Drums of Tombalku

Chapter Three

It was the third day after Amalric's meeting with Conan that the riders of Tombalku neared the capital. Amalric rode at the head of the column beside Conan, and Iissa followed closely behind Amalric on a mare. Behind them trotted the company, strung out in a double line. Loose white garments fluttered in the breeze; bridles jingled; saddle leather creaked; the setting sun shone redly on the points of lances. Most of the riders were Tibu, but there were also contingents from the lesser desert tribes.

All, besides their local languages, spoke the simplified dialect of Shemitish that served as a common tongue for the dark-skinned folk from Kush to Zembabwei and from Stygia to the half-mythical black kingdom of the Atlaians, far to south. Many centuries before, Shemitish traders had stitched this vast area with their bade routes and had brought to it their language along with their trade goods. And Amalric knew enough Shemitish to communicate with these fierce warriors of the arid lands.

As the sun, like a vast drop of blood, sank toward the horizon, points of light appeared ahead. The ground fell away in a gentle slope before the riders, then leveled out again. On this level sprawled a large city of low dwellings. All these houses were made of dun-colored mud brick, so that Amalric's first impression was of a natural formation of earth and rock —a tumbled mass of bluffs, ravines, and boulders— rather than a city.

At the foot of the slope rose a stout brick wall, over which appeared the upper parts of the houses. lights glowed from an open space at the center of the city, whence came a roaring sound, faint with distance.

"Tombalku," said Conan briefly, then cocked his head to listen. "Crom! Something's up. We'd better hurry."

He touched spurs to his horse. The column cantered down the slope, jingling, behind him.

Tombalku stood on a low, wedge-shaped escarpment amid widespread groves of palms and spiny mimosas. The escarpment overlooked a bend in a sluggish river, which reflected the deepening blue of the evening sky. Beyond the river, the land rolled away in grassy savannas.

"What river is that?" asked Amalric.

"The Jeluba," replied Conan. "It flows east from here. Some say it flows on across Darfar and Keshan to join the Styx; some, that it swings south to pour into the Zarkheba. Perhaps some day I'll follow it down to see."

The massive wooden gates stood open as the column cantered through. Inside the gate, white-clad forms moved through the narrow, crooked streets. Behind the white men, the riders shouted hails to acquaintances and boasts of their prowess.

Turning in his saddle, Conan snapped out an order to a brown-skinned warrior, who led the column off toward the barracks. The Cimmerian, followed by Amalric and Lissa, trotted purposefully toward the central square.

Tombalku was awakening from its afternoon doze. Everywhere white-clad, dark-skinned figures trudged through the soft sand of the streets. Amalric was struck by the unexpected size of this desert metropolis and by the incongruous mixtures of barbarism and civilization to be seen on every hand. In spacious temple courtyards, within a few yards of each other, painted and feathered witch-doctors pranced and shook their sacred bones, dusky priests intoned the myths of their race, and dusky philosophers argued the nature of man and the gods.

As the three riders neared the central square, they fell in with more of the people of the city, all hurrying in the same direction. When the street became crowded, Conan's bellowing voice cleared a path for the horses.

They dismounted on the edge of the square, and Conan tossed the bridles of the horses to a man he picked out of the crowd. Then the Cimmerian shouldered his way toward the thrones on the far side of the square. Lissa clung to Amalric's arm as he pushed through the crowd in Conan's wake.

Around the plaza, regiments of black spearmen were drawn up to form a vast hollow square. The light of fires, blazing at the corners of the square, lit up the warriors' great oval shields of elephant hide, the long blades of their spearheads, the ostrich plumes and lions' manes of their headdresses, and white eyeballs and teeth against shiny black skins.

In the center of the hollow square, a man was tied to a post. This man, stripped to a loin cloth, was stocky, muscular, and brown-skinned, with heavy features. He strained at his bonds, while in front of him pranced a lean, fantastic figure. This man was black, but most of his skin was covered with painted designs. His shaven head was painted to resemble a skull. His regalia of plumes and monkey fur whipped this way and that as he danced in front of a small tripod, under which a fire smoldered and from which a thin spire of colored smoke ascended.

Beyond the stake, at one side of the hollow square, rose two thrones of stuccoed and painted brick, ornamented with bits of colored glass, with arms made from whole elephants' tusks. These thrones stood on a single dais, to which several steps led up. On the throne to Amalric's right, a huge, fat, black figure lounged. This man wore a long white gown and, on his head, an elaborate headdress, which included the skull of a lion and several ostrich plumes.

