Conan of Cimmeria Part 6

A silvery laugh cut through his dizziness, and his sight slowly cleared. He looked up; there was a strangeness about all the landscape that he could not place or define-an unfamiliar tinge to earth and sky.

But he did not think long of this. Before him, swaying like a sapling in the. wind, stood a woman. To his dazed eyes her body was like ivory, and, save for a light veil of gossamer, she was naked as the day. Her slender feet were whiter than the snow they spurned. She laughed down at the bewildered warrior with a laughter that was sweeter than the rippling of silvery fountains and poisonous with cruel mockery. "Who are you?" asked the Cimmerian. "Whence come you?"

"What matter?" Her voice was more musical than a silver-stringed harp, but edged with cruelty.

"Call up your men," said he grasping his sword. "Though my strength fail me, yet they shall not take me alive. I see that you are of the Vanir."

"Have I said so?"

His gaze went again to her unruly locks, which at first glance he had thought to be red. Now he saw that they were neither red nor yellow but a glorious compound of both colors. He gazed spellbound. Her hair was like elfin gold; the sun struck it so dazzlingly that he could scarcely bear to look upon it. Her eyes were likewise neither wholly blue nor wholly gray, but of s.h.i.+fting colors and dancing lights and clouds of colors he could not have named. Her full red lips smiled, and from her slender feet to the blinding crown of her billowy hair, her ivory body was as perfect as the dream of a G.o.d. Conan's pulse hammered in his temples.

"I cannot tell," said he,"whether you are of Vanaheim and mine enemy, or of Asgard and my friend. Far have I wandered, but a woman like you I have never seen. Your locks blind me with their brightness. Never have I seen such hair, not even among the fairest daughters of the AEsir. By Ymir-"

"Who are you to swear by Ymir?" she mocked. "What know you of the G.o.ds of ice and snow, you who have come up from the South to adventure among an alien people?"

"By the dark G.o.ds of my own race!" he cried in anger. "Though I am not of the golden-haired AEsir, none has been more forward in swordplay!

This day I have seen fourscore men fall, and I alone have survived the field where Wulfhere's reavers met the wolves of Bragi. Tell me, woman, have you seen the flash of mail out across the snow plains, or seen armed men moving upon the ice?"

"I have seen the h.o.a.rfrost glittering in the sun," she answered. "I have heard the wind whispering across the everlasting snows."

He shook his head with a sigh. "Niord should have come up with us before the battle joined. I fear he and his fighting men have been ambushed. Wulfhere and his warriors lie dead... I had thought there was no village within many leagues of this spot, for the war carried us far; but you cannot have come a great distance over these snows, naked as you are. Lead me to your tribe, if you are of Asgard, for I am faint with blows and the weariness of strife."

"My village is further than you can walk, Conan of Cimmeria," she laughed. Spreading her arms wide, she swayed before him, her golden head lolling sensuously and her scintillant eyes half shadowed beneath their long silken lashes. "Am I not beautiful, O man?"

"Like dawn running naked on the snows," he muttered, his eyes burning like those of a wolf.

"Then why do you not rise and follow me? Who is the strong warrior who falls down before me?" she chanted in maddening mockery. "Lie down and die in the snow with the other fools, Conan of the black hair. You cannot follow where I would lead."

With an oath, the Cimmerian heaved himself up on his feet, his blue eyes blazing, his dark, scarred face contorted. Rage shook his soul, but desire for the taunting figure before him hammered at his temples and drove his wild blood fiercely through his veins. Pa.s.sion fierce as physical agony flooded his whole being, so that earth and sky swam red to his dizzy gaze. In the madness that swept upon him, weariness and faintness were swept away.

He spoke no word as he sheathed his b.l.o.o.d.y sword and drove at her, fingers spread to grip her soft flesh. With a shriek of laughter she leaped back and ran, laughing at him over her white shoulder. With a low growl, Conan followed. He had forgotten the fight, forgotten the mailed warriors who lay in their blood, forgotten Niord and the reavers who failed to reach the battle. He thought only of the slender white shape, which seemed to float rather than run before him.

