The Hour of the Dragon
him, and he became aware of his surroundings.
A broad red moon was shining through the trees, by which he knew that it
was long after midnight. He had lain senseless for hours, long enough to
have recovered from that terrible blow Beloso had dealt him, as well as
the fall which had rendered him senseless. His brain felt clearer than
it had felt during that mad ride after the fugitive.
He was not lying beside the white road, he noticed with a start of
surprise, as his surroundings began to record themselves on his
perceptions. The road was nowhere in sight. He lay on the grassy earth,
in a small glade hemmed in by a black wall of tree stems and tangled
branches. His face and hands were scratched and lacerated as if he had
been dragged through brambles. Shifting his body he looked about him.
And then he started violently--something was squatting over him....
At first Conan doubted his consciousness, thought it was but a figment
of delirium. Surely it could not be real, that strange, motionless gray
being that squatted on its haunches and stared down at him with
unblinking soulless eyes.
Conan lay and stared, half expecting it to vanish like a figure of a
dream, and then a chill of recollection crept along his spine.
Half-forgotten memories surged back, of grisly tales whispered of the
shapes that haunted these uninhabited forests at the foot of the hills
that mark the Zingaran-Argossean border. Ghouls, men called them, eaters
of human flesh, spawn of darkness, children of unholy matings of a lost
and forgotten race with the demons of the underworld. Somewhere in these
primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, men
whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic
shadows--Conan shuddered strongly.
He lay staring at the malformed head that rose dimly above him, and
cautiously he extended a hand toward the sword at his hip. With a
horrible cry that the man involuntarily echoed, the monster was at his
throat.
Conan threw up his right arm, and the dog-like jaws closed on it,
driving the mail links into the hard flesh. The misshapen yet man-like
hands clutched for his throat, but he evaded them with a heave and roll
of his whole body, at the same time drawing his dagger with his left
hand.
They tumbled over and over on the grass, smiting and tearing. The
muscles coiling under that gray corpse-like skin were stringy and hard
as steel wires, exceeding the strength of a man. But Conan's thews were
iron too, and his mail saved him from the gnashing fangs and ripping
claws long enough for him to drive home his dagger, again and again and
again. The horrible vitality of the semi-human monstrosity seemed
inexhaustible, and the king's skin crawled at the feel of that slick,
clammy flesh. He put all his loathing and savage revulsion behind the
plunging blade, and suddenly the monster heaved up convulsively beneath
him as the point found its grisly heart, and then lay still.
Conan rose, shaken with nausea. He stood in the center of the glade
uncertainly, sword in one hand and dagger in the other. He had not lost
his instinctive sense of direction, as far as the points of the compass
were concerned, but he did not know in which direction the road lay. He
had no way of knowing in which direction the ghoul had dragged him.
Conan glared at the silent, black, moon-dappled woods which ringed him,
and felt cold moisture bead his flesh. He was without a horse and lost
in these haunted woods, and that staring deformed thing at his feet was
a mute evidence of the horrors that lurked in the forest. He stood
almost holding his breath in his painful intensity, straining his ears
for some crack of twig or rustle of grass.
When a sound did come he started violently. Suddenly out on the night
air broke the scream of a terrified horse. His stallion! There were
panthers in the wood--or--ghouls ate beasts as well as men.
He broke savagely through the brush in the direction of the sound,
whistling shrilly as he ran, his fear drowned in berserk rage. If his
horse was killed, there went his last chance of following Beloso and
recovering the jewel. Again the stallion screamed with fear and fury,
somewhere nearer. There was a sound of lashing heels, and something that
was struck heavily and gave way.
Conan burst out into the wide white road without warning, and saw the
stallion plunging and rearing in the moonlight, his ears laid back, his
eyes and teeth flashing wickedly. He lashed out with his heels at a
slinking shadow that ducked and bobbed about him--and then about Conan
other shadows moved: gray, furtive shadows that closed in on all sides.
A hideous charnel-house scent reeked up in the night air.
With a curse the king hewed right and left with his broadsword, thrust
and ripped with his dagger. Dripping fangs flashed in the moonlight,
foul paws caught at him, but he hacked his way through to the stallion,
caught the rein, leaped into the saddle. His sword rose and fell, a
frosty arc in the moonlight, showering blood as it split misshapen
heads, clove shambling bodies. The stallion reared, biting and kicking.
They burst through and thundered down the road. On either hand, for a
short space, flitted gray abhorrent shadows. Then these fell behind, and
Conan, topping a wooded crest, saw a vast expanse of bare slopes
sweeping up and away before him.
