In a chamber in a tower near the city wall a group of men listened
attentively to the words of one of their number. They were young men,
but hard and sinewy, with a bearing that comes only to men rendered
desperate by adversity. They were clad in mail shirts and worn leather;
swords hung at their girdles.
'I knew that Conan spoke the truth when he said it was not Taramis!' the
speaker exclaimed. 'For months I have haunted the outskirts of the
palace, playing the part of a deaf beggar. At last I learned what I had
believed--that our queen was a prisoner in the dungeons that adjoin the
palace. I watched my opportunity and captured a Shemitish
jailer--knocked him senseless as he left the courtyard late one
night--dragged him into a cellar near by and questioned him. Before he
died he told me what I have just told you, and what we have suspected
all along--that the woman ruling Khauran is a witch: Salome. Taramis, he
said, is imprisoned in the lowest dungeon.
'This invasion of the Zuagirs gives us the opportunity we sought. What
Conan means to do, I can not say. Perhaps he merely wishes vengeance on
Constantius. Perhaps he intends sacking the city and destroying it. He
is a barbarian and no one can understand their minds.
'But this is what we must do: rescue Taramis while the battle rages!
Constantius will march out into the plain to give battle. Even now his
men are mounting. He will do this because there is not sufficient food
in the city to stand a siege. Conan burst out of the desert so suddenly
that there was no time to bring in supplies. And the Cimmerian is
equipped for a siege. Scouts have reported that the Zuagirs have siege
engines, built, undoubtedly, according to the instructions of Conan, who
learned all the arts of war among the Western nations.
'Constantius does not desire a long siege; so he will march with his
warriors into the plain, where he expects to scatter Conan's forces at
one stroke. He will leave only a few hundred men in the city, and they
will be on the walls and in the towers commanding the gates.
'The prison will be left all but unguarded. When we have freed Taramis
our next actions will depend upon circumstances. If Conan wins, we must
show Taramis to the people and bid them rise--they will! Oh, they will!
With their bare hands they are enough to overpower the Shemites left in
the city and close the gates against both the mercenaries and the
nomads. Neither must get within the walls! Then we will parley with
Conan. He was always loyal to Taramis. If he knows the truth, and she
appeals to him, I believe he will spare the city. If, which is more
probable, Constantius prevails, and Conan is routed, we must steal out
of the city with the queen and seek safety in flight.
'Is all clear?'
They replied with one voice.
'Then let us loosen our blades in our scabbards, commend our souls to
Ishtar, and start for the prison, for the mercenaries are already
marching through the southern gate.'
* * * * *
This was true. The dawnlight glinted on peaked helmets pouring in a
steady stream through the broad arch, on the bright housings of the
chargers. This would be a battle of horsemen, such as is possible only
in the lands of the East. The riders flowed through the gates like a
river of steel--sombre figures in black and silver mail, with their
curled beards and hooked noses, and their inexorable eyes in which
glimmered the fatality of their race--the utter lack of doubt or of
mercy.
The streets and the walls were lined with throngs of people who watched
silently these warriors of an alien race riding forth to defend their
native city. There was no sound; dully, expressionless they watched,
those gaunt people in shabby garments, their caps in their hands.
In a tower that overlooked the broad street that led to the southern
gate, Salome lolled on a velvet couch cynically watching Constantius as
he settled his broad sword-belt about his lean hips and drew on his
gauntlets. They were alone in the chamber. Outside, the rhythmical clank
of harness and shuffle of horses' hoofs welled up through the
gold-barred casements.
'Before nightfall,' quoth Constantius, giving a twirl to his thin
mustache, 'you'll have some captives to feed to your temple-devil. Does
it not grow weary of soft, city-bred flesh? Perhaps it would relish the
harder thews of a desert man.'
'Take care you do not fall prey to a fiercer beast than Thaug,' warned
the girl. 'Do not forget who it is that leads these desert animals.'
'I am not likely to forget,' he answered. 'That is one reason why I am
advancing to meet him. The dog has fought in the West and knows the art
of siege. My scouts had some trouble in approaching his columns, for his
outriders have eyes like hawks; but they did get close enough to see the
engines he is dragging on ox-cart wheels drawn by camels--catapults,
rams, ballistas, mangonels--by Ishtar! he must have had ten thousand men
working day and night for a month. Where he got the material for their
construction is more than I can understand. Perhaps he has a treaty with
the Turanians, and gets supplies from them.
'Anyway, they won't do him any good. I've fought these desert wolves
before--an exchange of arrows for awhile, in which the armor of my
warriors protects them--then a charge and my squadrons sweep through the
loose swarms of the nomads, wheel and sweep back through, scattering
them to the four winds. I'll ride back through the south gate before
sunset, with hundreds of naked captives staggering at my horse's tail.
We'll hold a fĂȘte tonight, in the great square. My soldiers delight in
flaying their enemies alive--we will have a wholesale skinning, and make
these weak-kneed townsfolk watch. As for Conan, it will afford me
intense pleasure, if we take him alive, to impale him on the palace
steps.'
'Skin as many as you like,' answered Salome indifferently. 'I would like
a dress made of human hide. But at least a hundred captives you must
give to me--for the altar, and for Thaug.'
'It shall be done,' answered Constantius, with his gauntleted hand
brushing back the thin hair from his high bald forehead, burned dark by
the sun. 'For victory and the fair honor of Taramis!' he said
sardonically, and, taking his vizored helmet under his arm, he lifted a
hand in salute, and strode clanking from the chamber. His voice drifted
back, harshly lifted in orders to his officers.
Salome leaned back on the couch, yawned, stretched herself like a great
supple cat, and called: 'Zang!'
A cat-footed priest, with features like yellowed parchment stretched
over a skull, entered noiselessly.
