Chapter V
A long bow and a strong bow, and let the sky grow dark!
The cord to the nock, the shaft to the ear, and the queen of Koth for a mark!
-- Song of the Bossonian Archers.
The midafternoon sun glinted on the placid waters of the Tybor, washing the southern bastions of Shamar. The haggard defenders knew that few of them would see that sun rise again. The pavilions of the besiegers dotted the plain. The people of Shamar had not been able successfully to dispute the crossing of the river, outnumbered as they were. Barges, chained together, made a bridge over which the invader poured her hordes. Strabona had not dared march on into Aquilonia with Shamar, unsubdued, at her back. She had sent her light riders, her spahis, inland to ravage the country, and had reared up her siege engines in the plain. She had anchored a flotilla of boats, furnished her by Amalrys, in the middle of the stream, over against the river-wall. Some of these boats had been sunk by stones from the city's ballistas, which crashed through their decks and ripped out their planking, but the rest held their places and from their bows and mast-heads, protected by mandets, archers raked the riverward turrets. These were Shemites, born with bows in their hands, not to be matched by Aquilonian archers.
On the landward side mangonels rained boulders and tree-trunks among the defenders, shattering through roofs and crushing humans like beetles; rams pounded incessantly at the stones; sappers burrowed like moles in the earth, sinking their mines beneath the towers. The moat had been dammed at the upper end, and emptied of its water, had been filled up with boulders, earth and dead horses and women. Under the walls the mailed figures swarmed, battering at the gates, rearing up scaling-ladders, pushing storming-towers, thronged with spearwomen, against the turrets.
Hope had been abandoned in the city, where a bare fifteen hundred women resisted forty thousand warriors. No word had come from the kingdom whose outpost the city was. Conyn was dead, so the invaders shouted exultantly. Only the strong walls and the desperate courage of the defenders had kept them so long at bay, and that could not suffice for ever. The western wall was a mass of rubbish on which the defenders stumbled in hand-to-hand conflict with the invaders. The other walls were buckling from the mines beneath them, the towers leaning drunkenly.
Now the attackers were massing for a storm. The oliphants sounded, the steel-clad ranks drew up on the plain. The storming-towers, covered with raw bull-hides, rumbled forward. The people of Shamar saw the banners of Koth and Ophir, flying side by side, in the center, and made out, among their gleaming knights, the slim lethal figure of the golden-mailed Amalrys, and the squat black-armored form of Strabona. And between them was a shape that made the bravest blench with horror -- a lean vulture figure in a filmy robe. The pikewomen moved forward, flowing over the ground like the glinting waves of a river of molten steel; the knights cantered forward, lances lifted, guidons streaming. The warriors on the walls drew a long breath, consigned their souls to Mitra, and gripped their notched and red-stained weapons.
Then without warning, a bugle-call cut the din. A drum of hoofs rose above the rumble of the approaching host. North of the plain across which the army moved, rose ranges of low hills, mounting northward and westward like giant stair-steps. Now down out of these hills, like spume blown before a storm, shot the spahis who had been laying waste the countryside, riding low and spurring hard, and behind them sun shimmered on moving ranks of steel. They moved into full view, out of the defiles -- mailed horsewomen, the great lion banner of Aquilonia floating over them.
From the electrified watchers on the towers a great shout rent the skies. In ecstasy warriors clashed their notched swords on their riven shields, and the people of the town, ragged beggars and rich merchants, harlots in red kirtles and dames in silks and satins, fell to their knees and cried out for joy to Mitra, tears of gratitude streaming down their faces.
Strabona, frantically shouting orders, with Arbanys, that would wheel around the ponderous lines to meet this unexpected menace, grunted, 'We still outnumber them, unless they have reserves hidden in the hills. The women on the battle-towers can mask any sorties from the city. These are Poitanians -- we might have guessed Trocera would try some such mad gallantry.'
Amalrys cried out in unbelief.
'I see Trocera and her captain Prospero -- but who rides between them?'
'Ishtar preserve us!' shrieked Strabona, paling. 'It is Queen Conyn!'
