Conan and The Gods of The Mountains

"Save your breath for running," Emwaya said, "and you may not find yourself short of it!" It was the first time in a long while that she had spoken with her old sharpness. Conan took that as a favorable omen; Valeria seemed to think otherwise.

She did follow Emwaya's advice nonetheless. Like the others, she was silent as they hurried back up the tunnel, the smoke thickening behind them.

"Wobeku," the Kwanyi warrior said, "a messenger has come from the watchers of the great crack in the earth."

Wobeku sat up and shook sleep from his head. One of these days, they might use some honorific for him. At least they had given over calling him "the chief's Ichiribu."

"What is the message?"

"He smells smoke."

"Smoke, as from a fire?"

"So he said."

Wobeku rose and girded himself for battle. When that was done, he was fully awake. It was also then that he noticed that the jungle was more silent than usual. Many of the common night birds and insects did not live down by the Kwanyi shore, but the jungle was neither lifeless nor silent under the moon.

Until now. Wobeku felt a chill in his loins. He sensed that he was about to be called on to fight a foe not wholly of this earth.

"See that the drums warn Chabano and Ryku," he ordered. "Have the guards at the lesser crack drive the logs we have ready into it." That would be of no avail against unearthly foes, but if anyone human tried to come through that crack, he would face a long night of ax-work before he succeeded.

"Gather the guards about the great crack," he concluded. "Not too close, but every man is to be fully armed. The baggage boys and the women are to take the trail back to the villages. At once!"

The man almost made the gesture of respect to a chief before he remembered to whom he was making it. Instead, he nodded and ran off.

Wobeku did not run, but he moved at a brisk trot as he headed down the trail toward what he knew might be his last battle. The drums were talking before he was halfway to his post.

SIXTEEN

Conan's band would have gladly run from the smoke faster than they had run from the Golden Serpent. There was no need to stop and thrust a spear at the swirling purple wall hard on their heels.

If only they could breathe! Heat followed the smoke, and long tendrils of both smoke and heat seemed to clutch at the fleeing men like jungle vines. Conan ventured a look behind him, took one of the tendrils squarely in the face, and nearly coughed himself into a fit.

His feet kept moving by a will of their own, however, until his wits ruled them again. He did not falter or fall, and neither did most of the band. Those who did, their comrades lifted and carried along.

No one wanted to see a comrade overtaken by this new peril. It was impossible to imagine living within that purple murk, even had not strange shapes lurked there. Conan had seen them, Valeria had seen them, and even Emwaya and Dobanpu admitted they were there.

The two Spirit-Speakers did not, however, say what those shapes might be. That was about as much as Conan expected of any sorcerer, and he was not much for being rude to those who had saved his life. So he followed Emwaya's advice to keep his breath for running.

"Here we turn," Dobanpu called. He pointed at a narrow slit in the wall to the right. Dried mud lay on the floor about it, and a smell of jungle rot warred with the smoke-reek.

As an escape route, it looked unpromising. But Dobanpu seemed confident, and so far, he had proven trustworthy. Also, Conan had no wish to wait for the fire to burn itself out. Already there was more smoke and heat than all the fungi in all these caves could have produced. Magic was in this fire, magic of a kind that sensible men escaped as quickly as possible, even if they did have a momentarily friendly sorcerer in company.

"Up!" Conan shouted, pointing at the gap. It was a measure of his authority, or of their desperation, that four warriors plunged in without hesitation. Four more followed, carrying the rope ladders and other climbing gear. Before any more could go, Emwaya darted in.

Dobanpu's howl caused her to thrust her head back into view. "Father, I can climb faster than you. Who knows what lies above, or what arts we may need against it? Be ready to help me if I call."

Then she vanished. Dobanpu looked about wildly, no longer a sorcerer, but a father seeing his child plunge into danger. "Valeria!" Conan called. "I'll take the rear. You join the vanguard and see to Emwaya!"

Valeria left with the next handful of warriors. The men were, in fact, now disappearing so fast that Conan wondered if the way to the surface was easier than he had dared believe. If they found stairs—

"Conan!" Valeria called. "There are stairs up to the surface, and open sky above! Make haste!"

Conan needed no urging. The tendrils of smoke seemed to curl about his ankles, then his knees, then his waist. He drew his sword and hacked at them as if they were living foes, and saw them retreat. But his sword was growing hot to his touch, and he knew that if the main mass of smoke surrounded him, he was lost.

