Drums of Tombalku

Chapter Two

It was just before sundown when Lissa pointed and cried out: "Look! The towers of Gazal!"

On the desert rim he saw them … spires and minarets, rising in a jade-green cluster against the blue sky. But for the girl, he would have thought it the phantom city of a mirage. He glanced at Lissa curiously; she showed no signs of eager joy at her homecoming. She sighed, and her slim shoulders seemed to droop.

As they approached, the details swam more plainly into view. Sheer from the desert sands rose the wall that enclosed the towers. And Amalric saw that the wall was crumbling in many places. The towers, too, were much in disrepair.

Roofs sagged; broken battlements gaped; spires leaned drunkenly. Panic assailed him; was it a city of the dead to which he rode, guided by a vampire? A quick glance at the girl reassured him. No demon could lurk in that divinely molded form. She glanced at him with a strange, wistful questioning in her deep eyes, turned irresolutely toward the desert, and then, with a deep sigh, set her face toward the city, as if gripped by a subtle and fatalistic despair.

Now, through the gaps in the jade-green wall, Amalric saw figures moving within the city. No one hailed them as they rode through a broad breach in the wall and came out into a wide street. Close at hand, limned in the sinking sun, the decay was more apparent. Grass grew rank in the streets, pushing through shattered paving; grass grew rank in the small plazas. Streets and courts were likewise littered with a rubbish of fallen stones. Here and there, the ruins of a house had been cleared away and the space given over to vegetable gardening.

Domes rose, cracked and discolored. Portals gaped, vacant of doors. Everywhere, ruin had laid its hand. Then Amalric saw one spire untouched: a shining, red, cylindrical tower, which rose in the extreme southeastern comer of the city. It gleamed among the ruins. Amalric indicated it

"Why is that tower less ruined than the others?" he asked. Lissa turned pale, trembled, and convulsively caught his hand.

"Do not speak of it!" she whispered. "Do not look toward it … do not even think of it!"

Amalric scowled; the nameless implication of her words had somehow changed the aspect of the mysterious tower. Now it seemed like a serpent's head, rearing amid ruin and desolation. A stream of black specks —bats on the wing— poured from its high black apertures.

The young Aquilonian looked warily about him. After all, he had no assurance that the people of Gazal would receive him in a friendly manner. He saw people moving leisurely about the streets. When they halted and stared at him, his flesh for some reason crawled.

They were men and women with kindly features, and their looks were mild. But their interest seemed so slight … so vague and impersonal. They made no move to approach or speak to him. It might have been the commonest thing in the world for an armed horseman to ride into their city from the desert; yet Amalric knew that this was not the case, and the casual manner with which the people of Gazal received him caused a faint uneasiness in his bosom.

Lissa spoke to them, indicating Amalric, whose hand she lifted like an affectionate child. "This is Amalric of Aquilonia, who rescued me from the black people and has brought me home."

A polite murmur of welcome rose from the people, and several of them approached to extend their hands. Amalric thought he had never seen such vague, kindly faces; their eves were soft and mild, without fear and without wonder. Yet they were not the eyes of stupid ones; rather, they were the eyes of wolves wrapped in dreams.

Their stare gave him a feeling of unreality; he hardly knew what was said to him.

His mind was occupied by the strangeness of it all: these quiet, dreamy people, in their silken tunics and soft sandals, moving with aimless vagueness among the discolored ruins. A lotus paradise of illusion? Somehow that sinister red tower struck a discordant note.

One of the men, with a smooth, unlined face but hair of silver, said:

"Aquilonia? There was an invasion … we heard by King Bragorus of Nemedia. How went the war?''

"He was driven hack," answered Amalric briefly, resisting a shudder. Nine hundred years had passed since Bragorus had led his spearmen across the marches of Aquilonia.

His questioner did not press him further; the people drifted away, and Lissa tugged at his hand. He turned and feasted his eyes upon her. In a realm of illusion and dream, her soft, firm body anchored his wandering conjectures. She was no dream; she was real; her body was sweet and tangible as cream and honey.

"Come," she said, "let us go to rest and eat."

"What of the people?" he demurred. "Will you not tell them of your experiences?"

"They would not heed, except for a few moments," she answered. "They would listen a little, then drift away. They hardly know I have been gone. Come!"

