The trail wound southward through the lush Kothian Hills, its
meandering length of hard-packed earth coursing along more like a young stream
than a footpath. To the sides of the trail, slopes burgeoning with vegetation
rose up and rolled away to each distant horizon, their leafy cover often serving
to impede an eye in search of potential headings.
Mounted atop a hulking warhorse, Conan the Cimmerian, lately of Ophir, found
his bearings by way of the sun's position high above the greenery. He turned his
face away from the sky and paused a moment, broodingly, before gesturing down at
the trail with a callused hand. "These tracks are fresher than the last, no more
than a day old, and they bear the marks of eight riders." His eyes narrowed upon
the Turanian riding a grey charger several paces away. "I thought you said this
trail was little known?"
Tukali shrugged, apparently unconcerned. He inclined his head, and sunlight
glinted dully from the clasp holding his spire-helmeted turban in place. "I said
the trail was little known, not little traveled." He glanced away from Conan's
icy stare and spread his arms at the hills around them. "They are probably only
men like ourselves, evading the tax-collectors at the border posts," he offered.
"I suppose we could have taken the main road. That's where all the guards
are--keeping the merchant ilk safe and the revenues flowing." Tukali smirked
knowingly at Conan. "I had thought, though, that you wished to avoid any taxes
since your ill luck at the gaming tables in Ianthe."
"True enough," Conan replied, his tone losing some of its edge. "Perchance on
our arrival in Khorshemish we'll find work guarding some wealthy lordling's hide
and so cure our flagging purses. Until then, I'd like to avoid any
confrontations with the locals that might attract unwanted attention. I have
little enough coin as it is, and border guards tend to be suspicious of armed
men riding abroad all but penniless!"
Tukali grunted in acknowledgment and spurred his horse to catch up with
Conan's, which had suddenly trotted past him. "Your horse must smell water. This
trail leads to a lake just before it circles around a border post some leagues
ahead."
Though Conan was several years younger than the Turanian, he was easily the
more experienced of the two. Long used to the habits of beasts of war, Conan
shook his steel-helmed head at Tukali's suggestion. "Nay, I think not. Our
horses are well fed and watered, and the land provides good foraging. I think
they smell something else, something closer than a few leagues . . ." Conan
reined in his steed and stood in the stirrups, his red cape billowing out behind
him in the breeze as he craned his head and sniffed. "Do you smell that?"
Tukali halted his horse and took several hesitant whiffs of the summer air.
"You're either imagining things, or you've the nose of a hound," he said,
shaking his head in baffled annoyance. "I smell nothing."
"It's carnage--a lot of it." Conan settled his large frame back into the
saddle. "A recent enough kill, I'd wager, and not very far ahead." He peered
intently up at the leaf-covered crests around them while Tukali looked at him in
wonderment. Conan continued, "These hills provide too many likely ambushes. Ever
since we left Ophir I've felt as if we were being watched or followed. We had
best be cautious."
The two men again urged their horses forward. Conan, his eyes glued to the
sides of the trail ahead of them, didn't notice the brief look of worry steal
across Tukali's face as he finally caught the coppery tang of death on the
noonday breeze.
After about a quarter hour's cautious ride, they came across the first corpse
lying in the middle of the path about fifty feet ahead of them. Before Tukali
could even comment, Conan was spurring his mount up the side-trail of a nearby
slope, scoping among the trees for signs of lurking treachery. Tukali squinted
at the hills around him, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, cantered his
horse to where the corpse lay.
Conan soon finished scouting out the area, having searched the foliage of the
surrounding hilltops to his satisfaction. Finding nothing amiss, he headed back
toward Tukali, who had dismounted next to the corpse. Conan rode up beside
Tukali's horse and swung down next to the body, scarcely making a noise as he
landed on the dirt trail. Tukali looked up at the sudden intrusion. "It would
seem that the scavengers arrived well before we did." Tukali nodded toward the
legless torso lying face-down before them. "His legs must have been scattered by
the local wildlife." He pointed an unsteady hand to a spot about ten yards ahead
on the trail where two legs, looking chewed and ravaged, lay slightly apart in a
pool of congealed blood.
