Conan Of The Isles

He slowed his pace and went forward cautiously and silently. His keen eyes searched the dark mouths of the caverns about him for hidden agents of the Antillian priesthood, but he saw no sign of men. Nevertheless, his wilderness-trained senses told him that the pressure of an unseen gaze rested upon him. He wondered if the Antillian priesthood possessed crystal globes of magical powers, which they had inherited from their Atlantean forebears and the like of which he had seen in the Hyborian lands, whereby an initiate magician could observe events taking place afar. Were the cold eyes of an Antillian watching his every move, right now?

He froze and held his breath, listening. Far behind him sounded a metallic clang, as of a gate opening. Had he imagined it?

Now sounds grew behind him. Sweat started from his skin, for the sound was a muffled squeaking, pattering, and rustling. It was as if the unseen watcher had loosed behind him a horde of small but formidable animals, to hunt him through the cavern world and pull him down with thousands of claws and teeth.

Now the sounds grew louder and clearer. Conan muttered the name of Crom, half a curse and half a prayer. Now he believed, that, in truth, those tunnels had been barred by unseen grills, and that some watchful guard had perceived his stealthy approach and loosed the slithering horde to overwhelm him.

Conan swung his lantern to illumine the main tunnel behind him. The light was reflected redly from hundreds of pairs of small eyes close to the ground. As the living flood of pursuers came into the stronger light, Conan almost dropped his lantern in astonishment. The pursuers were rats - but what rats!

Conan had become familiar over the years with the little gray rat of the Hyborian lands, and the agile black rat of Vendhya, and the burly brown rat of Hyrkania. But these animals overtopped the rats of his world as normal rats overtopped mice. They were as big as large cats or small dogs, weighing several pounds apiece. They were not only huge, but gaunt as if half starved. Their white chisel-teeth snapped on empty air, hungry for his blood and flesh.

Conan whirled and ran, his thudding boots keeping time with his laboring pulse. Against such a bloodthirsty horde, his sword could do little; the greatest fighting man of his age would have gone down in seconds under the tide of squealing, snapping rodents.

So Conan ran as he had never run in all his life - even on that unforgotten day and night nearly fifty years before, when he had escaped from the Hyperborean slave pen, after battling his way to freedom with a length of broken chain, and had fled through rain and snow with a pack of famished wolves at his heels.

Now the breath seared his lungs with every gulp of air, as if he inhaled the breath of a furnace. His heart pounded against his ribs. His laboring legs seemed weighted with lead; his muscles ached as if devils were piercing them with fiery needles. But still he reeled and staggered on. The wind of his motion bent back the little flame of the lamp until it was in danger of being blown out altogether.

Behind him the rats scuttled and bounded and galloped, keeping pace with him. From time to time one of the foremost would jostle or tread upon another, and there would be a brief exchange of squeals and bites. But the rest of the horde flowed on, little delayed by these brief eddies in its course.

Then Conan's eyes caught a faint glimmer ahead; and the murmur of running water told him that he neared a river. As he approached, he saw that it was a rushing torrent of black water. For an instant he hoped that it would prove narrow enough to leap and thus form a barrier between himself and the pursuing horde. But then he saw that, at least right here, it was over twenty feet wide - too great a distance for him to leap. Long ago in his lusty youth, if not exhausted by running and not burdened by weapons and armor, he could easily have made such a jump. But now . ..

With widespread legs, Conan faced the furry onslaught. His chest heaved and his panting lungs drew in the cold, dank air, now fetid with the stench of the horde of rats. The headlong race through the black caverns had set his heart to pounding furiously and the blood to coursing madly through his veins. While the blood still roared in his ears, he drew his broadsword for one last, great fight. For nothing that lived could survive close combat with this horde of blood-mad, rustling rodents. All his life, Conan had only asked for a fighting chance, and now he did not have even that. But, if he had only moments left to live, he would live those moments to the full and go down fighting. For all his years, he was still in splendid condition and could have broken the backs of men half his age. And if no mortal eye should witness the last stand of Conan the Cimmerian, at least the gods would relish the spectacle - if indeed the gods looked down upon men and watched over them, as those lying priests maintained.