The Snout in the Dark

THREE: Tananda Rides

Dawn lit the skies above Meroe with crimson flame. Shafts of rich, ruddy light struck through the misty air and glanced from the copper-sheathed domes and spires of the stone-walled Inner City. Soon the people of Merae were astir. In the Outer City, statuesque black women walked to the market square with gourds and baskets on their heads, while young girls chattered and laughed on their way to the wells. Naked children fought and played in the dust or chased each other through the narrow streets. Giant black men squatted in the doorways of their thatched huts, working at their trades, or lolled on the ground in the shade.

In the market square, merchants squatted under striped awnings, displaying pots and other manufactures, and vegetables and other produce, on the littered pavement. Black folks chaffered and bargained with endless talk over plantains, banana beer, and hammered brass ornaments. Smiths crouched over little charcoal fires, laboriously beat­ing out iron hoes, knives, and spearheads. The hot sun blazed down on all - the sweat, mirth, anger, nakedness, strength, squalor, and vigor of the black people of Kush.

Suddenly there came a change in the pattern, a new note in the timbre. With a clatter of hoofs, a group of horse­men rode by in the direction of the great gate of the Inner City. There were half a dozen men and a woman, who dominated the group.

Her skin was a dusky brown; her hair, a thick, black mass, caught back and confined by a golden fillet. Besides the sandals on her feet and the jewel-crusted golden plates that partly covered her full breasts, her only garment was a short silken skirt girdled at the waist. Her features were straight; her bold, scintillating eyes, full of challenge and sureness. She handled the slim Kushite horse with ease and certitude by means of a jeweled bridle and palm-wide, gilt-worked reins of scarlet leather. Her sandaled feet stood in wide silver stirrups, and a gazelle lay across her saddle bow. A pair of slender coursing hounds trotted close be­hind her horse.

As the woman rode by, work and chatter ceased. The black faces grew sullen; the murky eyes burned redly. The blacks turned their heads to whisper in one another's ears, and the whispers grew to an audible, sinister murmur.

The youth who rode at the woman's stirrup became nervous. He glanced ahead, along the winding street. Esti­mating the distance to the bronze gates, not yet in view between the huts, he whispered, “The people grow ugly, Highness. It was folly to ride through the Outer City to­day.”

“All the black dogs in Kush shall not keep me from my hunting!” replied the woman. “If any threaten, ride them down.”

“Easier said than done,” muttered the youth, scanning the silent throng. “They are coming from their houses and massing thick along the street - look there?”

They entered a wide, ragged square, where the black folk swarmed. On one side of this square stood a house of dried mud and palm trunks, larger than its neighbors, with a cluster of skulls above the doorway. This was the temple of Jullah, which the ruling caste contemptuously called the devil-devil house. The black folk worshiped Jullah in op­position to Set, the serpent-god of their rulers and of their Stygian ancestors.

The black folk thronged in this square, sullenly staring at the horsemen. There was an air of menace in their attitude. Tananda. for the first time feeling a slight ner­vousness, failed to notice another rider, approaching the square along another street. This rider would ordinarily have attracted attention, for he was neither brown nor black. He was a white man, a powerful figure in chain mail and helmet.

“These dogs mean mischief,” muttered the youth at Tananda's side, half drawing his curved sword. The other guardsmen - black men like the folk around them - drew closer about her but did not draw their blades. The low, sullen muttering grew louder, although no movement was made.

“Push through them,” ordered Tananda, spurring her horse. The blacks gave back sullenly before her advance.

Then, suddenly, from the devil-devil house came a lean, black figure. It was old Ageera, the witch-smeller, clad only in a loincloth. Pointing at Tananda, he yelled, “There she rides, she whose hands are dipped in blood! She who murdered Amboola!”

His shout was the spark that set off the explosion. A vast roar arose from the mob. They surged forward, screaming, “Death to Tananda!”

