Conan and the Gods of the Mountain

One In the forest between dead Xuchotl and the foot of Thunder Mountain, the boot-wearers whose tracks the hunter had seen followed a game trail. One was a woman, and no southern hills or forests had ever been birthplace to one so fair of skin and hair. She wore a shirt and trousers of silk that had once been whole and white, but were now neither. Rents in both displayed the fairness of her skin; and a rag of red silk bound up her hair. The garb, though tattered, still fitted snugly enough to display the splendor of her breasts and hips. Her boots had the look of the sea about them. They were of supple leather, with wide-flaring tops, easily kicked off if one found one's self in the water. That they were not made for tramping game trails in the Black Kingdoms was evident by how often the woman gritted her teeth. About her slender waist a silken sash upheld a well-used sword and two knives. One knife was a seaman's dirk, the other a keen-edged dagger whose hilt writhed with creatures out of nightmare. The woman was tall and robustly formed, yet her companion overtopped her by more than a head, and his muscles told of a giant's strength to go with that stature. He was similarly clad, with the difference that his sword was stouter and hung from a broad leather belt, along with three knives. His hair was black, flowing freely across his broad shoulders, and his eyes were of an icy blue, with the look of the north to them. Those eyes had been the last sight of more than a few men over the years. The tall man was Conan the Cimmerian, his companion Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. They owed their garb to having once been pirates in Baracha, and their companionship to many curious circumstances. Most important of those was the battle they had fought for their lives within the walls of Xuchotl. It was waged against enemies both animal and human, armed with both steel and spells. In the end, it had cleansed the accursed city of the very last of its bloody, unnatural life. It had also given each of them a dagger. Nothing else would they take from Xuchotl, knowing too many of the city's secrets to trust loot removed from its halls. Those halls reeked of blood shed and spells cast over many centuries, and terror that would echo in their green-lit vastness when the bones of the dead were dust on the floors of polished stone. Conan had traveled in the Black Kingdoms before, if not in this jungle, then in others hardly less friendly. He feared neither man nor beast. Yet had the Kwanyi hunter seen the wanderer of Cimmeria, he would have laughed...for Conan also threw more than a few glances over his shoulder to see what remnant of Xuchotl's evil might be on his trail. * * * It was taboo among the Kwanyi to leave the dead in the place where they died, no matter how great the burden of removing the body. Left where the spirit departed from it, the body might be found again by that same spirit and become ayaquele, one of the "walking dead." So from the time they could bear a burden, the folk of the Kwanyi learned to make litters of whatever came ready to hand. Saplings, vines, even the leaves of the smokebush, had their uses. A litter able to bear the dead was also fit for the living who could not walk. The hunter was moving again in less time than it would have taken him to empty a gourd of beer. Two of the Monkey hunters bore him on level ground, trailed by the third, while the leader strode on ahead. The hunter noted that the leader bore his spear in both hands, held across his chest ready to either throw or thrust. This was a hunting party, so the men bore no shields, but it seemed that the leader did not expect their visit to Thunder Mountain to be entirely peaceful. It further seemed that he wanted their presence to be unnoticed. Twice he raised hand and spear to halt all movemGreen, Roland J. is the author of 'Conan and the Gods of the Mountain' with ISBN 9780812514148 and ISBN 0812514149.