by Roland Green
The Cimmerian’s respect for Lysinka rose several notches. She had retained command of herself in spite of fear that would have frozen most men or women into statues—and she could admit her sorrow openly. It spoke highly of the respect in which her folk held her, that she need not appear perfect or fearless to them.
As if to herself, Lysinka now went on. “He was the guide who led us the day we sought the chest. We did not know that the chest held the Soul of Thanza. If we had reached the road in time, we might have taken it that day.”
“Or it might have taken you,” Conan ventured. “That kind of magic’s a chancy affair at best.”
Lysinka nodded. “So you saved us twice, my friend.” She was addressing the dead man now. “Once that day, by chance; once tonight, when you gave your life. And all I can offer you is a cairn of rocks to keep off the carrion birds.”
She looked ready to weep again, which accorded her no shame but would waste time Conan thought they had best not spend here in the open. He lifted her gently.
“We can sing a song for him or at least create it and have others with more pleasant voices sing it. But that and everything else must wait until we are safe inside the citadel.”
“Safe?” He was pleased to hear the wryness in her voice again.
“Well, my lady. If this rock pile holds worse than the Spider Wind, we’re dead, but we might as well die standing up. If that death-glutted Wind was the worst, and we’ve fought it off, we should be fit to do the same with any lesser foe.”
“As I said, Conan, you have a longheaded way of looking at war.”
“It’s either that or be dead, when you’re a wanderer like me.” He turned and raised his voice. “A messenger needs to go back, to tell the others of this fight and have our men start looking for a way to bring the mules up. I don’t know about you, but / feel like sleeping on something softer than a rock tonight!”
The sky was grey before the last of Grolin’s men returned.
The lord of Thanza (whose title now seemed but a rude jest) counted them. He had eighteen men left to him, with ample food, weapons, and other supplies for fighting and surviving. If all he had intended to do was to resume his career as a bandit chief somewhere else, he would not have been so ill-furnished as he had feared.
“But you intend more than that, do you not?” rang a familiar voice in Grolin’s mind.
“I do. Guide us to the Soul of Thanza, and I doubt that we shall have a quarrel.”
“No, not until then.” The sorcerer’s face was now dimly visible, almost a wraith, amidst a large clump of fungus. Perhaps it was only a sleepless night he faced, but it seemed to Grolin that the face had taken on some of the pallid hue of its host.
Was the sorcerer in his mind at all times, or only when they spoke, or even not at all? Grolin wondered if the face’s pallor came from the death of the Spider Wind in last night’s battle.
If so the sorcerer was not invincible. It followed, therefore, that not even a man who gave him total obedience and served the Soul as well would become invincible.
So Grolin would seek another way to the power he now knew must be his alone. He could never again allow himself to be vulnerable through the weakness of lesser men—or sorcerers, or even gods.
Anything less than absolute power was to him no different from death.
Above the citadel, the sky had turned pink in the east and the grey was fading to blue overhead. Only the last few stars still glimmered in the west, sinking with the moon toward the rock-fringed horizon.
From below, Conan heard the mules braying. They would warn the whole forest that the citadel was occupied, but somehow he doubted that anyone cared. Grolin and his men were gone, so was the Spider Wind, and archers commanded both routes by which anyone else might approach the citadel.
What the Cimmerian wanted now was a change of dressings for his wounded side, which had begun to ache insistently. Then he wanted a long drink of anything cold, and finally, sleep.
Grolin and his men had largely stripped the citadel of anything useful, but the Rangers had been hauling rations and bedding up from below since the stars began to fade. Water he could find at any one of three live springs that fed basins carved into the rock.
Searching for the spring, he also found Lysinka, sitting by one of the basins, absently trailing her long fingers through the water. As he bent to drink, Conan saw that her fingers were scraped raw, from her fierce grip on the rock, and two of the nails were missing.
“I was going to ask you to change my dressing,” he said when his mouth and throat no longer felt dust-caked. “But I think your hands need dressing themselves.”