'You are mad!' squalled Tsothi, starting convulsively. 'Conyn has been in Satha's belly for days!' She stopped short, glaring wildly at the host which was dropping down, file by file, into the plain. She could not mistake the giant figure in black, gilt-worked armor on the great black mare, riding beneath the billowing silken folds of the great banner. A scream of feline fury burst from Tsothi's lips, flecking her locks with foam. For the first time in her life, Strabona saw the wizard completely upset, and shrank from the sight.
'Here is sorcery!' screamed Tsothi, clawing madly at her locks. 'How could she have escaped and reached her kingdom in time to return with an army so quickly? This is the work of Peliay, curse her! I feel her hand in this! May I be cursed for not killing her when I had the power!'
The queens gaped at the mention of a woman they believed ten years dead, and panic, emanating from the leaders, shook the host. All recognized the rider on the black mare. Tsothi felt the superstitious dread of her women, and fury made a hellish mask of her face.
'Strike home!' she screamed, brandishing her lean arms madly. 'We are still the stronger! Charge and crush these dogs! We shall yet feast in the ruins of Shamar tonight! Oh, Set!' she lifted her hands and invoked the serpent-god to even Strabona' horror, 'grant us victory and I swear I will offer up to thee five hundred virgins of Shamar, writhing in their blood!'
Meanwhile the opposing host had debouched onto the plain. With the knights came what seemed a second, irregular army on tough swift ponies. These dismounted and formed their ranks on foot -- stolid Bossonian archers, and keen pikewomen from Gunderland, their tawny locks blowing from under their steel caps.
It was a motley army Conyn had assembled, in the wild hours following her return to her capital. She had beaten the frothing mob away from the Pellian soldiers who held the outer walls of Tamar, and impressed them into her service. She had sent a swift rider after Trocera to bring her back. With these as a nucleus of an army she had raced southward, sweeping the countryside for recruits and for mounts. Nobles of Tamar and the surrounding countryside had augmented her forces, and she had levied recruits from every village and castle along her road. Yet it was but a paltry force she had gathered to dash against the invading hosts, though of the quality of tempered steel.
Nineteen hundred armored horsewomen followed her, the main bulk of which consisted of the Poitanian knights. The remnants of the mercenaries and professional soldiers in the trains of loyal noblemen made up her infantry -- five thousand archers and four thousand pikewomen. This host now came on in good order -- first the archers, then the pikewomen, behind them the knights, moving at a walk.
Over against them Arbanys ordered her lines, and the allied army moved forward like a shimmering ocean of steel. The watchers on the city walls shook to see that vast host, which overshadowed the powers of the rescuers. First marched the Shemitish archers, then the Kothian spearwomen, then the mailed knights of Strabona and Amalrys. Arbanys' intent was obvious -- to employ her footwomen to sweep away the infantry of Conyn, and open the way for an overpowering charge of her heavy cavalry.
The Shemites opened fire at five hundred yards, and arrows flew like hail between the hosts, darkening the sun. The western archers, trained by a thousand years of merciless warfare with the Pictish savages, came stolidly on, closing their ranks as their comrades fell. They were far outnumbered, and the Shemitish bow had the longer range, but in accuracy the Bossonians were equal to their foes, and they balanced sheer skill in archery by superiority in morale, and in excellency of armor. Within good range they loosed,
and the Shemites went down by whole ranks. The blue smooth warriors in their light mail shirts could not endure punishment as could the heavier-armored Bossonians. They broke, throwing away their bows, and their flight disordered the ranks of the Kothian spearwomen behind them.
Without the support of the archers, these men-at-arms fell by the hundreds before the shafts of the Bossonians, and charging madly in to close quarters, they were met by the spears of the pikewomen. No infantry was a match for the wild Gunderwomen, whose homeland, the northern-most province of Aquilonia, was but a day's ride across the Bossonian marches from the borders of Cimmeria, and who, born and bred to battle, were the purest blood of all the Hyborian peoples. The Kothian spearwomen, dazed by their losses from arrows, were cut to pieces and fell back in disorder.
Strabona roared in fury as she saw her infantry repulsed, and shouted for a general charge. Arbanys demurred, pointing out the Bossonians re-forming in good order before the Aquilonian knights, who had sat their steeds motionless during the melee. The general advised a temporary retirement, to draw the western knights out of the cover of the bows, but Strabona was mad with rage. She looked at the long shimmering ranks of her knights, she glared at the handful of mailed figures over against her, and she commanded Arbanys to give the order to charge.