Amalric led the horse and the camel into an enclosed court, where the grass grew high and water seeped from a broken fountain into a incredible trough. There he tethered them; then he followed Lissa. Taking his hand, she led him across the court into an arched doorway. .Night had fallen. In the open space above the court; the stars clustered, etching the jagged pinnacles.

Through a series of dark chambers Lissa went, moving with the sureness of long practice. Amalric groped after her, guided by her little hand in his. He found it no pleasant adventure. The scent of dust and decay hung in the thick darkness. Under his feet were sometimes broken tiles and sometimes worn carpets.

His free hand touched the fretted arches of doorways. Then the stars gleamed through a broken roof, showing him a dim winding hallway, hung with rotting tapestries. They rustled in a faint breeze; their noise was like the whispering of witches, causing the hair of his scalp to stir.

Then they came into a chamber dimly lighted by star-shine streaming through open windows, and Lissa released his hand. She fumbled for an instant and produced a faint light. It was a glassy knob, which glowed with a golden radiance. She set it on a marble table and indicated that Amalric should recline on a couch thickly littered with silks.

Groping into some hidden recess, she produced a golden vessel of wine and others containing food unfamiliar to Amalric. There were dates; but the other fruits and vegetables, pallid and insipid to his taste, he did not recognize. The wine was pleasant to the palate but no more heady than dishwater.

Seated on a marble seat facing him, Lissa nibbled daintily.

"What sort of place is this?" he demanded. "You are like these people, yet strangely unlike them."

"They say I am like our ancestors," answered Lissa. "Long ago, they came into the desert and built this city amid a great oasis, which contained a series of springs. The stone they took from the ruins of a much older city … only the Red Tower …" (her voice dropped, and she glanced nervously at the star-framing windows) "… only the red tower stood there. It was empty … then.''

"Our ancestors, who were called Gazali, once dwelt in southern Koth. They were noted for their scholarly wisdom. But they sought to revive the worship of Mitra, which the Kothians had long since abandoned, and the king drove them from his kingdom. They came southward, many of them: priests, scholars, teachers, and scientists, with their Shemitish slaves. They reared Gazal in the desert; but the slaves revolted almost as soon as the city was built and, fleeing, mixed with the wild tribes of the desert. They were not ill-treated; but word came to them in the night … a word that sent them fleeing madly from the city into the desert.''

"My people dwelt here, learning to produce their food and drink from such material as was at hand. Their learning was a marvel. When the slaves fled, they took with them every camel, horse, and ass in the city. Thenceforth, there was no communication with the outer world. There are whole chambers in Gazal filled with maps and books and chronicles, but they are all nine hundred years old at the least; for it was nine hundred years ago that my people fled from Koth. Since then, no man of the outside world has set foot in Gazal. And the people are slowly vanishing. They have become so dreamy and introspective that they have neither human passions nor human appetites. The city falls into ruins and none moves a hand to repair it. The horror …" (she choked and shuddered) "… when the horror came upon them, they could neither flee nor fight."

"What do you mean?" he whispered, a cold wind blowing on his spine. The rustling of rotten hangings down nameless black corridors stirred dim fears in his soul.

She shook her head. She rose, came around the marble table, and laid hands on his shoulders. Her eyes were wet and shone with horror and a desperate yearning that caught at his throat. Instinctively his arm went around her lithe form, and he felt her tremble.

"Hold me!" she' begged. "I am afraid! Oh, I have dreamed of such a man as you. I am not like my people; they are dead men walking forgotten streets; but I am alive. I am warm and sentient. I hunger and thirst and yearn for life. I cannot abide the silent streets and ruined halls and dim people of Gazal, although I have never known anything else. That is why I ran away; I yearned for life …'' She was sobbing uncontrollably in his arms. Her hair streamed over his face; her fragrance made him dizzy. Her firm body strained against his. She was lying across his knees, her arms locked about his neck. Straining her to his breast, he crushed her lips with his. Eyes, lips, cheeks, hair, throat, breasts … he showered her with hot kisses, until her sobs changed to panting gasps. His passion was not the violence of a ravisher. The passion that slumbered in her woke in one overpowering wave. The glowing golden ball, struck by his groping fingers, tumbled to the floor and was extinguished. Only the starshine gleamed through the windows.

