Conan and the Manhunters Read online

  The long descent terminated in a vast, echoing chamber hewn from the same living stone. The chamber was so large that the light of the single candle was swallowed by the gloom. Sagobal walked to a wall and began to pace along it, turning at right angles each time the wall met another. These walls were better finished than those of the passage, and they were carved with a maze of geometric designs that drew and twisted the vision until he had to look away, sickened.

  Sagobal realized that he had not yet returned to his starting-place even though he had taken more than four of the right-angled turns. That was not possible. He decided he must have been distracted by the puzzling designs on the walls and walked right past his starting-place. Like the strange light in the temple, it was easier not to think about it. Whatever the explanation, the crypt seemed sufficiently large.

  'It will do,' he said. 'The passage and stair seem to be the only means of exit.'

  'The only means any ordinary man could use,' Tragthan said, obliquely.

  'As long as it will keep treasure in and men out,' Sagobal said brusquely. 'Let's get out of here. This gloom oppresses me.'

  They climbed the stair, and Sagobal avoided looking at the crudely hewn walls. Everything about the place was steeped in ancient evil, even the new structure above.

  'Will there be... irregularity in the coming festival?' the priest asked.

  'What mean you?' Sagobal said.

  'I mean that my Brotherhood offered the use of the crypt of Ahriman for the viceroy's treasury. If it is to be used for some nefarious purpose—' he paused significantly '—that could be unfortunate.'

  'Why should that be?' Sagobal asked impatiently. 'Is your god not a being of evil and darkness? Does he not thrive on the misdeeds of men and rejoice in bloodshed?'

  'He does, indeed. But his priests do not relish surprises.'

  'If you are easily surprised, Tragthan, you should find some gentler god to serve. Good day to you.' They emerged from the crypt and Sagobal strode briskly between the caryatids, toward the clean light spilling in through the doorway.

  'I shall see you again at the festival,' Tragthan said gloomily.

  Sagobal felt intensely relieved as he walked out of the temple, and he cursed the day Torgut Khan agreed to its rebuilding. Still, it might serve his own purposes. The bright sunlight washed over the plaza, cleansing it of the ancient, inhuman evil that radiated 'from the temple. Sagobal breathed deep of the clean air and scanned the busy, crowded scene. To I he usual throng of hawkers and travellers had been added the temporary booths of vendors drawn by the upcoming festival, the mountebanks who performed for the gawkers, the cut-purses, gamblers and whores who preyed on all alike. In this remote end of southern Turan, a dozen tongues were spoken by folk from Hyrkania, Vendhya, Iranistan and the nameless sheikdoms and principalities of the nearby deserts. Many Caravans passed through this town of Shahpur, rounding the southern tip of the Vilayet, coming through the passes of the great southern range, faring across the desert from Koth, Punt and Zembabwei.

  Then Sagobal saw the sort of evil he preferred, the sort untouched by gods, priests and magic—the sort provided by men. Through the Arch of Good Fortune, whence the Samara Road emptied into the plaza, a file of horsemen came riding. They made no uproar and their horses ambled along at a walking pace, but all gave them room. These, Sagobal knew, had to be the men he awaited. Smoothing his long moustaches with a gold-ringed finger, he walked down the temple steps to meet them.

  Sagobal was one of the best-known figures in the town, and feared above all others. Though he walked without a regard, people parted before him like fishing-smacks before the prow of a warship. The lead rider espied him and raised his hand for a halt. Sagobal saw about a score of riders behind the man; they appeared to be a hard-bitten lot.

  The guard commander stopped before the leader's mount and said nothing for a full minute. The man was a huge brute, with a battered, blue-eyed face. From beneath the edge of his; steel cap, greying blond hair hung to his bulky shoulders. He wore neither tunic nor shirt, but went bare-chested, displaying! a powerful, scarred torso. His forearms were wrapped with, leather straps, plated on the outsides with iron. The back of each hand was protected by an iron plate with spikes over the knuckles, but the harness left the fingers bare. A belt of thick leather five inches wide, studded with bronze nails, supported a heavy knife in a fur sheath and a curved, wide-bladed sword.

