Conan and the Manhunters Page 8

  'Mitra!' Auda said. 'I hope ninety-three camels will be' enough to shift all this!'

  'It is the sort of difficulty I can endure,' Conan said. 'What you will endure for this outrage is beyond imagining,' the priest said coldly.

  'I warn you the last time, priest. Silence!' Conan pointed to the gaggle of onlookers with his sword. 'You! Get back against the wall and stay there until we are well away, or you shall suffer. You too, priest.'

  'No!' the priest said. 'You must not do that! It is-—' Conan laid the flat of his blade against the priest's head, and the man fell like a sacrificial bull.

  'Drag him back with you,' Conan ordered the onlookers. 'And not a sound out of you, if you would live!' Hastily, the people obeyed, grasping the priest by the robe and backing away until all were hidden in the gloom beyond the firelight.

  The voice of Volvolicus deepened, and a creaking, shifting noise began. The tiny hairs on the back of the Cimmerian's neck stirred as the huge weight of metal in the chests and bags began to shake, then to rise. Within a few minutes, they were man-height from the floor, floating unsupported in defiance of all experience. Slowly the chests and bags began to shift like a crowded school of fish, forming themselves into long, square-sided arrangement, pointed at one tip, flat at the other. It looked, Conan realized, remarkably like a Stygian obelisk.

  He whirled at a sound from the darkness surrounding. The woman began to wail again, but the sound turned into a horrible, gobbling squawk, then was cut off abruptly. A man's voice screamed, but the sound seemed to come from a great distance.

  'What goes on there?' Conan demanded, his usually steely nerves already stretched taut by the wizard's magic.

  'Conan! You had better come quickly!'

  He whirled again, to see one of the gate guards standing at the foot of the stair. The man's eyes widened at the sight of the mass of chests coining toward him, but he recovered and laced his chief.

  'What is it?' the Cimmerian asked.

  'Come! Come quickly!'

  With a muttered curse, Conan bounded up the stairs behind I he bandit. At the top, they ran the length of the temple, then paused as they neared the gate. The other man stood just within, in shadow. He gestured to Conan, then pointed. 'Over there, Chief.'

  Staying carefully back in the shadow, Conan looked to where the man was pointing. For a moment, he saw nothing. Then there was a flash of sunlight gleaming from the spired tip of a helmet on the parapet of a nearby roof about two-score paces distant.

  'And there!' said the man who had summoned him, pointing. On another rooftop, Conan saw the upper limb of a bow pass between two large, ornamental urns full of colourful flowers.

  'Set take it!' he snapped. 'Sagobal has got wind of us. It is an ambush!' How could this have happened? Were they betrayed, or just outmanoeuvred? No matter. Conan of Cimmeria was not one given to futile brooding. They were discovered, so they would just have to fight their way out. The scampering of footsteps behind them made him turn.

  'All ready, Chief!' Auda reported. Volvolicus and Layla were close behind him.

  'There has been a small change of plan,' Conan announced.

  Layla looked at him with an ironic smile, 'What did I tell you about plans?'

  'Quiet, daughter,' Volvolicus said. 'What has happened?'

  'Archers on the rooftops nearby. Is your spell working properly?'

  The magician pointed behind him. Slowly, majestically, the great shaft of treasure was emerging from the passageway. Conan shook off his revulsion at the sight.

  'We were to walk out naturally and mount, and then ride off in the panic that is going to overwhelm that mob when the treasure floats out of the temple. So much for plans. What we shall do instead is let it go out first. We will go out beneath it and make our escape amid the confusion.'

  'It will be chancy riding through a mob that has lost its head, Chief,' Auda said.

  'Better than being skewered by a dozen shafts the second we step outside,' Conan pointed out. 'It will not be easy for the archers to find their targets in all the milling about.'

  'Let us hope the other men are having a better time of it than we,' Layla said.

  'They are good men,' Conan avowed. 'Let's worry about preserving our own hides and trust them to accomplish their missions.'

  'What is that?' Auda cried. From just beyond the square, a pillar of white smoke rose skyward. Soon flames shot up into the pillar. People in the square noticed, pointed, and an uneasy murmur spread through the crowd. Atop a roof, some archers stood to look, only to be yanked back down by their fellows.

