Conan of Aquilonia

ONE: The Thing That Fled

The sun, hidden by the heavy overcast, was nearing the western horizon. Above the clearing, the clouded sky hung like a rumpled blanket of dingy wool. Clammy tendrils of vapor slithered like wandering ghosts between the wet black tree trunks. Drippage from the recent rain pattered upon the drifts of fallen autumn leaves, whose bright scarlet, gold, and bronze were fading along with the light.

With a muffled thudding of hoofs, a creak of leather, and a clank of accouterments, a great black stallion burst into the gloom-shrouded mead. Fog boiled up before his plunging hoofs and parted to reveal a broad-shouldered giant on the huge horse’s back, his powerful legs clamped about the beast’s barrel. The man was no longer young, for Time had touched with gray the square-cut black mane and the heavy black mustache that swept fiercely out from either side of his grim, tight-lipped mouth. Years had cut deep lines about his jaw. His dark, heavy-featured, square-jawed face and thickly corded forearms showed the seams and scars of many brawls and battles, but his firm seat in the saddle and alert, brisk bearing belied his years.

For a long moment, the huge man sat motionless on the panting, lathered stallion. From under the brim of a sweat-stained forester’s felt hat, he raked the foggy clearing with a searching gaze and muttered a sulfurous oath.

Had any eye observed him, the watcher might well have mistaken the swarthy giant for some woodland brigand—until he noticed that the heavy broadsword at his side bore in its pommel a jewel worth a knight’s ransom, and the hunting horn that hung over his back was of ivory decorated with gold and silver filigree. He was, in fact, the king of Aquilonia, unchallenged ruler of the wealthiest and most powerful realm of the West. His name was Conan.

Again he scanned the mist-cloaked clearing with his fiery gaze. In the dimming light not even he could read the signs of recent hoof prints in the wet tangle of grasses, even though twigs were broken and fallen leaves disarranged.

Conan tugged at the sling of the horn and raised the instrument to his lips to blow the recheat, when the sound of hoofbeats came to his ears. Presently a gray mare shouldered through the bushes that ringed the clearing. A man of mature years but younger than Conan, with glossy black hair and flashing black eyes in a swarthy visage, rode out of the forest and saluted the king with easy familiarity.

At the first snap of a twig, Conan’s hand had instinctively flashed to his hilt. Although he had no reason to fear ill will in this great, gloomy forest northeast of Tanasul, the habits of a lifetime were not easily broken. Then, seeing that the new-comer was one of his oldest comrades and staunchest supporters, he relaxed a trifle.

The younger man spoke:

“No sign of the prince back along the trail, sire. It’s possible the lad has ridden ahead on the trail of the white stag?”

“ ’Tis more than possible, Prospero,” growled Conan. “The foolish cub had inherited more than his share of his sire’s thickheadedness. ’Twill serve him right if he’s benighted in the woods, especially if the damned rains begin again!”

Prospero, the Poitanian general of Conan’s armies, politely masked a grin. The burly Cimmerian adventurer had risen, by chance or fate or some wild whim of his northland god, to the throne of the most brilliant and sophisticated kingdom of the West. He still had the explosive temper and unruly ways of his primitive people; and his son, the missing Prince Conn, was growing into the very image of his father. The boy had the same surly, grim-jawed face, coarse black hair, swelling thews—and the same reckless contempt of danger.

“Shall I summon the rest of the party, sire?” said Prospero. “ ’Twere not good to let the heir to the throne be lost in the woods overnight. We can spread out, sounding our horns …”

Conan considered, chewing his mustache. About them stretched the gloomy forests of eastern Gunderland. Few knew the paths of these untamed woods. From the look of the clouds, the nightly rains of an early fall would soon be upon them, drenching the primeval wilderness with a cold, relentless downpour. Then the king laughed shortly. “Forget it, man! We’ll account this part of the lad’s education. If he be of the stuff of kings, a slight wetting and a sleepless night will hurt him little and may teach him something. Why, when I was the cub’s age, many were the black nights I spent on the naked fells and in the wooded draws of the Cimmerian hills, under the glitter of the stars. Let’s back to camp. We lost the stag, but we have the boar, and those skins of the good red wine of Poitain will go well with roast pork. I am nigh starved!”

Hours later, his belly filled and his spirits lifted by many a draft of wine, Conan sprawled before a snapping fire in the rude camp. Wrapped in a pile of skins, somewhat the worse for wine, the stout Guilaime, baron of Imirus, snored lustily. A few huntsmen and courtiers, wearied from a hard day of hunting, had also taken to their rough beds. A few yet lingered beside the steaming fire.

The clouds had broken, and a wintry moon, nearly full, glared whitely down through scattering mists. The rains had not begun again, and with the sky’s clearing had come a brisk, cold wind, tearing autumnal leaves from their branches.

Wine had loosened the King’s tongue, so that he held forth, his face brooding and flushed in the flicker of firelight. Bawdy jests and anecdotes from his long career of wild adventure poured from him. But Prospero noticed that, from time to time, Conan broke off, silencing the others with a lifted hand, to listen for distant hoofbeats or to probe the darkness of the gloomy forests with keen glances from his deep-set eyes of volcanic blue. Conan was plainly more worried over Prince Conn’s failure to return than his words suggested. It was all very well to shrug it off, saying the experience would do the half-grown boy some good. But to pretend indifference, when the twelve-year-old lad might be lying under a wet bush with a broken leg amidst the black night, was another matter.

Prospero reflected that Conan might be feeling the pangs of guilt—a rare thing for the wild, brawling, half-civilized Cimmerian warrior-king. The hunting trip into northern Gunderland had been Conan’s idea. His queen, Zenobia, had fallen ill after long labor giving birth to their third child, a daughter. During the slow months of her recovery, Conan had been with her as much of the time as he could afford to take from his royal duties. Feeling neglected, the boy had become surly and withdrawn. Now that Zenobia had regained much of her strength and Death had seemingly withdrawn his dark wings from the palace, Conan had suggested a few weeks of camping and hunting together, hoping to find a new closeness to his son.

And now the headstrong boy, wild with the excitement of his first grown-up hunt, had ridden off alone into the gathering darkness of the unknown forest in crazy pursuit of the elusive snow-white stag they had vainly chased for hours.

As the sky cleared, revealing the glittering stars, the rising wind whined in the boughs and dry leaves rustled as if to the tread of stealthy feet. Conan again broke off amidst a wild tale of sorcery and pirate life to search the gloom with probing eyes. The great Gunderland wood was not the safest place, even in this turbulent age. Bison and aurochs, wild boar, brown bear, and gray wolf stalked the woodland paths. And there lurked another potential enemy as well: the most cunning and treacherous of all foes—man. For rogues, thieves, and renegades took to the wilds when city life became too dangerous for them.

Snarling an oath, the king came to his feet, doffing his black cloak and tossing it on his pile of duffel.

