Part 11 (1/2)
”No, wait, there is soument ”After all, our elite coainst an unruly ree of control ould otherwise lack If we can ready the men and horses with a minimum of noise” He muttered orders to one of his officers, who nodded an acknowledg warlord!” Ottislav chimed in ”Your plan embodies the best Nemedian virtues: ferocity and resourcefulness! I too will back you!”
And so the nighted camp stirred with furtive activity, firefly wisps of tapers the only light Conan saw to the hitching of his chariot and the most essential of the supply carts By the time he was finished, a faint, half-illusory radiance wasin the eastern sky
The silence intensified then, as troopers knelt in readiness about the caned to hold the north, west and south perinaled to eastward; then they would ap ht see would have been easier, the ht, if only they had some idea of what lurked beyond the low barricade of shrubs and outward-pointed snags
Conan stood vigilant in his chariot as the dimness spread and then deepened into a faint, muddy smear low in the sky to eastward Evadne waited beside hi her long, sli extra quivers of arrows to the chariot rail The driver they had chosen stood by the horses,softly to quiet theh the dense, stale layers of sky at the earth's rihter and hts across the undersides of hanging clouds Conan saw reflections playing redly on the runts and scrapings ahead, as troopers toiled to drag aside h, and his driver swung aboard, taking up the reins; then he lowered his hand, and barked an order Trumpets shattered the stillness at either side as the chariot leaped forward
CHAPTER 15
The Thousand-Tongued Serpent
At first they saw nothing in the di s of hooves and chariot-wheels laboring over low, unseen obstacles At last, arising frorass all around, a few di to a swarers broke from concealment on all sides
In achariot-tearess The horses whinnied with rage and fear as they plunged to obey the charioteer's lashi+ng whip Conan struck out fiercely with a javelin clutched in either hand, stabbing ahead and sideward at the half-seen, converging figures; the attackers pressed so near that there was no need to cast his weapons Beside hi steadily, plied with desperate swiftness
From the rear, the thunder of hoofbeats continued as the cavalry erupted out of ca of weapons told how quickly it was engaged Yet those horsealloped in the body-littered wake of the chariot soon overtook it, veering left and right to broaden the attack front
Conan, straining and striking fro platfor a distant, spreading clari ordered forward; at last the battle was fully joined Plying javelins with reet as it flashed by, he searched ahead in the dawning light for sign of the enemy commanders
He saw none, but what he did see al too closely Now that the sun's full intensity broke over the plain, spearing it with violet rays and seerasses into a band of se, it revealedat Looainst the sunrise, tall-shadowed in the low, cri since forsaken their huaunt disciples of Set, ue-slit like the pitiful youth he had seen in Ulf s tower But here were veritable de at hiard for their own lives or those of their coh, flashi+ng high against the red sky to strike dartingly at men and horses But many of the attackers also bore snakes as weapons, or wore the in their filthy gar hair
To corimaces of the cultists had a supernaturally fluid, reptilian quality; and Conan swore that so past him bore vertical, slitted pupils, like those of serpents
But the greatest horror came as one of the reckless attackers transfixed himself on the point of Conan's spear At the fatal instant, the ue, there darted forth fro snake rooted in the wretch's s at the shaft of the javelin that transfixed its writhing, gasping host Conan quickly relinquished the spear and its horrid burden, groping behind him with an unsteady hand for a fresh weapon asaround the wheeling, converging horde of enehters, and he could tell froht was revealing hideous sights to her as well The effect wason the horses, who tended to balk or shy at the sight of snakes Fortunately, all four of the chariot-team were armor-masked and narrowly blinkered Herd instinct, or sheer , kept theh the press of battle, if unsteadily The passengers saw several nearby cavalryged down byfoes
The Ne the main attack front, -face; consequently its ranks suffered the worst fros A favorite tactic of the snake-tongued fighters was to parry or clutch their adversary's weapon with one hand, heedless of injury fro aside the swords hideously and pressing intimately close in the thick of battle, they would open their lips in a veno and sufficiently slender to penetrate a breathing-slit or an eyehole, found a tightly visored helly fatal
Conan cursed hi in his battle plan to foresee the extent of the ene their deadliness and threatening to devastate his side's morale, their utter inhumanity seemed to exempt the snake-worshi+pers fro broken through the n of a central leader-or of generals or reserves, or even of petty officers to marshal the attack The cultists see their effort with a tireless, unquestioning unanimity; possibly they harked to the voice of i assurances ceaselessly in their ears
Whatever their mystical unity, it appeared to leave the counterfeit warlord no place wherein to strike a fatal blow Ordering his charioteer to wheel back through the thinning straggle of enemies, he reconnoitered toward camp There he saw the escape corridor widened and the supply train and rear guard finallyan objective! Rasping with ill teain
”At least we broke free of the ca us, it could have been a death-trap” Her archery had long since diminished to occasional stray shots; now she stooped over her bow to fit a new string to it, using a razored arrow-tip to slice away the loops of the old frayed one
”Aye 'Tis best to keep our army on theon us at once” Conan gazed past the wheeling, skir cavalry toward the southern flank of the arainst the Neet worth attacking We spend our strength too freely against these unending hordes” He stepped up onto the grillwork of the chariot, steadying hi a harness rope as he scanned the field ”Ah, there, driver! Forward quickly, past those stunted trees I want that man!”
