Conan Pastiche - The Flame Knife Part 15

Conan found himself facing Gotarza, who swept the field with blows that would have felled small oaks. Conan's notched blade sang and flashed too fast for the eye to follow, but the Iranistani was not behind him.

Blood from a cut on the forehead ran down the side of Gotarza's face; blood from another flesh wound in Conan's shoulder crimsoned the front of his mail. But still the blades whirled and clashed, neither finding an opening in the other's guard.

Then the roar of battle rose in pitch to screams of pure terror. On all sides, men began to leave the fight to ran for the road to the Stair.

The panic push drove Conan into a corps-ti-corps with Gotarza. Breast to breast they strained and wrestled. Conan, opening his mouth to shout, found it full of Gotarza's long black beard. He spat it out and roared:

"What in h.e.l.l is going on, you palace-bred lap dog?"

"The real owners of Yanaidar have come back," shouted Gotarza. "Look, swine!"

Conan risked a glance. From all sides, hordes of slinking gray shadows with unblinking, soulless eyes and misshapen, doglike jaws swarmed, to fasten upon any man they met, wherever a clawed but manlike hand could find a hold, and begin to tear him apart and devour him on the spot Men struck at them with the strength of maniacal terror, but their corpselike skins seemed almost impervious to weapons. Where one fell, three others leaped to take its place.

The ghouls of Yanaidar!" gasped Gotarza. "We must flee. Smite me not in the back till we win clear, and I'll hold my hand from you. We can settle our own score later."

The rush of fugitives bowled the two off their feet Conan felt human feet on his back. With a tremendous effort he forced himself back on his knees and then to his feet, striking out with fists and elbows to clear enough s.p.a.ce to breathe.

The rout flowed out northward along the road to the Stair, Yezmites, kozaki, Kushafis, and Iranistanian guards all mixed together but forgetting their three-cornered battle in the face of this subhuman menace. Women and children mingled with the warriors. Along the flanks of the rout swarmed the ghouls, like great gray lice, flowing over any person who became momentarily separated from the rest. Conan, thrust out to the edges of the crowd by the buffeting of the fugitives, came upon Gotarza staggering under the attack of four ghouls. He had lost his sword but gripped two by the throat, one with each hand, while a third clung to his legs and a fourth circled around, trying to reach his throat with its jaws.

A swipe of Conan's knife cut one ghoul in half; a second took off the head of another. Gotarza hurled the others from him, and then they swarmed over Conan, ripping and snapping with claws and fangs. For an instant they almost pulled him down. He was dimly aware that Gotarza had pulled one off him, thrown it to the ground, and was stamping on it with a sticklike snapping of ribs. Conan broke his knife on another and crushed the skull of a third with the hilt.

Then he was running on again with the rest. They poured through the gate in the cyclopean wall, down the Stair, down the ramps, and out across the floor of the canyon. The ghouls pursued them as far as the gate, pulling down man after man. As the last fugitives jammed through the gate, the ghouls fell back, scurrying along the road and into the orchards to fall snarling upon the bodies over which little knots of their own kind already snapped and fought.

In the canyon, men collapsed from weariness, lying down upon the rock heedless of the proximity of their late foes or sitting with their backs against boulders and crags. Most were wounded. All were blood-spattered, disheveled, and bloodshot of eye, in ragged garments and hacked and dented armor. Many had lost their weapons. Of the hundreds of warriors who had gathered for the battle in Yanaidar in the dawn, less than half emerged from the city. For a time the only sounds were those of heavy breathing, the groans of the wounded, the ripping of garments as men made them into crude bandages, and the occasional clink of weapons on the rock as they moved about.

Though he had been fighting, running, and climbing most of the time since the previous afternoon, Conan was one of the first on his feet.

He yawned and stretched, winced at the sting of his wounds, and stalked about, caring for his own men and gathering them into a compact ma.s.s.

Of his squad of Zuagirs, he could find only three including Antar.

Tubal he found, but not Codrus.

On the other side of the canyon, Balash, sitting with his leg swathed in bandages, ordered his Kushafis in a weak voice. Gotarza collected his guardsmen. The Yezmites, who had suffered the heaviest losses, wandered about like lost sheep, staring fearfully at the other gathering groups.

"I slew Zahak with my own hands," explained Antar, "so they have no high officer to rally them."

Conan strode over to where Balash lay. "How are you doing, old wolf?"

"Well enough, though I cannot walk unaided. So the old legends are true after all! Every so often, the ghouls issue from chambers under Yanaidar to devour any men so rash as to have taken up residence there." He shuddered. "I do not think anybody will soon try to rebuild the city again."

"Conan!" called Gotarza. "We have things to discuss."

