Part 11 (1/2)
”We'll await them here,” answered Conan.
” Twere more knightly to ride out and meet them,” snapped the count.
”They'd smother us with numbers,” answered the Cimmerian. ”Besides, there's no water out there. We'll camp on the plateau---”
”My knights and I camp in the valley,” retorted Thespides angrily. ”We are the vanguard, and we, at least, do not fear a ragged desert swarm.”
Conan shrugged his shoulders, and the angry n.o.bleman rode away. Amalric halted in his bellowing order, to watch the glittering company riding down the slope into the valley.
”The fools! Their canteens will soon be empty, and they'll have to ride back up to the well to water their horses.”
”Let them be,” replied Conan. ”It goes hard for them to take orders from me. Tell the dog-brothers to ease their harness and rest. We've marched hard and fast Water the horses and let the men munch.”
No need to send out scouts. The desert lay bare to the gaze, though just now this view was limited by low-lying clouds which rested in whitish ma.s.ses on the southern horizon. The monotony was broken only by a jutting tangle of stone ruins, some miles out on the desert, reputedly the remnants of an ancient Stygian temple. Conan dismounted the archers and ranged them along the ridges, with the wild tribesmen.
He stationed the mercenaries and the Khoraji spearmen on the plateau about the well. Farther back, in the angle where the hill road debouched on the plateau, was pitched Yasmela's pavilion.
With no enemy in sight, the warriors relaxed. Basinets were doffed, coifs thrown back on mailed shoulders, belts let out. Rude jests flew back and forth as the fighting men gnawed beef and thrust their muzzles deep into ale jugs. Along the slopes the hillmen made themselves at ease, nibbling dates and olives. Amalric strode up to where Conan sat bareheaded on a boulder.
”Conan, have you heard what the tribesmen say about Natohk? They say-Mitra, it's too mad even to repeat. What do you think?”
”Seeds rest in the ground for centuries without rotting, sometimes,”
answered Conan. ”But surely Natohk is a man.”
”I am not sure,” grunted Amalric. ”At any rate, you've arranged your lines as well as a seasoned general could have done. It's certain Natohk's devils can't fall on us unawares. Mitra, what a fog!”
”I thought it was clouds at first,” answered Conan. ”See how it rolls!”
What had seemed clouds was a thick mist moving northward like a great unstable ocean, rapidly hiding the desert from view. Soon it engulfed the Stygian ruins, and still it rolled onward. The army watched in amazement. It was a thing unprecedented-unnatural and inexplicable.
”No use sending out scouts,” said Amalric disgustedly. ”They couldn't see anything. Its edges are near the outer f.l.a.n.g.es of the ridges. Soon the whole pa.s.s and these hills will be masked---”
Conan, who had been watching the rolling mist with growing nervousness, bent suddenly and laid his ear to the earth. He sprang up with frantic haste, swearing.
”Horses and chariots, thousands of them! The ground vibrates to their tread! Ho, there!” his voice thundered out across the valley to electrify the lounging men. ”Burganets and pikes, you dogs! Stand to your ranks!”
At that, as the warriors scrambled into their lines, hastily donning headpieces and thrusting arms through s.h.i.+eld straps, the mist rolled away, as something no longer useful. It did not slowly lift and fade like a natural fog; it simply vanished, like a blown-out flame. One moment the whole desert was hidden with the rolling fleecy billows, piled mountainously, stratum above stratum; the next, the sun shone from a cloudless sky on a naked desert-no longer empty, but thronged with the living pageantry of war. A great shout shook the hills.
At first glance the amazed watchers seemed to be looking down upon a glittering, sparkling sea of bronze and gold, where steel points twinkled like a myriad of stars. With the lifting of the fog, the invaders had halted as if frozen, in long serried lines, flaming in the sun.
First was a long line of chariots, drawn by the great fierce horses of Stygia, with plumes on their heads- snorting and rearing as each naked driver leaned back, bracing his powerful legs, his dusky arms knotted with muscles. The fighting men in the chariots were tall figures, their hawklike faces set off by bronze helmets crested with a crescent supporting a golden ball. Heavy bows were in their hands. No common archers, these, but n.o.bles of the South, bred to war and the hunt, who were accustomed to bringing down lions with their arrows.
Behind these came a motley array of wild men on half-wild horses-the warriors of Kush, the first of the great black kingdoms of the gra.s.slands south of Stygia. They were s.h.i.+ning ebony, supple and lithe, riding stark naked and without saddle or bridle.
After these rolled a horde that seemed to encompa.s.s all the desert.
Thousands on thousands of the warlike sons of Shem: ranks of hors.e.m.e.n in scale-mail corselets and cylindrical helmets-the a.s.shuri of Nippr, Shumir, and Eruk and their sister cities; wild white-robed hordes -the nomad clans.
Now the ranks began to mill and eddy. The chariots drew off to one side while the main host came uncertainly onward. Down in the valley the knights had mounted, and now Count Thespides galloped up the slope to where Conan stood. He did not deign to dismount but spoke abruptly from the saddle.
”The lifting of the mist has confused them! Now is the time to charge!
The Kus.h.i.+tes have no bows and they mask the whole advance. A charge of my knights will crush them back into the ranks of the Shemites, disrupting their formation. Follow me! We will win this battle with one stroke!”