Conan the Defender

by Robert Jordan

  Cursing, Conan heaved the man onto his back. Taras’ limp fingers slid away from his dagger, now embedded in his own chest. His sightless eyes stared at the Cimmerian.

  “Erlik take you,” Conan muttered. “I wanted you alive.”

  Wiping his blade on Taras’ tunic, he returned the sword to its scabbard, thinking furiously all the while. The man was condemned out of his own mouth of duping the young rebels. Yet he had had that meeting with two who, by their clothing and bearing, were men of wealth and position. He had to assume that that meeting had a related purpose, and that someone did indeed intend to move against Garian, using Ariane and the rest as tools. And tools had a way of being broken and discarded once their use was done.

  As Conan tugged his dagger from the cross-bowman’s throat, the door suddenly swung open. He crouched, dagger at the ready, and found himself staring across the corpse at Ariane and Graecus.

  The stocky sculptor seemed to turn to stone as his bulging eyes swept the carnage. Ariane met Conan’s gaze with a look of infinite sadness.

  “I did not think Taras had the right to exclude us from this meeting,” she said slowly. “I thought we should be here, to speak up for you, to … .” Her words trailed off in a weary sigh.

  “They intended my death, Ariane,” Conan said.

  She glanced from the shattered skylight frame on the floor to the opening in the roof. “Which of them leapt from above, Conan? It seems clear that one entered that way. To kill. I wondered so when you armored yourself and would not tell me why. Wondered, and prayed I was wrong.”

  Why did the fool girl have to take everything wrongly, he thought angrily. “I listened at the skylight, Ariane, and entered that way. After I heard them speak of slaying me. Think you they had cocked crossbows to slay rats?” She looked at him, levelly but with eyes lacking hope or life. He drew a deep breath. “Hear me, Ariane. This man Taras has hired no armed men to aid your rebellion. I heard him say this. You must—”

  “You killed them!” Graecus suddenly shouted. The stocky man’s face was flushed, and he panted as if from great exertion. “It is as Stephano feared. Did you kill him also, and Leucas? Mean you to slay us all? You will not! You cannot! There are hundreds of us! We will slay you first!” Suddenly he glanced down the hall toward the stairs, and with a shrill cry dashed in the other direction. Ariane did not move.

  Hordo appeared in the doorway, gazing briefly after the fleeing sculptor. His lone eye took in the bodies. “I returned to the Thestis in time to hear the girl and the other speak of following you. It looks well that I decided to follow them in turn.”

  Ariane stirred. “Will you murder me now, too, Conan?”

  The Cimmerian rounded on her angrily. “Do you not know me well enough by now to know I would not harm you?”

  “I thought I did,” she said hollowly. Her eyes traveled from one corpse to the next, and she laughed hysterically. “I know nothing of you. Nothing!” Conan reached for her, but she shied away from his big hand. “I cannot fight you,” she whispered, “but an you touch me, my dagger can yet seek my own heart.”

  He jerked back his hand as if it had been burnt. At last he said coldly, “Do not remain here o’erlong. Corpses attract scavengers, and those with two legs will see you as more booty.” She did not look at him or make answer. “Come, Hordo,” he growled. The one-eyed man followed him from the room.

  In the street, those who saw Conan’s dark face and the ice of his blue eyes stepped clear of his sweeping strides. Hordo hurried to keep up, asking once they were clear of the clangor of the Street of the Smiths, “What occurred in that room, Cimmerian, to turn the girl so against you?”

  Conan’s look at Hordo was deadly, but in swift, terse sentences he told of how he had gone there, of what he had heard and what deduced.

  “I am too old for this,” Hordo groaned. “Not only must we watch for Graecus and the others to put knives in our backs, but, not knowing who among the nobles and merchants is embraced in this, with whom can we take service? Where do we go now, Cimmerian?”

  “To the only place left for us,” Conan replied grimly. “The King.”

  III

  On the wide marble steps of the Temple of Mitra, a startled man dropped a cage of doves as the Free-Company made its way down the narrow, winding street. So surprised was he to see mounted and armed men in the Temple District that he watched them open-mouthed, not even noticing that his cage had broken and his intended sacrifices were beating aloft on white wings.