The other throne was empty, but the man who would have occupied it stood beside the other throne. This was a thin, hawk-faced, brown man, who wore a white robe like the other but, on his head, a jeweled turban instead of the first man's headgear of bones and feathers. The lean man was shaking a fist at the fat one and shouting, while a group of throne guards uneasily watched their kings quarrel. As Amalric, following Conan, came closer, he made out the lean one's words:

"You lie! Askia himself sent this sending of serpents, as you call it, to give him an excuse to murder Daura! If you do not stop this 'buffoonery, there will be war! We shall slay you, you black savage, little by little!" The thin man's voice rose to a scream. "Do as I say! Stop Askia, or else, by Jhill the Merciless…"

He reached for his scimitar, the guards about the throne shifted their spears.

The fat black merely laughed up at the furious face above him.

Conan, having pushed through the lines of spearmen, bounded up the brick steps of the dais and thrust himself between the two monarchs.

"Better take your hand off that sword, Zehbeh," he growled, and turned to the other. "What's going on, Sakumbe?"

The black king chuckled. "Daura thought to get rid of me by a sending of serpents. Ugh! Vipers in my bedding, asps among my robes, mambas dripping from the roof beams. Three of my women have died of their bites, besides several slaves and attendants. Askia learned by divination that Daura was the culprit, and my men surprised him with the evidence in the midst of his incantations. Look yonder, General Conan: Askia has just slain the goat. His demons will arrive any time, now.''

Following Conan's gaze, Amalric looked down into the hollow square towards the stake with its bound victim, in front of which the goat was expiring. Askia was nearing the climax of his incantation. His voice rose to a shriek as he leaped and capered and rattled his bones. The smoke from the tripod thickened, writhed, and glowed with a ghastly radiance of its own.

Overhead, night had fallen. The stars, which had began to shine out brightly in the clear desert air, turned dim and red; a crimson veil seemed to be drawn across the face of the rising moon. The fires sank and smoldered redly. A crackle of speech, in no human tongue, wafted down from the upper air. There was a sound like the beating of leathery wings.

Askia stood straight and still, with arms outstretched, plumed head thrown back, mouthing a long incantation of strange names. Amalric's hair rose; for, among the rush of meaningless syllables, he caught the name "Ollam-onga," repeated thrice.

Then Daura shrieked so loudly as to drown out Askia's incantation. In the flickering firelight, with the weird glow from the tripod blurring the sight, Amalric could not be quite sure of what he saw. Something seemed to be happening to Daura, who struggled and screamed.

Around the base of the stake to which the wizard was tied, a pool of blood grew and widened. Ghastly wounds appeared all over the man, although nothing could be seen to deal such injuries. His screams sank to a faint sob and ceased, although his body continued to move in its bindings, as if some invisible presence were tugging at it. A faint gleam of white, appeared amidst the dark mass that had been Daura; then another and another. Amalric realized with a start of horror that these white things were bones…

The moon returned to its normal silvery radiance; the stars shone out again like jewels; the fires in the hollow square blazed up. The waxing light showed a skeleton, still bound to the stake and slumped in a pool of blood. King Sakumbe spoke in his high, musical voice:

"So much for that scoundrel Daura. Now, as for Zehbeh … By Ajujo's nose, where is the villain?"

Zehbeh had disappeared while all other eyes had been focused on the drama at the stake.

"Conan," said Sakumbe, "you had better call up the regiments; for I do not think my brother king will let this night's work pass without taking a hand in it."

Conan dragged Amalric forward. "King Sakumbe, this is Amalric the Aquilonian, a sometime comrade in arms of mine. I need him for an adjutant. Amalric, you and your girl had better stay with the king, since you don't know your way around the city and would only get yourselves killed if you tried to mix in the fight that's coming.''

"I am pleased to meet a friend of the mighty Amra.'' said Sakumbe. "Put him on the payroll, Conan, and muster the warriors … Derketo, the rascal has not lost any time! Look yonder!"

An uproar arose at the far side of the plaza. Conan sprang from the dais in a flying leap and began shouting orders to the commanders of the black regiments.

Messengers dashed off. Somewhere, deep-voiced drums, beaten with the light-brown palms of black hands, began to mutter and mumble.

At the far side of the plaza, a troop of white-clad horsemen burst into view, thrusting with lances and smiting with scimitars at the black masses in front of them. Before their onslaught, the lines of black spearmen crumbled into shapeless masses. Man after man went down before their flashing steel. King Sakumbe's bodyguard closed up around the dais with the two thrones, one empty and the other occupied by the ponderous bulk of Sakumbe.

Lissa, trembling, clung to Amalric's arm. "Who fights whom?" she whispered.

