Conan the Guardian

by Roland Green

  “No, to the servants. Call it a reward for their good service to the Guardians.”

  “By Erlik’s tool!” Talouf said. “I was almost afraid you’d turned into an honest man, Captain.”

  “I don’t know what Conan is,” Reza said. “But I’ll tell you this, Sergeant Talouf. If you’ve notions of turning thief, don’t air them while I’m in hearing.”

  Lady Doris lay on her belly, lifted the edges of the tent, and peered out. She could doubtless have seen more from the tent door, but then the guards would notice her—and that she was not as witless with fear as she pretended to be.

  So far, the guards had been easy to deceive. She did not imagine that Akimos or Skiron would be so easy, but the guards were at least a beginning. Anything was better than weeping herself into a lump of mindless flesh.

  Also, the guards were the only men within reach of her a great part of the time. If they were at ease around her—well, it was no more than a slim hope. But the slimmest of hopes was more than she had had when that—creation—came to her chambers.

  Uphill, she saw the red flames of a campfire. They seemed to be lighting up the mouth of a cave. A thin figure was dancing in that cave mouth, silhouetted by the flames. She thought it was Skiron, and he seemed to be unclothed.

  Fear surged through her, making her bite her hand to keep from whimpering like a starved puppy. She was lying to herself when she thought that deceiving the guards would make any difference. She would not deceive them enough to escape before Skiron wielded his spells against her once more. Even if she did escape, Skiron might send his creatures after her.

  After a time the fear ebbed enough so that she could breathe again. Now she saw other shapes silhouetted against the flames. Men carrying burdens—quilts, logs, jars, other articles she could not recognize. They seemed to be carrying them into the cave.

  Now fear gave way to laughter. Had she nearly frightened herself into a fit, over Skiron’s casting a preservative spell on Akimos’s supplies?

  The laughter eased her, so that she was able to eat sausage, drink ale, and fall into natural sleep.

  * * *

  It had taken several days, as men reckon time, for the isolate under the road to join the Great Watcher. Now it took only hours for the isolate in the Caves of Zimgas to rejoin the Lesser Watcher. The two principal Watchers had been feeding strength to the isolates— feeding strength, and carving passages in the rocks that divided them into scattered entities.

  The Great and Lesser Watchers had also revived their ancient mind-bond, as the men who created the Watchers called it. The Watchers themselves did not use names, having no need of such aids to memory.

  They, were, after all, nearly immortal. Certainly the centuries since they had gone into the rocks beneath the hills were as days to a man. They had forgotten nothing of what they knew then. Part of this knowledge was how to regain the strength they had lost.

  Feeding was part of it. But living flesh could not satisfy all their hungers. Sorcery was part of finding new strength.

  So it was precious knowledge, when the isolate came to the principal Watchers with word of sorcery being done in the Caves of Zimgas. Sorcery, moreover, of the kind on which the Watchers could feed.

  If it had been in them to imitate humankind so, the Watchers would have rejoiced at the news.

  XV

  Lady Doris dreamed.

  She dreamed of a lover handsomer, stronger, more civilized than Conan. He had the Cimmerian’s magnificent strength and yet murmured charming love vows in her ear while they were locked together.

  She wrapped arms and legs more tightly around the man, inhaling the odour of his sweat as if it were the finest perfumed incense. She threw her head back and cried out, heard him cry out, smelled his breath—

  His breath? His breath had been as sweet as her garden, in those years long ago when it was properly tended. How had his breath turned foul between one gasp and the next?

  How—?

  She awoke, and the body entangled with hers, crushing her into the pallet, was neither handsome nor strong. As to whether Lord Akimos was civilized—It did not matter. He would not leave off, and because he would not leave off she knew that she was helpless. Desire rose in her like a tide, swept her away, sent her limbs thrashing and her face twisting and her mouth crying out in ways both more and less than human.

  With a grunt, Akimos exhausted himself and rolled off her. Lady Doris lay sprawled, clad only in tangled hair and dripping sweat, her mouth slack, her wits hardly more composed.

