Xaltotun cried out as if he had been stabbed. 'The Heart! The Heart of Ahriman!' 'Aye! The one power that is greater than your power!' Xaltotun seemed to shrivel, to grow old. Suddenly his beard was shot with snow, his locks flecked with gray.

'The Heart!' he mumbled. 'You stole it! Dog! Thief!' 'Not I! It has been on a long journey far to the southward. But now it is in my hands, and your black arts cannot stand against it. As it resurrected you, so shall it hurl you back into the night whence it drew you. You shall go down the dark road to Acheron, which is the road of silence and the night. The dark empire, unreborn, shall remain a legend and a black memory. Conan shall reign again. And the Heart of Ahriman shall go back into the cavern below the temple of Mitra, to burn as a symbol of the power of Aquilonia for a thousand years!'

Xaltotun screamed inhumanly and rushed around the altar, dagger lifted; but from somewhere - out of the sky, perhaps, or the great jewel that blazed in the hand of Hadrathus - shot a jetting beam of blinding blue light. Full against the breast of Xaltotun it flashed, and the hills re-echoed the concussion. The wizard of Acheron went down as though struck by a thunderbolt, and before he touched the ground he was fearfully altered. Beside the altar-stone lay no fresh-slain corpse, but a shriveled mummy, a brown, dry, unrecognizable carca.s.s sprawling among moldering swathings.

Somberly old Zelata looked down.

'He was not a living man,' she said. 'The Heart lent him a false aspect of life, that deceived even himself. I never saw him as other than a mummy.'

Hadrathus bent to unbind the swooning girl on the altar, when from among the trees appeared a strange apparition -Xaltotun's chariot drawn by the weird horses. Silently they advanced to the altar and halted, with the chariot wheel almost touching the brown withered thing on the gra.s.s. Hadrathus lifted the body of the wizard and placed it in the chariot. And without hesitation the uncanny steeds turned and moved off southward, down the hill. And Hadrathus and Zelata and the gray wolf watched them go - down the long road to Acheron which is beyond the ken of men.

Down in the valley Amalric had stiffened in his saddle when he saw that wild horseman curvetting and caracoling on the slopes while he brandished that blood-stained serpent-banner. Then some instinct jerked his head about, toward the hill known as the King's Altar. And his lips parted. Every man in the valley saw it - an arching shaft of dazzling light that towered up from the summit of the hill, showering golden fire. High above the hosts it burst in a blinding blaze that momentarily paled the 'That's not Xaltotun's signal!' roared the baron.

'No!' shouted Tarascus. 'It's a signal to the Aquilonians!

Above them the immobile ranks were moving at last, and a deep-throated roar thundered across the vale.

'Xaltotun has failed us!' bellowed Amalric furiously. 'Valerius has failed us! We have been led into a trap! Mitra's curse on Xaltotun who led us here! Sound the retreat!'

'Too later yelled Tarascus. 'Look?

Up on the slopes the forest of lances dipped, leveled. The ranks of the Gundermen rolled back to right and left like a parting curtain. And with a thunder like the rising roar of a hurricane, the knights of Aquilonia crashed down the slopes.

The impetus of that charge was irresistible. Bolts driven by the demoralized arbalesters glanced from their shields, their bent helmets. Their plumes and pennons streaming out behind them, their lances lowered, they swept over the wavering lines of pikemen and roared down the slopes like a wave.

Amalric yelled an order to charge, and the Nemedians with desperate courage spurred their horses at the slopes. They still outnumbered the attackers.

But they were weary men on tired horses, charging uphill. The onrushing knights had not struck a blow that day. Their horses were fresh. They were coming downhill and they came like a thunderbolt. And like a thunderbolt they smote the struggling ranks of the Nemedians - smote them, split them apart, ripped them asunder and dashed the remnants headlong down the slopes.

After them on foot came the Gundermen, blood-mad, and the Bossonians were swarming down the hills, loosing as they ran at every foe that still moved.

Down the slopes washed the tide of battle, the dazed Nemedians swept on the crest of the wave. Their archers had thrown down their arbalests and were fleeing. Such pikemen as had survived the blasting charge of the knights were cut to pieces by the ruthless Gundermen.

In a wild confusion the battle swept through the wide mouth of the valley and into the plain beyond. All over the plain swarmed the warriors, fleeing and pursuing, broken into single combat and clumps of smiting, hacking knights on rearing, wheeling horses. But the Nemedians were smashed, broken, unable to re-form or make a stand. By the hundreds they broke away, spurring for the river. Many reached it, rushed across and rode eastward. The countryside was up behind them; the people hunted them like wolves. Few ever reached Tarantia.