Lying in Amalric's arms on the silk-heaped couch, Lissa opened her heart and whispered her dreams and hopes and aspirations … childish, pathetic, terrible.

"I'll take you away," he muttered. ''Tomorrow. You are right; Gazal is a city of the dead. We will seek life in the outer world. It is violent, rough, and cruel, but better than this living death …"

The night was broken by a shuddering cry of agony, horror, and despair. Its timbre brought out cold sweat on Amalric's skin. He started upright from the couch, but Lissa desperately clung to him.

"No, no!" she begged in a frantic whisper. "Do not go! Stay!"

"But murder is being done!" he exclaimed, fumbling for his sword.

The cries seemed to come from across an outer court. Mingled with them was an indescribable, tearing, rending sound. They rose higher and thinner, unbearable in their hopeless agony, then sank away in a long, shuddering sob.

"I have heard men dying on the rack cry out like that!" muttered Amalric, shaking with horror. "What devil's work is this?"

Lissa was trembling violently in a frenzy of terror. He felt the wild pounding of her heart.

"It is the horror of which I spoke!" she whispered. The horror that dwells in the Red Tower. Long ago it came; some say it dwelt there in the lost years and returned after the building of Gazal. It devours human beings. What it is, no one knows, since none has seen it and lived to tell of it. It is a god or a devil. That is why the slaves fled; why the desert people shun Gazal. Many of us have gone into its awful belly. Eventually, all will have gone, and it will rule over an empty city, as men say it ruled over the ruins from which Gazal was reared."

"Why have the people stayed to be devoured?" he demanded.

"I do not know," she whimpered. "They dream…"

"Hypnosis," muttered Amalric; "hypnosis coupled with decay. I saw it in their eyes. This devil has them mesmerized. Mitra, what a foul secret!"

Lissa pressed her face against his bosom and dung to him.

"But what are we to do?" he asked uneasily.

''There is nothing to do," she whispered. ''Your sword would be useless. Perhaps if will not harm us. It has taken a victim tonight. We must wait like sheep for the butcher."

"I'll be damned if I will …" Amalric exclaimed, galvanized. "We will not wait for morning. We'll go tonight. Make a bundle of food and drink. I'll get the horse and the camel and bring them to the court outside. Meet me there.'' Since the unknown monster had already struck, Amalric felt that he was safe in leaving the girl alone for a few minutes. But his flesh crawled as he groped his way down the winding corridor and through the black chambers, where the swinging tapestries whispered. He found the beasts huddled nervously together in the court where he had left them. The stallion whinnied and nuzzled him, as if sensing peril in the breathless night.

Amalric saddled and bridled the animals and led them through the narrow opening into the street. A few minutes later, he was standing in the starlit court. Even as he reached it, he was electrified by an awful scream, which rang shudderingly upon the air. It came from the chamber where he had left Lissa.

He answered that piteous cry with a wild yell. Drawing his sword, he rushed across the court and hurled himself through the window. The golden ball was glowing again, carving out black shadows in the shrinking corners. Silks lay scattered on the floor. The marble seat was upset; but the chamber was empty.

A sick weakness overcame Amalric, and he staggered against the marble table, the dim light wavering dizzily to his sight Then he was swept by a mad rage. The Red Tower! There the fiend would bear its victim!

He darted back across the court; sought the streets, and raced toward the tower, which glowed with an unholy light under the stars. The streets did not run straight. He cut through silent black buildings and crossed courts whose rank grass waved in the night wind.

Ahead of him, clustered about the crimson tower, rose a heap of ruins, where decay had eaten more savagely than at the rest of the city. Apparently none dwelt among them. They reeled and tumbled, a crumbling mass of quaking masonry, with the red tower rearing up among them like a poisonous red flower from charnel-house ruin.

To reach the tower, he would be forced to traverse the ruins. Recklessly he plunged into the black mass, groping for a door. He found one and entered, thrusting his sword ahead of him. Then he saw such a vista as men sometimes see in fantastic dreams.

