As the Cimmerian dashed out among the overgrown columns, the skull-piercing sound ceased. Birds and crickets had fled; the loudest noise to be heard was their own blood thrumming in their ears. Before a breath could be drawn in the silence, the mountain shook. Half-built columns toppled and mossy walls collapsed, blocks of marble large enough to crush a man splashing dirt like water, but the sound of their fall was swallowed by the rumbling that rose from the granite bowels of Tor Al’Kiir.
Dodging through clouds of dust and flying chips of shattered rock, Conan hurtled down the slope, Karela’s naked form clutched to his chest. The side of a mountain in the night was no place to be during an earthquake, but neither was the midst of crumbling marble walls. He had a feeling the only safe place to be in this earthquake was as far from Tor Al’Kiir as it was possible to run. And run he did, over ground that danced like the deck of a ship in a storm, fighting to keep his balance for rocks bouncing beneath his feet and stones flying through the air like hail. He no longer knew if Machaon and Narus ran with him, nor could he spare a thought for them. They were men, and must take their risks. Conan had to get Karela to safety, for some primal instinct warned him that worse was to come.
With a sound like the splitting of the earth, the peak of Tor Al’Kiir erupted in fire, mountaintop and alabaster columns and marble walls alike flung high into a sky now lit by a fiery glow. The blast threw Conan into the air; he twisted so that his own huge frame took the bone-jarring impact of landing. It was no longer possible to gain his feet. He put his body over that of Karela, sheltering her from the stones that filled the air. As he did one image remained burned into his brain, a single flame towering a thousand paces from the destroyed top of Tor Al’Kiir, a single flame that took the form of the Staff of Avanrakash.
Epilogue
In the paleness before full dawn Conan peered toward Ianthe, towers thrusting into the early morning mist, glazed red roof tiles beginning to gleam with the light of a sun not yet risen. An army approached the city, men-at-arms with gaily colored pennons streaming, long columns of infantry with shields slung on their backs, tall plumes of dust rising beneath thousands of pacing hooves and tramping feet. A victorious army, he thought. But whose?
Avoiding looking at the steaming, cratered top of Tor Al’Kiir, he picked his way through the huge, misshapen boulders that now littered the mountain slope. A quarter of its height had the great granite mound lost in the night, and what lay at its new peak the Cimmerian neither knew nor wanted to know.
Narus voice came to him, tinged with a bitter note. “Women should not be allowed to gamble. Almost I think you changed dice on me. At least let my buy back—”
“No,” Karela cut him off as Conan rejoined his three companions. She wore Narus’ breeches, tight across the curves of her hips and voluminous in the legs, with his scarlet cloak wrapped about her shoulders and his sword across her knees. The inner slopes of her full breasts showed at the gap in the cloak. “I have more need of something to wear than of gold. And I did not switch the dice. You were too busy filling your filthy eyes and leering at the sight of me uncovered to pay mind of what you were doing.”
Machaon laughed, and the gaunt man grunted, attempting to pull his hauberk down far enough to cover his bony knees.
“We must be moving,” Conan announced. “There has been a battle, it seems, and whoever won there will be mercenaries without patrons or leaders, men to reform the company. Crom, there may be enough for you each to have your own Free-Company.”
Machaon, sitting with his back against one of the building stones that had once stood atop the mountain, shook his head. “I have been longer in this trade, Cimmerian, than you have lived, and this night past has at last given me my full. I own some land in Koth. I shall put up my sword, and become a farmer.”
“You?” Conan said incredulously. “A month of grubbing in the dirt, and you’ll tear apart the nearest village with your bare hands, just for the need of a fight.”
“’Tis not quite as you imagine,” the grizzled veteran chuckled. “There are ten men working the land now. I will be a man of substance, as such as counted among farmers. I shall fetch Julia from the city, and marry her if she will have me. A farmer needs a wife to give him strong sons.”
Conan frowned at Narus. “And do you, too, intend to become a farmer?”