In an instant, a hundred black hands were clawing at the legs of the riders. The youth reined between Tananda and the mob, but a flying stone shattered his skull. The guards­men, thrusting and hacking, were torn from their steeds and beaten, stamped, and stabbed to death. Tananda, beset at last by terror, screamed as her horse reared. A score of wild black figures, men and women, clawed at her.

A giant grasped her thigh and plucked her from the saddle, full into the furious hands that eagerly awaited her. Her skirt was ripped from her body and waved in the air above her, while a bellow of primitive laughter went up from the surging mob. A woman spat in her face and tore off her breastplates, scratching her breasts with blackened fingernails. A hurtling stone grazed her head.

Tananda saw a stone clutched in a hand, whose owner sought to reach her in the press to brain her. Daggers glinted. Only the hindering numbers of the jammed mass kept them from instantly doing her to death. A roar went up: “To the temple of Jullah!”

An instant clamor responded. Tananda felt herself half carried, half dragged along by the surging mob. Black hands gripped her hair, arms, and legs. Blows aimed at her in the crush were blocked or diverted by the mass.

Then came a shock, under which the whole throng stag­gered, as a horseman on a powerful steed crashed full into the press. Men, screaming, went down to be crushed un­der the flailing hoofs. Tananda caught a glimpse of a figure towering above the throng, of a dark, scarred face under a steel helmet, and a great sword lashing up and down, spat­tering crimson splashes. But, from somewhere in the crowd, a spear licked upward, disemboweling the steed. It screamed, plunged, and went down.

The rider, however, landed on his feet, smiting right and left. Wildly driven spears glanced from his helmet or from the shield on his left arm, while his broadsword cleft flesh and bone, split skulls, and spilled entrails into the bloody dust.

Flesh and blood could not stand it. Gearing a space, the stranger stooped and caught up the terrified girl. Cov­ering her with his shield, he fell back, cutting a ruthless path until he had backed into the angle of a wall. Pushing her behind him, he stood before her, beating back the frothing, screaming onslaught.

Then there was a clatter of hoofs. A company of guards­men swept into the square, driving the rioters before them. The Kushites, screaming in sudden panic, fled into the side streets, leaving a score of bodies littering the square, The captain of the guard - a giant Negro, resplendent in crimson silk and gold-worked harness - approached and dismounted.

“You were long in coming,” said Tananda, who had risen and regained her poise.

The captain turned ashy. Before he could move, Ta­nanda had made a sign to the men behind him. Using both hands, one of them drove his spear between his captain's shoulders with such force that the point started out from his breast. The officer sank to his knees, and thrusts from a half-dozen more spears finished the task.

Tananda shook her long, black, disheveled hair and faced her rescuer. She was bleeding from a score of scratches and as naked as a newborn babe, but she stared at the man without perturbation or uncertainty. He gave back her stare, his expression betraying a frank admiration for her cool bearing and the ripeness of her brown limbs and voluptuously molded torso. “Who are you ?” she demanded.

“I am Conan, a Cimmerian,” he grunted.

“Cimmerian?” She had never heard of this far country, which lay hundreds of leagues to the north. She frowned. “You wear Stygian shield and helm. Are you a Stygian of some sort?”

He shook his head, baring white teeth in a grin. “I got the armor from a Stygian, but I had to kill the fool first.”

“What do you, then, in Meroe?”

“I am a wanderer,” he said simply, “with a sword for hire. I came here to seek my fortune.” He did not think it wise to tell her of his previous career as a corsair on the Black Coast, or of his chieftainship of one of the jungle tribes to the south.

The queen's eyes ran appraisingly over Conan's giant form, measuring the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his chest. “I will hire your sword,” she said at last. “What is your price?”

“What price do you offer?” he countered with a rueful glance at the carcass of his horse. “I am a penniless wan­derer and now, alas, afoot.”

She shook her head. “No, by Set! You are penniless no longer, but captain of the royal guard. Will a hundred pieces of gold a month buy your loyalty ?”

He glanced casually at the sprawling figure of the former captain, who lay in silk, steel, and blood. The sight did not dim the zest of his sudden grin.

“I think so,” said Conan.