Conan looked down at the legless body and flipped it over with a booted foot.
As the corpse rolled onto its back, Conan heard Tukali stifle a cry. Conan was
more than a little surprised at the other warrior's skittishness. "Have you
never looked upon the face of a dead man before?" he asked, eying Tukali
curiously.
Tukali's face paled visibly as he looked at Conan in confusion. "I have," he
said, looking back down again. "I just didn't expect to see one of my fellow
countrymen lying . . . dead," Tukali bit off the last word as if it left a
bitter taste in his mouth to speak it, "so far from Turan." He turned away from
the corpse and started rooting around in one of his horse's saddlebags. "I must
bury him here, as is my country's custom."
Conan looked over the corpse. A dark, bearded face stared sightlessly up into
the summer sky. The dead man's mouth was frozen in a rictus of fright. He had
been wearing a chain mail hauberk, which had done little to protect his legs
from being cut off like they were. Conan looked at the chain mail around the
stumps of the legs a little more closely, and to his surprise, found that the
flesh and metal there had not been sheared like he would have expected from
sword blows, but had instead been fused. Conan looked over the rest of the
corpse. "Your fellow countryman wears no Turanian garb. He has not even a
turban. Why do you assume he's Turanian, and not just of mixed race?"
Tukali looked up from where he had started digging a grave with a short blade
just to the side of the path. He jammed the blade into the ground. "What?"
"This man may not be a Turanian at all. Are you sure?" Conan asked, thinking
to save time on their journey if it turned out Tukali didn't have to bury the
man. Sometimes it wasn't so bad to let the vultures have their meal.
"Of course I'm sure!" Tukali snapped, his face mottling in anger. Then his
expression shifted to one of indignation. "Think you that I would not know one
of my own?" Tukali kneeled on the grass, the grave deepening steadily as he
resumed shoveling mounds of dirt from the hole at a furious pace.
Conan shrugged inwardly, deciding to let the matter pass. "The quiver of
arrows on his back does look of Turanian make after all," he mused aloud. Tukali
looked up distractedly, grunting curtly in agreement.
"Do what you have to do," Conan said. "I'm going to scout on ahead to see if
whoever did this might be lying in wait for us as well."
Tukali stared suddenly up at Conan, then blinked. "Of course. I won't be too
long here." He went back to his digging, quietly humming a Turanian burial hymn.
Conan stood looking down at him for a moment longer, thinking to say something
more, but he balked. Mounting his horse instead, he headed on down the trail.
The smell of blood and rot grew sharper in his nostrils as Conan rode to the
summit of yet another hill in a long succession of hills along the path into
Koth. As Conan gained the top, he was nearly overwhelmed by the stench of dead
meat baking in the afternoon sun. He looked down into the grassy, miniature
valley-like depression between hills where the bodies lay in heaps of gore. More
than a dozen startled crows took flight as Conan dismounted and led his horse
down into the center of the bloody scene.
Conan judged accurately that these had probably been the main group of riders
whose tracks he'd been monitoring during his trip south. By the looks of the
place, the riders had had enough time to set up camp before they were attacked.
Conan examined the remains of the burnt-out campfire and determined that these
men had been laid upon sometime during the previous night. The big Cimmerian led
his steed to graze some distance away from the camp before he searched the
bodies for clues as to the nature of the attack.
The first corpse Conan examined had a huge hole punched in its torso, as if a
giant fist had slammed the meat right out of its chest. The odd thing was, Conan
noted as he hunkered down next to the body, was that the flesh again looked
melted, the wound cauterized, like the legs of the corpse back on the trail. The
meat that was missing from the body lay a few yards away in a bloody heap, now
swarming and buzzing with flies.
Conan rose and inspected the rest of the bodies. All of them, aside from
being Turanian warriors, were missing various portions of flesh; the parts,
Conan discovered, were spread across the site as if a whirlwind had ripped and
flung them from their original owners. None of the body parts appeared charred,
however, and neither were any of the fallen weapons, swords and bows alike.
