Conan the Adaptable, page 94
“Plan? the gods, when did I ever have a plan? Nay, that is for you! I know these hills, and I can shoot straight and strike a good blow.” His yard-long Zhaibar knife thrummed as he swung it through the air. “But I only follow where wiser men lead. I heard the men talk, and I came to warn you, because once you turned an Afghuli blade from my breast, and again you broke the lock on the Peshawar jail where I lay moaning for the hills!”
Conan did not express his gratitude; that was not necessary. But he was conscious of a warm glow toward the hairy ruffian. Man’s treachery is balanced by man’s loyalty, at least in the barbaric hills where civilized sophistry has not crept in with its cult of time-serving.
“Can you guide us through the mountains?” asked Conan.
“Nay, sahib; the horses cannot follow these paths; and these booted Turks would die on foot.”
“It is nearly two hours yet until moonrise,” Conan muttered. “To saddle horses now would be to betray us. Some of us might get away in the darkness, but —”
He was thinking of the papers that were the price of his life; but it was not altogether that. Flight in the darkness would mean scattered forces, even though they cut their way out of the valley. Without his guidance the Turanians would be hopelessly lost; such as were separated from the main command would perish miserably.
“Come with me,” he said at last, and hurried back to the men who lay about the charring embers.
At his whisper they rose like ghouls out of the blackness and clustered about him, muttering like suspicious dogs at the Waziri. Conan could scarcely make out the hawklike faces that pressed close about him. All the stars were hidden by dank clouds. The fortalice was but a shapeless bulk in the darkness, and the flanking mountains were masses of solid blackness. The whining wind drowned voices a few yards away.
“Hearken and speak not,” Conan ordered. “This is Yar Akbar, a friend and a true man. We are betrayed. Afzal Khan is a dog, who will slay us for our horses. Nay, listen! In the sangar there is a thatched hut. I am going into the inclosure and fire that thatch. When you see the blaze, and hear my pistol speak, rush the wall. Some of you will die, but the surprise will be on our side. We must take the sangar and hold it against the men who will come down the valley at moonrise. It is a desperate plan, but the best that offers itself.”
“Bismillah!” they murmured softly, and he heard the rasp of blades clearing their scabbards.
“This is work indeed for cold steel,” he said. “You must rush the wall and swarm it while the Afghulis are dazed with surprise. Send one man for the warriors at the horse pen. Be of good heart; the rest is on the gods’s lap.”
As he crept away in the darkness, with Yar Akbar following him like a bent shadow, Conan was aware that the attitude of the Turanians had changed; they had wakened out of their fatalistic lethargy into fierce tension.
“If I fall,” Conan murmured, “will you guide these men back to Khawarism? Orkhan Bahadur will reward you.”
“Bel eat Orkhan Bahadur,” answered Yar Akbar. “What care I for these dogs? It is you, not they, for whom I risk my skin.”
Conan had given the man his bow. They swung around the south side of the inclosure, almost crawling on their bellies. No sound came from the breastwork, no light showed. Conan knew that they were invisible to whatever eyes were straining into the darkness along the wall. Circling wide, they approached the unguarded western wall.
“Afzal Khan sleeps in the tower,” muttered Yar Akbar, his lips close to Conan’s ear. “Sleeps or pretends to sleep. The men slumber beneath the eastern wall. All the sentries lurk on that side, trying to watch the Turanians. They have allowed the fires to die, to lull suspicion.”
“Over the wall, then,” whispered Conan, rising and gripping the coping. He glided over with no more noise than the wind in the dry tamarisk, and Yar Akbar followed him as silently. He stood in the thicker shadow of the wall, placing everything in his mind before he moved.
The hut was before him, a blob of blackness. It looked eastward and was closer to the west wall than to the other. Near it a cluster of dying coals glowed redly. There was no light in the tower, in the northwest angle of the wall.
Bidding Yar Akbar remain near the wall, Conan stole toward the embers. When he reached them he could make out the forms of the men sleeping between the hut and the east wall. It was like these hardened killers to sleep at such a time. Why not? At the word of their master they would rise and slay. Until the time came it was good to sleep. Conan himself had slept, and eaten, too, among the corpses of a battlefield.
