Title: Conan - Beyond the Black River

Author: Robert E. Howard

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Title: Conan - Beyond the Black River

Author: Robert E. Howard







Contents







1 Chapter 1. Conan Loses His Ax



2 Chapter 2. The Wizard of Gwawela



3 Chapter 3. The Crawlers in the Dark



4 Chapter 4. The Beasts of Zogar Sag



5 Chapter 5. The Children of Jhebbal Sag



6 Chapter 6. Red Axes of the Border



7 Chapter 7. The Devil in the Fire



8 Chapter 8. Conajohara No More











Chapter 1. Conan Loses His Ax



The stillness of the forest trail was so primeval that the tread of a

soft-booted foot was a startling disturbance. At least it seemed so to

the ears of the wayfarer, though he was moving along the path with the

caution that must be practised by any man who ventures beyond Thunder

River. He was a young man of medium height, with an open countenance

and a mop of tousled tawny hair unconfined by cap or helmet. His garb

was common enough for that country--a coarse tunic, belted at the

waist, short leather breeches beneath, and soft buckskin boots that

came short of the knee. A knife-hilt jutted from one boot-top. The

broad leather belt supported a short, heavy sword and a buckskin

pouch. There was no perturbation in the wide eyes that scanned the

green walls which fringed the trail. Though not tall, he was well

built, and the arms that the short wide sleeves of the tunic left bare

were thick with corded muscle.



He tramped imperturbably along, although the last settler's cabin lay

miles behind him, and each step was carrying him nearer the grim peril

that hung like a brooding shadow over the ancient forest.



He was not making as much noise as it seemed to him, though he well

knew that the faint tread of his booted feet would be like a tocsin of

alarm to the fierce ears that might be lurking in the treacherous

green fastness. His careless attitude was not genuine; his eyes and

ears were keenly alert, especially his ears, for no gaze could

penetrate the leafy tangle for more than a few feet in either

direction.



But it was instinct more than any warning by the external senses which

brought him up suddenly, his hand on his hilt. He stood stock-still in

the middle of the trail, unconsciously holding his breath, wondering

what he had heard, and wondering if indeed he had heard anything. The

silence seemed absolute. Not a squirrel chattered or bird chirped.

Then his gaze fixed itself on a mass of bushes beside the trail a few

yards ahead of him. There was no breeze, yet he had seen a branch

quiver. The short hairs on his scalp prickled, and he stood for an

instant undecided, certain that a move in either direction would bring

death streaking at him from the bushes.



A heavy chopping crunch sounded behind the leaves. The bushes were

shaken violently, and simultaneously with the sound, an arrow arched

erratically from among them and vanished among the trees along the

trail. The wayfarer glimpsed its flight as he sprang frantically to

cover.



Crouching behind a thick stem, his sword quivering in his fingers, he

saw the bushes part, and a tall figure stepped leisurely into the

trail. The traveller stared in surprise. The stranger was clad like

himself in regard to boots and breeks, though the latter were of silk

instead of leather. But he wore a sleeveless hauberk of dark mesh-mail

in place of a tunic, and a helmet perched on his black mane. That

helmet held the other's gaze; it was without a crest, but adorned by

short bull's horns. No civilized hand ever forged that head-piece. Nor

was the face below it that of a civilized man: dark, scarred, with

smoldering blue eyes, it was a face as untamed as the primordial

forest which formed its background. The man held a broad-sword in his

right hand, and the edge was smeared with crimson.



"Come on out," he called, in an accent unfamiliar to the wayfarer.

"All's safe now. There was only one of the dogs. Come on out."



The other emerged dubiously and stared at the stranger. He felt

curiously helpless and futile as he gazed on the proportions of the

forest man--the massive iron-clad breast, and the arm that bore the

reddened sword, burned dark by the sun and ridged and corded with

muscles. He moved with the dangerous ease of a panther; he was too

fiercely supple to be a product of civilization, even of that fringe

of civilization which composed the outer frontiers.



Turning, he stepped back to the hushes and pulled them apart. Still

not certain just what had happened, the wayfarer from the east

advanced and stared down into the bushes. A man lay there, a short,

dark, thickly-muscled man, naked except for a loin-cloth, a necklace

of human teeth and a brass armlet. A short sword was thrust into the

girdle of the loin-cloth, and one hand still gripped a heavy black

bow. The man had long black hair; that was about all the wayfarer

could tell about his head, for his features were a mask of blood and

brains. His skull had been split to the teeth.



"A Pict, by the gods!" exclaimed the wayfarer.



The burning blue eyes turned upon him.



"Are you surprised?"



"Why, they told me at Velitrium, and again at the settlers' cabins

along the road, that these devils sometimes sneaked across the border,

but I didn't expect to meet one this far in the interior."



"You're only four miles east of Black River," the stranger informed

him. "They've been shot within a mile of Velitrium. No settler between

Thunder River and Fort Tuscelan is really safe. I picked up this dog's

trail three miles south of the fort this morning, and I've been

following him ever since. I came up behind him just as he was drawing

an arrow on you. Another instant and there'd have been a stranger in

Hell. But I spoiled his aim for him."



The wayfarer was staring wide eyed at the larger man, dumbfounded by

the realization that the man had actually tracked down one of the

forest devils and slain him unsuspected. That implied woodsmanship of

a quality undreamed, even for Conajohara.



"You are one of the fort's garrison?" he asked.



"I'm no soldier. I draw the pay and rations of an officer of the line,

but I do my work in the woods. Valannus knows I'm of more use ranging

along the river than cooped up in the fort."



Casually the slayer shoved the body deeper into the thickets with his

foot, pulled the bushes together and turned away down the trail. The

other followed him.



"My name is Balthus," he offered. "I was at Velitrium last night. I

haven't decided whether I'll take up a hide of land, or enter fort

service."



"The best land near Thunder River is already taken," grunted the

slayer. "Plenty of good land between Scalp Creek--you crossed it a few

miles back--and the fort, but that's getting too devilish close to the

river. The Picts steal over to burn and murder--as that one did. They

don't always come singly. Some day they'll try to sweep the settlers

out of Conajohara. And they may succeed--probably will succeed. This

colonization business is mad, anyway. There's plenty of good land east

of the Bossonian marches. If the Aquilonians would cut up some of the

big estates of their barons, and plant wheat where now only deer are

hunted, they wouldn't have to cross the border and take the land of

the Picts away from them."



"That's queer talk from a man in the service of the governor of

Conajohara," objected Balthus.



"It's nothing to me," the other retorted. "I'm a mercenary. I sell my

sword to the highest bidder. I never planted wheat and never will, so

long as there are other harvests to be reaped with the sword. But you

Hyborians have expanded as far as you'll be allowed to expand. You've

crossed the marches, burned a few villages, exterminated a few clans

and pushed back the frontier to Black River; but I doubt if you'll

even be able to hold what you've conquered, and you'll never push the

frontier any further westward. Your idiotic king doesn't understand

conditions here. He won't send you enough reinforcements, and there

are not enough settlers to withstand the shock of a concerted attack

from across the river."



"But the Picts are divided into small clans," persisted Balthus.

"They'll never unite. We can whip any single clan."



"Or any three or four clans," admitted the slayer. "But some day a man

will rise and unite thirty or forty clans, just as was done among the

Cimmerians, when the Gundermen tried to push the border northward,

years ago. They tried to colonize the southern marches of Cimmeria:

destroyed a few small clans, built a fort-town, Venarium--you've heard

the tale."



"So I have indeed," replied Balthus, wincing. The memory of that red

disaster was a black blot in the chronicles of a proud and warlike

people. "My uncle was at Venarium when the Cimmerians swarmed over the

walls. He was one of the few who escaped that slaughter. I've heard

him tell the tale, many a time. The barbarians swept out of the hills

in a ravening horde, without warning, and stormed Venarium with such

fury none could stand before them. Men, women, and children were

butchered. Venarium was reduced to a mass of charred ruins, as it is

to this day. The Aquilonians were driven back across the marches, and

have never since tried to colonize the Cimmerian country. But you

speak of Venarium familiarly. Perhaps you were there?"



"I was," grunted the other. "I was one of the horde that swarmed over

the walls. I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was

repeated about the council fires."



Balthus involuntarily recoiled, staring. It seemed incredible that the

man walking tranquilly at his side should have been one of those

screeching, blood-mad devils that poured over the walls of Venarium on

that long-gone day to make her streets run crimson.



"Then you, too, are a barbarian!" he exclaimed involuntarily.



The other nodded, without taking offense.



"I am Conan, a Cimmerian."



"I've heard of you."  Fresh interest quickened Balthus' gaze. No

wonder the Pict had fallen victim to his own sort of subtlety! The

Cimmerians were barbarians as ferocious as the Picts, and much more

intelligent. Evidently Conan had spent much time among civilized men,

though that contact had obviously not softened him, nor weakened any

of his primitive instincts. Balthus' apprehension turned to admiration

as he marked the easy catlike stride, the effortless silence with

which the Cimmerian moved along the trail. The oiled links of his

armor did not clink, and Balthus knew Conan could glide through the

deepest thicket or most tangled copse as noiselessly as any naked Pict

that ever lived.



"You're not a Gunderman?" It was more assertion than question.



Balthus shook his head. "I'm from the Tauran."



"I've seen good woodsmen from the Tauran. But the Bossonians have

sheltered you Aquilonians from the outer wilderness for too many

centuries. You need hardening."



That was true; the Bossonian marches, with their fortiied villages

filled with determined bowmen, had long served Aquilonia as a buffer

against the outlying barbarians. Now among the settlers beyond Thunder

River here was growing up a breed of forest men capable of meeting the

barbarians at their own game, but their numbers were still scanty.

Most of the frontiersmen were like Balthus--more of the settler than

the woodsman type.



The sun had not set, but it was no longer in sight, hidden as it was

behind the dense forest wall. The shadows were lengthening, deepening

back in the woods as the companions strode on down the trail.



"It will be dark before we reach the fort," commented Conan casually;

then: "Listen!"



He stopped short, half crouching, sword ready, transformed into a

savage figure of suspicion and menace, poised to spring and rend.

Balthus had heard it too--a wild scream that broke at its highest

note. It was the cry of a man in dire fear or agony.



Conan was off in an instant, racing down the trail, each stride

widening the distance between him and his straining companion. Balthus

puffed a curse. Among the settlements of the Tauran he was accounted a

good runner, but Conan was leaving him behind with maddening ease.

Then Balthus forgot his exasperation as his ears were outraged by the

most frightful cry he had ever heard. It was not human, this one; it

was a demoniacal caterwauling of hideous triumph that seemed to exult

over fallen humanity and find echo in black gulfs beyond human ken.



Balthus faltered in his stride, and clammy sweat beaded his flesh. But

Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and

disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding himself alone with that

awful scream still shuddering through the forest in grisly echoes, put

on an extra burst of speed and plunged after him.



The Aquilonian slid to a stumbling halt, almost colliding with the

Cimmerian who stood in the trail over a crumpled body. But Conan was

not looking at the corpse which lay there in the crimson-soaked dust.

He was glaring into the deep woods on either side of the trail.



Balthus muttered a horrified oath. It was the body of a man which lay

there in the trail, a short, fat man, clad in the gilt-worked boots

and (despite the heat) the ermine-trimmed tunic of a wealthy merchant.

His fat, pale face was set in a stare of frozen horror; his thick

throat had been slashed from ear to ear as if by a razor-sharp blade.

The short sword still in its scabbard seemed to indicate that he had

been struck down without a chance to fight for his life.



"A Pict?" Balthus whispered, as he turned to peer into the deepening

shadows of the forest.



Conan shook his head and straightened to scowl down at the dead man.



"A forest devil. This is the fifth, by Crom!"



"What do you mean?"



"Did you ever hear of a Pictish wizard called Zogar Sag?"



Balthus shook his head uneasily.



"He dwells in Gwawela, the nearest village across the river. Three

months ago he hid beside this road and stole a string of pack-mules

from a pack-train bound for the fort--drugged their drivers, somehow.

The mules belonged to this man"--Conan casually indicated the corpse

with his foot--"Tiberias, a merchant of Velitrium. They were loaded

with ale-kegs, and old Zogar stopped to guzzle before he got across

the river. A woodsman named Soractus trailed him, and led Valannus and

three soldiers to where he lay dead drunk in a thicket. At the

importunities of Tiberias, Valannus threw Zogar Sag into a cell, which

is the worst insult you can give a Pict. He managed to kill his guard

and escape, and sent back word that he meant to kill Tiberias and the

five men who captured him in a way that would make Aquilonians shudder

for centuries to come.



"Well, Soractus and the soldiers are dead. Soractus was killed on the

river, the soldiers in the very shadow of the fort. And now Tiberias

is dead. No Pict killed any of them. Each victim--except Tiberias, as

you see--lacked his head--which no doubt is now ornamenting the altar

of Zogar Sag's particular god."



"How do you know they weren't killed by the Picts?" demanded Balthus.



Conan pointed to the corpse of the merchant.



"You think that was done with a knife or a sword? Look closer and

you'll see that only a talon could have made a gash like that. The

flesh is ripped, not cut."



