The Hour of the Dragon Read online

  5

  The Haunter of the Pits

  Conan lay still, enduring the weight of his chains and the despair ofhis position with the stoicism of the wilds that had bred him. He didnot move, because the jangle of his chains, when he shifted his body,sounded startlingly loud in the darkness and stillness, and it was hisinstinct, born of a thousand wilderness-bred ancestors, not to betrayhis position in his helplessness. This did not result from a logicalreasoning process; he did not lie quiet because he reasoned that thedarkness hid lurking dangers that might discover him in hishelplessness. Xaltotun had assured him that he was not to be harmed, andConan believed that it was in the man's interest to preserve him, atleast for the time being. But the instincts of the wild were there, thathad caused him in his childhood to lie hidden and silent while wildbeasts prowled about his covert.

  Even his keen eyes could not pierce the solid darkness. Yet after awhile, after a period of time he had no way of estimating, a faint glowbecame apparent, a sort of slanting gray beam, by which Conan could see,vaguely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even make out theskeleton of the other grille. This puzzled him, until at last herealized the explanation. He was far below ground, in the pits below thepalace; yet for some reason a shaft had been constructed from somewhereabove. Outside, the moon had risen to a point where its light slanteddimly down the shaft. He reflected that in this manner he could tell thepassing of the days and nights. Perhaps the sun, too, would shine downthat shaft, though on the other hand it might be closed by day. Perhapsit was a subtle method of torture, allowing a prisoner but a glimpse ofdaylight or moonlight.

  His gaze fell on the broken bones in the farther corner, glimmeringdimly. He did not tax his brain with futile speculation as to who thewretch had been and for what reason he had been doomed, but he wonderedat the shattered condition of the bones. They had not been broken on arack. Then, as he looked, another unsavory detail made itself evident.The shin-bones were split lengthwise, and there was but one explanation;they had been broken in that manner in order to obtain the marrow. Yetwhat creature but man breaks bones for their marrow? Perhaps thoseremnants were mute evidence of a horrible, cannibalistic feast, of somewretch driven to madness by starvation. Conan wondered if his own boneswould be found at some future date, hanging in their rusty chains. Hefought down the unreasoning panic of a trapped wolf.

  The Cimmerian did not curse, scream, weep or rave as a civilized manmight have done. But the pain and turmoil in his bosom were none theless fierce. His great limbs quivered with the intensity of hisemotions. Somewhere, far to the westward, the Nemedian host was slashingand burning its way through the heart of his kingdom. The small host ofthe Poitanians could not stand before them. Prospero might be able tohold Tarantia for weeks, or months; but eventually, if not relieved, hemust surrender to greater numbers. Surely the barons would rally to himagainst the invaders. But in the meanwhile he, Conan, must lie helplessin a darkened cell, while others led his spears and fought for hiskingdom. The king ground his powerful teeth in red rage.

  Then he stiffened as outside the farther door he heard a stealthy step.Straining his eyes he made out a bent, indistinct figure outside thegrille. There was a rasp of metal against metal, and he heard the clinkof tumblers, as if a key had been turned in the lock. Then the figuremoved silently out of his range of vision. Some guard, he supposed,trying the lock. After a while he heard the sound repeated faintlysomewhere farther on, and that was followed by the soft opening of adoor, and then a swift scurry of softly shod feet retreated in thedistance. Then silence fell again.

  Conan listened for what seemed a long time, but which could not havebeen, for the moon still shone down the hidden shaft, but he heard nofurther sound. He shifted his position at last, and his chains clanked.Then he heard another, lighter footfall--a soft step outside the nearerdoor, the door through which he had entered the cell. An instant later aslender figure was etched dimly in the gray light.

  'King Conan!' a soft voice intoned urgently. 'Oh, my lord, are youthere?'

  'Where else?' he answered guardedly, twisting his head about to stare atthe apparition.

  It was a girl who stood grasping the bars with her slender fingers. Thedim glow behind her outlined her supple figure through the wisp of silktwisted about her loins, and shone vaguely on jeweled breast-plates. Herdark eyes gleamed in the shadows, her white limbs glistened softly, likealabaster. Her hair was a mass of dark foam, at the burnished luster ofwhich the dim light only hinted.

  'The keys to your shackles and to the farther door!' she whispered, anda slim white hand came through the bars and dropped three objects with aclink to the flags beside him.

  'What game is this?' he demanded. 'You speak in the Nemedian tongue, andI have no friends in Nemedia. What deviltry is your master up to now?Has he sent you here to mock me?'

  'It is no mockery!' The girl was trembling violently. Her bracelets andbreast-plates clinked against the bars she grasped. 'I swear by Mitra! Istole the keys from the black jailers. They are the keepers of the pits,and each bears a key which will open only one set of locks. I made themdrunk. The one whose head you broke was carried away to a leech, and Icould not get his key. But the others I stole. Oh, please do notloiter! Beyond these dungeons lie the pits which are the doors to hell.'