  “Was that not splendid, Doris?”

  One of Conan’s virtues, Doris realized, was that he did not expect praise for his prowess. Of course, when a woman fell asleep afterward as if she were stunned, it was hard for a man to doubt—or to ask, if he did doubt. Yet Doris had not realized until now how she loathed men who expected praise.

  “I am sure for a man of your age—”

  His open palm struck before she saw his arm move. Three times, and hard. She felt her eyes water but refused to blink. She would not let the son of a street sweeper believe that he could make her weep. Or believe that he could frighten her, either.

  “A man of your age does well to please a woman at all. I am content enough.”

  This time the slaps turned into blows. Doris rolled over on to her stomach. Then she realized where this might lead to if the need to give pain gripped Akimos. She rolled over on her back again, helped by two sweaty hands tugging painfully at her hair.

  Akimos fell on her again, driving the breath from her body and making all her unhealed wounds throb. Desire had never before come with pain, in spite of the gossip spread about her.

  Now it did. She knew that if Akimos began gnawing her flesh like a wolf with a lamb, the ecstasy would rise higher. Horror swept like an icy wind through her mind, but nothing chilled her body. It had a will of its own, and its will was to ride the waves of desire like a ship in a gale.

  A whimper forced its way into Doris’s throat, grew louder, and turned into a full-fledged scream.

  Skiron heard the scream and smiled. Then he cast a sidelong glance at the men by the campfire, and the smile faded.

  The spell that left Lady Doris ready to become Akimos’s love-slave was both powerful and complex. Still, it seemed to be working well enough. A few more days of its work, and Lady Doris would be a slave to Akimos, as much as any Vendhyan could be a slave to poppy syrup.

  Meanwhile, though, the spell was reminding all the other men in the camp that they had no share in their lord’s pleasures. Or was it merely the cries from the tent that had all the men looking sour or lust-ridden or both at once?

  It did not matter. To let the men quench their desire was becoming important for the peace of the camp and the success of Lord Akimos. If Skiron could contrive the way to that quenching and let the men know what they owed him, they would listen with more respect.

  Akimos’s uneasy friendship and open purse had been sufficient until now. A time was coming, though, when Skiron’s plans would need more hands and even more friends. Slaves spelled into witlessness and used up like sacrificial animals would no longer be sufficient.

  And if those friends came from the ranks of Akimos’s men—well, it would put a halter on any dreams the merchant prince might have of dispensing with Skiron’s services.

  Skiron walked beyond the circle of firelight, then out into the deeper night beyond the camp altogether. In the distance, he heard the bugling of a stag.

  Deer in the forest, only a little downhill from the camp. Skiron knew the spells to turn does and other female animals into what would pass for women, at least in bed and by night. They were powerful spells, even for lands older and wiser in sorcery than Argos. No one would doubt the greatness of a sorcerer who cast them.

  The sorcerer would also weary himself, and use much of the irreplaceable powders and herbs he had brought so far with so much labour. If he needed all his strength at some later time—no, there must be an easier w
ay.

  There was. It lay a little farther downhill, in the form of the villages they had passed climbing toward the cave. In every one of those villages there were girls and young wives. A few of them, bound with the same spell as Lady Doris, would keep the men smiling for a month.

  Skiron walked back into the firelight.

  “Partab!”

  “Lord Skiron?” The big Vendhyan rose, the light shining on his bald pate and on the blade of the tulwar thrust through his sash. He rose with a negligent ease, as if to say that he would not defy Skiron but would not obey any more swiftly than he chose.

  “A matter has arisen, concerning the health of the men.”

  Partab was slow to follow Skiron, but not slow to understand once the sorcerer began to explain. “Ah, you are wiser than I had dared hope,” Partab said. “Indeed, I have lamented that when I feel like a boy again there are no women for my use.”

  “That can be changed, if you and a half score of good men come with me.”