Conan's cursory investigation of this charnel scene also revealed the tracks
of eight horses, scattered in all directions through both grass and gore,
leading away from the blood-soaked camp. No other sign of the beasts was to be
found. A slight breeze stirred Conan's black mane as he stood alone pondering
the mystery. No sign of the attackers, nothing apparently stolen, and all
apparently killed by some kind of sorcery. No mere bandit's ambush was this,
although the Turanians here looked as if they had been set up to ambush someone
themselves, maybe even him and Tukali. But why? "What does it matter?" Conan
muttered aloud. Men were always killing each other, often for the strangest of
reasons.
The faint jingle of a horse's harness caught Conan's attention, and he turned
toward the sound. Tukali was just cresting the hill along the path. Conan called
out to him. "Turanian! There's more of your countrymen here, same as the first!"
Conan swept his arm around at the clearing, indicating the rotting meat that was
once a group of men.
Tukali's eyes widened in surprise upon hearing Conan's voice. He cringed
inwardly at the sight of the gore-drenched landscape and a numb, disbelieving
look crept across his face.
Tukali's horse came to a halt beside Conan. "We have no time to bury these,"
Conan said. He looked at Tukali, who nodded reluctantly. Conan whistled for his
horse, which trotted up to him and turned so he could mount. "We're leaving.
Now." Conan pointed around the clearing, indicating the corpses. "This place
stinks of sorcery and I want nothing to do with it." He jumped into the saddle.
Tukali's crestfallen look subsided a bit as he spoke. "We're not very far
from Khorshemish. Only a couple days' ride."
Conan led the two at a gallop down the trail, Tukali glancing fearfully back
over his shoulder.
The sun was sinking low on the western horizon, the gibbous moon already on
the rise in the cloudy eastern sky when Conan and Tukali finally reached the top
of the last tree-dotted hill that had previously hidden the small lake from
their view. From his vantage point, Conan could see that beyond the hill
bordering the lake in the valley below, a large wooden enclosure, a border post
by the looks of it and if Tukali was to be believed, lay in the center of a
small plain in the midst of the surrounding hills. Conan assumed that the
whitish-brown ribbon weaving its way alongside and then past the border post was
a cobbled road meant for official, if not always friendly, travel between the
kingdoms of Koth and Ophir.
"As you know, Khorshemish, the Queen of the South, lies at the end of that
road," Tukali declared, almost cheerful at the prospect of leaving far behind
whatever had killed the men back on the trail. "Our path skirts this lake,
circles around through the hills that hedge that border post, and joins up with
the main road as it leaves the hill country."
Conan studied the landscape before him and frowned. "I haven't seen any
patrols. Surely the border guards aren't so busy these days that they have no
time to scout outlying trails like this one?"
"Oh, they send out the occasional patrols. But most of the guards around here
aren't so eager to cut off the flow of coins to their own purses." At Conan's
questioning look, Tukali continued. "The guards in these parts are the
recipients of certain . . . ah, royalties, for the allowed use of these paths."
"Slavers and smugglers avoiding the tariff," Conan said, snorting in disgust.
"It seems to be the nature of these civilized nations to make up their own rules
just so they can break them." His grin was leonine. "But I'll not complain
overmuch. 'Tis the same underhandedness of wealthy, civilized men that keeps the
mercenary trade flourishing."
Tukali grunted noncommittally and pointed to a lone grove at the western rim
of the lake. "We should probably make camp among those trees near the water."
"A choice spot," Conan agreed. "Lets get there while there's still light."
The two men spurred their mounts down the gentle slope of the hill toward the
valley below.
Evening swam with the chirps of birds settling in for the night and the smell
of cooked fish emanating from the middle of the grove. The gentle lapping of
water on the shore at the edge of the trees was barely audible above the crackle
of the campfire as Conan and Tukali finished off their meal of roasted fish,
hard cheese, various cooked roots from the surrounding fields and water from one
of the small streams that fed the lake. The heated day's air was already cooling
with the onset of night, and both men were glad for it, having travelled far in
the summer heat already. Conan's warhorse and Tukali's charger stood cropping
grass at the outside rim of the trees close to the lake, dipping their graceful
heads low to drink the cool water.
