The Hour of the Dragon
the court, instead of in a dungeon below. In that chamber, where a
gaunt, hairy beast of a man in leather breeks squatted gnawing a
beef-bone voraciously, stood the machines of torture--racks, boots,
hooks and all the implements that the human mind devises to tear flesh,
break bones and rend and rupture veins and ligaments.
On a rack a man was stretched naked, and a glance told Conan that he was
dying. The unnatural elongation of his limbs and body told of unhinged
joints and unnamable ruptures. He was a dark man, with an intelligent,
aquiline face and quick dark eyes. They were glazed and bloodshot now
with pain, and the dew of agony glistened on his face. His lips were
drawn back from blackened gums.
'There is the box.' Viciously Valbroso kicked a small but heavy iron
chest that stood on the floor near by. It was intricately carved, with
tiny skulls and writhing dragons curiously intertwined, but Conan saw no
catch or hasp that might serve to unlock the lid. The marks of fire, of
ax and sledge and chisel showed on it but as scratches.
'This is the dog's treasure box,' said Valbroso angrily. 'All men of the
south know of Zorathus and his iron chest. Mitra knows what is in it.
But he will not give up its secret.'
Zorathus! It was true, then; the man he sought lay before him. Conan's
heart beat suffocatingly as he leaned over the writhing form, though he
exhibited no evidence of his painful eagerness.
'Ease those ropes, knave!' he ordered the torturer harshly, and Valbroso
and his captain stared. In the forgetfulness of the moment Conan had
used his imperial tone, and the brute in leather instinctively obeyed
the knife-edge of command in that voice. He eased away gradually, for
else the slackening of the ropes had been as great a torment to the torn
joints as further stretching.
Catching up a vessel of wine that stood near by, Conan placed the rim to
the wretch's lips. Zorathus gulped spasmodically, the liquid slopping
over on his heaving breast.
Into the bloodshot eyes came a gleam of recognition, and the
froth-smeared lips parted. From them issued a racking whimper in the
Kothic tongue.
'Is this death, then? Is the long agony ended? For this is King Conan
who died at Valkia, and I am among the dead.'
'You're not dead,' said Conan. 'But you're dying. You'll be tortured no
more. I'll see to that. But I can't help you further. Yet before you
die, tell me how to open your iron box!'
'My iron box,' mumbled Zorathus in delirious disjointed phrases. 'The
chest forged in unholy fires among the flaming mountains of Khrosha; the
metal no chisel can cut. How many treasures has it borne, across the
width and the breadth of the world! But no such treasure as it now
holds.'
'Tell me how to open it,' urged Conan. 'It can do you no good, and it
may aid me.'
'Aye, you are Conan,' muttered the Kothian. 'I have seen you sitting on
your throne in the great public hall of Tarantia, with your crown on
your head and the scepter in your hand. But you are dead; you died at
Valkia. And so I know my own end is at hand.'
'What does the dog say?' demanded Valbroso impatiently, not
understanding Kothic. 'Will he tell us how to open the box?'
As if the voice roused a spark of life in the twisted breast Zorathus
rolled his bloodshot eyes toward the speaker.
'Only Valbroso will I tell,' he gasped in Zingaran. 'Death is upon me.
Lean close to me, Valbroso!'
The count did so, his dark face lit with avarice; behind him his
saturnine captain, Beloso, crowded closer.
'Press the seven skulls on the rim, one after another,' gasped Zorathus.
'Press then the head of the dragon that writhes across the lid. Then
press the sphere in the dragon's claws. That will release the secret
catch.'
'Quick, the box!' cried Valbroso with an oath.
Conan lifted it and set it on a dais, and Valbroso shouldered him aside.
'Let me open it!' cried Beloso, starting forward.
Valbroso cursed him back, his greed blazing in his black eyes.
'None but me shall open it!' he cried.
Conan, whose hand had instinctively gone to his hilt, glanced at
Zorathus. The man's eyes were glazed and bloodshot, but they were fixed
on Valbroso with burning intensity; and was there the shadow of a grim
twisted smile on the dying man's lips? Not until the merchant knew he
was dying had he given up the secret. Conan turned to watch Valbroso,
even as the dying man watched him.
Along the rim of the lid seven skulls were carved among intertwining
branches of strange trees. An inlaid dragon writhed its way across the
top of the lid amid ornate arabesques. Valbroso pressed the skulls in
fumbling haste, and as he jammed his thumb down on the carved head of
the dragon he swore sharply and snatched his hand away, shaking it in
irritation.
'A sharp point on the carvings,' he snarled. 'I've pricked my thumb.'
He pressed the gold ball clutched in the dragon's talons, and the lid
flew abruptly open. Their eyes were dazzled by a golden flame. It seemed
to their dazed minds that the carven box was full of glowing fire that
spilled over the rim and dripped through the air in quivering flakes.
Beloso cried out and Valbroso sucked in his breath. Conan stood
speechless, his brain snared by the blaze.
'Mitra, what a jewel!' Valbroso's hand dived into the chest, came out
with a great pulsing crimson sphere that filled the room with a lambent
glow. In its glare Valbroso looked like a corpse. And the dying man on
the loosened rack laughed wildly and suddenly.
'Fool!' he screamed. 'The jewel is yours! I give you death with it! The
scratch on your thumb--look at the dragon's head, Valbroso!'
They all wheeled, stared. Something tiny and dully gleaming stood up
from the gaping, carved mouth.
