Conan grimaced. It was true that there could be no better service for a Free-Company than what Valentius offered, but he would sooner serve a viper. "What of Iskandrian?" he said. "The general takes no part in these struggles, follows no faction."
Valentius nodded reluctantly. "If you will not serve me," he said sulkily.
"Then let us leave this place," Conan said, "and quickly. It would be ill to be found standing over Antimides' corpse." As the others hurried from the room, though, he paused for one last look at the dead man.
Whatever sorcery Antimides had enmeshed himself in, the Cimmerian was glad it did not touch him. With a shiver he followed the others.
Chapter XVI
Dusk was falling as Conan returned to the house where his company was quartered, and the gray thickening of the air, the coming blackness, fitted his mood well. Iskandrian had taken Valentius under his protection at the army's barracks readily enough, but the old general had listened to their story with a suspicious eye on the Cimmerian.
Only for Valentius' agreement that Antimides appeared to have strangled himself had the mercenaries left those long, stone buildings unchained, and the petulant glare the young lord gave Conan as he said the words was as clear as a statement that he would have spoken differently could he but be sure he would not himself be implicated.
And then there had been Synelle. Conan had found her in a strange mixture of fury and satisfaction. She already knew of Antimides' death, though he was not aware the word had spread so quickly; that accounted for her contentment. But she had upbraided him savagely for riding away without her permission, and for taking the time to bring Valentius to Iskandrian's care.
The last seemed to infuriate her more than the first. He was in her service, not that of the fopling Valentius, and he would do well to remember it. To his own amazement he had listened meekly, and worst of all had had to fight with himself to stop from begging her forgiveness.
He had never begged anything from man or woman, god or demon, and it made his stomach turn to think how close he had come.
He slammed open the door of his room, and stopped dead. In the dimness Julia, naked and bound hand and foot, frowned up at him with her mouth working frantically at a gag.
"Machaon!" he shouted. "Narus!" Hastily he untied her gag. Her bonds had been tightly tied, and she had pulled them tighter with her struggles. He had to wield his dagger carefully to cut only the strips of cloth and not her flesh. "Who did this?" he demanded as he labored to free her.
With a groan she expelled a damp wad of cloth from her mouth, and worked her jaw before speaking. "Do not let him see me like this," she pleaded. "Hurry! Hurry!"
Machaon, Narus and Boros tumbled through the door, all shouting questions at once, and Julia screamed. As Conan severed the last binding, she jerked free of him and scrambled to the bed, snatching a blanket to cover herself.
"Go away, Machaon!" she cried, cowering back. Rubiate color suffused her cheeks. "I will not have you see me so. Go away!"
"'Tis gone," Boros said drunkenly, pointing to the corner where Conan had hidden the bronze figure.
For the first time the Cimmerian realized the board was lifted aside, and the space beneath it empty. A chill as of death oozed through him.
It seemed meet that this day should end so, with disaster peering at him like the vacant eve-sockets of a skull.
"Mayhap," Boros muttered, "do we ride hard, we can be across the border before it's used. I've always wished to see Vendhya, or perhaps Khitai.
Does anyone know a land more distant?"
"Be quiet, you old fool," Conan growled. "Julia, who took the bronze?
Crom, woman, stop worrying about that accursed blanket and answer me!"
Not ceasing her efforts to make the blanket cover all of her bountiful curves, and less precariously, Julia glared at him and sniffed. "'Twas a trull in men's breeches and wearing a sword." She glanced at Machaon out of the corner of her eye. "She said I have a boy's bottom. My bottom is as round as hers, only not so big."
Conan ground his teeth. "Her eyes," he asked impatiently. "They were green? Her hair red? Did she say anything else?"
"Karela?" Machaon said. "I thought she meant to kill you, not steal from you. But why is Boros so affrighted by this thing she took? You've not got us meddling with sorcerers again, Cimmerian?"
