Conan and the Gods of the Mountains Part 3

None could mistake the source of that thought, although Dobanpu's face bore all the expression of a carved lodge mask. The two lovers instantly straightened backs and composed faces, then gave ear to Dobanpu's chant as it rose higher.

The chant was drawing echoes from deep within the nighted recesses of the cave, far beyond the lamplight, when Dobanpu snapped his fingers at his daughter.

Lithe and gleaming in the light, she ran swiftly to a niche behind her father and brought out a basket of small clay pots. The basket was of reeds soaked in spiceberry juice, the odor intended to drive insects from the herbs, dried fruits, and oils in the pots. Seyganko had no doubt of its success; it nearly drove him away from the fire.

He drew on a warrior's courage to sit cross-legged and watch as Emwaya drew forth several of the small pots, including an empty one. With pinches of herbs and fruit and a few drops of oil, she concocted a potion and handed it to her father. He dipped a finger in, then licked it off, for all the world like a brew-sister testing her beer. Emwaya smiled, and this time Dobanpu returned the smile without missing a beat of the chant.

To the rest of the Ichiribu, Dobanpu was a figure of awe, even of terror. His daughter knew him too well for that-and he knew that she knew. It was one of many reasons that Seyganko blessed whatever had contrived that he and Emwaya be matched one with the other. He need have no fear of his wife's father.

Now Dobanpu stood and spread his arms wide, then raised them high over his head.

Smoke began to curl from the pot, foul-smelling and filled with nightmare shapes dancing on the remote edge of Seyganko's vision. Emwaya lifted the pot, and the warrior wanted to cry out as the shapes seemed to surround her like a hedge of thorns around a cattle pen. For a moment, she was altogether lost to sight, and to Seyganko, it seemed that even her father's face went taut.

He told himself that the deadliest of the spirits had no visible forms, that these were only little spirits of the woods and waters that Dobanpu had conjured up to reach the captive's mind. He knew he might even believe this after he saw Emwaya safe and whole.

In the next moment, she darted from the smoke and knelt beside her father. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell with quick breathing as she gripped her father's shoulder and joined her strength to his. The shapes left the smoke; now they danced in the air above the prostrate form of the Kwanyi captive on the black stone.

The man was too near death to speak, but the other captive, who had not been so badly hurt, had said he served the G.o.d-Men. He also said that the G.o.d-Men had learned something that put even their servants in fear. He had not said much of this without some persuasion, but the Ichiribu had men and women expert in such, means. The powers of Dobanpu and his daughter could be saved for times of greater need.

Thunder burst in the cave. The smoke vanished in a brief scream of wind. For a last moment, the smoke was so thick about Seyganko that he fought the urge to claw at it. He held his breath that he might not disturb the spirits by coughing, and his chest grew tight.

The smoke vanished before Seyganko had to breathe. So did the shapes. The warrior watched them whirl downward into the Kwanyi prisoner. Then he gripped one hand with the other so he might not make a gesture of aversion as the dying captive sat upright and began to speak.

With no voice of his own left, he spoke in the spirit-tongue, which Seyganko did not yet understand. Whatever the spirits were saying had Dobanpu's face twisting in horror, for all that he fought for self-command. Emwaya's eyes were wide, and her hand on her father's shoulder gripped so tight that her nails scored his flesh and her knuckles were pallid.

Thunder came again, this time a distant rumble. Seyganko gazed up at the ceiling of the cave because he could no longer bear to look at the captive. He saw a drop of water fall, to raise a puff of dust from the cave floor. Another drop followed it, then several more, then a steady stream.

No spirits were in that thunder. It was not the rainy season, but seldom did more than two or three nights pa.s.s about the Lake of Death without rain.

Seyganko resisted the urge to leap forward and stand in the rain streaming down through the smoke hole.

It was as well that he did. Dobanpu's work was not done yet. Indeed, Seyganko could have stalked and slain a wild pig in the time the Spirit-Speaker needed to finish with the captive.

