If Conan had ever doubted the stark horror of the magic lurking in these depths, he doubted no longer. He also doubted that he would ever again put himself in danger for fire-stones.

Emwaya staggered back into his arms, her hands held in front of her in a warding gesture. "Quickly," she whispered. "Have another man throw a spear."

"You!" Conan called. The iron self-command in his voice steadied the warriors. The man addressed drew back and put all the force of his best throw behind the spear. It struck not far from the wound made by the first warrior.

A scale cracked across; this time the blood only oozed out. As Conan watched, the wound from the first spear closed. Only a smear of blood on the serpent's neck showed that it had ever taken any hurt. Another smear was already drying on the floor, not far from the corpse of the man who had lost his foot to the serpent. That man's bones were even now showing through his flesh, and through the green foulness that played over and around it.

Emwaya drew in a great, rasping breath. "We must keep it coming at us, and wound it each time it comes. We must keep our distance, too. It heals itself somewhat each time it is wounded, but not altogether. It will lose strength; I will see to that."

"How long will it take to die?"

The Golden Serpent hissed in challenge, pain, and defiance. The hiss again raised such echoes that Emwaya could not have made herself heard had she shouted into Conan's ear.

As the serpent withdrew some ten paces or so, Emwaya spoke urgently.

"It will die swiftly if my father comes to join his Spirit-Speaking to mine. We can take from it the power to steal life-force, which is how it heals as it does."

Conan thought uncharitable words about sorcerers. It seemed that the breed was always with you when you did not want them and somewhere else when you did.

"Ho!" he shouted, raising his sword. "We've need to fight this beast by retreating before it. Baggage men, take the rear rank. The best spearmen, take the foremost. Guard Emwaya at all costs, and for the love of every G.o.d, don't close with the monster!"

Faces showed that the bravest warrior needed no urging on that last point. Conan s.n.a.t.c.hed up a spear from the baggage and joined the rear rank as Valeria ran to stand beside Emwaya.

As if they were all of a single mind, the band drew back ten paces.

Encouraged, the serpent lowered its head and came on, but it did not lunge so boldly this time. A spear and a trident flew. The spear sank deep, the trident glanced off the horn on the nose. The trident-thrower would have dashed forward to retrieve his weapon but for Conan's wordless roar that halted him in his tracks.

This was likely enough as strange a battle as Conan had ever fought.

Overgrown snakes were not uncommon-too common by half if the wounds he had taken whilst battling them were any measure. But he had not before fought a serpent that had its own magic, nor fought one as leader of a band of warriors.

A good band, too, he thought as he saw one of the slingers wind up and hurl his stone. It flew true, striking one of the blazing green eyes.

Conan expected the eye to shatter rather than burst, but it did neither. Instead, it merely quivered like jelly, turned misty and pale for a moment, then blazed green once more.

The creature hissed, and this time, anyone could tell that it was in pain. Emwaya bit her lip until blood came, then screamed out a warning.

"Be ready, everyone. He'll lunge again!"

The warning was life to at least three men. The great head crashed down where they would have been standing had they not joined the retreat.

Twenty paces to the rear, the band stood again, save for two men who remained behind to thrust spears in deep. Again Conan's roar saved one from folly as the man struck at the beast's nose with his club. The warrior rejoined his comrades without his club or spear, but with a whole skin.

Then the band put another thirty paces between itself and the Golden Serpent, while Emwaya not only waved both arms, but chanted loud enough to drown out the sound of the creature's hissing. The two spears remained in the wounds longer than before, and the gush of blood that pushed them out also flowed longer.

Victory could be theirs, Conan realized, for all that this was a battle that only a madman could have dreamed. Victory might be the last man of the band standing beside the dead serpent, but they would have it!

Then the hissing raised echoes again, Emwaya called a sharp warning, and the deadly dance began once more.

FIFTEEN.

The canoes were not the lightest or the swiftest among those of the Ichiribu, although their canoe-builders were honored among all the tribes around the Lake of Death for their skill. Nor were the paddlers the strongest and most skilled.

Seyganko had simply ordered the first score of paddlers into the first three canoes, and all of them had set out under Dobanpu's guidance.

Before long, Seyganko thought he might have done better to have waited, picked the best paddlers and canoes, and then made swifter progress. If they were slow in reaching their destination, Emwaya might die. Dobanpu had made that plain.

