Conan of Cimmeria Part 4

As the Kezankian tumbled to earth, there came the flat snap of bows and the whistle of arrows. Sa.s.san's horse leaped as an arrow struck it in the neck and bolted for the mouth of the defile. Conan felt an arrow tug at his sleeve as he struck in the spurs and fled after Sa.s.san, who was unable to control his beast.

As they swept towards the mouth of the gorge, three hors.e.m.e.n rode out swinging broad-bladed tulwars. Sa.s.san, abandoning his effort to check his maddened mount, drove his lance at the nearest. The spear transfixed the man and hurled him out of the saddle.

The next instant Conan was even with a second swordsman, who swung the heavy tulwar. The Cimmerian threw up his scimitar and the blades met with a crash as the horses came together breast to breast. Conan, rising in his stirrups, smote downwards with all his immense strength, beating down the tulwar and splitting the skull of the wielder. Then he was galloping up the gorge with arrows screeching past him. Sa.s.san's wounded horse stumbled and went down; the Iranistani leaped clear as it fell.

Conan pulled up, snarling: "Get up behind me!" Sa.s.san, lance in hand, leaped up behind the saddle. A touch of the spurs, and the heavily-burdened horse set off down the gorge. Yells behind showed that the tribesmen were scampering to their hidden horses. A turn in the gorge m.u.f.fled the noises.

"That Kezankian spy must have gotten back to Keraspa," panted Sa.s.san.

"They want blood, not gold. Do you suppose they have wiped out Zyras?"

"He might have pa.s.sed before they set up their ambush, or they might have been following him when they turned to trap us. I think he's still ahead of us."

A mile further on they heard faint sounds of pursuit. Then they came out into a natural bowl walled by sheer cliffs. From the midst of this bowl a slope led up to a bottleneck pa.s.s on the other side. As they neared this pa.s.s, Conan saw that a low stone wall closed the gut of the pa.s.s. Sa.s.san yelled and jumped down from the horse as a flight of arrows screeched past. One struck the horse in the chest.

The beast lurched to a thundering fall, and Conan jumped clear and rolled behind a cl.u.s.ter of rocks, where Sa.s.san had already taken cover.

More arrows splintered against boulders or stuck quivering in the earth. The two adventurers looked at each other with sardonic humor.

"We've found Zyras!" said Sa.s.san.

"In an instant," laughed Conan, "they'll rush us, and Keraspa will come up beehind us to close the trap."

A taunting voice shouted: "Come out and get shot, curs! Who's the Zuagir with you, Sa.s.san? I thought I had brained him last night!"

"My name is Conan," roared the Cimmerian.

After a moment of silence, Zyras shouted: "I might have known! Well, we have you now!"

"You're in the same fix!" yelled Conan. "You heard the fighting back down the gorge?"

"Aye; we heard it when we stopped to water the horses. Who's chasing you?"

"Keraspa and a hundred Kezankians! When we are dead, do you think he'll let you go after you tortured one of his men?"

"You had better let us join you," added Sa.s.san.

"Is that the truth?" yelled Zyras, his turbaned head appearing over the wall.

"Are you deaf, man?" retorted Conan.

The gorge reverberated with yells and hoofbeats.

"Get in, quickly!" shouted Zyras. "Time enough to divide the idol if we get out of this alive."

Conan and Sa.s.san leaped up and ran up the slope to the wall, where hairy arms helped them over. Conan looked at his new allies: Zyras, grim and hard-eyed in his Turanian guise; Arshak, still dapper after leagues of riding; and three swarthy Zamorians who bared their teeth in greeting. Zyras and Arshak each wore a shirt of chain mail like those of Conan and Sa.s.san.

The Kezankians, about a score of them, reined up as the bows of the Zamorians and Arshak sent arrows swishing among them. Some of them shot back; others whirled and rode back out of range to dismount, as the wall was too high to be carried by a mounted charge. One saddle was emptied and one wounded horse bolted back down the gorge with its rider.

"They must have been following us," snarled Zyras. "Conan, you lied!

That is no hundred men!"

"Enough to cut our throats," said Conan, trying his sword. "And Keraspa can send for reinforcements whenever he likes."

Zyras growled: "We have a chance behind this wall. I believe it was built by the same race that built the red G.o.d's temple. Save your arrows for the rush."

Covered by a continuous discharge of arrows from four of their number on the flanks, the rest of the Kezankians ran up the slope in a solid ma.s.s, those in front holding up light bucklers. Behind them Conan saw Keraspa's red beard as the wily chief urged his men on.

