Conan the Relentless Part 35

"As you say." The piper began to play again. This time Aybas heard the music: sharp little notes with a weird tone to them, sounding as if they came from a vast distance.

Whatever they were, they had power over Captain Oyzhik's limbs. They writhed, then lifted him to hands and knees, and finally onto his feet.

His eyes were wide open but unseeing, and he lurched like an ill-constructed puppet in the hands of an ill-taught puppeteer.

The piper stopped playing, and Oyzhik sank to his knees. But it was only to spew, which he did thoroughly and foully. Aybas stepped back to save his boots and saw the Cimmerian doing the same. It was hard to judge which disgusted Conan more, the drunken Oyzhik or the piper's magic.

As Aybas heaved the pale Oyzhik to his feet, the drums and trumpets suddenly died. Then a single triumphant, brazen call rolled down the valley. Aybas heard shouts and saw Raihna pointing. His eyes followed her hand.

The longhouse of the Star Brother's guards was still blazing, and the fire lit the path leading toward the dam. On that path a score of figures ran, the light glinting on spearheads and drawn blades.

"They've rallied!" Conan exclaimed. "Marr, start Oyzhik climbing.

Raihna, Thyrin, we form the rear guard."

The piper spoke sharply in Oyzhik's ear. Oyzhik almost raised a hand, then turned and all but threw himself at the face of the dam. He fell twice before he found his balance, then swarmed up the rocks and logs with the skill of an ape.

Chienna and Wylla followed. A jutting stub of branch ripped one leg of the princess's trousers from thigh to ankle, but she ignored it. Conan noted the fine limb so exposed, and also that the princess was as tall as Raihna and not much less broad across the shoulders.

A trifle thin-flanked for his taste, perhaps, but she would have been a daunting bride for a little man like Count Syzambry. Indeed, Conan wondered if the count would have survived his wedding night.

Aybas, Wylla, and the piper began their climb, Marr gripping his pipes with one hand and seeking handholds with the other. He made heavy going of the dam face that way, and Aybas and Wylla finally dropped back to help him along.

Now the vanguard was away, safe from all but the beast. Conan nodded to Raihna. She leaped onto a boulder, an arrow already nocked. The shaft whistled toward the line of running men. Before it struck, another was in the air.

Then a huge hand gripped Raihna's shoulder. Conan glared at Thyrin and drew his sword. The other man shook his head.

"Forgive me, Mistress Raihna, Captain Conan. But these are my folk, some of them warriors I have taken into battle. If the Star Brothers have led them astray, perhaps I can lead them aright."

"And perhaps mares will give wine instead of milk," Raihna snapped.

"Let go-"

"Speak, Thyrin," Conan said. "But swiftly."

Thyrin cupped his hands, and his voice made the drums and trumpets seem like a hush.

"Warriors of the Pougoi! Tonight's work means no harm to you or any of yours. We mean to end the unclean work of Count Syzambry among the tribe, and nothing more. What that demands, we shall do. More than that, we shall not do. Go from this place to your homes, guard them, and leave us to cleanse the honor of the tribe."

The line of running men slowed. Thyrin roared on, telling more of the wickedness of Count Syzambry and the shame brought on the Pougoi by their taking his gold. He did not mention Marr the Piper, the Star Brothers, or much else about what was afoot.

By now the line of running men was writhing like a broken-backed snake.

Some of the men were standing still, others advancing at a walk. A few seemed to be arguing.

Conan also had his bow drawn and an arrow nocked. If Thyrin's notion of talking wits into witlings failed, he and Raihna could have ten arrows into their ranks before they moved again.

Suddenly the shouting was from the warriors, not from Thyrin. Two of them were grappling standing; others were down on the ground. Steel flashed, and someone thrust a spear down from over his head into another man's belly. A bubbling scream split the night.

Thyrin grunted, then slapped Conan and Raihna each on the shoulder.

"Fare you well, if we do not meet again," he said.

Raihna's mouth opened into a silent circle. Conan understood. "Bring any men you can rally to a dead man-bear by a many-rooted oak tree hard by the Blasted Lands," he said. "We'll lead them to Eloikas."