“Call me woman-hearted if you dare, you bastards,” he growled, “but I’ll sit here no longer. With this moon as bright as day, I can follow a trail or I’m a Stygian. Fulk! Saddle up red Ymir for me; the black’s winded. You men! Pass the wineskin one last time around and saddle up. Sir Valens! You’ll find the torches in the third wagon. Distribute them, and let’s forth. I’ll not sleep easy till I know my boy is safe.”

Swinging astride the big roan, Conan muttered: “That unlicked cub, haring off like a jackass after a stag that could outrun two ponies like his! When I find him, I’ll teach him to make me leave a nice warm fire for the cold wet woods!”

A snow-white owl floated across the gibbous moon. Conan choked off his curses with a sudden shiver. A black foreboding swept his barbaric soul. His backward people whispered strange tales of a thing that fled in the night—a were-stag, ghostly white and swift as the winter wind. Pray Crom that this was a beast of normal flesh and blood, and not some uncanny thing from nighted gulfs beyond space and time…

TWO: The Faceless Men

Young Conn was cold and wet and weary. The insides of his thighs were chafed from hours of hard riding, and he had developed more than a few blisters. He was also conscious of a growling emptiness where his stomach should be. Worst of all, he was lost.

The white stag had floated ahead of him like a ghostly bird, glimmering against the darkness. The elusive brute had come almost within spear-shot a dozen times. Each time that cool caution overcame Conn’s excitement the magnificent stag had faltered, proud antlers drooping, as if it had reached the edge of its endurance—and each time the vision of bearing so splendid a prize back to his father had spurred the boy on just a little farther.

The boy reined his panting pony to a halt amidst thick bushes and stared around through the dense gloom. Boughs creaked and leaves whispered above him under the rush of the wind, and foliage blotted out stars and moon alike. He had not the faintest idea of where he was, nor of the direction in which the white stag had led him, except that he knew he had strayed far beyond the bounds his father had set. The boy shivered a little in his leather jerkin. He knew his father’s temper; he would be beaten with a heavy belt when he came limping back. The only thing that might mitigate Conan’s anger would be for Conn to return triumphant, to throw the great stag at the feet of the king.

Conn shrugged off his fatigue and hunger and set his square jaw with boyish determination. At that instant he bore a striking likeness to his mighty sire: the same tanned, frowning visage framed in straight, coarse black hair: the same smoldering blue eyes, deep chest, and broad shoulders. Only twelve, he looked likely to match his father’s towering height when he came of age, for already he was taller than many Aquilonian grown men.

“Up, Marduk!” he said, thumping his heels in the ribs of the black pony. They shouldered through the wet, dripping boughs into a long grassy glade. As they entered the open place, young Conn glimpsed a flash of white against the gloom. The great white stag came floating out of the darkness, entering the clearing ahead of them with an effortless bound. The boy’s heart swelled, and the excitement of the hunt made his blood sing. Iron-shod hooves drummed through the swishing grasses. Ahead of them, ghost-white against the wet blackness, the stag cleared fallen tree trunks with graceful leaps and bounded toward the far edge of the glade, with the prince in hot pursuit.

Conn leaned over the pony’s neck, one strong brown hand clenching the light javelin. Ahead of him, like a will-o’-the-wisp, the white stag glowed. But a dense wall of trees rose beyond. His heart pounding, Conn knew the stag must slow its pace or go floundering into that barrier.

The next instant, even as he flung back one arm to hurl the javelin, it happened. The stag dissolved into mist—a mist that reformed into a tall, gaunt, human shape clothed in white robes. It was a woman, from the billowing cloud of iron-grey hair that swirled about the bony, calm, expressionless mask of its face.

Terror smote Conn. The pony reared, eyes rolling, and neighed shrilly, then came down and stood motionless, shuddering. Conn stared into the cold, cat-green eyes of the woman-thing before him.

Silence stretched taut between them. In the stillness, Conn was aware of his trembling hands, his thudding heart, the sour taste in his dry mouth. Was this fear? Who was this ghost-woman, to teach fear to the son of Conan the Conqueror?

With a violent effort of will, the boy clamped his quivering fingers about the shaft of the javelin. Ghost, witch, or were-woman—the son of Conan would show no fear!

Eyes of lambent green flame smiled with cold mockery into the boy’s imitation of his sire’s glare. With one gaunt hand, the woman gestured slowly. Leaves crackled; twigs snapped.

The boy jerked his head around, and his grim expression faltered to see the weird forms that stepped into the clearing from all sides.

They were lean men, gaunt as mummies and of superhuman stature. Taller even than the mighty Conan, many topped seven feet. From throat to wrist and heel they were clad in black garments that fitted as tightly as gloves. Even their heads were hooded in tight black cowls .Their hands were bony, thin, and long-fingered, and they bore curious weapons. These were rods or batons, over two feet long, of sleek, gleaming black wood. The ends of each rod were tipped with spherical knobs of dull, silvery metal. These knobs were slightly smaller than fowl’s eggs.

It was their faces that struck into his heart the thrill of superstitious awe. For they had no faces! Beneath the tight-fitting black cowls, their visages were smooth, blank, white ovals.

Few would have blamed the lad if he had fled in fear. But he did not flee. Though only twelve, he was sprung from a savage line of mighty warriors and brave women, and few of his forefathers had faltered in the face of danger or death. His ancestors had faced the terrible giant bear, the dread snow-dragons of the Figlophian mountains, and the rare saber-toothed tiger of the cave country. They had fought these creatures knee-deep in winter snows, while the quivering curtain of the northern lights flickered overhead. In this moment of peril, his barbaric ancestry awoke within the boy.

The woman raised her head and called out a short phrase, in strongly accented Aquilonian: “Yield, boy!”

“Never!” shouted Conn. Yelling the Cimmerian war cry learned from his mighty sire, he couched his javelin like a lance at the nearest of the black-clad faceless ones and spurred his tired pony once more.

No flicker of emotion disturbed the calm old face of the white-clad woman. Before the pony could make more than one weary bound, agonizing pain shot up Conn’s arm. He gasped, doubling over in the saddle. The javelin flew from his numb fingers, to thud into the wet grass. One of the black-clad men closing in on him had glided close with magical swiftness. With one bony hand, the man had caught the pony’s bridle. With the other, the man had whipped up his slender wooden baton. The ball on one end had stroked the hollow of Conn’s elbow. The touch of the rod, wielded with exquisite control, had struck the cluster of nerves under the joint. The pain was blinding.

The black-clad man recovered his stance and whipped back the rod for another blow. But the woman cried out in an unfamiliar tongue. She spoke in a deep, harsh, metallic, sexless voice. The faceless man in black withheld his blow.

But Conn did not yield. With an inarticulate cry, he caught with his left hand at the hilt of the falchion that hung at his hip. Clumsily he dragged it forth and reversed his grip upon it. The black-clad men were all around him now, with skinny hands reaching out from long black arms.

Conn swung backhanded at the nearest. The blade struck the man’s long neck and laid open his throat. With a gurgling groan, the tall man folded at the knees and fell face-down in the wet grass.

