindness and friendliness.
Slasher glided ahead, and Conan let him take the lead. The last tinge of
dusk faded into stark darkness. The miles fell away under their steady
feet. Slasher seemed voiceless. Suddenly he halted, tense, ears lifted.
An instant later the men heard it--a demoniac yelling up the river ahead
of them, faint as a whisper.
Conan swore like a madman.
'They've attacked the fort! We're too late! Come on!'
He increased his pace, trusting to the dog to smell out ambushes ahead.
In a flood of tense excitement Balthus forgot his hunger and weariness.
The yells grew louder as they advanced, and above the devilish screaming
they could hear the deep shouts of the soldiers. Just as Balthus began
to fear they would run into the savages who seemed to be howling just
ahead of them, Conan swung away from the river in a wide semicircle that
carried them to a low rise from which they could look over the forest.
They saw the fort, lighted with torches thrust over the parapets on long
poles. These cast a flickering, uncertain light over the clearing, and
in that light they saw throngs of naked, painted figures along the
fringe of the clearing. The river swarmed with canoes. The Picts had the
fort completely surrounded.
An incessant hail of arrows rained against the stockade from the woods
and the river. The deep twanging of the bow-strings rose above the
howling. Yelling like wolves, several hundred naked warriors with axes
in their hands ran from under the trees and raced toward the eastern
gate. They were within a hundred and fifty yards of their objective when
a withering blast of arrows from the wall littered the ground with
corpses and sent the survivors fleeing back to the trees. The men in the
canoes rushed their boats toward the river-wall, and were met by another
shower of clothyard shafts and a volley from the small ballistas mounted
on towers on that side of the stockade. Stones and logs whirled through
the air and splintered and sank half a dozen canoes, killing their
occupants, and the other boats drew back out of range. A deep roar of
triumph rose from the walls of the fort, answered by bestial howling
from all quarters.
'Shall we try to break through?' asked Balthus, trembling with
eagerness.
Conan shook his head. He stood with his arms folded, his head slightly
bent, a somber and brooding figure.
'The fort's doomed. The Picts are blood-mad, and won't stop until
they're all killed. And there are too many of them for the men in the
fort to kill. We couldn't break through, and if we did, we could do
nothing but die with Valannus.'
'There's nothing we can do but save our own hides, then?'
'Yes. We've got to warn the settlers. Do you know why the Picts are not
trying to burn the fort with fire-arrows? Because they don't want a
flame that might warn the people to the east. They plan to stamp out the
fort, and then sweep east before anyone knows of its fall. They may
cross Thunder River and take Velitrium before the people know what's
happened. At least they'll destroy every living thing between the fort
and Thunder River.
'We've failed to warn the fort, and I see now it would have done no good
if we had succeeded. The fort's too poorly manned. A few more charges
and the Picts will be over the walls and breaking down the gates. But we
can start the settlers toward Velitrium. Come on! We're outside the
circle the Picts have thrown around the fort. We'll keep clear of it.'
They swung out in a wide arc, hearing the rising and falling of the
volume of the yells, marking each charge and repulse. The men in the
fort were holding their own; but the shrieks of the Picts did not
diminish in savagery. They vibrated with a timbre that held assurance of
ultimate victory.
Before Balthus realized they were close to it, they broke into the road
leading east.
'Now run!' grunted Conan. Balthus set his teeth. It was nineteen miles
to Velitrium, a good five to Scalp Creek beyond which began the
settlements. It seemed to the Aquilonian that they had been fighting and
running for centuries. But the nervous excitement that rioted through
his blood stimulated him to Herculean efforts.
Slasher ran ahead of them, his head to the ground, snarling low, the
first sound they had heard from him.
'Picts ahead of us!' snarled Conan, dropping to one knee and scanning
the ground in the starlight. He shook his head, baffled. 'I can't tell
how many. Probably only a small party. Some that couldn't wait to take
the fort. They've gone ahead to butcher the settlers in their beds! Come
on!'
Ahead of them presently they saw a small blaze through the trees, and
heard a wild and ferocious chanting. The trail bent there, and leaving
it, they cut across the bend, through the thickets. A few moments later
they were looking on a hideous sight. An ox-wain stood in the road
piled with meager household furnishings; it was burning; the oxen lay
near with their throats cut. A man and a woman lay in the road, stripped
and mutilated. Five Picts were dancing about them with fantastic leaps
and bounds, waving bloody axes; one of them brandished the woman's
red-smeared gown.
At the sight a red haze swam before Balthus. Lifting his bow he lined
the prancing figure, black against the fire, and loosed. The slayer
leaped convulsively and fell dead with the arrow through his heart. Then
the two white men and the dog were upon the startled survivors. Conan
was animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old racial hate,
but Balthus was afire with wrath.
