Conan the adaptable, p.3
Conan the Adaptable, page 3
With a maddened yell that invoked all his grim gods, he sprang recklessly after them, not reckoning if the man lurked beside the entrance to brain him as he rushed in. But a quick glance showed the chamber empty and a wisp of white disappearing through a dark doorway in the back wall.
He raced across the cavern and came to a sudden halt as an ax licked out of the gloom of the entrance and whistled perilously close to his black-maned head. He gave back suddenly. Now the advantage was with Gaeric, who stood in the narrow mouth of the corridor where he could hardly come at him without exposing himself to the devastating stroke of his ax.
He was near frothing with fury and the sight of a slim white form among the deep shadows behind the warrior drove him into a frenzy. He attacked savagely but warily, thrusting venomously at his foe, and drawing back from his strokes. He wished to draw him out into a wide lunge, avoid it and run him through before he could recover his balance. In the open he could had beat him down by sheer power and heavy blows, but here he could only use the point and that at a disadvantage; he always preferred the edge. But he was stubborn; if he could not come at him with a finishing stroke, neither could he or the girl escape him while he kept him hemmed in the tunnel.
It must had been the realization of this fact that prompted the girl's action, for she said something to Gaeric about looking for a way leading out, and though he cried out fiercely forbidding her to venture away into the darkness, she turned and ran swiftly down the tunnel to vanish in the dimness. his wrath rose appallingly and he nearly got his head split in his eagerness to bring down his foe before she found a means for their escape.
Then the cavern echoed with a terrible scream and Gaeric cried out like a man death-stricken, his face ashy in the gloom. He whirled, as if he had forgotten him and his sword, and raced down the tunnel like a madman, shrieking Tamera's name. From far away, as if from the bowels of the earth, he seemed to hear her answering cry, mingled with a strange sibilant clamor that electrified him with nameless but instinctive horror. Then silence fell, broken only by Gaeric's frenzied cries, receding farther and farther into the earth.
Recovering himself he sprang into the tunnel and raced after the Cimmerian as recklessly as he had run after the girl. And to give him his due, red-handed reaver though he was, cutting down his rival from behind was less in his mind than discovering what dread thing had Tamera in its clutches.
As he ran along he noted absently that the sides of the tunnel were scrawled with monstrous pictures, and realized suddenly and creepily that this must be the dread Cavern of the Children of the Night, tales of which had crossed the narrow sea to resound horrifically in the ears of the Cimmerians. Terror of him must had ridden Tamera hard to had driven her into the cavern shunned by her people, where, it was said, lurked the survivals of that grisly race which inhabited the land before the coming of Cimmeria, and which had fled before them into the unknown caverns of the hills.
Ahead of him the tunnel opened into a wide chamber, and he saw the white form of Gaeric glimmer momentarily in the semidarkness and vanish in what appeared to be the entrance of a corridor opposite the mouth of the tunnel he had just traversed. Instantly there sounded a short, fierce shout and the crash of a hard-driven blow, mixed with the hysterical screams of a girl and a medley of serpent-like hissing that made his hair bristle. And at that instant he shot out of the tunnel, running at full speed, and realized too late the floor of the cavern lay several feet below the level of the tunnel. his flying feet missed the tiny steps and he crashed terrifically on the solid stone floor.
Now as he stood in the semi-darkness, rubbing his aching head, all this came back to him, and he stared fearsomely across the vast chamber at that black cryptic corridor into which Tamera and her lover had disappeared, and over which silence lay like a pall. Gripping his sword, he warily crossed the great still cavern and peered into the corridor. Only a denser darkness met his eyes. He entered, striving to pierce the gloom, and as his foot slipped on a wide wet smear on the stone floor, the raw acrid scent of fresh-spilled blood met his nostrils. Someone or something had died there, either the young man or his unknown attacker.