“Perhaps we can do for each other,” Lysinka said. She fumbled in her belt pouch. “Oh, plague! I’ve the herbs but no more dressings.” She looked downcast for a moment, then grinned.
“Perhaps this will do.” She pulled her green leather tunic off over her head. Under it she wore a shirt of soft pale grey linen. She pulled that off too, baring herself to the waist, save for scars and goose flesh from the chill morning air.
Conan felt his blood heating. He had thought Lysinka a trifle thin-flanked. Now he had good reason to think otherwise.
“You will be cold, Lysinka.”
“Not for the little while it will take to rip this up for dressings,” she said, tearing off one sleeve of her shirt. “There is a bowl in my pouch. Fill it with water and hand it to me.”
Conan obeyed without taking his eyes off Lysinka. The heat of his blood was reaching a point where he feared Lysinka would sense it. However, he would abide by the laws of her band, as all the Rangers had sworn to do.
This did not keep him from thinking that a woman like this was sadly wasted on £ chaste existence as a bandit chieftain.
Lysinka steeped the crumbled herbs in the bowl, then soaked the shirt sleeve in the herb-water. Finally, she poured the rest of the water over Conan’s old dressing, softening it until it came off with hardly a twinge of pain.
“You’ve good-healing flesh,” she said. “No bad thing for a soldier.” Her fingers probed the wound.
Conan saw her jaw set, and remembered that her fingers must be giving her as much pain as his wound gave him.
Now her fingers were not so much probing as caressing. Conan assured himself that this was merely the work of applying the new dressing. He sniffed the faintly acrid, faintly woody scent of the herbs joining the smell of the smoke from the cook fires.
‘Thank you,” Conan said at last, when the warm trail of those fingers on his flesh was about to make him lift Lysinka’s battened hands to his lips. “Now, what about your hands
“Ah—we need a fresh bowl of herb water,” Lysinka said. “And—Conan, I am still cold.” Her tongue crept out over her lower lip.
Conan lifted both hands and stroked her bare shoulders and breasts until he was caressing her throat. “Then perhaps I can warm you, Lysinka of Mertyos.” She had finished disrobing by the time Conan had spread blankets and furs. She gripped him with hunger and fierce joy; and when she cried out, the echoes from the rocks made sweet listening.
IX
That first morning, Conan and Lysinka enjoyed only a short embrace in each other’s arms. There was too much to do, even without sending a single fighter outside the citadel.
The first task was a thorough search of Grolin’s citadel, to discover what or who he might have left behind. Human spies were most likely but also least feared. A hand’s-breadth of well-honed steel could silence them forever. Magical perils were another matter.
When the citadel was pronounced clear of at least all recognizable dangers and sentries were posted, the mules remained. They had to be brought safely higher, unpacked, fed, watered, tethered, and then persuaded that they should not retaliate for all these indignities by kicking their handlers off the nearest cliff.
Some of Lysinka’s folk kept peace between man and mule with some effort, much sweat, and enough cursing to crack boulders. Between bursts of cursing the
mules, they congratulated Conan.
“Not much of a secret, is it?” the Cimmerian said with a wry smile.
“Don’t remember that you were trying to keep it,” one replied. “Most of her people, by the way, think it’s high time she had a man of her own.”
“If I want your opinions, I’ll ask them,” the Cimmerian muttered. “And if I don’t like them, I may just f have to break a few heads.”
“Just be sure you don’t break any skulls Lysinka thinks are hers to break,” the man said. “Otherwise she’ll break something of yours, and I much doubt it will be your head!”
The search of the citadel did reveal some dry chambers and caves sheltered from the wind, and into one of these Lysinka and Conan moved their bedding. They also retired to that bedding earlier than they had the previous night, and were asleep in time to rise before dawn and inspect the sentries.
The third morning, Conan awoke to feel a brisk wind rising, then long firm fingers gripping his ankle. I “Must you rise so soon, Conan?” The pleading contrived to be both real and mocking at the same time. “What, does three nights with a man turn you into a clinging girl?” the Cimmerian growled, with the same note in his voice.