Dobanpu shouted three harsh syllables, then reeled against the wall as if the blood had rushed from his head. Conan watched the wall of smoke draw back as the Golden Serpent had done, and felt the heat diminish. Then he all but flung the Spirit-Speaker through the gap and followed him.

The stairs were there, and—incredibly—the Cimmerian could indeed see stars shining above. He dragged Dobanpu toward the rise, but the Spirit-Speaker held back.

"I must restore the guardian spells on these stairs," he gasped, "or the smoke-bringer will follow us, catch us halfway up, burn us in mid-stride—"

"As you wish," Conan said. Arguing with a sorcerer was more futile than fighting with one. The Cimmerian had won battles with many sorcerers, but had won arguments with few.

This spell called for more than three times three syllables. When Dobanpu was done, the gap behind them was yet dark with smoke, but the tendrils did not escape. The air in the stairwell remained musty but clean as Conan and the Spirit-Speaker mounted.

They had just caught up with the rearmost warrior when, from above, Emwaya screamed.

The scream floated across the dark lake to Seyganko's canoe. Everyone in the three leading canoes heard it, but only Seyganko heard it in his mind. He desperately sought a message in the scream.

Emwaya! What is the danger? Where are you?

No answer came. He knew that for her cry to reach him this far out in the lake, she had to be close to the shore. Also, she had to be on or close to the surface of the earth.

This gave neither knowledge nor consolation. He thrust his paddle in deep and looked behind him. Then he gave his war cry with all the breath in his body, and thrust again with his paddle.

Without magic, with nothing but their strength and their sweat, the other warriors were overtaking him. A hundred of the Ichiribu's best fighters had gone to the mainland, to defend the herds and crops. Of the rest, four hundred had taken to their canoes to challenge the Kwanyi on their own shore. Only a handful remained behind to guard the island.

As if Seyganko's war cry had been a signal, torches sparked to life in the bows of the oncoming canoes. It seemed as though a line of fire was advancing across the lake behind Seyganko.

He held his paddle aloft like a spear until the leading canoes were almost abreast of his craft. Then he tossed the paddle, caught it, and gave his war cry again. This time, the warriors gave it back to him so that it seemed to fill the night and the lake, from shore to shore. If the Kwanyi had not known what was coming, they could hardly be ignorant of it now.

Seyganko began paddling again. The brief sense of triumph left him as he realized that he had heard nothing more from Emwaya, neither with his ears nor with his mind.

Conan took the stairs two at a time, for all that they were crumbling and moss-grown. Once he nearly missed his footing and fell back. He gripped a root with one hand and caught himself in time so as not to squash Dobanpu like a grape.

The stairs ended at a man's height from the surface, but to picked Ichiribu warriors, that distance was but a child's leap; they had already reached solid ground by the time Conan joined them.

The first thing he saw was a warrior falling with a Kwanyi spear in his thigh. Conan snatched the man's shield and drew his own sword, then whirled, searching for Emwaya and Valeria.

He found them by a tree lifted half off the ground by its gnarled, twisted roots, each root thicker than the Golden Serpent. Valeria was hacking at the spears of half a dozen Kwanyi warriors, while two other warriors already had Emwaya. Had their comrades so eager to close with Valeria not blocked them, they would have by now made off with the girl.

The warriors whirled to face Conan, tangling their shields one with another in their haste. This was fatal to one warrior left unshielded. Conan brusquely slashed the man's head from his shoulders, then leaped back to give him room to fall.

The rest of the Kwanyi formed their shield-line. In the next moment, they learned that others besides themselves could master that art, and not only by the tutelage of Chabano the Great. Conan beat down one spear with his sword, hooked his shield around the edge of a second man's spear, and kicked upward. He was barefooted, but his soles were as tough as leather and the kick had all the power of his leg behind it.

The man screamed and reeled against a comrade, who fell out of position. Conan feinted at that man, forcing him to raise his shield. Then he slashed under the shield, taking the man's leg below the knee.

A spear thrust past Conan's ribs, nearly gouging his side, and he whirled again to chop the spear-shaft in two with his sword. Then he charged the man like a bull, driving the shield back against his opponent's chest until the man lowered it to see clearly. The man's last sight was of Conan's broadsword descending to split his headdress, hair, and skull.

