Drums of Tombalku

Chapter Five

An hour later, as the sun set behind the dun brick walls of Tombalku, Conan and Sakumbe mounted the thrones on the dais in the plaza. As the drums thundered die muster, black men of military age streamed into the square. Bonfires were lit. Plumed officers pushed warriors into line and thumbed the heads of the men's spears to assure themselves that these were sharp.

Amalric strode across the square to report to the kings that his riders would be ready to move out by midnight. His mind teemed with schemes and stratagems: Whether, if the Aphaki refused to break at the first onslaught, he should break off the fight and retire, to attack again when the Aphaki were spread out and dismounted to attack the walls of Tombalku…

He mounted the steps to where the kings sat, surrounded by black officers to whom they were issuing orders. "My lords …" he began.

A screech interrupted him. Askia appeared beside the throne, pointing at Amalric and shouting at the kings.

''There he is!" screamed the wizard. "The man who slew a god! The man who slew one of my gods!"

The Blacks around the thrones turned startled faces toward Amalric. In the firelight, eyeballs gleamed whitely against dark skins. Their expressions had in them something of awe and fear. Clearly, it was inconceivable to them that a man should slay a god. One who did so must be, in some sort, a god himself.

"What punishment were cruel enough for such blasphemy?" continued Askia. "I demand that the slayer of Ollam-onga and his wench be turned over to me for torture! Cods, they shall suffer such pain as no mortal has ever suffered in all the aeons …"

"Shut up!" roared Conan. "If Amalric killed the spook of Gazal, the world is better for it. Now get out of here and stop bothering us; we have business."

"But, Conan …" said Sakumbe.

"These white-skinned devils always hang together!'' yelled Askia. "Are you king any longer, Sakumbe? If you are, then order them seized and bound! If you do not know what to do with them …"

"Well …" said Sakumbe.

"Listen!" cried Conan. "If Gazal is no longer haunted by this so-called god, we can capture the place, put its people to work, and get them to teach us their sciences. But first get rid of this prancing he-witch, before I try my edge on him!"

"I demand …" screamed Askia.

"Get rid of him!'" bellowed the Cimmerian, hand on his hilt. "By Crom, do you think I'd deliver an old comrade like Amalric to the mercy of a devil-worshiping cutthroat?"

Sakumbe at last roused himself and sat up straight on his throne. "Go, Askia!" he said. "Amalric is a good warrior, and you shall not have him. Rather, busy yourself with sorceries to defeat Zehbeh."

"But I …"

"Go!'' The fat arm pointed.

Askia foamed with rage. "Very well, I go!" he shouted at last "But you have not heard the last of me, you two!" And away rushed the witch doctor.

Amalric resumed his report on the Tibu riders. What with the constant coming and going of messengers, and of officers reporting on the strength of their commands, it was some time before he had laid his entire plan before the king.

Conan made a few suggestions and then said:

"It looks good to me, eh, Sakumbe?"

"If you like it, brother King, it must be good. Go, Amalric, and muster our riders … deee!" An awful scream suddenly broke from Sakumbe, whose eyes seemed to be starting from his head. He staggered up from his throne, clutching at his throat "I burn! I burn! Save me!"

A terrible phenomenon was taking place on the body of Sakumbe. Although there was no sign of visible fire, no sensation of heat, it was plain to be seen that the man was in fact burning, as surely as if he had been tied to a stake over lighted faggots. His skin blistered, then charred and cracked, while the air was filled with the odor of burning flesh.

"Pour water on him!" shouted Amalric. "Or wind anything you have!"

Scream after scream from the tortured throat of the black king. Someone threw a bucketful of liquid over him; there was a hiss and a cloud of steam, but the screams continued.

"Crom and Ishtar!" swore Conan, glaring furiously about, "I ought to have killed that dancing devil while he was in reach''

The screams died away and ceased. The remains of the king —a shriveled, shapeless object, not at all like the living Sakumbe— lay on the surface of the dais in a pool of melted human fat. Some of the plumed officers fled in panic; some prostrated themselves, calling upon their various gods.

