Conan laughed. “Bloodless? Ask your rival Malvin about that! Ask Balt, or gentle Amlunia here.” He pulled the girl’s wriggling weight against him. “Even so, I misdoubt that my conquest of Armiro will be so bloodless.”
“You plan to defeat him in Koth, Sire?” Trocero asked. “Or merely drive him out of Ophir? The gods know, there is considerable difference between the two undertakings.”
The king shrugged. “From what I hear of Armiro, he will not take a rebuff lightly. Be-like I shall have to hound him into Koth, even back to Khoraja, or destroy him utterly to keep him from being a poor neighbour to us. Ah, but then, ’tis for the best...” Conan swigged from his tankard before resuming in an expansive tone. “... Because, after all, once Nemedia is secure on our northern flank... why, Koth, Khauran, and even fabled Turan may be ours, with all the dozens of kingdoms in between!”
“Is it surprise I see in some of your faces?” Sitting up more regally in his chair before the others’ stares, the king shook his black mane. “Know you, my captains, Aquilonian power is ripe to become empire! We would find allies aplenty for such a gambit. In my time I have set kings, queens, and outlaws on half the thrones of the Hyborian lands! It may be time to call in old debts.” He spoke in firm accents, glancing at them over Amlunia’s worshipful, seductive face. “In Khoraja itself, our adversary’s homeland, I’m sung as a national hero for my service as general under the once-queen Yasmela.”
“Ah, yes, O King,” Delvyn piped from his comer, “the dowager Yasmela, I have heard of her! She was a power in the Khorajan court—until a few years ago, when Armiro’s faction seized control. Now, ’tis said, he keeps her prisoned in a rural castle, a safe distance from the intrigues of the palace.” The jester gave a strum on his lute. “But that may be just a rumour to lull her former friends. More likely she is dead.”
“What... Yasmela slain? Or a prisoner? Say no more of this matter, jester!” Wearing a scowl fearsome to behold, Conan slammed his ale jack down on the table beneath the wavering spigot of a startled ale pourer. “Crom’s devils!” he muttered dangerously at Delvyn, who in turn regarded him with an insolent, unruffled air. “I will ask you about it later, in private! The wretch Armiro must be dealt with, in any case.”
With this shadow cast over the king, his talk of empire waned. Instead he summoned the ale ewer more frequently, while bantering with the wench who squirmed at his side. Their talk was of their established common interests, butchery and lechery.
“You rode into battle against me with your late lord, I was told, Amlunia.” The king reached up to trap her delicate chin between his callused thumb and forefinger. “’Tis said your blade took a red toll among my footmen and carls.”
“Aye, ’tis so!” The woman, instead of showing dread of him, laughed with pride as she twisted her jaw free of his grip.“I never troubled learning to joust, or swing a mace against clumsy mounted knights. But riding down men afoot is fine sport! Better than hunting antelope, or wild pigs!”
Conan laughed in his turn. “By Ishtar, I like a girl who rides to battle! Cimmerian women of my home tribe did so. They fought beside their men,” he said wistfully, “and avenged them when they fell, even to their own deaths!” He stroked Amlunia’s short hair and the lithe, slender neck beneath it. “Of course, some men say the presence of women on the battlefield is immoral... a warrant for rape, since rape is a lesser hurt than killing... or at least, it may be. And yet, rape does not rule out killing!” The king shook his head in ale-dim puzzlement. “Fah, I am no philosopher! But give me a warrior wench any day, one who scorns such dangers!”
“Thank you, lord.” Amlunia stirred pleasurably under Conan’s hand. “The hazard of rape is why I wear' full armour, and keep it tightly fastened. No warrior has yet unhorsed me, or mounted me himself... in battle, that is!”
Conan guffawed at this, laughing long and hard. Then he guzzled ale while recovering his breath. “Doubtless, too, Amlunia, the danger of rape explains your liking for leather underwear!” His hand roved to the waist of her tight black pantaloons, where it idly pinched and pried. “Tell me, girl, does it not get hot and sweaty at times?”
She reached to her midsection, took his hand, and guided it instructively. “And what of you, O King?” she asked him breathily. “Do you want to rape me? I would not let you.”
