Part 8 (1/2)

”We're miles to the south of the village,” grunted Conan. ”We'll hit straight through for the river. I don't know how 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 seemed empty of life. Conan believed that all the Picts were gathered in the vicinity of Gwawela, if, indeed, they had not already crossed the river. He did not believe they would cross in the daytime, however.

”Some woodsman would be sure to see them and give the alarm. They'll cross above and below the fort, out of sight of the sentries. Then others will get in canoes and make straight across for the river wall. As soon as they attack, those hidden in the woods on the east sh.o.r.e will a.s.sail the fort from the other sides. They've tried that before, and got the guts shot and hacked out of them. But this time they've got enough men to make a real onslaught of it.”

They pushed on without pausing, though Balthus gazed longingly at the squirrels flitting among the branches, which he could have brought down with a cast of his axe. With a sigh he drew up his broad belt. The everlasting silence and gloom of the primitive forest was beginning to depress him. He found himself thinking of the open oak groves and sun-dappled meadows of the Tauran, of the bluff cheer of his father's steep-thatched, diamond-paned house, of the fat cows browsing through the deep, lush gra.s.s, and the hearty fellows.h.i.+p of the brawny, bare- armed ploughmen 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 Cimmerian might have spent years among the great cities of the world; he might have walked with the rulers of civilization; he might even achieve his wild whim some day and rule as king of a civilized nation; stranger things had happened. But he was no less a barbarian. He was concerned only with the naked fundamentals of life. The warm intimacies of small, kindly things, the sentiments and delicious trivialities that make up so much of civilized men's lives were meaningless to him. A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs. 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 civilized men and women.

The shadows were lengthening when they reached the river and peered through the masking bushes. 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 sh.o.r.e.

”We've got to take another chance here. We've got to skirt the river. We don't know whether they've crossed or not. The woods over there may be alive with them. We've got to risk it.

We're about six miles south of Gwawela.”

He wheeled and ducked as a bowstring tw.a.n.ged. Something like a white flash of light streaked 78.

through the bushes. Balthus knew it was 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 scream. The next instant he had broken through the bushes after the Cimmerian.

A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the gra.s.s. Half a dozen others were swarming about Conan, swords and axes lifted. They had cast away their bows, useless at such deadly close quarters. Their lower jaws were painted white contrasting vividly with their dark faces, and the designs on their muscular b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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, his muscles hard as steel strings.

Balthus was striving to maintain his hold on the wild man's wrist and bring his own axe into play, but so fast and furious was the struggle that each attempt to strike was blocked. The Pict was wrenching furiously to free his knife hand, was clutching at Balthus' axe, and driving his knees at the youth's groin. Suddenly he attempted to s.h.i.+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 companion, expecting to see him overwhelmed by numbers. Then he realized the full strength and ferocity of the Cimmerian. Conan bestrode two of his attackers, shorn half asunder by that terrible broadsword. As Balthus looked he saw the Cimmerian beat down a thrusting short sword, avoid the stroke of an axe with a cat-like sidewise spring which brought him within arm's length of a squat savage stooping for a bow.

Before the Pict could straighten the red sword flailed down and clove him from shoulder to mid-breastbone where the blade stuck. The remaining warriors 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 and met the remaining Pict with his bare hands. The stocky warrior, a head shorter than his tall enemy, leaped in striking with his axe, at the same time stabbing murderously with his knife. The knife broke on the Cimmerian's mail, and the axe checked in mid-air as Conan's fingers locked like iron on the descending arm. A bone snapped loudly, and Balthus saw the Pict wince and falter. The next instant he was swept off his feet, lifted high above the Cimmerian's head he writhed in mid-air for an instant, kicking and thras.h.i.+ng, and then was dashed headlong to the earth with such force that he rebounded, and then lay still, his limp posture telling of splintered limbs and a broken spine.

”Come on!” Conan wrenched his sword free and s.n.a.t.c.hed 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-stream!”

79.

Up the river sounded a fierce howling. Balthus shuddered to think that it came from human mouths. Grasping the weapons he had s.n.a.t.c.hed he followed Conan who plunged into the thickets away from the bank, and ran like a flying shadow.

VI.

RED AXES OF THE BORDER.

Conan did not plunge deeply into the forest. A few hundred yards from the river, he altered his slanting 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 men. Balthus believed the Picts had reached the glade where the bodies of the slain men lay. Then further yells seemed to indicate that the savages were streaming into the woods in pursuit. They had left a trail any Pict could follow.

Conan increased his speed and Balthus grimly set his teeth and kept on his heels, though he felt he might collapse any time. It seemed centuries since he had eaten last. He kept going more by an effort of will than anything else. His blood was pounding so furiously in his ear drums that he was not aware when the yells died out behind them.

Conan halted suddenly. Balthus leaned against a tree and panted.

”They've quit!” grunted the Cimmerian, scowling.

”Sneaking up on us!” gasped 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 somebody yelling behind them a few seconds before the noise began to get dimmer.

They've been recalled. And that's good for us, but d.a.m.ned bad for the men in the fort. It means the warriors are being summoned out of the woods for the attack. Those men we ran into were warriors from a tribe down the river. They were undoubtedly headed for Gwawela to join in the a.s.sault on the fort. d.a.m.n it, we're further away than ever, now. We've got to get across the river.”

Turning east he hurried through the thickets with no attempt at concealment. Balthus followed him, for the first time feeling the sting of lacerations on his breast and shoulder where the Pict's savage teeth had scored him. He was pus.h.i.+ng through the thick bushes that fringed the bank when Conan pulled him back. Then he heard a rhythmic splas.h.i.+ng and peering through the leaves, saw a dug-out canoe coming up the river, its single occupant paddling hard against 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 Gwawela man,” muttered Conan. ”Emissary from Zogar. 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 amba.s.sador was now almost even with their hiding place, and suddenly Balthus almost jumped out of his skin. At his very ear had sounded the harsh gutturals of a Pict. Then he realized that Conan had called to the paddler in his own tongue. The man started, scanned the bushes and called back something. Then 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 from his hand the bow he had picked up in the glade, and notch an arrow.

The Pict had run his canoe in close to the sh.o.r.e, and staring up into the bushes, called out something. His answer came in the tw.a.n.g of the bow-string, 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 shallow water. 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 scrambled in, seized the paddle and sent the craft shooting toward the eastern sh.o.r.e. Balthus noted with envious admiration the play of the great muscles beneath the sun- burnt skin. The Cimmerian seemed an iron man, who never knew fatigue.

”What did you say to the Pict?” asked Balthus.

”Told him to pull into sh.o.r.e; said there was a white forest runner on the other bank who was trying to get a shot at him.”

”That doesn't seem fair,” Balthus objected. ”He thought a friend was speaking to him. You mimicked a Pict perfectly ”

”We needed his boat,” grunted 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 the men across the river whose lives depend on our getting over?”

Balthus mulled over this delicate ethical question for a moment, then shrugged 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 miles wide south of it. No danger 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.”

”Why don't we keep to the canoe and make the trip by water?”

”Because, considering the current we've got to brace, and the bends in the river, we can go faster afoot. Besides, remember Gwawela is south of the fort; if the Picts are crossing the river we'd run right into them.”