Conan seized Amalric's wrist in a bone-crushing grip. "We must get out of here, quickly!" he said in a low, tense lone. "Come along!"

Amalric did not doubt the Cimmerian's knowledge of the dangers they faced. He followed Conan down the steps of the dais. In the plaza, all was confusion.

Plumed warriors milled around, shouting and gesticulating. Fights had broken out here and there among them.

''Die, slayer of Kordofo!" screamed a voice above the din. Directly in front of Conan, a tall, brown man drew back his arm and hurled a javelin at point-blank range. Only the steel-trap quickness of the barbarian saved Conan. The Cimmerian whirled and crouched, so that the missile passed over him, missing Amalric's head by a finger's breadth and burying itself in the body of another warrior.

The attacker drew back his arm to hurl a second spear; but, before he could loose it, Conan's sword sang from its sheath, whirled in a scarlet arc in the firelight, and struck home. The Tombalkan sank to the ground, cloven from shoulder to breastbone.

"Run!" yelled Conan.

Amalric ran, dodging through the swirling crowds in the plaza. Men shouted and pointed at them; some ran after them.

Amalric, his legs pounding and his lungs laboring, raced down a side street after Conan. Behind them swelled the sounds of pursuit. The street narrowed and bent Ahead of Amalric, Conan suddenly disappeared.

"In here, quickly!" came the voice of the Cimmerian, who had doged into a space a yard in width between two mud-brick houses.

Amalric squeezed into this alcove and stood silently, gasping for breath, as the pursuit raced past in the street

"Some more of Kordofo's kin," muttered the Cimmerian in the darkness. "They've been sharpening their spears for me ever since Sakumbe got rid of Kordofo."

"What do we do now?" asked Amalric

Conan turned his head up to the narrow, starlit strip of sky above them. "I think we can climb up to the roofs," he said.

"How?"

"The way I used to climb a cleft in the rocks, when I was a youth in Cimmeria. Here, hold this sticker for me."

Conan handed Amalric a javelin, and Amalric realized that the Cimmerian had taken it from the man he had slain. The weapon had a narrow head a full yard in length, of soft iron sharpened to a finely serrated edge. Below the hand grip, a slender iron shank balanced the weight of the head.

Conan grunted softly, braced his back against one wall and his feet against the other, and inched his way up. Soon he became a black silhouette against the stars, and then disappeared. A call came softly down: "Hand up that spear, and come on up."

Amalric handed up the javelin and, in his turn, inched his way up. The roofs were made of wooden beams, on which was laid down a thick layer of palm fronds and, over that, a layer of clay. Sometimes the clay gave a little as they walked on it, and the crackle of the fronds underneath could be heard.

Following Conan, Amalric crossed several roofs, leaping over the chasms between them. At length, they came to a building of good size, almost on the edge of the plaza.

"I must get Lissa out of here!" said Amalric, desperately anxious.

"One thing at a time," growled Conan. "We want to know what is happening."

The confusion in the plaza had somewhat died down. Officers were getting their men into orderly formations once more. On the dais with the two thrones, across the square, stood Askia in his wizard's regalia, speaking. Although Amalric could not hear all his words, the wizard was evidently telling the Tombalkans what a great and wise leader he would be to them.

A sound off to Amalric's left drew the Aquilonian's attention. At first a murmur, like the crowd noises in the square, it swelled to a roar. A man dashed into the square and shouted to Askia:

''The Aphaki attack the east wall!"

Then all was chaos again. The war drums thundered. Askia screamed orders right and left. A regiment of black spearmen began to file out of the square towards the disturbance. Conan said:

"We'd better get out of Tombalku. Whichever side wins, they'll have our hides. Sakumbe was right; these people will never obey a whiteskin. Go to your house and get your girl ready. Rub your faces and arms with soot from the hearth; that way you'll be less conspicuous in the dark. Crab whatever money you have. I'll meet you there with horses. If we hurry, we can get out the west gate before they close it or Zehbeh attacks it. Before I go, though, I have one little task."

