Conan the adaptable, p.21
Conan the Adaptable, page 21
“Who are you?” the Cimmerian asked bluntly.
“Men call me Ormraxes, the Mede,” answered the other. “Let us sit here and drink wine; fleeing is thirsty work!”
They sat them down at a rough-hewn table, and a servant brought wine. They drank in silence. Conan was brooding over the past events, and presently he said, “I need not thank you for barring that door and leading me to safety. By Crom, these folks are all mad. I did but ask what king they bore to his tomb, and they flew at me like wildcats. And there was no corpse in that litter after all – only a wooden image, decorated with gold and jewels, drenched in rancid oil, and decked with flowers. What -”
He started up, drawing his sword, as in a nearby street a clamour broke forth afresh.
“They have forgotten all about you,” laughed Ormraxes. “Be at ease.”
But Conan went to the door and cautiously looked out through a crack. Looking along a winding street, he had a glimpse of another, larger street; down this the procession was marching, but the nature was greatly changed; the flower-decked image was borne upright on the shoulders of the votaries, and men and women were dancing and singing, shouting with rapture, as extravagant in their joy as they had been in their grief.
Conan snorted in disgust.
“Now they howl ‘Adonis is living,’” said he. “A short space agone it was ‘Thammuz is dead,’ and they rent their garments and gashed themselves with daggers. By Crom, Ormraxes, I tell you they are mad!”
The Mede laughed and lifted his goblet.
“All these people go mad during their religious festivals. They are celebrating the resurrection of the god of life, Adonis-Thammuz, who is slain in midsummer by Baal-Moloch, the Sun. They carry the dead image of the god first, then revive him and hail him as you have seen. This is nothing – you should see the worshippers at the holy city of Adonis, there they cut themselves to pieces in their frenzy, and throw themselves down to be trampled to dust by the throngs.”
The Cimmerian digested this statement for a space, then shook his head in bewilderment and drank hugely. Presently a question occurred to him.
“Why did you risk your life to aid me?”
“I saw you fighting with the mob. There was no fairness in it – a thousand to one. Besides, there is kinship between us – distant, and dim, yet the blood tie is there.”
“I have heard of your people,” answered Conan. “They dwell far to the north, do they not?”
“Beyond the lands of Turan and the headwaters of the Vilayet,” answered Ormraxes. “Slowly they have drifted southward from the steppes; year by year they encroach on the valleys of the Hyrkanians. Others have drifted singly and in small bands down the Vilayet as mercenary soldiers. This drift has been going on for three or four generations.”
“Are you a native, then, of this country?” asked the Cimmerian.
“Not of Turan. I was born in the valleys of the north, and wandered south as a hunter and mercenary. I came upon a people distantly akin to my tribe on the borders, and abode there.”
Conan made no comment. He knew no more of these tribes than he did of Atlantis. But there was something in his mind, and he gave voice to his thought.
“Tell me – in your goings about, and your wanderings and your travels throughout the land, have you seen or heard of a man named Sumuabi?”
Ormraxes shook his head.
“It is a Shemite or Khauranian name. But I never saw a man given the bare name, unless modified, such as Ishmi-Sumuabi, or Sumuabi-Pileser. What manner of man is he?”
“Of good height – though not so tall as either of us – and strongly made. His eyes are dark, and his hair is blue-black; likewise his beard, which he curls. His bearing is bold and arrogant; he is like these Turanians, yet strangely unlike, for where they cringed and whined, he strode domineeringly; and where they avoid battle, he sought it. Nor were his features much like them, though his nose was hooked, and his countenance somewhat of the same cast.”
“Truly you have described a Khauranian,” said Ormraxes with a laugh. “To the south-east, beyond the rivers, there are thousands of men who would answer your description, nor need you go that far, it may be, for there is war in the wind and Taramis, queen of Khauran, comes up with her war-chariots to war against the princes – or so men whisper in the market-places.”
“Who is this Sumuabi?” asked the Cimmerian, making a jumble out of the Shemitic pronunciation.