Out across the blinding-white plain the chase led. The trampled red field fell out of sight behind him, but still Conan kept on with the silent tenacity of his race. His mailed feet broke through the frozen crust; he sank deep in the drifts and forged through them by sheer brute strength. But the girl danced across the snow, light as a feather floating on a pool; her naked feet barely left their imprint on the h.o.a.rfrost that overlaid the crust. Despite the fire in his veins, the cold bit through the warrior's mail and fur-lined tunic; but the girl in her gossamer veil ran as lightly and as gaily as if she danced through the palms and rose gardens of Poitain.

On and on she led, and Conan followed. Black curses drooled through the Cimmerian's parched lips. The great veins in his temples swelled and throbbed, and his teeth gnashed.

"You cannot escape me!" he roared. "Lead me into a trap and I'll pile the heads of your kinsmen at your feet! Hide from me and I'll tear the mountains apart to find you! I'll follow you to h.e.l.l itself!"

Foam flew from the barbarian's lips as her maddening laughter floated back to him. Farther and farther into the wastes she led him. As the hours pa.s.sed and the sun slid down its long slant to the horizon, the land changed; the wide plains gave way to low hills, marching upward in broken ranges. Far to the north he caught a glimpse of towering mountains, their eternal snows blue with distance and pink in the rays of the blood-red setting sun. In the darkling sides above them shone the flaring rays of the aurora. They spread fanwise into the sky-frosty blades of cold, flaming light, changing in color, growing and brightening.

Above him the skies glowed and crackled with strange lights and gleams.

The snow shone weirdly: now frosty blue, now icy crimson, now cold silver. Through a s.h.i.+mmering, icy realm of enchantment Conan plunged doggedly onward, in a crystalline maze where the only reality was the white body dancing across the glittering snow beyond his reach-ever beyond his reach.

He did not wonder at the strangeness of it all-not even when two gigantic figures rose up to bar his way. The scales of their mail were white with h.o.a.rfrost; their helmets and axes were covered with ice.

Snow sprinkled their locks, in their beards were spikes of icicles, and their eyes were as cold as the lights that streamed above them.

"Brothers!" cried the girl, dancing between them. "Look who follows! I have brought you a man to slay! Take his heart, that we may lay it smoking on our father's board!"

The giants answered with roars like the grinding of icebergs on a frozen sh.o.r.e. They heaved up their axes, s.h.i.+ning in the starlight, as the maddened Cimmerian hurled himself upon them. A frosty blade flashed before his eyes, blinding him with its brightness, and he gave back a terrible stroke that sheared through his foe's leg at the knee.

With a groan, the victim fell, and at the same instant Conan was dashed into the snow, his left shoulder numb from a glancing blow of the survivor's ax, from which the Cimmerian's mail had barely saved his life. Conan saw the remaining giant looming high above him like a colossus carved of ice, etched against the coldly glowing sky. The ax fell-to sink through the snow and deep into the frozen earth as Conan hurled himself aside and leaped to his feet. The giant roared and wrenched his ax free; but, even as he did, Conan's sword sang down. The giant's knees bent, and he sank slowly into the snow, which turned crimson with the blood that gushed from his half-severed neck.

Conan wheeled to see the girl standing a short distance away, staring at him in wide-eyed horror, all the mockery gone from her face. He cried out fiercely, and drops of blood flew from his sword as his hand shook in the intensity of his pa.s.sion.

"Call the rest of your brothers!" he cried. "I'll give their hearts to the wolves! You cannot escape me..."

With a cry of fright, she turned and ran fleetly. She did not laugh now, nor mock him over her white shoulder. She ran as for her life.

Although he strained every nerve and thew, until his temples were like to burst and the snow swam red to his gaze, she drew away from him, dwindling in the witch-fire of the skies until she was a figure no bigger than a child, then a dancing white flame on the snow, then a dim blur in the distance. But, grinding his teeth until the blood started from his gums, Conan reeled on, until he saw the blur grow to a dancing white flame, and the flame to a figure as big as a child; and then she was running less than a hundred paces ahead of him. Slowly, foot by foot, the s.p.a.ce narrowed.

She was running with effort now, her golden locks blowing free; he heard the quick panting of her breath and saw the flash of fear in the look she cast over her white shoulder. The grim endurance of the barbarian served him well. The speed ebbed from her flas.h.i.+ng white legs; she reeled in her gait. In Conan's untamed soul leaped up the fires of h.e.l.l she had so well fanned. With an inhuman roar, he closed in on her, just as she wheeled with a haunting cry and flung out her arms to fend him off.

