Roland Green - Conan and The Gods of The Mountains

Or at least he could avoid defeat. With his fine tricks, Aondo was wasting strength that Conan was saving. Yet the warrior seemed no slower or weaker than he had at the beginning of the duel. What,

Conan wondered, would be the judgment of the Ichiribu if the drum-dance ended with both men still on the drum, unable to move a finger?

He laughed, and laughed again when he saw that this made Aondo frown. No doubt the man was cudgeling his wits to guess what trick the Cimmerian might be preparing. Conan laughed a third time, at Aondo's folly. The man would only take his attention from his opponent's next move, which was the surest way to lose.

For Conan, the world had shrunk to the drumhead and the man who stood on it with him. So had his concentration on his foe always been foremost in a fight for life, since he was old enough to win by skill rather than by sheer youthful strength, and perhaps with the favor of merciful gods. So it would be tonight.

Conan leaped high, twisted in the air, came down on all fours, and rolled. Rolling, he rolled again onto his hands and knees, thrust hands and feet hard against the drumhead, and rebounded into the air. When he landed, he was standing again.

He was also close to the edge of the drum. Aondo gave a ragged roar of triumph as he saw victory glimmering close. He, in turn, leaped insensately, making the drumhead dance madly.

Conan deliberately allowed the movement of the drumhead to shift him perhaps a spear's length toward the rim. He was in no danger from anything save the frame giving way. By custom, that ended the duel until the carpenters had finished repairing the timbers.

Aondo, however, was in danger of exhausting himself if he continued to leap about like a flea on a hot griddle without driving Conan off the drumhead. He seemed to have forgotten an ancient law of fighting: do not, if you can help it, wager your chances of victory on something you can do only once.

Just as deliberately, Conan shifted his footing, so that now the leaping drumhead slowly pushed him away from the rim. The thunder of the drum was outshouting the wind; soon it would outshout any thunder roaring down from above. Conan wondered how the folk watching could bear the sound, and saw that they had indeed widened their circle.

Valeria and Emwaya were standing side by side now, within arm's reach of one of the torches blazing atop poles thrust into the ground. Conan spared Valeria a glance and a wave, saw her return the wave, then whirled to see Aondo trying to close the distance between them,

It broke laws, customs, and taboos of every kind for one dancer to touch another. Yet crowding close to your opponent was allowed. If it gave him less space to move, it might even give you victory.

It might also provoke him into striking you, thereby losing. Conan would wager much that some such thought was in Aondo's mind. Yet the warrior had his face set in a sweat-dripping mask of such ferocity that it appeared he might be ready to strike the first blow.

Conan saw this plainly, then set the notion aside. Such a victory would not be honorable or give him and Valeria a sure place among the Ichiribu. Also, Aondo might be too good a warrior to die merely because he could not guard his temper.

If Valeria's fate had not been linked to his own, the Cimmerian would have utterly rejected the notion. As it was, he would leave such a trick for when he might truly need to save both himself and his companion.

Aondo had closed the distance still more in the time Conan had needed to decide. Now the Cimmerian could almost reach out and touch him. Aondo was too tall to leap over, so Conan waited until the warrior leaped.

Then he stamped hard, both feet thundering on the drumhead. Aondo came down on the vibrating hide, swayed, and in struggling for balance, turned away from Conan.

The moment his opponent's eyes were elsewhere, Conan took his longest leap of the duel. He came down six good paces on the other side of Aondo. Now it was the warrior who had his back to the edge of the drum.

Conan opened the distance still more, seeing Aondo again ready to lash out in madness and fury, thereby ending his life with dishonor. Then, just as the Cimmerian thought the madness seemed to be ebbing from the warrior's face, a woman's shrill scream pierced the drum-thunder.

Valeria was standing beside Emwaya, eyes fixed on the drum, when she felt rather than saw the young woman move. Emwaya seemed almost to float two or three paces without touching the ground. As she came into Valeria's sight, the pirate saw that Emwaya's face was drawn.

Then, suddenly, Dobanpu's daughter broke into a sweat equal to that of the two duelists, threw up a hand, seemed to pluck something from the air, and screamed.

Valeria drew sword and dagger with deadly speed and scant regard for those standing close. A circle opened around her and Emwaya, as if the Ichiribu wizard's daughter had suddenly burst into flames.

Instead, Emwaya was staggering, shaking her hand, and opening and shutting her mouth without making a sound. Valeria saw her eyes roll up until only the whites showed, then saw her fall to her knees, hands shaking uncontrollably, arms beginning to spasm.

"Snake!" someone shouted.

Valeria whirled, trying to look in all directions at once and slash to pieces anything that looked remotely like a serpent. As she did so, she saw a red, swollen patch on Emwaya's hand—the hand, she recalled, that Emwaya had used to pluck something from the air.

Instantly, Valeria altered the object of her search. She was not looking for a man or a weapon. Rather, she was looking for a certain cast of countenance. Assassins had a look that was hard to mistake for anything else. Assassins who had just struck down the wrong person had an even more distinctive look, unless they were adepts of a kind she did not expect to find among the Ichiribu.

She found a face that bore that look, a face she recognized, although she could not put a name to it. The man was frantically scrabbling to hide an object he held in his hands behind the women in front of him.

Valeria knew what fate awaited her and Conan if she slew an innocent from the ranks of the Ichiribu. So she reversed her dagger and threw it hilt-first. The hilt was of the best Nemedian artistry, with a weighted pommel intended to do just such work as she had put it to.

The man—Wobeku, she remembered his name now—saw his danger in time to avoid the worst of it. He ducked, the dagger struck a glancing blow and flew off into the crowd, and a cry warned Valeria of trouble to come. For the moment reckless of danger, she raised her sword and screamed curses and warnings in every tongue she could command.

The Ichiribu might not understand, but they knew a madwoman when they heard one. They made a path for Valeria, where she wanted it. She lunged forward just as Wobeku raised what had to be a blowgun.

Neither steel nor blowgun dart found its mark. Golden fire was suddenly all about her, raining from the sky like water. Her blade seemed to slice deep into a thick wall of honey, and eye-searing sparks flew from the steel.

At the same moment, the golden fire wrapped itself around something small, which had to be the dart hurled at Valeria. It had no metal in it, let alone good Aquilonian steel; it emitted a pale green flash and was gone.

Then the golden fire arched high, forming a bow linking Emwaya's hand to the blowgun held by Wobeku. It was Wobeku's turn to show the whites of his eyes, and also to drop the blowgun and take to his heels.

The golden fire brightened until Valeria had to first squint, then close her eyes. It brightened still more until she wanted to drop her sword and clap her hands over her face. She heard screams all around her, and hoped none of them were Emwaya's.