Valeria cut down another opponent, and the last of the Kwanyi warriors took only a brief look at the odds they faced after the death of their friends before fleeing into the night. Conan swung his shield hard into the back of one man holding Emwaya and heard the spine crack. Valeria leaped on the other, jerked his head back with fingers twined in his hair, and slashed his throat.

Emwaya stood free, clasping her arms across her breasts, her eyes on the ground for a moment. Then she seemed to shrug a great weight from her shoulders.

"Father?"

Dobanpu strode up and put out a hand to touch his daughter as if not quite believing she was real. She gripped the hand and smiled.

"I am well, I think."

"Time to be sure later," Dobanpu said. He gripped his amulet with one hand and his belt pouch with the other. "The God-Men may not be what they were. I have sensed quarrels that perhaps have weakened them. But if they still command the Living Wind—"

Kwanyi war cries interrupted him. Conan threw down the shield, wiped his sword on it, and drew his dagger.

"The Living Wind can wait. Someone close at hand still commands warriors!" He pushed Emwaya into her father's arms, then called to Valeria.

"Find a path to the shore and see if we can draw back toward it. This place is worthless now. We want our backs to the water!"

Fleet-footed as ever, Valeria vanished into the night. From the jungle beyond, Kwanyi warriors came bursting through the undergrowth.

Wobeku led the warriors attacking the enemy who had sprung from the earth. Not only his honor drove him forward to that place; he knew that if the Kwanyi gained the victory with him at their head, he would have a warrior's name among them.

Had he run faster, he might have plunged among the Ichiribu before they could order their ranks. He would then have died but would have won with his life sufficient time for his comrades to strike the scattered enemy. Then not even the Cimmerian's swiftness, skill, and steel might have saved them.

Wobeku instead brought his men to the field as Chabano had taught. He put them into their proper line before he ordered the advance, and only darted out ahead of it at the last moment.

Behind him, the Kwanyi line came out of the trees somewhat disordered by encounters with the underbrush. The first volley of light spears went mostly astray. One spear even gouged Wobeku's leg. He howled out his fury at that fool in a war cry and let the Kwanyi come up with him.

A swung stone cracked against his shield. Wobeku stepped forward and ducked his head. This time, the stone-swinger looped the line around the top of

Wobeku's shield and jerked. Wobeku did not let go of the shield. Instead, he let himself be drawn forward, then leaped and lunged. The stone-swinger died with Wobeku's spear in his belly.

"Yaygo!" Wobeku cried, the ritual proclamation of a man's first kill of a battle.

The next moment, someone nearly won the right to cry that over him. The Kwanyi at his right suddenly vanished, fallen into the crack in the earth. An Ichiribu warrior darted forward in his place, locking shields with Wobeku and thrusting desperately over, under, and around.

Wobeku took two minor flesh wounds before he was able to riposte with his own spear. It gashed the Ichiribu's belly, but not mortally. The man did not flinch from the pain, either. He kept on thrusting, less skillfully with each passing moment, but with no diminished courage.

This was the kind of battle that to Wobeku showed Chabano to be a wise chief. When engaged in an each-man-for-himself fight, Wobeku had often been unable to press home for the kill. He had feared, with reason, for his flanks and rear. In the Kwanyi shield-line, his flanks were safe, even in such a small battle as this. Had there been the usual second line behind him, his back would also have been guarded.

Wobeku thrust again—and nearly stumbled as his thrust encountered empty air. He stared at the space where his opponent had been, then saw other Kwanyi doing the same. As if by magic, the Ichiribu had vanished. Before the Kwanyi sprawled only a few bodies and fallen weapons, barely half of them Ichiribu.

Chabano's warriors lived, with no one to fight. Wobeku waved his great spear, ordering a few men over to the crack in the ground to see what might lie within. They found nothing, save footprints that made it plain how the Ichiribu had come.

Come by magic? And if come by magic, had they vanished by the same way? Wobeku knelt and began searching the ground with a hunter's skills. In the dark it was not easy, but he knew that torches would only give any lurking Ichiribu a mark.

His nightrsight at last pierced the darkness, showing footprints leading off toward the shore. There were many of them, and some showed the heel scarifications of Ichiribu clans.

