Conan and The Gods of The Mountains Read online

  "Best not do that either," Conan said. "A blind man looking at the branch could tell that people had passed by."

  "And what would this blind man do with the knowledge?" Valeria snapped. At least she did not reach for steel this time.

  "If I knew that, I would know which way we should go to keep him or his friends off our trail," the Cimmerian said. "It might slow us a trifle, but—"

  "Would to Mitra it did slow us!" Valeria said. She looked at her boots as if they had offered her a mortal insult. "Anyone would think from the way you've been driving us along that a whole new tribe of those brown-skinned cutthroats and spellmongers was on our trail."

  "I can't swear that they aren't," Conan said, then added hastily as Valeria's eyes flamed, "but I'd wager against it. If you hadn't insisted that we search for our clothes, we'd have been out of Xuchotl—"

  "If I hadn't insisted on finding our clothes—you know how I was garbed."

  The Cimmerian grinned. "More sightly than you are now, I swear. Of course—"

  Valeria rolled her blue eyes toward the canopy of the jungle with the look of a woman tried beyond speech and endurance. Then she sighed. "Of course it was quite unsuitable for tramping about in the jungle." That was certainly true enough, as the garb had been a swathe of silken cloth about her hips and not a rag more.

  "And the folk of Xuchotl had nothing much better in their wardrobes," she added. "What else could we have done?"

  "Nothing, I admit. But it took us time we could have used to put distance between ourselves and the city. We still have that to do, and the sooner, the better."

  "Is that a hint we should be on our way again?"

  "With you, Valeria, I can only hint. Crom alone knows what you would do if you thought I was giving you an order!"

  Valeria rolled her eyes again, and this time she stuck out her tongue as well. But she also lurched to her feet and eased into her boots. She could not entirely stifle a gasp of pain, but Conan paid her the compliment of letting her finish the work herself.

  The Cimmerian added to the curses he had already heaped on the folk of Xuchotl, this one for their wretched footgear. Only sandals—suited to their polished floors—had been in use for more years than the Cimmerian had lived. The sailors' boots he and Valeria had worn going into Xuchotl had been the best things to bring them out again.

  But no one could deny that those boots were not made for walking fast and far. In another day or two, he might well need to think of finding better footgear, a hiding place where they could let pursuit pass by, or a trail over which Valeria could walk barefoot.

  The Cimmerian's own soles were leather-tough and had resisted the burning sands of the deserts of Iranistan, but Valeria of the Red Brotherhood was more at home on a ship's deck. Another day or two of tramping these trails in such footgear and she might truly need to be carried.

  Nor was that the only matter preying on the Cimmerian's mind. They had taken no food from Xuchotl, fearing poison or sorcery. They would have to find victuals before long. A three-day fast was less than wise, even for the Cimmerian, when hard marching, and perhaps fighting, lay ahead.

  At least he could be sure of the woman beside him. Her courage and skill with weapons she had amply demonstrated, and not only in Xuchotl. That she had survived at all for so many years in the Red Brotherhood proved her no common warrior. She might lack the Cimmerian's woods craft, but that could be learned, and again, Valeria's being alive at all was proof that she learned swiftly when need be.

  Would she learn swiftly enough? Only the gods knew, and Conan had given up expecting answers from them in good season. A fine sword, a trustworthy companion—and stout boots—were worth all the priests' prayers that Conan had ever heard.

  Ahead, sunlight broke through the forest's canopy to tint a patch of dead leaves the color of old gold. Conan shaded his eyes with one hand and stared upward. As best he could judge, it was not long past noon.

  "We'll see about stopping well before twilight," he said without turning. "Sooner, if we find a good hiding place with clean water. I'll set snares, and we can forage for fruits and berries while we wait for the game to find its way to the traps. You're handy enough with knots, I trust?"

  "A sailor so long, and clumsy with knots? Conan, you have seagull dung where other men have their wits!"

  Yet he could hear beneath the indignation relief and gratitude. Valeria would die before admitting either, of course, so it was best if she never had to.