"I'm ready," growled Conan. To Tubal he said: "Gather the men into formation, with those least wounded and best armed on the outside."

Then he strode over the rock-littered canyon floor to a point halfway between his group and Gotarza's. The latter came forward too, saying:

"I still have orders to fetch you and Balash back to Anshan, dead or alive."

"Try it," said Conan.

Balash called from his sitting-place: "I am wounded, but if you try to bear me off by force, my people will harry you through the hills till not one lives."

"A brave threat, but after another battle you would not have enough men," said Gotarza. "You know the other tribes would take advantage of your weakness to plunder your village and carry off your women. The king rules the Ilbars because the Ilbarsi tribes have never united and never will."

Balash remained silent for a moment, then said: 'Tell me, Gotarza, how did you find whither we had gone?"

"We came to Kushaf last night, and the p.r.i.c.kle of a skinning knife persuaded a boy of the village to tell us you had gone into Drujistan and guide us on your trail.

In the light before dawn, we came up to that place where you climb a cliff by a rope ladder, and the fools in their haste did not draw it up after them. We bound the men you had left to guard your horses and came up after you.

"But now to business. I have nought against either of you, but I have sworn an oath by Asura to obey the commands of Kobad Shah, and I will obey them while I can drew breath. On the other hand, it seems a shame to begin a further slaughter when our men are so weary and so many brave warriors have fallen."

"What had you in mind?" growled Conan.

"I thought you and I might settle the question by single combat. If I fall, you may go your ways, as there will be none to stop you. If you fall, Balash shall return to Anshan with me. You may be able to prove your innocence at that," Gotarza added to the Kushafi chief. "The king shall know of your part in ending the cult of the Hidden Ones."

"Not from what I know of Kobad's mad suspiciousness," said Balash. "But I'll agree, as no city-bred Iranistani dog could worst Conan in such a duel."

"Agreed," said Conan shortly, and turned back to his men. "Who has the biggest sword?"

He hefted several and chose a long, straight one of Hyborian pattern.

Then he faced Gotarza. "Are you ready?"

"Ready," said Gotarza, and came on with a rush.

The two blades flashed and clanged in a whirl of steel, so fast that the onlookers could not see clearly what was happening. The warriors leaped, circled, advanced, retreated, and ducked decapitating slashes, while the blades continued their din, never stopping for a second.

Slash- parry-thrust-cut-lunge-parry they went. Never in Yanaidar's thousands of years had those crags looked down upon so magnificent a display of swordsmanship.

"Hold!" cried a voice. Then, as the fight continued: "I said hold!"

Conan and Gotarza backed away from each other warily and turned to see who was shouting.

"Bardiya!" cried Gotarza at the stout major-domo, who stood in the notch of the gully that led to the cliff of the rope ladder. "What do you here?"

"Cease your battle," said the Iranistani. "I have killed three horses catching up with you. Kobad Shah has died of the poison on the flame knife, and his son Arshak reigns. He has withdrawn all charges against Conan and Balash and urges Balash to resume his loyal protection of the northern frontier and Conan to return to his service. Iranistan will need such warriors, as Yezdigerd of Turan, having dispersed the bands of kozaki, is again sending his armies forth to ravage and subdue his neighbors."

"If that's so," said Conan, "there will be rich pickings on the Turanian steppe again, and I'm tired of the intrigues of your perfumed court." He turned to his men. "Those who want to return to Anshan may go; the rest ride north with me tomorrow."

"But what of us?" wailed a plumed Hyrkanian guard from Yanaidar. "The Iranistanis will slay us out of hand. Our city is taken by ghouls, our families are slaughtered, our leaders are slain. What will become of us?"

"Those who like may come with me," said Conan indifferently. "The others might ask Balash if he'll accept them. Many of the women of his tribe will be looking for new husbands-Crom!"

Conan's roving eye had lighted on a group of women in which he recognized Parusati. The sight reminded him of something he had forgotten.

"What is it, Conan?" said Tubal.

"I forgot the wench, Nanaia. She's still in the tower. Now how in h.e.l.l am I to get back to rescue her from the ghouls?"

"You needn't," said a voice. One of the surviving Zuagirs who had followed Conan pulled off a bronze helmet, revealing Nanaia's features as her black hair tumbled down her back.

Conan started, then laughed thunderously. "I thought I told you to stay-oh, well, it's just as well you didn't." He kissed her loudly and spanked her sharply. "One's for fighting beside us; the other's for disobedience. Now come along. Rouse yourselves, dog-brothers; will you sit on your fat behinds on these bare rocks until you starve?"

Leading the tall dark girl, he strode into the cleft that led to the road to Kushaf.