Conan and the Manhunters Read online

  'And can you accomplish this?' she asked the Cimmerian.

  'My course is set,' Conan said grimly. 'Any mortal man who stands between me and my revenge shall be cut down.'

  'How reassuring!' she cried with a mocking laugh.

  Safely out of sight of the city, they turned from the road, taking a narrow goat-path that wound into the southern hills. An hour of riding brought them to a camp by a little stream, where the bulk of the band lounged around a low fire, drinking weak wine or brewing an herb tea much esteemed in the area. They looked up eagerly at the arrival of the riders.

  'How went it, friends?' Osman asked.

  'It can be done,' the Cimmerian said. His words elicited a happy growl. 'We must lay our plans carefully, for there is only one way in and out. One way for men, that is. The treasure will take a route we may not follow.' He swung from the saddle and strode to the fire. 'What of the camels?'

  'Auda and the desert men have not yet returned, but I expect them by darkness,' Osman said.

  'Aye,' Ubo reported. 'There is a village called Telmak a day's ride from here. It holds a great camel-market thrice a year, and one such is going on right now. Auda and the rest said that it would be far easier to run off a few-score head of stock from one place than steal them by twos and threes from many caravans and villages.'

  'They must be right,' said Chamik, 'for those men are accomplished camel-thieves.'

  'Excellent,' Conan said. 'I must make some preparations, ' then I want all of you to gather and attend me.'

  For the next hour, the Cimmerian gathered sticks, rocks, leaves and other materials, arranging them in patterns upon the ground. The bandits watched for a while in wonderment, then wandered off about their own business, most of which consisted of loafing, tale-spinning and gambling for the loot they expected to win soon.

  In late afternoon, Auda and two other desert men arrived, their horses tired, the men ebullient. 'Ninety-three head of prime stock!' Auda announced to the cheers of his fellows.

  'They await us at the hideout.'

  'Where is Junis?' Conan asked.

  'A camel-boy was a little too alert and Junis took a lance-point in his thigh. We have a camel-watcher at the spring, after all. He will probably live, if the flesh rot does not set in.'

  'And one less man for the raid,' Conan said. 'One man is not much of a price for ninety-three camels,' Ubo pointed out.

  'I suppose not,' said the Cimmerian. 'Now, gather 'round, you rogues. You too, Volvolicus.' The crew gathered around the strange assemblage of materials the Cimmerian had laid out on the ground. 'You see before you the city of Shahpur.'

  'It's shrunk since I was last there,' commented an Iranistani. Conan ignored him.

  'These sticks are the walls of the city. The bits of vine outline the major streets and the squares. The large stones are the major buildings and the small ones are the lesser buildings.'

  With his dagger, he pointed out the features as he named them. 'The little black stones are the places where the guardsmen are concentrated.'

  'What is that piece of camel-dung?' Auda asked.

  'That is Torgut Khan,' said Osman. 'Do you not recognize him?' The others roared with merriment. Conan was gratified mat the men were in such high spirits. Morale was as important in such a venture as it was in a military operation. He himself was not so sanguine. The temple and the wizard's reservations about it had depressed his spirits. Were it not for Ms burning need for revenge upon his tormentors, he might have abandoned the project. But he shook off the black mood and proceeded with his plan.

  'Here is the main gate.' His dagger indicated a gap in the sticks. 'On the morn after tomorrow, you will enter singly or in small groups—more festival-goers come to gawk and carouse. You will behave like ordinary peasants and townsmen. Those who bear the marks of their offences must cover them.'

  'But I am proud of these, Conan!' said a grinning Khorajan named Mamos, a man of noted degeneracy even among this company. His forehead had been branded with, intricate designs, identifying him as the murderer of his parents. The rope scar around his neck proclaimed that he was one of those rare men lucky or evil enough to have survived a hanging. He always said that he had never been caught for his really serious crimes.

  'Swallow your vanity and wear a head-scarf, Mamos,' Conan advised. 'It is only for a few hours. With the gold you shall win, you may have your scars gilded.'

