The Hour of the Dragon | Page 7

said Pallantides, suppressing a
shudder. "But no more."
Conan shook his head, more in doubt than in denial. He came of a
barbaric race, and the superstitions and instincts of his heritage lurked
close beneath the surface of his consciousness.
"I've dreamed many evil dreams," he said, "and most of them were
meaningless. But by Crom, this was not like most dreams! I wish this
battle were fought and won, for I've had a grisly premonition ever since
King Nimed died in the black plague. Why did it cease when he died?"
"Men say he sinned--"
"Men are fools, as always," grunted Conan. "If the plague struck all
who sinned, then by Crom there wouldn't be enough left to count the
living! Why should the gods-who the priests tell me are just-slay five
hundred peasants and merchants and nobles before they slew the king,

if the whole pestilence were aimed at him? Were the gods smiting
blindly, like swordsmen in a fog? By Mitra, if I aimed my strokes no
straighter, Aquilonia would have 'had a new king long ago.
"No! The black plague's no common pestilence. It lurks in Stygian
tombs, and is called forth into being only by wizards. I was a
swordsman in Prince Almuric's army that invaded Stygia, and of his
thirty thousand, fifteen thousand perished by Stygian arrows, and the
rest by the black plague that rolled on us like a wind out of the south. I
was the only man who lived."
"Yet only five hundred died in Nemedia," argued Pallantides.
"Whoever called it into being knew how to cut it short at will,"
answered Conan. "So I know there was something planned and
diabolical about it. Someone called it forth, someone banished it when
the work was completed-when Tarascus was safe on the throne and
being hailed as the deliverer of the people from the wrath of the gods.
By Crom, I sense a black, subtle brain behind all this. What of this
stranger who men say gives counsel to Tarascus?"
"He wears a veil," answered Pallantides; "they say he is a foreigner; a
stranger from Stygia."
"A stranger from Stygia!" repeated Conan scowling. "A stranger from
hell, more like!-Ha! What is that?"
"The trumpets of the Nemedians!" exclaimed Pallantides. "And hark,
how our own blare upon their heels! Dawn is breaking, and the captains
are marshaling the hosts for the onset! Mitra be with them, for many
will not see the sun go down behind the crags."
"Send my squires to me!" exclaimed Conan, rising with alacrity and
casting off his velvet night-garment; he seemed to have forgotten his
forebodings at the prospect of action. "Go to the captains and see that
all is in readiness. I will be with you as soon as I don my armor."
Many of Conan's ways were inexplicable to the civilized people he

ruled, and one of them was his insistence on sleeping alone in his
chamber or tent. Pallantides hastened from the pavilion, clanking in the
armor he had donned at midnight after a few hours' sleep. He cast a
swift glance over the camp, which was beginning to swarm with
activity, mail clinking and men moving about dimly in the uncertain
light, among the long lines of tents. Stars still glimmered palely in the
western sky, but long pink streamers stretched along the eastern
horizon, and against them the dragon banner of Nemedia flung out its
billowing silken folds.
Pallantides turned toward a smaller tent near by, where slept the royal
squires. These were tumbling out already, roused by the trumpets. And
as Pallantides called to them to hasten, he was frozen speechless by a
deep fierce shout and the impact of a heavy blow inside the king's tent,
followed by a heart-stopping crash of a falling body. There sounded a
low laugh that turned the general's blood to ice.
Echoing the cry, Pallantides wheeled and rushed back into the pavilion.
He cried out again as he saw Conan's powerful frame stretched out on
the carpet. The king's great two-handed sword lay near his hand, and a
shattered tent-pole seemed to show where his sword had fallen.
Pallantides' sword was out, and he glared about the tent, but nothing
met his gaze. Save for the king and himself it was empty, as it had been
when he left it.
"Your Majesty!" Pallantides threw himself on his knee beside the fallen
giant.
Conan's eyes were open; they blazed up at him with full intelligence
and recognition. His lips writhed, but no sound came forth. He seemed
unable to move.
Voices sounded without. Pallantides rose swiftly and stepped to the
door. The royal squires and one of the knights who guarded the tent
stood there. "We heard a sound within," said the knight apologetically.
"Is all well with