"You know her," Julia said accusingly. "I thought so from what she said about my. . ." She cleared her throat and began again. "All I remember of what she said is that she swore by Derketo and thanked you for five hundred pieces of gold. Have you truly given her so much? I remember my father's lemans, and I'd not think this Karela was worth a silver."
Conan pounded a huge fist on his thigh. "I must find her, Machaon, without delay. She has stolen a bronze figure that came to me by happenstance, a thing of evil power that will wreak destruction undreamed of, does she sell it to those I fear she will. Give me precise directions to find that ruined keep."
Julia moaned. "That is what she meant about gold? She takes the hellish thing to those Boros spoke of? Mitra protect us all, and the land!"
"I understand not a word of all this," Machaon said, "but one thing I do know. An you enter the Sarelain Forest in the night, you'll break your neck. That tangle is bad enough to travel in daylight. 'Twould take a man born there to find his way in the dark."
"I can find her," Boros said, swaying, "so long as she has the bronze.
Its evil is in truth a beacon." He pushed his sleeves up bony arms. "A simple matter of-"
"An you attempt magic in your condition," Conan cut him off, "I'll put your head on a spike over the River Gate with my own hands." The gray-bearded man looked hurt, but subsided, muttering under his breath.
Conan turned to Machaon. "There is no time to waste. Daylight may be too late."
Machaon nodded reluctantly, but Narus said, "Then take a score of us with you. Her band-"
"-would hear so many coming and melt away," the Cimmerian finished for him. "I go alone. Machaon?"
Slowly the tattooed veteran spoke.
Machaon was right. Conan thought as an unseen branch whipped across his face for what seemed the hundredth time. A man could easily break his neck in that blackness. He forced his horse on through the heavy thicket of vines and undergrowth, hoping he moved in the right direction. As a boy he had learned to guide himself by the stars, but the sky was seldom visible, for the forest was ancient, filled with huge oaks whose thick interwoven branches formed a canopy with few openings above his head.
"You've come far enough," a voice called from the dark, "unless you want a quarrel in your ribs!"
Conan put a hand to his sword.
"None of that!" another man said, then chuckled. "Me and Tenio grew up in this forest, big man, poaching the King's deer by night. He sees better than I do, and you might as well be standing under a full moon for all of me."
"I seek Karela," Conan began, but got no further.
"Enough talk," the first voice said. "Take him!"
Suddenly rough hands were pulling the big Cimmerian from his horse, into the midst of a knot of men. He could not even see well enough to count how many, but he seized an arm and broke it, producing a scream.
There was no room to draw his sword, nor light to see where to strike; he snatched his dagger instead and laid about him, bringing yells and curses when he slashed flesh. In the end their numbers were too great, and he was pressed to the dirt by the weight of them, his wrists bound behind him and a cord tied between his ankles for a hobble.
"Anybody hurt bad?" panted the man who had chuckled earlier. "My arm,"
someone moaned, and another voice said, "Bugger your arm! He near as cut my ear off!"
Cursing the dark-not all had cat's eyes-they pulled Conan to his feet and pulled him through the trees, dragging him, when the hobble caught roots and tripped him, until he managed to get his feet under him again.
Abruptly a blanket was pulled aside before him, and he was thrust
into a stone-walled room lit by rush torches in rusted iron sconces on the walls. A huge hearth with a roaring fire of logs as big as a man's leg, a great iron pot suspended on pivoting arm above it, filled one wall.
Blankets at the windows-narrow arrow-slits, in fact-kept the light from spilling into the surrounding forest. A dozen men, as motley a collection of ruffians as Conan had ever seen, sprawled on benches at crude trestle tables, swilling wine from rough clay mugs and wolfing down stew from wooden bowls.
Karela got to her feet as Conan's captors crowded in after him, complaining loudly about their wounds and bruises. Her dark leather jerkin, worn over tight breeches of pale gray silk tucked into red boots, was laced snugly, yet gaped enough at the top to reveal the creamy upper slopes of her full, heavy breasts. A belt worn low on her well-rounded hips supported her scimitar.