The final break did not come until the fall of Amalric. The baron, striving in vain to rally his men, rode straight at the clump of knights that followed the giant in black armor whose surcoat bore the royal lion, and over whose head floated the golden lion banner with the scarlet leopard of Poitain beside it. A tall warrior in gleaming armor couched his lance and charged to meet the lord of Tor. They met like a thunderclap. The Nemedian's lance, striking his foe's helmet, snapped bolts and rivets and tore off the casque, revealing the features of Pallan-tides. But the Aquilonian's lance-head crashed through shield and breast-plate to transfix the baron's heart.

A roar went up as Amalric was hurled from his saddle, snapping the lance that impaled him, and the Nemedians gave way as a barrier bursts under the surging impact of a tidal wave. They rode for the river in a blind stampede that swept the plain like a whirlwind. The hour of the Dragon had pa.s.sed.

Tarascus did not flee. Amalric was dead, the color-bearer slain, and the royal Nemedian banner trampled in the blood and dust. Most of his knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he raged through the melee, conscious of but one desire - to meet Conan, the Cimmerian. And at last he met him.

Formations had been destroyed utterly, close-knit bands broken asunder and swept apart. The crest of Trocero gleamed in one part of the plain, those of Prospero and Pallantides in others. Conan was alone. The house-troops of Tarascus had fallen one by one. The two kings met man to man.

Even as they rode at each other, the horse of Tarascus sobbed and sank under him. Conan leaped from his own steed and ran at him, as the king of Nemedia disengaged himself and rose. Steel flashed blindingly in the sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of armor as Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous stroke of Conan's broadsword.

The Cimmerian placed a mail-shod foot on his enemy's breast, and lifted his sword. His helmet was gone; he shook back his black mane and his blue eyes blazed with their old fire.

'Do you yield?'

'Will you give me quarter?' demanded the Nemedian.

'Aye. Better than you'd have given me, you dog. Life for you and all your men who throw down their arms. Though I ought to split your head for an infernal thief,' the Cimmerian added.

Tarascus twisted his neck and glared over the plain. The remnants of the Nemedian host were flying across the stone bridge with swarms of victorious Aquilonians at their heels, smiting with fury of glutted vengeance. Bossonians and Gunder-men were swarming through the camp of their enemies, tearing the tents to pieces in search of plunder, seizing prisoners, ripping open the baggage and upsetting the wagons.

Tarascus cursed fervently, and then shrugged his shoulders, as well as he could, under the circ.u.mstances.

'Very well. I have no choice. What are your demands?'

'Surrender to me all your present holdings in Aquilonia. Order your garrisons to march out of the castles and towns they hold, without their arms, and get your infernal armies out of Aquilonia as quickly as possible. In addition you shall return all Aquilonians sold as slaves, and pay an indemnity to be designated later, when the damage your occupation of the country has caused has been properly estimated. You will remain as hostage until these terms have been carried out.'

'Very well,' surrendered Tarascus. 'I will surrender all the castles and towns now held by my garrisons without resistance, and all the other things shall be done. What ransom for my body?'

Conan laughed and removed his foot from his foe's steel-clad breast, grasped his shoulder and heaved him to his feet. He started to speak, then turned to see Hadrathus approaching him. The priest was as calm and self-possessed as ever, picking his way between rows of dead men and horses.

Conan wiped the sweat-smeared dust from his face with a blood-stained hand. He had fought all through the day, first on foot with the pikemen, then in the saddle, leading the charge. His surcoat was gone, his armor splashed with blood and battered with strokes of sword, mace and ax. He loomed gigantically against a background of blood and slaughter, like some grim pagan hero of mythology.

'Well done, Hadrathus!' quoth he gustily. 'By Crom, I am glad to see your signal! My knights were almost mad with impatience and eating their hearts out to be at sword-strokes. I could not have held them much longer. What of the wizard?'

'He has gone down the dim road to Acheron,' answered Hadrathus. 'And I - I am for Tarantia. My work is done here, and I have a task to perform at the temple of Mitra. All our work is done here. On this field we have saved Aquilonia - and more than Aquilonia. Your ride to your capital will be a triumphal procession through a kingdom mad with joy. All Aquilonia will be cheering the return of their king. And so, until we meet again in the great royal hall - farewell!'