Ahead of him stretched a long corridor, visible in a faint, unhallowed glow, its black walls hung with strange, shuddersome tapestries. Far down it he saw a receding figure … a white, naked, stooped figure, lurching along, dragging something the sight of which filled him with sweating honor. Then the apparition vanished from his sight, and with it vanished the eerie glow. Amalric stood in the soundless dark, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; thinking only of a stooped, white figure, which dragged a limp human form down a long black corridor.

As he groped onward, a vague memory stirred in his brain: the memory of a grisly tale mumbled to him over a dying fire in the skull-shaped devil ... devil hut of a black witch-man … a tale of a god that dwelt in a crimson house in a ruined city … a god worshiped by darksome cults in dank jungles and along sullen, dusky rivers.

And there stirred, too, in his mind, an incantation whispered in his ear in awed and shuddering tones, while the night held its breath, the lions had ceased to roar along the river, and the very fronds had ceased their scraping, one against the other.

Ollam-onga, whispered a dark wind down the sightless corridor. Ollam-onga, whispered the dust that ground beneath his stealthy feet. Sweat stood on his skin, and the sword shook in his hand. He stole through the house of a god, and fear held him in its bony fist. The house of the god … the full horror of the phrase filled his mind. All the ancestral fears and the fears that reached beyond ancestry and primordial race memory crowded upon him; horror cosmic and unhuman sickened him. The realization of his weak humanity crushed him as he went through the house of darkness, which was the house of a god.

About him shimmered a glow so faint that it was scarcely discernible. He knew that he was approaching the tower itself. Another instant, and he groped his way through an arched door and stumbled upon strangely-spaced steps. Up and up he went; and, as he climbed, that blind fury, which is mankind's last defense against diabolism and all the hostile forces of the universe, surged in him. He forgot his fear. Burning with terrible eagerness, he climbed up and up through the thick, evil darkness, until he came into a chamber lit by a weird, golden glow.

At the far end of the chamber, a short flight of broad steps led upward to a kind of dais or platform, on which stood articles of stone furniture. The mangled remains of the victim lay sprawled on the dais, an arm dangling limply down the steps. The marble steps were stained with a pattern of trickles of blood, like the stalactites that form around the lip of a hot spring. Most of these streaks were old, dried, and dark brown; but a few were still red, moist, and shiny.

Before Amalric, at the foot of these steps, stood a white, naked figure. Amalric halted, his tongue cleaving to his palate. It was to all appearance a naked white man that stood gazing at him, its mighty arms folded on an alabaster breast. The eyes, however, were balls of luminous fire, such as had never looked from any human head. In those eyes, Amalric glimpsed the frozen fires of the ultimate hells, touched by awful shadows.

Then, before him, the form began to grow dim in outline … to waver. With a terrible effort, the Aquilonian burst the bonds of silence and spoke a cryptic and awful incantation. And, as the frightful words cut the silence, the white giant halted … froze. Again his outlines stood out clear and bold against the golden background.

"Now fall on, damn you!" cried Amalric hysterically. "I have bound you into your human shape! The black wizard spoke truly! It was the master word he gave me! Fall on, Ollam-onga! Till you break the spell by feasting on my heart, you are no more than a man like me!"

With a roar like the gust of a black wind, the creature charged. Amalric sprang aside from the clutch of those hands, whose strength was more than that of a whirlwind. A single, taloned finger, spread wide and catching in his tunic, ripped the garment from him like a rotten rag as the monster plunged by. But Amalric, nerved to more than human quickness by the horror of the fight, wheeled and drove his sword through the thing's back, so that the point stood out a foot from the broad breast.

A fiendish howl of agony shook the tower. The monster whirled and rushed at Amalric, but the youth sprang aside and raced up the stairs to the dais. There he wheeled and, catching up a marble seat, hurled it down upon the horror lumbering up the stairs. Full in the face the massive missile struck, carrying the fiend back down the steps.

It rose, an awful sight, streaming blood, and again essayed the stairs. In desperation, Amalric lifted a bench of jade, whose weight wrenched a groan of effort from him, and hurled it.

Beneath the impact of the hurtling bulk, Ollam-onga pitched back down the stair and lay among the marble shards, which were flooded with its blood. With a last, desperate effort, it heaved itself up on its hands, eyes glazing. Throwing back its bloody head, it voiced an awful cry.

