“Then there is no time to stand here talking,” Conan said. “Come.”
“O great Dagoth,” Taramis intoned, “on the Night of Awakening we, thy servants, come to thee.”
The flutes shrilled madly as she took Jehnna’s arm. Xanteres took the other, and between them they led the girl to the head of the great reclining form of the god, its noble forehead marred by the dark, circular depression. Holding the Horn before her, Jehnna moved unresistingly.
“O great Dagoth,” the tall princess chanted, “on the Night of Awakening, thy servants call to thee.” In a whisper she spoke to Jehnna. “The Horn, child. Place the Horn as you were told.”
Jehnna blinked, hesitated, and Taramis’ breath caught at the fear that the potion’s effect might have worn off. Then slowly the slender girl set the base of the golden Horn into the depression in Dagoth’s forehead.
A tremor passed through the huge, alabastrine form. Marble hardness softened, and took on the hue of human skin. The eyelids fluttered.
Relief flooded through Taramis. Nothing could halt it, now. The Sleeping God was awaking. And the Horn was no longer sacrosanct to Dagoth and the One, alone. But it all had to be finished, and quickly now.
“O great Dagoth,” she called, “accept this, our offering and pledge to thee. Accept thy third anointing, the Anointing of the One.”
Jehnna did not even start as Xanteres tangled his left hand in her hair and bent her forward over the recumbent god’s head. A gilded dagger flashed in his hand as he raised it.
Bursting into the great courtyard, Conan took in the scene before him, the black-armored guards, the kneeling priests in gold, the huge, horned form that seemed to be just beginning to stir. And Jehnna, throat arched for the knife in the hands of the white-bearded man.
An instant it took him to see, and in that same instant he was moving. His sword was tossed from right hand to left, the fisted pommel smashed into the ebon helmet of a guard, his right hand tore the spear from the guard’s grasp. As the dagger moved toward Jehnna he threw. The spear lanced a dark streak across the courtyard, and the dagger dropped to the marble tiles as the white-bearded man, a wavering shriek rising from his throat, clutched at the thick black shaft that pierced him.
An instant, and in that instant the courtyard swirled into chaos. Black-armored guards turned to battle Conan, who suddenly found Malak fighting at his side. Zula dashed across the court, beating golden-robed priests from her path with her staff, to seize Jehnna’s arm and drag her away from the huge, now-quivering form.
“There is yet time,” Taramis screamed. “It must be done! It must be!” On hand and knees she scrambled for the fallen dagger.
And the huge form of Dagoth sat up, the shape of a gigantic man, too handsome for humankind, with a golden horn standing out from his forehead. The air in the court turned chill as it moved, and no man or woman there but froze. The noble head turned, great golden eyes surveying the courtyard. Then suddenly the head was thrown back, and Dagoth howled. Staggering to his feet, he howled such agony as had never been known on the face of the earth.
As if the terrible sound had freed him from paralysis, Conan found he could move again. He gripped his sword and set himself, but the guards before him threw down their spears and fled, brushing past him as if what else was in that courtyard made the steel in his hands no longer worth fearing.
Dagoth’s form rippled, now, as though knots grew beneath the skin. Bulging, writhing, it grew and changed. In the twinkling of an eye its skin became coarse. The brow sloped back, and the jaw grew forward, fangs thrusting past lips. Arms and legs thickened, and claws sprouted on the ends of fingers. The skin of the back split, and leathery wings as of a monstrous bat came forth. Grotesquely male, hunched and twisted, yet three times the height of a man, Dagoth stood, and only the huge golden eyes were unchanged.
Those eyes came to rest on Taramis, kneeling with the dagger clutched to her breasts and her face slack with horror. “You!” It was as if thunder had spoken, and with the tongue of thunder. “Out of your own mouth, Taramis, are you promised to me!”
Hope dawned on Taramis’s face. “Yes,” she breathed. Leaping to her feet she ran toward the god. “I am promised to thee,” she cried. “And thou wilt gift me with power and immortality. Thou wilt—”
Clawed hands pulled the noblewoman to Dagoth, and the huge wings folded around them, hiding her. From beneath those wings came a crystalline wail of purest pain and disbelief. The wings opened, and Dagoth tossed aside a robe of scarlet silk.
“Thus it is,” the thunder roared, “to know a god, and be known by a god!”
Zula had stopped to stare in horror at the garment that was all that remained of Taramis, and Jehnna stood beside her, seemingly unaware of what occurred about her.
Dashing forward, Conan grabbed each woman in turn, pushing them toward the shelter of the palace. “Run!” he commanded, and they ran.
“No, mortal!” Came the thunder. “She is the One, and the One is mine!”
Conan felt the ground tremble as Dagoth took a step. The women could never outdistance that monstrous form. Time would have to be bought for them. Certain for the first time in his life that he faced something he could not defeat, Conan turned to confront the god.
Suddenly a fireball streaked over his head to strike Dagoth’s chest. It bounced away like a pebble from a mountain, yet even as it did another struck, and another. “Run, Cimmerian!” Akiro shouted. “Erlik take you, run! I cannot hold such as this forever!”
Dagoth’s wings stiffened, then snapped together behind his back like a thunderclap. And as if that sound had called invisible lightning Akiro was flung into the air and hurled backwards.
“And you, mortal!” Dagoth thundered at Conan. “Would you oppose a god? Know the fear of what you do.”
Then did Conan feel fear rolling over him, fear primordial, fear so strong that it felt as though his very bones would split asunder. Overpowering waves of it crashed on him, pushing that which called itself Conan of Cimmeria back, back beyond knowledge of civilization or fire or speech, back to the ancient creature that knew no gods, the creature that survived its lack of claws and fangs because it was more deadly than leopard or bear. That creature knew but one response to fear. With a roar the cave sloth knew and feared, Conan attacked.
His broadsword slashed deep, and Dagoth laughed like a storm at sea as bloodless wounds healed even as they were made. Claw-tipped hands seized the Cimmerian, lifted him toward gaping fangs, and still Conan hacked with a mad fury that would not quit till death overtook him.
Yet as he fought, dim words penetrated Conan’s brain. “The horn!” Part of him struggled to listen, while the greater part raged to kill. Akiro, that small part thought. “He is only vulnerable through the horn!” the wizard shouted.