Conn raked his spurs against the pony’s ribs, shouting a command to the beast. The pony reared with a shrill whinny as the other faceless men glided in from all sides. Then it lashed out at them with iron-shod hoofs. Like phantoms, the men evaded the hoofs. One flicked out his rod. The knob struck Conn’s wrist with diabolical accuracy, and away went the falchion from his flaccid fingers. Another metal ball on the end of a black rod gently stroked the back of Conn’s head. The boy fell from the saddle, a bundle of loose limbs. One man caught him in gaunt, black-clad arms and eased him to the grass, while others brought the pony under control.

The green-eyed woman bent over the unconscious lad.

“Conn, Crown Prince of Aquilonia, heir apparent to the throne of Conan,” she said in her harsh voice. She uttered a dry, mirthless laugh. “Thoth-Amon will be pleased.”

THREE: Runes of Blood

Conan was hunched over in the saddle, hungrily munching a bit of roast boar, when Euric, the chief huntsman, came to him.

The king straightened wearily, spat out a bit of gristle, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anything?” he grunted. The old huntsman nodded and held out a curious object.

“This,” he said.

Conan eyed it warily. It was an ivory mask, delicately carved to fit closely a long-jawed, narrow-chinned, high-cheekboned human face. The queer thing about it was that it was modeled featurelessly, presenting—except for the eye slits—a blank oval of sleek ivory to the eye. Conan did not like the look of it.

“Hyperborean work,” he spat. “Anything else?”

The old huntsman nodded. “Blood on the grass, the grass itself trampled, hoofmarks of a young pony, and—this.”

The fires in Conan’s eyes dulled and his face sagged. It was the falchion he had given as a gift to Conn, celebrating the latter’s twelfth birthday. The coronet of an Aquilonian prince was etched in the silver of the guard.

“Nothing else?”

“The dogs are sniffing about for a trail now,” said Euric.

Conan nodded heavily. “When they’ve found the track, sound your horn and gather the men,” he growled.

The sun was high; the lank grasses smelled wet; the air was steamy and humid. But again the King of Aquilonia shivered as if an unseen draft of icy air were blowing upon his heart.

The sun was an hour older before they found the corpse. It had been carefully buried at the bottom of a gully, beneath a mound of dead leaves and moist earth. But the eager hounds sniffed it out, baying their deep-chested song to call the huntsmen.

Conan rode down to the bed of the gully to examine the corpse. The body had been stripped. The man had been nearly seven feet tall and gaunt. His skin was white as parchment. His hair, too, was a silky white. His throat had been slashed.

Euric crouched over the dirt-stained corpse, sniffing the blood, dipping his fingers in the wound, and thoughtfully rubbing bloody fingertips together. Conan waited in moody silence. At last the old man rose stiffly, wiping his hands.

“Sometime last night, sire,” he said.

Conan looked the corpse over, his gaze lingering on its long-jawed, narrow-chinned, high-cheekboned face.

The man was a Hyperborean: his lean height, unnatural pallor, and silky, colorless hair told Conan that. Dead cat-green eyes stared up from among the wet dirt and sodden leaves.

“Loose the hounds again, Euric. Prospero! Bid the men be wary. We are being led,” said Conan.

They rode on together.

After a time, the Poitanian general cleared his throat. “You think the mask and falchion were left behind for a purpose, sire?”

“I know it,” Conan growled. “In my bones; the way an old stiff-legged soldier knows when rain is coming. There’s a pack of those white devils ahead somewhere. They have my boy. They are herding us, damn their guts!”

“Into an ambush?” asked Prospero. Conan chewed the idea over in silence, then shook his head.

“I doubt it. We’ve ridden safely through three perfect sites for such a trap in the past hour. No; they have some other purpose in mind. A message, perhaps, waiting for us up the trail.”

Prospero considered this. “Maybe they are holding the Prince for ransom.”

“Or for bait,” said Conan, his eyes blazing like those of an angry beast. “I was a captive in Hyperborea once. What I suffered at their hands gave me no cause to love those bony devils; and what I did there, ere I took my leave of their hospitality, gave them little cause to love me!”

“What means the ivory mask?”

Conan spat and took a swig of lukewarm wine. “It’s a shadowy land of devils. Dead and barren, cloaked ever in clammy mists, ruled by naked, grinning fear. A weird cult of black-clad wizard-assassins hold power through the terror of their uncanny arts. They kill without a mark and fight only with wooden rods, tipped with balls of a strange rare, gray, heavy metal called platinum, common in their land. An old woman is their priestess-queen; they think her the incarnation of their death goddess. They who serve in her shadowy legions of skulking killers undergo strange mortification of body, mind, and will. The masks are an example of their fanaticism. They are the deadliest fighters in the world; blind faith in their devil-gods makes them immune to fear and pain.”

They rode forward without further words. In the minds of both men was a dreadful picture—a helpless boy, captive in a land of fanatical death-worshipers whose witch-queen had for years nursed a burning hatred of Conan.

Towards early afternoon, the trees thinned out as the forests of eastern Gunderland gave way to chalk moors overgrown with straggling patches of heather and bracken. They were near the limits of Conan’s realm. Not far beyond lay the place where the frontiers of Aquilonia, Cimmeria, the Border Kingdom, and Nemedia met.

The sky was overcast, and there was a bite to the air. Wind ruffled the purple heather in chill, sudden gusts. The sun was a gray disk, weak and ineffectual. Birds cawed hoarsely, far on the dim moors. It was a grim, bleak land of desolation.

Conan rode in front. Suddenly he drew up his weary roan, flinging up one arm to halt his company.Then he sat slumped in the saddle, staring grimly at the thing that blocked their path. In ones and twos the men behind dismounted and came forward to stand about him, staring.

It was a light willow-wood javelin, such as a young boy might select for hunting a stag. The point was buried deep in the bracken. The haft of the spear thrust straight up into the air. Wrapped about it was a bit of white parchment.

Euric unfastened the parchment with deft fingers and handed it up to the King where he sat his roan, eyes heavy. It crackled loudly as Conan unrolled it.

The message was crudely scrawled in Aquilonian. Conan scanned it silently, his dark face sullen, then handed it down to Prospero, who spelled it out slowly for the men to hear.

THE KING SHALL GO FORWARD ALONE TO POHIOLA. IF HE DOES THIS, THE SON OF HIS LOINS WILL NOT BE HARMED. IF HE DOES OTHER THAN THIS, THE CHILD WILL DIE IN WAYS IT IS NOT WHOLESOME TO DESCRIBE. THE KING SHALL FOLLOW THE PATH MARKED WITH THE WHITE HAND.

Prospero examined the rusty-scrawl of runes, then gave a little exclamation of disgust. The message was written in blood.

FOUR: The White Hand

So Conan went forward alone into the moorland beyond the borders of Aquilonia. The conventional course would have been to return to Tanasul, muster the civil guard, and ride against misty Hyperborea in force. But, had Conan followed that course, the assassins would murder the boy. All that Conan could do was to follow the commands in the parchment scroll.

