Conan and the Shaman's Curse (11 page)

Ngomba tightened his grip around the hilt and stared at his face, reflected in the gleaming blade. “Without this weapon he is nothing. If I find him first, I shall send him to the gods and let them decide his fate.” He tensed, thick cords of muscle bulging from his arms and legs as he stepped into the thickset fronds, vanishing from the sight of the villagers.

Jabbering loudly, the Ganak throng milled about, turning toward Y’Taba. The gentle afternoon breeze had turned into a brisk wind, and clouds rolled across the sky, obscuring the sun. “Pay him no heed,” the elder said to the expectant crowd, his voice suddenly weary. “This gathering is over. A feast of victory awaits us! Sajara, we go to join your hunters under the roof of celebration and explain what transpired while you were away.”

The rain squall began in earnest as he spoke, pelting the crowd with wind-driven droplets. Y’Taba stood atop the mound, heedless of the rain. He watched his people seek shelter under the reed-thatched roofs of their simple wattle huts. Many Ganaks hurried under a low structure that was supported by erratically spaced trees. Unlike other huts, it was fashioned not of reeds but some other material, smooth and ivory-coloured, stained in places, its smooth surface tom here and there. Beneath it, large stones served as tables, heaped high with multicoloured fruit, shell bowls brimming with fruit juices, and flat shells containing fish of varying sizes and shapes.

The spirit-leader put his arm around Sajara’s shoulders and led her to join the other Ganaks. He took a long last look over his shoulder, toward the reeds where Ngomba had departed with the stranger’s weapon.

Rain poured onto Conan, washing away his last sliver of patience. The trees offered little protection from the downpour, and the Cimmerian was loathe to while away the daylight here. Better to pass the night on the beach than in this noisome stretch of swarming and slithering jungle. He would walk for a while in the general direction of the shell-trail and turn back if he found no signs of a Ganak settlement. Perhaps he would even find some safe food to satisfy his gnawing hunger.

He had never cared much for these sweltering, insect-infested places anyway. More than ever he longed to leave this isle and find his way to the mainland—where he could seek a cure for the thrice-blasted shaman’s curse. Never in his mercenary days could he recall such a run of ill luck. He felt naked without his sword. A three-foot blade of sharpened steel was a great comfort in times like these, and it was especially irritating to have lost as fine a weapon as the sword he’d taken from Khertet. Conan knew, however, that he would fight with his bare hands if need be. Flexing his fingers, he shook off his gloomy thoughts and concentrated on his surroundings.

The rain drove away the stinging flies and mosquitoes, and it would mask his scent from any jungle predators. That much was in his favour.

He crept through the foliage, sidestepping a dozing viper whose coiled trunk was thicker than Conan’s thigh. The dense vegetation gradually thickened, pressing in on him, until finally he could go no farther. Realizing the futility of finding a settlement in this leaf-choked place, he turned back.

Hastening as much as he dared, Conan retraced his footsteps. The rain slackened, stopping abruptly. Dim light filtered through the thick leaves overhead; doubtless the clouds had broken. The Cimmerian took a step, then frowned. Ahead and to the right, he saw a trail through the jungle—a barely discernible trail that a casual glance might have missed. Conan’s keen eyes observed its regular lines and even width, partially obscured by the brush but unmistakably cleared by human hands.

The path looked ill-tended; tall foliage had sprung up to fill it, but no trees rooted themselves amid its width. Scratching at the stubble on his chin, Conan felt annoyed that he had missed it earlier; doubtless that accursed rain had obscured it somehow.

He turned onto it without hesitation, hoping that it would lead him to the Ganaks or at least to a place where he could pass the night. Placing speed ahead of caution, he walked the twisting track, eventually losing his sense of direction. The trees that flanked it towered higher and higher, and he judged that the snakelike path was taking him deep into the jungle.

Swarming, stinging bugs surrounded him in a buzzing cloud. Serpents infested the floor of the jungle, reminding him of the unpleasant fate Khertet had planned for him in Stygia. Fortunately, these fork-tongued creatures apparently sought other prey. He gave them a wide berth and none molested him. Birds chattered in the trees, and he welcomed their voices. Some dove into the jungle from their high perches, snatching up small snakes in their beaks and taking them elsewhere to feast.