  “I will pick them at once.”

  “Good. Remind them that we must be as stealthy as weasels raiding a hen-house when all the farmer’s dogs are awake. Akimos will not thank us for bringing the countryside about his ears, searching for lost wives and daughters.”

  “They will find nothing,” Partab said. He drew the tulwar and swung it so that the air hissed before its sharp blade.

  “With only a little care, they will not,” Skiron said. It would need more than a little care, as well as several minor spells to cause loss of memory. If he had no time for that, Partab’s solution might be the only one.

  Conan sat on his bed, oiling the sleeveless mail coat he would wear tomorrow under his riding leathers. The leathers, together with the rest of his equipment from loinguard to broadsword, lay on top of the chest at the end of the bed.

  Livia had offered him a servant to prepare his arms and clothes, but he had refused and Reza explained why.

  “We’ll be travelling light and fast, my lady. No servants for anyone but you. Some of the men will slack off on work they should do, if they don’t see the captains doing it also.”

  Livia nodded politely. She had heard in Reza’s voice, as had Conan, the hint that they could travel faster and farther if she were not with them.

  But Harphos insisted, and no one either could or would say him nay. Once Harphos had joined the rescue party, Livia also insisted. Both Conan and Reza did try to say her nay, as strongly as their place allowed. She ignored them both as thoroughly as her place allowed.

  It seemed to Conan that the two young folk had challenged each other to a contest—who could show the more courage? Having seen such contests end mostly with all the contestants ending as vulture’s fare, Conan was not easy in his mind about seeing Harphos and Livia in one.

  Well, they were hardly four years younger than he, although the old head Livia wore on young shoulders made that easy to forget. If they would not listen and be careful, then they would have to ride and fight. With as much help from the picked men he and Reza were leading as the gods would allow, and more if possible— Conan heard a hand touch the outside of the unlocked door before he saw the door move. He froze where he sat, making his breathing shallow and narrowing his eyes to slits. He was as immobile as a boulder and apparently as insensible when the door opened just wide enough to let Gisela slip inside.

  She took one look at Conan, seemed to think him asleep, then tiptoed toward the bed. Standing beside it, she slipped off first one sandal, then the other. She reached down for the hem of her tunic—

  —and Conan flung the oil pot across the room. It struck the door, slamming it shut. In one leap Conan reached the door, throwing the bolt. In another leap, he was at the bed, scooping up Gisela in his massive arms.

  Instead of protesting, she lay back and wriggled her hips, not caring that her tunic had slid well above her knees when Conan lifted her.

  Conan laughed, lifted the maid higher, then flung her on to the bed. She bounced three times before coming to rest. By then she was laughing so hard that she had to catch her breath before she could sit up and finish removing her tunic.

  She now wore only an undertunic that began just above her breasts and ended just below mid-thigh. The thin silk was embroidered with flowers, which did nothing to make the garment more concealing.

  Conan laughed. “Since I threw you into the bed instead of out of it, I hope you know what you’re here for.”

  She drew herself up. “Conan, I am no green girl.” Indeed, seventeen was a woman’s years in Argos, and those were surely women’s breasts thrusting out the tunic.

  “As well. They’re not much to my taste. But I’ve seen you and Vandar—”

  There was no doubting it. A shadow passed over her face at those words. Conan frowned.

  “Have you and Vandar quarrelled?”

  “Captain Conan, is it your affair?’’

  “Yes, by Crom!” the Cimmerian growled. “If you’ve quarrelled, I ought to know. It concerns one of my best men. If you haven’t, what are you doing here?” “Sitting on your bed—”

  “Next to naked, and looking ready to leap on me like a tiger on a goat! Now, you’re your own mistress, and if you have some good reason for being here, I’ll not fight you off. But either you tell me that good reason, or you go out of here with a red arse and Vandar stays behind tomorrow morning.”