Conan had given Prospero the great seal-ring of massive gold he wore on his right thumb. Possession of that ring made the Poitanian regent of the kingdom until Conan returned. If he did not return, his infant second son would become rightful king of the Aquilonians, under the dual regency of Queen Zenobia and Prospero.

As he had voiced these instructions, staring into Prospero’s eyes, he knew the gallant soldier would follow them to the letter. And there was one instruction more. Prospero should raise the levy of Tanasul and ride after him, to invade Hyperborea on his heels and make for the citadel of Pohiola.

This was to give Prospero a sense of purpose. But Conan knew that one man, well mounted, could ride farther and faster than a full troop of horses. He would be within the glowering walls of Pohiola long before Prospero’s force could possibly arrive to be of any help.

This land was called the Border Kingdom. It was a dreary waste of desolate, empty moors which swept off to the dim horizon. Here and there gnarled and stunted trees grew sparsely. Waterbirds rose flapping from misty bogs. A cold, uneasy wind whined through rattling reeds with a lonely song.

Conan went forward, careful of his footing but with all possible haste. His red roan, Ymir, was winded from the night-long ride through the forest, so Conan had taken the big gray from Baron Guilaime of Imirus. The fat peer was the heaviest man in the party other than Conan himself, and his burly-chested gray was the only steed that might bear up under the weight of the giant Cimmerian. Conan had thrown off his hunting gear, donning a plain leather jerkin and a well-oiled shirt of close-linked mail. His broadsword was slung between his shoulders to leave his hands free. He had hung a powerful Hyrkanian bow, a length of supple silk cord, and a quiver of black-feathered cloth-yard shafts on his saddlebow. Then he had ridden off across the moors without a backward glance.

At first he followed a clearly marked trail, for the steeds of the Hyperboreans had left a track in the muddy soil. He pushed the gray stallion hard, for he wanted to make the best possible time. There was the slimmest of chances that, with luck and the favor of Crom, his savage god, he could catch up with the white-skinned kidnappers before they reached their keep of Pohiola.

Soon the trail of the Hyperborean horses faded out on stony soil. But there was little chance to lose the trail, for now and again he passed a sign that his son’s abductors had left to guide him; the imprint of a hand, white against rock or soil. Betimes it was seared into the dry, scrubby grass of a hummock like a pattern of frost left by a blast of preternatural cold.

Witchcraft! He growled, deep in his throat, and his napehairs prickled. His own homeland, Cimmeria, lay to the northwest. His primitive folk knew of the White Hand, dread symbol of the Witchmen of Hyperborea. He shivered at the thought that his son was their captive.

But he rode on, over the dreary plains with pools of cold black water and scrubby patches of bracken cut by meandering streamlets and dotted by hummocks of dry grass. Hour after hour he rode steadily, as the world darkened around him towards night. One by one the stars came out, though they were faint and few, for a haze overhung the sky. When at length the moon emerged, it masked its cold face behind a lacy veil of vapor.

Toward dawn he could ride no more. Stiff and aching, he climbed down and tied a bag of grain to the muzzle of his gray. He built a small fire with dry bracken, stretched out with his head pillowed on his saddle, and fell into a heavy sleep.

For three days he rode ever deeper into this dreary wasteland, skirting the swamp borders of the Great Salt Marsh. This sprawling bog may have been the remnant of a vast inland sea that had rolled over all this land ages ago, perhaps before the dawn of civilization. The ground was becoming treacherous, and the deeper he rode into the Border Kingdom, the worse the footing became. The big gray wound through the bogs, head down, testing each hummock for soundness. The pools of cold, muddy water became more numerous. Soon Conan was riding through a treeless swamp.

Twilight came, plunging the bogland in gloom. The gray stallion shied nervously, as his hooves came out of the sucking mud with a smacking sound. Bats swooped and chittered in the dusk. A mottled, clay-colored viper, thick as a man’s arm, slithered noiselessly over a mold-covered log.

As the darkness thickened, Conan set his jaw and drove the gray forward. He meant to keep going all night again and to rest toward midday if he must.

Ahead, the path branched. Conan leaned from the saddle to study the bracken. A smooth stone lay exposed by the incessant rains. Upon that stone he glimpsed again a weird white blazon in the shape of an open hand. He tugged the stallion’s head around and drove it into the pathway marked by the White Hand.

Suddenly, the muddy heather was alive with men. They were filthy, gaunt, and naked save for twists of greasy rag about their loins. Long, matted hair lay in a tangle about snarling faces.

Conan roared a deep-chested challenge and pulled the stallion up. He ripped the broadsword clear of its scabbard.

The beast-men were all about him now, grabbing at boots and stirrups, pulling at the skirt of his mail, seizing handfuls of mane to drag the horse down. But the gray’s hoofs slashed out. One caught the foremost man in the face and cracked his skull. Pulped brains splattered amidst flying blood. Another caught a big-chested man on the shoulder, shattering his arm.

Conan’s blade whistled, making heads jump from spurting necks, knocking brutish figures flying. Five he slew; a sixth he clove from pate to jaw. But the steel bit deep in tough bone. As the corpse fell back, the sword was wrenched out of Conan’s grip. He sprang after it, splashing, and the yelping herd of beastlike men were all over him. Feral eyes gleamed; talonlike fingers raked his arms. They dragged him down, muffling him beneath the weight of sheer numbers. One brought a club of knotted wood down on Conan’s temple. The world exploded, and Conan forgot all about fighting.

FIVE: A Phantom From The Past

Out of the dim and swirling mists, the rounded knoll of a hill loomed up before them on the stone-paved way. Worn and weary from days and nights of travel, Conn blinked bleary eyes at it.

The crest of the knoll was crowned with a mighty keep, a rude castle built of huge, cyclopean blocks of unmortared stone. Ghostly in the dim starlight, indistinctly seen through the crawling film of mist, it looked like an apparition. Squat towers rose at either end of the massive edifice, wreathed in coiling fog. Toward the frowning portal of the looming keep they rode. As it grew nearer, Conn saw the great portcullis slowly lifting. The half-starved boy repressed a shudder. The rise of the spiked grille of rusty iron was like the slow yawn of a gigantic monster.

Through the vast portal they rode, into an enormous hall weirdly lit with the flickering light of torches. The portcullis came down behind them, to ring against the stone pave like the knell of doom.

Cold white hands plucked the boy from the saddle and tossed him into a corner. He crouched against the dank wall of stone, staring around him. Bit by bit, the features of the vast, echoing hall began to emerge from the gloom. The keep was one tremendous hall. The roof, whose rafters were lost in the darkness, loomed far above his head. The only visible furniture was a rude wooden bench or two, a couple of stools, and a long trestle table. On the table lay a wooden platter laden with cold scraps of greasy meat and a sodden lump of coarse black bread. The boy eyed this garbage hungrily. As if sensing his thoughts, the old woman muttered a command. One of the men took the platter from the table and set it down beside Conn.

