Swiftly, they returned to their horses and, mounting, labored up the rise and cantered down the other side. As they reached the plain, Conan caught the faint sound of rhythmic thudding. He turned in his saddle, then cried:
"Spur your horses! As fast as you can! Ophirean cavalry!"
The three beasts broke into a furious gallop toward the ruinedcastle and the safety of the river beyond.
Yet the pursuing horsem*n swiftly gained upon them. Instead of pounding down the road behind the fugitives, the pursuers spread out into a wide, crescent-shaped formation, with the horns of the crescent pointing forward.
"Damned Hyrkanian trick!" muttered Conan, driving his heels into his lathered beast.
The queen, a splendid horsewoman, rode hard between her escorts. Yet as they neared the ruined castle, the riders at the far ends of the pursuing crescent, traveling on light, fresh mounts, passed the structure and began to close a circle round about it.
Nearing the ruined castle, Conan roared: "Come, lass, here's a place we can defend! If this is to be our end, we'll take some of those bastards with us!"
They splashed through a small stream and pounded up the gentle slope. Dismounting, they led their winded animals through the rubble-clogged main gate. Within the crumbling curtain walls stood the keep, a massive cylinder of heavy masonry. The upper .parts of the keep had fallen, leaving a talus of broken stone at its feet, but the walls of the lower stories still raised protecting masonry too high to scale without ladders. Although the guard towers that flanked the gate had fallen into ruin, spilling masonry into the space where the valves had been, man and beast could pick their way among the broken stones of the heaped remains.
"Mean you to make a stand here?" panted Marala, as they reached the inner courtyard.
"Nay; they'd climb the outer wall somehow and come at us from behind. The keep looks sound; that is our place to stand."
The wooden door had disappeared, but the arched doorway was narrow enough to insure the entrance of no more than one invader at a time. Slapping the rumps of the horses to send them around to the rear, Conan roughly pushed Marala into the doorway of the keep. He turned in time to parry the attack of two horsem*n, who had forced their mounts over the broken stone at the main gate and now rode at them, gleaming swords upraised.
Conan leaped up to slash one rider's sword arm and felt a satisfying crunch of cloven flesh and bone. He wheeled to meet the second, but Garus had already dived beneath the attacker's horse and ripped open its belly with an upward thrust of his knife. The screams of the rider echoed those of the plunging beast when Conan lopped off the fellow's leg as he toppled from the dying horse.
The next Ophirean rider who rushed at them was hurled headlong as his mount stumbled on the detritus in the gateway, and he spilled out his brains against a jagged stone. As the thrashing, fallen animal blocked the entrance, Conan and Garus snatched up the weapons of the slain. Chief among them were a pair of crossbows with two quivers full of bolts.
"Inside!" cried Conan; and the two defenders scrambled through the doorway of the keep and turned to face the next attack. A few paces behind them, foot upon the winding stair, stood Marala, her lips curved in a happy smile, like one entranced. The Cimmerian turned and grasped her arm to waken her.
"What is it, lass?" His rough voice grew gentle.
"Know you where we are?" the queen replied.
"Close to Aquilonia. What of it? They'll attack at any time, and we can't flee."
She waved a hand to indicate the crumbling masonry. "Conan, this is Theringo Castle, where my ancestor Alarkar was betrayed."
Puzzled by her composure and the strange look in her amber eyes, Conan stepped back to the doorway to meet the next onslaught. Marala followed him, snatched up a crossbow, and said to Garus:
"co*ck me both crossbows; I am not strong enough to do it."
When the weapons were readied, she carried them up the worn stone stair, which spiraled high inside the ruined tower. At the first turning, she discovered a small landing, dim-lit by a narrow window, scarce wider than an arrow slit. Then the attack began.
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7 • A Host on Horseback
Conan, Marala, and Garus leaned wearily upon the doorway of the keep. Twice they had beaten off attackers. In the second assault, they were almost overwhelmed by a mass of men pushing in with leveled spears. But so narrow was the opening that the crowded enemy could not wield their weapons, while Conan and Garus above them on the stairs grasped at spear points and hacked at heads and hands. Whereas Conan and Garus wore coats of stout chain mail, the soldiers of Ophir were armored in light leathern corselets to make possible a swift pursuit; and, unable to turn to flee the defenders' blows, many fell screaming in slippery pools of their own blood.
Marala, from the second-story window, picked off two attackers with her pair of crossbows. Although she was not a trained arbalester, the bolts she shot at the struggling mass of men near the doorway of the keep could not fail to find their mark. And after she discharged both weapons, she hurried down the stone stairs so that one or the other of her warriors could, in a moment of lull, reco*ck them for her.
This steady attrition of their forces at last sent the surviving attackers streaming back through the main gate, leaving behind a tangled mass of maimed and dying men. Their broken bodies half blocked the doorway to the keep, and their shrieks and groans were horrible to hear. Conan pushed his way out, shoving dead and wounded aside, to retrieve their weapons.
