Conan the Gladiator Read online

  The test of wills was intense—a struggle hailed by thunderous cheering from the arena crowd. Meanwhile, as the two strove and grappled, other circus folk ran to the wood pylons and the hanging bridge and began their flight to safety. Sathilda, after making a foray hand over hand all the way across the pit to test the trapezes and get them swinging, returning to her embattled friends.

  Arriving at the near tripod and clinging to one side of the narrow perch, she sent off the less skilled aerialists with perfect timing, then caught the fragile trapeze as it swung back. One by one the young athletes, males mostly, swung out over the pit, passing lithely across to drop on the sand at the farther side.

  On the balance-beam, those who lacked aerial skills but were still fairly fit tried their luck. Phatuphar chose to lead Jana by that route, holding her hand as they inched along, although it was yet unproven that the narrow timber would support one person, much less two. When they were safely across, Bardolph went running nimbly out across the void, scarcely looking down. Others followed one at a time, while their companions anxiously awaited their turns.

  For those who, like Luddhew and Iocasta, lacked acrobatic skills, and for any players lamed in the wagon wrecks, only the rope bridge was left. Those few survivors began parcelling themselves out onto the treacherous span; anxiously they called back to their fellows not to crowd on too quickly, less the frail ropes snap. The bridge, with its loose laths bending and cracking underfoot, was almost as much of a balancing-act as the wooden beam. As Luddhew and Iocasta approached its centre, the frail planks hung literally awash in the lizard-infested bog, nosed at and tested by crocodilian snouts. Yet as more refugees ventured onto the span to escape the bulls, the swaying and sagging actually diminished. As the ropes tautened, the leading couple safely gained the upslope.

  Conan, meanwhile, continued to grapple with his bull in a roaring, cursing frenzy that caused other bison to turn aside from the fight. Wrenching the black-tipped, blood- and sand-crusted horns relentlessly sideways, he forced the animal almost to the stone curbing; then, with a savage heave, he threw it over onto its flank, where it landed with a ground-shaking impact. Fallen, the bull flailed its hooves angrily a moment and, with a forlorn bleating, slid slowly into the pit. The splashings and bellowings that ensued were soon drowned out by the roar of the appreciative audience. But the tumult did not serve to keep loose bulls from straying near and veering in toward the fight, and Conan was soon menaced again.

  The she-tiger Qwamba had long since crunched the neck bone of her victim and finished lapping up her fill of the bull’s thick blood; Burudu, too, had survived his battle, whether by victory or stand-off none knew for sure. Both animals came loping back over the sand to their human keepers, and their presence, with sullen growls and flashing, red-rimmed fangs and claws, surely helped to fend away the bulls’ charges. Now, with only a handful of circus folk left at the edge of the pit, Sathilda leapt from her perch and gave her attention to the animals.

  “Poor dears, we must save them, too,” she announced, moving her gentle touch from the bear’s lumbering rump to the tiger’s dusty sable. She gestured toward the half dozen surviving bulls that slowly but steadily converged on the spot. “Qwamba can make it alone, she is an excellent swimmer, but Burudu will need our help. You must guard the bridge, Conan, till everyone else is across.”

  “What? A bear three times my size needs me to guard its tail?” Conan, now armed with one of Dath’s light axes, glanced behind him over the bridge with its scatter of individuals teetering, limping, and creeping across to the farther side. “Leave the wild beasts to fend for themselves! They have a better chance than we ever did.” “No, they are our partners. They rely on us, and we them. Qwamba, up!” At a snap of her fingers, the night-tiger obediently sprang up one leg of the tripod, raising splinters on the wood surface with her razor claws. From there, the black cat flowed smoothly up onto the balance-beam, which now was empty of human traffic, and ran forward.

  The wooden stringer could not by any stretch of the imagination have supported the immense bulk of the tiger near its centre-most point. But such was the motion of the cat, so uncanny its speed and balance, that it ran straight across without ever stopping or resting its full weight on the frail timber. Like a flicker of night-cloud it passed overhead and, with a fluid leap, bounded down to the sand on the farther side

  “There, you see?” Sathilda demanded exultantly of Conan. “Dath, Roganthus, you go next, and hurry! We cannot trust Burudu’s weight on the bridge till everyone else is off. Dath, you help Roganthus along.”