His hands were numb, for they had bound his wrists to the saddle horn during the days and nights of riding. The man cut the thong that bound his wrists and slipped a length of chain about his neck, padlocking the other end to a rusty iron ring in the wall above his head. Conn fell on the remnants of the meal as the man watched silently.

The Witchman had removed his ivory mask, so that Conn could see his face. It was pale and bony and bore an expression of inhuman serenity. Conn did not like the thin, colorless lips or the cold glitter of the green eyes but was too hungry, cold, and miserable to care what his captors looked like. Another man came over with a few pieces of dirty sackcloth draped over his arm. He tossed these down beside the chained lad; then both men left him alone. After he had eaten all there was, Conn scraped together some of the filthy straw wherewith the floor of the immense, echoing hall was strewn. He piled the sacking upon this, curled up, and fell asleep at once.

The dull sound of a gong awoke him. In this gloomy pile of stone, the light of day never pierced, so Conn had lost all sense of time.

He looked up, rubbing his eyes. A low, circular stone dais rose in the center of the hall; upon this the witch was seated tailor-fashion. A great copper bowl of glowing coals had been set before her, shedding a wavering light the color of blood upon her face.

Conn studied her narrowly. She was old. Her face was worn with a thousand furrows, and her gray hair dangled loosely about the expressionless mask of her features. But life burned strongly within those eyes of emerald flame, and their uncanny gaze was fixed upon nothingness.

At the foot of the dais one of the black-clad men crouched, striking a padded mallet against a small gong in the shape of a human skull. The dull ringing of the gong echoed eerily.

The Witchmen entered the room in single file. They had donned their ivory masks and pulled the tight black cowls up to cover their silky hair. One led a naked, shaggy-headed man. Conn remembered that while crossing the endless swamps days before, the death-worshipers had taken this man captive. They had tied a noose about his neck and made him either trot along behind their horses or fall and be dragged. The man was deformed, witless, and filthy. His mouth hung open and his eyes gleamed with fear.

An uncanny ritual now took place. Two Witchmen knelt and secured the captive’s feet with a thong suspended from a rafter. Then they slowly drew the naked man up until he hung head-downward above the copper bowl of simmering coals. The man writhed and screamed to no avail.

Then they cut his throat from ear to ear.

The victim wriggled and flopped, then slowly went limp. Conn watched, eyes wide with horror. Blood gushed down upon the coals and exploded in a cloud of smoke. A nauseous stench arose.

All this time, the witch stared sightlessly ahead. Conn observed that she was swaying from side to side, humming a tuneless air. The black-clad men stood motionless about the dais. The coals crackled and snapped. The corpse hung dripping. The thin, eerie moan of the witch’s song droned on, punctuated by the monotonous rhythm of the gong. Conn stared with helpless fascination.

The stinking smoke hung in a greasy pall above the dais, eddying to and fro as if to the touch of invisible hands. Then the white-faced boy repressed a start.

“Crom!” he gasped.

The roiling cloud of smoke was taking on the shape of a man: a large, broad-shouldered, powerful man, draped in some Eastern robe whose cowl was thrust back to reveal a shaven pate and a grim, hawklike face.

The illusion was uncanny. The witch droned on. Her rasping song rose and fell like a cold wind moaning through the timbers of a gibbet.

Now color flushed through the man-shaped phantom: the folds of the robe darkened to a shade of green and the stolid visage became a swarthy, ruddy brown, like the face of a Shemite or a Stygian. Frozen with fear, the boy searched the translucent phantom with wide eyes. The illusion had a face he dimly remembered seeing, or hearing described—those aloof, aquiline features, that grim, lipless mouth. Where the eyes should have been were two sparks of emerald fire.

The lips moved, and the distant echo of a voice resounded through the shadowy hall.

“Hail, O Louhi!” said the phantom. And the witch answered:

“Greetings, Thoth-Amon.”

Then, in truth, did the chilly claws of fear close around Conn’s heart, for he knew he was in the grip of no casual kidnapper: He was in the clutches of the most deadly and tenacious foe of his race, the earth’s mightiest black magician, the Stygian sorcerer who had long ago sworn by his evil gods to bring Conan the Cimmerian down to a terrible death and to crush Aquilonia into the mire.

SIX: Beyond Skull Gate

Toward sunrise, Conan struggled groggily to consciousness. His head ached abominably, and blood from a torn scalp had dried down his face. But he still lived.

As for the shaggy beast-men of the swamp country, there was no sign of them. They had fled into the night, bearing off their dead and their loot. Groaning he sat up, nursing his throbbing head in his hands. He was naked save for boots and a ragged clout. Horse, mail, provision, and weapons had been stripped from him. Had the beast-men left him for dead? Perhaps; and only the thickness of his skull had kept the Cimmerian from that ending.

Legend whispered that the beast-men were the degenerate spawn of generations of escaped criminals and runaway slaves who had fled hither for sanctuary. Centuries of inbreeding had debased them to little above the level of animals. Odd, then, that they had left his body untouched; for men reduced to their primitive level often developed a lust for human flesh. Not until Conan had staggered to his feet did he discover what had driven the beast-man away.

Seared into muddy grasses, near where he had been struck down, was the imprint of the White Hand.

There was naught else to do but go on afoot. Fashioning a rude cudgel from the branch of a twisted tree, the burly Cimmerian struck out for the northeast, following the trail blazoned for him by the White Hand.

As a savage boy in his wintry homeland, he had learned how to live off the land. As king of proud Aquilonia, it had been many years since last he had been forced to hunt and kill to live. Now he was glad old skills died hard. With stones hurled from a rude sling improvised from a strip of cloth ripped from his clout, he brought down marsh birds. Lacking the means to make fire in these sodden bogs, he plucked the fowl and devoured them raw. With the cudgel, swung with all the iron strength of massive thews, he beat off wild dogs that attacked him. With sharpened sticks he probed for frogs and crayfish in muddy pools. And ever he kept moving north and east.

After an endless time, he came to the edge of the Border Kingdom. The entrance to Hyperborea was marked by a curious monument calculated to strike fear into the hearts of men. Under a lowering sky, hills rose in a grim rampart. The trail wound through a narrow pass between two rounded knolls. Embedded in the nearer flank of one hill was a weird marker. It shone gray-white through the gloom and damp of Hyperborea. As he came near enough to make it out, he stopped short and stood, massive arms folded.

It was a skull, manlike in shape but many times larger than that of a man. The sight raised Conan’s nape-hairs with primal awe and stirred to life shadowy myths of ogres and giants. But as he studied the vast shield of naked bone with narrowed eyes, a grim smile tugged at his lips. He had traveled far in his years of adventuring, and he recognized the grisly relic for the skull of a mammoth. The skulls of beasts of the elephant tribe bear a superficial resemblance to those of men, save, of course, for the curving tusks. In this case, the telltale tusks had been sawn away.