“Is that a challenge?” He set down his flagon, clasped his arms about her, and drew her closer against him. “You have a hatchet concealed in those jodhpurs to fend me off with, perhaps?” He finished his question with a playful nip at her earlobe.
“Nay, my king,” she gasped in his ear, “but you cannot rape me! We might swive together, but I—I would not let it be rape!” Her words were followed by squirms and caresses too imperative to allow further conversation.
The dinner’s official function had dissolved, in any case. Lord Lionnard had crept away with half-heard apologies, and soon afterward Trocero had gone for a night tour of the south wall. There remained in the king’s party only Delvyn, asleep or thoughtful by the fire, and Egilrude and the other officers, who soon trapped the comeliest of the Ophirean serving-maids on their black-kilted knees. These women, though reluctant at first, could scarcely refuse to tarry with their city’s conquerors. They let drink be poured down their throats, and thereafter let themselves be pawed by the men as the courtesan Amlunia was pawed by Conan, and even reciprocated.
The company’s frolic continued late, with the servants kept scurrying the better part of the night for more ale, sweetmeats, and firewood. At last the revellers sank down drugged or sated; the fire was banked high and blankets were laid over their drowsing bodies. Then the lights were snuffed out, and silence fell.
But in the grey hour of dawn, the king was awakened from his depleted, ale-heavy slumber by clanking footsteps and a firm, insistent prodding at his shoulder, “Conan! Arise, my king! The news is most urgent and requires your orders.”
“What is it, Trocero?” Relaxing his grip on the dagger he had instinctively clutched beneath his blanket, Conan heaved Amlunia’s stuporous weight aside and sat up on the hearthrug.
“Armiro has bridged the river.”
“What? You mean he’s attacked the bridge!” Conan jerked the blanket from his kingly undress and began casting about for his kilt. “Has he gained a foothold in the city?”
“Nay, Conan,” the count said patiently, “he has bridged the Red River, a league or two north of Ianthe. He built a bridge himself.”
“Crom’s curses! A ferry, you mean. A bridge of boats, we can easily destroy such—”
“No, Sire! The courier says it is a real bridge, one that horses and chariots are being driven across. His shock troops have already seized territory on our side of the river. I have alerted the city guard, but we must hasten to stop the invasion in our midst!”
VII
Kings and Quarrels
The riders advanced upriver, through scattered trees lining the high western bank. A low ceiling of mist overhung the water, which ran muddy red as the river’s name implied. Yet occasional glimpses of sunny white and sky blue through the landward boughs hinted that the fog would soon lift.
The Aquilonian formation was spread wide and deep to frustrate ambushers. Close before King Conan rode Trocero and Ottobrand, with shields raised high on their saddle pommels to screen him from enemy arrows. The king’s mood this morning was not such as to make him gallop into battle at the head of his troops.
“Blight this river fog!” he growled. “’Tis no wonder Armiro could build a bridge under our noses!”
“Aye, ’tis so, Your Majesty!” Ottobrand said. “With the nightly fog and the noise of the river flood—” The general fell silent a moment and let the murmur of rushing waters fill their ears. “But truly, milord, the prince must be wizard or demon himself to have raised the span so quickly, in a single night!”
“Nay, nay,” the king said, “to think on it, I have heard tales of the Stygian army using such contrivances against
rebel tribes on their rainy southern border.” He scowled. “Armiro must have planned it far in advance. His attack on the city was but a distraction.” The monarch shook his head ruefully. “We should have known and provided against it. You, Ottobrand, might have thought to—”
“Yonder lies the bridge, Sire!” The burly general, anxious to deflect criticism, raised a gauntleted arm pointing straight upriver.
There, between a low curtain of mist and the river’s braided torrent, stout timber piers and cross-braces marched across the wide, shallow reach. At their bases, swift currents could be seen foaming and leaping over abutments that appeared to be made of sticks—withe baskets, Conan guessed, laid into the stream and filled with stones. The bottom edge of the white pall obscured any sight of the span itself; whatever now passed over the bridge was invisible as well, due to the knife-edge of hovering mist. The obscurity almost seemed sorcerous in origin—and yet Conan remembered seeing many such morning fogs hanging over Cimmerian lakes in his youth.