“The self-proclaimed greatest king of all Hyboria, whose empire stretches from the southern valleys near Stygia to the Sea of the Rising Sun, and from the flaming mountains of the north to the tents of the Turanian tribes, he has built Eruk to be a royal city and gemmed it with palaces, like jewels set in the hilt of a sword.”
Conan looked dubiously at his companion; these lapses into sonorous language were Sjemitic rather than the common tongue, but Conan realized that the Mede must have spent most of his life among easterns.
“And the chiefs of Khauran,” quoth the Cimmerian, “are they whetting their axes and preparing for the onslaught against Taramis from Sumuabi?”
“So men say,” answered the Mede warily.
“I have no gold,” muttered the Cimmerian. “Which of these leaders will pay me the most for my sword?”
Ormraxes’ eyes glinted, as if it were a remark for which he had been waiting. He leaned forward, opened his lips to speak – a shout interrupted him. Like a steel spring released he shot to his feet and wheeled, sword flashing into his hand.
At the outer door stood a band of soldiers in gleaming armour; with them was a noble in a purple cloak, and a ragged rogue who had slipped out of the inn when the companions entered. This rascal pointed at the Mede and shouted, “It is he! It is Khumri!”
“Quick!” whispered the Mede. “Out the side-door!”
But even as he turned, and Conan sprang up to follow him, this door was dashed open and a squad of soldiers poured in. Snarling like a cat, Ormraxes sprang back, and at the order of the purple-clad noble, the soldiers rushed in. The Mede cleft the skull of the foremost, parried a spear and sprang toward the noble who retreated, howling for help. The soldiers ringed him, and one, running in, pinioned Ormraxes’ arms from behind. Conan’s sword decapitated the fellow, and back to back the comrades made their stand. But the inn was swarming with soldiers. There was a terrific clashing of steel, yells of wrath and shrieks of pain, then a blasting charge swept the companions apart by sheer force. Conan was hurled back against an up-ended table, with a half dozen swords hacking for his life. Dripping blood, he roared, and disembowelled a soldier with a ferocious rip of his sword – then an iron mace crashed thunderingly on his helmet. Reeling, blind, he strove to fight back, but blow after blow rained on his iron-clad head, beating him slowly, relentlessly to the floor, like the felling of a great tree. Then he knew no more.
II
Conan recovered consciousness slowly. His head ached and throbbed, and his limbs felt stiff. There was a light in his eyes, which he recognized as a candle. He was in a small stone-walled chamber – evidently a cell, he thought – on a couch, and a man was bending over him, dressing his wounds. They did not want him to die so easily, the Cimmerian thought; they revived him to torture him. So he gripped the man by the throat like a python striking, before the victim realized that he had recovered consciousness. Other men were in the room, but no blows rained on the Cimmerian, as he expected, only a hand fell on his shoulder, and a voice cried in Turanian: “Wait! Wait! Don’t slay him! He is a friend! You are among friends!”
The words carried conviction, and Conan released his captive, who owed his life only to the fact that the Cimmerian had not fully recovered his usual powers. The fellow fell to the floor, gasping and gagging, where other men seized him and beat him lustily on the back and poured wine down his throat, so that presently he sat up and regarded his strangler reproachfully. The first speaker tugged at his beard absently and regarded Conan meditatively. This man was of medium height, with characteristic Turanian features, and was clad in crimson robes that denoted either the nobleman or the wealthy merchant.
“Bring food and drink,” he ordered, and a slave brought meats and a great flagon of wine. Conan, realizing his hunger, gulped down a gigantic amount of the liquor, and seizing a huge joint in both hands, began to wolf down the meat, tearing large morsels off with his teeth which were as strong as those of a bear. He did not ask the why and wherefore of it all; lean years had taught the barbarian to take food as it came.
“You are a friend of Khumri?” asked the crimson-clad person.
“If you mean the Mede,” the Cimmerian answered between bites, “I never saw him until today, when he doubtless saved my life from a mob. What have you done with him?”
The other shook his head.
“It was not I who took him – I only wish it had been. It was the soldiers of the king of Turan who seized him. They bore him to the dungeons. You I found lying senseless in the alley behind the inn, where they had thrown you. Perhaps they thought that you were dead. But there you lay on the cobble-stones, your sword still gripped in your hands. I had my servants take you up and bring you to my house.”