"Shoot!" screamed Zyras. Arrows plunged into the ma.s.s of men and three writhing figures were left behind on the slope, but the rest came on, eyes glaring and blades glittering in hairy fists.

The defenders shot their last arrows into the ma.s.s and then rose up behind the wall, drawing steel. The mountaineers rolled up against the wall. Some tried to boost their fellows up to the top; others pushed small boulders up against the foot of the wall to provide steps. Along the barrier sounded the smash of bone-breaking blows, the rasp and slither of steel, the gasping oaths of dying men. Conan hewed the head from the body of a Kezankian, and beside him saw Sa.s.san thrust his spear into the open mouth of another until the point came out the back of the man's neck. A wild-eyed tribesman stabbed a long knife into the belly of one of the Zamorians. Into the gap left by the falling body the howling Kezankian lunged, hurling himself up and over the wall before Conan could stop him. The giant Cimmerian took a cut on his left arm and crushed in the man's shoulder with a return blow.

Leaping over the body, he hewed into the men swarming up over the wall with no time to see how the fight was going on either side. Zyras was cursing in Corinthian and Arshak in Hyrkanian. Somebody screamed in mortal agony. A tribesman got a pair of gorilla-like hands on Conan's thick neck, but the Cimmerian tensed his neck muscles and stabbed low with his knife again and again until with a moan the Kezankian released him and toppled from the wall.

Gasping for air, Conan looked about him, realizing that the pressure had slackened. The few remaining Kezankians were staggering down the slope, all streaming blood. Corpses lay piled deep at the foot of the wall. All three of the Zamorians were dead or dying, and Conan saw Arshak sitting with his back against the wall, his hands pressed to his body while blood seeped between his fingers. The prince's lips were blue, but he achieved a ghastly smile.

"Born in a palace," he whispered, "and dying behind a rock wall! No matter-it is fate. There is a curse on the treasure-all men who rode on the trail of the blood stained G.o.d have died..." And he died.

Zyras, Conan, and Sa.s.san glanced silently at one another: three grim tattered figures, all splashed with blood. All had taken minor wounds on their limbs, but their mail shirts had saved them from the death that had befallen their companions.

"I saw Keraspa sneaking off!" snarled Zyras. "He'll make for his village and get the whole tribe on our trail. Let us make a race of it: get the idol and drag it out of the mountains before he catches us.

There's enough treasure for all."

"True," growled Conan. "But give me back my map before we start."

Zyras opened his mouth to speak, and then saw that Sa.s.san had picked up one of the Zamorians' bows and had drawn an arrow on him. "Do as Conan tells you," said the Iranistani.

Zyras shrugged and handed over a crumpled parchment "Curse you, I still deserve a third of the treasure!"

Conan glanced at the map and thrust it into his girdle. "All right; I'll not hold a grudge. You're a swine, but if you play fair with us we'll do the same, eh, Sa.s.san?"

Sa.s.san nodded and gathered up a quiverful of arrows.

The horses of Zyras' party were tied in the pa.s.s behind the wall. The three men mounted the best beasts and led the three others, up the canyon behind the pa.s.s. Night fell, but with Keraspa behind them they pushed recklessly on.

Conan watched his companions like a hawk. The most dangerous time would come when they had secured the golden statue and no longer needed each other's help. Then Zyras and Sa.s.san might conspire to murder Conan, or one of them might approach him with a plan to slay the third man. Tough and ruthless though the Cimmerian was, his barbaric code of honor would not let him be the first to try treachery.

He also wondered what it was that the maker of the map had tried to tell him just before he died. Death had come upon Ostorio in the midst of a description of the temple, with a gush of blood from his mouth.

The Nemedian had been about to warn him of something, he thought-but of what?

Dawn broke as they came out of a narrow gorge into a steep-walled valley. The defile through which they had entered was the only way in.

It came out upon a ledge thirty paces wide, with the cliff rising a bowshot above it on one side and falling away to an unmeasurable depth below. There seemed no way down into the mist-veiled depths of the valley far below. The men wasted few glances in this direction, for the sight ahead drove hunger and fatigue from their minds.

There on the ledge stood the temple, gleaming in the rising sun. It was carved out of the sheer rock of the cliff, its great portico facing them. The ledge led to its great bronzen door, green with age.

What race or culture it represented Conan did not try to guess. He unfolded the map and glanced at the notes on the margin, trying to discover a method of opening the door.

But Sa.s.san slipped from his saddle and ran ahead of them, crying out in his greed.

"Fool!" grunted Zyras, swinging down from his horse. "Ostorio left a warning on the margin of the map; something about the G.o.d's taking his toll."