The People of the Black Circle Page 5

  5 The Black Stallion

  The sun was well up when Yasmina awoke. She did not start and stareblankly, wondering where she was. She awoke with full knowledge of allthat had occurred. Her supple limbs were stiff from her long ride, andher firm flesh seemed to feel the contact of the muscular arm that hadborne her so far.

  She was lying on a sheepskin covering a pallet of leaves on ahard-beaten dirt floor. A folded sheepskin coat was under her head, andshe was wrapped in a ragged cloak. She was in a large room, the walls ofwhich were crudely but strongly built of uncut rocks, plastered withsun-baked mud. Heavy beams supported a roof of the same kind, in whichshowed a trap-door up to which led a ladder. There were no windows inthe thick walls, only loop-holes. There was one door, a sturdy bronzeaffair that must have been looted from some Vendhyan border tower.Opposite it was a wide opening in the wall, with no door, but severalstrong wooden bars in place. Beyond them Yasmina saw a magnificent blackstallion munching a pile of dried grass. The building was fort,dwelling-place and stable in one.

  At the other end of the room a girl in the vest and baggy trousers of ahill-woman squatted beside a small fire, cooking strips of meat on aniron grid laid over blocks of stone. There was a sooty cleft in the walla few feet from the floor, and some of the smoke found its way outthere. The rest floated in blue wisps about the room.

  The hill-girl glanced at Yasmina over her shoulder, displaying a bold,handsome face, and then continued her cooking. Voices boomed outside;then the door was kicked open, and Conan strode in. He looked moreenormous than ever with the morning sunlight behind him, and Yasminanoted some details that had escaped her the night before. His garmentswere clean and not ragged. The broad Bakhariot girdle that supported hisknife in its ornamented scabbard would have matched the robes of aprince, and there was a glint of fine Turanian mail under his shirt.

  'Your captive is awake, Conan,' said the Wazuli girl, and he grunted,strode up to the fire and swept the strips of mutton off into a stonedish.

  The squatting girl laughed up at him, with some spicy jest, and hegrinned wolfishly, and hooking a toe under her haunches, tumbled hersprawling onto the floor. She seemed to derive considerable amusementfrom this bit of rough horse-play, but Conan paid no more heed to her.Producing a great hunk of bread from somewhere, with a copper jug ofwine, he carried the lot to Yasmina, who had risen from her pallet andwas regarding him doubtfully.

  'Rough fare for a Devi, girl, but our best,' he grunted. 'It will fillyour belly, at least.'

  He set the platter on the floor, and she was suddenly aware of aravenous hunger. Making no comment, she seated herself cross-legged onthe floor, and taking the dish in her lap, she began to eat, using herfingers, which were all she had in the way of table utensils. After all,adaptability is one of the tests of true aristocracy. Conan stoodlooking down at her, his thumbs hooked in his girdle. He never satcross-legged, after the Eastern fashion.

  'Where am I?' she asked abruptly.

  'In the hut of Yar Afzal, the chief of the Khurum Wazulis,' he answered.'Afghulistan lies a good many miles farther on to the west. We'll hidehere awhile. The Kshatriyas are beating up the hills for you--several oftheir squads have been cut up by the tribes already.'

  'What are you going to do?' she asked.

  'Keep you until Chunder Shan is willing to trade back my sevencow-thieves,' he grunted. 'Women of the Wazulis are crushing ink out of_shoki_ leaves, and after a while you can write a letter to thegovernor.'

  A touch of her old imperious wrath shook her, as she thought howmaddeningly her plans had gone awry, leaving her captive of the very manshe had plotted to get into her power. She flung down the dish, with theremnants of her meal, and sprang to her feet, tense with anger.

  'I will not write a letter! If you do not take me back, they will hangyour seven men, and a thousand more besides!'

  The Wazuli girl laughed mockingly, Conan scowled, and then the dooropened and Yar Afzal came swaggering in. The Wazuli chief was as tall asConan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hardcompactness of the Cimmerian. He plucked his red-stained beard andstared meaningly at the Wazuli girl, and that wench rose and scurriedout without delay. Then Yar Afzal turned to his guest.

  'The damnable people murmur, Conan,' quoth he. 'They wish me to murderyou and take the girl to hold for ransom. They say that anyone can tellby her garments that she is a noble lady. They say why should theAfghuli dogs profit by her, when it is the people who take the risk ofguarding her?'

  'Lend me your horse,' said Conan. 'I'll take her and go.'