  'You would be Sagobal?' the man said.

  'I would be,' Sagobal affirmed, continuing to stare the man down.

  'I am Berytus of Aquilonia. You sent for me.' His voice was a deep rumble, almost without inflection.

  'So I did. Your men may take your mounts to the guard stables. One of my guards will lead them. Then have them report back here. As for you, come to my quarters.'

  Berytus dismounted and handed his reins to a Kothian even larger than himself. The Kothian's face was black-bearded to his tiny dark eyes, and his dense black hair hung almost to his elbows. He grunted something to the others and they sat back, waiting.

  Sagobal walked to his headquarters in the military wing of the viceregal palace. He instructed a guard to take Berytus's men to the stables and find them housing in the royal barn racks, and told another to send food for himself and his guest. The men obeyed with swift, silent efficiency.

  Inside, Sagobal doffed his steel-veiled helmet and sat at his table, gesturing for Berytus to take the chair opposite his. The Aquilonian sank into the chair and Sagobal poured wine for both of them into goblets of hammered silver. As his guest drank, Sagobal made a quick assessment of the man. He had the look of a pit-fighter. It was not a trade that commonly attracted men of intelligence, but this one had built a certain reputation in other sorts of work. Besides his wide belt, he wore fur-topped boots and a clout of deerskin. Thus were displayed his many scars, of which the man was clearly proud. 'The military governor of Sultanapur has written me say-g that you gave him good service,' Sagobal began. 'Aye.' Berytus leaned back and hooked his thumbs in his hilt. 'There was a band of crack-brained revolutionaries hold-up out in the hills north of there. It took us three months to locate all their hideouts and discover which peasants were hiding and supporting them. Once we had them located, we I about driving them back down into the lowlands. First we sorted out all the peasants who helped them, then we destroyed their hideouts and caches of supplies. When they got either to fight us, we drove them down to where the governor's men could catch them. The governor hanged the lot.' 'You seem to understand your work,' Sagobal complimented.

  'I understand many kinds of work. I was a pit-fighter, but the king shut clown all the fighting-pits. I took to slave-trading in Argos and Shem. Then I began leading my band in catching runaway slaves. That was lucrative, for masters will pay far more for the return of a trained slave than for a new night barbarian. Now we serve local governors and magistrates, hunting down bandits and insurrectionists who are too difficult for the regular troops to find.'

  'That is just what I need. Ah, here is our repast.' Sagobal kept his silence while the two of them dealt with the food set before them. When the Aquilonian was gnawing on the last dish, he continued.

  'Of late I have been plagued by a band of robbers. They have infested the hills roundabout for years, preying mostly on caravans, but a while back they began to strike the local towns, taking the hoards of wealthy merchants, even appropriating royal treasuries and payrolls. Not haphazard attacks, mind you, but skilled, well-planned raids.'

  'New leadership?' Berytus asked. 'Correct. Have you ever heard of a man called Conan Cimmeria?'

  Berytus's brutish face registered surprise. 'Aye, by reputation. He's a thief and a mercenary. I've run into word of him in a score of places, but never this far east. What brings him to these parts?'

  'Who knows what leads the steps of such a man? What ever it was, he fared hither and began to plague my days. trapped him once, and would have hanged him forthwith, but my master, the Viceroy Torgut Khan, wanted to make
the hanging the centrepiece of his upcoming festival, so the brute was locked in the dungeon. He broke out, slaying five of my men in the process.'

  Berytus grunted. 'Aye, you lock up a man like that one a your peril. I have known many such, and they should b killed at first opportunity.'

  'I know that well. Anyway, I wish to bag the lot of then all at once. My men are adequate, and if it were just the ordinary bandits, my troops would be enough. But this Cimmerian is another matter. It is to deal with him that I have summoned you. If all goes according to plan, you can hand! it with a few minutes' work, dangerous but brief, without wasting months chasing around through the hills.'

  'Things often do not go according to plan, in my experience,' Berytus said.

  'If that is the case,' Sagobal said grimly, 'you will have a long, hard task ahead of you, and you may wish you ha never accepted the proposal.'