From the forest just ahead came a sudden disturbance. There sounded the din of arrows striking armour, the scream of a horse, and prolonged, fluent curses. A moment later one of the scouts came striding back through the weeds on foot.
“Enemy pickets ahead, sir,” he told Ottobrand with a brisk salute. “They have raised a line of timber bastions along the far side of a stream. The posts are manned by skilled archers.”
“So. Send one of your fellows with a live horse inland, to alert the rest.” Ottobrand waved the formation of riders to a halt and turned to the king. “Defences lie ahead, Sire. It sounds like a risky position to attack with this scratch force. I sent word south ere dawn, so we should have more troops arriving by noon.”
“Aye. But by then Armiro will have the rest of his army across the river.” Conan spurred his horse past the general’s and forward along the bluff. “Let us have a look at this bridgehead of his.”
Just ahead, the course of a forest brook cut into the river bank at right angles. Its bed wound through reeds and tussocks in a shallow gully, to vanish abruptly in the silty wavelets of the Red River. Conan reined up his horse amid a stand of stout tree trunks and gazed across at the brook’s far bank. His view was unobstructed by the fog, which hung lowest and thickest over the river.
Ahead, a short distance away, a breastwork had been reared to defend the headland that was the terminus of the bridge. A low, curving palisade of tree trunks already faced out over brook and river, with the brush cleared away down to the waterline. As Conan watched, new timbers were lifted into place by labouring Kothian troops, whose heads and shoulders were visible behind the wall. The soldiers, purple-caped and wearing pointed helmets, swarmed methodically to their task, like ants.
Trocero and Ottobrand reined up beside Conan, shields raised high to protect their king. On seeing the palisade ahead, the general swore softly. “Milord, the prince has guessed we would come this way. Our approach is blocked.”
“A formidable bastion,” Trocero added, “to be reared so soon—” His words ceased abruptly at the approaching swish of an arrow, and its meaty thunk into a nearby tree. Around its shaft was knotted a broad, trailing streamer of white silk—a heraldic adornment that had undoubtedly slowed the arrow’s flight and made it far less deadly. As the ribbon settled to earth, a voice hailed the three from the far bank of the stream.
“Who comes? Is it Conan the Aquilonian, henchman of Ophir in her treacherous assault on Imperial Koth?” Conan, shouldering his horse forward between his officers’ mounts, rode to the very crest of the bank. He halted close beside the beribboned arrow. “Nay,” he shouted back. “I am Conan, King of Imperial Aquilonia, and saviour of Ophir from the Koth’s spoiling attack! Is the princeling Armiro present with his troops?” “I am Prince Armiro!” A younger, angrier-sounding voice took up the challenge. “Why do you not address me with the respect due a Supreme Tyrant of Khoraja and High Prince Designate of Koth?” At the highest point along the palisade could be seen the plumed helmets and shoulders of two officers, probably the prince and his lieutenant.
“I know nothing of such titles!” Conan bellowed back. “I see only a rash stripling whose greed makes him trespass on the domains of his betters!”
“In you,” the prince’s sharp-edged voice retorted a moment later, “I see but an uncouth brawler, trampling the robe of kingship under soiled, cloddish feet! What, then, is your business here? Do you come to plead an armistice?”
Trocero spoke softly and urgently at Conan’s shoulder. “He wants to bargain, Sire! Offer him southern Ophir, if he will but withdraw across the river.”
“Aye, Your Majesty,” Ottobrand added earnestly, “or even the nether half of the capital, south of the river. We can take it back later if we choose.”
Ignoring them, Conan thundered back at the palisade in the voice he used to move armies across battlefields. “Armistice? Nay, Khorajan whelp, I come for your head! You will rue the day you set about stealing the kingdom I chose to liberate! This,” he roared, “is a matter to be settled between men—if you have yet attained enough manhood to face me in single combat!” “Yes... splendid,” the sharp, arrogant voice drifted back, “that is also my wish—though I hate to sully proud Kothian steel with the blood and spew of a low ruffian that styles himself king! But since you dare insult me”—there came a moment’s silence, as if for consultation—“I have little choice. For a meeting place, what about yon islet?” The figure on the palisade raised an arm and pointed out over the river. “We two can row out alone, each of us, and decide who rules all of Ophir!”