  Hordo’s saddle creaked as he leaned forward and whispered fiercely to Conan. “This is madness! ’Twill be luck if we are not met atop the hill by the whole of the Golden Leopards!”

  Conan shook his head without answering. He knew full well that approaching the Royal Palace unannounced with two score armed men was far from the proper way to appeal for entry into the King’s service. He knew, too, that there was no time for more usual methods, such as bribery, and that left only enlistment in the Nemedian army. Or this.

  In truth, it was not the Golden Leopards who troubled him so much as the young rebels. Desperate, believing he had betrayed them or was on the way to do so, they might try almost anything. And these winding streets that climbed the hill to the Royal Palace were a prime place for ambush.

  Those streets were a remnant of ancient times, for once in the dim past what would become the Royal Palace had been a hilltop fortress, about which a village had risen, a village which over the centuries had grown into Belverus. But long after the hilltop fortress had become the Royal Palace of Nemedia, long after the rude village huts had been replaced by columned temples of alabaster and marble and polished granite, the serpentine streets remained.

  The Palace itself retained much of the fortress about it, although its battlements were now of lustrous white marble, and towers of porphyry and greenstone rose within. The portcullises were of iron beneath their gilt, and drawbridges spanned a drymoat bottomed with spikes. Round about it all a sward of grass, close cropped as if in a landscaped garden, yet holding not the smallest growth that might shelter a stealthy approach, separated the Palace from the Temple District that encircled the hill below.

  At the edge of the greensward Conan halted the company. “Wait here,” he commanded.

  “Gladly,” Hordo muttered.

  Alone, Conan rode forward, his big black stallion prancing slightly. Two pikemen in golden cloaks guarded the drawbridge, and a man in the crested helmet of an officer stepped out from the barbican as the big Cimmerian drew rein.

  “What seek you here?” the officer demanded. He eyed the rest of the Free-Company thoughtfully, but they were distant and few in number.

  “I wish to enter my company in the service of King Garian,” Conan replied. “I have trained them in a method of fighting new to Nemedia, and to the western world.”

  The officer smiled in mockery. “Never yet have I heard of a Free-Company without some supposedly secret art of war. What is yours?”

  “I will demonstrate,” Conan said. “It is better in the showing.” Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. His one real fear beyond reaching the Palace had been that they would not so much as listen.

  “Very well,” the officer said slowly, eyeing the rest of the company once more. “You alone may enter and demonstrate. But be you warned, an this secret is something every recruit in the Nemedian army is taught, as are most Free-Company tricks, you will be stripped and flogged from the gates to the foot of the hill for the edification of your company.”

  Conan touched boots to the big stallion’s flanks. The horse pranced forward a step; the pikemen leveled their weapons, and the officer looked wary. The Cimmerian allowed a cold smile to touch his mouth, but not his eyes. “’Tis nothing known to any Nemedian, though it may be taught to recruits.”

  The officer’s mouth tightened at his tone. “I think others might like to see this, barbar.” He stuck his head back into the gatehouse and muttered an order.

  A golden-cloaked soldie
r emerged, gave Conan an appraising glance, and sped into the Palace. As Conan rode through the gate following the officer, other soldiers appeared from the barbican, some following behind. The Cimmerian wondered if they came to watch, or to guard that he did not take the Palace single-handed.

  The Outer Court was paved in flagstone, four hundred paces in each direction, and surrounded by arcaded walks to the height of four stories. Beyond those walks directly opposite the gate could be seen the towers that rose in the gardens of the Inner Court, and the Palace proper, wherein King Garian and his court lived.

  The soldiers who had followed dropped back deferentially as a score of officers, led by one as large as Conan himself, appeared. The officer who had brought Conan in bowed as this big man came near.

  “All honor to you, Commander Vegentius,” he said. “I hoped this barbar might provide some entertainment.”

  “Yes, Tegha,” Vegentius said absently, his eye on Conan. And a strangely wary eye, the Cimmerian thought. Abruptly the big officer said, “You, barbar. Know I you, or you me?” His hand tightened on his sword as he spoke.