'The dragon's fang!' shrieked Zorathus. 'Steeped in the venom of the
black Stygian scorpion! Fool, fool to open the box of Zorathus with your
naked hand! Death! You are a dead man now!'
And with bloody foam on his lips he died.
Valbroso staggered, crying out. 'Ah, Mitra, I burn!' he shrieked. 'My
veins race with liquid fire! My joints are bursting asunder! Death!
Death!' And he reeled and crashed headlong. There was an instant of
awful convulsions, in which the limbs were twisted into hideous and
unnatural positions, and then in that posture the man froze, his glassy
eyes staring sightlessly upward, his lips drawn back from blackened
gums.
'Dead!' muttered Conan, stooping to pick up the jewel where it rolled on
the floor from Valbroso's rigid hand. It lay on the floor like a
quivering pool of sunset fire.
'Dead!' muttered Beloso, with madness in his eyes. And then he moved.
Conan was caught off guard, his eyes dazzled, his brain dazed by the
blaze of the great gem. He did not realize Beloso's intention until
something crashed with terrible force upon his helmet. The glow of the
jewel was splashed with redder flame, and he went to his knees under the
blow.
He heard a rush of feet, a bellow of ox-like agony. He was stunned but
not wholly senseless, and realized that Beloso had caught up the iron
box and crashed it down on his head as he stooped. Only his basinet had
saved his skull. He staggered up, drawing his sword, trying to shake the
dimness out of his eyes. The room swam to his dizzy gaze. But the door
was open and fleet footsteps were dwindling down the winding stair. On
the floor the brutish torturer was gasping out his life with a great
gash under his breast. And the Heart of Ahriman was gone.
Conan reeled out of the chamber, sword in hand, blood streaming down his
face from under his burganet. He ran drunkenly down the steps, hearing a
clang of steel in the courtyard below, shouts, then the frantic drum of
hoofs. Rushing into the bailey he saw the men-at-arms milling about
confusedly, while women screeched. The postern gate stood open and a
soldier lay across his pike with his head split. Horses, still bridled
and saddled, ran neighing about the court, Conan's black stallion among
them.
'He's mad!' howled a woman, wringing her hands as she rushed brainlessly
about. 'He came out of the castle like a mad dog, hewing right and left!
Beloso's mad! Where's Lord Valbroso?'
'Which way did he go?' roared Conan.
All turned and stared at the stranger's blood-stained face and naked
sword.
'Through the postern!' shrilled a woman, pointing eastward, and another
bawled: 'Who is this rogue?'
'Beloso has killed Valbroso!' yelled Conan, leaping and seizing the
stallion's mane, as the men-at-arms advanced uncertainly on him. A wild
outcry burst forth at his news, but their reaction was exactly as he had
anticipated. Instead of closing the gates to take him prisoner, or
pursuing the fleeing slayer to avenge their lord, they were thrown into
even greater confusion by his words. Wolves bound together only by fear
of Valbroso, they owed no allegiance to the castle or to each other.
Swords began to clash in the courtyard, and women screamed. And in the
midst of it all, none noticed Conan as he shot through the postern gate
and thundered down the hill. The wide plain spread before him, and
beyond the hill the caravan road divided: one branch ran south, the
other east. And on the eastern road he saw another rider, bending low
and spurring hard. The plain swam to Conan's gaze, the sunlight was a
thick red haze and he reeled in his saddle, grasping the flowing mane
with his hand. Blood rained on his mail, but grimly he urged the
stallion on.
Behind him smoke began to pour out of the castle on the hill where the
count's body lay forgotten and unheeded beside that of his prisoner. The
sun was setting; against a lurid red sky the two black figures fled.
The stallion was not fresh, but neither was the horse ridden by Beloso.
But the great beast responded mightily, calling on deep reservoirs of
reserve vitality. Why the Zingaran fled from one pursuer Conan did not
tax his bruised brain to guess. Perhaps unreasoning panic rode Beloso,
born of the madness that lurked in that blazing jewel. The sun was gone;
the white road was a dim glimmer through a ghostly twilight fading into
purple gloom far ahead of him.
The stallion panted, laboring hard. The country was changing, in the
gathering dusk. Bare plains gave way to clumps of oaks and alders. Low
hills mounted up in the distance. Stars began to blink out. The stallion
gasped and reeled in his course. But ahead rose a dense wood that
stretched to the hills on the horizon, and between it and himself Conan
glimpsed the dim form of the fugitive. He urged on the distressed
stallion, for he saw that he was overtaking his prey, yard by yard.
Above the pound of the hoofs a strange cry rose from the shadows, but
neither pursuer nor pursued gave heed.
As they swept in under the branches that overhung the road, they were
almost side by side. A fierce cry rose from Conan's lips as his sword
went up; a pale oval of a face was turned toward him, a sword gleamed
in a half-seen hand, and Beloso echoed the cry--and then the weary
stallion, with a lurch and a groan, missed his footing in the shadows
and went heels over head, hurling his dazed rider from the saddle.
Conan's throbbing head crashed against a stone, and the stars were
blotted out in a thicker night.
* * * * *
How long Conan lay senseless he never knew. His first sensation of
returning consciousness was that of being dragged by one arm over rough
and stony ground and through dense underbrush. Then he was thrown
carelessly down, and perhaps the jolt brought back his senses.
His helmet was gone, his head ached abominably, he felt a qualm of
nausea, and blood was clotted thickly among his black locks. But with
the vitality of a wild thing life and consciousness surged back into