Amalric shuddered and recoiled from the abysmal horror of that scream, which was answered. From somewhere in the air above the tower, a faint medley of fiendish cries came back like an echo. Then the mangled white figure went limp among the bloodstained shards. And Amalric knew that one of the gods of Kush was no more.

With the thought came blind, unreasoning horror.

In a fog of terror, he rushed down the steps from the dais, shrinking from the thing that lay staring on the floor. The night seemed to cry out against him, aghast at the sacrilege. Reason, exultant over his triumph, was submerged in a flood of cosmic fear.

As he put foot on the head of the stair, he halted short. Up from the darkness, Lissa came to him, her white arms outstretched, her eyes pools of horror.

"Amalric!" It was a haunting cry. He crushed her in his arms.

"I saw it," she whispered, "dragging a dead man through the corridor. I screamed and fled; then, when I returned, I heard you cry out and knew you had gone to search for me in the Red Tower …"

"And you came to share my fate." His voice was almost inarticulate.

Then, as she tried to peer in trembling fascination past him, he covered her eyes and turned her about. Better that she should not see what lay on the crimson floor. He snatched up his torn tunic but did not dare to touch his sword. As he half led, half carried lissa down the shadowed stairs, a glance over his shoulder showed him that a naked white figure no longer lay amid the broken marble. The incantation had bound Ollam-onga into his human form in life but not in death. Blindness momentarily assailed Amalric; then, stimulated into frantic haste, he hurried Lissa down the stairs and through the dark ruins.

He did not slacken pace until they reached the street, where the camel and the stallion huddled against each other. Quickly he mounted the girl on the camel and swung up on the stallion. Taking the lead line, he headed straight for the broken wall. A few minutes later, he breathed gustily. The open air of the desert cooled his blood; it was free of the scent of decay and hideous antiquity.

There was a small water pouch hanging from his saddle bow. They had no food, and his sword was in the chamber of the Red Tower. Without food and unarmed, they faced the desert; but its peril seemed less grim than the horror of the city behind them.

Without speaking, they rode. Amalric headed south; somewhere in that direction was a water hole. Just at dawn, as they mounted a crest of sand, he looked back toward Gazal, unreal in the pink light. He stiffened, and Lissa cried out. Out of a breach in the wall rode seven horsemen. Their steeds were black, and the riders were cloaked in black from head to foot. There had been no horses in Gazal. Horror swept over Amalric and, turning, he urged their mounts on.

The sun rose red, and then gold, and then a ball of white beaten flame. On and on the fugitives pressed, reeling with heat and fatigue, blinded by the glare.

From time to time, they moistened their lips with water. And behind them, at an even pace, rode seven black dots.

Evening began to fall, and the sun reddened and lurched toward the desert's rim.

A cold hand clutched Amalric's heart. The riders were closing in.

As darkness came on, so came the black riders. Amalric glanced at Lissa, and a groan burst from him. His stallion stumbled and fell. The sun had gone down; the moon was suddenly blotted out by a bat-shaped shadow. In the utter darkness, the stars glowed red, and behind him Amalric heard a rising rush, as of an approaching wind. A black, speeding clump bulked against the night; in which glinted sparks of awful light

"Ride, girl!" he cried despairingly. "Go on … save yourself; it is I they want!"

For answer, she slid down from the camel and threw her arms about him. "I will die with you!"

Seven black shapes loomed against the stars, racing like the wind. Under the hoods shone balls of evil fire; flesh-less jawbones seemed to clack together.

Then there was an interruption; a horse swept past Amalric, a vague bulk in the unnatural darkness. There was the sound of an impact as the unknown steed caromed among the oncoming shapes. A horse screamed frenziedly, and a bull-like voice bellowed in a strange tongue. From somewhere in the night, a clamor of yells replied.

Some sort of violent action was taking place. Horses' hoofs stamped and clattered; there was the impact of savage blows; and the same stentorian voice cursed lustily. Thai the moon came abruptly out and lit a fantastic scene.

A man on a giant horse whirled, slashed, and smote, apparently at thin air. From another direction swept a wild horde of riders, their curved swords flashing in the moonlight. Away over the crest of a rise, seven black figures were vanishing, their cloaks floating out like the wings of bats.