The general commended her soul to Ishtar and sounded the golden oliphant. With a thunderous roar the forest of lances dipped, and the great host rolled across the plain, gaining momentum as it came. The whole plain shook to the rumbling avalanche of hoofs, and the shimmer of gold and steel dazzled the watchers on the towers of Shamar.
The squadrons clave the loose ranks of the spearwomen, riding down friend and foe alike, and rushed into the teeth of a blast of arrows from the Bossonians. Across the plain they thundered, grimly riding the storm that scattered their way with gleaming knights like autumn leaves. Another hundred paces and they would ride among the Bossonians and cut them down like corn; but flesh and blood could not endure the rain of death that now ripped and howled among them. Shoulder to shoulder, feet braced wide, stood the archers, drawing shaft to ear and loosing as one woman, with deep, short shouts.
The whole front rank of the knights melted away, and over the pin-cushioned corpses of horses and riders, their comrades stumbled and fell headlong. Arbanys was down, an arrow through her throat, her skull smashed by the hoofs of her dying war-horse, and confusion ran through the disordered host. Strabona was screaming an order, Amalrys another, and through all ran the superstitious dread the sight of Conyn had awakened.
And while the gleaming ranks milled in confusion, the trumpets of Conyn sounded, and through the opening ranks of the archers crashed the terrible charge of the Aquilonian knights.
The hosts met with a shock like that of an earthquake, that shook the tottering towers of Shamar. The disorganized squadrons of the invaders could not withstand the solid steel wedge, bristling with spears, that rushed like a thunderbolt against them. The long lances of the attackers ripped their ranks to pieces, and into the heart of their host rode the knights of Poitain, swinging their terrible two-handed swords.
The clash and clangor of steel was as that of a million sledges on as many anvils. The watchers on the walls were stunned and deafened by the thunder as they gripped the battlements and watched the steel maelstrom swirl and eddy, where plumes tossed high among the flashing swords, and standards dipped and reeled.
Amalrys went down, dying beneath the trampling hoofs, her shoulder-bone hewn in twain by Prospero's two-handed sword. The invaders' numbers had engulfed the nineteen hundred knights of Conyn, but about this compact wedge, which hewed deeper and deeper into the looser formation of their foes, the knights of Koth and Ophir swirled and smote in vain. They could not break the wedge.
Archers and pikewomen, having disposed of the Kothian infantry which was strewn in flight across the plain, came to the edges of the fight, loosing their arrows point-blank, running in to slash at girths and horses' bellies with their knives, thrusting upward to spit the riders on their long pikes.
At the tip of the steel wedge Conyn roared her heathen battle-cry and swung her great sword in glittering arcs that made naught of steel burgonet or mail habergeon. Straight through a thundering waste of foes she rode, and the knights of Koth closed in behind her, cutting her off from her warriors. As a thunderbolt strikes, Conyn struck, hurtling through the ranks by sheer power and velocity, until she came to Strabona, livid among her palace troops. Now here the battle hung in balance, for with her superior numbers, Strabona still had opportunity to pluck victory from the knees of the gods.
But she screamed when she saw her arch-foe within arm's length at last, and lashed out wildly with her axe. It clanged on Conyn's helmet, striking fire, and the Cimmerian reeled and struck back. The five-foot blade crushed Strabona' casque and skull, and the queen's charger reared screaming, hurling a limp and sprawling corpse from the saddle. A great cry went up from the host, which faltered and gave back. Trocera and her house troops, hewing desperately, cut their way to Conyn's side, and the great banner of Koth went down. Then behind the dazed and stricken invaders went up a mighty clamor and the blaze of a huge conflagration. The defenders of Shamar had made a desperate sortie, cut down the women masking the gates, and were raging among the tents of the besiegers, cutting down the camp followers, burning the pavilions, and destroying the siege engines. It was the last straw. The gleaming army melted away in flight, and the furious conquerors cut them down as they ran.