The warrior knew when the end came, though. The captive turned slowly toward Dobanpu. He took a single faltering step forward, then two surer ones before leaping at Dobanpu as would a leopard on its prey.

He never completed the leap. Dobanpu stood like the doorpole of a lodge, but Emwaya flung herself before her father. She moved so swiftly that Seyganko was barely on his feet before she and the dying, vengeance-driven Kwanyi grappled.

It was a short grapple, for all that the Kwanyi had in life been half again Emwaya's size and strength. He could not feel pain, but he could be knocked down. Emwaya sent him sprawling, then gripped one arm. He reached over with the other, groping for a handhold in her hair, meeting only the headdress.

He was still groping when Seyganko brought his club down on the Kwanyi's already battered head. The last spirit-given life fled, and the spirits followed.

Thunder rolled again as they leaped from the body and fled up the smoke hole, defying the rain.

Seyganko saw what might have been a bird with four wings and the head of a snake, or something even more unnatural. Then he saw Emwaya turn, eyes widening-and was just in time to help her catch her father as he fell, to all appearances as lifeless as the Kwanyi.

They laid Dobanpu on a bed of rushes; a raised part of the cave floor kept him safe from the growing puddle of rainwater. Emwaya drew a bark-cloth blanket over her father and signed to Seyganko that he should leave them.

Seyganko desperately wished to ask why, but the answer came in the same moment as the question. In the Kwanyi warrior, there had been no common magic. Only arts that Seyganko did not yet have might heal Dobanpu and save his knowledge for his people. Seyganko's duties now lay among the warriors, to lead them if need be, or at least to keep them silent until Dobanpu spoke again.

Seyganko turned back to make sure that the Kwanyi warrior was dead, or to bind him if life was still in him. Then he fought the urge to make gestures of aversion, or even to flee wildly to the open air.

The Kwanyi warrior was gone. Only the outline of his body in the muddy dust remained. No footprints showed his pa.s.sing; it was as if he had become dust himself.

Seyganko looked at Emwaya, and she glanced up from her father long enough to shrug. When I know, I will tell you was in that shrug, and also the pride he knew so well.

I will come when I am needed, Seyganko replied.

He thought he saw her smile as he backed out of the cave. He would rather not have gone at all. Leaving Emwaya there with what had stolen away the Kwanyi's body was harder than leaving her in the face of a hungry leopard.

He also knew that a warrior who courts a Spirit-Speaker's daughter must learn more than most men about the arts of keeping peace with his woman.

Conan awoke to find a sharp root jabbing him in the ribs. He thought he must have rolled over in the night.

Then he reached full wakefulness and knew that the root was warm, and not as sharp as he had thought. He shifted and looked up... from the strong, shapely ankle beside him all the way along the finely turned leg, to the shirt bound as a loincloth about well-rounded hips, and onward to the rest of Valeria.

She left off prodding him with a bare toe and seemed about to smile, Then she shrugged. "If you think I woke you up for-"

Conan was tempted to grip that ankle and see if Valeria's loincloth survived a tumble to the ground. He set the temptation aside. Valeria had belted on both sword and dagger over her new garb and looked as ready as ever to repay such a rough jest with steel.

Now and for some days to come, Conan had more need of a trustworthy comrade at his back than a woman in his arms. "You woke me because it's dawn and time we were on the march. True?"

A jerk of the head might have been a nod.

"Any visitors?"

"None I could not face myself, Cimmerian."

"Ah, so you did not slay the seven warriors. You only drained them of their power with a woman's-"

The toe jabbed hard into his ribs, and for a moment, Conan was ready to roll clear of a downward slash of her sword. Then the hand left the sword-hilt, her mouth twisted, and a giggle escaped before turning into a laugh. She sat down and began combing leaves and the odd twig from her hair.

"I've killed men for lesser jests, Conan. Remember that."

"Oh, I shall. But if you kill men for small jests, then I may as well die for the bull as for the calf."