The isle he pointed to was a sparse, barren sandbar lying well outside the fall of a bow from shore. Though low-lying, its surface looked dry and firm, and its position was ideal. On the smooth, naked expanse, a passage of arms between champions could be witnessed by all and hampered by none.
“Good, then,” Conan shouted to his rival, “I will meet you there!” Aside to Ottobrand he ordered, “Fetch me a boat.”
“Aye, Your Majesty! There is a string of them at Ulm’s landing, a short way downstream. But, Sire, would you really hazard everything on the outcome of a duel—?”
“Hazard?” Conan asked sharply, wheeling his horse back among the trees. “What hazard? Remember, I have just slain forty rogues of Armiro’s ilk single-handed! This will be but a trifle—that is why I provoked him to the fight.” He laughed scornfully, spurring toward the riverbank. “The prince is a landsman. He will do well to reach the field of combat without perishing in the toils of the river serpent!”
“Aye, perhaps, Your Majesty,” Trocero took up the argument, “but how many times can milord afford to stake your kingship and your country’s fate on the strength of your lone hand? Armiro is said to be a skilled fencer, strong and clever even considering his youth—”
“His youth?” The king twisted in his saddle to glower at the count. “You mean to say I am too old, that my strength and battle luck have run out? Why do you plague me with it? What must I do to prove otherwise?” His eyes smouldered a chilly blue at his old friend. “When I am king of the world, will that be enough?”
As Trocero tried to reassure Conan of his faith and loyalty, a boat was summoned. It came towed by horses at a gallop, a mastless skiff drawn through the river shallows near the bank. Into it were laid an assortment of weapons, including arrows and a stout longbow, unsheathed and strung taut in spite of the river’s damp. The king doffed his spurs, armour, and heavy sable jacket, which would have been a foolhardy costume in a boat. Instead he borrowed the wooden buckler and round helmet of a Gunder warrior, which he laid in the bulwarks. Seating himself facing the boat’s stem, he grasped the oars and pulled out into the stream.
The current was considerable even on this slow, shallow side of the river. It took most of his effort to hold his place upstream, abreast of his goal—three dips of the oars at least for every dollop of forward motion. At this rate Conan knew that Armiro, coming from upstream, would be less fatigued when h
e reached the field of honour.
Yet he scarcely minded the labour, and thanked the northern gods for his years of boat-handling experience among the Vilayet pirates. Keeping his eyes on the bearings he had established behind him—a pointed rock in the river shallows against a split tree high on the shore— he toiled onward.
Halfway to the sand bar, he saw the men behind him turn upstream, and glanced that way to see his rival emerging from behind the headland. The prince stood erect and forward-facing, one foot braced on the thwart, driving the boat forward with long, effortless strokes of two oars. Doubtless some quirk of the current favoured him greatly; even so, Conan begrudged the haughty youth his evident skill, and the bold figure he cut to the watching troops.
Their audience was by then vastly increased, for the fog had begun to lift. It exposed the far bank of the river, a treeless slope where throngs of men and horses gathered under the drooping standards of the Kothian legions. Likewise, further upstream, the bridge itself was unshrouded—and shown to be laden with men, carts, and horses moving across it in a steady westward flow. The soldiers marched three and four abreast, in broken step to keep from shaking the fragile structure apart.
At the sight of the two kings rowing out to their engagement, the troopers began to slow down and gawk in the middle of the span. This caused their officers and quartermasters to bellow at them, waving flails and whips overhead; but they were hampered from reaching the offenders by the crowd on the viaduct. In moments, all traffic on the bridge trundled to a halt.
Conan, struggling against the river’s dimpled currents, could spare little attention for the other boat and the bridge. Pulling smoothly and steadily, he rowed his skiff into the shelter of the islet, and felt its bow ground at last in firm mud. Stepping out into the water, he grasped the painter in both fists, which throbbed from his labour at the oars, and hauled the craft up onto the sand bar.
Conan the Great Page 8
