Conan the Warrior by L. Sprague de Camp Robert E. Howard & Lin Carter

Author:L. Sprague de Camp Robert E. Howard & Lin Carter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction
Publisher: Lancer
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Ivory Goddess

- L. Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter

Home on winds from the west, the sound of drums beat fast in the temple tower, flamingo pink in the setting sun. in its sunlit wall the shadow of Zaramba, chief priest of I'nut, stood transfixed, his attenuated form resembling a Htiik. The figure etched upon the wall was no darker than the black man whose shape it mimicked, although the outlined beak was but a pointed tuft of hair that decorated the front of his woolly pate.

Zaramba tossed back the cowl of his short purple robe and listened intently, straining to catch the message that pulsed out of the west. His drummer, clad only in a linen loin cloth, squatted beside two – now voiceless – hollow logs that served as temple drums, and marked each note as the distant roll of a great drum irregularly alternated with the clack of a lesser.

At length the drummer turned a sombre face. 'Bad news,' he said.

'What says the message?' asked Zaramba.

'Keshan has been plagued by the intrigue of foreigners. The king has expelled all strangers. Priests of the shrine of Alkmeenon were massacred by demons, one priest alone escaping to tell the tale. The scoundrels who wrought this evil are on their way to Punt. Let the men of Punt beware!'

'I needs must tell the king,' said Zaramba. 'Send a message to our brother priests in Keshan to thank them for their warning.'

The drummer raised his sticks and pounded the logs in a rattling code, as Zaramba hastened from the tower and bent his steps toward the royal palace of sun-dried mud, which raised its towers in the centre of Kassali, the capital of Punt.

Days passed. The sun of late afternoon stood far down in the western sky, where long clouds lay athwart the deepening azure like red banners floating on the winds of war. From the grassy hill whereon the painted temple stood, the city stretched all round. The low sun gleamed on the gold and crystal ornaments that topped the dun-brown palace in the middle distance and lent sparkle to the temple on the hill.

Eastward, beyond the city, a stretch of forest encroached upon the uplands, and from the far side of these clustered trees, now issued two figures mounted on wiry Stygian ponies.

In the lead rose a huge man, nearly naked, his massive arms, broad shoulders, and deeply-arched chest burnt to bronzen hue. His only garments were a pair of ragged silken creeks, a leathern baldric, and sandals of rhinoceros hide. A belt of crocodile skin, which upheld the breeches, also supported a dirk in its sheath, and from the baldric hung a long, straight sword in a lacquered wooden scabbard.

The man's thick mane of coarse, blue-black hair was square-cut at the nape of his neck. Smouldering eyes of volcanic blue stared out beneath thick, drawn brows. The man Bowled as a gust of wind disordered his sable mane. Not long before, he had worn a circlet of beaten silver around his brows, denoting him a general of the Keshani hosts.

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