Dim figures along the wall were sentinels. They did not turn; motionless as statues they leaned on the wall staring into the darkness out of which, in the hills, anything might come.
There was a half-burned fagot lying in the embers, one end a charring stump which glowed redly. Conan reached out and secured it. Yar Akbar, watching from the wall, shivered though he knew what it was. It was as if a detached hand had appeared for an instant in the dim glow and then disappeared, and then a red point moved toward him.
“By the gods!” swore the Afghuli. “This blackness is that of Set!”
“Softly!” Conan whispered at him from the pit darkness. “Be ready; now is the beginning of happenings.”
The ember glowed and smoked as he blew cautiously upon it. A tiny tongue of flame grew, licking at the wood.
“Commend thyself to the gods!” said Conan, and whirling the brand in a flaming wheel about his head, he cast it into the thatch of the hut.
There was a tense instant in which a tongue of flame flickered and crackled, and then in one hungry combustion the dry stuff leaped ablaze, and the figures of men started out of blank blackness with startling clarity. The guards wheeled, their stupid astonishment etched in the glare, and men sat up in their cloaks on the ground, gaping bewilderedly.
And Conan yelled like a hungry wolf and began jerking the trigger of his pistol.
A sentinel spun on his heel and crumpled, discharging his bow wildly in the air. Others were howling and staggering like drunken men, reeling and falling in the lurid glare. Yar Akbar was firing away with Conan’s bow, shooting down his former companions as cheerfully as if they were ancient enemies.
A matter of seconds elapsed between the time the fight sprang up and the time when the men were scurrying about wildly, etched in the merciless light and unable to see the two men who crouched in the shadow of the far wall, raining them with lead. But in that scant instant there came another sound — a swift thudding of feet, the daunting sound of men rushing through the darkness in desperate haste and desperate silence.
Some of the Afghulis heard it and turned to glare into the night. The fire behind them rendered the outer darkness more impenetrable. They could not see the death that was racing fleetly toward them, until the charge reached the wall.
Then a yell of terror went up as the men along the wall caught a glimpse of glittering eyes and flickering steel rushing out of the blackness. They fired one wild, ragged volley, and then the Turanians surged up over the wall in an irresistible wave and were slashing and hacking like madmen among the defenders.
Scarcely wakened, demoralized by the surprise, and by the arrows that cut them down from behind, the Afghulis were beaten almost before the fight began. Some of them fled over the wall without any attempt at defense, but some fought, snarling and stabbing like wolves. The blazing thatch etched the scene in a lurid glare. Kalpaks mingled with turbans, and steel flickered over the seething mob. Yataghans grated against tulwars, and blood spurted.
Conan ran toward the tower. He had momentarily expected Afzal Khan to appear. But in such moments it is impossible to retain a proper estimate of time. A minute may seem like an hour, an hour like a minute. In reality, the Afghuli chief came storming out of the tower just as the Turanians came surging over the wall. Perhaps he had really been asleep, or perhaps caution kept him from rushing out sooner. Gunfire might mean rebellion against his authority.
At any rate he came roaring like a wounded bull, a bow in his hands. Conan rushed toward him, but the Afghuli glared beyond him to where his swordsmen were falling like wheat under the blades of the maddened Turanians. He saw the fight was already lost, as far as the men in the inclosure were concerned, and he sprang for the nearest wall.
Conan raced to pull him down, but Afzal Khan, wheeling, fired a crossbow from the hip. The Cimmerian felt a heavy blow in his belly, and then he was down on the ground, with all the breath gone from him. Afzal Khan yelled in triumph, brandished his bow, and was gone over the wall, heedless of the vengeful arrow Yar Akbar sped after him.
The Waziri had followed Conan across the enclosure and now he knelt beside him, yammering as he fumbled to find the Cimmerian’s wound.
“Aie!” he bawled. “He is slain! My friend and brother! Where will his like be found again? Slain by the arrow of a hillman! Aie! Aie! Aie!”
“Cease thy bellowing, you great ox,” gasped Conan, sitting up and shaking off the frantic hands. “I am unhurt.”