  In the small courtyard outside Sagobal's quarters, Berytus' men were lined up for inspection, although in this attitude they looked utterly unlike regular soldiers assembled for the same purpose. They were rough and polyglot, of differing races, and there was nothing uniform about them save an attitude of brutal deadliness. At one end of the line was the hulking Kothian, and Berytus led Sagobal to this one first.

  'This is Urdos of Koth. He is my second in command. He speaks little, but his actions are sufficiently eloquent.' The brute saluted with a heavy ax, which was as light in his massive paw as a willow wand.

  The next man's black beard and hair were similar but he was shorter, though almost as broad. In his hand was a thick-limbed, recurved bow. 'Barca the Shemite,' Berytus said, 'a master of the bow.'

  Beside Barca stood a thin, dark-brown man with narrow features, his hair bound up in a greasy turban. His only visible weapon was a slender spear. 'Ambula of Punt. He can find the signs left by a shadow on bare rock.' Ambula Mailed, revealing yellow teeth filed to points.

  'Bahdur the Hyrkanian,' Berytus said, standing before a squat, yellow-complexioned man who carried a bow and quiver of arrows at his belt. He wore armour of lacquered bamboo laced with coloured leather. 'Another fine archer, and he can track almost as well as Ambula.'

  So they went down the line, and each man was as exotic is the last. Each was stamped with the unmistakable look of villainy, but all looked eminently qualified for their task. They were man-hunters and killers, and Sagobal knew well that one did not hire delicate scholars for such work. They were cruel, merciless and efficient.

  'Very good,' Sagobal said. 'For the next few days they are to stay out of sight. Even in Shahpur, a lot such as this may excite comment, and I doubt not the bandits we are after have their spies in the city.'

  'This evening we will ride out as we came in,' Berytus said. 'In the late watches, have your guards on the gate to let us back in. We will return here unseen.'

  'Excellent,' Sagobal said approvingly.

  'My men will not like being cooped up in barracks,' Berytus said. 'They had a long ride hither and were looking forward to a carouse.'

  'They will be well supplied with food and wine,' Sagobal said. 'I will even find some women for them. Bag Conan and his band for me, and I'll reward them with the carouse of their lives.'

  That night another strange group assembled in the ancient city of Shahpur. The priest Tragthan stood in the long nave of the new temple, his hands thrust into the wide sleeves of his robe. He was utterly still, waiting. The unearthly red light still streamed bloodily through the glass windows, although the crescent moon above cast only the dimmest of rays. H did not move when a figure robed like himself appeared in the grotesque doorway.

  The newcomer walked on silent feet into the red glow, the pushed his cowl back, revealing a gaunt face and a hairless head covered with strangely mottled skin. Slowly, he turned his head, surveying the imposing interior.

  'Splendid,' said the newcomer, a slight hiss in his voice 'It is just as it was in ancient times!'

  'Greeting, Master Shosq,' Tragthan said. 'It is not quite as it was in the great days, but it shall be. Whence came you?' 'From the land of Khitai, which is so changeless that save for the suppression of Ahriman's temples, all is much as it was in ages past.'

  Even as the faint echoes of these words faded, two more figures entered. The backthrust cowls of their russet robes displayed faces similar to that of Shosq's. The face of one was turned a grotesque purple by the reddish light. That of the other was paler, but the flesh was covered with tiny, close-set bumps, as if he suffered from some disfiguring disease.

  'Greetings, Brothers,' Tragthan and Shosq said in unison.

  'Brother Nikas,' Tragthan said, 'long has it been since we last beheld you. Whence came you?'

  'From an island in the Western Sea, a fragment of lost Atlantis,' said the purple-visaged man. In ordinary light, his skin would have been faintly blue. 'I made my way to the nearest coast, in what men now call the Pictish Wilderness, as primitive now as in olden time.'

  'And you, Brother Umos?' Tragthan inquired.

  'From Belverus, in Nemedia,' said the man with knobbed skin. 'Her Temple of Ahriman is not even a pile of rabble now. A great crude fortress rises atop the site.' He laughed—a sinister, hissing sound. 'The tower that now stands above the altar is known as the Tower of Lost Hope, for in every siege since the building of the fort, all the defenders of that tower have been slain.'