Salome turned to an ivory pedestal on which stood two crystal globes,
and taking from it the smaller, she handed the glistening sphere to the
priest.
'Ride with Constantius,' she said. 'Give me the news of the battle. Go!'
The skull-faced man bowed low, and hiding the globe under his dark
mantle, hurried from the chamber.
Outside in the city there was no sound, except the clank of hoofs and
after a while the clang of a closing gate. Salome mounted a wide marble
stair that led to the flat, canopied, marble-battlemented roof. She was
above all other buildings in the city. The streets were deserted, the
great square in front of the palace was empty. In normal times folk
shunned the grim temple which rose on the opposite side of that square,
but now the town looked like a dead city. Only on the southern wall and
the roofs that overlooked it was there any sign of life. There the
people massed thickly. They made no demonstration, did not know whether
to hope for the victory or defeat of Constantius. Victory meant further
misery under his intolerable rule; defeat probably meant the sack of the
city and red massacre. No word had come from Conan. They did not know
what to expect at his hands. They remembered that he was a barbarian.
* * * * *
The squadrons of the mercenaries were moving out into the plain. In the
distance, just this side of the river, other dark masses were moving,
barely recognizable as men on horses. Objects dotted the farther bank;
Conan had not brought his siege engines across the river, apparently
fearing an attack in the midst of the crossing. But he had crossed with
his full force of horsemen. The sun rose and struck glints of fire from
the dark multitudes. The squadrons from the city broke into a gallop; a
deep roar reached the ears of the people on the wall.
The rolling masses merged, intermingled; at that distance it was a
tangled confusion in which no details stood out. Charge and
counter-charge were not to be identified. Clouds of dust rose from the
plains, under the stamping hoofs, veiling the action. Through these
swirling clouds masses of riders loomed, appearing and disappearing, and
spears flashed.
Salome shrugged her shoulders and descended the stair. The palace lay
silent. All the slaves were on the wall, gazing vainly southward with
the citizens.
She entered the chamber where she had talked with Constantius, and
approached the pedestal, noting that the crystal globe was clouded, shot
with bloody streaks of crimson. She bent over the ball, swearing under
her breath.
'Zang!' she called. 'Zang!'
Mists swirled in the sphere, resolving themselves into billowing
dust-clouds through which black figures rushed unrecognizably; steel
glinted like lightning in the murk. Then the face of Zang leaped into
startling distinctness; it was as if the wide eyes gazed up at Salome.
Blood trickled from a gash in the skull-like head, the skin was gray
with sweat-runneled dust. The lips parted, writhing; to other ears than
Salome's it would have seemed that the face in the crystal contorted
silently. But sound to her came as plainly from those ashen lips as if
the priest had been in the same room with her, instead of miles away,
shouting into the smaller crystal. Only the gods of darkness knew what
unseen, magic filaments linked together those shimmering spheres.
'Salome!' shrieked the bloody head. '_Salome!_'
'I hear!' she cried. 'Speak! How goes the battle?'
'Doom is upon us!' screamed the skull-like apparition. 'Khauran is lost!
_Aie_, my horse is down and I can not win clear! Men are falling around
me! They are dying like flies, in their silvered mail!'
'Stop yammering and tell me what happened!' she cried harshly.
'We rode at the desert-dogs and they came on to meet us!' yowled the
priest. 'Arrows flew in clouds between the hosts, and the nomads
wavered. Constantius ordered the charge. In even ranks we thundered upon
them.
'Then the masses of their horde opened to right and left, and through
the cleft rushed three thousand Hyborian horsemen whose presence we had
not even suspected. Men of Khauran, mad with hate! Big men in full armor
on massive horses! In a solid wedge of steel they smote us like a
thunderbolt. They split our ranks asunder before we knew what was upon
us, and then the desert-men swarmed on us from either flank.
'They have ripped our ranks apart, broken and scattered us! It is a
trick of that devil Conan! The siege engines are false--mere frames of
palm trunks and painted silk, that fooled our scouts who saw them from
afar. A trick to draw us out to our doom! Our warriors flee!
Khumbanigash is down--Conan slew him. I do not see Constantius. The
Khaurani rage through our milling masses like blood-mad lions, and the
desert-men feather us with arrows. I--ahh!'
There was a flicker as of lightning, or trenchant steel, a burst of
bright blood--then abruptly the image vanished, like a bursting bubble,
and Salome was staring into an empty crystal ball that mirrored only her
own furious features.
She stood perfectly still for a few moments, erect and staring into
space. Then she clapped her hands and another skull-like priest entered,
as silent and immobile as the first.
'Constantius is beaten,' she said swiftly. 'We are doomed. Conan will be
crashing at our gates within the hour. If he catches me, I have no
illusions as to what I can expect. But first I am going to make sure
that my cursed sister never ascends the throne again. Follow me! Come
what may, we shall give Thaug a feast.'
As she descended the stairs and galleries of the palace, she heard a
faint rising echo from the distant walls. The people there had begun to
realize that the battle was going against Constantius. Through the dust
clouds masses of horsemen were visible, racing toward the city.
Palace and prison were connected by a long closed gallery, whose vaulted
roof rose on gloomy arches. Hurrying along this, the false queen and her
slave passed through a heavy door at the other end that let them into
the dim-lit recesses of the prison. They had emerged into a wide, arched
corridor at a point near where a stone stair descended into the
darkness. Salome recoiled suddenly, swearing. In the gloom of the hall
lay a motionless form--a Shemitish jailer, his short beard tilted toward
the roof as his head hung on a half-severed neck. As panting voices from
below reached the girl's ears, she shrank back into the black shadow of
an arch, pushing the priest behind her, her hand groping in her girdle.