“Why?”
The person did not reply directly.
“Khumri saved your life; do you wish to aid him?”
“A life for a life,” quoth the Cimmerian, smacking his lips over the wine. “He aided me; I will aid him, even to the death.”
It was no idle boast. Beyond the frontiers of civilization, obligations were real, and men aided men from dire necessity, until it had become a veritable religion among the barbarians to repay such debts. The crimson-robed one knew this, for he had roved far, and his wanderings had taken him much among the dark-haired peoples of the north.
“You have lain senseless for hours,” he said. “Are you able to run and fight now?”
The Cimmerian rose and stretched his massive arms, towering above the others.
“I have rested, eaten and drunk,” he grunted. “I am no Corinthian girl to fall down and die of a tap on the head.”
“Bring his sword,” ordered the leader, and it was brought. Conan thrust it into his scabbard with a grunt of satisfaction, at the same time involuntarily making sure that his great dagger was in place at his girdle. Then he looked inquiringly at the crimson-robed man.
“I am a friend of Khumri,” said the man. “My name is Akuros. Now harken to me. It is nearly midnight. I know where Khumri is confined. He is kept in a dungeon not far from the wharfs. In this prison there is an outer set of guards, and an inner guard. I will dispose of the outer guard; they are easily bought, and I will send a man to bribe them to desert their post. But the inner guard is composed of loyalists, and they can not be bribed. But there will be only three of them, and with cunning you can dispose of them.”
“Leave them to me,” growled the Cimmerian. “But where is this dungeon? And having gotten Ormraxes his liberty, what shall we do then?”
“I will send a man to guide you to the prison,” answered Akuros. “If you get Khumri free, the same man will be waiting to guide you to the wharfs, where a boat will await you. Turan is built upon islands, as you know, and you could never get through the gates of the wall which shuts the city from the mainland. I can not aid Khumri openly, but I will do all I can secretly.”
In a short time Conan was following a stealthy figure along dark winding alleys. The man went stealthily but for all his stature, the Cimmerian made no more noise than a wind whispering through a forest. Only occasionally enough starlight filtered between the slumbering walls to strike pale gleams from his corselet scales, helmet or sword. At last they halted in a shadowed alley-mouth and the guide pointed to a squat stone edifice before which a clump of mailed figures stood, in the light of torches guttering in niches in the stone wall. They were conversing with a man whose features were hidden by a mask, and a heavy, small bag, which sagged significantly, passed between them. Then the masked man wrapped his cloak about him and disappeared in the shadows, and the soldiers went quickly and silently in another direction.
“They will not return,” murmured Conan’s guide. “The lord Akuros had them given enough gold to allow them to desert the army. They’ll be drunk for weeks. Go quickly, my lord! There are more guards within.”
The Cimmerian glided from the alley and approached the prison, whose iron door was not bolted. He opened it cautiously, staring within. A few torches in niches lighted a bare corridor dimly. It was empty to its turn, but beyond the bend he heard a confused murmur of voices, and saw more light. He went silently down the corridor, and halted at the bend. A flight of stone steps went down, and in the lower corridor, he saw three broad-built, powerful figures in helmets and mail – black bearded men, with cruel, dominant features. He thought of an ancient foe, and his hair bristles as a hound bristles at sight of an enemy. They were gambling on the stone floor, and their words were in a strange tongue. But as he looked, a stocky individual came out of the shadows, and spoke in Turanian: “In an hour the king’s men will come for the prisoner.”
“Have you been questioning him?” one of them demanded in the same tongue.
“He’s stubborn like all his breed,” answered the Turanian. “Little matter; Sumuabi-usshir will be glad to receive him. What think you the great king’s greeting will be to the lord Khumri?”
“He will have him flayed alive,” answered the Khauranian, after a judicial pause.
“Well, see to him well. He’s shackled hand and foot, but he’s a very desert lion. I go to the king.”
