Nothing could be seen save endless, rolling yellow plain.
The tallest of the three, the man with the bow and the prisoner’s rope, suddenly stiffened. Shading his dark eyes, he bent forward to get a better view. On the top of a dune a mile away, he had sighted a lone horseman riding at a gallop. The dune had hidden him as they came to their point of vantage, but now the stranger was flying down the near side in a flurry of sand. The leader turned to his fellows.
“By the alabaster hips of Yenagra!” he said, “we have caught another desert rat! Be ready; we will kill this one and take his head on a lance tip back to the fort.”
Knowing there would be no trouble to recover the Zuagir after the fight, he dropped the rope. He spurred his mount down the slope towards the point in the wide valley of sand, where he counted on intercepting the stranger, and in one smooth motion drew the powerful bow from its case and nocked an arrow. His fellow troopers followed with spears poised and slitted eyes agleam, yelping like hounds closing for the kill.
At three hundred paces, the bowman drew and loosed at full gallop with the effortless horsemanship of a Turanian cavalryman. But the shaft did not strike home. Like lightning his intended victim flung his horse aside with a mighty effort that almost threw the steed. With a swift gesture, the stranger shook off the folds of his khalat.
The Hyrkanians halted in consternation. There appeared before them not the half-starved form of a desert man, armed only with knife and javelin, but a powerful western warrior in sturdy mail and steel helmet, equipped with a long sword and a dagger. The sword flashed like a flame in the sunlight as the rider whipped it out. The Turanian leader’s narrow eyes widened with astonishment.
“You dare return to Turan, barbarian scoundrel!” he cried. For the Turanian was Hamar Kur, who had been amir of a troop of horse that Conan, as a leader of the kozaki, had routed years before by an ambush on the Yelba River. Hamar Kur was demoted to common trooper in the frontier guards in consequence and ever since had burned for vengeance.
Drawing his saber, he shouted:
“At him, men! It is Conan the kozak! Slay him, and the king will fill your helmets with gold!”
The Turanian riders hesitated, awed by the memory of gory and terrible legends associated with that name.
Tales told how this man, with two pirate galleys, had sacked and burned the fortified seaport of Khawarizm and then broken through six of the king’s war galleys that had come to trap him, leaving three foundering and the others’ decks awash with blood. They told how he, with a band of Zuagir tribesmen, had harried the outflung Imperial posts in the south until the border had to be drawn back. They told how the savage kozak hordes under his command had stormed the walled city of Khorosun, slaying and burning.
Conan made full use of his enemies’ moment of indecision. Spurring his big horse, he thundered upon them like a one-man avalanche, his sword flashing in circles. Hamar Kur’s mount reared wildly before this crashing charge and was cast to the ground. Its rider was spilled from the saddle.
The two other soldiers couched their lances and spurred fiercely, but lacked time to gain enough speed to make their charge effective. With the fury of a thunderstorm Conan was upon them, smiting right and left.
The head of one man leaped from its trunk on a fount of blood. The next instant, Conan’s blade shattered the other’s lance. The Turanian caught the following blow on his shield but was hurled from his saddle by sheer impact.
Hamar Kur had regained his feet. Skilled in combat against horsemen, he ran to where the slain trooper had dropped his lance. Then he ran swiftly up and thrust the shaft of the weapon between the legs of Conan’s horse.
He cast himself aside at the last moment to avoid the barbarian’s terrible sword.
The desert sands clouded the sky as Conan and his mount crashed to the ground together. With the practiced ease of the hardened mercenary, the Cimmerian threw himself clear. He rose, sword still in hand. With cold blue eyes slitted he watched his two surviving enemies slink towards him, one from either side. Their tactics were obvious: to catch him between them so that one could strike him down from the rear.
With tigerish swiftness, he charged the soldier to the right. He knew he risked a scimitar in the back from Hamar Kur, but it was never his way to await the foe’s attack. The Turanian tried to parry the crashing blow, but to no avail. Splintering the curled blade with its terrible force, the Cimmerian’s sword smashed helmet and skull like a ripe orange.
Conan wheeled like a panther in the nick of time. He just managed to catch Hamar Kur’s whistling blow on his sword hilt. There was a momentary exchange of cuts and parries as the straight blade of the West and the curved blade of the East whirled about each other in a coruscating dance of death. Then a quick thrust from Conan pierced his enemy’s breast. The point drove through the fine Turanian mail and on through the ex-amir’s body.
Hamar gave a ghastly scream and fell heavily. Conan braced his legs to tear his dripping blade free.
The Cimmerian wiped his sword on his enemy’s sash and looked swiftly around. He had heard a sound from behind, and his senses and temper were on edge. He waited warily as a tattered figure half slid and half rolled down the slope almost to his feet. It was the Zuagir. Rising on shaky legs, he spat upon the prostrate form of Hamar Kur. Then he turned his burning eyes on Conan. As he took in the gigantic figure in worn mail, the rage and fury in his eyes gave way to recognition and joy. Lifting his bound hands, he cried: “Praise be to Kemosh, for he has answered my prayers and sent these dogs to the floors of Hell! And more, he has brought back the great warlord who led us to plunder long ago! I greet you, Hawk of the Desert! There will be feasting and dancing in the villages! The Turanian dogs will cower in their towers as the cry goes forth from the desert:‘Yamad al-Aphta has returned!’ ”
Conan shrugged his broad shoulders and thrust his sword back into the scabbard. His horse had risen from its fall, and Conan unslung his waterskin and pack from the saddle.
“Here, wolf,” he grunted, “you look a little the worse for wear. Have a draught, but take care you are not overfilled.” Conan brought out bread and dried meat and shared them with the Zuagir. “Now tell me: What is afoot in the desert? How did you fall into the hands of the Hyrkanians?”
The nomad answered between gulps and champings: “I am Yar Allal of the Duali tribe. I was riding in haste and alone for our camp when these dogs caught me. They shot my horse from under me and stunned me with a blow on the head. They were bringing me back to Fort Wakla for questioning and death.”
“Whence your hurry?” asked Conan. “And why alone? These hills swarm with Turanian patrols.”
The voice of the Zuagir took on a burning edge as he answered. “A terrible misfortune has struck our tribe.
Listen, my lord. For days we lay in wait in the ruins of the Gharat temple, fifty miles to the south. Word had come that a rich caravan was approaching from the west, bringing the wealth and person of the lady Thanara.”
“Who’s that?”
“A yedka of Maypur, famed for her beauty and riches. Furthermore she is high in the favor of King Yezdigerd.
Could we but capture her, a fabulous ransom would be ours as well as the spoils from the camel train. We lay there with knives whetted and bows newly strung until we thought the dogs of traders would never come. And then, one day, we heard the camels’ bells in the distance. The long line of men, beasts, and wagons came into view. We waited until they were almost upon us. Uttering our war cry, we swept down upon them. We expected an easy conquest of the merchants and their retainers. Then, suddenly, the merchants and servants threw aside their khalats. Instead of timid civilians, mailed lancers in the white turbans of the Imperial Guard rushed against us! There must have been a hundred of them hidden in the wains. They rode through our ranks like reapers mowing down a field of wheat. Half of us perished in the first attack. The rest were driven apart and scattered into small bands. We fought mightily against the odds, and many a Turanian plunged to earth with a Duali spear through his throat or a curved knife in his guts.”