Conan was tempted to feed as they did, but he would only eat snake meat as a last resort. He had noted a greenish-brown fruit that hung from thick vines overhead, which he could reach with a jump. As he considered this, a big, broad-winged bird neatly plucked an apple-sized piece of this fruit from a low vine, perching on a nearby limb to pick at its meat. Conan decided he would try a bite. Birds often naturally avoided poison.

A running leap gave him the loft he needed, and he pulled one of the lumpy-skinned fruits from that same vine. It tasted strange, vaguely like an unripened coconut, but his famished belly welcomed even its bitter meat, pulpy seeds, and thick milk. The peel or shell he discarded. Feeling no ache in his guts, he choked down a few more of the things while hastening along the path. He frowned, noting a lessening of the light that filtered down to him through the layers of leaves above. He must be past the centre of the island by now, after hours of walking. Vines had begun to clog the trail. There were more fruits here but fewer birds.

He rounded a sharp bend, encountering a drooping, vine-choked thicket that blocked his way. The fruits, somewhat larger on these stalks, clustered thickly. He kicked them to knock them aside and several burst open... spewing forth hundreds of tiny, wriggling spiders.

The pale green hatchlings spilled out in glistening clumps, some falling onto him in thick, squirming blobs. He leaped forward in revulsion, wiping their pulpy green bodies from his skin and nearly doubling over in nausea—he had eaten three of those spider eggs! Leaning against the mossy trunk of a thick tree, he retched violently, looking up just in time to catch a slight, rapid movement, at the edge of his vision.

Directly overhead, from the thick limb of a tree, an immense, ocherous spider dangled. It was easily twice Conan’s size. Dull green hair sprouted from its bulbous, bloated body and long, spiny legs. Its crimson eyes burned with the malevolence of a creature who bent its cunning to a single, bestial purpose... sucking the life from any warm-blooded prey within reach of its flexing, dripping mandibles.

“Baal and Pteor!” Conan swore. What foul hell-furnace had belched up this freakish monstrosity? Crouching, he sprang away from those cruel pincers before they dropped onto him. As if anticipating his leap, the hideous beast spread its forelegs, unfolding a net woven from pearly strands.

Conan’s jump carried him right into it.

Instantly swathed in thick, sticky webs, he twisted in mid-leap, narrowly avoiding the pouncing spider. Once again he bemoaned his lack of a sword. The enormous arachnid spun to face him, its bulky body heaving as it lurched for its struggling prey. The Cimmerian thrashed and kicked, but the clinging strands held him more securely than steel chains. Straining until veins pulsed red at his temples and blood pounded hotly in his head, Conan tore free his arms.

The spider’s mandibles snapped shut, clamping his waist in a grip that wrenched the very breath from Conan’s lungs. Gasping and kicking, he watched in horror as its hollow-pointed teeth dribbled milky yellow slime into dozens of puncture wounds. How long did he have before that venom struck him down?

No—he refused to die in the belly of this beast!

Infuriated, the Cimmerian shot out his hands, seizing a mandible in each of his mighty fists and pulling with every muscle his corded arms could bring to bear. Conan’s chest heaved, his sinews bulging like rope beneath his sweat-drenched skin.

A dull throb spread through his abdomen, numbing him as insidious poison coursed through his web-bound body. He felt the agonizing pressure of the jagged jaws, locked around his lower ribs, squeezing with force that threatened to crack his bones and crush his vitals.

The gasping Cimmerian gathered the shreds of strength that lingered in his limbs, forcing his brawny arms to work. Slowly, torturously, the pincers pulled away from his ravaged sides. With a heave that tightened his muscles into quivering knots, he jerked the poison-smeared mandibles apart, forcing them backward.

A bestial cry burst from Conan’s foam-flecked lips as he wrenched the pincers asunder, splitting the misshapen head into slime-spewing halves and ripping the jaws from its tom ruin. He shucked them at the tiling’s convulsing body.

“Crawl back to Hell!” he panted, watching sludge ooze from the spider as its legs thrashed in a macabre dance of death. Squeals and hisses issued from its tom maw like the shrieks of a devilish choir.

Staggering, Conan overbalanced and toppled to the path. With his numb, aching arms, he dragged himself toward a tree, spending the last of his power to prop himself up against its trunk.