“I’ve no love of dirt,” the hollow-faced man replied, snatching the dice from Karela, who had been examining them idly, “but … . Conan, wizards I did not mind so much, and those men who looked like a snake had been at their mothers were no worse than a horde of blooddrunk Picts, but this god you found us has had my heart in my mouth more than I can remember since the Battle of Black River, when I was a fresh youth without need of shaving. For a time I seek a quiet city, with buxom wenches to bounce on a bed and,” he rattled the dice in cupped hands, rolled them on the ground, “young lads with more coin than sense.”
“They had best be very young,” Karela laughed. “Do you intend to gain any of their coin. Eh, Cimmerian?” Narus glared at her and grumbled under his breath.
As C
onan opened his mouth, a flash of white caught his eye, cloth fluttering in the breeze down slope. “Crom!” he muttered. It was Boros and Julia. “I’ll wring his scrawny neck for bringing her here,” he growled. The others scrambled to their feet to follow him down the mountainside.
When Conan reached the girl and the old man, he saw they were not alone. Julia knelt beside Taurianus, tearing strips from her white robes to try to staunch the blood oozing from a dozen rents in the Ophirean’s hauberk. The man’s hair was matted with dirt and blood, and a bubble of scarlet appeared at his lips with each labored breath.
Boros flung up his hands as soon as he saw Conan. “Do not blame me. I tried to stop her, but I have not your strength. I thought it best to come along and protect her as best I could. She said she was worried about Machaon.”
“About all of them,” Julia said, her face reddening. “Conan, we found him lying here. Can you not help him?”
The Cimmerian needed no close examination of Taurianus’ wounds to see the man would not survive them. The ground about him was already blackened with his blood. “So the nobles lost,” he said quietly. A mercenary fighting on the victorious side would not have crawled away to die.
The Ophirean’s eyes fluttered open. “We caught the Eagle,” he rasped, and continued with frequent pauses to struggle for breath. “We left our camp—with fires lit—and Iskandrian—fell on it—in the night. Then we took him—in the rear. We would have—destroyed him—but a giant flame—cleft the sky—and the white-haired devil—shouted the gods—were with them. Some cried—it was the Staff—of Avanrakash. Panic seized us—by the throat. We fled—and his warriors cut us down. Enjoy your time—Cimmerian. Iskandrian—is impaling—every mercenary—he catches.” Suddenly he lurched up onto one elbow and stretched out a clawed hand toward Conan. “I am a better man—than you!” Blood welled in his mouth, and he fell back. Once he jerked, then was still, dull eyes staring at the sky.
“A giant flame,” Narus said softly. “You are a man of destiny, Cimmerian. You make kings even you do not mean to.”
Conan shrugged off the words irritably. He cared not who wore the crown of Ophir, except insofar as it affected his prospects. With Iskandrian at Valentius’ side—perhaps, he thought, it was time to start thinking of the fopling as Moranthes II—there would be no chance to gather more men, and possibly no men left alive to gather. “’Twill be Argos for me,” he said.
“You!” Machaon snapped abruptly, and Julia jumped. “Did I not tell you to remain in Ianthe? Must I fetch a switch for you here and now? The life of a poor farmer’s wife is hard, and she must learn to obey. Would you have our only pig die because you did not feed it when I told you?”
“You have no right to threaten me,” the auburn-haired girl burst out. “You cannot … .” Her words trailed off, and she sat back on her heels. “Wife? Did you say wife?” Taking a deep breath, she said earnestly, “Machaon, I will care for your pig as if it were my beloved sister.”
“There’s no need to go so far as that,” Machaon laughed. His face sobered as he turned to Conan. “A long road we’ve traveled together, Cimmerian, but it has come to its ending. And as I’ve no desire to let Iskandrian rummage in my guts with a stake, I’ll take my leave now. I wish to be far from Ianthe before this day is done.”
“And I,” Narus added. “’Tis Tarantia for me, for they do say the nobles of Aquilonia are free with their coin and love to gamble.”
“Fare you well,” Conan told them. “And take a pull at the hellhorn for me, if you get there before me.”