"Let him come," said Balash. "We hold the passes."
"He'll bring ten thousand men, in heavy armor, with catapults and other siege gear," said Conan. "He'll burn Kushaf and take your head back to Anshan."
"That will happen which will happen," said Balash.
Conan fought down a rising anger at the fatalism of these people. Every instinct of his strenuous nature was a negation of this inert philosophy. But, as they seemed to be deadlocked, he said nothing but sat staring at the western crags where the sun hung, a ball of fire in the sharp, windy blue.
Balash dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand and said: "Conan, there is something I would show you. Down in yonder ruined hut outside the wall lies a dead man, whose like was never seen in Kushaf. Even in death, he is strange and evil. I think he is no natural man at all, but a demon. Come."
He led the way down the slope to the hovel, explaining: "My warriors came upon him lying at the base of a cliff, as if he had fallen or been thrown from the top. I made them bring him here, but he died on the way, babbling in a strange tongue. They deem him a demon, with good cause. A long day's journey southward, among mountains so wild and barren not even a goat could dwell among them, lies the country we call Drujistan."
"Drujistan!" echoed Conan. "Land of demons, eh?"
"Aye! An evil region of black crags and wild gorges, shunned by wise men. It seems uninhabited, yet men dwell there … men or devils. Sometimes a man is slain or a child or woman stolen from a lonely trail, and we know it is their work. We have followed and glimpsed shadowy figures moving through the night, but always the trail ends against a blank cliff, through which only a demon could pass. Sometimes we hear drums echoing among the crags, or the roaring of the fiends. It is a sound to turn men's hearts to ice. The old legends say that among these mountains, thousands of years ago, the ghoul-king Ura built the magical city of Yanaidar, and that the deadly ghosts of Ura and his hideous subjects still haunt the ruins. Another legend tells how, a thousand years ago, a chief of the Ilbarsi hillmen settled in the ruins and began to repair them and make the city his stronghold; but in one night he and his followers vanished, nor were they ever seen again."
They reached the ruined hut, and Balash pulled open the sagging door. A moment later, the five men were bending over a figure sprawled on the dirt floor.
It was a figure alien and incongruous: that of a stocky man with broad, square, flat features, colored like dark copper, and narrow, slanting eyes … an unmistakable son of Khitai. Blood clotted the coarse black hair on the back of his head, and the unnatural position of his body told of shattered bones.
"Has he not the look of an evil spirit?" asked Balash.
"He's no demon, whether he was a wizard in life or not," answered Conan. "He's a Khitan, from a country far to the east of Hyrkania, beyond mountains and deserts and jungles so vast you could lose a dozen Iranistans in them. I rode through that land when I soldiered for the king of Turan. But what this fellow is doing here I cannot say …"
Suddenly his blue eyes blazed and he tore the bloodstained tunic away from the squat throat. A stained woolen shirt came into view, and Tubal, looking over Conan's shoulder, grunted explosively. On the shirt, worked in thread so crimson it might at first glance have been mistaken for a splash of blood, appeared a curious emblem: a human fist grasping a hilt from which jutted a knife with a wavy blade.
''The flame knife!" whispered Balash, recoiling from that symbol of death and destruction.
All looked at Conan, who stared down at the sinister emblem, trying to recapture a vague train of associations it roused … dim memories of an ancient and evil cult, which used that symbol. Finally he said to Hattusas:
"When I was a thief in Zamora, I heard rumors of a cult called the Yezmites that used such a symbol. You're a Zamorian; what know you of this?"
Hattusas shrugged. "There are many cults whose roots go back to the beginnings of time, to the days before the Cataclysm. Often rulers have thought they had stamped them out, and often they have come to life again. The Hidden Ones or Sons of Yezm are one of these, but more I cannot tell you. I meddle not in such matters."
Conan spoke to Balash: "Can your men guide me to where you found this man?"
"Aye. But it is an evil place, in the Gorge of Ghosts, on the borders of Drujistan, and …"
"Good. Everybody get some sleep. We ride at dawn."
"To Anshan?" asked Balash.
"No. To Drujistan."
"Then you think …?"
"I think nothing … yet."
"Will the squadron ride with us?" asked Tubal. "The horses are badly worn."
"No, let the men and horses rest. You and Hattusas shall go with me, together with one of Balash's Kushafis for a guide. Codrus commands in my absence, and if there's any trouble as a result of my dogs' laying hands on the Kushafi women, tell him he is to knock their heads in."
TWO: The Black Country
Dusk mantled the serrated skyline when Conan's guide halted. Ahead, the rigged terrain was broken by a deep canyon. Beyond the canyon rose a forbidding array of black crags and frowning cliffs, a wild, haglike chaos of broken black rock.
"There begins Drujistan," said the Kushafi. "Beyond that gorge, the Gorge of Ghosts, begins the country of horror and death. I go no farther."
Conan nodded, his eyes picking out a trail that looped down rugged slopes into the canyon. It was a fading trace of the ancient road they had been following for many miles, but it looked as though it had often been used of late.
Conan glanced around. With him were Tubal, Hattusas, the guide … and Nanaia the girl. She had insisted on coming because, she said, she feared to be separated from Conan among all these wild foreigners, whose speech she could not understand. She had proved a good traveling companion, tough and uncomplaining, though of volatile and fiery disposition.
The Kushafi said: "The trail is well-traveled, as you see. By it the demons of the black mountains come and go. But men who follow it do not return."
Tubal jeered. "What need demons with a trail? They fly with wings like bats!"
"When they take the shape of men they walk like men," said the Kushafi. He pointed to the jutting ledge over which the trail wound. "At the foot of that slope we found the man you called a Khitan. Doubtless his brother demons quarreled with him and cast him down."
"Doubtless he tripped and fell," grunted Conan. "Khitans of the desert are unused to climbing, their legs being bowed and weakened by a life in the saddle. Such a one would easily stumble on a narrow trail."
"If he was a man, perhaps," said the Kushafi. "But … Asura!"
All but Conan jumped, and the Kushafi snatched at his bow, glaring wildly. Out over the crags, from the south, rolled an incredible sound … a strident, braying roar, which vibrated among the mountains.
"The voice of the demons!" cried the Kushafi, jerking the rein so that his horse squealed and reared. "In the name of Asura, let us be gone! It's madness to remain!"
"Go back to your village if you're afraid," said Conan. "I'm going on." In truth, the hint of the supernatural made the Cimmerian's nape prickle too, but before his followers he did not wish to admit this.
"Without your men? It is madness! At least send back for your followers."
Conan's eyes narrowed like those of a hunting wolf. "Not this time. For scouting and spying, the fewer the better. I think I'll have a look at this land of demons; I could use a mountain stronghold." To Nanaia he said: "You had better go back, girl."
She began to weep. "Do not send me away, Conan! The wild mountaineers will ravish me."