"Perhaps a panther--" began Balthus, without conviction.



Conan shook his head impatiently.



"A man from the Tauran couldn't mistake the mark of a panther's claws.

No. It's a forest devil summoned by Zogar Sag to carry out his

revenge. Tiberias was a fool to start for Velitrium alone, and so

close to dusk. But each one of the victims seemed to be smitten with

madness just before doom overtook him. Look here; the signs are plain

enough. Tiberias came riding along the trail on his mule, maybe with a

bundle of choice otter pelts behind his saddle to sell in Velitrium,

and the thing sprang on him from behind that bush. See where the

branches are crushed down.



"Tiberias gave one scream, and then his throat was torn open and he

was selling his otter skins in Hell. The mule ran away into the woods.

Listen! Even now you can hear him thrashing about under the trees. The

demon didn't have time to take Tiberias' head; it took fright as we

came up."



"As you came up," amended Balthus. "It must not be a very terrible

creature if it flees from one armed man. But how do you know it was

not a Pict with some kind of a hook that rips instead of slicing? Did

you see it?"



"Tiberias was an armed man," grunted Conan. "If Zogar Sag can bring

demons to aid him, he can tell them which men to kill and which to let

alone. No, I didn't see it. I only saw the bushes shake as it left the

trail. But if you want further proof, look here!"



The slayer had stepped into the pool of blood in which the dead man

sprawled. Under the bushes at the edge of the path there was a

footprint, made in blood on the hard loam.



"Did a man make that?" demanded Conan.



Balthus felt his scalp prickle. Neither man nor any beast that he had

ever seen could have left that strange, monstrous, three-toed print,

that was curiously combined of the bird and the reptile, yet a true

type of neither. He spread his fingers above the print, careful not to

touch it, and grunted explosively. He could not span the mark.



"What is it?" he whispered. "I never saw a beast that left a spoor

like that."



"Nor any other sane man," answered Conan grimly. "It's a swamp demon--

they're thick as bats in the swamps beyond Black River. You can hear

them howling like damned souls when the wind blows strong from the

south on hot nights."



"What shall we do?" asked the Aquilonian, peering uneasily into the

deep blue shadows. The frozen fear on the dead countenance haunted

him. He wondered what hideous head the wretch had seen thrust grinning

from among the leaves to chill his blood with terror.



"No use to try to follow a demon," grunted Conan, drawing a short

woodman's ax from his girdle. "I tried tracking him after he killed

Soractus. I lost his trail within a dozen steps. He might have grown

himself wings and flown away, or sunk down through the earth to Hell.

I don't know. I'm not going after the mule, either. It'll either

wander back to the fort, or to some settler's cabin."



As he spoke Conan was busy at the edge of the trail with his ax. With

a few strokes he cut a pair of saplings nine or ten feet long, and

denuded them of their branches. Then he cut a length from a serpent-

like vine that crawled among the bushes near by, and making one end

fast to one of the poles, a couple of feet from the end, whipped the

vine over the other sapling and interlaced it back and forth. In a few

moments he had a crude but strong litter.



"The demon isn't going to get Tiberias' head if I can help it," he

growled. "We'll carry the body into the fort. It isn't more than three

miles. I never liked the fat fool, but we can't have Pictish devils

making so cursed free with white men's heads."



The Picts were a white race, though swarthy, but the border men never

spoke of them as such.



Balthus took the rear end of the litter, onto which Conan

unceremoniously dumped the unfortunate merchant, and they moved on

down the trail as swiftly as possible. Conan made no more noise laden

with their grim burden than he had made when unencumbered. He had made

a loop with the merchant's belt at the end of the poles, and was

carrying his share of the load with one hand, while the other gripped

his naked broadsword, and his restless gaze roved the sinister walls

about them. The shadows were thickening. A darkening blue mist blurred

the outlines of the foliage. The forest deepened in the twilight,

became a blue haunt of mystery sheltering unguessed things.



They had covered more than a mile, and the muscles in Balthus' sturdy

arms were beginning to ache a little, when a cry rang shuddering from

the woods whose blue shadows were deepening into purple.



Conan started convulsively, and Balthus almost let go the poles.



"A woman!" cried the younger man. "Great Mitra, a woman cried out

then!"



"A settler's wife straying in the woods," snarled Conan, setting down

his end of the lifter. "Looking for a cow, probably, and--stay here!"



He dived like a hunting wolf into the leafy wall. Balthus' hair

bristled.



"Stay here alone with this corpse and a devil hiding in the woods?" he

yelped. "I'm coming with you!"



And suiting action to words, he plunged after the Cimmerian. Conan

glanced back at him, but made no objection, though he did not moderate

his pace to accommodate the shorter legs of his companion. Balthus

wasted his wind in swearing as the Cimmerian drew away from him again,

like a phantom between the trees, and then Conan burst into a dim

glade and halted crouching, lips snarling, sword lifted.



"What are we stopping for?" panted Balthus, dashing the sweat out of

his eyes and gripping his short sword.



"That scream came from this glade, or near by," answered Conan. "I

don't mistake the location of sounds, even in the woods. But where--"



Abruptly the sound rang out again--behind them; in the direction of

the trail they had just quitted. It rose piercingly and pitifully, the

cry of a woman in frantic terror--and then, shockingly, it changed to

a yell of mocking laughter that might have burst from the lips of a

fiend of lower Hell.



"What in Mitra's name--" Balthus' face was a pale blur in the gloom.



With a scorching oath Conan wheeled and dashed back the way he had

come, and the Aquilonian stumbled bewilderedly after him. He blundered

into the Cimmerian as the latter stopped dead, and rebounded from his

brawny shoulders as though from an iron statue. Gasping from the

impact, he heard Conan's breath hiss through his teeth. The Cimmerian

seemed frozen in his tracks.



Looking over his shoulder, Balthus felt his hair stand up stiffly.

Something was moving through the deep bushes that fringed the trail--

something that neither walked nor flew, but seemed to glide like a

serpent. But it was not a serpent. Its outlines were indistinct, but

it was taller than a man, and not very bulky. It gave off a glimmer of

weird light, like a faint blue flame. Indeed, the eery fire was the

only tangible thing about it. It might have been an embodied flame

moving with reason and purpose through the blackening woods.



Conan snarled a savage curse and hurled his ax with ferocious will.

But the thing glided on without altering its course. Indeed it was

only a few instants' fleeting glimpse they had of it--a tall, shadowy

thing of misty flame floating through the thickets. Then it was gone,

and the forest crouched in breathless stillness.



With a snarl Conan plunged through the intervening foliage and into

the trail. His profanity, as Balthus floundered after him, was lurid

and impassioned. The Cimmerian was standing over the litter on which

lay the body of Tiberias. And that body no longer possessed a head.



"Tricked us with its damnable caterwauling!" raved Conan, swinging his

great sword about his head in his wrath. "I might have known! I might

have guessed a trick! Now there'll be five heads to decorate Zogar's

altar."



"But what thing is it that can cry like a woman and laugh like a

devil, and shines like witch-fire as it glides through the trees?"

gasped Balthus, mopping the sweat from his pale face.



"A swamp devil," responded Conan morosely. "Grab those poles. We'll

take in the body, anyway. At least our load's a bit lighter."



With which grim philosophy he gripped the leathery loop and stalked

down the trail.







Chapter 2. The Wizard of Gwawela



Fort Tuscelan stood on the eastern bank of Black River, the tides of

which washed the foot of the stockade. The latter was of logs, as were

all the buildings within, including the donjon (to dignify it by that

appellation), in which were the governor's quarters, overlooking the

stockade and the sullen river. Beyond that river lay a huge forest,

which approached jungle-like density along the spongy shores. Men

paced the runways along the log parapet day and night, watching that

dense green wall. Seldom a menacing figure appeared, but the sentries

knew that they too were watched, fiercely, hungrily, with the

mercilessness of ancient hate. The forest beyond the river might seem

desolate and vacant of life to the ignorant eye, but life teemed

there, not alone of bird and beast and reptile, but also of men, the

fiercest of all the hunting beasts.



There, at the fort, civilization ended. Fort Tuscelan was the last

outpost of a civilized world; it represented the westernmost thrust of

the dominant Hyborian races. Beyond the river the primitive still

reigned in shadowy forests, brush-thatched huts where hung the

grinning skulls of men, and mud-walled enclosures where fires

flickered and drums rumbled, and spears were whetted in the hands of

dark, silent men with tangled black hair and the eyes of serpents.

Those eyes often glared through bushes at the fort across the river.

Once dark-skinned men had built their huts where that fort stood, yes,

and their huts had risen where now stood the fields and log cabins of

fair-haired settlers, back beyond Velitrium, that raw, turbulent

frontier town on the banks of Thunder River, to the shores of that

other river that bounds the Bossonian marches. Traders had come, and

priests of Mitra who walked with bare feet and empty hands, and died

horribly, most of them; but soldiers had followed, men with axes in

their hands and women and children in ox-drawn wains. Back to Thunder

River, and still back, beyond Black River, the aborigines had been

pushed, with slaughter and massacre. But the dark-skinned people did

not forget that once Conajohara had been theirs.



The guard inside the eastern gate bawled a challenge. Through a barred

aperture torchlight flickered, glinting on a steel headpiece and

suspicious eyes beneath it.



"Open the gate," snorted Conan. "You see it's I, don't you?"



Military discipline put his teeth on edge.



The gate swung inward and Conan and his companion passed through.

Balthus noted that the gate was flanked by a tower on each side, the

summits of which rose above the stockade. He saw loopholes for arrows.



The guardsmen grunted as they saw the burden borne between the men.

Their pikes jangled against each other as they thrust shut the gate,

chin on shoulder, and Conan asked testily: "Have you never seen a

headless body before?"



The faces of the soldiers were pallid in the torchlight.



"That's Tiberias," blurted one. "I recognize that fur-trimmed tunic.

Valerius here owes me five lunas. I told him Tiberias had heard the

loon call when he rode through the gate on his mule, with his glassy

stare. I wagered he'd come back without his head."



Conan grunted enigmatically, motioned Balthus to ease the litter to

the ground, and then strode off toward the governor's quarters, with

the Aquilonian at his heels. The tousle-headed youth stared about him

eagerly and curiously, noting the rows of barracks along the walls,

the stables, the tiny merchants' stalls, the towering blockhouse, and

the other buildings, with the open square in the middle where the

soldiers drilled, and where, now, fires danced and men off duty

lounged. These were now hurrying to join the morbid crowd gathered

about the litter at the gate. The rangy figures of Aquilonian pikemen

and forest runners mingled with the shorter, stockier forms of

Bossonian archers.



He was not greatly surprised that the governor received them himself.

Autocratic society with its rigid caste laws lay east of the marches.

Valannus was still a young man, well knit, with a finely chiseled

countenance already carved into sober cast by toil and responsibility.



"You left the fort before daybreak, I was told," he said to Conan. "I

had begun to fear that the Picts had caught you at last."



"When they smoke my head the whole river will know," grunted Conan.

"They'll hear Pictish women wailing their dead as far as Velitrium--I

was on a lone scout. I couldn't sleep. I kept hearing drums talking

across the river."



"They talk each night," reminded the governor, his fine eyes shadowed,

as he stared closely at Conan. He had learned the unwisdom of

discounting wild men's instincts.



"There was a difference last night," growled Conan. "There has been

ever since Zogar Sag got back across the river."



"We should either have given him presents and sent him home, or else

hanged him," sighed the governor. "You advised that, but--"



"But it's hard for you Hyborians to learn the ways of the outlands,"

said Conan. "Well, it can't be helped now, but there'll be no peace on

the border so long as Zogar lives and remembers the cell he sweated

in. I was following a warrior who slipped over to put a few white

notches on his bow. After I split his head I fell in with this lad

whose name is Balthus and who's come from the Tauran to help hold the

frontier."



Valannus approvingly eyed the young man's frank countenance and

strongly-knit frame.



"I am glad to welcome you, young sir. I wish more of your people would

come. We need men used to forest life. Many of our soldiers and some

of our settlers are from the eastern provinces and know nothing of

woodcraft, or even of agricultural life."



"Not many of that breed this side of Velitrium," grunted Conan. "That

town's full of them, though. But listen, Valannus, we found Tiberias

dead on the trail."  And in a few words he related the grisly affair.



Valannus paled. "I did not know he had left the fort. He must have

been mad!"



"He was," answered Conan. "Like the other four; each one, when his

time came, went mad and rushed into the woods to meet his death like a

hare running down the throat of a python. Something called to them

from the deeps of the forest, something the men call a loon, for lack

of a better name, but only the doomed ones could hear it. Zogar Sag

has made a magic that Aquilonian civilization can't overcome."



To this thrust Valannus made no reply; he wiped his brow with a shaky

hand.



"Do the soldiers know of this?"



"We left the body by the eastern gate."



"You should have concealed the fact, hidden the corpse somewhere in

the woods. The soldiers are nervous enough already."



"They'd have found it out some way. If I'd hidden the body, it would

have been returned to the fort as the corpse of Soractus was--tied up

outside the gate for the men to find in the morning."