He stood there uncertainly, all the supernatural fears that are the heritage of the Gael rising in his primitive soul. He could turn and stride out of these accursed mazes, into the clear sunlight and down to the clean blue sea where his comrades, no doubt, impatiently awaited him after the routing of the Aquilonians. Why should he risk his life among these grisly rat dens? he was eaten with curiosity to know what manner of beings haunted the cavern, and who were called the Children of the Night by his people, but it was his love for the yellow-haired girl which drove him down that dark tunnel – and love her he did, in his way, and would had been kind to her, had he carried her away to his haunt.
He walked softly along the corridor, blade ready. What sort of creatures the Children of the Night were, he had no idea, but the tales he had heard had lent them a distinctly inhuman nature.
The darkness closed around him as he advanced, until he was moving in utter blackness. his groping left hand encountered a strangely carven doorway, and at that instant something hissed like a viper beside him and slashed fiercely at his thigh. He struck back savagely and felt his blind stroke crunch home, and something fell at his feet and died. What thing he had slain in the dark he could not know, but it must had been at least partly human because the shallow gash in his thigh had been made with a blade of some sort, and not by fangs or talons. And he sweated with horror, for the gods know, the hissing voice of the Thing had resembled no human tongue he had ever heard.
And now in the darkness ahead of him he heard the sound repeated, mingled with horrible slitherings, as if numbers of reptilian creatures were approaching. He stepped quickly into the entrance his groping hand had discovered and came near repeating his headlong fall, for instead of letting into another level corridor, the entrance gave onto a flight of dwarfish steps on which he floundered wildly.
Recovering his balance he went on cautiously, groping along the sides of the shaft for support. He seemed to be descending into the very bowels of the earth, but he dared not turn back. Suddenly, far below him, he glimpsed a faint eery light. He went on, perforce, and came to a spot where the shaft opened into another great vaulted chamber; and he shrank back, aghast.
In the center of the chamber stood a grim, black altar; it had been rubbed all over with a sort of phosphorous, so that it glowed dully, lending a semi-illumination to the shadowy cavern. Towering behind it on a pedestal of human skulls, lay a cryptic black object, carven with mysterious hieroglyphics. The Black Stone! The ancient, ancient Stone before which was said, the Children of the Night bowed in gruesome worship, and whose origin was lost in the black mists of a hideously distant past. Once, legend said, it had stood in that grim circle of monoliths, before its votaries had been driven like chaff before the bows of the Picts.
But he gave it but a passing, shuddering glance. Two figures lay, bound with rawhide thongs, on the glowing black altar. One was Tamera; the other was Gaeric, bloodstained and disheveled. His bronze ax, crusted with clotted blood, lay near the altar. And before the glowing stone squatted Horror.
Though he had never seen one of those ghoulish aborigines, he knew this thing for what it was, and shuddered. It was a man of a sort, but so low in the stage of life that its distorted humanness was more horrible than its bestiality.
Erect, it could not had been five feet in height. Its body was scrawny and deformed, its head disproportionately large. Lank snaky hair fell over a square inhuman face with flabby writhing lips that bared yellow fangs, flat spreading nostrils and great yellow slant eyes. He knew the creature must be able to see in the dark as well as a cat. Centuries of skulking in dim caverns had lent the race terrible and inhuman attributes. But the most repellent feature was its skin: scaly, yellow and mottled, like the hide of a serpent. A loin-clout made of a real snake's skin girt its lean loins, and its taloned hands gripped a short stone-tipped spear and a sinister-looking mallet of polished flint.
So intently was it gloating over its captives, it evidently had not heard his stealthy descent. As he hesitated in the shadows of the shaft, far above him he heard a soft sinister rustling that chilled the blood in his veins.
The Children were creeping down the shaft behind him, and he was trapped. He saw other entrances opening on the chamber, and he acted, realizing that an alliance with Gaeric was our only hope. Enemies though they were, they were men, cast in the same mold, trapped in the lair of these indescribable monstrosities.