  Conan shook his head. “I know you not, Commander.” Though, as he thought on it, this Vegentius did look familiar, but vaguely, as one seen but briefly. No matter, he thought. The memory would come, an it were important.

  Vegentius seemed to relax as the Cimmerian spoke. Smiling vigorously, he said, “Let us have this demonstration. Tegha, get the barbar what he needs for it.”

  “I need a straw butt,” Conan told the officer, “or some other mark.”

  Laughter rose among the officers as Tegha chose out two soldiers to fetch a butt.

  “Archery,” one of them laughed loudly. “I saw that bow at his saddle, but thought it for a child.”

  “Mayhap he shoots it with one hand,” another replied.

  Conan kept his silence as the comments grew more ribald, though his jaw tightened. Removing the short weapon from its lacquered saddle-case, he carefully checked the tension of the string.

  “A harp,” someone shouted. “He plays it like a harp.”

  Conan fingered through the forty arrows in the quiver strapped behind the cantle of his saddle, making sure once again that each fletching was sound.

  “He must miss often, to carry so many shafts.”

  “Nay, he uses the feathers to tickle women. Take her ankle, you see, and turn her … .”

  The laughing comments droned on, some measure of silence falling only when the soldiers returned with a straw butt.

  “Set it there,” Conan commanded, pointing to a spot some fifty paces away. The soldiers ran to comply, as eager as their superiors to see the barbarian’s discomfiture.

  “Not a great distance, barbar.”

  “But it’s a child’s bow.”

  Breathing deeply to calm himself, Conan rode away from the bunched officers, stopping when he was a full two hundred paces from the butt. Nocking a shaft, he paused. This demonstration must proceed perfectly, and for that his concentration must be on the target, not clouded by anger at the chattering baboons who called themselves officers.

  “Why wait you, barbar?” Vegentius shouted. “Dismount and—”

  With a wild cry Conan swung the bow up and fired. Even as the shaft thudded home in the butt he was putting boot to the stallion’s flanks, galloping forward at full speed, sparks striking from the flagstones beneath the big black’s drumming hooves, firing as quickly as he could nock arrow to bowstring, shouting the ululating warcry that oft had wrung fear from the warriors of Gunderland and Hyperborea and the Bossonian Marches.

  Arrow after arrow sped straight to the butt. At a hundred paces distant he pressed with his knee, and the massive stallion broke faultlessly to the right. Conan fired again and again, mind and eye one with bow, with shaft, with target. Again his knees pressed, and the war-trained stallion pivoted, rearing and reversing his direction within his own length. Still Conan fired, thundering back the way he had come. When at last he put hand to rein there were four arrows left in the quiver behind his saddle, and he knew, did anyone count the feathered shafts that peppered the butt, they would number thirty and six.

  He cantered back to the now silent officers.

  “What sorcery is this?” Vegetius demanded. “Have your arrows been magicked, that they strike home while you careen like a madman?”

  “No sorcery,” Conan replied, laughing. For it was, indeed, his turn to laugh at the stunned expressions worn by the officers. “’Tis accounted a skill, though not a vast one, if a man can hit a running deer with a bow. This is but a step beyond. I myself had no knowledge at all of the bow when I was taught.”

  “Taught!” Tegha exclaimed, not noticing the glare Vegentius gave him. “Who? Where?”

  “Far to the east,” Conan said. “There the bow is the principal weapon of light cavalry. In Turan—”

  “Whatever they do in these strange lands,” Vegentius broke in harshly, “’tis of no matter here. We have no need of outlandish ways. A phalanx of good Nemedian infantry will clear any field, without this frippery of bowmen on horses.”

  Conan considered telling him what a few thousand mounted Turanian archers would do to that phalanx, but before he could speak another group approached, and the officers were all bowing low.