The Khauranians bent to their game again, and the Turanian waddled up the stone steps. Conan glided back from the bend where the stair began, and flattened himself against the wall, in the shadows. The Turanian came up around the turn, started down the corridor – just as he was opposite the Cimmerian, so close that an outstretched hand would have touched him, some instinct caused him to wheel. The light was dim, the shadows ghostly. Perhaps the Turanian thought he saw a spectre. Perhaps the sight of the yellow-haired giant in his gleaming mail froze him for an instant. That instant was enough. Before a sound could come from his gaping mouth, Conan’s great sword cleft his skull and he fell at the Cimmerian’s feet.
Conan sprang back quickly to the angle of the wall. Below him he heard a clatter of falling dice as the Khauranians sprang up, startled. He dared not risk a look, but he heard a muffled babble of contention, then the sound of three men mounting the stair. Looking about desperately, the Cimmerian saw an iron ring in the wall above his head – doubtless used for the suspension of tortured prisoners. Leaping he caught it and drew himself up. His groping foot found a slight depression in the wall, where a bit of the masonry had crumbled, and digging his toe in, he hung precariously there. The Khauranians had climbed the stair and their language broke out afresh as they stumbled upon the body of the Turanian, lying in his own blood. Spears ready, they looked all about, but it did not occur to them to look up. One of them started toward the outer entrance, evidently in quest of the outer guard – it was at that moment that Conan’s foothold gave way.
In such crises the Cimmerian’s brain worked like lightning. Even as his foot slipped he released the ring, and as he fell he knew what he meant to do, whereas the soldiers, taken completely off guard, were caught flat-footed. Conan’s knee struck between the shoulders of one of them, crushing him to the floor; rebounding with catlike quickness, the Cimmerian avoided the wavering clumsy spear-thrust aimed at him by another, who was too amazed to be coordinate. Conan’s sword hummed and the point tore through the corselet scales, to stand out behind the soldier’s shoulders. But the very fury of that stroke almost proved the Cimmerian’s undoing. The other Khauranian, in the flashing instant that had transpired since the barbarian’s fall, had recovered his wits, and now ran fiercely at his enemy, spear ready for the death-thrust.
Conan tugged savagely at his hilt, but the blade was wedged in the dead man’s breast bone, and the charging Khauranian was looming upon him. Releasing the locked sword, Conan wheeled empty-handed to meet the charge. The driving spear broke on his mail, knocking the wind out of him with an explosive grunt, and the force of the Khauranian’s attack dashed him headlong against the Cimmerian. Conan staggered backward beneath the impact, and felt empty space under his feet. He had been borne back over the stairway, and now, close-clinched, they tumbled down the steps, heels over head, their armour clashing on the stone. In the headlong speed of that descent, there was no time for either to strike a blow or make any plan of action. A flashing, chaotic instant of helpless falling and then Conan realized that their descent had ceased, and that the soldier lay motionless beneath him. Dazedly the Cimmerian arose, groping instinctively for his helmet which had fallen off. The Khauranian lay still; his neck was broken.
Conan found and donned his helmet, then looked about. Cells opened on the corridor, but they were dark; but through a slit in the door of one, toward the other end of the corridor, a light shone dimly. A quick search proved that a bunch of heavy iron keys was fastened to the dead soldier’s girdle. With these Conan unlocked the door, and saw Ormraxes the Mede lying on the stone floor, weighted with heavy chains. The Mede was awake – indeed the sound of that fall of mailed men down the stair had almost wakened a dead man.
He grinned as Conan entered, but said nothing. The Cimmerian, after some fumbling, found the keys that unlocked the shackles, and Ormraxes, on Khumri, stood up free, stretching his limbs. His glance questioned the Cimmerian, who, motioning for silence, led the way up the corridor. At the head of the stair, Conan recovered his sword with much tugging and silent swearing, and Ormraxes took up a spear belonging to the slaughtered guards. They warily left the prison and went to the alley where the Cimmerian’s guide awaited them. He motioned them to follow and they went along through a shadowed labyrinth and emerged on an open space. Conan heard the lap of waters at hidden piles, and saw the starlight on the waves. They were standing on a small wharf.