  .'Back to business, dogs,' Osman said. 'Our leader is going to tell us how we will all become rich men! Go on, Conan.' He grinned, his eyes alight with greed.

  'Volvolicus will go in when the gate is opened in the morning. Just before noon, when the crowd is the greatest, he will enter the temple with whatever sightseers are taken in at that time. The temple has only one entrance, and it is barred

  not by a common door or gate, but by a portcullis, such as a castle has. A team of you shall have the task of securing it open for the duration of our raid. We were not able to spy out the mechanism operating the thing, but I have a way to control it. This will take the finest timing, so we must rehearse the operation here, tonight and tomorrow, until every man knows his role by heart.'

  For the rest of the day, he drilled them. The men grumbled and groaned, protesting that they had not turned bandit in order to work for a living. But their banter was good-natured, for the prospect of incalculable wealth rendered even these men willing to work for a day or two. He broke them down into teams, each to have its own crucial mission: some to secure the temple portal, some to fight off the guards, some to assure that the city gates should not be closed behind them. Stratagems were worked out and tested for practicability. Anything too elaborate, anything that left too much to chance, was ruthlessly vetoed by the Cimmerian.

  'By the white thighs of Ishtar!' cried Mamos, wiping sweat from his scarified brow after a gruelling run-through. 'Why must we toil like slaves or peasants when this wizard,' he gestured toward Volvolicus, 'can accomplish the whole operation with a few muttered cantrips?'

  'If he could do that,' said Conan, 'why would he need us at all?'

  'I had not thought of that,' the Khorajan admitted.

  'Best leave the thinking to those equipped for it,' jeered Osman. But a few minutes later, the small man went to Conan and said in a low voice: 'My captain, just what is to keep the sorcerer from making off with all the treasure?'

  'He says he does not care about wealth.'

  Osman placed a hand upon the Cimmerian's shoulder. 'Conan, my friend, I must tell you that I have heard these words before, from many sources. Often the speakers were priests, or philosophers, or others who claimed that the things they valued were not of this world.' He paused. 'Conan, I am sorry to say that they all lied.'

  'I know that well enough,' said Conan. 'I've learned trough sore experience that fair words often mask foul intentions, and that nothing is to be trusted less than pious protestations.'

  'Ah! You speak like a civilized man,' Osman commended.

  'But here we have little choice. We cannot transport the treasure without his aid, so perforce we must trust him. At any rate,' he added, 'the treasure is secondary to me. What I want is the destruction of Torgut Khan and his dog, Sagobal!'

  'Now you I trust,' Osman assured him. 'Revenge is always a more trustworthy motive than disinterested other-worldliness. And I am sure that you can be content without The spoils, but—' he looked around at the rehearsing band of outlaws '—what of these rogues? If they go to the hideout and find that the wizard has taken the treasure to his house instead, well...' He shrugged and smiled ruefully. 'I would not wish to be the man from whom they demand answers.'

  'And you would be among those demanding such answers?' Conan asked, his voice low and dangerous.

  'My friend, consider the position. I could protest my undying loyalty to you, and my belief in your utter innocence, but what would be the advantage of two of us roasting over a slow fire, instead of just one?'

  'You are an honest man, within your limits. I d
o not feel that Volvolicus will betray us, but it only makes sense to be prepared for the worst. I have a new assignment for you. Upon the day of the raid, when the rest of us are securing the temple and the gates, I want you to go to Sagobal's stables and steal four of his best horses. The stables are hard by the temple, and the horses are the best in the district. In our escape, each of us shall ride one and lead one. Do not mount the spare until we are almost back at our hideout.'

  'And if the gold is not there, we just keep on riding, is that it, Conan?'

  'At speed. Mounted upon fresh horses of such quality, others will never catch us.'

  Osman sighed gustily. 'Here I was, spending my wealth in! my dreams, and already I make plans to be a penniless fugitive.'

  Conan clapped him on the shoulder. 'Dreams are the wealth of any man, my friend! And you will not be poor even in that extremity. You will own at least one fine horse, and you will have your life, and that is not bad for a man who was destined to be part of the entertainment for the festival!'