Wobeku called the best trackers forward, gave them fresh spears, and sent them on. Their orders: to find where the Ichiribu had gone and send word back, but to refrain from fighting them. A messenger also ran back to the drummers, and soon the drums began talking again.

Whatever the Ichiribu had done below the earth, it was done. Now they likely intended to hold the shore for their oncoming comrades. Wobeku intended to show the enemy band that it needed more than its back to the shore for safety.

A retreat at night over unknown ground was the hardest of all maneuvers in war, or so Conan had heard claimed by those who had earned the right to speak. He had also been both warrior and captain in enough such affairs to believe this the truth.

With ill-ordered men, it was said to be impossible, but the Ichiribu were not ill-ordered. Every man still on his feet when they broke off the battle reached the shore. Some were stumbling, two were carried by comrades, but all were present.

Of warriors fit to fight, however, Conan saw that he had barely twenty. The battle with the Golden Serpent had taken its toll even before the Kwanyi had struck. Many Kwanyi had also surely died, but nevertheless, he did not doubt that his band faced heavy odds.

The plan for this battle called for the Ichiribu to command the trails to the shore so that they might ambush Chabano's warriors as they .hurled themselves into battle. Coming to the shore in disarray, Chabano's men would lack time to form their potent shield-line.

Plans, Conan sometimes thought, were for gods, priests, and clerks. Warriors had to make do with luck and a keen edge on their blades.

A glance lakeward encouraged the Cimmerian. With torches blazing, the Ichiribu canoes were racing toward the shore. They would be visible now all across the Kwanyi land, even as far as to Thunder Mountain. The Kwanyi would know what they faced, but that knowledge might drive them to haste.

Haste in war was a two-edged sword. Be there first, and victory might be yours. Be there first but disordered or weak, and your vanguard at least was men thrown away.

A scraping sound made Conan whirl, sword ready to slash at the darkness. A shape took form out of that darkness, and Conan lowered his blade.

"Seyganko. Well met."

"As are you, Cimmerian. How fares Emwaya?"

Conan smiled. The war leader of the Ichiribu would ask for his woman first. The Cimmerian wondered if he himself would have such a woman again. There had not been one such since Belit—and Valeria was not the sort to fill those shoes!

"Weary, but well. Valeria guards her. How came you here without our seeing you?"

"The canoes with me doused our torches and paddled in silence, I have brought thirty warriors. Surprise is worth much."

So it was, but the hundreds of other warriors now doubtless paddling in circles while waiting for Seyganko's signal were also worth something. Did Seyganko seek surprise or glory—glory bought with the Cimmerian's blood?

No good ever came of a quarrel between chiefs on the verge of a battle to the death. Conan held his tongue, knowing that if Seyganko had been overbold, the young chief would also not see another sunrise.

"Good. Go ask Dobanpu how far forward it is wise for them to come."

"Dobanpu?"

"Also weary, but well. He fears that the gods of Thunder Mountain may be taking a hand in matters tonight. Best not send your men beyond his protection."

Seyganko clearly wanted to know more, but Conan urged him off to the Spirit-Speaker, who could make more sense in relating the battle underground than could the Cimmerian. Conan himself found a stump not too rotten to support his weight and sat down to clean his steel.

It was not in nature for this lull to last. His band had thrown down a challenge to both men and more than men, and both sorts of foe would be coming on in strength before the night was much older. Conan knew, however, that no man was ever the worse for facing any foe with a clean sword.

SEVENTEEN

The drums, the messengers, and the sightings of his own eyes were giving Chabano uncertain tidings. He nonetheless kept his place at the head of the warriors racing downhill toward the shore.

The drums and his eyes told him that the Ichiribu were on the way across the lake. Messengers told him that by some treachery, or perhaps by some magic, an enemy war band had sprung from the earth and was holding a landing place for the main body of oncoming warriors.

Chabano hoped it was not treachery. It would make enemies for him among the kin of those warriors who had died if trusting Wobeku had shed Kwanyi blood. At least the dead could not number more than a handful, even if Wobeku had contrived their demise.

At Chabano's back there trotted more than five hundred Kwanyi warriors. Each bore the shield and three spears he had devised and taught them to use so well. When they reached the shore, it would hardly be a battle at all.

He did wonder that he had not heard from Ryku. The First Speaker certainly had to know all that was happening, including the magic being unleashed— and not all of it by that doddering Spirit-Speaker Dobanpu!