She made a small-girl's face at him and went on combing. In a few more moments, she had done as much as anyone could without a comb, or without hacking her hair off short at the neck.

"As you say, best we were on the march." She licked her lips. "Although I would not refuse some water-" "We'll stop at the first clear stream we find and drink our fill. If there are gourds to be had, we can hollow out a few and fill them, too. But for now, we'd do better away from here."

"You think we're being followed?"

"I've no way to know, but why make ourselves easy prey? The jungle's much like the sea-he lives longest who's not to be found where his enemies expect him."

"So wise in war, Cimmerian?"

Conan was about to make some gruff reply when he realized that there had been less than the usual mockery in Valeria's voice. He looked at her; she flushed all the way to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and then began muttering curses at the lack-witted, effete fools of Xuchotl, who kept jewels and finery in plenty but not a single decent water bottle!

THREE.

Ge-qah!"

Seyganko cried the Ichiribu ritual word for death and flung his trident. It pierced the morning air, then the blue-green water of the Lake of Death.

The vine rope tying it to Seyganko's waist had run out perhaps twice a man's length when the trident also pierced the lionfish below the canoe. Instantly, ripples spread about the canoe; then bubbles and blood joined the ripples.

The lionfish rose, as long and thick as the canoe, with jaws that could, and sometimes did, swallow a child. Blood and body juices the hue of old gold gushed from the trident wound.

Those ma.s.sive jaws still snapped, and teeth as long as a man's finger clanged together with a noise like a Kwanyi spear on a wooden shield. The scaly neck plates-with the look of a lion's mane, which gave the fish its name-flapped, as did the gills.

Seyganko waited until the fish's instinct to attack the first thing it saw was aroused. That first thing was the canoe, and the long teeth sank into the hard wood of the dugout. They so nearly met that the warrior knew the canoe would need patching after this day's work.

The wildly thrashing fish jerked at the rope and sent the trident handle whipping about. Seyganko ignored bruises as he raised his club, tossed it, caught it in both hands, and brought it down hard between the two plates over the fish's left eye.

"Ge-qah!"

He spoke the truth. The blow to its most vulnerable spot was death for the lionfish. A shudder went through it from teeth to tail, and its jaws let go their grip on the canoe. Had Seyganko been fool enough to pull the trident loose, it might have slipped away into the depths of the lake and been lost.

As it was, he would have a fine trophy, and a score of the Ichiribu would feast.

Any lionfish this large was not the best delicacy, but it was a menace to men; eating it would bring some of its strength and fierceness to those who ate, and avenge any it had slain.

Seyganko tied the fish to the stern of his canoe with the trident cord, sat down, and began paddling toward sh.o.r.e. Even his strength was not equal to bringing the catch aboard, but in water too shallow for other lionfish, it would not be attacked before he could summon help.

Seyganko paddled directly for sh.o.r.e, although this meant landing not far from Dobanpu's cave. He had heard nothing of the man for three days, save that he yet lived and that spirits sent by the G.o.d-Men might yet be a danger to him. For these reasons- and also, Seyganko thought, out of pride-Emwaya had nursed him herself and sent the curious about their affairs.

What she would not say to the curious, Seyganko decided, she might say to her future husband. And the lionfish was worth saving even if he learned nothing from Emwaya. Paddling around the point of the island would give other lionfish time to gather, scent the blood trail, and follow it. In strength, they had been known to attack a canoe.

It was as well that for the most part, lionfish were solitary creatures, each claiming its portion of the lake and driving off all comers save for females in the mating season. Had they commonly hunted in schools like the eunuch-makers did, they would have eaten the lake bare of all life, probably including human.

The canoe was heavy and clumsy with the lionfish trailing astern, but Seyganko's strong arms and well-balanced paddle drove it swiftly toward sh.o.r.e. As the sun rose, it burned off the morning mist, and soon he could see the hill rising from amid the last gray wisps. At last he saw the reed enclosure that let Emwaya draw water, safe from lionfish and crocodiles, and even allowed her to swim when the spirit took her.