"So," she said, "you're more fool than I thought you, Cimmerian. You'll force me to kill you yet."
"The bronze, Karela," he said urgently. "You must not sell it. They're trying-"
"Silence him!" she snapped.
"-to raise Al'Kiir," he managed to get out, then a club smashed against the back of his head, and darkness claimed him.
Chapter XVII
The fool, Karela thought as she stared at Conan's huge prostrate form.
Was his masculine arrogance so great that he could believe all he must needs do to retrieve the figure was ride up and take it? She knew him for a prideful man, and knew as well that the pride was justified. By himself, with naught but his broadsword, he was more than a match for ...
Abruptly she cursed to herself. The Cimmerian was no longer the same man who had emprisoned a part of her and carried it away with him. She had been thinking of him as he was when she first knew him, a thief and a loner with naught but his wits and the strength of his sword arm. Now he commanded men, and men who, she reluctantly admitted, were a more dangerous pack than the hounds she led.
"Was he alone?" she demanded. "An you've led his Free-Company here, I'll have your hides for boots!"
"Didn't see nobody else," Tenio muttered. "That means there weren't nobody else." A small, ferrery man with a narrow face and sharp nose, he spat a tooth into his palm and glared at it. "I say kill him." Some of those nursing broken ribs and knife gashes growled assent.
Marusas, her Zamoran, produced a dagger in his long, calloused fingers.
"Let us wake him, instead. He looks strong. He would scream a long time before he died."
Instantly all of the men were shouting, arguing for one course or the other.
"Kill him now! He's too dangerous!"
"He's just a man. Flay him, and he'll scream like any other."
"You didn't fight him out there! You don't know!"
"He cut me to the bone with ten of us on him, and broke Agorio's arm!"
"Silence, you dogs!" Karela roared, and the bickering ceased as they turned to stare at her. "I say who dies, and I say he doesn't. Not yet, at least! Do any of you mangy curs care to dispute me? To your kennels!"
She put a hand to her scimitar hilt, and a dangerous light glowed in her green eyes. One by one they dropped their eyes from hers, muttered, and shuffled back to their drinking or to tend their wounds. Jamaran, a huge, shaven-headed Kushite with shoulders broader than Conan's and the thick fingers of a wrestler, was the last to remain glowering at her, his dark face twisted with anger. A split of his cheek showed where Conan's fist had landed in the struggle.
"Well, Jamaran?" she said. She knew he wanted to replace her, and take her to his bed as well, though he did not know she was aware of his desires. He had thoughts about the proper place for women; sooner or later she would have to show him the error of his ways or slay him.
"Are you ready to dispute my rule?"
Surprise glimmered on his face, and was quickly supplanted by a sneering smile. "Not yet," he growled. "I will tell you when, my red-haired pretty." His black eves ran over her body like a caress, then with incredible lightness on his feet for a man of his size he stalked to the nearest table and snatched up a mug, tossing back his head to drink deeply.
Karela quivered in shocked outrage as she glared at his broad back.
Never before had he been so open. She would have to kill him, she thought, after this. But it could not be done now. The temper of her band was too delicately balanced. As much as she hated admitting it, a wrong move now could wreck all she had labored for. With a snarl she released her sword.
It was not like the days in Zamora, she thought grimly. Then none of her band dared to challenge her word, or to think of her as a woman. It was all Conan's fault. He had changed her in some way she did not understand, some way she did not want to be changed. He had woven a thread of weakness into her fabric, and other men could sense it.
As if her thoughts of him had been a call the Cimmerian groaned and stirred.
"Gag him," she ordered. "Wove, Derketo curse you! I'll not be bothered by his babblings!"