Valannus shuddered. Turning, he walked to a casement and stared

silently out over the river, black and shiny under the glint of the

stars. Beyond the river the jungle rose like an ebony wall. The

distant screech of a panther broke the stillness. The night pressed

in, blurring the sounds of the soldiers outside the blockhouse,

dimming the fires. A wind whispered through the black branches,

rippling the dusky water. On its wings came a low, rhythmic pulsing,

sinister as the pad of a leopard's foot.



"After all," said Valannus, as if speaking his thoughts aloud, "what

do we know--what does anyone know--of the things that jungle may hide?

We have dim rumors of great swamps and rivers, and a forest that

stretches on and on over everlasting plains and hills to end at last

on the shores of the western ocean. But what things lie between this

river and that ocean we dare not even guess. No white man has ever

plunged deep into that fastness and returned alive to tell us what be

found. We are wise in our civilized knowledge, but our knowledge

extends just so far--to the western bank of that ancient river! Who

knows what shapes earthly and unearthly may lurk beyond the dim circle

of light our knowledge has cast?



"Who knows what gods are worshipped under the shadows of that heathen

forest, or what devils crawl out of the black ooze of the swamps? Who

can be sure that all the inhabitants of that black country are

natural? Zogar Sag--a sage of the eastern cities would sneer at his

primitive magic-making as the mummery of a fakir; yet he has driven

mad and killed five men in a manner no man can explain. I wonder if he

himself is wholly human."



"If I can get within ax-throwing distance of him I'll settle that

question," growled Conan, helping himself to the governor's wine and

pushing a glass toward Balthus, who took it hesitatingly, and with an

uncertain glance toward Valannus.



The governor turned toward Conan and stared at him thoughtfully.



"The soldiers, who do not believe in ghosts or devils," he said, "are

almost in a panic of fear. You, who believe in ghosts, ghouls,

goblins, and all manner of uncanny things, do not seem to fear any of

the things in which you believe."



"There's nothing in the universe cold steel won't cut," answered

Conan. "I threw my ax at the demon, and he took no hurt, but I might

have missed in the dusk, or a branch deflected its flight. I'm not

going out of my way looking for devils; but I wouldn't step out of my

path to let one go by."



Valannus lifted his head and met Conan's gaze squarely.



"Conan, more depends on you than you realize. You know the weakness of

this province--a slender wedge thrust into the untamed wilderness. You

know that the lives of all the people west of the marches depend on

this fort. Were it to fall, red axes would be splintering the gates of

Velitrium before a horseman could cross the marches. His Majesty, or

his Majesty's advisers, have ignored my plea that more troops be sent

to hold the frontier. They know nothing of border conditions, and are

averse to expending any more money in this direction. The fate of the

frontier depends upon the men who now hold it.



"You know that most of the army which conquered Conajohara has been

withdrawn. You know the force left is inadequate, especially since

that devil Zogar Sag managed to poison our water supply, and forty men

died in one day. Many of the others are sick, or have been bitten by

serpents or mauled by wild beasts which seem to swarm in increasing

numbers in the vicinity of the fort. The soldiers believe Zogar's

boast that he could summon the forest beasts to slay his enemies.



"I have three hundred pikemen, four hundred Bossonian archers, and

perhaps fifty men who, like yourself, are skilled in woodcraft. They

are worth ten times their number of soldiers, but there are so few of

them. Frankly, Conan, my situation is becoming precarious. The

soldiers whisper of desertion; they are low-spirited, believing Zogar

Sag has loosed devils on us. They fear the black plague with which he

threatened us--the terrible black death of the swamplands. When I see

a sick soldier I sweat with fear of seeing him turn black and shrivel

and die before my eyes.



"Conan, if the plague is loosed upon us, the soldiers will desert in a

body! The border will be left unguarded and nothing will check the

sweep of the dark-skinned hordes to the very gates of Velitrium--maybe

beyond! If we cannot hold the fort, how can they hold the town?



"Conan, Zogar Sag must die, if we are to hold Conajohara. You have

penetrated the unknown deeper than any other man in the fort; you know

where Gwawela stands, and something of the forest trails across the

river. Will you take a band of men tonight and endeavor to kill or

capture him? Oh, I know it's mad. There isn't more than one chance in

a thousand that any of you will come back alive. But if we don't get

him, it's death for us all. You can take as many men as you wish."



"A dozen men are better for a job like that than a regiment," answered

Conan. "Five hundred men couldn't fight their way to Gwawela and back,

but a dozen might slip in and out again. Let me pick my men. I don't

want any soldiers."



"Let me go!" eagerly exclaimed Balthus. "I've hunted deer all my life

on the Tauran."



"All right. Valannus, we'll eat at the stall where the foresters

gather, and I'll pick my men. We'll start within an hour, drop down

the river in a boat to a point below the village and then steal upon

it through the woods. If we live, we should be back by daybreak."







Chapter 3. The Crawlers in the Dark



The river was a vague trace between walls of ebony. The paddles that

propelled the long boat creeping along in the dense shadow of the

eastern bank dipped softly into the water, making no more noise than

the beak of a heron. The broad shoulders of the man in front of

Balthus were a blue in the dense gloom. He knew that not even the keen

eyes of the man who knelt in the prow would discern anything more than

a few feet ahead of them. Conan was feeling his way by instinct and an

intensive familiarity with the river.



No one spoke. Balthus had had a good look at his companions in the

fort before they slipped out of the stockade and down the bank into

the waiting canoe. They were of a new breed growing up in the world on

the raw edge of the frontier--men whom grim necessity had taught

woodcraft. Aquilonians of the western provinces to a man, they had

many points in common. They dressed alike--in buckskin boots, leathern

breeks and deerskin shirts, with broad girdles that held axes and

short swords; and they were all gaunt and scarred and hard-eyed;

sinewy and taciturn.



They were wild men, of a sort, yet there was still a wide gulf between

them and the Cimmerian. They were sons of civilization, reverted to a

semi-barbarism. He was a barbarian of a thousand generations of

barbarians. They had acquired stealth and craft, but he had been born

to these things. He excelled them even in lithe economy of motion.

They were wolves, but he was a tiger.



Balthus admired them and their leader and felt a pulse of pride that

he was admitted into their company. He was proud that his paddle made

no more noise than did theirs. In that respect at least he was their

equal, though woodcraft learned in hunts on the Tauran could never

equal that ground into the souls of men on the savage border.



Below the fort the river made a wide bend. The lights of the outpost

were quickly lost, but the canoe held on its way for nearly a mile,

avoiding snags and floating logs with almost uncanny precision.



Then a low grunt from their leader, and they swung its head about and

glided toward the opposite shore. Emerging from the black shadows of

the brush that fringed the bank and coming into the open of the

midstream created a peculiar illusion of rash exposure. But the stars

gave little light, and Balthus knew that unless one were watching for

it, it would be all but impossible for the keenest eye to make out the

shadowy shape of the canoe crossing the river.



They swung in under the overhanging bushes of the western shore and

Balthus groped for and found a projecting root which he grasped. No

word was spoken. All instructions had been given before the scouting-

party left the fort. As silently as a great panther, Conan slid over

the side and vanished in the bushes. Equally noiseless, nine men

followed him. To Balthus, grasping the root with his paddle across his

knee, it seemed incredible that ten men should thus fade into the

tangled forest without a sound.



He settled himself to wait. No word passed between him and the other

man who had been left with him. Somewhere, a mile or so to the

northwest, Zogar Sag's village stood girdled with thick woods. Balthus

understood his orders; he and his companion were to wait for the

return of the raiding-party. If Conan and his men had not returned by

the first tinge of dawn, they were to race back up the river to the

fort and report that the forest had again taken its immemorial toll of

the invading race. The silence was oppressive. No sound came from the

black woods, invisible beyond the ebony masses that were the

overhanging bushes. Balthus no longer heard the drums. They had been

silent for hours. He kept blinking, unconsciously trying to see

through the deep gloom. The dank night-smells of the river and the

damp forest oppressed him. Somewhere, near by, there was a sound as if

a big fish had flopped and splashed the water. Balthus thought it must

have leaped so close to the canoe that it had struck the side, for a

slight quiver vibrated the craft. The boat's stern began to swing,

slightly away from the shore. The man behind him must have let go of

the projection he was gripping. Balthus twisted his head to hiss a

warning, and could just make out the figure of his companion, a

slightly blacker bulk in the blackness.



The man did not reply. Wondering if he had fallen asleep, Balthus

reached out and grasped his shoulder. To his amazement, the man

crumpled under his touch and slumped down in the canoe. Twisting his

body half about, Balthus groped for him, his heart shooting into his

throat. His fumbling fingers slid over the man's throat--only the

youth's convulsive clenching of his jaws choked back the cry that rose

to his lips. His finger encountered a gaping, oozing wound--his

companion's throat had been cut from ear to ear.



In that instant of horror and panic Balthus started up--and then a

muscular arm out of the darkness locked fiercely about his throat,

strangling his yell. The canoe rocked wildly. Balthus' knife was in

his hand, though he did not remember jerking it out of his boot, and

he stabbed fiercely and blindly. He felt the blade sink deep, and a

fiendish yell rang in his ear, a yell that was horribly answered. The

darkness seemed to come to life about him. A bestial clamor rose on

all sides, and other arms grappled him. Borne under a mass of hurtling

bodies the canoe rolled sidewise, but before he went under with it,

something cracked against Balthus' head and the night was briefly

illuminated by a blinding burst of fire before it gave way to a

blackness where not even stars shone.







Chapter 4. The Beasts of Zogar Sag



Fires dazzled Balthus again as he slowly recovered his senses. He

blinked, shook his head. Their glare hurt his eyes. A confused medley

of sound rose about him, growing more distinct as his senses cleared.

He lifted his head and stared stupidly about him. Black figures hemmed

him in, etched against crimson tongues of flame.



Memory and understanding came in a rush. He was bound upright to a

post in an open space, ringed by fierce and terrible figures. Beyond

that ring fires burned, tended by naked, dark-skinned women. Beyond

the fires he saw huts of mud and wattle, thatched with brush. Beyond

the huts there was a stockade with a broad gate. But he saw these

things only incidentally. Even the cryptic dark women with their

curious coiffures were noted by him only absently. His full attention

was fixed in awful fascination on the men who stood glaring at him.



Short men, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, lean-hipped, they were

naked except for scanty loin-clouts. The firelight brought out the

play of their swelling muscles in bold relief. Their dark faces were

immobile, but their narrow eyes glittered with the fire that burns in

the eyes of a stalking tiger. Their tangled manes were bound back with

bands of copper. Swords and axes were in their hands. Crude bandages

banded the limbs of some, and smears of blood were dried on their dark

skins. There had been fighting, recent and deadly.



His eyes wavered away from the steady glare of his captors, and he

repressed a cry of horror. A few feet away there rose a low, hideous

pyramid: it was built of gory human heads. Dead eyes glared glassily

up the black sky. Numbly he recognized the countenances which were

turned toward him. They were the heads of the men who had followed

Conan into the forest. He could not tell if the Cimmerian's head were

among them. Only a few faces were visible to him. It looked to him as

if there must be ten or eleven heads at least. A deadly sickness

assailed him. He fought a desire to retch. Beyond the heads lay the

bodies of half a dozen Picts, and he was aware of a fierce exultation

at the sight. The forest runners had taken toll, at least.



Twisting his head away from the ghastly spectacle, he became aware

that another post stood near him--a stake painted black as was the one

to which he was bound. A man sagged in his bonds there, naked except

for his leathern breeks, whom Balthus recognized as one of Conan's

woodsmen. Blood trickled from his mouth, oozed sluggishly from a gash

in his side. Lifting his head as he licked his livid lips, he

muttered, making himself heard with difficulty above the fiendish

clamor of the Picts: "So they got you, too!"



"Sneaked up in the water and cut the other fellow's throat," groaned

Balthus. "We never heard them till they were on us. Mitra, how can

anything move so silently?"



"They're devils," mumbled the frontiersman. "They must have been

watching us from the time we left midstream. We walked into a trap.

Arrows from all sides were ripping into us before we knew it. Most of

us dropped at the first fire. Three or four broke through the bushes

and came to hand-grips. But there were too many. Conan might have

gotten away. I haven't seen his head. Been better for you and me if

they'd killed us outright. I can't blame Conan. Ordinarily we'd have

gotten to the village without being discovered. They don't keep spies

on the river bank as far down as we landed. We must have stumbled into

a big party coming up the river from the south. Some devilment is up.

Too many Picts here. These aren't all Gwaweli; men from the western

tribes here and from up and down the river."



Balthus stared at the ferocious shapes. Little as he knew of Pictish

ways, he was aware that the number of men clustered about them was out

of proportion to the size of the village. There were not enough huts

to have accommodated them all. Then he noticed that there was a

difference in the barbaric tribal designs painted on their faces and

breasts.



"Some kind of devilment," muttered the forest runner. "They might have

gathered here to watch Zogar's magic-making. He'll make some rare

magic with our carcasses. Well, a border-man doesn't expect to die in

bed. But I wish we'd gone out along with the rest."



