at the bottom of a cylindrical cavern. Cages on chains hung from the shadowed heights, and stone steps combined with drawbridges twisted around the cylinder in a double helix, leading up to Khor Kalba’s main fortress.
Conan took all this in with a glance, then focused on the giant rising from a stone throne across the cavern. Chains swathed the man, taking Conan back to Cimmeria, to his father’s forge, and the last of Khalar Zym’s minions.
The giant pointed at the interlopers. “Kill them, now!”
Other men in leather harnesses brought weapons to hand. By dress and location they marked themselves as torturers instead of warriors. They carried whips and red-hot branding irons, rushing around the grate’s perimeter. So used to having terror on their side as they plied their trade on their victims, they advanced without realizing just how dangerous some men can truly be.
Ela Shan worked his way up the stairs, hands flashing. Blackened steel spikes and sharp-bladed knives flew. One torturer reeled away, blood spurting from his opened throat. He stumbled onto the grate, then went to his knees. As he struggled to get back up, a gray tentacle rose from the water, curled itself around him, and pulled him under.
Conan roared forward, his sword coming up in an arc that opened a man from hip to shoulder. He fell back, slowing another man. A third torturer lunged with a branding iron. Conan sidestepped it, then took the man’s arm off at the elbow. The Cimmerian caught the branding iron in his left hand, then backhanded another man with the glowing end. The man stumbled back, then fell through the grate, bobbing for a heartbeat before disappearing beneath the water’s dark surface.
Akhoun brandished a heavy mace, whirling it in time with the drums’ resonant pulsing. He moved along toward where Conan had won through the torturers. “Come, Cimmerian, you will trouble my master no more.”
Conan went for him, and would have fallen into a trap save for Ela Shan’s cry of warning. One of the thief’s throwing knives clattered against the grate. Conan turned toward the sound, then ducked as a tentacle swept through the air. As it came sweeping back, Conan sliced at it. Though the cut was a full six inches in depth, it was but a scratch to the monster, which watched Conan through the grate.
Akhoun’s laughter boomed through the cavern. “My pet will never let you harm me.”
Conan darted two steps forward, then one back, as the beast attempted to grab at him again. “Coward!”
“Smart, not craven.” Akhoun opened his arms. “The Dweller will be more kind to you than I.”
“Conan, get ready.”
His left hand firmly wrapped about a chain, the Shemite thief leaped from the stairs and arced out into the middle of the cavern. His right hand came forward and down. A glass bottle broke against the grating edge, at the central hole. Smoke began to rise from the metal as the thief sailed away again.
The water roiled and Conan sped forward. Akhoun glanced toward his pet, and saw the golden light of its eye slowly fading away; then he turned toward the barbarian. He raised his mace, his mouth open, his roar giving voice to the pain the creature must have felt. He darted forward, intent on Conan. The two combatants hurtled toward each other, one blow aimed high, the other low, with no thought to defense given by either man.
Conan’s blade sliced across Akhoun’s belly, opening him from navel to hip, front to spine, as the Cimmerian passed beneath the giant’s left arm. Blood gushed and a pale rope of intestine spilled out. Yet before death could claim him, Arkoun’s mace struck.
The weapon’s iron head should have crushed Conan’s skull, and likely would have save that a flailing tentacle brushed the mace at the highest point in its arc, diverting and slowing it. The club fell, its haft striking Conan on the shoulder. It knocked him down and sent him tumbling against the chamber wall. He rolled and came halfway up before impact with the wall dropped him onto his ass.
Akhoun stood there, staring down at his ruined belly. A hand reached toward his guts, as if to stuff them back inside. He took a sidling step toward the Cimmerian. The pure venom in his eyes overrode the shock on his face.
Then two tentacles swept out, ensnared him in their coils, and yanked him from sight.
Conan scrambled to his feet and ran to Akhoun’s throne. He released the chains that had pulled the drawbridges up, then ran over and joined Ela in his ascent. Below, the water still splashed and things moved in it.
“What did you do?”
“Five years’ worth of venom from spitting cobras. The thing’s not dead, just blind.”
“That’s more an assassin’s tool than one for a thief.”
“If I used it on other than watchdogs, it might be.” Ela raced ahead and reached an iron door. “You can feel the drums through here.”
“Open it.”
“Lock’s rusted shut, but one of these others will work. The one across the way will be more accommodating.” They ran to it and Ela Shan had it quickly open. The two of them burst into a small garrison chamber and each slew a sleeping man. They moved into the corridor, then found the servants’ stairs and worked their way up, killing everyone they could find.
Finally they reached the uppermost level and burst in through the open doorway. The fact that no guards had been posted had warned them that they would find no one. Conan ran to the window and looked down. A long procession had begun with a man in golden armor riding at its head. Behind him came acolytes carrying banners, and Conan imagined that the one at the procession’s center bore the Mask of Acheron. More riders, in long robes, with Marique among them; then a crude cart with a woman bound to a post, her back straight, her head high.
Ela Shan joined him. “It looks as if they are bound for that mountain. We can get there easily enough, but look at the companies he has arrayed on the road. We couldn’t possibly slaughter them all.”
Conan turned and clasped the thief on both shoulders. “Our debt is settled.”
The thief chuckled. “Do not think you can abandon me in the midst of an adventure, Cimmerian. I, too, am not without honor.”
“And I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Yes?”
“You said this place was full of traps and dangers.”
“More of those than there is treasure.”
“Good.” Conan glanced out the window again. “I can get to that mountain. I can slip past those guards. I will destroy Khalar Zym and his mask. But . . .”
“But were the unthinkable to happen, you want him to return to a stronghold that will consume him.”
Conan nodded grimly. “Make this a place of death.”
“It would make me more of an assassin than a thief, but that old career is getting boring.” Ela Shan smiled. “I shall do as you ask, friend Conan. I likely won’t kill him, but I shall slow him down. And that might give the world a chance to make this his mausoleum.”
CHAPTER 32
FROM HER PLACE of honor Marique studied those working below her. Four acolytes had bound Tamara to the ceremonial oaken wheel, linking her chains to it. She hung there as Maliva had once hung.
Marique felt especially proud, for in the lava’s red-gold glow could be seen ruins, ancient ruins that dated back to the Acheronian period. The coast where Khor Kalba now rose had once been home to a grand city in the heart of a plain. The shattering of Acheron’s power had fractured the land as well. The sea had greedily devoured what it could, and men supposed that the city had been completely consumed, but much of it had been preserved.
