Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza (15 page)

Dutulus was standing on a boulder, waving his arms as if beset by angry bees. Vaguely Conan made out that he was shouting something. Then Dutulus pointed off to the north-east, behind Conan.

The Cimmerian turned, his eyes grew colder still, and without a word to the man or the other guards, he drew his sword.

So black that they stood out even against the grey sky, so glossy that they seemed to glow, the pack of flying snakes swept down on the prey offered to them as if tethered at the stake.

At least, “flying snake” was the name that first came to Conan’s mind. Legless, they had fanged heads, long sinuous bodies ten paces long and seemingly covered with scales, and two pairs of broad, leathery wings. He also saw that they seemed to know exactly where they were going, and he doubted that their intentions once they reached their destination were friendly.

“Archers!” Conan bellowed. His voice not only raised echoes, it brought the archers of the pack train to the alert and the archers of his own band out of their hiding places.

The man facing Conan looked at the Cimmerian, then uphill. His look turned into a glare, and his hand went to his sword hilt.

Before he could draw, three of the pack train’s archers let fly. The man had to duck to keep the arrows from parting his hair. By then Conan had grappled him and was shaking him as if to shake his sword out of its scabbard or some wits into his head.

“Those creatures are no friends of ours! If you see treachery where it isn’t, you’re a bigger fool than I thought a man could be. Draw, but not on me, if you don’t want to be snake fodder!”

The man drew, but not in time to avoid that fate. One of the snakes flew directly overhead, then tipped up and plummeted vertically to the man. Its fanged jaws sank into his shoulder, blood spurted, and a throat-tearing scream burst from the man’s lungs. When Conan saw his eyes rolling up in his head, and turning green as they did so—the Cimmerian swung his sword with both hands.

The blade caught the serpent between the two pairs of wings, and nearly sheared through its body in a single stroke. The fanged jaws opened, leaving a bloody wound surrounded by greenish ichor that was rapidly turning black. Then the half-severed serpent thudded to the ground.

Conan’s sword descended again, on the neck. Scale-armoured as it was and thick as Conan’s arm, the neck parted at the blow. It was not just the Cimmerian’s imagination, however, that the head went on snapping its fangs for a moment after the sword cut it off, nor that more of the greenish ichor flowed from the poison glands—nor that where the ichor touched the ground, it smoked.

Conan leaped back, coughing from the merest whiff of that smoke, and looked about for other foes.

One that he faced immediately was human, one of the pack train guards who was convinced that the snakes were Conan’s friends. The Cimmerian wasted no breath in argument, but struck the man’s sword out of his hand. He was trying to grapple the fool, to twist a knife out of his grip, when a snake swooped down and tried to engulf the man’s head in a single bite.

The man was not much shorter than Conan, and he wore a helmet over a mail coif as well as a corselet. The fangs scraped futilely on the man’s armour, giving Conan time to snatch his dagger free and thrust it over the man’s shoulder into the snake’s eye.

The creature let out something more than a hiss and less than a scream, and released its hold. Before it could try for another grip, the man whirled, and stabbed deep into its belly. Conan finished off the writhing creature with a blow that split the skull.

“Your pardon, northerner,” the man said, stamping hard on the snake to end its final twitching. “Where did those—?”

A scream that made all cries before seem like the mewing of kittens half-deafened the Cimmerian. It came from one of the mules, who had two of the snakes attached to it, one tearing at its muzzle, the other at its belly. The creature kicked and bucked frantically, but blood was already flowing and poison working its way deep into the mule’s body.

At last the mule toppled, with a jingling of harness and packsaddle, and the snakes stooped to feed. That was their last mistake. Conan and his former opponent advanced on them, the guard with his recovered sword raised. The fellow chopped through the spine of one snake; Conan, with his longer reach, tore the other’s head off its neck.

But it was too late. The sight and sound of their mate dying had panicked the other mules. They reared, lashing with hooves and teeth and stretching two of their handlers senseless on the ground. Before any others could regain a grip on harness or bridle, the mules clattered off in all directions.