  That night, Conan was brooding over his plans when Layla came to sit by him. In his concentration upon the morrow, he had all but forgotten the woman.

  'You seem to be a man of understanding for a barbarian,' she began without preamble. 'I wish to tell you of some things my father would rather not reveal to your scum.'

  'This being?' he asked suspiciously.

  'The working of great magic is not the mere mumbling of cantrips, as your murderer would have it. It is a delicate and exacting task, and at the end of it, Volvolicus will be exhausted. He will need an excellent horse to bear him away. He cannot simply levitate himself along with the treasure. I must ride along beside him to assure that he stays in the saddle and on course.'

  'You!' Conan said. 'Surely you do not intend to go along on the raid?'

  'And why not? He will need my assistance throughout. I assure you, I can fight and ride better than most men. Have you the horses?'

  'I will have such horses standing by for our escape,' he said, knowing that this would reduce his own chances in the event of treachery. But he knew as well that the mage could scarcely contemplate betrayal, knowing that he would be within reach of the Cimmerian's blade. 'But what of the mount he now has? It is a fine one.'

  'It will not be good enough if Sagobal presses us close. It is known that he and his troopers straddle the best horseflesh in the district.'

  'I have plans for their confusion.' Conan said.

  'And I know that plans usually go awry Have two fine horses for us. Racehorses, if you can steal them. With that, she rose and walked away from him, swaying fetchingly.

  'Crom!' Conan muttered to himself. 'What am I, a leader of brigands or a horse merchant?'

  V

  The clop of the horses' hooves was loud as the Cimmerian and his companions rode toward the great city gate. The guards at the gate nodded them through without even a perfunctory search. The tenements crowded against the city wall were nearly as deserted as was the tent-town without. Everyone in the city who was sound of body had crowded into the public square for the festival, which was to culminate with the mass execution of the criminals that afternoon.

  Osman rode up to Conan. 'It is like a ghost town.'

  'Only here, not in the square.' Once again, the Cimmerian was attired as a Geraut warrior. He glanced with distaste at Osman's chosen disguise. The small man had elected to assume the character of a mendicant monk of Bes. These holy beggars attired themselves in a ragged loincloth, long strings of wooden beads and, most incongruously, a towering turban made of cloth-of-gold. 'You look like a Shadizar harlot in that getup,' he commented.

  'And all the more invisible for it. What more natural place for a beggar than a festival like this?' 'What if a real monk of Bes shows up?' asked Auda, who rode behind them.

  'No difficulty. There are always far more false holy beggars than real ones. I can impersonate a fraud far better than Conan can impersonate a real Geraut warrior.'

  'There is no besting this man in a trial of brazen impudence,' said Auda.

  'No more banter,' Conan warned. 'Our real business begins now.'

  They turned a corner, and the noise that had been muffled by the close-built structures of the city burst upon them in fall force—clamours of the vendors, songs of the entertainers, howls of performing beasts, the general uproar of a crowd of people, each individual striving to be heard above the pervasive mutter.

  The raiders nudged their horses to a slow walk, circling the periphery of the square, behaving like any other band of sightseers, anxious to view as much of the spectacle as possible. Casually, they rode past the temple steps, before which a pair of workmen wrestled with a wheelbarrow laden with seven-foot timbers, cursing each other as the unsteady vehicle almost overturned. Beyond them, Volvolicus and Layla watched with rapt attention as a Vendhyan woman, naked except for a coat of silver paint, writhed through a sensuous dance to the sound of flute and tambour, while a python as thick as her shapely thigh entwined her body.

  They rode past the elaborate scaffold, where the torturers prepared their instruments, stoking their fires, sharpening evil-looking tools, and explaining to passers-by the subtleties of their art. At one end of the scaffold was a huge wooden cage in which half a hundred condemned wretches awaited their fate in utmost misery, pelted with filth by the jeering crowd. The door of their cage was barred from without by a heavy timber resting in brackets, flanked by a pair of guardsmen with sword, spear and ax.