The wolfish howling of the Picts rose in volume and exultation, and

from a movement in their ranks, an eager surging and crowding, Balthus

deduced that someone of importance was coming. Twisting his head

about, he saw that the stakes were set before a long building, larger

than the other huts, decorated by human skulls dangling from the

eaves. Through the door of that structure now danced a fantastic

figure.



"Zogar!" muttered the woodsman, his bloody countenance set in wolfish

lines as he unconsciously strained at his cords. Balthus saw a lean

figure of middle height, almost hidden in ostrich plumes set on a

harness of leather and copper. From amidst the plumes peered a hideous

and malevolent face. The plumes puzzled Balthus. He knew their source

lay half the width of a world to the south. They fluttered and rustled

evilly as the shaman leaped and cavorted.



With fantastic bounds and prancings he entered the ring and whirled

before his bound and silent captives. With another man it would have

seemed ridiculous--a foolish savage prancing meaninglessly in a whirl

of feathers. But that ferocious face glaring out from the billowing

mass gave the scene a grim significance. No man with a face like that

could seem ridiculous or like anything except the devil he was.



Suddenly he froze to statuesque stillness; the plumes rippled once and

sank about him. The howling warriors fell silent. Zogar Sag stood

erect and motionless, and he seemed to increase in height--to grow and

expand. Balthus experienced the illusion that the Pict was towering

above him, staring contemptuously down from a great height, though he

knew the shaman was not as tall as himself. He shook off the illusion

with difficulty.



The shaman was talking now, a harsh, guttural intonation that yet

carried the hiss of a cobra. He thrust his head on his long neck

toward the wounded man on the stake; his eyes shone red as blood in

the firelight. The frontiersman spat full in his face.



With a fiendish howl Zogar bounded convulsively into the air, and the

warriors gave tongue to a yell that shuddered up to the stars. They

rushed toward the man on the stake, but the shaman beat them back. A

snarled command sent men running to the gate. They hurled it open,

turned and raced back to the circle. The ring of men split, divided

with desperate haste to right and left. Balthus saw the women and

naked children scurrying to the huts. They peeked out of doors and

windows. A broad lane was left to the open gate, beyond which loomed

the black forest, crowding sullenly in upon the clearing, unlighted by

the fires.



A tense silence reigned as Zogar Sag turned toward the forest, raised

on his tiptoes and sent a weird inhuman call shuddering out into the

night. Somewhere, far out in the black forest, a deeper cry answered

him. Balthus shudedered. From the timbre of that cry he knew it never

came from a human throat. He remembered what Valannus had said--that

Zogar boasted that he could summon wild beasts to do his bidding. The

woodsman was livid beneath his mask of blood. He licked his lips

spasmodically.



The village held its breath. Zogar Sag stood still as a statue, his

plumes trembling faintly about him. But suddenly the gate was no

longer empty.



A shuddering gasp swept over the village and men crowded hastily back,

jamming one another between the huts. Balthus felt the short hair stir

on his scalp. The creature that stood in the gate was like the

embodiment of nightmare legend. Its color was of a curious pale

quality which made it seem ghostly and unreal in the dim light. But

there was nothing unreal about the low-hung savage head, and the great

curved fangs that glistened in the firelight. On noiseless padded feet

it approached like a phantom out of the past. It was a survival of an

older, grimmer age, the ogre of many an ancient legend--a saber-tooth

tiger. No Hyborian hunter had looked upon one of those primordial

brutes for centuries. Immemorial myths lent the creatures a

supernatural quality, induced by their ghostly color and their

fiendish ferocity.



The beast that glided toward the men on the stakes was longer and

heavier than a common, striped tiger, almost as bulky as a bear. Its

shoulders and forelegs were so massive and mightily muscled as to give

it a curiously top-heavy look, though its hindquarters were more

powerful than that of a lion. Its jaws were massive, but its head was

brutishly shaped. Its brain capacity was small. It had room for no

instincts except those of destruction. It was a freak of carnivorous

development, evolution run amuck in a horror of fangs and talons.



This was the monstrosity Zogar Sag had summoned out of the forest.

Balthus no longer doubted the actuality of the shaman's magic. Only

the black arts could establish a domination over that tiny-brained,

mighty-thewed monster. Like a whisper at the back of his consciousness

rose the vague memory of the name of an ancient god of darkness and

primordial fear, to whom once both men and beasts bowed and whose

children--men whispered--still lurked in dark corners of the world.

New horror tinged the glare he fixed on Zogar Sag.



The monster moved past the heap of bodies and the pile of gory heads

without appearing to notice them. He was no scavenger. He hunted only

the living, in a life dedicated solely to slaughter. An awful hunger

burned greenly in the wide, unwinking eyes; the hunger not alone of

belly-emptiness, but the lust of death-dealing. His gaping jaws

slavered. The shaman stepped back, his hand waved toward the woodsman.



The great cat sank into a crouch, and Balthus numbly remembered tales

of its appalling ferocity: of how it would spring upon an elephant and

drive its sword-like fangs so deeply into the titan's skull that they

could never be withdrawn, but would keep it nailed to its victim, to

die by starvation. The shaman cried out shrilly, and with an ear-

shattering roar the monster sprang.



Balthus had never dreamed of such a spring, such a hurtling of

incarnated destruction embodied in that giant bulk of iron thews and

ripping talons. Full on the woodsman's breast it struck, and the stake

splintered and snapped at the base, crashing to the earth under the

impact. Then the saber-tooth was gliding toward the gate, half

dragging, half carrying a hideous crimson hulk that only faintly

resembled a man. Balthus glared almost paralyzed, his brain refusing

to credit what his eyes had seen.



In that leap the great beast had not only broken off the stake, it had

ripped the mangled body of its victim from the post to which it was

bound. The huge talons in that instant of contact had disemboweled and

partially dismembered the man, and the giant fangs had torn away the

whole top of his head, shearing through the skull as easily as through

flesh. Stout rawhide thongs had given way like paper; where the thongs

had held, flesh and bones had not. Balthus retched suddenly. He had

hunted bears and panthers, but he had never dreamed the beast lived

which could make such a red ruin of a human frame in the flicker of an

instant.



The saber-tooth vanished through the gate, and a few moments later a

deep roar sounded through the forest, receding in the distance. But

the Picts still shrank back against the huts, and the shaman still

stood facing the gate that was like a black opening to let in the

night.



Cold sweat burst suddenly out on Balthus' skin. What new horror would

come through that gate to make carrion-meat of his body? Sick panic

assailed him and he strained futilely at his thongs. The night pressed

in very black and horrible outside the firelight. The fires themselves

glowed lurid as the fires of Hell. He felt the eyes of the Picts upon

him--hundreds of hungry, cruel eyes that reflected the lust of souls

utterly without humanity as he knew it. They no longer seemed men;

they were devils of this black jungle, as inhuman as the creatures to

which the fiend in the nodding plumes screamed through the darkness.



Zogar sent another call shuddering through the night, and it was

utterly unlike the first cry. There was a hideous sibilance in it--

Balthus turned cold at the implication. If a serpent could hiss that

loud, it would make just such asound.



This time there was no answer--only a period of breathless silence in

which the pound of Balthus' heart strangled him; and then there

sounded a swishing outside the gate, a dry rustling that sent chills

down Balthus' spine. Again the firelit gate held a hideous occupant.



Again Balthus recognized the monster from ancient legends. He saw and

knew the ancient and evil serpent which swayed there, its wedge-shaped

head, huge as that of a horse, as high as a tall man's head, and its

palely gleaming barrel rippling out behind it. A forked tongue darted

in and out, and the firelight glittered on bared fangs.



Balthus became incapable of emotion. The horror of his fate paralyzed

him. That was the reptile that the ancients called Ghost Snake, the

pale, abominable terror that of old glided into huts by night to

devour whole families. Like the python it crushed its victim, but

unlike other constrictors its fangs bore venom that carried madness

and death. It too had long been considered extinct. But Valannus had

spoken truly. No white man knew what shapes haunted the great forests

beyond Black River.



It came on silently, rippling over the ground, its hideous head on the

same level, its neck curving back slightly for the stroke. Balthus

gazed with a glazed, hypnotized stare into that loathsome gullet down

which he would soon be engulfed, and he was aware of no sensation

except a vague nausea.



And then something that glinted in the firelight streaked from the

shadows of the huts, and the great reptile whipped about and went into

instant convulsions. As in a dream Balthus saw a short throwing-spear

transfixing the mighty neck, just below the gaping jaws; the shaft

protruded from one side, the steel head from the other.



Knotting and looping hideously, the maddened reptile rolled into the

circle of men who stove back from him. The spear had not severed its

spine, but merely transfixed its great neck muscles. Its furiously

lashing tail mowed down a dozen men and its jaws snapped convulsively,

splashing others with venom that burned like liquid fire. Howling,

cursing, screaming, frantic, they scattered before it, knocking each

other down in their flight, trampling the fallen, bursting through the

huts. The giant snake rolled into a fire, scattering sparks and

brands, and the pain lashed it to more frenzied efforts. A hut wall

buckled under the ram-like impact of its flailing tail, disgorging

howling people.



Men stampeded through the fires, knocking the logs right and left. The

flames sprang up, then sank. A reddish dim glow was all that lighted

that nightmare scene where the giant reptile whipped and rolled, and

men clawed and shrieked in frantic flight.



Balthus felt something jerk at his wrists, and then, miraculously, he

was free, and a strong hand dragged him behind the post. Dazedly he

saw Conan, felt the forest man's iron grip on his arm.



There was blood on the Cimmerian's mail, dried blood on the sword in

his right hand; he loomed dim and gigantic in the shadowy light.



"Come on! Before they get over their panic!"



Balthus felt the haft of an ax shoved into his hand. Zogar Sag had

disappeared. Conan dragged Balthus after him until the youth's numb

brain awoke, and his legs began to move of their own accord. Then

Conan released him and ran into the building where the skulls hung.

Balthus followed him. He got a glimpse of a grim stone altar, faintly

lighted by the glow outside; five human heads grinned on that altar,

and there was a grisly familiarity about the features of the freshest;

it was the head of the merchant Tiberias. Behind the altar was an

idol, dim, indistinct, bestial, yet vaguely man-like in outline. Then

fresh horror choked Balthus as the shape heaved up suddenly with a

rattle of chains, lifting long misshapen arms in the gloom.



Conan's sword flailed down, crunching through flesh and bone, and then

the Cimmerian was dragging Balthus around the altar, past a huddled

shaggy bulk on the floor, to a door at the back of the long hut.

Through this they burst, out into the enclosure again. But a few yards

beyond them loomed the stockade.



It was dark behind the altar-hut. The mad stampede of the Picts had

not carried them in that direction. At the wall Conan halted, gripped

Balthus, and heaved him at arm's length into the air as he might have

lifted a child. Balthus grasped the points of the upright logs set in

the sun-dried mud and scrambled up on them, ignoring the havoc done

his skin. He lowered a hand to the Cimmerian, when around a corner of

the altar-hut sprang a fleeing Pict. He halted short, glimpsing the

man on the wall in the faint glow of the fires. Conan hurled his ax

with deadly aim, but the warrior's mouth was already open for a yell

of warning, and it rang loud above the din, cut short as he dropped

with a shattered skull.



Blinding terror had not submerged all ingrained instincts. As that

wild yell rose above the clamor, there was an instant's lull, and then

a hundred throats bayed ferocious answer and warriors came leaping to

repel the attack presaged by the warning.



Conan leaped high, caught, not Balthus' hand but his arm near the

shoulder, and swung himself up. Balthus set his teeth against the

strain, and then the Cimmerian was on the wall beside him, and the

fugitives dropped down on the other side.







Chapter 5. The Children of Jhebbal Sag



"Which way is the river?" Balthus was confused.



"We don't dare try for the river now," grunted Conan. "The woods

between the village and the river are swarming with warriors. Come on!

We'll head in the last direction they'll expect us to go--west!"



Looking back as they entered the thick growth, Balthus beheld the wall

dotted with black heads as the savages peered over. The Picts were

bewildered. They had not gained the wall in time to see the fugitives

take cover. They had rushed to the wall expecting to repel an attack

in force. They had seen the body of the dead warrior. But no enemy was

in sight.



Balthus realized that they did not yet know their prisoner had

escaped. From other sounds he believed that the warriors, directed by

the shrill voice of Zogar Sag, were destroying the wounded serpent

with arrows. The monster was out of the shaman's control. A moment

later the quality of the yells was altered. Screeches of rage rose in

the night.



Conan laughed grimly. He was leading Balthus along a narrow trail that

ran west under the black branches, stepping as swiftly and surely as

if he trod a well-lighted thoroughfare. Balthus stumbled after him,

guiding himself by feeling the dense wall on either hand.



"They'll be after us now. Zogar's discovered you're gone, and he knows

my head wasn't in the pile before the altar-hut. The dog! If I'd had

another spear I'd have thrown it through him before I struck the

snake. Keep to the trail. They can't track us by torchlight, and there

are a score of paths leading from the village. They'll follow those

leading to the river first--throw a cordon of warriors for miles along

the bank, expecting us to try to break through. We won't take to the

woods until we have to. We can make better time on this trail. Now

buckle down to it and run was you never ran before."



"They got over their panic cursed quick!" panted Balthus, complying

with a fresh burst of speed.