  Somewhat impressed, Conan tried the keys dubiously, expecting to meetonly failure and a burst of mocking laughter. But he was galvanized todiscover that one, indeed, loosed him of his shackles, fitting not onlythe lock that held them to the ring, but the locks on his limbs as well.A few seconds later he stood upright, exulting fiercely in hiscomparative freedom. A quick stride carried him to the grille, and hisfingers closed about a bar and the slender wrist that was pressedagainst it, imprisoning the owner, who lifted her face bravely to hisfierce gaze.

  'Who are you, girl?' he demanded. 'Why do you do this?'

  'I am only Zenobia,' she murmured, with a catch of breathlessness, as ifin fright; 'only a girl of the king's seraglio.'

  'Unless this is some cursed trick,' muttered Conan, 'I cannot see whyyou bring me these keys.'

  She bowed her dark head, and then lifted it and looked full into hissuspicious eyes. Tears sparkled like jewels on her long dark lashes.

  'I am only a girl of the king's seraglio,' she said, with a certainproud humility. 'He has never glanced at me, and probably never will. Iam less than one of the dogs that gnaw the bones in his banquet hall.

  'But I am no painted toy; I am of flesh and blood. I breathe, hate,fear, rejoice and love. And I have loved you, King Conan, ever since Isaw you riding at the head of your knights along the streets of Belveruswhen you visited King Nimed, years ago. My heart tugged at its stringsto leap from my bosom and fall in the dust of the street under yourhorse's hoofs.'

  Color flooded her countenance as she spoke, but her dark eyes did notwaver. Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed hewas, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certainawe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul.

  She bent her head then, and pressed her red lips to the fingers thatimprisoned her slim wrist. Then she flung up her head as if in suddenrecollection of their position, and terror flared in her dark eyes.

  'Haste!' she whispered urgently. 'It is past midnight. You must begone.'

  'But won't they skin you alive for stealing these keys?'

  'They'll never know. If the black men remember in the morning who gavethem the wine, they will not dare admit the keys were stolen from themwhile they were drunk. The key that I could not obtain is the one thatunlocks this door. You must make your way to freedom through the pits.What awful perils lurk beyond that door I cannot even guess. But greaterdanger lurks for you if you remain in this cell.

  'King Tarascus has returned--'

  'What? Tarascus?'

  'Aye! He has returned, in great secrecy, and not long ago he descendedinto the pits and then came out again, pale and shaking, like a man whohad dared a great hazard. I heard him w
hisper to his squire, Arideus,that despite Xaltotun you should die.'

  'What of Xaltotun?' murmured Conan.

  He felt her shudder.

  'Do not speak of him!' she whispered. 'Demons are often summoned by thesound of their names. The slaves say that he lies in his chamber, behinda bolted door, dreaming the dreams of the black lotus. I believe thateven Tarascus secretly fears him, or he would slay you openly. But hehas been in the pits tonight, and what he did there, only Mitra knows.'

  'I wonder if that could have been Tarascus who fumbled at my cell doorawhile ago?' muttered Conan.

  'Here is a dagger!' she whispered, pressing something through the bars.His eager fingers closed on an object familiar to their touch. 'Goquickly through yonder door, turn to the left and make your way alongthe cells until you come to a stone stair. On your life do not strayfrom the line of the cells! Climb the stair and open the door at thetop; one of the keys will fit it. If it be the will of Mitra, I willawait you there.' Then she was gone, with a patter of light slipperedfeet.

  Conan shrugged his shoulders, and turned toward the farther grille. Thismight be some diabolical trap planned by Tarascus, but plunging headlonginto a snare was less abhorrent to Conan's temperament than sittingmeekly to await his doom. He inspected the weapon the girl had givenhim, and smiled grimly. Whatever else she might be, she was proven bythat dagger to be a person of practical intelligence. It was no slenderstiletto, selected because of a jeweled hilt or gold guard, fitted onlyfor dainty murder in milady's boudoir; it was a forthright poniard, awarrior's weapon, broad-bladed, fifteen inches in length, tapering to adiamond-sharp point.

  He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gavehim a glow of confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn abouthim, whatever trickery and treachery ensnared him, this knife was real.The great muscles of his right arm swelled in anticipation of murderousblows.

  He tried the farther door, fumbling with the keys as he did so. It wasnot locked. Yet he remembered the black man locking it. That furtive,bent figure, then, had been no jailer seeing that the bolts were inplace. He had unlocked the door, instead. There was a sinistersuggestion about that unlocked door. But Conan did not hesitate. Hepushed upon the grille and stepped from the dungeon into the outerdarkness.

  As he had thought, the door did not open into another corridor. Theflagged floor stretched away under his feet, and the line of cells ranaway to the right and left behind him, but he could not make out theother limits of the place into which he had come. He could see neitherthe roof nor any other wall. The moonlight filtered into that vastnessonly through the grilles of the cells, and was almost lost in thedarkness. Less keen eyes than his could scarcely have discerned the dimgray patches that floated before each cell door.