His sword fell into the snow as he crushed her to him. Her lithe body bent backward as she fought with desperate frenzy in his iron arms. Her golden hair blew about his face, blinding him with its sheen; the feel of her slender body, twisting in his mailed arms, drove him to blinder madness. His strong fingers sank deep into her smooth flesh-flesh as cold as ice. It was as if he embraced, not a woman of human flesh and blood, but a woman of flaming ice. She writhed her golden head aside, striving to avoid the fierce kisses that bruised her red lips.

"You are as cold as the snows," he mumbled dazedly. "I'll warm you with the fire of my own blood..."

With a scream and a desperate wrench, she slipped from his arms, leaving her single gossamer garment in his grasp. She sprang back and faced him, her golden locks in wild disarray, her white bosom heaving, her beautiful eyes blazing with terror. For an instant he stood frozen, awed by her terrible beauty as she stood naked against the snows.

And in that instant she flung her arms toward the lights that glowed in the skies and cried out, in a voice that would ring in Conan's ears forever after : "Ymir! O my father, save me!"

Conan was leaping forward, arms spread to seize her, when with a crack like the breaking of a mountain of ice the whole sky leaped into icy fire. The girl's ivory body was suddenly enveloped in a cold, blue flame so blinding that the Cimmerian threw up his hands to s.h.i.+eld his eyes from the intolerable blaze. For a fleeting instant, skies and snowy hills were bathed in crackling white flames, blue darts of icy light, and frozen crimson fires.

Then Conan staggered and cried out. The girl was gone. The glowing snow lay empty and bare; high above his head the witch-lights played in a frosty sky gone mad.

Among the distant blue mountains there sounded a rolling thunder as of a gigantic war chariot, rus.h.i.+ng behind steeds whose frantic hoofs struck lightning from the snows and echoes from the sides.

Then the aurora, the snow-clad hills, and the blazing heavens reeled drunkenly to Conan's sight. Thousands of fireb.a.l.l.s burst with showers of sparks, and the sky itself became a t.i.tanic wheel, which rained stars as it spun. Under his feet the snowy hills heaved up like a wave, and the Cimmerian crumpled into the snows to lie motionless.

In a cold dark universe, whose sun was extinguished eons ago, Conan felt the movement of life, alien and unguessed. An earthquake had him in its grip and was shaking him to and fro, at the same time chafing his hands and feet until he yelled in pain and fury and groped for his sword.

"He's coming to, Horsa," said a voice. "Hasten-we must rub the frost out of his limbs, if he's ever to wield sword again."

"He won't open his left hand," growled another. "He's clutching something-"

Conan opened his eyes and stared into the bearded faces that bent over him. He was surrounded by tall, golden-haired warriors in mail and furs.

"Conan!" said one. "You live!"

"By Crom, Niord," gasped the Cimmerian. "Am I alive, or are we all dead and in Valhalla?"

"We live," grunted the As, busy over Conan's half-frozen feet. "We had to fight our way through an ambush, or we had come up with you before the battle was joined. The corpses were scarce cold when we came upon the field. We did not find you among the dead, so we followed your spoor. In Ymir's name, Conan, why did you wander off into the wastes of the North? We have followed your tracks in the snow for hours. Had a blizzard come up and hidden them, we had never found you, by Ymir!"

"Swear not so often by Ymir," muttered a warrior uneasily, glancing at the distant mountains. "This is his land, and legends say the G.o.d bides among yonder peaks."

"I saw a woman," Conan answered hazily. "We met Bragi's men in the plains. I know not how long we fought. I alone lived. I was dizzy and faint. The land lay like a dream before me; only now do all things seem natural and familiar. The woman came and taunted me. She was beautiful as a frozen flame from h.e.l.l. A strange madness fell upon me when I looked at her, so I forgot all else in the world. I followed her. Did you not find her tracks? Or the giants in icy mail I slew?"

Niord shook his head. "We found only your tracks in the snow, Conan."

"Then it may be that I am mad," said Conan dazedly. "Yet you yourself are no more real to me than was the golden-locked wench who fled naked across the snows before me. Yet from under my very hands she vanished in icy flame."