  'I do not know,' Conan said, 'but we can take advantage of it.' He looked back and saw that the obelisk of treasure was upon them. 'Get down and be ready to run!'

  They lay flat, and the bizarre mass slid silently through the gate above them. Conan had to grit his teeth against the fear inspired by the huge weight suspended so unnaturally above them. Its base went by and the thing hung suspended over the steps.

  'Go!' Conan shouted. They went out after the thing, and us it began to rise, they dashed beneath it to run down the steps. To his amazement, Layla was laughing with exhilaration. Arrows began to strike the steps near them and others thunked into the floating chests. Not only were they protected by the thing, he realized, but the incredible sight was throwing the archers off their aim.

  They were not the only ones so upset. Someone in the crowd screamed, and people turned from viewing the more distant fire to see the looming mass of chests ascending toward the rooftops. A great turning of heads swept through the crowd. The result was instant pandemonium. A mass howl arose and, suddenly, people began to run in all directions.

  Conan saw one of his bandits jump atop the scaffold, wrestle briefly with the timber securing the prisoner cage, then cast it from its brackets. 'Scatter for your lives, rogues!' shouted the bandit, his voice cutting through the din. An instant later, the bandit plunged from the scaffold, an arrow in his spine. Howling in delight and fury, the condemned men stormed from the cage. One of them seized a headsman's ax and began to lay about him, hewing down the torturers with shrieks of demented glee.

  Conan's own bowmen, stationed at various points around the square, began to shoot at those on the rooftops. The Cimmerian saw two fall from the roofs just as a gold turban cut through the crowd toward them. True to his trust, Osman led four splendid horses by a tether and reined up at the bottom of the steps.

  'Mount up, Chief,' Osman cried. 'It is growing lively here!' An arrow narrowly missed his turban and skewered a fleeing citizen. Conan gauged that half the shafts aimed at him and his men were striking bystanders instead. The panic in the crowd redoubled as it seemed to the terrified masses that not only was the city afire with magic afoot, but they were under enemy attack as well. The casualties from arrows were as nothing compared to the trampling, which killed and injured the unfortunate without respect for age or sex.

  Conan hauled himself onto a horse just as an arrow struck the cantle of its saddle and quivered there, humming venomously. Two of Sagobal's guardsmen ran up and sought to grasp his reins from right and left. Conan's sword whirled in a continuous figure-eight, taking a hand from each. Layla was helping her father to climb into his saddle when a guardsman grasped her around the waist, lifting her feet from the pavement. An instant later, Auda, remounted, galloped behind him and slashed him across the spine with a short, curved sword. The guardsman screamed, arching backward as he released the woman. Two seconds later, she was mounted.

  'Ride!' the Cimmerian bellowed, looking wildly about him for a sign of Sagobal. Then he saw the man atop one of the roofs, directing the archers. He was pointing directly at Conan, his mouth open in a scream. Instantly, Conan dodged beneath the floating treasure and a half-dozen shafts struck wood or rattled from the pave. The great mass of wood, leather and metal was still rising, and soon it would be no protection.

  'Follow me!' he shouted, making a dash for a side street, thanking whatever gods watched out for rogues that
he had thought to steal Sagobal's horses—splendid war-beasts accustomed to the smell of blood and the chaos of battle. Ordinary mounts would be rearing and plunging by now, beyond all control. Followed by a virtual bee-swarm of arrows, Conan rode between two buildings and was out of the square. He looked behind to see a number of his companions following.

  Osman's golden turban shone brilliant in the sunlight that made its way between the buildings, and he could see Layla as she sought to hold her father upright in the saddle. Auda had his bow out, and was shooting behind him as fast as he maid fit arrow to string.

  With startling suddenness they burst from the warren of accoutrements into the small square just within the main gate. I here they found another battle in progress as a crew of bandits fought a larger knot of guardsmen. The bandits fought desperately to keep the gate open while the guardsmen fought this hard to shut it. The rogues fought with the fury of cornered animals that made up for their lack of numbers.

  Conan's horse plunged into the crowd of guardsmen from behind and he began hewing at armoured backs and heads. Quickly, he was joined by Osman and Auda, and many hard sword-strokes were exchanged before the guards broke, each man seeking safety however he could.