"They're not afraid of anything, very long," grunted Conan.



For a space nothing was said between them. The fugitives devoted all

their attention to covering distance. They were plunging deeper and

deeper into the wilderness and getting farther away from civilization

at every step, but Balthus did not question Conan"s wisdom. The

Cimmerian presently took time to grunt: "When we're far enough away

from the village we'll swing back to the river in a big circle. No

other village within miles of Gwawela. All the Picts are gathered in

that vicinity. We'll circle wide around them. They can't track us

until daylight. They'll pick up our path then, but before dawn we'll

leave the trail and take to the woods."



They plunged on. The yells died out behind them. Balthus' breath was

whistling through his teeth. He felt a pain in his side, and running

became torture. He blundered against the bushes on each side of the

trail. Conan pulled up suddenly, turned and stared back down the dim

path.



Somewhere the moon was rising, a dim white glow amidst a tangle of

branches.



"Shall we take to the woods?" panted Balthus.



"Give me your ax," murmured Conan softly. "Something is close behind

us."



"Then we'd better leave the trail!" exclaimed Balthus. Conan shook his

head and drew his companion into a dense thicket. The moon rose

higher, making a dim light in the path.



"We can't fight the whole tribe!" whispered Balthus.



"No human being could have found our trail so quickly, or followed us

so swiftly," muttered Conan. "Keep silent."



There followed a tense silence in which Balthus felt that his heart

could be heard pounding for miles away. Then abruptly, without a sound

to announce its coming, a savage head appeared in the dim path.

Balthus' heart jumped into his throat; at first glance he feared to

look upon the awful head of the saber-tooth. But this head was

smaller, more narrow; it was a leopard which stood there, snarling

silently and glaring down the trail. What wind there was was blowing

toward the hiding men, concealing their scent. The beast lowered his

head and snuffed the trail, then moved forward uncertainly. A chill

played down Balthus' spine. The brute was undoubtedly trailing them.



And it was suspicious. It lifted its head, its eyes glowing like balls

of fire, and growled low in its throat. And at that instant Conan

hurled the ax.



All the weight of arm and shoulder was behind the throw, and the ax

was a streak of silver in the dim moon. Almost before he realized what

had happened, Balthus saw the leopard rolling on the ground in its

death-throes, the handle of the ax standing up from its head. The head

of the weapon had split its narrow skull.



Conan bounded from the bushes, wrenched his ax free and dragged the

limp body in among the trees, concealing it from the casual glance.



"Now let's go, and go fast!" he grunted, leading the way southward,

away from the trail. "There'll be warriors coming after that cat. As

soon as he got his wits back Zogar sent him after us. The Picts would

follow him, but he'd leave them far behind. He'd circle the village

until he hit our trail and then come after us like a streak. They

couldn't keep up with him, but they'll have an idea as to our general

direction. They'd follow, listening for his cry. Well, they won't hear

that, but they'll find the blood on the trail, and look around and

find the body in the brush. They'll pick up our spoor there, if they

can. Walk with care."



He avoided clinging briars and low-hanging branches effortlessly,

gliding between trees without touching the stems and always planting

his feet in the places calculated to show least evidence of his

passing; but with Balthus it was slower, more laborious work.



No sound came from behind them. They had covered more than a mile when

Balthus said: "Does Zogar Sag catch leopard-cubs and train them for

bloodhounds?"



Conan shook his head. "That was a leopard he called out of the woods."



"But," Balthus persisted, "if he can order the beasts to do his

bidding, why doesn't he rouse them all and have them after us? The

forest is full of leopards; why send only one after us?"



Conan did not reply for a space, and when he did it was with a curious

reticence.



"He can't command all the animals. Only such as remember Jhebbal Sag."



"Jhebbal Sag?" Balthus repeated the ancient name hesitantly. He had

never heard it spoken more than three or four times in his whole life.



"Once all living things worshipped him. That was long ago, when beasts

and men spoke one language. Men have forgotten him; even the beasts

forget. Only a few remember. The men who remember Jhebbal Sag and the

beasts who remember are brothers and speak the same tongue."



Balthus did not reply; he had strained at a Pictish stake and seen the

nighted jungle give up its fanged horrors at a shaman's call.



"Civilized men laugh," said Conan. "But not one can tell me how Zogar

Sag can call pythons and tigers and leopards out of the wilderness and

make them do his bidding. They would say it is a lie, if they dared.

That's the way with civilized men. When they can't explain something

by their half-baked science, they refuse to believe it."



The people on the Tauran were closer to the primitive than most

Aquilonians; superstitions persisted, whose sources were lost in

antiquity. And Balthus had seen that which still prickled his flesh.

He could not refute the monstrous thing which Conan's words implied.



"I've heard that there's an ancient grove sacred to Jhebbal Sag

somewhere in this forest," said Conan. "I don't know. I've never seen

it. But more beasts remember in this country than any I've ever seen."



"Then others will be on our trail?"



"They are now," was Conan's disquieting answer. "Zogar would never

leave our tracking to one beast alone."



"What are we to do, then?" asked Balthus uneasily, grasping his ax as

he stared at the gloomy arches above him. His flesh crawled with the

momentary expectation of ripping talons and fangs leaping from the

shadows.



"Wait!"



Conan turned, squatted and with his knife began scratching a curious

symbol in the mold. Stooping to look at it over his shoulder, Balthus

felt a crawling of the flesh along his spine, he knew not why. He felt

no wind against his face, but there was a rustling of leaves above

them and a weird moaning swept ghostily through the branches. Conan

glanced up inscrutably, then rose and stood staring somberly down at

the symbol he had drawn.



"What is it?" whispered Balthus. It looked archaic and meaningless to

him. He supposed that it was his ignorance of artistry which prevented

his identifying it as one of the conventional designs of some

prevailing culture. But had he been the most erudite artist in the

world, he would have been no nearer the solution.



"I saw it carved in the rock of a cave no human had visited for a

million years," muttered Conan, "in the uninhabited mountains beyond

the Sea of Vilayet, half a world away from this spot. Later I saw a

black witch-finder of Kush scratch it in the sand of a nameless river.

He told me part of its meaning--it's sacred to Jhebbal Sag and the

creatures which worship him. Watch!"



They drew back among the dense foliage some yards away and waited in

tense silence. To the east drums muttered and somewhere to north and

west other drums answered. Balthus shivered, though he knew long miles

of black forest separated him from the grim beaters of those drums

whose dull pulsing was a sinister overture that set the dark stage for

bloody drama.



Balthus found himself holding his breath. Then with a slight shaking

of the leaves, the bushes parted and a magnificent panther came into

view. The moonlight dappling through the leaves shone on its glossy

coat rippling with the play of the great muscles beneath it.



With its head low it glided toward them. It was smelling out their

trail. Then it halted as if frozen, its muzzle almost touching the

symbol cut in the mold. For a long space it crouched motionless; it

flattened its long body and laid its head on the ground before the

mark. And Balthus felt the short hairs stir on his scalp. For the

attitude of the great carnivore was one of awe and adoration.



Then the panther rose and backed away carefully, belly almost to the

ground. With his hind-quarters among the bushes he wheeled as if in

sudden panic and was gone like a flash of dappled light.



Balthus mopped his brow with a trembling hand and glanced at Conan.



The barbarian's eyes were smoldering with fires that never lit the

eyes of men bred to the ideas of civilization. In that instant he was

all wild, and had forgotten the man at his side. In his burning gaze

Balthus glimpsed and vaguely recognized pristine images and half-

embodied memories, shadows from Life's dawn, forgotten and repudiated

by sophisticated races--ancient, primeval fantasms unnamed and

nameless.



Then the deeper fires were masked and Conan was silently leading the

way deeper into the forest.



"We've no more to fear from the beasts," he said after a while, "but

we've left a sign for men to read. They won't follow our trail very

easily, and until they find that symbol they won't know for sure we've

turned south. Even then it won't be easy to smell us out without the

beasts to aid them. But the woods south of the trail will be full of

warriors looking for us. If we keep moving after daylight, we'll be

sure to run into some of them. As soon as we find a good place we'll

hide and wait until another night to swing back and make the river.

We've got to warn Valannus, but it won't help him any if we get

ourselves killed."



"Warn Valannus?"



"Hell, the woods along the river are swarming with Picts! That's why

they got us. Zogar's brewing war-magic; no mere raid this time. He's

done something no Pict has done in my memory--united as many as

fifteen or sixteen clans. His magic did it; they'll follow a wizard

farther than they will a war-chief. You saw the mob in the village;

and there were hundreds hiding along the river bank that you didn't

see. More coming, from the farther villages. He'll have at least three

thousand fighting-men. I lay in the bushes and heard their talk as

they went past. They mean to attack the fort; when, I don't know, but

Zogar doesn't dare delay long. He's gathered them and whipped them

into a frenzy. If he doesn't lead them into battle quickly, they'll

fall to quarreling with one another. They're like blood-mad tigers.



"I don't know whether they can take the fort or not. Anyway, we've got

to get back across the river and give the warning. The settlers on the

Velitrium road must either get into the fort or back to Velitrium.

While the Picts are besieging the fort, war parties will range the

road far to the east--might even cross Thunder River and raid the

thickly settled country behind Velitrium."



As he talked he was leading the way deeper and deeper into the ancient

wilderness. Presently he grunted with satisfaction. They had reached a

spot where the underbrush was more scattered, and an outcropping of

stone was visible, wandering off southward. Balthus felt more secure

as they followed it. Not even a Pict could trail them over naked rock.



"How did you get away?" he asked presently.



Conan tapped his mail-shirt and helmet.



"If more borderers would wear harness there'd be fewer skulls hanging

on the altar-huts. But most men make noise if they wear armor. They

were waiting on each side of the path, without moving. And when a Pict

stands motionless, the very beasts of the forest pass him without

seeing him. They'd seen us crossing the river and got in their places.

If they'd gone into ambush after we left the bank, I'd have had some

hint of it. But they were waiting, and not even a leaf trembled. The

devil himself couldn't have suspected anything. The first suspicion I

had was when I heard a shaft rasp against a bow as it was pulled back.

I dropped and yelled for the men behind me to drop, but they were too

slow, taken by surprise like that.



"Most of them fell at the first volley that raked us from both sides.

Some of the arrows crossed the trail and struck Picts on the other

side. I heard them howl."  He grinned with vicious satisfaction. "Such

of us as were left plunged into the woods and closed with them. When I

saw the others were all down or taken, I broke through and outfooted

the painted devils through the darkness. They were all around me. I

ran and crawled and sneaked, and sometimes I lay on my belly under the

bushes while they passed me on all sides.



"I tried for the shore and found it lined with them, waiting for just

such a move. But i'd have cut my way through and taken a chance on

swimming, only I heard the drums pounding in the village and knew

they'd taken somebody alive.



"They were all so engrossed in Zogar's magic that I was able to climb

the wall behind the altar-hut. There was a warrior supposed to be

watching at that point, but he was squatting behind the hut and

peering around the corner at the ceremony. I came up behind him and

broke his neck with my hands before he knew what was happening. It was

his spear I threw into the snake, and that's his ax you're carrying."



"But what was that--that thing you killed in the altar-hut?" asked

Balthus, with a shiver at the memory of the dim-seen horror.



"One of Zogar's gods. One of Jhebbal's children that didn't remember

and had to be kept chained to the altar. A bull ape. The Picts think

they're sacred to the Hairy One who lives on the moon--the gorilla-god

of Gullah.



"It's getting light. Here's a good place to hide until we see how

close they're on our trail. Probably have to wait until night to break

back to the river."



A low hill pitched upward, girdled and covered with thick trees and

bushes. Near the crest Conan slid into a tangle of jutting rocks,

crowned by dense bushes. Lying among them they could see the jungle

below without being seen. It was a good place to hide or defend.

Balthus did not believe that even a Pict could have trailed them over

the rocky ground for the past four or five miles, but he was afraid of

the beasts that obeyed Zogar Sag. His faith in the curious symbol

wavered a little now. But Conan had dismissed the possibility of

beasts tracking them.



A ghostly whiteness spread through the dense branches; the patches of

sky visible altered in hue, grew from pink to blue. Balthus felt the

gnawing of hunger, though he had slaked his thirst at a stream they

had skirted. There was complete silence, except for an occasional

chirp of a bird. The drums were no longer to be heard. Balthus'

thoughts reverted to the grim scene before the altar-hut.



"Those were ostrich plumes Zogar Sag wore," he said. "I've seen them

on the helmets of knights who rode from the East to visit the barons

of the marches. There are no ostriches in this forest, are there?"



"They came from Kush," answered Conan. "West of here, many marches,

lies the seashore. Ships from Zingara occasionally come and trade

weapons and ornaments and wine to the coastal tribes for skins and

copper ore and gold dust. Sometimes they trade ostrich plumes they got

from the Stygians, who in turn got them from the black tribes of Kush,

which lies south of Stygia. The Pictish shamans place great store by

them. But there's much risk in such trade. The Picts are too likely to

try to seize the ship. And the coast is dangerous to ships. I've

sailed along it when I was with the pirates of the Barachan Isles,

which lie southwest of Zingara."