Conan was the first to finish eating, and as he sat tending the fire he
contemplated the day's events in the sullen silence that was typical of his
northern race. He wasn't pleased with the possible implications mutely suggested
by the slain men. It was unlikely they were attacked by bandits, for nothing
appeared to be stolen from the corpses, and even though the band's horses were
missing, it appeared that they had simply run off during the slaughter. Murder
was the only real motive that Conan could come up with. But why? And by whom?
Those men, Conan thought to himself, weren't killed by any weapon he had ever
come across. Instead it appeared that something hot enough to melt steel and
fast enough that it wouldn't char flesh in its passing had cut the men to pieces
where they stood. "Sorcery," Conan growled to himself.
"Eh?" Tukali looked up as he washed down the last of his fish with a swig
from his waterskin. "Sorcery, did you say?"
"Aye," Conan replied. "That man you buried today. Did you not notice how he
was killed?"
Tukali shook his head as he set the waterskin down. "Truth be told, I didn't.
I guess I only assumed that the wound was such that I couldn't readily see it
beneath the armor, or maybe it was obscured when the scavengers started in on
the corpse." Tukali narrowed his eyes in interest. "Why do you think it was
sorcery?"
Conan thrust a stick in the fire, making embers crackle and causing sparks to
flutter upward. The flames reflected coldly in Conan's blue-gray eyes. "That
Turanian's legs were not chewed off by the scavengers that dragged them away
from his body. That first man died after his legs came off, not before." He
paused, pulled the charred stick out of the fire, then continued. "The armor
around his legs was melted, as was the flesh. Melted, but not exactly burned. It
was the same with the wounds on the rest of them, albeit different body parts
were removed, but all in the same way." Conan spat into the flames. "Only a
sorcerer could do that," he said with a grimace.
Tukali was silent for a few moments, lost in thought as he watched the fire
dance before him. "Earlier I noticed clouds moving in from the east," he said.
"If the rains break tonight, we should have ample enough cover to shield us from
any patrols," Tukali's eyes gleamed eerily in the firelight, "assuming they
would even bother to venture out in such weather."
As Tukali spoke, Conan noticed his strange look, as if the Turanian was
keeping something to himself, and Conan felt suddenly ill at ease; what did he
really know about Tukali? Was he truly a mercenary in search of employment in
Khorshemish, as he claimed, or was he something else? As much as he hated to
doubt those he had befriended, Conan felt compelled to learn more. Leaning back,
he asked, "Tell me, Tukali, were you always a fighting man?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what did you do before you took up soldiering? In my younger days I
was a blacksmith, among other things, taught by my father as he was taught
before me." Conan gazed into the fire, as if seeing in the flames the Cimmerian
village where he grew up.
"Well," Tukali paused, unsure of what answer was expected of him, "I was born
into a merchant family in Aghrapur, where I started learning the family trade
from the age I could speak." A look of regret crossed Tukali's features.
"Unfortunately, I learned that I possessed no head for business, so when I
reached manhood, I enlisted with the Turanian army where I served my country and
my Shah for several years. I guess I grew restless scouting and guarding
Imperial caravans, because when the time came for me to decide whether or not to
continue my service, I chose to seek my own path, to explore the nations of the
west."
Conan nodded at Tukali's story. It seemed innocent enough, and much like his
own in some ways, at least about the desire to see the world. "I too left my
homeland in search of adventure, selling my sword along the way. So far, I've
seen many wondrous things and travelled to many foreign lands." Conan decided it
would be prudent to leave out the fact that he'd even served as a cavalry
captain in the royal guard in Aghrapur, a post that had ended abruptly with his
desertion after being caught with the mistress of his commander. Tukali was
Turanian, after all, and he might not look favorably upon a man who had deserted
from the army of his homeland.