  Turning to the left, he moved swiftly and noiselessly along the line ofdungeons, his bare feet making no sound on the flags. He glanced brieflyinto each dungeon as he passed it. They were all empty, but locked. Insome he caught the glimmer of naked white bones. These pits were a relicof a grimmer age, constructed long ago when Belverus was a fortressrather than a city. But evidently their more recent use had been moreextensive than the world guessed.

  Ahead of him, presently, he saw the dim outline of a stair slopingsharply upward, and knew it must be the stair he sought. Then he whirledsuddenly, crouching in the deep shadows at its foot.

  Somewhere behind him something was moving--something bulky and stealthythat padded on feet which were not human feet. He was looking down thelong row of cells, before each one of which lay a square of dim graylight that was little more than a patch of less dense darkness. But hesaw something moving along these squares. What it was he could not tell,but it was heavy and huge, and yet it moved with more than human easeand swiftness. He glimpsed it as it moved across the squares of gray,then lost it as it merged in the expanses of shadow between. It wasuncanny, in its stealthy advance, appearing and disappearing like a blurof the vision.

  He heard the bars rattle as it tried each door in turn. Now it hadreached the cell he had so recently quitted, and the door swung open asit tugged. He saw a great bulky shape limned faintly and briefly in thegray doorway, and then the thing had vanished into the dungeon. Sweatbeaded Conan's face and hands. Now he knew why Tarascus had come sosubtly to his door, and later had fled so swiftly. The king had unlockedhis door, and, somewhere in these hellish pits, had opened a cell orcage that held some grim monstrosity.

  Now the thing was emerging from the cell and was again advancing up thecorridor, its misshapen head close to the ground. It paid no more heedto the locked doors. It was smelling out his trail. He saw it moreplainly now; the gray light limned a giant anthropomorphic body, butvaster of bulk and girth than any man. It went on two legs, though itstooped forward, and it was grayish and shaggy, its thick coat shot withsilver. Its head was a grisly travesty of the human, its long arms hungnearly to the ground.

  Conan knew it at last--understood the meaning of those crushed andbroken bones in the dungeon, and recognized the haunter of the pits. Itwas a gray ape, one of the grisly man-eaters from the forests that waveon the mountainous eastern shores of the Sea of Vilayet. Half mythicaland altogether horrible, these apes were the goblins of Hyborianlegendry, and were in reality ogres of the natural world, cannibals andmurderers of the nighted forests.

  He knew it scented his presence, for it was coming swiftly now, rollingits barrel-like body rapidly along on its short, mighty bowed legs. Hecast a quick glance up the long stair, but knew that the thing would beon his back before he could mount to the distant door. He chose to meetit face to face.

  Conan stepped out into the nearest square of moonlight, so as to haveall the advantage of illumination that he could; for the beast, he knew,could see better than himself in the dark. Instantly the brute saw him;its great yellow tusks gleamed in the shadows, but it made no sound.Creatures of night and the silence, the gray apes of Vilayet werevoiceless. But in its dim, hideous features, which were a bestialtravesty of a human face, showed ghastly exultation.

  Conan stood poised, watching the oncoming monster without a quiver. Heknew he must stake his life on one thrust; there would be no chance foranother; nor would there be time to strike and spring away. The firstblow must kill, and kill instantly, if he hoped to survive that awfulgrapple. He swept his gaze over the short, squat throat, the hairyswagbelly, and the mighty breast, swelling in giant arches like twinshields. It must be the heart; better to risk the blade being deflectedby the heavy ribs than to strike in where a stroke was not instantlyfatal. With full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eyeand hand and his muscular power against the brute might and ferocity ofthe man-eater. He must meet the brute breast to breast, strike adeath-blow, and then trust to the ruggedness of his frame to survive theinstant of manhandling that was certain to be his.

  As the ape came rolling in on him, swinging wide its terrible arms, heplunged in between them and struck with all his desperate power. He feltthe blade sink to the hilt in the hairy breast, and instantly, releasingit, he ducked his head and bunched his whole body into one compact massof knotted muscles, and as he did so he grasped the closing arms anddrove his knee fiercely into the monster's belly, bracing himselfagainst that crushing grapple.

  For one dizzy instant he felt as if he were being dismembered in thegrip of an earthquake; then suddenly he was free, sprawling on thefloor, and the monster was gasping out its life beneath him, its redeyes turned upward, the hilt of the poniard quivering in its breast. Hisdesperate stab had gone home.

  Conan was panting as if after long conflict, trembling in every limb.Some of his joints felt as if they had been dislocated, and blooddripped from scratches on his skin where the monster's talons hadripped; his muscles and tendons had been savagely wrenched and twisted.If the beast had lived a second longer, it would surely have dismemberedhim. But the Cimmerian's mighty strength had resisted, for the fleetinginstant it had endured, the dying convulsion of the ape that would havetorn a
lesser man limb from limb.