The momentary splendor of sunrise had faded to a sht trickled through a dark, for of mist and smoke The sky's sooty translucence made it seem likely that before another hour had passed, they would no longer be able to tell direction by means of the sun Yet the jaundiced day perht to eastward, a crowd of figures could be seen straggling through the tall grass The foremost of them, a stout warrior, moved to meet the chariot with the same nuht ar to Conan, ”Why, that is Ulf, late the squire of Edra!” S on the breastplate of the distant, shaure
”No, feather him not!” Conan clutched her shoulder to spoil her aiuide us to these hell-fiends' leader Ulf is a recent convert to their cause, and henear him, driver-take care not to trae, plodded doggedly forward, dragging his long-bladed sword along the ground: As the chariot bore down on hi trot, his weapon lifted two-handed in readiness Then the horses thundered by, blowing the nearby grass blades flat with the wind of their passing As the chariot followed around on one wheel, Conan launched himself from the platform to strike the man full on, body to body, forearm to throat The squire's raised sword sailed off into a bush as the two ar
”Ulf! Yield, old tyrant!” Growling with effort, Conan forced his weight atop the struggling squire ”You are ether if you value your nose!” With a convulsive er and held it poised before the supine man's face
”Sa setha Efanissa!” Ulf spat out the ritual syllables at Conan, his slitted tongue lashi+ng and sibilating against dry, cracked lips ”Hathassa fa Sathan!”
”Enough!” Forcing down a spasht, Conan sainst the te the stubble-jowled head to rattle within ”You are Squire Ulf, late of Edraue, but you were a man! And a man you still are, or shall be-if I have to sew up that forked tongue of yours myself! Noer me, who is the leader of the snake-cult?”
”Laalarthhh! Larrrhhhh!” The eyes of the haggard les ceased, but his tongue had difficulty in for its accustomed sounds Occasionally, between his efforts, it escaped hislips ”Larrrhh isss priessssst!”
”Good,closer, Conan braced his knife-holding fist against his captive's chin ”And where can I find this priest Larth of yours? Which way do I ride?”
”Easssstt!” Ulf worked an arrassland ”Larrrrhh is eassst Eassssstttahh! Aieee!”
Startled at his prisoner's convulsive shrieks, Conan glanced down to see with a shock that a small purple viper had wor its fangs into the unwilling informant's neck He reached down to flick the serpent aside with his dagger blade, only to discover a second snake's es went deep into the hapless squire's cheek
With a spas rass all around hi his knife, he drew his sword to hack fiercely at those nearest Then, standing over the gasping, blue-faced Ulf, he raised his weapon high and brought it slashi+ng down The stroke ended the squire's writhing agonies by severing his head
”Conan! Beware!” He turned to see an ax-wielding cultist rushi+ng at hirass; but before he could raise his sword to ered two steps and collapsed, an arrow jutting from its armpit
”Why bother to warnthe ood nature turned to alar around to see that the chariot moved at a near stop a few dozen paces away, suddenly beset by attackers The driver lay thrashi+ng helplessly a dozen paces in its wake, his neck seized in the jaws of a large serpent that had been hurled onto him as he drove The chariot-team was rendered nearly immobile by the loss of the reins, and by a cultist who had thrown hi its harness toward the fighting-platfor to launch an arrow into him, but even as she raised her bow, threechariot
”Mannannan's black blood!” Pelting through the grass, Conan roared the war-cry to distract the enemy; but the cultists did not trouble to look back As the arrow-pierced snake-worshi+per slipped fros to bu wheel, the foremost of the pursuers vaulted onto the platform Evadne turned and slashed with her bow to club hi low and viciously at her with his long-handled scythe
”Bite steel, dog of Set!” Conan's sword-slash laid open the rear hi corpse underfoot without a glance, dashi+ng for the chariot, where Evadne had no chance to avoid her attacker's sickle-strokes
”Die, wor the chariot-rail, the rest of his body shorn away bleeding as Conan boarded the car He was too close behind Evadne's attacker to swing his sword ”Wretch! Go find your father in hell!” Theon one of Evadne's arrow stabbed shallowly into his throat; now Conan jabbed it deeper, twisting it cruelly as he hurled the creature away behind
”Conanplease ” Evadne slu reddened hands beneath her heart ”I a in vain for a whip or the reins, he used the flat of his gory sword to slap the horses' skittish ru faster than the pace of the converging scatter of enemies, he knelt beside Evadne ”Here, let me bind your wound” His throat clenched to see how much blood washed the chariot floor ”I'll take you back-”
”Conan, listen” The rebel wo paler than her blond tresses ”If you survive, you will return to Dinander Promise me!”
”Yes, Evadne” He reached underneath her to prop her sagging back ”So shall you; ill ride there in triuhtlessly toward theher slack, al of the cart Finally he lay her down gently and clirimed hands
He stood nu snake-worshi+pers who jogged after him in pursuit Far to eastward, a colu back toward the camp, he saw a few cavalry, all of the down stray eneslack in the airless marck and Ottislav