As he stepped from the shaft, the horror beside the altar jerked up his head and glared full at him. And as he sprang up, he leaped and he crumpled, blood spurting, as his heavy sword split his reptilian heart. But even as he died, he gave tongue in an abhorrent shriek which was echoed far up the shaft. In desperate haste he cut Gaeric's bonds and dragged him to his feet. And he turned to Tamera, who in that dire extremity did not shrink from him, but looked up at him with pleading, terror-dilated eyes. Gaeric wasted no time in words, realizing chance had made allies of us. He snatched up his ax as he freed the girl.
"We can't go up the shaft," he explained swiftly; "they'll had the whole pack upon us quickly. They caught Tamera as she sought for an exit, and overpowered him by sheer numbers when he followed. They dragged us hither and all but that carrion scattered – bearing word of the sacrifice through all their burrows, he doubt not. Crom alone knows how many of his people, stolen in the night, had died on that altar. We must take our chance in one of these tunnels – all lead to hell! Follow him!"
Seizing Tamera's hand he ran fleetly into the nearest tunnel and he followed. A glance back into the chamber before a turn in the corridor blotted it from view showed a revolting horde streaming out of the shaft. The tunnel slanted steeply upward, and suddenly ahead of us they saw a bar of gray light. But the next instant our cries of hope changed to curses of bitter disappointment. There was daylight, aye, drifting in through a cleft in the vaulted roof, but far, far above our reach. Behind us the pack gave tongue exultingly. And he halted.
"Save yourselves if you can," he growled. "Here he make his stand. They can see in the dark and he cannot. Here at least he can see them. Go!"
But Gaeric halted also. "Little use to be hunted like rats to our doom. There was no escape. Let us meet our fate like men."
Tamera cried out, wringing her hands, but she clung to her lover.
"Stand behind me with the girl," he grunted. "When I fall, dash out her brains with your ax lest they take her alive again. Then sell your own life as high as you may, for there was none to avenge us."
His keen eyes met Conan's squarely.
"We see the world in different ways," he said, "but Crom loves brave men. Mayhap they shall meet again, beyond the Dark."
"Hail and farewell!" they growled, and our right hands gripped like steel.
And he wheeled as a hideous horde swept up the tunnel and burst into the dim light, a flying nightmare of streaming snaky hair, foam-flecked lips and glaring eyes. Thundering his war-cry he sprang to meet them and his heavy sword sang and a head spun grinning from its shoulder on an arching fountain of blood.
They came upon him like a wave and the fighting madness of his race was upon him. He fought as a maddened beast fights and at every stroke he clove through flesh and bone, and blood spattered in a crimson rain.
Then as they surged in and he went down beneath the sheer weight of their numbers, a fierce yell cut the din and Gaeric's ax sang above him, splattering blood and brains like water. The press slackened and he staggered up, trampling the writhing bodies beneath his feet.
"A stair behind us!" the Cimmerian was screaming. "Half hidden in an angle of the wall! It must lead to daylight! Up it, in the name of Crom!"
So they fell back, fighting our way inch by inch. The vermin fought like blood-hungry devils, clambering over the bodies of the slain to screech and hack. Both of us were streaming blood at every step when they reached the mouth of the shaft, into which Tamera had preceded them.
Screaming like very fiends the Children surged in to drag us down. The shaft was not as light as had been the corridor, and it grew darker as they climbed, but our foes could only come at us from in front. By the gods, they slaughtered them till the stair was littered with mangled corpses and the Children frothed like mad wolves! Then suddenly they abandoned the fray and raced back down the steps.
"What portends this?" gasped Gaeric, shaking the bloody sweat from his eyes.
"Up the shaft, quick!" he panted. "They mean to mount some other stair and come at us from above!"
So they raced up those accursed steps, slipping and stumbling, and as they fled past a black tunnel that opened into the shaft, far down it they heard a frightful howling. An instant later they emerged from the shaft into a winding corridor, dimly illumined by a vague gray light filtering in from above, and somewhere in the bowels of the earth he seemed to hear the thunder of rushing water. We started down the corridor and as they did so, a heavy weight smashed on his shoulders, knocking him headlong, and a mallet crashed again and again on his head, sending dull red flashes of agony across his brain. With a volcanic wrench he dragged his attacker off and under him, and tore out his throat with his naked fingers. And his fangs met in his arm in his death-bite.