Yar Akbar yelled with surprise and relief. “But the bolt, brother? He fired at point-blank range!”
“It hit my belt buckle,” grunted Conan, feeling the heavy gold buckle, which was bent and dented. “By the gods, the shot drove it into my belly. It was like being hit with a sledge hammer. Where is Afzal Khan?”
“Fled away in the darkness.”
Conan rose and turned his attention to the fighting. It was practically over. The remnants of the Afghulis were fleeing over the wall, harried by the triumphant Turanians, who in victory were no more merciful than the average eastern. The sangar looked like a shambles.
The hut still blazed brightly, and Conan knew that the contents had been ignited. What had been an advantage was now a danger, for the men at the head of the valley would be coming at full run, and in the light of the fire they could pick off the Turanians from the darkness. He ran forward shouting orders, and setting an example of action.
Men began filling vessels — cooking pots, gourds, even kalpaks from the well and casting the water on the fire. Conan burst in the door and began to drag out the contents of the huts, foods mostly, some of it brightly ablaze, to be doused.
Working as only men in danger of death can work, they extinguished the flame and darkness fell again over the fortress. But over the eastern crags a faint glow announced the rising of the moon through the breaking clouds.
Then followed a tense period of waiting, in which the Turanians hugged their bows and crouched along the wall, staring into the darkness as the Afghulis had done only a short time before. Seven of them had been killed in the fighting and lay with the wounded beside the well. The bodies of the slain Afghulis had been unceremoniously heaved over the wall.
The men at the valley head could not have been on their way down the valley when the fighting broke out, and they must have hesitated before starting, uncertain as to what the racket meant. But they were on their way at last, and Afzal Khan was trying to establish a contact with them.
The wind brought snatches of shouts down the valley, and a rattle of shots that hinted at hysteria. These were followed by a furious bellowing which indicated that Afzal Khan’s demoralized warriors had nearly shot their chief in the dark. The moon broke through the clouds and disclosed a straggling mob of men gesticulating wildly this side of the rocks to the east.
Conan even made out Afzal Khan’s bulk and, snatching a bow from a warrior’s hand, tried a long shot. He missed in the uncertain light, but his warriors poured a blast of arrows into the thick of their enemies which accounted for a man or so and sent the others leaping for cover. From the reeflike rocks they began firing at the wall, knocking off chips of stone but otherwise doing no damage.
With his enemies definitely located, Conan felt more at ease. Taking a torch he went to the tower, with Yar Akbar hanging at his heels like a faithful ghoul. In the tower were heaped odds and ends of plunder — saddles, bridles, garments, blankets, food, weapons — but Conan did not find what he sought, though he tore the place to pieces. Yar Akbar squatted in the doorway, with his bow across his knees, and watched him, it never occurring to the Waziri to inquire what his friend was searching for.
At length Conan paused, sweating from the vigor of his efforts — for he had concentrated much exertion in a few minutes — and swore.
“Where does the dog keep those papers?”
“The papers he took from Ahmed Shah?” inquired Yar Akbar. “Those he always carries in his girdle. He cannot read them, but he believes they are valuable. Men say Ahmed Shah had them from a white man who died.”
IV
Dawn was lifting over the valley of Khuruk. The sun that was not yet visible above the rim of the hills turned the white peaks to pulsing fire. But down in the valley there was none who found time to wonder at the changeless miracle of the mountain dawn. The cliffs rang with the flat echoes of bow shots, and wisps of smoke drifted bluely into the air. Lead spanged on stone and whined venomously off into space, or thudded sickeningly into quivering flesh. Men howled blasphemously and fouled the morning with their frantic curses.
Conan crouched at a loophole, staring at the rocks whence came puffs of white smoke and singing harbingers of death. His bow barrel was hot to his hand, and a dozen yards from the wall lay a huddle of white-clad figures.
Since the first hint of light the wolves of Afzal Khan had poured lead into the fortalice from the reeflike ledge that broke the valley floor. Three times they had broken cover and charged, only to fall back beneath the merciless fire that raked them. Hopelessly outnumbered, the advantage of weapons and position counted heavily for the Turanians.