The campfire had already started to die down, and the night had grown still
except for the faint rustling of leaves by the cooling night breezes. "We'll
rise before dawn so we can pass that guard post in darkness. If it does rain,
all the better for our cover," Conan suggested. He moved silently to the edge of
the grove and spread his bedroll on the grass beside the bulk of his armor and
equipment beneath an aging oak. He settled himself in for the night, his sword
and dagger, as always, only a few inches from his body. "I'll wake you before
the morn."
Tukali muttered in assent and rolled over on his blanket, his back to the
campfire's glowing embers.
Conan wasn't the first to awaken, even though he had no problem rousing
himself at the appointed time before dawn; Tukali awoke cursing, loudly, as the
first few drops of rain pelted him in the face where he had lain asleep in the
unprotected center of the grove. Conan, fully awake, grinned from beneath the
relative shelter of the oak. "Do you enjoy the rain so much, Turanian? I myself
prefer not to sleep in it if I can help it," Conan laughed.
Tukali grumbled an incoherent and sleepy reply as he fumbled around in the
semi-darkness of the pre-dawn, snatching up his belongings as he chanced upon
them. By the time Tukali finished buckling on the last of his armor, Conan was
already dressed and packed, sitting in the saddle of his warhorse munching on
some fish preserved from the night before. Tukali was a little nonplussed at
Conan's swiftness in breaking camp, for he hadn't even seen or heard him move.
He barely caught the piece of fish that Conan tossed his way, and it almost
slipped out of his hands in the wet of the early morning rain. Tukali climbed
aboard his grey mount, and the horses, eager to stretch their legs after their
night's sleep, carried the two warriors at a brisk trot down the trail.
The trail led them around the edge of the lake, and as the riders passed the
shore they could hear the calls and splashings of various waterfowl fishing
through the chill waters for breakfast.
In the dull patter of the rain there wasn't much else to be heard. Conan
listened anyway, straining his keen hearing for any sound that was out of place,
but he heard nothing, which wasn't altogether a good sign. The trail crept
steadily up the slope of one of the hills that hid the distant fort from view.
As their mounts climbed the slope, a small path split off, going straight to the
top, no doubt one of many side-trails created by riders seeking to view the
activity of the fort.
Conan steered his horse up the hill while Tukali remained on the main trail
at a slower pace. It only took a few moments for Conan to gain the top, but when
he did there wasn't much to see, the view being obscured as it was by falling
rain. Conan could, however, just barely make out the flickering of distant
lanterns set at intervals upon the fort's high walls; other than that, nothing
else was visible.
Conan swiftly rejoined Tukali on the trail, his horse easily keeping its
footing on the wet path.
"Saw you anything, Cimmerian?" Tukali asked as their horses cantered onward.
"Naught but the sentry lights. This rain hides the guards from view as well
as it hides us from them." Conan shook his black mane, more to clear the water
from his eyes than in annoyance, and pulled the hood of his cloak lower over his
forehead. "At least its unlikely any patrols are about."
The two men rode on, the path turning gradually southward as it passed
through the hills, outflanking the fort. The constant, steady hiss of the rain
as it pelted grass, rocks and trees was almost calming.
The rainfall grew stronger. Rivulets of water flowed off the surrounding
hills and etched paths of their own in the dirt and stone of the trail, creating
tiny side-streams and making the going more slippery for the horses. As Conan
rode through the rain, he noted that the sun should already be clear of the
eastern horizon, even if he couldn't see it through the downpour and the heavy
cloud cover. Enough sunlight filtered through for the men and horses to see
where they were going, but it was akin to riding under bright moonlight.
Tukali rode several horse-lengths behind Conan, wrapped up in his thoughts as
tightly as he was wrapped in his cloak. No man had ever called Tukali a coward,
but he had wit enough to know when he was outmatched, and Conan definitely
outmatched him. Never had he seen a man so huge or so deadly! To Tukali, Conan
seemed more like a force of nature than a mortal. All the same, he knew he had
to at least try to incapacitate him before they arrived in Khorshemish. Even if
he failed, his superiors would understand that. But they wouldn't understand his
not attempting the task they had set before him.
