On the summit of the highest hill on the island, Conan stood on one side of the dance-drum, contemplating Aondo standing on the other side.

Both wore no more than loinguards, leather braces on their ankles and wrists, and looks of grim determination.

At least Aondo had donned such a look. Conan had merely allowed his face to a.s.sume its natural expression, which others had told him was grim enough for any occasion.

"You look ready to challenge the G.o.ds themselves if they give you half an excuse," a woman had told him some years ago in a distant land. She had intended it as praise, being one who doubted the G.o.ds' very existence.

Conan's own beliefs did not go that far. He merely doubted everything the priests said about the G.o.ds, and waited for the G.o.ds to speak for themselves. As they had so far remained silent, he felt he had good cause to rely on his own skill and strength.

He took on a more lighthearted expression and studied Aondo. The man's wits were nothing to boast of, but his look of being as slow as a mired ox was deceptive. Conan had seen too much of Aondo's swiftness in their previous contests. Also, Aondo knew the art of the drum-dance from boyhood, while Conan's life-and now Valeria's, curse the woman!- hung upon the Cimmerian's learning it within a few moments.

There was nothing more to learn about Aondo. Conan turned his attention to the drum itself.

It was a monstrous creation, a rough circle a good twenty paces across.

The drum-frame was made of timber stout enough for building a war galley or the roof of a temple. In the torchlight, the drumhead had the russet hue of well-tanned oxhide, but a sheen as of tiny scales hinted of some other origin. Knowing how many strange beasts this part of the jungle seemed to harbor, the Cimmerian refused to let this unsettle him. If the drumhead would support his weight until he had won life and freedom for himself and Valeria, he did not much care if it was made of the hide of creatures from the moon!

From behind the circle of onlookers, Dobanpu and Seyganko stepped forward. Conan though he saw Emwaya and Valeria somewhere in the circle, but the crowd was too thick for him to be certain. It seemed that everyone who could walk or be carried had contrived to be here tonight, from babes in arms to venerable grandsires.

The wind gusted, and the torches flared, their smoke coiling serpentlike about Conan. He smelled exotic resins and herbs, like nothing he had encountered in the Black Kingdoms. The tribes of the Lake of Death, he would wager, were apart even from their kinsfolk nearer the coast.

Time to learn more about them when he had won. He raised his arms and clasped his hands over his head in the signal that he was ready. Aondo did the same.

From somewhere beyond the circle of torchlight, a drumming began. It was not that of one of the great talking drums, this one-it might have been a child tapping away. But it was the ritual signal for the dancers to take their place.

Conan found the notched timber that served for a ladder, but disdained it. Instead, he gripped the edge of the drum, flexed at the knees, and soared onto the drumhead in a single leap.

The drum boomed like all the drums of all the war galleys in all the fleets of the world sounding the stroke at once. It seemed to Conan that the flames of the torches themselves froze for a moment. Certainly he could read surprise on every face... including Aondo's.

The Ichiribu champion at least had the wits not to attempt Conan's feat. He climbed by way of his notched log, and only then leaped into the center of the drum.

Once more the thunderous booming rolled out across the hilltop until it was lost in the darkness over the lake. Conan rode the drumhead by again flexing his knees, for now the art seemed no more difficult than balancing oneself on a ship's deck, easier than standing on the back of a horse. He did not expect it to remain that easy.

Wobeku watched with a sober eye as the two dancers began the serious work of the night. He doubted that Aondo's greater experience would outweigh his natural arrogance. Nothing could keep him from underestimating his opponent-and against this Conan, that would be folly.

So much the better. The more Aondo owed to Wobeku, the more pliant a tool in the hands of Chabano's spy the warrior would be. The more tales Wobeku could bear to the Kwanyi chief, the higher his place when the other tribe at last ruled the lands about the Lake of Death.

Wobeku patted the pouch at his belt. It seemed the common warrior's pouch, which might contain a spoon and eating gourd, a bone needle and sinew for mending garments, or a few strips of sun-dried meat and salted fish.

It contained all of these things, to deceive the casual searcher. Below them, it also held the two lengths of a short blowgun and a fish-skin pouch of darts for it.

The blowgun was not the man-tall weapon of the tribes of the forests to the south. Its range was less than half that of a good spear-throw. But it would not need range tonight, when its victim suspected nothing.

Nor would it need to do more than pierce her bare skin for the poison to do its work. The art of keeping cobra venom potent in the air was known only to the G.o.d-Men, and the darts were part of their gifts to Chabano. A small part, considering that Wobeku had only three darts.

Was the spell for preserving the venom so difficult to bring about, or were the G.o.d-Men merely being closefisted with their magic as was their custom? Yet when one dart would do the work, three should be ample. The prey would suspect nothing, and cobras were not so rare on the island that anyone would suspect more than ill fortune, until it was too late.

Too late for both Wobeku's prey and her bond-mate on the dance-drum.

The breeze now held a chill hint of yet more rain. Conan was sweating in spite of this. So was Aondo, and the sweat of both men was pouring onto the already-smooth drumhead, causing their footing to be even less certain.