  “Nay, I can do it myself,” Roganthus called back, setting forth on his own in a fairly erect posture. “That bull that threw me did not hurt me much; in fact, my leg works better now.” Crouching low, his hands almost grasping the bridge-planks for safety, he made good progress. Dath followed him without a backward look.

  “By Crom’s scratchy linen clout! How long do we have to dawdle here, woman?” Conan, swinging the ax furiously against three encroaching bulls, fought to keep himself, his bedmate, and her pet bear all from being crowded over the pit’s edge at once. His blows connected; he even sheared the tip off one bull’s horn, but the light throwing-ax was never made to shatter the thick skull of a wild ox.

  “They are nearly halfway across,” Sathilda replied anxiously. “Burudu, fight!”

  At her commands and emphatic gestures the bear lunged forward, swiping aside one of the three homed heads with a blow of its paw. The insulted bull snorted and bore in angrily, but could not make any headway against Burudu’s fur-clad bulk. Meanwhile Conan jumped clear, as two more young bulls shouldered in and clashed horns irritably with the pair he had been battling.

  “That’s it, then,” he declared, seizing the girl’s shoulder in his thick, grimy hand. “Go now, onto the bridge.”

  “Burudu, here!” Giving way reluctantly at Conan’s shove, Sathilda paused to coax the bear after her. “Come along, Burudu, follow me!” And Burudu, turning at the sharp sound of her voice, abandoned combat readily enough and followed.

  Conan was unsure whether he preferred to be in front of the lumbering brute, like Sathilda, or behind it on the narrow bridge. Lacking any choice, he pressed after the beast’s brown, rumpled hindquarters, feeling bullhorns graze and prod his own back.

  No sooner had the span taken on the combined weight of the two humans and the bear than it gave way beneath them. Fortunately it parted behind them, where the ropes crimped through the eye-bolts at the pit’s edge; just as luckily, both the ropes gave way at once, so they were not dumped sideways into the teeming quagmire. After a sudden dousing and a desperate scramble, they found themselves slogging through thigh-deep water over sand hummocks and the backs of slow-moving lizards, following the treads of the bridge that stretched before them to the far edge of the pit.

  Sathilda, splashing with all her acrobat’s strength, managed to stay ahead of Burudu, whose ponderous weight served to hold the bridge-ropes taut for her. The bear smashed and splintered the planks as he went, but also mauled some of the crocodiles severely and fended them back with ill-tempered swipes of his paw. Conan was left to follow as best he could, smiting behind him with his ax and avoiding the scissoring jaws of the smaller, quicker crocs.

  In that way, speeded by peril and without fear of losing their balance, they made it rapidly through the centre of the reptile-pit. Those others who had been caught on the fallen bridge, including Dath and Roganthus, appeared to be making the climb safely to the farther side.

  Only one of the python-draped trees loomed near enough to their path to pose a threat; and Conan, leaping up and swinging his ax, split the head of the thickest serpent before it could drop down and snare one of them in its coils.

  Amid a converging formation of snapping, lunging crocodiles, the Cimmerian managed to stay upright and unscathed. Finally, after the remains of the bridge span had been splintered and demolished by Burudu on the ascent, Conan hauled himself hand over hand up one of
the dangling ropes, to join his companions on the far rim.

  They stood clustered together, welcoming their friends up onto the bank but looking somewhat unsure. Before them stretched another expanse of sand as large and empty as the first one, leading to no evident exit or open doorway. The only thing before them that was any different from the farther side was a low wooden trestle piled with leaning spears, halberds, rusting swords, and dented bronze shields—a weapons-rack. The roaring of the crowd, which had swollen to a frenzy as Conan hacked his way through the lizard-pit, now fell back to an expectant murmur.

  A chorus of trumpets sounded, echoing sourly across the sprawling stadium. At a far corner of the arena, low wooden doors opened wide. From them came pouring onto the sand a troop of warriors, nomads of the eastern desert. Whirling curved swords overhead, the warriors gave tongue to wild yells and charged.