"You'll lead them nowhere unless Her Mightiness pardons the whole tribe," Thyrin said. "It's out of dishonor that I lead them, not into Eloikas's service." Then he was running toward the brawling warriors before Conan could think of any more advice, let alone give it.

Raihna cursed Thyrin as she and the Cimmerian began their climb to rejoin their comrades. Conan said nothing. He knew more than she did of what Thyrin might think he owed his tribe, for all that they had wandered down many dark paths lit only by the false light of sorcery.

They were less than halfway up the dam when the witch-thunder rolled across the valley. Confined between the rock walls, it might have been the world cracking apart. Raihna clapped her hands over her ears, and Conan felt as if hot needles were being thrust into his ears.

They reached the top of the dam, however, just as the witch-thunder sounded again. This time it found an echo. From the water beyond the dam there began a long, low hissing.

It went on as Conan and Raihna ran along the top of the dam, which was three hundred paces long; their comrades were barely halfway across.

As they overtook the others, the hiss turned into a scream. The scream turned into a roar, and the lake seemed to catch fire, spewing out shades of crimson and sapphire, emerald and topaz. Its surface heaved and bubbled, then began to steam like a boiling cauldron.

Marr was playing his pipes through all of this, as Conan saw. But his music would have been as a child's cry against the shouting of an army when matched with the roaring of the beast.

Unheard though it might be, the piping seemed to be fulfilling some of its promise. The beast was awake, aware, and furious. That the lake was turning into a cauldron proved that.

Yet the tentacles-indeed, as long as a s.h.i.+p and as thick as a man's body-came nowhere near the people scurrying across the top of the dam.

They reached high enough into the air to have plucked men from the top of pine trees or temple towers. They could easily have swept Conan and his little band into death in any eyeblink.

They did not, and Conan began to feel almost at ease with the presence of Marr and his spells. It was not a feeling that he expected to last.

No doubt the piper would turn against them in the end, or be turned against them by his magic. Also, Conan would feel still more at ease when they were safe away from the beast, for all that the piper's magic had mastered it for now.

Conan and Raihna overtook the others fifty paces from the end of the dam. Wylla stared at them.

"Where is my father?"

"He hoped to win the Pougoi away from Count Syzambry," Conan said.

Wylla crammed one fist into her mouth to stifle a cry and struck Conan in the chest with the other. Aybas put an arm around her shoulders.

"He saw his duty and we see ours," he said. "Both see clearly, even if not alike."

Seen from close at hand, the piper appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Oyzhik looked like a walking corpse. Only the princess was bearing up well, she and her still-sleeping babe. Conan had to lay a hand across the babe's chest to be sure that he was still breathing.

Then, beneath them, the dam shuddered. Conan felt more than heard stones moving, and saw nothing at all. He had been in too many earthquakes, however, to ignore the sensation.

"Run!" he shouted, loud enough to pierce even the outcry of the beast.

"Run for your lives! The dam is breaking!"

He did not need to repeat the warning. The next shuddering joined his words to give wings to everyone's feet. Even Oyzhik reached the far end of the dam at a stumbling run, and the princess might have been racing for a purse of gold.

The path up the cliff lay before them. It was indeed as easy as promised. A child of six could have found a way up it.

So could any number of Pougoi warriors if Thyrin could not keep them off of his friends' trail. Conan studied the cliff, seeking a place where he and Raihna could make a stand against greater numbers. With bows, they could even make their stand beyond reach of the beast's tentacles... at least until their quivers were empty, or until the Star Brothers' spells overcame the piper's and sent the beast climbing up the cliff, as it did on the nights of sacrifice-

The dam shuddered for a third time, and this time the shuddering did not end. Conan not only felt but saw rocks moving, and some the size of a man tore entirely loose and crashed down the face of the dam. Dust poured up from long cracks forming amid the stones.

"What keeps you, Conan?" a voice shrieked. "Are you going to spit the beast and roast it for trail rations?"