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accustomed to judging the place of a drummer half a day's march away in the jungle. These were five or
six of them, beating small drums and no more than ten spear-throws uphill and to the left.
Thunder rolled, although Govindue saw nothing amiss, neither golden light nor indeed any
disturbance of the air. He did see a man stagger into the open and go to his knees. More men followed,
until there were nearly as many as he could count on his hands and toes.
Might the demon's gate be invisible from its far side? With such powerful wizardry, anything might
be possible. If that was the truth, then whoever mastered the demon's gate also had a mighty way to send
warriors wherever he wished, into the very hut of an enemy chief
Govindue swallowed a cry. He had recognized the first man through the gate. It was his father,
Bessu. Others of Dead Elephant Valley were with him, likewise some Greater Bamulas. He recognized
Kubwande, and less happily, Idosso.
The boy began to work his way down the slope. He was relieved to see that the warriors seemed
to have their wits about them. They had fallen swiftly into silence and had readied their shields and
weapons in response to the drums.
His relief faded quickly as he saw his father and Idosso quarreling. They kept their voices low; he
heard no words. But he knew his father's face well enough to read it even from this distance. Also,
Kubwande was not taking sides, which weakened Idosso but also Bessu, and indeed, weakened the
whole band by allowing the quarrel to go on.
Govindue began moving faster. His place was at his father's side, all the more because his father had
followed him through the demon's gate. He moved so swiftly that on the rocky ground his foot turned and
he would have fallen had he not been able to brace himself against a tree.
From a bush ahead, a man rose into view. Govindue saw him clearly, although no one unused to
hunting in dense forest would have recognized the form of a man. Govindue not only recognized the form
of a man, but saw that he was naked except for a loincloth and a necklace of human teeth. Save where
he was tattood or painted, he was brown-skinned, about the hue of some Stygians, and carried a
bronze-headed war-axe and a short bow with a quiver of flint-headed arrows.
The man's dark eyes quested about, searching other bushes and trees for the source of the
drumming noise. Govindue had the eerie sense that the tree he had sought the moment he slipped was no
protection from the man's gaze, let alone his arrows. Did the man have potent magick. What if all his
people had the same?
But if the man had magick, it was not enough to reveal Govindue to him. He needed no magick,
however, to see the Bamulas gathered in the open, or to signal to what were likely his comrades. The axe
rose and fell three times. Only those behind him could have seen it, they and Govindue. The boy also saw
more bushes quivering slightly; the man had at least a hand of comrades. If they all had bows
If they all had bows, Govindue knew what he must do. He would be alone among at least six of the
enemy, and he would die there. But if he died giving a warning, his father and others would live. If in time
they knew he had given the warning, the ancestors would be told and would honor him.
Also, Idosso would know what kind of son Bessu had, and perhaps accept his leadership. If Idosso
did not, Kubwande might.
The man was rising again, with his bow ready and an arrow in his hand. Standing, he turned his side
to Govindue. He was smaller than the boy, but his exposed side seemed as generous a target as the flank
of a buffalo.
Govindue's spear flew. As it struck, Govindue cupped his hands and shouted: "Wayo, wayo, wayo!
The enemy comes! Wayo, wayo, wayo, the son of Bessu calls!"
***
Conan had been creeping downhill ever since he reached the ridge and heard the drums. He could
have used more time on the high ground spying out the land, but even a brief look had been enough.
This was indeed far from the Black Kingdoms, a higher, colder land way to the north. The trees
were pines and firs, giving the terrain a darker hue than that of the jungles of the south. The sky was
harsher and the sun milder than in the land of the Bamulas. Far away a line of slate-tinted sapphire
slashed across the horizon, a sea very unlike the warm blue of the waters Belit had sailed.
For a moment, Belit seemed to die all over again. Conan shook his head, letting the wind whip his
hair about his shoulders a wind such as he had often felt in his native land, but never on the Black
Coast.
The sorrow passed, and grim resolve took its place. The demon's gate had brought him not to some
other part of the Black Kingdoms, nor to any party of Vendhya. This was an unknown northern land; his
first task after finding Vuona was to make it known. Somewhere under one of those crags or in a stand
of straight-boled firs might lie the master of the demon's gate.
Conan was looking for any sign of Vuona's passage when he heard the drums. He at once resolved
to seek out the drummers and watch them from hiding. If they appeared friendly, he could learn their land
and ways around a fire, and over meat and ale seek their help in finding Vuona. He doubted that any
tribe inhabiting such a land as this would refuse help in the hunt, and abundant meat had a way of
loosening tongues.
If they were hostile, on the other hand, he would make one a prisoner, then learn as much in a less
friendly manner. He might then know Vuona was doomed, but also from whom to take vengeance.
The last of the befuddlement had left the Cimmerian's head. He stalked down the hill with the silent
grace of a hillman on the prowl, never bringing his foot down where anything might snap or roll. He
passed in silence through gaps between trees one would have sworn would not pass a squirrel, and all
this while moving swiftly as well. It was not long before he was in sight of the first of the folk of the drum,
and knew his enemy.
They were Picts, which meant "enemy" to any Cimmerian. Conan had learned much from men who
had fought in the Pictish Wilderness, both Cimmerians and those of other races. Many of them bore
scars, likewise the memories of friends hideously slain; none bore any goodwill toward the Picts.
"Which is something no god would ask anyway," Conan remembered one mercenary in Argos
saying. "Because the Picts bear nobody any goodwill, including mostly one another, I think. If they'd
better weapons, they might do us all a favor and kill one another off. As it is, they'll be a plague long after
my grandson's a gray-beard."
Masters of woodscraft, the Picts were, lightly armed, and certainly no match for Conan in single
combat. But they would be a hundred to his one in this land, and they had bows.
The drums continued, the rattle and thud shifting as if the drummers or the wind or both were on the
move. Conan judged that he was upwind of the main body of the Picts and that the breeze would hide
any slight noises he made.
He wanted to close with them unseen and unheard, before they launched their attack. If their
intended victims were civilized, he would know who might be grateful for his aid. If this was only a brawl
between Pictish clans, neither side would be a friend to strangers, but one side might yield a talkative
prisoner. Also, the Pictish prisoner would save Conan the work of making a bow for himself.
He judged where the flank of the Picts would be by where he would have placed hillmen himself
when launching such an ambush. Nor was he wrong. A solid mass of Picts was not slow to appear,
well-hidden from below but naked to the keen blue eyes studying them from above.
Conan was about to drop to his knees to crawl closer, when he saw a slim, dark figure rise from
cover farther down the slope. Fugitive sunlight sparked on a spearhead as the slim figure threw. A Pict
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