Tukali reached down into the quiver strapped to the side of his saddle,
flipped up the leather cover and pulled out the arrow. He examined the snubbed
tip closely, noting that the purple lotus paste was still intact in the grooves
along the arrowhead where he had secretly coated it the night before. Though he
knew he had enough of the narcotic on the arrow to paralyze a bull, to him the
weapon somehow seemed inadequate, as if it were but a child's toy that would
break and fail if he attempted to use it on the Cimmerian. He had no choice. His
men were all dead, mysteriously slaughtered at the spot where they were waiting
to capture Conan. He knew that he hadn't really missed his chance last night,
considering that Conan slept like some wary jungle cat, seemingly with one eye
always open.
Tukali hid the arrow within easy reach inside his cloak, hoping that a
suitable chance would arise enabling him to use it. Until then, he would have to
wait, especially if he didn't want to get skewered while he was still drawing
his bow.
The morning sky grew steadily darker as the rain fell even harder. What
little light that had made it through the clouds before had now dwindled so much
that it was like midnight. Even Conan's hawk-like eyes could barely pierce the
gloom ahead of him, and the constant drumming of the rain practically blotted
out the sound of everything else. Conan knew they were riding blind, and the
worst part of the situation was that he was getting that feeling again of being
watched, although how anybody else could see through this mess was beyond him.
Tukali was riding somewhere behind him, but he couldn't see him when he turned
and looked. If they got separated it could be a while before they found each
other again, if at all, and Conan still wasn't sure whether to consider that a
bad thing or not.
Lightning suddenly arced across the sky, and in the brief flash of
almost-daylight Conan glimpsed the inky, sodden hills around him, as well as
what appeared to be a large boulder sitting in the middle of the trail a little
farther ahead. Darkness blanketed Conan's eyes once again as the booming thunder
rolled over him. His horse staggered a bit as it recovered from a brief slip on
the wet trail. Conan dismounted, deeming it best to lead his horse until the
footing improved.
The feeling of being watched grew more intense, but Conan hadn't spotted
anyone among the trees on the slopes around him. As far as he could tell, the
trail was devoid of tracks, although in the rain and dark he could easily miss
the signs of someone's passing. As he led his steed, Conan continuously scanned
the ground ahead of him, hoping he might find some evidence of those unseen eyes
before he found himself on the wrong side of an ambush.
The Cimmerian had apparently forgotten about Tukali, who had spotted Conan a
few dozen yards ahead during the last flash and had knocked his bow with the
drugged arrow in anticipation of using it during the glow of the next lightning
strike. Tukali knew that Conan's armor would absorb enough of the force of the
blow that it wouldn't be lethal, but the arrowhead itself should breach his
black scale mail hauberk enough to deliver its paralyzing dose of purple lotus.
If the arrow did fail to knock out the Cimmerian however, Tukali could always
escape in the rainy darkness and thereby live to try again in the future.
Whatever the outcome, Tukali believed that his was currently the upper hand, and
he was prepared to use it.
He sighted along the arrow's shaft out into the darkness, out to where he
last saw Conan riding, and slowly pulled back on the bowstring until it was just
past halfway drawn. He waited.
In the meantime, Conan had approached to within a few man-lengths of the
boulder; he could now see it, a large black mass barely standing out against the
pitch background of rain and darkness. A stream of water flowed around the huge
rock, split in twain by the boulder's unyielding presence. As he walked, Conan
could see small stones and clumps of mud and vegetation wash by him as the
streams carried the debris back the way he had come. Then, not quite before he
knew what was happening, he was falling, his footing having been washed away by
the torrent of rainwater. It was all Conan could do to keep from sprawling flat
on his face as he managed to land on one knee, mud and water soaking into his
legging.
He was about to rise when his hackles rose first, instincts bred in his
barbaric homeland and honed in the chaos of battle alerting him to danger like
they had so many times in the past. Conan froze and listened intently, trying to
push past the beat of the rain. He found himself staring at the boulder and
figured that there must be someone waiting behind it. Conan slowly unsheathed
his broadsword as he let go of his horse's reins and nudged the animal to the
side of the trail. A sudden scuffing noise, sounding from above, told him that
whoever or whatever it was waited on top of the boulder, not behind it. These
thoughts barely registered in Conan's brain before he was rolling to the side
and coming up in a defensive swordsman's stance, ready to fight.