Conan grinned and spat. He felt heartened; those who use trickery to inspire superstitious fear are not invulnerable.

Across the brow of the mammoth skull, enormous Hyperborean runes were painted.

In his travels, Conan had picked up a smattering of many tongues. With some difficulty he could read the warning written in those uncouth characters.

“The Gate of Hyperborea is the Gate of Death to those who come hither without leave,” ran the warning.

Conan grunted contemptuously, strode on through the pass, and found himself in a haunted land.

Beyond Skull Gate, the land fell away in a bleak plain broken by naked hills. Crumbling stones lay bare under a brooding sky. Conan went forward through clammy mists, every sense alert. But for all he could tell, naught lived or moved in all this shadowy land of unseen peril.

Few dwelt in this cold realm of fear, where the wintry sun shone but briefly. They who ruled here reigned from high-towered keeps of cyclopean stone. As for the common folk, a few miserable, terror-haunted serfs in clusters of dilapidated hovels eked out a drab life from the barren soil.

The gaunt gray wolves of the north roamed these desolate prairies in savage hunting bands, he knew; and the ferocious cave bear made its home in stony caves under the dripping skies. But little else could dwell in this inhospitable waste, save a rare band of reindeer, musk ox, or mammoth.

Conan came at length to the first of the stone-built keeps; this he knew to be Sigtona. In Asgard they whispered grim tales of its sadistic queen, rumored to live on human blood. He skirted it widely, searching for the next mountainous citadel.

After an interminable time he espied the grim pile of Pohiola, lifting its crest of squat turrets against the stars. Naked, famished, filthy, and unarmed, the indomitable Cimmerian gazed upon the stronghold of the Witchmen with burning eyes. Somewhere within that fortress of dark stone, his elder son huddled. Somewhere within that lightless and labyrinthine edifice, perhaps, his doom awaited him. Well, he had crossed swords with Death ere this, and from that desperate contest had emerged the victor.

Head high, he went through the darkness to the portals of Pohiola.

SEVEN: The Witch-woman

The iron fangs of the portcullis hung above the stone-paved way that led to the great gate. The gate itself was a mighty door of black wood, studded with the heads of iron nails. These nails spelt out some protective rune in a tongue even the burly Cimmerian did not know. The door was open.

Conan strode within. The stone walls, he grimly noted, were twenty paces thick. He passed into the central hall of the great keep. It was deserted, save for an old woman with lank gray hair. She squatted atop a circular stone dais, staring into the flickering flames of a dish of red coals. This he knew for Louhi, priestess-queen of the Witchmen, who regarded her as the living avatar of their death-goddess. Boot heels ringing on the stone pave, the half-naked giant strode the breadth of the mighty hall and took a bold stance before the dais, arms folded upon his breast.

After a while, she shifted her cat-green glare from the simmering coals to his face, and Conan felt the impact of her gaze. She was old, lean, and withered, but he sensed an extraordinary personality behind that wrinkled mask.

“Thoth-Amon says I should slay you on the spot, or at very least load you with chains heavy enough to bind ten men,” she began. Her voice was throaty and metallic.

No flicker of emotion touched Conan’s stern visage. “Let me see my son,” he growled.

“Thoth-Amon says you are the most dangerous man in the world,” she continued calmly, as if he had not spoken.

“But I have always thought that Thoth-Amon was himself more dangerous than any other man living. It is odd. Are you really so dangerous?”

“I want to see my son,” he repeated.

You do not look so very dangerous to me,” she went on serenely. “You are strong, yes, and you have great powers of endurance. I doubt not that you are brave enough, as mortal men count bravery. But you are only a man. I cannot understand what there could be about you that moves Thoth-Amon to fear,” she mused.

“He fears me because he knows that I am his doom,” said Conan. “As I shall be yours, unless you take me to my son.”

Her wrinkled face froze, and eyes of lambent green glared coldly into Conan’s. He glowered at her, his gaze of smoldering volcanic blue blazing under black, scowling brows. Her gaze intensified, cold and piercing. His glare did not falter, and it was the green eyes that fell at last and looked away.

Inhumanly tall, impossibly slim, a lantern-jawed, milk-faced man with flaxen hair, clothed in glove-tight black, appeared at Conan’s side as if in response to an unspoken call. The Witchwoman did not look up, and some of the calm strength had left her rasping voice when she spoke.

“Take him to his son,” she said.

They had immured Prince Conn at the bottom of a stone-lined pit sunk deep in the floor of the vast, echoing hall. It was like a dry well, built of the same unmortared stone as the rest of the keep, and it was an effective cell for a prisoner. They lowered Conan into the depths of the hole by a rope which was drawn up after he reached the bottom.

The boy was huddled at one side, against the wall of the shaft, on a pile of damp sacking. He sprang to his feet and flung himself into his father’s arms as soon as he recognized the half-naked giant. Conan crushed the boy to him in a fierce hug, growling sulfurous curses to disguise the unmanly tenderness he felt. Ending the embrace, he seized the boy by the shoulders and shook him, promising him a caning he would never forget if ever again he acted so stupidly. The words were threatening and their tone was gruff, but tears were running down his scarred face.

Then he held the boy at arm’s length, looking him over carefully. The boy’s raiment was torn and dirtied, his face pale and hollow-cheeked, but the king could see that his son was unharmed. He had come through an experience that would have left most other children of his years hysterical. Conan grinned and gave him an affectionate hug.

“Father, Thoth-Amon is in this,” Conn whispered excitedly.

“I know,” grunted Conan.

“Last night the old witch conjured him up,” Conn went on eagerly. “They hung a savage by his heels over the fire and cut his throat and let the blood run down on the coals!! Then she conjured Thoth-Amon’s spirit out of the smoke!”

“What did they talk about?”

“When Thoth-Amon heard that you were crossing the Border Kingdom alone, he wanted her to kill you with her magic! She asked why do that, and he said you were too dangerous to live. They argued for a long time about that.”

Conan rubbed a big hand over his stubbled jaw. “Any idea why the witch refused to kill me?”

“I think she wants to keep you and me alive as a sort of way of keeping Thoth-Amon under her control,” the boy confided. “They are in some sort of plot together, with a lot of other magicians all over the world. Thoth-Amon is a lot stronger and more important than the old witch, but so long as she has you he doesn’t dare try to boss her too much.”

“You may well be right, son,” Conan mused. “Did you overhear anything more about this plot? Plot against what?”

“Against the kingdoms of the West,” Conn said. “Thoth-Amon is the chief of ail the wicked magicians in the South, Khem and Stygia and Kush and Zembabwei, and the jungle countries. There’s a sort of wizard’s guild or something down there called the Black Ring …”

Conan started, voicing an involuntary grunt. “What about the Black Ring?” he demanded.

The boy’s voice rose with excitement. “Thoth-Amon is the high chief of the Black Ring, and he’s trying to league with the White Hand here in the north, and with something way out in the Far East called the Scarlet Circle!”