He met the first Pict to oppose him with a ferocious swipe that split
the painted skull, and sprang over his falling body to grapple with the
others. But Conan had already killed one of the two he had chosen, and
the leap of the Aquilonian was a second late. The warrior was down with
the long sword through him even as Balthus' ax was lifted. Turning
toward the remaining Pict, Balthus saw Slasher rise from his victim, his
great jaws dripping blood.
Balthus said nothing as he looked down at the pitiful forms in the road
beside the burning wain. Both were young, the woman little more than a
girl. By some whim of chance the Picts had left her face unmarred, and
even in the agonies of an awful death it was beautiful. But her soft
young body had been hideously slashed with many knives--a mist clouded
Balthus' eyes and he swallowed chokingly. The tragedy momentarily
overcame him. He felt like falling upon the ground and weeping and
biting the earth.
'Some young couple just hitting out on their own,' Conan was saying as
he wiped his sword unemotionally. 'On their way to the fort when the
Picts met them. Maybe the boy was going to enter the service; maybe take
up land on the river. Well, that's what will happen to every man, woman
and child this side of Thunder River if we don't get them into Velitrium
in a hurry.'
Balthus' knees trembled as he followed Conan. But there was no hint of
weakness in the long easy stride of the Cimmerian. There was a kinship
between him and the great gaunt brute that glided beside him. Slasher no
longer growled with his head to the trail. The way was clear before
them. The yelling on the river came faintly to them, but Balthus
believed the fort was still holding. Conan halted suddenly, with an
oath.
He showed Balthus a trail that led north from the road. It was an old
trail, partly grown with new young growth, and this growth had recently
been broken down. Balthus realized this fact more by feel than sight,
though Conan seemed to see like a cat in the dark. The Cimmerian showed
him where broad wagon tracks turned off the main trail, deeply indented
in the forest mold.
'Settlers going to the licks after salt,' he grunted. 'They're at the
edges of the marsh, about nine miles from here. Blast it! They'll be cut
off and butchered to a man! Listen! One man can warn the people on the
road. Go ahead and wake them up and herd them into Velitrium. I'll go
and get the men gathering the salt. They'll be camped by the licks. We
won't come back to the road. We'll head straight through the woods.'
With no further comment Conan turned off the trail and hurried down the
dim path, and Balthus, after staring after him for a few moments, set
out along the road. The dog had remained with him, and glided softly at
his heels. When Balthus had gone a few rods he heard the animal growl.
Whirling, he glared back the way he had come, and was startled to see a
vague ghostly glow vanishing into the forest in the direction Conan had
taken. Slasher rumbled deep in his throat, his hackles stiff and his
eyes balls of green fire. Balthus remembered the grim apparition that
had taken the head of the merchant Tiberias not far from that spot, and
he hesitated. The thing must be following Conan. But the giant Cimmerian
had repeatedly demonstrated his ability to take care of himself, and
Balthus felt his duty lay toward the helpless settlers who slumbered in
the path of the red hurricane. The horror of the fiery phantom was
overshadowed by the horror of those limp, violated bodies beside the
burning ox-wain.
He hurried down the road, crossed Scalp Creek and came in sight of the
first settler's cabin--a long, low structure of ax-hewn logs. In an
instant he was pounding on the door. A sleepy voice inquired his
pleasure.
'Get up! The Picts are over the river!'
That brought instant response. A low cry echoed his words and then the
door was thrown open by a woman in a scanty shift. Her hair hung over
her bare shoulders in disorder; she held a candle in one hand and an ax
in the other. Her face was colorless, her eyes wide with terror.
'Come in!' she begged. 'We'll hold the cabin.'
'No. We must make for Velitrium. The fort can't hold them back. It may
have fallen already. Don't stop to dress. Get your children and come
on.'
'But my man's gone with the others after salt!' she wailed, wringing her
hands. Behind her peered three tousled youngsters, blinking and
bewildered.
'Conan's gone after them. He'll fetch them through safe. We must hurry
up the road to warn the other cabins.'
Relief flooded her countenance.
'Mitra be thanked!' she cried. 'If the Cimmerian's gone after them,
they're safe if mortal man can save them!'
In a whirlwind of activity she snatched up the smallest child and herded
the others through the door ahead of her. Balthus took the candle and
ground it out under his heel. He listened an instant. No sound came up
the dark road.
'Have you got a horse?'
'In the stable,' she groaned. 'Oh, hurry!'
He pushed her aside as she fumbled with shaking hands at the bars. He
led the horse out and lifted the children on its back, telling them to
hold to its mane and to one another. They stared at him seriously,
making no outcry. The woman took the horse's halter and set out up the
road. She still gripped her ax and Balthus knew that if cornered she
would fight with the desperate courage of a she-panther.
He held behind, listening. He was oppressed by the belief that the fort
had been stormed and taken; that the dark-skinned hordes were already
streaming up the road toward Velitrium, drunken on slaughter and mad for
blood. They would come with the speed of starving wolves.
