Conan the Outcast Page 8

  “But the north postern door—"

  “Is too far!” Conan barked back. “Follow me, we shan’t need a gate!”

  Ezrel followed, and after him the others— Jabed and Felidamon, steadying each other by clasping hands. Ahead of them the city wall loomed tall and sheer. There was only the faintest sign of activity on the top—in the form of a helmeted face down-turned, watching their approach with sudden interest. To its suspicious gaze Conan bellowed, “Call out the reserves, you thick-witted lout! Your town is under attack!”

  Arriving at the wall, he raised the pike before him. It was long enough, when held off the ground, to hook the outer edge of the battlement. Seizing Inos by the scruff of the shorts, he half-hurled him up the spear shaft—and then, reaching behind him, threw on Jabed as well to urge the smaller child along. "Go on, you two, clamber on up!” he told them. “I know you can, I’ve seen you shinny up palm trunks!”

  Bracing the pike's butt with two hands, he watched the pair delivered into the arms of the guards at the top. He then boosted Felidamon up onto the spear—if a girl, she climbed nimbly as any boy—and finally laid hold of Ezrel. The elder boy, when he already had one foot braced on Conan’s bent knee, hesitated. "You go first!” he cried. "It will be easier for you to steady the pike from the top, and then I’ll climb.”

  "No, lad!” The Cimmerian shook his black mane impatiently. "The hook will never support my weight—it may not even take yours unless I brace it from below. Now go!” He tossed his head toward the fringe of riverside brush behind them, where armed nomads were breaking into the open. "If you dawdle longer we’ll be overrun!”

  In a trice Ezrel was up to the top of the wall. "Protect yourself, Conan!” he shouted back to his friend. "I will go and find a rope.”

  Conan did not intend to wait for anything so unlikely. Trying his weight against the hanging spear, he felt the pliant bronze hood bend, then break off as he had anticipated. Without wasting his breath on a curse, he snatched the pike and ran straight away from the wall, toward the scattered line of advancing nomads.

  The one directly in his path baulked to see him coming, lowering his own long-hafted pike. He was a wiry young Shemite, his djellaba undone and hanging loose about his waist, his chest bare. He angled his spear to fend off Conan's, but to his surprise, the broken point did not drive in on him. Instead, the butt of the northerner's weapon struck him across the jaw, knocking him over backward as Conan reversed direction and headed back toward the city wall.

  It loomed tall before him; instead of slowing, he pounded faster, straight toward the sheer brick pile. He thrust the spear out before him butt-end first, gripping it in both hands. Then, digging its haft into the dirt at the base of the wall, he vaulted, twisting his entire body sideways into the air. The slender shaft bent beneath the force of his weight and speed; yet it held, and on the upswing it gave back every ounce of his momentum.

  An instant later, arching feet-first, hair and garments trailing, he landed on his side, having vaulted more than thrice his own height.

  No sooner had he thudded down on the hard, rough masonry than a city guard came running at him with spear raised, shouting curses against invaders. After kicking the fellow’s legs out from under him, Conan rolled atop him and drubbed his helmeted head once or twice against the parapet, bawling at him, "Fool, I am not an invader! I am your friend, dog!” When the guard was slow to arise, Conan took up the spear the fellow had dropped and turned to face the enemy.

  The guards on both sides of him were already embattled, fighting off lean, wiry nomads who swarmed up ladders, spear shafts, and hook-ended ropes. The standing guard were few, not more than one for every twenty paces of wall; now, as they fought feverishly along the edge of the parapet, some fell to arrows and jabbing spears. Additional troops could be heard mustering in the city garrison below, but it would be long minutes before they arrived. Meanwhile the swift, unexpected attack threatened to carry the wall.

  Conan plied his spear viciously, darting along the parapet to smite attackers as they clawed their way to the top. He trod on the hand of one scar-faced marauder, causing him to slip back down his spear; another he jabbed in the neck as he mounted the battlement, sending him falling back with a wail. A third he toppled over backward with his spear-haft as the man hauled himself upright. Yet while the Cimmerian was thus occupied, two more besiegers gained the wall unhindered beside him.