Conan groaned. He knew of the Black Ring, that ancient brotherhood of evil. He knew of the abominable sorceries practiced by the votaries of the Ring in the shadow-haunted crypts of accursed Stygia. Years ago Thoth-Amon had been a powerful prince of that order, but he had fallen from power and his place had been taken by another, one Thutothmes.Thutothmes was dead, and now it seemed that Thoth-Amon had arised to supremacy at last, at the head of the age-old fraternity of black magicians. That boded ill for the bright young kingdoms of the West.

They talked until Conn had told his father all he knew. Then, worn out by his adventures, the boy fell asleep, pillowed against Conan’s brawny torso. His arm about the shoulders of his son in a gently protective embrace, Conan did not sleep. He stared grimly into the darkness, wondering what the future would bring.

EIGHT: Adepts of the Black Ring

Three men and a woman sat in thronelike chairs of black wood atop the huge stone dais which rose amidst the great hall of Pohiola. The chairs were ranged in a half-circle about a vast copper bowl filled with glowing coals.

Beyond the walls of the cavernous keep, a thunderous storm raged wildly. Lightning slashed through boiling black clouds like knives of flame. Sleety rain whipped against the looming stone pile. The earth shuddered to the peals of thunder, which exploded amidst the storm clouds.

Within the hall, however, the din of the storm was stilled to a murmur. Gloom shrouded the vastness of the mighty keep. The air was dank and cold. The four sat silently, and between them was stretched an ominous tension. They watched one another out of the corners of their eyes.

From far off in the echoing darkness, a double file of the black-clad servants of the White Hand approached. Among them the majestic figure of Conan towered. His dark face was impassive, and firelight gleamed on his naked chest. At his side strode his son, head high. The Witchmen brought them to the foot of the dais.

Conan lifted his glowering gaze to stare directly into the cold black eyes of a powerfully built man in a dark-green robe, with a shaven pate and flesh of dark copper.

“We meet again, dog of a Cimmerian,” said Thoth-Amon in gutturally accented Aquilonian.

Conan grunted and spat.

Father and son had slept and waked, been fed, and slept again. Disdaining to reply, Conan turned his gaze on the others who sat enthroned. The Hyperborean Witchwoman he knew, but the other two were strangers to him. The first was a dimunitive, effeminate little man in fantastic jeweled robes, with amber skin, fleshy arms covered with glittering rings, and the cold, bright, soulless eyes of a snake.

“This is the divine Pra-Eun, the Lord of the Scarlet Circle, the sacred god-king of jungle-girdled Angkhor in the remote east of the world,” said Thoth-Amon. Conan made no response, but the plump little Kambujan smiled suavely.

“The so-great king of Aquilonia and I are old friends—although he knows me not. He once did me the kindest of favors,” he said in a high-pitched, lisping voice.

“I fear I know not this tale,” Thoth-Amon confessed. Pra-Eun smiled brilliantly.

“But yes! Some years ago he did to death the formidable Yah Chieng—perhaps he recalls the occasion? That person was a most powerful sorcerer of Khitai. He was my rival and my superior, as head of the Scarlet Circle. I am beholden to the brave monarch of Aquilonia, for had he not slain the miserable Yah Chieng, I should not today be the supreme master of my order!”

Again, Pra-Eun smiled brilliantly, but Conan noticed that his smile did not reach as far as his eyes. They remained as hard and cold as the eyes of a viper.

Beyond the little god-king sat Louhi in her robes of white; and beyond her a savage black towered. He was a magnificent specimen of manhood, his oiled arms sleek with gliding thews, his woolly head crowned with nodding plumes. About his muscular torso was flung a cloak of leopard skins. Rings of raw gold clasped his wrists and upper arms. His stolid features were immobile. Only the eyes moved and lived, and they burned with feral red flames.

“And this is the great boccor or shaman, Nenaunir, prophet and high priest of Damballah—as his people call Father Set—in far Zembabwei,” continued Thoth-Amon. “Three million naked blacks will arise to sweep all the world below Kush with flame and blood at one word from Nenaunir.”

Conan said nothing. The magnificent black grunted. “He does not look so dangerous to me, Stygian,” he said in a cold, deep, heavy voice. “Why do you fear him so?”

A darker hue stained the features of Thoth-Amon. His lips parted but, before he could speak, the old woman uttered a harsh laugh.

“I agree with the Lord of Zembabwei!” Louhi rasped.

“And I have planned a small entertainment for the pleasure of my guests. Kamoinen!” She clapped her hands.

The circle of Witchmen parted, permitting one of their number to step forth. He had a long, whey-colored face and pale blue eyes. In the thin fingers of one white, bony hand he held a slim black rod less than one pace-in length. It was tipped at each end with a ball of dully gleaming metal, slightly smaller than a fowl’s egg.

He saluted his queen. “Command me, Avatar,” he said in a toneless voice. The cat-green eyes flashed in the stern, wrinkled mask. They burned upon Conan with malignant fires.

“Beat the Cimmerian to his knees before us,” she rasped, “so that my colleagues can see they have little to fear from this man Conan!”

The slim, black-clad man bowed low. Then he swung upon Conan, ball-tipped rod blurring through the air. But the wary Cimmerian took a great leap backwards to avoid the strange wooden rod whose purpose he did not understand. It hissed past his face, ruffling his gray-shot mane as it flew.

The two circled in a half-crouch. Conan clenched and unclenched his heavy hands. His savage instinct was to spring upon the gaunt Hyperborean and crush him to earth with one sledgehammer blow. But something warned him to be wary of that slender, harmless-looking baton that swung so agilely from the long white fingers.

Standing back among the Witchmen, young Conn chewed his knuckles. Suddenly he took his hand away and shrilled out a rapid sentence in Cimmerian. It was a harsh, uncouth tongue, full of singsong vowels and crashing, guttural consonants. None in the room, save his sire, knew it.

Conan’s eyes narrowed. The boy had warned him that the Witchmen plied their rods against sensitive nerve clusters. Suddenly Conan lunged like a striking tiger at his opponent, clumsily lifting a balled fist as if to sweep him off his feet with a wide blow. The weighted rod flicked out at his elbow.

As the rod flashed for the joint of Conan’s right arm, whose fist was lifted above his head, the Cimmerian swiveled suddenly and smashed the rod aside with his left.

The blow only grazed Conan’s left forearm, but it sent a bolt of pain lancing from wrist to shoulder. This, however, did not really matter. Conan gritted his teeth against the pain and smashed the man flat with a crushing blow of his balled right fist.

In the same blur of furious action, Conan bent, snatched the Witchman up before he hit the floor, whirled on the balls of his feet, and sent his antagonist frying through the air.

The flailing black-clad figure flew and hit the huge copper bowl atop the dais. The bowl was filled to the brim with blazing, red-hot coals. It went over with a noisy clang, bathing the four astounded adepts in a fiery shower.

