It was as though a voice were speaking inside Conan's mind, urging him to return to his house. In the Hyborian lands, Conan had listened to the speculations of priests and philosophers. They had argued over the existence of guardian spirits and over the possibility of direct communication from mind to mind. Being convinced that they were all mad, he had not paid much attention at the time. Now, however, he thought he knew what they were talking about. He tried to dismiss the sensation as mere imagination; but it returned, stronger than ever.
At last Conan told his adjutant: “Mongo, take command until I return.”
“Whither go you, Lord Conan?” asked the black.
“To ride through the streets, to be sure no gang of rascals has gathered under cover of darkness. Keep things under control; I shall soon be back.”
Conan turned his horse and trotted out of the square. The crowd opened to let him pass. The sensation in his head was stronger than ever. He clucked his steed to an easy canter and presently drew rein in front of his dwelling. A faint nimble of thunder sounded.
The house was dark, save for a single light in the back. Conan dismounted, tied his horse, and entered, hand on hilt. At that instant he heard a frightful scream, which he recognized as the voice of Diana.
With a sulfurous oath, Conan rushed headlong into the house, tearing out his sword. The scream came from the living room, which was dark save for the stray beams of a single candle that burned in the kitchen.
At the door of the living room, Conan halted, transfixed by the scene before him. Diana cowered on a low settee strewn with leopard skins, her white limbs unveiled by the disarray of her silken shift. Her blue eyes were dilated with terror.
Hanging in the center of the room, a gray, coiling mist was taking shape and form. The seething fog had already partly condensed into a hulking, monstrous form with sloping, hairy shoulders and thick, bestial limbs. Conan glimpsed the creature's misshapen head with its bristling, piglike snout and tusked, champing jaws.
The thing had solidified out of thin air, materializing by some demonic magic. Primal legends rose in Conan's mind - whispered tales of horrid, shambling things that prowled the dark and slew with inhuman fury. For half a heartbeat his atavistic fears made him hesitate. Then, with a snarl of rage, he sprang forward to give battle - and tripped over the body of the black woman servant, who had fainted and lay just inside the doorway. Conan fell sprawling, the sword flying from his hand.
At the same instant the monster, with supernatural quickness, whirled and launched itself at Conan in a gigantic bound. As Conan fell flat, the demon passed dear over his body and fetched up against the wall of the hall outside.
The combatants were on their feet in an instant. As the monster sprang upon Conan anew, a flash of lightning outside gleamed upon its great chisel tusks. The Cimmerian thrust his left elbow up under its jaw, while he fumbled with its right hand for his dagger.
The demon's hairy arms encircled Conan's body with crushing force; a smaller man's back would have been broken. Conan heard his clothing rip as the blunt nails of its hands dug in, and a couple of links of his mail shirt snapped with sharp, metallic sounds. Although the weight of the demon was about the same as the Cimmerian's, its strength was incredible. As he strained every muscle, Conan felt his left forearm being bent slowly back, so that the snouted jaws came closer and closer to his face.
In the semi-dark, the two stamped and staggered about like partners in some grotesque dance. Conan fumbled for his dagger, while the demon brought its tusks ever nearer. Conan realized that his belt must have become awry, so that the dagger was out of reach. He felt even his titanic strength ebbing, when something cold was thrust into his groping right hand. It was the hilt of his sword, which Diana had picked up and now pressed into his grasp.
Drawing back his right arm, Conan felt with his point for a place in the body of his assailant. Then he thrust. The monster's skin seemed of unnatural toughness, but a mighty heave drove the blade home. Spasmodically champing its jaws, the creature uttered a bestial grunt.
Conan stabbed again and again, but the shaggy brute did not even seem to feel the bite of the steel. The demonic arms dragged the Cimmerian into an ever closer, bone-crushing embrace. The chisel-toothed jaws came closer and closer to his face. More links of his mail shirt parted with musical snapping sounds. Rough claws ripped his tunic and dug bloody furrows in his sweat-smeared back. A viscuous fluid from the creature's wounds, which did not feel like any normal blood, ran down the front of Conan's garments.
At length, doubling both legs and driving them into the thing's belly with every ounce of strength remaining to him, Conan tore himself free. He staggered to his feet, dripping gore.
As the demon shuffled toward him again, swinging its apelike arms for another grapple, Conan, with both hands on his hilt, swung his sword in a desperate arc. The blade bit into the monster's neck, half severing it. The mighty blow would have decapitated two or even three human foes at once, but the demon's tissues were tougher than those of mortal men.
The demon staggered back and crashed to the floor. As Conan stood panting, with dripping blade, Diana threw her arms about his neck. “I'm so glad -I prayed to Ishtar to send you—”
“There, there,” said Conan, comforting the girl with rough caresses. “I may look ready for the grave, but I can still stand—”
He broke off, eyes wide. The dead thing rose, its malformed head wobbling on its half-severed neck. It lurched to the door, tripped over the still-unconscious body of the Negro servant woman, and staggered out into the night.
“Crom and Mitra!” gasped Conan. Pushing the girl aside, he growled: “Later, later! You're a good lass, but I must follow that thing. That's the demon of the night they talk about, and by Crom, I'll find out where it comes from!”
He reeled out, to find his horse gone. A length of rein attached to the hitching ring told that the animal had broken its tether in panic at the demon's appearance.
Moments later, Conan reappeared in the square. As he rammed his way through the crowd, which had burst into a roar of excitement, he saw the monster stagger and fall in front of the tall Kordafian wizard in Tuthmes' group. In its final throes, it laid its head at the sorcerer's feet.
Screams of rage arose from the crowd, which recognized the monster as the demon that for years had terrified Meroe from time to time. Although the guardsmen still straggled to keep the space around the torture stake open, hands reached from the sides and back to pull Mum down. In the confused uproar, Conan caught a few snatches of speech: “Slay him! He is the demon's master! Kill him!”
A sudden hush fell. In the clear space, Ageera had suddenly appeared, his shaved head painted to resemble a skull. It was as if he had somehow bounded over the heads of the crowd to land in the clearing.
“Why slay the tool and not the man who wields it?” he shrieked. He pointed at Tuthmes. “There stands he whom the Kordafian served! At his command, the demon slew Amboola! My spirits have told me, in the silence of the temple of Jullah! Slay him, too!”
As more hands dragged down the screaming Tuthmes, Ageera pointed toward the platform on which sat the queen. “Slay all the lords! Cast off your bonds! Kill the masters! Be free men again and not slaves! Kill, kill, kill!”
Conan could barely keep his feet in the buffeting of the crowd, which surged this way and that, chanting: “Кill, kill, kill!” Here and there a screaming lord was brought down and torn to pieces.
Conan struggled toward his mounted guards, by means of whom he still hoped to clear the square. Then, over the heads of the mob, he saw a sight that changed his plans. A royal guardsman, standing with his back to the platform, turned about and hurled his spear straight at the queen, whom he was supposed to protect. The spear went through her glorious body as if through butter. As she slumped in her seat, a dozen more spears found their mark in her. At the fall of their ruler, the mounted guardsmen joined the rest of the tribesmen in the massacre of the ruling caste.