"We shall need the Hyrkanians," he said, and the girl clapped her hands with a cry of joy.
"Hold up!" Conan the Cimmerian halted and glanced about, craning his massive neck. Behind him, his comrades shifted with a clank of weapons. They were in a narrow canyon, flanked on either hand by steep slopes grown with stunted firs. Before them, a small spring welled up among straggling trees and trickled away down a moss-green channel.
"Water here at least," grunted Conan. "Drink." The previous evening, a quick march had brought them to Artaban's ship in its hiding place in the creek before dark. Conan had left four of his most seriously wounded men here, to work at patching up the vessel, while he pushed on with the rest. Believing that the Turanians were only a short distance ahead, Conan had pressed recklessly on in hope of corning up with them and avenging the massacre on the Zaporoska. But then, with the setting of the young moon, they had lost the trail in a maze of gullies and wandered blindly. Now at dawn they had found water but were lost and worn cut The only sign of human life they had seen since leaving the coast was a huddle of huts among the crags, housing nondescript skin-clad creatures who fled howling at their approach. Somewhere in the hills a lion roared.
Of the twenty-six, Conan was the only one whose muscles retained their spring. "Get some sleep," he growled. "Ivanos, pick two men to take the first watch with you. When the sun's over that fir, wake three others. I'm going to scout up this gorge."
He strode up the canyon and was soon lost among the straggling growth. The slopes changed to towering cliffs that rose sheer from the sloping, rock-littered floor. Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, a wild, shaggy figure sprang up from a tangle of bushes and confronted the pirate. Conan's breath hissed through his teeth as his sword flashed. Then he checked the stroke, seeing that the apparition was weaponless.
It was a Yuetshi: a wizened, gnomelike man in sheepskins, with long arms, short legs, and a flat, yellow, slant-eyed face seamed with many small wrinkles.
"Khosatral!" exclaimed the vagabond. "What does one of the Free Brotherhood in this Hyrkanian-haunted land?" The man spoke the Turanian dialect of Hyrka-nian, but with a strong accent.
"Who are you?" grunted Conan.
"I was a chief of the Yuetshi," answered the other with a wild laugh. "I was called Vinashko. What do you here?"
"What lies beyond this canyon?" Conan countered.
"Over yonder ridge lies a tangle of gullies and crags. If you thread your way among them, you will come out overlooking the broad valley of the Akrim, which until yesterday was the home of my tribe, and which today holds their charred bones,"
"Is there food there?"
"Aye—and death. A horde of Hyrkanian nomads holds the valley."
As Conan ruminated this, a step brought him about, to see Ivanos approaching.
"Hah!" Conan scowled. "I told you to watch while the men slept!"
"They are too hungry to sleep," retorted the Corinthian, suspiciously eyeing the Yuetshi.
"Crom!" growled the Cimmerian. "I cannot conjure food out of the air. They must gnaw their thumbs until we find a village to loot—"
"I can lead you to enough food to feed an army," interrupted Vinashko.
Conan said, his voice heavy with menace: "Don't mock me, my friend! You just said the Hyrkanians—"
"Nay! There's a place near here, unknown to them, where we stored food. I was going thither when I saw you."
Conan hefted his sword, a broad, straight, double-edged blade over four feet long, in a land where curved blades were more the rule. "Then lead on, Yuetshi, but at the first false move, off goes your head!"
Again the Yuetshi laughed that wild, scornful laugh, and motioned them to follow. He made for the nearer cliff, groped among the brittle bushes, and disclosed a crack in the wall. Beckoning, he bent and crawled inside.
"Into that wolf's den?" said Ivanos. "What are you afraid of?" said Conan, "Mice?"
He bent and squeezed through the opening, and the other followed him. Conan found himself, not in a cave, but in a narrow cleft of the cliff. Overhead a narrow, crooked ribbon of blue morning sky appeared between the steep walls, which got higher with every step. They advanced through the gloom for a hundred paces and came out into a wide circular space surrounded by towering walls of what looked at first glance like a monstrous honeycomb. A low roaring came from the center of the space, where a small circular curbing surrounded a hole in the floor, from which issued a pallid flame as tall as a man, casting a wan illumination about the cavity.
Conan looked curiously about him. It was like being at the bottom of a gigantic well. The floor was of solid rock, worn smooth as if by the feet of ten thousand generations. The walls, too regularly circular to be altogether natural, were pierced by hundreds of black square depressions a hand's breadth deep and arranged in regular rows and tiers. The wall rose stupendously, ending in a small circle of blue sky, where a vulture hung like a dot. A spiral stairway cut in the black rock started up from ground level, made half a complete circle as it rose, and ended with a platform in front of a larger black hole in the wall, the entrance to a tunnel.
Vinashko explained: "Those holes are the tombs of an ancient people who lived here even before my ancestors came to the Sea of Vilayet There are a few dim legends about these people; it is said they were not human, but preyed upon my ancestors until a priest of the Yuetshi by a great spell confined them to their holes in the wall and lit that fire to hold them there. No doubt their bones have all long since crumbled to dust. A few of my people have tried to chip away the slabs of stone that block these tombs, but the rock defied their efforts." He pointed to heaps of stuff at one side of the amphitheater. "My people stored food here against times of famine. Take your fill; there are no more Yuetshi to eat it"
Conan repressed a shudder of superstitious fear. "Your people should have dwelt in these caves. One man could hold that outer cleft against a horde."
The Yuetshi shrugged. "Here there is no water. Besides, when the Hyrkanians swooped down there was no time. My people were not warlike; they only wished to till the soil."
Conan shook his head, unable to understand such natures. Vinashko was pulling out leather bags of grain, rice, moldy cheese, and dried meat, and skins of sour wine,
"Go bring some of the men to help carry the stuff, Ivanos," said Conan, staring upward. "I'll stay here."
As Ivanos swaggered off, Vinashko tugged at Conan's arm. "Now do you believe I'm honest?"
"Aye, by Crom," answered Conan gnawing a handful of dried figs. "Any man that leads me to food must be a friend. But how did you and your tribe get here from the valley of the Akrim? It m"«t be a long steep road."
Vinashko's eyes gleamed like those of a hungry wolf. "That is our secret. I will show you, if you trust me."
"When my belly's full," said Conan with his mouth full of figs. "We're following that black devil, Artaban of Shahpur, who is somewhere in these mountains."
"He is your enemy?"
"Enemy! If I catch him, I'll make a pair of boots of his hide."
"Artaban of Shahpur is but three hours' ride from here."
"Ha!" Conan started up, feeling for his sword, his blue eyes ablaze. "Lead me to him!"
"Take care!" cried Vinashko. "He has forty armored Turanians and has been joined by Dayuki and a hundred and fifty Hyrkanians. How many warriors have you, lord?"
Conan munched silently, scowling. With such a disparity of numbers, he could not afford to give Artaban any advantages. In the months since he had become a pirate captain, he had beaten and bullied his crew into an effective force, but it was still an instrument that had to be used with care. By themselves they were reckless and improvident; well led, they could do much, but without wise leadership they would throw away their lives on a whim.