Vinashko said: "If you will come with me, kozak, I will show you what no man save a Yuetshi has seen for a thousand years!"
"What's that?"
"A road of death for our enemies!"
Conan took a step, then halted. "Wait; here come the red brothers. Hear the dogs swear!"
"Send them back with the food," whispered Vinashko as half a dozen pirates swaggered out of the cleft to gape at the cavern. Conan faced them with a grand gesture.
"Lug this stuff back to the spring," he said. "I told you I should find food."
"And what of you?" demanded Ivanos.
"Don't fret about me! I have words with Vinashko. Go back to camp and gorge yourselves, may the fiends bite you!"
As the pirates' footsteps faded away down the cleft, Conan gave Vinashko a clap on the back that staggered him. "Let's go," he said.
The Yuetshi led the way up the circular stairway carved in the rock wall. Above the last tier of tombs, it ended at the tunnel's mouth. Conan found that he could stand upright in the tunnel.
"If you follow this tunnel," said Vinashko, "you will come out behind the castle of the Zaporoskan, Gleg, that . overlooks Akrim."
"What good will that do?" grunted Conan, feeling his way behind the Yuetshi.
"Yesterd?.y when the slaying began, I strove for a while against the Hyrkanian dogs. When my comrades had all been cut down I fled the valley, running up to the Gorge of Diva. I had run into the gorge when I found myself among strange warriors, who knocked me down and bound me, wishing to ask me what went on in the valley. They were sailors of the king's Vilayet squadron and called their leader Artaban.
"While they questioned me, a girl came riding like mad with the Hyrkanians after her. When she sprang from her horse and begged aid of Artaban, I recognized her as the Zamorian dancing girl who dwells in Gleg's castle. A volley of arrows scattered the Hyrkanians, and then Artaban talked with the girl, forgetting about me. For three years Gleg has held a captive. I know, because I have taken grain and sheep to the castle, to be paid in the Zaporos-kan fashion, with curses and blows. Kozak, the prisoner is Teyaspa, brother of King Yildiz!"
Conan grunted in surprise.
"The girl, Roxana, disclosed this to Artaban, and he swore to aid her in freeing the prince. As they talked, the Hyrkanians returned and halted at a distance, vengeful but cautious. Artaban hailed them and had speech with Dayuki, the new chief since Kurush Khan was slain. At last the Hyrkanian came over the wall of rocks and shared bread and salt with Artaban. And the three plotted to rescue Prince Teyaspa and put him on the throne.
"Roxana had discovered the secret way to the castle. Today, just before sunset, the Hyrkanians are to attack the castle from the front. While they thus attract the attention of the Zaporoskans, Artaban and his men are to come to the castle by a secret way. Roxana will open the door for them, and they will take the prince and flee into the hills, to recruit warriors. As they talked, night fell, and I gnawed through my cords and slipped away.
"You wish vengeance. I'll show you how to trap Arta-batt. Slay the lot—all but Teyaspa. You can either extort a mighty price from Khushia for her son, or from Yildiz for killing him, or if you prefer you can try to be kingmaker yourself."
"Show me," said Conan, eyes agleam with eagerness.
The smooth floor of the tunnel, in which three horses might have been ridden abreast, slanted downward. From time to time short flights of steps gave on to lower levels. For a while Conan could not see anything in the darkness. Then a faint glow ahead relieved it. The glow became a silvery sheen, and the sound of falling water filled the tunnel.
They stood in the mouth of the tunnel, which was masked by a sheet of water rushing over the cliff above. From the pool that foamed at the foot of the falls, a narrow stream raced away down the gorge. Vinashko pointed out a ledge that ran from the cavern mouth, skirting the pool. Conan followed him. Plunging through the thin edge of the falls, he found himself in a gorge like a knife cut through the hills. Nowhere was it more than fifty paces wide, with sheer cliffs on both sides. No vegetation grew anywhere except for a fringe along the stream. The stream meandered down the canyon floor to plunge through a narrow crack in the opposite cliff.
Conan followed Vinashko up the twisting gorge. Within three hundred paces, they lost sight of the waterfall. The floor slanted upward. Shortly the Yuetshi drew back, clutching his companion's arm. A stunted tree grew at an angle in the rock wall, and behind this Vinashko crouched, pointing.
Beyond the angle, the gorge ran on for eighty paces and ended in an impasse. On their left the cliff seemed curiously altered, and Conan stared for an instant before he realized that he was looking at a man-made wall. They were almost behind a castle built in a notch in the cliffs. Its wall rose sheer from the edge of a deep crevice. No bridge spanned this chasm, and the only apparent entrance in the wall was a heavy, iron-braced door halfway up the wall. Opposite to it, a narrow ledge ran along the opposite side of the gorge, and this had been improved so that it could be reached on foot from where they stood.
"By this path the girl Roxana escaped," said Vinashko. "This gorge runs almost parallel to the Akrim. It narrows to the west and finally comes into the valley through a narrow notch, where the stream flows through. The Za-poroskans have blocked the entrance with stones so that the path cannot be seen from the outer valley unless one knows of it. They seldom use this road and know nothing of the tunnel behind the waterfall."
Conan rubbed his shaven chin. He yearned to loot the castle himself but saw no way to come to it. "By Crom, Vinashko, I should like to look on this noted valley."
The Yuetshi glanced at Conan's bulk and shook his head. "There is a way we call the Eagle's Road, but it is not for such as you."
"Ymir! Is a skin-clad savage a better climber than a Cimmerian hillman? Lead on!"
Vinashko shrugged and led the way back down the gorge until, within sight of the waterfall, he stopped at what looked like a shallow groove corroded in the. higher cliff-wall. Looking closely, Conan saw a series of shallow handholds notched into the solid rock.
"I'd have deepened these pockmarks," grumbled Co-nan, but started up nevertheless after Vinashko, clinging to the shallow pits by toes and fingers. At last they reached the top of the ridge forming the southern side of the gorge and sat down with their feet hanging over the edge.
The gorge twisted like a snake's track beneath them. Conan looked out over the opposite and lower wall of the gorge into the valley of the Akrim.
On his right, the morning sun stood high over the glittering Sea of Vilayet; on his left rose the white-hooded peaks of the Colchians. Behind him he could see down into the tangle of gorges among which he knew his crew to be encamped.
Smoke still floated lazily up from the blackened patches that had been villages. Down the valley, on the left bank of the river, were pitched a number of tents of hide. Conan saw men swarming like ants around these tents. These were the Hyrkanians, Vinashko said, and pointed up the valley to the mouth of a narrow canyon where the Turanians were encamped. But the castle drew Co-nan's interest
It was solidly set in a notch in the cliffs between the gorge beneath them and the valley beyond. The. castle faced the valley, entirely surrounded by a massive twenty-foot wall. A ponderous gate flanked by towers pierced with slits for arrows commanded the outer slope. This slope was not too steep to be climbed or even ridden up, but afforded no cover.
"It would take a devil to storm that castle," growled Conan. "How are we to come at the king's brother in that pile of rock? Lead us to Artaban, so I can take his head back to the Zaporoska."