Conan the Outcast Read online

  Meanwhile, a new range of mountains loomed before them. Always the peaks had lain low and jagged against their Shartoumi horizon, called by their tribe the Chimneys of Shaitan because of the fires that flared redly against the night sky and, by day, the billows of evil-looking smoke they exhaled. Now their blood-trail led them steadily up toward the huddled, misshapen peak. Trudging onward, they learned dumb faith; for it took a faith of fanatic intensity to convince them they would survive.

  Khumanos found the path, watching as before for signs and road marks he had been told of but had never seen. Not quite as before—say, in the Valley of Fire—because then he had owned a mortal soul. His determination had been clouded by hopes, fears, aspirations; where now he possessed only a purpose. His perceptions were unhindered, his judgement flawless in the service of his king and his godly master.

  He spied a lone peasant far ahead, toiling in the sparse but fertile soil of the high volcano slopes. The grass-groats the man was tending flourished green and man-tall against the red shoulders of the narrow valley. Into their lushness the farmer disappeared an instant later; Khumanos knew that word of his approach would be carried ahead of him.

  Later, in the burning noon, the priest led his band of toilers up over a stony hummock into a broader volcanic basin. The place was a blind cirque, ringed by fuming cinder cones and black basalt crags. Its farther reaches were a wasteland of ash mounds, Cyclopean stones, and smoking fumaroles; nearer at hand could be seen a foaming mountain freshet, tilled fields, and a few trees. Around the rambling cinder huts of the dwellers, human shapes moved busily and a little furtively—Khumanos knew he was expected.

  By the time the party reached the dusty, level space between the huts, and the slaves sagged to earth under their burdens, only one man was in sight. This was a bearded peasant, a wizened elder clad in a peaked cap, sheepskin coat and trousers, and high-laced buskins to keep out the loose cinders. Khumanos, leaving his followers to obtain water as they might, strode forward and addressed the man without preamble.

  "You have carried out your charged duty?" he asked. “Are the implements ready?”

  The fellow nodded sharply, his wrinkled old face creasing further in a smile. "Our clan has done as your Lordships commanded. All has been preserved these seven centuries.” The peasant made a quick, respectful bow. “The metal is greased faithfully with palm oil, the frailer parts shielded from heat and ash, and the whole guarded against thieves and profaners. The timber, too, is ready as ordered—and well-seasoned. This lot was cut seventeen years agone.” Smiling again unctuously, the man held forth his hand as if for payment.

  Khumanos made no move to comply. "Show me,” he said. Turning, he raised three fingers on high and flicked the upraised hand toward him. Promptly three Sarkad troopers detached themselves from the huddle of slaves crowding about the water basins and came forward.

  The elder had wordlessly turned and stridden from the circle of huts. The Exalted Priest followed, with the troopers hurrying to bring up the rear. The way passed over a stone path between waving grain fields, but very soon they walked on a worn trail over bare cinder mounds, angling between smoking vents and ponds of bubbling, oozing mud.

  As they went forward, the earth’s heat increased and deposits of standing water disappeared. The air became noisome and metallic-tasting, and the blue sky overhead took on a greyish tinge, doubtless from fumes filtering up through the cinders all around. Ahead lay the broadest source of the effluvium, a yawning gash at the foot of a dark basalt cliff. Amid shimmering heat waves, the crevasse poured forth a plume of dark, roiling smoke, its underbelly shimmering eerily in the reddish glow of the vent, before it towered on high and trailed away in the winds from the desert.

  Near the rupture in the earth, signs of human industry were present. Great devices loomed there, wavering in the reddish glow—huge metal troughs and basins, giant moulds carven of black basalt, bound and hinged together with red-rusted steel, and a looming, gallows-like crane. In high, slate-roofed enclosures on either hand, protected from the volcano’s corroding heat by thick cinder walls, long poles and paddles were stacked along with racks of heavy iron chain. In all, though the place was desolate and dusted with ash, it had a look of recent upkeep and readiness for use.