  As for the Cimmerian, he would rather die than leave Valeria. He had snatched her from the nightmare halls of Xuchotl, saving her from becoming a sacrifice on behalf of the aged witch Tascela. He would not be done until they reached not merely the coast, but the sight of a Hyborian ship. Between them and that happy moment lay Crom only knew what perils.

  Crom only knew—and of all the gods Conan had ever heard of, the cold, grim lord of the Cimmerians was the least likely to answer the questions of mewling humans.

  It took all four Monkey warriors now to carry the hunter's litter. They were well up the slopes of Thun-der Mountain, although not on any trail the hunter remembered. This proved little, as he had been this far up the mountain only four times in his life, for ordeals and ceremonies that demanded the presence of God-Men.

  He still would have gladly walked, even with the help of a staff, or with a tuqa leaf to ease the pain of his ankle. He cared little for the sweat and sore muscles of the Monkey warriors, but he cared very much about not being helpless. He thought of asking for the staff and a wad of the painkilling leaves, but one look at the grim face of the Monkey leader slew that thought at once. The Monkey warrior might have been the image of a yaquele, save for the sweat flowing down him.

  Also, the hunter knew he could not walk far even with such aid without risking damage to his ankle beyond the powers of the God-Men to heal. The Kwanyi had small use for a hunter who could no longer hunt. He would be as a child so young that he had no right to anything—not even to food should it grow scarce. The worst that the God-Men or the Monkey leader—even Chabano himself—might do would be swifter, less painful, and more honorable than such a fate.

  The hunter lay back and closed his eyes. Presently he felt the soft, cold touch of mist on his cheek and heard the cry of the mountain eagle as it soared in the chill sky found only above the tree line.

  Conan's long arm whipped the sling up and over. At the high point of its arc, the slung stone leaped across the little stream and into the monkey-laden tree on the other side. The monkeys' chattering turned into shrieks of rage and fear. They scattered, leaves, twigs, and birds' nests tumbling in their wake.

  One monkey neither cried out nor fled. Struck a deadly blow by the stone, it toppled from its branch, bounced from a second, then stuck firmly in the crotch of a third. From ground to the dead monkey was the height of six men taller than Conan.

  The Cimmerian cursed the whole race of monkeys and the inventor of the sling. Then he saw that Valeria was kicking off her boots.

  "Guard my back, Conan. I will have our dinner down in a trice."

  Warned of leeches, Valeria leaped the stream, though Conan saw her wince at the pain this gave her feet. Then she was climbing the tree with almost the agility of the vanished monkeys, in the manner Conan had seen on the Black Coasts—body and legs at nearly right angles, arms gripping the tree as if it were a lover, well-formed hindquarters in the air.

  She moved surely, fingers and toes seeking out the tiniest rough patches in the bark. The angle of the trunk was just enough to allow her to climb as she did, and it was not long before she reached the monkey. A slap to the branch did nothing; the branch was too thick. Valeria climbed another arm's length, crawled out onto the branch, and pushed the dead monkey off.

  It thumped into a patch of ferns. Conan crossed the stream, thrust his sword into the patch, and withdrew it with the monkey spitted on the point.

  "What is there to make you uneasy?" Valeria called.

  "In this jungle,
less than ferns can hide serpents. An asp bite won't kill as fast as the Apples of Derketa, but it's just as sure."

  "You, Cimmerian, are as heartening as a priest of Set preparing me for sacrifice."

  "Don't kill the bearer of bad news, good lady. It was not my advances that drove you from Sukhmet, nor my idea that you should flee into this jungle."

  Perched where she was, Valeria could not draw her dagger. Instead, she made a face to frighten trolls and reached about her for something to throw. Finding nothing, she suggested that the Cimmerian harbored unlawful passions for sheep, then started back down.

  She took the descent with more care and bent over farther—too far, as she learned, for her trousers. There was a sharp ripping sound, and Valeria suddenly had nothing between her rump and the jungle air.

