Conan passed through the hall quickly enough, traversed the outer
chamber and approached the door that led upon the gallery. Then he saw
the floor sprinkled with tiny, glittering shards. The crystal sheet that
had covered the doorway had been shivered to bits, and he remembered the
crash that had accompanied the shattering of the crystal globe. He
believed that every piece of crystal in the castle had broken at that
instant, and some dim instinct or memory of esoteric lore vaguely
suggested the truth of the monstrous connection between the Lords of the
Black Circle and the golden pomegranates. He felt the short hair bristle
chilly at the back of his neck and put the matter hastily out of his
mind.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he stepped out upon the green jade
gallery. There was still the gorge to cross, but at least he could see
the white peaks glistening in the sun, and the long slopes falling away
into the distant blue hazes.
The Irakzai lay where he had fallen, an ugly blotch on the glassy
smoothness. As Conan strode down the winding path, he was surprised to
note the position of the sun. It had not yet passed its zenith; and yet
it seemed to him that hours had passed since he plunged into the castle
of the Black Seers.
He felt an urge to hasten, not a mere blind panic, but an instinct of
peril growing behind his back. He said nothing to Yasmina, and she
seemed content to nestle her dark head against his arching breast and
find security in the clasp of his iron arms. He paused an instant on the
brink of the chasm, frowning down. The haze which danced in the gorge
was no longer rose-hued and sparkling. It was smoky, dim, ghostly, like
the life-tide that flickered thinly in a wounded man. The thought came
vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to
their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the
actors.
But far below, the floor shone like tarnished silver, and the gold
thread sparkled undimmed. Conan shifted Yasmina across his shoulder,
where she lay docilely, and began the descent. Hurriedly he descended
the ramp, and hurriedly he fled across the echoing floor. He had a
conviction that they were racing with time, that their chances of
survival depended upon crossing that gorge of horrors before the wounded
Master of the castle should regain enough power to loose some other doom
upon them.
When he toiled up the farther ramp and came out upon the crest, he
breathed a gusty sigh of relief and stood Yasmina upon her feet.
'You walk from here,' he told her; 'it's downhill all the way.'
She stole a glance at the gleaming pyramid across the chasm; it reared
up against the snowy slope like the citadel of silence and immemorial
evil.
'Are you a magician, that you have conquered the Black Seers of Yimsha,
Conan of Ghor?' she asked, as they went down the path, with his heavy
arm about her supple waist.
'It was a girdle Khemsa gave me before he died,' Conan answered. 'Yes, I
found him on the trail. It is a curious one, which I'll show you when I
have time. Against some spells it was weak, but against others it was
strong, and a good knife is always a hearty incantation.'
'But if the girdle aided you in conquering the Master,' she argued, 'why
did it not aid Khemsa?'
He shook his head. 'Who knows? But Khemsa had been the Master's slave;
perhaps that weakened its magic. He had no hold on me as he had on
Khemsa. Yet I can't say that I conquered him. He retreated, but I have a
feeling that we haven't seen the last of him. I want to put as many
miles between us and his lair as we can.'
He was further relieved to find horses tethered among the tamarisks as
he had left them. He loosed them swiftly and mounted the black stallion,
swinging the girl up before him. The others followed, freshened by their
rest.
'And what now?' she asked. 'To Afghulistan?'
'Not just now!' He grinned hardly. 'Somebody--maybe the governor--killed
my seven headmen. My idiotic followers think I had something to do with
it, and unless I am able to convince them otherwise, they'll hunt me
like a wounded jackal.'
'Then what of me? If the headmen are dead, I am useless to you as a
hostage. Will you slay me, to avenge them?'
He looked down at her, with eyes fiercely aglow, and laughed at the
suggestion.
'Then let us ride to the border,' she said. 'You'll be safe from the
Afghulis there--'
'Yes, on a Vendhyan gibbet.'
'I am Queen of Vendhya,' she reminded him with a touch of her old
imperiousness. 'You have saved my life. You shall be rewarded.'
She did not intend it as it sounded, but he growled in his throat, ill
pleased.
