Conan the Barbarian: The Complete Collection

Up on the ledge the white horse stood with drooping head. The old woman looked at it, and then at the raven; and then she lifted a strange weird cry as she had before. As if recognizing the call, the raven wheeled, suddenly mute, and raced eastward. But before it had got out of sight, the shadow of mighty wings fell across it. An eagle soared up from the tangle of trees, and rising above it, swooped and struck the black messenger to the earth. The strident voice of betrayal was stilled for ever.

“Crom!” muttered Conan, staring at the old woman. “Are you a magician, too?”

“I am Zelata,” she said. “The people of the valleys call me a witch. Was that child of the night guiding armed men on your trail?”

“Aye.” She did not seem to think the answer fantastic. “They cannot be far behind me.”

“Lead your horse and follow me, King Conan,” she said briefly.

Without comment he mounted the rocks and brought his horse down to the glade by a circuitous path. As he came he saw the eagle reappear, dropping lazily down from the sky, and rest an instant on Zelata’s shoulder, spreading its great wings lightly so as not to crush her with its weight.

Without a word she led the way, the great wolf trotting at her side, the eagle soaring above her. Through deep thickets and along tortuous ledges poised over deep ravines she led him, and finally along a narrow precipice-edged path to a curious dwelling of stone, half hut, half cavern, beneath a cliff hidden among the gorges and crags. The eagle flew to the pinnacle of this cliff, and perched there like a motionless sentinel.

Still silent, Zelata stabled the horse in a near-by cave, with leaves and grass piled high for provender, and a tiny spring bubbling in the dim recesses.

In the hut she seated the king on a rude, hide-covered bench, and she herself sat upon a low stool before the tiny fireplace, while she made a fire of tamarisk chunks and prepared a frugal meal. The great wolf drowsed beside her, facing the fire, his huge head sunk on his paws, his ears twitching in his dreams.

“You do not fear to sit in the hut of a witch?” she asked, breaking her silence at last.

An impatient shrug of his gray-mailed shoulders was her guest’s only reply. She gave into his hands a wooden dish heaped with dried fruits, cheese and barley bread, and a great pot of the heady upland beer, brewed from barley grown in the high valleys.

“I have found the brooding silence of the glens more pleasing than the babble of city streets,” she said. “The children of the wild are kinder than the children of men.” Her hand briefly stroked the ruff of the sleeping wolf. “My children were afar from me today, or I had not needed your sword, my king. They were coming at my call.”

“What grudge had those Nemedian dogs against you?” Conan demanded.

“Skulkers from the invading army straggle all over the countryside, from the frontier to Tarantia,” she answered. “The foolish villagers in the valleys told them that I had a store of gold hidden away, so as to divert their attentions from their villages. They demanded treasure from me, and my answers angered them. But neither skulkers nor the men who pursue you, nor any raven will find you here.”

He shook his head, eating ravenously.

“I’m for Tarantia.”

She shook her head.

“You thrust your head into the dragon’s jaws. Best seek refuge abroad. The heart is gone from your kingdom.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Battles have been lost before, yet wars won. A kingdom is not lost by a single defeat.”

“And you will go to Tarantia?”

“Aye. Prospero will be holding it against Amalric.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hell’s devils, woman!” he exclaimed wrathfully. “What else?”

She shook her head. “I feel that it is otherwise. Let us see. Not lightly is the veil rent; yet I will rend it a little, and show you your capital city.”

Conan did not see what she cast upon the fire, but the wolf whimpered in his dreams, and a green smoke gathered and billowed up into the hut. And as he watched, the walls and ceiling of the hut seemed to widen, to grow remote and vanish, merging with infinite immensities; the smoke rolled about him, blotting out everything. And in it forms moved and faded, and stood out in startling clarity.