  She finished the descent with as much dignity as she could manage, then hastily backed against the tree. Her face dared Conan to so much as smile. He controlled the urge to roar with laughter with some difficulty.

  "Thank you, Valeria," he said when he could trust his voice.

  "You are welcome, I suppose," she replied. "A tree is not so far different from a mast, and I have been climbing those since before I was a woman." She glared at him. "Or do you think I was foolish, only to prove I could haul and draw my share?"

  "I said nothing."

  "Conan, you can say more with a moment's silence than most men can with talking from sunrise to nightfall." She glanced at the monkey. Its dead eyes stared back at her, and she looked away.

  "If you will make the fire, I will skin it. I doubt it much differs from a fish."

  "It does, but there'll be no fire."

  "No… fire?" She said the word as if it were a solemn curse.

  Conan shook his head. "We've nothing by which to strike a spark, nothing to burn if we struck it, and no knowledge of who might see the fire or smell the smoke."

  "Eat the monkey raw?"

  "Not uncommon in these lands. Monkeys eat much as we do, so their flesh is commonly wholesome."

  "But… raw?"

  "Raw."

  Valeria gagged, but there was nothing in her stomach to come up. She leaned against the tree and braced one hand against it.

  "If I had known that, Conan, I'd have left your cursed monkey for the kites and the ants!"

  "Not wise, Valeria. Go hungry too long and the kites and the ants'll make their meal off of you."

  This time she did bend over, heaving until her face was pale. Then she remained kneeling, sweat-sodden hair veiling her. Conan gently lifted her to her feet.

  "Come, Valeria. Find somewhere to sit, and I will do the honors with a knife. I know which parts taste best uncooked, and I'll also do better work with the skin."

  "The skin? Oh, to wear." To Conan's relief, she no longer seemed mazed in her wits.

  "Just so, unless you'd rather walk bare-arse all the way through the jungle—"

  She threw a stick at him.

  The hunter knew that the voices he heard above him were those of the God-Men. In the last corner of his mind that remained human, he knew he should be afraid.

  He was not, although he did remember having been afraid when the Monkey warriors carried him up the last few paces of the hill to the God House. The door of the house was of ironwood logs, planked with slabs of mahogany, and on the planks was painted the crimson-and-sapphire spiral of the God-Men.

  The fear had gone briefly when the door opened and only common men came forth, in loincloths and headdresses dyed with the same spiral. They had lifted the hunter's litter and borne him within the God House, leaving the Monkey warriors standing in the evening rain.

  Then the hunter had not only been unafraid; he had been ready to laugh… at the disappointment on the faces of the Monkey warriors. No doubt they had dreamed of being greeted as heroes.

  It was when he saw the first of the God-Men that he was again afraid, but not for long. The eyes of the God-Man were entirely white, like those of a man struck blind with the eye-rot and doomed to be cast into the forest for the beasts to devour if no one would feed and shelter him.

  Yet the God-Man moved as surely as if he could count every leg on an ant in the dimmest corner of the chamber where the hunter lay. He wore only a loinguard that might have been of snakeskin, figured in hues of rose and vermilion.

  He carried in one hand a staff taller than himself, crowned with a golden spiral, and in the other hand, a gourd. A pungent odor rose from the gourd, sour, sweet, and sharp all at once.

  Without letting go of the staff, the God-Man knelt beside the hunter and motioned that he should sit up. This the hunter did, and at once the gourd was thrust to his lips. The taste of the brew within was so vile that he wanted to spit it out. When he found himself swallowing, he wanted to gag; when the brew reached his stomach, he wanted to spew.

  Then it seemed that he was no longer tasting something vile and tainted, but beer of the most cunning brewing from the best grain and seeds. It went straight to his head as such beer often did, and he no longer felt pain, not even in his foot and ankle.

  He was not wholly at ease over this; the ankle had grown swollen, the flesh turning pallid and noisome matter oozing from it. It should have been hurting as if hot irons were at work upon it.