  Tragthan directed his eyes toward the doorway. 'How many others will join us this night?'

  'There will be no others,' said Nikas.

  'None?' Tragthan turned to face the purple-visaged man. 'What of Brothers Khinat, and Spor, and the great Learned One Jasup, and Master Relk, and a score of others?'

  'Gone,' said Nikas. 'Their temples and sanctuaries lay in what is now Stygia, and in the lands that have since been under the rule of Stygia: Koth and Shem, Kush, Darfar and others. The ancient enmity between Ahriman and Set caused the Stygians to hunt down even the ruins of our temples and grind them to dust and lay them and all their adherents under the most baleful of curses.'

  'Set!' hissed the others.

  'He is a jealous god,' Nikas said. 'The priest-kings of Stygia have grown powerful in his service, and they will allow no hint of a rival.'

  'Then it is to be we four,' Tragthan said. He raised a hand hand the portcullis slid down like a great jaw shutting. Then the bronze doors swung silently shut. 'Even so, it is not the first time that the worship of our dread Lord has been resurrected by a core as small as this, or even smaller.'

  'There are Temples of Ahriman in many lands,' Nikas said, 'but in these our Lord is worshipped in debased form, is a mere adjunct to the cult of Ormazd.'

  'Ormazd.!' the others hissed.

  'Aye, the bright god is a great favourite in many lands, and as such, he must have a rival, so that he may ritually defeat him in the thoughtless ceremonies of the common herd. Our great and terrible Ahriman has been reduced to a figure in a puppet-play!'

  'This we shall rectify,' said Tragthan. 'Here, in this unimportant town of Shahpur, which was once mighty Elkar of the Waves when the Vilayet was a vast inland sea, we shall re-establish the great cult of our Lord. Here alone have the foundations of one of his true temples survived intact. Here alone has his altar lain perfect through the passage of aeons.'

  'Many times has this temple been rebuilt,' intoned Shosq 'Always, when our Lord has bestirred himself, have the surviving Brothers converged here to bring him once again into the world.'

  'Before Elkar,' said Umos, 'it was Zhagg of the Black Desert, when Atlantis was a chain of smoking volcanoes their sides not yet clothed in green. Even before that, it was a place with a name none in our present form can pronounce Always, our Lord Ahriman has had the centre of his worship here.'

  'Come,' said Tragthan. 'There is much to do. Tonight The Moon enters the House of the Lion, and we must begin.'

  The priests walked the length of the nave until they stood surrounding the altar of Ahriman. As The Moon entered the House of the Lion, the
y began to chant. Their voices were low, and they made sounds not intended for the human palate and tongue. Before the sun rose, the altar began to glow with an unearthly phosphorescence.

  III

  Conan, Osman and Auda, the desert nomad, lay on their bellies studying the royal road that led into Shahpur. It bore a heavy traffic this day: much foot traffic, the lumbering carts and farmers, a few palanquins borne upon the shoulders of stalwart slaves and carrying wealthy men and women, the colourful wagons of travelling entertainers, coffles of slaves chained neck to neck and driven to market by brutal-faced men dressed in leather and steel. For these travellers, though, the men on the hilltop had little regard. But they did not have to wait long for a sight to draw their greedy eyes.

  'Ay!' said Auda excitedly. 'Here comes another!'

  'Keep your voice down,' Osman urged.

  The three had lain thus since before sun up, on the sandy soil beneath a clump of brush, a dun-coloured blanket covering them so that they blended from view into the terrain. Only the keenest-eyed could have seen them from the road, and then only if their attention were drawn by sound or movement. The three outlaws ignored the scorching sun overhead as they ignored the biting insects. Capture could mean death.

  'Listen to the squealing of those wheels,' Osman whispered. 'I can hear them already.'

  Conan said nothing, but his blue eyes blazed at the sight. A four-wheeled wagon lurched around a bend, the groan in of its axles matched only by the jingle and clatter set up b; the weapons of its escort of heavily armed riders. The wagon was not large, but its slow progress and the sound of it; wheels indicated great weight, as the heavy escort indicated great value.