The Snout in the Dark

SEVEN: The Fate of a Kingdom

In the main square of the Inner City, Prince Aahmes was tied to a stake in the center. Aahmes was a plump, brown-skinned young man, whose very innocence in mat­ters of politics, it seemed., had enabled Afari to trap him by a false accusation.

Bonfires in the corners of the square and lines of torches illuminated an infernal scene. Between the stake and the royal palace stood a low platform, on which sat Tananda. Around the platform, royal guards were ranked three deep. The fires shone redly on the long blades of their spears, their shields of elephant hide, and the plumes of their head­dresses.

To one side of the square, Conan sat his horse at the head of a company of mounted guardsmen with lances erect. In the distance, lightning rippled through the high-piled clouds.

In the center, where Lord Aahmes was tied, more guardsmen kept a space clear. In the space, the royal execu­tioner was heating the instruments of his calling over a litle forge. The rest of the square was jammed with most of the folk of Meroe, mingled in one vast, indiscriminate throng. The torchlight picked out white eyeballs and teeth against dark skins. Tuthmes and his servants formed a solid clump in the front row.

Conan looked over the throng with dark foreboding. All had been orderly so far; but who knew what would happen when primitive passions were stirred? A nameless anxiety nagged at the back of his mind. As time passed, this anxiety became fixed, not on the fate of the headstrong queen, but on the Nemedian girl whom he had left at his house. He had left her with only a single servant, a black woman, because he had needed all his guardsmen to con­trol the gathering in the square.

In the few hours he had known Diana, Conan had be­come much taken with her. Sweet, gentle, and perhaps even a virgin, she contrasted in every way with the fiery, tempestuous, passionate, cruel, sensual Tananda. Being Tananda's lover was certainly exciting, but after a time Conan thought he might prefer someone less stormy for a change. Knowing Tananda, he would not have put it past her to have sent one of her servants to murder Diana while Conan was otherwise occupied.

In the center of the square, the executioner blew on his Httle charcoal fire with a bellows. He held up an instru­ment, which glowed a bright cherry red in the dark. He approached the prisoner. Conan could not hear over the murmur of the crowd, but he knew that the executioner was asking Aahmes for details of his plot. The captive shook his head.

It was as though a voice were speaking inside Conan's mind, urging him to return to his house. In the Hyborian lands, Conan had listened to the speculations of priests and philosophers. They had argued over the existence of guardian spirits and over the possibility of direct com­munication from mind to mind. Being convinced that they were all mad, he had not paid much attention at the time. Now, however, he thought he knew what they were talking about. He tried to dismiss the sensation as mere imagina­tion; but it returned, stronger than ever.

At last Conan told his adjutant: “Mongo, take com­mand until I return.”

“Whither go you, Lord Conan?” asked the black.

“To ride through the streets, to be sure no gang of ras­cals has gathered under cover of darkness. Keep things under control; I shall soon be back.”

Conan turned his horse and trotted out of the square. The crowd opened to let him pass. The sensation in his head was stronger than ever. He clucked his steed to an easy canter and presently drew rein in front of his dwelling. A faint nimble of thunder sounded.

The house was dark, save for a single light in the back. Conan dismounted, tied his horse, and entered, hand on hilt. At that instant he heard a frightful scream, which he recognized as the voice of Diana.

With a sulfurous oath, Conan rushed headlong into the house, tearing out his sword. The scream came from the living room, which was dark save for the stray beams of a single candle that burned in the kitchen.

At the door of the living room, Conan halted, trans­fixed by the scene before him. Diana cowered on a low settee strewn with leopard skins, her white limbs unveiled by the disarray of her silken shift. Her blue eyes were di­lated with terror.

Hanging in the center of the room, a gray, coiling mist was taking shape and form. The seething fog had already partly condensed into a hulking, monstrous form with sloping, hairy shoulders and thick, bestial limbs. Conan glimpsed the creature's misshapen head with its bristling, piglike snout and tusked, champing jaws.

The thing had solidified out of thin air, materializing by some demonic magic. Primal legends rose in Conan's mind - whispered tales of horrid, shambling things that prowled the dark and slew with inhuman fury. For half a heartbeat his atavistic fears made him hesitate. Then, with a snarl of rage, he sprang forward to give battle - and tripped over the body of the black woman servant, who had fainted and lay just inside the doorway. Conan fell sprawl­ing, the sword flying from his hand.

At the same instant the monster, with supernatural quickness, whirled and launched itself at Conan in a gi­gantic bound. As Conan fell flat, the demon passed dear over his body and fetched up against the wall of the hall outside.

The combatants were on their feet in an instant. As the monster sprang upon Conan anew, a flash of lightning outside gleamed upon its great chisel tusks. The Cimmerian thrust his left elbow up under its jaw, while he fumbled with its right hand for his dagger.

The demon's hairy arms encircled Conan's body with crushing force; a smaller man's back would have been broken. Conan heard his clothing rip as the blunt nails of its hands dug in, and a couple of links of his mail shirt snapped with sharp, metallic sounds. Although the weight of the demon was about the same as the Cimmerian's, its strength was incredible. As he strained every muscle, Conan felt his left forearm being bent slowly back, so that the snouted jaws came closer and closer to his face.

In the semi-dark, the two stamped and staggered about like partners in some grotesque dance. Conan fumbled for his dagger, while the demon brought its tusks ever nearer. Conan realized that his belt must have become awry, so that the dagger was out of reach. He felt even his titanic strength ebbing, when something cold was thrust into his groping right hand. It was the hilt of his sword, which Diana had picked up and now pressed into his grasp.