Two surviving snakes seemed to turn end for end in mid-air to follow the mules. This left them all but hanging within bowshot of archers above and below. The creatures’ scales were as good as a corselet, but enough arrows flew to find vital spots. One serpent crashed to earth almost on top of Conan, a second managed to fly a few-score paces before its strength departed and aborted its flight.

By the time Conan had made sure that all of the fallen men were indeed beyond help and all the dead snakes needed no finishing strokes, most of the pack train’s guards had followed the mules. Conan looked at the man who’d fought at his side, and the man looked down at his dead captain, then spat on the ground.

“So much for promises of an easy month’s pay,” he said, mouth twisted. “And I reckon my wife’s a widow by sunset. But if you’ll let me march with you, I can at least go out fighting.”

If the man expected to find Grolin or any of the baron’s friends at the citadel, he would be sadly disappointed. But Conan warmed to the man’s determination. He would have wished the same under like circumstances.

“You can join us,” he said. “But one word of warning. Whatever you see or hear, keep it to yourself, and not so much as a harsh look at Lysinka. I reckon there’s a bigger price on her head in Nemedia than on this side of the border. But we need her head on her shoulders more than you need its price in your purse. And if you don’t understand that, best follow your friends while your head still sits where the gods put it.” The man swore that he was innocent of any ill intention toward Lysinka of Mertyos. He swore this in the name of several gods and two noble houses in Nemedia. He also swore that he would obey Lysinka in all things until he had avenged his comrades.

The man, who called himself Regius Panon, claimed kinship with both of the noble houses he had invoked in his oath. Conan did not care if he claimed descent from the royal house of Atlantis, as long as he kept his oaths and did his share of the work.

Of work, there was more than enough for twice the men present. A messenger was dispatched to the citadel, with an escort in case some of the Nemedians had regained enough courage to lie in wait. As much of the mules’ loads as possible had to be retrieved, for Conan had guessed truly: the beasts had borne food, weapons, and other supplies for Grolin.

“Indeed, it’s known that Grolin has been sent enough to fight a small war,” Panon said. “But don’t be asking me against whom he was to fight, for I do not know.”

“I also doubt you’d tell me if you did,” Conan added dryly. “Never fear, it’s no part of your oath to me to commit treason. But watch your tongue and your back, for there will be those within hearing more curious than I am as to why Nemedia intrigues with bandits in Aquilonia.”

“If this is Aquilonia,” Panon said impudently. “All the maps I saw when I learned soldiering showed this to be Nemedian territory.”

“Maps are drawn mostly by men who’ve never walked the ground they draw,” Conan said with a shrug. “Most of these go in fear of their lives if their maps don’t uphold some potentate’s claim to the Bottomless Swamp of Glur or the like.”

“Indeed,” Panon said. “You’ve clearly been a soldier long enough to make a fine cynic.”

It was then that Dutulus scrambled down from his perch so fast that he stumbled twice and reached Conan bruised, bloody, and dust-covered.

“I’ve spotted the nest of the snakes,” he gasped. Conan handed him a water bottle. The Ranger drank, then repeated his message in more detail.

Conan looked off in the direction where Dutulus pointed. “You can’t see them from here, but they were circling a peak less than a league away,” Dutulus said, “That may not be their nest, but it’s some place where they seem ready to perch.”

Conan clapped his hands together, in both signal and triumph. “Good work, Dutulus. We can learn a trifle more about these pests before nightfall if we work fast.”

The Cimmerian quickly divided his party. All the men volunteered to go with him to seek the lair of the flying snakes, but he only chose six, Dutulus among them. The rest he commanded to return to the citadel, bringing down a party large enough to defend itself while it searched for the fallen and any scattered booty. Conan planned to send Panon back to the citadel, when the Nemedian unexpectedly volunteered to go snake-hunting.

“I know this land, and this is the first time I’ve seen or heard of such creatures,” Panon said. “I won’t be a burden, and I’ve a duty to learn if Grolin’s about anything in the way of magic.”

“Grolin, or any new friends he may have made of late,” Conan said. He decided that the secret of the Soul of Thanza could wait until Panon proved himself further.

“Do your duty as you please,” the Cimmerian went on. “Just remember we stop for no laggards, and this is no safe land for a man benighted alone.”

