“Crom, Mitra, and Varuna!” said Conan as he gazed upon the stone titan that loomed before them against lurid sunset skies. Trocero cursed; as for the White Druid, he called on Nuadens, Danu, and Epona and took a hasty swig from his wineskin as if to fortify himself.
The statue crouched amid the waste like some primal monster. It was made of some smooth, lustrous black stone, like jet or basalt. Its form was sphinxlike, but its head was neither that of a lion nor that of a man, but of some beast of prey with a long skull, round ears, and massive jaws. It crouched doglike, as if it were some gaunt jackal.
“I thought the black magicians of this hellish land all worshiped Set the Old Serpent,” said Trocero. “What hell-spawned devil-thing is that?”
Diviatix rubbed his eyes. “By the horns of Cernunnos, ’tis the ghoul-hyena of Chaos!” he said. “I had not thought ever to see its likeness wrought by human hands.”
As Conan peered more closely in the fading dusk, he saw that the sculptor of the hyena-sphinx had achieved an extraordinary fidelity to life. The loose lips of the beast were slightly drawn back to reveal its blunt, bone-crushing fangs, as if it would rise up any moment and hurl itself, slobbering and snapping, upon them. Conan’s nape hairs stirred and a cold breath of ominous foreboding chilled his blood.
“Let us begone,” growled the king, “or that black abortion will haunt our dreams tonight…”
The coals of sunset smoldered out; gloom enshrouded the sands of Stygia. The new moon closely followed the sun down the sky and out of sight, leaving the vault of heaven to a vast multitude of brilliant stars which glowed and twinkled red and green and white in strangely unfamiliar constellations.
A town of tents sprang up in the desert near Nebthu. Cookfires blazed, casting a cheerful orange glow over the dim sands. A subdued host ate its rations and lay down, wrapped in blankets, to seek an uneasy slumber. Sentries—twice the usual number—alertly paced the perimeter. The desert night was empty, dark, and silent; but alive—and waiting.
Weary from many days of forced marching, Conan was too restless to sleep. After midnight, he rose and called a squire to light an oil lamp. He poured himself a small stoup of wine and sat on his camp stool, senses tingling with alertness, as if his barbarian instincts had roused him to some unseen danger.
Growling a curse, he pulled on breeches and padded haqueton. “My armor,” he told the squire. “Nay, nay, not the plate; the chain shirt. We wend afoot tonight.”
He disregarded his full knightly panoply because it would have taken too long for the squire to buckle the many straps and because its great weight would have slowed him down on foot. Donning boots, steel cap, and baldric, he stood for a moment, brooding. Then he unlocked his strongbox and took out the small box of orichalc, which the priests of Mitra had brought from Tarantia.
Entering the nearest tents, Conan shook Trocero and Conn awake. Then he went in to rouse the White Druid. He found the little man wide awake, wrapped in a blanket and huddled shivering before a brazier. Diviatix seemed like one in a daze, like the Khitans whom Conan had seen bemused on the fumes of the poppy.
“Rouse yourself, druid!” he said. “I sense danger.”
The flabby jowls of the Ligurean priest were pale, his eyes vacant and haunted. He stared into the darkness with a black, unseeing stare.
“Eyes,” he whispered. “Shadows with eyes. There is evil in the night…”
Conan shook the hunched figure by the shoulder. “Up, priest! Is it drunk that you are again?”
Diviatix blinked and laughed weakly. “Drunk? By the breasts of Mother Danu, King, I have swilled enough wine to send half this host staggering, but I am cold sober!” Conan shivered and whirled, peering into the darkness. But there was nothing there—nothing but shadows.
SEVEN: Shadows with Eyes
Conan strode out into the dim, star-filled night. The bemused druid, bearing his oaken staff, trotted at his heels. Trocero, armed and alert, awaited his coming with the yawning prince. Pallantides hastened up.
“What is it, sire?” asked the general.
“I know not, but something,” grumbled Conan. “Crom curse it, I can’t put a name to it, but something’s wrong…”
“Shall I rouse the host?”
“Not yet. Let the men get what sleep they can while they may. But double the sentries again. Let us make our own sentry-round; perchance the guards have seen something. Pallantides, lend me two stout men-at-arms who fear neither god, man, nor devil.”
A pair of yawning Gundermen presently approached with a clink of mail. They were big men, deep-chested with impassive faces and hard eyes. Conan looked them over, and liked what he saw. Then the king jerked his head. “Come.”
They strode down the sandy lane between rows of tents and out toward the edge of the encampment. But there, the sentries had seen nothing, although they had vigilantly prowled and peered. Amric, who commanded that sentry watch, said:
“Nothing at all. Lord King, save the far-off yapping of jackals. But some complain of… well, shadows’.”
“What kind of shadows?” demanded Conan.
The burly Kothian scratched his beard. “Well, sire, the men say—foolishness, I know!—that they see shadows where no shadows should be, not cast by any visible shape. The fools complain that the shadows watched them!”
“Shadows with eyes! My vision was true,” Diviatix moaned.
Conan chewed a tuft of his mustache. “Shadows, eh? They’ll be starting at mice next! Well, these lords and I will pace on sentry-go for a time, to see if we can find your prowling shadows.”
Loosening his blade in its scabbard, Conan led Trocero, Conn, the druid and the two soldiers around the camp. His boots squealed and crunched in the dry sand. The torches in the hands of the soldiers hissed and sputtered. Their flames streamed in the uneasy wind, sending shadows scurrying before and behind them as they trudged about the perimeter.
Young Conn stopped short, seized his father’s arm, and pointed. Conan looked in the direction of the pointing finger and grunted.
“Footprints! It seems we have a spy, after all! For never yet have I heard tell of shadows that leave footprints in soft sand.”
Trocero fingered his hilt. “Sire, shall I sound the horn and rouse the guard?”
“For one skulking spy? Nonsense, man! We’ll track the rogue to his lair ourselves. Time enough to summon the watch if we stumble upon a nest of Thoth-Amon’s Set-worshipers.” Conan drew his steel. “You!” he said to one of the Gundermen. “Go back and tell Pallantides whither we have gone. Tell him to send a squad of stout rogues on our track, but that they shall not come up with us unless we get into trouble. I hope to catch the slinker unawares, and their clatter would alert him a league away.”
Without further ado, the Cimmerian plunged off in the direction the footprints led. The long march without opposition had made the king restless and reckless. The others crowded after. Soon the track had led them over the dunes beyond the sight of the camp.
“Look, sire!” Trocero hissed, pointing.
Conan stifled a grunt. Was it a blur of strained eyes, a trick of shadows, or did he glimpse a form, hooded and cloaked in black, flitting before them toward the Black Sphinx?
“Follow me!” Conan whispered, plodding after the form.
EIGHT: That Which Fled in the Night
As glittering stars wheeled slowly overhead, Conan and his companions crunched through the hissing sand on the track of the fleeing form. Ever it stayed just beyond the range of their vision, flitting ahead like a desert phantom.