'Keep your bounty for your city-bred dogs, princess! If you're a queen
of the plains, I'm a chief of the hills, and not one foot toward the
border will I take you!'
'But you would be safe--' she began bewilderedly.
'And you'd be the Devi again,' he broke in. 'No, girl; I prefer you as
you are now--a woman of flesh and blood, riding on my saddle-bow.'
'But you can't _keep_ me!' she cried. 'You can't--'
'Watch and see!' he advised grimly.
'But I will pay you a vast ransom--'
'Devil take your ransom!' he answered roughly, his arms hardening about
her supple figure. 'The kingdom of Vendhya could give me nothing I
desire half so much as I desire you. I took you at the risk of my neck;
if your courtiers want you back, let them come up the Zhaibar and fight
for you.'
'But you have no followers now!' she protested. 'You are hunted! How can
you preserve your own life, much less mine?'
'I still have friends in the hills,' he answered. 'There is a chief of
the Khurakzai who will keep you safely while I bicker with the Afghulis.
If they will have none of me, by Crom! I will ride northward with you to
the steppes of the _kozaki_. I was a hetman among the Free Companions
before I rode southward. I'll make you a queen on the Zaporoska River!'
'But I can not!' she objected. 'You must not hold me--'
'If the idea's so repulsive,' he demanded, 'why did you yield your lips
to me so willingly?'
'Even a queen is human,' she answered, coloring. 'But because I am a
queen, I must consider my kingdom. Do not carry me away into some
foreign country. Come back to Vendhya with me!'
'Would you make me your king?' he asked sardonically.
'Well, there are customs--' she stammered, and he interrupted her with a
hard laugh.
'Yes, civilized customs that won't let you do as you wish. You'll marry
some withered old king of the plains, and I can go my way with only the
memory of a few kisses snatched from your lips. Ha!'
'But I must return to my kingdom!' she repeated helplessly.
'Why?' he demanded angrily. 'To chafe your rump on gold thrones, and
listen to the plaudits of smirking, velvet-skirted fools? Where is the
gain? Listen: I was born in the Cimmerian hills where the people are
all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a _kozak_,
and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought
the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?
'I came into Ghulistan to raise a horde and plunder the kingdoms to the
south--your own among them. Being chief of the Afghulis was only a
start. If I can conciliate them, I'll have a dozen tribes following me
within a year. But if I can't I'll ride back to the steppes and loot the
Turanian borders with the _kozaki_. And you'll go with me. To the devil
with your kingdom; they fended for themselves before you were born.'
She lay in his arms looking up at him, and she felt a tug at her spirit,
a lawless, reckless urge that matched his own and was by it called into
being. But a thousand generations of sovereignship rode heavy upon her.
'I can't! I can't!' she repeated helplessly.
'You haven't any choice,' he assured her. 'You--what the devil!'
They had left Yimsha some miles behind them, and were riding along a
high ridge that separated two deep valleys. They had just topped a steep
crest where they could gaze down into the valley on their right hand.
And there was a running fight in progress. A strong wind was blowing
away from them, carrying the sound from their ears, but even so the
clashing of steel and thunder of hoofs welled up from far below.
They saw the glint of the sun on lance-tip and spired helmet. Three
thousand mailed horsemen were driving before them a ragged band of
turbaned riders, who fled snarling and striking like fleeing wolves.
'Turanians,' muttered Conan. 'Squadrons from Secunderam. What the devil
are they doing here?'
'Who are the men they pursue?' asked Yasmina. 'And why do they fall back
so stubbornly? They can not stand against such odds.'
'Five hundred of my mad Afghulis,' he growled, scowling down into the
vale. 'They're in a trap, and they know it.'
The valley was indeed a cul-de-sac at that end. It narrowed to a
high-walled gorge, opening out further into a round bowl, completely
rimmed with lofty, unscalable walls.
The turbaned riders were being forced into this gorge, because there was
nowhere else for them to go, and they went reluctantly, in a shower of
arrows and a whirl of swords. The helmeted riders harried them, but did
not press in too rashly. They knew the desperate fury of the hill
tribes, and they knew too that they had their prey in a trap from which
there was no escape. They had recognized the hill-men as Afghulis, and
they wished to hem them in and force a surrender. They needed hostages
for the purpose they had in mind.