Conan stood silently watching the priest as he went. From various parts of the field knights were hurrying toward him. He saw Pallantides, Trocero, Prospero, Servius Galannus, their armor splashed with crimson. The thunder of battle was giving way to a roar of triumph and acclaim. All eyes, hot with strife and shining with exultation, were turned toward the great black figure of the king; mailed arms brandished red-stained swords. A confused torrent of sound rose, deep and thunderous as the sea-surf: 'Hail, Conan, king of Aquilonia!'

Tarascus spoke.

'You have not yet named my ransom.'

Conan laughed and slapped his sword home in its scabbard. He flexed his mighty arms, and ran his blood-stained fingers through his thick black locks, as if feeling there his re-won crown.

'There is a girl in your seraglio named Zen.o.bia.'

'Why, yes, so there is.'

'Very well.' The king smiled as at an exceedingly pleasant memory. 'She shall be your ransom, and naught else. I will come to Belverus for her as I promised. She was a slave in Nemedia, but I will make her queen of Aquilonia!'

CIMMERIA.

I remember

The dark woods, masking slopes of sombre bills; The gray clouds' leaden everlasting arch; The dusky streams that flowed without a sound, And the lone winds that whispered down the pa.s.ses.

Vista an vista marching, hills on hills, Slope beyond slope, each dark -with sullen trees, Our gaunt land lay. So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers.

It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun, With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds, And the dark woodlands brooding over all, Not even lightened by the rare dim sun Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.

It was so long ago and far away I have forgot the very name men called me.

The ax and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, And hunts and wars are shadows. I recall Only the stillness of that somber land; The clouds that piled forever on the hills, The dimness of the everlasting woods.

Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

Oh, soul of mine, bom out of shadowed hills, To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun, How many deaths shall serve to break at last This heritage which wraps me in the gray Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

AFTERWORD:.

Robert E. Howard and Conan: The Final Years by Stephen Jones

Despite enjoying an all-time high in sales during 1935 to such diverse pulp magazines as Action Stories, Argosy, Dime Sports Magazine, Spicy-Adventure Stories, Star Western, Thrilling Adventures, Thrilling Mystery, Top-Notch, Western Aces and, of course, Weird Tales, Robert E. Howard had started talking about taking his own life when it appeared that his mother was dying of tuberculosis. As his father, Dr I. M. Howard later recalled: 'Last March a year ago, again when his mother was very low in the King's Daughters Hospital in Temple, Texas, Dr McCelvey expressed a fear that she would not recover; he began to talk to me about his business, and I at once understood what it meant. I began to talk to him, trying to dissuade him from such a course, but his mother began to improve. Immediately she began to improve, he became cheerful and no more was said.'

Ignored or simply dismissed as eccentric by most of the inhabitants of his home town of Cross Plains, Texas, Howard began to exhibit even more bizarre behaviour. He had told writer E. Hoffman Price the previous year: 'n.o.body thinks I amount to much, so I am proud to show these people that a successful writer thinks enough of me to drive a thousand miles to h.e.l.l and gone out of his way to visit me.'

Howard now decided to grow a long walrus moustache and walk around town dressed somewhat unconventionally, as Novalyne Price Ellis described in her memoir One Who Walked Alone: The first thing that startled me was the black sombrero he had on. It was a real Mexican sombrero with little b.a.l.l.s dangling from its rim. The chin strap was a thin little strip of leather attached to the hat. It came down and was tied under his chin. The vaqueros used the chin strap to keep their hats from being blown off by the incessant winds that swept the plains. But the flat crown and chin strap made Bob's face look rounder than ever . . . The red bandana around his neck was tied in the back. He didn't have on those old short, brown pants. Not this year! He had on short, black pants that came to the top of his black shoes.'

In 'Shadows in Zamboula', which was published in the November 1935 issue of Weird Tales, Conan found himself staying in a city filled with intrigue and cannibalism. Howard's original tide for the story had been 'The Man-Eaters of Zamboula'. The issue once again featured a Conan cover by Margaret Brundage, with a naked Nafertari surrounded by four hissing cobras. However, the story was closely beaten in the readers' poll by 'The Way Home' by Paul Frederick Stern (a pen-name for writer Paul Ernst).

At around 75,000 words, Howard's next entry in the series was twice as long as any other Conan story and Howard's only completed novel. Written over four months in the spring of 1934, he cannibalised and expanded a number of his earlier Conan stories - specifically 'The Scarlet Citadel', 'Black Colossus' and 'The Devil in Iron' - to create one of his finest and most mature works.

