Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

"They say it is their women and children they do not wish frightened, but I have seen their faces. They think that if they do not know what the danger is, it will not come near them!"

"They are fools," Ivram said. He laughed, so that his jowls danced. "They also do not care to have a boy be more of a man than they are."

"Do you believe me, ihen?"

" Something stalks these mountains, something reeking of uncleanness and evil magic. Any knowledge of that is more than we have had before." He took a honeycake between thumb and forefinger. It vanished in two bites.

Bora looked at the plate, to discover it half-empty already. "Maryam, I will be grateful for that wine."

"It is our pleasure," she replied. Her smile made Bora's head spin as though he had already emptied a cup.

Now that he had found someone of the hills ready to believe him, Bora could hardly credit his good fortune. Nor could he muster the courage to speak, without strengthening himself with drink.

Ivram scanted neither his guests nor himself in the matter of wine. By the time the second cup was half-empty, Bora had done more than tell his story. He had begun to wonder why he had ever been reluctant to tell it. Maryam was looking at him with wide, worshipful eyes. He had never dreamed of having such a woman look at him so.

"If you saw half what you describe, we are in more peril than I had dared imagine," Ivram said at last. "I almost understand those who did not care to hear you. Have you told anyone outside the village? This is not our secret, I think."

"I—well, there is one. Not quite outside the village, although he has gone to Aghrapur—" The wine now tangled Bora's tongue rather than freeing it. Also, he did not much care to talk of his sister Caraya's unmaidenly passion for Yakoub.

"It is Yakoub the herdsman, is it not?" Ivram said gently. Bora nodded without raising his eyes, from the floor.

"You do not trust him?" Bora shook his head. "Who else do you know who would both listen to you and bear your tale to Aghrapur? Mughra Khan's soldiers have arrested your father. They will be slow to listen to you.

"The friends of Yakoub may not be in high places. Yet they will not be the men of Mughra Khan. Yakoub is your best hope."

"He may be our only one!" Bora almost shouted. The wine on a nearly empty stomach was making him light-headed. "Besides the gods, of course," he added hastily, as he remembered that he was guest to a priest of Mitra.

"The gods will not thank us for sitting like stones upon the hillside and waiting for them to rescue us," Ivram said. "Yakoub seems a better man than those who seek only rebels when they should seek wizardry. Perhaps he will not be good enough, but—"

"Ivram! Quickly! To the south! The demon fire burns!"

Maryam's voice was half a scream and wholly filled with terror. She stood in the outer doorway, staring into the night. Bora took his place beside her, seeing that her dark-rose face was now pale as goat's milk.

Emerald fire climbed the slopes of the Lord of the Winds. The whole mighty peak might have been sinking in a lake of that fire. At any moment Bora expected to see the snowcap melt and waft away into the night as green-hued steam.

Ivram embraced Maryam and murmured to her. At last she rested her head on his shoulder in silence. He looked beyond her, to the demon light. To Bora he seemed to be looking even farther, into another world.

When he spoke, his voice had the ring of prophecy. In spite of his wine-given courage, Bora shuddered at the priest's words.

"That is the light of our doom. Bora, I will join my words to yours. We must prepare ourselves, for what is about to come upon us."

"I cannot lead the villages!"

"Cannot, or will not?"

"I would if they listened to me. But I am a boy!"

"You are more of a man than those who will not hear you: Remember that, speak as you have spoken to me tonight, and the wise will listen."

A witling's thought passed through Bora's mind. Did Ivram mean that he should stay drunk until the demons had passed? The idea tempted him, but he doubted that there was so much wine in all the villages!

Eremius flung his arms toward the night sky, as if seeking to conjure the stars down from the heavens. No stars were to be seen from the valley, not through the emerald mist around the Lord of the Winds.

Again and again his arms leaped high. Again and again he felt the power of the Jewel pour from them like flames. Ah, if he could unleash such power with one Jewel, what might he do with both?

Tonight he would take a step toward possessing both. A long step, for tonight the Transformed would pour out of the mountains to strike far and wide.

Thunder rolled down the sky and echoed from the valley walls. The ground shuddered beneath Eremius's feet.

He took a deep breath and with the utmost reluctance reined in the power he had conjured. With his senses enhanced by the Jewel, he had seen the flaws and faults in the walls of the valley. One day he would cast it all down in rubble and ruin to show the world his power, but not tonight.

"Master! Master! Hear me!" It was the captain of the sentries.

"Silence!" A peremptory gesture held menace.

"Master! You put the men in fear! If they are to follow the Transformed—"

"Fear? Fear? I will show you fear!" Another gesture. Eremius's staff leaped into his hand. He raised it, to smite the captain to the ground in a pile of ashes.

Again he took a deep breath. Again he reined in the power he would have gloried in unleashing. Near witless as they were, his human fighters had their part in everything he did until he regained the second Jewel.

The Transformed could be unleashed only when Eremius was. awake to command them. When he slept, so did they. Then the spellbound humans must do the work of guarding and foraging, however badly.

With both Jewels, one like Eremius could command the loyalty of the finest soldiers while leaving their wits intact. With only one, he could command only those he had made near-kin to simpletons.

The thousandth curse on Illyana shrieked through his mind. His staff danced in the air, painting a picture between him and the captain. Illyana appeared, naked, with nothing of the sorceress about her. Rather, it was her younger self, ready to receive a man as the real Illyana never had (though not for want of effort by Eremius).

The staff twitched. Illyana's image opened its mouth and closed its eyes. Its hands curved into claws, and those claws began to twist in search of the man who had to be near.

At Eremius's command, the image did all that he had ever seen or imagined a woman doing in the grip of lust. Then the image surpassed lust, entering realms of blood and obscenity beyond the powers of most men even to imagine.

They were also beyond the powers of the captain to endure. He began by licking his lips at the display of lust. Then sweat glazed his face, except for dry lips. Under the sweat the face turned pale.

At last his eyes rolled up in his head and he crashed to the ground. He lay as senseless as if Eremius truly had smitten him with the staff. Eremius waved the staff, now to conjure sense back into the captain instead of out of him. The man lurched to his knees, vomited, looked wildly about him for the image, then knelt and kissed the ground at Eremius's feet.

For the moment, it seemed to Eremius that the man had learned enough of fear.

"Go and send your men up to the valley mouth," Eremius said. "They are to hold it until the last of the Transformed are past. Then they are to fall in with the pack animals."

The human fighters were not as the Transformed, able to endure for days between their meals of flesh. They would need rations until the raiders reached inhabited farms. Pack horses would serve, their scents altered by magic so that they would not rouse the hunger of the Transformed.