Dawn was just whitening the east when Amalric drew up his hosts in the
mouth of the Valley of Lions. This valley was flanked by low, rolling
but steep hills, and the floor pitched upward in a series of irregular
natural terraces. On the uppermost of these terraces Conan's army held
its position, awaiting the attack. The host that had joined him,
marching down from Gunderland, had not been composed exclusively of
spearmen. With them had come seven thousand Bossonian archers, and four
thousand barons and their retainers of the north and west, swelling the
ranks of his cavalry.
The pikemen were drawn up in a compact wedge-shaped formation at the
narrow head of the valley. There were nineteen thousand of them, mostly
Gundermen, though some four thousand were Aquilonians of other
provinces. They were flanked on either hand by five thousand Bossonian
archers. Behind the ranks of the pikemen the knights sat their steeds
motionless, lances raised: ten thousand knights of Poitain, nine
thousand Aquilonians, barons and their retainers.
It was a strong position. His flanks could not be turned, for that would
mean climbing the steep, wooded hills in the teeth of the arrows and
swords of the Bossonians. His camp lay directly behind him, in a narrow,
steep-walled valley which was indeed merely a continuation of the Valley
of Lions, pitching up at a higher level. He did not fear a surprise from
the rear, because the hills behind him were full of refugees and broken
men whose loyalty to him was beyond question.
But if his position was hard to shake, it was equally hard to escape
from. It was a trap as well as a fortress for the defenders, a desperate
last stand of men who did not expect to survive unless they were
victorious. The only line of retreat possible was through the narrow
valley at their rear.
* * * * *
Xaltotun mounted a hill on the left side of the valley, near the wide
mouth. This hill rose higher than the others, and was known as the
King's Altar, for a reason long forgotten. Only Xaltotun knew, and his
memory dated back three thousand years.
He was not alone. His two familiars, silent, hairy, furtive and dark,
were with him, and they bore a young Aquilonian girl, bound hand and
foot. They laid her on an ancient stone, which was curiously like an
altar, and which crowned the summit of the hill. For long centuries it
had stood there, worn by the elements until many doubted that it was
anything but a curiously shapen natural rock. But what it was, and why
it stood there, Xaltotun remembered from of old. The familiars went
away, with their bent backs like silent gnomes, and Xaltotun stood alone
beside the altar, his dark beard blown in the wind, overlooking the
valley.
He could see clear back to the winding Shirki, and up into the hills
beyond the head of the valley. He could see the gleaming wedge of steel
drawn up at the head of the terraces, the burganets of the archers
glinting among the rocks and bushes, the silent knights motionless on
their steeds, their pennons flowing above their helmets, their lances
rising in a bristling thicket.
Looking in the other direction he could see the long serried lines of
the Nemedians moving in ranks of shining steel into the mouth of the
valley. Behind them the gay pavilions of the lords and knights and the
drab tents of the common soldiers stretched back almost to the river.
Like a river of molten steel the Nemedian host flowed into the valley,
the great scarlet dragon rippling over it. First marched the bowmen, in
even ranks, arbalests half raised, bolts nocked, fingers on triggers.
After them came the pikemen, and behind them the real strength of the
army--the mounted knights, their banners unfurled to the wind, their
lances lifted, walking their great steeds forward as if they rode to a
banquet.
And higher up on the slopes the smaller Aquilonian host stood grimly
silent.
There were thirty thousand Nemedian knights, and, as in most Hyborian
nations, it was the chivalry which was the sword of the army. The
footmen were used only to clear the way for a charge of the armored
knights. There were twenty-one thousand of these, pikemen and archers.
The bowmen began loosing as they advanced, without breaking ranks,
launching their quarrels with a whir and tang. But the bolts fell short
or rattled harmlessly from the overlapping shields of the Gundermen. And
before the arbalesters could come within killing range, the arching
shafts of the Bossonians were wreaking havoc in their ranks.
A little of this, a futile attempt at exchanging fire, and the Nemedian
bowmen began falling back in disorder. Their armor was light, their
weapons no match for the Bossonian longbows. The western archers were
sheltered by bushes and rocks. Moreover, the Nemedian footmen lacked
something of the morale of the horsemen, knowing as they did that they
were being used merely to clear the way for the knights.
The cross-bowmen fell back, and between their opening lines the pikemen
advanced. These were largely mercenaries, and their masters had no
compunction about sacrificing them. They were intended to mask the
advance of the knights until the latter were within smiting distance. So
while the arbalesters plied their bolts from either flank at long range,
the pikemen marched into the teeth of the blast from above, and behind
them the knights came on.
