The Hour of the Dragon | Page 6

the
flower of Aquilonian strength and chivalry. Only the knights of Poitain,
under Prospero, had not yet arrived, for they had far to ride up from the
southwestern comer of the kingdom. Tarascus had struck without
warning. His invasion had come on the heels of his proclamation,
without formal declaration of war.
The two hosts confronted each other across a wide, shallow valley, with
rugged cliffs, and a shallow stream winding through masses of reeds
and willows down the middle of the vale. The camp-followers of both
hosts came down to this stream for water, and shouted insults and
hurled stones across at one another. The last glints of the sun shone on
the golden banner of Nemedia with the scarlet dragon, unfurled in the
breeze above the pavilion of King Tarascus on an eminence near the
eastern cliffs. But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple
pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black
banner with its golden lion that floated above King Conan's pavilion.
All night the fires flared the length of the valley, and the wind brought
the call of trumpets, the clangor of arms, and the sharp challenges of
the sentries who paced their horses along either edge of the
willow-grown stream.
It was in the darkness before dawn that King Conan stirred on his
couch, which was no more than a pile of silks and furs thrown on a dais,
and awakened. He started up, crying out sharply and clutching at his
sword. Pallantides, his commander, rushing in at the cry, saw his king
sitting upright, his hand on his hilt, and perspiration dripping from his
strangely pale face.
"Your Majesty!" exclaimed Pallantides. "Is aught amiss?"
"What of the camp?" demanded Conan. "Are the guards out?"
"Five hundred horsemen patrol the stream, Your Majesty," answered

the general. "The Nemedians have not offered to move against us in the
night. They wait for dawn, even as we."
"By Crom," muttered Conan. "I awoke with a feeling that doom was
creeping on me in the night."
He stared up at the great golden lamp which shed a soft glow over the
velvet hangings and carpets of the great tent. They were alone; not even
a slave or a page slept on the carpeted floor; but Conan's eyes blazed as
they were wont to blaze in the teeth of great peril, and the sword
quivered in his hand. Pallantides watched him uneasily. Conan seemed
to be listening.
"Listen!" hissed the king. "Did you hear it? A furtive step!"
"Seven knights guard your tent, Your Majesty," said Pallantides. "None
could approach it unchallenged."
"Not outside," growled Conan. "It seemed to sound inside the tent."
Pallantides cast a swift, startled look around. The velvet hangings
merged with shadows in the comers, but if there had been anyone in the
pavilion besides themselves, the general would have seen him. Again
he shook his head.
"There is no one here, sure. You sleep in the midst of your host."
"I have seen death strike a king in the midst of thousands," muttered
Conan. "Something that walks on invisible feet and is not seen--"
"Perhaps you were dreaming. Your Majesty," said Pallantides,
somewhat perturbed.
"So I was," grunted Conan. "A devilish dream it was, too. I trod again
all the long, weary roads I traveled on my way to the kingship."
He fell silent, and Pallantides stared at him unspeaking. The. king was
an enigma to the general, as to most of his civilized subjects.
Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild,

eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him
on the throne of Aquilonia.
"I saw again in the battlefield whereon I was born," said Conan, resting
his chin moodily on a massive fist. "I saw myself in a pantherskin
loin-clout, throwing my spear at the the mountain beasts. I was a
mercenary swordsman again, a het-man of the kozaki who dwell along
the Zaporoska River, a corsair looting the coasts of Kush, a pirate of the
Barachan Isles, a chief of the Himelian hillmen. All these things I've
been, and of all these things I dreamed; all the shapes that have been I
passed like an endless procession, and their feet beat out a dirge in the
sounding dust.
"But throughout my dreams moved strange, veiled figures and ghostly
shadows, and a far-away voice mocked me. And toward the last I
seemed to see myself lying on this dais in my tent, and a shape bent
over me, robed and hooded. I lay unable to move, and then the hood
fell away and a moldering skull grinned down at me. Then it was that I
awoke."
"This is an evil dream. Your Majesty,"