Part 15 (1/2)
She shook her raven tresses and turned her dark, liquid eyes on the inscrutable face of the Cimmerian. ”I know now that I need a consort.
Rule Vendhya with me, Conan! Tomorrow we'll announce our betrothal; within a month there will be nuptial feasts and ceremonies such as have not taken place in Vendhya for a hundred years! I love you, my chieftain!”
She embraced him hotly, straining with her vigorous, slim young body against his, covering his lips with kisses, until his senses swam. But he shook his head and thrust her gently from him. He held her at arm's length.
”Crom knows, la.s.s, that you make a tempting offer,” he rumbled. ”Few women have I seen so beautiful as you, nor so wise. Any man blessed with your hand in marriage would count himself the favorite of a hundred G.o.ds. Ten years ago, when I was a wandering soldier of fortune, I would perhaps have accepted. Now I cannot. I have my own kingdom now, Aquilonia in the West, the mightiest realm in the world. But my queen has been stolen from me by an evil magician in Khitai, and I have sworn an oath to get her back. I should not be a man if I did not keep my vow. Marry one of your own people. They would rather be ruled by a king of their own blood. Tomorrow I ride for the Himelians.”
There was misty tenderness and vast love in the deep, br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes of Yasmina as she regarded him. ”The G.o.ds give happiness only to s.n.a.t.c.h it away. Mayhap that is as well, or life would be nothing but happiness, and we should lack the contrasts to know what real happiness means.”
Her eyes cleared, and a queer, half-whimsical smile played upon her lips. ”You will go tomorrow. But there are several hours left until dawn. Let us spend them in a more profitable way than talking!”
They locked again in a fierce embrace, while the stars shone coldly upon the dead, gla.s.sy-eyed faces of the foiled a.s.sa.s.sins.
7. The Demon of the Snows -------------------------.
The man slunk silently along the snow-covered trail. His body was bent forward; his eyes scanned the ground, and his nostrils widened like those of a hound on the scent. No man had ever before been where he now stalked; at least, none had been there and returned to tell about it.
Mist-veiled and mysterious were the icy upper wastes of the mighty Himelian mountains.
Zelvar Af had been hunting alone when he happened upon the odd tracks in the snow. Wide, splayed footprints were pressed deeply down at distances of at least four feet denoting the size of the creature that made them. Zelvar Af had never seen anything like them; but his memory stirred with the recollection of ghastly legends told in the thatched huts of the hill villages by white-bearded old men.
With primitive recklessness, Zelvar Af shrugged off the glimmerings of fear. True, he was alone and several days' journey from home. But was he not the foremost hunter of the Wamadzi? The double curve of his powerful Hyrkanian bow brought rea.s.surance as he clutched it with his eyes searching. He moved cat-footed on the trail.
It was no manifestation of sound or sight that made him stop. The white slopes stretched upward before him in snowy magnificence. Other mighty ranges could be seen far off in jagged silhouette. No sign of life showed anywhere. But an icy, creeping feeling suddenly filled his mind-the feeling that something arisen from dreadful tales of horrible beings from dark borderlands. He wheeled in a flash, his brown hand whipping out his heavy Zhaibar knife.
His blood froze in his veins. His eyes opened in awful terror at the sight of the giant white shape that glided toward him over the snow. No features could be discerned in the white face of the horribly manlike figure, but its swift glide brought it straight to its petrified victim. With a scream of terror, Zelvar swung his blade. Then the icy embrace of the smothering white arms swept around him. Silence reigned again in the vast white reaches.
”By thunder, it is good to be among hillmen again!”
The words were stressed by a bang on the rough wooden table with a half-gnawed beef bone. A score of men were gathered in the big hut of the chief of the Khirgulis: chiefs from neighboring villages and the foremost men of the Khirguli tribe. Wild and fierce they were. Clothed in st.u.r.dy hillman's sheepskin tunics and boots, they had doffed the huge fur coats worn against the cold of the upper ranges, displaying the barbaric splendor of Bakhariot belts and ivory-and-gold tulwar hilts.
The commanding figure was, however, none of these fierce mountaineers.
Conan the Cimmerian, in the place of honor, was the center of their attention. Long and varied was the tale he had told, for it was over a decade since his feet had last trod the winding paths of the Himelian crags.
”Yes, I think you will be little bothered by Turanians henceforth.”
Flashes coruscated in the blue depths of Conan's eyes as he told his recent experiences. ”I slew Yezdigerd on the deck of his flags.h.i.+p, as the blood of his men gushed round my ankles. His vast empire will be sundered and split by the feuds of Shahs and Aghas, as there is no successor to the throne.”
The gray-bearded chief sighed. ”We have seen little of the Turanians since the day you with your Afghulis and the Devi Yasmina with her Kshatriyas defeated their host in Femesh Valley. Nor have the riders of Vendhya bothered us; we keep a silent agreement of truce since that day, even refraining from raiding their caverns and outposts. I almost long for the old days of battle, when we rained stones upon their spired helmets and ambushed their mailed lancers from every cranny.”
Conan smiled in reminiscence. But his thoughts dwelt on his recent visit to Vendhya. It was hard to push the picture of a slim, black-haired, tear-eyed woman out of his mind, as he remembered her standing on the palace wall, waving her silken veil as he thundered away toward the hazy mountains.
A portly, bearded chief cleared his throat. ”We understand that you are on a pressing errand, Conan,” he said. ”But take our advice and go around the Talakman region. Strange and terrible things happen there, and it is whispered that the snow demons of the old myths are abroad again.”
”What are these snow demons, that they send fear into the stout hearts of the men of Ghulistan?”
The chief bent lower and answered with a quaver in his voice. ”Devils out of the nighted gulfs of the black abyss haunt the snowy reaches of Talakma. Men have been found with their bodies broken and mangled by something of terrible strength and ferocity. But the most horrible thing of all is that every corpse, no matter how recent, was frozen stiff to the core! Fingers and limbs are so brittle that they break of like icicles!”
”I thank you for the warning.” Conan's voice was somber. ”But I cannot pa.s.s around the Talakmas. It would cost me two months, and I must travel by the straightest path. My time is short.”
Clamoring, they tried to dissuade him, but in vain. His stentorian voice beat upwards to tones of command, whereupon they all fell silent.
He rose heavily and went into the inner room to a bed covered with thick furs, while his companions lingered, shaking their heads and muttering in fearful tones.