Conan’s eyes slitted open, where he lay wrapped in his cloak and the night beneath the sky. After her behavior he had chosen not to go to Jondra’s tent, despite the lamps that remained invitingly lit even now. It had not been thoughts of the silken body that had wakened him, though, but a sound out of place. He could hear the breathing of the sentry nearest him, a breathing too deeply regular for a man alert. The fools would not hear his advice, he thought. They listened, but would not hear. There were other things they did not hear, as well. The sentry’s half-snore was overlaid by another sound; stones slid and clicked on the hillside. On all sides of the hill.
“Crom!” he muttered. In a continuous motion he threw aside his black cl
oak, rose to his feet and drew steel. His mouth opened to shout the alarm, and in that instant there was need no longer.
On the heels of the hollow ‘thunk’ of a blade striking flesh came, “By the will of the true gods, slay them! No quarter!”
Chaos clawed its way out of the dark, hillmen appearing on every side screaming for the blood of unbelievers, hunters scrambling from their tents crying prayers to their gods for another dawn.
The big Cimmerian ran toward the sentry he had listened to. Shocked to wakefulness the hunter tried to lower his long-pointed spear, but a slashing stroke across the face from a tulwar spun him shrieking to the ground.
“Crom!” Conan roared.
The hillman jerked at his reins, spun his shaggy mount above the downed sentry toward the huge man who loomed out of the night. “The true gods will it!” he yelled. Waving his bloody blade above his turban, he booted his shaggy mount into a charge.
For the space of a heartbeat Conan halted, planted his feet as if preparing to take the charge. Suddenly he sprang forward, ducking under the whistling crescent of steel, his own blade lancing into the hillman’s middle. The shock of the blow rocked the Cimmerian to his heels as the hillman seemed to leap backwards over his horse’s rump to crash to earth.
Placing his foot on the chest of the corpse, Conan pulled his sword free. Warned by a primitive sense, by a pricking between his shoulderblades, he whirled to find another mounted foe, and a tulwar streaking for his head. But his steel was rising as he turned, its razor edge slicing through the descending wrist. Tulwar and hand flew, and the keening hillman galloped into the night with the fountaining stump of his wrist held high, as if he could thus keep the blood from pouring out of him.
Already two high-wheeled carts were towering bonfires, and flames swiftly ate five of the round tents. Over all hung the din of battle, the clang of steel on steel, the screams of the wounded, the moans of the dying. Another cart burst afire. The burnings cast back the night from struggling pairs of men who danced with sanguine blades among the bodies that littered the hilltop. Of those who lay still, more wore the mail shirts and spiked helms of Zamorans than wore turbans.
All this Conan took in in an instant, but one sight among all the others drew his eyes. Jondra, drawn from her sleeping furs and naked save for a quiver slung over her shoulder, stood before her crimsonwalled tent, nocking arrows and firing as calmly as if she shot her bow at straw targets. And where her shafts went hillmen died.
Another had become aware of her, the Cimmerian saw. A hillman at the far end of the camp suddenly gave an ululating cry and kicked his mount into a gallop for the bare-skinned archer.
“Jondra!” Conan shouted, but even as he did he knew she could not hear above the tumult. Nor would all his speed take him to her side in time.
Tossing his sword to his left hand, he flung himself in two bounds back to the sentry who lay with his face a ruined mask staring at the sable sky. Ruthlessly he put a foot on the man’s outstretched arm, ripped free the heavy hunting spear from the death-grip that held it. With desperate quickness he straightened, turned and threw, freezing as the spear left his hand. No will or thought was left for motion, for all rode with that thick shaft. The hillman’s mount was but two strides from Jondra, his blade heartbeats from her back, but still she neither heard nor turned. And the hillman convulsed as a forearm-long blade transfixed his chest. His horse galloped on, and he slowly toppled backwards, falling like a sack before the woman he meant to slay. Jondra started as the body hit the ground almost at her feet, but for a moment continued to fumble at her empty quiver in search of another arrow. Abruptly she tossed aside her bow and snatched the tulwar from the dead man’s hand.
Conan found he could breathe again. He took a step toward her … and something sliced a line of fire across his back. The big youth threw himself into a forward roll and came to his feet searching for his attacker. There were men behind him, both hillmen and hunters, but all save Arvaneus and Telades were killing or being killed, and even as he looked they engaged turbanned foes. He had no time to seek out particular enemies, Conan thought. There were enough for all. The dark blood-rage rose in him, cold enough to burn.
When he turned back Jondra was gone, but thoughts of her were buried deep now in the battle-black of his mind. Some men are said to be born for battle; Conan had been born on the field of battle. The scent drawn in with his first breath had been the coppery smell of fresh-spilled blood. The first sound to greet his ears had been the clash of steel. The first sight his eye beheld had been ravens circling in the sky, waiting till living men departed and they ruled what remained.
With the battle fury that had been his birthright he strode through the flames and screams of the encampment, and death rode on his steel. He sought the turbanned men, the bearded men, and those he found went before Erlik’s Black Throne with eyes of azure fire their last memory of the world of men. His ancient broadsword flashed banefully in the light of burning tents, flashed till its encrimsoned length could flash no more, but seemed rather to eat light as it ate life. Men faced him, men fell before him, and at last men fled him.
The time came when he stood alone, and no turbans could his questing eye find but those on dead men. There were standing men, he realized as the haze of battle-rage thinned and cleared his eyes, Zamoran hunters gathered in a loose circle about him, staring in wonder tinged with fear. He turned to face each man in turn, and each fell back a step at his gaze. Even Arvaneus could not hold his ground, though his face flushed with anger when he realized what he had done.
“The hillmen?” Conan demanded hoarsely. He stripped the rough woolen cloak from a hillman’s corpse and wiped his blade clean.
“Gone,” Telades said in a high voice. He paused to clear his throat. “Some few fled, I think, but most … .” His gesture took in the entire hilltop, strewn with bodies and burned-out tents, illumined by flaming carts.”It was your work that saved us, Cimmerian.”
“Hannuman’s Stones!” Arvaneus roared. “Are you all women? It was your own arms saved you, swords in your own hands! If the barbar slew one or two, it was his skin he sought to save.”
“Do not speak the fool,” Telades retorted. “You of all men should not speak against him. Conan fought like a demon while the rest of us struggled to realize that we were awake, that it was not a nightmare we faced.” A murmur of agreement came from the circle of men.
Face twisted darkly, Arvaneus opened his mouth, but Conan cut him off. “If some of them escaped, they may return with others. We should be gone from this place, and quickly.”
“There stands your hero,” Arvaneus sneered. “Ready to run. Few hillman bands are larger than the number which attacked us, and most of them now wait for the worms. Who else will come against us? I, for one, think we slew all of the mountain dogs.”
“Some did flee,” Telades protested, but Arvaneus spoke on over him.
“I saw none escaping. If I had, they wouldn’t have lived to escape. If we run like rabbits, then like rabbits we run from shadows.”
“Your insults begin to disturb me, huntsman,” Conan said, hefting his sword. “In the past I have forborne killing you for one reason or another. Now, it is time for you to still your tongue, or I will still it for you.”
Arvaneus stared stiffly back at him, his tulwar twitching in his hand, but he did not speak. The other hunters moved back to give room.
Into the silence Jondra stepped, a robe of brocaded sky-blue silk covering her to the ankles and held tightly at her neck with both hands. She studied the two men confronting each other before speaking. “Conan, why do you think the hillmen will return?”