  'Success!' the Cimmerian proclaimed to his surviving bandits. The exhausted men managed to cheer lustily, then all ran to the gate to seek their mounts.

  Cheering and whooping, swinging his bloody blade overhead in a great silver-and-red circle, the bandit-chief thundered down the highway, closely followed by his companions.

  Sagobal surveyed the chaos in the square with a look of grim furore. He crossed the pave, littered as it was with wreckage and the bodies of the slain. A half-score had been struck by ill-aimed arrows, many more were trampled. The cries of the wounded rose in the hot air, and the wails of the still-fearful could be heard from every direction. Stalls were overturned, spilling wares all over the square, and performing animals ran loose, confused by the uproar.

  Slowly, the guard chief ascended the steps and looked over the scene of devastation. Slowly, with infinite slyness, an unwanted expression quirked Sagobal's lips. He smiled with satisfaction. The smile vanished as a burly form crossed the square, bellowing like a bullock being gelded.

  'Sagobal!' Torgut Khan screamed. 'Sagobal, what hat happened? My festival is a catastrophe! There is fire and battle, and I hear madmen's tales of chests that soar through the sky like hawks ascending! What is all this? Upon your head, explain this to me!'

  The obese governor laboured up the steps, puffing and wheezing. His face was scarlet from an excess of wine and fury. His eyes were even redder than his complexion. Ho shook his fist in Sagobal's face.

  'I should put you in my dungeon! I should place you on that scaffold to take the punishment that was coming to my escaped felons!' He pointed at the platform, now occupied only by dead executioners and torturers, victims of the prisoners' fury. The viceroy's hand trembled with wrath. 'All of my carefully hoarded prisoners are gone! Half my city seems to be aflame! Answer me, you dog! How did this happen!'

  'All was as I had planned, Excellency,' Sagobal explained. 'The bandits came into the town in a body, lured by the treasure. My men were stationed in ambush and the rogues had no clue that their every move was watched. But they did not try to flee with such of the treasure as they could carry, loading it onto horses for their escape. Instead, they employed a wizard to bear it away through the air, as if it were upon one of the flying carpets of ancient legend. I had no way of knowing they would engage in sorcery, Excellency.'

  The high colour fled from Torgut Khan's face. 'It flew? You mean these ravings I have heard of floating chests and bags are true? The bandits made the treasure fly from here?'

  'That is so, Excellency.'

  'How—how much?'

  'I was just going into the temple to find out. It looked all of it.'

  'All? All of my treasure has fled?'

  'Nay, Excellency,' Sagobal corrected. 'It was the king's treasure that fled.'

  'And I am a dead man if you do not get it back! Fool!' Now unhinged by rage and terror, Torgut Khan reared back and slapped his guard captain with a report that could be heard across the square.

  Sagobal's face, emblazoned with a crimson hand print, went deathly. His eyes became pits of darkness as hatred blazed upon his brow. Torgut Khan realized that he might have gone too far in provoking this supremely dangerous man. He pointed a finger at Sagobal's steel-sheathed breast.

  'Find the treasure, Sagobal. Bring it back, and bring all the bandits back too, to die upon my scaffold.' He whirled and stalked off, gathering his robes about him. 'I must supervise the fire-fighting!'

  Sagobal's face twisted with hatred, anger and contempt. 'As if you cared whether your whole town burned down, you cowardly swine!' he muttered, chewing on an end of his moustache. 'You flee to escape the reach of my sword! I will repay that blow, Torgut Khan. I will repay it in full!'

  He saw another man crossing the square toward him, moving with a fighting man's easy swagger. 'An amusing day, Chief,' said Berytus of Aquilonia.

  'Aye, it was even more devastating than I had expected,' Sagobal acknowledged, his rage calming.

  'Your superior gave you more than a tongue-lashing, eh?' Herytus said, grinning. 'He left the five-fingered brand on your cheek.'

  'I shall settle with Torgut Khan, never fear. But I have lost many men and some of my horses, and the stables are aflame.'

  'Your men are second-rate,' Berytus said. 'We performed our part to your satisfaction, did we not?'

  'Aye, your bowmen are as good as you claimed. Now your real task begins. You must track down the rogues.'