According to Howard, 'Conan was about forty when he seized the crown of Aquilonia, and was about forty-four or forty-five at the time of 'The Hour of the Dragon'. He had no male heir at that time, because he had never bothered to formally make some woman his queen, and the sons of concubines, of which he had a goodly number, were not recognized as heirs to the throne.'

Howard had already had several stories reprinted between hardcovers in Britain in the Not at Night series of horror anthologies edited by Christine Campbell Thomson (including the Conan story 'Rogues in the House', which appeared in the 1934 volume Terror at Night). The Hour of the Dragon was submitted to British publisher Denis Archer in May 1934. The year before, Archer had turned down a collection of Howard's stories (which featured two Conan tales) with the suggestion that 'any time you find yourself able to produce a full-length novel of about 70,000--75,000 words along the lines of the stories, my allied Company, Pawling & Ness Ltd., who deal with the lending libraries, and are able to sell a first edition of 5,000 copies, will be very willing to publish it.'

In fact, Archer accepted The Hour of the Dragon, but the publisher went bankrupt and his a.s.sets, including Howard's novel, were put into the hands of the Official Receiver. The book was never published, and the story finally appeared as a five-part serial running in Weird Tales from December 1935 to April 1936 (with chapter 20 apparently mis-numbered as chapter 21).

Despite Margaret Brundage's cover depicting her most pathetic-looking Conan ever, chained in a cell while a scantily clad Zen.o.bia hands him the keys, readers reacted favourably to the serial in 'The Eyrie', the magazine's letters column: 'If "The Hour of the Dragon" ends as good as it began I shall vote Mr Howard your ace writer,' promised a reader from Sioux City, Iowa. 'Robert E. Howard's "Hour of the Dragon" is vividly written, as are all Mr Howard's stories,' praised a reader from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, who continued: 'Conan is at his bloodthirsty worst, killing off his enemies left and right; lovely damozels walk about in scanty shifts and pine to be held in his muscular arms - so what more could one want, I ask you?'

However, the Brundage controversy continued to rage: 'I was greatly pleased with the stories in the December WT, but at the same time greatly disappointed with Mrs Brun-dage's ill.u.s.tration of Conan,' complained a reader from Washington D.C. 'From Howard's stories I have always pictured Conan as a rough, muscular, scarred figure of giant stature with thick, wiry, black hair covering his ma.s.sive chest, powerful arms, and muscular legs; and a face that's as rugged as the weather-beaten face of an old sea captain.'

Howard expressed his own opinion of Brundage's work in a letter in the June 1936 issue: 'Enthusiasm impels me to pause from burning spines off cactus for my drouth-bedeviled goats long enough to give three slightly dust-choked cheers for the April cover ill.u.s.tration . . . altogether I think it's the best thing Mrs Brundage has done since she ill.u.s.trated my "Black Colossus". And that's no depreciation of the covers done between these master-pictures.'

'Howard was my favourite author,' Brundage recalled many years later, 'I always liked his stories best.'

In terms of Conan's history, 'The Hour of the Dragon' (which was later reprinted under the t.i.tle Conan the Conqueror) is the final story in the sequence. It was also the last Conan story Howard himself would ever see published.

Howard was still upset over his mother's failing health, as his father later revealed: 'Again this year, in February, while his mother was very sick and not expected to live but a few days, at that time she was in the Shannon Hospital in San Angelo, Texas. San Angelo is something like one hundred miles from here. He was driving back and forth daily from San Angelo to home. One evening he told me I would find his business, what little there was to it, all carefully written up and in a large envelope in his desk.'

In a letter to Novalyne Price Ellis dated February 14, 1936, Howard admitted: 'You ask how my mother is getting along. I hardly know what to say. Some days she seems to be improving a little, and other days she seems to be worse. I frankly don't know.'

Conan's final appearance in Weird Tales was the three-part serial 'Red Nails' in the July, August-September and October 1936 issues. Howard described it as '. . . the grimmest, bloodiest and most merciless story of the series so far. Too much raw meat, maybe, but I merely portrayed what I honestly believe would be the reactions of certain types of people in the situations on which the plot of the story hung.'

In a letter dated December 5, 1935, he called it '. . . the bloodiest and most s.e.xy weird story I ever wrote. I have been dissatisfied with my handling of decaying races in stories, for the reason that degeneracy is so prevalent in such races that even in fiction it can not be ignored as a motive and as a fact if the fiction is to have any claim to realism. I have ignored it in all other stories, as one of the taboos, but I did not ignore it in this story. When, or if, you ever read it, I'd like to know how you like my handling of the subject of lesbianism.'