A light appeared above the rock, a reddish orb framing the outline of
outstretched fingers. The light grew suddenly brighter, and the rain hissed and
steamed as it fell against the glowing hand. Conan could see a cloaked figure,
black robes billowing wildly beneath the vermillion luminescence, its violet
eyes the figure's only other visible feature. Conan bellowed, "Who are you?!" He
tightened his double-handed grip on his sword. Recalling the mysteriously slain
men of the day before, Conan's current situation did not bode him well.
The figure spoke, a guttural response in Conan's native Cimmerian, but with a
strange lilting accent that Conan could not place. "Barbarian, I have come for
you. Beware--" The sentence was abruptly cut off as the speaker gasped and
clutched at an arrow protruding from his chest. In that same instant the ball of
light, previously held aloft by the stranger, streaked down from the upraised
hand as the figure slumped atop the boulder.
"Crom!" Conan ducked and flung himself aside. As he crashed into the ground,
the bolt of crackling energy flashed by. With a deafening explosion it slammed
into the trail several feet behind the spot where Conan had just been, throwing
up a wall of silt in all directions and temporarily lighting up the darkness,
blood-red.
An ululating Turanian battle-cry pierced the air as Tukali drove his horse up
the muddy path. When the strange light had appeared above the rock blocking the
path, Tukali thought at first that it must be some sign of favor from the gods,
illuminating his quarry amid the stygian murk around them so he could get a
clear shot. Then he had noticed the obscure figure perched on the boulder,
apparently the source of the light, and Tukali guessed that this must be the one
who killed his men. In a heartbeat, Tukali had decided that rather than risk
having to fight the mysterious newcomer after immobilizing Conan, his best bet
was to avenge his men and spare Conan their fate. After all, he'd been ordered
to deliver the Cimmerian alive and in one piece to Yildiz's palace. So he had
fired the drugged arrow at the wizard, drawn his scimitar and charged up the
slope.
Conan lifted his head and wiped the muck from his eyes in time to see the
wounded individual atop the boulder wrap his cape around himself and disappear
in a flash of white light. Conan got to his feet and turned at the sound of the
pounding of horse's hooves as Tukali rode up, his scimitar twirling above his
head. Upon seeing they were alone and the danger past, Tukali sheathed his
scimitar and climbed down from the saddle. The rain was already lessening, as if
a pall had been lifted from the land with the disappearance of their strange
attacker.
Conan put his own sword away and clenched Tukali's shoulder in a vice-like
grip, his face grim.
Tukali swallowed, the chilling needles of fear pricking their way up his
spine, fear that Conan had somehow discovered his true intentions. Beads of
sweat sprang from his forehead and were lost in the rain. He tensed for the blow
that was sure to come.
Conan grinned with mirth at Tukali's desolate look. "You saved my life!" he
boomed. He released his grip and swatted Tukali heartily on the same shoulder,
almost bowling the other man over. "I don't know what that wizard's gripe with
me was. Maybe I killed one of his brethren some time in the past. But whatever
the case, I owe you."
Sudden realization made Tukali relax; the Cimmerian suspected nothing was
amiss. "It wasn't anything I wouldn't do for any comrade-in-arms," he replied, a
note of amusement in his voice. "I am honored that I was able to aid the famed
Conan of Cimmeria in battle. I only hope that my family will believe such an
ostentatious story on my part!"
Conan laughed. "Enough kidding, Turanian! In sooth, we must be moving on.
Rain or not, there may be patrols about, and I for one don't feel like pressing
my luck just now."
As both warriors remounted their horses and got under way, Conan couldn't
help thinking that maybe he had mistrusted Tukali for no good reason. If the
Turanian had wanted him dead, he could have feathered him with arrows, or even
just let the sorcerer blast him to Arallu. Either way, if Tukali had intended
ill for him, saving his life probably wouldn't have been the option he chose.