  Yet it did not, and soon he was walking whole and hearty through the nightmarish halls of Xuchotl. He was not afraid, for the God-Man was with him and the magic in the staff would stand against any evil there, living or dead. As he walked, he told the God-Man all he had seen or guessed, and it seemed that the God-Man heard every word and planted it in his memory like a seed in a garden patch. In time, they came out of Xuchotl the same way they had entered, and walked into the jungle. The walls of the evil city faded into a green mist, and when the mist cleared, the hunter knew he still lay in the God House.

  But his ankle still did not hurt.

  It did not hurt even when the God-Man made a series of intricate motions over the hunter's body with the staff. Was it only a fever-fancy, or did the golden spiral of the staff seem to whirl, like a swirling eddy in a stream?

  No matter. When the God-Man was done, the hunter found that he could rise and walk. He did so, and followed the God-Man where he was bidden, out of the chamber and down a long passage that seemed carved from living rock. The heads of the totemic animals of each clan of the Kwanyi hung thick on the walls. The hunter saw that where the rock showed, it was painted in colors for which he did not wish to find names, let alone utter them.

  Then they passed a wall of rocks that seemed bound together more by magic than by mud. Beyond lay a chamber so vast that the hunter could barely make out the ceiling, and could not see the far wall at all.

  As for what lay below, after one look, he turned his head away. It was not fear of the swirling smoke or what it might conceal. It was only that in his heart he knew it was taboo for him to gaze upon that smoke, and worse than that for him to see what the smoke hid.

  The God-Man pointed to a seat carved from the rock at the very lip of the ledge where the hunter stood. The hunter sat down, dangling his legs over the abyss. From above, he heard more voices, and then he was alone and the voice of the God-Man who had led him there joined the others.

  They chanted in a tongue the hunter did not know and beat on a drum that sounded unlike any he had ever heard. Or was it not a drum but their staves pounding on the rock floor? If those staves were shod with iron, they might sound much like that, striking the living rock—

  The smoke reared up in a wall before him, like a cobra ready to strike. Indeed, it spread out in such a likeness of a cobra's head that the hunter wanted to cry out.

  I am not of the Cobras. I am of the Leopards. Send a leopard for my spirit.

  He knew in the same moment that he would not speak, nor would it matter if he cried out to all the gods of his people. This was a place where mere mortals were impotent in face of the older powers under the command of the God-Men.

  Even then, the hunter did not
fear. Nor did he fear when the smoke swirled around him and the scream of a mighty wind tearing at the treetops came with it. He felt himself lifted as gently as a babe in a sling on its mother's breast.

  Then the smoke drew back. The hunter faced crimson-and-sapphire light, swirling like the smoke. He saw the light rise around him, taking away his sight, and all of his other senses as well. He never knew the moment when the life was sucked from his body and only an empty husk remained in the stone seat.

  "What was that?" Conan muttered. He thought he had spoken only to himself, but Valeria was more wakeful than he had known.

  "I heard nothing," she said. She rolled over and tried for the tenth time to find a spot where a root of their sheltering spicebush would not dig into her flesh.

  "Ugh," she said. "The planks of a ship's bed are down cushions compared to this jungle."

  Conan held up a hand for silence, and although Valeria looked sulky, she obeyed. The Cimmerian waited until he was sure that whatever had reached him on the night breeze would not come again.

  "It may have been nothing. But I thought I heard… well, if a spell of evil magic made a sound, it might have been like that."

  Valeria sat up and her shirt slipped from her shoulders. She ignored the display of her magnificent breasts and made several gestures of aversion.

  "Are you a spell-smeller, as we call them at home?" she asked.

  It seemed to Conan that she would not much care for any answer he might give. In truth, he also would be happy if he had not suddenly gained the power to detect magic. That was almost magic itself, and Conan loathed the idea of finding it within himself.

  The Cimmerian had fought more sorcerers and wizards than he had fingers and toes. But when he had an honorable choice, he gave the whole accursed breed a berth many leagues wide.

  "I've never been one yet," Conan said. "I'd as soon not be one now. Likely enough it was just some trick of the wind. I've been away from these lands for so long that I may not remember all that I thought I did."