Conan had stationed five of the best marksmen in the tower and the rest held the walls. To reach the inclosure meant charging across several hundred yards of open space, devoid of cover. All the outlaws were still among the rocks east of the sangar, where, indeed, the broken ledge offered the only cover within bow range of the redoubt.
The Afghulis had suffered savagely in the charges, and they had had the worst of the long-range exchanges, both their marksmanship and their weapons being inferior to the Turanians’. But some of their arrows did find their way through the loopholes. A few yards from Conan a kaftaned rider lay in a grotesque huddle, his feet turned so the growing light glinted on his silver boot heels, his head a smear of blood and brains.
Another lay sprawled near the charred hut, his ghastly face frozen in a grin of agony as he chewed spasmodically. He had been shot in the belly and was taking a long time in dying, but not a whimper escaped his livid lips.
A fellow with an arrow hole in his forearm was making more racket; his curses, as a comrade probed for a way to dig it out with a dagger point, would have curdled the blood of a devil.
Conan glanced up at the tower, whence wisps of smoke drifting told him that his five snipers were alert. Their range was greater than that of the men at the wall, and they did more damage proportionately and were better protected. Again and again they had broken up attempts to get at the horses in the stone pen. This pen was nearer the enclosure than it was to the rocks, and crumpled shapes on the ground showed of vain attempts to reach it.
But Conan shook his head. They had salvaged a large quantity of food from the burning hut; there was a well of good water; they had better weapons and more ammunition than the men outside. But a long siege meant annihilation.
One of the men wounded in the night fighting had died. There remained alive forty-one men of the fifty with which he had left Khawarism. One of these was dying, and half a dozen were wounded — one probably fatally. There were at least a hundred and fifty men outside.
Afzal Khan could not storm the walls yet. But under the constant toll of the arrows, the small force of the defenders would melt away. If any of them lived and escaped, Conan knew it could be only by a swift, bold stroke. But he had no plan at all.
The firing from the valley ceased suddenly, and a white turban cloth was waved above the rock on a bow muzzle.
“Ohai, Ali el Ghazi!” came a hail in a bull’s roar that could only have issued from Afzal Khan.
Yar Akbar, squatting beside Conan, sneered. “A trick! Keep thy head below the parapet, sahib. Trust Afzal Khan when wolves knock out their own teeth.”
“Hold your fire, Ali el Ghazi!” boomed the distant voice. “I would parley with you!”
“Show yourself!” Conan yelled back.
And without hesitation a huge bulk loomed up among the rocks. Whatever his own perfidy, Afzal Khan trusted the honor of the man he thought a Wazuli. He lifted his hands to show they were empty.
“Advance, alone!” yelled Conan, straining to make himself heard.
Someone thrust the butt of a bow into a crevice of the rocks so it stood muzzle upward, with the white cloth blowing out in the morning breeze, and Afzal Khan came striding over the stones with the arrogance of a sultan. Behind him turbans were poked up above the boulders.
Conan halted him within good earshot, and instantly he was covered by a score of bows. Afzal Khan did not seem to be disturbed by that, or by the blood lust in the dark hawklike faces glaring along the barrels. Then Conan rose into view, and the two leaders faced one another in the full dawn.
Conan expected accusations of treachery — for, after all, he had struck the first blow — but Afzal Khan was too brutally candid for such hypocrisy.
“I have you in a vise, Ali el Ghazi,” he announced without preamble. “But for that Afghuli dog who crouches behind you, I would have cut your throat at moonrise last night. You are all dead men, but this siege work grows tiresome, and I am willing to forgo half my advantage. I am generous. As reward of victory I demand either your guns or your horses. Your horses I have already, but you shall have them back, if you wish. Throw down your weapons and you may ride out of Khuruk. Or, if you wish, I will keep the horses, and you may march out on foot with your bows. What is your answer?”
Conan spat toward him with a typically Wazuli gesture. “Are we fools, to be hoodwinked by a dog with scarlet whiskers?” he snarled. “When Afzal Khan keeps his sworn word, the rivers will flow backward. Shall we ride out, unarmed, for you to cut us down in the passes, or shall we march forth on foot, for you to shoot us from ambush in the hills?