  VI

  Sand and Steel

  As the circus troupe stood gaping in shocked silence, Conan shoved forward between them. “Come, then, and arm yourselves! If any of us survives this, it will be by weapons-play! Here, grab a spear and form a phalanx.”

  So saying, he strode to the makeshift arsenal. The stoutest-looking sword he snatched up and slid beneath his thick weight-lifter’s belt, letting it hang heavy at his side. With the thonged ax dangling from his wrist, he gathered up swords and pikes and pressed them into the hands of those crowding close behind him. “Here, Jana, this javelin ought to be light enough for your arm! Phatuphar, take this, but I hope you brought your throwing knives along. You, Roganthus, are you sure you can swing that?”

  In reply, the ex-strongman raised the longsword he had chosen, flexing his arm freely. “I can, indeed. By Mitra’s mercy, the hurt you so carelessly gave me is gone!”

  Amid the clank and scrape of weapons, Conan moved around to the front of the arms-rack. The yelling bedouins had a long sandy space to cross, but now they drew near. Numbering two score and more, they spread out widely and broke into a full run... already in spear-cast range, Conan saw. Reaching behind him, he drew a light javelin from the untidy pile, balanced it in his palm, and hurled it.

  The sound of a steel-tipped shaft driving into a human chest was never a pleasant one. Nor was the scream of a crowd that watched in frenzied exultation, maddened by the sight of the first human blood shed that day.

  Yet over the unholy clamour the charge continued, even as the circus folk straggled out in a line to meet it. Conan dipped into the pile of rusty weapons; he hefted and threw again and again, until every unclaimed spear found its home in the vitals of an attacker. Others cast their weapons with less effect—except Dath, who flung his ax and split the face of an attacker at ten paces, the full length of his thong.

  Phatuphar’s hurled knives could wound but not stop the nomads, who wore thick robes. They appeared to be wild bandits, rounded up on the Stygian frontier and ordered to fight for their freedom. Conan had killed countless such marauders in the desert and did not qualm at killing more of them here.

  The battle-lines met abruptly, with shrill cries and the clashings of long, curved yataghans against the coarser steel of the arena blades. The circus players’ line held against the attack, bending back slightly at either end but standing forth at the centre. There Conan swung his notched sword one-fisted, and parrying the nomads’ slim blades with Dath’s light ax held in his off-hand.

  Conan fought and slew lustily, hacking through leathery necks and wrists and skulls—or else, where his worn blade could not cut the tough woollen folds of their garments, clubbing his victims with the dull steel and breaking their bones. Repeatedly he stepped forth out of the phalanx, letting nomads surge about him. Where their wickedly curved blades struck and clashed together, Conan was not—time and again he eluded them, only to dart back an instant later and wreak new death and mayhem on the return pass.

  The players backed him solidly. Fighting close, they choked up short on their spear shafts to thrust and jab at the enemy, or at the very least held their shields and points firm to fend off the assault. Of the other circus stars, Bardolph and Roganthus fought most exuberantly, each one holding up one flank. Bardolph thrust and chopped with a halberd, a weapon long-handled enough to compensate for his short reach, while Roganthus swung his sword in great swaths, flailing and beating aside the attackers with his newly recovered strength. Dath, however, slew more than both of them combined; plying a battered shield, he had a sly way of darting in under his enemies’ sword strokes and dispatching them with a quick upswing of his ax.

  The back of the phalanx was guarded by the circus animals. Any nomad who sought to outflank the troupe and slaughter them from behind was confronted by Qwamba and Burudu pacing nervously in the rear, a daunting sight; after one interloper was severely mauled by the bear, and another disembowelled by the tiger, the rest gave second thought to trying.

  Then, almost as suddenly as the battle had joined, it was over. The sand lay strewn with wool-cloaked bodies, to which Conan’s last lunging foray had added several more. On finding their number thinned to a mere handful, the survivors broke and ran away, some staggering from wounds, the rest throwing aside their weapons. Conan started after them with his sword raised and a feral snarl in his throat... but then he thought better of it and turned back to his companions.