Dobanpu must have healed; a dark head broke the water in the enclosure. Seyganko smiled. If Emwaya was in a good frame of mind, she might let him join her. After they swam together, the most common end was rolling together in the gra.s.s.

Then the head grew shoulders and arms, and Seyganko saw that it was the form of a woman, but not of Emwaya. The Kwanyi slave girl was making free with the swimming place, as bare as a babe. In the light of day, and not frightened half out of her wits, she was even a greater pleasure to see than on the night of the raid.

"Where is your mistress?" he called in the True Tongue. She might hate her old masters with a pa.s.sion, but she could hardly have been among them for long without learning at least a little of their speech.

The girl stood up, shook herself like a dog, then pointed toward the cave. Drops of water silvered by the morning sun sparkled in her hair and trickled down her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she moved about. Seyganko would have thought her unaware of how well she appeared had he not caught a sly look from the corner of one brown eye.

He grinned. Apart from his oaths to Emwaya, which did not allow him another woman save with her permission, he doubted the wisdom of tumbling his betrothed's maidservant. He also knew a sure way of putting an end to her tricks.

"Ho! Woman of Emwaya, I have work for you." Seyganko heaved on the rope until the lionfish's tail was above water. "Come and help me haul this brute ash.o.r.e!"

The girl took one look at the lionfish, another at Seyganko, then fled toward the mouth of the cave, still bare. Seyganko pulled the canoe ash.o.r.e, sat down on the girl's waistcloth, and was whetting his trident with a piece of ironstone when Emwaya came down to him.

When he could free himself from her grip and let go of her, Seyganko held her at arm's length. He saw that she seemed paler and thinner than three days of any ordeal would warrant. Or at least any ordeal save one.

"Your father-"

"Dobanpu Spirit-Speaker lives. His sleep is now healthy, his dreams clean. I have fed him porridge and water, and they rest well in his belly."

She spoke as if still in a ritual, but he saw unaccustomed moisture in the corners of her eyes. He reached up to brush away the tears, and she gripped his wrists as if they were the last things between her and drowning.

"Seyganko, forgive my weakness. I did not mean you to see me this way-"

"No, you are not like that wench you have taken into your service. She meant me to see her as she was swimming."

"I thought as much when she came uphill bare. What did you say to her?"

Seyganko told the truth, and Emwaya rewarded him with a laugh that held some of her usual good cheer. "I will help you with the fish and then have words with Mokossa."

"Is that her name?"

"I think it is the name of her tribe, one living beyond the lands of the Kwanyi.

She is not child-minded, but living among the Kwanyi frightened her out of most of the wits she had."

"Not so much that she cannot have eyes for a warrior, I warn you."

"Any woman with sense will have eyes for you, Seyganko. I have just told you that Mokossa is a woman of sense."

"Do you seek to flatter me, Emwaya?"

"I have done so often enough that I do not need to try again."

If she was able to banter like this, she could hardly have dire news. It was in Seyganko's mind to slip his hands under the waistcloth and undo its knot, and the spirits take the lionfish!

Yet something in her voice- "Did your father learn anything from the servant of the G.o.d-Men?"

"I think I can do as well drawing lionfish ash.o.r.e as Mokossa. Since I do not wish a sodden waist-cloth-"

"Emwaya." He held her by the shoulders, so tightly that he half feared she would slap him. "Your father brought strong spirits, and he is not one to do that lightly. What did he learn?"

Emwaya shuddered but did not weep or try to pull away. After a moment, she reached up and gently lifted Seyganko's hands from her bare shoulders.

"The spirits were angry at fighting the protection the G.o.d-Men put on their servants. Also, I think some of them were hurt."

Spirits could be injured, though not as easily or in the same way as men.

Seyganko knew enough of Dobanpu's art to have learned that. If the G.o.d-Men had power to put that kind of guarding on their servants- "Are they angry with your father?"