Conan shook himself as Tenio and Jamaran knelt beside him. "Karela," he said desperately, "listen to me. These men are dangerous. They mean to bring an evil-"
Tenio tried to shove a rag into his mouth, and screamed as the Cimmerian sank teeth into his hand. Jamaran smashed a fist into Conan's jaw; the ferret-faced man jerked his hand free, sprinkling drops of blood as he shook it. Before Conan could speak again Jamaran had thrust the wadding home and bound it. As he got to his feet the shaven-headed man kicked Conan in the ribs and pulled back his booted foot for another. Tenio drew his dagger with his undamaged hand, a murderous gleam in his eyes.
"Stop that," Karela commanded. "Did you hear me? Leave him!" Slowly, reluctantly, the two drew away from the Cimmerian.
She could feel those sapphire eyes on her. He shook his head furiously, fighting the gag, making angry noises behind it. Shivering, she turned her back to stare into the fire.
Karela knew she could not afford to let herself listen to the young giant. He had always been able to talk her into anything. Did he put his hands on her, her will melted. This time, she told herself, this time it would be different.
The night went slowly for her, and she was aware that it was because of Conan's eyes on her back. The rest of the bandits took themselves off to sleep, most simply pulling blankets about them on the stone floor, but sleep would not come near Karela. Like a leopard in a cage she paced, and the goad that made her pace was an unblinking icy blue gaze.
She would have had him blindfolded, except that she would not admit even to herself that simply his eyes on her could affect her so greatly.
Finally the titian-haired beauty settled before the great hearth and studied the leaping flames as if they were the most important thing in the world. Yet even then she could not escape the Cimmerian, imagining him writhing in the fire, imagining him suffering all the tortures of the damned, all the tortures he so richly deserved. She could not understand why that seemed to make her feel even worse, or why from time to time she had to surreptitiously wipe tears from her cheeks.
At first light she sent Tenio riding for Ianthe with the scarlet surcoat. The rest of the day she spent in ignoring Conan. Food and drink she denied him.
"Let him eat and drink when I have gone," she commanded.
The men scattered about the room, most devoting their energies to dice or cards, gave her muttered assent and strange looks. She did not care.
Not for the briefest moment would she allow the Cimmerian to be ungagged in her presence. Not until she had the five hundred pieces of gold in her hands to taunt him with. Not until she managed to settle herself, and that seemed strangely difficult to do.
Then the sun was making its downward journey. Time for Karela to leave for the hut. The bronze she had left, still wrapped in the blanket from Conan's bed, outside beneath a tree. There was no one about to steal it, and she would not have it under the same roof with her could she avoid it.
As she was tying the blanket-swathed bundle behind her saddle-and muttering to hersel
f for the sickness it made her feel in the pit of her stomach Jamaran came out of the lone tower that remained of the ancient keep.
"That thing is valuable," he said challengingly. "Five hundred gold pieces, you say."
Karela did not answer him. This morning was no better time to kill him than last night had been.
"I should go with you," the huge man went on when she remained silent.
"To make certain you return safely with the gold. This noble you go to may prove treacherous. Or perhaps something else might delay you, a woman alone with so much gold."
Karela's face tightened. Did the fool think she planned to run off with the coin? Or did he think to take the gold and her both? "No!" she snapped as she swung into the saddle. "You are needed here to help guard the prisoner."
"There are a score to watch him. So much gold-"
"Fool!" She made the word a sneering whiplash. "You must learn to think if you would lead men. That one inside, bound as he is, is more dangerous than any man you've ever seen. I but hope there are enough of you to keep him till I return."
Before Jamaran could speak the furious words she could read plainly on his face, Karela put spurs to her fleet eastern bay, and darted down a narrow path that was little more than a deer track. Many such crossed and criss-crossed in the thick forest, and she was soon gone beyond following.
In truth, she did not think all of her followers were necessary to keep Conan imprisoned. What she had told the big Kushite was true. The Cimmerian giant was dangerous enough to make even her wary, and she prided herself on walking carefully about no man. She had seen him struggle when defeat was inevitable, slay when his own death was certain, win when only doom lay ahead. Bound hand and foot, however, and guarded by twenty men, she did not doubt Conan would be waiting as she had left him when she returned.
The Conan Compendium Page 393