Amalric was swamped by wild men, who leaped from their horses and swarmed around him. Sinewy arms pinioned him; fierce brown hawklike faces snarled at him … lissa screamed.

Then the attackers were thrust right and left as the man on the great horse reined through the crowd. He bent from his saddle and glared closely at Amalric.

"The devil!" he roared. "Amalric the Aquilonian!"

"Conan!" Amalric exclaimed in bewilderment "Conan! Alive!"

"More alive than you seem to be," answered the other. "By Crom, man, you look as if all the devils of this desert had been hunting you through the night. What things were those pursuing you? I was riding around the camp my men had pitched, to make sure no enemies were in hiding, when the moon went out like a candle, and then I heard sounds of flight. I rode toward the sounds; and by Macha, I was among those devils before I knew what was happening. I had my sword in my hand and I laid about me … by Crom, their eyes blazed like fire in the dark! I know my edge bit them; but, when the moon came out, they were gone like a puff of wind. Were they men or devils?"

"Fiends sent up from Hell," shuddered Amalric "Ask me not; some things are not to be discussed."

Conan did not press the matter; nor did he look incredulous. His beliefs included night fiends, ghosts, hobgoblins, and dwarfs.

''Trust you to find a woman, even in a desert," he said, glancing at Lissa. The girl had crept to Amalric and was clinging close to him, glancing fearfully at the wild figures that hemmed them in.

"Wine" roared Conan. "Bring flasks! Here!" He seized a leather flask from those thrust out at him and placed it in Amalric's hand. "Give the girl a swig and drink some yourself," he advised. "Then we'll put you on horses and take you to the camp. You need food, rest, and sleep. I can see that."

A richly caparisoned horse was brought, rearing and prancing, and willing hands helped Amalric into the saddle. The girl was handed up to him, and they moved off southward, surrounded by the wiry brown riders in their picturesque tatters.

Many wore face cloths, which concealed their faces below the eyes.

"Who is he?" whispered Lissa, her arms about her lover's neck. He was holding her on the saddle in front of him.

"Conan the Cimmerian'' muttered Amalric. The man I wandered with in the desert after the defeat of the mercenaries. These are the men who struck him down. I left him lying under their spears, apparently dead. Now we meet him, obviously in command of them and respected by them."

"He is a terrible man," she whispered.

He smiled. "You have never seen a white-skinned barbarian before. He is a wanderer, a plunderer, and a slayer; but he has his own code of morals. I don't think we have anything to fear from him."

In his heart, Amalric was not so sure. In a way, it might be said that he had forfeited Conan's comradeship when he had ridden away into the desert, leaving the Cimmerian senseless on the ground. But he had not known that Conan was alive. Doubt haunted Amalric. Savagely loyal to his companions, the Cimmerian's wild nature saw no reason why the rest of the world should not be plundered. He lived by the sword. And Amalric suppressed a shudder as he thought of what might chance, did Conan desire Lissa.

Later on, having eaten and drunk in the camp of the riders, Amalric sat by a small fire in front of Conan's tent; Lissa, covered with a silken cloak, slumbered with her curly head on his knees. And across from him the firelight played on Conan's face, interchanging lights and shadows.

"Who are these men?" asked the young Aquilonian.

''The riders of Tombalku," answered the Cimmerian.

''Tombalku!" exclaimed Amalric. ''Then it is no myth!"

"Far from it!" agreed Conan. "When my accursed steed fell with me, I was knocked senseless; and, when I recovered consciousness, the devils had me bound hand and foot This angered me, so I snapped several of the cords they had tied me with; but they rebound them as fast as I could break them … never did I get a hand entirely free. Still, to them my strength seemed remarkable…"

Amalric gazed at Conan unspeakingly. The man was as tall and broad as Tilutan had been, without the black man's surplus flesh. He could have broken the Ghanata's neck with his naked hands.

"They decided to carry me to their city instead of killing me out of hand," Conan went on. "They thought a man like me should be a long time in dying by torture and so give them sport. Well, they bound me on a horse without a saddle, and we went to Tombalku. There are two kings of Tombalku. They took me before them … a lean, brown-skinned devil named Zehbeh, and a big fat Kushite, who dozed on his ivory-rusk throne. Zehbeh asked a brown priest, Daura, what should be done with me, and Daura cast dice made of sheep bone and said I should be flayed alive before the altar of Jhil. Everyone cheered, and that woke the Kushite king.''