A little while later, however, Seyganko saw that the canoes were flying across the water as if the paddlers were tireless G.o.ds who never missed a stroke. He looked back to the Spirit-Speaker, sitting in the stern of their canoe, and saw a faint smile on the man's face.

Seyganko felt shame that his mistake had been recognized, but also pride that Dobanpu considered him worthy of help in undoing it. Or was it entirely Emwaya's safety that moved her father?

The paddles indeed flew back and forth so swiftly that as with well-thrown spears, the eye could hardly follow them. Nor did the warriors seem to sweat or grow short of breath. Seyganko remembered uneasily that such spells as doubled a man's strength could also weaken him for some time afterward. These warriors would have to fight as well as paddle before another day's sun had set.

Meanwhile, they were crossing the Lake of Death at a speed never before known, save to birds. At a shout from Dobanpu, Seyganko raised his paddle, and the men of his canoe ceased their efforts. The other two canoes drew up alongside and also drifted to a stop.

Then, before Seyganko could speak or even move, Dobanpu stood up in the stern of the canoe, gripped the amulet about his neck tightly, and flung himself overboard. He cut the water without a sound, not even the faint clooop of a diving fisherbird. For a moment, they saw his legs thrusting him down into the depths; then those depths swallowed him.

A clamor arose from those warriors who had breath left with which to speak.

"Why, the old fool!"

"Where is he going?"

"He'll drown!"

"No, the lionfish will have him first!"

"He can't swim!"

Seyganko shouted for silence. "My woman's father can swim, that is certain. There are no hungry fish in this part of the lake, because of the very thing he has gone to fight. As for the rest-I would not call any Spirit-Speaker a fool. Not when I thought he might come back and remember what I said.

"And if you still think otherwise, keep your tongue between your teeth.

Or have you forgotten who may be listening over there?" Seyganko pointed at the Kwanyi sh.o.r.e. Those who had not already fallen silent did so now.

The Golden Serpent had taken the lives of two more warriors before Conan's band mastered the art of fighting it. That made ten dead or hurt past fighting, and the rest were growing uneasy. Facing a foe who could not be gravely hurt, and-it seemed-not be killed, for all that Emwaya promised otherwise, was nothing to hearten a warrior.

Yet the warriors lost none of their speed or cunning. They darted about the serpent like flies about a horse's head, stinging with the same remorseless persistence. Some even sang war songs between lunges at the serpent, until Conan commanded them to save their breath.

This disciplined courage pleased Conan, although it did not altogether surprise him. He had known for years that the Black Kingdoms raised warriors fit to stand in battle anywhere in the world. He had not expected to find so many this far inland, but he rejoiced that he had.

Perhaps there would be more than one man left standing when the Golden Serpent breathed its last.

A cry rose as Emwaya stumbled on the gla.s.sy floor. But Valeria was standing over her, sword in one hand, a borrowed spear poised to throw in the other. Five more warriors were in front of Emwaya before Conan was able to count them. The young woman herself shook her head and clenched her teeth, but her hair had saved her skull, and her hands continued their movements, fighting the Golden Serpent's unnatural life.

She was on her feet in the next moment, and Conan saw that the serpent had not lunged for her or her defenders. Was it learning the dangers of well-wielded iron, or was its strength finally ebbing?

Conan knew the perils of believing that a foe was weak or foolish. Yet he found it hard to believe that anything short of Thunder Mountain itself could resist the battering his band had given the Golden Serpent.

Suddenly thunder crashed once more through the tunnel. Conan swore that he saw the Golden Serpent rise a handbreadth from the floor. He knew that he saw shields s.n.a.t.c.hed from warriors' arms and cracks appear in the ceiling. Then fragments of stone rattled down everywhere about them, and a dripping-wet Dobanpu stood before them-on the far side of the Golden Serpent.

The serpent might have been shaken. The warriors certainly were. Yet the beast was swift to coil and lunge at Dobanpu. The Spirit-Speaker stood to meet the a.s.sault, only fingering his amulet. Valeria and a half-score of warriors cried out in horror, and Conan himself was not silent.

The lunge fell short of Dobanpu. An arm's length from the man, the great fanged head was dragged to a stop, as if a noose had tightened about it or the air had turned solid. Dobanpu raised a hand, and coruscating golden light arched from Emwaya to him. It sank into him and vanished, leaving no trace except for perhaps an odd glow in his eyes, and Conan could not be sure that was not a trick of the light.