It did not matter greatly. Dobanpu might have power over Wobeku's blowgun. He would hardly have as much power against five hundred of the Kwanyi's best. There would be spears through the man's throat, heart, and belly before he could speak enough spirits to slay a goat!

Conan had led the Ichiribu ambush party up the path from the shore. Now he crouched under an arching root, trying to find the men he had led. The fewer he found, the better they had learned the art of concealment.

He found one and whistled softly, then pointed to a bush that would hide him better. The man thumped his head three times on the ground. Conan was ready to curse him for putting courtesy before obedience, but then the man half rolled, half slid into his new hiding place.

He had just vanished when the stamping of many fast-moving feet reached the Cimmerian's ears. Conan drew his dagger and rested his free hand on a pile of small stones he had chosen from a stream-bed.

This would be close work, too close for swords, and the more silent, the better. If a few-score Kwanyi died before they even knew they faced death, Chabano would have a busy time rallying those who survived before Seyganko had all of his men ashore.

That would strain even Chabano's discipline, although the ambush party would be all but juggling live vipers. But then, most battles ended that way, no matter how one began them.

The sound of the Kwanyi on the march swelled, then began to fade. In moments, silence had taken its place. Few ears but Conan's could have heard the softer sound of many men breathing, and commands given in whispers instead of in shouts.

"They're still coming," he murmured to the man next to him. "Pass the word, and have every man look to his rear as well."

If Chabano had grown suspicious, he might well be halting his main column while light-footed scouts beat the bushes ahead and on either side. The Kwanyi would lose time that way, but they might save warriors. They would certainly put Conan and his men in peril.

Conan whispered another command. "When you attack, forget silence! Shout and scream, crack your lungs, burst your throats—"

"Make them think a score are a thousand?" his companion whispered back. The Cimmerian nodded.

Now the sound of marching Kwanyi came again, this time a shuffle as the warriors advanced at a walk. Conan gripped a stone and balanced it, ready to throw.

The first Kwanyi appeared. Conan let him pass, and likewise the nine men after him. The tenth man took the flung stone in the mouth. He staggered back, spitting blood and teeth, into the reach of another Ichiribu. This one held a short spear, which he thrust into the Kwanyi's back.

"Yah-haaaaaa!" Conan roared as he leaped onto the path. He thrust over a lunging spear-point and into a man's chest before the victim could get his shield positioned. He snatched another stone and flung it far up the path, into the shadowy mass of warriors now crowding forward to the attack.

The faster the warriors crowded forward, however, the less room there was for them to move and fight. Conan had done his best to find a place where the trail was narrow and the ground to either side of it nearly impassable. Chabano was helping by letting the need for haste rule his judgment.

Conan and half a dozen companions kept the head of the column in play for a good while. A moment came when Conan threw his last stone, heard it strike a shield, and drew his sword. With sword and dagger both leaping in his hands as if they had life of their own, he carved away at the front rank of the Kwanyi.

Through the gap Conan made, his companions plunged, thrusting with spears and lashing about with war clubs. Meanwhile, stones, tridents, fallen branches, and any other weapon that came to hand also made their mark on the Kwanyi flanks.

What Conan hoped the most now was that Chabano himself would come forward. Tribal custom and the Paramount Chief's own temper would drive him into a duel with Conan. For that duel, there could be only one outcome.

The ambush could end the battle, and even the war, in an Ichiribu victory. Conan drew back a trifle, keeping his guard up, shirting about to make himself a difficult target for spears, and seeking for any sign of Chabano.

At last he caught sight of a man who undoubtedly was the chief—in the very same moment that the earth shook underfoot.

Ryku had performed all of the rituals for calling up the Living Wind as if he had sucked them in with his mother's milk. Pride and courage flowed through him. He knew he courted no danger in performing the rituals alone, such was his power at last.

Yet the colors of the Living Wind had not returned to their normal hues, save briefly. Again there was an umber tint in the crimson, a paleness in the sapphire. The strange sounds and stranger scent were gone, but the memory of them lingered in Ryku's thoughts. He had to force these thoughts back, as one forced back a boar caught on one's spear, lest they disturb his confidence.

Now came the most demanding ritual of all. Sending the power of the Living Wind entirely outside Thunder Mountain had been done. It could be done again. If it was done, the Living Wind would fall on the Ichiribu and they would be gone without the wetting of a single Kwanyi spear.

