“Your strongest cannot lift it,” Sitha hissed. “Can two of you do it? Let any two try.” His scathing glance took in Conan, but the Cimmerian said nothing.
Reza and another hawk-nosed Iranistani, named Banidr, pushed forward. Aberius began again to hawk his wagering. Those who had lost the first time were now quickest to press their coins at him.
Reza and Banidr conferred a moment, dark heads together, then squatted, one on either side of the stone. Pressing their forearms in under the lower curve of the stone sphere, each grasped the other’s upper arm. Their closeness to the stone forced them into spraddle-legged stances. For a moment they rocked back and forth, counting together, then suddenly tried to heave themselves erect. Veins popped forth on their foreheads. The stone lifted. A finger breadth. A handwidth. Banidr cried out, and in an instant the stone had forced their arms apart, torn loose their grips, and thumped to the ground. Banidr fell back, clutching himself. Arguments broke out as to whether the two had lifted the stone far enough or not.
“This!” Sitha’s shout riveted the bandits, drying their arguments in mid-word. “This I mean by lifting the stone!” The S’tarra bent over the large granite ball, locked its arms about it, and straightened as easily as if it had been a pebble. Gasps broke from the bandits as it started toward them; they parted before it. Five paces. Ten. Sitha let the stone fall with a crash, and turned back to the dumbstruck men. “That I mean by lifting.” Peals of hissing laughter broke between its fangs.
“I’ll have a try,” Conan said.
The S’tarra’s laughter slowed and stopped. Red eyes regarded Conan with open contempt. “You, human? Will you try to carry the stone back to its place, then?”
“No,” the young Cimmerian said, and bent to the larger stone.
“Two to one he fails,” Aberius cried. “Three to one!” Men eyed Conan’s massive chest and shoulders, weighed the odds, and crowded around the weasel-faced man.
Conan squatted low to get his arms below the largest part of the big stone. As his fingers felt for purchase on the rough sphere, he found Sitha’s frowning gaze on him.
With a sudden roar, the big Cimmerian heaved. His mighty thews corded, and his joints popped with the strain. The muscles of his broad back stood out in stark relief, and his massive arms knotted. Slowly he straightened, every fiber quivering as he came fully erect. His eyes met Sitha’s once more, and snarling, the S’tarra took a backward step. With great effort Conan stepped forward, back bowed under the strain. He took another step.
“Conan,” someone said softly, and another voice repeated, louder, “Conan!”
Teeth bared by lips drawn back in a rictus of effort, Conan went forward. Now his eyes were locked on the stone Sitha had carried.
Two more voices took up the cry. “Conan!” Five more. “Conan!” Ten. “Conan!” The shouts were flung back from the mountain slopes as a score of throats hurled forth their chant with his every step. “Conan! Conan! Conan!”
He came level with the other stone, took one step more, and let the great sphere fall with a thunderous thud that every man there felt in his feet. Conan’s shoulder joints creaked as he straightened, looking at Sitha. “Will you try to take my stone back?”
Cheering bandits darted between a glowering Aberius, parting with all his former winnings and more, and Conan, some clasping his hand, others merely wanting to touch his arm. Sitha’s hands twitched in front of its chest as if clutching for the thick haft of a battle-ax.
Of a sudden the bronzen tones of a great gong broke from the fortress and echoed down the valley. Sitha whirled at the first tone and broke into a run for the black keep. The gong pealed forth again, and again, its hollow resonance rolling against the mountains. Atop the ebon ramparts of the keep S’tarra ran.
“An attack?” Hordo said, bewildered. The bandits crowded in close behind the one-eyed man, their exuberance of moments before already dissipated. Some had drawn their swords.
Conan shook his head. “The portcullis is open, and I see no one near the ballistae or catapults. Whatever’s happening, though … .” He let his words trail off as Karela galloped up to face them, one fist on a scarlet thigh-boot.
“Are the lot of you responsible for this?” she demanded. “I heard all of you bellowing like oxen in a mire, then this infernal gong began.” As she spoke the tolling ceased, though the ghost of it seemed yet to hang in the air.
“We know no more than you,” Hordo replied.
“Then I’ll find out what’s happening,” she said.
“Karela,” Conan said, “do you not think it best to wait?”
Her green eyes raked him scornfully, and without a word she spun her horse and galloped toward the fortress. The big black’s hooves rang on the black granite of the ramp, and after a moment’s delay she was admitted.
Minutes later the portcullis opened once more. Sitha’s massive form, helmeted and bearing the great battle-ax, galloped through the gate, followed by paired columns of mounted S’tarra. Conan counted lances as they streamed down the incline and pounded across the valley towards a gorge leading north.
“Three hundred,” the Cimmerian said after the last S’tarra had disappeared. “More wayfarers, do you think?”
“So long as it’s not us,” Hordo replied.
Slowly the bandits returned to the cold ashes of their campfires, breaking into twos and threes to cast lots or dice. Aberius began maneuvering three clay cups and a pebble atop a flat rock, trying to entice back some of the silver he had lost. Conan settled with his back to a tilted needle of stone, where he could watch both the keep and the gorge into which Sitha had led the S’tarra. The day stretched long and flat, and except when Hordo brought him meat and cheese and a leather flagon of thin wine Conan did not change his position.
As the sanguinary sun sank on the western mountain peaks, the S’tarra returned, galloping from the same knife-sharp slash in the valley by which they had left.
“No casualties,” Hordo said, coming up beside Conan as the S’tarra appeared.
Conan, once more counting lances, nodded. “But they took … something.” Twenty riderless horses were roped together in the middle of the column, each bearing a long bundle strapped across it.