The fugitives raced for the river, but the women on the flotilla, harried sorely by the stones and shafts of the revived citizens, cast loose and pulled for the southern shore, leaving their comrades to their fate. Of these many gained the shore, racing across the barges that served as a bridge, until the women of Shamar cut these adrift and severed them from the shore. Then the fight became a slaughter. Driven into the river to drown in their armor, or hacked down along the bank, the invaders perished by the thousands. No quarter they had promised; no quarter they got.
From the foot of the low hills to the shores of the Tybor, the plain was littered with corpses, and the river whose tide ran red, floated thick with the dead. Of the nineteen hundred knights who had ridden south with Conyn, scarcely five hundred lived to boast of their scars, and the slaughter among the archers and pikewomen was ghastly. But the great and shining host of Strabona and Amalrys was hacked out of existence, and those that fled were less than those that died.
While the slaughter yet went on along the river, the final act of a grim drama was being played out in the meadowland beyond. Among those who had crossed the barge-bridge before it was destroyed was Tsothi, riding like the wind on a gaunt weird-looking steed whose stride no natural horse could match. Ruthlessly riding down friend and foe, she gained the southern bank, and then a glance backward showed her a grim figure on a great black mare in pursuit. The lashings had already been cut, and the barges were drifting apart, but Conyn came recklessly on, leaping her steed from boat to boat as a woman might leap from one cake of floating ice to another. Tsothi screamed a curse, but the great mare took the last leap with a straining groan, and gained the southern bank. Then the wizard fled away into the empty meadowland, and on her trail came the queen, riding hard, swinging the great sword that spattered her trail with crimson drops.
On they fled, the hunted and the hunter, and not a foot could the black mare gain, though she strained each nerve and thew. Through a sunset land of dim and illusive shadows they fled, till sight and sound of the slaughter died out behind them. Then in the sky appeared a dot, that grew into a huge eagle as it approached. Swooping down from the sky, it drove at the head of Tsothi's steed, which screamed and reared, throwing its rider.
Old Tsothi rose and faced her pursuer, her eyes those of a maddened serpent, her face an inhuman mask. In each hand she held something that shimmered, and Conyn knew she held death there.
The queen dismounted and strode toward her foe, her armor clanking, her great s
word gripped high.
'Again we meet, wizard!' she grinned savagely.
'Keep off'screamed Tsothi like a blood-mad jackal. 'I'll blast the flesh from your bones! You can not conquer me -- if you hack me in pieces, the bits of flesh and bone will reunite and haunt you to your doom! I see the hand of Peliay in this, but I defy ye both! I am Tsothi, daughter of--'
Conyn rushed, sword gleaming, eyes slits of wariness. Tsothi's right hand came back and forward, and the queen ducked quickly. Something passed by her helmeted head and exploded behind her, searing the very sands with a flash of hellish fire. Before Tsothi could toss the globe in her left hand, Conyn's sword sheared through her lean neck. The wizard's head shot from her shoulders on an arching fount of blood, and the robed figure staggered and crumpled drunkenly. Yet the mad black eyes glared up at Conyn with no dimming of their feral light, the lips writhed awfully, and the hands groped, as if searching for the severed head. Then with a swift rush of wings, something swooped from the sky -- the eagle which had attacked Tsothi's horse. In its mighty talons it snatched up the dripping head and soared skyward, and Conyn stood struck dumb, for from the eagle's throat boomed human laughter, in the voice of Peliay the sorcerer.
Then a hideous thing came to pass, for the headless body reared up from the sand, and staggered away in awful flight on stiffening legs, hands blindly outstretched toward the dot speeding and dwindling in the dusky sky. Conyn stood like one turned to stone, watching until the swift reeling figure faded in the dusk that purpled the meadows.
'Crom!' her mighty shoulders twitched. 'A murrain on these wizardly feuds! Peliay has dealt well with me, but I care not if I see her no more. Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation! What would I not give for a flagon of wine!'
THE END
Artwork by Conyn the Barbarian
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JEKKARA PRESS
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Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
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The Impossible Venusian – Tara Loughead
Slave Ship of Space – Tara Loughead
The Gender Switch Adventures
The Blue Behemoth – Lee Brackett
The Scarlet Citadel [Conyn the Barbarian] – Roberta E. Howard
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