No, Ryku told himself, he would not allow the word "if" in his mind. He would call up the Living Wind and send it forth.

He sat straighter and raised his staff in one hand, a gourd of cunningly mixed herbs in the other. He hung the gourd from the end of the staff and dipped into it, catching a pinch of the herbs between thumb and forefinger.

Ritual and good sense alike told a Speaker to begin with only a small measure of the herbs. Ryku leaned forward, opened thumb and forefinger and let the herbs float out into space. They vanished almost at once, lost against the swirling colors of the Living Wind, so that they did not know when they reached it.

He did know, though, when the whole cave shook like a gourd flung against a stone wall. He clutched his staff with one hand and reached for the gourd to draw it to safety.

A whirling column of crimson and sapphire, as bright as ever, leaped upward from the Living Wind. It approached the gourd, touched it, then snatched it from the end of Ryku's staff.

Ryku cried out, rose to his feet and hastened to the ledge to see, amazement bordering on fear sweeping through him, weakening the discipline of his mind. He lunged for the gourd as the column began sinking, taking the gourd with it.

He touched it, too—but the column rose again, and now it had become crimson-and-sapphire flames that wrapped themselves around his wrist. He cried out, an animal scream of agony, as the flames ate through his wrist.

The pain and his all-encompassing fear made him forget that he stood on the very brink of the ledge. He staggered, and one foot came down on empty air. He threw out his remaining hand toward the stone, felt fingernails scrabble and break, then plunged.

What Ryku had felt before was as nothing to what he felt when the Living Wind swallowed him. But by then, the roaring of the tumult was too loud for anyone to hear his screams.

"To me! Back down the trail! Now, you goats' bastards!"

Conan's shouts rallied the Ichiribu ambushers. Some of them plunged off into the forest, their way back to the path barred by the enemy. At least half of the survivors joined the Cimmerian.

With more speed than dignity, they sprinted down the trail, for all that it was shaking beneath them. A tree toppled across their rear, mercifully striking no one. Conan halted then, letting the others go on while he studied the Kwanyi.

He had been afraid that in a panic to leave the hillside, the enemy would rush his men, sweeping them away by sheer weight of numbers. Now that was not to be, for all that Chabano had taken the lead. They were coming on at a good pace, leaving older warriors and boys to gather up the wounded and dead, and perhaps to protect their line of retreat.

Very surely, Chabano's death would take not merely the heart, but the head from the Kwanyi… which would all be very well if Conan had the faintest notion of how to bring it about. A personal challenge would only end with the Cimmerian sprouting a score of spears before Chabano even heard him!

The Cimmerian brought up the rear of the ambush party as it ran down the trail to rejoin its comrades. He had never cared for running, but there were times when a good pair of legs was a man's best weapon.

As the Ichiribu ran, they noticed that the earthquake seemed to have passed, but a strange glow was rising into the sky from the direction of Thunder Mountain.

Chabano let a dozen or so warriors go before him, leaping over the fallen tree ahead. This was no time for him to risk a spear from some desperate Ichiribu lying behind the tree.

No spears came. Chabano leaped high, as he had done when a boy. Landing sent a sharp pain through one knee that reminded him he was not a boy, but he did not stumble. His spear was over one shoulder and his shield on the other arm, and he was well in front of his warriors when he saw the sky change color.

It turned crimson and sapphire—and Chabano remembered that those were the colors of the Living Wind. It seemed that Ryku had sent his powers forth after all, and not a moment too soon! If the Kwanyi had to fight all the way down the trail and then face the full strength of unshaken foes, tonight's battle would leave neither tribe with enough men to people a village!

"Waaa-yeh!" he shouted. The Kwanyi took up the cry and obeyed the command. Feet drummed on hard earth, men screamed in sheer animal delight, and spears clashed on shields.

Meanwhile, the glow above no longer covered half the sky. It was shrinking as the colors grew clearer and brighter. It also seemed that the colors whirled and danced, like an eddy in a stream. Then they shrank still further, into a globe almost too dazzling to look at.

Chabano raised his spear and shield so that the Living Wind might see his marks of rank and know who to obey. Ryku had done well indeed. He was giving over the power of the Living Wind to Chabano himself! The poor fool Ryku—he could not imagine how little hope there was of ever having it returned.

