i
The bloody sun baked the Zamoran plain, and baked, too, the procession that made its way across those rocky flats and rolling hills. The riders were armored in ebon breastplates and nasaled helms. Sable was the chain-mail that covered their arms, and sable the greaves that rose from booted feet to dark-breeched knees. No accoutrement of theirs but was the hue of deepest night. Their horses, too, were sheathed in black iron, chanfons and crinets covering heads and necks, peytrals protecting their chests. A long, curved sword hung at each warriors’ hip, and spike-headed maces swung at every high-pommeled saddle, but the hands that should have grasped lances held instead wooden clubs and long staves. Nets did they carry, as well, thick woven and weighted, stout enough to hold tigers.
Last in the procession was a high-wheeled cart, drawn by two horses, and on it was bound a large cage of iron bars as thick as a man’s wrist. The cart’s driver worked his long whip ceaselessly across the backs of his team, for despite the heat of the sun and the weight of their armor the column kept a rapid pace, and it would be more than his life was worth did he delay it a moment in reaching its goal.
He who led the column was a head taller than any other man there, and broader of shoulder by more than a handspan. He was marked as a warrior of note, a man of position, by the intricate gold chasing of his gleaming sable breastplate, elaborate arabesques surrounding a leaping lion. It was a symbol he had chosen many years before, and many said he fought with the ferocity of that beast. Thin, age-whitened scars, one across the bridge of his broad nose and another running from the corner of his left eye to the point of his chin, proclaimed him no newcomer to the profession of arms. Now those scars were all but hidden under dust that clung to the sweat pouring from his face.
“Useless,” he muttered beneath his breath. “No Erlik-accursed use at all.”
“There is always a use in what I do, Bombatta.”
The big man stiffened as one of the riders, masked in soft black leather as well as helmeted, galloped up beside him. He had not thought his voice would carry further than his own ears.
“I see no need,” he began, but the other cut him off with a voice distorted by the mask, yet carrying the note of command.
“What must be done, must be done as it is written in the Scrolls of Skelos. Exactly as it is written, Bombatta.”
“As you command,” he replied grudgingly, “so do I obey.”
“Of course, Bombatta. But I hear a question unspoken. Speak it.” The tall warrior hesitated. “Speak it, Bombatta. I command you.”
“What we now seek,” Bombatta said slowly, “or rather where to seek … surely that cannot be in the scrolls.”
The black-masked rider’s laugh was muffled behind the dark leather. Bombatta colored at the mocking tone.
“Ah, Bombatta. Think you my powers limited to knowledge of the Scrolls? Do you think I know only what is written there?”
“No.” His reply was as curt as he dared make it.
“Then obey me, Bombatta. Obey, and trust that we will find what we seek.”
“As you command, so do I obey.”
The huge warrior dug his heels into the flanks of his mount, careless of the men behind who must keep up. More speed, he knew, would be taken as a show of obedience, a sign of trust in the commands he had been given. Let the others mutter angrily in their sweat. He kicked his horse again, ignoring the lather that was beginning to fleck the animal’s neck. His doubts were unshaken, but he had been too long in climbing to his present post to lose it now, not if he had to gallop men and horses alike to their deaths.
The plains of Zamora oft saw unusual sights, so often that few were any longer truly considered unusual by those who witnessed them. Madness, bandits and holy vows had at different times produced a man in the robes of a noble who scattered gold coins to the sands, a column of naked men mounted backwards on their horses, and a procession of maidens, wearing naught but blue paint from forehead to toes, who danced and chanted their way through blistering heat. And any who sought to link event with cause would find surprises.
There had been many others, some stranger still, yet few had seemed odder than the two men laboring far from any city or village, beneath the blazing sun in a hollow at the foot of a rock-strewn hill. Their hobbled horses cropped sparse, tough grass nearby.
The first man was a tall, heavily-muscled youth. Massive arms straining, he lifted a thick, flat slab of rock, as long as a man was tall, atop four gray boulders he had rolled together. To level the slab he pushed fist-sized stones beneath it. About his neck, on a rawhide thong, hung an amulet of gold in the shape of a dragon.
The sapphire-eyed young man seemed more a warrior than a builder. A broadsword of ancient pattern hung at his belt, and both its hilt and that of his dagger showed the wear of frequent use. His face, a square-cut black mane held back from it by a leather cord, showed only a lack of years to the casual observer. Those who looked deeply, however, could see several ordinary lifetimes’ experience written there, lifetimes of blood and steel.
The sky-eyed youth’s companion was his antithesis both physically and in occupation. Short, wiry and black-eyed, with greasy black hair tied behind his neck to fall below his shoulders, the second man stood to his thighs in a narrow pit, laboring to deepen it with a broken-handled shovel. Two bulging leather sacks sat on the ground beside the hole. Continually the wiry fellow dashed sweat from his eyes and cursed work of a sort he was unused to, but whenever his gaze fell on those sacks he set to again with a will.
Finally, though, he tossed the broken shovel aside. “It’s deep enough, eh, Conan?”
The muscular youth did not hear. He frowned at the thing he had built. It was an altar, something with which he had little experience. But in the harsh mountain wastes of his native Cimmeria he had learned that debts must be repaid, whatever the cost, whatever the difficulty.
“Conan, is it deep enough?”
The Cimmerian eyed his companion grimly. “If you hadn’t opened your mouth at the wrong time, Malak, we’d not have to bury the gems. Amphrates wouldn’t know who stole his jewels, the City Guard wouldn’t know who stole the jewels, and we could be sitting in Abuletes’ tavern drinking wine, with dancing girls on our knees, instead of sweating out on the plains. Dig it deeper.”
“I did not mean to shout your name,” Malak grumbled. He fumbled open one of the leather bags and scooped out a handful of sapphires and rubies, emeralds and opals. Green glittered in his eyes as he poured the polished stones back again, a sparkling stream of blue and crimson and green and gold. With a regretful sigh he tugged the drawstring tight. “I just didn’t think he would have so much. I was surprised. I did not do it apurpose.”
“Dig, Malak,” Conan said, looking now at the altar rather than the other man.
The Cimmerian closed his big hand around the golden amulet. Valeria had given it to him, and it seemed to him he felt her near him when he touched it. Valeria, lover, warrior and thief all in one bundle of lithe golden-haired beauty. Then she died, ripping the joy from his life. He had seen her die. But as well he h
ad seen her return, come again to fight at his side, to save his life. Debts must be repaid.
Malak had taken up the broken-handled shovel again, but instead of digging he eyed the altar. “I did not think you believed in the gods, Cimmerian. I’ve never seen you pray.”