Reeling up, he saw that Tamera and Gaeric had passed out of sight. He had been somewhat behind them, and they had run on, knowing nothing of the fiend which had leaped on his shoulders. Doubtless they thought he was still close on their heels. A dozen steps he took, then halted. The corridor branched and he knew not which way his companions had taken. At blind venture he turned into the left-hand branch, and staggered on in the semi darkness. He was weak from fatigue and loss of blood, dizzy and sick from the blows he had received. Only the thought of Tamera kept him doggedly on his feet. Now distinctly he heard the sound of an unseen torrent.
That he was not far underground was evident by the dim light which filtered in from somewhere above, and he momentarily expected to come upon another stair. But when he did, he halted in black despair; instead of up, it led down. Somewhere far behind him he heard faintly the howls of the pack, and he went down, plunging into utter darkness. At last he struck a level and went along blindly. He had given up all hope of escape, and only hoped to find Tamera--if she and her lover had not found a way of escape – and die with her. The thunder of rushing water was above his head now, and the tunnel was slimy and dank. Drops of moisture fell on his head and he knew he was passing under the river.
Then he blundered again upon steps cut in the stone, and these led upward. He scrambled up as fast as his stiffening wounds would allow – and he had taken punishment enough to had killed an ordinary man. Up he went and up, and suddenly daylight burst on him through a cleft in the solid rock. He stepped into the blaze of the sun. He was standing on a ledge high above the rushing waters of a river which raced at awesome speed between towering cliffs. The ledge on which he stood was close to the top of the cliff; safety was within arm's length. But he hesitated and such was his love for the golden-haired girl that he was ready to retrace his steps through those black tunnels on the mad hope of finding her. Then he started.
Across the river he saw another cleft in the cliff-wall which fronted him, with a ledge similar to that on which he stood, but longer. In olden times, he doubt not, some sort of primitive bridge connected the two ledges – possibly before the tunnel was dug beneath the river-bed. Now as he watched, two figures emerged upon that other ledge – one gashed, dust-stained, limping, gripping a bloodstained ax; the other slim, white and girlish.
Gaeric and Tamera! They had taken the other branch of the corridor at the fork and had evidently followed the windows of the tunnel to emerge as he had done, except that he had taken the left turn and passed clear under the river. And now he saw that they were in a trap. On that side the cliffs rose half a hundred feet higher than on his side of the river, and so sheer a spider could scarce had scaled them.
There were only two ways of escape from the ledge: back through the fiend-haunted tunnels, or straight down to the river which raved far beneath.
He saw Gaeric look up the sheer cliffs and then down, and shake his head in despair. Tamera put her arms about his neck, and though he could not hear their voices for the rush of the river, he saw them smile, and then they went together to the edge of the ledge. And out of the cleft swarmed a loathsome mob, as foul reptiles writhe up out of the darkness, and they stood blinking in the sunlight like the night-things they were. He gripped his sword-hilt in the agony of his helplessness until the blood trickled from under his fingernails. Why had not the pack followed him instead of his companions?
The Children hesitated an instant as the two Cimmerians faced them, then with a laugh Gaeric hurled his ax far out into the rushing river, and turning, caught Tamera in a last embrace. Together they sprang far out, and still locked in each other's arms, hurtled downward, struck the madly foaming water that seemed to leap up to meet them, and vanished. And the wild river swept on like a blind, insensate monster, thundering along the echoing cliffs.
A moment he stood frozen, then like a man in a dream he turned, caught the edge of the cliff above him and wearily drew himself up and over, and stood on his feet above the cliffs, hearing like a dim dream the roar of the river far beneath.
Out of the Deep
Robert E. Howard & J.R. Karlsson
Fallon sailed at dawn and Marga, the girl who was to marry him, stood on the wharfs in the cold vagueness to wave a good-bye. At dusk Marga knelt, stony eyed, above the still white form that the crawling tide had left crumpled on the beach.
The people of the town gathered about, whispering:
