'That's enough!' shouted someone outside the circle of fire-light. 'Back, and away from here!' A sound of trampling feet announced the precipitate retreat of the bandits. Conan's trained ears told him that there were no more than four of them left.
In the sudden quiet there was no sound save the crackling of the fires. Then the sobbing of women, the groaning of wounded men, and the crying of children rose into the night sky. Reshta came near and surveyed the Cimmerian with something akin to awe.
'By all the Baalim!' exclaimed the Shemite. 'You spoke no falsehood when you proclaimed yourself to be a fighting man!'
'How many are dead?' Conan asked, bending to tear a strip of cloth from a slain bandit's tunic. 'Not counting these vermin, I mean.' With the cloth, he cleaned his blade while the merchant went to take a tally.
'Five of us were killed,' Reshta reported when he returned.
'Where were those two louts in rusty iron?' Conan asked.
'As you predicted, they never woke from their drunken stupor. Both had their throats cut. The other three dead tried to fight in the dark.'
'That is always a bad idea,' Conan said. 'Fighting in the dark leaves too much to chance. Many a fine warrior has died at the hand of a lesser man he could not even see.'
'Doubtless these unfortunate men lacked your experience,' said Reshta. After a moment of pondering, he spoke again. 'I think that like everyone else here except for you, I was confused in the early moments of the attack. Still, it seemed to me that these villains came in search of you.'
'I do not see how that could be,' said the Cimmerian. 'No man knows me in these parts. I have no wealth and no enemies. Doubtless they saw that I was the best fighting man here and that they would have to slay me first if they hoped to accomplish their aim.'
'Aye,' said Reshta, sounding doubtful. 'Perhaps that is how it was.' He walked away to oversee the disposal of the dead. Despite his own words, Conan remembered the voice from the outer dark. It had called: 'There he is!'
The next morning he parted company with the travelling band. He had no intention of reining his fine horse to the plodding pace of these merchants and mountebanks. Before he rode away, the Shemitish spice merchant came to him.
'Farewell, Cimmerian, and thanks for your aid. Even if those rogues were looking for you, I feel sure they would have descended upon us last night whether you were with us or not. They were in the district and we made a tempting target. I feel that when you reach Sicas, that town will grow very lively.'
He rode alone, and he knew that the bandits might be in wait for him somewhere ahead. But he was mounted and fully armed and armoured, and in such a state, Conan feared no four or five bandits in the world, in broad daylight. The sun had not yet reached zenith when he learned that he had no worries at all from that quarter.
No more than a mile from the border, he came upon a grim, ghastly, but not at all unusual sight. A small detail of Nemedian troops sat beneath a large tree, sipping at steaming cups of an herbal infusion. Above their heads dangled four bodies, each hanging by the neck from the same limb. Conan reined his horse toward the little group. A man whose helm bore the green plumes of a sergeant stood and approached him.
'A fine sight, eh, outlander?' said the sergeant.
'Are these the bandits who have made a nuisance of themselves here lately?' Conan inquired.
'Aye.' White teeth flashed in the dark face. 'We ran into these four this morning, captured them and hung them all in the same hour. You see that villain in the velvet coat?' He pointed to the corpse of a middle-aged man with a grey-speckled beard. 'That is Fabirio, who was once a good soldier of the king. He was my captain when I was a recruit; that is how I knew him for certain.' The sergeant spat upon the ground. 'He turned bad after he killed a comrade over a gambling debt. These last eight years he has plagued both sides of the border with his band. No longer, though.'
'Good work,' Conan commended. 'I was with a group of travellers last night when these rogues attacked. We slew five and the rest fled. The other travellers will be along later today and will confirm this.' Conan knew better than to boast of his own feats when he had no evidence for proof.
'Excellent!' exclaimed the sergeant. 'Perhaps that was the lot. Their numbers have been dwindling of late.'
'Did you have a chance to question them?' Conan asked. 'Did they say anything?'
'We did not bother,' said the sergeant. 'What could these scum say that might interest us? We ran them down, disarmed them and strung them up. Why do you ask?' A suspicious light came to the man's eye, a light with which Conan was all too familiar.
'No reason,' he said. 'Were there rewards on their heads?'
'Oh, assuredly,' said the sergeant. 'If you do not mind tarrying about here in Nemedia for months while all the office vermin go through their paces and if you can assemble enough witnesses and so forth. However, you have the look of a man with an itch to visit far lands, so I would not encourage you to cultivate any vain hopes in that direction.'
'I shall not,' Conan said. 'Greater rewards beckon me elsewhere.'
'Then ride forth with the blessings of the gods, outlander,' said the sergeant.
Conan rode away from the tree and its unnatural fruit, reflecting that this was not the first time that officers charged with enforcement had expressed an interest in seeing him out of their territory. He was quite sure that it would not be the last.
Just past noon, he crossed the border into Aquilonia. Two small forts marked the boundary, since at this point there was no natural feature such as a river or a mountain range to mark it. There had been peace between the nations for some time, and the border officials did no more than note his name and give him a wax tablet stamped with the date and the place of the border crossing. He was supposed to surrender this tablet to royal officers upon demand and give it back when he should leave the country. Conan accepted this process with the resignation with which he tolerated all such nonsense.
The border territories of Aquilonia were similar to those of Nemedia, but they were far more efficiently policed. The villages were, for the most part, cleaner and better ordered than those on the other side of the border, not that Conan considered this to be a great attraction. His own tastes ran to the colourful and the uproarious. If he had wanted a life that was calm and harmonious, as philosophers had assured him was that most to be desired, he would have stayed at home in Cimmeria. Life there could be brutal and ferocious, but most of the time it was dull. That was why he had left.
The high road was paved with cut stone, but Conan saw that there were gaps where weeds sprouted between the slabs of granite, and in places, pieces of the road had been washed out by storms. Clearly, the king of this place was failing. Conan was not a man of the civilized lands, but in his wanderings he had learned to read such signs. In the forested Cimmerian lowlands, the broken stub of a branch holding in its clefts strands of bristling black hair meant a wild bull grown old, clumsy and decrepit. Likewise, a fine road in such a state of neglect meant a king who was losing his grip.
Even in its deteriorated condition, the fine road brought him within a few days to the juncture of the high road leading to Tarantia. He would have liked to ride north and see the capital city, but instead, he rode south, toward Shamar.
This highway linked the two major cities of Aquilonia, and during the height of the travelling season, it would be thronged. With winter closing in, the traffic had dwindled, and for much of the time Conan could see no other travellers in either direction. The lands nearby were cultivated and had the look of great tales, with broad fields worked by peasants, and in the distance he could descry the fine villas of the wealthy. Standing near each country house was a fortified tower to which the owners could repair in unsettled times.
At intervals along the road stood shrines to the local gods, some of them bearing the remains of offerings: flowers, cakes, and incense. As he passed one of these shrines, Conan heard sounds from a copse of trees behind the structure. There were the gr
owling voices of men, then the sharp, high scream of a woman. Without pausing for thought, he spurred his horse off the road and pounded for the trees.
Just inside the wood, three men looked up from their activity at the Cimmerian's arrival, hard-bitten men in ragged clothing, belted with swords and long daggers. They crouched over a struggling woman who was resisting the removal of her garments. Conan saw a flash of white limbs and grinned at this unexpected liveliness in the midst of his otherwise dull morning.
'Begone, fool,' snarled a man whose rat-trap mouth was framed by thin, drooping black moustaches. His greasy black hair was parted in the centre by a jagged scar. 'You've no call to interfere with our sport.'
'Sport, is it?' Conan said. 'You call three men attacking one woman sport?' He drew his sword and thumbed its edge. 'What I call sport is a three-on-one fight with a man who knows his business. Will you play with me?'
Setting spurs to his horse, Conan charged down upon them. The men looked at one another for an instant, then took to their heels as one man. Three to one was poor odds when the one was mounted and armoured. Laughing, Conan chased them as they scrambled among the trees. He was forced to manoeuvre carefully among the boles, ducking low to avoid limbs. The men reached the edge of the wood ahead of him, and there they scrambled onto their horses. Conan burst from the trees just in time to see three horses' tails presented to him, their riders galloping the mounts for all they were worth.
Hallooing like a hunter with a stag fleeing before him, Conan pounded toward them, his sword cutting great circles in the air around him. To his astonishment, the three horses put on a great burst of speed and the men began to draw away. His own horse was already running at top speed, and it was clear that he would not catch these three. He reined in and turned, then trotted his mount back to the copse behind the shrine.
He found the woman rearranging her clothing. Her face was a furious red, but her smile was dazzling when he rode up.
'Oh, sir, I cannot begin to thank you. Who knows what my fate might have been had you not arrived as you did?'
'I can guess,' Conan said. 'But you need not fear now. Those were the best-mounted cowards in Aquilonia. They were riding racehorses, else I'd have collected their heads.'
'If they were thieves, why should they not steal the best?' the woman said. 'I would think that men who spend their lives fleeing must prize fleet animals.'
'That makes sense,' Conan agreed. 'How came it about that you fell afoul of them?'
'I was travelling on the highway and stopped at this shrine to rest and make a small offering. When I emerged, they were waiting for me. I think they must have camped in these woods to catch lone travellers. They relieved me of my belongings, then dragged me here to make use of what I had left. I am sure that after that, they would have cut my throat.' She shuddered, then looked up with another smile. 'But you appeared, like a champion out of legend. I shall be grateful to you forever.'
Conan studied her as she spoke, and he liked what he saw. The woman was slender, with long, tapering legs and a willowy waist. Her breasts were high and full. Beneath a mane of somewhat disarrayed chestnut hair, her face was heart-shaped, with generous lips and wide blue eyes.
'Did they get away with your belongings?' Conan asked, forcing his mind back to practical matters.
'Let me see.' She looked around a little clearing. 'I think they tossed them somewhere when they set about to... to...'
'Rape you,' Conan finished for her. It was a simple enough word, he thought. The woman shouldn't have to fumble for it.
'Yes. Exactly. Here they are! They didn't get away with them.' She stooped and picked up a shawl wrapped around a small bundle. 'Not that there is all that much to steal.'
Conan noted that something within the bundle jingled. He was always alert for such sounds.
'Whither are you bound?' he asked.
'I fare to a town called Sicas,' she said. 'It is not far from here. The road to Sicas branches off this one a few miles to the south.'
'Sicas! That is my destination as well.'
'Say you so?' She lowered her eyes, blushing again. 'Sir, you have already done so much for me, I scarcely feel that I could implore you for another favour, but could you, of your kindness, allow me to travel along with you until we reach the city? I think that now I would be terrified to walk this highway alone.'
'Assuredly,' said Conan, who had had something of the sort on his mind since his first good look at her. 'This is no racehorse, but it is strong and will carry double with no undue strain.'
'Oh, thank you, sir! If you will let me take your hand, I will use your stirrup to mount behind you.'
'No need,' Conan said. He leaned low, grasped her about her slender waist and set her before him on his saddle.
She gasped. 'I have never known a man so strong! And you are not only brave, but generous. I do not know how to express my gratitude.'
'Doubtless we shall think of something,' he assured her.
At an easy walk, he rode back onto the highway and turned southward.
'You speak with a strange accent,' she said. 'What land do you hail from?'
'Cimmeria,' he said. 'I am Conan, a free warrior.'
'Cimmeria! It is almost a name from legend. I was just a girl when your countrymen sacked Venarium, but I remember the near panic that spread at the news. Aquilonia had been victorious for so long that it seemed unnatural for mere barbarians...' She clapped a hand across her mouth. 'Oh, forgive me! I did not mean to...'
'No matter,' Conan said. 'I've seen enough of civilized places to know that it is a fine thing to be a barbarian. Yes, I was
at Venarium. It was my first real battle, and it was a good one. Those we win are always good ones.' He smiled down at her. The top of her head barely reached his chin. 'Now, how do you happen to be travelling alone, on foot, to a place like Sicas?'
She sighed deeply. ' 'It is not a pretty story. My name is Brita, and my home is in Tarantia. My father was a Master of the Drapers' Guild. Both my parents died in the pestilence that swept the city five years ago. I was left with only my younger sister, Ylla.
'We were left with our house and a small stipend from the guild. I had many offers of marriage, but I had promised our mother on her deathbed that I would not marry until I saw my younger sister grown and wed. The times were hard for a while, yet we scraped by.
'But as she blossomed, Ylla grew wilder. Soon I could not manage her. She spent much time out in the city, in its less savoury quarters, with a string of male companions, each one more disreputable than the last. Finally she came home with a villain named Asdras.' She all but spat at the name. 'He was a handsome enough fellow, but he was a gambler and a thief, although a well-spoken thief. He was the ruined son of a prominent family and seemed to fancy himself some sort of raffish aristocrat, as if he followed his low pursuits only for the amusement.
'He demanded—not asked for, but demanded—my sister's hand in marriage. I banished him from our house, of course. For days there were terrible scenes between my sister and myself. She raged that I was ruining her life, that I sought to drive away the man she loved.' Brita brushed a pair of tears that made twin tracks down her pale cheeks. 'As if a man like Asdras could ever love anyone except himself.' She released yet another deep sigh.
'Well, it could not drag on forever. One day Ylla stormed out, claiming that she would run away with Asdras. I thought it was just another of her childish threats and I awaited her return. She did not come back that night, nor all the next day. I went seeking her, only to find that she had truly run away with the rogue. Some of his friends told me that Asdras had heard that the town of Sicas was a veritable paradise for men like himself, even more wicked than the lowest quarters of Tarantia. Naturally he had to see for himself, and he took Ylla with him.
'I thought that my heart would break, but I still love my sister, and I must honour my pledge to our mother, so I resolved to fare to this evil city and fetch my sister back. I sold what possessions I c
ould to raise money, and I set out on foot, feeling that a horse would be an extravagance. I have no idea of how long I must search for my sister in Sicas, or of what bribes may be necessary.'
'I think that you had better go back to Tarantia,' Conan said. 'A city like Sicas is no place for a gently bred lass such as you. Go home and wait. I have known many girls like your sister, and a great many men like this Asdras. Sooner or later she'll tire of being a ne'er-do-well's woman and she'll come home. Just give the girl time.' He said this only to comfort the distressed woman. He knew full well that such girls almost always became harlots after they deserted their rogues, or the rogues tired of them. They almost never went home.
'Ah, but I cannot!' Brita raised her tearful face to his. 'I love my sister, and I am certain that her faults are merely those of headstrong youth. If I can bring her back home, I am sure that in time she will settle down and will wed decently.'
Conan had his doubts. It sounded as if the young slut had cut a swath through the dissipated youth of Tarantia and, as such, would make an unlikely match for some plodding guildsman. He forbore to express these thoughts.
Stifling her tears, Brita spoke again. 'I scarcely know how to ask this, since you have been so kind. But when we reach Sicas, could you help me search for my sister?' At his frown, she added hastily: 'Oh, I know it is presumptuous of me, but I am so desperate! I have a little money, and I can pay you for your trouble.'
The last thing Conan wanted was to be a woman's protector while he was in the city, and neither did he want to take from her what was undoubtedly a pitiful sum of money. Nor did he wish to dash her hopes, so he equivocated as best he could.
'Well, I've a task to perform in Sicas, and I've already accepted the hire, so that must come first. But when we arrive, I'll see what may be done. I'll see you settled there and perhaps talk to a few officials.'
Conan the Rogue Page 3
