Roland Green - Conan and The Gods of The Mountains

Seyganko's paddle dipped deep as he raised his voice in the oldest and most potent of the Ichiribu war chants.

Ryku heard the signal drums from the lookout post on what the Kwanyi called Great Gourd Hill. It neither grew large gourds nor had the shape of one, so Ryku had always wondered how it came by its name.

It was, however, the perfect spot for a keen-eyed watcher to look all the way to the island of the Ichiribu. With a trifle of aid from Ryku, some of the watchers had gained more than human sight; they could even see canoes putting out from the island.

This, the drums told him, was just what was happening. Ryku placed the wooden tablet he had been studying in the herb-steeped deer hide that protected it from both damp and magic alike. He wrapped the hide about the tablet and put it in the carved chest that stood in one corner of his chamber. That chest was the one thing he had brought with him when he came to Thunder Mountain. It was a gift from the man whom he had called Father, and always made him feel less clanless and kinless.

Now the very gods could not do that. He was First Speaker to the Living Wind, for all that he seldom used the title. His clan and his kin were alike not of this earth, and thus it must be. Had he risen to the rank of Speaker by other means, he might have felt some kinship with the other Speakers, but as matters stood, they also were alien and untrustworthy.

Ryku stepped out of his chamber, touched the pouch at his belt for good luck, and unbound the reed curtain over his door. The hanging fell back across the door as he turned and walked away, toward the Cave of the Living Wind.

The slithering ended in a crash that sounded like a battering ram striking a stone wall. In the next moment, Conan knew that his ears had not lied.

From a side tunnel to their rear, stones larger than a man rolled in dust and thunder. Smaller stones flew as if hurled from a siege-engine. Some crashed against the far wall, spraying shards in all directions. Others struck flesh. Shards and stones together left three warriors lifeless and two more limping or holding useless arms.

Those two were the first prey of the Golden Serpent as it lunged from its lair into the tunnel.

Its teeth sank into one, and the man howled in agony for a dreadful moment before going limp. The teeth were as long as Conan's fingers, set in a jaw the length of a horse's head, and it hardly mattered if they were venomous or not.

The other man died as a tail thicker than his own body swept him against the wall. He did not scream, but the cracking of skull and crunching of bones were loud enough to tell plainly of his fate.

Other men did cry out, though, at what they saw then. Around the two bodies a sickly green light flickered. It was what one might have seen over a noisome swamp, the sort said to be haunted, one to which wise men gave a wide berth. It was the color of the scum on the most stagnant water of such a swamp. If he had ever seen a less wholesome color in his life, Conan could not remember it.

What he did remember was that Emwaya was in the rear, and that her fate and that of all of them were entwined. He turned back, to reach her just as she leaped from the arms of the men holding her. She ran at the Golden Serpent, raising high overhead one hand and clutching the amulet about her neck with the other.

The creature hissed loudly enough to cause echoes, and its toothed jaws gaped so that Conan had much too clear a view of its mouth. The mouth was green and ridged, except where it was smeared with the blood of the serpent's first victim. Far back in the mouth, the swamp-glow flickered.

A brighter light blazed from the Golden Serpent's many-jeweled eyes. At another time and place, the jewel-light might have been lovely. Now it was only one more horror.

At Emwaya's gesture, the serpent reared half its length from the floor. Its horned muzzle crashed against the ceiling, shaking loose dust and pebbles. Its tail thrashed about, nearly striking down one man bolder than the rest in retrieving his baggage.

From nose to tail, the creature seemed longer than a small galley, and thicker around the middle than a good-sized tree. The golden scales were as large as good pewter serving platters and overlapped as cunningly as was the best Aquilonian plate armor. Some were faded to a pale yellow, even to a near white. Conan saw that many had been cracked, or had even broken clear across, then healed.

The boldest warrior of all ran past Emwaya, shield slung, spear in both hands. He leaped and thrust in a single fluid motion, and his spearhead vanished between two pallid scales.

The Golden Serpent shook like a tree in a gale. Still gripping his spear, the warrior flew into the air, legs waving. The serpent's head dipped, and the jaws closed on one of the man's feet. The warrior did not cry out. Instead, he mustered all his strength to drive the spear in deeper.

He succeeded, in the moment that the serpent's teeth severed his leg halfway up the calf. He screamed then, but did not fall. He remained suspended in the air, held up by nothing anyone could see, while the too-familiar greenish light played about the blood spraying from the stump of his leg.

At last he fell, still gripping the spear. His fall jerked the weapon from the serpent's neck, and greenish blood spurted forth. Where it struck the floor, smoke rose, and where it fell on the corpse of the man crushed by the tail, the flesh charred to ashes and crumbled from the bone.

If Conan had ever doubted the stark horror of the magic lurking in these depths, he doubted no longer. He also doubted that he would ever again put himself in danger for fire-stones.

Emwaya staggered back into his arms, her hands held in front of her in a warding gesture. "Quickly," she whispered. "Have another man throw a spear."

"You!" Conan called. The iron self-command in his voice steadied the warriors. The man addressed drew back and put all the force of his best throw behind the spear. It struck not far from the wound made by the first warrior.

A scale cracked across; this time the blood only oozed out. As Conan watched, the wound from the first spear closed. Only a smear of blood on the serpent's neck showed that it had ever taken any hurt. Another smear was already drying on the floor, not far from the corpse of the man who had lost his foot to the serpent. That man's bones were even now showing through his flesh, and through the green foulness that played over and around it.

Emwaya drew in a great, rasping breath. "We must keep it coming at us, and wound it each time it comes. We must keep our distance, too. It heals itself somewhat each time it is wounded, but not altogether. It will lose strength; I will see to that."

"How long will it take to die?"

The Golden Serpent hissed in challenge, pain, and defiance. The hiss again raised such echoes that Emwaya could not have made herself heard had she shouted into Conan's ear.

As the serpent withdrew some ten paces or so, Emwaya spoke urgently. "It will die swiftly if my father comes to join his Spirit-Speaking to mine. We can take from it the power to steal life-force, which is how it heals as it does."

Conan thought uncharitable words about sorcerers. It seemed that the breed was always with you when you did not want them and somewhere else when you did.

"Ho!" he shouted, raising his sword. "We've need to fight this beast by retreating before it. Baggage men, take the rear rank. The best spearmen, take the foremost. Guard Emwaya at all costs, and for the love of every god, don't close with the monster !"

Faces showed that the bravest warrior needed no urging on that last point. Conan snatched up a spear from the baggage and joined the rear rank as Valeria ran to stand beside Emwaya.

As if they were all of a single mind, the band drew back ten paces. Encouraged, the serpent lowered its head and came on, but it did not lunge so boldly this time. A spear and a trident flew. The spear sank deep, the trident glanced off the horn on the nose. The trident-thrower would have dashed forward to retrieve his weapon but for Conan's wordless roar that halted him in his tracks.