“We meet again, dog of a Cimmerian,” said Thoth-Amon in gutturally accented Aquilonian.
Conan grunted and spat.
Father and son had slept and waked, been fed, and slept again. Disdaining to reply, Conan turned his gaze on the others who sat enthroned. The Hyperborean Witchwoman he knew, but the other two were strangers to him. The first was a dimunitive, effeminate little man in fantastic jeweled robes, with amber skin, fleshy arms covered with glittering rings, and the cold, bright, soulless eyes of a snake.
“This is the divine Pra-Eun, the Lord of the Scarlet Circle, the sacred god-king of jungle-girdled Angkhor in the remote east of the world,” said Thoth-Amon. Conan made no response, but the plump little Kambujan smiled suavely.
“The so-great king of Aquilonia and I are old friends—although he knows me not. He once did me the kindest of favors,” he said in a high-pitched, lisping voice.
“I fear I know not this tale,” Thoth-Amon confessed. Pra-Eun smiled brilliantly.
“But yes! Some years ago he did to death the formidable Yah Chieng—perhaps he recalls the occasion? That person was a most powerful sorcerer of Khitai. He was my rival and my superior, as head of the Scarlet Circle. I am beholden to the brave monarch of Aquilonia, for had he not slain the miserable Yah Chieng, I should not today be the supreme master of my order!”
Again, Pra-Eun smiled brilliantly, but Conan noticed that his smile did not reach as far as his eyes. They remained as hard and cold as the eyes of a viper.
Beyond the little god-king sat Louhi in her robes of white; and beyond her a savage black towered. He was a magnificent specimen of manhood, his oiled arms sleek with gliding thews, his woolly head crowned with nodding plumes. About his muscular torso was flung a cloak of leopard skins. Rings of raw gold clasped his wrists and upper arms. His stolid features were immobile. Only the eyes moved and lived, and they burned with feral red flames.
“And this is the great boccor or shaman, Nenaunir, prophet and high priest of Damballah—as his people call Father Set—in far Zembabwei,” continued Thoth-Amon. “Three million naked blacks will arise to sweep all the world below Kush with flame and blood at one word from Nenaunir.”
Conan said nothing. The magnificent black grunted. “He does not look so dangerous to me, Stygian,” he said in a cold, deep, heavy voice. “Why do you fear him so?”
A darker hue stained the features of Thoth-Amon. His lips parted but, before he could speak, the old woman uttered a harsh laugh.
“I agree with the Lord of Zembabwei!” Louhi rasped.
“And I have planned a small entertainment for the pleasure of my guests. Kamoinen!” She clapped her hands.
The circle of Witchmen parted, permitting one of their number to step forth. He had a long, whey-colored face and pale blue eyes. In the thin fingers of one white, bony hand he held a slim black rod less than one pace-in length. It was tipped at each end with a ball of dully gleaming metal, slightly smaller than a fowl’s egg.
He saluted his queen. “Command me, Avatar,” he said in a toneless voice. The cat-green eyes flashed in the stern, wrinkled mask. They burned upon Conan with malignant fires.
“Beat the Cimmerian to his knees before us,” she rasped, “so that my colleagues can see they have little to fear from this man Conan!”
The slim, black-clad man bowed low. Then he swung upon Conan, ball-tipped rod blurring through the air. But the wary Cimmerian took a great leap backwards to avoid the strange wooden rod whose purpose he did not understand. It hissed past his face, ruffling his gray-shot mane as it flew.
The two circled in a half-crouch. Conan clenched and unclenched his heavy hands. His savage instinct was to spring upon the gaunt Hyperborean and crush him to earth with one sledgehammer blow. But something warned him to be wary of that slender, harmless-looking baton that swung so agilely from the long white fingers.
Standing back among the Witchmen, young Conn chewed his knuckles. Suddenly he took his hand away and shrilled out a rapid sentence in Cimmerian. It was a harsh, uncouth tongue, full of singsong vowels and crashing, guttural consonants. None in the room, save his sire, knew it.
Conan’s eyes narrowed. The boy had warned him that the Witchmen plied their rods against sensitive nerve clusters. Suddenly Conan lunged like a striking tiger at his opponent, clumsily lifting a balled fist as if to sweep him off his feet with a wide blow. The weighted rod flicked out at his elbow.
As the rod flashed for the joint of Conan’s right arm, whose fist was lifted above his head, the Cimmerian swiveled suddenly and smashed the rod aside with his left.
The blow only grazed Conan’s left forearm, but it sent a bolt of pain lancing from wrist to shoulder. This, however, did not really matter. Conan gritted his teeth against the pain and smashed the man flat with a crushing blow of his balled right fist.
In the same blur of furious action, Conan bent, snatched the Witchman up before he hit the floor, whirled on the balls of his feet, and sent his antagonist frying through the air.
The flailing black-clad figure flew and hit the huge copper bowl atop the dais. The bowl was filled to the brim with blazing, red-hot coals. It went over with a noisy clang, bathing the four astounded adepts in a fiery shower.
Louhi screamed as her white robes burst aflame. Thoth-Amon roared, shielding his face with his arms as blazing, blistering coals spewed over them. In his clumsy haste to avoid the flying shower of flame, the little Kambujan knocked over his throne. He tripped across its legs and fell into the puddle of flame.
The hall exploded in chaos. The circle of black-clad guards had broken their immobility, but they were too late. For Conan was among them in an instant, knocking them about like tenpins. His big scarred fists smashed left and right, and with every blow he dealt a cracked skull, a broken jaw, or a mouthful of shattered teeth.
Young Conn, too, burst into action. Not for nothing had Conan tutored the boy in the art of rough-and-tumble.
The instant his father closed with his first opponent, Conn whirled and kicked the nearest Witchman on the kneecap. The man staggered and fell. Conn kicked him in the head, snatched up a wooden stool, and swung it with both hands at the nearest Witchmen. In the first ten seconds, he felled four men with it.
On the dais, the god-king of Angkhor flopped and squealed, his face a seared and blackened mask of pain. Booming his war cry, the gigantic black snatched up a wooden throne-chair and hurled it an Conan.
Conan fell prone, and the heavy chair smashed into the circle of his foes, knocking them sprawling. In a flash, the giant Cimmerian sprang over the tangle of men and leaped upon the dais. His hands lunged at the throat of Thoth-Amon.
But the old witch blundered into his path. Her white robes were a mass of flames, and her screeching rose above the clamor. Conan stumbled aside as she hurtled down the steps of the dais, wrapped in fire. In that instant, Thoth-Amon made his move.
A sudden flash of green flame brightened the hall in a soundless puff of emerald brilliance. The uncanny radiance swirled about the Stygian as Conan stopped to snatch up Louhi’s throne as a weapon.
But even Conan’s blurring speed was too late. As he hurled the chair, Thoth-Amon, wrapped in green luminescence, faded from sight.
Conan turned. The room was chaos. Scattered coals had set the straw on the floor aflame; maimed and broken men were strewn about the cavernous hall. Afar he spied his son valiantly swinging the stool. The boy had already injured half a dozen Witchmen, but others closed about him, swinging their deadly rods. A score of the Witchmen were leaping up the steps of the dais for Conan, faces grim and cold, deadly black rods flicking.