More than Aondo's sweat was making the Cimmerian fight to remain on his feet. At unpredictable intervals, the Ichiribu warrior would fling himself down on his knees, or even on his belly, then slap the drumhead with both ma.s.sive hands to begin his rise. These gestures gave the drumhead whole new kinds of movement, also unpredictable.

Conan himself foreswore such tricks. He learned swiftly that no movement of the drumhead put him in much danger of losing his footing...

as long as he was prepared for it, at least, which meant feet well spread and legs ready to be either loose or rigid, as the drumhead demanded.

The drum-dance was unlike anything the Cimmerian had done before. But it called on skills that he had honed for a good few years, until they were as keen as the edge of his broadsword. From the yarn of these skills, he could weave victory.

Or at least he could avoid defeat. With his fine tricks, Aondo was wasting strength that Conan was saving. Yet the warrior seemed no slower or weaker than he had at the beginning of the duel. What, Conan wondered, would be the judgment of the Ichiribu if the drum-dance ended with both men still on the drum, unable to move a finger?

He laughed, and laughed again when he saw that this made Aondo frown.

No doubt the man was cudgeling his wits to guess what trick the Cimmerian might be preparing. Conan laughed a third time, at Aondo's folly. The man would only take his attention from his opponent's next move, which was the surest way to lose.

For Conan, the world had shrunk to the drumhead and the man who stood on it with him. So had his concentration on his foe always been foremost in a fight for life, since he was old enough to win by skill rather than by sheer youthful strength, and perhaps with the favor of merciful G.o.ds. So it would be tonight.

Conan leaped high, twisted in the air, came down on all fours, and rolled. Rolling, he rolled again onto his hands and knees, thrust hands and feet hard against the drumhead, and rebounded into the air. When he landed, he was standing again.

He was also close to the edge of the drum. Aondo gave a ragged roar of triumph as he saw victory glimmering close. He, in turn, leaped insensately, making the drumhead dance madly.

Conan deliberately allowed the movement of the drumhead to shift him perhaps a spear's length toward the rim. He was in no danger from anything save the frame giving way. By custom, that ended the duel until the carpenters had finished repairing the timbers.

Aondo, however, was in danger of exhausting himself if he continued to leap about like a flea on a hot griddle without driving Conan off the drumhead. He seemed to have forgotten an ancient law of fighting: do not, if you can help it, wager your chances of victory on something you can do only once.

Just as deliberately, Conan shifted his footing, so that now the leaping drumhead slowly pushed him away from the rim. The thunder of the drum was outshouting the wind; soon it would outshout any thunder roaring down from above. Conan wondered how the folk watching could bear the sound, and saw that they had indeed widened their circle.

Valeria and Emwaya were standing side by side now, within arm's reach of one of the torches blazing atop poles thrust into the ground. Conan spared Valeria a glance and a wave, saw her return the wave, then whirled to see Aondo trying to close the distance between them.

It broke laws, customs, and taboos of every kind for one dancer to touch another. Yet crowding close to your opponent was allowed. If it gave him less s.p.a.ce to move, it might even give you victory.

It might also provoke him into striking you, thereby losing. Conan would wager much that some such thought was in Aondo's mind. Yet the warrior had his face set in a sweat-dripping mask of such ferocity that it appeared he might be ready to strike the first blow.

Conan saw this plainly, then set the notion aside. Such a victory would not be honorable or give him and Valeria a sure place among the Ichiribu. Also, Aondo might be too good a warrior to die merely because he could not guard his temper.

If Valeria's fate had not been linked to his own, the Cimmerian would have utterly rejected the notion. As it was, he would leave such a trick for when he might truly need to save both himself and his companion.

Aondo had closed the distance still more in the time Conan had needed to decide. Now the Cimmerian could almost reach out and touch him.

Aondo was too tall to leap over, so Conan waited until the warrior leaped.

Then he stamped hard, both feet thundering on the drumhead. Aondo came down on the vibrating hide, swayed, and in struggling for balance, turned away from Conan.

The moment his opponent's eyes were elsewhere, Conan took his longest leap of the duel. He came down six good paces on the other side of Aondo. Now it was the warrior who had his back to the edge of the drum.

Conan opened the distance still more, seeing Aondo again ready to lash out in madness and fury, thereby ending his life with dishonor. Then, just as the Cimmerian thought the madness seemed to be ebbing from the warrior's face, a woman's shrill scream pierced the drum-thunder.

Valeria was standing beside Emwaya, eyes fixed on the drum, when she felt rather than saw the young woman move. Emwaya seemed almost to float two or three paces without touching the ground. As she came into Valeria's sight, the pirate saw that Emwaya's face was drawn.

Then, suddenly, Dobanpu's daughter broke into a sweat equal to that of the two duelists, threw up a hand, seemed to pluck something from the air, and screamed.

Valeria drew sword and dagger with deadly speed and scant regard for those standing close. A circle opened around her and Emwaya, as if the Ichiribu wizard's daughter had suddenly burst into flames.

Instead, Emwaya was staggering, shaking her hand, and opening and shutting her mouth without making a sound. Valeria saw her eyes roll up until only the whites showed, then saw her fall to her knees, hands shaking uncontrollably, arms beginning to spasm.

"Snake!" someone shouted.