Balthus looked at his companion with admiration.



"I knew you hadn't spent your life on this frontier. You've mentioned

several far places. You've traveled widely?"



"I've roamed far; farther than any other man of my race ever wandered.

I've seen all the great cities of the Hyborians, the Shemites, the

Stygians, and the Hyrkanians. I've roamed in the unknown countries

south of the black kingdoms of Kush, and east of the Sea of Vilayet.

I've been a mercenary captain, a corsair, a kozak, a penniless

vagabond, a general--hell, I've been everything except a king of a

civilized country, and I may be that, before I die."  The fancy

pleased him, and he grinned hardly. Then he shrugged his shoulders and

stretched his mighty figure on the rocks. "This is as good a life as

any. I don't know how long I'll stay on the frontier; a week, a month,

a year. I have a roving foot. But it's as well on the border as

anywhere."



Balthus set himself to watch the forest below them. Momentarily he

expected to see fierce painted faces thrust through the leaves. But as

the hours passed no stealthy footfall disturbed the brooding quiet.

Balthus believed the Picts had missed their trail and given up the

chase. Conan grew restless.



"We should have sighted parties scouring the woods for us. If they've

quit the chase, it's because they're after bigger game. They may be

gathering to cross the river and storm the fort."



"Would they come this far south if they lost the trail?"



"They've lost the trail, all right; otherwise they'd have been on our

necks before now. Under ordinary circumstances they'd scour the woods

for miles in every direction. Some of them should have passed without

sight of this hill. They must be preparing to cross the river. We've

got to take a chance and make for the river."



Creeping down the rocks Balthus felt his flesh crawl between his

shoulders as he momentarily expected a withering blast of arrows from

the green masses above them. He feared that the Picts had discovered

them and were lying about in ambush. But Conan was convinced no

enemies were near, and the Cimmerian was right.



"We're miles to the south of the village," grunted Conan. "We'll hit

straight through for the river. I don't know how far down the river

they've spread, We'll hope to hit it below them."



With haste that seemed reckless to Balthus they hurried eastward. The

woods seemed empty of life. Conan believed that all the Picts were

gathered in the vicinity of Gwawela, if, indeed, they had not already

crossed the river. He did not believe they would cross in the daytime,

however.



"Some woodsman would be sure to see them and give the alarm. They'll

cross above and below the fort, out of sight of the sentries. Then

others will get in canoes and make straight across for the river wall.

As soon as they attack, those hidden in the woods on the east shore

will assail the fort from the other sides. They've tried that before,

and got the guts shot and hacked out of them. But this time they've

got enough men to make a real onslaught of it."



They pushed on without pausing, though Balthus gazed longingly at the

squirrels flitting among the branches, which he could have brought

down with a cast of his ax. With a sigh he drew up his broad belt. The

everlasting silence and gloom of the primitive forest was beginning to

depress him. He found himself thinking of the open groves and sun-

dappled meadows of the Tauran, of the bluff cheer of his father's

steep-thatched, diamond-paned house, of the fat cows browsing through

the deep lush grass, and the hearty fellowship of the brawny, bare-

armed plowmen and herdsmen.



He felt lonely, in spite of his companion. Conan was as much a part of

this wilderness as Balthus was alien to it. The Cimmerian might have

spent years among the great cities of the world; he might have walked

with the rulers of civilization; he might even achieve his wild whim

some day and rule as king of a civilized nation; stranger things had

happened. But he was no less a barbarian. He was concerned only with

the naked fundamentals of life. The warm intimacies of small, kindly

things, the sentiments and delicious trivialities that make up so much

of civilized men's lives were meaningless to him. A wolf was no less a

wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the

life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little

things that are so dear to civilized men and women.



The shadows were lengthening when they reached the river and peered

through the masking bushes. They could see up and down the river for

about a mile each way. The sullen stream lay bare and empty. Conan

scowled across at the other shore.



"We've got to take another chance here. We've got to swim the river.

We don't know whether they've crossed or not. The woods over there may

be alive with them. We've got to risk it. We're about six miles south

of Gwawela."



He wheeled and ducked as a bowstring twanged. Something like a white

flash of light streaked through the bushes. Balthus knew it was an

arrow. Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes.

Balthus caught the gleam of steel as he whirled his sword, and heard a

death scream. The next instant he had broken through the bushes after

the Cimmerian.



A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers

spasmodically clawing at the grass. Half a dozen others were swarming

about Conan, swords and axes lifted. They had cast away their bows,

useless at such deadly close quarters. Their lower jaws were painted

white, contrasting vividly with their dark faces, and the designs on

their muscular breasts differed from any Balthus had ever seen.



One of them hurled his ax at Balthus and rushed after it with lifted

knife. Balthus ducked and then caught the wrist that drove the knife

licking at his throat. They went to the ground together, rolling over

and over. The Pict was like a wild beast, his muscles hard as steel

strings.



Balthus was striving to maintain his hold on the wild man's wrist and

bring his own ax into play, but so fast and furious was the struggle

that each attempt to strike was blocked. The Pict was wrenching

furiously to free his knife hand, was clutching at Balthus' ax, and

driving his knees at the youth's groin. Suddenly he attempted to shift

his knife to his free hand, and in that instant Balthus, struggling up

on one knee, split the painted head with a desperate blow of his ax.



He sprang up and glared wildly about for his companion, expecting to

see him overwhelmed by numbers. Then he realized the full strength and

ferocity of the Cimmerian. Conan bestrode two of his attackers, shorn

half asunder by that terrible broadsword. As Balthus looked he saw the

Cimmerian beat down a thrusting shortsword, avoid the stroke of an ax

with a cat-like side-wise spring which brought him within arm's length

of a squat savage stooping for a bow. Before the Pict could

straighten, the red sword flailed down and clove him from shoulder to

midbreastbone, where the blade stuck. The remaining warriors rushed

in, one from either side. Balthus hurled his ax with an accuracy that

reduced the attackers to one, and Conan, abandoning his efforts to

free his sword, wheeled and met the remaining Pict with his bare

hands. The stocky warrior, a head shorter than his tall enemy, leaped

in, striking with his ax, at the same time stabbing murderously with

his knife. The knife broke on the Cimmerian's mail, and the ax checked

in midair as Conan's fingers locked like iron on the descending arm. A

bone snapped loudly, and Balthus saw the Pict wince and falter. The

next instant he was swept off his feet, lifted high above the

Cimmerian's head--he writhed in midair for an instant, kicking and

thrashing, and then was dashed headlong to the earth with such force

that he rebounded, and then lay still, his limp posture telling of

splintered limbs and a broken spine.



"Come on!" Conan wrenched his sword free and snatched up an ax. "Grab

a bow and a handful of arrows, and hurry! We've got to trust to our

heels again. That yell was heard. They'll be here in no time. If we

tried to swim now, they'd feather us with arrows before we reached

midstream!"







Chapter 6. Red Axes of the Border



Conan did not plunge deeply into the forest. A few hundred yards from

the river, he altered his slanting course and ran parallel with it.

Balthus recognized a grim determination not to be hunted away from the

river which they must cross if they were to warn the men in the fort.

Behind them rose more loudly the yells of the forest men. Balthus

believed the Picts had reached the glade where the bodies of the slain

men lay. Then further yells seemed to indicate that the savages were

streaming into the woods in pursuit. They had left a trail any Pict

could follow.



Conan increased his speed, and Balthus grimly set his teeth and kept

on his heels, though he felt he might collapse any time. It seemed

centuries since he had eaten last. He kept going more by an effort of

will than anything else. His blood was pounding so furiously in his

ear-drums that he was not aware when the yells died out behind them.



Conan halted suddenly.. Balthus leaned against a tree and panted.



"They've quit!" grunted the Cimmerian, scowling.



"Sneaking--up--on--us!" gasped Balthus.



Conan shook his head.



"A short chase like this they'd yell every step of the way. No.

They've gone back. I thought I heard somebody yelling behind them a

few seconds before the noise began to get dimmer. They've been

recalled. And that's good for us, but damned bad for the men in the

fort. It means the warriors are being summoned out of the woods for

the attack. Those men we ran into were warriors from a tribe down the

river. They were undoubtedly headed for Gwawela to join in the assault

on the fort. Damn it, we're farther away than ever, now. We've got to

get across the river."



Turning east he hurried through the thickets with no attempt at

concealment. Balthus followed him, for the first time feeling the

sting of lacerations on his breast and shoulder where the Pict's

savage teeth had scored him. He was pushing through the thick bushes

that hinged the bank when Conan pulled him back. Then he heard a

rhythmic splashing, and peering through the leaves, saw a dugout canoe

coming up the river, its single occupant paddling hard against the

current. He was a strongly built Pict with a white heron feather

thrust in a copper band that confined his square-cut mane.



"That's a Gwawela man," muttered Conan. "Emissary from Zogar. White

plume shows that. He's carried a peace talk to the tribes down the

river and now he's trying to get back and take a hand in the

slaughter."



The lone ambassador was now almost even with their hiding-place, and

suddenly Balthus almost jumped out of his skin. At his very ear had

sounded the harsh gutturals of a Pict. Then he realized that Conan had

called to the paddler in his own tongue. The man started, scanned the

bushes and called back something, then cast a startled glance across

the river, bent low and sent the canoe shooting in toward the western

bank. Not understanding, Balthus saw Conan take from his hand the bow

he had picked up in the glade, and notch an arrow.



The Pict had run his canoe in close to the shore, and staring up into

the bushes, called out something. His answer came in the twang of the

bow-string, the streaking flight of the arrow that sank to the

feathers in his broad breast. With a choking gasp he slumped sidewise

and rolled into the shallow water. In an instant Conan was down the

bank and wading into the water to grasp the drifting canoe. Balthus

stumbled after him and somewhat dazedly crawled into the canoe. Conan

scrambled in, seized the paddle and sent the craft shooting toward the

eastern shore. Balthus noted with envious admiration the play of the

great muscles beneath the sun-burnt skin. The Cimmerian seemed an iron

man, who never knew fatigue.



"What did you say to the Pict?" asked Balthus.



"Told him to pull into shore; said there was a white forest runner on

the bank who was trying to get a shot at him."



"That doesn't seem fair," Balthus objected. "He thought a friend was

speaking to him. You mimicked a Pict perfectly--"



"We needed his boat," grunted Conan, not pausing in his exertions.

"Only way to lure him to the bank. Which is worse--to betray a Pict

who'd enjoy skinning us both alive, or betray the men across the river

whose lives depend on our getting over?"



Balthus mulled over this delicate ethical question for a moment, then

shrugged his shoulders and asked: "How far are we from the fort?"



Conan pointed to a creek which flowed into Black River from the east,

a few hundred yards below them.



"That's South Creek; it's ten miles from its mouth to the fort. It's

the southern boundary of Conajohara. Marshes miles wide south of it.

No danger of a raid from across them. Nine miles above the fort North

Creek forms the other boundary. Marshes beyond that, too. That's why

an attack must come from the west, across Black River. Conajohara's

just like a spear, with a point nineteen miles wide, thrust into the

Pictish wilderness."



"Why don't we keep to the canoe and make the trip by water?"



"Because, considering the current we've got to brace, and the bends in

the river, we can go faster afoot. Besides, remember Gwawela is south

of the fort; if the Picts are crossing the river we'd run right into

them."



Dusk was gathering as they stepped upon the eastern bank. Without

pause Conan pushed on northward, at a pace that made Balthus' sturdy

legs ache.



"Valannus wanted a fort built at the mouths of North and South

Creeks," grunted the Cimmerian. "Then the river could be patrolled

constantly. But the Government wouldn't do it.



"Soft-bellied fools sitting on velvet cushions with naked girls

offering them iced wine on their knees.--I know the breed. They can't

see any farther than their palace wall. Diplomacy--hell! They'd fight

Picts with theories of territorial expansion. Valannus and men like

him have to obey the orders of a set of damned fools. They'll never

grab any more Pictish land, any more than they'll ever rebuild

Venarium. The time may come when they'll see the barbarians swarming

over the walls of the eastern cities!"



A week before, Balthus would have laughed at any such preposterous

suggestion. Now he made no reply. He had seen the unconquerable

ferocity of the men who dwelt beyond the frontiers.



He shivered, casting glances at the sullen river, just visible through

the bushes, at the arches of the trees which crowded close to its

banks. He kept remembering that the Picts might have crossed the river

and be lying in ambush between them and the fort. It was fast growing

dark.



A slight sound ahead of them jumped his heart into his throat, and

Conan's sword gleamed in the air. He lowered it when a dog, a great,

gaunt, scarred beast, slunk out of the bushes and stood staring at

them.



"That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin on the

bank of the river a few miles south of the fort," gruntcd Conan. "The

Picts slipped over and killed him, of course, and burned his cabin. We

found him dead among the embers, and the dog lying senseless among

three Picts he'd killed. He was almost cut to pieces. We took him to

the fort and dressed his wounds, but after he recovered he took to the

woods and turned wild.--What now, Slasher, are you hunting the men who

killed your master?"



The massive head swung from side to side and the eyes glowed greenly.

He did not growl or bark. Silently as a phantom he slid in behind

them.