When the pikemen began to falter beneath the savage hail of death that
whistled down the slopes among them, a trumpet blew, their companies
divided to right and left, and through them the mailed knights
thundered.
They ran full into a cloud of stinging death. The clothyard shafts found
every crevice in their armor and the housings of the steeds. Horses
scrambling up the grassy terraces reared and plunged backward, bearing
their riders with them. Steel-clad forms littered the slopes. The charge
wavered and ebbed back.
Back down in the valley Amalric reformed his ranks. Tarascus was
fighting with drawn sword under the scarlet dragon, but it was the baron
of Tor who commanded that day. Amalric swore as he glanced at the forest
of lance-tips visible above and beyond the head-pieces of the Gundermen.
He had hoped his retirement would draw the knights out in a charge down
the slopes after him, to be raked from either flank by his bowmen and
swamped by the numbers of his horsemen. But they had not moved.
Camp-servants brought skins of water from the river. Knights doffed
their helmets and drenched their sweating heads. The wounded on the
slopes screamed vainly for water. In the upper valley, springs supplied
the defenders. They did not thirst that long, hot spring day.
On the King's Altar, beside the ancient, carven stone, Xaltotun watched
the steel tide ebb and flow. On came the knights, with waving plumes and
dipping lances. Through a whistling cloud of arrows they plowed to break
like a thundering wave on the bristling wall of spears and shields. Axes
rose and fell above the plumed helmets, spears thrust upward, bringing
down horses and riders. The pride of the Gundermen was no less fierce
than that of the knights. They were not spear-fodder, to be sacrificed
for the glory of better men. They were the finest infantry in the world,
with a tradition that made their morale unshakable. The kings of
Aquilonia had long learned the worth of unbreakable infantry. They held
their formation unshaken; over their gleaming ranks flowed the great
lion banner, and at the tip of the wedge a giant figure in black armor
roared and smote like a hurricane, with a dripping ax that split steel
and bone alike.
The Nemedians fought as gallantly as their traditions of high courage
demanded. But they could not break the iron wedge, and from the wooded
knolls on either hand arrows raked their close-packed ranks mercilessly.
Their own bowmen were useless, their pikemen unable to climb the heights
and come to grips with the Bossonians. Slowly, stubbornly, sullenly, the
grim knights fell back, counting their empty saddles. Above them the
Gundermen made no outcry of triumph. They closed their ranks, locking up
the gaps made by the fallen. Sweat ran into their eyes from under their
steel caps. They gripped their spears and waited, their fierce hearts
swelling with pride that a king should fight on foot with them. Behind
them the Aquilonian knights had not moved. They sat their steeds, grimly
immobile.
A knight spurred a sweating horse up the hill called the King's Altar,
and glared at Xaltotun with bitter eyes.
'Amalric bids me say that it is time to use your magic, wizard,' he
said. 'We are dying like flies down there in the valley. We cannot break
their ranks.'
Xaltotun seemed to expand, to grow tall and awesome and terrible.
'Return to Amalric,' he said. 'Tell him to re-form his ranks for a
charge, but to await my signal. Before that signal is given he will see
a sight that he will remember until he lies dying!'
The knight saluted as if compelled against his will, and thundered down
the hill at breakneck pace.
Xaltotun stood beside the dark altar-stone and stared across the valley,
at the dead and wounded men on the terraces, at the grim, blood-stained
band at the head of the slopes, at the dusty, steel-clad ranks reforming
in the vale below. He glanced up at the sky, and he glanced down at the
slim white figure on the dark stone. And lifting a dagger inlaid with
archaic hieroglyphs, he intoned an immemorial invocation:
'Set, god of darkness, scaly lord of the shadows, by the blood of a
virgin and the sevenfold symbol I call to your sons below the black
earth! Children of the deeps, below the red earth, under the black
earth, awaken and shake your awful manes! Let the hills rock and the
stones topple upon my enemies! Let the sky grow dark above them, the
earth unstable beneath their feet! Let a wind from the deep black earth
curl up beneath their feet, and blacken and shrivel them----'
He halted short, dagger lifted. In the tense silence the roar of the
hosts rose beneath him, borne on the wind.
On the other side of the altar stood a man in a black hooded robe, whose
coif shadowed pale delicate features and dark eyes calm and meditative.
'Dog of Asura!' whispered Xaltotun, his voice was like the hiss of an
angered serpent. 'Are you mad, that you seek your doom? Ho, Baal!
