Conan and the Shaman's Curse (12 page)

A rustle in the trees nearby froze Jukona’s legs. He swivelled toward the source, straining to see if something lurked there. Crouching, he crept toward the sound. Despite his girth, Jukona moved with the stealth instinctive among men weaned in wild lands. He thought he heard the rustle again, but the wind gods had begun to murmur, and their breath stirred the trees. Reaching the coppice beside the path, he studied the ground. His patient sweep of the jungle floor revealed thick-bladed grasses that marked a suspicious patch.

A patch shaped like a large foot.

He searched for other signs of passage, wondering who—or what—had passed by him. The stranger’s feet had not been so large, not as he could recall. Jukona fidgeted with his lock of white hair, staring at the silent trees. A hundred tales of foul beasts, flesh-eating demons, and fierce monsters rose in his mind, and he broke into a chilling sweat. Did creatures from the Deadlands prowl this path, seeking victims?

Jukona swallowed the knot of fear in his throat and stood, throwing back his shoulders. He would not abandon the stranger. Not again. He was warrior-leader of the Ganaks, and he would face whatever trials the gods had in store for him. With muscles tensed, Jukona forged ahead, ignoring the increasing winds and the rain that had begun to fall.

When the wind gods argued among themselves, their mothers shed tears that drove away the insects and brought cool relief from the sun. Jukona welcomed the soft rain. Its waters would wash away his scent while its sounds hid his footfalls from the ears of stalking predators. In their tales of the Deadlands, the elders had spoken of monsters who struck without warning—who could tear a warrior in half before he even heard them attack.

He quickened his pace, the elders’ voices still echoing in his mind and weighing heavily upon his spirit.

Through slitted eyes, Ngomba watched Jukona. He had followed the warrior-leader through the jungle, relying on Jukona to show him the way to the Deadlands. Ngomba had nearly given himself away a few moments ago; he would not step so clumsily again. Jukona was old, but the passage of years had not dulled his hearing.

The young warrior distanced himself from the path, lowering his head. He kept one eye on Jukona and the other on the jungle, watching for the children of Damballah. The bite of the evil god’s serpents brought death. Sometimes one made its way into the village, killing a Ganak before its presence was detected. Ngomba was not as clumsy as Jukona. That old white-haired fool had blundered not too long ago, stepping onto a serpent and suffering an ankle bite for his carelessness. Jukona was fortunate that the serpent had not been a venomous child of the evil god.

Ngomba moved with powerful but stealthy strides, easily matching Jukona’s timid pace. He did not believe the wild fables of the Deadlands. The elders were full of such dreams and told them only to frighten children. Stinging serpents were the real menace here. Many times he had considered a foray into the Deadlands, but he had never found cause to risk the serpents—until now.

When he found the stranger, he would challenge him—if the stranger still lived—and make the weapon his own by right of victory. Jukona would find the body and lay the blame upon the beasts of the Deadlands. The Ganak needed the stranger’s weapon; it was their only hope against the doom that would soon come, borne on the wings of Ezat’s ravening children.

Ngomba’s people had cast him out, but he would not abandon them. He would wait for the day of redemption. On that day, he—Ngomba—would save the Ganaks from the folly of Y’Taba and Jukona. They would welcome him back. Sajara would become his mate, and he would become spirit-leader. The Ganaks would flourish under his strong leadership, and their children would not need to fear the Kezati.

Ngomba’s eyes burned with the fire of his pride as he stalked Jukona, every silent step bringing him closer to his destiny.

Conan woke up in Hell, dead from the spider’s bite. He lay in the torture pit of some nameless fiend, trussed in unyielding bonds while a thousand invisible imps jabbed at his flesh with fiery needles. He moaned in the darkness, struggling to move, but his leaden limbs refused to obey.

His eyelids lifted, and he realized the cloying blackness surrounding him was merely the jungle at night. Conan’s eyes rapidly adjusted to the sparse light from pale moonbeams, filtering through the treetops. The searing pain in his sides issued from the deep grooves dug by the spider’s vice-like jaws. Conan could barely feel his fingers and toes. His legs and arms might as well have been sticks, carved to resemble human limbs.

