The muted jingle of tight-strapped harness announced the sudden appearance of Machaon and the rest, leading their horses. Memtes, bringing up the rear, gripped the reins of Conan’s big Aquilonian black as well as those of his own mount. Bows and quivers were slung on their backs.
“I thought it best to keep from sight,” the tattooed veteran told Conan quietly. “As we arrived, two score men-at-arms passed, chasing another band as large, and twice parties of light cavalry have gone by at the gallop. Scouts, the last, no doubt.”
“Unless I miss my guess,” Narus added in a low voice that would not travel far, “Iskandrian seeks action this night, and the nobles seek to avoid him until their strength is gathered. Never did I think that when the final battle for Ophir occurred, I would be scaling a mountain.”
“Go to Taurianus, then,” Conan growled, “if you seek glory!” Irritably he shook his black-maned head. Such edginess was not his usual manner, but his thoughts scarcely seemed his own. With a desperation foreign to him he fought to cling to his purpose of mind, struggled against images of Synelle and lust that threatened to overwhelm him.
“Is that the famous staff?” Machaon asked. “It has no look of magic to me.”
“It is,” the Cimmerian replied, “and it has.” He hoped he did not lie. Unfastening the strips of cloth that held the length of wood, he clutched it in one hand and drew his sword with the other. “This is the last chance to change your minds. Let any man unsure of what he does step aside.” The soft and deadly susuration of steel sliding from scabbards was his answer. Conan nodded grimly. “Then hide the horses in yon copse of trees and follow me.”
“Your armor,” Machaon said. “’Tis on your saddle.”
“There is no time,” Conan said, and without waiting for the others he started up the stony slope.
Crom was not a god men prayed to; he gave nothing beyond his first gift. But now Conan offered a prayer to any god that would listen. If he died for it, let him be in time.
A silent file of purposeful men fell in behind him in his climb, on their way to beard a god in his den.
The lash struck across her shoulders again, and Karela gritted her teeth against the howl she wanted to let pass. Bound between posts topped with the obscene head of Al’Kiir, she knelt, all but the last layer of thin blue silk torn away from her sweat-slick body. It was not the pain from the incessant bite of leather that made her want to cry out, or not alone; she would have died before giving her tormentors the satisfaction of acknowledging that. But the burning stripes that made scarlet lattices on her body were as pin-pricks beside the flaming desire the ointment with which Synelle had anointed her brought unbidden. Uncontrollably Karela writhed, and wept for the humilation of it.
The silvery-haired noble-woman danced before her, spinning and dipping, chanting words that defied heari
ng in rhythm to haunting flutes and the pounding of scabbarded swords on the stone floor of the vaulting cavern. Between Synelle and Karela stood the bronze she had stolen from Conan, but its evil was overpowered by the waves of horror that radiated from the huge sanguinary image that dominated the chamber. Three ebon eyes that seemed to drink in light held her own. She tried to tear her eyes from that hellborn gaze, she prayed for the strength to pull away, but like a bird hypnotized by a serpent she had no will left.
The lashes struck, again and again. Her hands quivered in her bonds with the effort of not shrieking, for that demonic scarlet figure had begun to vibrate, giving off a hum that blended with the flutes and wrenched at the core of her that made her a woman. Conan, she cried silently, where are you?
Stirring where neither time nor space existed, where endless nihility was all. Awakening, almost full, as pleasure overwhelming lanced through the impenetrable shield. Irritation, vaster than the minds of all men together could encompass, flared. Would these torments never cease, these returnings of ancient memories near gone and better forgotten? Would not … . Full awareness for the first time in eons, awareness cold enough to freeze suns and stay worlds in their motion. There was direction. A single pristine strand of crystalline desire and pain stretching into the infinite. Slowly, with a wariness born of long centuries of disappointment, from the midst of nothingness the gleaming thread of worship was followed.
Conan peered around the edge of a huge, mosscovered block of marble which had once been intended for construction. Crickets chirped in the dark, and a nightbird gave a haunting cry. All else was still.
Roofless walls of niveous stone and truncated alabaster columns, never completed and now wreathed by thick vines, covered the leveled top of the mountain. Among the columns were more than a score of men in black armor and horned helms, the torches a third of them carried casting flickering shadows over the weather-beaten ruins. He wanted to sigh with relief at the symbol picked out in scarlet on their chests. It was clearly the head of the image Karela had stolen, the head of Al’Kiir. Not until that moment had he allowed himself to fear he might be coming to the wrong place.
The black-armored man had to be guarding an entrance to chambers below, Conan thought, where the horrible rite was to take place. Boros had said the tomb lay buried in the heart of the mountain. At least, they were supposed to be standing guard. The sinister reputation of Tor Al’Kiir made it unlikely anyone would come there, most especially in the night, and that made them careless. Some leaned against pale fluted marble. Others sat and talked among themselves. No eye was directed outward to watch for intruders.
Conan signaled with his hands; long practiced, the nine men behind him slid soundlessly away. The Cimmerian counted silently, knowing how long it would take each man to reach his place.
“Now!” he shouted, and burst from concealment to hurl himself at the guards. As he had known it would, his shout and the appearance of a lone man charging froze them for an instant, long enough for nine bowstrings to twang, for nine feathered shafts to drink life.
The guards of Al’Kiir had been chosen for their skill, though, and even as their comrades were falling the survivors darted for cover behind the columns. But then Conan was among them. Thrusting the staff like a lance he took a man under the chin; throat cartiledge snapped loudly, and blood spilled from a mouth that could no longer scream.
“For Conan!” he heard behind him. “Conan!”
A blade thrust at him, and his ancient steel severed the arm that held it. He ducked beneath a decapitating cut and, wielding his broadsword like an axe, chopped through his attacker’s midsection almost to the spine. Kicking the body away, he straightened to find no black-armored man standing. His mercenaries stood among the bodies, gripping bloody swords and warily watching for more of the enemy.
“Are they all dead?” Conan demanded.
Machaon shook his head. “Two managed to run down there.” He pointed to a dark opening where steps had led down into the mountain.
“Crom!” the Cimmerian muttered. With quick strides he moved to the opening and started down. Wordlessly the others followed.
Sweat trickling down her sleek form, Synelle moved in the ancient forms and patterns, her body swaying and bending in an exaltation of lust and pain. Time-forgotten words spilled from her mouth, echoed against the walls, supplicating and glorifying her dire god. The monstrous horned malevolence before which she danced pulsated like the string of a harp. The drone that came from it now drowned out the flutes and the pounding scabbards and even the slap of leather on flesh, yet seemed to merge with and amplify her voice.
A part of her mind noted that the auburn-haired woman, naked now to the lash, sagged in her bonds, but struggled still against surrender. Not once had a cry passed her lips. That was well, Synelle thought, not pausing an instant in either movements or incantation. She was certain that the success she seemed to be having was as much due to the stubborn pride of this Karela as to the bronze image. Much better than any of the haughty noblewomen, who in the end always wept and begged and offered their bodies to the men whipping them in exchange for even a moment’s surcease.
One of her guards, his chain-mail rent and bloodied, burst into the chamber. “We are attacked, my lady!” he gasped. “Hundreds of them! They cry, for Conan!”
Synelle faltered, then desperately continued with dance and invocation. To stop now would mean disaster, doom better undreamed of. Yet her mind spun. Conan? It was impossible. But then it was impossible that any should dare brave the night slopes of Tor Al’Kiir. Then who … .