In fact, there is only the slightest suggestion of lesbianism in the published version of the story, in which Conan and beautiful Aquilonian mercenary Valeria discovered yet another lost city and battled a monster reptile.

Introducing 'Red Nails' in the July 1936 issue, editor Farnsworth Wright recalled: 'Nearly four years ago, Weird Tales published a story called 'The Phoenix on the Sword' built around a barbarian adventurer named Conan, who had become king of a country by sheer force of valor and brute strength . . . The stories of Conan were speedily acclaimed by our readers, and the barbarian's weird adventures became immensely popular. The story presented herewith is one of the most powerful and eery (sic) weird tales yet written about Conan. We commend this story to you, for we know you will enjoy it through and through.'

Margaret Brundage's suggestive cover depicted a naked Valeria about to be sacrificed on an altar by three seductive slave girls. It was the last ill.u.s.tration Brundage would do for a Howard story and with the next issue of Weird Tales she ended her continuous run of thirty-nine covers for 'The Unique Magazine'. She would still occasionally make an appearance on the cover over the next nine years, and her final original painting - her sixty-sixth - appeared on the January 1945 issue.

Written in July 1935, 'Red Nails' was the final Conan story - and the final fantasy story - which Howard would complete. With his mother's hospital bills escalating, and Weird Tales paying on publication (supposedly) some of the lowest rates in the pulp field, he began to look around for better and more dependable paying markets.

As Howard revealed in a letter dated February 15, 1936, to E. Hoffman Price: 'For myself, I haven't submitted anything to Weird Tales for many months, though I would, if payments could be made a little more promptly. I reckon the boys have their troubles, same as me, but my needs are urgent and immediate.'

Price observed that during his 1934 visit to Cross Plains: 'I had often got the impression that Robert was a parent to his parents; that while he could have done the gypsying which other authors permitted themselves, solicitude for his father and mother kept him fairly close to home.'

Novalyne Price Ellis agreed: 'I do think Bob has tried to take over his parents' lives. He said once that parents and children change places in life. When parents become old and sick, you take care of them as you would a child.'

During the spring of 1936, Hester Howard appeared to grow stronger, much to the relief of her son, as Dr Howard later explained: 'He accepted her condition as one of permanent improvement and one that would continue. I knew well that it would not, but I kept it from him.'

In a letter written to young Wisconsin writer August Der-leth, dated May 9, 1936, Howard offered his own thoughts after recent deaths in Derleth's family: 'Death to the old is inevitable, and yet somehow I often feel that it is a greater tragedy than death to the young. When a man dies young he misses much suffering, but the old have only life as a possession and somehow to me the tearing of a pitiful remnant from weak old fingers is more tragic than the looting of a life in its full rich plume. I don't want to live to be old. I want to die when my time comes, quickly and suddenly, in the full tide of my strength and health.'

In a letter dated May 13, he also confided to his old correspondent and fellow Weird Tales writer H. P. Lovecraft that he did not know whether his mother would: '... live or not. She is very weak and weighs only 109 pounds - 150 pounds is her normal weight - and very few kinds of food agree with her; but if she does live, she will owe her life to my father's efforts.'

For three weeks Robert E. Howard continued to maintain an almost constant vigil at his beloved mother's bedside as her condition began to decline rapidly. Atypically, his mood became almost cheerful, as if he had finally made up his mind about something.

Then, on the morning of June 11, 1936, Howard learned from one of two trained nurses attending Mrs Howard that his mother had entered a terminal coma and that she would probably never recognise him again. He rose from beside her sick-bed, slipped out of the house, climbed into his 1935 Chevrolet sedan parked in front of the garage and rolled up the windows. At a few minutes past eight o'clock in the morning, he fired a single bullet from a borrowed Colt .380 automatic into his right temple. He had come to the decision that he would not see his mother die.

The bullet pa.s.sed through his brain and he survived for eight hours in a coma. He was thirty years old. His mother died shortly after ten o'clock on the evening of the following day, without ever regaining consciousness. She was sixty-six (although she had claimed to be several years younger). They were buried in adjacent graves in identical caskets at Brown-wood's Greenleaf Cemetery.

A strip of paper was discovered in Howard's wallet in his hip pocket after he shot himself. It contained two typewritten lines:

All fled - all done, so lift me on the pyre - The Feast is over and the lamps expire.