  At Conan's nod, Osman turned his mount casually away and rode slowly toward the barracks stable. The full circuit' took them the best part of half an hour, for the crowds were dense, forming open spaces only where mountebanks performed.

  'Conan,' Auda whispered. 'I do not like this. These folk are packed together like dates in a leather bag. Making our way out of here will be like trudging through deep sand.'

  'I think not,' Conan said. 'When men gallop and shout and flourish their weapons, even such a mob as this fades before them like smoke. They will find a means to remove themselves from our path. It is like a working of magic.'

  'I hope you are right.'

  They dismounted near the temple steps and tethered their horses to stone bulls, passing their reins through the iron rings in the bulls' noses. A desert man named Izmil remain behind to mind the horses, his hand resting casually upon strung bow cased at his saddle.

  Conan and Auda sauntered up the steps as if to use the height to survey the crowd, not looking toward the temple itself. Many other people sat upon the steps, some of them laying out meals they had packed, claiming for themselves a good seat from which to view the coming executions.

  Just before noon, a priest came to the entrance and intoned the invitation to come inside and see the temple. This time it was a man with strangely bumpy skin. Once again, only a few festival-goers showed an interest. Among them were Volvolicus and Layla. As if on a sudden impulse, Conan and Auda followed behind.

  As the sightseers went into the temple, unnoticed by the crowd at large, the two workmen settled their argument and hoisted a pair of heavy timbers to their shoulders and began to trudge up the steps with them. No one in the crowd paid the slightest attention.

  Equally unnoticed by the crowd, men were gathering upon the rooftops nearest the temple, overlooking the square. These men bore bows in their hands and kept themselves low, so they would not be seen above the parapets. They ranged themselves along the edges of the roofs, fitted arrows to their rings, and waited.

  Conan strode beneath the fang-like portcullis just as it begin to creak downward. As he entered the temple, the two 'workmen' went to the sides of the gate, just as if they had been commissioned to perform some task for the temple, and wedged their timbers against the sides of the passage. When the portcullis touched the timbers, it stopped, although the mechanical clatter from above continued for a few seconds.

  The bumpy-faced priest turned at the alteration in sound. ''What is amiss? Is the gate not working properl
y? We may not continue if—' Then he saw the two men standing by their limbers. 'Who are you two? We ordered no work done on the rate!'

  Conan pulled his veil down with one hand as he drew his sword with the other. 'You are ordering nothing for the next few minutes, priest,' he said. 'On the contrary, you are taking mine. All of you, listen to me! We have business down in that crypt, and you are not to interfere. Do as you are told and none will be hurt. We are here for gold, not for blood. Fail to obey in any way and we will cut you down. Now, everybody into the crypt!'

  The handful of sightseers gaped, then a woman began to wail in terror. A man, most probably her husband, clapped a hand over her mouth and pushed her toward the steps, grinning at Conan as if in apology for his mate's lack of decorum.

  'That's better,' Conan said, gesturing with his bare steel. 'All of you down there, quickly.' He looked at the gate, and the men there gave him the all-clear signal. Thus far, they had

  not been noticed.

  'The- curse of Ahriman will lie upon you for this, brigand!' cried the priest as he scurried down the steps, Conan's sword-point pricking his backbone.

  'I take nothing from your god, priest,' Conan said. 'I

  come to take Torgut Khan's treasure. Save for that, I will leave your temple as I found it.'

  'Lord Ahriman is not so easily mollified,' the priest warned.

  'Silence,' Conan said.

  Then they were in the crypt. It was not illuminated by torches set in sconces around the walls, but rather by fires burning in bowls held aloft by tripods taller than a man. The walls were not visible at all, and this disturbed Conan in a vague, formless fashion. He shook off the mood. Matters here required his full attention.

  In the centre of the chamber was a great stack of chests and bags of heavy leather. Already, Volvolicus was working over these, droning strange syllables in a stranger voice, sprinkling powders and striking the chests with a wand of ivory and crystal, while Layla prepared his instruments.