He was startled to see Chabela, huddled white-faced and frightened in a cluster of sad-looking blacks. He had no idea of how she had been captured. He did not, however, see Sigurd among the captives. This might or might not be a good thing.
Then, mounted on a lean mare, a tall black in the gray robes of a slaver cantered into the clearing. Like the other slavers, this man was black of skin, but lean and wiry, with sharper-cut features than were usual among the jungle tribes. Conan guessed that the slavers were Ghanatas, of whom Juma had already spoken. This was a nation of nomadic Blacks, who dwelt in the deserts along the southern borders of Stygia. While Shemite and Stygian slavers raided the Ghanatas and other peoples of Kush and Darfar for captives, the Ghanatas in turn raided still farther south, into the equatorial jungles.
The newcomer reined up and exchanged curt words with the man in command of the group that had captured Conan. The latter turned away, snapping his whip and yelling for his men to get the slaves moving.
The captives were herded into a double line. Their manacles were chained together so that no one of them could break free by himself. The giant Cimmerian towered above the surrounding blacks, bending a lion-like glare about him. The mounted slaver ran a cold, disdainful glance over the lot.
"By Zambi," he grunted, and spat. "This lot will scarcely bring a fistful of cowrie shells in Gamburur.''
His lieutenant nodded. "Aye, Lord Mbonani. Me-thinks they grow feebler year by year. The breeding stock must be running out…"
Just then, a slaver flicked Conan on the shoulder with his whip. As the whip kissed his skin, the Cimmerian swung into action. Swifter than thought, he reached up with his manacled hands, caught the whip, and pulled with a mighty surge of power.
Jerked off balance, the slaver sprawled at Conan's feet. As the man scrambled up, snarling curses, he half drew the heavy, razor-edged Ghanata knife —really more a short sword— from its scabbard thrust through his girdle.
Before the weapon could clear its sheath, Conan kicked the slaver in the face, knocking him down again. Conan then bent, pulling the blacks chained next in line to him off their feet in turn, and seized the hilt of the knife.
Another slaver raced toward Conan, whirling an ax up over his head to split the Cimmerian's skull. Before the blow could fall, Conan drove the knife to the hilt in the slaver's belly, so that the point stood out of hand's breadth from the man's back just above the kidneys.
As the slaver paled, gurgled, and collapsed, the clearing erupted into a whirling mass of yelling men. Chained as he was, Conan had no chance. Still, it took five men to hold him and three more to batter his thick skull with clubs until he again sagged to the ground, unconscious.
Mbonani, struggling to keep his frightened mare under control, watched the flurry of action with an appraising stare. "Well," he grunted, "that one at least has spirit. A white man, too; what does he here?"
"I mentioned him earlier," said the slaver lieutenant. "There is a white woman, also … that one, yonder." Mbonani looked Chabela over appraisingly.
"The two best of the lot," he said. "Treat them well, Zuru, or it will go hard with you."
Mbonani walked his horse forward to where Conan, his face a mask of blood from scalp wounds, was dazedly lurching to his feet again. As Conan raised his bloody face, Mbonani struck the Cimmerian across the cheek with his riding ship.
"That for slaying one of my men, white man!" he barked.
The blow raised a welt, but the barbarian neither winced nor cried out. He watched the slaver captain with cold, expressionless hatred. Mbonani grinned wolfishly, showing white teeth against his black skin.
"I like your guts, white man!" he said. "Keep them, so that the Amazons shall pay a good price. Now forward!"
Escorted by the ragged slavers, the double line of captives clanked along the trail to Gamburu.
Conan marched with the rest, his iron frame stolidly enduring the heat, the thirst, the flies, and the burning weight of the sun. He wondered what had befallen the Cobra Crown, but it was an idle thought. When one's life is at hazard, he had long since learned, loot becomes a mere side issue.
At length he noted a bulge in one of Zuru's saddle bags. Conan's eyes gleamed with savage humor. The slaver lieutenant might bow and scrape before Captain Mbonani, but he obviously had a mind of his own.
The Ghanata slavers led their captives out of the jungle and into an area of grassy veldt. On the next day, gleaming in the low sun of the late afternoon, the stone city of Gamburu loomed on the horizon.
Conan stared at the city appraisingly. Compared to glittering Aghrapur, the capital of Turan —or even Meroe, the capital of the kingdom of Kush— Gamburu was not impressive. Still, in a land where most houses were squat cylinders of dried mud and thatch, and a city wall was a stockade of sharpened wooden poles, and a "city" was but an overgrown village by the standards of more northerly lands, Gamburu stood out.
About the city ran a low wall of uncemented stone blocks, rising to about twice the height of a man. Four gates broke the circle of this wall, each flanked by guard towers with slits for archers and machinations for the abuse of besiegers, Massive wooden valves were set in the gates.
Conan noted the masonry of the gates. Some of the stones were ordinary fieldstone, crudely chipped to fit. Others were finely dressed ashlars, but worn as if by great age. As Mbonani led his clanking column through the western gate, Conan observed that the houses inside the city showed a similar mixture. Most of the buildings were of one or two stories, with roofs of thatch. The lower story was in most cases made largely of the old, well-carved stones, while the upper was composed more of newer and cruder masonry. Here and there a bit of sculpture, such as a frowning, demonic face, appeared on the surface of one of the worn old stones; but it was as often as not mounted in its wall sideways or upside down.
From his previous experience with ruined cities, Conan drew his own conclusions.
Some ancient —perhaps pre-human— folk had originally built a city here. Centuries later, the ancestors of the present inhabitants had taken possession of the town. In building and rebuilding, they had re-used the ancient stones and had also imitated, though crudely, the stone-building methods of their predecessors.
The hooves of Mbonani's mare kicked up little clouds of dust from the unpaved streets and betimes splashed through a mud puddle. As the column shambled along the main street, the Gamburuvians crowded to the sides to let them pass.
Conan's glance darted from side to side as he strode along. He noted that, in this city, the sexes differed in an unusual way. The women were tall and powerful; they strode imperiously, like great black panthers, with bronze swords slapping their naked thighs. They were resplendent in bangles and beads, in plumes and lion-skin headdresses.
The men, on the other hand, were puny, sad-looking blacks, inches shorter than the women and confined to such menial tasks as street-cleaning, chariot-driving, and litter-bearing. Conan, tall even for a Cimmerian, towered over them all.
The column crossed a bazaar, where merchandise lay spread under awnings in the twilight, and thence down a broad avenue to a central plaza. This huge open space, a bowshot across, was fronted on one side by the royal palace, a worn but imposing structure of dull-red sandstone. On either side of the gate rose a pair of massive, squat statues of the same material. They were not the statues of human beings —that much was evident from their proportions— but just what they were meant to represent was hard to tell, so worn by the weather of ages were they. They could have originally been figures of owls, of apes, or of some unknown pre-human monstrosities.
Conan's attention was next drawn to a peculiar pit in the center of the plaza.