  'Pish!' boomed Yar Afzal. 'Do you think I can't handle my own people?I'll have them dancing in their shirts if they cross me! They don't loveyou--or any other outlander--but you saved my life once, and I will notforget. Come out, though, Conan; a scout has returned.'

  Conan hitched at his girdle and followed the chief outside. They closedthe door after them, and Yasmina peeped through a loop-hole. She lookedout on a level space before the hut. At the farther end of that spacethere was a cluster of mud and stone huts, and she saw naked childrenplaying among the boulders, and the slim erect women of the hills goingabout their tasks.

  Directly before the chiefs hut a circle of hairy, ragged men squatted,facing the door. Conan and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door,and between them and the ring of warriors another man sat cross-legged.This one was addressing his chief in the harsh accents of the Wazuliwhich Yasmina could scarcely understand, though as part of her royaleducation she had been taught the languages of Iranistan and the kindredtongues of Ghulistan.

  'I talked with a Dagozai who saw the riders last night,' said the scout.'He was lurking near when they came to the spot where we ambushed thelord Conan. He overheard their speech. Chunder Shan was with them. Theyfound the dead horse, and one of the men recognized it as Conan's. Thenthey found the man Conan slew, and knew him for a Wazuli. It seemed tothem that Conan had been slain and the girl taken by the Wazuli; so theyturned aside from their purpose of following to Afghulistan. But theydid not know from which village the dead man was come, and we had leftno trail a Kshatriya could follow.

  'So they rode to the nearest Wazuli village, which was the village ofJugra, and burnt it and slew many of the people. But the men of Khojurcame upon them in darkness and slew some of them, and wounded thegovernor. So the survivors retired down the Zhaibar in the darknessbefore dawn, but they returned with reinforcements before sunrise, andthere has been skirmishing and fighting in the hills all morning. It issaid that a great army is being raised to sweep the hills about theZhaibar. The tribes are whetting their knives and laying ambushes inevery pass from here to Gurashah valley. Moreover, Kerim Shah hasreturned to the hills.'

  A grunt went around the circle, and Yasmina leaned closer to theloop-hole at the name she had begun to mistrust.

  'Where went he?' demanded Yar Afzal.

  'The Dagozai did not know; with him were thirty Irakzai of the lowervillages. They rode into the hills and disappeared.'

  'These Irakzai are jackals that follow a lion for crumbs,' growled YarAfzal. 'They have been lapping up the coins Kerim Shah scatters amongthe border tribes to buy men like horses. I like him not, for all he isour kinsman from Iranistan.'

  'He's not even that,' said Conan. 'I know him of old. He's an Hyrkanian,a spy of Yezdigerd's. If I catch him I'll hang his hide to a tamarisk.'

  'But the Kshatriyas!' clamored the men in the semicircle. 'Are we tosquat on our haunches until they smoke us out? They will learn at lastin which Wazuli village the wench is held. We are not loved by theZhaibari; they will help the Kshatriyas hunt us out.'

  'Let them come,' grunted Yar Afzal. 'We can hold the defiles against ahost.'

  One of the men leaped up and shook his fist at Conan.

  'Are we to take all the risks while he reaps the rewards?' he howled.'Are we to fight his battles for him?'

  With a stride Conan reached him and bent slightly to stare full into hishairy face. The Cimmerian had not drawn h
is long knife, but his lefthand grasped the scabbard, jutting the hilt suggestively forward.

  'I ask no man to fight my battles,' he said softly. 'Draw your blade ifyou dare, you yapping dog!'

  The Wazuli started back, snarling like a cat.

  'Dare to touch me and here are fifty men to rend you apart!' hescreeched.

  'What!' roared Yar Afzal, his face purpling with wrath. His whiskersbristled, his belly swelled with his rage. 'Are you chief of Khurum? Dothe Wazulis take orders from Yar Afzal, or from a low-bred cur?'

  The man cringed before his invincible chief, and Yar Afzal, striding upto him, seized him by the throat and choked him until his face wasturning black. Then he hurled the man savagely against the ground andstood over him with his tulwar in his hand.

  'Is there any who questions my authority?' he roared, and his warriorslooked down sullenly as his bellicose glare swept their semicircle. YarAfzal grunted scornfully and sheathed his weapon with a gesture that wasthe apex of insult. Then he kicked the fallen agitator with aconcentrated vindictiveness that brought howls from his victim.

  'Get down the valley to the watchers on the heights and bring word ifthey have seen anything,' commanded Yar Afzal, and the man went, shakingwith fear and grinding his teeth with fury.