Chabano's joy overcame him. He flung his spear straight into the sky as the globe of whirling crimson and sapphire plunged for him. Light and spear met—and where the spear had been, only charred splinters and drops of melted iron remained. They showered down about Chabano, and surprise as much as pain made him cry out when a drop of metal burned through skin into the flesh of his shoulder.

The warriors behind him cried louder, and he knew that some of them were turning to run. He whirled, unslinging his light throwing spear, vowing to put it through the first man he saw breaking from the column. But instead of one, he saw a dozen men running, and that was the last thing he saw. Before he could throw his spear, the Living Wind was all about him.

As Ryku had done, Chabano screamed while the Living Wind devoured him, but no one heard his screams. With some, it was because they also were dying, but with most, it was because they heard only the blood thundering in their ears as they fled.

Most of Conan's men had reached the shore when they saw the fire on the hill. The Cimmerian himself was still on the trail, with one companion. He sent the man onward and sought a good hiding place to see what might come next.

The earth shook again, more fiercely than before. Conan heard the crackle of falling trees and the screams of Kwanyi warriors caught under them. He also heard other Kwanyi crying out, and not with war cries.

As little as he liked the thought of approaching potent magic, he liked not knowing what enemy he faced even less. Sword in hand, he rose from his hiding place—then knew he need not take a step to find the answer to what was happening up the trail.

A being of crimson-and-sapphire light swirling together, with something of a man's shape but as high as a temple, came striding down the path. Where its—call them feet—struck the earth, smoke rose: the mephitic purple smoke that Conan remembered from underground.

Those same powers from underground were now loose on Thunder Mountain. Why, Conan neither knew nor cared. He hoped only that the Kwanyi, enemies that they were, had fled for their lives. Death in such guise, he would not wish upon a Stygian!

Conan plunged downhill from the trail, knowing that the being could follow him at will if it chose, but hoping that it would follow the easier path of the trail. The specter seemed solid enough not to wish to plough through trees thicker than its legs all the way to the shore.

If Conan had been running for his own life, a Cimmerian's reluctance to turn his back on a foe might have slowed him. Running for the lives of Valeria and all of his Ichiribu friends, he plunged down the hill as if it were level ground in daylight.

The magical light from the monster eased his way somewhat, but there were still many shadows, and too many trees lurking in those shadows. He nearly stunned himself twice, left patches of skin and more than patches of his clothes on bark or twigs, but still had his weapons as he staggered, bloody and cursing, onto the open shore.

He had reached the open a trifle to the north of where the Ichiribu were now gathered. The light of their torches made it plain that they were arrayed to meet a human foe.

Conan cursed louder than before. Spears snapped up and heads turned.

"Into the canoes!" he shouted. "You can't fight with spears what's coming downhill. Seek the water, and hope the thing can't swim!"

A slim figure with smoke-darkened fair hair ran from the circle. "Conan! We thought it had taken you!"

The Cimmerian and his shield-woman had time for only the briefest of embraces before they broke apart, each to lead a band of warriors into a rear guard.

Seyganko was shouting orders to the other warriors to run for the canoes when Dobanpu stepped forward. From the way Emwaya was clutching her father's arm, the old Spirit-Speaker was clearly about something of which she did not approve. Seeing Conan, Dobanpu beckoned.

"Conan! Bid your shield-woman guard this foolish daughter of mine until I have done my work."

"Your work?" Conan knew he must sound like a witling, but in this matter, he understood no more than one.

"I cannot command the spirits to drive off the Living Wind, still less to destroy it. I might have had that power once, or even now, had I not fought the battle underground. But I can contrive a battle of the spirits so that they will do the work for me, like elephants crushing an enemy's village."

"He must—" Emwaya shrieked.

"You must be silent now, and afterward, a good Spirit-Speaker to the Ichiribu," Dobanpu said. "Also, a good wife to Seyganko, who deserves one."

Then Dobanpu cast aside his headdress and other garb. Clad only in amulet, loinguard, and pouch, he walked with the dignity of a king of kings toward the foot of the trail.

He reached the beginning of the rise a few heartbeats before the monstrosity did. There was a moment when the man and the creation of magic seemed to stare at one another. Then Dobanpu leaped, as lightly as any bidui boy, soaring high.