  "The timbers,” Khumanos called ahead to the old farmer, who stood in the shelter of one of the sheds. He was dwarfed by the size of his surroundings, his shoulders hunched against the blast of heat. “Show me the lumber you have made ready.”

  “First, our payment,” the elder one demanded, shuffling toward the Exalted Priest with an outstretched hand.

  “First the lumber,” Khumanos answered, making no move toward his purse.

  "As you wish." Shrugging, the old man turned and gestured Khumanos after him, leading the way around a stony hummock that sheltered them from the worst of the volcano's heat. "The fumes that come up though these cinders are fine for seasoning wood. They harden and preserve it.”

  “Indeed,” Khumanos said, following the old one closely and motioning his troopers up on either side. “I will require your help, of course—yours and your kinsmen’s, to aid and instruct us in the use of the implements.”

  “Of course,” the farmer said, nodding back over his shoulder. “Here is your timber.” Ushering Khumanos and the three troopers around a jagged basalt outcrop, he showed them a cave that opened into the side of a cinder mound. Sheltered within its mouth could be seen the ends of a half-dozen stout, planed tree trunks.

  "And the wheels?” Khumanos questioned. "Those are part of our agreement. I do not see them.”

  "They are in the cave—there in the shadows, if you come closer.” Dogging the priest’s footsteps, the old farmer extended his hand. "Now the gold, by our age-old contract.”

  Nodding distractedly, Khumanos reached under his tunic and undid a cord about his waist. He extracted a heavily clinking pouch and shoved it into the old man’s hand, then followed him into the cave mouth. He paused to inspect the timber; it was solid yellow-white, resonant to the thump of a knuckle.

  “The peasant! He has vanished into the cave!” one of the troopers cried.

  The three guards, who had obediently ringed the mouth of the cave to prevent the old one’s escape, now bolted forward and disappeared in pursuit of the farmer. Scuffs and clattering of stone could be heard, along with clanks and impious curses as the Sarkads bruised themselves against invisible stone walls in the dimness. A pause then, with more muttered curses as a tinder light was struck.

  Some moments later, one of the guards reappeared in the mouth of the cave. He found Khumanos inspecting the wheels—a dozen or more man-high disks of wooden plank, bronze-rimmed, with bronze bushings at the hub. “Exalted One, there is no sign of him—no more than some stains on the rock from a tallow candle.” The ranking trooper hesitated. "It will be hard to follow him through this cavern.”

  "Likely it has branchings and exits down-slope. Let him go.” Khumanos turned and led them back toward the rest of the party. "It matters not, the caretakers always run away," he said. "Doubtless they will remain hidden until we are gone.”

  Over the ensuing days, vast labours were undertaken in the throat of volcano. The ore was carried near the rim of the smoking vent and placed there in three separate piles, from the three respective mines. Each mass of ore, one batch at a time, was laid into a great iron trough, a vessel broad and barge-like, with iron loopholes hammered into each corner and a raised lip at one end.

  Chains were then hooked into the loopholes, and the metal trough levered by means of long metal poles to the very rim of the pit. This was slow work, especially as the trough edged near the vent, because the heat and sulphurous fumes issuing from the hell hole were well-nigh intolerable to mortals. Teams of slaves laboured for short periods and then reeled back, choking, as the next shift crept forward to take their places.

  Even so, what came next made the levering look easy. The corner chains were hooked to a much longer, heavier chain,
which ran through the eye of the giant metal crane that loomed next to the fiery pit. To serve this tall, imperious master, the hapless slaves toiled at an iron windlass mere steps from the volcano’s rim, hoisting the full weight of trough and ore off the ground. Again by means of levers, with more effort and risk, the crane and its burden were swung out over the blazing abyss.

  Then, with slow, deliberate clacks of the ratchet, the windlass was slacked off. By a seemingly endless length of chain the trough was lowered, to bake in the heat of earth’s inner hells. The wait was brief, necessarily, lest the iron vessel itself melt or bum away at the chain's lowest extent, where the fire was most intense. Almost as soon as it had been lowered the trough was raised again, urgently, with the rough, cursing assistance of the guards. Link by straining link, clack after agonized clack, the trough of ore and the full, ponderous weight of chain were hauled back to the surface.

