They had just caught up with the rearmost warrior when, from above, Emwaya screamed.
The scream floated across the dark lake to Seyganko's canoe. Everyone in the three leading canoes heard it, but only Seyganko heard it in his mind. He desperately sought a message in the scream.
Emwaya! What is the danger? Where are you?
No answer came. He knew that for her cry to reach him this far out in the lake, she had to be close to the shore. Also, she had to be on or close to the surface of the earth.
This gave neither knowledge nor consolation. He thrust his paddle in deep and looked behind him. Then he gave his war cry with all the breath in his body, and thrust again with his paddle.
Without magic, with nothing but their strength and their sweat, the other warriors were overtaking him. A hundred of the Ichiribu's best fighters had gone to the mainland, to defend the herds and crops. Of the rest, four hundred had taken to their canoes to challenge the Kwanyi on their own shore. Only a handful remained behind to guard the island.
As if Seyganko's war cry had been a signal, torches sparked to life in the bows of the oncoming canoes. It seemed as though a line of fire was advancing across the lake behind Seyganko.
He held his paddle aloft like a spear until the leading canoes were almost abreast of his craft. Then he tossed the paddle, caught it, and gave his war cry again. This time, the warriors gave it back to him so that it seemed to fill the night and the lake, from shore to shore. If the Kwanyi had not known what was coming, they could hardly be ignorant of it now.
Seyganko began paddling again. The brief sense of triumph left him as he realized that he had heard nothing more from Emwaya, neither with his ears nor with his mind.
Conan took the stairs two at a time, for all that they were crumbling and moss-grown. Once he nearly missed his footing and fell back. He gripped a root with one hand and caught himself in time so as not to squash Dobanpu like a grape.
The stairs ended at a man's height from the surface, but to picked Ichiribu warriors, that distance was but a child's leap; they had already reached solid ground by the time Conan joined them.
The first thing he saw was a warrior falling with a Kwanyi spear in his thigh. Conan snatched the man's shield and drew his own sword, then whirled, searching for Emwaya and Valeria.
He found them by a tree lifted half off the ground by its gnarled, twisted roots, each root thicker than the Golden Serpent. Valeria was hacking at the spears of half a dozen Kwanyi warriors, while two other warriors already had Emwaya. Had their comrades so eager to close with Valeria not blocked them, they would have by now made off with the girl.
The warriors whirled to face Conan, tangling their shields one with another in their haste. This was fatal to one warrior left unshielded. Conan brusquely slashed the man's head from his shoulders, then leaped back to give him room to fall.
The rest of the Kwanyi formed their shield-line. In the next moment, they learned that others besides themselves could master that art, and not only by the tutelage of Chabano the Great. Conan beat down one spear with his sword, hooked his shield around the edge of a second man's spear, and kicked upward. He was barefooted, but his soles were as tough as leather and the kick had all the power of his leg behind it.
The man screamed and reeled against a comrade, who fell out of position. Conan feinted at that man, forcing him to raise his shield. Then he slashed under the shield, taking the man's leg below the knee.
A spear thrust past Conan's ribs, nearly gouging his side, and he whirled again to chop the spear-shaft in two with his sword. Then he charged the man like a bull, driving the shield back against his opponent's chest until the man lowered it to see clearly. The man's last sight was of Conan's broadsword descending to split his headdress, hair, and skull.
Valeria cut down another opponent, and the last of the Kwanyi warriors took only a brief look at the odds they faced after the death of their friends before fleeing into the night. Conan swung his shield hard into the back of one man holding Emwaya and heard the spine crack. Valeria leaped on the other, jerked his head back with fingers twined in his hair, and slashed his throat.
Emwaya stood free, clasping her arms across her breasts, her eyes on the ground for a moment. Then she seemed to shrug a great weight from her shoulders.
"Father?"
Dobanpu strode up and put out a hand to touch his daughter as if not quite believing she was real. She gripped the hand and smiled.
"I am well, I think."
"Time to be sure later," Dobanpu said. He gripped his amulet with one hand and his belt pouch with the other. "The God-Men may not be what they were. I have sensed quarrels that perhaps have weakened them. But if they still command the Living Wind—"
Kwanyi war cries interrupted him. Conan threw down the shield, wiped his sword on it, and drew his dagger.
"The Living Wind can wait. Someone close at hand still commands warriors!" He pushed Emwaya into her father's arms, then called to Valeria.
"Find a path to the shore and see if we can draw back toward it. This place is worthless now. We want our backs to the water!"
Fleet-footed as ever, Valeria vanished into the night. From the jungle beyond, Kwanyi warriors came bursting through the undergrowth.
Wobeku led the warriors attacking the enemy who had sprung from the earth. Not only his honor drove him forward to that place; he knew that if the Kwanyi gained the victory with him at their head, he would have a warrior's name among them.
Had he run faster, he might have plunged among the Ichiribu before they could order their ranks. He would then have died but would have won with his life sufficient time for his comrades to strike the scattered enemy. Then not even the Cimmerian's swiftness, skill, and steel might have saved them.
Wobeku instead brought his men to the field as Chabano had taught. He put them into their proper line before he ordered the advance, and only darted out ahead of it at the last moment.
Behind him, the Kwanyi line came out of the trees somewhat disordered by encounters with the underbrush. The first volley of light spears went mostly astray. One spear even gouged Wobeku's leg. He howled out his fury at that fool in a war cry and let the Kwanyi come up with him.
A swung stone cracked against his shield. Wobeku stepped forward and ducked his head. This time, the stone-swinger looped the line around the top of
Wobeku's shield and jerked. Wobeku did not let go of the shield. Instead, he let himself be drawn forward, then leaped and lunged. The stone-swinger died with Wobeku's spear in his belly.
"Yaygo!" Wobeku cried, the ritual proclamation of a man's first kill of a battle.
The next moment, someone nearly won the right to cry that over him. The Kwanyi at his right suddenly vanished, fallen into the crack in the earth. An Ichiribu warrior darted forward in his place, locking shields with Wobeku and thrusting desperately over, under, and around.
Wobeku took two minor flesh wounds before he was able to riposte with his own spear. It gashed the Ichiribu's belly, but not mortally. The man did not flinch from the pain, either. He kept on thrusting, less skillfully with each passing moment, but with no diminished courage.
This was the kind of battle that to Wobeku showed Chabano to be a wise chief. When engaged in an each-man-for-himself fight, Wobeku had often been unable to press home for the kill. He had feared, with reason, for his flanks and rear. In the Kwanyi shield-line, his flanks were safe, even in such a small battle as this. Had there been the usual second line behind him, his back would also have been guarded.