“No,” Lysinka said. She sat up, wearing only a fold of blanket over her loins. Conan turned to admire her, as any man with eyes in his head would have done.
“I do not cling,” Lysinka added with dignity. “But I had all but forgotten that shared furs are warmer than sleeping alone. Come back and warm me up before we have to face a stormy day.”
They warmed each other so thoroughly that by the time Conan next rose, half a gale was blowing over the citadel. He sent a messenger to the patrol he was about to lead in exploring the area around the citadel more thoroughly. They would depart when the storm passed, not now when the wind could blow them off cliffs or mask the approach of enemies.
With no duties, Conan and Lysinka found themselves warming to each other yet again. They lay in contentment afterward, until the angry roar of die wind had diminished to a distant and discontented muttering.
At last, as they both rose, Conan remembered another time he had thus spent a morning. Remembering was not all pleasure, for the long ago morning had been spent with the pirate lady Bêlit.
But the Cimmerian had no wish to be free of memories, even those that brought no joy, if it meant forgetting Bêlit altogether. Indeed, Lysinka had much in common with the late queen of the Black Coast, being also lithe, deadly, and the unquestioned leader of a band of cutthroats. The bandit chieftain was fairer of skin, and those ice-blue eyes said that some of her blood flowed from the north, not from the land of Shem like Bêlit’s.
All of which might mean much, little, or even nothing whatsoever; and meanwhile Conan had to cram a day’s scouting into what remained of daylight.
Grolin seemed to have fled the area. Or else, be cunningly hidden. Regardless, other bandit companies might have wandered in, drawn by the uproar at the citadel and hoping for easy pickings.
Conan had no intention of giving them any opportunities by allowing himself to be trapped outside the citadel with only a handful of men. When he latched on Grolin’s trail, he and Lysinka would lead a stout band.
* * *
Conan’s scouts numbered twelve, all picked for archery or spear-throwing, clear eyes, climbing skills, and stout boots. This meant that Lysinka’s band gave Conan eight and the Thanza Rangers only four scouts; but one of the Rangers was the sharpest-eyed man in either band.
Dutulus was in fact keener of sight than either of the Village Brothers or even Conan himself. The man had done most of his climbing up walls to ladies’ windows and down again to escape jealous husbands; but those days were behind him—or so he said.
Dutulus was the first to sight the approaching pack train. Conan sent the men to cover and remained on watch with his lookout. As the pack train ambled closer, Conan grew more certain that it could not contain Grolin. Even as a most desperate form of disguise, | the lord of Thanza would hardly saunter up to his old citadel in the full light of day, encumbered with some twenty-odd pack animals.
“Some caravan that hasn’t heard of bandits?” Dutulus asked. His tone held wonderment that any people so witless could be alive and breathing.
“The men look harder than most of your caravan guards,” Conan said. “And their armour’s Nemedian’ style, or I’m a Khitan.”
The Cimmerian remembered what Lysinka had said, of Grolin’s boasting about friends or at least allies in both neighbouring kingdoms. It looked as if one set of friends intended to pay a visit to the departed lord of Thanza.
Conan bound his long hair up in a rough pigtail, the style favoured by a good many of Lysinka’s men.
“What in Mitra’s name—?” Dutulus began.
“Mitra will stand well clear of this, if he’s wise,” Conan said. “You stay up here and keep a lookout for any friends these folk may have. I’m going down to see if I can accept their loads in Lord Grolin’s name.”
Dutulus’s mouth opened, then closed and formed a smile as he took Conan’s meaning.
The Cimmerian nodded. “You may yet live to die in your own wife’s bed. Don’t let anyone so much as nock an arrow unless you see me attacked.”
Conan then ambled down the slope, with the easy carelessness of a man walking his dog in his own garden. If he were wrong about these men being Grolin’s friends, his own life might be near its end. But they could never cross half a league of rugged mountains to the citadel in time to catch its occupants unaware.