A few feet away lay the spider’s carcass, fouling the air with a reek as potent as a sea of festering sewage. A trail of greasy, congealed muck glistened in the faint light, spreading from its halved head to where it had crawled to die.

Nauseated by the unholy stench, the Cimmerian made a vain effort to rise. A dull ache had begun throbbing in his legs, spreading slowly to his sides. Perhaps the spider’s venom was slowly releasing its grip on his muscles. He hoped it would ebb quickly. Lying motionless against the tree, he was easy prey for anything that happened along the path.

He lay there sweating, listening to the leaves rustle in the wind. In the silence of the jungle, even his breathing seemed loud. As time passed, he managed to loosen his jaw and even crane his neck to peer at his dark surroundings. Glad to avert his eyes from the spider, he scanned the shadowy trees for any signs of movement, but the jungle seemed to be slumbering.

The moon’s light was unsettling, and he wondered if the shaman’s curse would at any moment seize him. How satisfied that old Kaklani shaman would have been, had he known that his dying spell dealt Conan a blow far worse than any sword stroke. From beyond the grave, that shaman held Conan’s mind and body in invisible chains.

As a youth Conan had endured the bonds of slavery, when the Hyrkanians had captured him. He had become the property of his cruel masters, and for too long he had suffered the agony of captivity. Of all the villainous scum Conan had known in his life, none were more despicable than slavers. They had driven him to near madness, until he had attempted an escape that no sane man would have considered. He remembered the exultation of the day when his arms had tom loose the chains of his bondage—chains that had, ironically, served as weapons to slay his captors and win his freedom.

The shaman’s spell-fetters would not break so easily. Experience, however, had taught Conan that one mage could undo the work of another. He hated the idea of seeking help from a spell caster, but for now he could see no other option.

When the paralysis ebbed from his limbs, the moon’s light had faded. Conan worked himself free of the webbing, pleasantly surprised to find that its stretchy strands had weakened. Freeing his legs, he rose. A tree lent him support until his balance returned.

Conan resumed his course, following his path. He often looked up, to see if any other spiders lurked overhead, ready to drop their insidious webs upon him. The path veered left, and Conan’s foot landed squarely on a fallen tree limb. His ankle twisted, and he fell sideways, caught off balance.

Rolling on the sward, he came face to face with a large human skull. In the shifting shadows of the jungle, its gaping mouth seemed to move, and its eye sockets stared at him, resentful of his intrusion.

Cracked bones lay in a scattered heap nearby.

Conan propped himself up on his elbows, his eyes narrowing. A waist-high pile of skeletons—Ganak, judging from their size—blocked the path.

He picked up a loose rib and examined it curiously, squinting and running his fingers along a peculiar series of deep grooves in the bone. He recognized immediately the work of the spider’s deadly mandibles. But the sheer size of the bone pile whispered to him, suggesting that no single spider could account for so many large, strong victims.

The thought made his flesh crawl. Conan did not fear any man or beast that could be slain by steel. With his bare hands, he had overcome one of these things. But weakened as he was, still foggy from the venom, he had no wish to face what could well be a score of those crawling creatures.

His ankle was sore but serviceable. He backed up, moving with a silence that would have shamed a stalking panther. Leaves about him rustled softly, freezing him in place. A bright moonbeam sliced through the dense fronds overhead, casting light upon the ghastly mound of skeletons.

Furtive movement above the mound caught Conan’s eye. Behind him, through the veil of jungle sounds, he heard a hiss. To his left, a tree limb creaked, as if bending under the strain of a great weight.

Conan flexed his knees, crouching. His only warning was a faint rush of air on a huge leaf that waved a few feet above his head.

Springing to his right, he landed on his right shoulder, rolling. Gooey strands of web clung to his left ankle, stretching until they snapped. A green, bulbous object thumped onto the path, scurrying toward him even as it landed. The bones clattered as something large dropped onto them, scattering the pile.

By the time Conan climbed to his feet, the path was alive with wriggling, hissing horrors. As if drawn by his scent, they moved ponderously toward him, their shiny eyes brimming with malice. More spiders dropped from the trees, spiny legs flexing, obscene bodies bobbing up and down as they lumbered toward their prey.