"Let him come," muttered Conan. "He can smell the devils before we can

see them."



Balthus smiled and laid his hand caressingly on the dog's head. The

lips involuntarily writhed back to display the gleaming fangs; then

the great beast bent his head sheepishly, and his tall moved with

jerky uncertainty, as if the owner had almost forgotten the emotions

of friendliness. Balthus mentally compared the great gaunt hard body

with the fat sleek hounds tumbling vociferously over one another in

his father's kennel yard. He sighed. The frontier was no less hard for

beasts than for men. This dog had almost forgotten the meaning of

kindness and friendliness.



Slasher glided ahead, and Conan let him take the lead. The last tinge

of dusk faded into stark darkness. The miles fell away under their

steady feet. Slasher seemed voiceless. Suddenly he halted, tense, ears

lifted. An instant later the men heard it--a demoniac yelling up the

river ahead of them, faint as a whisper.



Conan swore like a madman.



"They've attacked the fort! We're too late! Come on!"



He increased his pace, trusting to the dog to smell out ambushes

ahead. In a flood of tense excitement Balthus forgot his hunger and

weariness. The yells grew louder as they advanced, and above the

devilish screaming they could hear the deep shouts of the soldiers.

Just as Balthus began to fear they would run into the savages who

seemed to be howling just ahead of them, Conan swung away from the

river in a wide semicircle that carried them to a low rise from which

they could look over the forest. They saw the fort, lighted with

torches thrust over the parapets on long poles. These cast a

flickering, uncertain light over the clearing, and in that light they

saw throngs of naked, painted figures along the fringe of the

clearing. The river swarmed with canoes. The Picts had the fort

completely surrounded.



An incessant hail of arrows rained against the stockade from the woods

and the river. The deep twanging of the bowstrings rose above the

howling. Yelling like wolves, several hundred naked warriors with axes

in their hands ran from under the trees and raced toward the eastern

gate. They were within a hundred and fifty yards of their objective

when a withering blast of arrows from the wall littered the ground

with corpses and sent the survivors fleeing back to the trees. The men

in the canoes rushed their boats toward the river-wall, and were met

by another shower of clothyard shafts and a volley from the small

ballistae mounted on towers on that side of the stockade. Stones and

logs whirled through the air and splintered and sank half a dozen

canoes, killing their occupants, and the other boats drew back out of

range. A deep roar of triumph rose from the walls of the fort,

answered by bestial howling from all quarters.



"Shall we try to break through?" asked Balthus, trembling with

eagerness.



Conan shook his head. He stood with his arms folded, his head slightly

bent, a somber and brooding figure.



"The fort's doomed. The Picts are blood-mad, and won't stop until

they're all killed. And there are too many of them for the men in the

fort to kill. We couldn't break through, and if we did, we could do

nothing but die with Valannus."



"There's nothing we can do but save our own hides, then?"



"Yes. We've got to warn the settlers. Do you know why the Picts are

not trying to burn the fort with fire-arrows? Because they don't want

a flame that might warn the people to the east. They plan to stamp out

the fort, and then sweep east before anyone knows of its fall. They

may cross Thunder River and take Velitrium before the people know

what's happened. At least they'll destroy every living thing between

the fort and Thunder River.



"We've failed to warn the fort, and I see now it would have done no

good if we had succeeded. The fort's too poorly manned. A few more

charges and the Picts will be over the walls and breaking down the

gates. But we can start the settlers toward Velitrium. Come on! We're

outside the circle the Picts have thrown around the fort. We'll keep

clear of it."



They swung out in a wide arc, hearing the rising and falling of the

volume of the yells, marking each charge and repulse. The men in the

fort were holding their own; but the shrieks of the Picts did not

diminish in savagery. They vibrated with a timbre that held assurance

of ultimate victory.



Before Balthus realized they were close to it, they broke into the

road leading east.



"Now run!" grunted Conan. Balthus set his teeth. It was nineteen miles

to Velitrium, a good five to Scalp Creek beyond which began the

settlements. It seemed to the Aquilonian that they had been fighting

and running for centuries. But the nervous excitement that rioted

through his blood stimulated him to herculean efforts.



Slasher ran ahead of them, his head to the ground, snarling low, the

first sound they had heard from him.



"Picts ahead of us!" snarled Conan, dropping to one knee and scanning

the ground in the starlight. He shook his head, baffled. "I can't tell

how many. Probably only a small party. Some that couldn't wait to take

the fort. They've gone ahead to butcher the settlers in their beds!

Come on!"



Ahead of them presently they saw a small blaze through the trees, and,

heard a wild and ferocious chanting. The trail bent there, and leaving

it, they cut across the bend, through the thickets. A few moments

later they were looking on a hideous sight. An ox-wain stood in the

road piled with meager household furnishings; it was burning; the oxen

lay near with their throats cut. A man and a woman lay in the road,

stripped and mutilated. Five Picts were dancing about them with

fantastic leaps and bounds, waving bloody axes; one of them brandished

the woman's red-smeared gown.



At the sight a red haze swam before Balthus. Lifting his bow he lined

the prancing figure, black against the fire, and loosed. The slayer

leaped convulsively and fell dead with the arrow through his heart.

Then the two white men and the dog were upon the startled survivors.

Conan was animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old

racial hate, but Balthus was afire with wrath.



He met the first Pict to oppose him with a ferocious swipe that split

the painted skull, and sprang over his failing body to grapple with

the others. But Conan had already killed one of the two he had chosen,

and the leap of the Aquilonian was a second late. The warrior was down

with the long sword through him even as Balthus' ax was lifted.

Turning toward the remaining Pict, Balthus saw Slasher rise from his

victim, his great jaws dripping blood.



Balthus said nothing as he looked down at the pitiful forms in the

road beside the burning wain. Both were young, the woman little more

than a girl. By some whim of chance the Picts had left her face

unmarred, and even in the agonies of an awful death it was beautiful.

But her soft young body had been hideously slashed with many knives--a

mist clouded Balthus' eyes and he swallowed chokingly. The tragedy

momentarily overcame him. He felt like falling upon the ground and

weeping and biting the earth.



"Some young couple just hitting out on their own," Conan was saying as

he wiped his sword unemotionally. "On their way to the fort when the

Picts met them. Maybe the boy was going to enter the service; maybe

take up land on the river. Well, that's what will happen to every man,

woman, and child this side of Thunder River if we don't get them into

Velitrium in a hurry."



Balthus' knees trembled as he followed Conan. But there was no hint of

weakness in the long easy stride of the Cimmerian. There was a kinship

between him and the great gaunt brute that glided beside him. Slasher

no longer growled with his head to the trail. The way was clear before

them. The yelling on the river came faintly to them, but Balthus

believed the fort was still holding. Conan halted suddenly, with an

oath.



He showed Balthus a trail that led north from the road. It was an old

trail, partly grown with new young growth, and this growth had

recently been broken down. Balthus realized this fact more by feel

than sight, though Conan seemed to see like a cat in the dark. The

Cimmerian showed him where broad wagon tracks turned off the main

trail, deeply indented in the forest mold.



"Settlers going to the licks after salt," he grunted. "They're at the

edges of the marsh, about nine miles from here. Blast it! They'll be

cut off and butchered to a man! Listen! One man can warn the people on

the road. Go ahead and wake them up and herd them into Velitrium. I'll

go and get the men gathering the salt. They'll be camped by the licks.

We won't come back to the road. We'll head straight through the

woods."



With no further comment Conan turned off the trail and hurried down

the dim path, and Balthus, after staring after him for a few moments,

set out along the road. The dog had remained with him, and glided

softly at his heels. When Balthus had gone a few rods he heard the

animal growl. Whirling, he glared back the way he had come, and was

startled to see a vague ghostly glow vanishing into the forest in the

direction Conan had taken. Slasher rumbled deep in his throat, his

hackles stiff and his eyes balls of green fire. Balthus remembered the

grim apparition that had taken the head of the merchant Tiberias not

far from that spot, and he hesitated. The thing must be following

Conan. But the giant Cimmerian had repeatedly demonstrated his ability

to take care of himself, and Balthus felt his duty lay toward the

helpless settlers who slumbered in the path of the red hurricane. The

horror of the fiery phantom was overshadowed by the horror of those

limp, violated bodies beside the burning ox-wain.



He hurried down the road, crossed Scalp Creek and came in sight of the

first settler's cabin--a, long, low structure of ax-hewn logs. In an

instant he was pounding on the door. A sleepy voice inquired his

pleasure.



"Get up! The Picts are over the river!"



That brought instant response. A low cry echoed his words and then the

door was thrown open by a woman in a scanty shift. Her hair hung over

her bare shoulders in disorder; she held a candle in one hand and an

ax in the other. Her face was colorless, her eyes wide with terror.



"Come in!" she begged. "We'll hold the cabin."



"No. We must make for Velitrium. The fort can't hold them back. It may

have fallen already. Don't stop to dress. Get your children and come

on."



"But my man's gone with the others after salt!" she wailed, wringing

her hands. Behind her peered three tousled youngsters, blinking and

bewildered.



"Conan's gone after them. He'll fetch them through safe. We must hurry

up the road to warn the other cabins."



Relief flooded her countenance.



"Mitra be thanked!" she cried. "If the Cimmerian's gone after them,

they're safe if mortal man can save them!"



In a whirlwind of activity she snatched up the smallest child and

herded the others through the door ahead of her. Balthus took the

candle and ground it out under his heel. He listened an instant. No

sound came up the dark road.



"Have you got a horse?"



"In the stable," she groaned. "Oh, hurry!"



He pushed her aside as she fumbled with shaking hands at the bars. He

led the horse out and lifted the children on its back, telling them to

hold to its mane and to one another. They stared at him seriously,

making no outcry. The woman took the horse's halter and set out up the

road. She still gripped her ax and Balthus knew that if cornered she

would fight with the desperate courage of a she-panther.



He held behind, listening. He was oppressed by the belief that the

fort had been stormed and taken, that the dark-skinned hordes were

already streaming up the road toward Velitrium, drunken on slaughter

and mad for blood. They would come with the speed of starving wolves.



Presently they saw another cabin looming ahead. The woman started to

shriek a warning, but Balthus stopped her. He hurried to the door and

knocked. A woman's voice answered him. He repeated his warning, and

soon the cabin disgorged its occupants--an old woman, two young women,

and four children. Like the other woman's husband, their men had gone

to the salt licks the day before, unsuspecting of any danger. One of

the young women seemed dazed, the other prone to hysteria. But the old

woman, a stern old veteran of the frontier, quieted them harshly; she

helped Balthus get out the two horses that were stabled in a pen

behind the cabin and put the children on them. Balthus urged that she

herself mount with them, but she shook her head and made one of the

younger women ride.



"She's with child," grunted the old woman. "I can walk--and fight,

too, if it comes to that."



As they set out, one of the young women said: "A young couple passed

along the road about dusk; we advised them to spend the night at our

cabin, but they were anxious to make the fort tonight. Did--did--"



"They met the Picts," answered Balthus briefly, and the woman sobbed

in horror.



They were scarcely out of sight of the cabin when some distance behind

them quavered a long high-pitched yell.



"A wolf!" exclaimed one of the women.



"A painted wolf with an ax in his hand," muttered Balthus. "Go! Rouse

the other settlers along the road and take them with you. I'll scout

along behind."



Without a word the old woman herded her charges ahead of her. As they

faded into the darkness, Balthus could see the pale-ovals that were

the faces of the children twisted back over their shoulders to stare

toward him. He remembered his own people on the Tauran and a moment's

giddy sickness swam over him. With momentary weakness he groaned and

sank down in the road, his muscular arm fell over Slasher's massive

neck and he felt the dog's warm moist tongue touch his face.



He lifted his head and grinned with a painful effort.



"Come on, boy," he mumbled, rising. "We've got work to do."



A red glow suddenly became evident through the trees. The Picts had

fired the last hut. He grinned. How Zogar Sag would froth if he knew

his warriors had let their destructive natures get the better of them.

The fire would warn the people farther up the road. They would be

awake and alert when the fugitives reached them. But his face grew

grim. The women were traveling slowly, on foot and on the overloaded

horses. The swift-footed Picts would run them down within a mile,

unless--he took his position behind a tangle of fallen logs beside the

trail. The road west of him was lighted by the burning cabin, and when

the Picts came he saw them first--black furtive figures etched against

the distant glare.



Drawing a shaft to the head, he loosed and one of the figures

crumpled. The rest melted into the woods on either side of the road.

Slasher whimpered with the killing lust beside him. Suddenly a figure

appeared on the fringe of the trail, under the trees, and began

gliding toward the fallen timbers. Balthus' bow-string twanged and the

Pict yelped, staggered and fell into the shadows with the arrow

through his thigh. Slasher cleared the timbers with a bound and leaped

into the bushes. They were violently shaken and then the dog slunk

back to Balthus' side, his jaws crimson.



No more appeared in the trail; Balthus began to fear they were

stealing past his position through the woods, and when he heard a

faint sound to his left he loosed blindly. He cursed as he heard the

shaft splinter against a tree, but Slasher glided away as silently as

a phantom, and presently Balthus heard a thrashing and a gurgling;

then Slasher came like a ghost through the bushes, snuggling his

great, crimson-stained head against Balthus' arm. Blood oozed from a

gash in his shoulder, but the sounds in the wood had ceased for ever.