  Among them he moved half-dazed with battle lust, stepping over dark-cloaked bodies. He let his bloody weapons drop into the sand, the better to clasp and embrace his friends’ shoulders. To his numb astonishment, he learned that not one of the whole circus troupe bore any wound more serious than a mere gash. None had died except the mules; not even the jungle beasts looked sick or scathed.

  “Indeed,” Roganthus exulted, “I am better off than I was!” The strongman waved his sword exuberantly on high. “Praise be to Mitra for sending a mad bull and a flock of brigands to cure me!”

  The din from the cheering onlookers gradually beat through to their distracted senses. They glanced up to see the audience in turmoil, waving, capering, and crowding against the stadium rail. The beaten nomads had retreated to the side of the arena, where they now were allowed escape by the same door through which they had entered. No new threat was evident... yet the players had learned to mistrust the Circus Imperium. Rearming themselves and moving in a tight group with their animals trailing behind, they went toward the hoped-for exit.

  As they came near the arena’s high wall, individual outcries emerged over the general uproar, and distinctive figures could be seen—red-faced men waving both fists high overhead in frenzied salute, odds makers arguing and scuffling with bettors, and town women leaning out wantonly over the rail, baring their breasts at the victors and licking their painted lips. As seasoned circus hands, the performers had seen this sort of thing before. But the scale and intensity of it here were astonishing and more than a little frightening.

  Above the nearest fringe of maddened spectators, moving through the middle of the stadium’s riot, there seemed to be some kind of procession—a flock of notables dressed in robes either pure white or pure black, passing from an area of privileged, stone-carved seats at the centre of the arena, moving along an aisle to the far end. As the players came up before the low wooden postern, which now was shut tight, and baulked at coming any nearer to the raving mob atop the wall, the dignitaries were led through the crowd directly before and above them. Then a voice, issuing from a liveried herald stationed over the archway at the end of the arena, rang out in clear, understandable Stygian.

  “All hail the lords and priests of Luxur— foremost among them Commodorus, our city’s Liege and Tyrant, and Nekrodias, High Primate of Set’s Temple.”

  The herald’s shout, carrying as it did across a good part of the stadium, resulted in a slight and momentary increase in the cheering. Meanwhile the aristocratic procession, pushing forward steadily through the mob, arrived at a level, balustraded terrace just above the terminal archway. And the doors in the arch, as massive and impregnable as the ones through
which the circus troupe had entered, began to grate inward.

  “Victors of this noble day!”

  The speaker was a pale-skinned, white-robed, athletic-looking man with a bushy wreath encircling his curly blond brow. Stepping forward to the carved balustrade, he declaimed like a trained orator with one arm graciously raised. At the sound of his voice, the crowd’s babbling actually diminished somewhat.

  “O happy victors! Seldom has our Circus Imperium witnessed so proud a performance as yours... so complete a triumph, and won at such a small cost! We hail you as heroes, we officers and nobles of the city and church of Luxur. I, Commodorus, exalt and salute you above all other citizens! I know that the elders of the city temple must do the same.”

  At his latter statement a black-robed figure, the thin vulpine man who had moved up beside Commodorus, nodded tersely. Meanwhile he kept a fixed public smirk on his otherwise sour-looking

  face.

  “Therefore,” Commodorus resumed, “we welcome you to Luxur, and extend to you all the bounties and delights of our great city! Welcome, victors... may your lives be long and your fame eternal! Before we resume the games with our afternoon combats—I decree a public triumph in your honour!”

  As he finished, to a new thundering of cheers, the heavy doors beneath him thudded open and a festive cavalcade emerged. Children, wagon-loads of flowers, fair young men sitting bareback astride white horses, and capering slave girls wearing little else but bows and garlands... here, for once, was nothing fierce or sinister or dangerous. As the circus troupe moved impulsively toward the exit, a rain of blinding colours sprinkled down from the stadium seats: flower-petals, they were, wafting and shimmering gaily on the sunlit air. Whole wreaths of flowers, bright coins, kerchiefs, and women’s dainty garments fell at the heroes’ feet.