The sun was a gigantic orange disk as it slipped to the western horizon; and the houses of Elymia stood black and sinister against its fiery glow. The rebels glanced about them with a touch of apprehension; for still there was no sign of human habitation in the squalid street or behind the shuttered doorways. “Perhaps,” suggested Gyrto, “the people heard of two approaching armies and fled, fearing to be caught betwixt hammer and anvil.”
Conan shrugged, loosening his sword in its scabbard. On each side of the roadway rose low cottages, their roofs thick-thatched. The front of one house was open, with a counter set before it. A painted mug above the humble door proclaimed it the village ale shop, the town being too small to boast an inn. Down the short street a barnlike building thrust itself back from the road. Scattered iron bars, a pincers, and a brazier proved it a smithy; but no clang of metal issued from it. Something—he knew not what—raised the hairs on Conan’s nape.
Conan twisted in the saddle to look back, as the last of his double column trotted into the deserted street The pairs of horses pressed close against the walls of crowding houses, so meager was the way.
"A mean place for an attack,” said Conan. “Signal the men to hurry through.”
Gyrto waved an order to his trumpeter, when another trumpet blared, close at hand. Instantly the doors of all the cottages burst open, and royalist soldiers boiled out, rending the dusk hideous with battle cries. They struck at Conan's troop from either side, their swords and pikes thirsty for blood.
Ahead three ranks of pikemen sprang into position, blocking the road with a wall of pointed steel. Slowly they moved forward, with battle lust in their eyes and spearheads glowing a dull crimson in the rays of the setting sun.
"Crom and Ishtar!” yelled Conan, sweeping out his sword, “we’re in Death’s pocket! Gyrto, turn the men around!”
The din of battle rose—the shouts of angry men, the neighs of plunging steeds, the grind of steel on steel, the clash of swords on riven shields, and the dull thud of fallen bodies. Attacked from three sides by superior numbers, Conan’s troopers were at a disadvantage. The confined space prevented them from bunching into a compact formation or working up speed for a charge. A lance in the hand of a charging horseman is more formidable than in the hand of that same horseman forced to halt.
The rebel troopers, spurred by fear and fmy, set their lances and jabbed at their assailants. Some dropped their lances and, drawing swords, slashed downward at their attackers, raining well-aimed blows. Men swore loud oaths to their assorted gods. Injured horses reared and screamed like fiends in hell. One, disemboweled, fell kicking, pinning its rider; and the royalists swarmed upon the man, slashing and battering, until he lay iucamadined with gore.
Another rider, caught by an upflung spearhead, was lofted out of his saddle and tossed beneath the steel-shod hooves of a plunging steed. Still another was unhorsed, but he set his back to the wall of a house and stood off his attackers with the darting tongue of his sweeping blade.
Some of Count Ulric's soldiers went down beneath the rebels’ lancepoints and swinging swords. Blood laid the dust on the earthern road, as wounded men shrieked in agony, the death rattle in their throats.
Roaring like a lion, Conan beat his way back along the column, squeezing between his milling men and the enclosing walls. His great sword swung upward and descended; with nearly every blow, a royalist crumpled or fell dead. Thrice his down-directed cuts sheared arms from shoulders, and thrice blood spilled bubbling from the ghastly wounds. As Conan hewed, he shouted lustily.
“Out! Out! To the rear, march! Out of the village! Rally on the road!"
Powerful as was his voice, his words were drowned in a torrent of cacophony. But little by little his men wrenched their horses’ heads around and pushed southward. Behind Conan, Captain Gyrto and two veteran lancers fought a desperate rear-guard action against the massed pikemen who pressed forward behind their bristling steel. Lances at the ready, they spurred their terror-stricken beasts against the wall of steel; but as one spearman fell, another leaped in to take his place. And so, despite their grim intent to win or die, they could not overwhelm the relentless surge of steel-clad men. And there one lancer died.
Conan's steed stumbled over a supine body. He jerked up on the bridle to prevent the animal’s inadvertent fall. He swung a back-hand blow at a royalist swordsman, who caught the vicious stroke on his shield; but the sheer force of the blow hurled the soldier to his knees in a battered doorway, and kneeling, he cradled a broken arm, tears streaming down his face.
Finally, Conan glimpsed the last remnant of his troopers fighting free of their attackers and galloping up the slope beyond the scene of the debacle. Between him and the retreating men, the narrow street was filled with royalists afoot, slipping on the bloodstained entrails of men and horses, swaying with fatigue, but like human bloodhounds, smelling out their prey, coming closer, ever closer to the three horsemen caught in the cruel jaws of the clever trap. Glancing to the right, Conan perceived between two cottages a narrow alley, a mere footpath among the weeds.
“Gyrto!” bellowed Conan. “This way! Follow me!"
Abruptly turning his horse into that meager alley, Conan paused only long enough to make sure the others followed closely. The lengthening shadows of a cottage enshrouded the fleeing men in darkness, and for a moment there was no yapping at their heels.
In the momentary respite, Conan reined in his exhausted mount and allowed the beast to pick its way among the crumpled vegetation. Suddenly, despite the gloaming, he descried a pigsty, its entrance barred by a battered panel, rope-bound to the adjacent fencing. With his bloodstained blade he severed the heavy rope, and the crude door swung open.
Gyrto and his companion stood aghast, wondering whether the heat of battle or a heavy blow had unseated their leaders reason. Then with an upraised finger pointing forward, Conan spurred his horse and, followed closely by his loyal troopers, sped down the narrow passageway.
A wave of racing royalist foot soldiers, interspersed with mounted men-at-arms, swirled round the comer of the cottage and crested in the slender channel of the alley.
Gyrto yelled to Conan: “Ride, man, ride! They’re hot upon our trail.”
Conan bent low above his horse’s neck, face buried in the creature’s flowing mane. And then, at the alley’s end, a tall fence, scarce visible in the gathering gloom, barred the way to safety.
Conan’s horse, gathering its mighty haunches, rose magnificently and cleared the obstruction, with Gyrto’s partner Sardus close upon its flying tail. But Gyrto was less lucky. His animal, too weary to take the jump, slammed into the barrier, and screamed with the agony of a broken neck.
Gyrto, thrown clear, leaped to his feet and drew his sword, prepared to sell his life dearly. Suddenly, the pursuing riders drew rein and swore at their rearing, dancing mounts, which in their panic pressed swordsmen against the cottage walls or struck them wicked blows from flailing hooves.
Gyrto marvelled at the hiatus in his almost sure destruction. “Magic again?” he muttered between clenched teeth.
Then he spied the cause of his salvation. A sow and twenty piglets had ambled from their pen and, coated with evil-smelling muck, ran squealing through the weeds, rooting for edibles.
He heard Conan calclass="underline" “Climb the fence, man, quickly!” And, hesitating no longer, he flung himself at the rough barricade, dragged himself up, and scrambled over, just as the royalists reached the other side.
“Catch my stirrup!” roared Conan. “Don’t try to mount!”
Gyrto seized Conan’s stirrup strap and bounded along with giant strides as the spurred beast gathered speed. At an easy canter they crossed the darkling fields, leaving the royalists behind.