He sank against the moss-covered bark, exhausted. He could not stop his pounding heart from pumping the spider’s virulent poisons deeper into his vitals. Moments later, Conan’s chin dropped to his heaving chest. His eyes glazed over as dusk wrapped the dense jungle in a shroud of indigo.

X

Ten Prowlers on the Path

As dawn broke, the morning sun’s rays turned the jungle’s dew-covered leaves into a glittering sea of emeralds. Jukona scarcely noticed the beauty of his surroundings; to him, the jungle was a hostile land of death, fraught with peril at every step. The elders told of a time long ago, beyond the memory of even Y’Taba’s great-grandfather... an age when the Ganaks had actually lived in the Deadlands.

Jukona had always doubted this tale. The Deadlands were said to teem with creatures so strange, so vile, that only the most evil of gods could have brought them into being. As Jukona crept more deeply into the jungle, he wondered if even the evil gods had forsaken the Deadlands.

His ancestral marks—painted with the milk of vanukla fruits—kept away most of the insects. Their warding powers seemed unaffected by the jungle. He had stepped on a well-concealed snake, and the sting of its teeth lingered in his foot. The elders told tales of long-toothed serpents whose bite brought death, but Jukona’s attacker did not have the curving fangs described in those stories. He slowed his progress to a crawl, carefully scanning the ground for other slithering creatures.

The Ganak women were better suited to tracking, but Jukona would not ask Sajara—his daughter—to enter the Deadlands. The women were hunters and watchers, at least those women unable to bear children or unwilling to join with a mate. They were not warriors. Only in ancient times, when the winged children of Ezat invaded Ganaku for food, had the women been compelled to fight.

Jukona shuddered at the thought of a Kezati horde descending onto his village. He hoped he would never see such an event come to pass. The Ganak people depended on their warriors to protect the very young and the very old. In a few years, another forty or fifty boys would reach the age of induction and set their feet upon the warrior’s path. Until then, Jukona and his seven warriors would be all that stood between the Kezati and the tribe.

Ngomba had been right about one thing: the recent attack on the Kezati had taken a severe toll. Jukona had led two hundred men in the invasion of the Stone Isle, where the winged ones nested in dark caves. Only thirty warriors survived that savage battle, rowing like the wind to meet the final wave of Kezati on the shore of bones. Thirty would not have been enough, but the gods had sent the pale-skinned stranger and his mighty weapon.

Confused by Ngomba’s speech, Jukona had left the stranger to the mercy of the gods. He should have known that Ngomba’s claim was false, that the weapon was not the atnalga, but his wisdom failed him when Ngomba seized the small warrior’s weapon. Jukona was pleased that the stranger had found the secret marks in the sand and followed them to Ganaku.

To the Deadlands.

Thickets of trees and towering leafy plants separated the Ganak village from the jungle, where the Deadlands lay brooding. Not even the hunters and watchers dared enter the dark heart of the island, which had spawned the most nightmarish legends ever told by the elders. For generations, the Deadlands had swallowed the few Ganaks who dared enter. Some of the bravest and strongest had disappeared there.

Jukona knew the way; his grandfather had told him how to find the old path. Thus far, the way had been as described. Near the edge of the village, alongside the river, grew a tree of three trunks. Starting beside the tree, he had walked directly toward the afternoon sun, counting thirty paces of three steps each. Now he could see the path.

Choked with short fronds and young trees, the way to the Deadlands revealed itself in the fading sunlight. Here, near the outer edge of the jungle, the trees did not press close as in the Deadlands. Drawing a deep breath and exhaling slowly, Jukona set his feet upon the winding way that he hoped would lead him to the stranger. His eyes scoured the leaf-littered sward for any signs of passage, even the slightest trace of a footstep.

Enormous insect clouds clustered around him, sometimes probing his flesh before the vanukla’s scent turned them away. The birds here were larger than those who dwelt near the village, and their beaks and hooked talons likened them to the Kezati.

The sight of these winged predators instinctively stirred hatred inside him. If he had brought his boat stick with him, he might have chanced a few blows at these small brothers of his enemies. Unfortunately, the boat sticks were too long and clumsy to wield in the confines of this jungle. A hunter’s spike, like those carried by the women, would have served him better. Warriors never carried the spikes, which were of no use against the long reach and diving attacks of the Kezati.