  Leading this procession was a tall, square-faced man, the crown on his head, a golden dragon with ruby eyes and a great pearl clutched in its paws proclaiming him to be King Garian. Yet Conan had no eyes for the king, nor the counselors who surrounded him, nor the courtiers who trailed him, for there was among them a woman to seize the eye. A long-legged, full-breasted blonde, she was no gently born lady, not wearing transparent red silk held by pearl clasps at her shoulders and snugged about her slender waist by entwined ropes of pearls set in gold. But an she were someone’s leman, he paid her not the attention he ought. For she returned Conan’s stare, if not so openly as he, yet with a smoky heat that quickened his blood.

  Conan saw that Garian was approaching him, and doffed his helm hoping the King had not seen the direction of his gaze.

  “I saw your exhibition from the gallery,” Garian said warmly, “and I have never seen the like.” His brown eyes were friendly—which meant he had not noticed Conan’s gaze—though not so open as the eyes of one who did not sit on a throne. “How are you called?”

  “I am Conan,” the Cimmerian replied. “Conan of Cimmeria.” He did not see the blood drain from Vegentius’ face.

  “Do you come merely to entertain, Conan?”

  “I come to enter your service,” Conan said, “with my lieutenant and two score men trained to use the bow as I do.”

  “Most excellent,” Garian said, clapping a hand against the stallion’s shoulder. “Always have I had an interest in innovations of warfare. Why, from my childhood I as much as lived in the army camps. Now,” a trace of bitterness crept into his voice, “I have not even time to practice with my sword.”

  “My King,” Vegentius said deferentially, “this thing is no better than trickery, an entertainment, but of no use in war.” As he spoke his eyes drifted to Conan. The Cimmerian thought, but could not believe, it was a look of hatred and fear.

  “No, good Vegentius,” Garian said, shaking his head. “Your advice is often sound on matters military, but this time you are wrong.” Vegentius opened his mouth; Garian ignored him. “Hear me now, Conan of Cimmeria. An you enter my service, I will give each man of yours three gold marks, and three more each tenday. To yourself, ten gold marks, and another each day you serve me.”

  “It is meet,” Conan said levelly. No merchant would have paid more than half so well.

  Garian nodded. “It is done, then. But you must practice the sword with me for a full glass each day, for I see by the wear of your hilt that you have some knowledge of that weapon as well. Vegentius, see that Conan has quarters within the Palace, and let them be spacious.”

  In the way of kings, having issued his commands Garian strode away without further wo
rds, soldiers bowing as he left, courtiers and counselors trailing in his wake. The blonde went, too, but as she went her eyes played on Conan’s face with furnace heat.

  From the corner of his eye Conan saw Vegentius moving away. “Commander Vegentius,” he called, “did not the King say my company was to be quartered?”

  Vegentius almost snarled his reply. “The King said you were to receive quarters, barbar. He said naught of that rag-tag you call a company. Let them quarter in the gutter.” And he, too, stalked away.

  Some of Conan’s euphoria left him. He could not run whining to Garian, asking that Vegentius be made to quarter his men. There were inns aplenty at the foot of the hill, but in even the cheapest of them, he would have to supplement the men’s pay from his own purse. That would strain even his new-found resources. Yet it was not the worst of his worries. Why did Vegentius hate him? He must discover the answer before he was forced to kill the man. And he would have to keep the blonde from getting him beheaded. While enjoying her favors, if possible. But then, when had one born on a battlefield sought a life free of troubles?

  Laughing, he rode to the gate to tell the others of their fortune.

  XIII

  The high domed ceiling of plain gray stone was well lit by cressets brass-hung about the bare walls, in which there was no window and but a single door, and that well guarded on the outside. Albanus would allow no slightest risk to that which the room housed. Even but gazing on it, he felt the power that would come to him from it. Centered in the room was a circular stone platform, no higher than a step from the floor, and on it sat a large rectangular block of peculiarly beige clay. It was that clay that would give Albanus the Dragon Throne.

  “Lord Albanus, I demand again to know why I am brought here and imprisoned.”

  Albanus schooled his face to a smile before turning to the scowling, bushy-browed man who confronted him with fists clenched. “A misapprehension on the part of my guards, good Stephano. I but told them to fetch to me the great sculptor Stephano, and they overstepped themselves. I will have them flogged, I assure you.”