Their emir was a man of decision and initiative. When he reached the
Gurashah valley, and found neither guides nor emissary waiting for him,
he pushed on, trusting to his own knowledge of the country. All the way
from Secunderam there had been fighting, and tribesmen were licking
their wounds in many a crag-perched village. He knew there was a good
chance that neither he nor any of his helmeted spearmen would ever ride
through the gates of Secunderam again, for the tribes would all be up
behind him now, but he was determined to carry out his orders--which
were to take Yasmina Devi from the Afghulis at all costs, and to bring
her captive to Secunderam, or if confronted by impossibility, to strike
off her head before he himself died.
Of all this, of course, the watchers on the ridge were not aware. But
Conan fidgeted with nervousness.
'Why the devil did they get themselves trapped?' he demanded of the
universe at large. 'I know what they're doing in these parts--they were
hunting me, the dogs! Poking into every valley--and found themselves
penned in before they knew it. The poor fools! They're making a stand in
the gorge, but they can't hold out for long. When the Turanians have
pushed them back into the bowl, they'll slaughter them at their
leisure.'
The din welling up from below increased in volume and intensity. In the
strait of the narrow gut, the Afghulis, fighting desperately, were for
the time holding their own against the mailed riders, who could not
throw their whole weight against them.
Conan scowled darkly, moved restlessly, fingering his hilt, and finally
spoke bluntly: 'Devi, I must go down to them. I'll find a place for you
to hide until I come back to you. You spoke of your kingdom--well, I
don't pretend to look on those hairy devils as my children, but after
all, such as they are, they're my henchmen. A chief should never desert
his followers, even if they desert him first. They think they were right
in kicking me out--hell, I won't be cast off! I'm still chief of the
Afghulis, and I'll prove it! I can climb down on foot into the gorge.'
'But what of me?' she queried. 'You carried me away forcibly from _my_
people; now will you leave me to die in the hills alone while you go
down and sacrifice yourself uselessly?'
His veins swelled with the conflict of his emotions.
'That's right,' he muttered helplessly. 'Crom knows what I _can_ do.'
She turned her head slightly, a curious expression dawning on her
beautiful face. Then:
'Listen!' she cried. 'Listen!'
A distant fanfare of trumpets was borne faintly to their ears. They
stared into the deep valley on the left, and caught a glint of steel on
the farther side. A long line of lances and polished helmets moved along
the vale, gleaming in the sunlight.
'The riders of Vendhya!' she cried exultingly.
'There are thousands of them!' muttered Conan. 'It has been long since a
Kshatriya host has ridden this far into the hills.'
'They are searching for me!' she exclaimed. 'Give me your horse! I will
ride to my warriors! The ridge is not so precipitous on the left, and I
can reach the valley floor. I will lead my horsemen into the valley at
the upper end and fall upon the Turanians! We will crush them in the
vise! Quick, Conan! Will you sacrifice your men to your own desire?'
The burning hunger of the steppes and the wintry forests glared out of
his eyes, but he shook his head and swung off the stallion, placing the
reins in her hands.
'You win!' he grunted. 'Ride like the devil!'
She wheeled away down the left-hand slope and he ran swiftly along the
ridge until he reached the long ragged cleft that was the defile in
which the fight raged. Down the rugged wall he scrambled like an ape,
clinging to projections and crevices, to fall at last, feet first, into
the mêlée that raged in the mouth of the gorge. Blades were whickering
and clanging about him, horses rearing and stamping, helmet plumes
nodding among turbans that were stained crimson.
As he hit, he yelled like a wolf, caught a gold-worked rein, and dodging
the sweep of a scimitar, drove his long knife upward through the rider's
vitals. In another instant he was in the saddle, yelling ferocious
orders to the Afghulis. They stared at him stupidly for an instant; then
as they saw the havoc his steel was wreaking among their enemies, they
fell to their work again, accepting him without comment. In that inferno
of licking blades and spurting blood there was no time to ask or answer
questions.