  The city guard who had first menaced Conan was on his feet now, facing the newcomers with drawn rapier. But even as he stalked forward, a grappling hook hurled from below caught him by the neck, dragging him down to his knees. He struggled, clinging to the paving stones to keep his place on the wall as the attacker started up the knotted rope. Conan dove to the side and jabbed the invader in the face with his spear, forcing him to loosen his grip; but more nomads behind him seized hold of the rope, hauling the guard over the edge with an agonized scream.

  That left a clot of attackers, now a half-dozen strong, atop the wall; between them and the Tariff Gate only Conan and a pair of beleaguered guards remained. Rather than leaping down into the caravan yard, where fresh defenders raced toward the ramp ways, the marauders turned toward Conan. Clearly their best hope would be to secure the gate and try to throw it open for their fellows.

  Fortunately, the narrowness of the way made it hard for more than two fighters to advance abreast. Snatching up the hapless guard's abandoned rapier, Conan shifted his spear to his offhand and prepared to meet the rush. One marauder dodged afoul of Conan’s whirling blade, lost his sword overside with a clang, and a moment later plummeted after it himself, trailing blood from his gashed throat.

  Two more nomads darted in to take his place, while a third in the rear tried to add his say by thrusting between his fellows with a long, barbed spear. Conan dodged the point and drove in sideways against the shaft, using it as a handy lever to force one of the forward pair off the wall—swiftly and mercifully, with no more than a broken bone or two from the fall. The second attacker lunged at Conan, only to receive the point of the spear in his midsection. The hard-driven blade passed straight through him, jutting out from his back—and as the man behind tried to dodge past him, a savage twist of the shaft sent the point hooking into his vitals as well. The men, pinned together like two fish on the same spear, plummeted from the wall in a frenzy of struggles and agonized shrieks.

  So went the carnage. Conan fought and slew, expecting at any moment to feel a hostile edge strike him from behind, or to take an arrow in the armpit; he kept moving briskly, tirelessly, to make himself a difficult target. Another raider went down before the northerner's feral swiftness, and another. Then, of a sudden, the last nomad who faced him moaned with fear and spun away in gasping flight.

  The fugitive had gone no more than five steps when he was embattled again—this time by a grey-clad opponent who fought in the tight, economical style of Saditha’s temple swordsmen. The nomad thrust left, only to see his blade brushed aside with a soft hiss of steel; then he slashed right, to find the force of the blow expended on empty air short of his leaning target. He hacked downward, again narrowly missing—then his soft burnoose tented out sharply in back with the impact of a blade-thrust.

  He staggered backward; his still-quaking body twisted aside, then was shucked from the wall like a sack of offal. The victor strode triumphantly forward. He raised his blade to offer the same treatment to Conan, and the Cimmerian crouched, his weapons ready in defence. The adversary before him was Zaius, temple champion of the One True Goddess.

  The Qjaran’s lip curled in arrogant disdain, his sword poised ready; Conan, for his part, felt a shudder of anticipation at the impending fight. But was it hesitation that he sensed, a faint pallor of uncertainty in Zaius's face? Or perhaps it was only the cheering that arose from below—from down in the caravan yard, and beyond the intersecting wall of the temple quarter.

  "Hail the heroes!” the voices exulted. "The wall is clear, our city is saved! All hail Zaius,
and the savage foreigner too!”

  With scores applauding, expecting them to share in the triumph, the two could scarcely fall to blows. They lowered their weapons and Zaius wheeled away, turning a disdainful back on his rival.

  The shouts of acclaim from the citizenry were a little premature, Conan thought; for, in places, the nomads still strafed and jabbed with spears and arrows at the wall’s defenders. But he could see that the tide had turned; the rush of attackers had ceased, with the survivors now commencing to drag the bodies of their dead back into the brush along the river.

  Inside the wall lay another world; the spirit was festive rather than affrighted. Bands of civil militia in bright, seldom-used helmets and breastplates were belatedly arriving to man the defences. These beamed with relief at finding the fight already over, their drummers and trumpeters taking the opportunity to practice their rusty skills. Ordinary citizens, too, were flocking to the wall, women and children included; in their forefront Conan could see the four urchins he'd rescued, waving up at him in adulation.