Drawing back his right arm, Conan felt with his point for a place in the body of his assailant. Then he thrust. The monster's skin seemed of unnatural toughness, but a mighty heave drove the blade home. Spasmodically champing its jaws, the creature uttered a bestial grunt.

Conan stabbed again and again, but the shaggy brute did not even seem to feel the bite of the steel. The demonic arms dragged the Cimmerian into an ever closer, bone-crushing embrace. The chisel-toothed jaws came closer and closer to his face. More links of his mail shirt parted with musical snapping sounds. Rough claws ripped his tunic and dug bloody furrows in his sweat-smeared back. A viscuous fluid from the creature's wounds, which did not feel like any normal blood, ran down the front of Conan's garments.

At length, doubling both legs and driving them into the thing's belly with every ounce of strength remaining to him, Conan tore himself free. He staggered to his feet, dripping gore.

As the demon shuffled toward him again, swinging its apelike arms for another grapple, Conan, with both hands on his hilt, swung his sword in a desperate arc. The blade bit into the monster's neck, half severing it. The mighty blow would have decapitated two or even three human foes at once, but the demon's tissues were tougher than those of mortal men.

The demon staggered back and crashed to the floor. As Conan stood panting, with dripping blade, Diana threw her arms about his neck. “I'm so glad -I prayed to Ishtar to send you—”

“There, there,” said Conan, comforting the girl with rough caresses. “I may look ready for the grave, but I can still stand—”

He broke off, eyes wide. The dead thing rose, its mal­formed head wobbling on its half-severed neck. It lurched to the door, tripped over the still-unconscious body of the Negro servant woman, and staggered out into the night.

“Crom and Mitra!” gasped Conan. Pushing the girl aside, he growled: “Later, later! You're a good lass, but I must follow that thing. That's the demon of the night they talk about, and by Crom, I'll find out where it comes from!”

He reeled out, to find his horse gone. A length of rein attached to the hitching ring told that the animal had broken its tether in panic at the demon's appearance.

Moments later, Conan reappeared in the square. As he rammed his way through the crowd, which had burst into a roar of excitement, he saw the monster stagger and fall in front of the tall Kordafian wizard in Tuthmes' group. In its final throes, it laid its head at the sorcerer's feet.

Screams of rage arose from the crowd, which recognized the monster as the demon that for years had terrified Meroe from time to time. Although the guardsmen still straggled to keep the space around the torture stake open, hands reached from the sides and back to pull Mum down. In the confused uproar, Conan caught a few snatches of speech: “Slay him! He is the demon's master! Kill him!”

A sudden hush fell. In the clear space, Ageera had sud­denly appeared, his shaved head painted to resemble a skull. It was as if he had somehow bounded over the heads of the crowd to land in the clearing.

“Why slay the tool and not the man who wields it?” he shrieked. He pointed at Tuthmes. “There stands he whom the Kordafian served! At his command, the demon slew Amboola! My spirits have told me, in the silence of the temple of Jullah! Slay him, too!”

As more hands dragged down the screaming Tuthmes, Ageera pointed toward the platform on which sat the queen. “Slay all the lords! Cast off your bonds! Kill the masters! Be free men again and not slaves! Kill, kill, kill!”

Conan could barely keep his feet in the buffeting of the crowd, which surged this way and that, chanting: “Кill, kill, kill!” Here and there a screaming lord was brought down and torn to pieces.

Conan struggled toward his mounted guards, by means of whom he still hoped to clear the square. Then, over the heads of the mob, he saw a sight that changed his plans. A royal guardsman, standing with his back to the platform, turned about and hurled his spear straight at the queen, whom he was supposed to protect. The spear went through her glorious body as if through butter. As she slumped in her seat, a dozen more spears found their mark in her. At the fall of their ruler, the mounted guardsmen joined the rest of the tribesmen in the massacre of the ruling caste.

Moments later, Conan., battered and disheveled but leading another horse, appeared at his dwelling. He tied the animal, rushed inside, and brought a bag of coins out of its hiding place.

“Let's go!” he barked at Diana. “Grab a loaf of bread! Where in the cold Hells of Niflheim is my shield? Ah, here!”

“But don't you want to take those nice things—“

“No time; the browns are done for. Hold my girdle while you ride behind me. Up with you, now!”

With its double burden, the horse galloped heavily through the Inner City, through a rabble of looters and rioters, pursuers and pursued. One man, who leaped for the animal's bridle, was ridden down with a shriek and a snapping of bones; others scrambled madly out of the way. Out through the great bronze gates they rode, while be­hind them the houses of the nobility blazed up into yellow pyramids of flame. Overhead lightning flashed, thunder roared, and ram came pelting down like a waterfall. An hour later, the rain had slackened to a drizzle. The horse moved at a slow walk, picking its way through the darkness.

“We're still on the Stygian road,” grumbled Conan, striv­ing to pierce the dark with his gaze. “When the rain stops, we'll stop, too, to dry off and get a little sleep.”

“Where are we going?” said the high, gentle voice of Diana.

“I don't know; but I'm tired of the black countries. You cannot do anything with these people; they are as hide­bound and as thick-headed as the barbarians of my own north country - the Cimmerians and Aesir and Vanir. I am minded to have another try at civilization.!”

“And what about me ?”

“What do you want? I'll send you home or keep you with me, whichever you like.”

“I think,” she said in a small voice, “that in spite of the wet and everything, I like things as they are.”

Conan grinned silently in the darkness and urged the horse to a trot.