The men lurking on the edges of the road evidently sensed the fate of

their companion, and decided that an open charge was preferable to

being dragged down in the dark by a devil-beast they could neither see

nor hear. Perhaps they realized that only one man lay behind the logs.

They came with a sudden rush, breaking cover from both sides of the

trail. Three dropped with arrows through them--and the remaining pair

hesitated. One turned and ran back down the road, but the other lunged

over the breastwork, his eyes and teeth gleaming in the dim light, his

ax lifted. Balthus' foot slipped as he sprang up, but the slip saved

his life. The descending ax shaved a lock of hair from his head, and

the Pict rolled down the logs from the force of his wasted blow.

Before he could regain his feet Slasher tore his throat out.



Then followed a tense period of waiting, in which time Balthus

wondered if the man who had fled had been the only survivor of the

party. Obviously it had been a small band that had either left the

fighting at the fort, or was scouting ahead of the main body. Each

moment that passed increased the chances for safety of the women and

children hurrying toward Velithum.



Then without warning a shower of arrows whistled over his retreat. A

wild howling rose from the woods along the trail. Either the survivor

had gone after aid, or another party had joined the first. The burning

cabin still smoldered, lending a little light. Then they were after

him, gliding through the trees beside the trail. He shot three arrows

and threw the bow away. As if sensing his plight, they came on, not

yelling now, but in deadly silence except for a swift pad of many

feet.



He fiercely hugged the head of the great dog growling at his side,

muttered: "All right, boy, give 'em hell!" and sprang to his feet,

drawing his ax. Then the dark figures flooded over the breastworks and

closed in a storm of flailing axes, stabbing knives and ripping fangs.







Chapter 7. The Devil in the Fire



When Conan turned from the Velitrium road, he expected a run of some

nine miles and set himself to the task. But he had not gone four when

he heard the sounds of a party of men ahead of him. From the noise

they were making in their progress he knew they were not Picts. He

hailed them.



"Who's there?" challenged a harsh voice. "Stand where you are until we

know you, or you'll get an arrow through you."



"You couldn't hit an elephant in this darkness," answered Conan

impatiently. "Come on, fool; it's I--Conan. The Picts are over the

river."



"We suspected as much," answered the leader of the men, as they strode

forward--tall, rangy men, stern-faced, with bows in their hands. "One

of our party wounded an antelope and tracked it nearly to Black River.

He heard them yelling down the river and ran back to our camp. We left

the salt and the wagons, turned the oxen loose, and came as swiftly as

we could. If the Picts are besieging the fort, war-parties will be

ranging up the road toward our cabins."



"Your families are safe," grunted Conan. "My companion went ahead to

take them to Velitrium. If we go back to the main road we may run into

the whole horde. We'll strike southeast, through the timber. Go ahead.

I'll scout behind."



A few moments later the whole band was hurrying southeastward. Conan

followed more slowly, keeping just within ear-shot. He cursed the

noise they were making; that many Picts or Cimmerians would have moved

through the woods with no more noise than the wind makes as it blows

through the black branches. He had just crossed a small glade when he

wheeled, answering the conviction of his primitive instincts that he

was being followed. Standing motionless among the bushes he heard the

sounds of the retreating settlers fade away. Then a voice called

faintly back along the way he had come: "Conan! Conan! Wait for me,

Conan!"



"Balthus!" he swore bewilderedly. Cautiously he called: "Here I am!"



"Wait for me, Conan!" the voice came more distinctly.



Conan moved out of the shadows, scowling. "What the devil are you

doing here?--Crom!"



He half crouched, the flesh prickling along his spine. It was not

Balthus who was emerging from the other side of the glade. A weird

glow burned through the trees. It moved toward him, shimmering

weirdly--a green witchfire that moved with purpose and intent.



It halted some feet away and Conan glared at it, trying to distinguish

its fire-misted outlines. The quivering flame had a solid core; the

flame was but a green garment that masked some animate and evil

entity; but the Cimmerian was unable to make out its shape or

likeness. Then, shockingly, a voice spoke to him from amidst the fiery

column.



"Why do you stand like a sheep waiting for the butcher, Conan?"



The voice was human but carried strange vibrations that were not

human.



"Sheep?" Conan's wrath got the best of his momentary awe. "Do you

think I'm afraid of a damned Pictish swamp devil? A friend called me."



"I called in his voice," answered the other. "The men you follow

belong to my brother; I would not rob his knife of their blood. But

you are mine. O fool, you have come from the far gray hills of

Cimmeria to meet your doom in the forests of Conajohara."



"You've had your chance at me before now," snorted Conan. "Why didn't

you kill me then, if you could?"



"My brother had not painted a skull black for you and hurled it into

the fire that burns for ever on Gullah's black altar. He had not

whispered your name to the black ghosts that haunt the uplands of the

Dark Land. But a bat has flown over the Mountains of the Dead and

drawn your image in blood on the white tiger's hide that hangs before

the long hut where sleep the Four Brothers of the Night. The great

serpents coil about their feet and the stars burn like fireflies in

their hair."



"Why have the gods of darkness doomed me to death?" growled Conan.



Something--a hand, foot or talon, he could not tell which, thrust out

from the fire and marked swiftly on the mold. A symbol blazed there,

marked with fire, and faded, but not before he recognized it.



"You dared make the sign which only a priest of Jhebbal Sag dare make.

Thunder rumbled through the black Mountain of the Dead and the altar-

hut of Gullah was thrown down by a wind from the Gulf of Ghosts. The

loon which is messenger to the Four Brothers of the Night flew swiftly

and whispered your name in my ear. Your race is run. You are a dead

man already. Your head will hang in the altar-hut of my brother. Your

body will be eaten by the black-winged, sharp-beaked Children of

Jhil."



"Who the devil is your brother?" demanded Conan. His sword was naked

in his hand, and he was subtly loosening the ax in his belt.



"Zogar Sag; a child of Jhebbal Sag who still visits his sacred groves

at times. A woman of Gwawela slept in a grove holy to Jhebbal Sag. Her

babe was Zogar Sag. I too am a son of Jhebbal Sag, out of a fire-being

from a far realm. Zogar Sag summoned me out of the Misty Lands. With

incantations and sorcery and his own blood he materialized me in the

flesh of his own planet. We are one, tied together by invisible

threads. His thoughts are my thoughts; if he is struck, I am bruised.

If I am cut, he bleeds. But I have talked enough. Soon your ghost will

talk with the ghosts of the Dark Land, and they will tell you of the

old gods which are not dead, but sleep in the outer abysses, and from

time to time awake."



"I'd like to see what you look like," muttered Conan, working his ax

free, "you who leave a track like a bird, who burn like a flame and

yet speak with a human voice."



"You shall see," answered the voice from the flame, "see, and carry

the knowledge with you into the Dark Land."



The flames leaped and sank, dwindling and dimming. A face began to

take shadowy form. At first Conan thought it was Zogar Sag himself who

stood wrapped in green fire. But the face was higher than his own, and

there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various

abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes,

a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these

peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before

him. The eyes were red as coals of living fire.



More details came into view: a slender torso, covered with snaky

scales, which was yet man-like in shape, with man like arms, from the

waist upward, below, long crane-like legs ended in splay, three-toed

feet like those of huge bird. Along the monstrous limbs the blue fire

fluttered and ran. He saw it as through a glistening mist.



Then suddenly it was towering over him, though he had not seen it move

toward him. A long arm, which for the first time he noticed was armed

with curving, sickle-like talons, swung high and swept down at his

neck. With a fierce cry he broke the spell and bounded aside, hurling

his ax. The demon avoided the cast with an unbelievably quick movement

of its narrow head and was on him again with a hissing rush of leaping

flames.



But fear had fought for it when it slew its other victims and Conan

was not afraid. He knew that any being clothed in material flesh can

be slain by material weapons, however grisly its form may be.



One flailing talon-armed limb knocked his helmet from his head. A

little lower and it would have decapitated him. But fierce joy surged

through him as his savagely driven sword sank deep in the monster's

groin. He bounded backward from a flailing stroke, tearing his sword

free as he leaped. The talons raked his breast, ripping through mail-

links as if they had been cloth. But his return spring was like that

of a starving wolf. He was inside the lashing arms and driving his

sword deep in the monster's belly--felt the arms lock about him and

the talons ripping the mail from his back as they sought his vitals--

he was lapped and dazzled by blue flame that was chill as ice--then he

had torn fiercely away from the weakening arms and his sword cut the

air in a tremendous swipe.



The demon staggered and fell sprawling sidewise, its head hanging only

by a shred of flesh. The fires that veiled it leaped fiercely upward,

now red as gushing blood, hiding the figure from view. A scent of

burning flesh filled Conan's nostrils. Shaking the blood and sweat

from his eyes, he wheeled and ran staggering through the woods. Blood

trickled down his limbs. Somewhere, miles to the south, he saw the

faint glow of flames that might mark a burning cabin. Behind him,

toward the road, rose a distant howling that spurred him to greater

efforts.







Chapter 8. Conajohara No More



There had been fighting on Thunder River; fierce fighting before the

walls of Velitrium; ax and torch had been plied up and down the bank,

and many a settler's cabin lay in ashes before the painted horde was

rolled back.



A strange quiet followed the storm, in which people gathered and

talked in hushed voices, and men with red-stained bandages drank their

ale silently in the taverns along the river bank.



There, to Conan the Cimmerian, moodily quaffing from a great wine-

glass, came a gaunt forester with a bandage about his head and his arm

in a sling. He was the one survivor of Fort Tuscelan.



"You went with the soldiers to the ruins of the fort?"



Conan nodded.



"I wasn't able," murmured the other. "There was no fighting?"



"The Picts had fallen back across Black River. Something must have

broken their nerve, though only the devil who made them knows what."



The woodsman glanced at his bandaged arm and sighed.



"They say there were no bodies worth disposing of."



Conan shook his head. "Ashes. The Picts had piled them in the fort and

set fire to the fort before they crossed the river. Their own dead and

the men of Valannus."



"Valannus was killed among the last--in the hand-to-hand fighting when

they broke the barriers. They tried to take him alive, but he made

them kill him. They took ten of the rest of us prisoners when we were

so weak from fighting we could fight no more. They butchered nine of

us then and there. It was when Zogar Sag died that I got my chance to

break free and run for it."



"Zogar Sag's dead?" ejaculated Conan.



"Aye. I saw him die That's why the Picts didn't press the fight

against Velitrium as fiercely as they did against the fort. It was

strange. He took no wounds in battle. He was dancing among the slain,

waving an ax with which he'd just brained the last of my comrades. He

came at me, howling like a wolf--and then he staggered and dropped the

ax, and began to reel in a circle screaming as I never heard a man or

beast scream before. He fell between me and the fire they'd built to

roast me, gaging and frothing at the mouth, and all at once he went

rigid and the Picts shouted that he was dead. It was during the

confusion that I slipped my cords and ran for the woods.



"I saw him lying in the firelight. No weapon had touched him. Yet

there were red marks like the wounds of a sword in the groin, belly,

and neck--the last as if his head had been almost severed from his

body. What do you make of that?"



Conan made no reply, and the forester, aware of the reticence of

barbarians on certain matters, continued: "He lived by magic, and

somehow, he died by magic. It was the mystery of his death that took

the heart out of the Picts. Not a man who saw it was in the fighting

before Velitrium. They hurried back across Black River. Those that

struck Thunder River were warriors who had come on before Zogar Sag

died. They were not enough to take the city by themselves.



"I came along the road, behind their main force, and I know none

followed me from the fort. I sneaked through their lines and got into

the town. You brought the settlers through all right, but their women

and children got into Velitrium just ahead of those painted devils. If

the youth Balthus and old Slasher hadn't held them up awhile, they'd

have butchered every woman and child in Conajohara. I passed the place

where Balthus and the dog made their last stand. They were lying amid

a heap of dead Picts--I counted seven, brained by his ax, or

disemboweled by the dog's fangs, and there were others in the road

with arrows sticking in them. Gods, what a fight that must have been!"



"He was a man," said Conan. "I drink to his shade, and to the shade of

the dog, who knew no fear."  He quaffed part of the wine, then emptied

the rest upon the floor, with a curious heathen gesture, and smashed

the goblet. "The heads of ten Picts shall pay for his, and seven heads

for the dog, who was a better warrior than many a man."



And the forester, staring into the moody, smoldering blue eyes, knew

the barbaric oath would be kept.



"They'll not rebuild the fort?"



"No; Conajohara is lost to Aquilonia. The frontier has been pushed

back. Thunder River will be the new border."



The woodsman sighed and stared at his calloused hand, worn from

contact with ax-haft and sword-hilt. Conan reached his long arm for

the wine-jug. The forester stared at him, comparing him with the men

about them, the men who had died along the lost river, comparing him

with those other wild men over that river. Conan did not seem aware of

his gaze.



"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind," the borderer said, still

staring somberly at the Cimmerian. "Civilization is unnatural. It is a

whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph."







THE END