''That would be Zehbeh's Aphaki," replied Amalric, "trying to slay the black king, here, to make Zehbeh sole ruler."

"Will they break through to the throne?" she said, pointing to the struggling mass of dark figures across the plaza.

Amalric shrugged and glanced at Sakumbe. The Kushite king lolled in his throne, apparently unconcerned. He raised a golden cup to his lips and took a swig of wine. Then he handed a similar cup to Amalric.

"You must be thirsty, white man, after coming in from a long patrol without time to wash or rest," he said. "Have a drink!"

Amalric shared his drink with Lissa. Across the plaza, the trampling and neighing of horses, the clash of arms, the screams of wounded men merged in an unholy din. Raising his voice to be heard, Amalric said:

"Your Majesty must be very brave, to show so little concern; or else very…"

Amalric bit off the end of the sentence.

''Or else very stupid, you mean?" The long laughed musically. "No; I am only realistic. I am much too fat to outrun an active man on foot, let alone a mounted man. So, if I run, my people will cry that all is lost and flee, leaving me to be caught by the pursuers. Whereas, if I stay here, there is a good chance that … ah, there they come!''

More black warriors were pouring into the square and adding their weight to the battle. And now the Aphaki mounted force began to give way. Horses, speared, reared and fell on their riders; riders were pulled from their horses by strong black arms or struck from the saddle by javelins. Soon a trumpet sounded harshly; the remaining Aphaki wheeled their mounts and galloped out of the square. The din diminished.

Silence fell, save for the moans of the wounded who uttered the paving of the plaza. Black women came out of the side streets to look for their men among the fallen, to tend them if alive and to wail for them if dead.

Sakumbe sat placidly on his throne, drinking, until Conan, bloody sword in hand and followed by a knot of befeathered black officers, strode across the plaza.

"Zehbeh and most of his Aphaki got away'' he said. "I had to dent a few of your boys' skulls to stop them from massacring the Aphaki women and children. We may need them for hostages."

"It is well," said Sakumbe. "Have a drink."

"A good idea," said Conan, quaffing deeply. Then he glanced at the empty throne beside that of Sakumbe. The black king followed his glance and grinned.

"Well?" said Conan. "How about it? Do I get it?"

Sakumbe gave a giggle. "Trust you to strike while the iron is hot, Conan! You have not changed."

Then the king spoke in a language that Amalric did not know. Conan grunted a reply, and there was an exchange in this unknown tongue. Askia climbed the stairs of the dais and joined the talk. He spoke vehemently, shooting suspicious, scowling glances at Conan and at Amalric.

At last, Sakumbe silenced the wizard with one sharp word and heaved his huge bulk up out of his throne. "People of Tombalku!" he cried.

All over the plaza, eyes turned towards the dais. Sakumbe continued: "Since the false traitor Zehbeh has fled the city, one of the two thrones of Tombalku is empty. You have seen what a mighty warrior Conan is. Will you have him for your other king?"

After a moment of silence, a few shouts of approval were heard. Amalric noted that the men shouting seemed to be Tibu riders, whom Conan had led in person.

The shouts swelled to a roar of approval. Sakumbe pushed Conan into the vacant throne. A mighty yell went up. In the plaza, which had now been cleared of corpses and wounded, the fires were rekindled. Drums began to beat again, this time not for war but for a wild all-night celebration.

Hours later, dizzy with drink and weariness, Amalric dragged himself and Lissa along the streets of Tombalku, under Conan's guidance, to the modest house he had found for them. Before they parted, Amalric asked Conan:

"What was that speech with Sakumbe, in some tongue I do not know, just before you were enthroned?"

A laugh rumbled deep in Conan's throat. "We spoke a coastal dialect, which these people don't understand. Sakumbe was telling me that we should get along fine as co-kings, provided I remembered the color of my skin''

"What did he mean by that?"

"That it would do me no good to scheme to steal his power, because the pure blacks are now in the overwhelming majority here, and they would never obey a white king."

"Why not?"

"Because they have been too often massacred and plundered and enslaved by marauding bands of white men from Stygia and Shem, I suppose."

"What about the wizard, Askia? What was he haranguing Sakumbe about?"

"He was warning the king against us. He claimed his spooks have told him that we shall be the cause of woe and destruction to Tombalku. But Sakumbe shut him up, saying he knew me better than that; that he trusted me farther than he trusted any medicine man." Conan yawned like a sleeppy lion. "Get your little girl to bed before she falls asleep on her feet"

"How about you?"

"Me? I'm going back. The party has hardly started!"