The riders in their spired helmets and gold-worked hauberks swarmed
about the gorge mouth, thrusting and slashing, and the narrow defile was
packed and jammed with horses and men, the warriors crushed breast to
breast, stabbing with shortened blades, slashing murderously when there
was an instant's room to swing a sword. When a man went down he did not
get up from beneath the stamping, swirling hoofs. Weight and sheer
strength counted heavily there, and the chief of the Afghulis did the
work of ten. At such times accustomed habits sway men strongly, and the
warriors, who were used to seeing Conan in their vanguard, were
heartened mightily, despite their distrust of him.
But superior numbers counted too. The pressure of the men behind forced
the horsemen of Turan deeper and deeper into the gorge, in the teeth of
the flickering tulwars. Foot by foot the Afghulis were shoved back,
leaving the defile-floor carpeted with dead, on which the riders
trampled. As he hacked and smote like a man possessed, Conan had time
for some chilling doubts--would Yasmina keep her word? She had but to
join her warriors, turn southward and leave him and his band to perish.
But at last, after what seemed centuries of desperate battling, in the
valley outside there rose another sound above the clash of steel and
yells of slaughter. And then with a burst of trumpets that shook the
walls, and rushing thunder of hoofs, five thousand riders of Vendhya
smote the hosts of Secunderam.
That stroke split the Turanian squadrons asunder, shattered, tore and
rent them and scattered their fragments all over the valley. In an
instant the surge had ebbed back out of the gorge; there was a chaotic,
confused swirl of fighting, horsemen wheeling and smiting singly and in
clusters, and then the emir went down with a Kshatriya lance through his
breast, and the riders in their spired helmets turned their horses down
the valley, spurring like mad and seeking to slash a way through the
swarms which had come upon them from the rear. As they scattered in
flight, the conquerors scattered in pursuit, and all across the valley
floor, and up on the slopes near the mouth and over the crests streamed
the fugitives and the pursuers. The Afghulis, those left to ride, rushed
out of the gorge and joined in the harrying of their foes, accepting the
unexpected alliance as unquestioningly as they had accepted the return
of their repudiated chief.
The sun was sinking toward the distant crags when Conan, his garments
hacked to tatters and the mail under them reeking and clotted with
blood, his knife dripping and crusted to the hilt, strode over the
corpses to where Yasmina Devi sat her horse among her nobles on the
crest of the ridge, near a lofty precipice.
'You kept your word, Devi!' he roared. 'By Crom, though, I had some bad
seconds down in that gorge--_look out!_'
Down from the sky swooped a vulture of tremendous size with a thunder of
wings that knocked men sprawling from their horses.
The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan
was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a
dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched
sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a
thousand feet below. As it dropped, its black wings thrashing the air,
it took on the semblance, not of a bird, but of a black-robed human body
that fell, arms in wide black sleeves thrown abroad.
Conan turned to Yasmina, his red knife still in his hand, his blue eyes
smoldering, blood oozing from wounds on his thickly muscled arms and
thighs.
'You are the Devi again,' he said, grinning fiercely at the gold-clasped
gossamer robe she had donned over her hill-girl attire, and awed not at
all by the imposing array of chivalry about him. 'I have you to thank
for the lives of some three hundred and fifty of my rogues, who are at
least convinced that I didn't betray them. You have put my hands on the
reins of conquest again.'
'I still owe you my ransom,' she said, her dark eyes glowing as they
swept over him. 'Ten thousand pieces of gold I will pay you--'
He made a savage, impatient gesture, shook the blood from his knife and
thrust it back in its scabbard, wiping his hands on his mail.
'I will collect your ransom in my own way, at my own time,' he said. 'I
will collect it in your palace at Ayodhya, and I will come with fifty
thousand men to see that the scales are fair.'
She laughed, gathering her reins into her hands. 'And I will meet you on
the shores of the Jhumda with a hundred thousand!'
His eyes shone with fierce appreciation and admiration, and stepping
back, he lifted his hand with a gesture that was like the assumption of
kingship, indicating that her road was clear before her.