She stood so that once again Conan did not see the warning ripples in the stream. The second crocodile was as large as the first, but not as swift. Also, it exhaled a great, foul, hissing breath as it slid up the bank.
Valeria jumped to safety as the jaws thudded shut an arm's length from her leg. Not watching where she leaped, she landed on a slippery patch, reeled, and staggered hard against the Cimmerian. He clutched at her, drawing her backward with him.
His back came up hard against a red-barked tree. The tree shook and made a rumbling sound like a mill wheel. Instantly sensing a new danger, Conan stepped away from the tree, turning and loosing his grip on Valeria as he did so.
The next moment, the ground vanished from under his feet. He plunged into darkness, taking with him one memory and one hope. The memory was of Valeria's horror-stricken face staring after him. The hope was that she would remember the crocodile at her back rather than fret herself about him.
Geyrus, first among the God-Men—or First Speaker to the Living Wind, as he was named in ritual—shook his staff. That was not enough to ease his wrath, so he struck the rod hard upon the silver-shot rock at his feet.
The three Cobra Clan warriors cringed, as if they expected the rock to open up at Geyrus's command and swallow them. Their eyes showed only whites, and they held their shaking hands over their mouths in the ritual gesture of supplication.
They would find no mercy from Geyrus, and deserved none.
"Six slain, three taken, and one of my handmaids as well!" he roared. He could make his voice as loud as a lion's if he chose, though not as easily as he had done in his youth. Then he could have brought Cha-bano himself to his knees with mouth-magic!
"Forgive—" muttered one of the warriors.
"There is no forgiveness for such folly!" Geyrus stormed. "Folly enough in taking her on such a journey at all. Folly ten times worse in losing her to the lake-swimmers!"
He did not use the lion-voice this time. He needed to save his strength, and also, he did not wish all he said to be overheard.
Even in the very house of the Speakers to the Living Wind, there were those whose hearts lay first with Chabano of the Kwanyi. They would not hesitate to tell him any secret of the Servants if they thought it would earn them his goodwill.
"You are dead men," he said more softly. "Yet I am disposed to grant you as much mercy as you deserve. You may choose your death. Shall I give you to the Living Wind? Or shall I give you some other death, of my own choosing?"
The mere mention of the Living Wind made one warrior drop to his knees, a posture he would rather have died than have assumed before a human foe. Geyrus smiled tightly so as to reveal only those of his teeth that still shone white and perfect.
Geyrus understood the warriors' terror. The Living Wind played with those who came to it with unclouded minds, harassing them like a cat with a mouse. Madness and agony came swiftly, and lasted long enough to make death a craved release.
"So be it. You shall meet the fate of any cobra when it crawls too close to the leopard's cubs."
Geyrus did not produce a thunderclap as he completed the spell. The first sound the men heard was the growl as the spell-borne leopards scented prey. Then claws struck golden sparks from the stone as the leopards hurled themselves upon the warriors.
Geyrus had kept his promise. The leopards killed more swiftly than the Living Wind commonly did. Fangs tore out throats, claws ripped bellies, and screams of fear and agony echoed only briefly about the tunnels. The leopards were feeding lustily on the corpses as Geyrus dropped the stout net across the tunnel.
A time had been when he could have raised a barrier against the leopards entirely by magic. That time of youthful strength was gone, and would not come again. His best now was bringing the leopards when they were needed, and returning them when they slept, sated on human flesh.
Geyrus did not pray to any god who had a name among living men. Nor did he pray to the Living Wind—it was no god; that had been plain from the earliest days of its Servants.
Instead, he hoped that his not keeping the secret of Xuchotl's fall would do no harm. It was probably a vain hope, inasmuch as neither Chabano nor Dobanpu were fools. Geyrus consoled himself with the thought that if they had been, there would be no challenge, no pride for him in besting them. Both a man's first battles and his last should be against worthy foes.
But that girl—lost! She alone would earn Seyganko the slowest death any man had ever suffered, after he had watched Emwaya die just as slowly. Or would it be better to make Dobanpu's unnatural daughter watch her betrothed's death before her own?
Time to decide when he had them both in his hands. Either way would ensure the girl's obedience for the rest of his days. The First Speaker to the Living Wind would sleep in a well-warmed bed, as befitted a victor.
The disappearance of Valeria's Cimmerian companion was swift and silent. One moment, Valeria sensed him at her back; the next moment, her fine-honed battle instincts told her that he was not.
She leaped again, nearly losing her last garment. The crocodile hissed like a pot of stew overflowing into a cook fire and wriggled forward. Its jaws—as long as a child of twelve—gaped, then shut again with a clang as if made of iron instead of bone.
Valeria knew something of saltwater crocodiles, having once anchored in a river mouth where they swarmed. She had never been so far from the sea in a land where the rivers also spawned them, but she judged this beast to be much like its seafaring cousins. It would be swift in the water, slow on land, tenacious of life, and slow of wits. Doubtless it was cudgeling those wits for some new way of dealing with her, now that its first lunge had failed.
She could be long gone from the riverbank and any danger from the crocodile if she was ready to abandon Conan to whatever fate had befallen him. Or that he has fallen into, she surmised, seeing as the very earth itself seemed to have swallowed him.
This thought made her next leap cautious, and she thanked Mitra when she landed on solid ground. Then she kicked off her boots. Blisters or no, she had a better feel for any surface under her—ship's deck or jungle riverbank—when she was unshod. .
She drew dagger to match sword and studied her opponent. It was impossible for her to seek safety at the price of leaving Conan. Not impossible in the sense of against nature, as it would have been impossible for her to grow wings and fly—but against her nature and all she had lived by since before she was a woman.
She and the Cimmerian were battle-bound, as surely as by any tie of blood or by oath sworn before a score of priests of as many gods. She would return to serving in a barber's house, or even dance in taverns, before she broke such a bond as she had with Conan.
That he desired her was an annoyance, as a fly buzzing about her head might have been. But one did not strike oneself on the head with a hammer to swat such a fly!
The crocodile hissed again and lumbered forward. Valeria shifted on nimble feet so that she could watch the whole riverbank as well as her immediate foe. The one thing she dreaded most was another crocodile. The first one would most likely be off gorging itself on the sow, but where there were two of the monsters, there could be three.
She saw no sign of another reptile, but she did see a shallow depression in the ground where the leaf mold and tangled dead vines seemed to sag. If that place had swallowed Conan, perhaps it might be persuaded to swallow the crocodile.
Then the monster lunged forward with a speed that startled her. Surprise did not slow her, or make her forget that no creature's brain can be far from its eyes.