He hoped he was not overestimating the prowess of the Maidens in a real battle against a plainly formidable foe. He did not want to simply throw their lives away; the Lady would not thank him for that (and how wonderful it was, to think that she would be so concerned).
But he would disdain no help and no allies, as this night Muhbaras needed all of both that the gods would send him!
The rosy crimson hue was brighter and also melting into the blue so that the sky was turning an eye-searing shade of purple.
"It looks like a gigantic bed of violets, diseased and then set aflame," Bethina murmured. Or was it Omyela? The two women were talking again across the hillside, and Conan would have given a chest of silver to learn what they were saying that did not reach bodily ears.
Farad pretended to spew. Bethina grinned. "Men are so delicate of stomach. It is as well that women bear the babes. Men would die of the morning sickness even before the babe reached its term."
Farad stared. "You are not—"
"Plagues take you," Bethina said. "No. You need not fear for the blood of any sons you may see from me."
"I would not quarrel with any son of the Cimmerian's blood," Farad said, musingly. "Of course, I would still have to kill Conan before I could raise the lad with a clear conscience—ekkkhh!" he broke off, as Bethina kicked him smartly in the shin.
Then the young woman stiffened, and when she spoke, her voice had Omyela's gravity and even some of its cracked quality.
"You must go up to the gate to the valley. Follow the men you defeated. They will lead you. They will not be your enemies, for what is unleashed within the valley is the enemy to all."
Farad looked at the Cimmerian. "A child of five could understand that. But he'd be too young to be frightened witless!"
"What, an Afghuli fearful? A warrior of the folk who use sharp stones—"
"Cimmerian, I may kill you after this even if my sons are all of my own getting. Or will you save your breath for climbing?"
Ermik came upon the Lady of the Mists quite suddenly. He had no warning and she showed no sign of hearing or seeing him.
Indeed, it was unlikely that she could sense anything in the normal world. She was clad for casting a spell, her staff was glowing with a light that seemed black, if such a thing could be, and her eyes glowed golden.
Very lovely, she was, too, for all that she was frightening. Ermik no longer wondered at Muhbaras's desire for her, and rather regretted that he would have to put an end to the Lady without amusing himself with that beauty as well.
However, a wise man struck quickly when dealing with a witch. Ermik strode forward, tossed the dagger with the chaos stone in the hilt, caught it by the point, and threw it. He threw it directly at the Lady, so that if the chaos stone did not do its work, it still might do enough physical harm to break the Lady's concentration.
There are moments in the creation of even the most potent spell by the most adept sorcerer, when a child sneezing at the wrong moment can bring everything to ruin. The chaos stone was not worth a tenth of what Ermik had paid for it, but it was more potent than that child's sneeze, and it entered the sphere of the Lady's spell at the worst possible moment.
The point of the dagger also entered the Lady's flesh, and drove through to a lung. The combination of chaos, broken concentration, and pain snapped her control over the death-elemental. It raved and shrieked in her mind, clutching at her with incorporeal tendrils that produced still more very corporeal pain.
The Lady died in agony of both mind and body. As she died, the death-elemental leaped free of all control. In the moments before its leap, its aura had stunned Ermik, and he lay so completely senseless that a death-elemental in haste could have mistaken him for one already dead.
This one was in haste, to flee the area where the Lady's magic lingered and had much the same effect on it as a smoke-filled room on a human being with delicate lungs. As it fled it screamed in triumph, and this scream reached human ears already half-deaf with the terror of the Mist.
Where panic had not reigned in the valley, it reigned now.
Seventeen
It went much against Conan's instinctive suspicion of sorcery for him to climb the slope, let alone urge his men on. But there was no other road to the secret of the Valley of the Mists, and for the moment that road lay undefended.
The Cimmerian still did not lead a wild, scrambling rush up the mountain. Those wounded who were coming along had time to bind their wounds. Every surviving archer also collected as many arrows as he could from the quivers of the fallen, both friend and foe.
Conan himself stepped aside to speak with the prisoner, who gave his name as Bamshir.
"If I leave you unbound, will you come with us as a guide?"
Bamshir looked ready to spit on the ground, or perhaps in Conan's face. Then he shrugged.
"My life is forfeit anyhow."
"Not certainly. Besides, your men may need you to lead them, and we need all the help we can find against what is loose in the valley. If that is not the greatest enemy now, may I be gelded!"
Bamshir frowned. "You may well be right."
"I am right. And you've been living cheek by jowl with the Lady's wizardry long enough to know that without my telling you!"
After that Bamshir acceded, and Conan was even willing to give him back his eating knife. But he kept the prisoner-guide away from Bethina. Indeed, the man showed no easy mind about approaching the young woman, and made a gesture of aversion when he thought Conan was not looking.
Bethina seemed to be in a trance, and it was a miracle that she could put one foot in front of another in the darkness over this ground without falling. But her body seemed to work now without the guidance of a mind altogether bound up with Omyela's.
She would not be stabbing anyone until the battle of spellcasting was over; that was plain to see. Fortunately Farad could see that for himself, and what anyone could do to guard the woman, he would do.
Muhbaras's men reached the gate to the valley gasping and winded, but in fair order. He thought some might have fled, but of those who had remained with him, all still bore their weapons. As well, seeing that their fighting was more likely to be against hu-man foes—or humans so maddened by fear that they could not tell friend from foe.
The gate opened swiftly, cranked by two menservants with the beardless faces of eunuchs and stark terror written all over those faces. A Maiden stood by them, keeping them at their posts as she remained at hers, although her own face told of fear commanded by brute force of will.
Muhbaras did not blame any of the three. He was here for his Lady, his men, and his honor—in that order. Khoraja was but a name that would have had no power to prevent his flight but for the other three bonds that had brought him here in this dire hour.
The men filed in through the gate behind Muhbaras. Some called bawdy greetings to the Maiden, or stared around these once-forbidden precincts.
All lightness of heart vanished, however, as they marched down the path and saw the far end of the cleft in the rock. There the passage from the gate gave on the valley itself, and there purple light blazed like the forge of some mad blacksmith of the gods.
Purple light, and worse. Muhbaras saw (or at least thought he saw, and would ask no other for their opinion) patches of sky where a blackness that was not the night seemed to eat the light.
He could hope that this was the magic by which the Lady sought to subdue her own creation. Hope, perhaps pray, but no more.
"Pair off," he shouted. "Stay together, and don't let anyone get between you and your mate! Any Maidens who come up, if they're armed, have them pair off and fall into line with us. Anyone armed who is not a Maiden, disarm them."