Conan's fellow mercenary may have seemed a little odd, but that was no crime as
far as Conan was concerned. He was happy enough to be in good company.
Tukali couldn't help marveling at the turn of events. Instead of being forced
to undertake the dangerous, even suicidal job of subduing the Cimmerian alone,
he believed he'd managed to win him over and gain his trust. It would be easy
now. He had even managed to put an arrow in the one he suspected of killing his
men. Wherever that sorcerer was now, he had to be either paralyzed or dead. When
Tukali contacted his superiors again, they would be content to know how things
had turned out to their advantage, excluding the deaths of eight fine Turanian
soldiers, of course.
Tukali chuckled softly to himself as he rode down the path beside Conan,
passing the boulder beneath the clearing sky. Even the weather was improving!
The cave was nestled halfway up the sheer side of an extinct volcano located
somewhere just between Khorshemish and the beginning of the Kothian Hills. Over
time, the volcano's neck had been exposed as the softer mountainside around it
had been eroded by the elements, leaving a tall cylinder of hard igneous rock
behind. The cave that now pocked the giant tube's wall, however, had not been
carved by natural forces.
Though the cave's interior was rough and a little cramped, an aura of peace
and cleanliness made the closeness of the rock walls that much more bearable. At
the back of the cave, about ten paces from the front entrance, a fire crackled
away merrily in a small makeshift hearth, the smoke disappearing through a hole
in the ceiling. Other than a few furs laid out near a small wooden stand in the
middle of the cave, the dwelling was devoid of furnishings. On top of the stand
rested a finger-thin, hand-sized square of black metal, its rounded edges
strangely sparkling with the firelight like crystals in a geode.
A faint white glow enveloped the black box as Mach materialized at the cave's
entrance. He staggered several steps toward the box and collapsed in front of
it, barely clinging to consciousness. The white glow around the box intensified
and seemingly reached out, embracing Mach with its snowy light. Within several
seconds, he recovered somewhat, enough to shed his cloak into a puddle of dusky
cloth on the floor behind him, revealing a muscular body clad in black,
skin-tight leathers. The box withdrew its light and spoke to Mach in his own
tongue, a language complex and even musical in its form, but entirely alien to
the human race.
Mach nodded at the words and uttered a weary reply, his violet eyes
struggling to stay open. Then with a sudden shout of pain, he reached up and
tore the arrow from his chest, flinging it across the cave and into the fire.
Immediately a dark amber began to flow from Mach's chest, and he clasped his
ebony hand over the wound, stemming the flow of his blood.
The box chimed a low resonant tone as several beams of light shot out from
it, filling the empty air in front of Mach with several lines of bright golden
words. The light beams strained to hold the words together, their letters
desperately trying to scatter; the phrases they formed were never meant to be
seen or uttered in the material plane. And yet Mach uttered them, each word
burning out of the air as it was spoken.
As Mach recited the spell, he unhooked a small bluish tube from the belt at
his waist and popped its cap off with his thumb, then squirted the oily contents
of the tube into his wound. He bled freely for several seconds, but then the
wound started to congeal. Several small, darker globules of tainted blood pushed
their way to the surface of the wound and floated up and out of Mach's chest,
carrying the purple lotus that was in his system into the hole in the ceiling
and away with the smoke of the fire.
In a few moments Mach finished the recitation and the last of the words
shimmered out of existence as the wound in his chest completely healed. He
stripped off the blood-soaked leather shirt and settled himself onto the floor,
legs crossed in front of him, bare chest glistening darkly with sweat in the
firelight and unscarred by any wound.
Mach again spoke to the box as he bowed his head, long black braids cascading
down around his shoulders. This time, a stream of azure half-moons pulsed out of
the box against Mach's forehead, like waves washing over a beach. His last,
disturbing thought before he relaxed into a sleep-like trance was that by
failing to warn Conan about the treachery of the one he travelled with, he may
have lost his only chance to obtain the aid he needed. Without the aid of Conan
and the being called Crom, Mach would be unable to halt the evil influence of
the criminal Enkee-Kutul, and the people of this world would surely be enslaved
like the people of his own world had once been.