He shuddered in revulsion, standing fast to face their charge. The sight of that slavering hell-horde would have made the most stout-hearted Æsir berserker soil his own breeches. Conan had slain many monstrosities in his travels and battled beasts that crawled from Hell’s darkest crevices, but these creatures made his blood curdle like no others had. He was in no condition to take on a whole army of the things. Cursing, Conan half-ran, half-walked through the trees, their branches whipping at his naked flesh, raising welts as he plunged into the murky depths of the jungle. He loathed spiders almost as much as he loathed spell casters.

Only when he reached a tightly packed row of trees did he slow down. His pursuers’ bulk kept them from catching up; their rustling and wheezing had faded to far-off whispers. But they showed no signs of abandoning their prey. They tracked him with the relentless precision of Picts on a blood trail.

The chase had fully awakened Conan’s limbs. He ignored the hot throb in his sides, concentrating on his search for a gap in the barrier of trunks and limbs.

He heard the click of mandibles as the spiders approached him.

Conan clenched his teeth in frustration. The trees formed a wall that began curving out, forcing him back toward the path. Jammed together, the thick trunks grew so closely that he could not force himself through them.

The trees offered no refuge. These spiders had demonstrated their climbing skills, and Conan did not delude himself with false hopes of escape. Their webs would catch him, and they would drag him down, tearing his flesh, crushing his bones in their jaws.

He would not become another skeletal trophy in their ivory mound of death. Panting, growling with the fury of a cornered lion, he turned to circle around them and escape.

With his back to the wall of trees, he spent a few precious seconds choosing the direction in which he would charge. He could slay one or two of them, perhaps more if he kept beyond reach of their deadly jaws.

Uncannily, his eight-legged enemies had organized their attack with the precision of a Turanian general. The smaller, more mobile spiders scurried through the forest, flanking him. The foliage directly ahead rustled with the sounds of approaching predators.

They formed a living web. Escape was impossible.

Clenching his fists, Conan braced himself for the onslaught.

XI

Treason and Terror

Jukona paused, wiping sweat from his forehead. Nightfall had made the path difficult to follow. His progress was painfully slow, and the tense trek was wearing him down.

But the sweat on his furrowed brow came not from exertion; it rose from the sense of being watched. The denizens of the Deadlands lurked all around him. The snakes were the least bothersome, for they could be sidestepped. He had clumsily trod upon one earlier, receiving a stinging bite for his carelessness. The serpent’s teeth had sharpened his senses. Since then, he had remained vigilant. When the green, net-throwing beasts had approached, he had been prepared.

Tales told by his grandfather had warned him of their insidious tactics. To ward them off, he carried a sack of their eggs, which the beasts laid in clusters, covering their jellylike spawn with a thin, leathery shell. They seemed to value the safety of their unborn, for they would not attack one who toted an egg. Jukona did not know why such creatures would care about their spawn, but the minds of the anansi were unfathomable.

They permitted him to pass, although he could still feel their eyes on him, burning with the hatred they harboured for all warm-blooded beasts—especially the two-legged variety.

He wondered how the stranger had avoided them. Perhaps he also carried a talisman. But Jukona was concerned; he had heard a commotion farther ahead, before the moon goddess had begun her descent from the sky.

He took a few steps forward, peering down the shadowy path. He stopped to stare at a huge object, huddled on the path a few paces away.

His eyes widened and he sucked in his breath.

Before him lay the maimed carcass of a net beast.

Slain by the stranger... or by something far worse, something that might lurk ahead?

In the distance, thrashing sounds broke the night’s silence. Creatures were stirring, moving through the dense vegetation. A loud, bestial cry ripped through the jungle, startling Jukona. He recognized the sound: the cry of war, made by the stranger on the shore of bone when the Kezati attacked.

He hastened toward it, wondering what monsters beset the warrior who had fought so bravely against the Kezati. Even though the warrior was not a Ganak, Jukona would gladly die to save him.

Bolting through the brush, Jukona tripped over the outstretched foot of Ngomba. Jukona fell heavily, gasping as the wind was knocked from his lungs. Eyes flashing, the yellow-painted warrior raised his weapon to smite Jukona. He swung it with enough force to fell a tree.