Chiron!'
'Call again, dog of Acheron!' said the other, and laughed. 'Summon them
loudly. They will not hear, unless your shouts reverberate in hell.'
From a thicket on the edge of the crest came a somber old woman in
peasant garb, her hair flowing over her shoulders, a great gray wolf
following at her heels.
'Witch, priest and wolf,' muttered Xaltotun grimly, and laughed. 'Fools,
to pit your charlatan's mummery against my arts! With a wave of my hand
I brush you from my path!'
'Your arts are straws in the wind, dog of Python,' answered the Asurian.
'Have you wondered why the Shirki did not come down in flood and trap
Conan on the other bank? When I saw the lightning in the night I guessed
your plan, and my spells dispersed the clouds you had summoned before
they could empty their torrents. You did not even know that your
rain-making wizardry had failed.'
'You lie!' cried Xaltotun, but the confidence in his voice was shaken.
'I have felt the impact of a powerful sorcery against mine--but no man
on earth could undo the rain-magic, once made, unless he possessed the
very heart of sorcery.'
'But the flood you plotted did not come to pass,' answered the priest.
'Look at your allies in the valley, Pythonian! You have led them to the
slaughter! They are caught in the fangs of the trap, and you cannot aid
them. Look!'
He pointed. Out of the narrow gorge of the upper valley, behind the
Poitanians, a horseman came flying, whirling something about his head
that flashed in the sun. Recklessly he hurtled down the slopes, through
the ranks of the Gundermen, who sent up a deep-throated roar and clashed
their spears and shields like thunder in the hills. On the terraces
between the hosts the sweat-soaked horse reared and plunged, and his
wild rider yelled and brandished the thing in his hands like one
demented. It was the torn remnant of a scarlet banner, and the sun
struck dazzlingly on the golden scales of a serpent that writhed
thereon.
'Valerius is dead!' cried Hadrathus ringingly. 'A fog and a drum lured
him to his doom! I gathered that fog, dog of Python, and I dispersed it!
I, with my magic which is greater than your magic!'
'What matters it?' roared Xaltotun, a terrible sight, his eyes blazing,
his features convulsed. 'Valerius was a fool. I do not need him. I can
crush Conan without human aid!'
'Why have you delayed?' mocked Hadrathus. 'Why have you allowed so many
of your allies to fall pierced by arrows and spitted on spears?'
'Because blood aids great sorcery!' thundered Xaltotun, in a voice that
made the rocks quiver. A lurid nimbus played about his awful head.
'Because no wizard wastes his strength thoughtlessly. Because I would
conserve my powers for the great days to be, rather than employ them in
a hill-country brawl. But now, by Set, I shall loose them to the
uttermost! Watch, dog of Asura, false priest of an outworn god, and see
a sight that shall blast your reason for evermore!'
Hadrathus threw back his head and laughed, and hell was in his laughter.
'Look, black devil of Python!'
His hand came from under his robe holding something that flamed and
burned in the sun, changing the light to a pulsing golden glow in which
the flesh of Xaltotun looked like the flesh of a corpse.
Xaltotun cried out as if he had been stabbed.
'The Heart! The Heart of Ahriman!'
'Aye! The one power that is greater than your power!'
Xaltotun seemed to shrivel, to grow old. Suddenly his beard was shot
with snow, his locks flecked with gray.
'The Heart!' he mumbled. 'You stole it! Dog! Thief!'
'Not I! It has been on a long journey far to the southward. But now it
is in my hands, and your black arts cannot stand against it. As it
resurrected you, so shall it hurl you back into the night whence it drew
you. You shall go down the dark road to Acheron, which is the road of
silence and the night. The dark empire, unreborn, shall remain a legend
and a black memory. Conan shall reign again. And the Heart of Ahriman
shall go back into the cavern below the temple of Mitra, to burn as a
symbol of the power of Aquilonia for a thousand years!'
Xaltotun screamed inhumanly and rushed around the altar, dagger lifted;
but from somewhere--out of the sky, perhaps, or the great jewel that
blazed in the hand of Hadrathus--shot a jetting beam of blinding blue
light. Full against the breast of Xaltotun it flashed, and the hills
re-echoed the concussion. The wizard of Acheron went down as though
struck by a thunderbolt, and before he touched the ground he was
fearfully altered. Beside the altar-stone lay no fresh-slain corpse, but
a shriveled mummy, a brown, dry, unrecognizable carcass sprawling among
moldering swathings.
Somberly old Zelata looked down.
'He was not a living man,' she said. 'The Heart lent him a false aspect
of life, that deceived even himself. I never saw him as other than a
mummy.'
Hadrathus bent to unbind the swooning girl on the altar, when from among
the trees appeared a strange apparition--Xaltotun's chariot drawn by the
weird horses. Silently they advanced to the altar and halted, with the
chariot wheel almost touching the brown withered thing on the grass.
Hadrathus lifted the body of the wizard and placed it in the chariot.
And without hesitation the uncanny steeds turned and moved off
southward, down the hill. And Hadrathus and Zelata and the gray wolf
watched them go--down the long road to Acheron which is beyond the ken
of men.
* * * * *
Down in the valley Amalric had stiffened in his saddle when he saw that
wild horseman curvetting and caracoling on the slopes while he
brandished that blood-stained serpent-banner. Then some instinct jerked
his head about, toward the hill known as the King's Altar. And his lips
parted. Every man in the valley saw it--an arching shaft of dazzling
light that towered up from the summit of the hill, showering golden
fire. High above the hosts it burst in a blinding blaze that momentarily
paled the sun.
'That's not Xaltotun's signal!' roared the baron.
'No!' shouted Tarascus. 'It's a signal to the Aquilonians! Look!'
Above them the immobile ranks were moving at last, and a deep-throated
roar thundered across the vale.
'Xaltotun has failed us!' bellowed Amalric furiously. 'Valerius has
failed us! We have been led into a trap! Mitra's curse on Xaltotun who
led us here! Sound the retreat!'
'_Too late!_' yelled Tarascus. '_Look!_'
Up on the slopes the forest of lances dipped, leveled. The ranks of the
Gundermen rolled back to right and left like a parting curtain. And with
a thunder like the rising roar of a hurricane, the knights of Aquilonia
crashed down the slopes.
The impetus of that charge was irresistible. Bolts driven by the
demoralized arbalesters glanced from their shields, their bent helmets.
Their plumes and pennons streaming out behind them, their lances
lowered, they swept over the wavering lines of pikemen and roared down
the slopes like a wave.
Amalric yelled an order to charge, and the Nemedians with desperate
courage spurred their horses at the slopes. They still outnumbered the
attackers.
But they were weary men on tired horses, charging uphill. The onrushing
knights had not struck a blow that day. Their horses were fresh. They
were coming downhill and they came like a thunderbolt. And like a
thunderbolt they smote the struggling ranks of the Nemedians--smote
them, split them apart, ripped them asunder and dashed the remnants
headlong down the slopes.
After them on foot came the Gundermen, blood-mad, and the Bossonians
were swarming down the hills, loosing as they ran at every foe that
still moved.
Down the slopes washed the tide of battle, the dazed Nemedians swept on
the crest of the wave. Their archers had thrown down their arbalests and
were fleeing. Such pikemen as had survived the blasting charge of the
knights were cut to pieces by the ruthless Gundermen.
In a wild confusion the battle swept through the wide mouth of the
valley and into the plain beyond. All over the plain swarmed the
warriors, fleeing and pursuing, broken into single combat and clumps of
smiting, hacking knights on rearing, wheeling horses. But the Nemedians
were smashed, broken, unable to re-form or make a stand. By the hundreds
they broke away, spurring for the river. Many reached it, rushed across
and rode eastward. The countryside was up behind them; the people hunted
them like wolves. Few ever reached Tarantia.
The final break did not come until the fall of Amalric. The baron,
striving in vain to rally his men, rode straight at the clump of knights
that followed the giant in black armor whose surcoat bore the royal
lion, and over whose head floated the golden lion banner with the
scarlet leopard of Poitain beside it. A tall warrior in gleaming armor
couched his lance and charged to meet the lord of Tor. They met like a
thunderclap. The Nemedian's lance, striking his foe's helmet, snapped
bolts and rivets and tore off the casque, revealing the features of
Pallantides. But the Aquilonian's lance-head crashed through shield and
breast-plate to transfix the baron's heart.
A roar went up as Amalric was hurled from his saddle, snapping the lance
that impaled him, and the Nemedians gave way as a barrier bursts under
the surging impact of a tidal wave. They rode for the river in a blind
stampede that swept the plain like a whirlwind. The hour of the Dragon
had passed.
Tarascus did not flee. Amalric was dead, the color-bearer slain, and the
royal Nemedian banner trampled in the blood and dust. Most of his
knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them down; Tarascus
knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he raged
through the mêlée, conscious of but one desire--to meet Conan, the
Cimmerian. And at last he met him.
Formations had been destroyed utterly, close-knit bands broken asunder
and swept apart. The crest of Trocero gleamed in one part of the plain,
those of Prospero and Pallantides in others. Conan was alone. The
house-troops of Tarascus had fallen one by one. The two kings met man to
man.
Even as they rode at each other, the horse of Tarascus sobbed and sank
under him. Conan leaped from his own steed and ran at him, as the king
of Nemedia disengaged himself and rose. Steel flashed blindingly in the
sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of armor as
Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous
stroke of Conan's broadsword.
The Cimmerian placed a mail-shod foot on his enemy's breast, and lifted
his sword. His helmet was gone; he shook back his black mane and his
blue eyes blazed with their old fire.
'Do you yield?'
'Will you give me quarter?' demanded the Nemedian.
'Aye. Better than you'd have given me, you dog. Life for you and all
your men who throw down their arms. Though I ought to split your head
for an infernal thief,' the Cimmerian added.
Tarascus twisted his neck and glared over the plain. The remnants of the
Nemedian host were flying across the stone bridge with swarms of
victorious Aquilonians at their heels, smiting with fury of glutted
vengeance. Bossonians and Gundermen were swarming through the camp of
their enemies, tearing the tents to pieces in search of plunder, seizing
prisoners, ripping open the baggage and upsetting the wagons.
Tarascus cursed fervently, and then shrugged his shoulders, as well as
he could, under the circumstances.
'Very well. I have no choice. What are your demands?'
'Surrender to me all your present holdings in Aquilonia. Order your
garrisons to march out of the castles and towns they hold, without their
arms, and get your infernal armies out of Aquilonia as quickly as
possible. In addition you shall return all Aquilonians sold as slaves,
and pay an indemnity to be designated later, when the damage your
occupation of the country has caused has been properly estimated. You
will remain as hostage until these terms have been carried out.'
'Very well,' surrendered Tarascus. 'I will surrender all the castles and
towns now held by my garrisons without resistance, and all the other
things shall be done. What ransom for my body?'
Conan laughed and removed his foot from his foe's steel-clad breast,
grasped his shoulder and heaved him to his feet. He started to speak,
then turned to see Hadrathus approaching him. The priest was as calm and
self-possessed as ever, picking his way between rows of dead men and
horses.
Conan wiped the sweat-smeared dust from his face with a blood-stained
hand. He had fought all through the day, first on foot with the pikemen,
then in the saddle, leading the charge. His surcoat was gone, his armor
splashed with blood and battered with strokes of sword, mace and ax. He
loomed gigantically against a background of blood and slaughter, like
some grim pagan hero of mythology.
'Well done, Hadrathus!' quoth he gustily. 'By Crom, I am glad to see
your signal! My knights were almost mad with impatience and eating their
hearts out to be at sword-strokes. I could not have held them much
longer. What of the wizard?'
'He has gone down the dim road to Acheron,' answered Hadrathus. 'And
I--I am for Tarantia. My work is done here, and I have a task to perform
at the temple of Mitra. All our work is done here. On this field we have
saved Aquilonia--and more than Aquilonia. Your ride to your capital will
be a triumphal procession through a kingdom mad with joy. All Aquilonia
will be cheering the return of their king. And so, until we meet again
in the great royal hall--farewell!'
Conan stood silently watching the priest as he went. From various parts
of the field knights were hurrying toward him. He saw Pallantides,
Trocero, Prospero, Servius Galannus, their armor splashed with crimson.
The thunder of battle was giving way to a roar of triumph and acclaim.
All eyes, hot with strife and shining with exultation, were turned
toward the great black figure of the king; mailed arms brandished
red-stained swords. A confused torrent of sound rose, deep and
thunderous as the sea-surf: '_Hail, Conan, king of Aquilonia!_'
Tarascus spoke.
'You have not yet named my ransom.'
Conan laughed and slapped his sword home in its scabbard. He flexed his
mighty arms, and ran his blood-stained fingers through his thick black
locks, as if feeling there his re-won crown.
'There is a girl in your seraglio named Zenobia.'
'Why, yes, so there is.'
'Very well.' The king smiled as at an exceedingly pleasant memory. 'She
shall be your ransom, and naught else. I will come to Belverus for her
as I promised. She was a slave in Nemedia, but I will make her queen of
Aquilonia!'