  Yar Afzal then seated himself ponderously on a stone, growling in hisbeard. Conan stood near him, legs braced apart, thumbs hooked in hisgirdle, narrowly watching the assembled warriors. They stared at himsullenly, not daring to brave Yar Afzal's fury, but hating the foreigneras only a hillman can hate.

  'Now listen to me, you sons of nameless dogs, while I tell you what thelord Conan and I have planned to fool the Kshatriyas.' The boom of YarAfzal's bull-like voice followed the discomfited warrior as he slunkaway from the assembly.

  The man passed by the cluster of huts, where women who had seen hisdefeat laughed at him and called stinging comments, and hastened onalong the trail that wound among spurs and rocks toward the valley head.

  Just as he rounded the first turn that took him out of sight of thevillage, he stopped short, gaping stupidly. He had not believed itpossible for a stranger to enter the valley of Khurum without beingdetected by the hawk-eyed watchers along the heights; yet a man satcross-legged on a low ledge beside the path--a man in a camel-hair robeand a green turban.

  The Wazuli's mouth gaped for a yell, and his hand leaped to hisknife-hilt. But at that instant his eyes met those of the stranger andthe cry died in his throat, his fingers went limp. He stood like astatue, his own eyes glazed and vacant.

  For minutes the scene held motionless; then the man on the ledge drew acryptic symbol in the dust on the rock with his forefinger. The Wazulidid not see him place anything within the compass of that emblem, butpresently something gleamed there--a round, shiny black ball that lookedlike polished jade. The man in the green turban took this up and tossedit to the Wazuli, who mechanically caught it.

  'Carry this to Yar Afzal,' he said, and the Wazuli turned like anautomaton and went back along the path, holding the black jade ball inhis outstretched hand. He did not even turn his head to the renewedjeers of the women as he passed the huts. He did not seem to hear.

  The man on the ledge gazed after him with a cryptic smile. A girl's headrose above the rim of the ledge and she looked at him with admirationand a touch of fear that had not been present the night before.

  'Why did you do that?' she asked.

  He ran his fingers through her dark locks caressingly.

  'Are you still dizzy from your flight on the horse-of-air, that youdoubt my wisdom?' he laughed. 'As long as Yar Afzal lives, Conan willbide safe among the Wazuli fighting-men. Their knives are sharp, andthere are many of them. What I plot will be safer, even for me, than toseek to slay him and take her from among them. It takes no wizard topredict what the Wazulis will do, and what Conan will do, when my victimhands the globe of Yezud to the chief of Khurum.'

  * * * * *

  Back before the hut, Yar Afzal halted in the midst of some tirade,surprized and displeased to see the man he had sent up the valley,pushing his way through the throng.

  'I bade you go to the watchers!' the chief bellowed. 'You have not hadtime to come from them.'

  The other did not reply; he stood woodenly, staring vacantly into thechief's face, his palm outstretched holding the jade ball. Conan,looking over Yar Afzal's shoulder, murmured something and reached totouch the chief's arm, but as he did so, Yar Afzal, in a paroxysm ofanger, struck the man with his clenched fist and felled him like an ox.As he fell, the jade sphere rolled to Yar Afzal's foot, and the chief,seeming to see it for the first time, bent and picked it up. The men,staring perplexedly at their senseless comrade, saw their chief bend,but they did not see what he picked up from the ground.

  Yar Afzal straightened, glanced at the jade, and made a motion to thrustit into his girdle.

  'Carry that fool to his hut,' he growled. 'He has the look of alotus-eater. He returned me a blank stare. I--_aie!_'

  In his right hand, moving toward his girdle, he had suddenly feltmovement where movement should not be. His voice died away as he stoodand glared at nothing; and inside his clenched right hand he felt thequivering of _change_, of _motion_, of _life_. He no longer held asmooth shining sphere in his fingers. And he dared not look; his tongueclove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not open his hand. Hisastonished warriors saw Yar Afzal's eyes distend, the color ebb from hisface. Then suddenly a bellow of agony burst from his bearded lips; heswayed and fell as if struck by lightning, his right arm tossed out infront of him. Face down he lay, and from between his opening fingerscrawled a spider--a hideous, black, hairy-legged monster whose bodyshone like black jade. The men yelled and gave back suddenly, and thecreature scuttled into a crevice of the rocks and disappeared.

  The warriors started up, glaring wildly, and a voice rose above theirclamor, a far-carrying voice of command which came from none knew where.Afterward each man there--who still lived--denied that he had shouted,but all there heard it.

  'Yar Afzal is dead! Kill the outlander!'

