Conan did not have to wait for long.
The Lady of the Mists stared at the cup before her. It could only be a fanciful notion, or perhaps a sending of some hostile magic, that the cup was staring back at her.
Ten captives—ten vessels of the life essence was a better name for them here and now—had stood before the Lady. All ten had given their life essence into what lay within the cup—and even the Lady did not care to search too hard for a name for that.
In magic, a true name commonly gave one power over him whose name one knew. With what lay within the cup, the Lady judged—nay, to be truthful, feared—that knowing its name would give it power, to reach out and command her.
What might come of that, she did not know, nor did she have the slightest wish to find out.
The Lady knelt, bowed her head, twined her fingers across her breasts, and touched the sigil-bearing cup lid with her thoughts. It wavered, then floated, still lightly as thistledown, to resume its place atop the cup. No sound came, not even the faintest rattle.
A bubbling sigh, as of some vast and unwholesome creature in its last moment of life, loud enough to raise echoes although there were none to give ear to them. Then the last of the crimson glow seemed to drain into the stone floor of the chamber, as if a cup of wine had been flung down upon sand.
The chamber returned to its natural colors, but the mind of the Lady of the Mists did not return to the natural world. She could not allow that until the ritual was altogether complete.
As the Mist took life essences into itself, it gained more and more awareness. Soon it would be able to touch the Lady's mind, or at least seek to do so. She knew quite well what could happen if it succeeded, and had therefore no intention of allowing this to happen. She might in time bind the Mist so that a linking of flesh-mind and Mist-mind would be prudent, but that time was far away.
The Lady rose and held both hands before her in a beckoning gesture. The two Maidens who had brought the cup entered the chamber, followed by two more, similarly clad.
The two newcomers brought long shoulder poles, from which hung a stout harness of leather that might have seemed gilded to an unknowing eye. The "gilding" was in truth the trace of a spell so old that no one could say what folk had first cast it. It bound what lay within the cup, and likewise the life essences, so that they might travel safely through the natural world outside the chamber to their destination.
The Maidens stood, two before and two behind, resting the poles on their shoulders. Then they closed their eyes, as the Lady of the Mists raised her hands again, and this time chanted softly.
The cup lurched into the air, not light as thistledown now but more like a gorged vulture trying to find safety in the air as the hyenas approach. It lurched and wobbled from side to side as the Lady's magic commanded it across the spear's length of rock floor that separated it from the harness.
"Huk!" the Lady said. It was neither word, nor spell. It sounded more like the spitting of the king of all asps. The cup wavered once more, then settled into place in the harness.
Without anyone raising a hand, let alone setting it upon the leather, the harness wound itself tightly about the cup. In moments the contents could not have spilled had it been full to the brim with the finest Poitanian vintages.
There was no other way to deal with the cup when the life essences seethed within it. The Lady remembered one foolish Maiden, it seemed years ago, who had tried to steady the cup with her bare hand.
She drew back naught but a charred stump; and when she held the ruined limb close to her eyes, they smouldered and charred in their sockets too. She did not, however, die. There were in the end uses for her, even though she could not surrender her life essence to the Mist.
Her injuries had too greatly wounded her life essence, but she still had her life. Before it left her, many of the soldiers without had sated themselves so thoroughly that the mere thought of a woman was unknown to them for some days.
The four Maidens now bearing the cup seemed to have profited by their sister's fate. They stood as might temple images, waiting to come to life at a magical command.
The command came—once again, at the raised hand of the Lady of the Mists. The little procession strode out of the cave, the Maids falling swiftly into step as precisely as any soldiers, then turned right. Before them lay the path along the side of the valley, to the cave known as the Eye of the Mist.
Arrows cracked on the rocks at the entrance to the cleft as Conan shifted his position. He sought a place where he could see and strike without being seen or attacked, and so far, none had come to hand.
Meanwhile, arrows continued to fly. Those he could reach without exposing himself, the Cimmerian gathered up. He and his Afghulis had begun this race for life with full quivers. They had reached the rocks with half-empty ones.
The Afghulis were returning the Turanian complements in kind. Some men and rather more horses fell on the slope. Riderless mounts careered about, tangling the ranks of those still mounted. The Afghulis might not be archers equal to the horsemen of Turan, but they held high ground that hid them while they shot down on men in the open.
No command made the Turanians withdraw, only the common consent of those at the forefront that they had fought enough for one day. The horsemen backed down the slope, like the tide ebbing from the harbor of Argos. They had the courage to keep their faces to the invisible enemy, for all that they left behind another half-score of comrades.
Some of the bolder spirits, who dismounted and took cover behind dead horses, paid for their courage within moments. Three died in the space of as many breaths, and Conan recognized the wild cry of triumph from above as issuing from Farad's throat.
The Turanian tide receded somewhat farther, not quite out of bowshot but far enough so that the archers above ceased shooting. Conan considered using some of his captured arrows to urge the enemy back even farther, then decided that wisdom lay elsewhere.
Sooner or later the Turanians would see the horses and nerve themselves to strike for them. Their hope would be to snatch the beasts and hold their enemies in place while reinforcements arrived.
Their fate would be to run the gauntlet of more arrows from on high, then to face a surprise encounter with the Cimmerian on ground of his own choosing. There would be fewer and more cautious Turanians after such an affray.
Conan set a dozen arrows within easy reach, then removed his boots for more silent movement. On the bare rock outside it was hot enough to bake bread or even burn his leather-tough feet, but here in the cleft, shadows made the rock bearable. He drew a whetstone and a wad of moss soaked in oil from a pouch on his belt and honed from the blade of his broadsword a few nicks that none but a seasoned warrior who was also the son of a blacksmith could have seen.
He was wary of turning his gaze from the Turanians, but thought the risk worth running. The Afghulis higher up the rocks would give sufficient warning of any attack for the Cimmerian to make ready for it.
His weapons prepared, Conan crept to a spot between two boulders and crouched there, as silent as a leopard watching a baboon's water hole and as ready to strike. He saw the Turanians spreading out. He stood or squatted within bowshot, but behind such rocks and stunted trees as offered shelter.
The rest had drawn well back into the open. From the way they signaled by blasts of trumpets and wav-ings of banner, Conan judged that a good part of the band was out of sight, throwing a ring around the rocks—a ring their captain no doubt intended to hold the Afghulis as tightly as an iron collar held a slave.