  Gisela turned pale and looked away. When she spoke, it was barely more than a whisper. “If Reza learns that I told you—”

  “I’ll swear any kind of oath you care for not to tell Reza. Just tell me, and be quick about it.”

  “Reza sent me. He does not—not want you to think about Lady Livia—as a woman.”

  “Trolls carry off Reza and demons push Livia into a midden!” Gisela cringed and buried her face in the pillow at Conan’s snarl. She only lifted her head when he noticed that her undertunic now left her round buttocks exposed, and began to laugh.

  It was so simple that he should have seen it without frightening this poor girl. Any man old enough to bed a woman should have seen it! Reza had one thought in his mind—guard Livia’s reputation. How to do it? Play pander, of course.

  Conan laughed again. He hoped Reza had room in his head for more than one thought, beginning tomorrow. Otherwise the Cimmerian was going to have to do the thinking for both of them. He would ask for extra pay if that came to pass!

  “Livia has nothing to fear from me. I know she has her eye on Harphos.”

  “He’s not worthy of her!”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that, if you want to keep the skin on your back. I’ve never been much for understanding women, but I’ve learned one thing. If a woman thinks a man’s right for her, gods and demons together won’t keep them apart.”

  “That’s the truth,” Gisela exclaimed. She snatched the shift off over her head and held out her arms to Conan. Her skin was fairer than Conan’s, fair enough to freckle for all that her hair was black, and she had oiled it so that it seemed to glow in the lamplight. She slid off the bed and came toward him, breasts swaying gently, until he reached out and drew her the rest of the way to him.

  It did not take long after that for him to remove his own clothes, carry Gisela back to the bed, and learn that she had a woman’s arts in that woman’s body of hers.

  The Watchers surged towards each other, finding gaps in the rock where they existed, making them where they did not. As they moved, they drew in the last isolates, absorbed them, fed on all their strength and their memories, and grew greater almost by the minute.

  By the time the two Watchers thrust tendrils through the last gap, they were almost the same size. As men reckon such matters, each was the size of half a dozen elephants. They could not stand or run like the elephants, but no herd of elephants could have come alive out of their grip.

  They touched one another, exchanged all that they had learned in the time since the Awakening, and began to rest. It was not easy, with the spells still pulsing th
rough the rock to agitate them, but ancient memories told them that this was wisdom.

  They each had enough matter in them to make another pair of Watchers, fit to grow swiftly to full size if properly fed. But they would have to rest, and command their own substance to form into those Watchers while they rested. Then it would be time to forage in the mountains, and even to risk the surface under the open sky, for the more abundant food supply there.

  Livia slipped barefoot away from the door to Conan’s room. She did not fear those within hearing her. They were much too pleasantly occupied, and much too noisy in their pleasure.

  She did fear meeting Reza. What she would have to say to him might shatter the fragile peace between them. In the daylight, without the memory of the sounds from that room burning in her mind, she could hold her tongue. Tonight, though—

  Tonight was one night. It would be the last night she was under her own roof, in her own chambers, surrounded by women who might tell tales. Would tell tales, if Reza put them in fear.

  Tomorrow night, and for many nights to come, she would be sleeping in inns, tents, or open fields. Where she went, and who went with her, and what they did when they came to where they were going—these could be her secrets.

  XVI

  From the sky above the treetops Conan heard a woman screaming. He raised a hand to halt the party on the trail behind him.

  “Vandar, come with me. Reza, I want men out to the flanks.”

  “I know these matters, Conan.”

  “As does Conan, and he commands here,” Livia said.

  If he commanded, Conan thought, he wished he could command the lady to be silent. Her goading of Reza chipped away at the peace between her two captains. Doubt of each other’s loyalty was gone; Reza’s jealousy of the Cimmerian’s influence over his mistress remained.

  Conan dismounted, not a great step from this horse. Argos was not horse country, and most of the party was mounted on scrubby little geldings or even mules. Yet they seemed sure-footed and enduring enough, and they were not to be called on to press home a charge or carry horse archers swiftly to an enemy’s flank.