Louhi screamed as her white robes burst aflame. Thoth-Amon roared, shielding his face with his arms as blazing, blistering coals spewed over them. In his clumsy haste to avoid the flying shower of flame, the little Kambujan knocked over his throne. He tripped across its legs and fell into the puddle of flame.

The hall exploded in chaos. The circle of black-clad guards had broken their immobility, but they were too late. For Conan was among them in an instant, knocking them about like tenpins. His big scarred fists smashed left and right, and with every blow he dealt a cracked skull, a broken jaw, or a mouthful of shattered teeth.

Young Conn, too, burst into action. Not for nothing had Conan tutored the boy in the art of rough-and-tumble.

The instant his father closed with his first opponent, Conn whirled and kicked the nearest Witchman on the kneecap. The man staggered and fell. Conn kicked him in the head, snatched up a wooden stool, and swung it with both hands at the nearest Witchmen. In the first ten seconds, he felled four men with it.

On the dais, the god-king of Angkhor flopped and squealed, his face a seared and blackened mask of pain. Booming his war cry, the gigantic black snatched up a wooden throne-chair and hurled it an Conan.

Conan fell prone, and the heavy chair smashed into the circle of his foes, knocking them sprawling. In a flash, the giant Cimmerian sprang over the tangle of men and leaped upon the dais. His hands lunged at the throat of Thoth-Amon.

But the old witch blundered into his path. Her white robes were a mass of flames, and her screeching rose above the clamor. Conan stumbled aside as she hurtled down the steps of the dais, wrapped in fire. In that instant, Thoth-Amon made his move.

A sudden flash of green flame brightened the hall in a soundless puff of emerald brilliance. The uncanny radiance swirled about the Stygian as Conan stopped to snatch up Louhi’s throne as a weapon.

But even Conan’s blurring speed was too late. As he hurled the chair, Thoth-Amon, wrapped in green luminescence, faded from sight.

Conan turned. The room was chaos. Scattered coals had set the straw on the floor aflame; maimed and broken men were strewn about the cavernous hall. Afar he spied his son valiantly swinging the stool. The boy had already injured half a dozen Witchmen, but others closed about him, swinging their deadly rods. A score of the Witchmen were leaping up the steps of the dais for Conan, faces grim and cold, deadly black rods flicking.

NINE: Night of Blood and Fire

Conan snatched up the copper bowl. The heat remaining in it seared his fingers, but he flung the huge vessel into the first rank of the charging Witchmen. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Conan whirled in time to see the mighty black fade from view in a second flare of soundless green fire. That magic, it seemed, could bridge the vast distances of space between frigid Hyperborea and far, jungled Zembabwei. It was obvious that the adepts had used much the same method to travel here in the first place.

“Cimmerian!”

Something in the tone of that lisping voice froze Conan. He turned his head.

The Kambujan was a sorry sight. His fantastic jewel-covered robes were black with soot, ripped and torn. His gem-encrusted crown had fallen away, revealing his shaven skull. His face was hideously blackened and blistered. But through the seared mask his eyes blazed with deadly power into Conan’s.

One hand, covered with burns, blisters, and glittering rings, was extended. But a weird force flashed from the tense, quivering fingers to bathe the mighty Cimmerian.

Conan gasped. His flesh numbed as if he had been suddenly plunged into the depths of an icy river. Paralysis seized his limbs.

Setting his teeth, he struggled against the spell with all his might. His face blackened with effort; his eyes bulged in their sockets. Then the tension drained from him. He was frozen into immobility, and all his giant strength could not break the spell.

Crouched amidst the coals, the little Kambujan smiled, although his burned face winced at the movement of seared lips. Unholy glee blazed in his cold, ophidian eyes.

Slowly he extended his arm to its full length, mumbling strange words of power.

Pain ripped through Conan’s mighty heart. Darkness swept about him, sucking him down.

And then, with a sharp thud, the vaned butt of a crossbow bolt appeared, protruding from the side of Pra-Eun’s shaven skull. The rest of the missile was buried in the Kambujan’s brain. The cold black eyes glazed and went dull.

A shudder swept through the crouched figure. Then the dead thing wobbled and fell forward. The spell snapped, and Conan was free.

He staggered, caught himself, and stood gasping as strength and vitality flooded back into his benumbed flesh.

He raised his eyes and looked over the corpse of Pra-Eun. At the far extremity of the hall, Euric the huntsman lowered his massive crossbow. It had been the riskiest shot of his career, hitting the crouching sorcerer across the length of the gloom-drenched hall.

Behind him, crowding into the hall, came a dozen mail-clad knights and a hundred stout guardsmen in the livery of Tanasul. Prospero had come at last.

As dawn lit the east with pink flame, Conan wrapped a warm wool cloak about the shoulders of his son. Although his hands were bandaged over the burns inflicted by the copper cauldron, he lifted the weary boy astride one of the guardsmen’s horses. The long, terrible night of blood and fire was over, and the ending was a happy one. Prospero’s knights had swept the keep from end to end, slaughtering every last member of the Witchwoman’s following. A good night’s work, the crushing of the cult of death-worshipers which had ruled the north with the cold hand of terror.

Conan looked back. Flames shot through the arrow slits of the fortress of Pohiola. Already the roof of the keep had fallen in. Buried in the rubble, under tons of crushed stone, lay the corpses of Pra-Eun and Louhi. Had he not warned Louhi that he would be her doom? Prospero had ridden like the wind back to Tanasul, had pulled together a fighting force in hours, and had plunged back on the long trail across Gunderland and the Border Kingdom as if a thousand devils were at his back.

By day and by night, he and his grim-faced levy had flogged their horses on, haunted by the fear that they might arrive too late. But they had come, as it chanced, at just the right time. Even as they rode within bowshot of the great keep, no eye had been at battlement or loophole to observe their approach. And the reason was that Conan was holding at bay half a hundred Witchmen and the four most deadly magicians on earth.

The portcullis was up and the great iron-studded door had swung open at a touch. The servants of the White Hand were too contemptuous of lesser men and too confident in the powers of their cat-eyed queen to bother with bolting the door.

Thunder shook the earth. Flames shot up to the heavens. Behind them the great keep came crashing down in ruins. Pohiola was no more, but its evil would linger in myth and fable for thousands of years.

Weary and travel stained, but with heart-deep content shining in his eyes, Prospero came up to where Conan stood, leaning upon the horse that bore the sleepy boy. Conan’s eyes flashed.

“You even remembered to bring my Black Wodan!” he grinned, slapping the great stallion on the flanks. It nosed him affectionately.

“Shall we go home now, sire?” Prospero asked.

“Aye—home to Tarantia! I’ve had a bellyful of hunting. And of being hunted! Devil take these Hyperborean fogs! I’ve the sour taste of them in my throat” Conan growled. He thoughtfully gazed about.

“What is it, sire?”

“I was just wondering—would you have any more of that good red wine of the Poitanian vineyards? As I recall, after the hunt, there was a little left…”

Conan broke off, flushing. For Prospero had begun to laugh until the tears were pouring down his cheeks, cutting runnels through the caked dust.