The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (great reads .TXT) 📗

class="calibre2">“You rogues of the Free Companies always know tricks to make men talk.

I have a prisoner-the last merchant I caught, by Mitra, and the only

one I’ve seen for a week-and the knave is stubborn. He has an iron

box, the secret of which defies us, and I’ve been unable to persuade

him to open it. By Ishtar, I thought I knew all the modes of

persuasion there are, but perhaps you, as a veteran Free Companion,

know some that I do not. At any rate come with me and see what you may

do.”

 

Valbroso’s words instantly decided Conan. That sounded a great deal

like Zorathus. Conan did not know the merchant, but any man who was

stubborn enough to try to traverse the Zingaran road in times like

these would very probably be stubborn enough to defy torture.

 

He fell in beside Valbroso and rode up the straggling road to the top

of the hill where the gaunt castle stood. As a man-at-arms he should

have ridden behind the count, but force of habit made him careless and

Valbroso paid no heed. Years of life on the border had taught the

count that the frontier is not the royal court. He was aware of the

independence of the mercenaries, behind whose swords many a king had

trodden the throne-path.

 

There was a dry moat, half filled with debris in some places. They

clattered across the drawbridge and through the arch of the gate.

Behind them the portcullis fell with a sullen clang. They came into a

bare courtyard, grown with straggling grass, and with a well in the

middle. Shacks for the men-at-arms straggled about the bailey wall,

and women, slatternly or decked in gaudy finery, looked from the

doors. Fighting-men in rusty mail tossed dice on the flags under the

arches. It was more like a bandit’s hold than the castle of a

nobleman.

 

Valbroso dismounted and motioned Conan to follow him. They went

through a doorway and along a vaulted corridor, where they were met by

a scarred, hard-looking man in mail descending a stone staircase-evidently the captain of the guard.

 

“How, Beloso,” quoth Valbroso; “has he spoken?”

 

“He is stubborn,” muttered Beloso, shooting a glance of suspicion at

Conan.

 

Valbroso ripped out an oath and stamped furiously up the winding

stair, followed by Conan and the captain. As they mounted, the groans

of a man in mortal agony became audible. Valbroso’s torture-room was

high above the court, instead of in a dungeon below. In that chamber,

where a gaunt, hairy beast of a man in leather breeks squatted gnawing

a beef-bone voraciously, stood the machines of torture-racks, boots,

hooks and all the implements that the human mind devises to tear

flesh, break bones and rend and rupture veins and ligaments.

 

On a rack a man was stretched naked, and a glance told Conan that he

was dying. The unnatural elongation of his limbs and body told of

unhinged joints and unnamable ruptures. He was a dark man, with an

intelligent, aquiline face and quick dark eyes. They were glazed and

bloodshot now with pain, and the dew of agony glistened on his face.

His lips were drawn back from blackened gums.

 

“There is the box.” Viciously Valbroso kicked a small but heavy iron

chest that stood on the floor near by. It was intricately carved, with

tiny skulls and writhing dragons curiously intertwined, but Conan saw

no catch or hasp that might serve to unlock the lid. The marks of

fire, of ax and sledge and chisel showed on it but as scratches.

 

“This is the dog’s treasure box,” said Valbroso angrily. “All men of

the south know of Zorathus and his iron chest. Mitra knows what is in

it. But he will not give up its secret.”

 

Zorathus! It was true, then; the man he sought lay before him. Conan’s

heart beat suffocatingly as he leaned over the writhing form, though

he exhibited no evidence of his painful eagerness.

 

“Ease those ropes, knave!” he ordered the torturer harshly, and

Valbroso and his captain stared. In the forgetfulness of the moment

Conan had used his imperial tone, and the brute in leather

instinctively obeyed the knife-edge of command in that voice. He eased

away gradually, for else the slackening of the ropes had been as great

a torment to the torn joints as further stretching.

 

Catching up a vessel of wine that stood near by, Conan placed the rim

to the wretch’s lips. Zorathus gulped spasmodically, the liquid

slopping over on his heaving breast.

 

Into the bloodshot eyes came a gleam of recognition, and the froth-smeared lips parted. From them issued a racking whimper in the Kothic

tongue.

 

“Is this death, then? Is the long agony ended? For this is King Conan

who died at Valkia, and I am among the dead.”

 

“You’re not dead,” said Conan. “But you’re dying. You’ll be tortured

no more. I’ll see to that. But I can’t help you further. Yet before

you die, tell me how to open your iron box!”

 

“My iron box,” mumbled Zorathus in delirious disjointed phrases. “The

chest forged in unholy fires among the flaming mountains of Khrosha;

the metal no chisel can cut. How many treasures has it borne, across

the width and the breadth of the world! But no such treasure as it now

holds.”

 

“Tell me how to open it,” urged Conan. “It can do you no good, and it

may aid me.”

 

“Aye, you are Conan,” muttered the Kothian. “I have seen you sitting

on your throne in the great public hall of Tarantia, with your crown

on your head and the scepter in your hand. But you are dead; you died

at Valkia. And so I know my own end is at hand.”

 

“What does the dog say?” demanded Valbroso impatiently, not

understanding Kothic. “Will he tell us how to open the box?”

 

As if the voice roused a spark of life in the twisted breast Zorathus

rolled his bloodshot eyes toward the speaker.