He soared higher than any man could have done with unaided muscles, spending the last of his magic to strike the specter in the chest. Conan expected to see Dobanpu rebound from the being, to fall like a torn doll to the ground, and to be crushed to pulp. Instead, he seemed to stick to the being, like a fly caught in honey.

Then smoke swirled up around him… and he was gone. For a moment, Conan thought he saw with half dazzled eyes the dark shape of a man within the shape of the monster. Then even that vanished.

A moment later, so did the being itself. It vanished with a roar of thunder that Conan did not doubt was heard in Bossonia. The windblast it flung out snapped grown trees at the base, tossed canoes end over end, and knocked nearly every man on the shore flat on the sand and gravel.

Conan and Valeria dug in fingers and toes and clung to the beach as they would have clung to the yard of a ship in a gale. Closing their eyes against the hurled sand and gravel, they could only judge what else might be happening by the noise, and most of that was the wind.

At last the wind died out. The shouts and cries did not, however. Conan raised himself on hands and knees and saw the Ichiribu hastily running from a stretch of the shore that was now covered with molten rock. The lava was pouring from a gap in the earth where Conan judged the being had stood in the moment of its destruction.

As the stream of lava reached the lake, steam erupted. More steam seemed to be rising from inland, doubtless from the stairs where Conan's band had climbed from the tunnels. Then Valeria gripped Conan's arm and pointed out over the water.

The lake itself was in turmoil, whirlpools appearing and disappearing within moments, spray rising, live fish thrashing and more than a few dead ones bobbing on the surface before they were sucked out of sight. Some of the Ichiribu canoes were ablaze, engulfed by the lava, while others bobbed on the lake, swept away by the churning water.

Conan would wager a good deal that the tunnels far below had finally lost their magic and were now losing their long battle against the weight of the earth. That would put an end to the fire and any air-breathing creatures alive down there, but what of those shadowy water-dwellers? Would they also die with the magic, or live to infest the Lake of Death?

Conan shouted to one fool of a warrior ready to dive into the lake to swim to a fugitive canoe. Then he saw Seyganko striding along the shore, waving men back from the water.

Conan brushed sand and gravel off Valeria and let her do the same for him.

"You're bleeding," she said. "I think there are salves somewhere down there."

"I'm better off bleeding, I think. I'm for staying well away from the water until we've asked Emwaya what happened."

"If she knows."

"You saw her face. Her father told her what he was going to do to… to the Living Wind, I'd wager."

Valeria shuddered. Then her sword was in her hand as a warrior with Kwanyi headdress and Ichiribu tattoos rose slowly from the bushes.

"Wobeku!" Conan and Valeria said together.

The traitor kept his hands in plain sight. "Great chiefs, do with me as you please when you have heard me out. I wish to yield the men under me to the mercy of the Ichiribu and their chiefs. I can also name those underchiefs of the Kwanyi who may listen to talk of peace between our tribes."

Conan and Valeria looked at each other. They knew of the clan rivalries among the Kwanyi. If Chabano was dead, as seemed likely, the Ichiribu might use these rivalries to impose a victor's peace.

"Was it you or Aondo who slew the bidui boys?" Valeria asked.

"Aondo."

Somehow to Conan that had the ring of truth.

"This is a matter for Seyganko and Emwaya," he said. "Lie down on your shield so none will put a spear through you until we return. Bid your folk stay out of sight. And pray to the gods that you are telling the truth!"

Wobeku swore several potent oaths with a certain dignity that Conan thought did him some honor, then assumed the pose of submission. "Now we'd best make haste to Seyganko, before someone skewers our would-be peacemaker," the Cimmerian grumbled as he broke into a trot. "And here I thought our work was done!"

"We can't seek out the river until the lake's fit to sail on," Valeria reminded him. "Nor am I one for sitting idle while others work."

"But then—"

She slipped an arm around his waist. "Downriver to the Trading Coast. I've still those fire-stones, and as long as no Golden Serpent comes with them, they may buy us a ship."

"Buy you a ship," Conan said. Her touch was as warming to his blood as ever, but he knew too much about the other sides of her nature. "Two of us on one ship would divide the crew. I'm for turning landsman anyway, until the Barachans have forgotten the name of Conan the Cimmerian."

"They may forget it," Valeria said with a complacent smile. "I will not."

* * *

TOR™

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK

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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

CONAN AND THE GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN Copyright (c)1993 by Conan Properties, Inc.

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First edition: May 1993

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