Presently they saw another cabin looming ahead. The woman started to
shriek a warning, but Balthus stopped her. He hurried to the door and
knocked. A woman's voice answered him. He repeated his warning, and soon
the cabin disgorged its occupants--an old woman, two young women and
four children. Like the other woman's husband, their men had gone to the
salt licks the day before, unsuspecting of any danger. One of the young
women seemed dazed, the other prone to hysteria. But the old woman, a
stern old veteran of the frontier, quieted them harshly; she helped
Balthus get out the two horses that were stabled in a pen behind the
cabin and put the children on them. Balthus urged that she herself mount
with them, but she shook her head and made one of the younger women
ride.
'She's with child,' grunted the old woman. 'I can walk--and fight, too,
if it comes to that.'
As they set out, one of the women said: 'A young couple passed along the
road about dusk; we advised them to spend the night at our cabin, but
they were anxious to make the fort tonight. Did--did--'.
'They met the Picts,' answered Balthus briefly, and the woman sobbed in
horror.
They were scarcely out of sight of the cabin when some distance behind
them quavered a long high-pitched yell.
'A wolf!' exclaimed one of the women.
'A painted wolf with an ax in his hand,' muttered Balthus. 'Go! Rouse
the other settlers along the road and take them with you. I'll scout
along behind.'
Without a word the old woman herded her charges ahead of her. As they
faded into the darkness, Balthus could see the pale ovals that were the
faces of the children twisted back over their shoulders to stare toward
him. He remembered his own people on the Tauran and a moment's giddy
sickness swam over him. With momentary weakness he groaned and sank down
in the road; his muscular arm fell over Slasher's massive neck and he
felt the dog's warm moist tongue touch his face.
He lifted his head and grinned with a painful effort.
'Come on, boy,' he mumbled, rising. 'We've got work to do.'
A red glow suddenly became evident through the trees. The Picts had
fired the last hut. He grinned. How Zogar Sag would froth if he knew his
warriors had let their destructive natures get the better of them. The
fire would warn the people farther up the road. They would be awake and
alert when the fugitives reached them. But his face grew grim. The women
were traveling slowly, on foot and on the overloaded horses. The
swift-footed Picts would run them down within a mile, unless--he took
his position behind a tangle of fallen logs beside the trail. The road
west of him was lighted by the burning cabin, and when the Picts came he
saw them first--black furtive figures etched against the distant glare.
Drawing a shaft to the head, he loosed and one of the figures crumpled.
The rest melted into the woods on either side of the road. Slasher
whimpered with the killing lust beside him. Suddenly a figure appeared
on the fringe of the trail, under the trees, and began gliding toward
the fallen timbers. Balthus' bow-string twanged and the Pict yelped,
staggered and fell into the shadows with the arrow through his thigh.
Slasher cleared the timbers with a bound and leaped into the bushes.
They were violently shaken and then the dog slunk back to Balthus' side,
his jaws crimson.
No more appeared in the trail; Balthus began to fear they were stealing
past his position through the woods, and when he heard a faint sound to
his left he loosed blindly. He cursed as he heard the shaft splinter
against a tree, but Slasher glided away as silently as a phantom, and
presently Balthus heard a thrashing and a gurgling; then Slasher came
like a ghost through the bushes, snuggling his great, crimson-stained
head against Balthus' arm. Blood oozed from a gash in his shoulder, but
the sounds in the wood had ceased for ever.
The men lurking on the edges of the road evidently sensed the fate of
their companion, and decided that an open charge was preferable to being
dragged down in the dark by a devil-beast they could neither see nor
hear. Perhaps they realized that only one man lay behind the logs. They
came with a sudden rush, breaking cover from both sides of the trail.
Three dropped with arrows through them--and the remaining pair
hesitated. One turned and ran back down the road, but the other lunged
over the breastwork, his eyes and teeth gleaming in the dim light, his
ax lifted. Balthus' foot slipped as he sprang up, but the slip saved his
life. The descending ax shaved a lock of hair from his head, and the
Pict rolled down the logs from the force of his wasted blow. Before he
could regain his feet Slasher tore his throat out.
Then followed a tense period of waiting, in which time Balthus wondered
if the man who had fled had been the only survivor of the party.
Obviously it had been a small band that had either left the fighting at
the fort, or was scouting ahead of the main body. Each moment that
passed increased the chances for safety of the women and children
hurrying toward Velitrium.
Then without warning a shower of arrows whistled over his retreat. A
wild howling rose from the woods along the trail. Either the survivor
had gone after aid, or another party had joined the first. The burning
cabin still smoldered, lending a little light. Then they were after him,
gliding through the trees beside the trail. He shot three arrows and
threw the bow away. As if sensing his plight, they came on, not yelling
now, but in deadly silence except for a swift pad of many feet.
He fiercely hugged the head of the great dog growling at his side,
muttered: 'All right, boy, give 'em hell!' and sprang to his feet,
drawing his ax. Then the dark figures flooded over the breastworks and
closed in a storm of flailing axes, stabbing knives and ripping fangs.