 

“Only Valbroso will I tell,” he gasped in Zingaran. “Death is upon me.

Lean close to me, Valbroso!”

 

The count did so, his dark face lit with avarice; behind him his

saturnine captain, Beloso, crowded closer.

 

“Press the seven skulls on the rim, one after another,” gasped

Zorathus. “Press then the head of the dragon that writhes across the

lid. Then press the sphere in the dragon’s claws. That will release

the secret catch.”

 

“Quick, the box!” cried Valbroso with an oath.

 

Conan lifted it and set it on a dais, and Valbroso shouldered him

aside.

 

“Let me open it!” cried Beloso, starting forward.

 

Valbroso cursed him back, his greed blazing in his black eyes.

 

“None but me shall open it!” he cried.

 

Conan, whose hand had instinctively gone to his hilt, glanced at

Zorathus. The man’s eyes were glazed and bloodshot, but they were

fixed on Valbroso with burning intensity; and was there the shadow of

a grim twisted smile on the dying man’s lips? Not until the merchant

knew he was dying had he given up the secret. Conan turned to watch

Valbroso, even as the dying man watched him.

 

Along the rim of the lid seven skulls were carved among intertwining

branches of strange trees. An inlaid dragon writhed its way across the

top of the lid, amid ornate arabesques. Valbroso pressed the skulls in

rumbling haste, and as he jammed his thumb down on the carved head of

the dragon he swore sharply and snatched his hand away, shaking it in

irritation.

 

“A sharp point on the carvings,” he snarled. “I’ve pricked my thumb.”

 

He pressed the gold ball clutched in the dragon’s talons, and the lid

flew abruptly open. Their eyes were dazzled by a golden flame. It

seemed to their dazed minds that the carven box was full of glowing

fire that spilled over the rim and dripped through the air in

quivering flakes. Beloso cried out and Valbroso sucked in his breath.

Conan stood speechless, his brain snared by the blaze.

 

“Mitra, what a jewel!” Valbroso’s hand dived into the chest, came out

with a great pulsing crimson sphere that filled the room with a

lambent glow. In its glare Valbroso looked like a corpse. And the

dying man on the loosened rack laughed wildly and suddenly.

 

“Fool!” he screamed. “The jewel is yours! I give you death with it!

The scratch on your thumb-look at the dragon’s head, Valbroso!”

 

They all wheeled, stared. Something tiny and dully gleaming stood up

from the gaping, carved mouth.

 

“The dragon’s fang!” shrieked Zorathus. “Steeped in the venom of the

black Stygian scorpion! Fool, fool to open the box of Zorathus with

your naked hand! Death! You are a dead man now!”

 

And with bloody foam on his lips he died.

 

Valbroso staggered, crying out. “Ah, Mitra, I burn!” he shrieked. “My

veins race with liquid fire! My joints are bursting asunder! Death!

Death!” And he reeled and crashed headlong. There was an instant of

awful convulsions, in which the limbs were twisted into hideous and

unnatural positions, and then inthat posture the man froze, his glassy

eyes staring sightlessly upward, his lips drawn back from blackened

gums.

 

“Dead!” muttered Conan, stooping to pick up the jewel where it rolled

on the floor from Valbroso’s rigid hand. It lay on the floor like a

quivering pool of sunset fire.

 

“Dead!” muttered Beloso, with madness in his eyes. And then he moved.

 

Conan was caught off guard, his eyes dazzled, his brain dazed by the

blaze of the great gem. He did not realize Beloso’s intention until

something crashed with terrible force upon his helmet. The glow of the

jewel was splashed with redder flame, and he went to his knees under

the blow.

 

He heard a rush of feet, a bellow of ox-like agony. He was stunned but

not wholly senseless, and realized that Beloso had caught up the iron

box and crashed it down on his head as he stooped. Only his basinet

had saved his skull. He staggered up, drawing his sword, trying to

shake the dimness out of his eyes. The room swam to his dizzy gaze.

But the door was open and fleet footsteps were dwindling down the

winding stair. On the floor the brutish torturer was gasping out his

life with a great gash under his breast. And the Heart of Ahriman was

gone.

 

Conan reeled out of the chamber, sword in hand, blood streaming down

his face from under his burganet. He ran drunkenly down the steps,

hearing a clang of steel in the courtyard below, shouts, then the

frantic drum of hoofs. Rushing into the bailey he saw the men-at-arms

milling about confusedly, while women screeched. The postern gate

stood open and a soldier lay across his pike with his head split.

Horses, still bridled and saddled, ran neighing about the court,

Conan’s black stallion among them.

 

“He’s mad!” howled a woman, wringing her hands as she rushed

brainlessly about. “He came out of the castle like a mad dog, hewing

right and left! Beloso’s mad! Where’s Lord Valbroso?”

 

“Which way did he go?” roared Conan. All turned and stared at the

stranger’s bloodstained face and naked sword. “Through the postern!”

shrilled a woman, pointing eastward, and another bawled: “Who is this

rogue?”

 

“Beloso has killed Valbroso!” yelled Conan, leaping and seizing the

stallion’s mane, as the men-at-arms advanced uncertainly on him. A

wild outcry burst forth at his news, but their reaction was exactly as

he had anticipated. Instead of closing the gates to take him prisoner,

or pursuing the fleeing slayer to avenge their lord, they were thrown

into even greater confusion by his words.