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Count Rigello, sitting his destrier on the slope below the ruin, received his officers impatiently. His black mail was dust-besmirched from the long ride, and his temper frayed by the ridiculous resistance of his quarry. A veteran captain, reining in his horse, saluted the count and said:
"Sir, the donjon is invincible. We have lost two-score men in the attempt to storm it. Others of our lads are like to bleed to death or to live crippled all their days. There is no way to bring our strength to bear."
"A hundred men against three, and one a woman?" sneered the count. "Pity your prospects when we return to Ianthe!"
"But, my Lord," said the captain earnestly, "this barbarian warrior is incredible. None can stand before his sword. And the woman in that window with her crossbows—if you would let our arbalesters pick off the woman..."
"Nay, she must be taken alive at any cost But wait, how many arbalesters have we now?"
"Belike a score in condition to fight."
"Then hark. Order the lads to co*ck and load their weapons, then charge up the hill afoot. Let them enter the gate bent double to present a negligible target, and spread out before the keep, loosing their quarrels upon a single signal. If only one defender falls, our swordsmen can rush in and overpower the v other. Fail not to kill the men, but take the woman captive."
Brows creased in doubt, the captain withdrew to order the attack. Rigello watched the preparations, stroking his mustache and imagining the silken cushions of the throne already at his back. Nothing, he thought, could stop him now.
The count's eyes suddenly grew wide. His men, dismounted, were advancing up the slope, when between them and the ruined castle walls appeared a host on horseback, clad in the armor of a fashion long gone by.
Rigello's men recoiled, amazed, as the newcomers started down the slope at a brisk trot, lances leveled and swords swinging. The arbalesters threw down their bows and, running for their horses, scrambled to their saddles and flogged their mounts into a mad retreat. The swordsmen held a moment longer, then joined the headlong flight.
"Mitra!" yelled Rigello, galloping against the ebbing tide of men. "What ails you? Stand and fight, you cowards! To me! To me!"
With courage born of desperation, Count Rigello spurred his palfrey up the slope, cutting a swath through the wrack of his army, and rode into the thick of the oncoming knights. Then a crossbow bolt split his skull.
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8 • "Our Paths May Cross Some Day"
The three defenders st
ood, panting, at the ruined castle's gate, watching the rout of the Ophirean force.
"Good shot, girl!" cried Conan. Laughing, he added: "If you tire of playing queen, you can hire out as an arbalester in any army I command." Conan's mood changed and he frowned. "But I cannot understand this army that appeared from nowhere, chased away our foes, and vanished in a trice. Have you been working magic?"
Marala smiled serenely. "Aye, the magic of the Star of Khorala. The good men who fell here, two hundred years ago, were denied their chance to save then-beloved kingdom. They waited till this day, when the Star and I—and you for giving it—released them to do their duty. Now Alarkar and his true men can rest at last."
'Those horsem*n ... were they solid flesh and blood or conjured phantoms, ghosts through which a man could pass like smoke?"
The queen raised her delicate hands, palms upward; and as she moved, the great jewel flashed its fire encased in azure ice.
"I know not, and I think none shall ever know. But you are hurt. Let me clean and bind your wounds— and Garus', too, as best I may."
She led the two, unarmored now and limping wearily, down the slope to the brook that gurgled merrily along the bottom before it disappeared into the distant river. She helped them wash their battle-sore bodies and bound their superficial wounds with strips of cloth torn from the garments of the dead.
Refreshed at last, Conan asked: "And what of you now, Lady? Rigello is dead, but others will scramble to control the king."
Marala tied the final bandage and stood back, biting her lower hp in thought.
"Mayhap the Star can rally the good men of the kingdom; but Ophir seems to lack good men—at least among the nobles of the realm. All the magnates whom I know are, like Rigello, greedy and unscrupulous. Of course, with the Star of Khorala ..." She broke off, staring at her hand. "My ring! Where is it? It must have slipped off my finger whilst I dabbled in the chilly water!"
Until sundown the three sought the great jewel within the stream and along its banks; but the Star was not to be found. The rushing waters must have carried it downstream, or playfully buried it in the silver sand. When the search was ended, Marala burst into tears.
"Just when I had recovered it—to lose it again so soon!" Conan enfolded her in his strong arms to comfort her, saying: "There, there, lass. I never much liked magic anyway. You cannot trust the stuff."
'That settles it," said Marala, when at last her tears ran dry. "I had but feeble chance in Ophir when I possessed the Star; without it I should have no chance at all. Nor do I think that Mitra himself could make a man of Moranthes. I shall go to live in Aquilonia, where I have kin. Let the men of Ophir settle their feuds without me. And may Mitra help the people of my realm!"
"Have you money enough?" asked Conan with gruff concern.
"A moment, and I'll show you," said the queen with a flicker of a smile.
Turning away, she withdrew from her inner clothing a damask belt into which were sewn many pockets no larger than a fingernail. Tucked into these were sparkling jewels and coins of gold in dizzying profusion.
'You'll manage," growled Conan, "if some thief lightfingers not your wealth."
"For that, I shall rely on Garus." Turning to him prettily, she said: "You will go into exile with me, will you not?"