13
'A Ghost Out of the Past'
Soon after sunrise Conan crossed the Argossean border. Of Beloso he had
seen no trace. Either the captain had made good his escape while the
king lay senseless, or had fallen prey to the grim man-eaters of the
Zingaran forest. But Conan had seen no signs to indicate the latter
possibility. The fact that he had lain unmolested for so long seemed to
indicate that the monsters had been engrossed in futile pursuit of the
captain. And if the man lived, Conan felt certain that he was riding
along the road somewhere ahead of him. Unless he had intended going into
Argos he would never have taken the eastward road in the first place.
The helmeted guards at the frontier did not question the Cimmerian. A
single wandering mercenary required no passport nor safe-conduct,
especially when his unadorned mail showed him to be in the service of no
lord. Through the low, grassy hills where streams murmured and oak
groves dappled the sward with lights and shadows he rode, following the
long road that rose and fell away ahead of him over dales and rises in
the blue distance. It was an old, old road, this highway from Poitain to
the sea.
Argos was at peace; laden ox-wains rumbled along the road, and men with
bare, brown, brawny arms toiled in orchards and fields that smiled away
under the branches of the roadside trees. Old men on settles before inns
under spreading oak branches called greetings to the wayfarer.
From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the
inns where he slaked his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming
ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he met upon the road, Conan
sought for news of Beloso.
Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry
Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk
was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for
Messantia. It was a logical destination; all the sea-ports of Argos were
cosmopolitan, in strong contrast with the inland provinces, and
Messantia was the most polyglot of all. Craft of all the maritime
nations rode in its harbor, and refugees and fugitives from many lands
gathered there. Laws were lax; for Messantia thrived on the trade of the
sea, and her citizens found it profitable to be somewhat blind on their
dealings with seamen. It was not only legitimate trade that flowed into
Messantia; smugglers and buccaneers played their part. All this Conan
knew well, for had he not, in the days of old when he was a Barachan
pirate, sailed by night into the harbor of Messantia to discharge
strange cargoes? Most of the pirates of the Barachan Isles--small
islands off the southwestern coast of Zingara--were Argossean sailors,
and as long as they confined their attentions to the shipping of other
nations, the authorities of Argos were not too strict in their
interpretation of sea-laws.
But Conan had not limited his activities to those of the Barachans. He
had also sailed with the Zingaran buccaneers, and even with those wild
black corsairs that swept up from the far south to harry the northern
coasts, and this put him beyond the pale of any law. If he were
recognized in any of the ports of Argos it would cost him his head. But
without hesitation he rode on to Messantia, halting day or night only to
rest the stallion and to snatch a few winks of sleep for himself.
* * * * *
He entered the city unquestioned, merging himself with the throngs that
poured continually in and out of this great commercial center. No walls
surrounded Messantia. The sea and the ships of the sea guarded the great
southern trading city.
It was evening when Conan rode leisurely through the streets that
marched down to the waterfront. At the ends of these streets he saw the
wharves and the masts and sails of ships. He smelled salt water for the
first time in years, heard the thrum of cordage and the creak of spars
in the breeze that was kicking up whitecaps out beyond the headlands.
Again the urge of far wandering tugged at his heart.
But he did not go on to the wharves. He reined aside and rode up a steep
flight of wide, worn stone steps, to a broad street where ornate white
mansions overlooked the waterfront and the harbor below. Here dwelt the
men who had grown rich from the hard-won fat of the seas--a few old
sea-captains who had found treasure afar, many traders and merchants who
never trod the naked decks nor knew the roar of tempest or sea-fight.
Conan turned in his horse at a certain gold-worked gate, and rode into a
court where a fountain tinkled and pigeons fluttered from marble coping
to marble flagging. A page in jagged silken jupon and hose came forward
inquiringly. The merchants of Messantia dealt with many strange and
rough characters but most of these smacked of the sea. It was strange
that a mercenary trooper should so freely ride into the court of a lord
of commerce.
'The merchant Publio dwells here?' It was more statement than question,
and something in the timbre of the voice caused the page to doff his
feather chaperon as he bowed and replied: 'Aye, so he does, my captain.'
Conan dismounted and the page called a servitor, who came running to
receive the stallion's rein.
'Your master is within?' Conan drew off his gauntlets and slapped the
dust of the road from cloak and mail.
'Aye, my captain. Whom shall I announce?'
'I'll announce myself,' grunted Conan. 'I know the way well enough. Bide
you here.'
And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after
Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and
wondering what connection his master might have with this giant
fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian.
Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a
wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor
through which the sea-breeze swept. Halfway down this he heard a quill
scratching, and turned into a broad room whose many wide casements
overlooked the harbor.
Publio sat at a carved teakwood desk writing on rich parchment with a
golden quill. He was a short man, with a massive head and quick dark
eyes. His blue robe was of the finest watered silk, trimmed with
cloth-of-gold, and from his thick white throat hung a heavy gold chain.
As the Cimmerian entered, the merchant looked up with a gesture of