Part 8 (1/2)
”We're runted Conan ”We'll hit straight through for the river I don't kno far down the river they've spread We'll hope to hit it below them”
With haste that seemed reckless to Balthus they hurried eastward The woods seeathered in the vicinity of Gela, if, indeed, they had not already crossed the river He did not believe they would cross in the daytime, however
”Soive the alarht of the sentries Then others will get in canoes and ht across for the river wall As soon as they attack, those hidden in the woods on the east shore will assail the fort frouts shot and hacked out of theht of it”
They pushed on without pausing, though Balthus gazed longingly at the squirrels flitting aht doith a cast of his axe With a sigh he drew up his broad belt The everlasting silence and gloo to depress hiroves and sun-dappled meadows of the Tauran, of the bluff cheer of his father's steep-thatched, diah the deep, lush grass, and the hearty fellowshi+p of the brawny, bare- arhmen and herdsmen
He felt lonely, in spite of his companion Conan was as much a part of this wilderness as Balthus was alien to it The Cireat cities of the world; he ht even achieve his hier things had happened But he was no less a barbarian He was concerned only with the naked fundas, the sentiments and delicious trivialities that less to him A as no less a wolf because a whis Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never understand the little things that are so dear to the souls of civilizedwhen they reached the river and peered through thebushes They could see up and down the river for about a mile each way The sullen stream lay bare and empty Conan scowled across at the other shore
”We've got to take another chance here We've got to skirt the river We don't knohether they've crossed or not The woods over there ot to risk it
We're about six miles south of Gela”
He wheeled and ducked as a bowstring twanged Soh the bushes Balthus kneas an arrow Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes Balthus caught the gleam of steel as he whirled his sword, and heard a death screah the bushes after the Cimmerian
A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers spasrass Half a dozen others were swar about Conan, swords and axes lifted They had cast away their bows, useless at such deadly close quarters Their lower jaere painted white contrasting vividly with their dark faces, and the designs on their muscular breasts differed from any Balthus had ever seen
One of them hurled his axe at Balthus and rushed after it with lifted knife Balthus ducked and then caught the wrist that drove the knife licking at his throat They went to the ground together, rolling over and over The Pict was like a wild beast, histohis own axe into play, but so fast and furious was the struggle that each atte furiously to free his knife hand, was clutching at Balthus' axe, and driving his knees at the youth's groin Suddenly he attempted to shi+ft his knife to his free hand, and in that instant Balthus, struggling up on one knee, split the painted head with a desperate blow of his axe
He sprang up and glared wildly about for his co to see hith and ferocity of the Cimmerian Conan bestrode two of his attackers, shorn half asunder by that terrible broadsword As Balthus looked he saw the Ci short sword, avoid the stroke of an axe with a cat-like sidewise spring which brought hi for a bow
Before the Pict could straighten the red sword flailed down and clove him from shoulder towarriors rushed in, one from each side
Balthus hurled his axe with an accuracy that reduced the attackers to one, and Conan, abandoning his efforts to free his sword, wheeled andPict with his bare hands The stocky warrior, a head shorter than his tall ene murderously with his knife The knife broke on the Ciers locked like iron on the descending arm A bone snapped loudly, and Balthus saw the Pict wince and falter The next instant he ept off his feet, lifted high above the Ci and thrashi+ng, and then was dashed headlong to the earth with such force that he rebounded, and then lay still, his li of splintered limbs and a broken spine
”Come on!” Conan wrenched his sword free and snatched up an axe ”Grab a bow and a handful of arrows, and hurry! We've got to trust to our heels again That yell was heard
They'll be here in no time If we tried to swim across now, they'd feather us with arrows before we reached mid-strea Balthus shuddered to think that it ca the weapons he had snatched he followed Conan who plunged into the thickets away fro shadow
VI
RED AXES OF THE BORDER
Conan did not plunge deeply into the forest A few hundred yards fro course and ran parallel with it Balthus recognized a grim determination not to be hunted away from the river which they must cross if they were to warn the men in the fort
Behind them rose more loudly the yells of the forest lade where the bodies of the slain es were strea into the woods in pursuit They had left a trail any Pict could follow
Conan increased his speed and Balthus griht collapse any tielse His blood was pounding so furiously in his ear drums that he was not ahen the yells died out behind theainst a tree and panted
”They've quit!” grunted the Ciasped Balthus Conan shook his head
”A short chase like this they'd yell every step of the way No They've gone back I thought I heard soan to get diood for us, but damned bad for thesummoned out of the woods for the attack Those men we ran into arriors from a tribe down the river They were undoubtedly headed for Gela to join in the assault on the fort daet across the river”
Turning east he hurried through the thickets with no attempt at conceal the sting of lacerations on his breast and shoulder where the Pict's savage teeth had scored hied the bank when Conan pulled hi through the leaves, saw a dug-out canoe coainst 80
the current He was a strongly built Pict with a white heron feather thrust in a copper band that confined his square-cut mane
”That's a Gela ar White plume shows that
He's carried a peace talk to the tribes down the river and now he's trying to get back and take a hand in the slaughter”
The lone a place, and suddenly Balthus almost juutturals of a Pict Then he realized that Conan had called to the paddler in his own tongue TheThen cast a startled glance across the river, bent low and sent the canoe shooting in toward the western bank Not understanding, Balthus saw Conan take frolade, and notch an arrow
The Pict had run his canoe in close to the shore, and staring up into the bushes, called out so, the streaking flight of the arrow that sank to the feathers in his broad breast With a choking gasp he slumped sidewise and rolled into the shalloater In an instant Conan was down the bank and wading into the water to grasp the drifting canoe Balthus stumbled after him, somewhat dazedly crawled into the canoe Conan scra toward the eastern shore Balthus noted with envious adreat muscles beneath the sun- burnt skin The Ciue
”What did you say to the Pict?” asked Balthus
”Told him to pull into shore; said there was a white forest runner on the other bank as trying to get a shot at him”
”That doesn't see to him You runted Conan, not pausing in his exertions ”Only way to lure him to the bank Which is worse to betray a Pict who'd enjoy skinning us both alive, or betray theover?”
Balthus mulled over this delicate ethical question for a ed his shoulder and asked: ”How far are we from the fort?”
Conan pointed to a creek which flowed into Black River from the east, a few hundred yards below them
81
”That's South Creek; it's ten miles from its mouth to the fort It's the southern boundary of Conajohara Marshes er of a raid from across them Nine miles above the fort North Creek forms the other boundary Marshes beyond that, too That's why an attack must come from the west, across Black River Conajohara's just like a spear, with a point nineteen miles wide, thrust into the Pictish wilderness”