“I’ll keep up, northerner,” Panon snapped. “I’ve not spent my years of manhood play-soldiering with wine on the table and a wench on my lap.”

Several sets of eyebrows rose, Conan’s among them.

Panon shook his head emphatically. “You would not believe what wine costs in Nemedia, since the last two grape harvests failed. And my wife would break my head if she caught me fondling another woman.”

“Then let’s make sure to send you home with a story that will make her fondle you,” Dutulus shouted, sparking a chorus of bawdy laughter.

The twin-peaked mountain Dutulus had pointed out was a single league away only if one flew like a bird or like one of the monsters they sought. On the ground, it was nearly half again that far, and much of the ground was steep with jagged slopes.

Fortunately Lysinka’s men were among the toughest and hardiest Conan had ever met. Even the Thanza Rangers had sweated to stay on their feet over the rough ground. Fortunately, the sun came out—but the clouds had fled only before a brisk wind that held a biting chill.

Conan remembered travellers’ tales, which spoke of some peaks in the Border Range not too far north of the Thanzas, which remained snowcapped half the summer. Right now, the wind felt as if it had blown across a glacier just beyond the next crest. Even with his northern blood, Conan was happy to be well-clad.

The wind, however, did not slow the scouting party’s march. It was still daylight as they approached the peak. No snakes or birds were to be seen, either flying or perched.

A cave mouth gaped black against yellow-grey rock, atop a near-vertical cliff rising at least three hundred paces. No one was surprised to find that the snakes sought a lofty perch—

“—lest the catamounts and bears make an end of them,” Panon said. No one cared to mention what everyone thought, that the flying snakes might be creations of magic who had no need to fear the common wild beasts.

Conan pointed aloft, toward the northern edge of the cliff face. “There’s something very like a trail going up and around. It passes out of sight halfway up, but I’d wager it goes on around to the far side of the mountain. I’ve never met a flesh-eater who didn’t have a back way out of his lair. I’d wager a gold arm ring that’s where we’ll find another way to attack the snakes.” Even Lysinka’s hill-wise fighters looked askance at the climb Conan was promising. “Better we scout the mountain from down here,” someone said, keeping his back turned toward the Cimmerian.

Conan recognized men who had been led as far as they would go. Keeping his voice light, he said, “True, there’s no need for us all to go. But we need a man aloft, to see if there are any small caves we can’t see from down here. The rest can go roundabout, but—” | “I’ll go with you, Conan,” Dutulus said.

“And I,” Regius Panon joined in.

Conan glowered at both of them. “What makes you think I was going?”

Dutulus made a parody of a deep, courtly bow. “Your pardon, Lord Conan. I had not thought you so fond of sitting by the fire.”

“Nor I,” Panon said. “Besides, if you can’t walk, it will take two of us to carry you down.”

The scouts split, three to climb aloft and three to circle the base of the mountain. The climbers lightened their loads and tied themselves together with ropes around their waists. Conan doubted that the rope could hold his weight, but it might break a fall long enough to let him find a handhold.

The cave high aloft remained as deserted as before, as the three climbers made their way up the rough trail. It had clearly been man-made but so long ago that the men might have carved it with stone hammers or bronze chisels. Below, the scouts on the ground shrank steadily, and Conan saw Panon turning pale.

“Are you fit to go on?”

“Hardly a choice, is there? I just remembered that as a boy I was always queasy about heights.”

Panon remained pale, and once Dutulus had to stop to empty his stomach. But they climbed on as gamely as if hill-bred, seldom forcing even the iron-limbed Cimmerian to slow his pace to accommodate them.

They were now nearly at the edge of the face, and the daylight was beginning to fade. For all they could see and hear, the flying snakes might have been creatures of fantasy, but their noses told them otherwise.

When the breeze blew from the caves above, a pungent odour of ichor and carrion wafted down to them.

The path did not round the edge of the cliff face. Instead it came to an abrupt end in front of an opening in the rock that might once have been a doorway. Aeons of weathering had left it as gaping and shapeless as any natural cave.

Conan stepped forward cautiously, testing the footing with his boots and the chill breeze from the dark opening with his nose.