Crom did not much care for men’s prayers, even for their battle luck. All Crom asked was that a warrior do his best and accept what came with no outcry. Conan was one who would have done this whether he worshipped all gods or none.
It still sobered the Cimmerian a trifle, to think that for the first time in a long while, he might be leaving behind a woman ready to mourn him.
By the time Conan had settled this in his mind, the men below had noticed him. One of them blew a horn that sent the caravan’s guards into a circle, with drawn steel. A guard broke out of the circle and mounted the slope toward Conan.
“Hola! How fares the lord of Thanza?” the man called.
“Well enough,” Conan said.
“Hunh,” the man said, after another dozen paces. “You’re a new face in Grolin’s band. What do you
here?”
“I won’t be the only one, when you reach the citadel,” Conan said. “Grolin’s made a pact with Lysinka of Mertyos. That gives each of them two camps and near double the fighting strength.”
Conan would rather be flayed alive than deal in magic or court the Soul of Thanza. Nonetheless, the man below studied the Cimmerian intensely, as if trying to read some deep secrets in the battle-hardened face above.
His efforts were in vain. Conan now smiled more than he had in his younger days. He could also more skilfully make his countenance as unreadable as a granite boulder.
“You look like a canny fighter,” the man finally said. “Did you come with Lysinka?”
Conan shook his head. “Deserted from the Aquilonian host. I’ve sworn nothing to Lysinka.” “Good. Then let me just say it’ll be worth your while not to. Men in Nemedia will see to that.”
Conan refused to be drawn into what was doubtless some intrigue among Grolin’s Nemedian friends. Instead, he played the honest warrior.
“I’ll worry about my reward when I’ve done something to earn it. For now, we’d all best worry about making a safe way to the citadel. If it comes on to blow again, we’ll not be there before nightfall, and that’s no healthy fate hereabouts.
“I name no names,” Conan went on, “but there’ve been tales of new bands of the brothers of the hills moving in. Some think they want to join, some think they want the price on Lysinka’s head—”
The other man’s face showed that Conan’s random shot had struck home.
“—and none of them are yet friends enough with Grolin to resist a fat
pack train. So let’s be off. I’ve a few good fellows with me, and we know the land. Give us the word, and you’ve scouts in plenty.”
That arrangement, if the man accepted it, should allow Conan to march with the visitors and listen to what they said in unguarded moments. Meanwhile, his own men would be hiding their strength and staying well ahead, to spy out ambushes or deliver one themselves, as necessary.
The man seemed about to answer, when a wild cry from above made Conan whirl.
Dutulus was standing on a boulder, waving his arms as if beset by angry bees. Vaguely Conan made out that he was shouting something. Then Dutulus pointed off to the north-east, behind Conan.
The Cimmerian turned, his eyes grew colder still, and without a word to the man or the other guards, he drew his sword.
So black that they stood out even against the grey sky, so glossy that they seemed to glow, the pack of flying snakes swept down on the prey offered to them as if tethered at the stake.
At least, “flying snake” was the name that first came to Conan’s mind. Legless, they had fanged heads, long sinuous bodies ten paces long and seemingly covered with scales, and two pairs of broad, leathery wings. He also saw that they seemed to know exactly where they were going, and he doubted that their intentions once they reached their destination were friendly.
“Archers!” Conan bellowed. His voice not only raised echoes, it brought the archers of the pack train to the alert and the archers of his own band out of their hiding places.
The man facing Conan looked at the Cimmerian, then uphill. His look turned into a glare, and his hand went to his sword hilt.
Before he could draw, three of the pack train’s archers let fly. The man had to duck to keep the arrows from parting his hair. By then Conan had grappled him and was shaking him as if to shake his sword out of its scabbard or some wits into his head.
“Those creatures are no friends of ours! If you see treachery where it isn’t, you’re a bigger fool than I thought a man could be. Draw, but not on me, if you don’t want to be snake fodder!”