  Over the din a deeper trumpet call sounded— a flaring, belling note like that of a wounded bull. One of the guards beside him murmured, “The royal summons, so soon!” He began wiping thin, congealing blood from the point of his sabre with a kerchief.

  A moment later, Zaius formed up his line of a half-dozen temple warriors. With a brisk command he marched them back along the parapet. The two city guards nearest Conan followed in a less rigid step. One of them called to him, "You may as well come too, foreigner, since you are one of the heroes of the day.”

  “Where, to the palace?” Conan asked, tagging along reluctantly. “Isn't it too soon to abandon the wall? What if the raiders attack again?” “The new watch will take our place,” the guard said. "They will call us back if we’re needed. Do not fear, the desert folk are seldom good for more than one attack in a day.”

  "A nomad raid every year or so is fine sport,” the other guard proclaimed. "It keeps us in trim—excepting the unlucky ones,” he amended, leaning aside to look at the half-dozen Qjaran bodies at the base of the wall, all presumably slain by the departing raiders.

  “Do they attack the city so rarely?” Conan strode briskly along after the two.

  "Some years are worse than others,” the talkative guard replied. "There is drought in the southern lands, with hard living for some of the tribes. These raiders were Khifars, Khadars, and Azilis mainly, by the look of their arrow-fletchings. They hurl themselves against the towns in desperation. Either they win great spoils,” he laughed, "or they return home with riderless camels and fewer mouths to feed. Either way they survive.”

  As they paced the wall behind the temple troops, citizens in the yard below flowed alongside them, cheering and shouting all the while. The ramp ways they passed were blocked by reinforcements waiting to deploy, and by wounded guards being assisted down; in any event the heroes did not descend, but continued straight along the wall.

  The crowds were soon diverted to pass through the gate to the temple quarter—whose inner wall was nearly as high as the outer parapet, though less massive. Beyond it, Conan was afforded a view he had never seen, of lush orchards and pleasure-gardens surrounding the stately buttresses of Saditha’s temple and the royal palace.

  At length, paced by Saditha’s dancers and celebrants in the groves below, they turned onto a special causeway through the temple grounds. It led straight into the citadel, through an archway fortified as strongly as one of the city gates. In the broad inner court, a throng of merrymakers awaited them. At the centre, on a raised reviewing stand, stood the royal family of Qjara.

  All three wore bright ceremonial armour., made for withstanding the invaders in principle if not in fact. Afriandra was there, catching Conan's eye from across the courtyard. In spite of her military garb, she lounged front and centre like the pampered princess she was. Behind her stood her royal parents, King Semiarchos and Queen Regula.

  “Citizens, warriors, faithful followers of Saditha!” The king commenced speaking as soon as Zaius’s temple warriors had deployed in a line before him. “The barbarous assault has turned aside and dissipated, like so many others before it.” Semiarchos was a stately figure, tall and white-headed beneath his slender star-pointed crown. He wore a long white beard whose coiled ringlets lay across his embossed silver breastplate. "The battle reports and eulogies are already sung to the goddess. Our dead and wounded, thankfully so few, are being gathered up and blessed. The city walls remain under triple guard in case some new danger should arise.

  “As is the custom at the close of battle, every citizen who stood and faced the enemy is entitled to the special boon of Qjara’s king. By my command, this recognition is now being dispensed among you. For those hurt or killed in the fight, the honour will be extended to their wives and widows.”

  As he spoke, robed priestesses moved among the warriors gathered in the centre of the court. One of them passed near Conan, taking something out of a small basket she carried under her arm. With a scowl, and before she could have second thoughts about his entitlement, he extended his hand and took it.

  To his surprise, it was no mere trinket or medallion but a square gold coin, thumbnail-sized and solid, stamped on both faces with the sigil of the Qjaran crown. With a practised gesture that simulated scratching his groin, he tucked it into the otherwise empty pouch inside the waist of his breech-wrap.

  “Of the many heroes who have this day ennobled our city wall with libations of their blood and sweat,” the king was saying, “one stands forth most notably. This is one who holds aloof from the common run of Qjaran life—and whose skills and singular aims distinguish him even more.” King Semiarchos scanned the crowd loftily.