"My Lady," smiled the old soldier, "I would follow you into the very gates of Hell."
"I thank you, loyal friend," said Marala with a regal nod. "But what of you, Conan? I cannot offer you the promised generalship of Ophir's armies. Will you to Aquilonia with me?"
Conan shook a somber head. "I, too, have changed my plans. I'll head north, to see my native land once more."
The queen studied Conan's solemn mien. "You do not sound as if you liked the prospect. Do you fear to return?"
Conan's harsh laugh rang out like the clash of steel on steel. "Save for some sorcery and certain supernatural beings I have met, there's naught I fear. I may come home to trouble with an ancient feud or two—but that does not disturb me. It is just ... well, Cimmeria is a dull country after the southerly kingdoms."
Taking both her hands in his, he surveyed her golden hair above her heartshaped face, her splendid bosom, and her proud and graceful carriage. His eyes burned with desire and his voice grew intimate.
"True it is that fair company shrinks the miles and warms the lonely heart."
Watching them, Garus tensed. Marala gently disengaged her hands and shook her lovely head.
"While Moranthes lives and I am yet his wife, I will be faithful to my vows. But neither state will last forever." She smiled a trifle sadly. "Why go you to that bleak northland, if you enjoy it not? The Hyborian kingdoms offer many opportunities for a brave and generous man like you." "I go to pay a visit."
"To whom? Some sweetheart of former days?"
Conan turned a cool glance on Queen Marala, but his blue eyes betrayed his painful disappointment. He replied: "Say that I go to visit an old woman. Who is she, is my affair. But where in Aquilonia will you settle? Our paths may cross again some day."
Marala smiled fondly at the brawny Cimmerian. "My Aquilonian kin dwell in the county of Albiona, near Tarantia. They are old and childless and look upon me as a daughter. They intend to leave me title to their ancestral lands. I am no longer Queen of Ophir, but one day men may call me 'Countess Albiona'!"
-
THE GEM IN THE TOWER
After a visit to his northern homeland, Conan returns to the kozaki. When the energetic new king of Turan, Yezdigerd, scatters the outlaw bands, Conan serves as a mercenary in Iranistan and wanders east to the Himelian Mountains and the fabled land of Vendhya. On his return to the West, he explores a phantom city of living dead men and is briefly joint king of a black empire in the desert south of Stygia.
Following the events narrated in "Drums of Tombalku," Conan makes his way across the southern grasslands to the other black kingdoms. Here he is known of old, and Amra the Lion has no difficulty in reaching the coast, which he ravaged in his days with Bêlit. But Bêlit is now only a fading memory on the Black Coast. The ship that finally appears off the headland where Conan sits whetting his sword is manned by pirates of the Barachan Isles, off the coasts of Argos and Zingara. They, too, have heard of Conan and welcome his sword and experience. He is in his middle thirties when he joins the Barachan pirates, with whom he remains for some time. This story tells of one of his many adventures in this environment.
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1 • Death on the Wind
The first longboat beached on the yellow strand near sundown, when all the West was a wild conflagration of crimson flame. As the boat attained the shallows, the crew, splashing through the breakers, dragged it up the beach so that the tide could not float it out to sea again.
The men were a ruffianly lot, Argosseans for the most part—stocky men with brown or tawny hair. Several among them were sallow-skinned Zingarans, with lean shanks and ebon locks; and not a few were hook-nosed Shemites, swart and muscular, with ringleted blue-black beards. All were clad in rough sea togs, but while some went barefoot, others wore high, well-greased sea boots; and cutlasses, scimitars, or dirks were thrust into the scarlet sashes wound about their waists.
With them came a lone Stygian, a lean, dark-skinned, thin-lipped man with a shaven pate and jet-black eyes, wearing a short half-tunic and sandals.. This was Mena the conjuror, who despite his appearance and name was Stygian by courtesy only; for he was a half-breed, begotten by a wandering Shemite trader upon a woman of Khemi, the foremost city of the sinister land of Stygia.
At their leader's command, the crew hauled their boat into the shrubbery at the jungle's edge, where like a forbidding wall, trees crept down to edge the beach beyond the high-tide mark.
The man who gave the order was neither Zingarian nor Argossean, but a Cimmerian from the frigid, fogbound hills to the north. He was a veritable giant in a tunic of supple leather and baggy silken breeches, with a cutlass on his hip and a poignard thrust into his scarlet sash.
Tall was he and deep-chested, with powerful, sinewy arms and swelling thews. Unlike the other pirates, he was clean-shaven, and his coarse mane of straight raven hair was hacked off at the nape. Grim was his mien, and beneath his dark brows smoldered eyes with fires of volcanic blue. His name was Conan.
Now a second longboat, with silent, rhythmic oars, creased the azure waters of the little bay. Behind it, outlined against the crimson tapestry of the West, the lean-hulled carrack Hawk rode at anchor. The longboat, beached, was manhandled over the sand to the verdant bushes wherein the first lay hidden. The leader of the second crew joined Conan as he watched his men drape palm fronds over the sterns of both to conceal them utterly.