  Once raised and pivoted away from the furnace-blast, the ore was seen to be a mass of red, glowing embers: like coals in a fireplace, but encased in a trough of metal that was itself red-hot, even white-hot in places.

  Promptly, without allowing it to cool, half-naked slaves raked and turned this bed of ore with long forks and paddles. The slaves did their best to keep back from the searing heat, though their heavy tools themselves glowed red at the ends. Then, back into hell’s chimney, the trough was swung out and lowered again; then hoisted, raked, and lowered... thrice in all, without rest, under Khumanos’s watchful eye and the long whip-lashes of the Sarkad overseers.

  By the end of it, the stone and dross of the ore were burned entirely away. All that remained, roiling in the bottom of the trough—to those whose eyes had not grown too swollen and parched to see it—was a thin tide of molten metal, glowing green within the pinkish glare of the basin and its taut chains. This time the trough had to be raised to its full height overhead. Then it was swung gently aside, most cautiously indeed, since a splash of quick-metal could—and did on one occasion—burn a fist-sized hole in a luckless slave’s chest, searing to the heart in a single, angry gasp of steam. Next, the glowing tray was lowered gently, carefully, onto a tall steel framework that caused it to tilt, letting the molten ore flow to one end.

  The articulated framework was then levered and angled even higher, so as to pour the last of the molten metal out over the raised lip. It flowed, an emerald-bright, fuming cascade, down an iron channel to a funnel mouth in the top of a hinged stone mould, whose metal bindings had been wedged shut in readiness.

  Once filled, the mould ticked and settled from the added weight and heat. Its seams emitted an eerie green light, and within a few moments the stone itself smoked with the metal’s searing energy.

  Shortly after that momentous step, with night thick overhead, Khumanos decreed praises to Votantha, signalling the end of their day's labour. The slaves crept off to their rest—sore with burns and fatigue, their beards and eyebrows scorched away, their very lungs singed with the volcano’s fiery breath. Not a one of them was so dulled by labour as to forget that, once the product of their toil was removed, two more batches of ore remained to be raked and smelted in hell's fires.

  On the second day following, when the mould had grown cool enough to be approached, the pins were knocked from its metal hinges and latches. The sections were pried apart to reveal a towering mass of silver-white metal of indeterminate form, roughly wedge-shaped. It was part of a larger statue—that was the best the slaves could guess, before Khumanos ordered that tent canvas be roped securely around it. It was then lowered onto a wooden sledge made from timbers left in the cave. Before any further work was done at the volcano mouth, the slaves were bidden to drag the sledge to the caretakers’ farmstead, where it was left under guard.

  Khumanos oversaw the making of two more metal statues by identical means. The same trough was used, along with distinct but similar moulds found at the site. In each case the Exalted Priest dispassionately viewed the result, pronounced it satisfactory and, before the guards or prostrate workers saw it closely, shrouded it with canvas by his own hand. As the labour wore on the slaves grew more efficient and, if anything, more manageable. Accidents culled out the weak and the sick, reducing the cause for complaint.

  Even so, the third casting was smelted and poured by a substantially smaller crew. Khumanos had ordered that the first statue be started on its way, hauled down the mountain by some one-third of the remaining slaves, with the second casting remaining under guard at the caretakers’ hovels. For unknown reasons, the Exalted Priest decreed that the finished pieces must be kept separate. That precaution left fewer hands to turn the windlass and rake the ore.

  The task was completed largely through the effort of one Tulbar, a Hyrkanian slave whom Khumanos had converted from sullen rebelliousness to sullen diligence. He worked tirelessly, trudging the harsh circuit of the hoist-track and then plying his ore paddle long after the other, less hardy slaves had been driven back by the heat.