Conan stared across the serried ranks of the black warriors at Askia, still shouting and orating on the dais. He hefted the javelin.

''It's a long cast, but I think I can do it," he muttered.

The Cimmerian walked deliberately back to the other side of the roof, then made a short ran forward, towards the side facing the square. Just before he reached the edge of the roof, with a mighty whirl of arms and twist of torso, he hurled the weapon. The missile vanished from Amalric's sight into the darkness above.

For three heartbeats he wondered whither it had gone.

Askia suddenly screamed and staggered about, the long shaft protruding from his chest and lashing back and forth with the wizard's convulsive movements. As the witch-man collapsed on the dais, Conan snarled:

"Let's go!"

Amalric ran, leaping from roof to roof. To the east, the din of battle rose in a medley of war cries, drumbeats, trumpet cal s, screams, and clatter of weapons.

It was not yet midnight when Amalric, Lissa, and Conan reined in their horses on a sandy ridge a mile to the west of Tombalku. They looked back toward the city, now illumined by the lurid glare of a conflagration. Fires had sprung up here and there during the battle, when the Aphaki had swarmed over the eastern wall and fought the black spearmen in the streets. Although the latter were much more numerous, their lack of leaders put them at a disadvantage that all their barbaric valor might not be able to overcome. The Aphaki pressed further and further into the city, while the fires merged into a holocaust From the ridge, the hideous clamor of battle and massacre came as a murmur.

Conan grunted:

"So much for Tombalku! Whoever wins, we shall have to seek our fortunes elsewhere. I'm for the coast of Kush, where I have friends … and also enemies … and where I can pick up a ship for Argos. What of you?"

"I had not thought," said Amalric.

"That's a shapely filly you have there," said Conan with a grin. The light of the rising moon gleamed on his strong white teeth, shining against his soot-blackened skin. "You can't drag her over the whole wide world."

Amalric felt himself bristle at the Cimmerian's tone. He drew closer to Lissa and slid an arm around her waist, meanwhile dropping his free hand toward his sword hilt. Conan's grin broadened.

"Fear not," he said. "I have never been so hard up for women that I've had to steal those of my friends. If you two come with me, you can beat your way back to Aquilonia."

"I cannot return to Aquilonia," said Amalric.

"Why not?"

"My father was slain in a broil with Count Terentius, who is in favor with King Vilerus. So all my father's kin had to flee the land, lest Terentius' agents hunt us down."

"Oh, had you not heard?" said Conan. "Vilerus died within a six-month; his nephew, Numedides, is now king. All the old king's hangers-on, they say, have been dismissed, and the exiles recalled. I got it from a Shemite trader. If I were you, I'd scurry home. The new king should find a worthy post for you. Take your little Lissa along and make her a countess or something. As for me, I'm for Kush and the blue sea."

Amalric glanced back toward the red blaze that had been Tombalku. "Conan," he said, "why did Askia destroy Sakumbe instead of us, with whom he had a more immediate quarrel?"

Conan shrugged his huge shoulders. ''Perhaps he had fingernail parings and the like from Sakumbe but not from us. So he worked what spells he could. I have never understood wizardly minds."

"And why did you take the time to kill Askia?"

Conan stared. "Are you joking, Amalric? Me, leave a slain comrade unavenged? Sakumbe, damn his sweaty black hide, was a friend of mine. Even if he got fat and lazy in his late years, he was a better man than most of the white men I have known." The Cimmerian sighed gustily and shook his head, as a lion shakes his mane. "Well, he's dead, and we're alive. If we want to go on being alive, we had better move on before Zehbeh sends a patrol out to hunt for us. Let's go!"

The three horses plodded down the western slope of the sandy ridge and broke into a brisk trot to westward.