  That shout focused their whirling minds as one. Doubt, bewilderment andfear vanished in the uproaring surge of the blood-lust. A furious yellrent the skies as the tribesmen responded instantly to the suggestion.They came headlong across the open space, cloaks flapping, eyes blazing,knives lifted.

  Conan's action was as quick as theirs. As the voice shouted he sprangfor the hut door. But they were closer to him than he was to the door,and with one foot on the sill he had to wheel and parry the swipe of ayard-long blade. He split the man's skull--ducked another swinging knifeand gutted the wielder--felled a man with his left fist and stabbedanother in the belly--and heaved back mightily against the closed doorwith his shoulders. Hacking blades were nicking chips out of the jambsabout his ears, but the door flew open under the impact of hisshoulders, and he went stumbling backward into the room. A beardedtribesman, thrusting with all his fury as Conan sprang back, overreachedand pitched head-first through the doorway. Conan stopped, grasped theslack of his garments and hauled him clear, and slammed the door in thefaces of the men who came surging into it. Bones snapped under theimpact, and the next instant Conan slammed the bolts into place andwhirled with desperate haste to meet the man who sprang from the floorand tore into action like a madman.

  Yasmina cowered in a corner, staring in horror as the two men foughtback and forth across the room, almost trampling her at times; the flashand clangor of their blades filled the room, and outside the mobclamored like a wolf-pack, hacking deafeningly at the bronze door withtheir long knives, and dashing huge rocks against it. Somebody fetched atree trunk, and the door began to stagger under the thunderous assault.Yasmina clasped her ears, staring wildly. Violence and fury within,cataclysmic madness without. The stallion in his stall neighed andreared, thundering with his heels against the walls. He wheeled andlaunched his hoofs through the bars just as the tribesman, backing awayfrom Conan's murderous swipes, stumble
d against them. His spine crackedin three places like a rotten branch and he was hurled headlong againstthe Cimmerian, bearing him backward so that they both crashed to thebeaten floor.

  Yasmina cried out and ran forward; to her dazed sight it seemed thatboth were slain. She reached them just as Conan threw aside the corpseand rose. She caught his arm, trembling from head to foot.

  'Oh, you live! I thought--I thought you were dead!'

  He glanced down at her quickly, into the pale, upturned face and thewide staring dark eyes.

  'Why are you trembling?' he demanded. 'Why should you care if I live ordie?'

  A vestige of her poise returned to her, and she drew away, making arather pitiful attempt at playing the Devi.

  'You are preferable to those wolves howling without,' she answered,gesturing toward the door, the stone sill of which was beginning tosplinter away.

  'That won't hold long,' he muttered, then turned and went swiftly to thestall of the stallion.

  Yasmina clenched her hands and caught her breath as she saw him tearaside the splintered bars and go into the stall with the maddened beast.The stallion reared above him, neighing terribly, hoofs lifted, eyes andteeth flashing and ears laid back, but Conan leaped and caught his manewith a display of sheer strength that seemed impossible, and dragged thebeast down on his forelegs. The steed snorted and quivered, but stoodstill while the man bridled him and clapped on the gold-worked saddle,with the wide silver stirrups.

  Wheeling the beast around in the stall, Conan called quickly to Yasmina,and the girl came, sidling nervously past the stallion's heels. Conanwas working at the stone wall, talking swiftly as he worked.

  'A secret door in the wall here, that not even the Wazuli know about.Yar Afzal showed it to me once when he was drunk. It opens out into themouth of the ravine behind the hut. Ha!'

  As he tugged at a projection that seemed casual, a whole section of thewall slid back on oiled iron runners. Looking through, the girl saw anarrow defile opening in a sheer stone cliff within a few feet of thehut's back wall. Then Conan sprang into the saddle and hauled her upbefore him. Behind them the great door groaned like a living thing andcrashed in, and a yell rang to the roof as the entrance was instantlyflooded with hairy faces and knives in hairy fists. And then the greatstallion went through the wall like a javelin from a catapult, andthundered into the defile, running low, foam flying from the bit-rings.

  That move came as an absolute surprize to the Wazulis. It was asurprize, too, to those stealing down the ravine. It happened soquickly--the hurricane-like charge of the great horse--that a man in agreen turban was unable to get out of the way. He went down under thefrantic hoofs, and a girl screamed. Conan got one glimpse of her as theythundered by--a slim, dark girl in silk trousers and a jeweledbreast-band, flattening herself against the ravine wall. Then the blackhorse and his riders were gone up the gorge like the spume blown beforea storm, and the men who came tumbling through the wall into the defileafter them met that which changed their yells of blood-lust to shrillscreams of fear and death.