  Near the moment of pouring, when the trough of molten metal was being raised for the last time, the Hyrkanian exceeded his former standard of leadership. The great vessel caught on a stone outcrop near the rim and swayed out of line, threatening to strike the wall of the pit and spill its contents; it was Tulbar who reached out with his steel paddle to prevent it. An untimely accident then occurred: Tulbar, clinging tightly to the handle, was caught under the arm by the trapped implement and levered out over the abyss, to pitch sidelong into the trough of molten metal. Before the eyes of his fellow toilers, his body dissolved in a gout of steam, which soon diminished to mere bubblings and gurglings in the shallow, green-glowing vat.

  In spite of the mishap—or rather, because of Tulbar’s noble sacrifice—the pouring took place successfully. Khumanos, when questioned by one of his acolytes as to what special mourning ritual might be performed, was heard to answer in a cryptic way.

  "It is of no importance,” he said, turning to his inferior, his gaunt shape outlined by the bulk of the glowing, fuming mould. "The death of the body, the mere mortal husk, is no great misfortune. That is not when the pain is felt.”

  VII

  Fury from the Desert

  “Place a flat rock inside the trap to weight it to the bottom of the stream. Then a few loops of withe, thus...” Sitting back on his haunches, Conan of Cimmeria knotted the last twisted strands and held up the fish trap before the watching children. “It's finished.”

  The contrivance was nothing more than a pair of open-mesh reed baskets. One was egg-shaped, the other formed as an open cone and laced inside the first. Yet to the eyes of Ezrel, Jabed, Felidamon and small Inos, the object might have been made of finest silk strung over gold wire.

  "That’s how they make them in Pictland, to fish the streams that feed the Black River. Now, let's put it in the pond overnight and see what we catch.”

  “Will there be more whiskerfish?” Jabed asked eagerly. "Those are my favourites."

  "We’ll see,” Conan said, looping a twine through the rim of the basket.

  "Whiskerfish are good,” Felidamon contributed, "and eels too. I would teach my mother to cook them, but she would say they are unclean.”

  "Doubtless the townsfolk would find them good enough to eat during a famine,” Conan grumbled. "But then, like as not, 'twould be a drought, and the stream would be down to a mere trickle.” He finished knotting the other end of the twine around an anchor stone of irregular shape. "They must be enjoyed during times of plenty."

  "Someone is coming,” Inos piped up, watching a movement upstream. The others turned to see a long, angled pole threading its way toward them through the underbrush. Any sound of the carrier’s approach had been masked by the talking of the stream.

  "What ho!” Conan called out as a man rounded the broad bush before them. He was a desert-dweller, his clean-shaven face burned a deep brown by sun and his black, curly hair cropped short. His dusty burnoose was belted and a polished sabre hung at his waist, and his hood was thrown back loose
ly around his muscular neck. The pole he carried before him was a thin spear, twice the height of a tall man, its heavy tip trailing one long, curving barb.

  Halting in surprise before them, the man broke into a grin, revealing his strong, yellow-stained teeth.

  “Welcome, stranger, hello!” Conan called out heartily in the southern desert dialect. “Come share our food and...” reaching beside him, he took up his Ilbarsi knife where it stuck in the dirt; with a flick of his arm he sent it whirling through the air: “... our hospitality!”

  The blade chunked home; it lodged in the stranger’s breastbone just below the throat. The man’s sudden grab for his sabre dissolved into formless, plucking spasms as he sank to his knees, exhaling a torrent of dark blood, and toppled over backward. The spear he carried fell forward across the cold ashes of the fireplace.

  “Why... why did you kill him?" Inos quavered in a stricken, reedy voice. “Was he going to steal our fish?”

  “Up, children!” Conan commanded, seizing hold of the long wooden hasp. “This is no fish-spear, by all the gods and goddesses! This is made for poking at your city guardsmen and fishing them off the wall! Up, now, and follow me! Stay close, all of you!”

  Pausing only to retrieve his knife, Conan snatched up young Inos with one arm and set out at a brisk run. With the nomad's spear poised in his free hand, Conan trusted the others to keep up with him. He was not wrong, for in moments he heard Ezrel’s voice crying close behind him.

  “Conan, this is not the way to the gate!”

  “There is no time to reach the Tariff Gate,” Conan grunted back. “There will be more raiders gathering!”