"I spat on Daura and cursed him roundly, and the kings as well. I told them that, if I was to be skinned, by Crom, I demanded a good bellyfull of wine before they began, and I damned them for thieves and cowards and sons of harlots. At this, the black king roused and sat up and stared at me. Then he rose and shouted: 'Amra!' and I knew him … Sakumbe, a Suba from the Black Coast, a fat adventurer I had known well in the days when I was a corsair along that coast. He trafficked in ivory, gold dust, and slaves and would cheat the devil out of his eye teeth. Well, when he knew me the smelly old devil descended from his throne and embraced me for joy and took my cords off me with his own hands. Then he announced that I was Amra, the Lion, and his friend, and no harm should come to me.''

"Then followed much discusson, because Zehbeh and Daura wanted my hide. But Sakumbe yelled for his witch finder, Askia, and he came —all feathers and bells and snake skins— a wizard of the Black Coast and a son of the Devil if ever there was one. Askia pranced and made incantations and announced that Sakumbe was the chosen of Ajujo, the Dark One, and what he said, went. All the black people of Tombalku shouted, and Zehbeh backed down. For the blacks in Tombalku are the real power. Several centuries ago, the Aphaki, a Shemitish race, pushed into the southern desert and established the kingdom of Tombalku. They mixed with the desert blacks, and the result was a brown, straight-haired race, which is still more white than black. They are the dominant caste in Tombalku. But they are in the minority, and a pure black king always sits on the throne beside the Aphaki ruler.''

''The Aphaki conquered the nomads of the southwestern desert and the Kushite tribes of the steppes that lie to the south of them. Most of these riders, for instance, are Tibu, of mixed Stygian and Kushite blood. Others are the Bigharma, the Mindanga, and the Bomi. Well, Sakumbe, through Askia, is the real ruler of Tombalku. The Aphaki worship Jhil, but the blacks worship Ajujo the Dark One and his kin. Askia came to Tombalku with Sakumbe and revived the worship of Ajujo, which was crumbling because of the Aphaki priests. He also has a private cult of his own, worshiping the gods know what sort of abominations. Askia made black magic, which defeated the wizardry of the Aphaki, and the blacks hailed him as a prophet sent by the dark gods. Sakumbe and Askia wax as Zehbeh and Daura wane.''

"Since I am Sakumbe's friend, and Askia spoke for me, the blacks received me with great applause. Sakumbe had Kordofo, the general of the horsemen, poisoned and gave me his place, which delighted the blacks and exasperated the Aphaki. You will like Tombalku! It was made for men like us to loot! There are half a dozen powerful factions plotting and intriguing against one another. There are continual brawls in the taverns and streets, secret murders, mutilations, and executions. And there are women, gold, wine-all that a mercenary wants! And I am high in favor and power! By Crom, Amalric, you could not come at a better time!''

''Why, what's the matter? You do not seem so enthusiastic as I remember your once having been in such matters."

"I crave your pardon, Conan," said Amalric. "I do not lack interest, but weariness and want of sleep overcome me."

However, it was not of gold, women, and intrigue that the Aquilonian was thinking, but of the girl who slumbered in his lap. There was no joy in the thought of taking her into such a welter of intrigue and blood as Conan had described. A subtle change had come over Amalric, almost without his knowledge.

Carefully, he said:

"You saved our lives just now, for which I shall always be grateful. But I have no real claim on your generosity, since I rode off and left you lying for the Aphaki to capture. True, I thought you surely dead, but…"

Conan threw back his head and laughed a deep, rumbling laugh. Then he slapped the younger man on the back with a force that almost knocked him sprawling.

"Forget it! I ought to have been dead, by all reasonable chances; and they've had speared you like a frog if you'd tried to rescue me. Come on to Tombalku with us and make yourself useful! You commanded a troop of horse for Zapayo, didn't you?"

"Aye, that I did."

"Well, I need an adjutant to help drill my lads. They fight like fiends but without order, each man for himself. Between us, we can make real soldiers of them. More wine!" he roared.