  “I refer, of course, to the temple warrior Zaius, High Champion of the One True Goddess Saditha. He is a ritual fighter of the Eighth Degree, whose match has not been seen in our city these past three hundred years." As he spoke, the king beckoned Zaius to step forward, to the sound of cheers. “His conduct in today’s fight was especially praiseworthy. Arriving on the scene at the height of battle, in command of a detachment of temple swordsmen, he himself led the reprisal with great effect. He slew four of the enemy—thus bringing his accredited total of kills to an unprecedented twenty-four. How privileged we are to have such a hero stand in defence. of our city and goddess!”

  To the feverish cheering that passed all round the yard, King Semiarchos smiled and nodded. His white-bearded face wore a proprietary air, as of a prospective father-in-law. Zaius, the object, of the adulation, stood stiff and unresponsive, as if his foremost manly virtue were being stone-deaf. Amid the fervour, Conan saw Princess Afriandra look up to her father and murmur something to him. He nodded back with an indulgent air.

  “A further boon of Saditha,” the king resumed as the applause began to fade, “is the aid our city received this day from a foreign visitor—Conan, I believe his name is.” Semiarchos extended a regal finger, all eyes but Zaius’s following it and regarding the object. “He was the first to bring tidings of the attack, and he went on to take a toll of the enemy alongside our defenders.”

  Again the cheers, less hearty this time. They were punctuated by murmurs and stares of dismay at Conan’s scanty, uncouth dress and the spatters of blood that still crusted his nether limbs. A large part of Zaius’s sword-discipline, Conan thought, must lie in keeping the blood and spew of warfare from his neat grey uniform.

  As the fleeting applause faded, it was Queen Regula's turn to address the crowd. She stepped forward, a splendid figure of womanhood, though past her youthful bloom. The helm and breastplate she affected made her look not unlike the statue of Saditha herself, although she bore no spear.

  "As you know,” she intoned in a firm, full-chested pulpit voice, “it is customary for Qjaran heroes to be granted Saditha's special blessing, in the form of a sacred kiss bestowed by the reigning Queen and High Priestess on behalf of the One True Goddess.” The prospect she described was contemplate
d by Conan with mild interest and a little resignation; but then he attended her further words. “Today, however, since the sole heir to Qjara’s throne is a female, and one of exceeding honour and virtue, it has been deemed suitable by the king and the temple to have her confer Saditha's benison—the lovely Afriandra, Princess of Qjara!"

  At this announcement, to his surprise, Conan felt slightly shaken, his face flushing warm and cold simultaneously. He hardly knew whether to turn away and flee this fiendish entrapment, or whether to press forward swiftly and lay first claim to Afriandra’s pouting, berry-stained lips.

  She arose and, stepping down from her seat, strode several bold paces to Zaius where he stood before his line of temple warriors. Straining up to this unmoving face, she placed her lips on his and plied them there a moment— leaning and squirming a bit extra to get some response from his rigid form, all in vain. Applause rose and swelled around them, then subsided as she pulled back with a dissatisfied glint in her eye. She glanced impatiently around; Conan swore that her gaze shot straight at him.

  He was not, indeed, certain that he was meant to receive the boon of the Goddess from the princess’s lips. It could be that, as an unclean foreigner, such a blessing was forbidden him. But if killing a mere four men was the sole qualification—why, then he was ready to earn a whole evening and night of kisses.

  It mattered little; now as ever he asserted himself, striding past the temple warriors and seizing Afriandra up in his arms. His mouth met hers in a bruising contest; the pavement beneath him surged as red tides swirled through his brain. His limbs flexed convulsively, clinging to her as to the sole piece of shipwreck in an angry, tossing sea. Around them he heard surprised murmurs, followed by ribald hoots... yet they remained clasped together a considerable time, Afriandra returning his embrace with intense and obvious eagerness.

  After a small eternity, hands pried anxiously at Conan’s shoulders; amid the crowd's buzz of pleasantly raucous scandal, the two were drawn apart. Had there been applause, Conan wondered, or was it just the hiss of hot blood seething and dissipating in his ears? Afriandra, stumbling slightly as she was helped away, plainly had similar difficulty returning to the earthly realm.