  'It is what we do best.' Berytus looked up the steps with an expression of distaste, and Sagobal turned to see three rust-robed figures descending, fury writ upon their repulsively marked features. 'Here's a set of maiden-faced beauties,' the Aquilonian commented.

  'Sagobal, I hold you personally responsible for this outrage,' Tragthan hissed.

  'Wherefore, priest?' Sagobal said. 'It was a band of marauding bandits who wrought this slaughter.'

  'What care we for butchered townsmen?' sneered the one called Shosq. 'The wretches profaned the sacred precincts of Ahriman! You boasted of the great concentration of treasure in the temple to lure them in so you could catch them easily, instead of doing your duty and running them down in their hills!'

  Sagobal spat upon the step between the mottle-faced priest's feet. 'That for you and your putrid god! I warn you not to provoke me, priest.'

  'There is more at stake here than worldly treasure and worthless blood!' cried purple-faced Nikas. 'Those outlaws brought a wizard into the holy crypt! They herded their hostages and the priest Umos against the walls. Against the walls, Captain!' The man's eyes blazed with a sort of holy terror.

  'And what of that, priest?' Sagobal demanded.

  'It was more than mere sacrilege, you mortal fool!' Nikas cried, seizing Sagobal by the shoulder in rage and distress.

  Snarling, Sagobal drew his ivory-hilted sword in a silver flash and struck downward, cleaving the priest from shoulder to waist. The carcass collapsed between Shosq and Tragthan, both of whom stood in stunned silence.

  'Your friend did ill to lay hands upon me,' Sagobal said to Tragthan. 'He had no more substance than a jellyfish of the Vilayet. Take this boneless carrion back into your temple.'

  'Shall I kill these others for you, Chief?' Berytus inquired. 'I'll not even charge you for the service. I hate all priests.'

  'No, we've more important matters afoot. Round up your men and the best horses you can find. Get on the track of those villains and stick to them. Do not let them get away.' Berytus saluted, striking knuckles to forehead. 'They'll not scape me, Chief. No man has.' With that, he turned and walked away.

  Sagobal stalked down the steps, satisfied that all was going according to plan. The insolence of Torgut Khan was almost more than he could endure, but that would soon be at an end. lie took a head-scarf from a
dead woman and cleaned his blade, noting that the blood staining it was not properly red, hut was rust-coloured like the robes of the priests. Idly, he glanced up the temple stair and saw that priests and corpse were gone. He shrugged, sheathing his sword. There were more important matters afoot than foolish priests and their enigmatic mumblings.

  'My chieftain,' Osman said, his voice only loud enough to be heard above the clopping of the horses' hooves, 'you said that these fine horses were for you and me to make our escape at need, not for carrying the wizard and his little wench.' The smaller man had discarded his golden turban and his beads and rode dressed only in his ragged loincloth, sandals and weapon-belt.

  'Plans change, Osman. He'll not try to betray us now, weakened and close at hand as he is.' He looked back to see the wizard, upright at last but sagging wearily in his saddle. Layla rode close by with an expression of concern. 'What of that fire back there? Was that your doing?'

  Osman grinned. 'Aye. I was alone there, everybody having gone to the festival. I had my horses picked out, saddled and hitched to my line, and I knew I had a little time before you would come out of the temple, so I put it to good use. I opened all the stalls and drove the guardsmen's beasts into the court. Then I struck a fire to the great hayrick by the ox-pen. I thought it might make a fine diversion.'

  'So it did,' Conan said. 'That was a clever thought.'

  'I am not a lunkhead like your other followers,' Osman said, preening himself.

  'Do not celebrate just now,' the Cimmerian warned. 'We are not away safely yet. How many of us are there now?' They rode at a steady trot through the hills, keeping off the skyline, taking hard, stony paths to leave as little trace of their passing as possible.

  Osman looked back. 'We are strung out and I cannot see everyone. Besides the two of us and the wizard and his wench, I can see Auda and Ubo, riding side by side. Aye, and there is Chamik—that one is too lazy to kill. I see no others.'

  'Surely that cannot be all,' Conan said. 'There is a small pool ahead. We will stop there and rest a short spell and let the laggards catch up.'